Brainsploosh

It's scary to me that the daily casualty rate just keeps rising.

Definitely a grinding war...

Aww, I thought we were talking about Rimworld

Thank you, will check it out!

Very nice writeup, thank you!

I came across the topic of AI security, and been reading up on it, but as I have a weak background in Machine learning, I'm not really able to follow the frontier discourse.

I'd very much appreciate any recommendations as to where to find more foundational level materials for getting into it. Any tips?

This is actually a great write up for beginner cooks. Well written!

I'd like to emphasise a thing that I found not as clear as the rest: When planning when to start cooking things, I find that starting from the end and planning backwards is helpful.

I want it done by 18:30. Plating takes 2 minutes, food needs done 18:28 latest. Meat takes 8 minutes, so should start 18:20 latest, veg takes 6 minutes but can be done at the same time - 18:24. Etc.

This is hard when you start out, but after having fried meat and boiled veggies a few times you'll get an idea both of how long it takes, how much you can manage at a time, and how much time is lost in the other things (getting plates, getting burnt, forgetting stuff, etc).

If you're the type of ND that doesn't work backwards, you either use your strategies, or perhaps group tasks in roughly equal blocks. Maybe chopping onions & garlic, browning them and then frying the meat in the same pan takes 20 minutes, which might be the same as boiling potatoes.

On the topic of kitchen cheating/checking.

You can taste things to adjust seasoning, use a spoon (like a teaspoon), dip it, blow/wait for it to cool, and taste it. Start with salt and main flavor, and as you get more experienced you can add more nuanced stuff ("this needs some orange zest" is a ways down the road).

Also: for any meats, eggs, fish, and flour dishes (and some others) you can use an oven thermometer for perfect results.

Look up and print out a temperature chart and you can have your dishes perfectly cooked every time, no dryness, gummyness or undercooking.

I feel you, I was in basically the same situation when I first learnt cooking. I just wanted some good, nutritious eats without burning my home, hands or wallet.

Cooking can be a way to nutrition, but it can also be a lot of fun experimenting and getting to know your own preferences.

My suggestion would be to a) face that this is going to be a process, there's both knowledge skill, time and planning to be sunk into this before you get good, b) get a basic level cookbook, c) simplify.

First of all, you won't gain several years of cooking experience without putting in the work. We're working baby steps, but we can do them in a way that's fun for adults.

You can almost certainly learn one recipe and one variant per week. This is usually much more fun as you get to pick and plan for the thing, and have a second go at something you'd like to.

Recipe books come in different qualities, and with different readers in mind. Have a browse through second-hand books, stores, online reviews and find a sensible home style cooking book. Make sure you can follow the recipes and that align with what you'd like to learn. We had a whole no-nonsense home cooking movement in the 70s here with recipes that are pragmatic, easy to adapt and hilariously different to current recipe culture (50 word recipe, vs 4000 words about the author's mother).

The reason to pick a book is to keep to one author and not switch between different cooking styles or writing styles, and have a way to check off progress. Also you'll learn what adaptations you prefer: more garlic? Less grains? More cowbell? Etc.

A good way to start is with something you know you like, a promising recipe and a few tries (maybe spaced over a week or so). You mentioned pancakes and French toast, maybe try a Spanish omelette, or a German (oven) pancake? Maybe eventually a fried rice?

As for variants, it's not harder than trying it either with slightly different ingredients (mushrooms instead of bell peppers) or in a different way/recipe (maybe the recipe was stupid). This also helps you learn what are the important parts, and what can be changed, in any recipe.

Last tip is to simplify. You're in this for the long haul. Maybe start with cooking 2 meals a week, or one per day, or whatever is only a little challenging to you. Don't do all different recipes, start with one, and branch to a few with time. You'll learn both how and when to vary your menu as you go along, meanwhile it's easier to progress (as well as cheaper and more nutritious) to keep to fewer but good recipes in a rotation.

For me, I keep to about 5 dishes per week, with two prepped big batch recipes for most of it, and a "novel" dish/day from a pool of recipes. Easy to shop for, easy to vary, and very little day-to-day planning.

As for cookware it depends on style of cooking. I'm European and we enjoy cooking from raw ingredients, so I mostly use two knives (one sharp good quality chefs knife, and a smaller knife), a good cutting board (wood!), a skillet (IKEA carbon steel is lovely), a spatula, pots (2 and 5 l, with lids), a whisk/hand mixer, an oven safe tray, some measures, a spoon for tasting.

There's some other nice to haves: like fruit peelers, oven mitts, kitchen towels, a tranche skillet (deep skillet), a colander, garlic press, etc.

But you'll figure that out as you find what ingredients come often.

As you continue learning one recipe at a time, some of them will stick with you, bookmark those, and most will be one-and-done. Between them and the variants, you should be able to both learn a bunch of useful recipes to put into rotation, as well as how to vary them according to season/pantry, but most importantly what you enjoy in your food. Nothing tastes quite like home cooked, because it tastes just how you like it.

Good luck on your culinary journey!

I have a background as a technical specialist and consultant, but not in software. Is the best way to transition through a re-education? Or are there other steps to try out the industry before committing years of school?

Also, how is the career prospects within the current mass IT layoffs?

So happy for you! The world is better off for your empathy and care <3

Thank you for letting me help, and hope you both have a better life from your encounter!

Getting a cat to come to you is easy, you give it food and pets, and then stay calm when it's eating/enjoying.

Repeat until you've built trust, a sick or hurt cat will typically take longer to trust. Count on several days of repeating this without hitches (no sudden loud noise while you're doing it, etc).

Sometimes cats are desperate and everything turns up in a magical, calm way without bloodshed. But more commonly the next part is trickier, the cat will resist you picking it up (especially if hurt) or shutting it in.

Trick here is to be decisive and clear in your body language. Prepare a cat carry box with hard sides, feel free to prepare it with some textile smelling of you, be mindful that it will almost certainly be pissed on. Also bring a towel.

You will have to, in a calm manner, put the folded towel over the cat, and with it lift the cat into the carry. The towel is to trap legs so you won't be scratched, and if you manage to have it snugly around the cat, there's also a way to calm cats by gently pressing them down.

If you are unsure, slow, nervous, or hesitate in your movement, the cat will bolt. If you're too fast, loud, or big in movements, it will as well. Relax and do it in a deliberate motion.

If you release the cat from the carry, it will take considerable time to rebuild trust. Consider either going with it to the vet at once, or let it out in a quiet spare room with food, water, and litter box, and giving it a day or three to get accustomed to the room before letting it explore the rest of the place.

Don't get scratched by the cat, they can have some pretty nasty stuff on the paws, and some transmittable pathogens if anything draws blood or gets in your face/eyes.

Good luck!

Cats do pant, but also run hotter and enjoy higher temperatures than humans (24-26 °C depending on race).

Also, cats have lots of ways to release heat, cats can arrange their fur to release more heat (or burr it to trap more), they lay on cool ground, they can lick themselves for evaporative cooling, and of course seek shade when it gets hot.

We had a hot summer with temperatures of over 30 °C indoors and I got worried my European shorthair would overheat, got them a gel pad that wicks away heat when laid upon, but they thought it was ridiculous and just laid on the concrete floor in the shade whenever too hot and was super comfy and lazy.

That's actually a very cool idea.

Do a proper SS leather jacket but with a defiled swastika all over the back (so no one can mistake it) and reclaim it?

I'd probably not use the red band.

And would this become problematic in a decade when the jackets get normalised and mainstream (probably without the punk defiling)?