Friday Ephemera

“Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner were in the closet making babies and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me”

@ Ian Mclean: “A lesser man might say her knickers but not me, oh, no siree, not me.”
I admire your great restraint.

“Educator”
“Lives off the largess of the taxpayer”

Speaking of Scott Adams, I challenge anyone to read through this twitter thread regarding Trump’s (supposed) statement telling people to “drink bleach”. People claiming to have watched the video yet still insisting he said things he didn’t say. Even a few of the Trump ‘apologists’ get gaslighted into surrendering ground that need not be surrendered. Read through this and explain to me how the hell we get out of this mess. It’s not just these twitter extremists. I have had similar conversations regarding the George Zimmerman case with people, engineers, professionals in STEM, etc. who are just as insistent that facts and/or words are not what they obviously are shown quite clearly to be. See also the “nazi symbol” CPAC stage “controversy”. Can someone please explain to me how we make this crap go away by yawning at it?

“How is meat racist ?”

Now that black people have overcome slavery, they have developed a rich barbeque culture.

It is also anti-Semitic because of potato soup.

Automatic soap dispensers are a manifestation of systemic racism.

Automatic soap dispensers are a manifestation of systemic racism.

“As another student reiterated, soap dispensers are racist because they force ‘black and brown bodies’ to show their palms — ‘the only light areas of the skin’ — in order to get soap out.”

I can see that, I, for one, find it much easier to wash my hands with the soap dribbling off the backs. It’s a little trickier with bar soap, but still.

possibly because they need an expert who can translate from loony

Sure looks like white supremacist gibblegabble. Not.
And why are the Ts upside down?

Well I can’t complain about the kerning.

“it’s important to use sea salt because it’s chemically identical to all other salts.”
This is a bit like saying rubies, sapphires and emeralds are chemically identical to common bauxite. Which they are, except for the trace impurities in the crystal structure that make them completely different.
The problem we have is not so much lack of science education but science miseducation. Mythbusters has a lot to answer for.
I have had similar conversations regarding the George Zimmerman case with people, engineers, professionals in STEM, etc
As the saying goes, you can’t reason people out of a position they weren’t reasoned into to begin with. You’ll have better luck if you avoid the factual argument and strike at the root of it: the ability to engage in public moral preening. I once worked for a nationally known environmental engineering firm that was all in on the global warming bollocks. One of the consulting engineers in particular was aghast at my skepticism and kept pointing out the sheer amount of business we did on the topic. I responded by asking him how the CEO, a notoriously unethical sleaze, would respond if a wealthy but eccentric Irishman wanted to pay the company a million dollars to determine the environmental impact of leprechauns in his garden. Would he tell the man there was no such thing as leprechauns and to keep his money, or would he take the money and produce a voluminous report that concluded “more study needed”?
As George Carlin used to say “that seemed to hold him for about half an hour”.

Mythbusters has a lot to answer for.
I used to enjoy that show but there were a couple of episodes where political correctness was involved, where the “science” was very subjective that made me question how rigorous their science really was. Thinking specifically here of an episode regarding the ability of men vs. women to tolerate discomfort/pain, but there were one or two others as well. The more objective stuff was more interesting/trustworthy.

This is a bit like saying rubies, sapphires and emeralds are chemically identical to common bauxite.
True, but it’s still funny because of the pretentiousness. Stepping on a punchline with the arcane is why “nerds” are considered humourless. ;p
Yes, all salts aren’t chemically identical. Much of the salt people put on their table has had iodine added to it, Himalayan salt has trace amounts of magnesium, potassium and calcium which makes it off-white to pink in colour. It would take an incredibly sensitive palate to be able to taste the difference once the salt has been added to a dish.

the “science” was very subjective
There’s no science in any episode of Mythbusters. It’s two SFX guys blowing things up because that’s fun, and that’s all it is. Anyone who’s spent more than five minutes in a lab would howl their heads off in laughter at their “science”. Nonetheless, a great many Gen-Xers and millennials believe very strongly that everything they see on Mythbusters is proven scientific fact.
It would take an incredibly sensitive palate to be able to taste the difference once the salt has been added to a dish.
It’s a good thing that’s a prerequisite for being a gourmet, then, isn’t it?
Also, don’t move the goalposts. Himalayan salt looks pretty but its flavour profile is virtually indistinguishable from NaCl. Sea salts, on the other hand, are generally harvested by evaporating seawater and they certainly do taste significantly different from NaCl – not because their crystalline chemical structure is any different, but because of all the other minerals in the seawater that are also left behind after evaporation. Hence why different salts from different regions have different flavour profiles.
Part of the reason for the craze in using kosher salts in cooking is that the iodine in table salt has an unpleasant flavour that is only intensified by heating, and table salt usually has anti-clumping agents that also add their own flavours to a dish. The relatively small amounts of table salt used when seasoning your plate don’t carry much of this unpleasant flavour; a couple of teaspoons of salt in a loaf of bread or a sauce will.
So while yes, technically sea salt is chemically identical to every other kind of salt qua salt, there’s a very good reason chefs use it.