Total weight of one cup of pistachios in my case was 3.5 ounces.

I ate the pistachios and then saved the empty shells and weighed those. It comes out to 1.5 ounces.That leaves 2.5 ounces of pistachio.

So doing the math, 1.5 divided by 3.5 yields 0.42857142857142857142857142857143 (Dig the repeating sequence there!) which I rounded up to 0.43 or 43%, which is also the last two digits of the decimal portion. 

So 43% of the weight of pistachios is their inedible shell. The bag we got was 24oz total which yields 10.3oz of shells, 13.7oz of edible meats.

And here is the other thing. The pistachios are also sold in a 10oz. bag. In that case the yield of pistachio meats is only 5.7oz!

I was pondering this the other night. It started with thinking about one of DARPA’s projects, a pod that is about the size of a refrigerator and can be easily transported. That pod would have a robotic surgical suite. Now here is where it gets interesting. I read the above in a book titled:

The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs [Hardcover]

Michael Belfiore

Now the interesting part. The book mentions that either telepresence would be used or the pods would be autonomous.

Now we’re all aware of an IBM creation called Watson. We saw Watson first playing Jeopardy. But he’s now being used for research in business and medicine.

Then of course there are the autonomous automobiles. If you hadn’t noticed they’re coming closer and closer, the only real impediment is the law  but the law is showing signs of catching up.

And then there is the X-47C (Yes, it was a B last time) which is an autonomous drone that the military is testing now.

Now add this all up and I can make a prediction. I can see the end of surgeons in the near future. How can a human surgeon compete with a machine that can reference the entirety of medical knowledge and then act upon it? So there would be a nice little convergence. Think about the ramifications.

Lets say for example you’re suffering a cardiac event. A robotic physician would hookup the test leads, and monitor your heart, administer drugs without room for error. And if surgery is necessary it can perform it without cracking your chest completely open.

It is going to be an interesting future indeed.

It is as I’ve mentioned before animus based on emotivism. So I have pretty much tuned them out. They aren’t worth mentioning by name anymore, with perhaps a couple of exceptions.

They held monthly “Fireside testimonies” — Sacrament meetings at which each member testified to his belief that he lived in Heaven before being born on Earth, that he became mortal in order to usher in the latter days, and that he recognized Joseph Smith as the prophet, the Book of Mormon as the word of God, and the Mormon church as the one true faith.

I do not want someone who believes we are in the latter days to be the President. Catholics and Christians are one thing, but Mormon is a bit too extreme for my tastes. They believe in some seriously screwball shit, like for instance believing they lived in Heaven and became mortal to usher in the latter days?? Yikes!

Another interesting block of text from the article:

“We were taught that America is the Promised Land,” he said in an interview.”The Mormons are the Chosen People. And the time is now for a Mormon leader to usher in the second coming of Christ and install the political Kingdom of God in Washington, D.C.”

The Chosen people eh? I believe there is another group who might have a point of contention with that.

And I do not believe there will be a second coming. The historical record really doesn’t make note of Jesus of Nazareth, or Yeshua Ben Joseph as he was probably known. The only real record is the Bible and we know how wrong that one can be.

So with all of this in mind, I do not want to see Romney as our President. It would be the downfall of the U.S.

And his first name is Willard? Does anyone else remember this:

And more interesting, in 1971 it was produced by Cox Business whose service I am using now to post this message.

It has a maximum temperature of 375F which is right about where you want to fry anyhow.

A former colleague warned me though. He said that if I were to get a deep fryer, I’d fry everything for the first month. But I seriously doubt I’ll do that. It will however be nice for certain things as I referred to above.

And I have a big jug of peanut oil. Sorry all you folks with peanut allergies. You cannot eat anything fried at my place and you might want to avoid Five Guys because they do their fries in peanut oil too.

It cost a total of $18 plus tax. With tax it comes out to $19.26. Not bad.

And it irks me. These bigots have done everything they can to suppress our civil rights over time, doing such things as spouting the ridiculous “Homosexuals aren’t born that way”, or that we are pedophiles, practice bestiality, or any number of other ridiculous statements.

My particular favorite is Maggie Gallagher. And as information has filtered down I came up with the following:

Her weight explains why he’s married to someone that if of Indian origin, for we know of their reverence for the cow!

Nothing wrong with it. She wants to tell me I’m a second class citizen because of an immutable characteristic, I’m going to call her on something that she could potentially control. Plain and simple.

I’d love for this to happen but I understand the realities of it and I doubt it will happen by 2020, at least not if it’s just the United States doing it.

But click here to read the article and watch the video.

In it they make a good point. To sell this in congress there will have to be relevance in every state.

I counter that the Apollo program did have activity in EVERY state as well as having a public/private collaboration. My uncle was an engineer at EG&G and helped design seals used in the Apollo spacecraft. That was here in Rhode Island!

So we could make a manned base on the moon. But I say lets spend the money on what Dr. DeGrasse-Tyson mentions, Science, Technlogy, Engineering and Math programs. Lets train the scientists and engineers for the remainder of the 21st century. Because what they might come up with could change the game considerably once they get out into the field.

4 Egg Yolks

1.5Tbsp Butter

1tbsp Fresh Lemon Juice

Salt to taste

Cayenne to taste

Combine all ingredients in stainless steel bowl. Start a 4qt. sauce pot with 1.5″ to 2″ of water and bring to simmer. Place stainless steel bowl on top of sauce pot.

Whisk mixture, the object is not to scramble the eggs but to cook them. You’ll know they’re cooked when the color changes, it goes from a pale yellow to a richer yellow color.

I’m surprised that I never tried this before. This is awesome, it rocks on sausage patties, even scrambled eggs, or a piece of bread or toast.  It’s a nice rich sauce that really doesn’t have that sulfrous taste at all despite using four egg yolks.

Still can’t figure out poached eggs though. One tip was to use white vinegar in the water, but all I have is cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, and balsamic vinegar. So it’ll have to wait until I get some white vinegar. It likely has to do with the acid content.

And lets face it, Gingrich has enough baggage to fill a pullman car, while Romney has uttered some inexplicably stupid things such as how he likes firing people, or how corporations are people, or how he can afford to throw out a $10,000 bet during one of the debates. And now his tacking to the one man, one woman schtick.

The Republican party seems to have suffered from embracing the Tea Baggers. And let me explain again, they CHOSE that name, not me. I just prefer to refer to them with their original moniker.

Plus the eight years of George W. Bush and the Republican controlled congress did some serious damage. Bush himself is politically radioactive. You don’t see him trotted out for any fundraisers, etc.

I really do hope that President Obama gets a second term. I have that wish because during a second term it’s likely that anywhere from 1 to 3 U.S. Supreme Court justices could either retire or die. And I do not want Republican ideologues to replace them. I’d much prefer jurists with a solid grounding in non-ideological law.