Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It’s an age of marvels

blog.plover.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 425 posts

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#301

Post by paulryanrogers »

Nevermark wrote: post #254
lordgrenville wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 infrequen…

It's also possible that materials science (and others) were too immature and could not be rushed without innovations in a million other areas. The tradeoffs needed across all fields may be worse for society, or just impossible until the global population could produce enough skilled workers.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#302

Post by Ferret7446 »

bee_rider wrote: post #83
dotnet00 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

It's hard to appreciate how much we take for granted the things we are accustomed to.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#303

Post by MisterBastahrd »

dingnuts wrote: post #295
chasd00 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from a google search: "A 7 bone steak is a cut of beef from the chuck section of a cow's front shoulder, which is considered a tough area of the animal.". You're not going to find that in a regular grocery store because not many people will buy it. You will find every other cut of beef, pork, and poultry considered edible though. You can go to a butcher but they're less common than a regular grocery store. Also, butc…

lol Dallas is the only major city in Texas where "going to the store" doesn't almost always means HEB, too also, complaining that you can't find Thing unless you go to a Mexican meat market is a weird way to boast that your area has specialty grocery stores.

Yes, exactly. Because when I want to talk about food issues, I "boast" by talking about the scarcity of what is perceived to be a lower quality cut of meat near my location, and how I'm driving to find a shop in a poorer neighborhood to meet my food demands. You nailed it, champ.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#304

Post by Ferret7446 »

verisimi wrote: post #86

> An obvious winner, something sure to blow Franklin's mind is “yeah, we've sent people to the Moon to see what it was like, they left scientific instruments there and then they came back with rocks and stuff.” But that's no everyday thing, it blew everyone's mind when it happened and it still does. Some things I tell Franklin make him goggle and say “We did what?” and I shrug modestly and say yeah, it's pretty impre…

I felt the same, during a low period in my life. Now that I am older, more experienced, and recognize my own contributions to society, I no longer feel this guilt or project it onto others.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#305

Post by Merad »

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…

Walmart. Walmart is totally the winner in this category. It has all of the grocery store things you mentioned plus mountains of clothing, household goods, mind blowing technology, medicines...

Show them all of these wonders - then tell them that this is where poor people shop.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#306

Post by kasey_junk »

rrr_oh_man wrote: post #133
mtalantikite wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This so much. People who live in Western cities have no fucking clue what fruits and vegetables are supposed to taste like. It’s like a running gag that my father complains about supermarket tomatoes, but after travelling through rural places in Eastern and Southern Europe and a little bit in Central America, I totally get it.

Of course Westerners know what fruits and vegetables are supposed to taste like. We can in fact grow them and do.

Where the problem lies is the changes made to fruits and vegetables to make them last the long journeys that they have to make from places that have longer growing seasons or cheaper labor.

Try a locally grown heirloom tomato in the summer in the American Midwest and you’ll get a phenomenal tasting fruit. More interestingly, try a bunch. It will be hard to say what a tomato is supposed to taste like because of the variety in flavors that come from location and breed.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#307

Post by kybernetikos »

pfdietz wrote: post #269
kybernetikos wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's just the sugar, Hershey uses butyric acid in its process and some other manufacturers copy them because that's the taste US consumers associate with chocolate. To people used to chocolate made without butyric acid, it tastes like vomit.

More accurately, Hershey is thought to use milk that is partially lipolyzed, and this process generates butyric acid -- which, according to the wikipedia page, is also found in Parmesan cheese. Does that taste like vomit? I find European chocolate tastes sickeningly sweet, so to each his own.

> is also found in Parmesan cheese. Does that taste like vomit?

I don't think it does taste like vomit, but it does smell like it.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#308

Post by actuallyalys »

sanderjd wrote: post #291

> The Internet? Well, again yes, but no. The complicated engineering details are complicated engineering, but again the basic idea is easily within the reach of the 18th century and is not all that astounding. I get that this is a set-up to the more astounding inventions discussed further on, but I think this one is a stretch. I buy the paragraph as a description for why telegraphs would not have been astounding, but…

Yeah, I think the idea of a single interconnected network across the planet would be astounding, even if the idea of using wires for communication is not.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#309

Post by schoen »

Merad wrote: post #305
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…

Walmart. Walmart is totally the winner in this category. It has all of the grocery store things you mentioned plus mountains of clothing, household goods, mind blowing technology, medicines... Show them all of these wonders - then tell them that this is where poor people shop.

Last year I read some fan fiction in which a young woman comes isekai-style from a medievalish fantasy world to present-day Nevada. To make a long story short, one thing she concludes during this experience is that God wishes to bless everyone with ... a CostCo!

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#310

Post by VelesDude »

pfdietz wrote: post #110
nradov wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Haber–Bosch process also played a major role there. It was around 100 years ago that cheap nitrogen fertilizer manufactured from fossil fuels started to become widely available. That greatly reduced starvation, at least in countries with functional governments.

This was then combined with the Green Revolution, where crops were modified to truly take advantage of abundant artificial fertilizer. Before that, too much nitrogen would make wheat (for example) grow so tall and top heavy it would fall over, reducing yield in a process called "lodging". The fact that would amaze Franklin is that only about 1% of Americans are farmers.

Franklin would also be puzzled that there would be many people that are nutrient deficient despite calorie abundance.
Post reply on HN