Hardcase Survival Pinto Bean Sludge:

In 1973, whilst compiling the book, “John Keats’s Porridge: Favorite Recipes of American Poets,” Victoria McCabe asked the author and poet Edward Abbey to contribute his favourite recipe to the project. Thankfully, he agreed, and soon responded with the following — a recipe for “Hardcase Survival Pinto Bean Sludge,” a potful of which could “feed one poet for two full weeks at a cost of about $11.45.”

(Source: Postcards from Ed, via Brenda Curin; Image: Edward Abbey, via warp & woof.)

19 May 1973

Dear Victoria,

Herewith my bit for your cookbook. This recipe is not original but a variation on an old (perhaps ancient) Southwestern dish. It has also been a favorite of mine and was for many years the staple, the sole staple, of my personal nutritional program. (I am six feet three and weigh 190 pounds, sober.)

I call it Hardcase Survival Pinto Bean Sludge.

1. Take one fifty-pound sack Colorado pinto beans. Remove stones, cockleburs, horseshit, ants, lizards, etc. Wash in clear cold crick water. Soak for twenty-four hours in iron kettle or earthenware cooking pot. (DO NOT USE TEFLON, ALUMINUM OR PYREX CONTAINER. THIS WARNING CANNOT BE OVERSTRESSED.)

2. Place kettle or pot with entire fifty lbs. of pinto beans on low fire and simmer for twenty-four hours. (DO NOT POUR OFF WATER IN WHICH BEANS HAVE BEEN IMMERSED. THIS IS IMPORTANT.) Fire must be of juniper, pinyon pine, mesquite or ironwood; other fuels tend to modify the subtle flavor and delicate aroma of Pinto Bean Sludge.

3. DO NOT BOIL.

4. STIR VIGOROUSLY FROM TIME TO TIME WITH WOODEN SPOON OR IRON LADLE. (Do not disregard these instructions.)

5. After simmering on low fire for twenty-four hours, add one gallon green chile peppers. Stir vigorously. Add one quart natural (non-iodized) pure sea salt. Add black pepper. Stir some more and throw in additional flavoring materials, as desired, such as old bacon rinds, corncobs, salt pork, hog jowls, kidney stones, ham hocks, sowbelly, saddle blankets, jungle boots, worn-out tennis shoes, cinch straps, whatnot, use your own judgment. Simmer an additional twenty-four hours.

6. Now ladle as many servings as desired from pot but do not remove pot from fire. Allow to simmer continuously for hours, days or weeks if necessary, until all contents have been thoroughly consumed. Continue to stir vigorously, whenever in vicinity or whenever you think of it.

7. Serve Pinto Bean Sludge on large flat stones or on any convenient fairly level surface. Garnish liberally with parsley flakes. Slather generously with raw ketchup. Sprinkle with endive, anchovy crumbs and boiled cruets and eat hearty.

8. One potful Pinto Bean Sludge, as above specified, will feed one poet for two full weeks at a cost of about $11.45 at current prices. Annual costs less than $300.

9. The philosopher Pythagoras found flatulence incompatible with meditation and therefore urged his followers not to eat beans. I have found, however, that custom and thorough cooking will alleviate this problem.

Yrs, Edward Abbey—Tucson

[I love this idea. -egg]
End software patent wars by making it always legal to run code on a general-purpose computer – Richard Stallman:
Writing in a special Wired series on patent reform, Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman proposes to limit the harms that patents do to computers, their users, and free/open development by passing a law that says that running software on a general purpose computer doesn’t infringe patents. In Stallman’s view, this would cut through a lot of the knottier problems in patent reform, including defining “software patents;” the fact that clever patent lawyers can work around any such definition; the risks from the existing pool of patents that won’t expire for decades and so on. Stallman points out that surgeons already have a statutory exemption to patent liability — performing surgery isn’t a patent violation, even if the devices and techniques employed in the operation are found to infringe. Stallman sees this as a precedent that can work to solve the problem. Though it seems to me that it might be easier to define “performing surgery” than “operating a general purpose computer.”

This approach doesn’t entirely invalidate existing computational idea patents, because they would continue to apply to implementations using special-purpose hardware. This is an advantage because it eliminates an argument against the legal validity of the plan. The U.S. passed a law some years ago shielding surgeons from patent lawsuits, so that even if surgical procedures are patented, surgeons are safe. That provides a precedent for this solution.

Software developers and software users need protection from patents. This is the only legislative solution that would provide full protection for all.

We could then go back to competing or cooperating … without the fear that some stranger will wipe away our work.

Let’s Limit the Effect of Software Patents, Since We Can’t Eliminate Them

(Image: DSC09309, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from 25734428@N06’s photostream)

Baby echidnas are called puggles and they are ADORABLE:

Watch it eat. ERMAHGERD. It’s almost enough to make you forget about the horrors of the echidna penis. Almost. Until you notice that the puggle has five legs. So, there’s that.

Thanks, Lo!

Radio Police Automaton:
Here’s a miraculous Radio Police Automaton from the May, 1924 issue of Hugo Gernsback’s Science and Invention. It will be useful for dispersing mobs, and for war. Note the built-in tear-gas tank. Also the “loud-speaker used to shout orders to the mob.” Mr Gernsback notes, “They will be well-nigh irresistible.”

There’s something decidedly pre-Ewok about this design and the bold claims of irresistibility.

Gernsback Radio Police Automaton

(via Wil Wheaton)

[This is brilliant and very, very, very awkward. -egg]

Surveillance Camera Man wants to know why we accept CCTVs but not a creepy guy with a camcorder:

“Surveillance Camera Man” is an anonymous fellow who wanders the streets and malls of Seattle with a handheld camcorder, walking up to people and recording them — in particular, recording their reactions to being recorded. He answers their questions with bland, deadpan statements (“It’s OK, I’m just recording video”), and sometimes mentions that there are lots of other (non-human-carried) cameras recording his subjects.

The videos are an interesting provocation. The underlying point — that the business, homes, and governments who put CCTVs in the places where we live our lives are intruding upon our privacy — is one I agree with. However, I think that Surveillance Camera Man’s point is blurred by the fact that he sometimes invades his subjects’ personal space, making it unclear whether the discomfort they exhibit comes from having a person standing right by them, or whether it’s the camera they object to. There’s also some childish taunting of easy targets (I’m no fan of the Church of Scientology, but surely the reason that the lady who keeps trying to throw him out is upset is that he’s holding a camera and making fun of Scientology, and not the camera alone).

‘Creepy Cameraman’ pushes limits of public surveillance — a glimpse of the future?

Crashed car sculpted from painted people:
Look closely. Those are seventeen people that artist Emma Hack painted and contorted into the shape of a smashed car. See how she did it below. (thanks, Sean Ness!)