Thankful Thursday

[mdlbear]

Today I am grateful for...

• My genetic testing results, which came back Tuesday and are completely negative. Meaning that my prostate cancer is not hereditary, and my risk of getting any other kind is no worse than anybody else's.
• Free Flu and COVID-19 Tests and Treatments (via this post by siderea).
• Cocoa powder in my coffee. Also, double-wall-insulated coffee mugs.
• Beneficial microbes, in particular the yeasts responsible for bread and wine; the molds that flavor cheese; and the bacteria responsible for yoghurt, pickles, and kimchi. (And let's not forget antibiotics and the human gut microbiome.)
• Recognition in the press for people with no religious affiliation. A group in which I belong most of the time (I have been known to perform marriages as a Druid). Also, this Eulogy from a Physicist. "According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen."
• [irony]Standards for charging cables -- there are so many to choose from.[/irony] See also, xkcd 927.

Comments

[acelightning73]

CHinese and Japanese cuisine rely on a combination of bacteria and yeast to ferment soy sauce, sake, mirin, and vinegar. This grows on a substrate of rice straw, and it's essential to almost all east Asian cooking. And everyone who cooks or eats thanks those microorganisms for creating nuances of flavor - the cultures are thanked for their work the same way we thank meat animals for nourishing us with their flesh, and we thank yeast for giving us alcohol and carbon dioxide to create beer and bread. In Chinese thought, we are using the qi of these microscopic life forms to strengthen our own qi to strengthen our ownqi. And the physics principle that matter and energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only transformed, so that when the pattern of energy that makes up a living being's "spirit" or "personality" transforms into something else when that energy ceases to be contained in living matter, is a great comfort to me at times. When this crappy meat suit ceases to function, maybe I'll find another way to interact with the universe.

Don’t talk cables

[jesse_the_k]

I’ve been using apples since 1984 and they change their cable standards every five freaking minutes.

Hooray for no extra cancer risks!

[freyjaw]

And you did a lovely job on our wedding. Our 22nd anniversary is next month.

[mdlbear]

Thanks, and congratulations!

[freyjaw]

Thanks! We're still happy, even though Chris has to do so much of my care.

[gorgeousgary]

There's a good chance when I shuffle off this mortal coil the result will be I become more orderly!