The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Watson · 2011-09-12 Reply Admin

si:
I'm sure somebody else probably mentioned this but presumably TRWTF is "processor driver"?

2011-09-12 Reply Admin

The poop... of DOOM!:
some dude:
Rhywden:
QJo:
The Poop... of DOOM!:
Now I'm not big on chemistry and such, but titanium dioxide doesn't sound edible...
It's not so bad, according to wackypeedear: "Titanium dioxide, also known as titanium (IV) oxide or titania, is the naturally occurring oxide of titanium, chemical formula TiO2. When used as a pigment, it is called titanium white, Pigment White 6, or CI 77891. It has a wide range of applications, from paint to sunscreen to food colouring. When used as a food colouring, it has E number E171."
While that is certainly so, I'm not exaxctly thrilled about such a long list of artificial ingredients in a product labelled "For a healthier you!"
Why is it that when anyone hears a chemical name they don't know how to pronounce they immediately blather on about "artificial ingredients"? Perhaps you didn't read what you're replying to, so I'll repeat it for you. Titanium dioxide [...] is the naturally occurring oxide of titanium...
Oh, then you won't have any problem with me adding some naturally occuring oxide of iron in your food? Happy rust-munching!

All dietary minerals (most of which are metals) are processed by the body using oxidation. Maybe you would not eat rust like if it was a beefsteak, but you would die without iron oxide in your body, because that's what hemoglobin is made of.

Most current metals are all part of the human metabolism and lack of them generally provoke heavy diseases. You may freak out if I'd say you probably ate some alkaline metal this morning, but actually calcium is an alkaline metal.

Also, did you know that oxygen is technically a poison? If you breathe nitrogen/carbon dioxide air you actually don't get poisoned but asphyxiated. If you breathe 100% oxygen air you die of oxygen poisoning.

TRWTF is definitely arguably scientific-oriented minds (one would think computer specialists have a sense of scientific logic) still getting freaked out by scientific terms like we were still in the 50s.

2011-09-12 Reply Admin

$21,000 dollars for a description of a donkey?

Put me down for ten!

2011-09-12 Reply Admin

Gordon Freeman:
You may freak out if I'd say you probably ate some alkaline metal this morning, but actually calcium is an alkaline metal.

Calcium is in fact the most abundant metal in the human body. Iron comes a close second.

2011-09-12 Reply Admin

Kutta is probably Kutta Srinivasan and Morasky should be Mike Morasky. Find them here: http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/people.html

Severity One · 2011-09-12 Reply Admin

Calli Arcale:
What, were people testing natural ingredients 200 years ago, that we can rely on their testing to be sure they're safe?
There's a tribe who, for centuries, have been eating the brains of their dead elders. They're not generally cannibals; it's done as part of a death ritual, and is to keep an essential part of the deceased within the living tribe. It doesn't kill them, so they keep doing it.

Or doesn't it? Actually, it does kill a lot of them, just not right away. There is a prion disease unique to this population, and it can only be communicated by eating the brain (or other central nervous system tissue) of someone who had it. It's a major cause of death in their society.

Likewise, people smoked tobacco for centuries before realizing that it was harmful, and treated many disease with mercury (including, famously, syphilis). It was modern science that revealed how poisonous mercury actually is; still want to trust that natural ingredients are inherently safer because they've been used longer? Remember, longer use doesn't mean longer testing -- it means it's grandfathered in and isn't legally required to undergo testing, and probably doesn't immediately kill very many people. (Also, don't assume that because there's a natural-sounding name it's not altered chemically, and don't assume that because it has a chemical name it's something synthetic. You really can't draw easy conclusions from lists like this.)

Titanium dioxide appears to be pretty safe. It's been used as a white pigment for a while, and by that logic might actually be considered "natural". (It's not synthetic, anyway; it's mined that way.) But it's true that another pigment used to be much more commonly used, going way back into antiquity. But be glad of the substitution to titanium dioxide -- the traditional alternative was lead carbonate!

The point is not whether 'natural' ingredients are supposedly healthier than artificial ingredients. Take, for example, the perfectly natural mushroom Amanita Phalloides. It's about as healthy as a dose of potassium cyanide.

The point of many of these artificial and/or genetically modified foodstuffs is that you don't know for certain what the long-term effect is. With normal grain, that has been grown and carefully selected by naturally occurring genetic mutations, you can be certain that it has no side-effect (unless you're allergic to one of the ingredients, but grosso modo, this claim stands).

Now one could do scientific research into this, but the commercial interests of many companies and organisations would not be very happy with research that would be too critical of these invented foods. So who would fund such research?

Most, if not all, of the world's food problems can be reduced to causes that have really nothing to do with a need for patented ingredients: conflict, corruption, poverty...

The Great Lobachevsky · 2011-09-12 Reply Admin

joeyadams:
Kutta or Morasky at Tinagra

this site = TD-Shaka when the walls fell?

2011-09-12 Reply Admin

Titanium dioxide is a white pigment. It's what makes white paint white. Considering it's got those reds and yellows, etc, too, I'd assume this has candy in it or something with colorful shells.

2011-09-12 Reply Admin

That's not edible!

It is POTABLE!

2011-09-12 Reply Admin

Jeremy Friesner:
The geeks don't care that the cookies are unhealthy per se (they're cookies after all) -- but they find it amusing that such a blatantly unhealthy ingredient list appears right under the tag line "For a Healthier You".

It's actually very logical to have that slogan for unhealthy cookies. Apparently a healthier you can handle that dose of unhealthiness ...unlike a current you...

2011-09-12 Reply Admin

Amanita Muscaria is much better. Some people say it is also poisonous, but it is a real trip!

Matt Westwood · 2011-09-12 Reply Admin

Severity One:
The point is not whether 'natural' ingredients are supposedly healthier than artificial ingredients. Take, for example, the perfectly natural mushroom Amanita Phalloides. It's about as healthy as a dose of potassium cyanide.
...

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe potassium cyanide is significantly more poisonous than Am. Phall. (can't be bothered to look up the LD50's for the latter).

Interestingly, one of the most lethal substances known to man is botox. Stick that fact up your natural-lifestyle ultra-modern-miss material-world colonically-irrigated arses.

2011-09-12 Reply Admin

Clearly you misread the label on the cookie - it said it's "healthier", so that means the previous version (we can call it version 1.0) was less healthy. This one has been improved by omission of that last ingredient they could no longer print, and presumably worse than the other suspects.

Hence, healthier

2011-09-13 Reply Admin

And he casted a Great Shadow upon thine BIOS and thy electronic billboard shall not boot no more.

2011-09-15 Reply Admin

Kutta is the lead programmer at Valve. And Mike Morasky is a sound engineer and composer. Everyone knows those guys :)

homsar · 2011-09-16 Reply Admin

GLaDOS:
Legacy sound scripts have been changed since RTM! This will break PS3-PC-Mac crossplay! Talk to Kutta or Morasky for more info.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

2022-06-18