My very first loaves of #sourdough are out of the oven!

#baking #bread

@jvschrag I think I scored around 85–90%.

I couldn’t remember Eswatini, but I knew it was formerly Swaziland. That’s what I get for spending hours staring at NatGeo maps spread out on the floor in the ‘70s.

Reviewing Classic Christmas Stories As A Klingon:

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. A Ferenghi businessman is haunted by three spirits who attempt to remind him of his honor. The Ferenghi should have simply slain the demons who attacked him. 3/5 Christmas Bat'leths. Glory to Tiny Tim!

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry. Two pathetic humans attempt a mating ceremony in which they sell their most prized possessions in order to purchase gifts for each other. Incomprehensible. Why does the female not simply bite the male to show her affection. 1/5 Christmas Bat'leths.

The Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffman. A child's toy comes to life and defeats the evil Rat King in glorious hand-to-hand combat. Then the toy's honor is memorialized in dance and song. A true warrior's tale! 5/5 Christmas Bat'leths.

A Charlie Brown Christmas by Charles M. Shulz. A young warrior struggles with internal demons of self-doubt and depression. While selecting a Christmas tree, he symbolically chooses one which reflects how he views himself - a weak tree, unable to support even a single ornament. He lashes out at those he considers his closest friends, attempting to remind them of their honor, and eventually gives up, believing his efforts were ultimately meaningless. But he is mistaken. His words were spoken with the heart of a true Klingon warrior, and his friends wrap the tree in their most prized possessions, giving it the strength to stand on its own, holding the weight of ornaments many times its own weight over. They gather around and sing songs of bravery and courage, and remind the young Klingon that he too will be welcomed into Sto-vo-Kor. Because sometimes the greatest battle a warrior will ever fight is the one inside his own mind and heart. 6/5 Christmas Bat'leths. Glory to the House of Brown.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr Seuss. A cautionary tale. A Klingon from a lowly house is shunned by his peers and forced to live without honor on the outskirts of town. Instead of seeking honor and glory on his own like a true Klingon, he instead sneaks around under cover of darkness and steals the town's presents with the help of his faithful targ. As punishment, Kah'less removes his warrior spirit and he is doomed to stay in the small town facing his dishonor every day. If he had the heart of a warrior, he would have done battle against Whoville and claimed the glory of Christmas for his own. 4/5 Christmas Bat'leths.

The Nightmare Before Christmas by Tim Burton. The King of Halloween Town assigns three children to kidnap the demon Sandy Claws because he is a coward who refuses to fight his own battles. They too fail, because none of them possess the heart of a warrior. 0/5 Christmas Bat'leths. Tim Burton has no honor.

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer by Robert L. May. A young warrior is shunned by his peers due to a physical deformity. He leaves his family and house to seek his own glory. He returns after defeating a dentist, a filthy gold-loving Ferenghi prospector, and an abominable snowman. Recognizing his fearless warrior spirit, he is given the place of honor at the front of Santa's sleigh. 5/5 Christmas Bat'leths. Glory upon the House of Rudolph!

@aburtch The right pedal on a pedal steel allows fading in of notes, which I'm not hearing on this track. The left pedals allow shifting of the chord without moving the hands, which I'm also not hearing here.

@ShiitakeToast Cars depreciate remarkably quickly too. If you're going to spend your ill-gotten gains on a vehicle, at least buy an old classic that will only go up in value.

@aburtch Are you sure this is pedal steel? It sounds like lap steel to me.

@sundogplanets Heard this one many years ago, except involving Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

@aburtch I will never not click on a link advertising pedal steel.

@northernlights Massachusetts sent aid (both monetary and personnel) after the Halifax explosion in 1917. It's why Halifax sends Boston a ceremonial Christmas tree each year — even this year!

@galaxis I know that LLMs are the magic pixie dust than enable machine translation. It’s the extra layer of “creativity” that bothers me.

About a year ago I was using Google Translate to translate 5th century Greek poetry into Latin. I know a little Latin, but not enough. I did a little massaging of the result and showed it to a former Latin teacher, who told me it was almost perfect.

I have no assurance that it would be accurate now.

Now that Google Translate is no longer giving as literal a translation as it can, but is letting AI tell you what it thinks the meta-meaning is, what non-enshittified online resource do you recommend for translation?

#AskFedi #NoAI

@Alice I accidentally reported you to the authorities for gender non-viscosity, subversive lockpicking, and excessive cuteness.

The authorities said, “Get lost. Nobody’s /that/ cool.”

@CoinOfNote I wonder what the chances are that these Vasilopita coins were minted for use by the not insignificant number of British Cypriots, who might have had a cultural memory of the gold sovereign. Probably a pretty small chance, but a chance nonetheless.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@SouthDakota/115691435947542454

The new Ceaușescu. #uspol

It's interesting to consider what a world without advertisements would look like. The whole purpose of advertisement is to cause one to covet what one would otherwise not have thought of purchasing.

If I only bought what I realized I want/need without external stimulus, I would have a lot less expensive crap clogging up my home.

Without advertisement, would TV and radio have been a thing? The internet? What would our economy look like?

@CoinOfNote @numismatics The weird thing about a queen showing up on a Vasilopita coin is that Vasilopita is baked in honor of St. Basil (aka Vasiilios), whose day falls on January 1. The name Basil comes from the noun Basileus, which means king or emperor. You'd think that they'd either depict St. Basil or a Byzantine emperor.

Nowadays Vasilopita recipes suggest you wrap the coin in foil or parchment paper before baking.

@dc It’s a Rocoto Manzano

I ordered three packets of seeds from Refining Fire Chiles, and today I received my shipment. They included five additional packets of pepper seeds for free! Now I get to read up on what the other peppers are like.

superhotchiles.com

#Gardening #Peppers