Weird, random, interesting - now with 100% less diacriticals

[InsaneCommander]

The education part was important. Otherwise the guild of doctors would be busy with anti-healers and the plague would get worse.

[Raithe]

 

[rjshae]

2 hours ago, Raithe said:

If you don't know, does it even matter?

[Raithe]

Random Trivia:

American chocolate tastes like vomit.

And there's a reason for it.

The chocolate factories are further from the dairy farms in the USA than in Europe, so due to that distance of transport they have a chemical process to extend the shelf life of the milk... which as a byproduct produces butyric acid in the milk. And that is the same stuff you get in vomit. Also, they tend to put more sugar while having less cocoa solids. That combination is why Europeans as a general rule of thumb really find American made chocolate detestable compared to proper chocolate made over here.

[ComradeYellow]

Commies and Nazi's battling it out in a nutshell.

Who's Jon Connor?  The Jews/Muslims? xD

Edited February 27, 2021 by ComradeMaster

[Amentep]

3 hours ago, Raithe said:

Random Trivia:

American chocolate tastes like vomit.

And there's a reason for it.

The chocolate factories are further from the dairy farms in the USA than in Europe, so due to that distance of transport they have a chemical process to extend the shelf life of the milk... which as a byproduct produces butyric acid in the milk. And that is the same stuff you get in vomit. Also, they tend to put more sugar while having less cocoa solids. That combination is why Europeans as a general rule of thumb really find American made chocolate detestable compared to proper chocolate made over here.

I'd be interested in the source on this; Hershey's claims their milk is from local PA farms within 100 miles of the factory. And I think their chocolate is generally terribly (I can tolerate some of their dark chocolate).

I've always heard the US chocolate tastes bad because they skimp on some of the ingredients that would make the chocolate taste better (fat and cocoa) while maximizing sugar.

[Zoraptor]

It's the right sort of acid to be true- 'butyric' as a word comes butter, and it's the prime constituent in the smell/ taste of rancid butter for example.

I'd be pretty skeptical though, milk is one of those products that doesn't really go off in a slow and steady manner, it tends to go off suddenly and obviously since even a mild amount of acid drops all the protein out as it denatures.So unless they're making chocolate with, say, non cultured buttermilk any process that creates butyric acid would be counterproductive.

Acid is of course crucial in making a lot of dairy products like yoghurt or cheese, but that's controlled and by and large not what you want from chocolate.

And having said that, a ten second google search indicates Raithe may well be correct, and Hershey for some reason may well be using, effectively, butyrised buttermilk to make chocolate. Swiped from Wikipedia:

Quote

The process is a company and trade secret, but experts speculate that the milk is partially lipolyzed. This produces butyric acid (a compound found in substances such as Parmesan cheese) which stabilizes the milk from further fermentation.

Why you need to do that if you're using fresh milk I have no idea.

[ComradeYellow]

 

[Guard Dog]

 

Sunset at Gale Crater, Peace Vallis on Mars. Taken by the Curiosity rover (the older one not the new one) on 12/30/2020. This was Curiosity's 3011th Sol on Mars

[Malcador]

 

[Hurlshort]

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-56126016

Interesting and somewhat sad story on the cost of misinformation and conspiracy theories.

[Raithe]

I am seriously tempted to put this on the funny things thread, but a man did die after all...

Indian man killed by his own rooster during ****fight - BBC News

[rjshae]

4 hours ago, Raithe said:

I am seriously tempted to put this on the funny things thread, but a man did die after all...

Indian man killed by his own rooster during ****fight - BBC News

All it took was a little prick.

[Guard Dog]

Rooster kills man during rooster fight

Apparently there was some confusion on the rooster's part about whom he was supposed to be fighting 

In all seriousness **** fighting is cruel, despicable, and barbaric. The rooster in this story killed his owner and in my book the SOB had it coming.  

[Raithe]

Man Tracks Down People He Photographed in the Street 40 Years Ago to Recreate Their Pictures (mymodernmet.com)

#

In the late 1970s and 1980s, paramedic Chris Porsz spent hours walking around Peterborough, a city in eastern England, snapping the photos of the everyday passerby. From punks to policemen, the amateur photographer captured portraits of life that were endearing and honest. Now, almost 40 years later, Porsz—known as the “paramedic paparazzo”—has returned to his project, this time acting as both savvy sleuth as well as picture taker.

Porsz has dedicated the last seven years to tracking down his former subjects and convincing them to strike that same pose from so long ago. “I don’t think anyone else has tracked down so many strangers and recreated photos in this way before,” Porsz told Metro. It took “tenacious detective work, meticulous planning and, often, unbelievable coincidences,” but the results are a fascinating look at how people have changed—how they’ve grown up, split apart, and of course, changed their sense of style.

 

[Raithe]

 

[ShadySands]

So regarding the American chocolate thing, it tastes the way out does, bad, by design and not because of distance? I mean, I can't imagine distance being an issue in the past 50+ years. 

Edited February 28, 2021 by ShadySands

[Zoraptor]

If Hershey uses local milk there's no reason to add* butyric acid as a 'preservative' at all, unless for some reason they want to store it longer term. Higher acid products tend to have longer shelf lives than 'straight' milk by a factor of maybe 4 times. Of course long term storage kind of defeats the purpose of fresh local sourcing. To be strenuously fair to them, there are seasonal milk shortages as cows dry off and have to go through another pregnancy cycle to start producing again, but those are managed and staggered, unless the US system is significantly different from elsewhere, and those limitations are present in Europe/ New Zealand/ anywhere else too. Overall, if they are selling butyric acid tainted chocolate as a matter of course it would be 100% a deliberate choice presumably to save money.

*technically if it's lipolysed it's breaking a 4 carbon acid group off the end of a fat molecule rather than directly adding butyric acid, though the effect is the same. Naturally it would be lactic acid sending milk 'off' most of the time which is not fat related but lactose sugar metabolism, iirc. Butyric acid is from the fat elements going off instead, or in this case adding an enzyme to cleave it off.

[rjshae]

2 hours ago, ShadySands said:

So regarding the American chocolate thing, it tastes the way out does, bad, by design and not because of distance? I mean, I can't imagine distance being an issue in the past 50+ years. 

From what I've read, the difference comes down to different ingredients and different cocoa bean sources. They taste different in a sense like wines taste different. It boils down to personal preference.

[Guard Dog]

Bodies 'frozen' to wake up in the future - from baseball players to Bitcoin developers

I do hope they preserved someone like this:

[Raithe]

10 hours ago, rjshae said:

From what I've read, the difference comes down to different ingredients and different cocoa bean sources. They taste different in a sense like wines taste different. It boils down to personal preference.

From what I've seen, read, heard on QI and such, it's a combination of factors.

Historically, chocolate factories weren't as near to dairy farms as you might expect in the USA, hence more prepping of ways to keep milk longer-lasting. Combine in with companies that raised sugar levels, while reducing cocoa levels. Elements of "company recipes" plus cost-saving.  After a few generations of people grow up with that taste, people find it weird if the taste changes.

That happend a couple of years back when American companies bought up most of the English chocolate ones, then tried changing the recipes in similar cost-saving ways.  Especially when Kraft bought out Cadbury. Huuuuge public backlash due to the really funky tastes that were so different to what people had grown up with - Brought on by their replacing the traditional dairy milk chocolate with a "standard cocoa mix chocolate" for the Cadbury Creme Eggs.

[Raithe]

[Raithe]

When the “Violence” Isn't Violent - Persuasion

To describe popping a balloon filled with pink or blue glitter as “violent” might seem a little odd. But this is how the New York Times columnist Charles Blow characterized gender-reveal parties, where expectant parents announce the sex of a forthcoming baby. “All we know before a child is born is their anatomy. They will reveal their gender.” Such occasions aren’t cute, he tweeted. “They’re violent.”

If by “violence,” he meant a physical attack, Blow had misspoken. But this wasn’t a mistake. Rather, he employed a different sense of “violence.” Such events, he meant, pushed the unborn child into predetermined gender roles, constraining them with social power that might be compared to actual violence. The coercion is less immediate but, according to this line of thought, no less damaging.

Such usage is becoming increasingly common, employed to describe everything from the violence of Latin tests that hurt students’ self-esteem, to the violent appropriation of hip-hop in the musical Hamilton. The concept is also seeping into institutions, as when Seattle Public Schools held a training session for teachers that charged American schools with the “spirit murder” of black students.

This reconception of violence is more than another shift in the English language. It’s a series of deliberate word choices used to equate nonphysical offenses to physical harm. Too often, the result is to delegitimize alternative views, ratchet up everyone’s anger, and vulgarize a term that should be reserved for real brutality.

****

[Gfted1]

*disgust for humanity increases 0.001%*

[Raithe]