ricecake

@ricecake@sh.itjust.works

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why does it seem most people, mainly conservatives, against Trans people? Unless I am wrong I never heard of one shooting up a school church or whatever. The ones I have met have been pretty cool.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s a failure of empathy. People hate and/or fear what they don’t understand.

  They can’t empathize with someone not feeling right in their own skin like that, so all their rationalizations for things like “why would they want to use that bathroom” end up stemming from what they have left, which is unsavory intent, making them threatening.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Petrichor⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s worth remembering that evolution doesn’t select for the best as much as it selects against the worst.

  The reason we have such sensitivity doesn’t have to be particularly game changing as long as it doesn’t make us less likely to reproduce.

  You can plainly see our big niche adaptations being used everyday. We think good. We recognize patterns. We use tools. We walk a lot, efficiently and upright. We communicate with high precision. We have a surprisingly efficient digestive system.

  We’re not busting out the ability to smell rain super often, which hints that it might be more in the “doesn’t hurt” category instead of being a big advantage.

  My guess is that being able to smell disturbed soil is helpful for tracking, either where an animal has run or where something has been buried. Our ancestors were not above digging up a fresh-ish dead animal a canine had buried for later.
  But it could just be that rain sense slightly more accurate than looking towards the horizon was as useful then as it is now: vaguely, I guess? It just doesn’t hurt anything.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨turned them into their final form!⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  And they’re delicious. ~Although usually not just plain meat, but filled with wonderful spices~

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I just WON'T⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  We colloquially call a lot of things I’ve cream that aren’t labeled ice cream, and aren’t legally ice cream.

  The US has tediously long definitions for different foods, and ice cream needs specific proportions of milk products, as well as limits on other physical properties.

  www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/…/cfrsearch.cfm?fr…

  www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/…/cfrsearch.cfm?fr…

  www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/…/CFRSearch.cfm?CF…

  So while I might pick up some sherbet and say “I got ice cream”, and people would know what I meant, it would never be labeled ice cream.
  I also like oat milk ice cream, but it’s actually labeled “frozen dessert” because it doesn’t contain dairy.

  The company isn’t allowed to use a term that might mislead a unwitting or uninformed consumer, but the consumer is free to have a more relaxed definition, and stores can put things where you would expect.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Not sure I get what you mean by “slow”.

  And it’s not entirely shocking that we have more of the power source we’ve been building and less of the one we stopped building.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon walks home in the city at 2 AM⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Lives in the same building for one of the examples given. And we’re not DAs, we get the benefit of OP telling us their state of mind and intent which involves very explicitly making choices of dress, behavior and demeanor for the explicit purpose of quite literally menacing women for his own amusement.

  Difficult to prosecute doesn’t make something legal.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon walks home in the city at 2 AM⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Depends on jurisdiction, but in a fair number it would be “menacing”.

  A person is guilty of menacing when by some movement of body or any instrument the person intentionally places another person in fear of imminent physical injury.

  That’s Delaware’s, but different states do it differently, and some out that classification under stalking.

  Following someone around intentionally and knowingly causing them fear of injury is illegal. Why on earth would you even for a moment think you’re allowed to do that? It’s like thinking guns are legal so you can point your gun at someone on the street.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Reliable bank account⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s none. They would owe him money, so he’d have to get in line with all the other creditors to request that the court prioritize his debt over someone else’s.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Did something about mass produced ice cream change like 10 years ago?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Those aren’t typically used to mask anything, or to let you increase the air quantity. They’re typically used to keep the product stable during freezing, otherwise it can either turn into a brick because they froze too solidly, or because all the air escaped during cold storage.
  In terms of cost savings, it does let them shorten the time needed to let the mix sit before churning, but that’s just because it helps the fat globs come back together easier.

  There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with using the gums. Xanthan is the only one really that isn’t available in an organic formulation, since they’re just bean powders mostly.

  What’s the difference between using coconut oil or pectin like Hagan dazs does (a fat solid at higher temperatures that works as a stabilizer, and a fruit derived gelling agent) and using guar or locust bean gum? They’re all just plant powders and roughly equally processed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Did something about mass produced ice cream change like 10 years ago?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s actually because icecream has a defined air and fat content, and if you leave those guidelines you stop being icecream.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Did something about mass produced ice cream change like 10 years ago?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Changed with ice cream in general? No. But there are things that have been possible to add to ice cream for a while that do what you describe. It could be that you’re just starting to notice, you shifted brands, or the brand you liked shifted formulations.

  Many people dislike the things that get added to ice cream, and so there are definitely brands out there that don’t include those things.
  In my opinion the worst of the additives is not nearly as bad as a lot of people would make them out to be.

  In the broadest sense possible ice cream is sugar, fat, water and thickener where the fat has been cooled to a solid and allowed to just start to re-form into a lump, the ice hasn’t been allowed to form crystals big enough to notice, and the thickener and sugars glue the fat and ice together such that they trap miniature air bubbles.
  Some people insist that the fat and thickener have to come from cow milk in the form of milk fat and milk proteins, but that’s a bit pedantic for my tastes.

  The easiest way to cheap out on ice cream is to add a lot more air. Since we sell it based on volume, if we churn more air into it we get more ice cream to sell for the same quantity of ingredients, and the only effect is that the ice cream is lighter, softer and fluffier.
  There’s a legal maximum to how much air you can mix in though.

  The next hurdle you run into is that milk proteins are actually kinda shit at keeping those air bubbles trapped. Adding things like guar gum or carrageenan will make it much gloopier and hold those air bubbles better.
  This makes the ice cream last longer in a warehouse without the bubbles getting out and leaving your ice cream as a brick.

  Next is rampant ice crystal spread, which can turn the ice cream into a brick in the warehouse. This can be slowed down using something called methylcellulose. It’s basically processed plant fiber ground into a powder. It’s also used in pills as the inert binder, and as a dietary fiber source.
  It’s popular because is known to be safe and inert, it’s very cheap, it prevents ice crystal formation, and it has the fun quirk of getting thicker as it warms, for the added property of keeping your ice cream fluffy and areated as it warms up on your drive home.

  Finally, you can tweak the fat blend. This one isn’t as common because milk fat is already insanely cheap since we subsidize the hell out of the dairy industry.
  Changing the blend to use fats that are solid at higher temperatures does have utility for things you expect to be eaten slower, at higher temperatures, or if you want parents to not be mad that your ice cream makes kids extra sticky.

  By far the biggest way that I’ve cream will save costs is by putting as much air in it as possible. It lets them sell you less in the same size box for the same price.
  It’s a case where shrinkflation means making things bigger, which is fun.

  The brands that didn’t take that route invariably rebranded as “premium” ice creams, so they can charge more for the same thing without raising consumer ire.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do different ethnicities/races look different?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Some are random and have no disadvantage, so they stick around. Others have an advantage that may or may not still be relevant.

  High melanin levels help with bright equatorial sun. Low melanin levels help with vitamin D synthesis in areas where there’s less sun.

  Curly African hair is better at protecting the scalp from the sun and heat. There’s less hair follicles overall, allowing for better airflow and the tight curls keep the hair away from the scalp allowing it to cool better. This also meant less sweating, which made it easier to remain hydrated and clean.
  Straighter hair tends to be more dense, and to do a better job keeping you warm.

  A lot of the other traits are random, or in genes connected to the general melanin genes, since evolution is unlikely to specifically target just the melanin levels of skin, and not the overall melanin level.

  Some traits are also a result of sexual selection. Peacocks have large, vibrant plumage because it helps them attract a mate. Some human characteristics are the same. We essentially selectively bred ourselves based on the whim of aesthetics.

  Finally, much of what we consider racial differences between people are social constructs.
  That’s not to say that the differences aren’t real, but that the racial division is a relatively arbitrary line.
  For example, I’m nearly a foot taller than my wife. My ancestors wandered up from Africa, landed in Scandinavia and then drifted to Scotland and southern England before coming to the Americas and getting mixed up in the Canadian fur trade in the 1600s. My wife’s ancestors stopped in Germany before coming to the Americas in the late 1800s.
  Our children are not considered mixed race because our skin is the same color, even though the actual lineage is pretty distinct.

  We decided that skin color is a race marker, but not things like “height”, “toe and finger length”, or things like that.
  Except for where we did, like when European colonizers relatively arbitrarily decided that different traits were racial markers amongst the colonized, like nose shape and chin thickness.

  All that to say, much of what we consider obvious racial differences that stand out are only such because we decided to pay attention to them. Other perfectly visible variations are just normal individual variations.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How does US "early voting" works logistically speaking ?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  What county is that? That sounds like the type of discrepancy that you don’t hear about often.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How does US "early voting" works logistically speaking ?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I have an assigned voting location, but there are several in my district that are all “valid”, and I was just assigned the one closest to my house. If I were to be confused and go to a valid location I wasn’t assigned to, I’m still in the ledger. Since I’m attempting to vote in the correct district, they don’t really have grounds to turn me away.

  If I were in the wrong district, I’m still allowed to cast a provisional ballot, which lets you vote but they sort it out later.

  You can also vote absentee and then also in person and not disclose that you need to invalidate the absent vote. Here that’s automatic, but in some places it’s a crime.

  You’re also allowed to go to a clerks office, which has the equipment to print any ballot and handle it correctly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How does US "early voting" works logistically speaking ?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The exact specifics vary based on the state, but it’s roughly the same in each of them.
  You track the voter, ballot, collection and counting.

  Voter A issued ballot 3. Ballot 3 collected Ballot 3 counted.

  The counting phase involves removing the tracking number from the ballot before removing a cover that keeps the vote private.

  You can’t slip an extra ballot into the box because then the totals don’t add up, and you know where in the process the discrepancy occurred.
  Making sure there are multiple eyes on issuing and counting means it’s hard to create or count a fake ballot.
  When not observed by multiple people, the containers are locked with multiple locks with keys held by different people.

  It’s why most voter fraud is a voter going to multiple valid voting locations to vote multiple times. Once the tabulations begin, you see you counted the number collected, collected the number issued, and that you issued one ballot to each voter except one, who got three.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do some men dis other men who sit to pee? (& follow-up questions)⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Usually about 15 to 20 seconds. I’ve been known to check my phone while standing to pee, it really just depends on what I’m doing It’s not like I’m doing a lot on my phone while peeing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Horrors We've Unleashed⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Most modern plans for eradication involve creating a virus that handles it, rather than a pesticide.
  Have the virus introduce a gene that takes a few generations of breeding in the impacted population before it starts to debilitate or sterilize the mosquitoes. That way your virus can start to kill the population even as it spreads to areas that were missed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Horrors We've Unleashed⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  All of our best data on the impact says that it really wouldn’t matter. Sometimes a species is a linchpin for the ecosystem, and sometimes it isn’t.

  Sucks for mosquitoes, but there’s a very real chance that we’ll smallpox them, and the biggest concern will be our confidence that the virus we use doesn’t impact other species unintentionally.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ok boomer⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  check out is the part where the actual sales transaction occurs. It really is materially different

  Like a vending machine? Or the gas station? Or the grocery pickup, where I pay online?
  What makes a human being present for me giving my money to a machine different if it’s a grocery store as opposed to one of those?

  Sorry your experience sucks. Stores near me regularly have both open and the self checkout is invariably significantly faster. It’s not like I just didn’t notice that something I do several times a week actually sucks.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ok boomer⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve never understood the people who seem to not get that some people actually don’t mind scanning their stuff and putting it in bags, and insist that that’s the line between what the customer does and the employee. They also used to carry your groceries to the car for you, and you can also get them to pick everything up, bag it and bring it to your car or house. It’s not like the checkout process is the special part that can’t change.

  Yeah, they want to save money by having fewer people get more customers checked out faster. I don’t really care since the part I like, getting finished at the store, happens faster.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Phonebooks⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, and it’s not like you want the information out there, it’s just that in my opinion it’s not something I would pay money for. Having the authority to make the request doesn’t mean that the party on the other end is obligated to comply, or in some cases even legally permitted to.

  I’ve used Google’s service where they send you an email to review results if they find something, and my Google results for my incredibly distinctive name are basically only professional resources that I kinda want to be findable.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Phonebooks⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Honestly? It’s not something I would pay for. Google has their own service where they’ll let you know if they find your information and you can ask them to remove the search result.
  Beyond that, there’s some information that you just fundamentally can’t make private and no service can get taken down.
  Most data mining sites just collect those public records and put them next to each other, so they get a pile of your name, birthday, where you were born, how active you are as a voter and all that stuff.

  Removing your address from Google maps just seems silly to me. That there is a residence there is fundamentally public information, not being on maps doesn’t make it less public it just probably causes issues for delivery drivers.

  Anyone who has your data and is going to be a jerk about it isn’t going to listen to a request to take it down either. They’re just going to send you spam messages.

  The odds of being Targeted by a determined individual who’s focused explicitly on you is low. They tend to target a broad swath of people, and then dig in on people who take the bait a few times.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Phonebooks⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I have never felt so old.

  Name, address, and phone number of the account holder used to be published in books that got sent to everyone in the city and also just left lying in boxes that had phones in them if you needed to make a call while you weren’t home, because your phone used to be tied to a physical location.
  You also used to have to pay extra to make calls to places far away because it used more phone circuits. And by “far away” I mean roughly 50 miles.

  It’s not the biggest thing in the world, privacy wise, since a surprising amount of information is considered public.
  If you know an address, it’s pretty much trivial to find the owners name, basic layout of the house, home value, previous owners, utility bill information, tax payments, and so on. I looked up my information and was able to pretty easily get the records for my house, showing I pay my bills on time, when I got my air conditioner replaced and who the contractor who did it was.

  As an example, here’s the property record for a parking structure owned by the state of Michigan. I chose a public building accessible by anyone and owned by a government to avoid randomly doxing someone, but it’s really as easy as searching for public records for some county or city and you’ll find something pretty fast.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon enjoys life⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re using one of the languages that uses := for assignment. :P

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon scentmaxxes⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Soap does destroy some bacteria, and a not insignificant portion. By destroying those fatty bonds the cellular membranes of many bacteria are destroyed, and many viruses denatured and rendered inert.

  The removal is the primary action though, you are correct. Not all bacteria are destroyed by soap, which is why the leather, scrub, and scrub while rinsing steps are important to hand washing, since that mechanical action is what removes everything.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon scentmaxxes⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Certainly. I’m not saying soap is bad by any means. It’s a tool for bathing just like any other. Not using soap to wash your body doesn’t imply unhygienic anymore than not using a scrub brush makes you unhygienic.

  What matters is that you wash regularly, get rid of grime, dirt, excess oils and dead skin buildup.
  There’s many paths to hygiene. For most people, the one with soap is the easiest and the only downside is “now moisturize”.

  Persistent advertising from cleaning product companies since the 50s have heavily pushed a level of cleaning and perfuming well beyond what’s actually necessary for hygiene.
  My body wash company would like me to use a silver dollar sized portion. I get better results from a dime sized portion and a moderate firmness silicone brush.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon scentmaxxes⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re taking “it’s possible to be clean after bathing without soap” as a way stronger statement than it is.
  Do you think I’m saying soap is bad?
  No one is talking about hygienic hand washing practices for medicine, food prep, after defecation, or after being coated in tough substances.
  We’re in a giant pile of people talking about routing bathing to prevent body odor and the skin issues caused by poor bodily hygiene.
  Washing with running water and a scrubbing action is sufficient for that purpose for many people. Bathing without soap is not a guarantee that you will have BO, a rash, skin lesions, or acne.

  The Africa point isn’t really the gotcha you think it is. Soap working better faster doesn’t mean that a lack of soap doesn’t work. As you said, when they didn’t have soap they still washed. People are generally interested in being clean, and pragmatic. They’ll clean themselves, and if something helps them get cleaner faster, they’ll use it.

  And yup, that passage does document that the Roman empire eschewed soap for personal hygiene until roughly year zero.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon scentmaxxes⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The primary action that soap has for fighting bacteria is breaking down oils and making it easier for debris and bacteria to be removed. Less food for the bacteria, and faster removal.
  Bacteria will be destroyed by this process, but that’s coincidental to why soap works and provides benefit.
  It’s why we don’t tell people to wash their hands by squirting soap on them, spreading it around and then rinsing it off. The critical step is the mechanical action that facilitates removal of debris with running water.

  Yes, soap is necessary for hand washing because we need to maximize bacteria removal after defecation or before preparing foods or medical activities.

  In the context of bathing however, you don’t need to sterilize your torso. You will also be rinsing your body far longer than you’re typically going to be washing your hands, which when combined with scrubbing results in a clean torso.

  I’m not one of those people who’s opposed to using soap or anything, but that’s not the same as recognizing that it’s possible to wash and be clean without it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon scentmaxxes⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Did I say pure luxury, or did I say it makes it easier?

  I did forget that something is obviously 100% vital and indispensable or entirely worthless and void of functionality.

  Early soaps were used for the preparation of textiles rather than personal hygiene.
  As early as we invented soap, we actually had the notion that festering in your own rancid body oils is bad far, far earlier. As such, we had ways of dealing with that well before we had soap and people didn’t just immediately switch.

  So go ahead and use soap. I certainly do. But if you’re looking to have your mind blown, take a shower and just scrub your skin with a brush, loofah or the palm of your hand and be amazed when you still get clean. If you’re really grimey, you can do what the Romans did and rub yourself with olive oil and scrape it off with a scraper before doing that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon scentmaxxes⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Phrasing it like that is weird, but you don’t actually need soap. It just makes the oils and grime come off easier, so without it you just need to scrub more diligently.

  If you’re cleaning yourself properly your skin is gonna be the same cleanliness afterwards either way. Cheap soap will dry your skin though, so use decent soap.

  Cleaning regularly and effectively is the key, not the specifics. Soap just lowers the bar for effectiveness, and maybe adds “and also moisturize”.