Researcher in the U.S. trying to stay informed and help others stay informed. I write a blog that focuses on public information, public health, and policy: https://pimento-mori.ghost.io/

I only recently began using ghost, and am slowly figuring things out. Apologies for any formatting issues.

  • 15 Posts
  • 61 Comments
Joined 1 month ago
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Cake day: June 24th, 2025

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  • Thiel taking diligent notes on how to start WWIII.

    Topics for next year’s discussion:

    •How to rebrand your authoritarian axis. •Deregulating nuclear safety to power AI: How the West finally kicked its fossil fuel habit. •Have the 99% really earned autonomy? •Global organ harvest and the path to immortality for the chosen elite.

    Nobody wants to call him out bc they’ve already accepted the future. If anyone in the U.S. actually cared about stopping genocide wouldn’t they be demanding the U.S. stop giving billions of dollars in contracts to Palantir, and that any government official investing in genocide be forced to step down?




  • That looks so good! I always forget cabbage for some reason, but you definitely get your money’s worth.

    I used a head of green cabbage few years ago to make baked cabbage wraps with lentils as the meat substitute. They fell apart, but still tasted really good.

    Uncooked red cabbage leaves makes a pretty good tortilla/bread replacement. Also sauteing shredded red cabbage with red onion then mixing in some goat cheese and sriracha is a really delicious and easy to make side dish.

    The most expensive thing is the goat cheese, but be fairly cheap depending on where you buy it. You can also just skip it if necessary bc red cabbage and red onion by itself is still really good.


  • I’m grateful I haven’t reached my college level of broke (yet), but with the economy absolutely booming right now under our current leadership, money is very tight. I’m pretty good at figuring out meals with some budget to work with.

    Not sure if this only applies to Costco prices right now, but rounding up I got a 4.5lb bag of quinoa ~$13, a 5 pound bag of red beans for $10, and a 5 pound bag of red onions for $6. So a total of ~$29. Depending on how many people you’re feeding you can stretch that several weeks. If you go with rice instead of quinoa it’s cheaper and also still gives you a complete protein when you combine it with beans.

    My father in law always said he lived for an entire year in college eating nothing but potatoes. I wouldn’t recommend trying that but I guess it’s an option?

    Also recently made a loaf of bread for the first time. All you need is flour, yeast, oil and water (forgot you do also need salt and a small amount of sugar to activate the yeast. I’ve used juice from different fruits (grapes, oranges) as an activator when I didn’t have sugar, but never tried that with bread specifically).

    Chickpeas and lentils are very cheap and can be used to make a lot of recipes. Buy some taco seasoning, tortillas, and lentils. Make a giant pot of that, and it will last a while. Lentils are pretty similar in texture to ground beef, so it works pretty well. This may sound weird but lentils are also really good as a meat substitute in spaghetti.

    It gets really boring eating the same thing everyday, so I’ve also used this website to make some really good meals: https://www.budgetbytes.com/ They have a ton of options for both meat and vegetarian meals.

    This was like 10 years ago, (so shit is definitely more expensive now) but when I was between jobs I had to make $50 for groceries for two last a little over 2 weeks. I went through the recipes on there and found a bunch that sounded good and contained the same core ingredients. Made a list of core and extra ingredients I would need (garlic, ginger, etc) and then went to Walmart and got everything I needed within budget.

    The mujaddara was and still is my favorite. I always end up needing to double the water the recipe calls for to cook the lentils and rice. I will also say it is definitely a time consuming recipe compared to the others I tried. Make it on a day when you can set aside enough time to slow cook and caramelize the onions instead of sauteing. That is definitely the key. https://www.budgetbytes.com/mujaddara/

    Also keep in mind if you buy something like fresh ginger, onions, or mushrooms, but don’t end up using all of it right away, you can chop it up and freeze it for later so it doesn’t go bad.

    I’ve stored chopped frozen ginger by itself in a ziplock bag. It seemed fine to me but apparently you’re supposed to put it in oil and then freeze it. Some people use ice cube trays and make small aliquots of oil and ginger or other herbs.

    I’ve been told repeatedly you shouldn’t freeze onion, but when you’re broke and need to make what you have last, whatever. It might lose some flavor and texture, but I always saute onion anyway. If I was trying to eat it raw (or caramelize it later) I could see that being a no.

    Mushrooms have to be cooked first before freezing (as far as I know). Chop and saute with olive oil and a little bit of butter or coconut oil (there is something about the extra fat that helps preserve it when frozen). After cooking, spread out on a nonstick surface or sheet of parchment paper, put them in the freezer and then once they’re frozen, move them to an airtight container.


  • Companies that tested their technology in a handful of supermarkets, pubs, and on websites set them to predict whether a person looks under 25, not 18, allowing a wide error margin for algorithms that struggle to distinguish a 17-year-old from a 19-year-old.

    AI face scans were never designed for children seeking asylum, and risk producing disastrous, life-changing errors. Algorithms identify patterns in the distance between nostrils and the texture of skin; they cannot account for children who have aged prematurely from trauma and violence. They cannot grasp how malnutrition, dehydration, sleep deprivation, and exposure to salt water during a dangerous sea crossing might profoundly alter a child’s face.

    Goddamn, this is horrible. Imagine leaving shitty AI to determine the fate of this girl :

    ‘Psychologically broken,’ 8-year-old Sama loses her hair





  • Sameish. I thought soap was supposed to damage it. I boil water, use a metal spatula to help lift anything stuck on there, dump the water, wipe it dry, then add oil and wipe it one more time and leave it on the stove so it’s ready to use again.

    I’ll be honest, I still don’t really understand what “season” means, but I’ve been doing that several times a week for like ~7 years now without any issues (that I’m aware of, I guess).




  • It’s shady as fuck and part of a very long and convoluted story. This guy’s private surveillance company popped up in New Orleans in the middle of a secret partnership with Palantir. So after Palantir “left” the city in a bit of a scandal, this guy’s surveillance company helped continue elements of what started under Palantir.

    It’s very confusing bc as of the city council meeting on 6/30, NOPD said they wanted the ordinance to use facial recognition tech in their own crime cameras (separate from ProjectNola).

    Yesterday was supposed to be the day the ordinance was discussed, but the city council meeting was just cancelled with no notification and no information provided about why.

    City council was supposed to vote next week for or against the ordinance, but someone told me the vote has apparently also been cancelled. When I asked though they didn’t say how they know that, so I have no idea what is actually going on with the ordinance and city council.

    NOPD argued on 6/30 that the ability to use real time facial recognition tracking in their system would at least give them more control bc they knew that ProjectNola was already working with the state police and ICE.

    Except as of today, a state law kicks in and it becomes illegal for police to refuse a federal immigration order or “hinder” (yes it’s definitely intentionally vague what exactly that means) federal immigration.

    There also seems to be contradicting evidence about how separate the city’s own real time crime camera program and ProjectNola are.

    Main points:

    • NOPD said on 6/30 that they believed ProjectNola and state police were already using this tracking tech to help ICE. ProjectNola seems to be denying this.

    • Yesterday, the ordinance discussion and entire city council meeting was apparently cancelled with no notification to the public.

    • As of today an insane new state law kicks in to try and force law enforcement to ignore a federal consent decree and join the state police and other state agencies in their partnership with ICE


  • K… keep simping for big brother.

    Every city will have it’s justification soon enough, so good luck with that. It’s just more efficient for the government to be able to track you in real time. Crime goes down real quick, especially if you stop believing a violation of civil liberties is a crime.

    Bc after all, how could a government that is run by criminals be commiting a crime when they make the laws?

    This is fucked up for so many reasons, but to me the fucking creepiest part of this, is knowing this is the same group of people that are protecting a sex trafficking ring of elite pedophiles.

    They love to justify not having any regulations to hinder this technology by reminding people it can be used to find missing children. But it also has the potential to exploit children.

    If the government can track anyone in real time, including children, with no oversight, how the fuck do we know the wealthy elites that often purchase the government through campaign donations won’t also be tracking children in real time?

    Even if you didn’t already have one million reasons (and growing every day) to not trust the people running the government. Even if some of the most hated broligarchs in the U.S. hadn’t already been given government positions, military rankings, and top clearance.

    With zero oversight and accountability, how the fuck can you be sure that only the government will have access to this system?



  • It was an ICE agent at a protest. Not condoning throwing rocks at anyone but have you seen videos out of Portland?

    ICE has been brutalizing the fuck out of protestors, especially in Portland. I would like to say I would never do that, but if I saw an ICE agent or anyone using unnecessary force against a friend or my family for peacefully protesting (which I’ve seen happen to multiple people, and that shit is definitely not ok) I cant honestly say I would react in the most calm and level headed way either.

    They do directly address this in the article though, and the main issue is not so much that they used the technology, but again the fact that there is no oversight or regulation for its use.

    Catherine Crump, a professor at UC Berkeley Law School who leads a law, technology and public policy clinic, said the use of facial recognition technology in this particular case was “as justifiable as it gets.”

    “That said, it’s really problematic that we’ve done as bad a job as we have in this country at regulating the use of technology like this; there should be clear rules of the road,” Crump said.

    She pointed out flaws in facial recognition technology, citing research that’s shown it to have racial bias in being worse at identifying Black people and other minorities.

    “We need safeguards to ensure that this powerful technology is used in a way that advance legitimate law enforcement interests, but that stave off possibilities of abuse," Crump said.




  • I’m sure once every human is replaced by shitty automated AI the entire process will become smoother than our darkest nightmares can imagine.

    Book your flight. Hop into your driverless taxi, and if you survive the trip to the airport, use the facial recognition option to breeze right on through security within minutes (assuming you’re the right color of passenger) without even taking off your shoes.

    No need for air traffic control, flight attendants, or even pilots. You can can walk straight on to the overcrowded plane, settle in, put on your headphones and sleep mask, then nosedive straight into the ocean without ever having to acknowledge another human being. Until the rude asshole sitting next to you suddenly bothers you with some stupid shit like “Oh God why aren’t the oxygen masks dropping? That used to be automatic! Our father who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name…”

    You roll your eyes and put your headphones and mask back on to enjoy the soothing sounds of autotune AI generated parody songs you made on the ride to the airport. What the fuck is that guy even talking about anyway? You don’t know and you don’t care. You didn’t pay for first class to have some rando kill your vacay vibe. You take a deep breath (but there’s no oxygen) smile and settle back in, knowing that soon you will reach your final destination.