chromedome

This. So much this. As many of you will recall I'm a freelancer, and I write a lot on topics related to internet safety, scam avoidance, etc. One really large and growing issue is that so many of these "smart" Internet of Things (IoT) devices can't be meaningfully patched or upgraded once they're in the field, which means that any vulnerabilities in their aging chipsets can be exploited for the remainder of their operational life. Sometimes there's no direct harm (you wouldn't know if your fridge or combi-oven was dragooned into a botnet), but in other cases attackers can gain access to your home network and many of the attached devices. You know, the ones containing your banking information, etc (not to mention the ones with mics and cameras).

I've seen Christmas dinners packed that way, on the "No Context Brits" Twitter feed. A perfect illustration of the aphorism that "just because you (ahem) can, doesn't mean you should." On a completely unrelated note, my daughter just sent me this one:

Some of you may be seeing these headlines already in your morning news, but the avian flu virus (H5N1) has been detected in grocery-store milk; or more accurately fragments of the virus' RNA have been detected in milk. There is further testing underway to see if a viable virus can be cultured from any of the test samples, but the expectation is that the answer will be "No" (this is what pasteurization is for, after all). RNA fragments would be present even if the virus itself was killed. https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/23/health/bird-flu-milk-fda/index.html After the events of the past few years epidemiologists and virologists are well-represented in my Twitter feed, and the consensus at present could be described as "this is concerning, but not yet alarming." The real threat (touched on in this article, and amplified in several I've seen elsewhere) is that the virus mutates enough to spread to hogs, either directly from cattle or after jumping back into birds. Viruses that adapt to hogs can then make the jump to humans, and in the (so far rare) cases when H5N1 has made that jump it has not gone well for the human involved.

Or have Henry do it. The Airedales I've known have had disapproving glares down cold.

I had a young Chinese gent work for me at my restaurant, a recent graduate of the culinary program at our community college. I guess he was from somewhere in the environs of Beijing, but the name of the place meant nothing to me and he explained that it was where they'd held the rowing events at the Beijing Olympics. Not that this matters. I was gifted a Big Green Egg at around this time (long story, which I may or may not have told) and was doing barbecue on Fridays. The first time I smoked a pork shoulder for pulled pork, I gave samples to the servers and to him. He chewed it thoughtfully for a moment and commented that it was not unlike they way they cooked dog back where he was from. The servers were horrified. The poor guy had no idea he'd offended them, and thought it odd that they were so short with him for the rest of the night. I explained to him afterward that this was a cultural thing, and that he should probably just avoid the subject around locals.

This one's Ontario only: Mowi brand Norwegian cold-smoked salmon is being recalled for potential botulism. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/mowi-brand-norwegian-atlantic-salmon-cold-smoked-recalled-due-potential-presence?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23

To my eye we've passed the point of diminishing returns, there, and have reached "perverse incentive" status. The cords are now short enough that those of us whose kitchens weren't built within the past decade are mostly forced to use an extension. Thankfully most of my current appliances are of the "vintage" variety and have a cord of usable length.

I was just explaining the Two Tone movement/music to my GF two nights ago, as we watched the designer on a reno show do a kitchen all in black and white. I commented that I'd need to listen to vintage ska in order to cook in that room, and it kind of snowballed from there.

Seemed appropriate to this thread: Amazon's abandoning its aspirations toward "just walk out" technology (because it, uh... doesn't work, and never did). https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/amazon-ends-ai-powered-store-checkout-which-needed-1000-video-reviewers/ On an unrelated note, at a Walmart in NS, I recently discovered that the self-check kiosk now maintains a watchful eye for items which are placed in the bagging area but not scanned (in this case, my bag). A clip of me putting the bag in the bagging area repeated on endless loop until the staffer monitoring the area came and cleared it.

Doing ours today, because the other grandparents had theirs yesterday. Got a turkey because my GF can't eat ham or lamb. Thinking I might break it down and roll up 3/4 of the bird inside its skin as a boneless roast. Got broccoli, cauli and asparagus for veg, and a small buttercup squash that was on sale. Treatment of same, and a final call on dessert, TBD.

It's funny 'cause it's true... https://www.theonion.com/report-saying-smells-okay-precedes-85-of-foodborne-1819579726

Hot-cross pizza buns seem an odd notion, but I guess I can't throw stones. Supermarkets up here haven't hit on that one yet, but they've started making hot-cross buns for every holiday, not just Easter.

LOL "Don't leave home without it..." I'll have to take a look at my local Marshall's. I have no immediate need for anything, but if they have Mauviel at a manageable price I might talk myself into something. On second thought, I should probably stay out of Marshall's for a while. I might talk myself into something.

Well, profit is always a pretty safe assumption. A less cynical view is that there have been a number of massive, well-publicized culls of battery chickens due to bird flu and (probably) other illnesses over the past few years. I'm not privy to the decision-making process here, but I expect switching from "no antibiotics ever" to NAIHM gives them more leeway to deal with illness in the flocks while still maintaining the primary goal of not filling humans with antibiotic-resistant pathogens. ...or at least, in theory. I haven't done the necessary reading to know how well-founded that might be.