I took a university course specifically on electromagnetism and can confirm it’s magic. They even use hand gestures to summon the powers of science to show which direction the current flows.
Well, I understand that with some years in an plastic bowl, the salt may absorb some substances and microplastics. But about Honey, what comes in glass jars? There they also put an expiration date, even though still edible honey has been found in several thousand years old Egyptian tombs.
As weird as it sounds, this actually isn't true in general. Except on baby formula, it's not required by federal law. Some states require it and some don't, but it's more or less put there voluntarily by everyone because they don't want spoiled stuff going around with their name on it.
The expiration date - unless it’s a different legal definition where you are from - is not really about being edible, but just signifies the guarantee the producer gives, basically “up until this date we will guarantee this product will maintain the expected quality”. In this case, I think it will be them not guaranteeing that the salt won’t have drawn water from the air and clumped up or something like that.
You know the corollary to Arthur C Clarke’s “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” which is “Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from technology”? That’s what I think the explanation and manipulation of the electromagnetic force and strong and weak nuclear forces basically are. We just figured out the rules for how magic works, and now we manipulate them to make rocks think and show us pretty colors over vast distances, and can also explode cities with glowing rocks and weird gasses. Also we can make potent potions from strange biological and chemical essences that make the body do what we tell it, mostly. And we’re getting better at it (and would be getting better at it faster if it weren’t for metaphorical dragons getting in the way).
Just because we can explain it doesn’t make it any less magic.
Sometimes expiration dates refer to when enough plastic from the packaging has decayed into the food material that it might be a problem. Bottled water works that way.
I don't know:
How much science there is behind the dating
How much plastic you're consuming in your food anyway and so who cares what's the difference
Whether that's what's going on with this salt package specifically
But it's not automatically crazy for there to be an expiration date on an immortal product if it comes packaged up in plastic.
While I've always thought that, I've also heard that it's the point where the plastic may not be reliable enough to contain or keep the contents uncontaminated. Either way, it's the plastic.
You would think that the abrasive nature of the salt would shave off more plastic than the plastic breaking down. I guess you need to keep track of how many earth quakes you get and how much you shake the container when you get salt.
And to think of how mad everyone got when everything was packaged in those ‘heavy’ glass bottles and jars, and manufacturers started putting everything into plastic because the glass was creating too much litter on the roads. Now here we are 30 years later and everyone is being killed by plastic.
I’m no expert, but I did watch a minidocumentary that explained that these best by dates are mostly arbitrary aside from perishable foods.
For some products they’ll have taste testers rate the same product packaged at different times from 1-10 with 10 being factory fresh, and when it drops below an average of 7, that’s the date they put on the packaging
Yeah a lot of the dates are just guesses that they know for a fact it will last longer. They are required to put a date but not required to actually test how long an item lasts. A lot of items last much longer than their expiration date. Salt should be good indefinitely.
I think the law is to enforce "open dating" instead of having some secret coding that hides info from the consumer. What date they put on there is totally up to the manufacturer, so unless you can match dates and experience with the optimal time to eat something, it's only useful to make sure you got the latest product compared to the rest on the shelf at that time.
Climate Town had an excellent video on the subject. (since they're always excellent)
Yeah. I feel like they probably just pick some random bullshit, and if people get botulism they look at reducing it, and if they throw away a quarter-million dollars worth of product that expired they look at increasing it, and if neither of those happens then they don't worry about it. I have no knowledge of it but even hearing that they do taste tests is a little surprising to me. But I am cynical.
I did know some people who were once "employed" on a sort of temp job that was excising already-passed expiration dates from a massive number of cans of fish, and then stamping new later dates on them.
Just wait until you get to nuclear chemistry/physics. We use invisible rays, which can kill you, to turn one rock into a different rock, which possibly can kill you. Only if you have studied for many years are you allowed to wield the magic transmutation beams. We create elements not likely seen in nature (possible, but unconfirmed because of their short lives). We create temperatures colder than anywhere else in the universe. We peer at the fundamental forces of nature and then fuck with them.
Bring this rock close to this other rock, and voilà. It creates magic heat!
Don’t get too close, because it will curse you to an agonizing death years later. However you can use this to boil water and channel the power of thunderstorms.
if you think microbes got in that can survive in salt and are harmful to humans (which is unlikely), you can bake it in your oven a bit (without the container)
Can any organism live on 100% salt? I was able to find info on hypersaline solutions, but I would think that existing on a pure polar solute would pretty much just kill by osmosis right?
I work in a dedicated room in my house (remote developer). During the day I don’t really need to turn the lights on—windows and a skylight. The sun sets and sometimes I really just don’t notice. My wife will come in at some point and scold me for working in the dark, claiming it’s bad for my eyes (as if staring at a screen all day isn’t already).
I actually rather enjoy that rather not-subtle marker of the passage of time and how entrancing “the zone” can be such that I fail to even notice that.
Look IDK about math, but I know about programming: “stare at it” is bad advice. Give it a minute or two, then get up and go for a walk or go to bed. Let your subconscious stare at it instead; it’s actually better at this stuff than you are.
If I’m ever staring at math, I’m absolutely not processing visual information while doing so. It’s more that like, I’m staring off into space and thinking and “math on a whiteboard” just happens to be the last thing I was looking at and my face is still pointed that way
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