Game of Thrones Daily

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shark vs the universe
tumblr dot com

Kaledo Art
ojovivo
$LAYYYTER

★
Cosmic Funnies
RMH
Sade Olutola
KIROKAZE
sheepfilms
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祝日 / Permanent Vacation
art blog(derogatory)

Kiana Khansmith
d e v o n
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@thehundredplusone
I had an interesting night last night
Secret cinema found beneath Paris.
In September 2004, French police discovered a hidden chamber in the catacombs under Paris. It contained a full-sized movie screen, projection equipment, a bar, a pressure cooker for making couscous, a professionally installed electricity system, and at least three phone lines. Movies ranged from 1950s noir classics to recent thrillers.
When the police returned three days later, the phone and power lines had been cut and there was a note on the floor: “Do not try to find us.” (via)
SECRET, MILDLY THREATENING UNDERGROUND COUSCOUS CINEMA
I WANNA GO
LET ME JOIN YOUR KIND, UNDERGROUND MOVIE PEOPLE
nO YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS ENTIRE CINEMA WAS HIDDEN BEHIND AN UNDER CONSTRUCTION SIGN THAT LEAD TO A CHECK-IN DISK WITH A FULL CCTV HOOKUP THAT WOULD TURN ON AND RECORD ANY UNREGISTERED VISITORS. AND IF SOMEONE SNUCK IN? A TAPE OF BARKING SECURITY DOGS WOULD BEGIN TO PLAY.
BEYOND THE CRAZY FRONT DESK AND THE MOVIE THEATER, THERE WAS A STOCKED BAR AND TABLES AND CHAIRS, MEANING THAT AFTER CATCHING A FLICK IN AN ILLEGAL PARISIAN CATACOMB THEATER, YOU COULD THEN EAT COUSCOUS AND SIP A COCKTAIL NEXT DOOR. THERE WAS A PROFESSIONAL ELECTRICITY SYSTEM SET UP, AND AT LEAST 3 WORKING PHONE LINES. THIS SHIT WAS LIKE A BOND VILLAIN.
BETTER YET? IT WAS RUMORED THAT THE PLACE WAS SET UP BY THE UNDERGROUND FRENCH ART GANG UX “Urban eXperiment”, WHO NAVIGATES THROUGH THE PARISIAN UNDERGROUNDS AND ILLEGALLY RESTORES ABANDONED WORKS OF ART, ALONG WITH HOLDING FILM FESTIVALS IN THE BASEMENTS OF GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS. THEY EVEN RELEASED A SHORT FILM ABOUT THEIR WORK RESTORING THE ICONIC PANTHEON CLOCK OVER THE COURSE OF ONE YEAR. NO ONE SUSPECTED THEIR INVOLVEMENT, UNTIL THE CLOCK BEGAN TO WORK AGAIN AFTER 60 YEARS OF RUSTING.
IF YOU DON’T THINK CATACOMBS AND THE PEOPLE WHO HANG OUT IN THEM ARE SOME OF THE COOLEST FUCKING THINGS IN THE WORLD THEN I IMPLORE YOU TO EAT SOME COUSCOUS AND RECONSIDER.
UNDERGROUND FRENCH ART GANG
All I can say is epic… This is honestly the most coolest thing ever done in secret places!
all 495 pieces of content that i had of cowb*ilds cc.
LINKS:
Part one.
Part two.
Part three.
Part four.
Part five.
Part six.
Part seven.
Part eight.
Part nine.
extra cow shit.
share how ever you see fit as idc lol.
you need to do the bed batch fix yourself bc i couldn’t be bothered! (literally saw the update after i started uploading lol.)
seems like a reasonable amount time to release to the public. 😁😆😂
August 2022 Set - Morning Kitchen
Hello! This set began when one of my patrons asked me to create a farmhouse kitchen. I wanted to do it, so I went looking for ideas. Then I saw a lot of pictures of minimal retro cute kitchens and I fell in love with them. So here it is. Do you like it? Please let me know what you think.PS. I am going to make a farmhouse kitchen later. Sorry.
❤️ Early access on my patreon Public release Seb 10
Some references
Keep reading
After all the horrible things you’ve done to people in this community, I just don’t feel comfortable with people paying/buying sets from you. There has not once been any public apology to anyone you have personally effected negatively. No accountability on said actions what so ever. You have lost my respect nor gained it so with that said…
August 2022 Set - Morning Kitchen
PUBLIC RELEASE NOW (08/07/22)
Cowbuilds statement on IG
How cute they are coordinating responses. So a few problems with this. As we laid out in Leo’s post, this was alway EAs stance so paywalling sims content and package files prior to July 21st is against TOS.
Second, Cowbuild and alot of her friends repeatedly violates the positive play charter by stealing companies models and that whole doxxing fiasco.
The community can still report her for all those violations.
Third they also will have to be careful how they market their content because they often use sims assets in their photos. If they are now just selling 3d models but using sims assets in their promotion that’s not exactly the best look legally. But I’m sure their lawyer informed them of that. Will they continue to use sims 4 hashtags or say it’s for the sims 4? That remains to be seen.
Not sure if their little work around will matter because it’s very obvious what they are doing and now that it’s crystal clear that EA is not ok with it the optics will be pretty bad. There actions will be interpreted as sketchy even if they try to spin it.
Newsflash Cowbuild, this whole anti paywall dialogue is getting traced back to you. Just take a look at twitter or Reddit every thread is like oh I bet this is because of all the crazy sh*t Cowbuild pulled. Keep it up, see how far it gets you.
CC tumblr’s stop promoting these sketchy people who obviously have no concern for the rules of the community. Same for Youtubers. If either do the community should remind them they do not follow EAs TOS. Moreover they are now 3d modelers they have no business being promoted in our community any longer
Similarly Patreon can’t keep sitting on the fence, now that EA has clarified their stance.
The early access and the rest of the community really needs to take a stand against paywallers who refuse to comply. They are the ones that brought the hammer down it’s important that they are chased out if they refuse to comply, because what’s next? Mods aren’t supported all together? Donations aren’t allowed? How much will we as a community allow them to f*ck up? Seriously? Early access creators hopefully you’re sharpening your pitchforks because these weirdos are to blame for your bag getting taken away.
“All ownership of our textures and 3D models is reserved by us”
I think Cowbuilds will find that ownership of her models actually falls to the websites she stole them from... 🤭
youre nb but you call yourself a bitch (bitch is a FEMALE dog btw) why???
i am on the FLOOR
bitch and bastard are GENDERED terms and thus you must use the neutral: bitchard
happy pride month to the stupidest post on this site.
A woman is suing employees of a Florida jail after they allegedly forced her to spend nearly 10 hours in a cell surrounded by 40 men because they suspected she was transgender,the Miami Herald reported.
If this had been a trans woman no one would have cared. It wouldn’t even have made the news. But since it did, I’d just like to say that prisons are dens of sexual violence and freedom demands their abolition
More proof that the struggles if cis women and trans women will always be intertwined and notions of “passing” will always be used as a way to punish and control all women.
Remember that video of a cisgender lesbian who got harassed and ejected from a bathroom by male cops a couple years back while her friends pleaded for the cops to leave her alone because she was a cisgender woman? Because I remember.
The anti-trans push WILL hurt the cis women you claim to be trying to “protect” as your excuse. You’re not protecting them or anyone else. Literally all you do is put everyone at risk instead. Stop pretending that ‘protecting’ people is your goal, we all know it isn’t, and shit like this will happen more frequently and get worse as the push gets stronger.
Just admit you don’t give a shit about any women, you just like hurting trans people and go.
What’s especially weird about this is for cis women going through menopause, and for cis women who have had their uterus removed, it’s pretty normal to be taking hormone replacement therapy. And them detecting that she was on HRT is a large reason why they sent her to a male prison, despite that being like, not that strange of a thing to be finding in an older cis woman.
TERF ideology is intertwined tightly with the enforcement of white, western standards of femininity onto women around the world, and exists to punish those who don’t fall in line under the pretext of “protecting” white femininity. it’s not radical feminism, it’s reactionary fascism.
Why I use British LARP terminology to talk about Aristasia
I am still occupied in the processes of trying to make sense of my experiences in Elektraspace and formulating a personal understanding of Aristasia/Chelouranya/the Feminine Universe. However, it seems to me that I should start by discussing my choice of language, as it may take a little while for Outlanders and friendly Filianists to get used to, and any Herthelans from within the Walled Garden who see this may be alarmed at my choice to use terms associated with roleplaying to describe something that they know is real.
Please rest assured that I will neither invalidate nor even challenge that point of view. ❤
Keep reading
Really fascinating. I’m still following this rabbithole and all the wild directions it leads in, and it seems like with every stone I lift, I find another passage to slide down.
Aristasia is the definition of gals being pals, ladies being mateys.
(EDIT: My questions have been answered! Please see the reblogs for responses to everything from a filianist who contacted me.)
I’ve been down an incredible rabbithole today and I. Have. Questions.
Not to be insensitive to the people who seem to actually follow this, if any of you are still around (idk, it seems like most of them dropped off the earth 2 or 3 years ago) but I’ve gotta know:
Did deanism/filianism originate as the fictional religion of Aristasia? If not, where?
What was the transition process from Aristasia to the current form like? What still holds true between the two?
Were any of you Aristasians? How did you find out about this religion?
You’re serious about this, right? It seems like it’s not an elaborate troll but you can’t trust the internet.
Do you believe in the two feminine sexes thing?
Are y'all still really into anime? What about roleplaying?
What happened to all the Victorian stuff?
Is Sai Sushuri an homage to Sushuri Madonna, an avatar in Second Life who was a prominent figure in that era of Aristasia?
What’s your position on trans folks?
Is there any message you want people to know about your religion?
Did deanism/filianism originate as the fictional religion of Aristasia? If not, where?
I believe that the specific trend you are interested has a very close link to Aristasia, but it did not grow out of Aristasia. Rather, Aristasia grew from it. The original format of filianism/deanism associated with Aristasia began at Oxford University. I see it as fitting with the trend in the late 20th century which saw several feminine-focused religions and lesbian separatist movements rise. (Another example is Dianic Wicca, which appeared in the 1970’s.) You can find more information HERE and HERE.
What was the transition process from Aristasia to the current form like? What still holds true between the two?
It was not exactly a smooth transition, it just… kind of happened. When I first became interested in Aristasia (I think around late 2006) it had just entered what I think of as its Novaryan phase. The community on Second Life was beginning, and I couldn’t join as I was too young. Within a few years, the Flight of the Silver Vixen was released and the pettes on Heartbook became enamoured with Pretty Cure.
What holds true from when I first became involved to when I fell out of the general community is a completely feminine-centered worldview and a deep level of jargon and obtuseness, which I believe is partially intended to turn away prying media eyes.
Were any of you Aristasians? How did you find out about this religion?
If you mean, did I have an Aristasian persona and did I communicate with Aristasians online, then yes. I was sporadically Aristasian for a long time and was most distressed when I tried to return after a long absence and found that it had become Chelouranya. If you mean, did I travel to meet with other Aristasians and fully immerse myself in an Aristasian lifestyle, then no.
As for how I found it, I think the internet somehow lead me to the main Aristasian webpage when I was trying to learn about lesbians in Britain. What I saw there seemed beautiful and strange. I think I watched “A Weekend at Miss Martindale’s” too, which appealed to me as someone who wished to live a very different life to the one I was living. It all seemed so aspirational and far away, but within a few weeks of my interest developing, the website changed substantially to include more information about Operation Bridgehead. I think a forum with a name like “Blue Rose” appeared around that time too? That forum eventually became Heartbook. It blew my mind that I could join and participate. I was very young, shy and struggled with the lingo, so I made several different personas over the years. I doubt any Chelouranyans would remember me.
You’re serious about this, right? It seems like it’s not an elaborate troll but you can’t trust the internet.
It’s not a troll, it long predates trolls as an internet phenomenon. Who would it be trolling anyway? As far as I am aware, Aristasia doesn’t hurt or target anyone.
I see it as a tiny new religious movement with a very long-lived roleplay scene. Both of these have taken many forms and received different levels of emphasis over the years. Personally, I have always been interested in the roleplay and other-world aspect more than the religion, but the religion has the more interesting history.
Do you believe in the two feminine sexes thing?
That is part of the roleplay, which we referred to as Life Theatre. In my opinion, Aristasians aren’t, or at least weren’t, delusional. Several on Heartbook spoke of their real lives, and several were or had been married and had children. Aristasia Pura isn’t a real place; it’s a transformative space, a romantic daydream, an aspiration that can never truly be fulfilled. To me, it was my ethereal desire to connect with other women given a particular structure and shape. Anyone who has played roleplaying games or been part of a fandom knows that something doesn’t have to be real to be genuinely moving or to add value to your life.
Are y'all still really into anime? What about roleplaying?
I love anime, but the over-emphasis of Anime and the exoticization of Japanese culture was one of the things that drove me away from mainstream Aristasia/Chelouranya for a long time. As someone who actually wears egl fashion everyday, the way it was discussed on Heartbook made me, a Brunette who just saw my frills as clothes rather than a statement about my “pure soul”, quite uncomfortable.
I am massively into roleplaying. Always have been, always will be. Even though I am largely happy with my life, it’s just a lot of fun.
What happened to all the Victorian stuff?
The image of Artistasia has often been shaped by its more influential members and what they are interested in. Initially, the image seems to have been more Dianic. Later, it was very 1940’s. For a while, the image of a Victorian girls’ school was favoured due to the setting in Second Life being, well… Exactly that. As Second Life’s popularity waned and anime became a primary influence, egl fashion and other things associated with Novarya rose to the forefront. I am not sure what the current scene looks like.
Is Sai Sushuri an homage to Sushuri Madonna, an avatar in Second Life who was a prominent figure in that era of Aristasia?
I believe Sushuri Madonna took her name from Sai Sushuri, but as Suhuri Madonna was heavily involved in transforming the religious side of Artistasia, who can say for certain? She had many pseudonyms and characters she played, too. I am unsure how many active Aristasians there were at the time and how many of the pettes I spoke with were just her with another hat on. I say this not to criticize, just to express my experience.
What’s your position on trans folks?
As a cis woman, I have no problem whatsoever with trans people. I believe trans pettes should be welcomed. As long as someone is kind and doesn’t hurt others, then I will always treat them with respect. Many of the trans people I have known have been lovely to me. I see no reason to exclude them from anything in particular.
Is there any message you want people to know about your religion?
I wish others could understand the sense of relief I felt when I found such a powerfully feminine-centric religion with a potent dream-world to explore and a community where you are taken as the person you present yourself as. To me, who lived in a lonely, repressed environment, it was my first taste of freedom.
I gave OP my own Filianic perspective to all these questions a while ago, but reblogging again because it’s equally valuable for the OP to get the perspective of some involved in Aristasia, whereas I wasn’t, for the most part.
Aaa it makes me happy to see this post back in my TL again, and with answers from someone who was involved in the Aristasia side of things! Thanks @aristasia-romantia, and thanks again @mariannashrine!
You gotta admit…that’s a finger-lickin-good rejection letter
Absolutely losing it at this Reddit post
And the update
She buttered Jorts
The outrage summed in a perfect Tweet:
FINALLY
I've been collecting the best Jorts tweets and waiting until the moment he showed up on my dash to post them. So here you are, the curated best of the past, oh, day or so:
Polished Malachite Stalactite - Copper Crescent, Congo
*looks around*
Is
Is anyone gonna say it
malachite is a poisonous mineral. please do not fuck the malachite stalactite
@lizaleigh do you know any rock people that can confirm/deny because I am very curious and really don’t feel like getting into a conversation with my geophysicist brother that MAY somehow get back to the fact I saw a malachite that looked like a weird dildo.
…sadly, I am not on good enough terms with any of our partner geologists to just attach this to an email with the subject line: “EXPLAIN.” Although I think @mollisaurus is a mineral person. Thoughts?
oh geeze, i’m kinda rusty on minerals but malachite is just copper carbonate and is really common in both antique and modern jewelry so i think like if you were really gun-ho about it you could go ahead and put it wherever you want?
It’s really only a problem if you’re polishing or cutting it. The particles would be bad to breathe. It’s rather porous too, so I would worry about bacteria growing. Well, being literal anyway… Better to leave the poor thing alone. ._.
I mean it kinda depends on where you stick it because malachite does not like acidic environments very much and the malachite will degrade and also might dye your bits blue-green as the copper dissolves out.
So use a condom when fucking rocks is the takeaway here.
Oh my god guys it’s poisonous
It is super poisonous
There is a reason we do not use it in make up any more
Not even with a condom, do not fuck the rock
Try this one instead.
malachite literally explodes in water does it not?
I… no… I think you’re thinking of pure sodium?
Malachite is however water soluble, which really just means it will poison you quicker
This is both hilarious and cool as fuck because you’re getting all this information on minerals and rocks. You’re also watching people argue over wether or not you can fuck this rock
I go on hiatus for a week and come back to find tumblr molesting my post, but hey, at least we all learned something so yay tumblr, you just keep on being you.
I’m still not sure if I can fuck this rock.
I’m looking into it.
UPDATE:
Today in “I’m so sorry, coworkers, it’s for Tumblr,” I brought this post to the attention the science reporters at BuzzFeed. Dan Vergano did a some research and weighed in on the question “Can you use malachite as a dildo or is it toxic?”
The answer is “It’s probably fine, just wash it first and maybe use a bunch of lube.”
Oh man this got so much better than the last time I saw this post
This is my favourite. Science side of tumblr: asking the REAL questions
*biologist crashes through the underbrush* Ok so here’s the thing though Malachite is not poisonous to YOU. BUT fucking this stalactite will probably wreck your vaginal flora and leave you with a gruesome infection within a couple days. Want details? SO GLAD YOU ASKED, ‘CAUSE HERE THEY ARE. • Malachite is not copper oxide. It’s Cu2CO3(OH)2. Like most carbonates it’s water soluble– that’s how it became a stalactite in the first place! And technically any given chunk of “malachite” isn’t just malachite– it’s a mix of various copper carbonates & oxides. This will become important later. • When malachite dissolves it makes a bunch of copper (Cu++) ions. Cu++ is GREAT at killing bacteria and fungi– so good at it that sprays with Cu++ get used a lot as a spray in agriculture to stop plant disease. It takes such a large dose to harm larger organisms that copper sprays are used a lot in organic agriculture (like Bordeaux mixture). So bottom line, yes malachite is technically nontoxic to humans. But it kills bacteria when it dissolves and releases Cu++. • Malachite dissolves somewhat slowly in water– but vaginal secretions aren’t just any water. A healthy human vagina has a pH of 3.8-4.5 and a salinity of about 0.9%. It’s also warmer than your average underground cave at 37°C (or 98.5°F in American meat units). As luck would have it, acidity, salinity, and warmth all make malachite dissolve faster. • In other words, the human vagina dissolves malachite. • I have no deeper explanation for why human females can dissolve rocks with our genitals. It simply is. • Gonna to take a quick moment to point out that sex toys that dissolve when you use them are maybe not the best investment. • Anyway the key question now is “how fast does the human vagina dissolve malachite?” Are we talking geological timescale, a Nazis-in-Indiana-Jones situation, or something in between? If the reaction kinetics of dissolution are very slow, then there’s nothing to worry about. An encounter with a stalactite would have to last years for enough Cu++ to leach out to cause problems. If it’s quick then we’re in trouble. • Unfortunately it looks like nobody really knows. One of the best sources on how malachite dissolves & precipitates in water– an EPA document on how to avoid too much Cu++ in municipal drinking water systems– helpfully says “The kinetic constraints on the formation of these solids in water systems are largely unexplored” (p. 42) because end equilibrium points is all you need to run a city water system safely. In other words, the experiments that would tell us how fast malachite dissolves in various types of water just don’t exist because nobody’s ever needed to know before. So we’d better assume it’s going to happen reasonably quickly, #for safety. • So in best scientific fashion, we’re just going to bullshit our way ahead using what facts we DO have on hand: endpoint equlibria. • Is there any info out there telling us what equilibrium concentration of Cu++ we get in salty acidic water at body temperature? Almost! One J.F. Scaife published some great data on this back in 1957. TAKE IT AWAY, SCAIFE.
That orange box is how many moles of dissolved Cu++ Scaife got from sticking malachite in some water that had 0.171 moles NaCl/L (body salinity is about 0.154 moles NaCl/L so this is slightly less salty than people) at 30°C. He’s got no acidity in there, and again the salinity and temperature are slightly lower than people. But this is probably the closest we’re going to get to data on how malachite behaves in vaginas anytime soon, folks. From this we can take away that if you leave malachite alone in a vagina you’ll get AT LEAST 9.12 x 10^-4 moles/L, or 5.8 ppm, of Cu++ at equilibrium. • Recall from above that most “malachite” isn’t actually pure malachite, it’s a mix of various copper carbonates & oxides. The EPA document elaborates: “[T]raditional ‘eyeball’ identification of malachite by its blue-green color is extremely unreliable, because almost all cupric hydroxysulfates, hydroxycarbonates, hydroxychlorides, and even fresh cupric hydroxide can be some shade of blue-green. … Thus, the uncertainty in the computed copper concentration in equilibrium with malachite is at least about a factor of 2 … until further experimental data focusing on this problem is generated.” In other words, “do your math and then double how much Cu++ you think is going to be in the water, just in case.” So that gives us 11.6ppm Cu++, at equilibrium, with malachite in a (til now!) healthy vagina. • Next step: do we have any idea what happens to bacteria in acid conditions with copper? OH MY GOD WE TOTALLY DO. Gyawali et al 2011 checked this out in the context of “so what if we rinsed tomatoes with a solution of lactic acid and copper, because that would be a safe & organic way to get rid of E. coli?” So now this post has officially ruined stalactites, vaginas, and tomatoes.
^This would happen. These are the counts of 4 E. coli strains exposed to various levels of lactic acid & Cu++ for 8 hours. This table only shows the end counts but it represents the death of 99.7% of bacteria*. • Losing 99.7% of your vaginal flora is seriously bad news. You’re looking at really good odds of a yeast infection, bacterial vaginosis, and/or other infection issues. And that’s if you’re lucky enough to not be in the 4% of the population or so that’s sensitive to skin contact with copper. • The good news? Biochemically speaking, you’re probably ok to put it in your butt. It’s not as acidic or salty in there, plus there’s a huuuuuge stockpile of gut microbes right upstream that can quickly repopulate the colon after spelunking is complete. However this stalactite is not flared at the base so it is the wrong shape for putting in your butt. Do not put this stalactite in your butt. • This all looks like fun and games, but I think it’s really interesting that the internet’s mistake in concluding that this stalactite is fuckable is very similar to the mistake made by the Flint water management system. Hear me out. • Central to the Flint lead poisoning crisis is that authorities only looked at & tested Flint’s water in its central treatment plant before it went out through the pipes. Not after it went through the pipes. They did not consider what would happen biochemically as it went through the pipes and metals started dissolving. • Similarly, in concluding that the stalactite is fuckable, the internet only considered the stalactite itself. Not the biochemical processes that would happen to it as it, welp, went through the pipes. • Media frequently reports that the Flint River’s water is “corrosive,” leading many to believe the river is full of industrial waste. This ain’t the case. You’d need industry to fill a river with industrial waste, and industry left decades ago. That’s why Flint’s so poor. So what IS in the water? Road salt. Plain old stupid road salt. The old Detroit-based source didn’t have salt because it came from Lake Huron which has a large, mostly rural watershed. Meanwhile the Flint River runs through a lot of towns, making it slightly salty as everything melts down in spring. And as we recall from the stalactite experience, a little salt is all it takes to get metals to dissolve. • Information on this engineering problem was not coming through clearly from the engineering or chemistry sides. It took a biologist, pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha, to document the real-time results and provide the data to kick-start a high-level investigation. • Morals of the story: when dealing with a biological system pls consider asking a biologist, your vagina and/or city could depend on this • Pls use a condom when fucking any water-soluble material • Still don’t put the stalactite in your butt -3/10 do not recommend
OK, I haven’t reblogged this before now but the final post takes it to a whole new level and I can no longer resist.
As a side note… I am really annoyed by one thing about Star Trek.
“Replicated food is not as good as real food.”
That’s ridiculous. In Star Trek, replicator technology is part of the same tech tree as transporters. Replicated food would be identical to the food it was based on, down to the subatomic level.
Proposal for a Watsonian explanation:
In a blind taste test, nobody, but nobody, can tell the actual difference between replicated food and “real” food. (Think back to our youth and the New Coke vs. Pepsi taste tests, only worse.) BUT, humans being What We Are, the human Starfleet members insist that “real” food is better than replicated food for reasons including, but certainly not limited to:
1. Hipsters have survived even into the 24th century. “No, you just can’t make good curry from a replicator! You gotta toast the spices yourself right before you cook it or it’s not the same, maaaaaan”
2. All military and para-military members everywhere always grouse and bitch about the food and sigh over What We Get Back Home. It could literally be the same replicator recipe you use at home when someone has to work late or just doesn’t feel like making the effort to cook, but people are people everywhere so they’re going to complain about it.
3. Humans tend to think we’re smarter than we actually are and we can totally tell when something is going on; as a result, human crew members insist they can “taste the difference” because their minds are making shit up, as our brains do.
4. One could presume that, generally speaking, a replicator recipe programmed into a starship or base replicator database would come out the same every time. This is perhaps the 24th century equivalent of mass catering. (I won’t try to account for the nuances of replicator tech that might allow for variances, and leave aside for the moment the fact that some people probably tinker with the standard “recipes” to suit their own taste.) The single thing that would be different in this case about “real” food is the variation, since of course the “real” dish will have slight variances every time due to the whims of the cook, the oven temperature fluctuation, freshness of ingredients, etc.. And since we are an easily bored species who really, really hates boredom, I bet people would jump all over that to lament the lack of “real” food when they’re out exploring strange new worlds and new civilizations and whatnot. (This is the only reason I can think of that might hold up to scrutiny.)
The Vulcans in Starfleet (and Data), of course, remain baffled by this human insistence that “replicator food isn’t as good as ‘real’ food”, as it defies all known forms of logic.
Hmm. This is a fair point. It occurs to me that I once met a Texan who commented that the chili in a restaurant I worked at was not as good as what they made in Texas, and when I pointed out that the cook was a Texan and the chili was his personal recipe, for which he had won awards in Texas, just said “Doesn’t matter. Wasn’t made in Texas.”
I gotta be honest, Replicator technology is one of the things I am SUPREMELY jealous of, and I’m… okay, I’m not a great cook, but I can cook and there are several dishes I do very well. I think if I had access to the technology I would cook a lot less, though, and I would for sure use replicated ingredients.
1. It is not just hipsters that act like this about food. All the grandmothers I know feel this way too, and I don’t see that ever changing.
The missing ingredient is love, obviously. You can’t get that from a replicator.
Right, for that you need the holodeck.
Okay so, we’ve missed a few things that I think are relevant here:
The replicator or replicator + holodeck combo can’t recreate the experience of cooking, nor can it recreate the experience of being cooked for. And that experience makes food taste better.
Cooking is what makes us human. No other species on this wet rock cooks its food–only us.
First: if you’re making lamb stew, or phở, or mole, or curry goat, you spend hours puttering around the house doing chores in a cozy sweater, periodically petting the cats and playing with the kids, waiting an anticipating the hour in which you get to eat the soup. All the while: your house smells like lamb stew, or phở, or mole, or curry goat.
You get a tamale from the replicator: it’s pretty good. You wish it came with a green olive with the pit still in like the kind your abuela puts in her tamales.
You get a tamale from the tamale lady on the way to work on a clear, crisp fall morning. It’s so hot from her steamer that it nearly burns your fingerprints off and it smells divine; you use all of your Spanish to tell her how good it is and how grateful you are that you pass her every day. On a whim, you buy 30 more tamales to share with the office; they’re still warm at lunch and they taste like friendship.
You get a tamale from your abuela. It’s Christmas Eve, your entire family has spent the last seven hours making them, your tio Juan just busted out his tuba and it is definitely too hot outside for the fake snow your baby cousins have started throwing at each other in between begging to open just one present and if you don’t hurry up you’re all going to be late for mass.
The tamale tastes like home.
You get a tamale from the replicator. Its neural network reviewed your order against every known tamale recipe and variety and decided that your addition of “green olive, pickled, pit in” was a mistake, and omitted it.
Your tamale tastes like homesickness. You ball-up the corn husk and
Second: The replicator is probably not accounting for regional variations in ingredients for its base foods.
The ingredient library may have jalapeno, red; jalapeno, green, jalapeno, (color slider), (heat slider). It probably does not have: jalapeno, Hatch new mexico, USA, earth, sol system; or jalapeno north face Olympus Mons Mars, sol system. Replicator Parmesan is very likely a scan of a Parmesan and doesn’t duplicate regional variations between, say, a Parmesan from Mantua vs a Parmesan from Parma.
Did your grandmother use san marzano tomatoes that were actually grown in san marzano in her red sauce (, canned, peeled, whole in juice)? Sucks to be you, the replicator scanned a hydroponically grown plum-type tomato which environment was carefully controlled for optimal nutritional value and “pretty good” taste.
Is the replicator cilantro a kind bred or genetically engineered for maximum palatability across the broadest spectrum of individuals? Is it missing the gene that makes some people taste soap when they eat it? Is that gene the one that makes it taste good to you, so that the replicator chimichurri is always missing something, some particular specific type of freshness, a unique vegetal taste that you can’t put your finger on, and it’s not important enough to track down when you just like the chimichurri you make at home, from cilantro your grew yourself, much better?
Third: The recipe database is probably sourced from hundreds of thousands of recipes written over centuries’ time – and then averaged using a combination of median and modal averaging to come up with something that’s Pretty OK to most people, but which is going to leave others wanting–no matter how much they tweak it.
And then you have many, many people in a state of, “yes but I like my/mom’s/spouse’s/grandparent’s/aunt’s/uncle’s/best friends better”. And that’s OK.
I mean, really. Think about this for a minute.
Fourth:
You go to get a cup of tea from the replicator, because everything is terrible. You know in the darkest depths of your soul that everything will still be terrible with a good cuppa in your hands, but it will be terrible and you’ll have tea, which is a marked improvement.
The replicator gives you a glass of brewed, iced sweet tea.
It takes you three more tries to get a cup of hot earl grey. You decide you’ve finished pressing your luck with this positively infernal machine today and don’t even bother asking for a lemon wedge.
If that doesn’t indicate that the replicators were programmed by an American, I don’t know what does.
holy shit boo this is fucking AMAZEBALLS and I miss the tamale ladies at Stone on the way to the Target so much right now but also you *hugs you tight*
Also, regional recipes are calibrated to work with the local tap water. That’s why pizza from New York and sourdough from San Francisco taste better–the micro-organisms in the water enhance the flavor. The chili that wasn’t made in Texas probably did taste subtly different than it would’ve back home.
There are lots of things that would change with replicators because they take out the human factor.
Maybe you really wanted that one meal from that one restaurant except the restaurant doesn’t release their recipe so it’s slightly off and always will be.
You programmed the replicator with your mum’s favourite mac and cheese recipe, but you didn’t know that your mum always added a little more salt and a little less mustard than the recipe called for, so it’s just not the same and it’s not as good.
Pretty much this. Also I think we cannot overstate the degree to which “the food always comes out exactly the same” would end up bothering people over time.
Important point is that these are “military grade” food replicators and military food is never really great. Hence the difficulty with the tea. Food replicators in private homes and restaurants are more controllable and may have programming for varieties of chilies or tomatoes or even carrots. There are 4 basic kinds of carrots but only one is available commercially, the others need to be grown at home. With a programmable home replicator one can have chantenay carrots… all the infinite varieties of foodstuff ingredients will be available with the right programming and therefore civilians in the 24th century in star trek will have perfectly customisable food. My mind is boggled now…
For a real-world example, but in the other direction:
When I was a child, my mother used to make chili using “Carroll Shelby’s Texas Chili Mix.” It made… okay chili.
When I was in college I found a book called “Chili Madness” at a local used bookstore, that had the winning recipes from the National Chili Cookoff for the last 30 years. It included Carroll Shelby’s actual recipe. So I made it. (Had to get one of my apartment mates to source beer for me, as I was not of age to purchase it yet.)
Wow. What a difference. Adding the spices at different times rather than as a blob of “spice mix”. Beer instead of water. No masa. So good!
So the bagged mix would be the replicator mix in this scenario.
@subbyp you said what about the tap water?
It has microscopic crustaceans in it.
The microorganisms are different, if not missing.
The process of creating it is removed, along with all that entails: this spice left to simmer for the entire cooking time, that fresh leafy thing added in just at the end, a tiny bit heat-wilted.
The quality, not in terms of “is it good” but “what characteristics does it have,” the difference between grass-fed beef and corn-fed, mast-raised pork and commercial feed, how much sunshine did the animal get, what breed is it, how much exercise did it get.
What soil microbes mingled with the roots of that plant and what was planted next to it and how many rainy days did it get and how much sun? You have wine connoisseurs talking about how this or that year was “a good year” because of how the patterns of temperature and sun and rain hit the vines, and everybody has a memory of getting a really good batch of blueberries from the store ONCE and wishing they could all be like that.
When I was a kid we picked strawberries at you-pick fields that don’t seem to be around anymore, and they tasted so much better than anything I’ve ever gotten from a store.
One of the things that screws up my suspension of disbelief in Star Trek is how weirdly specific and intuitive the computers both are and aren’t, at the same time. Picard always has to say “Tea, Earl Grey, hot!” at the replicator so there’s obviously no means of personalization where the replicator knows if it’s Picard asking for tea, he wants it Earl Grey and you can just jump to that unless he specifies otherwise, but also that one time he was able to pull up the musical recording of HMS Pinafore on the working screen of a shuttle by pressing just two buttons, and there weren’t a whole lot of buttons on either screens, so what the fuck?
Anyway there’s probably a shitload of data storage in a Federation starship, but are they really going to fill it up with enough molecular data to store
every extant cultivar
of every food plant
at every stage of edible ripeness
prepared every way it’s commonly prepared
in combination with every other ingredient whose presence or absence affects its taste?
Plus every cut of every food animal
with all the variables of how it might have been raised, and then
with every variable of preparation?
If you bake bread it will taste differently based on how you let it rise, at what temperature, if you put it in the fridge overnight and then let it rise, if you use a starter or a pre-ferment, as well as what yeast you use and how you knead it and what flour and what water and the temperature and shape of the oven and the atmospheric pressure and humidity of the day and the altitude you’re doing your baking at and
that’s
ONE
type
of
food
and you can’t just reduce all that into “bread, artisan, sliced” or whatever
don’t get me started on the butter
or the absolute multitude of things that you could mean when you say you want “chili”
and even if you go into the Settings menu the first time you take a Starfleet posting and spend hours on end going into detail about what varieties of peppers should go into each of your favorite Mexican dishes and how much crispiness is The Correct Amount Of Crispiness in your bacon (and how thick it should be and how it should be smoked and seasoned) and how big and numerous you want the holes in your sandwich bread to be
you’re still gonna find yourself missing the taco truck and the tamale lady and that one bakery and the sort of fried rice you get when you throw six days’ worth of leftovers in plus whatever spices feel right at the time.
As a professional baker and someone who absolutely believes in the power of food and its impact on people, I will say this:
I have every reason to believe that a lot of disabled people love replicator food, sometimes for the very reasons outlined above.
Are there disabled people who will mourn than specific foods will never taste quite right? Absolutely!
But there are also disabled people who have their preferences memorized down to the last chemical detail and know how to make the replicators dance. There are disabled people who, upon the popularization of food replicators, basically cried, because it meant that there was all but a guarantee that, wherever they went, there would be something they could actually eat.
Sensory issues? I’ll bet there’s a list of standardized replicator recipes that are made 100% the same everywhere, so if you like it one place, you can guarantee you can eat it elsewhere. If even one recipe on that list appeals to you, you’re safe. Sure, you’ll be a little bored, but you’ll be able to eat, and that includes at functions with family and friends.
Allergies and intolerances? Even if replicators have removed all common allergens from their production code, even if the Big Eight (fish, dairy, shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, wheat, and eggs) are somehow accounted for, you’d be astonished at what some people can be allergic to. I knew someone who had allergic reactions to vanilla beans; not artificial vanilla flavor, but actual vanilla beans. I’ll bet it’s pretty easy to program a replicator to leave out one specific ingredient. On top of that, with how replicator technology works, I’ll bet it’s damn near impossible to cross-contaminate.
Specific vitamin deficiencies? Program the replicator to sneak some more of those vitamins into a meal, within species-safe limits. Going the opposite direction, like ADHD meds that you can’t have a lot of vitamin C with? No problem, you can turn the knob the other way!
Chemicals that interfere with your medications? No longer a problem with the push of a few buttons! Try our new doesn’t-nullify-things grapefruit!
I’ll bet ship medics have some sort of override code they can give patients, as well, if replicators still don’t cooperate for whatever reason. There might be some specific restrictions, so people don’t accidentally (or intentionally) poison themselves or others, but if it’s for something like adding a pickled green olive with a pit to a tamale, I know I’d look the other way.
RETURN OF THE KING
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