You should listen to some of Fyodor's lectures in Microbiology, which are available here on iTunes University for free. Especially, listen to "The Recombinant DNA Debate", where he walks through the history of rDNA and the opposition. By the end he is on fire, it's one of my favorite lectures to listen to.

I'm not sure about Bitcoin being "untraceable, and very easy to hide," since Bitcoins take the form of a public ledger, so they're actually more traceable than cash.

In theory you can thwart it by using a mixing service (you deposit into the service along with many others, then withdraw the same value but not the same coins), yet there's stories like this that suggest an aggrieved party (say someone who had coins stolen from them), can trace the money by sending micropayments that effectively tag it. (The Bitcoin equivalent of "slightly irradiated bills").

Each transaction in the ledger is also recorded and publicly viewable for all time, so even if the software for tracing transactions and matching them to real entities doesn't yet exist, the data will wait until it is.

For some reason I stumbled upon the music video for "Time to Realize" by Lemaitre, with a bizarre take on a topical issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...

I'm not sure what to make of the metaphor, here.

I'm not sure, I don't think so. It rises more sideways than upwards. Maybe I'm kneading it for too long.

I've tried a few different temperatures and baking times, but I usually get a flattened loaf that resembles stale, unsweetend biscotti. Even the ducks at the pond wouldn't eat it.

Sometimes I get a reasonable success, but maybe it's this new oven I have. It's a GE gas oven with loads of electronics, but unfortunately no circulating fan. My parents once had an oven with a fan and they got much better results with it.

No wonder I can't figure out how to make a decent Italian bread, even with a gas oven. I had no idea the wood fired ovens got that hot.

The Safety Raj seems to think we clumsy apes are capable of handling a 1600-watt microwave, now. Maybe they'll relent on the 500-degree ceiling of standard consumer ovens, and then I can try making a steak "Ruth's Chris" style or something.

Have you tried pre-heating the pizza stone outside of the oven somehow? I'm not sure how it would be done--wood fire in the back yard, table-top BBQ grill, or a blowtorch, maybe.

Thanks. I need ideas, though.

Some of the advice I've taken to heart is that you must get into the habit of seeing stories everywhere. We do it all the time--think of stories, that is--but miss them, dismiss them, subconsciously, like the way we swat inappropriate thoughts. "Wow, she has a fantastic ass... SWAT What a charming young lady."

I've been practicing wherever I go. You watch strangers and make up stories about them and not be afraid that they're completely wrong. And I was in the gym a few days ago (Planet Fatness, it's cheap), and there was this old lady working out on a machine with her back to me. She must have been in her mid sixties, but both of her arms were embroidered with tattoos.

"Okay," I think, "back in her twenties she dated a guy who was trying to break into the tattooing trade, and he begged her and begged her for the chance to practice on her skin..."

She finished with the machine and walked past me, close enough for me to make out one of the tattoos on her arm. It was a checkered flag and a caption that I _just_ managed to scan the beginning of: "I drove at...", but I caught no more. She disappeared into the ladies' locker room.

Okay, first story is wrong. New story. She was one of the first female NASCAR drivers back in the 1970s, paving the way for the likes of Danica Patrick. After a few years of racing she hung-up her helmet to start a family, and a little while ago she saw the fifth birthday of her first granddaughter. The girl's father--Tattoo lady's son--got her a Barbie PowerWheel, and she alighted to it like second nature. Now she's challenging all the boys on the street, and winning. Because while they have G.I. Joe PowerWheels that have a slightly higher top speed, she knows how to corner.

Then one day...

Then one day...

Fender bender? In a plastic PowerWheels? Uh... Tattoo lady lost her best friend when a weak weld in the roll-cage broke and she died in a pile-up. Bleah... too cliche. She um... she must'a... did... a thing.

This is why writers don't like to be asked "where do you get your ideas?"

I just want to add that I'm wondering to what degree nonchalance is a defense mechanism for astonishment.

You saw it right here, ladies. The summbitch above and I hung out, beginning around 16-17 years ago, and I don't think I've seen Dante for maybe 13 years, now. Now he's replying to my posts on Hubski and I'm, like, "I shall choose to spend about 12 hours to reconcile this information."

There was me, Apollo Junior (pseydtonne), Nighthawk, Don Cerebro, Consuela, Toasted, Buzzbomb, the guy with the guitar who's name I've misplaced for a moment, Seventh Trimester, and The High Mistress of Mosh.

(Or more specifically, a bunch of anarchists given a few hours of airtime on WHRW 90.5 FM on the campus of Binghamton University.)

Now about 4 years ago I was at an unmentionable social gathering where I was oxidizing large amounts of ethanol prepared by Maker's Mark. And I look across the room, and I see someone. I stare, and he stares, and I cock my head to the side, and he does the same, and I say:

"Don Cerebro?"

And he was, like, "Phox?"

It was like the scene where everybody's Data figures out which Enterprise Worf belongs on and he snaps back into the parallel universe he belongs to. In some other reality I've continued without seeing Andy in that room, and in that universe the Borg are EVERYWHERE.

Oh shit.

Bah, rumbled!

My favourite band name was "Accidental Goat Sodomy".