That there was basically no spicy food in the Old World before Columbus. All the heat in South Asian and Southeast Asian cooking comes from chili peppers imported from the New World. The spiciest thing the Old World had to offer was something called long pepper which is like black pepper with a little more kick.
Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?
11–20 of 85 posts
Re: Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?
#12I just learned the other day that squirrels make nests in trees.
Re: Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?
#13I've learnt that it's OK not to succeed on the first try. It's not about the destination, it's about the journey. As long as you're getting closer to your goal, you're on the right track. But you don't usually get there right away.
I used to give up as soon as I failed.
Re: Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?
#14From other side in language where there is no bell pepper. That paprika or bell pepper is well a pepper. Like a chili pepper. That then are technically paprikas at some level.
To continue the weird world of peppers or peppercorns. Sichuan peppercorn is different thing. But that the black, white, green and red are from same fruit(also fact that peppercorn is a fruit) differently prepared and not different cultivars for example.
Hmm, now leads to open question. Can you put peppercorn in your fruit salad with tomatoe?
Re: Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?
#15Average intelligence is actually low intelligence - if it wasn't, we wouldn't have idiots needlessly starting wars, soldiers would recognise vanity or pride orders in the guise of nationalism instead of real threat and not risk their health (CF Russia, or passing out at Queen's funeral) advertising and the herd effect would be less effective, as would politicians' lies.
Politicians seem to be generally worse for this probably because of high visibility making it appear so, e.g top down economics doesn't work (https://pudding.cool/2022/12/yard-sale/), and recently in the UK they believe supply side inflation problems can be fixed by making people spend more on their mortgages/rent (vis-a-vis interest rates).
All that's done is make the lower earners struggle to buy food and heat their homes, whilst civil servants (and similar) strike as inflation based pay rises for them are non existent or are deliberately not using the measure calculated using house prices (CF. accusations against gov. of mix and match inflationary measures)
Re: Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?
#16You don't know what other people are thinking, and they don't know what you are thinking. If you make yourself fat and then lose weight you will have excess skin. Walking 3 miles a day is life changing. Paying your mortgage off can leave a sense of emptiness, like what next? If you have 3 people in your life actively looking out for your interests you are very fortunate It rains more in the afternoon When you ask peo…
Could you elaborate on the walking part?
Re: Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?
#17From other side in language where there is no bell pepper. That paprika or bell pepper is well a pepper. Like a chili pepper. That then are technically paprikas at some level. To continue the weird world of peppers or peppercorns. Sichuan peppercorn is different thing. But that the black, white, green and red are from same fruit(also fact that peppercorn is a fruit) differently prepared and not different cultivars fo…
> Hmm, now leads to open question. Can you put peppercorn in your fruit salad with tomatoe?
...Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.
Re: Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?
#18For years I read the word “Albeit” in my head as the sound “al-bite” and did not realise that other people were reading it as “all be it”. (I thought that they were reading something _written_ as “all be it”.) Clearly “albeit” is a contracted form of “all be it”, but my brain hadn’t clicked to this.
Re: Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?
#19You don't know what other people are thinking, and they don't know what you are thinking. If you make yourself fat and then lose weight you will have excess skin. Walking 3 miles a day is life changing. Paying your mortgage off can leave a sense of emptiness, like what next? If you have 3 people in your life actively looking out for your interests you are very fortunate It rains more in the afternoon When you ask peo…
Could you elaborate on the walking part?
There are a bunch of studies showing various risks dropping with daily walking.
fitbit like device manufacturers have pushed various numbers, but studies seem lately seem to be floating in the 9k steps a day region as to where the benefits stop
Re: Ask HN: What simple facts have you learned surprisingly late in life?
#20Today I learnt that salt raises the boiling temperature of water. I knew it lowered the freezing point but I never considered it might also change the boiling point.