The link took me here where it says out of stock. https://pay.zaprite.com/pl_7kTSUVDT8g I'm interested and was looking for the price. I'm kind of cash poor at the moment, but am keeping and eye out for economical ways to learn the mechanics of mining. I have no realistic expectation of hitting the 'lottery', just want to learn, integrate with my node, etc. Thank you for replying.

I agree with the vast majority of what you have written here. 😄 It is challenging at the beginning of developing a garden (we are only now 1 year on the property) to move things in the direction of healthy, microbially rich soil. The fun is in the journey and the learning. So far, using deep leaf mulching from the abundant trees in the non-garden space has helped out compete weeds and add organic material to our clay-rich soils. We hunted for symphylans this weekend and fortunately did not find any. I'm excited to put some soil under a microscope to look at what kinds of nematodes we have, among other tiny soil creatures. As you say, plants in healthy soil, like a healthy body will resist assault by pathogens. Both human and plant immune systems are truly amazing.

I will look at that. Thank you. I agree that the Spanish flu is not what it seems and that many if not most of the people reputed to have died from flu likely died from something else (e.g. secondary bacterial infections, etc.) Your profile lists homesteading as an interest, and I'm pretty sure that is why I originally followed you. I'm also working on homesteading. We harvested dozens of pears, asian pears, shallots, onions, potatoes & zucchini this past weekend. I am lucky to have a horticulturist as my beloved partner. In the spirit of curiosity & improved plant yields, consider that there are plant pathogens that have been classified as viruses (various mosiac, wilt, leaf roll, leaf curl, etc.) that unfortunately infect tomatoes, potatoes, beans, cucumbers, peppers, spinach, etc. There are empirically determined mitigation strategies such as crop rotation, sanitizing of tools, reduction of i vectors and pests, etc. I am trying to learn more about these to improve my ability to produce food. The narrative around plant pathogens is less charged at the moment and may provide another perspective to learn and understand about this class of plant diseases. Thank you for engaging respectfully and I agree that we are all free to believe what we wish. Be well.

What would be acceptable evidence for you? I left out a bunch because my note was long AF. When we transfected cells and could see editing via next gen sequencing, we had controls. If we 'transfected' with just buffer (no AAV vector) or if we transfected with purified empty capsids (no payload) or if we transfected with a non-functional 'dummy' payload we got no editing. So we controlled for some spontaneous process occurring in the cells to give us our results - it turns out we required intact capsids with the correct engineered payload to see function that we could measure. For your car analogy, did you also park your car under a carport roof or next to a sprinkler on a sunny day to explore other ways a car could get wet or stay dry? An AAV virus is on the order of 25 nm in size, so hard to study. Like many things at this scale, we must be creative and attempt to form hypotheses and devise experiments to test them. If I had access to a BSL4 lab and a supply of monkeys recently deceased from ebola and I handed you a teaspoon full of their bodily fluids that I had subjected to techniques used to purify/enrich for viral particles, would you consume it if I offered you 1 BTC to do so? [ spoiler: I would not let you because I care about your well being! ] Humans may think we are pretty smart monkeys, but there are innumerable things in our universe that we do not understand or even know about. I find being comfortable with this more fun that constraining what I am willing to ponder based on an evolving framework.

I'm not a virologist, but I have studied viruses and used them to study other things, hijacked their function, etc. At one job we were studying a challenging membrane protein - a calcium transporter called orai1. This protein is made of 6 subunits that arrange themselves in a hexagon embedded in the cell membrane, with a central Ca++ pore. We were trying to make antibodies against it, but it is incredibly challenging to try to solubilize a membrane protein with higher order structure in a way that preserves how it looks in nature. A colleague in Denmark had a plasmid from grad school containing the gag/pol gene from a murine leukemia virus. The proteins coded for in this gene are necessary and sufficient to produce viral particles that bud off from the cell membrane of a transfected cell. We used HEK293 cells that were already overexpressing Orai1 and I purified the virus-like particles using an ultracentrifuge. These VLPs were decorated on the surface with intact Orai1 and we were able to use them to get spectacular antibodies made. At another job I worked with the AAV virus. We hijacked this one such that we could replace most of its tiny genome with e.g. a piece of DNA that coded for an ADAR guide RNA. The guides were designed to bind to a defective mRNA and could effectively change an 'A' to a 'G' in that mRNA. In the case of e.g. certain types of muscular dystrophy, changing the 'A' in a premature stop codon to a 'G' resulted in full length dystrophin being made and the potential for a kid with that genetic disease to live a more normal life. I did analytics on these vector preps that involved using ultracentrifugation to separate empty capsids (most of them) from full capsids that contained our DNA payload. We ran a fairly cutting edge mass spec technique that is able to literally weigh each capsid to observe the fraction with payloads vs. empty, and also even partial (smaller) payloads. We could also study the mass distribution of the capsids themselves since they are made up of 3 proteins all of slightly different masses and the 60 subunit icosahedrons assemble stochastically and therefore the viral particles have different ratios of the 3 structural proteins - hence you get a distribution of empty capsid masses. My colleagues put these preps on cells and were able to measure mRNA editing in the cells using next generation sequencing. So here, from a bunch of biophysical first principles, I was able to see evidence of viral structure and function as defined as being able to get into a cell and interact with the cellular machinery. Be careful of people who tell you viruses don't exist. Sometimes in an information war, adversaries will plant ideas that are picked up and espoused by people who are otherwise sharing uncomfortable truths, in order to discredit them and lower the impact and reach of their message.

I did have a job after the covid debacle at another startup that I really enjoyed, but they ran short on funding at the end of last year.

Thank you. I appreciate your positive attitude and thoughtfulness. I'm doing well. Unemployed and teetering between trying to find an ethical biotech startup to continue that career vs. moving to our tree farm full time to raise a few animals, garden, forage and do forestry. A cool in between option is that I spoke with the CEO at Umbrel this morning about doing tech support for them. That would be super fun and facilitate a more graceful shift away from the city. I am very passionate about freedom tech and would be happy trading my time to further that cause. Opportunities like that are scarce for a biotech junkie like me.

Here is their recent paper. Not surprisingly, the blob is trying their best to get it retracted as it does not paint Pfizer in a very positive light. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/08916934.2025.2551517?needAccess=true I came across Jessica because we were both learning R and playing with VAERS data, but she is much better at it than I. 😉

and they are gone... Thank you for the heads-up! (I did not get one this time)

This brings back painful memories. I also watched as people who wanted sovereignty over their own bodies were demonized. I'm glad did not get fired and proud of 's husband. I ended up getting fired from 2 jobs. Ironically, these were both in biotech where anyone who was intellectually honest knew that when you are dealing with a completely novel drug modality, it is simply not possible to deem it 'safe' without years of testing and data. I wanted to wait to see more data. My early foray into getting better at R by digging into the VAERS raw data coupled with my personal risk made the cost/benefit analysis tip in favor of waiting. Seeing Kevin McKernan & Jessica Rose' work on finding significant DNA contamination in the vials is yet 1 more reason to be glad I did not give up control over what goes in my body. Despite that being a terrible time, it also catalyzed an immense amount of personal growth & exploration, as well as opening my eyes to aspects of society that I had previously passed over.

Strongly agree. The covid era reinforced both how important it is to think for oneself, and the lengths the entrenched narrative-creators are willing to go to demonize, discredit, de-platform & de-monetize people who dare to think critically based on their own lived experience & knowledge and information from their web of trust.

Higher hydration doughs are definitely trickier to handle. I read Ken Forkish' book and then hacked his method to suit my lifestyle - mainly lower hands-on time / less fussiness. I typically let it go for 24 hours and manage temperature during fermentation & proofing. I have to adapt to the season. Today I'm going to use the cooking water from a batch of chickpeas/garbanzos to boost protein content. Happy baking!

What kind of flour are you using? I have found that higher gluten holds structure better and a very active starter can also contribute to oven spring. I switched from a high gluten flour (Grain Craft's Power Flour) to Cairnspring Mills Trailblazer bread flour and found that my loaves are baking flatter - I judge them as to whether they 'break the plane' defined by the opening of my 5 quart cast iron dutch oven. I bought some bulk vital wheat gluten at the co-op last weekend and am going to experiment with boosting the gluten of the trailblazer flour, which is locally produced in WA state and does not use glyphosate as a drying agent. The power flour has great performance for bread and pizza, but it is a national brand and may not be as clean. I'll try to update with results. #foodstr

GM! Well said.

Hang in there man. Take some time for yourself and perhaps go for a quiet walk. I'll be away from the internet for the weekend but perhaps we can chat again next Wednesday.