The sale is supposed to last until the end of today September 15th. Usually, that would be until midnight Pacific time.

Suggest trying through the link on the officials Star Trek website to follow through to Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/StarTrekDaySale

We picked up 3 copies of Resurgence the evening of the 14th from Canada.

We’ve tried most of them over time.

Star Trek Resurgence has consistently excellent reviews. It’s about a 25 hour role play where the player makes choices for two different crew - a senior bridge officer and an NCO in engineering. It’s well done and one of our teens and I are enjoying it a lot. Great value for the sale price. My patience on this one was reinforced by its initial release being exclusive to Epic - but on Steam and on sale it’s worth it.

Bridge Crew is an older game. I have had it for a couple of years, and took advantage of the sale to pick up copies for each of our kids Steam accounts. One of them got really into it right away.

Timelines is also older. It held their interest for a bit in middle school but doesn’t seem to be one of the better tie-ins.

Star Trek Online is a long running massively multiplayer game that starts out free but then can cost a lot for in-game purchases. One of our teens is into it, and got fairly far without purchasing much, but the Steam sale is a good opportunity for them to buy things they’ve had on their wish list.

As a parent, I find these better than the endless number of Star Wars mods on Roblox that one of ours got into for a while.

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This is also raising questions of foreign interference/influence in democratic process.

In Canada, the federal Elections Commissioner has been called on to investigate the source of bot campaigns for the leading opposition party: Online bot campaign backing Pierre Pollievre prompts call for probe.

I’m still seeing this as an active posting, linked on other UN pages e.g.,

https://dppa.un.org/en/gazas-new-terror-booby-trapped-cans-of-food-unwary

However, a similar claim in January was found to be false by fact checking news orgs.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/feb/01/instagram-posts/no-viral-footage-doesnt-show-explosives-disguised/

So the childhood favourite ‘Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh’ was onto something.

From the webpage for King Arthur’s GF Bread Flour:

Description

Use our Gluten-free Bread Flour for your best breads and baked treats – completely gluten-free.

As if by magic, all your favorite breads can become gluten-free with this versatile gluten-free bread flour. Made with gluten-free wheat starch to give baked goods incredible taste and texture, it’s ideal for classic yeasted recipes like artisan boules, bagels, cinnamon rolls, and burger buns.

I’m not in the US, and hadn’t been aware of the distinction between their bread flour (which does have wheat starch) and their 1:1.

So agree on that, and appreciate the clarification.

I keep on getting social media recommendations for recipes made with King Arthur and for an EU analogue that uses ‘cleaned’ wheat starch. It makes me concerned that these are so heavily promoted without any cautions.

But the King Arthur 1:1 is a rice and starch mix, not ideal given the risks of a high rice diet (arsenic & aflatoxins) which we can’t mitigate as consumers when we have no idea where the rice is grown or how harvested, dried or processed. And rice heavy mixes produce dry baked goods as a rule, that go stale quickly. Can’t recommend it.

I’m going to respectfully argue back that it’s not helpful for the community when name brands with market power like King Arthur’s take up so much of the supermarket GF shelf space with problematic mixes. In doing so, they crowd out space that might let be given to newer GF producers with better products that eliminate gluten and other allergens for a larger group of consumers. I’ve been baking GF for about 25 years and have seen availability actually go down as some of the major brands have rolled into the segment. So, can’t really send kudos for that.

I feel strongly about Bob’s Red Mill in this regard as well by the way. We don’t know what the second generation management will do, but up to now Bob’s has dominated shelf space while refusing to separate its lines to eliminate other major allergens like milk, soy or tree nuts.

Prior to the FDA requirements on top allergen labeling going up in the US, we regularly saw our Canadian Food Inspection Agency pulling Bob’s products from shelves here based on lab findings of undeclared allergens. So, stores were wary to rely on Bob’s, but more recently Bob’s has displaced a number of better smaller mills on supermarket shelves.

As it happens, King Arthur’s flour isn’t available for sale in Canada while most other GF brands from the US are. King Arthur wheat flour was my favourite brand in the US when I was a student there many years ago, so I’ve been curious to see what they did for GF. Was pretty shocked when I looked it up to see a wheat-derived bread flour hitting the mass market under a GF label.

It’s a journey. You may find that a wide variety of neurological and muscle issues ease or vanish with a super strict GF diet. There’s also evidence that within 5 years of starting a true GF diet many with celiac find that other food intolerances wane or disappear.

I just bought a gluten free cookbook that comes highly recommended called ‘The Gluten Free Cook’ by Cristian Broglia, an Italian chef, who looked for naturally gluten free recipes from around the world. This seems to be the kind of thing that might be useful to you. (Haven’t really tried much in it myself yet.)

One cookbook that I find super reliable is ‘Healthy Gluten Free Eating’ by Davina Allen and Rosemary Kearney of the Ballymaloe Cooking School in Cork, Ireland. Ireland has the highest prevalence of celiac in the world and the Chef’s school there has been at the forefront of developing workable recipes.

Another cookbook that I rely on is ‘Gluten Free Flour Power’.

Last, ‘Baked to Perfection’ is a recent award winning GF baking book by a woman who was a PhD student in inorganic chemistry when she wrote it. She understands a great deal about making GF baking work and explains it in an understandable way.

King Arthur’s uses ‘cleaned’ wheat starch, supposed to be <20 ppm gluten.

This isn’t ok for many with wheat allergy or gluten intolerance that is not celiac.

Stay away from rice flour and starch heavy GF breads, as they will be drier and go stale quickly.

GF alternative flours tend to have higher hydration requirements than wheat and it seems few GF bread manufacturers have a clue about this. PhD inorganic chemist and cookbook author Katerina Cermelj has a lot to say about that in her book ‘Baked to Perfection.’

There are decent recipes out there, especially ones that include psyllium, which makes it possible to make a gel that can give better texture and hold moisture.

I’ve recently become aware of mulesing, an appalling practice used on Merino sheep in Australia and NZ due to a specific fly problem. The problem is that most merino wool is from those countries.

Also, most fabric generically labeled ‘wool’ is mostly merino from mulesinged sheep.

Ethics conscious knitters, crocheters and weavers are aware, and merino yarns certified as mulesing-free are on the market now.

Knowing country of origin and wool type is another reliable way to avoid endorsing this practice, but again most manufactured clothing or even fabrics will not give the necessary information.

It’s important to consider the impact and total volume of ultra processed foods, and the chemicals they contribute to the diet.

There’s increasing evidence that it’s not just a a matter of calorie equations or carb restriction overall that has effects.

Decades ago, research established that managing the glycemic load was more effective than just calorie counting for persons with diabetes.

15 years ago there was evidence building that diet drinks actually could contribute to metabolic problems.

Now studies looking at overall impacts of ultra processed foods suggest they mess up the gut micro biome or at best get taken up into energy much faster than expected.

The items listed in the article fall into the ultra processed category. The ‘everything in moderation’ approach may not be that successful when too much of the diet flips into the ultra processed categories.

“Works-for-hire” is exactly the key point here.

This is about who holds the IP. Sometimes, depending on the employer and contract, an engineer will get to share in a patent created in the course of the job. Or might have incentives such as Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) or options.

So it’s not true that the IT folks are exclusively paid salary. Many share in the risk as well as the returns of their firms.

Let’s unpack that.

Yes, there are ‘writers for hire’ in licenced tie-in fiction and comics. These authors get a flat advance BUT they still get royalties based on the number of books or comics sold. That is - base payment and then returns based on success if the product.

Film and television writers are compensated by residuals in addition to salary. The studio owns the IP but the creators have a stake. It’s a risk and return sharing relationship with the studio. That’s the standard arrangement.

How is this different from an ESOP or options as an incentive remuneration?

How would an IT employee feel if a firm licenced the IP and then excluded its value from the calculation of ESOPs and options due, or the dividends on the nonvoting shares issued to employees?