Grrl Power #685 – Things are looking up… the scoville scale
If Sydney interpreted the symbol and chef correctly, “dangerously spicy” could mean most humans fall off the stool and start licking the ground to get the burning to stop, or it could actually mean they almost immediately need medical attention after ingestion. It’s probably not fatal, or it would have the downward red triangle next to it.
I was thinking about some universal icons that would make sense, and ultimately I came to the conclusion that such a thing probably couldn’t exist. In America, a check means yes, in Japan, a circle does.
Certain things could work. In a galaxy full of humanoid aliens, you could probably get a lot of mileage out of a generic skull symbol. Colors would be all over the place. Most humans generally recognize green as good and red as bad. Green is healing items, blood is red, taking cover behind red barrels is a bad idea, etc. But to people in some culture, (probably not first world ones, because we all play the same video games) but red could mean life because blood is red. And who knows what colors alien cultures would associate with what?
Fire pretty much looks like fire no matter who you are… unless your vision is entirely infrared. I assume fire looks really different in infrared. Probably not like little flickery tongues, but more of a flare at the bottom and a column of heat above it. With some wavy air currents mixed in. Of course, if you can only see in infrared, the monitor technology you’d need to replicate it would be entirely different anyway, so you could make different icons for them anyway, but you get my point. Could you see fire if you could only see ultraviolet? I assume you’d see something, but I also assume the fire icon you’d create for it would look different than a species that saw in the visible light spectrum.
So basically, on a station like this one, you’d basically have to just come up with some icons that everyone agreed on and somehow didn’t offend some race. (I mean, imagine if the ‘universal’ symbol for death was a gold cross or whatever.)
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Oh Boy, If she enjoys the food the Fracture just might join a list of places she heads to for lunch.
and watch out for anything Sydney puts in the fridge for lunch … Though that already was probably a lesson learned.
I want to see them learn that lesson since we don’t see her stay over all that often. But since everyone pretty much knows that she likes her food hot enough to be considered a lethal weapon / crime against nature level bio hazard. They’d leave anything she left in a fridge alone.
But yes. I look forward to seeing her getting to enjoy Fracture’s level of spicy food. And using it as where she goes for Lunch most of the time. At least enough to be considered a regular.
She would probably get her own fridge.. which is encased in steel plating with a strong lock on it – and it would have a venting system, just in case that there is a spill.
Nemrog
November 21, 2018 at 10:44 am | # | Reply
Don’t forget the biohazard suits, and decontamination system that would be required to clean said spills.
Heh, If she manage to fix her Earth waypoint on her new FTL mode she would be able to travel back and forth easy too.
Achilles might be able to handle it, while praising the mouthfeel.
With the levels of spice Sydney indulges (I know fancy words :P), I can see even Achilles going down…
Spiciness doesn’t actually burn, it simply stimulates the nerves that are triggered by burning. Achilles is just as susceptible to sensation as anyone else.
That would still cause him pain, so I doubt he would feel it.
Pain isn’t damage. It’s a sensory warning – “something here threatens your life, change your behavior”. Achilles is lucky that those sensory warnings don’t mean anything with him, but I suspect he still feels them.
I’m fairly certain Achilles does not feel pain either. Otherwise he wouldn’t be able to slam his face into a tank or have a sword jabbed into his eye without blinking. Presuming he was born with his powers, it makes sense for him to have just never developed that level of sensation.
I do believe you are confusing a lack of sensation with intensity of that sensation.
In truth (pain), (pleasure), and even just (texture) are all the SAME sensation only at different intensities to inform the brain what is happening. This is also why masochists can be a thing, they have developed a way to interpret a certain level of pain as pleasure.
The fact Achilles can touch things and not be totally numb, and even have a “mouth feel” means he does in fact have these sensations, but since they don’t actually damage any tissue he likely wouldn’t feel them beyond a basic *I am aware my hand is touching the table, and I am aware this part of the table is smooth and this part is rough, as well as I am aware this surface is hotter and this surface is colder* but as he can’t be damaged by it wouldn’t register any difference between *slightly bumpy* and *covered in broken ceramic blades*, or *mildly warm* and *on fire*.
The issue with spicy however is that its not a texture its a nerve response that is self damaging. If his body can’t be tricked into self damaging then chances are he wouldn’t register spicy any more than any other animal like a bird that has no nerve response to capsicum.
It’s been established early on (when they get back to base and pull their spell-disguises off) that the last time Achilles could get his hair cut was in the (late) 1980s, which is when mullets were in style.
Apparently, his hair (and one would presume his nails, etc) will no longer grow (or else it’d be a manga fantasy length by now)…but in corollary it also can no longer be lost or damaged, either. (Or he’d be bald, as the old hairs dropped out and follicles no longer replace the old with new ones, like a sort of superpowered alopecia or something.)
Or, if it does grow, it grows back to the exact length and proportions it was when his superpower of invincibility solidified into its (and his) final form, instantly restoring everything lost to its ultimate dimensions.
…On a side note, I wonder what insta-death-field that required living tissue to breach its barrier, but which insta-killed whatever was pressed into it, would do to Achilles? That’s the ultimate rock vs. hard place, if you think about it.
I doubt that Achilles is susceptible to spiciness. He’s already eaten anthrax and ebola, so pretty sure 3 million scovilles isnt going to do anything either. The description of his power is, and I quote:
“Invincibility. Proper, aggravating invincibility. He has shrugged off attacks that would destroy matter on a subatomic level. […] Achilles can’t be poisoned, suffocated, starved, irradiated, crushed, cut, pierced, brned, frozen or injured by any method yet discovered.”
has anyone established what Ebola or Anthrax tastes like? also note that hes clearly going into ecstasy over his meal, here
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1247
granted its sight and and mouth feel could be what hes talking about. After all what Taste actually is is highly complex. Granted if he can also smell food…
Bitter
I think Cora is going to pay the bill, and that she will only be a little upset, That’s because I think she wiil regard the entirety of Fracture Station as nothing more than a big tourist trap, and since Sydney is basically just a tourist,,,,
Actually, you may be overthinking it. It may keep a record of previous beings with the same makeup to select a graphic package that is ‘compatible’, at least as a default. For more savvy customers, I’m sure they have a way to specify which icon package they want.
So, if Sydney loves what he dishes out, can we presume that she is screwing things over for the first-contact team who later comes to earth and poisons the heads-of-state with intergalactic capsaicin, triggering the immediate ban of all extraterrestrial migration to Earth!
(“If they could do something so stupid to us, can you imagine what a risk-taking or greedy vacationer or importer might accidentally bring in!!!?”
wouldn’t even have to be previous customers. odds are the system is a common one, updated regularly by a service. since the galactic’s know of earth and it is a bit of a tourist spot, the service likely just looked at earth’s more common interface systems (lot of research IRL into making symbolgy as universal and intuitive as possible, especially by tech companies) and adopted a system similar if the scanner reads “human”.
“The Volcano”? That was on one of the bottles in the beginning of the series, wasn’t it? Go alien. The sun, or the supernova.
I want to see a drop of this stuff burn a hole in the ground and have the smoke that rises from it cause alarms to go off.
So … a regular Tuesday for Sydney?
It’d be weird if there was an alien race who had massive amounts of pride on spicy food (like they take to spicy foods, like humans take to Sporting Events ramped up to 22.). And they get impressed enough by Sydney to challenge her to a spicy food eat off.
And she gets a win, a medal, and a month supply of food spicy enough to make Liquid Rainbows in MLP:FIM look like a cup of cool water (Aka hot enough to cause actual breathing of fire, and the potentially melting off of skin.)
We’ve already found plenty of volcanoes on alien worlds, just within the solar system. No reason at all to not assume that Aliens will know of them either, and the shapes will be common as they’re driven by basic physics. (The strength of the rocks and the local gravitational field will be key parameters, but we can expect close matches at least some of the time.)
Can even get ice volcanoes
The circle thing. I recall before Japan did more thorough localizations on the Playstation that I’d be frustrated that some games used the circle to confirm when all the western games used circle to cancel. Had to remember what was what.
Ah, yes. I recall one of my teachers telling the tale of teaching in another country (may have been Japan) and being really confused that students were unhappy with their papers covered in checkmark’s.
I’m surprised you’re not using Azusa as your image there, LT.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VtbfJSUecCk/hqdefault.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughing_Target
The import versions of some JRPGs stuck with that, too, which was annoying.
What IS that ship on the far right? I know the other three.
And speaking of colors being different. There’s an author I read on RoyalRoadL that brought that up in one of their series called “Coeus”. They saw that the aliens bled green, so specifically hunted through their computer for the green symbols and rightfully assumed they meant ‘warning’.
Some other people found it, it looks like it’s from 5th Element https://projectedrealities.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/fifthelementfoxbdcap6_original.jpg
Nah, I’m pretty sure it’s the version of H2G2’s Starship Titanic from the video game of the same name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Titanic
That’s the 3rd one, the far right is the 4th one.
And the first one is the Titanic from Futurama
It Did just scan her so is that menu listing spicy for humans or spicy for her?
I hope the latter. We’ve seen Sydney surprise people by enjoying food they thought was way too hot for her before. (Several times, in fact.) Having Sydney discover there’s food even she finds too hot would be funny.
I feel like representing death via a crucifix would piss off Christians more than anyone else.
To be fair, the Crucifix IS literally a symbol of death. A very specific death, but a death nonetheless. Also, it’s an execution device. It’s akin to wearing a tiny guillotine on one’s neck. Or a noose. Had Jesus been executed a different way, we might have Christians going around wearing tiny piles of rocks.
As a Christian, I find this funny. And also true.
I always wonder if Jesus is pissed so much symbolism in the religion focused on him is centered around his death.
“Come ON, guys, I did a lot more than just DIE, y’know!”
I once said in a conversation with friends, that I think the reason Jesus hasn’t done his Second Coming is because of the widespread use of the Crucifix.
“Great… they learned nothing from my sacrifice. Fine!! I’ll wait til they figure it out and drop the symbol of my death.”
According to the Bible, Jesus’ death IS the whole point of his incarnation. On the cross He carried the whole punishment for our sins, so we wouldn’t have to. If we accept Him as our saviour, God can accept us like He can accept His Son. But without his death and subsequent resurrection, Jesus’ life would have been of no help to us.
Substitutionary atonement certainly one valid biblical understanding of soteriology. However other equally valid, although less well known, interpretations of Jesus’ include: recapitulation, moral transformation, Christus Victor, Ransom/Redeemer, incarnational, and creational.
While ChaosWolf’s AlyxVixen’s comments may be wild speculation or just a humorous assertion, Jesus certainly did and meant “a lot more than just DIE, y’know!”
“If you don’t kill Jesus, you got no third act.”
(Unknown theatrical producer)
I’m going to have to agree with this one. (I have a Ph.D. in Religions. I literally wrote my thesis paper with a full cover-to-cover study-and-analysis of the Bible as one of my reference sources.) Jesus did a heck of a lot more than just die. Unfortunately, a lot of Christians these days look at the “he died for your sins, you are forgiven!” as broad license to do whatever they want, and so long as they do the “accept Jesus into your heart!” thing, they feel it’s 100% acceptable to ignore oh so conveniently all the messages he gave while alive…which renders far too many “Christians” decidedly anti-Christ-like in their behavior & speech.
And nope, y’all don’t get to argue with me on this point. He literally said, feed & clothe the poor, the hungry, the needy. He did not say “only feed & clothe white folks whom you deem sufficiently ‘godly’ enough to be helped.” Far too many “Christians” these days are literally agreeing to starve their fellow human beings, refusing to share their wealth (however meager or great that “wealth” may be) despite that being one of the big tenets that Jesus commanded, to share and share alike, they refuse to help tend each other when sick (what, pay for healthcare for all??), and to accept the nonbelievers as well as the believers, to accept the Jews and the Gentiles alike, to NOT force people to either listen & obey, which modern day Christians somehow twisted around to mean “convert at gunpoint” OR force them to go away because they’re different…
He preached love, tolerance, compassion, generosity, responsibility, ethical obedience to laws, moral obedience to values, AND that there comes a point where you actually do have to cut loose, to to flip those tables and whip the evil greedy bastards bilking the masses out of their hard-earned money with false demands & overinflated expectations to the point of inflicting misery upon others “just because you can.”
He was ALL about the recapitulation, moral transformation, kindness, courtesy, serving others rather than demanding to be served, and treating your inferiors as your equals, your equals as your superiors, and your superiors as your friends. Oh, and he was all about being friends with sex workers, money lenders, tax collectors, etc, because hey, there are good people who work in those jobs, not just the ones so-called “moral” people declare are “evil” just for existing, etc.
The whole death and resurrection thing was pretty spectacular, but it’s a flash in the pan compared to the value of all the lessons he taught when he was alive.
…Of course, all of this makes very little sense to aliens who have nothing invested in Earthling culture…though most cultures that make it to the point of space travel have grasped the importance of getting along peacefull with others wherever & whenever possible.
Agreed, but all I meant to say was that without His death, all those other things would do us no good. He lived the perfect life we should live if we want to enter heaven, and then He suffered the punishment we deserve for our sins. By accepting Him as our saviour, in God’s eyes we become as perfect as Jesus and therefore acceptable to a perfect God.
I fully agree with you all your points about His life and how he treated other people. His life showed us how God wants us to live, His death and resurrection saved us from hell. As long as christians are alive on this Earth, we should try to live more and more like He did, but that’s a process, not something that happens instantly, and it will never be completed this side of heaven. We christians are still very much sinners.
Also, don’t forget that Jesus Himself warned that not everyone who would call themselves christians would be so. Some of the wrost atrocities in history have been committed in His name, sometimes by people who honestly believed they did His will, even though their very lives made a mockery of what He stands for.
Anyway, I’m not trying to convert you or anything, just trying to find the right word to express what I think about my wonderful Saviour. I… am not very good at that, sorry.
I’ve seen people wear suits with nooses instead of ties. It’s a tad morbid but a cool, edgey aesthetic none the less.
The original symbol early Christians came up with for themselves was what we today call the ‘Jesus Fish’, or ΙΧΘΥϹ. It symbolized Jesus feeding a hungry crowd with only two fish and two loaves of bread. It was the ROMANS, when they forcibly ‘adopted’ Christianity, that gave them the crucifix. It was meant as a warning – the early Christian sects were very violent towards each other, and Rome wanted the violence to STOP. It was a very subtle message – we killed your Savior, we can kill YOU.
Well if they used an actual crucifix, it would have the Jesus figure on it. Without him, it’s just referred to as a cross. So yeah, a crucifix would offend Christians, but would also probably make the aliens confused, wondering why there’s a dead human on the universal death symbol – why a human?
I think the universal symbol of death will be some creature, say a fish, with its tongue hanging out and X’s for eyes.
It depends on what kind of Cross, for example some find the Catholic Depiction of Jesus on jewelry crosses, is disrespectful at best, and in all fairness some branches of Christianity find that *wearing* a Cross in any way shape or form is in and of itself an act of gross disrespect to god. Given that the condensed version of the explanation weighs in at just over 20 pages of Biblical references from a person that spent an hour explaining why I was a literal AntiChrist for doing so. . .(the Cross used in houses itself is not a problem, use them in Church or in a house all you like, using it as Jewelry or on headstones however is Forbidden outright.the Fish however is just fine)
Sure I’m a gazillion light years from home and have trouble communicating, why not experiment with the local food? Call me kooky, but i’d prefer to start with two pieces of unbuttered toast and work my way up to a whole fried chicken.
Two fried chickens. And a Coke.
and Jake!
Elwood? That you?
This is Sydney. Do you honestly expect her to stop and THINK when she is offered SPICY food? I mean, you may as well call this scene “schmuck bait”.
Though the question of course is who is the schmuck, Sydney for trying spicy food she doesn’t know she can handle or the alien for thinking he’s going to see a human do the equivalent of “too hot! stop drop and roll does nothing!”
one hopes that the scanner is sensitive enough to sort out minor things like conditioned responses (most food preferences developed by and even during adulthood come from things like the body’s reaction to diseases, (I was reminded why I have a bit of a gag reaction to raw tomatoes when she explained that I got violently sick after eating one to the point that they had to try and feed me intravenously because I would not stop vomiting) and other false signals that can trigger an Immune Allergy or Digestive response can be triggered by things like certain proteins, or even Collagen(Jello) that are actually also found in the Human body, but Eating them somehow triggers the response.
Skulls aren’t even universally recognized as danger symbols in all human cultures; see the Iraq poison grain incident.
Busted link. I’m really curious now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Iraq_poison_grain_disaster
Any bets that this alien is punking Halo? He can obviously understand HER, but probably cued in on the fact that she’s from a primitive civilization, and is deliberately not actually saying anything and just making grunting noises to see if he can get her to order something truly nasty by pretending he has no way of letting her understand him.
Oh that would be brilliant.
Yeah, he’s hoping to get a good laugh.
“The dumb human ate food even my race considers unhealthy hot! This will be funny!”
Three plates later.
“The scanner lies! She’s not human! She can’t be!”
Entirely possible.
“Dumb human. Too stupid to understand that we serve the hottest food around. This will be funny!”
Three plates later.
“The scanner! It lies! She can’t be human!”
Again…
Clicking on ‘first’ then ‘latest’ performs a super-refresh to show your post.
Again, again…
Waiting a few minutes before refreshing works just as well, main point to remember: if you don’t get a warning saying your message didn’t go through, then it did, just have to be patient
In all fairness, I did a worse mass reposting.
Many do :D
Except when healing items is red, and blue is mana items. Which is a competing standard.
There’s the standard where blue is stamina items, short-wave ultraviolet is healing items, and long-wave ultraviolet is mana items. The standard includes a color right at 142 nanometers which means ‘lethal’, put on anything radioactive enough to require medical treatment/burial after one exposure, so be sure to stand well back from anything in that color.
Color spectrum, actually – blue is actually colder (less energy) and red actually IS hotter (more energy). Add in blinking and there are probably a few things that can be used as universal icons.
That all said… Sydney is going to cause a station evacuation if she belches/farts, isn’t she?
The rules for ‘energy’ of EM radiation is based on the wavelength of the photon/wave. Blue is shorter than red which is shorter than Microwave which is shorter than radio. Shorter than that is UV, then X ray, then Gamma, as was demonstrated by Dr. Bruce Banner. Just don’t get them mixed up. It gets him angry. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.
Unless you’re working with carbon steel that goes from dull red to cherry red to orange, to yellow then eventually blue and white as the temperature increases. Somewhere between yellow and blue depending on what other elements are in the alloy the steel will melt, but the color change will continue until the iron boils. I have never been close enough to document the color light emitted by boiling steel and I hope I never do as the major component element has a boiling point over 5K°F (2.8KC)
Stars have the same spectrum, from cool red to hot blue stars. Too bad that stars between yellow and blue don’t look green but white. Imagine having a bright green sun!
Art’s definition of ‘warm’ and ‘cool’ colours doesn’t have much if anything to do with Physics’s definition of energy-temperature.
The artistic scale is presumably based on ‘warm’ orange-brown earth and hot red fire, contrasted to ‘cool’ blue water (reflecting the sky) and cold white frost. That’s fine within its context, but I’m not sure it’s even universally recognised between Earth cultures.
Colour temperature as defined by physics is based on the black-body radiation emission spectrum. As temperature increases the peak of the spectrum moves from lower to higher energy, lower to higher frequency, (infra-)red to blue (and beyond). With the complication that anything hot enough to peak in the green/blue is usually producing so much radiation in total that even the off-peak areas of the spectrum saturate the Human eye’s detection capability, and it just looks white.
Colors are tricky to deal with even the same colors in different combinations. For example White on a Red (Flag of Switzerland for example) background doesn’t evoke the same reaction as Red on White (blood on bandages,The Red cross, etc)
Re seeing fire: the color of a flame depends on what is radiating the photons. We see candle flames because the soot glows yellow when heated. Ethanol burns with a blue flame that is difficult/impossible to spot in direct sunlight. Depending on your vision spectrum, fire may be that spooky invisible ghost that causes things to rapidly decay…
Related: https://youtu.be/cxd_CH2NIWE
Oh lord. if she burps again she could result in a mass evacuation
This might not end well. In the news recently is a Morrocan cactus that is like 10,000 hotter than a Carolina Reaper, on the Scoville scale. Studies are underway to determine if it can be used as a chronic PAIN-KILLER. The thought is that, when injected, it burns out the pain receptors in things like arthritic joints.
With the entire universe of plant life to select from, I’m going to lay odds that Sydney is the one who is going to be surprised, here.
https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/a-super-spicy-moroccan-cactus-offers-hope-to-end-our-dependence-on-opioids-5572911.html
And then there’s this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBb436aT4j0
You’re actually both refering to the same thing. A rare compound known as resiniferatoxin found only in one particular cactus-like plant in the spurge family, from which the poison gets its name. This slight twist on the pepper’s defense mechanism used by the resinifera plant works in the same way as the capsaicin in chillies, with the same key shape on one end.
Unlike capsaicin, however, resiniferatoxin lacks the long tail that allows for dissolution, meaning that it will not readily detach from nerves in the presence of water-based bodily fluids like saliva or stomach acid. It simply clings on until the nerve dies.
The smaller structure imparts a greater “heat” per weight to the compound and thus, by extension, a higher pungency value, but converting that to a number on the scoville scale seems wrong to me when that scale was specifically designed to measure the human experience. Something that, at best, will never be the same a second time with resiniferatoxin and could, quite possibly, not even allow for one.
Do note, though, that the same plant also contains a milder, yet still stronger than capsaicin, compound known as tinyatoxin. On which little to no testing has been done.
This sounds a bit like cauterizing a wound as a pain management tool. I realize it’s more involved than that, but on the face it’s a pretty tough sell.
“Okay, we’re going to take care of that cut on your finger. There’s going to be a sharp bite which may cause you to black out, and then you’ll never feel pain in that finger again. Or anything else, probably.”
DON’T DO IT! DON’T DO IT!!!!
Sydney needs to find out if the restaurant has the disclaimer “Patrons are still responsible to pay for any meals that may escape before being eaten.”
Struggling with the 4th ship Panel 1
Familiar, but ??
Hitchhikers?
NVM.
5th Element
NVM..
Lelu Dallas.. Multiplass
Speaking of the Scoville scale and spicy food. When are we going to see Kelly Rippa burn her face off on Sydney’s cooking?
So, are we in agreement that the ships on panel one are as follows (from left to right):
1) Starship Titanic from the Doctor Who Christmas Special
2) Planet Express Ship from Futurama
3) A different Starship Titanic (looking pretty good for having experienced Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure) from BOTH the Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy series (specifically “Life, the Universe, and Everything”) and it’s own eponymous game and the novelization.
4) Fhlosten Paradise from the Fifth Element
Anyone think any of these are off?
I think it looks more like the Titanic from the Futurama episode, as I never saw that DW special. But we may be talking about the same ship.
You are correct
The Titanic from “Voyage of the Damned” looked like the original (with added ‘pods’ near the stern), whereas the one shown on this page is the one from Futurama (you can tell because no ‘pods’ on the stern and that round thing on the bow)
Ship Three is from the game created by the author of “HHGttG” (no connection to that series though)
I just saw a picture of the Futurama version of the Starship Titanic (which, somehow, I actually forgot was a thing that happened) and can concur that ship 1 is indeed that selfsame ship! Thanks for the clarification!
As for ship 3 being Douglas Adams’s version of Starship Titanic: he himself once declared that both the ship mentioned in “Life, the Universe, and Everything” as an example of SMEF, or Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure, and the one depicted in the game and subsequent novelization are, in fact, one and the same, showing what REALLY happened to the ship after it SMEFed off.
Yes, yes.
‘Green’ = good / ‘Red’ = bad is arbitrary.
It should be ‘Blue’ = highest, ‘Red’ = lowest and ‘Green’ = medium.
Because of visible light frequencies.
SOME ALIEN GUY SOMEWHERE ELSE:
“Good!…The radiation meter is in the red! If it gets into the green we won’t
be able to stay too long.”
Why would the aliens see the same wavelengths as humans? Perhaps those are all medium options, with IR and UV representing low and high ends?
“And who knows what colors alien cultures would associate with what?”
Getting some Eccleston era DW vibes and the concept of Mauve vs Red here.
The symbol Sydney pointed to is supposed to be spicy, then what is the symbol that has a flame on it supposed mean? The one on the lower right hand column.
Serving temperature?
Ice vs steam?
Maybe it could mean ‘flaming’ – some dishes are set on fire just before serving.
The ‘cat food’ white hexagon could also mean ‘cold’ maybe something that is served raw
It’s clearly a hazard symbol meaning if a human eats that dish they will spontaneously combust.
I see the white hexagon as a snowflake.
Served frozen like ice cream or a Slush Puppie ™?
Heat. Like it’s served as hot as McDonalds coffee and it melts humanoid bone.
Challenge accepted!
Later, when Sydney is getting her ride home in Cora’s ship she will be talking with the crew about her meal. Sydney will complain that “The meal was OK but I prefer to be a vegetarian.” One of crew replies “That’s interesting. I consider myself a humanitarian.” Sydney off-handedly replies “Well that’s nice. Wait. What?” The crew member glowers at her hungrily and then replies “Oh man. You should see you face right now.”
LOL! Really wish Dave would do that!
I don’t think you’d need absolute universal icons.
It just scanned her. That lets it narrow down just what she is, and it could change the iconography set to match known info about her species as well.
Uh, oh.
Oh please tell me she’s about to trade-in some hot sauce, showing the aliens what what with her whatever horrifying after deaths sauce packet she has in her utility pouch
Hm. I hate picking a nit, but if that first ship in panel 1 is the FuturamaTitanic, shouldn’t the bottom part be red?
Was the Planet Express ship ever refereed to as the TItanic?
There are two Titanics and two Futurama ships in that panel
Chef’s snout isn’t as narrow as I thought… not a Kif.
Also, Sydney has a problem. A SERIOUS problem.
Nobody understands how AWESOME the really HOT food feels!
Sweating and jittery. Weak in the knees but feeling invincible at the same time. Ready to just start bouncing of the walls.
Endorphin rushes are amazing!
Part of me hopes Sydney for once gets to experience what everybody else feels when they eat something that’s way too spicey for them. After all, there have to be aliens in the galaxy who like their food even spicier than she can handle….right?
For those interested, Kerosene fire seen via infrared ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i932KFfbHgU ) since DaveB mentioned what would fire look like in Infrared… I couldn’t find one that shows fire in Ultraviolet….
Hmm… so the green circle is likely ‘safe’, red triangle is likely ‘dangerous’, purple X may mean ‘incompatible’, orange square with arrows is apparently ‘spicy’, and I suspect that the flame symbol means something along the lines of ‘will literally set you on fire, do not eat’.
I wonder what the snowflake-like symbol means…
I see the white hexagon as a snowflake.
Served frozen like ice cream or a Slush Puppie ™?
The thing is that serving temperature isn’t the kind of thing I would expect would need a biometric gastronomy compatibility scanner. Especially considering the fact that most of the species we’ve seen have been running around in casual clothes and may be comfortable at similar temperature ranges.
Maybe it’s enhanced with ‘cool’ spices like mint instead?
I like the vendor/waiter in this strip. Makes me think of Syd, from the “Ice Age” movies. :-)
The gadget read her species, so it displays icons appropritae to her species. Now, how is she going to pay. I expect the nice alien wants payment in advance.
And there she goes… I wonder if she will end up annoying the chef in the trying to make something so spicy she cant eat it… (cue funny montage).
On a relatively unrelated note, I’d imagine convergent evolution would keep what most creatures consider to be the “visible spectrum” in to a relatively narrow-ish band based on what gas they breathe. There’d be no point to being able to see in x-rays if your home-world’s atmosphere absorbed and/or blocked x-rays from ever reaching the layer of atmosphere you live in.
Just remember Sydney, “TANSTAAFL” or “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” – from Robert Heinlein’s 1966 science-fiction novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress