{"id":9553,"date":"2014-09-13T13:27:19","date_gmt":"2014-09-13T20:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=9553"},"modified":"2014-09-13T13:27:19","modified_gmt":"2014-09-13T20:27:19","slug":"news-chum-stew-dna-pools-tarantino-politics-mel-brooks-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=9553","title":{"rendered":"News Chum Stew: DNA, Pools, Tarantino, Politics, Mel Brooks, and more"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-8131\" src=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/stew.jpg\" alt=\"Observation Stew\" width=\"100\" height=\"75\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"5\" \/>It&#8217;s Saturday at lunchtime, and you know by now what that means &#8212; it is time for some tasty news chum stew. Let&#8217;s see what we find floating in the broth this week:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Perils of DNA Testing<\/strong>. All of our new technology brings with it risks that we often don&#8217;t think about until it is too late. We&#8217;ve seen that with privacy and the Internet. Here&#8217;s another: DNA testing for geneology. This article from Vox has been circulating: &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vox.com\/2014\/9\/9\/5975653\/with-genetic-testing-i-gave-my-parents-the-gift-of-divorce-23andme\">With genetic testing, I gave my parents the gift of divorce<\/a>&#8221; What happened is this: one man got genetic testing for fun and geneology from 23andme. Through it, he discovered an unknown-half brother. The result of investigating this surprise tore his family apart.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Go Jump in a &#8230; Pool.<\/strong> Those of us living in the West know about the drought big time. Some of us live in houses with pools, which creates the question: How much water does a pool waste? Here&#8217;s the interesting results of an investigation that show that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/local\/la-me-pool-haters-20140913-story.html\">a typical pool (presuming no leaks) uses less water than a traditional lawn<\/a>, but a drought-tolerant lawn does better than a pool, &#8230; but a pool with a cover does better than a drought-tolerant lawn.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Theater of Note<\/strong>. Yes, I used the movie spelling, because I&#8217;m referring to the Beverly Theater, on Beverly Blvd in the Fairfax district. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.laweekly.com\/publicspectacle\/2014\/09\/05\/quentin-tarantino-on-his-new-role-running-the-shows-at-new-beverly-cinema\">Once a 2nd run house, later a revival house, it is now being programmed by Quentin Tarantino<\/a>. He aims to show movies as they were meant to be seen: projected from film, not digital. In fact, much of the programming will be from his own film-print collection.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Politics and Bedfellows<\/strong>. A couple of interesting political items. It is increasingly looking like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/bayarea\/matier-ross\/article\/Barbara-Boxer-re-election-run-looking-unlikely-5738787.php?cmpid=twitter-mobile\">Barbara Boxer will not run for another term<\/a>. This could lead to a nasty political campaign in California. Speaking of nasty, <a href=\"http:\/\/insidetv.ew.com\/2014\/09\/11\/discovery-democrat-republican-senators-deserted-island\/\">a new reality program aims to strand a Republican senator and a Democratic senator on a deserted island for a week to see if they survive<\/a>. At least they aren&#8217;t on Naked and Afraid.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A Mental Mindfuck<\/strong>. Anyone who has read the <em>Illuminatus<\/em> trilogy knows about Markov Chaney, who would go around playing with people&#8217;s minds. Mel Brook&#8217;s just did a mental mindfuck. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment\/gossip\/la-et-mg-mel-brooks-chinese-theatre-hollywood-handprints-cement-extra-finger-20140909-story.html\">He left his handprints a TCI Chinese Theatre, but with a prosthetic finger on one hand<\/a>. Years from now, Wikipedia will note that Brooks had 11 fingers, and that&#8217;s why he made such great comedy.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Not Vegas<\/strong>. You probably know I like Las Vegas History. So you know I will like this site that <a href=\"http:\/\/lasvegassun.com\/news\/2014\/sep\/09\/visit-vegas-never-happened-look-back-projects-fizz\/\">allows you to read about Vegas projects that never happened<\/a>. Alas, they don&#8217;t mention the Viva Casino (which I think inspired a hotel in Colorado Springs).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Leaving a Bad Taste<\/strong>. My favorite apple is the Pippin. Alas, I can rarely find it these days &#8212; it&#8217;s been pushed out by the Granny Smith (which is markedly inferior). Here&#8217;s another history of a bad apple: In this case, why <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/health\/archive\/2014\/09\/the-evil-reign-of-the-red-delicious\/379892\/\">the tasteless Red Delicious has become the most ubiquitous apple<\/a>. It&#8217;s almost as tasteless as an iPhone as a music player for people with large music collections. <a title=\"I Come To Mourn a Click-Wheel\u2026\" href=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=9549\">But I digress<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Some Useful Info<\/strong>. Here are some useful things to know. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailycal.org\/2014\/09\/11\/uc-berkeley-offer-mobile-payment-option-parking\/\">Berkeley is going to offer a mobile option for paying for parking<\/a>. That should be handy for people going near campus. Second, if you use Gmail or (ugh) Yahoo, here&#8217;s info on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/article\/2682692\/how-to-make-webmail-your-default-email-in-chrome-firefox-and-opera.html#tk.rss_all\">how to make webmail your default mail in a number of browsers<\/a>. Lastly, here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foodgps.com\/los-angeles-mongolian-bbq\/\">a guide to Mongolian BBQ in LA<\/a>, but (alas) they leave off the valley.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s Saturday at lunchtime, and you know by now what that means &#8212; it is time for some tasty news chum stew. Let&#8217;s see what we find floating in the broth this week: The Perils of DNA Testing. All of our new technology brings with it risks that we often don&#8217;t think about until it <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=9553\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-chum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9553"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9554,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9553\/revisions\/9554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}