The Off Topic Topic

[Syt]

Canada has a 'Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve', who knew? 

It was stolen some years ago: http://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,8324.0.html

[Duque de Bragança]

Marcus Aurelius would not be seen dead in a Starbucks 

Right, no coffee and no Starbucks back then. 

He would also be much too frugal. And probably have better taste.

Hopefully. No need for Starbucks in Italy nowadays anyways.

Or anywhere, really.

Even the US? 
For countries without a coffee tradition I mean, I can see why they showed up, even if it's way too expensive for what's it worth.

[mongers]

Even the US? 
For countries without a coffee tradition I mean, I can see why they showed up, even if it's way too expensive for what's it worth.

I've never had a starbucks. 

[Syt]

I only ever had chai lattes (with soy milk) at Starbucks. Can't comment on whether their coffee is any good.

[PDH]

Starbucks might get a lot of flack, but they did take a quiet coffee movement on the west coast and bring it to the rest of the US.  Their roots were buying coffee from one of the better US coffee bean roasters and makers - Peets.  They took the majority of Americans out of the horrible coffee stone age, and taught the lesson of standard roasting, better beans, and proper coffee making.

Outside of places like Berkeley when I was growing up, I rarely saw real coffee roasted and prepared until Starbucks - it might not win awards, but their coffee took things up quite a bit.

[The Brain]

Starbucks moved into Sweden late, so other chains had already established themselves.

[Sheilbh]

Starbucks might get a lot of flack, but they did take a quiet coffee movement on the west coast and bring it to the rest of the US.  Their roots were buying coffee from one of the better US coffee bean roasters and makers - Peets.  They took the majority of Americans out of the horrible coffee stone age, and taught the lesson of standard roasting, better beans, and proper coffee making.

Outside of places like Berkeley when I was growing up, I rarely saw real coffee roasted and prepared until Starbucks - it might not win awards, but their coffee took things up quite a bit.

Yeah I always have a soft spot for them because they revolutionised coffee culture in the UK. We had a coffee culture and then it got wiped out because various reasons like colonialism. But until Starbucks arrived basically unless you were in London or Glasgow or another city with a big Italian population coffee = instant.

Starbucks arrived and changed that and now there's plenty of other similar chains (Coffee No 1, Cafe Nero, Costa etc) but it also created a market for coffee in general add that to the relatively large New Zealand/Aussie communities in the UK who have their own really good coffee culture (flat white, long black, lamingtons, ANZAC cookies etc) and that's who we got to modern British coffee culture. And I'd be astonished if there's a reasonably big sized town in the country without some cafe or some pop-up doing single estate, hand-picked fair trade espresso - with whatever milk/substitute you want.

In London you can do an entire day of walking around and touristing and just go to very good, mainly independent coffee shops - and a huge chunk of that, in my view, is because of Starbucks landing here in the late 90s.

[Sheilbh]

Very weird - the Czech President has covid and other health issues so did his part of swearing in the new PM by being wheeled into a plastic box:
https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1465052878469537801?s=20

[Josquius]

Bohemia needs a king.

[The Brain]

Also protects against defenestration.

[Syt]

I learned from Seth Meyers that there were two defenestrations in Prague. Well, technically 3, but the middle one (between the First and Second Defenestration of Prague) doesn't seem to merit counting.

[Jacob]

Why do you need WiFi on a BBQ? 

Internet of Things is really getting out of hand.

I'm sure it's a great leap forward for humanity, but the potential benefits I've seen for IoT for me personally are insignificant when weighed against the downsides when it doesn't work 100% according to my expectations. So for me it's a hard no on most IoT stuff.

[Eddie Teach]

Marcus Aurelius would not be seen dead in a Starbucks 

Right, no coffee and no Starbucks back then. 

He would also be much too frugal. And probably have better taste.

Hopefully. No need for Starbucks in Italy nowadays anyways.

Or anywhere, really.

Even the US? 

We have plenty of places selling hot bean water.

[The Brain]

Marcus Aurelius would not be seen dead in a Starbucks 

Right, no coffee and no Starbucks back then. 

He would also be much too frugal. And probably have better taste.

Hopefully. No need for Starbucks in Italy nowadays anyways.

Or anywhere, really.

Even the US? 

We have plenty of places selling hot bean water.

Didn't figure him for the Belle Delphine type.

[mongers]

Realised earlier that my childhood (pre-teenage years) was nearer to WW2 than the present day. 


Then I had another thought, my last day as a teenager (20yr - 1 day) will in little over 2 years time be nearer to WW2 than the present.     


Hell, in under 4 years time, my last day as a university student will be never the war end than the then present.