Rater's Ridiculously Rambunctious Random Ranter #229

[Bartmanhomer]

Okay. In what way are you taking responsibility for your actions? Can you elaborate in detail?

This is very hard for me to say.....ugh......I thought about it long and hard but I'm going to.....deleted....the video...

[Rater202]

Oh, well, that's different! Do you mind citing your sources, then?

...You want me to post an annotated bibliography becuase I mentioned details from a casual conversation I had earlier, based on years of observations, in a random banter thread?

I recommend looking into the works of Alton Brown, celebrity cook and culinary scientist. His show, Good Eats, has multiple episodes that talk about foods that people commonly don't like and explaining that, often the reason they are not liked is becuase of common pitfalls in the cooking process, and he explains the science behind it.

He is far from the only source I have, but he is the only one I can cite off the top of my head who gives reasons for the argument instead of just people complaining about meatloaf/green beans/whatever and then citing how it was cooked when pressed on why they don't like it.

...Actually, I just recommend his show in general. You don't see very many cooking shows where they explain why something is cooked the way it is instead of just expecting you to follow the instructions. It's easier to make variations and substitutions if you know what it is you're doing.

Anyway, it's like that with a lot of food.

I love me a good boneless chicken breast. But I hate it when my stepfather cooks it, becuase he cooks it on the grill instead of in the oven and it always comes back dry, tough, and with vague undertones of burnt wood(which is weird. We have a gas grill.) I am very sensitive to test and texture, so I do not eat it.

If this had been my introduction to chicken and the only chicken I had ever been fed, I would probably hate chicken and be unwilling to try chicken no matter how it is cooked.

And that's a common pattern with certain foods.

[Mystic Muse]

This is very hard for me to say.....ugh......I thought about it long and hard but I'm going to.....deleted....the video...

Why is this hard for you to say? Why do you not want to delete the video?

(If anyone else would like to help weigh in on this, by all means, coming at this from multiple viewpoints can only help.)

[Bartmanhomer]

Why is this hard for you to say? Why do you not want to delete the video?

(If anyone else would like to help weigh in on this, by all means, coming at this from multiple viewpoints can only help.)

Because I want to be famous and I don't want to admit that I'm wrong but now I am.

[Peelee]

...You want me to post an annotated bibliography becuase I mentioned details from a casual conversation I had earlier, based on years of observations, in a random banter thread?

"Years of observation" strongly suggests "anecdotal evidence". Also, I suspect that "different phenomena" refers to "some people dislike some foods". I do have some doubts as to the validity of your study at this point.

I recommend looking into the works of Alton Brown, celebrity cook and culinary scientist.

Alton Brown studied film in college and graduated from a culinary institute. He is very well-versed to speak on cooking (and film and entertainment), but a culinary scientist/food scientist has a degree (at least, typically a graduate degree as well) in chemistry and specialized training in food science. Alton Brown is a very entertaining, very good chef. He is very knowledge about innumerable aspects of cooking. He is not a scientist, and openly admits he did poorly in the sciences while in academia.

[Bartmanhomer]

I've been watching CSI: Miami, New York, and Cyber non-stop for a few months now. I love Crime Scene Investigations.

[Rater202]

"Years of observation" strongly suggests "anecdotal evidence". Also, I suspect that "different phenomena" refers to "some people dislike some foods". I do have some doubts as to the validity of your study at this point.

The phenomena of "some people claim not to like certain foods but seem surprised when it tastes better when it's cooked differently from how they're used to" and the phenomena of "certain foods are widely cooked improperly in large tracts of the united states" are documented phenomena and the overlap between them paints a pretty clear picture.

Alton Brown studied film in college and graduated from a culinary institute. He is very well-versed to speak on cooking (and film and entertainment), but a culinary scientist/food scientist has a degree (at least, typically a graduate degree as well) in chemistry and specialized training in food science. Alton Brown is a very entertaining, very good chef. He is very knowledge about innumerable aspects of cooking. He is not a scientist, and openly admits he did poorly in the sciences while in academia.

"Science" refers broadly to the employment of experimental and observational research within parameters meant to limit error and more generally to research into and the application of the physical, chemical, or biological reasoning of phenomena.

A scientist is someone who does science.

Alton Brown has studied chemistry and biology as it applies to the culinary arts and employs that knowledge in his career, and has on many occasions done experiments with food following tenants of the scientific method.

Ergo, he is a culinary scientist, regardless of his specific degrees.\

Degrees are important for certain fields, but they are not the end-all and be all unless you want to argue that I'm a sociologist even though I do not engage in sociological research just becuase I have a degree.

[Peelee]

The phenomena of "some people claim not to like certain foods but seem surprised when it tastes better when it's cooked differently from how they're used to" and the phenomena of "certain foods are widely cooked improperly in large tracts of the united states" are documented phenomena and the overlap between them paints a pretty clear picture.

I do not think "food tastes different when it is cooked differently" is necessarily a phenomenon.

"Science" refers broadly to the employment of experimental and observational research within parameters meant to limit error and more generally to research into and the application of the physical, chemical, or biological reasoning of phenomena.

A scientist is someone who does science.

Alton Brown has studied chemistry and biology as it applies to the culinary arts and employs that knowledge in his career, and has on many occasions done experiments with food following tenants of the scientific method.

Ergo, he is a culinary scientist, regardless of his specific degrees.\

Degrees are important for certain fields, but they are not the end-all and be all unless you want to argue that I'm a sociologist even though I do not engage in sociological research just becuase I have a degree.

Tell you what, try to apply for a culinary scientist position with that argument and see how far it gets you. Culinary science/food science is an applied science, with a specific degree path that leads towards work as a culinary scientist or food scientist (the job titles of which are typically "culinary scientist" or "food scientist").

Alton Brown is a chef, among many other titles. He is not a culinary scientist. He does not do work as a culinary scientist, he is not trained as a culinary scientist, and I would be very surprised if he called himself a culinary scientist as I would be willing to wager no small amount that he is very well aware of what, exactly, culinary scientists and food scientists are, what scope their work entails, and what areas they focus on. I would also be very willing to wager that Alton Brown would very much never want to be a culinary scientist.

I suspect you want to call him that because it sounds fancy and professional, but so does "chef". Especially "chef at the level of Alton Brown". Very impressive, that title. No need to drag in irrelevant and incorrect terms into it.

[Mystic Muse]

Because I want to be famous and I don't want to admit that I'm wrong but now I am.

You're going to be wrong a lot, and the less thought you put towards things the more often it will happen.

If you want to be wrong less often, think of how the things you do will impact others before you do them.

I do this all the time. I have to, because my initial impulses in most situations are destructivs to everyone involved.

Heck, if I just followed my impulses all the time, I'd have no savings, and a mountain of debt.


On the topic of food, does anyone have some good vegetarian meal prep (like preparing for the entire work week) suggestions? I have been eating way too much fast food lately. Fair warning, I don't like beans. It's a texture thing.

[Bartmanhomer]

You're going to be wrong a lot, and the less thought you put towards things the more often it will happen.

If you want to be wrong less often, think of how the things you do will impact others before you do them.

I do this all the time. I have to because my initial impulses in most situations are destructive to everyone involved.

Heck, if I just followed my impulses all the time, I'd have no savings and a mountain of debt.


On the topic of food, does anyone have some good vegetarian meal prep (like preparing for the entire work week) suggestions? I have been eating way too much fast food lately. Fair warning, I don't like beans. It's a texture thing.

No one isn't perfect and I'll admit that I'm not perfect. We're all human and have flaws.

[Rater202]

I do not think "food tastes different when it is cooked differently" is necessarily a phenomenon.


Tell you what, try to apply for a culinary scientist position with that argument and see how far it gets you. Culinary science/food science is an applied science, with a specific degree path that leads towards work as a culinary scientist or food scientist (the job titles of which are typically "culinary scientist" or "food scientist").

Alton Brown is a chef, among many other titles. He is not a culinary scientist. He does not do work as a culinary scientist, he is not trained as a culinary scientist, and I would be very surprised if he called himself a culinary scientist as I would be willing to wager no small amount that he is very well aware of what, exactly, culinary scientists and food scientists are, what scope their work entails, and what areas they focus on. I would also be very willing to wager that Alton Brown would very much never want to be a culinary scientist.

I suspect you want to call him that because it sounds fancy and professional, but so does "chef". Especially "chef at the level of Alton Brown". Very impressive, that title. No need to drag in irrelevant and incorrect terms into it.

Here's the thing, he's not a chef: A chef is one of several very specific jobs in a professional kitchen, and he does not do those jobs.

He is rather insistent that he is a cook, not a chef.

He is more than qualified to be a chef, but that is not his profession.

His profession is technically entertainment and education, but he is educating people on culinary science.

He has made a career of educating people about practical applications of culinary science. If that does not make him a culinary scientist, then the definition of a culinary scientist is too strict and needs to be loosened up.

[Peelee]

Here's the thing, he's not a chef: A chef is one of several very specific jobs in a professional kitchen, and he does not do those jobs.

He is rather insistent that he is a cook, not a chef.

He is more than qualified to be a chef, but that is not his profession.

A cook, then. My mistake.

If that does not make him a culinary scientist, then the definition of a culinary scientist is too strict and needs to be loosened up.

I wish you luck in your quest.

[Sermil]

Since you were mentioning not being great at recognising social cues, and wanting to try and learn them: This is probably not a particularly helpful thing to say in any situation. All taking about how much enjoyment you're getting out of an argument (for whatever qualifies as an argument) is... not particularly great, but especially not to the faces of the people. It's really rude to basically be saying that you're just using people as an entertainment, especially if things are heated.

In general, really, it tends to irritate people to have self-focused nothings said in the middle of a conversation, but that goes double when there's intense back and forth.

I'm kinda with Bartmanhomer on this one. It was getting into a very long, very pedantic debate between a few people. It didn't feel like it was getting anywhere, people were just rephrasing their previous statements over and over, and it was taking over the thread with walls of text. I'm honestly glad Barmanhomer interrupted and it stopped.

[Rater202]

I occasionally have fantasies, wherein if I didn't have to worry about money or the like and had the ability to do so, just spending my life Scooby-Dooing my way across the country in a comfortable motor home.

Hopefully with less running into crooked land developers dressing up like monsters to lower property values though. I can't run very fast. Or for very long.

In particular, driving the entire length of Route 66* just so I could say I did it.

My desires are all either very humble or incredibly unhumbled with absolutely no middle ground.

[enderlord99]

I keep trying to search how many bones are in a whole giraffe, but Google insists I'm asking about just the neck.

[Rater202]

I keep trying to search how many bones are in a whole giraffe, but Google insists I'm asking about just the neck.

So I just searched "how many bones in a giraffe skeleton?" and got a quora response of one person saying that they didn't know but they had the same number of vertebrae as a human, one person saying "just seven, same as a human," as if that answered the question and one person saying too many.

There may be a fundamental problem with humanity where this one trivia item has completely supplanted all knowledge of the field of giraffe osteology.

[Anonymouswizard]

Where do birds Go when it rains?

Yeah, humanity gets obsessed with some weird pieces of trivia. I suppose it's better than the changing room arguments that I get into too often.

Spoiler

Show

Mainly individual cubicle versus locker room style stuff, not who should be using them. I tend to end up supporting the latter when people aggressively push for the former, due to the fact that they save on space, although I do get the reasons people dislike them, kind of.

[Form]

On the topic of food, does anyone have some good vegetarian meal prep (like preparing for the entire work week) suggestions? I have been eating way too much fast food lately. Fair warning, I don't like beans. It's a texture thing.

Soup. It can be as watery or not as you like. Dump lots of vegetables into a big pot, some boullion cubes and let it simmer for a while (should be done in max. 2 hours, less if you rush/heat if faster?). Add stuff like macaroni (only a little) or seasoning as is your fancy. Soup is very modular, so you can add/remove pretty much whatever you like. Then either put it in the freezer as separate, individual portions to reheat later or place the entire pot into the fridge. Pro tip: Fried onions are a delicious addition (albeit unhealthy); add them after reheating a portion for consumption. You can probably find pre-cut soup vegetables in the grocery store as well to save more time.

If you go the fridge route, it'll stay good for up to 5 days, but make sure to only reheat that portion that you eat for a given evening and to put ice cubes into the pot just before you put it in the fridge. It's important to keep the soup outside the dangerous temperature zone (when bacteria can reproduce best) as much possible.

I can't be bothered to think of something else to eat each day, so I stick with soup most of the time. Works though, so my laziness is vindicated!

[Tvtyrant]

On the topic of food, does anyone have some good vegetarian meal prep (like preparing for the entire work week) suggestions? I have been eating way too much fast food lately. Fair warning, I don't like beans. It's a texture thing.

All legumes? Like green beans and soy beans as well, or just the starchy ones?

I personally went through a canned veggies phase earlier in the year, convenient and quick. Potatoes are low calorie if you can eat them without fixings and take maybe 6 minutes in a microwave.
Squash, potatoes, and sweet potatoes are all good for meal prepping.

[LaZodiac]

I keep trying to search how many bones are in a whole giraffe, but Google insists I'm asking about just the neck.

So I just searched "how many bones in a giraffe skeleton?" and got a quora response of one person saying that they didn't know but they had the same number of vertebrae as a human, one person saying "just seven, same as a human," as if that answered the question and one person saying too many.

There may be a fundamental problem with humanity where this one trivia item has completely supplanted all knowledge of the field of giraffe osteology.

They have the same number of bones of it's type, like horses and cows. Almost no animal has a listed "number of individual bones in" number beyond humans, and I'm pretty sure part of it is because, barring outliers involved due to fingers V. hooves, we all have the same amount of bones.

Worse case scenario; just count'em bud.

[Civis Mundi]

On the topic of food, does anyone have some good vegetarian meal prep (like preparing for the entire work week) suggestions? I have been eating way too much fast food lately. Fair warning, I don't like beans. It's a texture thing.

I figure that lentils, being legumes, would also have the wrong texture for you. But it'd be remiss of me not to at least float the idea of making dal. It's one of my easy, staple meals that makes a lot of food for very little, and it's very versatile. The lentils break down a lot over the course of cooking them, which may or may not bridge the texture gap.

The basic idea is to simmer 1 cup of lentils with 3 cups of liquid, stirring around here and there until there's not much liquid left. Obviously, if you just use lentils and water, it will be disgusting. I suggest using vegetable stock instead of water, and for best results, you 100% want to add other veggies. I like to start by first cooking up some onions, garlic, and chilis, then adding in the liquid, the lentils, and some roughly chopped carrots and potatoes (potentially some tomato as well), then adding copious spices (cinnamon, turmeric, cardamom if you've got it, and often some more pepper + onion powder + garlic powder). Taste along the way--if the broth is good, the dal will be good.

You'll keep stirring, and for a long time, you'll be like, this isn't working, I've just made some weird soup. Then something magical will happen and it will start to come together.

You can have it over rice (I like to have it with some naan in melted cheese). Sometimes I like to add it to a breakfast sandwich. And you can also fry it up and make vada, or even some vada pav. Though all that's additional prep.

[Xyril]

...You want me to post an annotated bibliography becuase I mentioned details from a casual conversation I had earlier, based on years of observations, in a random banter thread?

This seems to border on a straw man argument, though not one that's unique to you.

By all means, your statements come across as you taking down to a child who you caught making things up to support an erroneous opinion instead of an educated adult making a statement based on observations. Is that how you intend yo come across?

Around here, at least, when people ask for sources, they're generally not trying to trip you up: They literally just want you to be clear about where you're getting your information. If you vaguely cite "data" when you just mean your own observations, then just own the fact that you're using yourself as a primary source and making your own factual assertions. If all you remember is that you read an article that was published online by what seemed like a reputable newspaper, just say "one of the articles that came in the last month about the vaccine," or whatever might help them find the same source.

"I read it in a bunch of books, this guy wrote some of them" is a decent answer. It clarifies ambiguities, and presents useful, relevant information that was previously missing. It didn't require that you take the time and effort to make "an annotated bibliography," but it saved Peelee and everyone else from spending much more effort trying to divine your sources.

Also, that struck me as an unexpected way to use "by all means." What exactly did you mean by that.

[tomandtish]

I occasionally have fantasies, wherein if I didn't have to worry about money or the like and had the ability to do so, just spending my life Scooby-Dooing my way across the country in a comfortable motor home.

Hopefully with less running into crooked land developers dressing up like monsters to lower property values though. I can't run very fast. Or for very long.

I remember an article where it was pointed out that for about half of the episodes, what the "bad guy" was doing was perfectly legal.

[Tarmor]

Where do birds Go when it rains?

The large one that lives in my backyard sometimes stands under a chair. (If I had a photo, I'd post it.)

[Peelee]

I remember an article where it was pointed out that for about half of the episodes, what the "bad guy" was doing was perfectly legal.

Depends. We don't know what state they're in, IIRC, and fraud laws (like many laws) can velary greatly by state. I'd peg fraud as the most likely category of law to be broken, but by no means the only one.

Of course, Scoob and the gang trespass like nobody's business....

Also, "legal" does not necessarily equate to "right" or "just" or "fair". Plenty of ******* moves are perfectly legal. The bad guy can still be a bad guy even if they did whatever they did legally.

[Qwertystop]

Depends. We don't know what state they're in, IIRC, and fraud laws (like many laws) can velary greatly by state. I'd peg fraud as the most likely category of law to be broken, but by no means the only one.

Of course, Scoob and the gang trespass like nobody's business....

Also, "legal" does not necessarily equate to "right" or "just" or "fair". Plenty of ******* moves are perfectly legal. The bad guy can still be a bad guy even if they did whatever they did legally.

True, but my impression is that usually episodes end with the bad guy getting brought away by some cop?

[Tarmor]

Depends. We don't know what state they're in, IIRC, and fraud laws (like many laws) can velary greatly by state. I'd peg fraud as the most likely category of law to be broken, but by no means the only one.

Of course, Scoob and the gang trespass like nobody's business.....

I spent a lot of last weekend finishing a conversion of the first part of 'U1 Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh' to 'Call of Cthulhu' (Modern) to use as a one-off adventure. The PC's are the Scooby gang! I'm looking forward to running it if I can get my group together soon.

[Rater202]

I remember an article where it was pointed out that for about half of the episodes, what the "bad guy" was doing was perfectly legal.

I'm pretty sure that assaulting and/or harassing people to make them abandon their homes or sell their property so that you can buy the land cheap or steal something valuable on the property without getting caught is some kind of crime.

As is kidnapping people, stealing or destroying objects of value, breaking and entering,

Hell, an episode of What's New Scooby where the bad guy "did" get away with it becuase Mystery Inc said that no one got hurt so no crime happened...

When the person was sabotaging amusement park rides. In their own amusement park for reasons I don't recall, but, no, screw that. That's gotta be some kind of illegal even if everyone walked away.

Or, in a Pup Named Scooby Doo, the one time Red Herring actually did the crime: Yeah, it's nice that he took his grandmother's motorbike to fix it up but he still stole it and he had no reason to do so while dressed as the ghost of a biker.

The only times I can think of where the bad guy legitimately didn't commit a crime was, also in Pup, where the monster was a "Mad Scientist" who "wanted Scooby's head..."

And it turned out the bloody lab coat was actually a paint-spattered smock, she was an artist who wanted Scooby to pose for a painting, and she was just really bad at clear communication.

[Insane Jeenyus]

we need a kitty picture, therefore I present you with Queen Kitty:



https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid...21828767841976

[Rater202]

Further on the Scooby Doo topic:

While all the things done are crimes, there was a cracked article a few years ago that pointed out something interesting:

Every single crime in the original series was committed for with a financial motivation, by people who demonstrated skills in acting, costume making, engineering, or so on to a level that would be impressive in the modern-day and downright godlike in the 60s, apparently on a pretty cheap budget considering again that the motivations are financial and it doesn't make much sense to spend more than you expect to make and that a lot of the perps seem to be middle class or lower.

People with such skills should be growing in high paying legitimate work.

So... Either there's a severe economic depression in Scooby's World in the original series and there just isn't enough legitimate work for even these legitimate geniuses, which, in turn, says some interesting/disturbing thing about a group late highschool/early college kids driving cross country in a van with no parental supervision, or, and this is my observation, not from the article, there's a situation where a lot of people of genius intellect are just preferring to make money illegally when that would be harder than making it legitimately.