My dad passed long ago. But I still remember his words. Words that echo in my mind. The things he said most frequently: 1. Flip 2. There's nothing on TV 3. Somebody take off my socks

So what is the really really big news that this spat between Trump and Elon is meant to distract us from?

I can't remember if I've posted on nostr my advice for making good coffee at home. If you drink instant coffee, there is something you can do that is very inexpensive and barely much more work than boiling a kettle of water, and your coffee will be way better than instant. If you have an espresso machine at home, this advice isn't for you, you already have good coffee I imagine. Here is the advice: Get an AeroPress. Get a coffee grinder that uses burrs. Doesn't have to be expensive. You can get a cheap hand grinder like a Timemore, Kingrinder, or 1zpresso... or mayb you can find an old cheap electric coffee grinder. As long as it uses burrs and doesn't have a spinning blade. Then buy whole coffee beans at the supermarket (try different ones until you get one you like). Grind the beans right before brewing in your AeroPress. Grind your coffee while you wait for the water to boil, setup the AeroPress with a filter, then pour in the grounds, pour in the hot water, let it sit about a minute, and press it through. FAR better than instant, and almost as instant. Plus very cheap. You can get an aeropress for probably < US $50 and a hand grinder also for < US $50. I bought both in NZ for less then NZ $100 each. Using roast coffee beans instead of instant makes a big difference. Grinding those beans semi-properly with a burr makes an appreciable difference. The paper filter in the AeroPress and probably other factors about how it works makes a difference. Instant sucks. Upgrade. But IMHO spending tons of money on espresso machines and fancy grinders isn't going to make your coffee that much better than AeroPress is. Unless you really need espresso shots, in which case... ask someone else.

I decided to see if AI could help me with a rust programming issue. I started by looking at Github CoPilot, and that lead me to a few IDEs and after reviewing for rust support I went with JetBrains RustRover. Well I sicked the A.I. on the problem with "fix with AI". And after 20 seconds or so it changed my code. It applied a naive solution I had already tried. I compiled and got the next error. I went to that error and selected "Fix with AI". Again another naive solution that didn't work. I did this about 5 or 6 times and it never got my code to compile. I guess I was hoping for too much.

For Ukraine to come out of this war OK, it needs to take some kind of action or actions that cause Russia to stop attacking it and stop capturing it's land. Maybe that action is a negotiated agreement. Maybe that action is some kind of well designed military strikes. But whatever actions are taken, they must not cause Russia to feel that it is under an existential threat. Attacks that disable Russia's ability to defend itself against other worldwide nuclear powers, like against its first-strike radar (as was done), or its nuclear bombers (as was done), may cause Russia to take the severe action of disabling Ukraine for good. Attacking Ukraine with nuclear weapons probably would not cause NATO powers to strike Russia with nuclear weapons, because that would be well known as the MAD ending. Russia doesn't want to hit Ukraine with nukes. But it becomes their best strategic choice as soon as Ukraine effectively disables their ability to retaliate against a nuclear attack. Was this attack on the bombers such a thing? Probably not. But it's definitely encroaching on that territory. If Russia nuked Ukraine in retaliation for the attack on their bombers, I'm not sure there is any way Ukraine or NATO could effectively respond. And that makes it strategically viable for Russia to do it, whereas yesterday it wasn't. And that is why I mentioned earlier that Ukraine making it's last moves was strategically "questionable". Daring them is dumb. You will think you are winning until the day you lose catastrophically. Like double-or-nothing on the roulette table.

Technically impressive drone attack by Ukraine today. Strategically questionable. The future will tell.

The average human gets 20% of their calories from wheat. another 16% from rice another 13% from maize So far all starches! And that is HALF the diet! Imagine a plate, and half of it is wheat, rice, and maize. Every meal like that. Every person like that. Wow. another 8% from soybeans another 5% from sugarcane (probably as white sugar) More carbs! That's already 63% of the human diet. Yes, 63%. I rounded the above numbers. Why are you checking my work? Don't you trust me? Next is 3.8% from pig meat. Finally some meat! The total meat will be more than 7% once we count it all. Imagine those carnivore diet people. Fuck 7%. They are at 100% (I suppose?) 3.1% from rape and mustard seed (probably as canola oil) 2.1% from potatoes (more starch!) Wait... people get more calories from canola oil than from potatoes!? 2.1% from barley (more starch!) 1.9% from poultry meat. Finally some more meat, but this so far adds to 5.7% meat. I hope there is more... Finally we get to 1.8% from all other vegetables combined. So those recommendations that say your plate should be 1/2 vegetables.. I guess they didn't consult with the food growers of the world first. 1.7% from sugarbeet (as more white sugar again!) 1.5% from groundnuts (is that peanuts?) 1.4% from sorghum (I'm not even sure what sorghum is) and then 1.4% from bovine meat... Our meat total is now up to 7.1%. That's the end of the list. Everything else was too small to count. Historically a number of other crops have made up large portions of the human diet such as: Rye, Jerusalem artichoke, Cassava, Sweet Potato, Parsnips, Broad (Fava) beans, and Squash / Pumpkin. Did I miss any? I'd like to know if I did.

EVERY New Zealald City RANKED from WORST to BEST I'm quite entertained by this. I live in 16th out of 17. When I first visited NZ, I thought nothing of Palmerston North. Wasn't on the tourist circuit. I drove through and found nothing nice to look at, and kept driving. If you are interested in beautiful public spaces, whether natural or man made, water fountains, tiled squares, great architecture, walks by the river, ... Palmerston North is 16 out of 17. But if you want a nearly self-sufficient area where anything you might need to operate a farm or lifestyle estate is within a 10 km drive .. tractor sales/implements/repair, custom v-belts, fencing parts, welding gear... then Palmerston North has everything you need. And if you want a place that can easily produce all of it's own food and plenty more to export, again Palmerston North hits the bill. If you want the youth-energy of college students, we have 5 colleges here including Massey University. And we do have a river and an esplanade and a large central square park. And we have windmills on the hills at the horizon which I think look nice. I think it should be much higher ranked for a place to live, even while I admit it's nothing great to visit.