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Too much serendipity

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Re: Too much serendipity

#91

Post by zetsurin »

cgh wrote: post #6
imglorp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, to my taste, all the sweeteners have an aftertaste and an odor including stevia.

Re stevia, apparently how you taste it is determined by how sensitive your bitter taste receptors happen to be. It’s somehow also related to why some people can’t stand cilantro, for example. For me, stevia is simply sweet with no aftertaste so I guess I’m lucky in this regard.

Oh cool, I find cilantro to taste bad! Stevia less so, but I don't like it. Is Aspartame the same (I also find it to have an aftertaste)?

Re: Too much serendipity

#92

Post by autoexec »

zetsurin wrote: post #90
autoexec wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you can stand the format. Even when (maybe especially when) they cover a topic that I'm interested in, I find it infuriating to listen to. It's filled with endless repetition and rephrasing of the same thing over and over again. For example here's a snippet from a transcript: JENN: ... to see if he can find anything in the interstitium that's happening that could explain this. And he finds ... QIUSHENG CHEN:…

My understanding is that regular human speech is generally this way.

I'd expect a lot of interjections (yeahs, okays, ums, rights, etc) in normal conversation, but people don't keep repeating back everything that's said for the "benefit" of an audience. Not in my experience anyway, although I suppose there are probably some people who do... maybe as a vocal tic or something. You'd get none of the pauses for sound effects or music in normal speech either. The podcast comes off as being very "produced" as opposed to having a natural conversational tone, and some people love that aspect, but the low information density is what gets to me the most.

I mean, here's an except from another transcript and even ignoring that they're using a ton of sound clips to explain something simple, the amount of repetition would be insane in a normal conversation:

  (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
  
  UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Grief often comes in five stages.
  
  RACHAEL CUSICK: I'm not sure when or how exactly I came across it, but...
  
  (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SCRUBS")
  
  DAVE FOLEY: (As Lester Hedrick) You're going to go through what we call the five stages of grief.
  
  (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
  
  UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Five stages of grief.
  
  RACHAEL CUSICK: It was this five-part checklist.
  
  (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
  
  UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: There are five stages of grief.
  
  (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
  
  UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: What are you talking about?
  
  RACHAEL CUSICK: You might have heard of these stages. The idea is pretty simple. It's basically that in the wake of losing a loved one, you'll go through a series of feelings.
  
  (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
  
  RACHAEL CUSICK: First...
  
  (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
  
  UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Stage one.
  
  (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SCRUBS")
  
  DAVE FOLEY: (As Lester Hedrick) Denial.
  
  RACHAEL CUSICK: Denial.
  
  (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
  
  UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Denial.
  
  RACHAEL CUSICK: Then stage two.
  
  (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
  
  UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Step two, that's anger.
  
  (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SCRUBS")
  
  DAVE FOLEY: (As Lester Hedrick) Anger.
  
  RACHAEL CUSICK: Then bargaining.
  
  (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SCRUBS")
  
  DAVE FOLEY: (As Lester Hedrick) Bargaining.
  
  (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
  
  UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: OK.
  
  RACHAEL CUSICK: After that is...
  
  (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
  
  UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Depression.
  
  RACHAEL CUSICK: ...Depression and...
  
  (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SCRUBS")
  
  DAVE FOLEY: (As Lester Hedrick) Finally, acceptance.
  
  RACHAEL CUSICK: ...Last but not least, acceptance.

Re: Too much serendipity

#93

Post by pontifier »

swyx wrote: post #88
ptx wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it "The Road Not Taken" by Harry Turtledove? The Wikipedia description seems to match. (If so, ChatGPT got it on the second attempt.)

how do you use chatgpt to search for it? i have been searching for a science fiction short story i read ~25 years ago - it was in a short story anthology book, probably not very famous because i've tried to plug it in and got nothing. --- synopsis (since its a beautiful story and i may as well share it in case someone else here has read it and/or can prompt engineer chatgpt better than me): - Humanity reached abundan…

Read this a long time ago, then re-read it a couple of years ago. They called the pods "stoners" and it made me laugh. Can't remember the name though. It must have been in a collection of short stories.

Edit... Found it for you:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sliced-Crosswise_Only-On...

Re: Too much serendipity

#94

Post by hoseja »

perfectritone wrote: post #18

I'm left curious as to why our taste receptors are so attuned to sweetness if high sugar foods weren't historically correlated with being high in energy.

Is everybody forgetting about fruit or what. There totally is wild fruit that is very sweet.

Re: Too much serendipity

#95

Post by nottorp »

GolfPopper wrote: post #42

Sucralose and aspartame are both reliable migraine triggers for me, and have been at least since my early 20s. Stevia and monkfruit are fine. The only other even semi-consistent migraine trigger for me is alcohol. I've successfully avoided migraines for years by carefully avoiding sucralose and aspartame (and drinking little to no alcohol), but even a small serving of something "sugar-free" and within a few hours I'l…

Generally speaking, the more sugary the drink the worse the hangover. You seem to be unlucky enough to get the migraine before drinking enough for a hangover, but the mechanism may be the same?

Re: Too much serendipity

#96

Post by nottorp »

mcherm wrote: post #58
joneholland wrote: post #47

This “I did my own research” pseudoscience has no reason to be on hackernews.

Really? Because I think Hacker News often features posts by hackers and amateurs trying to tackle something normally handled by professionals. The comments would be a great place to reply with references to the ACTUAL research on how often chemists taste the chemicals they are working with.

Maybe we should ask Derek Lowe :)

Re: Too much serendipity

#97

Post by scotty79 »

GolfPopper wrote: post #42

Sucralose and aspartame are both reliable migraine triggers for me, and have been at least since my early 20s. Stevia and monkfruit are fine. The only other even semi-consistent migraine trigger for me is alcohol. I've successfully avoided migraines for years by carefully avoiding sucralose and aspartame (and drinking little to no alcohol), but even a small serving of something "sugar-free" and within a few hours I'l…

I think I've read somewhere that drop in blood glucose can cause headaches. Maybe sweetners trick your body into releasing a lot of insuline to deal with "sugar" but there's no new sugar in your blood so glucose level drops giving you a headache?

Just a theory but you could test it by monitoring glucose after ingesting something with sweetner.

According to this theory ingesting sweetner together with sugar should cause you less or no discomfort.

Maybe you could try doing something like drinking normal Coke after accidentally ingesting sweetner to see if it helps?

Alcohol might be a different issue. After all it's just a straight up poison that metabolizes into another poison.

Re: Too much serendipity

#98

Post by wheybags »

caffeinated_me wrote: post #51
wheybags wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you remember what it was called?

I believe they're referring to the short story of The Road Not Taken, by Turtledove. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken_(short_stor... PDF of story: https://www.eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf

Thanks!

Re: Too much serendipity

#99

Post by ptx »

duckmysick wrote: post #72
ptx wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it "The Road Not Taken" by Harry Turtledove? The Wikipedia description seems to match. (If so, ChatGPT got it on the second attempt.)

Just curious: what was the first attempt/guess?

It suggested Vernor Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky", which has some vaguely related concepts but doesn't match the description at all, as far as I can tell.

Re: Too much serendipity

#100

Post by ricardobeat »

autoexec wrote: post #92
zetsurin wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that regular human speech is generally this way.

I'd expect a lot of interjections (yeahs, okays, ums, rights, etc) in normal conversation, but people don't keep repeating back everything that's said for the "benefit" of an audience. Not in my experience anyway, although I suppose there are probably some people who do... maybe as a vocal tic or something. You'd get none of the pauses for sound effects or music in normal speech either. The podcast comes off as being…

This is traditional, leisurely paced “slow media”. Nothing wrong with it. You can get the same content in short form by reading an encyclopedia if that’s preferrable.
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