“Red touch yellow, legless fellow. Red touch black, legs they lack.”
Remembering that neither coral snakes nor scarlet kingsnakes have legs.

“Uplifting. Star-spangled. Anthem.”
Remembering the letters in “USA.”

“A caT has two. A dOg has one.”
How many horns common household pets would have if those household pets had horns, and also if cats had two of them while dogs only had one.

“Red touch yellow, kill a fellow. The largest nation, Russian Federation.”
Distinguishing between a coral snake and the country of Russia.

“An airplane takes you up to a different plane. A submarine goes in the water.”
Determining whether a vehicle is an airplane or a submarine.

“ER = Eating Rounds. ING = Inside, Normally Garments.”
Remembering whether plates go in a dishwashER or a washING machine.

“Red sky in the morn, a day is born. Red sky at night, a day takes flight.”
Distinguishing between sunrise and sunset.

“fLoors are Lower.”
Telling the difference between a roof and a floor.

“Radical scientists invent time machine so they won’t read spoilers about next show death.”
Recalling the words to the mnemonic, “Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.”

“Points are three, then feel free. Point is one, flee and shun.”
Remembering which end of a fork to bite down on.

“Big cats terrify antelopes.”
Remembering the standard aging process of baby to child to teenager to adult.

“All tigers can bite.”
Remembering the aging process for literary character Benjamin Button.

“A terrible cardiologist thoughtlessly told Terence to taste thirty thermometers.”
Remembering the aging process for literary character Benjamin Button if his reversed aging was fixed partway through the story, but then he got caught in a time loop and kept living his teenage years over again.

“Red touch gray, get away. Blue touch green, be serene.”
Distinguishing between coral snakes and scarlet kingsnakes if they had different colors, but also one of them was still poisonous and the other wasn’t.

“All good boys deserve fudge.”
Remembering the notes on the lines of the treble clef musical staff slightly wrong.

“See from their view? Then that’s you. See from afar? Someone else they are.”
Determining whether someone is yourself or a different person.

“Ripping up a rare artwork, Edward realizes Friday Raphael paintwork biting afternoons aren’t really acceptable socially.”
The first word of every previous mnemonic in this list.

I love cooking so much, I treat it like a sport, and look for excuses to make complicated or unique dishes. I think developing a menu for a bunch of people with differing allergies and preferences sounds like a good time. Until recently, smart cooking tech hasn’t appealed to me, because I assumed it was aimed solely at people who feel clueless enough in the kitchen that they want an assist from a machine.

But over the past year, I’ve interacted with cooking devices—from ovens, to grills, to fridges—that don’t just utilize smart tech, but incorporate AI and machine learning. While AI can’t remove all the labor of food prep or make you love cooking if you don’t, it can make the process of cooking easier by an order of magnitude...not just for novices, but for experienced cooks too. 

AI can help you avoid undercooking (or overcooking) your food

For many people, the dislike of cooking is based in anxiety. It’s hard to screw up a salad, but making anything you can screw up can be intimidating—what if you undercook it and give yourself or others food poisoning? What if you overcook it and destroy an expensive cut of meat? I’ve cooked alongside friends with these common fears—friends who lack my ability to use visual cues to know if a proteins is done, or who have trouble trusting that a little pink is safe.

Tools like a Combustion predictive thermometer can alleviate that anxiety. A smart thermometer probe, the Combustion can be used in almost any situation—a grill, a pot of boiling water, sous vide, the oven or the stovetop. The device has eight sensors along the length of the probe to get measurements of the inside and the outside of whatever you're cooking. Next, AI and a an algorithm are applied to predict when, precisely, you should pull the food off the heat. This means you don’t have to stand over the stove waiting and watching (the app and probe handle that part). It also means that you won’t overcook the food out of fears around food safety, which is something that 50% of people admit to doing.

Combustion specifically altered its algorithm late last year to ensure that food will hit USDA recommended standards, which go beyond simple temperature thresholds. For example, although you commonly think of chicken as being "done" when it measures 165°F, USDA has established you can achieve the same food safety by cooking for a longer time at a lower temperature, as you would using sous vide cooking. The Combustion thermometer can determine whether your food is “safe”, depending on the entire cook history of your protein. This can give the confidence they need to work with protein and, as they see better results, to gain confidence with their cooking. Even as an experienced chef, I love that Combustion does this math for me, so I don’t have to rely on external cues, like how a protein feels to the touch.

There are plenty of other temperature probes with feature's like Combustion's, including the ThermaPro (which i haven’t tested) and the Meater 2 (which I found underwheling).

Combustion Predictive Thermometer

$199.99 at Amazon

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$199.99 at Amazon

AI can help cut down on food waste

When I'm grocery shopping, I often forget what is already in my fridge and pantry, and the result is a lot of extraneous purchases—most egregiously when I'm buying fresh foods with short expiration dates. Companies are working to solve this problem. Samsung’s latest fridges incorporate “Food AI,” and use cameras inside your fridge to tell you what you might need to buy more of. Part of their Bespoke line, these fridges come with with AI Family Hub+ and AI Vision Inside. It’s not just that the hub can recognize the fresh foods inside your fridge (up to 33 of them, anyway); it will also offer recipes based on those ingredients.

I haven’t tested the Bespoke yet, but videos of the fridge in action show clear enough imagery that you should be able to easily identify what’s in your fridge from the app, meaning you’ll never have to wonder if you’re out of butter or eggs while you're in the supermarket. 

Bespoke 4-Door Flex Refrigerator with Family Hub+

$3,898.00 at Home Depot

$5,099.00 Save $1,201.00

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$3,898.00 at Home Depot

$5,099.00 Save $1,201.00

AI can help you figure out what to make for dinner

Newer technology is taking things farther. AI voice assistants are already embedded in many cooking devices. You can offer the assistant a list of ingredients, or a mood, or a craving, or just allow it to ask you questions, and it will develop meal suggestions for you. 

Even if you don’t have an appliance that can have conversations with you, there are apps aplenty to provide suggestions on the fly. DishGen, MealsAI, and MealPractice all use AI models like Gemini as the underlying engine to produce suggestions based on the language you input, whether that’s a bunch of ingredients or a request based on your mood. 

Using AI while cooking can actually be fun, and save you time

There are a number of “smart” ovens on the market from Tovala, Breville and June, but for the last few months I’ve been using the Brava, an expensive toaster oven with a brain. From a graphical interface on the toaster, you look up any ingredient, and it will generate a list of possible recipes. Choose one, and you'll be guided through inserting a thermometer probe, told where to put the food on the tray and where to put the tray. Then you push a button and walk away. The oven will send you a live video of the food cooking, monitor its progress, and turn off precisely when the food is done.

The oven relies on light technology instead of the normal heating elements you expect in an oven. It focuses heat only where it's needed, for as long as it's needed, specifically to the precise foods you're cooking. Instead of heating up an entire oven, food is cooked from above and below in a very small space. As a result, cooking times are routinely slashed by half, sometimes more. Last week I made sweet potato fries out of raw potatoes. They were perfectly crisped and baked through, in eight minutes.

While the Brava uses only very light AI behind the scenes right now, it’s easy to imagine that in the future, machine learning can help companies process the data coming back from the their appliances to create more recipes and refine the ones that exist, though the tech isn't there yet—I spoke with Brava product manger Zac Selmon, who noted how difficult it is to create a set of parameters to ensure everyone who makes a recipe gets the same results when so many variables involved can differ, from the ingredients, to the environment, to the cook. For that reason, Brava still uses a human team of cooks alongside its data engineers. 

What’s surprised me about the Brava is how much I enjoy not having to think about what I’m cooking. It turns out the tedious part of the process, which involves keeping an eye on a dish as it cooks, is skippable; that the oven that cuts cooking time by half or more, even better: You can enjoy the prep and the results, and not worry about the in between.

Brava Oven Chef's Choice Set

$1,495.00 at Amazon

$1,695.00 Save $200.00

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$1,495.00 at Amazon

$1,695.00 Save $200.00

I’m excited about the future of AI kitchens

As a self-certified control freak, I shouldn’t like surrendering the cooking or prep process, but it turns out I do. It saves me time and allows me to focus on the parts of cooking I really enjoy. I’ve gifted smart thermometers to a few friends, and the devices have altered mealtime in their homes too. They buy better cuts of meats because they are less afraid of ruining them. They take more risks, and are more confident.

In the future, AI tech will streamline the process more, giving you the ability to manage meal-making from your couch or deck while you spend more time with family and friends. No, a gadget isn’t going to turn you into someone who loves to cook, but it can make cooking a lot more manageable.

Tartu Airport, in Estonia, is having problems with GPS. Finnair is suspending flights there for a month.

The jamming extends over much of Estonia and other areas. Here’s a map of today’s jamming in the area, by John Wiseman. The site covers the world, as does another GPS site from FlightRadar24. At the moment, it looks like the area around Tartu is okay, although much of the rest of Estonia and a chunk of Latvia have GPS interference.

Who could be doing this? Attention seems to be centered on Kaliningrad, that separated particle of Russia to the south of this map. Folks who do that sort of thing are trying to track it down.There’s a lot of GPS interference around Ukraine too.

More about GPS interference from Politico.

The post GPS Jamming At Tartu Airport appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

dilfdyke:

hellsw0rth:

Anyone missing a heavy stone/concrete Dalek?

ALT

ALT

ALT

the complete saga

As much as I may believe that it is entirely unseemly to call a grown man who is not a cartoon “Tommy* Tuberville,” Tommy Tuberville is a 69-year-old man who has been speaking English all of his life and should probably know most of our more common terms.

For instance, abortion, as a medical procedure, is the termination of a pregnancy while one is still pregnant with a fetus that, in cases where there is nothing life-threatening happening, could not survive outside the womb.

Once the baby exits the womb, however, that is homicide. Or infanticide, if you want to get real specific about it.

This comes up because, once again, Tommy Tuberville is echoing Trump by claiming that post-birth abortions are a thing.

“You have to give it to the Democrats, progressive Left; they’re all in on abortion, anytime, anyplace, on the public dime,” Tuberville said on a podcast on Tuesday. “They’re for abortion anytime, sometimes past the birth of the baby.”

So, first of all — we are not in favor of abortion “anyplace.” I am vehemently opposed to anyone having an abortion or any other medical procedure at the table where I am eating, as it is both rude and unsanitary. Neither I nor anyone else I know would recommend one have an abortion on a rollercoaster, or on a flight to the Maldives, or in the dressing room at Nordstrom Rack. We would all prefer that abortions occur in clean, sterile environments.

That being said, it is deeply concerning that both Tuberville and Trump are going around telling people that it is entirely legal to execute newborn babies, because you never know who is going to hear that and decide “Hey, if it’s legal, I think I’ll go kill me a newborn baby.”

It could happen.

But the real sick thing here is that, you know, we all know that’s not what either of them is talking about. They’re talking about palliative care, the standard procedure that happens when a child is born who will not survive more than a few minutes or hours after birth.

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It was repulsive before, but it’s extra grotesque and extra cruel now that Republican politicians are forcing people to give birth to babies with no chance of survival. What is it, exactly, that they want doctors to do when babies are born with their brains on the outside of their heads or other fatal fetal anomalies? They don’t want the women to have abortions, they don’t want the doctors to do all they can to make the babies comfortable before they pass on, what is it that they want?

I sent a message to Tuberville asking him some of these questions I have. I doubt he will write back. But it would be really nice if people in the more “legitimate” media could be just a little harsher with this nonsense as well so that we don’t have people going around making this claim — or anyone thinking that homicide is legal.

PREVIOUSLY:

Nine years ago I said Donald Trump had a good chance of winning the Republican presidential nomination, and eventually the presidency, at a time when this opinion was considered self-evidently ridiculous by the Wise. Now not even the Wise can see all ends, and I’m no prophet, and I don’t know nature’s way, but with those characteristically academic caveats out of the way:

I think that Donald Trump is on the verge of collapsing as a political force in America.

I’m NOT saying that his political collapse is inevitable. I’m arguing for the OPPOSITE of complacency. At this most perilous moment, the opportunity to drive a stake into the avatar of revenant fascism in America is just that.

Let me point to three signs and portents:

(1) Trump’s affect and behavior during the first of what will be multiple trials has been a disaster. He can’t stay awake; he can’t control his bodily functions in a socially acceptable way; he is increasingly coming across to all but the most unreachable zealots (admittedly these make up something like a third of the voting public, but that is still a vastly lower percentage than necessary to win or even seriously compete for the presidency) as a viscerally disgusting old man, despite the fancy suits and the drag queen-level cosmetic interventions. And disgust is an extremely powerful political emotion. Yes I realize his base is not disgusted with him, or at least very little of it is. But again, his base only makes up around half of Republican voters, let alone anyone else. For those outside the cult, what is happening in that New York courtroom is a ritual humiliation that for many of them is destroying the idea of Donald Trump as anything other than a pathetic buffoon. Contemporary American elections are won at the margin, and at the margin Trump is getting killed right now. Indeed I believe there’s a serious question of whether he’s even capable of enduring the rest of this trial without having a frank total emotional and physical breakdown. We shall see (If the trial were televised I would be even more confident about all this, but unfortunately it’s not).

(2) Trump and his minions have spent the last couple of weeks begging his supporters (I’m on his email distribution list) not just for money, but to show up in person at his current trial, as a symbolic act of solidarity and resistance. These pleas have been an almost indescribably comprehensive flop. No one — almost literally no one among the 74 million people who voted for him four years ago — has shown up. Yesterday afternoon you could count Trump’s supporters outside the courthouse on the fingers of one hand. This is not a small thing. Trump is so humiliated by this development that he’s making farcical claims about how the police are physically barring thousands of his supporters from the site of the completely non-existent protests in support of him. This massive public absence of support is obviously driving him up the wall, and may well play a key role in the potential breakdown over the course of the trial I mentioned above.

(3) Last night, Pennsylvania held a closed Republican presidential primary, seven weeks after Nikki Haley formally withdrew from the race, and the media noted accurately at the time that there was no longer even the formal semblance of a race for the Republican presidential nomination. This again is at a moment when Trump is begging his supporters for any gesture of loyalty and solidarity. Haley got nearly 17% of the vote — 157,000 out of 946,000 votes cast. These are all registered Republicans, who bothered to go to the trouble of casting an explicitly anti-Trump vote under the most purely symbolic of conditions. Yes I realize most of them will vote for Trump in the general. But a lot won’t vote at all, or will vote for RFK Jr., and a few will even vote for Biden. And again, contemporary elections are won at the margin. Trump can’t afford to lose any of these voters and be competitive in Pennsylvania, or any other swing state. All in all, it’s a terrible sign for him.

Six months is a long time. A lot can happen in the interim. The Electoral College is wildly favorable to any Republican presidential candidate at the moment. A lot of the mainstream media are prostitutes who want a close race more than they want to avoid fascism. All this is true. All this means that anti-Trump efforts should be redoubled. Far too much is on the line to take anything for granted.

Still: I think he’s done.

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