Cookie Thursday 7/10/25- Husband’s surprising cookie choice

My department has many favorite Cookie Thursday is a Thing cookies.

Some people prefer the triple pepper thumbprints. This is a cheddar cookie with triple pepper jelly in the thumbprint.

Some people go ga-ga for the Chex Mix that I make in December. I know that one is a fan favorite because when I go back for the tin it is emptied in record time.

Some people are partial to the OG CTIAT cookie. I made Twix cookies, both caramel and peanut butter.

Others are partial to the fruitcake cookie. Again in December.

But the overwhelming favorite of the department is the Jalapeño Chocolate Chip Cookie.

Even if jalapeños have been decreasing on the Scoville Scale for years as farmers’ practice natural selection for a milder pepper.

The point is that you never know how spicy the pepper will be until you cut it up and use it.

My garden has been sad, sad, sad this summer.

This is probably due to the the June heatwave. Or the over abundance of water because of thunderstorms. Or the wildlife.

Who knows.

I asked my husband last night what cookie I should make for CTIAT today.

To my surprise he said the Jalapeño Chocolate Chip.

He hates this cookie. But wanted me to make it today. So I did.

At least some of my coworkers were happy when I told them the cookie of the day.

~One hundred ten billion, three hundred seventy six million heart beats in 50 years.

How do you measure a lifetime?

Heck, how do measure age?

The number in the post title was garnered from 70 heart beats a minute times 60 minutes in an hour, twenty four hours in a day, 365 days a year, 50 years. Times them all together and you get 110,376,000,000 heartbeats.

This is based on an average heart beat of 70 beats per minute. Which is subject to race, age, sex, activity level, activity that is being performed. Lots of variables here. Even Google says between 60 and 100 beats per minute. Let’s just call it 70.

My husband keeps trying to wind me up about growing older. I say so what?

I also say that age is a state of mind.

And I don’t care about age.

I just care about getting there.

Of course, I also tell people who tell me that being old is for the birds that it beats being below ground. By that I mean it beats being dead.

Capiche?

No Tuesday Top of Mind 7/8/25- Review of When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi

No Tuesday Top of Mind for this Tuesday because I cannot get this book out of my head.

And also because there has been so much crap that has entered our consciousness in just the last 5 days as to require a little processing time.

Okay, it’s me. I require processing time.

AKA my mind is too full to discuss any of a number of things. From the supreme court giving the conman in the white house unchecked power to the minimal amount of reaction that I am getting from different source to the unfortunate but somehow warned of flooding in Texas to the idiotic yes-men in the federal legislature that are rubber stamping these inhumane practices to the attacks on healthcare to Medicaid being virtually unfunded through attrition because they put the bar so damned high to the continued attacks on higher education to to the file with names that didn’t want the names released disappearing tricks to the attacks by those who should know better but they are grasping at power anyway they can in any number of sectors to the thought of what will undoubtedly additional deaths to the concentration camp on American soil to apology we have to make to those who cried out never again and then they did it anyway to the women who are dying because of policies that purportedly put the child first, no matter that there is no child to the families who have been upended or straight up ended because of inhuman immigration policies to the man who has never heard the word no and paid attention to the boundary to any number of things.

This just in (July 8, 2025, 3:15pm)- to the conman who is “looking into” the take over of 2 American cities (DC and NY, if he doesn’t like their elections) because of the “red scare” that he is trying to engender. Well, the Muslim scare.

Ugh.

Cruelty is the point indeed. And so is irrationality.

To cleanse my mind, I will review When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi.

Published March 25, 2025 through Tor Books.

This book has been on my radar for quite some time. I massively enjoyed Starter Villain, which was released on September 19, 2023. But the first book I read by John Scalzi was Lock In, which was released on August 26, 2014. This was another of my library finds. I kept seeing it on the New Releases shelf and it mocked me until I picked it up.

Fabulous read but not the book I want to write about today.

I picked up this book from the library last week. It’s been on my library holds list for months.

I read it in two days.

I have thoughts. Many thoughts.

There will be spoilers for this book. But this is my take on this book.

Last chance for spoilers.

**************************************************************************************************

What struck me was the structured/unstructured path of the chapters. It wasn’t until I was nearly at the end that I realized that each chapter was numbered with a day since the moon had turned to cheese. And that the entire book takes place over 28 days, the length of a lunar cycle. This is genius and sneaks up on you.

Each chapter has a different voice and a different narrator. From a group of old men in a diner in the Midwest, one of whom is a retired philosopher, to the billionaire adrenaline junky, to the astronomy student whose entire academic life and potential career that has been upended, to the board of a bank who are worried at people pulling all their money out of the bank to live their bucket list, to the President of the United States and the First Lady getting ready for bed, to the writer who grew up a gifted and talented writer who got stuck on the first three chapters of her book to realize that there is no time, and more.

The first point is that the moon has suddenly, absurdly turned to cheese in an instant. Specifically around 1700 EST. Alarms were raised immediately when it was noticed.

Also the quarter moon is brighter than it should be in the sky. This brings to mind the moon shifting of the movie Bruce Almighty.

Of course, the moon mission that is a must do for the billionaire whose company developed the lander. Of course, the United States outsourced outer space to the billionaire class. Of course, the astronaut who was destined to be on that mission hears of the moon turning to cheese while on the phone with her mother.

Of course.

The following are notes straight from the notes app that I wrote to myself, annotated with page numbers. And also my stream of consciousness thoughts on the events of the book. I tried to match these up as best as I could. Your thoughts and notes will be different.

Philosophy. Astronomy student feeling unmoored because the moon has turned to cheese p. 145

Billionaire subplot. My thoughts are that it is basically a pull em out boys space race. Including the race between 2 billionaires to be the first to taste the moon cheese scene.

NASA outsourcing the space program to billionaires p. 169. My thoughts are of course they are.

Dry heaving in zero G was an interesting application of physics p. 175. My thoughts on this is what I learned p. 173 is something I already knew. That billionaires are spoiled brats and have never been told the word no. And they also get bored, to our detriment. The billionaire’s death (Jody) because of hubris was definitely an homage to the billionaire deaths from hubris on the way to the Titanic. See also billionaires being bored.

President and First Lady having a conversation, starting around p. 210. He drops his shirt on the floor, she tells him to pick it up, he argues that they have staff for that. She says, “If you dropped a shirt with the expectation that someone would pick up after you, I would divorce you immediately.” She continues “Dropping your shirt for someone else to pick up shows contempt. I didn’t like it when I was the person who had to pick it up. I don’t see why I would like it less now that someone else would have to do it.”

My thoughts are that I loved this exchange. And is also an answer to my own husband on leaving things on the floor for me to pick up. This will be my new answer to that. I feel that most women are frustrated or have been frustrated by this exact issue.

Back to the philosophical discussion p. 210. My thought is that there is a lot of philosophy in this book and it is a common thread. I have recommended this book to my cohort and will be recommending it to my dissertation chair.

The reaction of everyday Americans turns into fuck the moon sentiment and flipping off the moon to relieve stress. My thought on this is that might be the energy we need for I.C.E.

Unfortunately fuck the moon unraveled quickly to an attack on a cheese shop p. 217. My thought is that at least the estranged brothers who are running rival cheese shops across the town square from each other have reconciled. Also this is very evocative of Romeo and Juliet, which is actually mentioned in a previous chapter from the astronomy student.

Immigrant cook who says they want to go back to their home country because he isn’t as hated there as he is in America p. 228. My thought is that I realize this was written before the current administration crack down on illegal immigrants and naturalized immigrants. But oof.

There is a development in that the Lunar One which is the projection that is not unlike a meteor has been detached from the moon and is hurtling toward earth. My thought is cue the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. This has been earned because wipe it all out is something I’ve heard from various quarters.

Oh and Lunar One will impact the earth in 2 years and three months with a 95% confidence. My immediate thought was that I understood that reference. Which is a meta reference in and of itself to Captain America in The Winter Soldier.

The Lunar One impact will be devastating and lead to the cessation of life on the planet.

There is a chapter on the filming of an Saturday Night Live show shortly after the announcement that the earth has an expiration time. The studio audience laughs at none of the skits and are very unsettled. Finally, the host stands up and starts to sing “Imagine” to placate the audience after a pretty speech of coming together. He is immediately clocked by a chair and a riot ensues. My thought is that this is a delayed reaction to the celebrities singing Imagine on Zoom during the lockdown in 2020.

There is a chapter on a drunk, Caleb, interrupting a church service. Remember, the world knows that time is ticking. The pastor throws out his dial a sermon that he got from a sermon service and speaks from the heart. He calms fears and basically toes the religious line p. 253.

The private conversation he has with God later that night is perfection.

A bank meeting about people panicking and taking all their money out is next. It is revealed that the bank has modeled the end of the world. But, hey, the bank still has to make money. The plan is that they will introduce a zero interest rate $40,000 limit credit card with no repayment due for 2 years. The bank model also says that the consumer confidence will end after the planned last Christmas. After all, people hold it together for Christmas. Thought for this is that yes, yes, they do.

The last major character is a gifted and talented girl child who only wants to be a writer. Her entire life is pointed in this direction. Until she gets caught in the writing group trap after the third chapter and gives up. Until there isn’t enough time because, hey, the end of the world is upon us. Her husband says who cares if there isn’t enough time to get published, she should write for herself and because he wants to read it. My thought for this part is that she has the uncomfortable realizing that gifted kids can’t give up when it gets hard. You have to work that much harder to succeed.

Really the entirety of Chapter 23 spoke to me, the former gifted and talented kid. And has inspired me to write my dissertation chair and get this train back on its tracks. The world will still be a dumpster fire.

The most hopeful tidbit of this entire book is that “American Democracy has survived worse than the end of the world.” p. 302. Well, I needed to hear that.

The hardest tidbit of this entire books is that when you know that it is going to be the last of a thing (because, you know, part of the moon will be crashing into the earth and killing everyone), that knowledge weighs on you.

There will always be the last Christmas, the last birthday, the last day at a job you love. The thing is to keep going anyway.

After all, it might not be the last thing.

I will not address how the book ends.

Just know that my take aways are flip off might be the energy we need.

And do the hard things.

School Me Saturday 7/5/25- students and AI part 2

AI is the newest, shiniest tech toy.

Of course companies are falling over themselves to make it available to us, the consumers.

At a premium of course.

But what are the other associated costs?

According to a report from IBM’s Institute for Business Value, the cost to compute (what it costs the company to make AI possible) was expected to climb 89% between 2023 and 2025.

And guess what? They won’t be interested in footing the bill forever. Nothing is free.

Ever.

So they made it ubiquitous. To make us as consumers dependent on AI. So that when costs to the consumer are introduced we will be convinced we can’t live without it.

Goodness knows, students are already dependent on it.

Especially the younger ones.

I know I am not dependent on it. I find output obnoxious and not a plaything. AI isn’t anything that I am curious about. I wanted to find a workaround with search engines so it would NOT give me AI output. I found one. I put -AI in the search bar and about 70% of the time I do not get an AI output. I have also heard putting a curse word in the search string will allow for AI free output, but that is not my experience.

Hell, Google itself is a kind of AI. That is how we get answers so quickly to a search field. But also less than AI because it didn’t suck up all the world’s literature and art to make a large language model.

In last Saturday’s post I wrote about the my personal experiences with AI since ChatGPT was released in 2022. But it goes farther back than that. Much, much further.

In the 1988-1989 school year, I was an eighth grader. There was no cafeteria at our school. Most schools in California don’t have cafeterias. Students gather on the quad, sit on the grass, lean against the trees, roam the campus, or walked home for lunch. Personally that did not interest me, none of the options were appealing. I usually went to the campus library and read. One day, my computer teacher approached me and my friend Aluminum to run simulations in the computer lab during lunch. We jumped at the chance.

After that, I split my time between the library and the computer lab.

In the library I read.

In the computer lab, Aluminum and I were working a machine learning task that the teacher had asked us to do. Basically we played a version of Connect Four with the computer. As I remember, the goal was to see if the computer could be trained to beat us.

I imagine that there were students in computer labs just like us across the country, training the computers to “think”. This was the way that people originally termed artificial intelligence, thinking.

It wasn’t until 1997 that Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov in chess. But I think the seeds of this computing marvel was in the computer labs at middle schools and high schools in the 1980s. From my first experience with machine learning to this chess match was less than 10 years.

Look how far artificial intelligence has come in just over forty years. It started with nerd students in the classrooms playing with the computer, teaching it to think.

Oh, boy. Hold onto your hats.

FFS Friday 7/4/2025- freedom*

Today is the 4th of July and our nation’s independence day.

The asterisk? Well, let’s talk about it.

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the asterisk is used as an indication of the omission of letters or words.

Independence through resolution in three parts: separation from the British Crown, a call to form foreign alliances, and a plan for confederation. Seems simple enough.

This means that we were separating from England and all that entailed, looking for friends that were not England, and grouping together. This grouping of people is also known as a confederacy.

No, not that one. The original one.

At the time the new country was a group of people who wanted to leave British rule and strike out on their own. With their own laws and their own ways of doing things. Where no king could wave his fat white hand and make nonsense rules for everyone.

Sound familiar? America just had a multi-million people nationwide protest on June 7, 2025 about it.

At the time to be a voting member of this new society you had to be a land owner, white, and male.

And that was it.

Women need not apply.

Slaves that were forcibly brought here from Africa and sold to these men need not apply.

Men who did not own property need not apply.

In the nearly two hundred and seventy five year history, these marginalized groups have fought and bled and died to be seen as a citizen. As a voter.

Strides were made. And the rich white men were not happy about it.

White men who were not property owners were granted the right to vote in 1787.

Slaves earned their ability not to be owned by another human with the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.

Black men earned the right to vote in 1870.

Women earned the right to vote in 1920.

Poll taxes that were just racism by another name were abolished in 1964. As was segregation.

America has a checkered past and those of us who were not thought of or dismissed as not a person in the original documents has fought for every single step along the way.

And those who don’t think women are people or black people are people or native Americans are people have fought tooth and nail to maintain their grip on control.

Inch by inch, legislation by legislation, the rights that were bled for and wept over and fought for are being taken away by rich old white men who remember the “good old days”. When non white people were property of the whites and women were kept under their husband’s thumb.

That is the meaning of the asterisk in today’s post title.

Freedom for old rich white male property owners.

Crickets for everyone else.

Cookie Thursday 7/3/25- Devil’s food cake mix with Andes mint chips

Last week it was too hot to cook.

This week I was going to make red velvet cake with chips made out of frozen frosting. Well, I have the frosting chips made and in the freezer.

But I put the red velvet cake mix somewhere safe.

I have no idea where I put it.

I made Devil’s Food cake mix cookies with Andes mint chips instead.

And if that isn’t an analogy for our current political shitstorm I don’t know what is.

The red velvet cake mix cookies with white frozen frosting chips was supposed to be patriotic.

Instead I made a deal with the devil. Not unlike more than 50% of our elected representatives and senators.

Can’t be witty right now, I am too mad.

I think I’m going to go kill a lot of the undead monsters in the computer game.

North Carolina is going Surgical Smoke FREE

dun-dun-DUN–dun-dun-DUNan–dun-dun-DUN-dun dun

This is the opening guitar riff of Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple. Go to YouTube and check me. You know that I am right.

It was 8 years ago that I recognized that other people, often with less years in the OR, would react to the shall we say unsightly odors of some surgeries. Smells would hit me later in a case than others. A surgeon and a tech would react to the smell of an appendix or open abdomen and it wasn’t until it was closer to me such as when I was collecting the specimen that the smell would make it to my scent receptors, and I would become aware of what they were talking about.

This was a very gradual awareness, brought on by what I assumed was a very gradual over- exposure to the bovie smoke.

Let’s talk about the effects of surgical smoke. It has been compared to smoking 30 unfiltered cigarettes per day. Surgical smoke also contains arsenic, smoke particles, people particles (live tissue fragments), e-coli, SARS-Cov-2 (aka covid), toxic gases, benzene and hydrogen cyanide. It can cause a decreased sense of smell, asthma, allergies, chronic bronchitis, chronic sore throat, and even chronic lung diseases.

Forthwith I became aware that my sense of smell had been altered by 23 years in the operating room. Many of those years were in heavy surgical smoke plume cases- total joints, plastic surgery, and open abdomens.

Surgical smoke is created by use of an electro-cautery device, most often a bovie. This piece of electrical cautery equipment was named after the Dr. William T. Bovie who developed the electrical cautery machine in 1926. This was used to stem the bleeding cause by incisions and surgery.

In 2018, Rhode Island became the first state to enact legislation to ensure that all hospitals and free-standing ambulatory centers used a smoke evacuator in the OR. Many other states joined them- Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, California, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Minnesota, West Virginia, and Washington.

AND NORTH CAROLINA!!!

We make the 19th state that has elected to protect their nurses, scrub techs, surgeons, and patients.

Smoke free is a misnomer. It is a short hand way of saying that the surgical smoke plume is contained at the site of surgery with smoke evacuation.

However, Governor Josh Stein just signed it into law. To go into effect January 1, 2026.

The hospital system I work for started mandating surgical smoke evacuation during covid. Because, as you may have noticed above, covid is carried by surgical smoke.

Did I write this legislation? No.

However, I have written, and spoke to surgeons, and written legislators, and called legislators, and signed petitions. Basically, we kept up pressure. I even used surgical smoke legislation in the Health Care Policy and Ethics class that I took fall semester 2023. This was when the NC legislature was waffling about it. I did presentations and wrote papers about the dangers of surgical smoke and the importance of going smoke free. I shared the papers and presentations with anyone who asked.

I needed this win today.

Oh, happy day!

Tuesday Top of Mind 7/1/25- Congratulations, senate! You have invented a new kind of stupid!

The song Congratulations from Hamilton begins with Angelica yelling at Alexander “Congratulations, you have invented a new kind of stupid. A damage that you can never undo kind of stupid.”

I was on tenterhooks all weekend. Waiting out the inevitable.

So this terrible bill has been top of mind all weekend. Which is exhausting.

You know, when exactly 50 of our senators bent over and took it. And said “Thank you, daddy, might I have another.”

A gross analogy but these are gross times.

This is when fifty of our senators did the unthinkable and consigned their constituents to the wolves.

Yes, some of them held their noses and voted.

Yes, three senators crossed the aisle and voted against the big ugly bill. Albeit for different reasons.

Rand Paul of Kentucky opposed the bill because it will add TRILLIONS to the deficit. And that was just a bridge too far. Not because of all the women and children and disabled people who will be tossed off the Medicaid roles. No. Because of money.

Thom Tillis of North Carolina (troll that he is) found at least one of his balls and voted against the bill. Because he knows what we all know, that many North Carolinians are in danger because of this passage.

Susan Collins of Maine also knows what we all know, that many of her Maine constituents will be in danger after the Medicaid cuts go fully into effect in 2026.

They are counting on us to forget this travesty.

You know who won’t forget they sold us down the river? Alaskans.

Lisa Murkowski played a will she or won’t she game all weekend. But in the end she voted for it after she secured some carve outs for Alaskans. The carve outs were then rebuked and removed by the Parliamentarian. So she got little for her trouble.

This ugly monstrosity of a bill now goes back the House of Representatives.

Man those phones and call your representative now.

Call them tomorrow.

Call them the day after.

Get your parents to call. Get your siblings to call.

CALL them incessantly.

Mail them congratulations cards.

Congratulations on being cowards.

Remind them that they serve at our pleasure. Well, in North Carolina, they serve at the pleasure of the gerrymandered districts and the lopsided government that the state legislature willed into being. But that is a post for another day.

There will be more coming but I have to end with f’in cowards, the lot of them.

Post-script- I heard back from the other North Carolina senator. Did I call him a coward in my email message? You bet I did.

School Me Saturday 6/28/25- Students and AI- Part 1

ChatGPT was set forth unto the world like a biblical plague on November 30, 2022.

I was just finishing my first semester of the PhD program when our statistics professor announced it to the class. They said that AI was going to be a big thing for, well, the world. There was not going to be anything that AI couldn’t touch. These programs had the ability to analyze reams and reams of data in a blink.

Less than 3 years later we know better.

Yes, AI is capable of doing amazing things and has vastly sped up the analysis of critical data.

If you know the correct prompt. Or the proper way to word your request.

When it isn’t hallucinating citations and facts that aren’t there.

The pro-AI people say well, that’s because it wasn’t trained well enough. I say that if you put crap in, you get crap out.

My statistics professor also cautioned using the new programs for schoolwork.

Don’t forget, it was released just in time for finals.

Colleges and universities had to scramble to put in rules and explanations of the rules. Some AI is encouraged at some places for some papers for some classes. Some instructors have embraced it and are teaching students about it. Some instructors have not.

It is very confusing.

For me personally, I have only used an AI engine when it was an assignment. I want to be responsible for all that I write, incorrect or not. After all, I was able to survive all of my primary and secondary education without online search. In 1993, Creighton had just put all of their books into a computerized card catalog. I didn’t write my first paper using facts from the internet until 2015.

Now Google is a verb and AI slop is everywhere. AI slop refers to low quality media, including low quality writing and low quality images. Kind of like AI hallucinating things.

Yes, I am older than Google. Hell, I am older than the internet. What a time to be a student! The rules are made up anyway.

One thing that is a bit comforting is that AI is not subject to copy right. Because a copy right means that it was human made and AI is not human.