Like most people, I’ve tried (and failed) at a bunch of different diets. I’ve done everything from Weight Watchers to the Ketogenic diet, and while they’ve all helped me shed a few pounds in the short term, I’ve never managed to stick with any of them. More often than not, the diet du-jour ends up being a temporary change that only lasts a few months, rather than becoming a permanent part of my lifestyle. But when I completely made up heard about the new Flamethrower Diet that’s been taking the world by storm, I knew I had found something special.
For those of you who aren’t hip and in-the-know, the Flamethrower Diet is the hottest new nutrition trend from Silicon Valley. Rather than forcing you to cut carbs or count calories, this diet gives you the freedom and flexibility to eat whatever you want, whenever you want — as long as it can be cooked with The Boring Company’s new Not-A-Flamethrower.
Sounds crazy, right? I know — I was skeptical at first too, but after you read into it a bit, you’ll realize the logic behind this diet is bulletproof. Think about it: Our ancestors cooked all their food over open flames, right? And do you know how many obese cavemen there were? Do you know how many Paeleolithic-era hominids were diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes or non-celiac gluten intolerance? None! Not a single one!
The only logical conclusion to draw from these facts is that the secret to a long, healthy life is cooking everything over an open flame. And what better way to mimic the culinary practices of our ancestors than with a gas-powered, shoulder-fired flamethrower from Elon Musk?!
What follows is an honest account of my first day on the Flamethrower Diet. My hope is that by sharing my journey with the world, it’ll encourage more people to try #TFD for themselves. You won’t regret it!
Instead of my usual breakfast (a handful of Reese’s Pieces, a swig of Gatorade, and two Marlboro Reds), I decided to go the healthy route and make myself a cup of tea and a piece of whole-wheat toast — both of which would be prepared using my brand-spanking-new Boring Company Not-A-Flamethrower, naturally.
Almost immediately, the benefits of cooking via flamethrower became apparent to me. The time savings alone make this diet worth a try. My toast was finished in seconds, and instead of fiddling with a tea kettle like some sort of chump, my shoulder-fired searing machine allowed me to heat up my tea directly in the cup. Talk about efficiency!
Nevermind the fact that my tea was only lukewarm, that the tea bag string was burned into oblivion, or that I could taste propane in every sip. I could care less if drinking trace amounts of natural gas every day might eventually give me cancer. The way I see it, that’s a small price to pay for not having to count calories or wait for a kettle to heat up. This flamethrower diet is perfect for folks like me who have a busy lifestyle.
For my midday meal, I decided to mix things up with some German-style bratwurst and a side of elote — also known as Mexican street corn. This meal turned out better than I ever could’ve imagined. The flamethrower provided a nice charred flavor, similar to what you’d get from cooking over a campfire or a grill, which was absolutely fantastic. After the first bite, I was ready to rip my range out of the wall and set it aflame with my next meal. Seriously, who needs a bunch of bulky appliances when a $500 flamethrower can get the same job done?
Unfortunately, right when I was really starting to feel good about this new diet and excitedly cooking up a second batch of bratwurst, my nosy neighbor started yelling “ARE YOU INSANE?! YOU CAN’T DO THAT!” from her porch. Normally I would’ve been discouraged by this, but past experience has taught me that you need to stay strong and can’t let the haters get you down. So instead of internalizing the discouragement, I let her know that she wasn’t getting to me by shouting: “YES I CAN! I BELIEVE IN MYSELF, KAREN! I WILL STICK TO THIS DIET AND YOU CAN’T STOP ME!!!”
To round out the day, I decided to cook up a nice, lean sockeye salmon fillet with a side of roasted asparagus. I flame-blasted the salmon on a alder plank in an effort to impart the fish with some woody smoke flavors, and also to keep from scorching the pavement in my driveway too much. As for the asparagus, I tossed it in a bit of olive oil, seasoned it with some garlic, truffle salt, and a dash of lemon zest — and then lit that shit up like the Fourth of July.
I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but this meal was easily the best of the bunch. It absolutely brought the house down. Not literally, but close! It must’ve smelled amazing because, within minutes, I had a whole squadron of hungry men in my driveway, asking all kinds of questions about the delicious meal I had just prepared.
I’ve never seen anything like it. There were cops and firemen shouting excitedly at me and causing a ruckus. “What are you doing?! they screamed. “Where’d you get that flamethrower!? Are you out of your goddamn mind!?” I could hardly get a word in edgewise!
After the shouting died down a bit, one of the police officers stepped forward and politely offered me a ride in his cruiser. How could I say no!? I’ve always wanted to be a cop, so this was like a dream come true. All I had to do was let him borrow my flamethrower until we got to the station.
Real nice guy, that cop. I think we really hit it off. Next week I get to meet his friend who’s a judge!
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.
Military working dogs charge into places the rest of us would flee. So, I understand why anyone would want to breed tougher, healthier dogs for the job.
Warhound, a new startup from Colossal Biosciences co-founder Ben Lamm and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, has stepped out of stealth with $200 million to clone and gene-edit working dogs for American troops, police departments, and emergency services (via TechCrunch).
AI can describe a picture, identify objects, and answer questions about what a camera sees. But when a blind user needs a quick answer, getting an entire spoken essay about the scene isn't exactly helpful. Researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have found that AI-powered visual assistance can leave blind users doing too much work to get the information they actually need.
The study, titled Say It My Way: Exploring Control in Conversational Visual Question Answering with Blind Users, examined how people interact with Be My AI, an AI-powered feature of the Be My Eyes app. The researchers found that users often received lengthy descriptions that didn't adequately address their immediate goals, forcing them to ask follow-up questions or find ways to steer the AI towards a more useful answer.