> Would have been nice to see the scan of the original paper.
That doesn't seem to be available online. However, there is a scan of another Hughes story from a year later that they posted from their archive. (Pictures on page 4)
The thing about trying to work out food ingredients via analytical chemistry is that it largely boils down to "lots of compounds in ppm, ppb, and ppt quantities" which if you're missing one of them causes the taste to go off. So it will tell you lots of things, but it won't really do anything to clarify what "natural flavors" are in the ingredient list.
IMO, the most distinct flavors in Dr. Pepper are cherry and almond. Benzaldehyde, an "artificial cherry" molecule listed in this spectrometer video, is found in both cherry and almond extracts.
If you're familiar with the taste of amaretto or marzipan, try thinking of those next time you drink a Dr. Pepper. That will unlock the flavor discrimination for you.
You can potentially take a list of the finite natural flavors that are commercially sold in quantities to produce Dr pepper world wide and perform some sort of likelihood analysis based on these concentrations in the sample.
When I was a kid, I had to take this medicine that came in a very cherry-flavored syrup. I hated it. To make it tolerable for me, my parents mixed it into a shot glass of Pepsi.
When I grew up, I tried Dr. Pepper, and immediately recognized the taste.
> In the past, efficiency and optimization were less critical. Successful businesses and wealthy individuals could afford to indulge. However, today’s businesses aim for efficiency, optimization, and indefinite scaling.
Apocryphally, a Las Vegas taxi driver was asked how the city had changed and said 'When the mob was running things they were happy as long as you were making money. Now that MBAs are running things you need to make as much money as possible.'
> I guess the author hasn't paid attention to the rise of the mega-yacht or having personal jets. If you also don't think that the wealthy live in opulent real estate, then I've I'm not sure what rock you've been living under.
The visibility is different. The jets take off from a private terminal, the yachts from a private marina. The houses are obscured by trees, and the general public can't see them. There was even just a law passed to prevent jet tracking, so no one knows if a billionaire is taking a private flight.
> Labor costs. It’s relatively expensive to build ornate masonry buildings in high-wage economies. Overall, this is a good thing.
To back this up, here's a quote from people who are building a new ornate masonry building:
"We originally wanted to bid out the stone carving," explains Brother Isidore Mary, the 30-year-old monk in charge of construction, "but when we heard the cost, we almost had a heart attack. There was no way we could afford it, so we decided to figure out how to build the monastery ourselves." In 2013 the monks purchased a Prussiani [CNC] stone carving machine. After several months of trial and error, they began carving ornate pieces of stone.
Here's another simple explanation: Sticking out makes you a target.
People in 1024 -> This dazzling new cathedral is a testament to the majesty of God and a point of national pride.
People in 2024 -> This indulgent new cathedral is made from the exploitation of the masses and is a symbol of a something-phobic regime. Seize their assets!
This also works on an individual level, especially online - being novel makes you a target, so instead everyone chooses to be boring.
Absolutely. It's the would you rather live in the ugly or beautiful house on the block dilemma. By maintaining the beautiful house, you assume a public responsibility - with all the tall poppy syndrome effects that may entail.
While that would be nice, this writing excerpt from ~2000 years ago suggests that it's deeply ingrained in people:
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
Indeed. It's not the ink content that led to Am J Clin Pathol. 2014;142(1):99-103. saying:
"The mean age of death for tattooed persons was 39 years, compared with 53 years for non-tattooed persons (P = .0001). There was a significant contribution of negative messages in tattoos associated with non-natural death (P = .0088) but not with natural death."
I'm not sure "people with negative msgs in tattoos died 14 years earlier" sheds light for me on the TFA.
TFA has a more direct, physical, concern - it starts from a well-known, that tattoo ink ends up in lymph nodes, and it does a statistical analysis showing there's a significant statistical result in lymphoma occurence.
I think people with negative tattoos dying younger reduces the # of people with tattoos who get lymphoma, as they have less ink-in-lymph-nodes years.
Oh wow, this book cover art-piece has the same concept, but even more impressive; the Sun logo has 3 "sun" words in the logo not 4 (I know I also thought they were 4 initially), but this art piece has the word "Al-Khwarizmi" 4 times, one for each edge of the square.
Edit: I can't count, both have 4 words, one word for each edge.
That doesn't seem to be available online. However, there is a scan of another Hughes story from a year later that they posted from their archive. (Pictures on page 4)
https://documents.latimes.com/flight-spruce-goose-huge-craft...
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