The QI thread of things you found reasonably arresting, mildly intriguing, & yes, quite interesting. - The Bear and Badger

Elmlea

ban request

edit: don't go back a page, you're not missing anything

Diluted Dante

I AM.

Wookienopants

Heh.

Hodge360

Clearly upset at being Fresnel zoned.

Blue Swirl

Wookienopants wrote:

Glad this appears to be a one off and not happening with frequency

Bravo.

Minnesänger

It was stolen in the morning right? It was clearly an AM Radio Tower.

acemuzzy

The photo made it look surprisingly effeminate

Wookienopants

I would imagine they had to keep a good lookout in place to sneak that away. He must've given them a clear signal

nick_md

These puns are sending me gaga

Wookienopants

I imagine the news of the theft didn't receive well

Blue Swirl

Top bantz.

poprock

High frequency of bantz.

DrewMerson

Blue Swirl

There is an annual Microsoft Excel World Championship where competitors show off their spreadsheet skills, using the office application to solve complicated math and financial modeling problems. The winner takes home $3,000 and a pro-wrestling-style belt.

Moot_Geeza

£20 to a charity of Muzzy's choice if he wins.

GooberTheHat

Face is probably yer man for excel stuff now. He's gone deep!

Blue Swirl

Because it is incredibly sustainable, about 75 percent of the 1.5 billion tons of aluminum ever produced is recycled and still in use today.

yourfavouriteuncle

Moot_Geeza wrote:

£20 to a charity of Muzzy's choice if he wins.

Incredible work

Blue Swirl

What do these maps show?

Spoiler:

RamSteelwood

Earth

mk64

watched an incredible youtube video of some vessel in the sea which has this kinda tube thing with an open end. It extends to the floor of the sea. Then it sucks the water out of the tube so people can go and walk / investigate the ocean floor etc. They were using it to retrieve an anchor or something. They use decompression chambers and stuff. It was so weird - kinda fucking cool. Like the utimate trasure hunting tool

Blue Swirl

Links, man, links!

mk64

will try to find it now

Otherwise thousands of christmas trees on blackpool beach

mk64

Blue Swirl wrote:

Links, man, links!

Blue Swirl

Excellent.

poprock

French rules designed to protect the quality/identity of cheeses are threatening their very existence.

Roquefort and Camembert are at serious risk of disappearing.

I learned this yesterday from my local butcher/cheesemonger (he’s been training to do cheese for nearly three years now, he’s very enthusiastic). So obviously I Googled it this morning.

The AOC (Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée) standards that say champagne can only be made in the Champagne region also control cheese making. And not just the place where you can officially make each cheese, but also the methods used. Including specifying what strain of bacteria and fungus makes what kind of cheese.

The rules for Roquefort, for example, were set in 1925. Nobody worried about biodiversity back then.

We’re now in a position where there is only one colony of the approved Camembert bacteria/fungus (it gets complicated - it’s actually about what bacteria are in the fungus) left in the world. And only four colonies of the one for making Roquefort. It’s a problem for other less famous cheeses too. There’s only two colonies left of the fungus needed to make Termignon, and only one that’s AOC approved.

The colonies are not permitted to reproduce with other strains of fungus - that would have been against AOC rules, meaning your cheese could no longer be called Camembert, for example. And here’s the kicker - these fungus colonies are mutating over time (back in 1925 nobody expected that) and have lost the ability to reproduce asexually.

The upshot is that Camembert and Roquefort are rapidly heading towards extinction.

Right now, they’re getting harder to source and prices are going up. Scarcity.

You’d think this would be easy to fix - just change the AOC rules! But this is France and they won’t stand for change around food. It offends their culture or something. So the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) have decided they need to solve this through genome editing. GM bacteria to grow stronger fungi. But there’s nobody offering to fund that research (yet).

Anyway. Yesterday I heard a rumour that Camembert is on the verge of extinction and Roquefort is close behind. Today I confirmed it by reading a few news articles from last month. I thought it was quite interesting.

Blue Swirl

Same as their attitude to the language. They’re trying to preserve it, but it feels more like embalming.

poprock

A lot of people are going to need to pick a new favourite cheese, unless the French relax their rules.

I’m singing to the Proclaimers tune: “Camembert no more. Roquefort no more …”

Kow

Well if it ain't Roquefort anymore then maybe they'll have to change the name. The product origin label protects loads of different foods and without it you have the case of something like Cheddar, which has no protection at all. So you can make cheese anywhere in the world and call it Cheddar if you want (and people do). There's nothing any more authentic about Cheddar made in the north of England than Cheddar made in Peru. Actual genuine Cheddar actually has received the official protected title West Country Farmhouse Cheddar so if it doesn't say that on the packaging, then it ain't cheddar.

Blue Swirl

'The term stir-crazy, referring to the anxious feeling one gets from being cooped up in one place too long, comes from the word stir, slang for “prison.”'

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