As mentioned earlier today. I got this for Xmas some years back – I have always loved Rene Redzepi’s books, I once spent a year carrying his journal around.
NOMA recipes – I love them for how complex and insane they often are. But the chapters in here on basic fermentation are so simple and clear and free of faff that it’s kind of shocking. And the sheer breadth of things they have learned to pickle and ferment is staggering. I am determined to try fermented raspberries this summer.
I pulled this out of a cupboard because this is the year we work to eliminate as many UPFs as possible from our diet. But I have to tell you, this is just a fun read, like all Redzepi’s books. I will never in my life get to eat at Noma, but I love having these books.
I blew off everything last night: made harissa lamb shanks with truffled mashed potato, then a jar of cold ginger tea, then a jar of blood orange orangeade. But it turns out I still can’t make hummus.
TODAY:
Here in the UK, Ofcom is “investigating” X over sexual deepfakes, which could lead to a fine of 10% of X’s global revenue, while Musk is appearing in public with Pete Hegseth, signalling a return to the Trump administration fold.
Erich von Daniken died. At least one generation will remember his weird books being on the shelves of every charity shop in the world.
OPERATIONS: Today is scripting and figuring out my schedule for the next few weeks, because I am appallingly behind and need to sort myself out. STATUS: My near vision has been slowly deteriorating over the last five years or so, and I’ve been needing very strong light to read some print. Herself saw me struggling to read a small-print label yesterday, and handed me a pair of her +2 reading glasses that were laying around, as an experiment. And suddenly holy shit. Mortifying. I held on to the glasses and spent an hour reading THE NOMA GUIDE TO FERMENTATION without needing a powerful reading light. I’m 58 next month and have just ordered my first pair of reading glasses. I am mortified, to be honest. READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+) and THE NOMA GUIDE TO FERMENTATION (UK) (US+) LISTENING:
American tech entrepreneurs have opened up talks with officials about placing research-oriented freedom cities on the island of Greenland, according to a report in Reuters.
Last week, news website Reuters reported that at least three anonymized sources had claimed investors in America’s tech industry have been eyeing the island, owned by Denmark, as a site for new cities.
According to the reports, the communities would be freedom cities, established with minimal regulations to promote business.
Reuters reported that the “discussions are in early stages” but suggested that the plans are being “taken seriously” by the prospective US ambassador to Denmark, Ken Howery.
“The vision for Greenland, one of the people said, could include a hub for artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, space launches, micro nuclear reactors and high-speed rail,” reported Reuters.
February 2-8, 2025: 2 °C warming locked in, Greenland melt worsens, geoengineering hopes, Indian coal rates, wet bulb heat thresholds, global debt hits $323T, heavy metal pollution in China, UK Food Security report, 1M American kids with Long COVID, Swedish mass shooting, Philippines death threats against president, USAID closure, thousands killed in eastern DRC, hypernormalization…
morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.
My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/
If you didn’t yet get today’s newsletter, it seems the Beehiiv service is on a bit of a slowdown – as I write this, 75 minutes after the scheduler sent it out, it’s still only 68% delivered. if you didn’t get yours, it’s here:
I am at the time of writing still waiting for the system to send it to ME.
TODAY:
Neuromorphic computers. “A. field that applies principles of neuroscience to computing systems to mimic the brain’s function and structure.” Very good at partial differential equations, it turns out, which are good for fluid dynamics, weather patterning, structural stress mechanics. But here’s the good bit, buried at the bottom:
The researchers believe that neuromorphic computing could help bridge the gap between neuroscience and applied mathematics, offering new insights into how the brain processes information.
“Diseases of the brain could be diseases of computation,” Aimone said. “But we don’t have a solid grasp on how the brain performs computations yet.”
If their hunch is correct, neuromorphic computing could offer clues to better understand and treat neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
The dark matter bones of a failed galaxy. That was worth waking up for.
Now, an international team of researchers claims to have used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to discover an entirely new type of celestial object: dubbed “Cloud-9,” it’s a “starless, gas-rich, dark-matter cloud,” per the European Space Agency. The lack of stars caught the team by surprise, indicating Cloud-9 was a “fossil leftover” — what ScienceAlert memorably termed the “dark-matter bones of a failed galaxy.”
OPERATIONS: Not sure what today is yet. I have a lot of competing thoughts and I’m waiting for them to settle a bit. While also knowing in the back of my head that I have to go shopping and clear the kitchen! But I’m thinking I need to get back into a project I started developing last year, because I know the artist is waiting for the pitch document… STATUS: the temperature outside is starting a slow climb again, so I can shrug out of the heavy layers in a little while and dress less like a Dark Ages snow-cave hermit. READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+) LISTENING: New Music Show
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
Didn’t write anything at all here yesterday, because I was stuck in admin stuff and, honestly, I just haven’t gotten going yet this year. Disgusted with myself, I’ve decided that 2026 starts today.
TODAY:
GODZILLA MINUS ZERO is set for November of this year. I watched the black and white version of GODZILLA MINUS ONE and enjoyed it quite a bit. Although, given that I’m peculiar, I think I liked SHIN GODZILLA a little better.
Female-only wasp species has “an unusual reproductive strategy called thelytokous parthenogenesis, in which females lay unfertilized eggs that produce only more females. This means that even a single egg hitching a ride on firewood or a car can start a new infestation. No males have ever been found.”
OPERATIONS: right now, trying to land tomorrow’s newsletter, which hasn’t gone as planned, because see above about having blown the first ten days of the year. STATUS: inbox is at 112 and it’s a mess I need to clean up this weekend. READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+) LISTENING:
Running late today. And I ended up blowing a lot of yesterday off to make a roast sirloin of beef in roasted bone marrow butter with a red wine reduction and balsamic roasted carrots. Tonight will be a roasted porchetta with roasted beetroot and apple, Pet Nat and Calvados sauce. I have quick pickled carrots herbed with thyme in the fridge as an experiment – not sure if I got the brine mix right. This is the year we (mostly) eliminate UPFs.
Happy new year! A bunch of wonderful-looking new things arrived from the kind people at Zoharum, and you can find and listen to them all for yourself at their Bandcamp page. I’m going to be getting into these tomorrow.
It has not been a flying start to the week, but it is at least above freezing now.
Once again, I am spending too much time reading on my phone at night, and it’s frying my eyeballs so I need to get a hold of that this week. In my own defense, Minnie the cat has returned to her habit of sitting on me at night and pinning my left hand down, so I can’t work or hold a book open.
OPERATIONS: Have significantly failed at worthwhile scripting this week, so today is trying to solve that noise while also working on project development, making sense of my schedule and getting a chunk of the newsletter done and also hopefully getting to the shops so I can cook the venison goulash I’ve been dreaming of. This last one seems unlikely. STATUS: Inbox is at 109, which I really need to sort out. The day is already being fractionated – thinking about work then realising I need to order mealworms, starting the newsletter then remembering I haven’t processed accountancy documents or film project attachment terms, that sort of thing. READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+)
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr, best known for his dark and distinctive works of feature filmmaking, has died. He was 70.
Tarr’s death was announced this morning on Hungary’s national news agency MTI by filmmaker Bence Fliegauf on behalf of Tarr’s family. The European Film Academy also shared news of Tarr’s death this afternoon in an email. The Academy said Tarr died “after a long and serious illness.”
Handy Xmas gift. I let the garden largely alone last year, but this year it requites intervention, sowing and planting, and I want a lot of flowers and edibles (both of which have been getting increasingly difficult to raise), so I’m hoping this will help.
EDIBLE AND MEDICINAL WILD PLANTS OF BRITAIN AND IRELAND (Amazon)
