Arlo and Janis: mystery meat

[Lynn McGuire]

Arlo and Janis: mystery meat
https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2019/10/03

I'm with Arlo.

Lynn

[Quadibloc]

Post by Lynn McGuire
Arlo and Janis: mystery meat
https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2019/10/03
I'm with Arlo.

I think that being meat is a _drawback_ of "mystery meat", and that
veggieburgers aren't that bad. But I would recommend Vitamin B12 supplements to
anyone who wishes to eat them exclusively, instead of eating real meat of a
known type.

Of course, mystery meat isn't always bad; duck, for example, is nice.

John Savard

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Lynn McGuire
Arlo and Janis: mystery meat
https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2019/10/03
I'm with Arlo.

I think that being meat is a _drawback_ of "mystery meat", and that
veggieburgers aren't that bad. But I would recommend Vitamin B12 supplements to
anyone who wishes to eat them exclusively, instead of eating real meat of a
known type.

And, please, if you're going to go that route, get _Diet for a
Small Planet_ and study up on combining your vegetation so as to
get enough complete proteins.

AND DON'T MAKE YOUR CAT EAT VEGAN. (Unless, of course, she gets
to catch and eat her own mice. Then, as you please.) A cat
can't make her own taurine, without which she will first go blind
and then die.

[Peter Trei]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Lynn McGuire
Arlo and Janis: mystery meat
https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2019/10/03
I'm with Arlo.

I think that being meat is a _drawback_ of "mystery meat", and that
veggieburgers aren't that bad. But I would recommend Vitamin B12 supplements to
anyone who wishes to eat them exclusively, instead of eating real meat of a
known type.

And, please, if you're going to go that route, get _Diet for a
Small Planet_ and study up on combining your vegetation so as to
get enough complete proteins.
AND DON'T MAKE YOUR CAT EAT VEGAN. (Unless, of course, she gets
to catch and eat her own mice. Then, as you please.) A cat
can't make her own taurine, without which she will first go blind
and then die.

Forcing an obligate carnivore onto a vegetarian diet is an act of animal cruelty.

Pt

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Lynn McGuire
Arlo and Janis: mystery meat
https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2019/10/03
I'm with Arlo.

I think that being meat is a _drawback_ of "mystery meat", and that
veggieburgers aren't that bad. But I would recommend Vitamin B12 supplements to
anyone who wishes to eat them exclusively, instead of eating real meat of a
known type.

And, please, if you're going to go that route, get _Diet for a
Small Planet_ and study up on combining your vegetation so as to
get enough complete proteins.
AND DON'T MAKE YOUR CAT EAT VEGAN. (Unless, of course, she gets
to catch and eat her own mice. Then, as you please.) A cat
can't make her own taurine, without which she will first go blind
and then die.

Forcing an obligate carnivore onto a vegetarian diet is an act of animal cruelty.

So Vegans are practicing self-inflicted animal cruelty.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Lynn McGuire
Arlo and Janis: mystery meat
https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2019/10/03
I'm with Arlo.

I think that being meat is a _drawback_ of "mystery meat", and that
veggieburgers aren't that bad. But I would recommend Vitamin B12

supplements to

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Quadibloc
anyone who wishes to eat them exclusively, instead of eating real meat of a
known type.

And, please, if you're going to go that route, get _Diet for a
Small Planet_ and study up on combining your vegetation so as to
get enough complete proteins.
AND DON'T MAKE YOUR CAT EAT VEGAN. (Unless, of course, she gets
to catch and eat her own mice. Then, as you please.) A cat
can't make her own taurine, without which she will first go blind
and then die.

Forcing an obligate carnivore onto a vegetarian diet is an act of

animal cruelty.
So Vegans are practicing self-inflicted animal cruelty.

Not unless they are cats in clever plastic disguises. Humans are
omnivores, and have been for a long time. We started out as
scavengers, eating the bits of the lion's kill after the lion is
sleeping it off, because we could scare the vultures away. You
all remember the scene in _2001_ where the hominin realizes that
he could kill something and not wait for the specialized
carnivore to do so. Leaving the cosmic slab out of it, something
like that happened.

Note that other apes, such as chimpanzees and baboons, already
practice limited predation -- if they can grab the infant of some
other primate species, they'll take it and eat it. When Jane
Goodall was studing the chimps, she had a baby whom she had to
confine within a cage so the chimps wouldn't eat him.

[Paul S Person]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Lynn McGuire
Arlo and Janis: mystery meat
https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2019/10/03
I'm with Arlo.

I think that being meat is a _drawback_ of "mystery meat", and that
veggieburgers aren't that bad. But I would recommend Vitamin B12

supplements to

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Quadibloc
anyone who wishes to eat them exclusively, instead of eating real meat of a
known type.

And, please, if you're going to go that route, get _Diet for a
Small Planet_ and study up on combining your vegetation so as to
get enough complete proteins.
AND DON'T MAKE YOUR CAT EAT VEGAN. (Unless, of course, she gets
to catch and eat her own mice. Then, as you please.) A cat
can't make her own taurine, without which she will first go blind
and then die.

Forcing an obligate carnivore onto a vegetarian diet is an act of

animal cruelty.
So Vegans are practicing self-inflicted animal cruelty.

Not unless they are cats in clever plastic disguises. Humans are
omnivores, and have been for a long time. We started out as
scavengers, eating the bits of the lion's kill after the lion is
sleeping it off, because we could scare the vultures away. You
all remember the scene in _2001_ where the hominin realizes that
he could kill something and not wait for the specialized
carnivore to do so. Leaving the cosmic slab out of it, something
like that happened.

Ah, nice just-so story.

But, unless you have invented time travel and gone back to see, you
really don't know any of this (except the Monolith bit), do you?

And neither did Clarke. In fact, I have a persistent memory that at
some point I read an interview or article where Clarke explained the
monolith: have become an atheist, and then having decided that
evolution could /never/ have produced Man, he turned to the only
remaining option: Space Aliens.

But I haven't found that anywhere. So maybe it's more of a just-so
story than an actuality.

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
Note that other apes, such as chimpanzees and baboons, already
practice limited predation -- if they can grab the infant of some
other primate species, they'll take it and eat it. When Jane
Goodall was studing the chimps, she had a baby whom she had to
confine within a cage so the chimps wouldn't eat him.

[Quadibloc]

Post by Paul S Person
I have a persistent memory that at
some point I read an interview or article where Clarke explained the
monolith: have become an atheist, and then having decided that
evolution could /never/ have produced Man, he turned to the only
remaining option: Space Aliens.

I don't know about Arthur C. Clarke, but Charles Darwin had a similar thought.

The human brain, after all, consumes a lot of oxygen and calories. It imposes a
big cost. While its benefits are big and obvious today, with all the technology
we have, *initially*, when it was beginning to evolve, there just wouldn't be a
payoff commensurate with its cost. So how could we have evolved?

That question has been asked since, sometimes by Creationists trying to debunk
evolution.

But Charles Darwin's answer wasn't space aliens. Instead, it was contained in
his book "The Descent of Man". In its subtitle...

The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex

Sexual selection is the process that produced the peacock's tail, and the
exaggerated antlers of the Irish Elk. Many creatures produced elaborate displays
for mating that weren't useful, and were even counterproductive, in terms of
basic survival.

So if we evolved from socially-interacting primates, and chimpanzees, very
similar to our early ancestors, are socially-interacting... larger brains,
allowing greater effectiveness at social interaction, may have made our
ancestors more attractive.

John Savard

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Paul S Person
I have a persistent memory that at
some point I read an interview or article where Clarke explained the
monolith: have become an atheist, and then having decided that
evolution could /never/ have produced Man, he turned to the only
remaining option: Space Aliens.

I don't know about Arthur C. Clarke, but Charles Darwin had a similar thought.
The human brain, after all, consumes a lot of oxygen and calories. It imposes a
big cost. While its benefits are big and obvious today, with all the technology
we have, *initially*, when it was beginning to evolve, there just wouldn't be a
payoff commensurate with its cost. So how could we have evolved?

I have a DVD somewhere containing an interview with a
primatologist, who said that the first advantage hominins got
from increased brain size was increased social skills. Who is
this other hominin in my troop? Do I rank him/her, or vice
versa? Are we friends, enemies, or choose-to-ignore-each-other?
And once you have enough brainpower to handle that, why, the
better you are at it, the more skills you can discover.

[Paul S Person]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Paul S Person
I have a persistent memory that at
some point I read an interview or article where Clarke explained the
monolith: have become an atheist, and then having decided that
evolution could /never/ have produced Man, he turned to the only
remaining option: Space Aliens.

I don't know about Arthur C. Clarke, but Charles Darwin had a similar thought.
The human brain, after all, consumes a lot of oxygen and calories. It imposes a
big cost. While its benefits are big and obvious today, with all the technology
we have, *initially*, when it was beginning to evolve, there just wouldn't be a
payoff commensurate with its cost. So how could we have evolved?

I have a DVD somewhere containing an interview with a
primatologist, who said that the first advantage hominins got
from increased brain size was increased social skills. Who is
this other hominin in my troop? Do I rank him/her, or vice
versa? Are we friends, enemies, or choose-to-ignore-each-other?
And once you have enough brainpower to handle that, why, the
better you are at it, the more skills you can discover.

Is "hominin" an actual term, or do you mean "hominid"?

Nice just-so story, in either case.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Sun, 06 Oct 2019 10:12:11 -0700, Paul S Person

Post by Paul S Person
Is "hominin" an actual term,

Yes.

I'm enjoying the way you're flagging everything as a 'just so story'
without doing the slightest bit of keeping up with current theory,
practice and terminology. Very trendy, everyone's doing it. You can call
it fake news if you like.

Cheers - Jaimie

[Quadibloc]

Oh, and has the Central Theorem been updated lately?

Well, the Central Dogma has been modified, thanks to the use of reverse
transcriptase by the AIDS virus... one can read RNA and make DNA out of it.

It's unlikely, though, that we'll ever find an organism that reads proteins and
makes DNA - other than a human artificially synthesizing DNA to make a protein
in a lab.

John Savard

[Paul S Person]

Post by Quadibloc

Oh, and has the Central Theorem been updated lately?

Well, the Central Dogma has been modified, thanks to the use of reverse
transcriptase by the AIDS virus... one can read RNA and make DNA out of it.
It's unlikely, though, that we'll ever find an organism that reads proteins and
makes DNA - other than a human artificially synthesizing DNA to make a protein
in a lab.

Then I guess the answer is either "yes" or I had the wrong impression
of it. I thought it limited active DNA to the genes.

[Carl Fink]

Post by Paul S Person

Post by Quadibloc

Oh, and has the Central Theorem been updated lately?

Well, the Central Dogma has been modified, thanks to the use of reverse
transcriptase by the AIDS virus... one can read RNA and make DNA out of it.
It's unlikely, though, that we'll ever find an organism that reads proteins and
makes DNA - other than a human artificially synthesizing DNA to make a protein
in a lab.

Then I guess the answer is either "yes" or I had the wrong impression
of it. I thought it limited active DNA to the genes.

The Central Dogma? That just says that DNA --> protein (several intermediate
steps) and not the other direction.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Class/MLACourse/Modules/MolBioReview/central_dogma.html

[Quadibloc]

Post by Carl Fink
The Central Dogma? That just says that DNA --> protein (several intermediate
steps) and not the other direction.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Class/MLACourse/Modules/MolBioReview/central_dogma.html

It used to say DNA -> RNA -> protein and not the other direction. Before it was
discovered that RNA -> DNA could too happen.

John Savard

[Carl Fink]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Carl Fink
The Central Dogma? That just says that DNA --> protein (several intermediate
steps) and not the other direction.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Class/MLACourse/Modules/MolBioReview/central_dogma.html

It used to say DNA -> RNA -> protein and not the other direction. Before it was
discovered that RNA -> DNA could too happen.

That's one of the intermediate steps. If you follow my link you'll see that
Crick's actual formulation remains correct. You have to oversimplify it to
make reverse transcriptase violate it.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by Paul S Person

Post by Quadibloc

Oh, and has the Central Theorem been updated lately?

Well, the Central Dogma has been modified, thanks to the use of reverse
transcriptase by the AIDS virus... one can read RNA and make DNA out of it.
It's unlikely, though, that we'll ever find an organism that reads proteins and
makes DNA - other than a human artificially synthesizing DNA to make a protein
in a lab.

Then I guess the answer is either "yes" or I had the wrong impression
of it. I thought it limited active DNA to the genes.

Scientists have come to find that DNA is only one part of a complex
interaction.

[David DeLaney]

Oh, and has the Central Theorem been updated lately? You know, the one
that asserts that genes are everything. 'Cause genes /aren't/
everything; indeed the non-gene "junk DNA" of the 90s is turning out
to actually be what determines the difference between man and monkey.

... "non-gene"? Heh.

If it's part of the computer program that tells it where to return after it
gosubbed, or which conditionals it needs to check, you don't get to call it
"junk coding" just because it's not doing actual calculations that get written
to output storage.

Restricting your view to "a gene can only be something that codes for a protein
that is expressed at some point in the cell's development" makes you miss a LOT
of what is going on in the whole process of self-replication and cell-building.
Which is why "junk DNA" is no such thing; they just weren't at all sure what it
was FOR in the 90s, -since- it never directly expressed into proteins.

Dave, so yeah, your Central Theorem was an early approximation, and not a very
good one. DO try to keep up, as others have noted. Biology oozes on.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by David DeLaney
Dave, so yeah, your Central Theorem was an early approximation, and not a very
good one. DO try to keep up, as others have noted. Biology oozes on.

When it doesn't slime, slither, flow or otherwise self-perambulate. It
is something of a competition after all.

[Paul S Person]

On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 23:01:02 -0500, David DeLaney

Post by David DeLaney

Oh, and has the Central Theorem been updated lately? You know, the one
that asserts that genes are everything. 'Cause genes /aren't/
everything; indeed the non-gene "junk DNA" of the 90s is turning out
to actually be what determines the difference between man and monkey.

... "non-gene"? Heh.
If it's part of the computer program that tells it where to return after it
gosubbed, or which conditionals it needs to check, you don't get to call it
"junk coding" just because it's not doing actual calculations that get written
to output storage.
Restricting your view to "a gene can only be something that codes for a protein
that is expressed at some point in the cell's development" makes you miss a LOT
of what is going on in the whole process of self-replication and cell-building.
Which is why "junk DNA" is no such thing; they just weren't at all sure what it
was FOR in the 90s, -since- it never directly expressed into proteins.

Thanks for confirming my statement. Although I should have used
"non-coding" for "non-gene".

In the late 90's, all that programming was not only non-coding, it was
called "junk DNA".

And used as proof positive that the genome could not have been
designed, since no competent engineer would do that.

Never mind the interesting material about the inner life of Windows
DLLs and what happens when a function is moved from one to another,
showing that competent engineers (well, Windows actually works, does
it not, at least minimally?) both can and do do such things.

The reason, of course, is because they were so intent on arguing
against creationism that they paid no attention to reality.

And my guess is that, when reality showed up and slapped them on the
face, they promptly forgot that they had ever even considered
non-coding DNA to be "junk".

Post by David DeLaney
Dave, so yeah, your Central Theorem was an early approximation, and not a very
good one. DO try to keep up, as others have noted. Biology oozes on.

I'm not Dave.

But I am glad to have the Central Theorem clarified.

Although whether it changed or I just understood it wrong remains ...
indeterminate.

Is anyone keeping track of this stuff? You know, one of those History
of Science types.

They should be. Science itself tends to forget its mistakes and
pretend that they never happened. Which is not a criticism, simply a
part of the nature of science, as opposed to history.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by Paul S Person
On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 23:01:02 -0500, David DeLaney

Post by David DeLaney

Oh, and has the Central Theorem been updated lately? You know, the one
that asserts that genes are everything. 'Cause genes /aren't/
everything; indeed the non-gene "junk DNA" of the 90s is turning out
to actually be what determines the difference between man and monkey.

... "non-gene"? Heh.
If it's part of the computer program that tells it where to return after it
gosubbed, or which conditionals it needs to check, you don't get to call it
"junk coding" just because it's not doing actual calculations that get written
to output storage.
Restricting your view to "a gene can only be something that codes for a protein
that is expressed at some point in the cell's development" makes you miss a LOT
of what is going on in the whole process of self-replication and cell-building.
Which is why "junk DNA" is no such thing; they just weren't at all sure what it
was FOR in the 90s, -since- it never directly expressed into proteins.

Thanks for confirming my statement. Although I should have used
"non-coding" for "non-gene".
In the late 90's, all that programming was not only non-coding, it was
called "junk DNA".
And used as proof positive that the genome could not have been
designed, since no competent engineer would do that.
Never mind the interesting material about the inner life of Windows
DLLs and what happens when a function is moved from one to another,
showing that competent engineers (well, Windows actually works, does
it not, at least minimally?) both can and do do such things.
The reason, of course, is because they were so intent on arguing
against creationism that they paid no attention to reality.
And my guess is that, when reality showed up and slapped them on the
face, they promptly forgot that they had ever even considered
non-coding DNA to be "junk".

Post by David DeLaney
Dave, so yeah, your Central Theorem was an early approximation, and not a very
good one. DO try to keep up, as others have noted. Biology oozes on.

I'm not Dave.
But I am glad to have the Central Theorem clarified.
Although whether it changed or I just understood it wrong remains ...
indeterminate.
Is anyone keeping track of this stuff? You know, one of those History
of Science types.
They should be. Science itself tends to forget its mistakes and
pretend that they never happened. Which is not a criticism, simply a
part of the nature of science, as opposed to history.

They weren't mistakes, just disproven theorems.

[Paul S Person]

On Fri, 11 Oct 2019 16:21:18 -0700, Dimensional Traveler

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Paul S Person
On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 23:01:02 -0500, David DeLaney

Post by David DeLaney

Oh, and has the Central Theorem been updated lately? You know, the one
that asserts that genes are everything. 'Cause genes /aren't/
everything; indeed the non-gene "junk DNA" of the 90s is turning out
to actually be what determines the difference between man and monkey.

... "non-gene"? Heh.
If it's part of the computer program that tells it where to return after it
gosubbed, or which conditionals it needs to check, you don't get to call it
"junk coding" just because it's not doing actual calculations that get written
to output storage.
Restricting your view to "a gene can only be something that codes for a protein
that is expressed at some point in the cell's development" makes you miss a LOT
of what is going on in the whole process of self-replication and cell-building.
Which is why "junk DNA" is no such thing; they just weren't at all sure what it
was FOR in the 90s, -since- it never directly expressed into proteins.

Thanks for confirming my statement. Although I should have used
"non-coding" for "non-gene".
In the late 90's, all that programming was not only non-coding, it was
called "junk DNA".
And used as proof positive that the genome could not have been
designed, since no competent engineer would do that.
Never mind the interesting material about the inner life of Windows
DLLs and what happens when a function is moved from one to another,
showing that competent engineers (well, Windows actually works, does
it not, at least minimally?) both can and do do such things.
The reason, of course, is because they were so intent on arguing
against creationism that they paid no attention to reality.
And my guess is that, when reality showed up and slapped them on the
face, they promptly forgot that they had ever even considered
non-coding DNA to be "junk".

Post by David DeLaney
Dave, so yeah, your Central Theorem was an early approximation, and not a very
good one. DO try to keep up, as others have noted. Biology oozes on.

I'm not Dave.
But I am glad to have the Central Theorem clarified.
Although whether it changed or I just understood it wrong remains ...
indeterminate.
Is anyone keeping track of this stuff? You know, one of those History
of Science types.
They should be. Science itself tends to forget its mistakes and
pretend that they never happened. Which is not a criticism, simply a
part of the nature of science, as opposed to history.

They weren't mistakes, just disproven theorems.

The assertion that, since most DNA was "junk", creationism was BS, was
a /theorem/?

Are you sure?

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Paul S Person
I have a persistent memory that at
some point I read an interview or article where Clarke explained the
monolith: have become an atheist, and then having decided that
evolution could /never/ have produced Man, he turned to the only
remaining option: Space Aliens.

I don't know about Arthur C. Clarke, but Charles Darwin had a similar thought.
The human brain, after all, consumes a lot of oxygen and calories. It

imposes a

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Quadibloc
big cost. While its benefits are big and obvious today, with all the

technology

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Quadibloc
we have, *initially*, when it was beginning to evolve, there just

wouldn't be a

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Quadibloc
payoff commensurate with its cost. So how could we have evolved?

I have a DVD somewhere containing an interview with a
primatologist, who said that the first advantage hominins got
from increased brain size was increased social skills. Who is
this other hominin in my troop? Do I rank him/her, or vice
versa? Are we friends, enemies, or choose-to-ignore-each-other?
And once you have enough brainpower to handle that, why, the
better you are at it, the more skills you can discover.

Is "hominin" an actual term, or do you mean "hominid"?
Nice just-so story, in either case.

'Hominin' and 'hominid' are both actual terms, both describing
different groups of apes ancestral to us. The former are further
back, in different families than the Hominidae, to whom the
latter belong.

[David DeLaney]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
I have a DVD somewhere containing an interview with a
primatologist, who said that the first advantage hominins got
from increased brain size was increased social skills. Who is
this other hominin in my troop? Do I rank him/her, or vice
versa? Are we friends, enemies, or choose-to-ignore-each-other?
And once you have enough brainpower to handle that, why, the
better you are at it, the more skills you can discover.

And, the part that makes it a runaway feedback loop that ended up producing
brains like Irish Elk produced antlers, the better -others- are at it, the
better your -kids- need to be at it to keep up in the differential-
reproductive-success race.

Dave,

[David DeLaney]

Post by Quadibloc
So if we evolved from socially-interacting primates, and chimpanzees, very
similar to our early ancestors, are socially-interacting... larger brains,
allowing greater effectiveness at social interaction, may have made our
ancestors more attractive.

They didn't need to do _that_.

They just needed to make them more effective at ... certain kinds ... of social
interaction, period.

Deceit, manipulation, fraud, lying, bluffing, etc. why go to the relative
expense of making your genotype attractive to another primate, when you might
be able to convince them you were more attractive or a better choice without
actually changing the phenotype your genotype ended up producing?

Dave, tl;dr: you'll have to talk around the vat-girls' objections to you too,
John

[Carl Fink]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
Not unless they are cats in clever plastic disguises. Humans are
omnivores, and have been for a long time. We started out as
scavengers, eating the bits of the lion's kill after the lion is
sleeping it off ...

This is no longer widely accepted by biologists. Note that literally no apes
are scavengers except occasionally and opportunistically, including our
closest relatives the bonobos and chimps. Hyenas and lions are big and scary
and back in the EEO, were even bigger and scarier (and we were littler and
less scary what with having worse weapons).

The hypothesis I favor says that the invention of cooking was a key factor
in the big-braininess of humans.

Here's one article: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/08/990810064914.htm

[p***@hotmail.com]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
Not unless they are cats in clever plastic disguises. Humans are
omnivores, and have been for a long time. We started out as
scavengers, eating the bits of the lion's kill after the lion is
sleeping it off ...

This is no longer widely accepted by biologists. Note that literally no apes
are scavengers except occasionally and opportunistically, including our
closest relatives the bonobos and chimps. Hyenas and lions are big and scary
and back in the EEO, were even bigger and scarier (and we were littler and
less scary what with having worse weapons).
The hypothesis I favor says that the invention of cooking was a key factor
in the big-braininess of humans.
Here's one article: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/08/990810064914.htm
--

Here is a link to a 2016 _American Scientist_ magazine article that may
also be of interest:

https://www.americanscientist.org/article/meat-eating-among-the-earliest-humans

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist

[Paul S Person]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
Not unless they are cats in clever plastic disguises. Humans are
omnivores, and have been for a long time. We started out as
scavengers, eating the bits of the lion's kill after the lion is
sleeping it off ...

This is no longer widely accepted by biologists. Note that literally no apes
are scavengers except occasionally and opportunistically, including our
closest relatives the bonobos and chimps. Hyenas and lions are big and scary
and back in the EEO, were even bigger and scarier (and we were littler and
less scary what with having worse weapons).
The hypothesis I favor says that the invention of cooking was a key factor
in the big-braininess of humans.
Here's one article: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/08/990810064914.htm

Looks like a very nice, fully-formed, just-so story.

Based on a correlation of cooking and physical characteristics.

And completely innocent of the minor detail that "correlation is not
causation". (The Campbell who edited Analog had a lot of fun with
/that/, such as suggesting that people predisposed to lung cancer
smoke to retard its appearance.)

And, anyway, Hippocrates (him of the Oath) beat them to it, in a
sense: he credited whoever invented cooking as "the first doctor",
because cooking makes the food less likely to kill you.

Not to mention tasting better in most cases.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
Not unless they are cats in clever plastic disguises. Humans are
omnivores, and have been for a long time. We started out as
scavengers, eating the bits of the lion's kill after the lion is
sleeping it off ...

This is no longer widely accepted by biologists. Note that literally no apes
are scavengers except occasionally and opportunistically, including our
closest relatives the bonobos and chimps. Hyenas and lions are big and scary
and back in the EEO, were even bigger and scarier (and we were littler and
less scary what with having worse weapons).
The hypothesis I favor says that the invention of cooking was a key factor
in the big-braininess of humans.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/08/990810064914.htm
Looks like a very nice, fully-formed, just-so story.
Based on a correlation of cooking and physical characteristics.
And completely innocent of the minor detail that "correlation is not
causation". (The Campbell who edited Analog had a lot of fun with
/that/, such as suggesting that people predisposed to lung cancer
smoke to retard its appearance.)
And, anyway, Hippocrates (him of the Oath) beat them to it, in a
sense: he credited whoever invented cooking as "the first doctor",
because cooking makes the food less likely to kill you.

And easier to digest, so that you get more nutrition out of the
same unit mass of food.

Post by Carl Fink
Not to mention tasting better in most cases.

Assuming the cook is any good. I'm sure that that's one of the
skills that developed over howevermany millennia.

[Paul S Person]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
Not unless they are cats in clever plastic disguises. Humans are
omnivores, and have been for a long time. We started out as
scavengers, eating the bits of the lion's kill after the lion is
sleeping it off ...

This is no longer widely accepted by biologists. Note that literally no apes
are scavengers except occasionally and opportunistically, including our
closest relatives the bonobos and chimps. Hyenas and lions are big and scary
and back in the EEO, were even bigger and scarier (and we were littler and
less scary what with having worse weapons).
The hypothesis I favor says that the invention of cooking was a key factor
in the big-braininess of humans.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/08/990810064914.htm
Looks like a very nice, fully-formed, just-so story.
Based on a correlation of cooking and physical characteristics.
And completely innocent of the minor detail that "correlation is not
causation". (The Campbell who edited Analog had a lot of fun with
/that/, such as suggesting that people predisposed to lung cancer
smoke to retard its appearance.)
And, anyway, Hippocrates (him of the Oath) beat them to it, in a
sense: he credited whoever invented cooking as "the first doctor",
because cooking makes the food less likely to kill you.

And easier to digest, so that you get more nutrition out of the
same unit mass of food.

Post by Carl Fink
Not to mention tasting better in most cases.

Assuming the cook is any good. I'm sure that that's one of the
skills that developed over howevermany millennia.

True, but I was thinking more about things like cherrys and
raspberries.

Cooked in a pie, sure, given the suger content, but just plain
/cooked/? I suspect the uncooked ones taste better to most people.

Maybe even some vegetables, for some people.

Tarzan of the Apes, of course, prefers /his/ meat fresh, raw, and
bleeding. But that's fiction.

[Carl Fink]

Post by Paul S Person

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
Not unless they are cats in clever plastic disguises. Humans are
omnivores, and have been for a long time. We started out as
scavengers, eating the bits of the lion's kill after the lion is
sleeping it off ...

This is no longer widely accepted by biologists. Note that literally no apes
are scavengers except occasionally and opportunistically, including our
closest relatives the bonobos and chimps. Hyenas and lions are big and scary
and back in the EEO, were even bigger and scarier (and we were littler and
less scary what with having worse weapons).
The hypothesis I favor says that the invention of cooking was a key factor
in the big-braininess of humans.
Here's one article: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/08/990810064914.htm

Looks like a very nice, fully-formed, just-so story.
Based on a correlation of cooking and physical characteristics.
And completely innocent of the minor detail that "correlation is not
causation". (The Campbell who edited Analog had a lot of fun with
/that/, such as suggesting that people predisposed to lung cancer
smoke to retard its appearance.)
And, anyway, Hippocrates (him of the Oath) beat them to it, in a
sense: he credited whoever invented cooking as "the first doctor",
because cooking makes the food less likely to kill you.
Not to mention tasting better in most cases.

So you don't know what "hypothesis" means?

[Kevrob]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Paul S Person

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
Not unless they are cats in clever plastic disguises. Humans are
omnivores, and have been for a long time. We started out as
scavengers, eating the bits of the lion's kill after the lion is
sleeping it off ...

This is no longer widely accepted by biologists. Note that literally no apes
are scavengers except occasionally and opportunistically, including our
closest relatives the bonobos and chimps. Hyenas and lions are big and scary
and back in the EEO, were even bigger and scarier (and we were littler and
less scary what with having worse weapons).
The hypothesis I favor says that the invention of cooking was a key factor
in the big-braininess of humans.
Here's one article: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/08/990810064914.htm

Looks like a very nice, fully-formed, just-so story.
Based on a correlation of cooking and physical characteristics.
And completely innocent of the minor detail that "correlation is not
causation". (The Campbell who edited Analog had a lot of fun with
/that/, such as suggesting that people predisposed to lung cancer
smoke to retard its appearance.)
And, anyway, Hippocrates (him of the Oath) beat them to it, in a
sense: he credited whoever invented cooking as "the first doctor",
because cooking makes the food less likely to kill you.
Not to mention tasting better in most cases.

So you don't know what "hypothesis" means?

When based on a correlation, it means "guess".
A really-skilled evolutionary biologist would be able to come up with
a just-so story about how increased brain capacity was the driver, not
cooking.
The point is that the "hypothesis" can be formed in either direction.
When based on firmer grounds, it can mean "reasonable inference". This
is the meaning you are hoping to attach to the hypothesis in this
article.

Now if the "just so" story leads to new discoveries, along the
lines of {If Hominid A acted in this way, we should find more
of their fossils over here....} so that it has predictive power,
then can it be an hypothesis?

We know it works the other way: "Fossil Discovery Turns Scientific
Theory on Its Head" as one article I found was headlined.

https://phys.org/news/2006-12-fossil-discovery-scientific-theory.html

{Should Paul Metsers write a song about it?}

Kevin R

[Paul S Person]

Post by Kevrob

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Paul S Person

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
Not unless they are cats in clever plastic disguises. Humans are
omnivores, and have been for a long time. We started out as
scavengers, eating the bits of the lion's kill after the lion is
sleeping it off ...

This is no longer widely accepted by biologists. Note that literally no apes
are scavengers except occasionally and opportunistically, including our
closest relatives the bonobos and chimps. Hyenas and lions are big and scary
and back in the EEO, were even bigger and scarier (and we were littler and
less scary what with having worse weapons).
The hypothesis I favor says that the invention of cooking was a key factor
in the big-braininess of humans.
Here's one article: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/08/990810064914.htm

Looks like a very nice, fully-formed, just-so story.
Based on a correlation of cooking and physical characteristics.
And completely innocent of the minor detail that "correlation is not
causation". (The Campbell who edited Analog had a lot of fun with
/that/, such as suggesting that people predisposed to lung cancer
smoke to retard its appearance.)
And, anyway, Hippocrates (him of the Oath) beat them to it, in a
sense: he credited whoever invented cooking as "the first doctor",
because cooking makes the food less likely to kill you.
Not to mention tasting better in most cases.

So you don't know what "hypothesis" means?

When based on a correlation, it means "guess".
A really-skilled evolutionary biologist would be able to come up with
a just-so story about how increased brain capacity was the driver, not
cooking.
The point is that the "hypothesis" can be formed in either direction.
When based on firmer grounds, it can mean "reasonable inference". This
is the meaning you are hoping to attach to the hypothesis in this
article.

Now if the "just so" story leads to new discoveries, along the
lines of {If Hominid A acted in this way, we should find more
of their fossils over here....} so that it has predictive power,
then can it be an hypothesis?

The "just so" story, whatever it might be, no.

The hypothesis "the fossils found at the observed site should be found
at other similar sites" would be a hypothesis. Note that it would also
be based on /facts/ (the fossils were, in fact, found at the site).

But how far away is "over here"?

Ten feet -- not very impressive.

Ten miles -- much more impressive.

Everywhere you find locations that are similar in some /well-defined/
sense -- this is something that is /worth/ hypothesizing.

The correlation we started with could be the basis of such an
hypothesis. But any statement about which of cooking or larger brains,
if either, caused the other, in the absense of further facts, would
still be a just-so story.

Post by Kevrob
We know it works the other way: "Fossil Discovery Turns Scientific
Theory on Its Head" as one article I found was headlined.
https://phys.org/news/2006-12-fossil-discovery-scientific-theory.html

Indeed it does. But fossils are factual, not just-so stories.

Post by Kevrob
{Should Paul Metsers write a song about it?}

I have no idea.

It took at least two millenia to go from observing the planets
(starting in ancient Babylonia) to Kepler, who finally showed, not
that the planets /did/ travel in elliptical orbits, but that they
/could/ travel in them, under certain conditions -- thus severing all
ties with the Ancients' insistence that only motion in a circle could
bring a planet back to its starting point. That's a lot of
observational data.

And that was with an entirely deterministic system, which was fully
visible. How many millenia do you think it will take for evolutionary
biology to reach the same point, given that most of the data was never
recorded (fossilized) to begin with, and at least some of them insist
that the course of evolution is random -- ie, not deterministic?

That's why they use just-so stories: the facts needed to form actual
hypotheses are few and far between, and yet, being human, how can they
avoid imagining how things might have happened? Especially with so
flexible a theory as natural selection, which can be used to explain
/anything/ by simoly imagining what the environmental conditions were
like and invoking common memes such as "sexual selection".

[David DeLaney]

Post by Paul S Person
Indeed it does. But fossils are factual, not just-so stories.

Oh, you're ADORABLE. You've, er, studied the history of paleontology, right?

Fossils need interpretation. Sometimes lots of it. VERY rarely are they found
as even large chunks of animal, or laid out in a configuration perfectly
resembling that of the animal laid out on a surface.

Also, ask somebody how to look up what "Piltdown man" was, and why.

Post by Paul S Person
And that was with an entirely deterministic system,

Pluto for you, sir, on line seventeen. It's far away, so you'll just have to
keep talking.

Post by Paul S Person
and at least some of them insist
that the course of evolution is random -- ie, not deterministic?

... Evolution. Deterministic.

...

...

Okay, I am quite frankly boggled you can even associate those two in the same
sentence. Do you not know how sexual reproduction WORKS? Not to mention that
the environment has the ULTIMATE influence on it - determining just which
organisms HAVE differentially-better reproductive success IN THAT ENVIRONMENT.
And in general, organisms don't get to determine much about their environment.

(Even _we_ aren't particularly good at controlling weather, and various forms
of disaster that kill off folks without regard to their bloodlines...)

Dave, also, you might learn a little about this thing called Bayesian reasoning
in your spare time

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Paul S Person
Indeed it does. But fossils are factual, not just-so stories.

Oh, you're ADORABLE. You've, er, studied the history of paleontology, right?
Fossils need interpretation. Sometimes lots of it. VERY rarely are they found
as even large chunks of animal, or laid out in a configuration perfectly
resembling that of the animal laid out on a surface.
Also, ask somebody how to look up what "Piltdown man" was, and why.

Post by Paul S Person
And that was with an entirely deterministic system,

Pluto for you, sir, on line seventeen. It's far away, so you'll just have to
keep talking.

Post by Paul S Person
and at least some of them insist
that the course of evolution is random -- ie, not deterministic?

... Evolution. Deterministic.
...
...
Okay, I am quite frankly boggled you can even associate those two in the same
sentence. Do you not know how sexual reproduction WORKS? Not to mention that
the environment has the ULTIMATE influence on it - determining just which
organisms HAVE differentially-better reproductive success IN THAT ENVIRONMENT.
And in general, organisms don't get to determine much about their environment.

Welllllll, a large part of any organism's environment is _other_
organisms also adapting and adjusting to all the OTHER organisms
adaptations and adjustments....

(There's also things like the fact that our current atmosphere has such
a large percentage of oxygen because one kind of slime started shitting
it out, poisoning and killing most of the other slimes.)

[Paul S Person]

On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 23:46:44 -0700, Dimensional Traveler

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Paul S Person
Indeed it does. But fossils are factual, not just-so stories.

Oh, you're ADORABLE. You've, er, studied the history of paleontology, right?
Fossils need interpretation. Sometimes lots of it. VERY rarely are they found
as even large chunks of animal, or laid out in a configuration perfectly
resembling that of the animal laid out on a surface.
Also, ask somebody how to look up what "Piltdown man" was, and why.

Post by Paul S Person
And that was with an entirely deterministic system,

Pluto for you, sir, on line seventeen. It's far away, so you'll just have to
keep talking.

Post by Paul S Person
and at least some of them insist
that the course of evolution is random -- ie, not deterministic?

... Evolution. Deterministic.
...
...
Okay, I am quite frankly boggled you can even associate those two in the same
sentence. Do you not know how sexual reproduction WORKS? Not to mention that
the environment has the ULTIMATE influence on it - determining just which
organisms HAVE differentially-better reproductive success IN THAT ENVIRONMENT.
And in general, organisms don't get to determine much about their environment.

Welllllll, a large part of any organism's environment is _other_
organisms also adapting and adjusting to all the OTHER organisms
adaptations and adjustments....
(There's also things like the fact that our current atmosphere has such
a large percentage of oxygen because one kind of slime started shitting
it out, poisoning and killing most of the other slimes.)

Precisely. Life shapes environment. Environment shapes life. Feedback
system.

Of course, if the course of evolution is deterministic, then it
should, in theory, be possible to run it backwards and forwards --
that is, to take an existing organism's DNA and determine what it
would have looked like in the past and what it will look like in the
future. But some in the field have denied that this is even
theoretically possible.

And, of course, it would be necessary to be able to do the same to the
environment, which is why the ability to do this must be purely
theoretical. Well, unless the TOE is ever discovered.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by Paul S Person
On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 23:46:44 -0700, Dimensional Traveler

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Paul S Person
Indeed it does. But fossils are factual, not just-so stories.

Oh, you're ADORABLE. You've, er, studied the history of paleontology, right?
Fossils need interpretation. Sometimes lots of it. VERY rarely are they found
as even large chunks of animal, or laid out in a configuration perfectly
resembling that of the animal laid out on a surface.
Also, ask somebody how to look up what "Piltdown man" was, and why.

Post by Paul S Person
And that was with an entirely deterministic system,

Pluto for you, sir, on line seventeen. It's far away, so you'll just have to
keep talking.

Post by Paul S Person
and at least some of them insist
that the course of evolution is random -- ie, not deterministic?

... Evolution. Deterministic.
...
...
Okay, I am quite frankly boggled you can even associate those two in the same
sentence. Do you not know how sexual reproduction WORKS? Not to mention that
the environment has the ULTIMATE influence on it - determining just which
organisms HAVE differentially-better reproductive success IN THAT ENVIRONMENT.
And in general, organisms don't get to determine much about their environment.

Welllllll, a large part of any organism's environment is _other_
organisms also adapting and adjusting to all the OTHER organisms
adaptations and adjustments....
(There's also things like the fact that our current atmosphere has such
a large percentage of oxygen because one kind of slime started shitting
it out, poisoning and killing most of the other slimes.)

Precisely. Life shapes environment. Environment shapes life. Feedback
system.
Of course, if the course of evolution is deterministic, then it
should, in theory, be possible to run it backwards and forwards --
that is, to take an existing organism's DNA and determine what it
would have looked like in the past and what it will look like in the
future. But some in the field have denied that this is even
theoretically possible.
And, of course, it would be necessary to be able to do the same to the
environment, which is why the ability to do this must be purely
theoretical. Well, unless the TOE is ever discovered.

You mean the TO(B)E (Theory of Biological Everything)?

[Paul S Person]

On Fri, 11 Oct 2019 16:28:12 -0700, Dimensional Traveler

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Paul S Person
On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 23:46:44 -0700, Dimensional Traveler

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Paul S Person
Indeed it does. But fossils are factual, not just-so stories.

Oh, you're ADORABLE. You've, er, studied the history of paleontology, right?
Fossils need interpretation. Sometimes lots of it. VERY rarely are they found
as even large chunks of animal, or laid out in a configuration perfectly
resembling that of the animal laid out on a surface.
Also, ask somebody how to look up what "Piltdown man" was, and why.

Post by Paul S Person
And that was with an entirely deterministic system,

Pluto for you, sir, on line seventeen. It's far away, so you'll just have to
keep talking.

Post by Paul S Person
and at least some of them insist
that the course of evolution is random -- ie, not deterministic?

... Evolution. Deterministic.
...
...
Okay, I am quite frankly boggled you can even associate those two in the same
sentence. Do you not know how sexual reproduction WORKS? Not to mention that
the environment has the ULTIMATE influence on it - determining just which
organisms HAVE differentially-better reproductive success IN THAT ENVIRONMENT.
And in general, organisms don't get to determine much about their environment.

Welllllll, a large part of any organism's environment is _other_
organisms also adapting and adjusting to all the OTHER organisms
adaptations and adjustments....
(There's also things like the fact that our current atmosphere has such
a large percentage of oxygen because one kind of slime started shitting
it out, poisoning and killing most of the other slimes.)

Precisely. Life shapes environment. Environment shapes life. Feedback
system.
Of course, if the course of evolution is deterministic, then it
should, in theory, be possible to run it backwards and forwards --
that is, to take an existing organism's DNA and determine what it
would have looked like in the past and what it will look like in the
future. But some in the field have denied that this is even
theoretically possible.
And, of course, it would be necessary to be able to do the same to the
environment, which is why the ability to do this must be purely
theoretical. Well, unless the TOE is ever discovered.

You mean the TO(B)E (Theory of Biological Everything)?

A true TOE will include Biology.

Well, unless you think Biology isn't part of "everything".

[Paul S Person]

On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 23:13:49 -0500, David DeLaney

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Paul S Person
Indeed it does. But fossils are factual, not just-so stories.

Oh, you're ADORABLE. You've, er, studied the history of paleontology, right?
Fossils need interpretation. Sometimes lots of it. VERY rarely are they found
as even large chunks of animal, or laid out in a configuration perfectly
resembling that of the animal laid out on a surface.

My point is that fossils /exist/. There is no doubt of their
existence.

Just-so stories are ... stories. There is a great deal of doubt as to
their veracity. Some stories are true, some are less true, some are
false.

Post by David DeLaney
Also, ask somebody how to look up what "Piltdown man" was, and why.

Fraud is always a possibility.

Thank you for pointing out that fossils can be fraudulent.

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Paul S Person
And that was with an entirely deterministic system,

Pluto for you, sir, on line seventeen. It's far away, so you'll just have to
keep talking.

You don't believe that the orbits of the planets are /deterministic/?

You think some random force determines their path?

Or perhaps you believe they are steered by Space Aliens?

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Paul S Person
and at least some of them insist
that the course of evolution is random -- ie, not deterministic?

... Evolution. Deterministic.
...
...
Okay, I am quite frankly boggled you can even associate those two in the same
sentence. Do you not know how sexual reproduction WORKS? Not to mention that
the environment has the ULTIMATE influence on it - determining just which
organisms HAVE differentially-better reproductive success IN THAT ENVIRONMENT.
And in general, organisms don't get to determine much about their environment.

Those who insist it is "random" are also, usually, attempted to rule
out creationism, even by Slartibartfast. Intriguingly, they also tend
to believe that all of reality is deterministic.

Which, of course, means that, by their definition, "random" means
"fully determined".

The random element is supposed to be (at least some) mutations.

The focus on sex, while more justified than Freud's, is still, I
suspect, a bit overdone.

Post by David DeLaney
(Even _we_ aren't particularly good at controlling weather, and various forms
of disaster that kill off folks without regard to their bloodlines...)
Dave, also, you might learn a little about this thing called Bayesian reasoning
in your spare time

"Bayesian reasoning is an application of probability theory to
inductive reasoning (and abductive reasoning). It relies on an
interpretation of probabilities as expressions of an agent's
uncertainty about the world, rather than as concerning some notion of
objective chance in the world."

Sounds pretty ... subjective to me. Are you sure that's what you mean?

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by Paul S Person
On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 23:13:49 -0500, David DeLaney

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Paul S Person
Indeed it does. But fossils are factual, not just-so stories.

Oh, you're ADORABLE. You've, er, studied the history of paleontology, right?
Fossils need interpretation. Sometimes lots of it. VERY rarely are they found
as even large chunks of animal, or laid out in a configuration perfectly
resembling that of the animal laid out on a surface.

My point is that fossils /exist/. There is no doubt of their
existence.
Just-so stories are ... stories. There is a great deal of doubt as to
their veracity. Some stories are true, some are less true, some are
false.

Post by David DeLaney
Also, ask somebody how to look up what "Piltdown man" was, and why.

Fraud is always a possibility.
Thank you for pointing out that fossils can be fraudulent.

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Paul S Person
And that was with an entirely deterministic system,

Pluto for you, sir, on line seventeen. It's far away, so you'll just have to
keep talking.

You don't believe that the orbits of the planets are /deterministic/?

Less "deterministic" and more "beyond our ability to accurately predict
over sufficiently large timescales". Largely because apparently we
don't know all the inputs that determine their long term orbits. And we
now know we don't know all of those because we're finding _way_ too many
gas giant exoplanets hugging their primaries where they couldn't
possibly have formed. So, it is "deterministic" if we can't determine it?

[David DeLaney]

Post by Paul S Person
Looks like a very nice, fully-formed, just-so story.

... you've got a THING about this, don't you.

Dave, detection circuits I formed in 1994-1995 are tingling

[Paul S Person]

On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 23:02:58 -0500, David DeLaney

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Paul S Person
Looks like a very nice, fully-formed, just-so story.

... you've got a THING about this, don't you.

Yes: I dislike all forms of subterfuge, particularly in science.

Look, this really shouldn't be too hard to understand.

I hold a pen in my hand. I release it and it falls to the desk.

I do this a lot, and have others do it. We find a /correlation/
between the movement/non-movement of the pen and whether it is held or
not.

Since the pen does not cause me to drop it by pricking my hand, and
since supposing the pen controls my decision to drop or not drop it is
more complicated than just supposing I make my own decision, Occam's
Razor allows us to hypothesize that /my decision causes the pen to
fall or not fall/. And this can be generally shown to be true, so we
have now established that /my will controls whether or not the pen
falls/. We have, IOW, causation.

And then someone a bit smarter than me points out two things:
1. If a helium balloon is being held, it stays; but if it is released,
it moves up to the ceiling.
2. The question remains: why does the pen fall? Why does it not simply
stay in place?

This leads, eventually, to the concept of "gravity" and to General
Relativity, the (so far as we know) /true/ cause of the pen falling.
And also to concepts like "air pressure" and a force pushing the
balloon upwards.

So where is the discovery in question in this process? Has a
correlation between eating and larger brains been established? Or is
this just a guess?

Even if there is a correlation, why should we believe that cooking
causes brain enhancement? Cooking is a cultural activity, and so
develops much faster that anything based on DNA can. Would it not be
simpler to assert that a mutation produced an enhanced brain which
produced cooking and so was advantageous? Is the proposed hypothesis
really a good one, or is it merely what those proposing want to
believe because their academic reputation hangs on it?

And who can say what /actual/ cause may eventually be discovered, long
centuries or millenia from now, when enough actual facts have been
accumulated?

Post by David DeLaney
Dave, detection circuits I formed in 1994-1995 are tingling

and so they should be!

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by Paul S Person
On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 23:02:58 -0500, David DeLaney

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Paul S Person
Looks like a very nice, fully-formed, just-so story.

... you've got a THING about this, don't you.

Yes: I dislike all forms of subterfuge, particularly in science.
Look, this really shouldn't be too hard to understand.
I hold a pen in my hand. I release it and it falls to the desk.
I do this a lot, and have others do it. We find a /correlation/
between the movement/non-movement of the pen and whether it is held or
not.
Since the pen does not cause me to drop it by pricking my hand, and
since supposing the pen controls my decision to drop or not drop it is
more complicated than just supposing I make my own decision, Occam's
Razor allows us to hypothesize that /my decision causes the pen to
fall or not fall/. And this can be generally shown to be true, so we
have now established that /my will controls whether or not the pen
falls/. We have, IOW, causation.
1. If a helium balloon is being held, it stays; but if it is released,
it moves up to the ceiling.
2. The question remains: why does the pen fall? Why does it not simply
stay in place?
This leads, eventually, to the concept of "gravity" and to General
Relativity, the (so far as we know) /true/ cause of the pen falling.
And also to concepts like "air pressure" and a force pushing the
balloon upwards.
So where is the discovery in question in this process? Has a
correlation between eating and larger brains been established? Or is
this just a guess?
Even if there is a correlation, why should we believe that cooking
causes brain enhancement? Cooking is a cultural activity, and so
develops much faster that anything based on DNA can. Would it not be
simpler to assert that a mutation produced an enhanced brain which
produced cooking and so was advantageous? Is the proposed hypothesis
really a good one, or is it merely what those proposing want to
believe because their academic reputation hangs on it?
And who can say what /actual/ cause may eventually be discovered, long
centuries or millenia from now, when enough actual facts have been
accumulated?

Post by David DeLaney
Dave, detection circuits I formed in 1994-1995 are tingling

and so they should be!

[Matrix voice]The pen does not fall towards the ground, the ground meets
pen in between their starting positions.[/voice]

[Default User]

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
AND DON'T MAKE YOUR CAT EAT VEGAN. (Unless, of course, she gets
to catch and eat her own mice. Then, as you please.) A cat
can't make her own taurine, without which she will first go blind
and then die.

Forcing an obligate carnivore onto a vegetarian diet is an act of animal cruelty.

So Vegans are practicing self-inflicted animal cruelty.

I don't think you know what an "obligate carnivore" is.


Brian

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by Default User

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
AND DON'T MAKE YOUR CAT EAT VEGAN. (Unless, of course, she gets
to catch and eat her own mice. Then, as you please.) A cat
can't make her own taurine, without which she will first go blind
and then die.

Forcing an obligate carnivore onto a vegetarian diet is an act of animal cruelty.

So Vegans are practicing self-inflicted animal cruelty.

I don't think you know what an "obligate carnivore" is.

I do and many consider the modern Homo Sapiens to be one.

[Default User]

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Default User
I don't think you know what an "obligate carnivore" is.

I do and many consider the modern Homo Sapiens to be one.

Are any of these "many" scientists? I have not heard anyone besides you ever make this claim.

Post by Dimensional Traveler
"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?"

Might be seeing this in action.


Brian

[Quadibloc]

Post by Default User

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Default User
I don't think you know what an "obligate carnivore" is.

I do and many consider the modern Homo Sapiens to be one.

Are any of these "many" scientists? I have not heard anyone besides you ever make this claim.

It certainly is true that H. sapiens is not a carnivore in the sense that a cat
is. Humans can derive nutrition from plant food.

So can dogs.

While humans don't need taurine in their diet, though, they need eight amino
acids, not just five. So, as Dorothy noted, if they go vegan, instead of just
lacto-ovo, they need to study Diet for a Small Planet.

And they can't make their own vitamin B12.

The only way to get that, besides meat (including poultry and fish), milk, or
eggs... is bacterial culture. Which is high-tech.

So while the actual technical meaning of "obligate carnivore" may not apply,
humans indeed *do*, in their natural state, need to include _some_ animal
products in their diet for optimum health. And that is probably what he actually
meant.

John Savard

[Peter Trei]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Default User

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Default User
I don't think you know what an "obligate carnivore" is.

I do and many consider the modern Homo Sapiens to be one.

Are any of these "many" scientists? I have not heard anyone besides you ever make this claim.

It certainly is true that H. sapiens is not a carnivore in the sense that a cat
is. Humans can derive nutrition from plant food.
So can dogs.
While humans don't need taurine in their diet, though, they need eight amino
acids, not just five. So, as Dorothy noted, if they go vegan, instead of just
lacto-ovo, they need to study Diet for a Small Planet.
And they can't make their own vitamin B12.
The only way to get that, besides meat (including poultry and fish), milk, or
eggs... is bacterial culture. Which is high-tech.
So while the actual technical meaning of "obligate carnivore" may not apply,
humans indeed *do*, in their natural state, need to include _some_ animal
products in their diet for optimum health. And that is probably what he actually
meant.

An obligate carnivore is a creature that must eat meat to survive. Some results
say they can't digest vegetable food, others that they can eat a little of it.
Cats of all types are in this category.
A facultative carnivore can survive, but not necessarily thrive, on a meat-free
diet. It eats meat when available, and it is better for it to have meat in its
diet. Dogs are in this category.
I've seen a result claiming that humans are frugivores, a specialized type of
herbivore.
Humans are definitely not herbivores like sheep or cattle; we do not have the
kind of digestive equipment they do.
Some bats are frugivores.
Humans, like gorillas and chimpanzees, do indeed enjoy eating bananas, and
they're a nutritious food for humans. As noted, though, what with our protein
requirements and vitamin B12, we do need a *little* in the way of animal
products in our diet. Whether we need _enough_ to fully qualify as facultative
carnivores, or whether we are properly termed omnivores or something else, might
depend on detailed information that biologists are familiar with.

This article
https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/133/11/3886S/4818038/
notes that in humans, the small intestine is considerably larger, and the colon
considerably smaller, as a portion of the digestive system than in the great
apes.
So the other great apes have adapted to a lower dietary quality than enjoyed by
humans, and the human diet does involve animal source foods to have this higher
quality.

I linked this elsewhere, but its worth repeating: A strict vegan diet is
very, very bad for small children:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/22/australia/australia-vegan-baby-intl-hnk-trnd/index.html

pt

[J. Clarke]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Default User

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Default User
I don't think you know what an "obligate carnivore" is.

I do and many consider the modern Homo Sapiens to be one.

Are any of these "many" scientists? I have not heard anyone besides you ever make this claim.

It certainly is true that H. sapiens is not a carnivore in the sense that a cat
is. Humans can derive nutrition from plant food.
So can dogs.
While humans don't need taurine in their diet, though, they need eight amino
acids, not just five. So, as Dorothy noted, if they go vegan, instead of just
lacto-ovo, they need to study Diet for a Small Planet.
And they can't make their own vitamin B12.
The only way to get that, besides meat (including poultry and fish), milk, or
eggs... is bacterial culture. Which is high-tech.

If you consider the making of cheese to be "high tech".

Post by Quadibloc
So while the actual technical meaning of "obligate carnivore" may not apply,
humans indeed *do*, in their natural state, need to include _some_ animal
products in their diet for optimum health. And that is probably what he actually
meant.
John Savard

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Default User

Post by Default User

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Default User
I don't think you know what an "obligate carnivore" is.

I do and many consider the modern Homo Sapiens to be one.

Are any of these "many" scientists? I have not heard anyone besides

you ever make this claim.
It certainly is true that H. sapiens is not a carnivore in the sense that a cat
is. Humans can derive nutrition from plant food.
So can dogs.
While humans don't need taurine in their diet, though, they need eight amino
acids, not just five. So, as Dorothy noted, if they go vegan, instead of just
lacto-ovo, they need to study Diet for a Small Planet.

Or any number of other books/websites on the subject which (I am
certain, though I haven't looked for them) have come out since ...

/googles

... 1971.

Post by Default User
And they can't make their own vitamin B12.
The only way to get that, besides meat (including poultry and fish), milk, or
eggs... is bacterial culture. Which is high-tech.
So while the actual technical meaning of "obligate carnivore" may not apply,
humans indeed *do*, in their natural state, need to include _some_ animal
products in their diet for optimum health. And that is probably what he
actually meant.

Adding meat (in addition to the occasional baby chimp) to our
diet enabled hominin brains to grow to their current rather
exaggerated size, and (because your troop can live a couple of
DAYS on an animal carcass of any size before it begins to stink)
gave us leisure to do things other than wandering through the forest
foraging. Eating meat has made humans what we are.

For good or ill.

[Robert Carnegie]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Default User

Post by Default User

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Default User
I don't think you know what an "obligate carnivore" is.

I do and many consider the modern Homo Sapiens to be one.

Are any of these "many" scientists? I have not heard anyone besides

you ever make this claim.
It certainly is true that H. sapiens is not a carnivore in the sense that a cat
is. Humans can derive nutrition from plant food.
So can dogs.
While humans don't need taurine in their diet, though, they need eight amino
acids, not just five. So, as Dorothy noted, if they go vegan, instead of just
lacto-ovo, they need to study Diet for a Small Planet.

Or any number of other books/websites on the subject which (I am
certain, though I haven't looked for them) have come out since ...
/googles
... 1971.

Post by Default User
And they can't make their own vitamin B12.
The only way to get that, besides meat (including poultry and fish), milk, or
eggs... is bacterial culture. Which is high-tech.
So while the actual technical meaning of "obligate carnivore" may not apply,
humans indeed *do*, in their natural state, need to include _some_ animal
products in their diet for optimum health. And that is probably what he
actually meant.

Adding meat (in addition to the occasional baby chimp) to our
diet enabled hominin brains to grow to their current rather
exaggerated size, and (because your troop can live a couple of
DAYS on an animal carcass of any size before it begins to stink)
gave us leisure to do things other than wandering through the forest
foraging. Eating meat has made humans what we are.
For good or ill.

How do vegetarians get by, not having a brain?

And isn't it fish that's "brain food" anyway?

[Carl Fink]

Post by Robert Carnegie
How do vegetarians get by, not having a brain?

They take advantage of technology that didn't exist in the Environment of
Evolutionary Adaptation, of course.

Post by Robert Carnegie
And isn't it fish that's "brain food" anyway?

To only a slightly greater extent than spinach is a good source of iron. (It
isn't. It contains iron but the iron is chemically bound and essentially
none is absorbed by the human body. Luckily iron deficiency is very rare in
US culture.)

[Chrysi Cat]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Robert Carnegie
How do vegetarians get by, not having a brain?

They take advantage of technology that didn't exist in the Environment of
Evolutionary Adaptation, of course.

Post by Robert Carnegie
And isn't it fish that's "brain food" anyway?

To only a slightly greater extent than spinach is a good source of iron. (It
isn't. It contains iron but the iron is chemically bound and essentially
none is absorbed by the human body. Luckily iron deficiency is very rare in
US culture.)

Want to know how I know /you're/ generalising from "male, or possibly
postmenopausal female" to "US culture in general"? ;-P

[Lynn McGuire]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Robert Carnegie
How do vegetarians get by, not having a brain?

They take advantage of technology that didn't exist in the Environment of
Evolutionary Adaptation, of course.

Post by Robert Carnegie
And isn't it fish that's "brain food" anyway?

To only a slightly greater extent than spinach is a good source of iron. (It
isn't. It contains iron but the iron is chemically bound and essentially
none is absorbed by the human body. Luckily iron deficiency is very rare in
US culture.)

Google "Lyme Anemia". My daughter's 17 year journey with Lyme disease
has moved into this. We have given her iron intravenously three times
in the last couple of months. When that fails, we will be giving her
whole blood. Her hemocrit score dropped to 8.0 in May but is back up to
9.0 now. It should be 12.0 for a 32 year old woman.

Lynn

[Carl Fink]

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by Carl Fink
To only a slightly greater extent than spinach is a good source of iron. (It
isn't. It contains iron but the iron is chemically bound and essentially
none is absorbed by the human body. Luckily iron deficiency is very rare in
US culture.)

Google "Lyme Anemia". My daughter's 17 year journey with Lyme disease
has moved into this. We have given her iron intravenously three times
in the last couple of months. When that fails, we will be giving her
whole blood. Her hemocrit score dropped to 8.0 in May but is back up to
9.0 now. It should be 12.0 for a 32 year old woman.

Rare. And not usually dietary (as your daughter's is not).

My own hematocrit runs a little low for males, which is a problem mostly
because I am a platelet donor. It has to be 13 or higher for me to be
allowed to donate.

There are chronic diseases that cause anemia (notably babesiosis and
malaria) but I've never heard of Lyme doing it. They tend to be caused by
protists, not bacterial in nature.

Long-term damage from Lyme is more often neurological or cardiac.

(I'm not a doctor. I'm a former biology teacher who lives in a Lyme-infested
area.)

[Lynn McGuire]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by Carl Fink
To only a slightly greater extent than spinach is a good source of iron. (It
isn't. It contains iron but the iron is chemically bound and essentially
none is absorbed by the human body. Luckily iron deficiency is very rare in
US culture.)

Google "Lyme Anemia". My daughter's 17 year journey with Lyme disease
has moved into this. We have given her iron intravenously three times
in the last couple of months. When that fails, we will be giving her
whole blood. Her hemocrit score dropped to 8.0 in May but is back up to
9.0 now. It should be 12.0 for a 32 year old woman.

Rare. And not usually dietary (as your daughter's is not).
My own hematocrit runs a little low for males, which is a problem mostly
because I am a platelet donor. It has to be 13 or higher for me to be
allowed to donate.
There are chronic diseases that cause anemia (notably babesiosis and
malaria) but I've never heard of Lyme doing it. They tend to be caused by
protists, not bacterial in nature.
Long-term damage from Lyme is more often neurological or cardiac.
(I'm not a doctor. I'm a former biology teacher who lives in a Lyme-infested
area.)

I suspect that the Lyme bacteria has moved into her bones. She has many
colonies around her body. The largest is a two wide mass at the back of
her brain that causes her to have constant migraines. The anti-seizure
medicine helps with the pain and stops the seizures (for about 8 or 9
years now).

We stopped treating her with antibiotics almost two years ago as they
just made her life hell. We are just treating immediate problems now
and trying to make her comfortable.

Lynn

[J. Clarke]

On Fri, 11 Oct 2019 12:33:32 -0500, Lynn McGuire

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by Carl Fink
To only a slightly greater extent than spinach is a good source of iron. (It
isn't. It contains iron but the iron is chemically bound and essentially
none is absorbed by the human body. Luckily iron deficiency is very rare in
US culture.)

Google "Lyme Anemia". My daughter's 17 year journey with Lyme disease
has moved into this. We have given her iron intravenously three times
in the last couple of months. When that fails, we will be giving her
whole blood. Her hemocrit score dropped to 8.0 in May but is back up to
9.0 now. It should be 12.0 for a 32 year old woman.

Rare. And not usually dietary (as your daughter's is not).
My own hematocrit runs a little low for males, which is a problem mostly
because I am a platelet donor. It has to be 13 or higher for me to be
allowed to donate.
There are chronic diseases that cause anemia (notably babesiosis and
malaria) but I've never heard of Lyme doing it. They tend to be caused by
protists, not bacterial in nature.
Long-term damage from Lyme is more often neurological or cardiac.
(I'm not a doctor. I'm a former biology teacher who lives in a Lyme-infested
area.)

I suspect that the Lyme bacteria has moved into her bones. She has many
colonies around her body. The largest is a two wide mass at the back of
her brain that causes her to have constant migraines. The anti-seizure
medicine helps with the pain and stops the seizures (for about 8 or 9
years now).
We stopped treating her with antibiotics almost two years ago as they
just made her life hell. We are just treating immediate problems now
and trying to make her comfortable.

If she has lyme disease and anemia, that would suggest babesiosis. Has
that been ruled out?

Post by Lynn McGuire
Lynn

[Lynn McGuire]

Post by J. Clarke
On Fri, 11 Oct 2019 12:33:32 -0500, Lynn McGuire

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by Carl Fink
To only a slightly greater extent than spinach is a good source of iron. (It
isn't. It contains iron but the iron is chemically bound and essentially
none is absorbed by the human body. Luckily iron deficiency is very rare in
US culture.)

Google "Lyme Anemia". My daughter's 17 year journey with Lyme disease
has moved into this. We have given her iron intravenously three times
in the last couple of months. When that fails, we will be giving her
whole blood. Her hemocrit score dropped to 8.0 in May but is back up to
9.0 now. It should be 12.0 for a 32 year old woman.

Rare. And not usually dietary (as your daughter's is not).
My own hematocrit runs a little low for males, which is a problem mostly
because I am a platelet donor. It has to be 13 or higher for me to be
allowed to donate.
There are chronic diseases that cause anemia (notably babesiosis and
malaria) but I've never heard of Lyme doing it. They tend to be caused by
protists, not bacterial in nature.
Long-term damage from Lyme is more often neurological or cardiac.
(I'm not a doctor. I'm a former biology teacher who lives in a Lyme-infested
area.)

I suspect that the Lyme bacteria has moved into her bones. She has many
colonies around her body. The largest is a two wide mass at the back of
her brain that causes her to have constant migraines. The anti-seizure
medicine helps with the pain and stops the seizures (for about 8 or 9
years now).
We stopped treating her with antibiotics almost two years ago as they
just made her life hell. We are just treating immediate problems now
and trying to make her comfortable.

If she has lyme disease and anemia, that would suggest babesiosis. Has
that been ruled out?

Post by Lynn McGuire
Lynn

Yes, for now. She has had the Lyme disease for around 17 years now,
since she was 15. Been tested and tested again many times. Actually,
the hematologist is thinking that she has a blood leak somewhere in her
digestive system. But they cannot do an endoscopy and colonoscopy until
her hemocrit score is 12.0. Or 11, I do not remember at the moment. So
we are doing iron infusions every two weeks trying to get that up. Plus
the iron horse pills.

Lynn

[David DeLaney]

Post by Carl Fink
To only a slightly greater extent than spinach is a good source of iron. (It
isn't. It contains iron but the iron is chemically bound and essentially
none is absorbed by the human body. Luckily iron deficiency is very rare in

male

Post by Carl Fink
US culture.)

<raises hand, having encountered this rather abruptly back in the spring when
my doctor seemed to panic after seeing the blood reports from my latest
checkup>

Dave, fear not, all is well, after administration of two units of blood and two
followup appointments a week apart to infuse me with iron

ps: superpowers related to this have YET to appear. disgruntled.

[Carl Fink]

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Carl Fink
To only a slightly greater extent than spinach is a good source of iron. (It
isn't. It contains iron but the iron is chemically bound and essentially
none is absorbed by the human body. Luckily iron deficiency is very rare in

male

Post by Carl Fink
US culture.)

<raises hand, having encountered this rather abruptly back in the spring when
my doctor seemed to panic after seeing the blood reports from my latest
checkup>
Dave, fear not, all is well, after administration of two units of blood and two
followup appointments a week apart to infuse me with iron

I hereby withdraw the "very". It's still darn uncommon and rarely associated
with low iron in the diet.

[Lynn McGuire]

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Carl Fink
To only a slightly greater extent than spinach is a good source of iron. (It
isn't. It contains iron but the iron is chemically bound and essentially
none is absorbed by the human body. Luckily iron deficiency is very rare in

male

Post by Carl Fink
US culture.)

<raises hand, having encountered this rather abruptly back in the spring when
my doctor seemed to panic after seeing the blood reports from my latest
checkup>
Dave, fear not, all is well, after administration of two units of blood and two
followup appointments a week apart to infuse me with iron
ps: superpowers related to this have YET to appear. disgruntled.

Sorry to hear that. And superpowers usually manifest in the young.

Lynn

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Carl Fink
To only a slightly greater extent than spinach is a good source of iron. (It
isn't. It contains iron but the iron is chemically bound and essentially
none is absorbed by the human body. Luckily iron deficiency is very rare in

male

Post by Carl Fink
US culture.)

<raises hand, having encountered this rather abruptly back in the spring when
my doctor seemed to panic after seeing the blood reports from my latest
checkup>
Dave, fear not, all is well, after administration of two units of blood and two
  followup appointments a week apart to infuse me with iron
ps: superpowers related to this have YET to appear. disgruntled.

Sorry to hear that.  And superpowers usually manifest in the young.

The geriatric demographic is sorely underrepresented among superheroes.
Perhaps its time for a class action lawsuit?

[Kevrob]

Post by Dimensional Traveler
The geriatric demographic is sorely underrepresented among superheroes.
Perhaps its time for a class action lawsuit?

There have been retcons and reboots aplenty, but from the early 1960s
until the mid-1980s, the "Justice Society of America" were semi-retired
World War II veterans. The JSA was launched in 1940, and was reinvented
in 1960 as the "Justice League of America." They were revived in the
pages of the magazine dedicated to the adventures of the Fastest Man Alive -
"THE FLASH" {formerly "FLASH COMICS."}

FLASH COMICS ran for nine years. Its successor, THE FLASH, ran over 25,
with a renumbered volume that ran another 20. There hvae been further
volumes, with shorter tenures, and more subtitles, since.

Arguably, the active JSAers from the first year of the original series
would be centenarians. That wouldn't bother the original Spectre, as
he was killed in his first story. Dr Fate has gone through several human
hosts. Wonder Woman may be a functionally ageless immortal, if she doesn't
meet with violent death. But the rest are, or were, so old, that various
stories tried to explain away how they stayed so youthful, compared to
their age cohort. Contact with magical energies was the usual workaround.

The Captain Marvel/Shazam revival of the 1970s had young Billy Batson still
young, due to suspended animation, but his British pastiche, Mickey (Marvelman/
Miracleman) Moran had grown up. It would have been fun to have either of them
age in real time, or at least the slower, but still inevitable aging found in
strips like "Gasoline Alley," so that, by the new century, changing back into
mortal form would have been highly dangerous.

[See the fate of the Big Red Cheese's retconned predecessor, Black Adam,
as depicted in MARVEL FAMILY #1, back in 1945!]

The hero of Scalzi's "Old Man's War" is a spring chicken compared
to some of these comics characters.

Kevin R
a.a #2310

[Robert Woodward]

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by David DeLaney

Post by Carl Fink
To only a slightly greater extent than spinach is a good source of iron. (It
isn't. It contains iron but the iron is chemically bound and essentially
none is absorbed by the human body. Luckily iron deficiency is very rare in

male

Post by Carl Fink
US culture.)

<raises hand, having encountered this rather abruptly back in the spring when
my doctor seemed to panic after seeing the blood reports from my latest
checkup>
Dave, fear not, all is well, after administration of two units of blood and two
  followup appointments a week apart to infuse me with iron
ps: superpowers related to this have YET to appear. disgruntled.

Sorry to hear that.  And superpowers usually manifest in the young.

The geriatric demographic is sorely underrepresented among superheroes.
Perhaps its time for a class action lawsuit?

Or perhaps write a story to balance things - for example "The Mutants
Men Don't See" by James Alan Gardner (published in the August 2016 issue
of Asimov's SF)

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Default User

Post by Default User

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Default User
I don't think you know what an "obligate carnivore" is.

I do and many consider the modern Homo Sapiens to be one.

Are any of these "many" scientists? I have not heard anyone besides

you ever make this claim.
It certainly is true that H. sapiens is not a carnivore in the sense

that a cat

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Default User
is. Humans can derive nutrition from plant food.
So can dogs.
While humans don't need taurine in their diet, though, they need eight amino
acids, not just five. So, as Dorothy noted, if they go vegan, instead

of just

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Default User
lacto-ovo, they need to study Diet for a Small Planet.

Or any number of other books/websites on the subject which (I am
certain, though I haven't looked for them) have come out since ...
/googles
... 1971.

Post by Default User
And they can't make their own vitamin B12.
The only way to get that, besides meat (including poultry and fish),

milk, or

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Default User
eggs... is bacterial culture. Which is high-tech.
So while the actual technical meaning of "obligate carnivore" may not apply,
humans indeed *do*, in their natural state, need to include _some_ animal
products in their diet for optimum health. And that is probably what he
actually meant.

Adding meat (in addition to the occasional baby chimp) to our
diet enabled hominin brains to grow to their current rather
exaggerated size, and (because your troop can live a couple of
DAYS on an animal carcass of any size before it begins to stink)
gave us leisure to do things other than wandering through the forest
foraging. Eating meat has made humans what we are.
For good or ill.

How do vegetarians get by, not having a brain?
And isn't it fish that's "brain food" anyway?

Fish is full of protein, also several trace elements that
land-grown meat may be short on. Salt, e.g.

[Default User]

I took a bite from my wife's burger out of curiosity. The patty, in taste and
texture, was almost indistinguishable from a regular BK patty.
Now, I'm the first to agree that that is *very* low bar to meet. It was nothing
like a juicy hand-made patty as you might make yourself. However, it was
as acceptable as a regular BK burger, and I expect will get better.

I've seen several comparison tests along those lines, with similar opinions. As you say, fairly low bar. I don't really like hamburgers that much. A home-grilled one is fine, I don't have any problem eating them, but I don't go out of my way.

I really don't care for fast-food burgers, although I make an exception for White Castles. Those I really consider to be their own thing and not hamburgers.


Brian

[Dorothy J Heydt]

I took a bite from my wife's burger out of curiosity. The patty, in taste and
texture, was almost indistinguishable from a regular BK patty.
Now, I'm the first to agree that that is *very* low bar to meet. It

was nothing

like a juicy hand-made patty as you might make yourself. However, it was
as acceptable as a regular BK burger, and I expect will get better.

I've seen several comparison tests along those lines, with similar
opinions. As you say, fairly low bar. I don't really like hamburgers
that much. A home-grilled one is fine, I don't have any problem eating
them, but I don't go out of my way.
I really don't care for fast-food burgers, although I make an exception
for White Castles. Those I really consider to be their own thing and not
hamburgers.

I eat home-cooked hamburgers (because it's cheap protein) without
buns (because carbohydrates) a lot. If someone were to offer me
a veggieburger, I would have to take the bun off first.

[J. Clarke]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

I took a bite from my wife's burger out of curiosity. The patty, in taste and
texture, was almost indistinguishable from a regular BK patty.
Now, I'm the first to agree that that is *very* low bar to meet. It

was nothing

like a juicy hand-made patty as you might make yourself. However, it was
as acceptable as a regular BK burger, and I expect will get better.

I've seen several comparison tests along those lines, with similar
opinions. As you say, fairly low bar. I don't really like hamburgers
that much. A home-grilled one is fine, I don't have any problem eating
them, but I don't go out of my way.
I really don't care for fast-food burgers, although I make an exception
for White Castles. Those I really consider to be their own thing and not
hamburgers.

I eat home-cooked hamburgers (because it's cheap protein) without
buns (because carbohydrates) a lot. If someone were to offer me
a veggieburger, I would have to take the bun off first.

Most burger places today will sell you a bunless burger.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

I took a bite from my wife's burger out of curiosity. The patty, in

taste and

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

texture, was almost indistinguishable from a regular BK patty.
Now, I'm the first to agree that that is *very* low bar to meet. It

was nothing

like a juicy hand-made patty as you might make yourself. However, it was
as acceptable as a regular BK burger, and I expect will get better.

I've seen several comparison tests along those lines, with similar
opinions. As you say, fairly low bar. I don't really like hamburgers
that much. A home-grilled one is fine, I don't have any problem eating
them, but I don't go out of my way.
I really don't care for fast-food burgers, although I make an exception
for White Castles. Those I really consider to be their own thing and not
hamburgers.

I eat home-cooked hamburgers (because it's cheap protein) without
buns (because carbohydrates) a lot. If someone were to offer me
a veggieburger, I would have to take the bun off first.

Most burger places today will sell you a bunless burger.

Will they? I know that Carls Jr. used to, but that was like 20
years ago.

We hardly ever eat at fast-food places anyway; unless we're at a
con we eat at home. (Cheaper.)

[J. Clarke]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

I took a bite from my wife's burger out of curiosity. The patty, in

taste and

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

texture, was almost indistinguishable from a regular BK patty.
Now, I'm the first to agree that that is *very* low bar to meet. It

was nothing

like a juicy hand-made patty as you might make yourself. However, it was
as acceptable as a regular BK burger, and I expect will get better.

I've seen several comparison tests along those lines, with similar
opinions. As you say, fairly low bar. I don't really like hamburgers
that much. A home-grilled one is fine, I don't have any problem eating
them, but I don't go out of my way.
I really don't care for fast-food burgers, although I make an exception
for White Castles. Those I really consider to be their own thing and not
hamburgers.

I eat home-cooked hamburgers (because it's cheap protein) without
buns (because carbohydrates) a lot. If someone were to offer me
a veggieburger, I would have to take the bun off first.

Most burger places today will sell you a bunless burger.

Will they? I know that Carls Jr. used to, but that was like 20
years ago.
We hardly ever eat at fast-food places anyway; unless we're at a
con we eat at home. (Cheaper.)

Ask for it as a "lettuce wrap". They'll give you the same ingredients
as the burger only wrapped in lettuce instead of in a bun.

[Lynn McGuire]

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

I took a bite from my wife's burger out of curiosity. The patty, in

taste and

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

texture, was almost indistinguishable from a regular BK patty.
Now, I'm the first to agree that that is *very* low bar to meet. It

was nothing

like a juicy hand-made patty as you might make yourself. However, it was
as acceptable as a regular BK burger, and I expect will get better.

I've seen several comparison tests along those lines, with similar
opinions. As you say, fairly low bar. I don't really like hamburgers
that much. A home-grilled one is fine, I don't have any problem eating
them, but I don't go out of my way.
I really don't care for fast-food burgers, although I make an exception
for White Castles. Those I really consider to be their own thing and not
hamburgers.

I eat home-cooked hamburgers (because it's cheap protein) without
buns (because carbohydrates) a lot. If someone were to offer me
a veggieburger, I would have to take the bun off first.

Most burger places today will sell you a bunless burger.

Will they? I know that Carls Jr. used to, but that was like 20
years ago.
We hardly ever eat at fast-food places anyway; unless we're at a
con we eat at home. (Cheaper.)

Ask for it as a "lettuce wrap". They'll give you the same ingredients
as the burger only wrapped in lettuce instead of in a bun.

Also called an Arnoldburger.

Lynn

[Kevrob]

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by J. Clarke
Ask for it as a "lettuce wrap". They'll give you the same ingredients
as the burger only wrapped in lettuce instead of in a bun.

Also called an Arnoldburger.

I thought Richie Cunningham and The Fonz ate Arnoldburgers.

Kevin R

[Default User]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
I eat home-cooked hamburgers (because it's cheap protein) without
buns (because carbohydrates) a lot. If someone were to offer me
a veggieburger, I would have to take the bun off first.

Not really that cheap, at least around here. Any beef is pricey. Pork and chicken are both much better priced. I bought boneless pork rib roast last week for $1.99/lb on sale. You could have bought an entire boneless loin for $1.49/lb, but that's a lot of meat. This week boneless, skinless chicken breasts are again at that $1.99/lb sale price.


Brian

[Kevrob]

Post by Default User

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
I eat home-cooked hamburgers (because it's cheap protein) without
buns (because carbohydrates) a lot. If someone were to offer me
a veggieburger, I would have to take the bun off first.

Not really that cheap, at least around here. Any beef is pricey. Pork and chicken are both much better priced. I bought boneless pork rib roast last week for $1.99/lb on sale. You could have bought an entire boneless loin for $1.49/lb, but that's a lot of meat. This week boneless, skinless chicken breasts are again at that $1.99/lb sale price.

I'm enjoying broiled drumstioks for dinner tonight The chain markets
frequently have chicken legs, drums or thighs for as little as $0.79/lb.

<googlygooglygoo....>

Circular from the local ShopRite effective tomorrow:

79 cents on legs
99 cents per for a whole Purdue roaster
$1.19/lb on thighs or drummies
$1.49/lb for split chicken breasts.

This is "family pack" pricing though: 4 to 5 lb avg
package size, and smaller packages are probably
more expensive per pound. I buy them anyway, cook
ahead, and have dinner and lunch made from the chicken
throughout the week. I do the same with family packs
of pork chops, or cuts of beef on sale. I share a full-
size fridge with a freezer with 2 other guys, and have a
mini-fridge in my room. If I didn't have room to stash stuff
I wasn't eating immediately, I couldn't take advantage
of the bargains.

Ooooh! Some beef roast is $2.99/lb this week. Ground beef
is usually $4/lb. I wait for sales to buy that. I still have
half the $1.49/lb family pack of pork chops I bought earlier
this week to grill or broil tomorrow.

Now there's ground TURKEY for $1.99 a lb, which I make burgers
with. I crumble leftovers into pasta sauce. If I were a real
"foodie" I'd grind my own chuck.

I only cook for myself, though I might share with my housemates
occasionally, on a (one hopes) reciprocal basis.

I've got enough frozen giblets and spines from whole chickens in the
freezer to plan on making stock, and chicken soup on the upcoming
weekend, in the Crockpot. To think I used to throw those parts of
the chicken out!

It's down to 48 F/9 C, so home-made soup comes to mind.

Kevin R

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Default User

Post by Default User

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
I eat home-cooked hamburgers (because it's cheap protein) without
buns (because carbohydrates) a lot. If someone were to offer me
a veggieburger, I would have to take the bun off first.

Not really that cheap, at least around here. Any beef is pricey. Pork

and chicken are both much better priced. I bought boneless pork rib
roast last week for $1.99/lb on sale. You could have bought an entire
boneless loin for $1.49/lb, but that's a lot of meat. This week
boneless, skinless chicken breasts are again at that $1.99/lb sale
price.
I'm enjoying broiled drumstioks for dinner tonight The chain markets
frequently have chicken legs, drums or thighs for as little as $0.79/lb.
<googlygooglygoo....>
79 cents on legs
99 cents per for a whole Purdue roaster
$1.19/lb on thighs or drummies
$1.49/lb for split chicken breasts.
This is "family pack" pricing though: 4 to 5 lb avg
package size, and smaller packages are probably
more expensive per pound. I buy them anyway, cook
ahead, and have dinner and lunch made from the chicken
throughout the week. I do the same with family packs
of pork chops, or cuts of beef on sale. I share a full-
size fridge with a freezer with 2 other guys, and have a
mini-fridge in my room. If I didn't have room to stash stuff
I wasn't eating immediately, I couldn't take advantage
of the bargains.
Ooooh! Some beef roast is $2.99/lb this week. Ground beef
is usually $4/lb. I wait for sales to buy that. I still have
half the $1.49/lb family pack of pork chops I bought earlier
this week to grill or broil tomorrow.
Now there's ground TURKEY for $1.99 a lb, which I make burgers
with. I crumble leftovers into pasta sauce. If I were a real
"foodie" I'd grind my own chuck.
I only cook for myself, though I might share with my housemates
occasionally, on a (one hopes) reciprocal basis.
I've got enough frozen giblets and spines from whole chickens in the
freezer to plan on making stock, and chicken soup on the upcoming
weekend, in the Crockpot. To think I used to throw those parts of
the chicken out!
It's down to 48 F/9 C, so home-made soup comes to mind.

Ooooh! To think that I shiver when it gets down to 70 F. But
I'm old and my circulation is slowing down.

(I also swelter when it gets up to 80 F)

[Kevrob]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Kevrob
It's down to 48 F/9 C, so home-made soup comes to mind.

Ooooh! To think that I shiver when it gets down to 70 F. But
I'm old and my circulation is slowing down.
(I also swelter when it gets up to 80 F)

A 10 degree F range of comfort isn't much! Just cooking the
chicken or ground beef could play hob with that.

I can usually nab pork chops, either on the bone,
or the boneless type, for $1.50 - $2.50/lb, if they
are on sale. One of the shops near me has 80% lean
ground beef on sale @ $2.99, which is probably a
3 lb minimum. I'll splash out for fresh fish every
now and then: salmon, flounder, cod, tilapia, etc.
I like to stay under $9 a pound. I can get ground
salmon patties for $6 a pound, usually. There's
usually a weekly special. I avoid frying fish in favor of
grilling, broiling, steaming. Some of the markets here
will steam your fish while you wait, no extra charge.
[Then you get stuck in a slow checkout line, and/or
traffic on the way home, and you have to reheat it.]
Cod cakes are a bargain, but they have carbs, no go
for Dorothy.

THINGS SF GOT WRONG: Extrapolating advancements in processing
foods to the extent that "the family of the future" would
eat mostly pre-prepared, reconstituted foods, or even Jane
Jetson-style pills. Instead we have fresh food as nearly a
fetish for some. A lot of packaged food has unhealthy ingredients,
such as salt and sugar, that I tolerated in my youth, but avoid,
or use sparingly, now. Where's my rejuvenation, dammit! I want
real bacon, again!

Kevin R

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Kevrob

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Kevrob
It's down to 48 F/9 C, so home-made soup comes to mind.

Ooooh! To think that I shiver when it gets down to 70 F. But
I'm old and my circulation is slowing down.
(I also swelter when it gets up to 80 F)

A 10 degree F range of comfort isn't much! Just cooking the
chicken or ground beef could play hob with that.

Well, I don't cook it. I think I've already explained that we
don't have a *kitchen* in our flat, but rather a laundry room
[whose dryer doesn't work any more] into which we've introduced
some electrical gadgets to turn it into a primitive galley.

Viz., a refrigerator, a toaster oven, a microwave, a water
boiler. And we used to have a hotplate, but it wouldn't really
cook anything. So we bought an induction burner.

And then I got a pacemaker implanted, and while pacemakers are OK
with microwaves nowadays, I can't get within two feet of the
induction burner when it's turned on. So Hal cooks breakfast and
dinner; we invent lunch out of the fridge sometimes via the
microwave.

Post by Kevrob
I can usually nab pork chops, either on the bone,
or the boneless type, for $1.50 - $2.50/lb, if they
are on sale. One of the shops near me has 80% lean
3 lb minimum. I'll splash out for fresh fish every
now and then: salmon, flounder, cod, tilapia, etc.
I like to stay under $9 a pound. I can get ground
salmon patties for $6 a pound, usually. There's
usually a weekly special. I avoid frying fish in favor of
grilling, broiling, steaming. Some of the markets here
will steam your fish while you wait, no extra charge.
[Then you get stuck in a slow checkout line, and/or
traffic on the way home, and you have to reheat it.]
Cod cakes are a bargain, but they have carbs, no go
for Dorothy.
THINGS SF GOT WRONG: Extrapolating advancements in processing
foods to the extent that "the family of the future" would
eat mostly pre-prepared, reconstituted foods, or even Jane
Jetson-style pills. Instead we have fresh food as nearly a
fetish for some. A lot of packaged food has unhealthy ingredients,
such as salt and sugar, that I tolerated in my youth, but avoid,
or use sparingly, now. Where's my rejuvenation, dammit! I want
real bacon, again!

I want chocolate again, and every kind of gooey pastry that I
mustn't touch ever.

Now, I generally don't remember dreams, unless they are the recurrent
kind (e.g., I have some cats and the neighbors have some cats and
somebody opened the front door and some of their cats are in HERE
and some of ours are out THERE and I have to sort them). And
when I wake from one of those I say to myself, "Oh, one of
*those*." And then I remember it.

One of *those* is that I'm somewhere--usually a convention--and
somebody has laid out various items of gooey pastry and other
things I mustn't eat, and I'm surreptitiously picking them up,
all the time telling myself, "No, I mustn't eat this, I mustn't,"
and then (dammit) I wake up before I have a chance to eat them.

[J. Clarke]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Kevrob

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Kevrob
It's down to 48 F/9 C, so home-made soup comes to mind.

Ooooh! To think that I shiver when it gets down to 70 F. But
I'm old and my circulation is slowing down.
(I also swelter when it gets up to 80 F)

A 10 degree F range of comfort isn't much! Just cooking the
chicken or ground beef could play hob with that.

Well, I don't cook it. I think I've already explained that we
don't have a *kitchen* in our flat, but rather a laundry room
[whose dryer doesn't work any more] into which we've introduced
some electrical gadgets to turn it into a primitive galley.
Viz., a refrigerator, a toaster oven, a microwave, a water
boiler. And we used to have a hotplate, but it wouldn't really
cook anything. So we bought an induction burner.
And then I got a pacemaker implanted, and while pacemakers are OK
with microwaves nowadays, I can't get within two feet of the
induction burner when it's turned on. So Hal cooks breakfast and
dinner; we invent lunch out of the fridge sometimes via the
microwave.

Do you have an Instant Pot (that's a brand name that defines a generic
class of appliance)? If not you might want to look into one. Very
versatile.

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Kevrob
I can usually nab pork chops, either on the bone,
or the boneless type, for $1.50 - $2.50/lb, if they
are on sale. One of the shops near me has 80% lean
3 lb minimum. I'll splash out for fresh fish every
now and then: salmon, flounder, cod, tilapia, etc.
I like to stay under $9 a pound. I can get ground
salmon patties for $6 a pound, usually. There's
usually a weekly special. I avoid frying fish in favor of
grilling, broiling, steaming. Some of the markets here
will steam your fish while you wait, no extra charge.
[Then you get stuck in a slow checkout line, and/or
traffic on the way home, and you have to reheat it.]
Cod cakes are a bargain, but they have carbs, no go
for Dorothy.
THINGS SF GOT WRONG: Extrapolating advancements in processing
foods to the extent that "the family of the future" would
eat mostly pre-prepared, reconstituted foods, or even Jane
Jetson-style pills. Instead we have fresh food as nearly a
fetish for some. A lot of packaged food has unhealthy ingredients,
such as salt and sugar, that I tolerated in my youth, but avoid,
or use sparingly, now. Where's my rejuvenation, dammit! I want
real bacon, again!

I want chocolate again, and every kind of gooey pastry that I
mustn't touch ever.
Now, I generally don't remember dreams, unless they are the recurrent
kind (e.g., I have some cats and the neighbors have some cats and
somebody opened the front door and some of their cats are in HERE
and some of ours are out THERE and I have to sort them). And
when I wake from one of those I say to myself, "Oh, one of
*those*." And then I remember it.
One of *those* is that I'm somewhere--usually a convention--and
somebody has laid out various items of gooey pastry and other
things I mustn't eat, and I'm surreptitiously picking them up,
all the time telling myself, "No, I mustn't eat this, I mustn't,"
and then (dammit) I wake up before I have a chance to eat them.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Kevrob

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Kevrob
It's down to 48 F/9 C, so home-made soup comes to mind.

Ooooh! To think that I shiver when it gets down to 70 F. But
I'm old and my circulation is slowing down.
(I also swelter when it gets up to 80 F)

A 10 degree F range of comfort isn't much! Just cooking the
chicken or ground beef could play hob with that.

Well, I don't cook it. I think I've already explained that we
don't have a *kitchen* in our flat, but rather a laundry room
[whose dryer doesn't work any more] into which we've introduced
some electrical gadgets to turn it into a primitive galley.
Viz., a refrigerator, a toaster oven, a microwave, a water
boiler. And we used to have a hotplate, but it wouldn't really
cook anything. So we bought an induction burner.
And then I got a pacemaker implanted, and while pacemakers are OK
with microwaves nowadays, I can't get within two feet of the
induction burner when it's turned on. So Hal cooks breakfast and
dinner; we invent lunch out of the fridge sometimes via the
microwave.

Do you have an Instant Pot (that's a brand name that defines a generic
class of appliance)? If not you might want to look into one. Very
versatile.

We saw one in Costco yesterday, and said, "Hmmmm." But we were
in Costco to buy a new electric blanket, the old one having died,
Jim, so I was not sufficiently tempted to suggest getting one. I
also saw a thick cookbook full of Instant Pot recipes, but Meg
said, "A recipe book comes with it. This is just *more*
recipes." But what I would've liked to know is what *sort* of
things you can cook with an IP, and could I eat them and would
Hal eat them?

[J. Clarke]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Kevrob

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Kevrob
It's down to 48 F/9 C, so home-made soup comes to mind.

Ooooh! To think that I shiver when it gets down to 70 F. But
I'm old and my circulation is slowing down.
(I also swelter when it gets up to 80 F)

A 10 degree F range of comfort isn't much! Just cooking the
chicken or ground beef could play hob with that.

Well, I don't cook it. I think I've already explained that we
don't have a *kitchen* in our flat, but rather a laundry room
[whose dryer doesn't work any more] into which we've introduced
some electrical gadgets to turn it into a primitive galley.
Viz., a refrigerator, a toaster oven, a microwave, a water
boiler. And we used to have a hotplate, but it wouldn't really
cook anything. So we bought an induction burner.
And then I got a pacemaker implanted, and while pacemakers are OK
with microwaves nowadays, I can't get within two feet of the
induction burner when it's turned on. So Hal cooks breakfast and
dinner; we invent lunch out of the fridge sometimes via the
microwave.

Do you have an Instant Pot (that's a brand name that defines a generic
class of appliance)? If not you might want to look into one. Very
versatile.

We saw one in Costco yesterday, and said, "Hmmmm." But we were
in Costco to buy a new electric blanket, the old one having died,
Jim, so I was not sufficiently tempted to suggest getting one. I
also saw a thick cookbook full of Instant Pot recipes, but Meg
said, "A recipe book comes with it. This is just *more*
recipes." But what I would've liked to know is what *sort* of
things you can cook with an IP, and could I eat them and would
Hal eat them?

If you google "instant pot recipes" you'll find a huge number of hits.
It's basically an electronically controlled combination of pressure
cooker and slow cooker. If there's something you especially like,
google it with "instant pot" appended and see what turns up.

[Kevrob]

Post by J. Clarke
If you google "instant pot recipes" you'll find a huge number of hits.
It's basically an electronically controlled combination of pressure
cooker and slow cooker. If there's something you especially like,
google it with "instant pot" appended and see what turns up.

I lived for years in a studio apartment where the stove wasn't
hooked up to the gas. I had developed the idea that asking the landlord
to fix that would lead to his upping the rent, and/or taking a look at
all the paper I had stored in cardboard boxes - books, magazines, comics,
etc - and telling me to put it in storage elsewhere, or move out.
I had a microwave, a hot plate, a rice cooker and a countertop
electric grill. I didn't bake, and I preferred grilling to roasting,
so I was fine. I also ate out much more often than I do know,
and bought things to reheat from the local markets' take-out
section. I was younger, and worked a lot of "close the store"
shifts, finishing at 10 or 11 pm, so buying a prepared "meat
and 2 veg" from the grocery down the street from the bookstore
before my shift and reheating it in the store microwave on my
break was actually "eating healthy" compared to grabbing a
burger or sub, or so I told myself.

I don't have a hot plate any longer, but I have a slow cooker.
I never baked, but I now roast food as well as broiling it, so
having a full working stove is nice. I could make just about
anything I wanted to with that old set-up.

I did eventually divest myself of my collection/accumulation
when I needed ready cash, and was about to move out.

Kevin R

[J. Clarke]

Post by Kevrob

Post by J. Clarke
If you google "instant pot recipes" you'll find a huge number of hits.
It's basically an electronically controlled combination of pressure
cooker and slow cooker. If there's something you especially like,
google it with "instant pot" appended and see what turns up.

I lived for years in a studio apartment where the stove wasn't
hooked up to the gas. I had developed the idea that asking the landlord
to fix that would lead to his upping the rent, and/or taking a look at
all the paper I had stored in cardboard boxes - books, magazines, comics,
etc - and telling me to put it in storage elsewhere, or move out.
I had a microwave, a hot plate, a rice cooker and a countertop
electric grill. I didn't bake, and I preferred grilling to roasting,
so I was fine. I also ate out much more often than I do know,
and bought things to reheat from the local markets' take-out
section. I was younger, and worked a lot of "close the store"
shifts, finishing at 10 or 11 pm, so buying a prepared "meat
and 2 veg" from the grocery down the street from the bookstore
before my shift and reheating it in the store microwave on my
break was actually "eating healthy" compared to grabbing a
burger or sub, or so I told myself.
I don't have a hot plate any longer, but I have a slow cooker.
I never baked, but I now roast food as well as broiling it, so
having a full working stove is nice. I could make just about
anything I wanted to with that old set-up.
I did eventually divest myself of my collection/accumulation
when I needed ready cash, and was about to move out.

You might also want to take a look at an instant pot. If you've used
a rice cooker for purposes other than cooking rice, you'll find that
it's like a rice cooker that died and went to heaven.

IME the controls for slow-cooking work a lot better than a slow cooker
as well.

[Kevrob]

Post by J. Clarke
You might also want to take a look at an instant pot. If you've used
a rice cooker for purposes other than cooking rice, you'll find that
it's like a rice cooker that died and went to heaven.

I boiled potatoes in my rice cooker this evening,
prior to making mashed potatoes. I use it to cook
steel cut oats, barley, wild rice and for true rice.
It's also good for steaming small quantities of veggies.

Post by J. Clarke
IME the controls for slow-cooking work a lot better than a
slow cooker as well.

If and when my slow-cooker dies, I'll look into it.

Kevin R

[Robert Carnegie]

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Kevrob

Post by J. Clarke
If you google "instant pot recipes" you'll find a huge number of hits.
It's basically an electronically controlled combination of pressure
cooker and slow cooker. If there's something you especially like,
google it with "instant pot" appended and see what turns up.

I lived for years in a studio apartment where the stove wasn't
hooked up to the gas. I had developed the idea that asking the landlord
to fix that would lead to his upping the rent, and/or taking a look at
all the paper I had stored in cardboard boxes - books, magazines, comics,
etc - and telling me to put it in storage elsewhere, or move out.
I had a microwave, a hot plate, a rice cooker and a countertop
electric grill. I didn't bake, and I preferred grilling to roasting,
so I was fine. I also ate out much more often than I do know,
and bought things to reheat from the local markets' take-out
section. I was younger, and worked a lot of "close the store"
shifts, finishing at 10 or 11 pm, so buying a prepared "meat
and 2 veg" from the grocery down the street from the bookstore
before my shift and reheating it in the store microwave on my
break was actually "eating healthy" compared to grabbing a
burger or sub, or so I told myself.
I don't have a hot plate any longer, but I have a slow cooker.
I never baked, but I now roast food as well as broiling it, so
having a full working stove is nice. I could make just about
anything I wanted to with that old set-up.
I did eventually divest myself of my collection/accumulation
when I needed ready cash, and was about to move out.

You might also want to take a look at an instant pot. If you've used
a rice cooker for purposes other than cooking rice, you'll find that
it's like a rice cooker that died and went to heaven.

From context that seems to be meant as a good thing,
but I don't see how.

I have a dead microwave oven... dead-ish; sometimes it
heats, sometimes it just pretends to, lights up and turns
and buzzes. At the moment, it can also be described as
"a shelf"; I installed a replacement.

Post by J. Clarke
IME the controls for slow-cooking work a lot better than a slow cooker
as well.

[J. Clarke]

On Mon, 7 Oct 2019 03:05:20 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie

Post by Robert Carnegie

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Kevrob

Post by J. Clarke
If you google "instant pot recipes" you'll find a huge number of hits.
It's basically an electronically controlled combination of pressure
cooker and slow cooker. If there's something you especially like,
google it with "instant pot" appended and see what turns up.

I lived for years in a studio apartment where the stove wasn't
hooked up to the gas. I had developed the idea that asking the landlord
to fix that would lead to his upping the rent, and/or taking a look at
all the paper I had stored in cardboard boxes - books, magazines, comics,
etc - and telling me to put it in storage elsewhere, or move out.
I had a microwave, a hot plate, a rice cooker and a countertop
electric grill. I didn't bake, and I preferred grilling to roasting,
so I was fine. I also ate out much more often than I do know,
and bought things to reheat from the local markets' take-out
section. I was younger, and worked a lot of "close the store"
shifts, finishing at 10 or 11 pm, so buying a prepared "meat
and 2 veg" from the grocery down the street from the bookstore
before my shift and reheating it in the store microwave on my
break was actually "eating healthy" compared to grabbing a
burger or sub, or so I told myself.
I don't have a hot plate any longer, but I have a slow cooker.
I never baked, but I now roast food as well as broiling it, so
having a full working stove is nice. I could make just about
anything I wanted to with that old set-up.
I did eventually divest myself of my collection/accumulation
when I needed ready cash, and was about to move out.

You might also want to take a look at an instant pot. If you've used
a rice cooker for purposes other than cooking rice, you'll find that
it's like a rice cooker that died and went to heaven.

From context that seems to be meant as a good thing,
but I don't see how.

The implication is an idealized form.

Post by Robert Carnegie
I have a dead microwave oven... dead-ish; sometimes it
heats, sometimes it just pretends to, lights up and turns
and buzzes. At the moment, it can also be described as
"a shelf"; I installed a replacement.

Post by J. Clarke
IME the controls for slow-cooking work a lot better than a slow cooker
as well.

[Paul S Person]

On Mon, 07 Oct 2019 19:26:07 -0400, J. Clarke

Post by J. Clarke
On Mon, 7 Oct 2019 03:05:20 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie

Post by Robert Carnegie

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Kevrob

Post by J. Clarke
If you google "instant pot recipes" you'll find a huge number of hits.
It's basically an electronically controlled combination of pressure
cooker and slow cooker. If there's something you especially like,
google it with "instant pot" appended and see what turns up.

I lived for years in a studio apartment where the stove wasn't
hooked up to the gas. I had developed the idea that asking the landlord
to fix that would lead to his upping the rent, and/or taking a look at
all the paper I had stored in cardboard boxes - books, magazines, comics,
etc - and telling me to put it in storage elsewhere, or move out.
I had a microwave, a hot plate, a rice cooker and a countertop
electric grill. I didn't bake, and I preferred grilling to roasting,
so I was fine. I also ate out much more often than I do know,
and bought things to reheat from the local markets' take-out
section. I was younger, and worked a lot of "close the store"
shifts, finishing at 10 or 11 pm, so buying a prepared "meat
and 2 veg" from the grocery down the street from the bookstore
before my shift and reheating it in the store microwave on my
break was actually "eating healthy" compared to grabbing a
burger or sub, or so I told myself.
I don't have a hot plate any longer, but I have a slow cooker.
I never baked, but I now roast food as well as broiling it, so
having a full working stove is nice. I could make just about
anything I wanted to with that old set-up.
I did eventually divest myself of my collection/accumulation
when I needed ready cash, and was about to move out.

You might also want to take a look at an instant pot. If you've used
a rice cooker for purposes other than cooking rice, you'll find that
it's like a rice cooker that died and went to heaven.

From context that seems to be meant as a good thing,
but I don't see how.

The implication is an idealized form.

Post by Robert Carnegie
I have a dead microwave oven... dead-ish; sometimes it
heats, sometimes it just pretends to, lights up and turns
and buzzes. At the moment, it can also be described as
"a shelf"; I installed a replacement.

Unless you find it to amusing/useful as a shelf to part with, you
/might/ consider replacing it.

Even I have been known to replace items which reach that condition. As
opposed to every three years, or whenever the Next Great Advance
arrives.

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Robert Carnegie

Post by J. Clarke
IME the controls for slow-cooking work a lot better than a slow cooker
as well.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Kevrob

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Kevrob
It's down to 48 F/9 C, so home-made soup comes to mind.

Ooooh! To think that I shiver when it gets down to 70 F. But
I'm old and my circulation is slowing down.
(I also swelter when it gets up to 80 F)

A 10 degree F range of comfort isn't much! Just cooking the
chicken or ground beef could play hob with that.

Well, I don't cook it. I think I've already explained that we
don't have a *kitchen* in our flat, but rather a laundry room
[whose dryer doesn't work any more] into which we've introduced
some electrical gadgets to turn it into a primitive galley.
Viz., a refrigerator, a toaster oven, a microwave, a water
boiler. And we used to have a hotplate, but it wouldn't really
cook anything. So we bought an induction burner.
And then I got a pacemaker implanted, and while pacemakers are OK
with microwaves nowadays, I can't get within two feet of the
induction burner when it's turned on. So Hal cooks breakfast and
dinner; we invent lunch out of the fridge sometimes via the
microwave.

Do you have an Instant Pot (that's a brand name that defines a generic
class of appliance)? If not you might want to look into one. Very
versatile.

We saw one in Costco yesterday, and said, "Hmmmm." But we were
in Costco to buy a new electric blanket, the old one having died,
Jim, so I was not sufficiently tempted to suggest getting one. I
also saw a thick cookbook full of Instant Pot recipes, but Meg
said, "A recipe book comes with it. This is just *more*
recipes." But what I would've liked to know is what *sort* of
things you can cook with an IP, and could I eat them and would
Hal eat them?

If you google "instant pot recipes" you'll find a huge number of hits.
It's basically an electronically controlled combination of pressure
cooker and slow cooker. If there's something you especially like,
google it with "instant pot" appended and see what turns up.

Okay, I'll try that; thanks.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Default User

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
I eat home-cooked hamburgers (because it's cheap protein) without
buns (because carbohydrates) a lot. If someone were to offer me
a veggieburger, I would have to take the bun off first.

Not really that cheap, at least around here. Any beef is pricey. Pork
and chicken are both much better priced. I bought boneless pork rib
roast last week for $1.99/lb on sale. You could have bought an entire
boneless loin for $1.49/lb, but that's a lot of meat. This week
boneless, skinless chicken breasts are again at that $1.99/lb sale
price.

We eat chicken when we're not eating hamburger. Pork is
currently very cheap, but the cheapest cuts Costco offers (which
is what Hal buys if I'm not on hand to stop him) are "boneless
ribs" which are not always entirely boneless and consist mostly
of fat and gristle. So it's hamburger and chicken, chicken and
hamburger.

I see my endochrinologist in a couple of weeks, and I'm going to
ask her if she can recommend a nutritionist who can advise me how
to add some items to the diet that (a) Hal and I are both willing
and able to eat and that (b) are not too pricey.

[Carl Fink]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
I see my endochrinologist in a couple of weeks, and I'm going to
ask her if she can recommend a nutritionist who can advise me how
to add some items to the diet that (a) Hal and I are both willing
and able to eat and that (b) are not too pricey.

Dietitian.

Sorry.

"Nutritionist" is not a regulated term, meaning anyone can just put that on
a business card. Registered dietitians have to actually get training and
pass a test.

[p***@hotmail.com]

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
I see my endochrinologist in a couple of weeks, and I'm going to
ask her if she can recommend a nutritionist who can advise me how
to add some items to the diet that (a) Hal and I are both willing
and able to eat and that (b) are not too pricey.

Dietitian.
Sorry.
"Nutritionist" is not a regulated term, meaning anyone can just put that on
a business card. Registered dietitians have to actually get training and
pass a test.

Mark my words, when dieticians are registered only outlaws will have diets.

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist

[Kevrob]

Post by p***@hotmail.com

Post by Carl Fink

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
I see my endochrinologist in a couple of weeks, and I'm going to
ask her if she can recommend a nutritionist who can advise me how
to add some items to the diet that (a) Hal and I are both willing
and able to eat and that (b) are not too pricey.

Dietitian.
Sorry.
"Nutritionist" is not a regulated term, meaning anyone can just put that on
a business card. Registered dietitians have to actually get training and
pass a test.

Mark my words, when dieticians are registered only outlaws will have diets.

Humor based on truth, I fear.

https://reason.com/2019/07/18/judge-rules-florida-can-require-a-license-to-give-out-diet-tips/

Kevin R

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
We eat chicken when we're not eating hamburger. Pork is
currently very cheap, but the cheapest cuts Costco offers (which
is what Hal buys if I'm not on hand to stop him) are "boneless
ribs" which are not always entirely boneless and consist mostly
of fat and gristle.

Get the boneless loin chops at costco. They freeze well and they're
priced competitively. And they're very lean.

If you have a smoker, their boston butts are also a good deal (albeit
14 pounds). Once smoked and pulled, vacuum pack it in 3.5oz packages and freeze.
Stir in with hot dishes or scrambled eggs, use as sandwich meat, und so weiter.

[Carl Fink]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
I eat home-cooked hamburgers (because it's cheap protein) without
buns (because carbohydrates) a lot. If someone were to offer me
a veggieburger, I would have to take the bun off first.

I recall you have barely-controlled type 2 diabetes. I must therefore point
out that veggie burgers universally (in my experience) have carbs in them.
Cowburgers do not.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
AND DON'T MAKE YOUR CAT EAT VEGAN. (Unless, of course, she gets
to catch and eat her own mice. Then, as you please.) A cat
can't make her own taurine, without which she will first go blind
and then die.

Forcing an obligate carnivore onto a vegetarian diet is an act of

animal cruelty.

Post by Dimensional Traveler
So Vegans are practicing self-inflicted animal cruelty.

I don't think you know what an "obligate carnivore" is.

Hint: humans aren't.

(vide supra)

[Kevrob]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
AND DON'T MAKE YOUR CAT EAT VEGAN. (Unless, of course, she gets
to catch and eat her own mice. Then, as you please.) A cat
can't make her own taurine, without which she will first go blind
and then die.

Forcing an obligate carnivore onto a vegetarian diet is an act of

animal cruelty.

Post by Dimensional Traveler
So Vegans are practicing self-inflicted animal cruelty.

I don't think you know what an "obligate carnivore" is.

Hint: humans aren't.
(vide supra)com

For us Homo Saps, is "opportunistic omnivore" apt"?

Kevin R

[Dorothy J Heydt]

Post by Kevrob

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
AND DON'T MAKE YOUR CAT EAT VEGAN. (Unless, of course, she gets
to catch and eat her own mice. Then, as you please.) A cat
can't make her own taurine, without which she will first go blind
and then die.

Forcing an obligate carnivore onto a vegetarian diet is an act of

animal cruelty.

Post by Dimensional Traveler
So Vegans are practicing self-inflicted animal cruelty.

I don't think you know what an "obligate carnivore" is.

Hint: humans aren't.
(vide supra)com

For us Homo Saps, is "opportunistic omnivore" apt"?

Sounds good to me.

It has been said that humans are the ultimate omnivores:
everything that happens to us is dinner.

And, going back to the last subtopic but one, Hal just remarked
that he thought he'd read that brown rice had vitamin B12. So I
just searched for it, and got (in large type)

"0 micrograms"

(actually 0 mu g but I can't do Greek letters on USENET)

It does contain vitamins B1, B3, and B6.

[Peter Trei]

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Kevrob

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
AND DON'T MAKE YOUR CAT EAT VEGAN. (Unless, of course, she gets
to catch and eat her own mice. Then, as you please.) A cat
can't make her own taurine, without which she will first go blind
and then die.

Forcing an obligate carnivore onto a vegetarian diet is an act of

animal cruelty.

Post by Dimensional Traveler
So Vegans are practicing self-inflicted animal cruelty.

I don't think you know what an "obligate carnivore" is.

Hint: humans aren't.
(vide supra)com

For us Homo Saps, is "opportunistic omnivore" apt"?

Sounds good to me.
everything that happens to us is dinner.
And, going back to the last subtopic but one, Hal just remarked
that he thought he'd read that brown rice had vitamin B12. So I
just searched for it, and got (in large type)
"0 micrograms"
(actually 0 mu g but I can't do Greek letters on USENET)
It does contain vitamins B1, B3, and B6.

There are groups (Jains, for example) who try to maintain an extreme
lacto-vegan diet. Its thought that they manage this because, historically,
they inadvertently eat some insects containing B12 in their vegetables.
Older, modern Jains are often B12 deficient.

pt

[Peter Trei]

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Peter Trei

Post by Dorothy J Heydt

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Lynn McGuire
Arlo and Janis: mystery meat
https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2019/10/03
I'm with Arlo.

I think that being meat is a _drawback_ of "mystery meat", and that
veggieburgers aren't that bad. But I would recommend Vitamin B12 supplements to
anyone who wishes to eat them exclusively, instead of eating real meat of a
known type.

And, please, if you're going to go that route, get _Diet for a
Small Planet_ and study up on combining your vegetation so as to
get enough complete proteins.
AND DON'T MAKE YOUR CAT EAT VEGAN. (Unless, of course, she gets
to catch and eat her own mice. Then, as you please.) A cat
can't make her own taurine, without which she will first go blind
and then die.

Forcing an obligate carnivore onto a vegetarian diet is an act of animal cruelty.

So Vegans are practicing self-inflicted animal cruelty.

The only vegans *forced* onto a vegan diet are children of vegans. The
consequences can be devastating:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/22/australia/australia-vegan-baby-intl-hnk-trnd/index.html

pt

[s***@yahoo.com]

I want to try the synth-burger because it is an old SF trope. Now,
for B-12, I thought there was some seaweed that provided it. Maybe
the burgers ought to have a B-12 component.

Nils

[J. Clarke]

Post by s***@yahoo.com
I want to try the synth-burger because it is an old SF trope. Now,
for B-12, I thought there was some seaweed that provided it. Maybe
the burgers ought to have a B-12 component.

Which synth-burger?

The one that is supposed to be most like real meat at the moment is
Impossible Burger. I keep meaning to hit Red Robin to try one. It
does have B12, but whether as a fortification or as a result of
bioengineering I have no idea--it does have bioengineered components.