[HN Gopher] Simpson Fan Grows Tomacco (2003)
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Simpson Fan Grows Tomacco (2003)
Author : pipeline_peak
Score : 132 points
Date : 2023-07-22 09:44 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.simpsonsarchive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.simpsonsarchive.com)
| j1elo wrote:
| > _I am going to try to schedule the testing done this Friday,
| October 24th._
|
| So WHY didn't you open up your editor on the 25th and let us the
| World know about the results (or lack thereof)???
|
| I hate so much the utter lack of discipline and follow-up of the
| average internet person :-( (of course in a tongue in cheek way)
|
| This happens so many times... who hasn't found an interesting
| forum topic, sometimes describing exactly the same problem we're
| having, with a promising resolution, but which never actually
| arrived?
| kaycebasques wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/979
| j1elo wrote:
| I really felt like shaking this person like the xkcd comic
| guy shakes the screen...
|
| It's one thing to talk about something and just casually
| never following up. That's bad enough already.
|
| But _giving a precise date_ , and _promising a follow-up_ ,
| then never doing it... that's purely evil! Only valid excuse
| is a life-altering accident or something serious like that.
| Otherwise I'll hate you and will want to call you things
|
| ...shouting at my screen in my room's solitude.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I've secured access to a Tomacco plant. I'll let you know
| tomorrow what my findings are.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _sometimes describing exactly the same problem we 're having,
| with a promising resolution_
|
| Exactly!
|
| I've been trying to perfect my tomacco grafts for 20 years at
| this point and was unable to find any information.
|
| The nerve of the author!
| cgriswald wrote:
| The absolute _worst_ is situations like this:
|
| User: I have a problem I haven't been able to google. Whenever
| this very specific situation occurs, I am having this problem.
| Any advice?
|
| Other Users: (Lots of ideas, no solution.)
|
| User: Nevermind, I figured it out, thanks!
|
| ... _WHAT DID YOU DO TO FIX IT?_
| csa wrote:
| > ...WHAT DID YOU DO TO FIX IT?
|
| I think the general assumption when the reply lacks
| specificity is that it's something embarrassingly routine
| like "I checked to make sure that the device was plugged in"
| or some variant thereof.
|
| It's not a 100% safe assumption, but I think this is the
| answer more often than not.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Even telling the world that can be useful because what is
| embarrassingly routine for you might be entirely unknown to
| someone else. Plus it is simply polite.
| tsuujin wrote:
| Honestly the best part of troubleshooting is when I find
| out I was just being a massive dumbass the entire time. I
| go tell my team, friends, wife, etc, "I fixed it, I was
| just a dumbass, all I had to do was [thing]" and I revel in
| it because that shit is funny.
|
| The angrier I am while troubleshooting, the funnier that
| reveal is for everyone.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I like to pretend they entirely changed solutions, like
| switching from Java to PHP or the other way around.
|
| The lies we tell ourselves...
| btilly wrote:
| Where I have encountered this, the path to a solution
| requires discovering that the problem is a generic error
| message that has an unbelievable number of different possible
| causes. And in the process of solving that, the specific
| problem was incredibly specific.
|
| For example Django is very good at giving a small number of
| (useless) error messages for a wide variety of things that
| can keep it from starting up properly.
| [deleted]
| zabzonk wrote:
| i have this problem with posts that puport to answer "how-do-i-
| do this" questions on Windows and other desktops:
|
| me: how do i do X?
|
| them: just click on "find" and then...
|
| me: but where is "find"??? i have quite heavily modified
| desktop.
|
| if these people posted a screenshot instead of describing the
| gui interaction in text, i could almost certainly work it out.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Reason _n_ to not customise _anything_.
| napierzaza wrote:
| [dead]
| fallinghawks wrote:
| "I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this
| margin is too narrow to contain."
| codeisawesome wrote:
| [flagged]
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| Eh, that's very old, and it was somewhat of a polarizing
| opinion after the doc came out. Plenty of Indans thought Apu
| was fine as he was.
| codeisawesome wrote:
| > Plenty of Indians thought that Apu was fine as he was.
|
| An apology was due to the rest of the Indians & South Asians
| who didn't think the caricature 'Apu' was "fine", and one was
| issued; plus even better, the show runners have learned that
| you can actually make comedy without minimising or othering
| cultural / ethnic groups. Great outcome.
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| One was issued because it was easier than not issuing it,
| that's it. I disagree any apology was owed when the other
| half thought Apu was a good thing, a well fleshed out and
| developed character bringing part of their culture to
| masses that would otherwise never encounter it. But, it is
| what it is.
| psychphysic wrote:
| [flagged]
| stanski wrote:
| I don't know why but society appears to always need to
| over-correct. There is no middle.
| codeisawesome wrote:
| > I don't know why but society appears to always need to
| over-correct. There is no middle.
|
| This comment does not contain substantiation and only an
| opinion. So I'll similarly state mine: this was not an
| overcorrection at all, it's less action than is due to
| right the past wrongs.
| gorjusborg wrote:
| Viewing any stereotype as wrong is overcorrection.
| Stereotypes exist because they model things roughly.
| laserdancepony wrote:
| Come on, please do not kill all the fun stuff we have for your
| CRT PC stuff. I prefer it the old fashioned way.
| codeisawesome wrote:
| Including but not limited to Apu, the pervasive caricaturing
| of brown skinned people in Western media as nothing but
| cringeworthy clowns or treacherous villains is hurtful to me
| personally. I'm sorry that the feelings of folks like myself
| "kills all the fun" for you, but I'm thankful that society is
| no longer held hostage to old fashioned tastes.
| sorokod wrote:
| I believe that this is the same episode in which Bart, who has
| brittle bones, drinks Mulk.
| veave wrote:
| No, that's The PTA Disbands.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Malk
| galleywest200 wrote:
| Malk now comes with with "Vitamin R", which is slang for
| "Rainier Beer" in the Pacific Northwest where Mat Groening
| went to college.
| SmellTheGlove wrote:
| I believe he was promised dog or better.
| robertoandred wrote:
| People love rats, but they don't want to drink the rats'
| milk?
| sorokod wrote:
| Ah, that's the one.
| Simulacra wrote:
| This is from 2003. Might want to add (2003) to the headline.
| [deleted]
| mosselman wrote:
| Did it ever turn out to contain nicotine?
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Tomato plants already contain nicotine, though in small
| amounts. Both belong to the nightshade family, and I believe
| all nightshades produce nicotine.
| mathgeek wrote:
| I find a source useful for claims like these, so here you go:
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199308053290619
| [deleted]
| sdrothrock wrote:
| I was curious about what happened since the write-up ends
| abruptly before revealing the testing results.
|
| Wikisimpsons has a bit more info sourced from DVD commentary
| revealing that the tomacco had no nicotine in it:
| https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/Tomacco#Behind_the_Laughter
|
| Wikidoc has even more detail but no sources:
| https://wikidoc.org/index.php/Tomacco
| gwern wrote:
| The Scientific American article in question:
| https://gwern.net/doc/biology/1959-robinson.pdf
| silisili wrote:
| That doesn't sound reliable. Tomatoes all have some naturally
| occurring nicotine, I would be surprised one grafted to a
| tobacco plant somehow has...none?
| Tao3300 wrote:
| I just figured the writer tasted it and perished.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| That's not entirely surprising. The whole point of grafting is
| to clone the plant you're taking scion wood from. Are there any
| examples where choice of rootstock can affect things like
| flavor? I've heard of rootstock affecting things like vigor,
| disease resistance, and cold hardiness, but never anything like
| taste or psychoactivity.
| manmal wrote:
| Tobacco plants produce nicotine in their roots, so it would
| have been possible that the tomato received some.
| veave wrote:
| There are sources here
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Products_produced_from_The_Sim...
| dinkblam wrote:
| Aaaah Tomacco!
|
| Slightly off-topic trivia: there is a reference to Tomaccos in
| the story-mode of the game CoreBreach
| (https://www.corecode.io/corebreach/). [Probably cannot be
| obtained anymore for quite a few years now - certainly won't run
| with modern OSs]. Further references are made to Blade Runner,
| Soylent Green, Terry Pratchett, etc, etc
|
| There were also a number of hidden Simpson and Family Guy related
| easter-eggs, none of which were ever discovered.
| prvc wrote:
| No update since 2003?
| nkko wrote:
| It probably had a fatal dose of nicotine.
| sand500 wrote:
| Or they dilute it with regular tomatoes for their unusually
| successful pizza chain.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Great, so some day, coworkers will get up at least once an
| hour for pizza breaks?
| barathr wrote:
| Just wait till you see this: grafting tomatoes and eggplant on
| tree Solanaceae (tomato relatives) in Italy:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMTQeiLxABg
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUO1vTrMRbc
|
| You get the benefits of the tree's deep roots and ease of
| harvest. Even if you don't know Italian the videos are amazing.
| soligern wrote:
| Isn't wild Solanaceae a deadly poison in most cases?
| dylan604 wrote:
| This is why you don't just copy and paste I researched
| answers from SO.
| barathr wrote:
| Some are and some aren't. The key question is whether the
| fruits grown on grafted branches have the toxins. There's no
| definitive study. This rootstock appears to be S. torvum. The
| gardener who's doing it has been doing it for years
| apparently with no ill health effects. Might be worth someone
| studying both his produce and his health to find out.
| veave wrote:
| You can cut plants and fuse them just like that?
| pvaldes wrote:
| Yep, is called grafting.
|
| It does not survive unless both plants are closely related
| lbourdages wrote:
| It doesn't work in all cases but potatoes and tomatoes are
| closely related (potato fruits exist and are very poisonous,
| they look like cherry tomatoes).
|
| Orchards typically graft branches of the desired apple variety
| onto rootstock of an apple tree that has the size
| characteristics they want - typically, smaller trees as they
| can fit more per hectare and i's easier to pick if the branches
| don't grow as tall.
| lproven wrote:
| The potato, the tomato and the aubergine (eggplant) are all
| genus _Solanum_. They are close relatives.
|
| The genus is related to the European nightshade family,
| colloquially known as "deadly nightshade" with good reason.
| When tomatos were first brought to Europe from the Americas,
| they were used purely decoratively as everyone believe they
| would be toxic as they were clearly similar to the highly
| poisonous nightshades.
|
| One of the only uses of nightshade was for an extract to
| paralyse the muscles of the iris, leading to very dilated
| pupils and big dark eyes, considered a sign of beauty in
| women. Thus the Latin name: "belladonna" -- literally,
| "bella" (beautiful) "donna" (lady).
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| My grandparents had an apple tree that had ~6 different
| varieties of apples growing off of it from all the grafts that
| they'd done to it, was neat to see as a kid.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Some people go a bit crazy, here is a man who has grafted
| 250ish varieties. Sorry about the Daily Mail link.
|
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2437247/amp/250-var.
| ..
| adrian_b wrote:
| Yes, grafting, i.e. this method of plant propagation, is useful
| either for plants for which simpler cloning methods do not work
| or for providing various useful properties, like resistance to
| certain plant diseases.
|
| Grafting has probably been invented somewhere closer to Central
| Asia around four to five thousand years ago and then it has
| spread through Western Asia and through Europe, about at the
| same time with the spread of the domesticated horses and with
| the spread of the Indo-European languages.
|
| Before the invention of grafting, there were only a little more
| than a handful of cultivated species of fruit trees, i.e.
| mostly those which produce clones naturally (e.g. grape vines,
| olive trees, fig trees, date palms and a few others). By using
| grafting, a large number of additional fruit trees could be
| cultivated, starting with apples and pears.
|
| The reason why grafting is necessary is that in most cases the
| trees grown from the seeds produced by a tree with big and
| sweet fruits may have small and sour fruits. To preserve the
| properties of the original tree, it must be cloned. By using
| grafting on an appropriate rootstock any tree can be cloned.
| uptime wrote:
| > The reason why grafting is necessary is that in most cases
| the trees grown from the seeds produced by a tree with big
| and sweet fruits may have small and sour fruits.
|
| This. Any apples grown for consumption are from grafts. Apple
| trees grown from seed are wild or experimental to try to find
| a new graft, or to be the graft base. I was amazed when I
| heard that planting a Honeycrisp seed would not get you more
| Honeycrisps in your yard. Cloning only!
| ratmice wrote:
| I've read a similar thing about pink dogwood, where growing
| a seedling from it will only have a small chance of being
| another pink dogwood, more likely than not producing a
| white one. Because of that they are typically cloned.
| roughly wrote:
| A follow-on fun fact is that the American legend of Johnny
| Appleseed makes no sense in this light if you assume the
| apples were for eating. They're fine for making Applejack,
| though.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Plant immune systems are not like those of animals. You can
| often just slap parts together and they will meld. This likely
| evolved from plants literally growing on top of each other,
| such as a small plant growing on top of a log. Neither plant
| would do well if an immune reaction was initiated every time
| two root systems met.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Yes. But if you follow the laws of the Torah, you may run into
| some issues:
|
| https://en.toraland.org.il/beit-midrash/halachic-guides/mitz...
|
| For complicated reasons, this is only strictly checked for
| grapes and for etrogim AFAIK.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Eating fruit as a strict Jew must be quite difficult.
|
| > But if you follow the laws of the Torah, you may run into
| some issues
|
| I can can only imagine how difficult it must get if fruit
| trees get rules like these.
| adrian_b wrote:
| The funny thing is that some combinations of scion and
| rootstock are permitted only if grafting and planting are
| performed by a non-Jew.
| lostlogin wrote:
| You can do it yourself and it's fascinating. I have a black
| doris plum which seems to refuse all grafts, but my apple tree
| probably has 10ish varieties growing off it. Most are only able
| support one apple, but the older grafts should be able to take
| several this coming season.
|
| I am no expert but all you need is some grafting secateurs,
| some grafting tape and some twigs from a related tree (same
| genus). For example, apple or pear will go on the same tree,
| citrus won't.
|
| You make sure the grafted twig is about the same size the twig
| it's attaching to, bind it up with tape and leave it. The bark
| grows across cut and strengthens with time.
|
| There are loads of YouTube and website guides, here is one.
|
| https://minnetonkaorchards.com/how-to-graft-an-apple-
| tree/#:....
| tudorw wrote:
| I take your 10 and raise ;)
|
| "A horticulturist has managed to nurture a single apple tree
| which bears 250 different varieties of the fruit."
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-24348394
| barathr wrote:
| Every single fruit you eat that has a name (e.g. "Fuji" apple
| or "Hass" avocado) has been grafted, and is a clone of the
| original plant, grafted on a rootstock that may have other
| ideal properties.
| ImprovedSilence wrote:
| Yeah, and I think it's the only way to get any kind of apple
| tree.
| [deleted]
| hellcow wrote:
| Yes, it's called grafting. My neighbor had a single tree which
| grew oranges, lemons, and limes using this.
| ipaddr wrote:
| I have one with three different types of pears
| jrm4 wrote:
| And isn't it also the deal that most of our citrus fruits are
| just weirdo combos of like 4 citrus primitives or something?
| retrac wrote:
| _Brassica_ are the same way. Turnips, cabbage, bok choi,
| cauliflower, mustard, rapeseed, Brussel sprouts, kale, etc.
| Effectively all the same species -- hybrids or cultivars of
| a few wild ancestors that hybridize easily.
| lproven wrote:
| Yup. Wikipedia has some good visualisations.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrus_taxonomy#Hybrids
| TradingPlaces wrote:
| Yes, in fact most roses and fruit trees are grafted onto
| different root stock. Most citrus is on sour orange stock.
| https://citrusrootstocks.org/rootstock-cultivars/ In the case
| of roses, this is the hideous Dr Huey variety, which will often
| try and take over the grafted rose
| https://www.rosenotes.com/2012/03/dr-huey-you-sucker-you.htm...
| goldenkey wrote:
| Why is the Dr Huey hideous, other than it being misused by
| humans in odd grafting procedures?
| TradingPlaces wrote:
| Just a personal opinion, and one shared by many. The
| cultivar was bred by a dentist named Huey not for looks or
| scent like most roses, but for the rootstock. It tends to
| grow long unorganized canes very prone to disease, and the
| flowers are small with few petals. We have 32 rose bushes,
| and every spring I have to watch out for Dr Huey taking
| over.
| trolan wrote:
| Fun fact: all over the world vineyards use an American variant
| of grapes for their rootstock and graft their preferred
| European/Peruvian/etc grapes on top. This makes them more
| disease resistant and in some cases means the cultivar of
| European grapes can survive at all after disease had almost
| wiped them out.
|
| All your citrus and apples from the store are like this, and
| why they don't grow true to seed. The seeds are open pollinated
| by whatever is around but the fruit was from a single plant
| hand selected dozens or more years ago and produces that exact
| fruit over and over again. It would take hundreds of years to
| 'stabilize' those traits in the seeds and in that time, you'd
| probably find another great variety and keep that around to
| graft to other plants.
| adrian_b wrote:
| The use of grafting for grapevines has become necessary only
| after the insect phylloxera has been brought accidentally
| from USA to Britain and France at the beginning of the second
| half of the 19th century and then it has devastated most
| European vineyards.
|
| The American vines are resistant to phylloxera.
|
| Previously, grapevine was one of the few sources of sweet
| fruits which did not require grafting, because it propagates
| naturally through clones.
| CSMastermind wrote:
| It's worth noting that there are a handful (like less than
| 10) vineyards in Europe have escaped infestation so far and
| thus have their original rootstock:
|
| https://www.decanter.com/features/phylloxera-the-great-
| escap...
|
| This includes 2 Pinot Noirs in France, 1 Tinta Barroca used
| to make Port in Portugal, 1 Sangiovese from Italy, 1
| Monastrell from Spain, and 4 Nerello Mascalese from Sicily.
|
| There used to be 3 Pinot Noirs in France but one succumbed
| in 2004 and the Monastrell in Spain is verging on
| succumbing.
|
| There are also vineyards that have been planted with
| European rootstock since the infestination of the
| continent. These include vineyards in Portugal, Sicily,
| California, Chile, and Australia where soil conditions
| prevent the bugs from getting to the roots.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| I read a, possibly mythical, story about a group that
| surreptitiously grafted various fruit branches onto the shade
| trees lining some streets in a major city. Several years
| later the mess on the sidewalk caused the city to cut them
| off.
| vtbassmatt wrote:
| https://weburbanist.com/2015/10/22/guerrilla-grafting-
| public... maybe?
| malfist wrote:
| Grafting generally only works within families. I.e. you
| can't graft a chestnut onto an apple tree.
|
| I doubt many (if any) shade trees would support a fruit.
|
| That said, families can be surprisingly large. Most citrus
| all come from the same four parent plants and you can mix
| most of them. Apples and plums are also closely related
| pvaldes wrote:
| My bet would be on japanese crabapple
| 13of40 wrote:
| Where I live there are a lot of non-fruiting cherry and
| plum trees planted for shade, so I can imagine people
| grafting on a fruit bearing branch here and there.
| [deleted]
| pvaldes wrote:
| Do this fan knew that tomatoes have yet nicotine included without
| any special treatment?
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