jdilla.xyz

Swiss cheese

2023-05-13

American cheese was invented in Switzerland by two food chemists, Walter Gerber and Fritz Stettler. Apparently it's made from emmental with sodium citrate added to extend the shelf life.

Discovered via the Kroger App (not joking! they have crazy interesting food facts on their loading screen) and confirmed via Thrillist.

The other Winston Churchill

2023-05-12

This is the clearest evidence yet that we’re living in a simulation. I learned recently that there was an American Winston Churchill, who was also a politician.

The American Winston Churchill won election to and served in the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1903 and 1905 and lost the Republican primary for governor in 1906.

Even more amazing, the two Winstons met in 1900, where the British Winston said to the American Winston: “I mean to be Prime Minister of England, it would be a great lark if you were President of the United States at the same time.”

For this discovery, I thank Robert Cottrell, founding editor of The Browser, who included it in one of his recent emails to subscribers.

About time

2023-05-11

A beautiful essay about the nature of time by Tom Vanderbilt. My favorite excerpt:

"For now, such clocks can at least confirm the old physics. “If you were to lift this clock up a centimeter of elevation,” Hume told me, “you would be able to discern a difference in the ticking rate.” The reason is Einstein’s theory of relativity: Time differs depending on where you are experiencing it. When standing upright, your head exists at a slightly different timescale than your feet. But with this accuracy comes a sobering reality. “There are not just two times,” notes the physicist Carlo Rovelli in The Order of Time. “Times are legion: a different one for every point in space.” What we think of the present, he writes, “does not extend throughout the universe.” Rather, “it is like a bubble around us.” The “well-defined now,” as he calls it, “is an illusion.”"

Found via The Browser.