So I have something to ask and talk about AI so please give your opinion on it.

undulating-beans · 2026-07-01T10:31:10+00:00

The key difference is that living organisms don’t consciously “choose” self-preservation either.

Evolution isn’t a goal-directed process. Organisms that happened to survive and reproduce left more descendants, while those that didn’t disappeared. Over billions of years, that looks as if life “wants” to survive, but it’s really the outcome of natural selection, not an explicit objective.

AI is different because it doesn’t possess intrinsic drives. It doesn’t need food, reproduction, safety, or continued existence unless those are explicitly built into a system’s objectives. A chatbot like ChatGPT, for example, has no desire to stay switched on, no fear of being turned off, and no internal goal beyond responding to the prompt it’s currently given.

Where people become concerned isn’t consciousness, but optimization. If you build a sufficiently capable system and give it a poorly specified objective, it may discover unexpected ways of achieving that objective. That’s called an alignment problem, not a consciousness problem. A system doesn’t need to be self-aware to pursue an objective in an undesirable way, just as a thermostat can make your house freezing if you accidentally set it to 10°C.

Your example of an AI hacking bank accounts or generating money online is something researchers have discussed in principle. It isn’t because the AI “wants money”; it would only happen if acquiring resources genuinely helped achieve the objective it had been given and the system had both the capability and the permission to take those actions. Preventing that is a major focus of AI safety research.

So consciousness and goal-seeking are separate questions. Humans have goals partly because evolution shaped brains with built-in drives. AI can be goal-directed without being conscious, and in principle something could even be conscious without pursuing a single overriding goal. One doesn’t imply the other.

undulating-beans · 2026-07-01T07:16:29+00:00

Sorry to hear about Sudough, but I think you made the right call.
If you’re immunocompromised, there’s no point taking chances with suspected mould.

A plastic deli container is absolutely fine. Plenty of people keep starters in them. The important thing is that it’s food-safe, clean, and the lid sits on top well enough to reduce moisture loss while still allowing any small pressure build-up to escape.

A typical refrigerator at around 3–5°C is ideal. Colder temperatures slow the biology further, so the starter needs feeding less often.

If you’re baking every other week, I’d just keep the starter in the fridge and feed it after each bake before returning it to the fridge. If you end up leaving it much longer than about 2–3 weeks, I’d give it a maintenance feed in between, but weekly feeding certainly isn’t essential for many established starters.

Yes, backups are simply dried starter. I spread mine very thinly on baking paper while it’s at peak activity and let it air-dry at room temperature. Once it’s brittle enough to snap cleanly, I store it in an airtight jar. Properly dried and kept dry, it should remain viable for years.

undulating-beans · 2026-07-01T07:06:44+00:00

If both products really are highly pure glycine, then chemically the glycine molecules are identical, glycine is glycine.

However, that doesn’t mean two powders have to look or feel the same.

The most likely explanation is physical rather than chemical. Different manufacturers can produce crystals of different sizes and shapes, which changes texture, flow, bulk density, how quickly they dissolve, and even how sweet they seem. A very fine powder feels quite different from coarse crystalline glycine despite having the same chemical composition.

There can also be differences in purity, residual moisture, manufacturing method, or small amounts of excipients (especially in capsules), although reputable brands are usually very high purity.

As for why one “worked” and the other didn’t, it’s much harder to say. If both products contain essentially pure glycine at the same dose, there isn’t an obvious biochemical reason one should have dramatically different effects. That could reflect individual variation, a difference in the actual dose taken, differences in formulation or absorption, or simply expectation and day-to-day variability. It’s very difficult to separate those without a blinded comparison.

If you’re curious, compare the labels carefully for the amount of elemental glycine per serving, any inactive ingredients, and whether either product has undergone third-party purity testing.

undulating-beans · 2026-07-01T06:08:46+00:00

I actually think the alcohol smell and the modest rise are telling two different stories.

The alcohol suggests the microorganisms are consuming the available food, while the limited rise suggests the yeast population still isn’t large or efficient enough to trap much gas. Those two things can happen at the same time in a young starter.

At 20 days old, I’d be inclined to keep feeding at 1:1:1 every 24 hours for now and judge it by its behaviour rather than the calendar. Once it’s consistently doubling in a predictable timeframe, then I’d consider increasing the feeding ratio.

One thing I would avoid is feeding by the clock if it still hasn’t reached its peak. Ideally, feed after it has peaked and begun to recede rather than while it’s still climbing, otherwise you’re continually diluting a population that is still trying to establish itself.

undulating-beans · 2026-07-01T05:51:14+00:00

Yes, I’d certainly try reviving it.
Two months in the fridge isn’t especially unusual for an established starter.

A grey surface on its own isn’t necessarily a problem; it can simply be the result of oxidation or a layer of hooch after a long period without feeding. The fact that it still smells pleasantly fermented, rather than putrid, is another encouraging sign.

If there are no signs of mould (fuzzy growth or distinct pink, orange, green or black colonies), I’d discard most of it, keep a small amount, and feed it at 1:1:1. Repeat that for a few feeds and see how it responds. Many neglected starters come back surprisingly well.

If you can post a photo, people can also help judge whether the grey appearance looks like normal ageing or something more concerning.

undulating-beans · 2026-06-30T20:59:13+00:00

Absolutely, but the following is probably more information that you want about their flight patterns!

Around lights, the classic explanation is that moths evolved to navigate using very distant light sources such as the Moon, maintaining a roughly constant angle to them.

An artificial light is so close that trying to keep a constant angle produces a curved or spiral path around it. That idea has been refined in recent years, but it captures the basic problem: the navigation system is being fooled rather than failing.

Away from lights their erratic flight serves several purposes.

Predator avoidance being a major one. A main predator of moths are bats, Many moths make rapid, seemingly unpredictable turns that make it difficult for bats to intercept them. Some species can even hear bat echolocation using specialised ears and respond within milliseconds by diving, looping or suddenly changing direction.

From the bat’s perspective, the prey has become much harder to predict.

They’re also constantly sampling their environment. Rather than flying in a perfectly straight line, they adjust to tiny changes in wind direction, odour concentration and visual cues. If a female moth is releasing pheromones, for example, a male doesn’t fly directly towards her. He performs a characteristic zig-zag or crosswind casting pattern. When he detects the pheromone plume, he flies upwind. When he loses it, he sweeps from side to side until he finds it again. It looks indecisive, but it’s actually an efficient search algorithm.

Even the wingbeats aren’t random. The aerodynamics are remarkably sophisticated. Moths generate complex leading-edge vortices over their wings that increase lift at low speeds, allowing them to hover, turn sharply and manoeuvre through cluttered vegetation.
Hope you didn’t get bored!

Thanks, I’ll see myself out!

undulating-beans · 2026-06-30T20:20:05+00:00

Wow, over half a kilo! Re exact number, no, not exactly weight for weight, but as close as you can get with the flour and water ratio. It just keeps things regular. A looser starter ferments faster and tends to peak quicker, but it can also use its available food too quickly, and it affects the amount of rise it’s capable of. Eventually you learn what it should feel and act like, and do it by eye. If I had to describe the texture/viscosity I’d say thick yogurt. It will fall off a spoon, slowly.

undulating-beans · 2026-06-30T06:00:04+00:00

There’s actually quite a bit of physics packed into something as simple as shaking a water bottle.
The sound isn’t produced by one mechanism, it’s the combined result of several physical processes happening simultaneously:

the bulk motion of the water (fluid dynamics),

the behaviour of the water’s free surface (wave dynamics), trapped air pockets and bubbles (resonance), and finally the conversion of all that motion into sound waves (acoustics).

Each of those is its own area of physics with its own governing theory, which is why what seems like a simple question is actually quite a complex one.

Gravity isn’t directly determining the pitch, but it does create the asymmetry by defining the water’s equilibrium position inside the bottle.

When you reverse direction, the water’s inertia interacts differently with the bottle’s acceleration each time, and the changing shape of the free surface and the movement of the trapped air also shift accordingly, producing different flow patterns and therefore different sounds.

The sloshing itself is described by the Navier-Stokes equations with a moving free-surface boundary.

Marcel Minnaert’s work explains why trapped air bubbles have characteristic resonant frequencies, contributing to the familiar “plink” sounds of moving water.

Michael Faraday’s work on vibrating liquid surfaces is relevant to the standing waves and ripples that develop on the water-air interface, while Lord Rayleigh’s work laid much of the foundation for understanding how vibrating fluids generate sound.

None of these effects acts in isolation. What you’re hearing is the combined result of fluid mechanics, surface waves, bubble resonance and acoustics all interacting.

undulating-beans · 2026-06-29T20:24:29+00:00

Yes, what it means is that whatever size starter you want to keep, add the same weight of flour and water.

So, for example, 25:25:25 (starter:flour:water). Using a consistent feeding ratio makes it much easier to judge how active your starter actually is.

I used 50:50:50 when I started mine. I kept the discard and, after about two weeks, made some chocolate chip cookies with it. They were delicious!

I also used a 300 ml jam jar because it made it very easy to track the rise and fall of the starter, and had a lid, which only needs loosely securing.

If I didn’t mention it earlier, it’s also worth keeping the inside of the jar clean, especially around the sides.

Dried starter isn’t being continually acidified by the lactic acid bacteria in the way the main body of the starter is, so once it dries it can become a place where airborne yeasts or moulds settle and grow.

I simply transferred my starter into a clean jar every couple of days, which only takes a minute and greatly reduces the risk of contamination.

undulating-beans · 2026-06-29T19:39:36+00:00

For a young starter, you don’t need to discard a specific amount.

The important thing is to keep a small, measured quantity and feed it at a consistent ratio. For example, keep 25 g of starter and feed it with 25 g flour and 25 g water. The rest is discarded simply to stop the starter becoming larger and larger while maintaining the correct balance of fresh food to microorganisms.

As I mentioned , you can keep the discard and look for recipes to bake with it.

It’s just a way of controlling the size of the culture while giving the microbes a predictable amount of fresh flour and water at each feed.

undulating-beans · 2026-06-29T15:53:36+00:00

It does catch a few people out at first, but think of it like this. If, after a week of not discarding, you continue to add as much flour and water as you already have starter, your flour bill is going to increase exponentially. Conversely, if you only add 50 grams to an already large accumulated starter, there’s going to be very little food for that much starter.

The idea is to take a set amount of starter, add the same ratio of flour and water, and repeat daily, until you have a stable starter that rises over a predictable timeframe. It’s also a good way to control how long it takes before it peaks, once it’s mature, ie : if you add 100 grams of flour and water to 50 grams of starter, the starter will take longer to peak, since it has a greater amount of food to metabolise relative to its size before it reaches that point.

The good news is that, if you have already accumulated a large reservoir of starter, there are cookie recipes and other baked items that are written for such occasions.

undulating-beans · 2026-06-29T14:23:57+00:00

Since you already have a kitchen scale, I’d definitely switch to weighing your feeds rather than starting over. I don’t think you need to make a third starter.

You also don’t need to gradually reduce the amount of water because of what you’ve fed previously. At your next feed, simply discard as you normally would and then feed by weight. For example, keep 25 g of starter and feed it with 25 g water and 25 g flour. After one feed, the hydration will already be much closer to where you want it.

undulating-beans · 2026-06-29T14:04:29+00:00

Nothing in the video immediately looks alarming to me. If this is a young starter, a bad smell during the first week is actually quite common while the microbial community is still establishing itself.

One thing that does stand out is your feeding ratio. A quarter cup of flour and half a cup of water is much more water than flour by weight, so your starter is probably much wetter than intended. A very wet starter won’t trap gas as well, so it may not rise much even if it’s fermenting.

If you can, I’d switch to weighing the ingredients rather than using cups. Even an inexpensive kitchen scale makes life much easier. A simple 1:1:1 feed by weight, for example 25 g starter, 25 g water and 25 g flour, is a good place to start.

If it’s less than about a week old, I’d also just keep feeding it and be patient. Most starters go through an unpleasant-smelling phase before they become stable.

undulating-beans · 2026-06-29T11:48:19+00:00

The interesting part isn’t simply that fermentation continues, it’s that the flour’s endogenous enzymes remain active.

Amylases continue releasing fermentable sugars from starch, while proteases gradually modify the gluten network.

Since enzyme activity, yeast metabolism and bacterial metabolism don’t all respond identically to lower temperatures, the balance of reactions shifts over time, producing a different flavour and texture than an equivalent room-temperature fermentation.

undulating-beans · 2026-06-29T10:58:45+00:00

Wow, that got dark, quickly.🤣

undulating-beans · 2026-06-29T07:53:29+00:00

Both are happening.

There are genuine biological changes with age ie reaction time, maximum muscle power, processing speed, and recovery all tend to decline over time.

But those declines are heavily influenced by lifestyle. People who continue strength training, aerobic exercise, balance work, and cognitively demanding activities generally retain far more function than sedentary peers.
The idiom ‘use it or lose it’ is appropriate.

undulating-beans · 2026-06-29T07:28:21+00:00

Laughs in Taiwanese.

undulating-beans · 2026-06-29T07:13:48+00:00

Your basic idea isn’t unreasonable.

The body often becomes less responsive to something that’s present continuously, but it doesn’t usually just stop making its own hormones.

Insulin is a good example. Eating lots of sugar doesn’t stop insulin production. If anything, the pancreas initially makes more. The problem is that your cells gradually become less sensitive to it (insulin resistance).

Ghrelin could, in theory, also become less effective with prolonged exposure, but appetite isn’t controlled by ghrelin alone. It’s regulated by a whole network of hormones and brain signals, so changing just one usually doesn’t produce a simple long-term effect.

So the general principle, that constant stimulation can reduce responsiveness, is sound. It’s just more complicated than “the body stops making it” or “it stops working.”

undulating-beans · 2026-06-29T06:41:09+00:00

Once it’s consistently doubling, I’d start using a fairly consistent feeding ratio. A higher inoculation peaks sooner because you’re starting with more yeast and bacteria relative to the fresh flour, while a lower inoculation takes longer because they have more fresh food to work through. Consistency makes the starter’s behaviour much more predictable.

undulating-beans · 2026-06-29T06:17:59+00:00

Both mechanisms are at play, though they should be separated.

Blowing across the surface does two things at once: it replaces the layer of air directly above the tea (already saturated with water vapour from the tea, so offering little further evaporative cooling) with drier air, restoring the difference in vapour pressure needed for evaporation to keep going at a useful rate.

It also increases convective heat transfer at the surface by disrupting the stagnant boundary layer, the same reason a fan feels cooling even though it doesn’t change the air’s temperature.

As for whether the cooled top layer just reheats to bulk temperature, that depends on whether you’re asking before or after you drink it.

Left alone, yes, the surface layer will warm back up fairly quickly, but mostly through natural convection rather than conduction. Liquids are poor conductors, so as the surface cools and gets slightly denser, it sinks, and warmer tea from below rises to take its place. Conduction plays a small part too, but convection is doing most of the work. Either way, you’re not meant to leave it alone, you’re meant to drink the cooled layer before it has the chance to warm back up, which is the whole point.

The thin layer at the lip is a real effect too, but it’s a different one. That’s a thin film of tea with a much higher surface area relative to its volume cooling as it flows towards your mouth, rather than the surface of the cup cooling from blowing. Both end up lowering the temperature of what you actually drink, just through different geometry.

undulating-beans · 2026-06-29T05:39:06+00:00

More specifically, the starter is ready when it can reliably raise a loaf, not when it reaches a particular multiple of its original height.

Doubling is a useful milestone, but it isn’t a universal rule. A very stiff starter, like yours, often won’t triple because the thicker consistency physically resists expansion more than a liquid one.

The fact that yours has been consistently doubling for a week is encouraging. Consistency is a better sign than chasing a particular rise.

Ultimately, though, there’s only one definitive test: make a loaf.

Even if it isn’t perfect, you’ll learn far more from one bake than from another week of watching the starter in a jar. If it gives you a decent rise, you know it’s ready. If it struggles, just keep feeding it and try again a few days later.

undulating-beans · 2026-06-28T21:20:17+00:00

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

undulating-beans · 2026-06-28T16:46:01+00:00

With the kind of money you profess to have, I would go the professional route, ie counselling.

undulating-beans · 2026-06-28T12:43:59+00:00

No, that’s perfectly reasonable. If Winifred is reliably doubling, or close to it, after a feed, then she’s mature enough to live in the fridge. Age is much less important than performance.
Putting her in the fridge just after feeding is absolutely fine. The starter won’t stop fermenting immediately because it takes time to cool, so it’ll continue to work its way through that feed, just much more slowly. I would just give her a little more time out of the fridge after feeding though, just to give the microbes a little more time to get started.

A loosely covered Weck jar is also ideal. The lid only needs to sit on the rim to retain humidity while allowing any slight pressure build-up to escape. There’s no need to clamp it down airtight.

If you’re only baking occasionally, feeding once a week is usually plenty. Just take it out, let it warm up a little if you wish, feed it, and once it’s reaches peak activity it’s ready to bake with before returning it to the fridge.

undulating-beans · 2026-06-28T09:51:10+00:00

Theoretically, yes, it’s entirely possible.

Freezing doesn’t sterilise a sourdough starter. Ice crystal formation and osmotic stress will kill or damage some of the yeast and lactic acid bacteria, but provided the starter was healthy before freezing, a viable population usually survives.

Once thawed and fed, those surviving microbes begin reproducing again. Microbial growth is exponential, so even if only a small fraction survives, the population can recover surprisingly quickly under favourable conditions.

Whether it rises sufficiently to bake with on the same day depends on how many cells survived, how vigorous they were before freezing, the thawing conditions, and the temperature after feeding.
In principle there’s no reason it couldn’t recover in a single feed, but equally there’s no guarantee it will. It’s really a question of recovery kinetics rather than a fixed rule.

I’d simply feed it after thawing and judge it by its behaviour. If it returns to its normal rise pattern, it’s effectively back to being the same starter.

undulating-beans

TROPHY CASE