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Cake day: June 5th, 2025

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  • That’s fair, you’re probably right.

    Still, my original reason for making a comment is probably true, too: the actual displacement of Native Americans from Texas probably mostly happened at the hands of European Americans who weren’t Spanish, because the Spanish were themselves displaced before Texas was “settled” by European Americans.


  • Uncooked ham is pretty common in the U.S., too. Anything labeled “country ham” is dry cured, and is usually uncooked. Prosciutto generally isn’t cooked, either.

    In terms of imports, the U.S. has approved the importation of some Spanish hams (jamón ibérico and jamón serrano) that are cured but not cooked, as well as uncooked prosciutto from Italy. The regulatory hoops are a little more difficult and hard for small producers to justify, but there are a handful of producers who have received the appropriate approvals to export to the U.S.


  • When Spain claimed sovereignty over the area now known as Texas, they didn’t actually have de facto control.

    A big chunk of modern day residents of Texas trace their lineage back to waves of German and Czech migration. One large wave showed up in the 1830’s and 1840’s, negotiated a treaty with the Comanches who still controlled the land, and established German-speaking settlements through much of Central Texas. So actual control over the land was established by Germans more than it was Spanish.

    Even in the portions of Texas conquered by Spanish settlers have now been settled by people who don’t trace back to those Spaniards. The Spanish-speaking people of Texas declared independence with the rest of Mexico and became Mexicans. Then, after the war of Texas Independence, were mostly driven out by English-speaking Texians who had migrated from America (and largely trace back to to English, Scottish, or Irish migrants).

    So no, modern day Texans are more German than they are Spanish. Just because the Spanish were the first to do it doesn’t mean that they or their descendants actually held the land in the centuries that followed.


  • National Highway Traffic Safety Administration passed regulations in the late 70’s requiring active safety features of either an airbag system or automatic seat belts by the late 80’s (the legal saga of those regulations coming into effect is its own long story). Then, in 1995, airbags became mandatory, so the automatic seatbelt systems became redundant for regulatory compliance. And culturally, by 1995 people actually were choosing to wear their seatbelts, so that the automatic seatbelt systems didn’t actually make as big of a difference in practice.


  • True bliss is being able to live the serenity prayer (at least stripped of the religious aspects): the courage to change the things you can, the serenity to accept the things you can’t, and the wisdom to know the difference.

    People who feel burdened by knowledge tend to be bad at separating the concept of things that are bad and things that you should actually worry about.

    Ignorance of danger might be good for happiness if you’re powerless to stop it. But it might be bad for happiness if you suffer harm that you didn’t have to, just because of your own ignorance. People who live like that sometimes feel like they’re just tossed around by the world, powerless against the forces that affect their lives.




  • In the U.S., ODB-I was mandated beginning in model year 1988, and ODB-II was mandated for all cars beginning in model year 1996. Technically, California mandated it, but the manufacturers all made their entire U.S. models comply with California rules for easier logistics.

    ODB-I had terrible standardization and requires a bunch of model/make specific stuff to properly interface with, but in theory the 35-year old cars do have some kind of data port available.


  • Some people at this time said the “process” was art not the painting hanging in the museum

    To expand a bit on the idea that the process itself is as important, or more important, than the resulting work standing in isolation, there are a bunch of examples of people really enjoying the “behind the scenes” or “how it’s made” aspects of art.

    I happen to love OK Go’s single-take music videos in large part because they are absurdly complex projects requiring precise planning and tight execution. And you can see that the resulting work (a music video) is aesthetically pleasing, and can simultaneously be impressed at the methods used in actually filming that one take, from their early low budget stuff like Here We Go Again, or stuff like the zero gravity Upside Down and Inside Out, or even this year’s releases with technological assistance from programmed phone screens or robot arms holding mirrors.

    Another example I like is James Cook making paintings out of typed pages in a typewriter.

    There’s a lot of stuff with sculpture and painting that have these aspects where the methods used to make it are inherently interesting, and explain some of the features in the art itself.


  • which is near impossible to get solely from unprocessed plant based foods.

    You’re remembering wrong. Your body needs the essential amino acids (histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine), and most plants don’t have all of them, but pretty much any combination of a grain (wheat, rice, oats, corn/maize) and a legume (beans, peas, lentils, chickpeas, green beans, peanuts) will have all of them.

    So yeah, you won’t get all of them from bread, and you won’t get all of them from peanut butter, but you will get all of them from a peanut butter sandwich. Or a bean burrito. Or rice and beans. Or rice and peas.


  • I was playing around with the numbers in another comment, and concluded that someone like me, with a target consumption or 165 g of protein and 2800 calories, simply needed to average out to 5.9g of protein per 100 calories. Several whole plant foods are above this:

    • Peas: 6.4 g protein per 100 calories
    • Beans: 6.7 g per 100
    • Lentils: 7.8 g per 100
    • Mushrooms: 7.7 g per 100
    • Broccoli: 6.8 g per 100

    And while looking at fermented cabbage in particular, that’s actually got some really good numbers, presumably because the microbes preferentially metabolize the sugars and carbs:

    • Kimchi: 7.4 g per 100
    • Sauerkraut: 4.8 g per 100

    The more active one is, and the higher the calorie needs, the easier it is to hit the target of .78g protein per pound of bodyweight while still hitting overall caloric needs. It’s the restricted cutting diets that make it hardest.

    Then again, easy for me to talk because I’m always hungry and have never had trouble eating enough. Even still, though, I rely heavily on dairy for my protein goals. It’s the easiest way to plan out macros.


  • You’re spot on.

    Too much of the bro science passed around in the lifting/fitness community is based on misremembered or misunderstood details of studies, that people have extrapolated well beyond the scope of that study.

    It is true that plant proteins are less bioavailable to humans when eaten, compared to animal proteins. But even the slightest amount of processing will go a long way towards improving the bioavailability of either animal or plant proteins, and closes the gap significantly.

    So when comparing what people actually eat, it’s not hard to get enough protein from vegan sources like bread, pasta, etc.

    A 200 lb (91 kg) man who wants to get the ideal 165 g of protein on 2800 calories per day can go a long way by simply eating a peanut butter sandwich. At 4g protein per 80 calorie slice of bread, and 16 g protein per 2 fl oz/380 calorie portion of peanut butter, that’s 24 g protein in a 540 calorie sandwich. That’s 14.5% of the ideal daily protein intake in 19.3% of the ideal calorie intake, only slightly below track.

    Actually seeking out high protein per calorie foods like peas (8.6 g protein for 134 calories serving or 6.4 g per 100 calories), broccoli (2.4 g protein for 35 calories or 6.8 g per 100), or beans (15 g protein for 225 calories for 6.7 per 100) makes it easy to hit the total protein goal without exceeding the calorie target. Plenty of those are better than 80/20 ground beef (19g per 280 calories for 6.8g per 100) or hot dogs (5.6 g per 155 calorie serving for 3.6g per 100).

    The man I described as aiming for 165g of protein per 2800 calorie day needs to average out to 5.9 g per 100 calories. Some of the foods that exceed that break-even threshold are versatile enough to be included in many meals.


  • If gym bros were philosophically opposed to hyper processed foods, whey protein (and all sorts of other animal-derived protein supplements) wouldn’t be as popular as they are. Whey used to be a nearly free byproduct of the dairy industry, and now is instead a key ingredient in supplement powders and bars and also processed food manufacturing for high protein versions of things like waffles and coffee drinks and even candy.

    I’m a pretty serious lifter and I get most of my protein from a combination of legumes (probably 3-6 servings per day), processed dairy like cheeses and yogurts (probably 4-6 servings per day), and grains (probably 5-10 servings per day). I eat meat almost every day, but the actual macronutrient profile of my daily intake shows that most of my protein is coming from non-meat sources.

    Hell, a typical hot dog on a bun has half of its protein in the bun (about 5g) and half the protein in the hot dog (about 5g).

    It’s not hard to get enough protein from plant sources. Almost every civilization in history was build around a staple grain and a staple legume, which generally provides sufficient protein to cover people’s needs. If you’re trying to do more, like lift heavy weights, meat makes it somewhat easier to satisfy the higher protein requirements, but industrial processing is really the cheat code, whether we’re talking dairy or isolated protein from crops.



  • I live in a walkable neighborhood, and I have a version of this with the other parents in our neighborhood, where we have a designated night of the week where anyone who can make it meets up at one of the patio restaurants where the kids can run around while the parents hang out. Not everyone makes it every week, but we’ve got a good group of friends.