The Off Topic Topic

[PDH]

"You come to Scotland, you get battered."

[Sheilbh]

I have a couple of French taco places near me and I've never worked out what's French or taco about them

[HVC]

Neither of those are tacos. Not even burritos. Closest I can think of is someone made a weird shawarma and forgot what they're called.

[Barrister]

We have a few "O'Tacos" in Austria. Ordered from them once. Was ok, but not so great I felt the need to order again.

Here's the main website in France: https://o-tacos.com/en/


It's basically fries, breaded chicken, cheese and sauces inside a wrap. If they deep fry the whole thing I think it would do amazingly in Scotland.

So I'm sure that thing is tasty.

I'm also well aware that a "taco" is not some unique and singular dish, that it covers a wide range of different fillings, and even different shells.  I've seen "Indian tacos" made with first nations frybread, or also East Indian tacos made using naan bread.

But surely the one and only defining feature of a "taco" is that it is some kind of filling, surrounded by some kind of bread/tortilla/whatever, and then folded once and eaten.

That, my friends, is clearly a burrito or wrap or something.  Not a taco.

[Admiral Yi]

Neither of those are tacos. Not even burritos. Closest I can think of is someone made a weird shawarma and forgot what they're called.

Panini is what I thought of.

[mongers]

This week sees the 50th anniversary of something bought in a retail store via a barcode.

Apparently it was some chewing gum in Troy, Ohio.

Took another Five years for the tech to reached the UK, first time scanned a packet of tea bags in a Keymarkets store in Spalding, Lincolnshire.

[Hamilcar]

Where is the AGI is coming we are all doomed thread?

[Admiral Yi]

nonexistant

afaik

[The Larch]

Another thing that seems to be terrible in the US in comparison with Europe: Road safety. That one I wasn't expecting.

[mongers]

Another thing that seems to be terrible in the US in comparison with Europe: Road safety. That one I wasn't expecting.

...snip

Interesting, though safer driving can be done in the US just see Jaron's crowd vs the madmax wasteland neighbourhood.

[Josquius]

Though on that the trend is still slowly getting better in the US. Though it's slowed down drastically in recent decades whilst in Europe it continues.

[grumbler]

Another thing that seems to be terrible in the US in comparison with Europe: Road safety. That one I wasn't expecting.

That's not how you measure road safety.  To measure that, you need deaths per passenger-mile.  Using deaths per million total population would show, for instance, that air travel in 1920 was MUCH safer than air travel in 2020, and we know that isn't true.

[DGuller]

Another thing that seems to be terrible in the US in comparison with Europe: Road safety. That one I wasn't expecting.

That's not how you measure road safety.  To measure that, you need deaths per passenger-mile.  Using deaths per million total population would show, for instance, that air travel in 1920 was MUCH safer than air travel in 2020, and we know that isn't true.

I was about to say the same thing.  People travel a lot more by car in the US, so all else being equal of course you would expect more deaths by auto.  Ideally you want to split it even finer if you want to identify a specific factors like country, because a mile of travel on a federal highway is way safer than a mile of travel on a two-lane road.

[Hamilcar]

nonexistant

afaik

I'm terrified of what's on the short term horizon. To paraphrase EY, we not only invented demon summoning circle technology, we decided to ship demon summoning circles to every home.

[Jacob]

I was about to say the same thing.  People travel a lot more by car in the US, so all else being equal of course you would expect more deaths by auto.  Ideally you want to split it even finer if you want to identify a specific factors like country, because a mile of travel on a federal highway is way safer than a mile of travel on a two-lane road.

Wouldn't "deaths per passenger mile" implicitly remove "encourage other modes of transportation and reduce driving" from the potential solution set?