Persistent, Niggling Questions

[Nate the Great]

Less a PNQ than a game, but...

Suppose you had to create a new webalias for everything you did online. No variation of anything you'd gone by before would be allowed, nor would any variation of your real name. This means no adding on numbers, modifications such as CamelCase and underscores, etc. What would it be?

Sometimes I think Hooloovoo would be a cool webalias. After all, what could be better than being a superintelligent shade of the color blue if you're online?

[MaverickZer0]

Eh. I already have five or six screen names floating around out there, what'd one more be? Five or six at least, actually.

[PointyHairedJedi]

I'd probably just pick something from Dune. I did once, already.

[Chancellor Valium]

I quite fancy "Negative Dialectic".

[Nate the Great]

Mav, the point was to think of something unusual.

PNQ: Why would a zombie want to eat brains in the first place? It's not like any known digestive process would let them absorb the brains directly into their own skulls or anything. It'd just be broken down like any other food, and there are a plethora of other foodstuffs that must be easier to come by.

[MaverickZer0]

I already am unusual. Therefore thinking of myself would be unwarranted and cause a quantum paradox, not to mention being exceedingly vain.

As it is, I would probably use 'shadeofblues' because that's my special writing/ranting livejournal already.

[Nate the Great]

"No variation of anything you'd gone by before would be allowed, nor would any variation of your real name."

Try again, Mav?

[MaverickZer0]

Then that leaves out pretty much anything I would use. I think up new screen names fairly often for character journals and while I might think about using one of those (13), I probably wouldn't pick a new screen name for myself.

[PointyHairedJedi]

I feel a rebellion coming on!

No, hang on, that's just wind.



(Zombies don't need a reason, by the by; much like Chuck Norris they exist for one purpose only, and logic doesn't even begin to come into it.)

[Nate the Great]

It's Food Day again in the PNQ thread!

1. Were New York-style pizzas and Chicago-style pizzas really invented in those cities?
2. I can sort of understand the evolution of black licorice, but why make something the exact same shape, only strawberry-flavored? Not that I'm complaining, I love red vines and gag on the black ones, I'm just saying that while the evolution of black licorice is understandable, the evolution of red ones is less so.
3. Does the term "low-sodium Saltine crackers" seem a little bizarre to anyone?
4. Along these same lines, is there really no artificial sodium-free "salt flavor" yet?
5. I'm still confused about this whole umami/savory/"sixth flavor" business. Anyone care to take a stab at it?
6. Simularly, while I know there's a connection between smell and taste, how? Do the sensory tracks somehow overlap to create a new sensation once in awhile? Is smell just a different "data layer" (to use a bizarre optical disc metaphor) than taste?
7. Knowing that it's possible to overknead bread dough, has someone come up with a unit for this, to calculate how many times you have to fold and smash the stuff?
8. I think I once read an Uncle John's article about this, but still...how can one set of people say cookie and another set say biscuit, which means something completely different to the first set? It's a cycle of confusion!
9. Whatever happened to Sprite Remix? I know that it was just a temporary thing, but did it seriously not sell enough? I should've stocked up on Berryclear when I had the chance, I loved that stuff...

[PointyHairedJedi]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

4. Along these same lines, is there really no artificial sodium-free "salt flavor" yet?

I would guess not, though there's a product in the UK called LoSalt which contains only a third sodium chloride (the other two thirds being potassium chloride), which is supposed to be a healthier alternative.

5. I'm still confused about this whole umami/savory/"sixth flavor" business. Anyone care to take a stab at it?

What's to be confused about? It's just a thing we have taste receptors for, though I seem to vaguely remember we have less of those taste buds than the ones for other flavours.

6. Simularly, while I know there's a connection between smell and taste, how? Do the sensory tracks somehow overlap to create a new sensation once in awhile? Is smell just a different "data layer" (to use a bizarre optical disc metaphor) than taste?

I suspect there will be an evolutionary reason for them being tied together like that; what's a more interesting question to me is is this a human thing, or does it effect other animals too?

7. Knowing that it's possible to overknead bread dough, has someone come up with a unit for this, to calculate how many times you have to fold and smash the stuff?

I expect so, even if it's completely unscientific or just plain made up (go look up the 'smoot' on Wikipedia).

[Nate the Great]

Yeah, but I keep seeing descriptions that use "sixth flavor" in quotes, as though it's not quite official. If there are taste buds that are not sweet, sour, bitter, salty, or spicy, then it's as official a taste as the others, right?

[PointyHairedJedi]

Yes, but it's a relatively recent discovery, and so hasn't filtered into the popular consciousness yet; it's therefore perfectly understandable why it should be described so, not perhaps least because of lingering scepticism.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: Will "umami" stick, or will everybody just use "savory?"

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: Anybody care to go on a scavenger hunt around the Internet for me?

Long story, but suffice to say I accidentally closed a window on something I wanted to keep track of, and now it's gone and I can't find it. PM for details.

[mudshark]

In 25 words, or less: What is it?

[Nate the Great]

As best as I can remember, this is the story...

I was wandering around TV Tropes as per usual when I found a link to a particular strip from a webcomic. I can't remember the name of the comic nor which TV Tropes page I used to get there, but this strip at least was very memorable. I accidentally closed the window before I could bookmark it.

The trope that was being discussed was how people like Batman can leave any room as soon as people look away or are temporarily distracted by a smokescreen or something. In this strip (drawn by a fan in Timmverse/Diniverse style, if that helps) Commissioner Gordon is saying that THIS time, he's not going to look away, so Batman will have to exit via the door like a normal person. This leads to an awkward moment which is very funny, then Batman says something lame in a pathetic attempt to distract Gordon so he can leave as he'd like.

I hope that helps. I didn't describe this in the first post because...well...I didn't want my embarassment catalogued for eternal posterity on the Net, I suppose. But I guess I've had much more embarassing things saved in the forum archive, haven't I?

[Chancellor Valium]

...Given the formulaic nature of the joke, Ctrl-Alt-Del?

[Tate]

I believe this is the page you were looking for (the comic is one of the first examples).

[Nate the Great]

You are AMAZING. I didn't quite remember what page it was, nor the proper words to input into the search engine.

Seriously, what's with all the CAD bashing? As TVTropes says, formulaic isn't necessarily bad.