Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many in Yeltsin's circle believed it had been set up, and was not actually used by everyday Americans, similar to how many Soviet PR setups had been undertaken
Potemkin supermarkets.
The word you want is “pokazukha”
It’s an age of marvels
221–230 of 425 posts
Re: It’s an age of marvels
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
If only Ben Franklin had access to https://ciechanow.ski/gps/ , he could’ve invented GPS to solve it!
this reminds me of that site linked here last year that explained and diagrammed the inner workings of a wristwatch. I used singlefile to save the page, as i do with any page that impresses me (or is noteworthy or newsworthy or needs to be saved as proof, etc)
Would that be this one? https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/
I’d love to know that those pages are offline-archivable!
Re: It’s an age of marvels
#223I hate to play the pessimist here, but I wish we could balance these amazing technological advances with the wisdom on how to use them. Phones are awesome to look up information or video chat family members on another part of the planet. But staring at them for emotional regulation while avoiding real people around you is a mistake. I wonder how we're going to solve this problem culturally. I'm trying to change my ow…
> I hate to play the pessimist here, but I wish we could balance these amazing technological advances with the wisdom on how to use them.
This article left me with the same feeling. Technology advances so fast we're simply unable to collectively process the power we have. We're the equivalent of a toddler finding daddy's gun.
Re: It’s an age of marvels
#224More than anything else, I think the modern American super market would blow the minds of anyone born before 1900 more than any other marvel that exists. You have blueberries for sale in January??? A variety box of tea from 7 different countries? A wall of spices? Pineapples? Packaging made from aluminum that is just thrown away? The bread isn't full of sand and grit? And it's sliced!!! All relatively affordable and…
It brings to mind the story of how when Boris Yeltsin was visiting the US, he took an impromptu detour to a random American supermarket to try to catch them off guard, only to be blown away that Americans really did have supermarkets everywhere practically overflowing with food. The story goes that the experience played a big role in shaping his vision for Russia when he went on to become its first freely elected lea…
Good links, thanks. I had read the Houston anecdote before but never seen this photograph.
Re: It’s an age of marvels
#225More than anything else, I think the modern American super market would blow the minds of anyone born before 1900 more than any other marvel that exists. You have blueberries for sale in January??? A variety box of tea from 7 different countries? A wall of spices? Pineapples? Packaging made from aluminum that is just thrown away? The bread isn't full of sand and grit? And it's sliced!!! All relatively affordable and…
Can you explain the sand and grit part?
Re: It’s an age of marvels
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. For example, one staple dish of Cajuns is called "rice and gravy." Essentially, you sear thinly cut 7-steaks, remove them, cook down some trinity, then add the steaks back with some water or broth and seasonings. That's it. The steaks simmer in the broth for hours and create their own gravy. We serve it over rice, usually accompanied by some roux peas (tres petit pois cooked in a roux with onions and bacon) and…
> cook down some trinity I've never heard that term; does it refer to mirepoix?
Close. It substitutes green pepper for the carrots. It serves pretty much the same culinary purpose as mirepoix.
Re: It’s an age of marvels
#227Minor nitpick:
> A past what-the-fuck was that we know exactly how many cells there are (959) in a particular little worm, C. elegans, and how each of those cells arises from the division of previous cells, as the grows from a fertilized egg, and we know what each cell does and how they are connected, and we know that 302 of those cells are nerve cells, and how the nerve cells are connected together. (There are 6,720 connections.)
We have no clue what most C elegans neurons actually do, we only know how they are connected. The behavior of most individual C elegans neurons (and by extension the brain) is basically a mystery, and it might take a few decades of experimental advances to figure it out.
Not to downplay the coolness of this. But a lot of people seem to think "we know the C elegans connectome" means "we know how the C elegans brain works." In fact it tells us very little about the brain - an analogy I like is that it's akin to understanding a complex circuit purely by wires and solder, without knowing if you're connecting to a capacitor, an inductor, etc. The information is necessary but far from sufficient.
Re: It’s an age of marvels
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as I use the term, extremists are people who advocate for tearing the system down via revolution and rebuilding from scratch. They have no idea what it takes to build this modern world, but they love the idea of guillotines.
I think most people would consider liberalism rather mainstream.
Depends on your point of view, and what you're referring to.
The word means two different things, depending on your side of the spectrum.
Re: It’s an age of marvels
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
But at what cost? How much should we sacrifice so that blueberries exist year round?
My problem with it is that not only are we paying the environmental cost to have berries all year round in the grocery store, it's that they're also just shit quality. Like not just passable, but are bitter and sour and not worth it at all. And it's sort of at the expense of really good, local berries when the real season hits. For example, I live in Brooklyn and the grocery stores last summer barely had any local bl…
> They look like berries
Americans shop with our eyes, not our mouths.
Re: It’s an age of marvels
#230More than anything else, I think the modern American super market would blow the minds of anyone born before 1900 more than any other marvel that exists. You have blueberries for sale in January??? A variety box of tea from 7 different countries? A wall of spices? Pineapples? Packaging made from aluminum that is just thrown away? The bread isn't full of sand and grit? And it's sliced!!! All relatively affordable and…
Can you explain the sand and grit part?
Poor quality grinding of grains and adulteration can leave sand and grit in the flour. Still happens sometimes in places like India at least.