I have a cold. It’s not a really bad one, but it’s making me tired and a little achy. And therefore somewhat irritable.
You’d think that would make it easier to run a website about complaining, but it turns out that’s not the case. I should be back to normal in a few days.
FDA OKs Food From Cloned Animals – washingtonpost.com
Because scientists concluded there is no difference between food from clones and food from other animals, “it would be unlikely that FDA would require labeling in those cases,” Sundlof said.
I saw this today on Accidental Hedonist, and now on the Washington Post. The issue here is not safety, or how different or not different clones are from normal animals. The issue is that some people don’t like the idea of cloning, and don’t want to eat a cloned animal.
Personally, I don’t care if the animal was cloned. I don’t care if nano-scale assembly robots built my prime rib from individual carbon atoms. I’ll eat it either way. But I want to know what I’m eating. Give people the information to choose for themselves, and I’m happy.
While I was at my father-in-law’s over Christmas, I got a chance to hang out with my new nephews (New to me – they’re the sons of my brother- and sister-in-law). The older one, not pictured here, I’d met before. Benjamin, above, I’d met before, but he’s still pretty young. This is the first time I’ve hung out with him since he could really communicate. Two days ago, he was asking to play golf. There’s a nerf golf set in the basement, and the kids like to go down and play, but Benjamin is a little small to do it himself. I happened to walk by the kitchen as people were cooking dinner and Benjamin was looking for an escort into the basement. My wife told him to ask me, since I wasn’t busy cooking. So he did, and he and I went downstairs. He carefully set up all the little plastic holes. I put the flags on the sticks for him, and he put them in the slots where they belong. Then he hit the ball around a bit (His short game needs work, but he’s got the “put the ball in the hole” part down). Then he looked at me and said, “All done.”
And then, to my amazement, he started putting everything away. He gathered the holes (I had to help him remove the flags) and put everything back in the box. I only prompted him for one or two pieces that he forgot, and only after he had started cleaning on his own. When everything was put away, he said, “Go see mommy.” And we went back upstairs.
Watching little kids like that has always fascinated me. I wonder about the thought process that goes on in his head. Sometimes I think they couldn’t possibly be comprehending what it seems like they are.
I guess it’s good practice for when I have my own kids.
A woman in the hallway at work just told me I look like Taylor from American Idol. I’m not sure I agree. Maybe it’s just the grey hair.
I’ve heard more often that I look like Claudio Reyna.
I think I’d rather look like Claudio Reyna.
And I’m reading a new book. I got a bunch of books from my in-laws, and I’ve started reading Radical Evolution by Joel Garreau. It’s about a group of fundamentalist Christian zealots who start blowing up buildings to protest the teaching of evolution in schools.
I’m just kidding. It’s actually non-fiction about the marriage of technology and evolution, and whether we are approaching “The Singularity“, which is basically the tipping point beyond which there is a fundamental change in what it means to be human. This is not the only view of the Singularity, but this is more or less the view he’s going with. So far I’m more or less buying it. He makes some assumptions that I don’t think are true, but none of them are really important to his hypothesis. It’s a little scary/exciting, because he and others he quotes are expecting huge changes in not just the way we live, but the way we are. And they’re expecting them in the next few decades.
I’ll keep you all posted on how it’s going. If I start getting a little existential here, tell me to take a break from the science and go watch some reality tv. Nothing will destroy my faith in the imminent transcendence of humanity quicker than a few hours of prime time television.
Techdirt: Who’ll Pay For C3PO’s Social Security Benefits?
The paper admits we won’t be worrying about any of this for at least another twenty years, assuming robots can first hurdle the monumental task of self-sustained bipedal movement sans fatality.
This has been going around for the last few days – how will we handle things when we have artificial intelligences demanding citizenship? Frankly, I don’t think it will be that big a deal. Things are likely to be very different around here by the time robots are thinking enough to want citizenship, and this change will just be rolled into all the rest of them. Not that we don’t have to think about it – we’ll definitely have to really examine the changes and figure out a long-term solution. But it’s not like we’re suddenly going to have hundreds of thousands of thinking robots taking social security benefits all at once.
I posted this article rather than any other simply because of the “self-sustained bipedal movement sans fatality”, because I’m a dork.
I’m at work until lunchtime today, and then home to finish packing and head off to the in-laws’. It still sounds weird to talk about going to my father-in-law’s house. This is my first Christmas away from home, so it should be an experience. I’m a little sad to be away from my family, but this was inevitable at some point, and I’m excited to experience my wife’s family Christmas. It promises to be more hectic than mine.
That said, don’t expect much posting until I get back next week. I’ll have computer access there, but I don’t expect to use it very often. And without my stored passwords, I may forget how to login here to post anything. But I imagine most of you will be similarly busy with family and holiday celebrations and just not being at work.
So, happy holidays, whichever holidays it may be that you do or don’t celebrate.
Well, it wasn’t really angry, exactly. Puzzled is probably more accurate. But it’s here, along with Safeway’s response. Well, along with a summary of Safeway’s response, because their email to me had a “don’t share this with anyone or we’ll shoot you” note at the bottom.
_Note: Safeway did not actually threaten to shoot me. I just said that for effect. _
I recently purchased a carton of Safeway brand organic milk from the Safeway near my house. After drinking the milk, I rinsed the carton, and then asked my wife whether it could be recycled with the bottles and cans, or if we had to take it with the cardboard. She didn’t know. So I checked the carton.
To my utter shock and dismay, I found no indication that the carton was recyclable at all! This is organic milk, friendly to cows, friendly to the environment, but the carton has to go in the trash? I hoped that I was just missing the mark on the carton that explained how to recycle it.
I went to Safeway online and filled out their contact form.
I purchased a carton of your Safeway brand organic milk, and the carton does not seem to be recycleable. Is this true? While I applaud Safeway’s efforts to provide a greater selection of certified organic foods, I would hope that you would also provide more environmentally friendly packaging.
I’m not allowed to print their response because it might contain Safeway proprietary information. I’m not sure if their little disclaimer would stand up in court, but I don’t really want to get an email from their lawyer. But I can summarize.
Thank you for your email. Sorry it took so long to respond. Thanks for telling us that you can’t recycle the organic milk carton. Your comments are important to us. We’re glad you’re buying our organic products, even though the “O” symbol we use reminds people of Oprah. We’re going to have more organic products in the future, and we hope Oprah isn’t just waiting for us to get further along before she sues us. We’ll file your comments away somewhere, and probably no one will ever read them, even though we told you that they would. Thanks for contributing to the bottom line – some executive just got a million dollar bonus for heading up the organic initiative.
Safeway may or may not have said all those things. I’m not sure. Maybe they should have let me reprint it verbatim to make sure I haven’t misquoted them.
There are a lot of hidden and unexpected benefits to growing up. Many of the benefits are obvious: You can drive, you have a real income, you don’t get funny looks from convenience store clerks . . . the list goes on. But then there are the things you never thought about.
Right up there on that list is that you have the maturity to know that there’s nothing wrong with going to bed really early when you’re tired. I generally go to bed between 11 and 11:30, since I get up at 6:15. Last night, the wife and I met some friends out for dinner and got home around 9pm. We were both pretty tired – It’s been kind of a long, stressful week. So we went to bed at 9:30.
What a difference. I feel much better this morning. Sometimes, you need to get a few extra hours of sleep, and sometimes it isn’t feasible to do that by sleeping in.
I won’t be in bed early tonight because I have to take the cat to the babysitter’s. Her old owners are watching her while I’m at my in-laws’ for Christmas. And of course I can’t just drive down there when I get out of work, because traffic is hideous. So I’ll have to wait until 7:30 or so. It’s an hour each way to their house, and I can’t imagine I won’t stay for a bit (They’re some of my best friends as well as cat-sitters).
So, I have a few recommendations for all of you: