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It’s an age of marvels

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Re: It’s an age of marvels

#251

Post by hansvm »

rmccue wrote: post #237
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #200

Earlier 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…

As someone who’s not American, I’m unclear; is going to a butcher not an option? Have they been competed out of the market by supermarkets?

I don't have many butchers within 30 miles, and their selection is almost always a subset of what I can get at the larger grocers.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#252

Post by [deleted] »

dotnet00 wrote: post #63
ertgbnm wrote: post #23

More 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…

[deleted]

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#253

Post by nickff »

rmccue wrote: post #237
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #200

Earlier 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…

As someone who’s not American, I’m unclear; is going to a butcher not an option? Have they been competed out of the market by supermarkets?

Butchers are less common than supermarkets, and generally more expensive, but most places have them.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#254

Post by Nevermark »

lordgrenville wrote: post #102
dotnet00 wrote: post #49

It's refreshing to see a rare openly optimistic article about the world here first thing in the morning. I also like to occasionally appreciate how someone from even just the recent past would see our current world as one full of manmade wonders. Another one of these would be microwaves, although conceptually simple as a box that heats stuff, it'd be pretty mind bending that it does it essentially wirelessly. Adding…

Considering that it's staggeringly expensive and there's not much to see there, it seems like the right decision to hold off once we'd established it could be done.

It remained staggeringly expensive because the Space Shuttle was a disastrous design to follow up the lunar rockets. It held up the space program half a century in some ways.

It reduced the manned program to Earth orbit, was supposed to be highly reusable to reduce launch costs, but didn't work out that way. And of course, it was supposed to be reliable and safer.

If we had continued going to the moon, even infrequently, or aimed further, we would have had no choice but to actually achieve reusability, safety and reliability much sooner.

(In the meantime, ... NASA's current manned program isn't better. Multi-billion dollar throw away rockers. Good thing someone validated reusable first stages and space craft, and is working to eliminate non-reusable second stages.)

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#255

Post by agumonkey »

autokad wrote: post #215
bee_rider wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although, Yeltsin was already a liberalizing reformer. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was playing it up a bit.

> Although, Yeltsin was already a liberalizing reformer. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was playing it up a bit. I don't think so. People don't realize how bad it was in the Soviet Union. There's a story of two hockey players that came to the NHL. One went to the grocery store, he was completely taken back by how much was there, especially meat. He thought it was a mistake and didn't want to miss the opportunity so he…

Also, it's easy to take basic necessities for granted. Only when you experienced hunger you realise how having plenty of affordable food is a luxury.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#256

Post by agumonkey »

dotnet00 wrote: post #63
ertgbnm wrote: post #23

More 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…

Yeltsin visit is to put in contrast with Tucker Carlson visit in Russia.. where he somehow tried to do the same in reverse (without knowing he was actually visiting a french retail chain brand but anyway). Very odd.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#257

Post by corytheboyd »

I’d like to imagine explaining e-sports to a ye olde person. Alright so we invented computers, cool I guess, but then we made video games, which are like movies you get to drive yourself with a human interface device (we just call it a controller). We then developed competitive skill based games over time, and the ability for many humans to play at the same time in the same video game world. Then we created leagues and tournaments, to the point where it’s a serious career.

We love fantasizing about what future sports would look like in sci-fi, but… we kinda already have them now! Way more interesting than “football… but in space!” Fun to think about, loved this article :)

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#258

Post by jhbadger »

filoleg wrote: post #235
selimthegrim wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word you want is “pokazukha”

Both are valid. “Pokazukha” is more of a modern term (modern as in, i dont think it even hit the 80 year old mark) and is a bit more generic (refers to “showing off” or “for show” in general). “Potemkin supermarket” is a reference to “potemkin village”[0], which has been around as a term since late 18th century, and it is a bit more specific (refers to a construction that provides a false facade to a situation, with…

Also in English, "Potemkin X" is the standard phrase, even when referring to post-Tsarist times (and sometimes even to refer to non-Russian cases like Potemkin villages in North Korea to fool visiting Japanese of Korean descent as to quality of life in NK). I have never seen "Pokazukha" used in English at all.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#259

Post by chasd00 »

tomjen3 wrote: post #89
odiroot wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More 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. Modern American supermarket would blow the minds of anyone from the Warsaw Pact countries ;), up until probably mid 1990's.

There is a video where it literally blows the mind of an immigrant from Cuba: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBA41QgIty8

on top of it all, they took him to an Aldi which is pretty small/basic. They should have taken him to a large Central Market.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#260

Post by aftbit »

lordgrenville wrote: post #102
dotnet00 wrote: post #49

It's refreshing to see a rare openly optimistic article about the world here first thing in the morning. I also like to occasionally appreciate how someone from even just the recent past would see our current world as one full of manmade wonders. Another one of these would be microwaves, although conceptually simple as a box that heats stuff, it'd be pretty mind bending that it does it essentially wirelessly. Adding…

Considering that it's staggeringly expensive and there's not much to see there, it seems like the right decision to hold off once we'd established it could be done.

Foolish short-sighted take. Imagine if the same opinion held during the age of sail. There's literally more resources than are currently controlled by our entire planet in the asteroid belt, and a lunar colony (at least a refueling station in space) would be a huge boon to anyone who wants to go explore further.

If that's not good enough, how about outsourcing our shitty resource extraction and polluting manufacturing to space, where there's no life to care about the waste and disruption?

Not to mention that if space flight were commonly available and cheap today (more feasible than you seem to think - remember computers were once phenomenally expensive and now they're so cheap as to be thrown away), more could experience the overview effect, the cognitive shift that comes when you see Earth hanging in the void of space. That would probably make humanity better to each other and our planet.

Or what about the fact that the Apollo program basically launched our discipline of computer science? Surely there was more to be learned and discovered from striving to make spaceflight routine. If only we had a generation of scientists and engineers working on hard science problems rather than ad-tech, the world would be a much better today place.

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