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Cake day: February 1st, 2024

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  • Not a scientist, but, interested in these things.

    I would say it’s because spicy foods have highly volatile aroma compounds. Tannin and acids aren’t as volatile. Any aroma we perceive is the result of volatile molecules, solubalized in our mucus, binding to receptor sites in our olfactory epithelium - in other words, olfaction is a chemical sense. The tannic mouthfeel of a dry red wine is (if I’m not mistaken) a result of nonvolatile acids acting mechanically on the tongue, so olfaction, a chemical sense, doesn’t come into play in that mechanical sensation of acidity. Also consider that the tannins in a red wine are in a liquid solution. Fine, dry citric acid powder will irritate the nose if you breathe in the particles, just like fine dry cayenne pepper will.

    Not sure what you mean with cooling. Something like camphor is highly volatile, and gives a cooling aromatic sensation. Think eucalyptus, fisherman’s friend, vick’s vapo rub, things like that. Do those smell cooling to you?

    Metals don’t have volatile aromatic compounds in them at low temperatures, but, they definitely smell like something when they’re red hot. Again, the idea here is that metals are heavy and nonvolatile, so they’re invisible to our noses at room temperature, unlike say, a freshly sliced jalapeno pepper. Out of curiosity, what tastes metallic to you?



  • I disagree.

    Don’t forget that China is an oppressive dictatorship that is actively antagonistic to Canadian sovereignty. Consider the risks that increased Chinese government surveillance would pose to Chinese Canadians who speak out against China, and the increased control their government would have as a result. Just because you don’t believe you have anything to hide, doesn’t mean that nobody has anything to hide.

    Consider also, that on an atomic level, data isn’t powerful, but it is powerful in aggregate. Consider the realtime advantage a hostile foreign power would have in a wartime scenario with cameras and microphones in even a fraction of the vehicles on the road.

    Chinese EVs are a very bad idea for national security and they shouldn’t be allowed in Canada under any circumstance. These concerns don’t extend to Japan, South Korea, or Europe, they aren’t actively antagonistic to Canadian sovereignty.






  • I’m trying out freshrss right now and don’t like it. Possibly my issues stem from user error, but, I can’t figure out how to automatically hide articles based on keywords, adding extensions is a pain, and the ui feels large and very in-the-way. By default it truncates article titles, which I find absolutely baffling.


  • SNC Lavalin, We charity scand, ethics violations, going back on his marquee promise of electoral reform and thereby salting the earth on the topic for a generation, weak response on foreign interference, Indigenous people’s life expectancy going down instead of up during his tenure despite the tone of the party’s messaging, inappropriate response to the Portapique shooting, their handling of protests and strike busting, there are more. A person doesn’t need to dip very deep to find reasons to not like Trudeau and his tenure.

    I think even Liberals have good reason to dislike Trudeau, for hanging on as long as he did when it was obvious he was polling as low as he was, leaving a leadership vacuum during a critical political transition to the South.

    I think the people who ‘hate’ him seem irrational. Unfortunately, that small minority of people obscure what should be proper criticism of his policies and choices.

    It’s sad that we’ve come to expect Liberals to be corrupt and self-dealing, and seeing that expectation used as an excuse for their leaders is fucking depressing.



  • Canada needs allies now probably more than ever in its history. What we see here coming from the monarchy is not a meaningful gesture of alliance. That’s what I’m bitter about. It’s monarchs doing what monarchs do after they’ve squeezed all the benefit from colonial conquest - they bandy meaningless symbols about. That benefits them, because conveniently, it costs them nothing to ‘stay out of politics’.

    As a Canadian, it’s truly frightening to see world leaders reluctant to simply say the words ‘we stand behind Canada’.

    What does the word ‘Commonwealth’ even mean if the British monarchy can’t say that and mean it.









  • One of the first things Trudeau did as Prime Minister was break the top-line platform promise that got him elected - he promised Canadians that the 2015 federal election would be the last one under the first past the post system. So I’d say from the standpoint of democracy, he had an absolutely horrible start.

    Of course he went on to reap the benefits of the imbalanced first past the post system for two subsequent federal elections, one of which he called unnecessarily during the pandemic in order to consolidate power for his party.

    I think him and his party have been vaporware since day one.