Never mind being harangued…

…about the horrible danger of eating ultra-processed foods. Now those scientist people are inventing fake coffee. 

This pseudo-coffee can be made from a variety of ingredients, including chickpeas and “upcycled” agricultural waste like date pits. Other approaches use lab-grown cells from actual coffee plants.

And fake chocolate.

Already, Voyage Foods sells a nut-free, cocoa-free Nutella alternative nationwide at Walmart.

 [The quotes are from a Wall Street Journal article here on Apple News+ and here on the paper's web site, if you subscribe.]

Eliot said the world would end not with a bang, but a whimper. 

Turns out, maybe not even with a decent cup of coffee.

Yep, and do it

Microsoft is changing how you log in to your accounts

The company said Thursday that users logging in to Microsoft 365 workplace software, Copilot, Xbox and Skype can now use “passkeys” rather than traditional passwords or an authenticator app. That means whatever biometric authentication (such as a thumbprint or face ID) you use to open your phone or computer will be all you need to access your Microsoft account. Passkeys are available on desktop and mobile browsers starting Thursday, with support for mobile apps in the coming weeks, the company said.

Actually I've been doing it for a couple of months now but if Thusrday is good enough for WaPo it's good enough for me. It works fine, and it's easy to set up.

You will need, however, a password manager or an authenticator app; there are a number of good ones available free.  

The New York Times…

 …has noticed the little bloom of protests taking place on college campuses around the U.S. and is concerned about what affect this may have on someone named Mr. Biden.

But as clashes on some campuses became increasingly destructive and arrests mounted across the country, Mr. Biden increased the distance between himself and some of the more radical activism on campuses. In remarks on Thursday, he struck a balance between defending free speech and describing what he saw as the limits of acceptable protest.

"Acceptable protest" is a provocative concept, to be sure. If the Times has assumed its readers will understand it, they have erred. But then I am only one. 

Is an acceptable protest a protest at all?

The plumbing…

 …is being worked on in the house today, which means the water to my apartment needs to be turned off for a little while. And it's remarkable how often I have to remember that while reaching, as is my deeply ingrained habit, for a faucet handle. 

This matter of ingrained habits and learned assumptions is one of the reasons we have flourished as a species. Imagine how it would be if, turning up at your place of work every morning, you had to relearn how to do your job again from scratch. Every day, forever, would be your first day there. (All of which is conditioned on whether you could figure out how to get to your place of work every morning successfully.)

Imagine if, every morning when you wake up, you had to decide whether the floor next to the bed would be a safe place to stand. And whether to take the risk.

It'll be nice when they get finished down there and I can get a few dishes washed.

Big suckers

 

The kids are fine

Franklin Tech student welds artistic bench for French King Bridge

Coates embarked on studying the bridge, counting and analyzing its beams and the structure’s colors. She used her time in class between the months of October and April to design and weld the bench by using metal inert gas (MIG) welding, a skill she’s used since her sophomore year. Coates noted she is in welding shop every other week to balance her academic work.

Getting old…

…somebody said, is like living in the same house all your life and then suddenly, unexpectedly, realizing somebody has moved all the furniture around and the pictures are hanging in different places. I'm having one of those moments now.

When did people start protesting with masks on?

I guess it's been going on awhile — OK, I'm slow.

I thought the whole idea about protesting was to stand up for something, and how can you stand up if you have no face? (Never mind. You know what I mean,)

A secret protest makes no sense.

And what is it if it's not about the style?