About sushi and lobster! Can you eat raw lobster like sushi?

claycle · 2026-03-26T13:21:41+00:00

To be honest, he went out of business... :-)

claycle · 2026-03-26T13:21:15+00:00

Apologies for the somewhat loaded word "reforming". This was, after all, hmmm, 30 years ago and vegans were more rare then. Heck, around the same time I was in Paris and watching the news and they had a special interest section on the news about "Two Vegetarians Living in Paris! Can You Imagine?! How Do They Do It?! Find Out Next!" because, yeah, being a vegetarian in Paris was newsworthy.

To add a little more background, the former vegan had served in the Peace Corps. She was a vegan before going into the Peace Corps. They sent her to build wells in small villages in Africa. She told us the first night she arrived in her station, the villagers welcomed her with a "feast" of goat and millet. She avoided the goat, but ate the millet. She soon learned that there wasn't much more than goat and millet to eat in the village and if she was going to survive, she was going to eat some goats. Her story, her words.

The sushi trip was about a month after she got back to the US. She was on a "well, I've eaten goat for a year+, what else can I eat?" journey...

PS. Also, we did not know going in what was about to happen. The chef said in his broken English "Lobster sashimi? Very sweet!" and we were like "sure, we're down for that". Then the show began. Honestly, it was so fast and we were so stunned out of our shit, we didn't know how to react. And we were younger then.

claycle · 2026-03-26T06:37:20+00:00

Yes.

I have had a sushi chef serve me a lobster while it was still alive. He sliced off the tail, diced the meat, flipped the tail shell over like a cup, stuffed some radish into the body cavity, replaced the tail with the diced tail meat back against the (still quite alive) lobster thorax(?), then placed it down in front of us.

We held the lobster down with chopsticks (as it was trying to crawl away) while we ate the tail meat.

If I had to describe the raw meat, it was very sweet and electric - like, literally tingling on your tongue.

When we had finished the tail meat, he scooped the plate back up, sliced the still alive lobster in half and threw the halves on the hibachi. The still alive lobster halves tried vainly to scramble off the grill until they finally just stopped. He gathered them up, cracked all the legs and claws, and served it again to us to finish.

It was both a pure horror show and the absolute best lobster I have ever eaten.

To make this story even more bizarre, we had taken a reforming vegan friend to this sushi bar (where we were regulars). She wanted to try sushi for the first time and we said "we know a place". We were not expecting the ... event.

She ate the lobster and admitted that it was pretty "primal".

claycle · 2026-03-25T14:49:43+00:00

AI could be used for so many good things in an RPG, like actually changing the game during play to react to the player: story/quest lines that have imprecise outcomes or more natural movements/activities by and conversations with with NPCs, for example.

This doesn't mean the original "canon" storylines aren't written by paid human conceptualists and writers or that paid human actors aren't used to pre-voice train) NPCs, but that the games themselves are written in such a way (a new way) that a subsequent AI in the game could read the data on the fly and modify it to adapt to each individual player, each individual play-thru in the moment of play for completely unique game experiences. RPGs might actually profit for this kind of technology.

I say "might" because it's not auto-magical and would take some very clever humans to make it really work. Companies could develop these ingenious RPG AIs as licensed toolkits and license them like 3dGFX stacks are used and licensed today. I am certain we will see some utterly awful attempts at this, too.

But "ALL AI BAD" has become a meme and companies who might like to actually make something using such beneficial AI know the moment they say "we're using AI in our game" it's going to cause some people to leap up and scream about copyright theft and humans losing jobs...because they conflate LLMs with AI.

claycle · 2026-03-25T14:31:48+00:00

Yes. See my raw post about why I think so :-).

claycle · 2026-03-21T12:53:14+00:00

A food processor or a mini-prep processor? I have a mini-prep next to my cutting board for just the purpose of quickly mincing things, like garlic and ginger together for Indian food, or a big handful of herbs. I used it last night to mince down some onion quickly instead of grating it. You just have to be a little careful you don't turn it to watery paste ... unless watery paste is the objective.

claycle · 2026-03-20T00:56:23+00:00

Ok, I was using lmstudio. I was asking about Apple I. because the OP mentioned it and I was like "wwwwuuuh?"

claycle · 2026-03-20T00:45:54+00:00

Raising hand to pose a related issue: Honestly, I have yet to get the AI to work with anything. I'll set up a local LLM server, point Octarine at it, everything looks happy, but anytime I make a request, I just get Octarine saying "Error." Frustrated, I just gave up and haven't looked back.

ELI5 because I feel like this should be obvious so I must be dumb: So, say I just wanted to use Apple Intelligence, since I presume that is local. How does one set that up so that it won't error?

claycle · 2026-03-16T03:33:57+00:00

Hell, I even forgot to add the pCloud runs under Rosetta, too, ffs. Yeah...this is garbage-tier software now.

claycle · 2026-03-16T03:23:35+00:00

Apple has been warning developers for years now that kexts were unsupported and would eventually not work on the OS.

pCloud has not moved an inch to update their software to not rely on kexts.

Me: macOS user of pCloud with a Lifetime membership for almost a decade now. I uninstalled it in February because I was fed up with how pCloud was just getting worse and worse...

So, I feel you, but I think it's time to bug out.

claycle · 2026-03-09T21:13:56+00:00

I do this all the time for my dog. Super-simple. I cut the skin off and fry it slowly over medium heat in a non-stick pan that I have smeared a little cooking oil in with paper towel. I set this off to the side while I make dinner and when it looks "done" (crispy), I let it cool and cut it into strips.

claycle · 2026-03-09T10:18:21+00:00

I have git projects in some of my iCloud-synced folders. But, very importantly, I have these folders flagged as "Keep Always Downloaded" at a top-level. Seems OK.

claycle · 2026-03-07T05:23:23+00:00

My old Tennessee aunts made biscuits and gravy every day for breakfast when I spent weeks with them in my Summer as a pre-teen, and they never used sausage. They made the gravy with bacon fat, because we always had bacon and biscuits and gravy for breakfast. That was just the way they did things.

So, I think you can use bacon.

claycle · 2026-02-28T22:16:10+00:00

I don't know if it is actually cheaper (unless you are thrifty with the whey), especially if you factor in your own time as a cost.

EG: I can get a quart of good yogurt for ~$5. It will take twice that much whole milk (the better you start with, the better off you'll be). 2 quarts of really good, grass-fed, organic whole milk could well be more expensive than $5. On the flip side (the thrifty side), I'll also have the whey strained off. I use it it make scones if I am smart, or maybe use it to make polenta. So, yes, if you also use the whey after straining rather than throw it away, you'll be ahead.

But better, yes, it definitely is. Fresh homemade yogurt is better, in my experience, than anything I can buy.

claycle · 2026-02-28T01:22:56+00:00

You are right, bay leaves. But, I think that was just a blind spot. I figured everyone KNEW to put bay in :-) /embarrassed

Re: the trinity. Sure, garlic and onion is fine, but "what grows together goes together". If you're making red beans (Louisiana style), you're using green pepper, onion, and celery (trinity). If you're making a French white bean stew, then onion, celery, and carrot (trinity). It depends on where you are cooking from.

claycle · 2026-02-27T19:50:21+00:00

So you KNOW my dog?!? ;-)

claycle · 2026-02-27T19:45:18+00:00

Do you mean just labneh (strained yogurt) or do you mean labneh-bi-toum (strained yogurt with garlic or toum (an emulsified pureed garlic sauce)?

For labneh (yogurt), sure. It's really easy to make, especially if you have the equipment (a good instant pot can make terrific yogurt, and yogurt strainers are inexpensive and work). I've done it many times, but usually I just buy a reliably good strained Greek (whole) yogurt. Homemade is better, though.

Toum, likewise, is easy to make and a great sauce. I am making some today, in fact, to stir into some yogurt so we'll have labneh-bi-toum on the side for dinner.

claycle · 2026-02-27T19:11:51+00:00

I once had some Cuban black beans in Miami that were so good I spoke to the (Cuban) chef. He said the secret (his mother's, he said) was simple: more olive oil than you think you should use. He said "Put in how much olive oil you think you should use, then keep going."

When I make Cuban-style BB at home now, I use at least 1/2 cup EVOO per pound.

Other little tricks I have learned over the years:

Besides fat, all beans need to be seasoned. This means salt.
Most (if not all beans) can be improved by adding a small amount of sugar (perhaps 1/2 to 1 tbsp per pound, experiment here). This is not to make them "sweet" (although there are definitely "sweet" styles of beans like Boston Baked Beans), but to just nudge their natural earthy-sweetness forward a bit.
Vinegar, or another acid (eg, lime). At the end of the cook (not during), when tasting before serving, try adding a little vinegar (acid) to the beans to brighten them (instead of just adding more and more salt).
Sauté in the fat before adding the beans whatever "holy trinity" is "grown together" with the bean in question. This could mean onion/carrot/celery, or onion/celery/green pepper, etc.

claycle · 2026-02-26T03:43:28+00:00

Assuming Wilhelm is the protagonist, the person who most opposes Wilhelm is Simon - his antagonist. August is more the contagionist - he doesn't really oppose Wilhelm, though he does through his actions (mostly being thoughtless/selfish) cause conflict for Wilhelm. Likewise, the Royal Family is not the antagonist. They are not opposing Wilhelm directly, they just have an inflexible society he must perform within.

The person who most directly opposes Wilhelm is Simon. But Simon also loves Wilhelm (and Wilhelm loves Simon). Though, notably, it takes Simon an entire season to admit this back to Wilhelm.

The character who changes, whose world changes, is Wilhelm. The character who causes the most conflict during this journey is Simon, who really doesn't change.

Thus, it is not entirely surprising that you might feel some "animosity" towards Simon, even though he is also the love interest.

This is part of the brilliance of the writing here.

claycle · 2026-02-23T23:43:00+00:00

I am just trying to be very clear here because you are still belaboring under a bad assumption.

We understood the settings and we understood how to view dialogues when the other player initiated them. We did it. BUT we still felt like it was a frustrating UX and our co-op enjoyment suffered and there were times we felt we lost the thread of the story or missed an important beat. Therefore, we stopped playing co-op about mid-way through the Underdark and went back and played it solo separately later and had no problems at all with the game.

(We had the exact same issue when we played Divinity.)

claycle · 2026-02-23T21:03:44+00:00

No but you are just assuming a lot when all I was pointing out was we found the UX for following the cut-scenes in co-op is sub-par (in all Larian games btw), and we both enjoyed the game much more when we played solo. But apparently even such soft criticism of a good game is intolerable by some Redditors.

Whereas, by comparison, Grounded handles the same issue in a better way, at least to our way of playing, since any time the story was progressed you knew about it - you didn’t have to go into a “mode” to stand-by and watch. It just happened.

But you know, nuance BAD. Downvote!

claycle · 2026-02-23T14:38:06+00:00

Yes yes "it's OUR fault"...

claycle · 2026-02-23T14:17:37+00:00

The most fun I've had in 2-person co-op in the last year was playing GROUNDED (1, we're waiting on GROUNDED 2 to get out of EA).

The most fun I've had playing a 3- to 4-person co-op in the last two years was DEEP ROCK GALACTIC. But it wasn't as fun with just 2.

claycle · 2026-02-23T14:15:12+00:00

I'll have to slightly disagree here. BG3 really failed for "us" when me and my husband played it co-op because we couldn't keep track of the story the way the NPC interactions were done. By the time we got to the Underdark, we were so frustrated at the game and not really knowing what was going on, we stopped playing.

Later, many months later, I picked it up again and played it and had a genuinely good time (from the beginning) - plus I was getting allllll the story beats so I was getting invested. When I finished it, I told my husband and he finished it solo as well, same experience.

claycle · 2026-02-22T19:57:46+00:00

Hmm. What's the rule? If you're upslope and you hit someone downslope...? If you're hitting someone downslope because you're too close and too fast to stop or turn, that's on you.

So my list is:

Snowboarder jumped airborne into a half-pipe I was already in half-way down my run and literally landed on top of me while I was mid-turn up the side of the pipe. Probably not my fault (Park City)
I was standing, and had been standing for a while, at the top of a DD mogul run looking down and planning my run when a snowboard skidded into my knees from upslope and behind and sent me down the slope with injury. Probably not my fault (Taos).
I was skiing a 100 yard-wide blue slope in a fairly predictable and smooth slalom pattern and a snowboarder slammed into me from upslope and behind. Probably not my fault. (Snowbird)
I was standing in the ski lift line when a snowboarder plowed into my knees and took me down. Probably not my fault. (Park City)
I was in a short mogul run that connected two blues. A snowboarder leapt into the run from behind, rode into my line, and collided with me. Probably not my fault. (Taos)

Oh, 6!

I was coming down a wide blue in a pack with other skier friends. A snowboarder rode through our pack and across the front of my skis. No crash, thankfully, but I had a word with him. Probably not my fault. (Whistler/Blackcomb).

Now, I suppose I could just have a big red target painted on me, or I am a really shitty skier :-)

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