Blaine Clark

Gordon Blair wrote:I wanted to come back and report, especially to Paul, that I am now a full convert.

My wife and I grew a load of sunchokes and had them stored in the freezer for a long, long time because we could eat so little at a time--they were mostly forgotten. I was mulling over what Paul had been saying about building up a tolerance, and I eventually resolved to try it out properly.

For both of us, it took far less time than I expected. Over about a week or two, I went from only tolerating a small amount (and even that still produced a lot of gas) to being able to eat sunchokes like a potato substitute with no significant gas. It didn't even entail eating them every day, just most days.

If other growers can solve the problem as easily as that, I'd say it's well worthwhile! But I think the word needs put out there--in very explicit terms--because most people will try them once, get horrendous gas or worse, and never try them again? Your first experience is likely to validate the horror stories for you.

Yes!!!
My wife and I take a daily Inulin supplement for gut health. Both of my parents gave me colon issues so I got a double whammy. Inulin cured my colon inflammation. My first colonoscopy 20 years ago showed inflammation and a polyp. I started Inulin then and every 'scope since has shown zero inflammation and no polyps. My dad had an colostomy when he was 68 from cancer and my mom had polyps removed regularly.  My wife had bad diverticulitis issues up to 20 years ago. She'd have at least one attack per year, sometimes up to three. Since she started taking Inulin 20 years ago, her attacks have dropped to one every two or three years. That's not a cure, but she's so much better than she used to be. And 20 years ago is when we started growing Sunchokes.
If you have any kind of gut issues, check into Inulin for gut health and discuss it with your doctor. One other note, you may find an article or two about Inulin curing diabetes. Well, I'm diabetic and it hasn't cured me, so ...

I grow two varieties, both sourced locally from flower gardens and near road sides. The one resembles Stampede or Supernova, white/tan very knobby. The other resembles a Red Fuseau, reddish smooth skin. They look like small red sweet potatoes.
The Stampedes(?) behave nicely. After a long zone 5 winter freeze they have zero to very mild fart production when eaten raw. Harvested in the fall, they do well with a 20+ minute cooking time. The reds ... even after a long winter freeze and cooking for over an hour can still blow your bloomers into the next county.
How my wife and I deal with the red ones and the fall harvested knobbies is, first off, we take a daily supplement of Inulin for gut health so we're tolerant of the Sunchoke Inulin, and we make sure not to serve any reds to visitors. Both are grown on our 1 1/2 in-town lot, so they both have the same soil and sunny growing conditions. The knobby patch is 20 years old, the reds are 15 years old. We like the taste of the reds better than the knobbies, they're nuttier.
There is one item I just found out about; Dextrin. It's also a soluble prebiotic fiber like Inulin. If Inulin and Dextrin are taken together they have a much more pronounced effect on the gut microbiome than either alone, and the Dextrin suppresses the gas production of Inulin according to several articles I found. We're very tolerant of Inulin so we can't experiment on ourselves, but for others it could be worthwhile to mix Dextrin into your Sunchoke recipes or take Dextrin otherwise at the same time and see what the results are. If you eat Sunchokes raw, taking some Dextrin in tea or something else at the same time should work too. Benefiber is one source of Dextrin for example.

Sara Hartwin wrote:Okay, I have questions now.

Blaine Clark wrote:I have my entire system, system files and personal files encrypted.
...
my Linux system is set up with full system password encryption in case anyone were to steal my laptop. My User account is also password protected.
...
I could add UEFI/BIOS password protection, but why?

I wondered about UEFI/BIOS encryption! Not understanding, merely wondering. Everything I read about it (and I've forgotten the specifics) made me hesitant to attempt it.

File encryption I haven't done yet - also hesitant, because I would hate to lose access to my documents by flubbing that up. How vulnerable to flubbing up is it?

When you say "full system password encryption", is that the same as requiring a login password every time I turn the laptop on?
(In other words, the same password I have to type when I run any "sudo" commands in the terminal.)

And is encrypting my user account another (different) thing?

Linux system encryption is best set up when installing. It can be initiated after installation, but I've heard it can be unstable and fail. I've never tried post installation encryption, so I can't say one way or the other.
System encryption is evident when you start your PC. You're greeted with a screen clearly asking for the one password/passphrase to unencrypt your system for booting.
Next comes your User account sign in screen where, if you have only one User account, that is the only one you can choose. If you have more than one account, say a guest account or an account for your spouse or accounts set up for your children, then you can pick one account and sign in to that one. The encryption password has to be entered by anyone/everyone who boots the PC. The User account password should be different for each User account. User accounts can be set to allow or deny root (sudo) access as well as file access or denial as needed. This will protect your personal files from access by your children and prevent your children from willy-nilly installing  or removing or reconfiguring software. If you have time allotment allowances for your children, you can prevent them from being able to disable or alter the time allotment. Johnny, you're only allowed to browse or game from 6pm until 9pm, then you're automatically logged off and no chance of logging back in until 6pm tomorrow. Done deal. Johnny has only three hours and no chance of being able to alter that.
That's the difference between system encryption and User accounts.

jeff Swart wrote:
Personally, for well over 45 years wending my way about the inner webs, my password manager of choice is a text file innocuously named and buried deep in my file system.

Jeff, that's not all that good. If someone were to get access to your file system, either remotely or physically, they could find that file. I'll assume you use either key words or copied site addresses to ID your passwords. A directory search for files containing key words such as "bank', 'financial', etc. can find that file in a jiffy. You've got two options to prevent that; either encrypt that file or your entire personal folder, or, best in my opinion, is to download an actual password manager such as KeyPassXC, BitWarden or a couple others that can be installed and will operate inside your system. I have BitWarden as browser add-ons and as a standalone package. That standalone package gives me a fully encrypted password database on my system that no one can access without the main password remotely or physically. Added to that, I have my entire system, system files and personal files encrypted. If you shy away from using a password manager add-on in your browsers, you simply open your installed password manager, enter your password/passphrase, search for your login item, copy your user name, paste it, then back to the manager and copy your password/passphrase and paste that. Similar in practice to using your text file, but fully encrypted.
Password managers have many-several wonderful features I use; they generate random passwords, even random passphrases that I use in place of those ridiculous security questions. What's my mother's maiden name? Anyone can do a simple search and find my mother's maiden name. Those so-called security questions are beyond asinine. If I use a random word or phrase and save it in my password manager's note section for that site, no one could ever guess that I've used something like 'Py&$4m*wi4*pXInjDc*T' for my mother's maiden name or my first dog's name or my first postal address! I currently have my password manager set to generate 20 characters including upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters.
So, my Linux system is set up with full system password encryption in case anyone were to steal my laptop. My User account is also password protected. My online passwords are under still another encryption level. Yeah, I have to remember three passwords/passphrases.
I could add UEFI/BIOS password protection, but why? All someone has to do is pull the CMOS battery for a spell and that password is gone on some brands. That protection (instigated by Microsoft) is a total joke. Some PCs require a jumper between a couple of contact points for a reset. A tad better, but still a joke for protection.

Thanks for that!! I almost slid off of my chair! I may have a new hobby!
I can see and hear my wife:
What are you doing?
Choking my trees.
Choking your WHAT?

May be it's time to kick start this topic.
What I know so far:

Walnut trees spread Juglone. I've noticed that it doesn't affect Tulips, Daffodils and most grass at all, and Garlic a bit. It stunts Asparagus.

Sunchokes spread Coumarin (raw Coumadin) and Salicylic acid (raw aspirin). Most grasses get stunted after a couple years. Lambsquarters get stunted from 4'/5' to 18". Wild Strawberries aren't affected and neither is Garlic. Horseradish petered out after about four years. Periwinkle ground cover spreads like crazy. Cleaver weed is stunted. A squirrel buried a Walnut in one patch several years ago and I only dug around it. It's made it to about 2' in 3 years, so Walnut gets stunted too. I'm seriously thinking about pruning it into a Bonsai! What would I call that process? 'Choke choked Walnut Bonsai? Too cool!

OK, now how about someone else.

AI warning: Don't accept any AI produced nude photos of the Muppets.
Spoiler - it's just hands sticking up behind their stage.

This afternoon I pulled some stalks of the Stampede or Supernova(?) in a spot about 1' x 2', didn't dig, just pulled the tubers that came up with the stalks. I got 2 1/2 gallons. I'm sure I could have doubled that if I'd-a dug. Brought them in and covered with water for overnight. That coaxes the critters out or drowns them, plus it makes the dirt sticking to the tubers mud and much easier to brush off/out. Sometimes I toss some salt in, that brine cures the slugs. They seem to get all wizzled and leathery though, probably tough.
I cut one medium sized one about the size of a tennis ball, and my worries about all the rain were only a bit warranted. Just the stem end was pithy, about 1/2". The rest of the tuber was crispy crunchy and go-o-od!
One of the biggest from this sample weighed 9.3 oz. or 263 grams. And of course the others went down to thumb sized. The tiny ones went back into the dirt.
Thinking about some roasted 'choke country fries for breakfast! BTW, we never peel 'em.

Ac, take care with that IBS. Start back up really low and slow. One bite to start. Wait several hours then another if there isn't too much reaction.

Kelly, zone 3 is the max range for 'chokes. A guy I knew in upper Canada had to cover his every fall with over a foot of straw mulch for his zone 2 area and most tubers overwintered OK. One thing to consider is tracking down a short maturation term variety. The white/tan knobby ones I have are fairly short term, around 135 to 140 days if I remember. The reddish ones are about 155 days. My white ones are pretty nearly all dead and fully brown but the reddish ones are still blooming. We had hard frost the last two nights and the flowers are starting to wilt today. Some online suppliers show the maturation term of what they sell and I think there are varieties that mature in around 120 days. Might be what you're looking for.
I've heard several say that deadheading before the flowers open makes more and better tubers, well, I've trimmed the flowers as soon as they opened to make wine off of half of one patch. There was no difference in tuber growth or quality between the trimmed half and the untrimmed half. There could easily be a difference between varieties ... so ... Note; the flowers from the white/tan ones taste like squash after they're boiled, but the reddish one smell musty and taste musty. Years and years ago I gave a family in a nearby town a sample of the 12' tall with obnoxiously strong turnip/herbal tubers. They weren't interested in the tubers, they wanted the massive tops for their bunnies. Don't know about that cutting affecting tuber production, but the area has stalks as thick as bunny fur! It'd be difficult for a bunny to run through the patch! The stalks get well over 1", up to nearly 1 1/2".

William, I've thought about bagging them with lightly moistened sawdust overwinter but haven't tried it yet. Let us know how you make out.

Walter Byrd wrote:

I do not have the best vision either. One thing I especially like about the MATE desktop, I can make it look just like I want it to look. I can make the icons, the sidebars, and the fonts, as big as I like. I can make the background and the fonts in the terminal whatever color and size I want. I have found this to be difficult to impossible with Windows or MacOS.

Yes!! And Linux doesn't reset those settings on any updates, even major kernel updates. You actually own and control your PC! Only have to mess around with the settings and themes after a clean install. I like High contrast but Low contrast is better for my wife.
I use the Cinnamon DE, used to use Mate and it was great too. I've tried a couple other DEs, but Mate and Cinnamon take top billing for us. There's really only one item that we need to change and that's the size of the text cursor. It's usually too small to pick out when re-editing and I lose it in the text field. There's no native setting for it, so, if you'd like, search "adjust text cursor weight in <distro+version+DE>". In LMDE 7 Cinnamon I had to sudo edit a config file and add three lines. One line contained a number for the weight, the other two lines were just an opening bracket and a closing bracket. I adjusted that number just a few times, logged out and logged back in to activate and I've got a text cursor I can see in most every package. The Brave browser doesn't play nice with this, so here, the cursor is that thin little blinking bit, so easy to lose until I hit shift and either the left or right arrows to highlight its location. You can set the mouse cursor to 'halo' for a second when you hit a Ctrl key, it'd be nice if we could do that with the text cursor too!
Yeah, I'm there too. Traipsed around that sun 71 times and my eyes ain't what they used to be.
One thing I didn't mention before is that this new laptop has that blasted Copilot key instead of a right side Ctrl key. The Copilot key issues a special three part MS macro, so it can't be remapped normally. I had to install a little package, then edit its config file and enable it to set that Copilot key as a Ctrl key. I love keyboard shortcuts and use the right Ctrl key quite a bit, Ctrl and p for printing, Ctrl and +++ for occasional magnification and a few more. Note; Ctrl and zero resets magnification so you don't have to remember how many times you hit + to backtrack with Ctrl -.