random bits

[cellio]

A month or two ago I saw a commercial for a new TV show called The Book of Daniel. It looked interesting, but it was a while ago and I had completely forgotten about it -- until some bible-belt protesters managed to get some southern stations to not show tonight's premier, thus making the news and reminding me to set the VCR. (I only saw the one commercial, but it struck me as "respectful but off-beat", like the movie Oh God!, and not the blasphemy the protesters allege.) I suspect we're dealing with either stupid protesters or a smart, manipulative network. I mean, isn't the news the best advertising money can buy?

Erik still needs to gain weight, so he'd been eating mostly canned food. A friend suggested (and the vet concurred) that feeding him baby food might help (more protein), so I bought a few jars of that to try out the idea. He loves that! (Or, to be more precise, so far he loves chicken puree.) Because baby food is intended for people, it has nutrition information -- which tells me that a small jar is 70 calories and 6g of protein. (A baby's RDA of protein seems to be 14-15g.) This makes me wonder what ordinary feline nutrition needs are. Cat food, not being intended for humans, doesn't come with the FDA-required data dump.

I've been listening to a CD by Neshama Carlebach that I picked up recently ("Journey", IIRC). I was surprised to notice that she uses the Sephardi pronunciation of Hebrew -- surprised because her father, who was also a famous singer and songwriter (in addition to being a rabbi) used the Ashkenazi pronunciation. I guess I just assumed she'd follow her father in this, though I'm glad she didn't 'cause Sephardi is what I'm used to and it makes it easier for me to understand what I'm listening to.

I never thought it would be so much hassle to evict a mailing list. I'm currently hosting a list at my shell provider. There is a Yahoo mirror of the list, but for historic reasons that's not the "main" list. Well, I want to stop hosting it, so that's going to change now. This should be a simple matter of moving subscribers, flipping a switch at Yahoo (so direct posting is allowed), and shutting down the current (non-Yahoo) list. In practice, though, moving subscriptions requires the subscribers' active participation (which isn't happening), and only the owner of the Yahoo list can flip that switch (I'm a moderator; the owner is bouncing email), and I'm starting to wonder if moving the list requires sacrificing a goat under a full moon at midnight or some such. (Which would be a problem, as that's pretty likely to be avodah zarah, or alien worship. And squicky. :-) )

Comments

[cahwyguy.livejournal.com]

Be careful about your comments about sacrificing goats, frank might be listening.

[cellio]

Well, not frank. Everyone knows that once you name 'em you've moved them closer to pets than food/tools, after all.

I was sort of channelling the following quote that I picked up some years ago: "SCSI is *NOT* magic. There are fundamental technical reasons why it is necessary to sacrifice a young goat to your SCSI chain now and then." -- jfw@proteon.com (John Woods)

[cafemusique.livejournal.com]

Basically, Yahoo groups need the owner around to be able to get much done (or else delegation of pretty much every power to other moderators). I speak as one who was owner of a back-up list for a mailing list, and then lost access to the e-mail account associated with my Yahoo ID. And forgot the password for said Yahoo ID. As a result that list now has two back-ups. Both hosted at yahoo.

[cellio]

Yeah, I thought I had been given owner status and discovered that (1) I'm only a moderator and (2) moderators can't do much. With luck it won't be too long before the owner can make the change for me. (Ownership of the Yahoo group is ultimately destined for someone else anyway, after we complete the list transfer.)

I meant to post about the TV show

[cafemusique.livejournal.com]

I don't recall seeing any ads for the show, so I'm in the situation that I would not have heard about the show, were it not for the protests about it. Which made me look at it and say "Hmm, looks promising." And I still need to remember to set the DVD recorder.

[siderea]

Hmmm. Yes, the list situation stinks. Is there some hack you could do to motivate people to move themselves over? I'm thinking setting up some mail routing so that posts to list@yourplace continue to be sent to list@yahoo but only list@yahoo, and not to subscribers. Of course, before doing that, sending out a warning that people subscribed at the wrong place won't be receiving messages after date X. Then cut them off.

This presumes you have control of the list@yourplace address such that you can control its behavior. (This is why I usually go to such lengths to route mail across my domain, even if it's going to my ISP's listserver. I want a throttle, lest someday I need to use it.)

[cellio]

Starting a couple weeks ago I first asked for a new owner (to move the list wherever he wants), then announced that the list would be moving to Yahoo and what that means for subscribers, and then (last Sunday) sent out invitations. Friday I sent out an update, including a reminder to accept the invitations, and saying that when I connect with the owner we're going to finish the transfer and I'll shut down the list at that point. At this point I think I've given enough warning to be justified in cutting them off.

Yes, I have control of list@myplace. I can do all the usual majordomo things, and since the list is tied to my shell account I can have it shut down at will.

I kind of wish I'd noticed earlier that I didn't have the necessary privileges at Yahoo. I could find no documentation on remote groups (the feature in use here) and the only way to test the change was to actually make it -- and I had no idea whether that would then be reversible. (This list is old enough to have been through two acquisitions, Onelist -> eGroups -> Yahoo, so it's entirely possible that this is a legacy feature that they'll continue but not offer.)

Oh well; with luck the owner of the Yahoo list is back online (or will be soon) and we'll get this fixed. Assuming the alternate email address I have for him works. Worse comes to worst I'll post a comment in his journal. :-)

[cellio]

Update: I've been given owner status, but that still didn't enable me to make the change through Yahoo's web site. So I've sent more support mail to Yahoo...

[sue-n-julia.livejournal.com]

Cats require 26-34 grams of protein (if you look at some of the better brands of dry food, they tell you how much protein is in a "serving" of their food).

Be aware that baby food doesn't provide all the nutrients he needs -- like taurine. However, canned cat food mixed with some of the baby food should.

S

[cellio]

Thanks. I'm using the baby food to supplement, not replace, so I think we're ok there. (Mostly I'm using it as a lure to get him to eat more dry food to go with the canned. But it's also a good conduit for medicine, since I know he'll eat it all.)

[spiritdancer]

Actually, there is likely a toll-free phone number on the cat food - you usually can get info from the manufacturer regarding things like calories and protein content :-)

And Hill's, Eukanuba, and Purina provide books with all the pertinent info for veterinarians (I've go 'em in my exam rooms for reference)

[cellio]

Thanks! I hadn't thought to call and ask; that's a good idea.

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

Did you tape "Book of Daniel?" I'd like to see it too...

[cellio]

I taped it (well, I assume -- I programmed it and haven't watched the tape yet). I'll be happy to lend it to you or make you a copy or whatever.

baby food as cat food

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

A friend suggested (and the vet concurred) that feeding him baby food might help (more protein), so I bought a few jars of that to try out the idea. He loves that! (Or, to be more precise, so far he loves chicken puree.)

My parents used baby food for years as pesach cat food (chicken, beef, and/or turkey flavors). They figured it didn't have to be kosher since it wasn't going to be eaten by the people in the house, and as long as it was just meat & water (and as you say, they list the ingredients on the jar) then chametz wasn't an issue either, and an unbalances diet for a bit more than one week wouldn't hurt an otherwise healthy cat. As I remember, various cats had no problem switching to the baby food but were a little disappointed when their regular food came back.

Re: baby food as cat food

[cellio]

Good point; I'd never thought of baby food as a Pesach solution. (Though I never gave much thought to what's in it, never having bought any before this week.) I've also found myself thinking about another common Pesach approach (canned tuna) as a way of getting the cat to eat. Haven't offered him any yet, though; I'd be kind of afraid of trying to go back, given how nuts he (and the other two) go when I open a can for myself. :-)