[Non-political] News that makes you Laugh/Cry/Both...

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 12:35 am

Yeah, I'm all for it too.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 1:33 am

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... r-Machines

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 10:30 am

I'd have concerns with the wall-o-meat in terms of how you could deprive it of various nutrients and exercise and feed it sugar and growth hormones without the "animal" dying, because it's not a complete animal.

Then your meat potentially becomes starkly less healthy to eat. It's likely the only way they'd produce it cheaper than the old fashioned way.

Ultimately, if you want efficient and stupid meat, eat lizards, they don't waste 90% of their food being warm-blooded and powering a mammalian brain. Or beans and ground nuts, no brain at all, just add factory-made MSG for that meaty taste.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 2:13 pm

You need some exercise to give the meat texture. That's the problem with vat grown meat using tissue scaffolds right now. Without regular exercise the muscle tissue is kind of like jello and no one likes it.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 2:23 pm

tussock wrote:Ultimately, if you want efficient and stupid meat, eat lizards, they don't waste 90% of their food being warm-blooded and powering a mammalian brain.

That's not really an easy answer.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 3:48 pm

Or bugs. There's a huge biomass of bugs on the planet.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 4:20 pm

I was walking through the futbol court outside my building and there were some children kicking a ball around. One Czech girl, who was probably 8 or 9 kicked the ball into the goal and to celebrate shouted "Opan gangnam stijl!" and did the dance. Apparently the world is pretty small these days.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 12:30 am

Can someone explain, without linking to stuff, what gangnam style is? I heard it mentioned on the TV a bit, and every time they made it sound like "gang man style".

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 12:34 am

Basically, a South Korean musician made a music video with a catchy song, entertainingly bizarre scenes, and a weird imitation-horse-riding dance, and now it has almost half a billion views on youtube. Gangnam style can refer to the song, or to the dance.

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 12:37 am

Gangnam is an expensive suburb of Seoul. A Korean pop artist named Psy wrote a satrical song about what they do with vast sums of money: "Gangnam Style".The song has an amusing dance and the guy looks funny. Instawin via Youtube.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 1:29 am

Prak_Anima wrote:Or bugs. There's a huge biomass of bugs on the planet.

If we are ever reduced to eating bugs, I quit.

I'm literally fucking terrified of insects, bugs, snails, worms, civil servants, mollusks, and anything from the arthopodic family.

The fact that there are enough insects on the planet to fill the Indian Ocean actually occasionally prevents me from sleeping.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 2:07 am

Have you ever eaten a burger? There was probably a bug mashed into that. Have you had red smarties? Guess what they used to use (as in "until the last 10 years") for the colouring (just for the red ones). You've eaten bugs before, I guarantee it.

Here's the thing: when we all end up eating insects, as some predict we will, we won't be just picking spiders* up and munching on them, or rolling toffee apples in ant farms, or leaving fudge out for wasps to get trapped in. They'll most likely be ground up into "a squishy mess of biomass" and eaten in sausage or burger form. And most people will never know the difference.

Also: centipedes. ALL OF THOSE DRUMSTICKS :D Biomass mulch, never mind.

Basically, don't think of the "exotic" weird meals where people have individual chocolate coated ants, or scorpion brittle** or eat whole wasps (and likewise don't think of that episode of QI). Think of how mince meat is normally made, except with even more insects slipping into the machinery and fewer cattle***.

*I know, not an insect.

**Like peanut brittle except for one small difference. I'll let you guess what the difference is.

***Roughly zero, but one or two might clamber in.

K · Post by K » Fri Oct 19, 2012 4:33 am

If you live in the US, there is an USDA-approved amount of bugs that you are allowed to have in ketchup.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 4:52 am

Gotta get that extra protein kick.

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 5:23 am

Most bugs are delicious. They taste kind of like shrimp. If you can keep them from eating nasty stuff, roaches are meaty and flavorful.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 5:40 am

The bible forbids eating bugs (well, bugs that crawl on "all fours", because apparently the Hebrews couldn't count to six), except for Locusts and Grasshoppers, Crickets, Katydids, and Locusts. Those are delicious.

Levititcus 11:22 wrote:Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper.

-Username17

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 6:26 am

Imagine if the bible belt would suddenly go all "God wants us to eat bugs!"

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 6:58 am

As someone near the buckle:

If someone told the Bible Belt that the same part of the Bible which is demands you stone gay people, also tells them that eating pork and half of the kinds of seafood is punishable by death...

Well, there'd be a theological crisis there. Or there would, if religious nuts didn't see any contradiction in this, even though the Levitican Code is pretty clear that you're supposed to follow the whole damn thing.

Though most of the religious nuts I know like barbecue ribs and gumbo more than they hate gay people. It's plausible if they had to choose one to stick with...

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 6:59 am

I kinda figure that sufficiently large spiders would be kind of like crab.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 7:43 am

Prak_Anima wrote:I kinda figure that sufficiently large spiders would be kind of like crab.

They're pretty far apart on the evolutionary tree, live in radically different environments, and eat totally different things. I'm gonna guess no. Spiders are also a lot lighter for their dimensions than crabs, so they're probably not nearly as meaty.

K · Post by K » Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:21 am

I don't know. I mean, certain organs only work on spiders because spiders are small (like box lungs).

If you tried to make a spider-thing that was bigger, I think you'd have to use crab-like muscles in crab-like amounts.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:55 am

Prak_Anima wrote:I kinda figure that sufficiently large spiders would be kind of like crab.

Spiders do not have meat. They have chitin filled with haemolymph and move via hydrostatic pressure. Little pistons. Spiders are about as nutritious as peanut shells.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 9:22 am

Grek wrote:Spiders do not have meat. They have chitin filled with haemolymph and move via hydrostatic pressure.

Isn't science sexy?

K · Post by K » Fri Oct 19, 2012 9:48 am

Grek wrote:
Prak_Anima wrote:I kinda figure that sufficiently large spiders would be kind of like crab.
Spiders do not have meat. They have chitin filled with haemolymph and move via hydrostatic pressure. Little pistons. Spiders are about as nutritious as peanut shells.

And that's a system that could not be preserved if you tried to scale up a spider. Physics and all that.

So a hypothetical bigger spider would use something else. Maybe something tasty.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 10:27 am

But would it still be a spider by then? O.o
Or just a different Kind of Crab?
Also: i did not know that spiders operate on pistons @.@

furthermore:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... death.html
"he set off metal detectors on airports all the time"