There are plenty of culinary uses for acids other than pickling, though that is certainly one example. Those uses, however, are almost always for dissolving/breaking down the food in one way or another though. For tenderizing meat, etc. enzymes are often used, but the actions of those enzymes is usually complementary with acids. Now, a lot of meat tenderizers might just have the enzymes, but they're still working together with acids naturally in the meat. There are, of course, uses of acids in cooking that are not about dissolving or breaking down food. For example, using them to prevent vegetables/fruits from browning, but those are not the exclusive uses.

For the marinara in your chicken parmesan, the acid probably serves a number of functions. Some of them are all about how the acid might interact with your body directly as it its own taste, etc. Some though are going to be about breaking down things like pectin and dissolving some of the compounds from herbs and spices and so forth to bring out the flavor. There may be other effects as well. On the other side, apparently low enough PH can inhibit the Maillard reaction, but you're obviously frying the chicken before.

It does sound pretty good. Makes me want to make some, but I am trying to keep an eye on my cholesterol right at the moment.

I'm not sure it even prevents pollution. I am not sure you understood what I was trying to say though.

My point was that gasoline is sold in multiple octanes with names like "regular', "premium" or "super-premium" etc. depending on the gas station. The premium gas versions are sold for a ridiculous price over the regular gasoline with the price premium not reflecting the extra cost to produce the "premium" gasoline, but rather an exaggerated market price. The people paying the price are either captive because they have a car with a turbocharger or similar that actually requires the premium gas, or they are people who don't actually understand the point of the gas and think that putting it in a car that doesn't need it might actually make it perform better.

The difference between the different variants is the octane rating of the gasoline. The octane rating has to do with the fuel's anti-knocking properties. Knocking is when there is improper combustion in an engine cylinder. It can be premature combustion, or a staccato combustion, etc., just not a smooth burn. The higher octane the gas, the smoother the burn tends to be. As for the name, there are various types of hydrocarbon compounds in gasoline. Some of them are alkanes, cycloalkans and isoalkanes like pentanes, hexanes, heptanes, oxanes, etc., then there are alkenes, aromatics (basically benzene and benzene based compunds), etc. Anyway, one of them is called iso-octane, but that is an industry name. There is another hydrocarbon that is also found in gasoline that meets the proper structural requirements to be iso-octane but, ironically, it has a low octane rating (a lot of octanes do). Anyway Iso-octane (the industry-named version) has very good anti-knocking properties and, on the octane scale, it is the baseline at 100. Traditionally, refineries used fractional distillation and cracking to control the mix of high octane rated compounds in gasoline, but also some interesting additives, that I will go into further down.

In an actual engine, for most cars, octane rating doesn't matter any more. 87 octane gasoline is fine for operating in most cars and they have knock sensors and other systems to figure out exactly the right mix and timing to prevent knock. Where this doesn't work is various kinds of high powered engines, for example with turbochargers, where there just isn't enough leeway to make those kinds of adjustments so if the fuel is low octane, either performance has to drop, or there is engine knock, which is not good for the engine and, of course, also lowers performance. So, some cars really do need high octane gasoline. Of course, it's rare that they would actually be damaged by it, the computer would just sacrifice performance to protect the engine. Most of the people who buy those kind of cars these days aren't actually that interested in real performance of course, because hybrids and EVs can outperform them (there's an argument that can be made about BEV weight, but if anyone were that truly concerned about performance, they wouldn't worry about range and an EV with a very light battery would be the clear winner). Anyway, to the companies selling gasoline, these people are a captive market for high octane gasoline. Those people, and then the people who buy it for their cars even though their cars have no need for it.

So, for octane rating in gasoline, the obvious thing to increase is iso-octane, of course, but the industry is always happier to find another way. One of those ways was a wonderful chemical called tetraethyl lead. Unlike the hydrocarbons I mentioned, it didn't have high octane itself, but mixed in gas in tiny percentages and burned, it increased the octane level dramatically by slowing down and smoothing out the combustion. Of course, I think we know how leaded gasoline worked out both with its direct effect on health and that it was not compatible with catalytic converters. Then there was MBTE, which worked both by having its own high octane rating, but also by releasing oxygen when burned. Also BTEX with also has high octane and because the benzene content resulted in a slower burn. Of course, both were really toxic and BTEX caused a lot of particulates. So those were phased out.

So, with those old favorites phased out, that means that high-octane ethanol is one of the primary ways to boost octane levels in gasoline now. Sure they use refining and cracking too, but then ethanol usually is used to take it the rest of the way, and it's convenient because of the subsidies. Many researchers are not really sure that corn ethanol actually is more ecologically sound due to its own externalities. Ultimately though, the oil companies ended up with a fairly good relationship with it because it gives them a cheap octane booster.

So, that's why I said it was a silver bullet... for the oil companies. Because they can use a cheap product to help turn something into a premium product and make a nice margin on its sale.

Oh, I don't know. It has an octane rating of 100 to 114 whereas actual octane (technically iso-octane, although even more technically not iso-octane because that should be 2-methylyheptane) has an octane rating of 100. That means that they can more cheaply boost "regular" to "premium" and make a huge margin on it. That's a silver bullet when it comes to bilking rubes who think that they need "premium" for better performance (or the rubes who actually bought a car that requires it to not destroy the engine).

It's actually quite common in cooking. Lemon juice, lime juice, vinegar, etc. Enzymes are also used, but you specifically said acid. I mean, I guess you said you've never done it yourself, so maybe you just don't really cook much or stick to simple dishes?

Maybe, but there can be diminishing returns to that. I agree that you don't necessarily need fossil fuel natural gas. Ideally everything is renewable. However, the only real obstacle right now with making methane from air and water is that the relatively low efficiency of existing processes makes it cost more than methane from the ground. While work is being done on making it more efficient, there seems to be no reason why you couldn't just waste a little extra energy on making methane for storage with a fraction of the surplus you would otherwise have with your plan to just have a large amount of extra capacity.

So, maybe the electricity to methane to electricity cycle only gets you back 25% of the original electricity. If you're only using the methane a small amount of the time, that's not really a problem. Basically, it can help bridge the gap between normal battery backup and what you might need to get through a dunkelflaute.

Of course, methane is not the only thing you could make. Any substance you can make with electricity, store, then use to make electricity again could work. It doesn't have to be something you can burn (though that does make use of existing thermal plants). For example, making aluminum out of aluminum oxide produces something that you could potentially burn in a thermal plant, or possibly use in some sort of flow battery (or a metal-air battery) to directly generate electricity.

I think the point was more about how there is a trend for underdeveloped countries to skip certain phases in technological infrastructure. Such as skipping over a robust physical telecoms network to jump right to cellular everywhere. Or skipping over a robust electrical grid to creating microgrids, etc. So, they poster you are responding to is commenting on the previous poster's claim that there is a lack of investment in infrastructure and that leads to more immediate deployment of technology that skips the missing infrastructure.

Absolutely! I mean, it's not as if modern Russia is a security state and both the state itself and the chief religion are run by KGB guys. Also not as if they're assassinating people in foreign countries, sabotaging things like undersea cables, interfering in foreign elections, running state hacking and political influence operations, or starting wars with, among their expressly stated goals, preventing other nations in the "Russian Mir" from joining western alliances or financial blocs. Why, if they were doing any of that stuff, it would be almost like you actually were ignorant of history and geopolitics, but surely that couldn't be the case.

As another poster has pointed out, this is not actually true. Congress decides these things and its decisions are law.

Ugh. This reminds me of various executives at various companies who are always naming departments in sectors like IT, R&D, Customer support, security, or really just non-sales payroll in general (because these guys almost always seem to come out of sales or finance) are just leeches to them.

Understanding why USAID is not a total cash sink involves a two pronged perspective. Some people agree with one prong, others agree with the other prong, and a lot of people agree with both, because they are not mutually exclusive. The prongs are aligned with an axis. At one extreme end of this axis is soulless ghouls sitting on a pile of money and children's skulls and jealously guarding it. The children's skulls are there for convenience as containers for some of the money since they are cheap and disposable. From their view, nothing matters but the accumulation of wealth, and suffering is irrelevant or even desirable, because it means that other people are losing, and therefore the ghoul is winning by comparison. At the other end of the spectrum are summer children with flowers in their hair who dance and sing and weep for any hint of sadness in the world. Their hearts bleed for the merest hint of suffering of the smallest of living things. Heck, their hearts weep for the imagined suffering of inanimate objects. Somewhere in the middle is where you find most people. Certainly leaning to one side or the other. The point is that one prong of the argument for organizations like USAID is that if we can reduce human suffering by spending so relatively little, we have a moral obligation to.

I think that prong is the one you're thinking of, and it disgusts you. All those flower children who are simultaneously sappy bleeding heart simps and also blood sucking monsters stealing from you and sapping and impurifying your precious bodily fluids. You're ignoring the other prong though. That prong is that organizations like USAID have always been an important part of US soft power. They are the sort of thing that, when people criticize the US about all the crappy things it absolutely does, they can look at things like USAID and say "yes, but...". So many people can be helped with so little. Many of them have their lives saved by the aid and many of them aren't blind to the US flags on those packages of food or on the medical supplies, etc. Time passes, and they live their lives and, whether it's considered a debt, or gratitude, or a simple positive mental association, someday the US needs some good will in an area and some people say "we must oppose the the US imperialist swine!" or something to that effect, but some of the people remember that aid and say: "yes, but...".

So, consider it an advertising budget, or a bribe, or whatever you want but, even if your attitude is soulless pragmatism, there's a soulless, pragmatic reason for it too. It sits there right alongside the sappy, bleeding heart reason

And? How is that incompatible with USAID saving lives? The top causes of death in most wars are disease and famine. USAID fought disease and famine. What short circuit is preventing this for computing for you?

It's an autonomous territory of Denmark, which is one of the reasons Denmark doesn't want to sell it. They recognize that they can't. As for Greenland itself, the people there don't want to sell either.

Since you pointed this out, I have to point out the amazing hypocrisy. The purchase you're talking about is the Treaty of the Danish West Indies. Note: "Danish". As in the country that Greenland is an autonomous territory of. In that treaty, the US very explicitly gave up any potential claim to Greenland and recognized Danish sovereignty. Yet, somehow, we're still in a place where the US has already reneged on that treaty. Trump has already repeatedly questioned the idea that the US does not have a claim to Greenland.

I'm curious about the "OBK performance is double that of ALIS.". What performance metric is that? Sounds like 'executive summary" material to me.

Generally, media published by the company should also count. Pamphlets and brochures, language on their website, language in recorded phone messages, things expressed by voice or in pictorial form in videos, etc. In theory, AI interactions should absolutely count. Though, I am getting the feeling that AI won't count any more because... AI. Also, any of those former things that would count can then be laundered through AI since it's a magical gray area that no-one can be accountable for.

Like many posts from people inside echo chambers, this contained a reference that is generally only familiar to people inside the echo chamber. The people inside the echo chamber think that it's a big deal and everyone should know what it's about and the people outside tend to have no idea what they are talking about. The item in question was the "infamous travel app" which is apparently infamous inside the echo chamber, but not outside it. I looked it up and it's apparently an app from the Trump administration that started out for partially automating cargo inspections and then was expanded in the Biden administration to help automate scheduling appointments for migrants. Naturally right wing conspiracy theorists claimed it was a "concierge service for illegal aliens" (with the nut in question being senator Josh Hawley) following the Republican theme of treating all immigration processes as illegal. This is basically a straight up tin foil hat conspiracy.

Please, go ahead and define what a woman is.