Plant Based Cheese Made with Artificial Intelligence Is Only The Beginning!

We tasted plant-based cheese by Kraft yesterday. Sena bought it at Hy-Vee the other day. It’s actually not bad. The company is called Kraft NotCo. They make Not Cheese. It’s made with chickpeas, which are the same thing as garbanzo beans. You can also buy plant-based mayo, called Not Mayo. I don’t know if it’s made with chickpeas.

Sena could have got Not Mayo; instead, she got Miracle Whip—a miracle by itself because she likes “real” mayo.

What’s really interesting about these products is how they’re made. On the Kraft Heinz NotCo website, you’ll find a description of these products in the About section entitled “Not Your Average Joint Venture.” One line is thought-provoking:

“Our partnership reimagines the brands you love from Kraft Heinz using proprietary AI from NotCo to give you the plant-based version of your favorite foods that deliver on taste and performance.”

I’m assuming that AI stands for Artificial Intelligence (not “Absolutely Inedible”). So, how did Artificial Intelligence get involved? What does the AI actually do? Does it come up with the recipes for Not Foods? Are tiny bits of genetic code and nanobots involved?

Does this mean we’ll become enslaved by AI powered men in black who conspire with extraterrestrials to collect human embryos to create the giant Cheese Bots who take over the earth making it a gigantic assembly line to make smartphones that will make it easier to butt dial your congress persons to demand more laws making Home Owners Associations covenants mandatory and violators punishable by the giant garbage goblin in the well-known X-Files documentary “Arcadia”?

No; no, it does not mean that. You can safely eat AI manufactured chickpea products without fear of being transformed into an Extraterrestrial-Robot-Not Cheese hybrid super soldier marching on Washington, D.C. to force feed congress persons with Braunschweiger and Not Cheese Sandwiches with Not Mayo on Not Wheat Bread and Not Lemonade.

I kind of like Not Cheese and I don’t feel any different.

And Then There Were Four Drain Tile Lids Flipped

Now there are 4 tile drain lids that have been flipped. A couple of others were flipped last night. Sena put them back on and put a rock on one of them. The two others with rocks on top of them were undisturbed.

Four of the seven lids have now been flipped this season. We still don’t know what causes this. I suspect it’s an extraterrestrial playing a prank on us.

Brand Spanking New Air Purifier!

Sena got a brand spankin’ new air purifier and it’s whisper quiet. It’s made by RENPHO. Air purifiers probably don’t reduce virus particles but they at least they give you the impression you’re doing something to keep the air clean in your home.

We had an air purifier years ago, and the whole unit had to be cleaned occasionally. This one has a filter you change every 6 months or so.

It’s easy to operate. Basically, you turn it on and forget it. Some of the directions are a little interesting. One of them is a table of what the different button symbols are. The title is “Defination.”

The list of cautions includes the instruction, “Do not place anything on top of the appliance and do not sit on the appliance.”

Why it would occur to anyone but an extraterrestrial to sit on the air purifier is beyond me.

There’s an air quality sensor light which glows a different color corresponding to how good or bad the air is in your house. Blue is very good; Green is good; Orange is bad; Red is polluted. Ours always glows a nice, comforting blue.

There’s a note below the air quality sensor light description:

“Note: Compared with professional instrument, the detecting result of this air quality sensor may has tolerance in accuracy, we suggest you regard the sensor detecting result as a reference only.”

I’m not sure how to interpret this note. Does “tolerance in accuracy” mean it has only tolerably fair accuracy, meaning good enough for government work? Would a canary work just as well?

The trouble shooting section contains an entry that might be helpful:

Problem: You can’t adjust any of the controls.

Cause: An Extraterrestrial Biological Entity (EBE) is sitting on top of the air purifier. Some EBEs are pretty finicky about air purifier settings. They might prevent you from changing them by contacting their superiors, who will abduct you and conduct various experiments using large probes.

Solution: Let the EBE have its way.

Morning Brew

We tried out our new double wall glass mugs yesterday and I think the coffee stays hot longer in the new cup. Sena is a little doubtful. She ordered a thermometer and we’ll test it more scientifically.

The mugs are lighter than I thought they would be. They don’t get hot on the outside so I can safely set it in my lap while we’re sitting out in the sun room in the morning.

The ceramic mug transmits a little too much heat for that, at least initially. I went through the roof once and got picked up by a passing UFO. I offered the driver a sip and it just said, “You’re not experimenting on me!” They’re a little suspicious.

Sena also got a little K-pod drawer which neatly holds most of our pods. The whole setup makes morning brew really quick and easy.

I like easy.

Men in Black Movies on Cable TV This Month!

I’m pretty excited because all of the Men in Black movies are going to be on cable September 9, 2023, which is a Saturday.  It’s on Paramount HD and several other streaming services. They start with the original Men in Black at 10:30 a.m. (Central Time), which I don’t care for. The other three sequels run right behind it in sequence. But then they restart at 5:30 PM—which means I would need to stay up way past my bedtime.

The one movie in the series you can see almost every night is the 4th sequel, Men in Black International. The other 3: Men in Black, Men in Black 2, and Men in Black 3 all seem to run every couple of months on cable or streaming services.

Anyway, I almost never miss an opportunity to watch the first 3 whenever I find out they’re on. I watched the 4th one a couple of times and that was enough.  I like the chemistry Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones had.

There’s an article on the web you can read to get up to speed on the movies. I disagree with the author on one point. Technically speaking, it was not Agent J who neuralyzed Beatrice. It was Agent K who zapped her with his neuralyzer. Agent J just refined Agent K’s memory adjustment script, which made it a team effort.

The AARO Finally Has a Website And is it Part of a Zero-Sum Game?

The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) finally has a website—more than a year after it was formed.

It looks like there’s an intriguing message in the section “Coming Soon: US Government UAP-Related Program/Activity Reporting.” It says AARO will accept reports of UAP from current government employees who know of any programs or activities related to UAPs dating back to 1945.

One sentence tells you “This form is intended as an initial point of contact with AARO; it is not intended for conveying potentially sensitive or classified information.  Following the submission of your report, AARO staff may reach out to request additional detail or arrange for an informational interview.”

Several other sections provide further information and pictures and videos on UAP.

I wonder if all this is a reaction to the House Oversight Committee Hearing on UAP on July 26, 2023. Either the website has been under construction for all of last year and was just finished a couple days ago or it was just thrown together recently.

This makes me think of a couple of things, one is Dr. George Dawson’s blog post “Is This An Episode of the X-Files?” The other is an X-Files episode itself, “Zero Sum” which Sena and I just saw a couple of nights ago. We don’t remember seeing it when it first aired in 1997. You can read the Wikipedia article about the episode.

The gist of it is that Assistant Director Skinner makes a deal with the Smoking Man in which the latter will save Agent Scully’s life (she’s dying of cancer related to alien experiments) if Skinner hides the death of a postal worker who was killed by a swarm of bees carrying smallpox. This is part of a complex plot by a group called the Syndicate which is either trying to work with extraterrestrials to either exterminate the human race or save it (depending on which episode you watch) by using bees as a vehicle to transmit either smallpox or a vaccine to cure the Black Oil, which screws you up pretty bad. Part of this is my interpretation because the storyline sometimes is not clear about this to me.

Anyway, the back-and-forth actions and reactions of the characters, especially Skinner and the Smoking Man, are pretty good examples of a Zero-Sum game, loosely defined in that neither gets much of an edge on the other as they both try to counter each other’s efforts in what is probably just a power struggle from the Smoking Man’s perspective and a desperate effort to save Scully’s life from Skinner’s perspective.

Anyway, I wonder if the UAP reporters and the government (including the AARO) might be in some kind of zero-sum game. UAP reporters try to get the government to admit that Extraterrestrial Biological Entities (EABs) and Extraterrestrial spacecraft exist. But the government denies it. Neither side ever seems to get much further ahead of the other.

Okay, More Drain Tile Grate Flipping

Well, on Saturday morning we noticed that a different drain tile grate was flipped in our back yard. Same problem as the other one that I blogged about last year. I put the wormhole gear clamp back on the other one and so far, so good.

Now I’m considering getting another clamp for the other grate.

I can think of a few animals around here that might be guilty of flipping grates: deer, feral cats, dogs, raccoons, and the like. We did catch a big raccoon on video up in the Mulberry tree a couple months ago. On the other hand, it’s not happening to our new neighbor’s grate.

I can’t rule out some kid pulling a prank on us. But I wouldn’t know who it is. As I may have mentioned last year, there aren’t any young kids in the immediate neighborhood.

I’m considering setting up our critter cam again. You never know. I might catch an extraterrestrial on camera.

Miracle Whip with Cheese Sandwiches Attracts Extraterrestrials!

We finally had lunch with Miracle Whip and American cheese sandwiches a few days ago. They were delicious! An extraterrestrial even showed up, begging for a bite.

Miracle Whip sometimes attracts ETs. I’m surprised more people don’t try this method of getting photo evidence for the existence of these creatures.

Sena is still planning to make Beignets sometime in the near future. She did make some really tasty funnel cakes though, using that Southern Living cake mix.

Thoughts on Extraterrestrial TV Shows

A couple of nights ago, I watched a few TV shows on the Travel Channel about UFOs, extraterrestrial abductions, implants, and whatnot. I think there was some sort of marathon given that it was the Independence Day weekend.

Anyway, I was surprised to see Marc D’Antonio on a show called Alien Invasion: Hudson Valley. The story is about a community of people there who report many encounters with extraterrestrials. I’m used to watching The Proof Is Out There on the History Channel, hosted by congenial and humorously skeptical Tony Harris. On that show, D’Antonio is one of the “analysts” who appraise photos submitted as evidence for the paranormal. He’s always pretty skeptical and presents a scientific demeanor.

However, D’Antonio is also a MUFON investigator (which I found out later) and on the Hudson Valley show, he gave a detailed account of having been visited by an extraterrestrial, lost time, and woke up later in his bed, covered in his own blood, later seeing a doctor who removed some big foreign object from his nose, which he reported had probably been implanted there by the extraterrestrial. He told the anecdote matter-of-factly and I was struck by his non-scientific attitude.

I guess he and many others like him are actors in this flood of UFO TV shows which are very entertaining and give the appearance of being investigative in their purpose. D’Antonio appeared to be an actor, which led me to doubt the authenticity of his role on The Proof Is Out There.

They kicked around the idea that extraterrestrials were implanting objects in people to track the ones who are Rh negative blood type. They suggested that extraterrestrials need to use humans as some kind of blood bank. That reminds me of a line from Men in Black II:

Newton: Gentlemen, before I start the tape, one more thing—what’s up with anal probing? I mean, do aliens really travel billions of light years just to…

On the other hand, the Hudson Valley thing was a confusing mix of ghost hunters and alien hunters. They used a device that I think they called an electromagnetic field (EMF) meter, which you can purchase on Amazon along with many other ghost hunting gadgets. The women actors shrieked predictably as they reported feeling invisible hands stroke their hair.

I thought the show was supposed to be about extraterrestrials, not ghosts. They tried to cover the bases by tossing out terms like interdimensional beings, ghosts, and extraterrestrials. Most IMDb reviewers generally panned the show as being unbelievably bad, which is right.

A program previous to that was about some podiatric surgeon named Roger Leir who removed a lot of foreign objects out of somebody’s foot and then claimed they were implanted by aliens. Leir sent the objects to a lab, which identified them as being made of common elements. Somehow, he got the idea they were from outer space.

But they didn’t mention that in the show. They brought in some other expert who claimed they were parts of alien nanotechnology. The only thing I could find out about that was on, oddly enough, an Ohio State University web page article about Leir that seemed out of place on the OSU website. The article was seemingly supportive of his claim that the objects were alien implants.

I think the shows should be more clearly identified as being entertainment in nature, not investigative. If they want to get more viewers, they might try adopting the Mountain Monsters approach, which is to make a parody about the subject. At least the humor would valuable.

Why Is It So Hard to Be A Human?

I wish I could have made the title of this post “Why It’s So Hard to Be a Human.” But that would mean I know why it’s so hard to be a human.

The reason this comes up is because of a song I heard last Friday night on the Big Mo Blues Show on KCCK radio in Iowa. The title is “Hard To Be A Human.” I’ve never heard of the vocalist, Bettye LaVette, who has been around a long time. A musician named Randall Bramblett wrote the song and he’s been around forever too, although I just learned of him as well.

I’m going to connect this song with the paranormal show I usually watch on Friday nights, “The Proof is Out There,” which I watch after I listen to the Friday Night Blues with Big Mo.

The show lives on videos from people who report seeing and hearing things like UFOs and Bigfoot or whatever that’s paranormal. There are a lot of fakes and conventional explanations uncovered on “The Proof is Out There,” including UFO videos sent in by contributors.

The reason I’m connecting the song “Hard To Be A Human,” to the paranormal is the letter “A” in the title. There’s another song with a similar title, but without the “A.” In my mind, leaving out the article “A” makes it clear that song is about humans for humans.

By contrast, the song with the article “A” makes me think of extraterrestrials. “A human” could imply that there might be some other life form aside from humans. Of course, there’s no such song as “Hard To Be An Extraterrestrial” (or, if you’ve read Douglas Adams’ book, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” maybe “Hard To Be A Vogon”). Insert “Martian” if that makes thinking about this any easier, which it probably won’t.

There is a song entitled “Hard To Be Human,” which I think is really about how difficult it is to be human, without considering whether there could be any other beings besides the human ones.

Just adding the specific article “A” in front of the word “human” led me to wonder if you could interpret the song in a galactic sense. Now, I have no problem admitting that all this is probably just because of the temporal juxtaposition of the song and the paranormal TV show.

On the other hand, I have this thought. While I couldn’t find the full lyrics to “Hard To Be A Human,” I could understand some of them. I could discern underlying themes suggestive of Christianity. There are definite references to the Bible, such as walking in the garden “apple in my hand”, the lyric “I’m just another life form,” and “First He made the mountains, then He filled up the sea; but He lost his concentration when he started working on you and me.”

I’m willing to concede that the “just another life form” phrase might have been restricted to just the life forms on planet Earth. However, might it suggest that God made beings (and mistakes) on other planets and their inhabitants?

I hope these references are familiar to at least some readers, because I think the point of the song might go beyond the everyday struggle of being human. I think there might be an attempt to raise the notion of trying to compare the sense of being a human with that of some other kind of being not from this planet.

The older I get, the less sure I am that a human is the only kind of being in the universe. It’s a big universe. If we’re not the only life form in the universe, could life be harder for other life forms?

Probably the answer is no. I don’t see extraterrestrials in millions of flying saucers blotting out the sun in a desperate attempt to move here. Inflation is outrageous. And, after all, it’s pretty hard to be a human.