No idea. I think the pitch was for them to be biodegradable in a fairly short timespan, so I’d guess they don’t hold up well to sustained moisture. If you washed them immediately after using and then dry them off, you could probably get some reusability out of them. They’re not like that horrible paper shit that starts falling apart mid-use, but only ever used them after they were provided when ordering takeout - used em once and threw them out.

Food aside, I’ve used disposable spoons/forks/knives made of potato as a plastic alternative. Unlike pretty much every similar product that has a weird taste/texture or shit durability, the potato ones were pretty much indistinguishable from plastic except that the texture was kinda higher traction if that makes any sense. Like it’d kinda grab your lips a bit as they were sliding across a spoon, vs the plastic version is slightly less friction.

But, you stop noticing that after like the third bite.

Haven’t seen them used in years, so no idea if they’re still being produced, but it seemed like a golden standard to replace plastic the few times I used it.

/shrug

They died for the most honorable of causes: using war crimes to distract the world from the Epstein files.

*Sheds a single tear*

Each color is the full rainbow while inside the box. Only when it’s opened and observed does an object receive its color.

WAY too many people don’t realize “AI” is just marketing bullshit, and genuinely think that LLMs and shit are literal intelligence in a computer.

For one, it’s driving every company under the sun to shove it into every product under the sun; and two, if we ever do create a true AI (what we’re calling “AGI” now, at least until marketing drives that one to meaninglessness too and we have to move the goal posts again), it’s going to be humanity changer in par with shit like discovering fire… and people will be confused as all hell becuase “wE’ve hAd tHAt foR yEArS!” cuz they’ll think its the same spell-checker-that’s-wrong-occaisionally-and-generates-nudes that we have today.

I hear you, but granting medical literacy to someone who’s already so far gone as to turn a blind eye to a nut allergy is way beyond anything my own actions or inactions will influence. You’re asking me to try to fix stupid in a society that can’t even be bothered to accept that measles = bad; or that it’s worth covering your face in the middle of a global pandemic. That kid with the nut allergy is fucked - not because some chef was desensitized by a cilantro allergy claim, but because the chef is a fucking moron who doesn’t believe in or care about food allergies.

Hell, think of it like a drill - they get to practice their allergen cross contamination prevention protocols, and if they fuck up I can give them feedback by asking for some Benadryl. Then when the nut allergy kid comes in, they’ll remember their mistake! Win win! …also cilantro allergy IS a thing. I have no idea if it relates to acetyls - that was just some plausible-sounding basis pulled out of my ass to use as ammo in the face of skepticism - but there ARE people who have anaphylactic reactions to cilantro, so again, consider my BS a drill / awareness training.

Saving lives, AND meals! Hooray!

“The most developed Non-fictional language that isn’t used by any life (or system created by said life) native to this solar system.”

It’ll either return the magic equivalent of a 404 error, or I get some absolutely ground breaking confirmation / become a human Rosetta Stone to get a jump on first contact!

I’ll do what works. Requesting they don’t add it on the basis of preference results in a plate full of cilantro about half the times I attempt it. Sending it back generally gets it corrected on the next attempt, but not only does that force you into the awkward position of asking to send it back, it also leaves you at a table full of people eating their meals having a good time while you just sit there and wait. Around the time the rest of your party is done eating, your food arrives, and now everyone else of waiting for you.

Fuck it. Cilantro will kill me. Please prepare the food with the appropriate sense of urgency. Idgaf if it gums up the line - that’s the result of them not having their shit together countless times previously. The alternative gums up my entire evening, and I’ve dealt with that enough times.

That’s also on them if they don’t take other allergies seriously. They’re not my fucking doctor - if I tell them I have an allergy, then I have an allergy. Nearly anything can be an allergen, and their job is to accept that information at face value, not audit the diagnosis.

I’ve always thought soap was the wrong comparison, but I definitely have the gene that makes it awful.

Cilantro is loaded with acetyl groups, and sensitivity to those is what defines the taste. Soap is also full of acetyls, but different ones I guess? What hits much closer to target is stink bugs. The gunk they secrete to make their distinctive stink has many of the same acetyl groups as cilantro.

With our sense of smell tied so strongly to our sense of taste, you kind of know what something tastes like just from getting a whiff, with a few exceptions (looking at you, vanilla extract… you fucking liar).

Anyway, a more accurate comparison would be that cilantro tastes like stink bugs. Or specifically, cilantro tastes like the smell of sink bugs.

I can stomach dishes with cilantro in them, but it just stings through everything. No matter how little was put in, it tastes to me like somebody over-cilantro’d the dish.

Same. The taste of cilantro ranges from bad to intolerable. If there’s just a tiny bit of it in there, it tastes only mildly bad; scale it up and the dish is ruined in a hurry.

Pro tip:

You’ve probably already noticed that “please no cilantro” will fall on deaf ears when placing an order at most restaurants. “I have an allergy to cilantro - please make sure there’s none in my food.” will get you MUCH better results.

If faced with skepticism, give them the spiel about acetyl groups and that those are the source of the allergy. Your symptoms are itchy sensation on the tongue, soreness on the roof of your mouth, constriction/wheezing in your throat, and nausea that kicks in later.

You’ll be amazed how rarely they ‘forget’ not to defile your meal with that rancid shit.

But maybe some patients don’t fully understand the dangers of having food in their digestive system when going under anesthesia.

100% it’s that. I’ve heard patients say it’s just a power trip from the doctor, or because the nurses want your stomach empty so they don’t have to clean up if you vomit. Some people have a weird interpretation of what “NOTHING BY MOUTH” means (“No I didn’t eat - all I had was a handful of crackers / just one pancake / just coffee / etc”)

Pre-op instructions are really bad about conveying why we give that instruction, which is a complaint I’ve made at every hospital I’ve worked at. So then the patient gets to the OR, and we’re trying to give that lesson verbally, but they’ve already broken the instruction at that point. Easily the #1 cause of cancellations when that comes to light; but we do get the occasional moron who thinks we’re just fucking with them or something or decides its worth risking their life instead of dealing with the hassle of rescheduling… there’s some confirmation bias too: this might be the 4th surgery they’ve had where they ignored that instruction. Ate a full breakfast every time and nothing went wrong, so it becomes like a game to them. Then on #4 the odds catch up to them and suddenly they’re digesting their own lungs.

I wish they’d have to watch like a 1m video animation showing what happens. The long list of do’s and dont’s gets understandably overwhelming.

One of the most important verifications before surgery is to make sure the patient didn’t eat or drink. We can’t just superman-vision into their stomach, so we settle for asking them.

Ya guessed it: one guy lied about not eating breakfast that morning. He aspirated (threw up into his own lungs) shortly after the anesthesia meds kicked in.

The following several minutes were an absolute shit show. He was still alive when they wheeled him out of the OR, but he went straight to ICU, I’m assuming to get him on a vent. Never got an update after that, so no idea if he survived.

If you’re gonna get surgery, don’t lie to your team.

“…try to do it before they film Home Alone 2 - that way you can save a piece of our childhood as well as our country.”

It still bugs me how our vocabulary just immediately goes out the window to market this shit.

• NOTHING is powered by AI. And unless some poor fucker’s cranking away on a standing bicycle turbine or something, it’s not powered by humans either. It’s powered by whatever’s giving their grid power - solar, wind, nuclear, dinosaur juice, that shit.

• Humans grouped up for the purpose of taking and processing client requests isn’t a fucking ‘chat bot’, it’s a call center. This concept isn’t new or novel in any way.

• Even “AI” itself has become synonymous with ‘computer generated’. Intelligence that’s artificial still only exists in science fiction/fantasy. We’ve been misusing this term well before shit like LLMs existed - calling shit like NPC pathing in a videogame “AI” which is also stupid… but lately we’ll slap an “AI” sticker on anything with an algorithm. We even moved the goal posts on this one with the new term “AGI” but I guarantee that one will be marketed into meaninglessness in the near future too.

This post is powered by my phone’s battery and last night’s dinner.

xFire, please.

I’d be worried about purines. A diet of pure steak would likely lead to an insane case of gout, which is a buildup of uric acid crystals in your joints… which ranks pretty high on the list of excruciatingly painful things you can be diagnosed with.

Monster’s not terrible if you buy it in bulk. You can get it for around a dollar per can from places like Costco.

Redbull idk - that stuff tastes like ass imo, so l never paid much attention to price. …for the record, most Monster tastes like shit too, but there’s a few gems in the Ultra line.

Just containing some chemical doesn’t mean it will have same effect as it does in a different product.

Chocolate, milk, butter, cheese, and papayas are each a chemically distinct environment, so what this acid does to chocolate may be mitigated or completely offset by the chemical makeup of those other environments.

A more appropriate comparison to chocolate with butyric would be to chocolate without it, and between those two, the difference is a subtle acrid flavor reminiscent of vomit. If you don’t personally pick up on that flavor, you should count yourself as lucky - once you notice it, it really does ruin the experience.

“We require privacy not to conceal our own wrong doing, but to protect against people who would abuse their authority to pry into our lives and do us harm by misrepresenting what they find.”

…ya know, if he wants to gather up a room full of super villains, it does give a golden opportunity to more benevolent governments who happen to own things like a missile.

On a long hike, pushed the whole ‘stop and set up camp’ thing way too late, so it’s already dark as I’m starting to pitch the tent. Start feeling really uneasy like I’m being watched, so I do a quick sweep of my surroundings with my flashlight - and sure as shit two reflective eyes become visible for half a second before the critter that owns them gets spooked by light and runs off. Couldn’t see the actual animal, just the eyes, but now I’m borderline shitting myself with fear, so I get in the semi-pitched-but-fuck-it tent and lay down listening for footsteps or something.

Never did hear footsteps, but about 20 mins later that little shit let out an incredibly loud and absolutely blood curdling scream… like, women getting actively murdered whilst screaming into a megaphone, kind of scream… right outside the tent.

Then nothing for the remainder of the night.

I get home and start searching the web for what the actual fuck that was: 99% sure I was being stalked by a cougar.