[HN Gopher] I tasted Honda's spicy rodent-repelling tape and I w...
___________________________________________________________________
I tasted Honda's spicy rodent-repelling tape and I will do it again
(2021)
Author : voxadam
Score : 902 points
Date : 2025-02-11 15:08 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (haterade.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (haterade.substack.com)
| 1f60c wrote:
| (2021)
| vvillena wrote:
| Nah. This is timeless.
| ben1040 wrote:
| Raise your hand if you tasted a Nintendo Switch cartridge because
| you read the plastic was infused with a bitterant to mitigate
| choking hazards.
| fastball wrote:
| Which in that case is Denatonium Benzoate.
| bentcorner wrote:
| Telling people not to do something is a sure fire way to get
| them to do it. Human curiosity is strong.
| rob74 wrote:
| Case in point: in Germany, there are occasionally "Durchgang
| verboten" ("passage forbidden") signs next to driveways
| leading to e.g. an inner courtyard. These are most of the
| time a sure sign that it's possible to take a shortcut
| through the courtyard to the other side of the block. Of
| course, this is a country where you can be reasonably sure of
| not getting shot for trespassing...
| happyopossum wrote:
| > where you can be reasonably sure of not getting shot for
| trespassing
|
| How exactly does that make it OK to be disrespectful of
| other people's property and privacy?
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Do you hate Hawaii's protection of beach access even if
| it requires passage through private property? Legalized
| disrespect?
| voxic11 wrote:
| I couldn't find anything to support the idea that
| Hawaii's protection of beach access allows anyone to
| traverse private property except where a specific rights-
| of-way easement exists on that property. I don't think
| the gp would consider use of land via an easement to be
| disrespectful as the easement holder has rights to the
| land that must be respected as well.
| xp84 wrote:
| Various legal systems have varying definitions of what is
| and is not a legal infringement on property rights.
|
| For instance, in (some parts of?) the UK there's the
| Right to Roam, I believe, which grants the public limited
| rights to pass through certain private property (such as
| an open field). Obviously this doesn't extend to harming
| anything. The point is, passing through someone's private
| property without causing any damage or inconveniencing
| them is not automatically considered unethical.
| Sharlin wrote:
| For the record, the UK right to roam is quite limited in
| scope; the quintessential right-to-roam countries are the
| Nordics (and Scotland, but it's a honorary Nordic country
| anyway).
| devilbunny wrote:
| In the US, "NO THRU TRUCKS" is a dead giveaway that you are
| staring at a shortcut route. And as it isn't "PRIVATE
| ROAD", you are not trespassing.
|
| If it's not someone's home, and you are not engaged in
| nefarious activity, you will not be shot for trespassing.
| You will be told to leave.
| shawnz wrote:
| See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wp:beans
| somenameforme wrote:
| Well.... how did it taste?
| veonik wrote:
| Well, I can say that you definitely won't want to taste it
| twice.
| mikestew wrote:
| I was disappointed that it was a bit bitter, yes, but not
| in the category of "won't do it twice". Such that I even
| tried multiple cartridges. I'm retirement age, though, so
| maybe my taste buds are shot.
| waltbosz wrote:
| I thought it tasted like quinine/tonic water or maybe
| grapefruit rind (the ingredient in the Beverly soda from
| Italy). Coin batteries sometimes have a bitter taste coating
| which is similar to the Switch cart.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| It tasted like that time I popped a Smartie/Rocket in my
| mouth and began chewing casually only to realize that it was
| an uncoated Tylenol pill.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Extremely bitter
| ben1040 wrote:
| I stuck just the tip of my tongue on there, and it was so
| bitter that it was more of a sensation than just a taste.
| Enough that I reflexively pulled away.
| Cpoll wrote:
| I found this out accidentally. I have a habit of holding the
| cartridge between my lips when I switch cartridges (my hands
| are occupied with the case). Then minutes later I'd notice a
| bitter taste when drinking water or licking my lips, and have
| no idea why!
| ollybee wrote:
| <raises hand> .. It really was grim
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Back in the day when I worked desktop support, we would use a
| lot of canned air. And when they added bitterant to that stuff
| in order to keep kids from huffing it, it became almost
| unusable for its intended purpose because it turns out that
| nobody wants to have to breathe the bitter air after they clean
| out a PC. So, I went to the office supply store and sampled
| some different brands to see which ones didn't add a bitterant.
| The irony that their anti-huffing measure led to me
| (essentially) huffing canned air at the store was not lost on
| me.
| palmotea wrote:
| > You see, the thing about rodents--be they rat or shrew or vole
| --is that they really like to gnaw.
|
| IIRC, they don't _like to_ , they _have to_. If they don 't wear
| down their teeth, they'll grow out of control and kill them.
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| Or, hear me out, their teeth _have_ to grow because they like
| to chew so much they 'd wear them down and starve
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Really a mouth half full kinda of guy.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > If they don't wear down their teeth, they'll grow out of
| control and kill them.
|
| cf the Babirusa - "If a male babirusa does not grind his tusks
| (achievable through regular activity), they can eventually keep
| growing and, rarely, penetrate the individual's skull."[0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babirusa
| i80and wrote:
| Unfun pet rat fact: if their teeth start growing at weird
| angles for whatever reason, this mechanism stops working and
| you have to get the teeth trimmed every couple weeks.
| Clamchop wrote:
| To be fair, the biological mechanism for motivating behaviors
| is usually by making it rewarding.
|
| They both have to and like to!
| numlocked wrote:
| I have no insight but boy oh boy is this funny and well written.
| Like prime Dave Barry [0].
|
| [0] https://www.davebarry.com/columns/how-to-make-board.php
| donaldihunter wrote:
| A genuine lol, for both the OP and for [0]
| wibbily wrote:
| Reminded me of Dennis Lee too
|
| [0] https://foodisstupid.substack.com/p/escargogurt
| ping00 wrote:
| I genuinely can't remember having laughed at well written prose
| in a long time, thanks for sharing [0]. OP is gold too.
|
| Takes me back to my high school days when I would have to choke
| down my laughter as I surreptitiously read Cracked.com articles
| in class
| xp84 wrote:
| Dave Barry was my favorite columnist as far back as age 8 or 9.
| He's so funny.
| twic wrote:
| Reminded me a lot of Steve, Don't Eat It! (modulo twenty years
| of progress in being less deliberately over the top online):
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20180712104826/http://www.thesne...
| buildsjets wrote:
| Well that kicks me right in the memberberries. The Beggin,
| Lettuce, and Tomato sandwich was a classic. https://web.archi
| ve.org/web/20180712104821/http://www.thesne...
| worthless-trash wrote:
| I kinda want him to compare it against the nintendo switch
| cartridge taste.
| skyyler wrote:
| Something tells me that Liz Cook is not a "him"
| wlesieutre wrote:
| For reference on the poem at the bottom
| https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56159/this-is-just-to...
|
| Another adaptation I enjoyed
| https://x.com/AthertonKD/status/585661777645547520
| tamasnet wrote:
| Thank you!
| exhilaration wrote:
| Thank you for both links. I only read the linked article after
| following your links!
| mdrzn wrote:
| "Honda never replied to my tweet."
|
| "Still, I fired off a couple emails to Honda's PR team just in
| case. To my great surprise, Chris got back to me the next
| business day"
|
| Why do people think that Twitter is the support page for
| companies? Honest question.
|
| Maybe it's an american-centric view, or maybe it's my small
| european mind that cannot comprehend why would someone publicly
| tweet something to a company instead of sending an email to ask a
| question.
| rkuykendall-com wrote:
| It used to be, because it was public, it was the only place
| companies would pretend to care about end users.
| no_wizard wrote:
| To re-iterate, this is why.
|
| I had an issue for 2 months with Verizon where they messed up
| my new phone deliveries by sending me the wrong ones and they
| didn't ship other merchandise I purchased at the same time.
| Their customer support was terribly unhelpful, even after
| repeated escalations. It was enough I nearly went to AT&T[0].
|
| They first wanted to charge me re-stocking fees on an order
| they very clearly messed up (for the wrong phones delivered).
| Then they wanted me to pay for shipping on the correct
| devices, and they incorrectly billed me as well, and it took
| several escalations to get them to understand I didn't
| receive my other merchandise either, which they then told me
| I had to make _another support request for_. It was a whole
| mess.
|
| I sent a tweet (and mind you, I'm a nobody) and within 24
| hours it was resolved correctly, and they even next day
| shipped everything to me, which I did not expect.
|
| It will be the last time I ever buy from Verizon instead of
| Apple directly, but at least it got resolved in the end.
|
| [0]: Still might. I need the coverage of the big 2,
| unfortunately I can't jump to say, T-Mobile, as a result.
| brk wrote:
| I switched from Verizon to T-Mobile a couple of years ago.
| Zero regrets, coverage has been excellent, and I travel
| quite a bit.
| fragmede wrote:
| T-Mobile is trialing Starlink support on select phones,
| surpassing the other two in coverage in rural areas.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| I had to go out of the country, so I overpaid my AT&T
| internet bill so it would cover 2 months and rounded up by
| ~10 cents to the nearest dollar amount.
|
| First month bill, no problem. Second month bill, no
| problem.
|
| Third month bill should be $amount -credit, nope. They took
| my credit, listed it as an underpayment and applied a fee.
|
| So I go to the store; they can't help with account issues,
| you have to call.
|
| I call, sit through the waiting music, get a rep who get a
| rep is quite obviously doesn't care. No "Sorry for our
| obvious billing mistake" or anything. They correct the
| account and ask if I will pay right now, I decide that I
| will since I don't trust their system to update in a timely
| manner.
|
| The rep then has the audacity to talk about how AT&T
| charges a convenience fee to pay via phone but they are
| going to waive it this time.
|
| AT&T fiber and Xfinity cable are the only options in my
| area....
|
| I still can not understand how they made that error in the
| first place. It's not like accounting, credits and balances
| are a new thing. The bill even showed the credit
| transaction correctly, showing it coming out of the bill
| balance owed.
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| > I overpaid my AT&T internet bill so it would cover 2
| months
|
| That's a bit XX century, why not have some form of
| automatic payment?
|
| (Not that it wasn't moronic of them, but you probably hit
| what now is a corner case ...)
| themaninthedark wrote:
| I do set up auto payment when I am sure the bill will be
| stable, this was while I was still in the introduction
| rate and I wanted to be aware of when the price change
| hit.
|
| Now the question is, since they messed up what should be
| a simple accounting transaction, do I trust their billing
| system to have unfettered access to take funds from my
| bank :)
| lazide wrote:
| It's AT&T - no, don't trust them with anything.
| Preferably not even with being their customer.
| fortran77 wrote:
| I can much quicker get an answer from Bank Of America--and
| get a Tier 3 Customer Service person to call me--on X than I
| can by calling their main number.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Only if their software thinks you have enough followers, and
| the software thinks they aren't fake followers.
|
| If you don't have enough potential impact, the humans may
| never even see your post.
|
| If anyone thinks that _insert company here_ cares about your
| tweet about your issue because they replies to _insert even
| slightly famous person here_ , you're deluding yourself.
| joshstrange wrote:
| It's still the fastest/only way to receive customer support
| for a lot of place. It's very sad but it's the truth.
|
| The last time an airline screwed up and refused to fix their
| mistake the employee at the booth lowered her voice and said
| "Do you have twitter? You might try complaining there, they
| don't like it when people complain on twitter" which was just
| the most depressing thing to hear.
| nxobject wrote:
| The old piece of advice if you were getting stonewalled was
| to write a personal letter to "$CEO_NAME, $HQ_ADDRESS". I
| wonder whether that still works today.
| codazoda wrote:
| It often does. The other thing that has worked for me is
| contacting the legal department. Probably the same address,
| c/o legal.
|
| Just don't say something stupid like, "I'm going to sue
| you". If you escalate too far they'll wait for the summons.
|
| ---
|
| I worked in a department called "hot site support" back in
| the 90's for Iomega (maker of the Zip drive). That meant I
| delt with two things, customers who spent over $100k on
| hardware, and customers that wiggled their way up to the
| CEO's admin. I had carte blanche to resolve the issues and
| I was just 20 years old and early into my career.
| sorenjan wrote:
| It's from 2021, it was a different era. I hope it's fading
| away.
| devin wrote:
| It greatly predates 2021.
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| I would dearly love to return to even the 2021 era of the
| internet in general. 1999 would be ideal, actually. But I'd
| settle for most anything up to 2012 or so.
| pjc50 wrote:
| I've been trying to work out what the end date of the good
| internet was, and if there was a trigger event, and I'm
| starting to think it was somewhere between Tahrir Square
| (2011) and Euromaidan (2014); once the political internet
| became really effective, it had to be countered by those in
| power.
| sharpshadow wrote:
| 2011 was the release year of bootstrap so that would fit
| quite well.
| interestica wrote:
| Asteroid 2024 YR4 (the one that might hit Earth in 2032)
| also made close passes in 2012, 2016, and 2020. ...
| gs17 wrote:
| If only it fading away didn't mean instead of being able to
| treat Twitter as support there's no place to get actual
| support from a lot of companies. E.g. Google sent me a
| promotion for a Nest camera if I bought their subscription,
| and instead of a camera I've had their "support" read the
| same script about how they'll fix it within a few days since
| November. At least if I used Twitter as support, other people
| would see the issue that didn't get resolved.
| DoughnutHole wrote:
| Yea now we just have people only getting help with issues
| with Stripe when an exec has to respond to them making a
| stink about it on Hacker News.
| JeanSebTr wrote:
| It seems like an appropriate channel given the silliness of the
| question!
| rsynnott wrote:
| I think there was a _time_ when this worked; companies were
| very anxious about their Social Media Presence (TM) so would
| treat public social media messages, particularly complaints, as
| priority support cases. You can imagine all sorts of factors
| which would have decreased its effectiveness in recent years
| though; overuse, companies becoming more used to social media,
| the death of a usable Twitter API, making tracking this stuff
| difficult, the general decline of Twitter (if it's likely to be
| presented beside Elon Musk retweeting a white supremacist or
| something, are twitter complaints about your dishwasher being
| too noisy really all that consequential?)...
|
| It's definitely a thing some people still _believe_ in, though,
| and some people have twitter accounts which they use _solely_
| for moaning about brands (there used to be a fun Twitter
| account which replied to them, as if from the brand they were
| moaning about; not sure if it's still a thing).
| no_wizard wrote:
| Some still are anxious about it, but others have seemingly
| stopped caring, as I think they believe their near monopoly
| positions means bad PR no longer matters. Looking at Comcast
| in particular.
| albert_e wrote:
| In India, there are dozens of imposter accounts on twitter
| that pose as a bank's or telco's official handle.
|
| They are very often the more responsive, and very caring and
| polite, quick to admit they are at fault ... and lure
| complainers into sharing personal info on DM on promises of
| speedy resolution.
|
| This was a problem before Twitter became X. The blue tick
| mark was the only indicator of genuine accounts. Then X
| started selling tick marks to whoever pasy 8 dollars.
|
| Now it's wild west.
| gs17 wrote:
| Facebook has a similar issue (although in this case the
| accounts may be from India but they go after everyone).
| People commenting on a company's page will get replies from
| accounts that set their name to "CUSTOMER SERVICE" or "TECH
| SUPPORT" (Mr. and Mrs. Support must have really had a
| specific career path in mind for their child) saying
| they're here to help and to kindly message them for a
| solution.
|
| I've tried reporting these and Meta really does not care.
| Report as scam, nope looks fine to us. Report as fake name,
| nope looks fine to us. I don't think I've ever seen their
| report system work.
| matthewbunge wrote:
| It can depend on the company, but some companies literally
| don't have a public facing email anymore. I was trying to get
| in contact with Bank of America of whom I am not a customer
| because they were (and still are) spamming my inbox and the
| only human contact I managed at all was via their support
| Twitter page.
|
| Not that it got me anywhere in the long run.
| tantalor wrote:
| Back when Twitter was the most useful and popular (roughly
| 2018-2022), it was common for some companies to do support over
| tweets. Delta Air Lines (@delta) comes to mind.
|
| I think those days are over.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Often it was.
|
| I once had an insurance problem that was resolved only after I
| posted about it .. on Livejournal. They'd namesearched
| themselves and assigned a special team of super-customer
| service "fixers" (maybe just one person!) to look at complaints
| on social media.
|
| We all understand that the only customer support channel for
| Google for things like unjust account cancellations is to post
| and hope a Google employee reads it, yes?
| newsclues wrote:
| Because public complaints got traction and led to outcomes
| private complaints did not.
| VeninVidiaVicii wrote:
| I used Twitter at one point to get a replacement on a Patagonia
| backpack, through their actual claims department.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| I myself have always had luck with contacting customer service
| via Twitter. It's the only reason I have ever used Twitter.
|
| I recently had a problem with FedEx that wasn't resolved with
| multiple phone calls and emails.
|
| I messaged them on Twitter and had the problem resolved in
| minutes.
|
| I've had the same luck when I had a problem with a collections
| department calling my phone daily for 2+ years. They were
| looking for an individual that must have owned my phone number
| prior to me.
|
| I told the caller to remove my number from their list every
| time they called. I sent multiple emails.
|
| I finally had luck by reaching out to their Twitter account and
| politely threatening to alert my attorney general. The issue
| was resolved that same day.
| rogerrogerr wrote:
| I stumbled upon a new way to get out of this same situation -
| they'd been looking for Joshua for five years by calling my
| phone, and I am very much not him. All kinds of tactics.
|
| Mid last year, I just offered to pay the debt. Conversation
| looked like this:
|
| Them: "Can I speak to Joshua?"
|
| Me: "No, he's not here, and I think he's dead. But I'll write
| you a check right now for the debt amount to stop you calling
| me. How much is it?"
|
| Them: "So you are Joshua?"
|
| Me: "No, I'm just irritated and you've won, I'll solve this
| by paying you"
|
| Them: "What is your social security number?"
|
| Me: "Doesn't matter. How much do I write this check for?"
|
| Them: "We can't tell you the debt amount without verifying
| you are Joshua"
|
| Me: "Well, I guess we're at an impasse then."
|
| And they haven't called me again for nine glorious months.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| > Why do people think that Twitter is the support page for
| companies? Honest question.
|
| Evolution. Sometimes it's the only way to get support; people
| migrate to what works.
| lawgimenez wrote:
| Our country's Telecom company support was on Twitter, tweet or
| DM.
| navigate8310 wrote:
| Email is not as easily available on website but an official
| Twitter
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| A credit bureau literally asks you to do customer support via
| twitter
| nkrisc wrote:
| Judging by the nature of the blog, I don't think she was too
| serious about it.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Maybe it's an american-centric view, or maybe it's my small
| european mind that cannot comprehend why would someone publicly
| tweet something to a company instead of sending an email to ask
| a question.
|
| German here. Raising a stink on social media is the only thing
| that helps even for large national companies ( _cough_ telco
| providers _cough_ ).
|
| The reason is simple, the callcenters are either absolute
| doofuses barely capable of following a script or they're
| artificially restricted by the script. People with access to
| the corp social media account are more carefully vetted to have
| brains (because you don't want them to like some pr0n on the
| official account by accident) and social media criticism always
| has the potential to go viral, so the agents have _a lot_ of
| leeway to deal with enraged customers.
| fransje26 wrote:
| > (cough telco providers cough)
|
| You mean the cartel ruining (running) the telecommunication
| services? And then running ads on the radio gaslighting
| potential customers about how "cheap" they are? Yeah..
|
| Fun fact, it's often cheaper to use a foreign European data
| plan in Germany than to get a local contract. (Of course your
| mileage my vary. Some providers forbid it.)
| reginald78 wrote:
| I actually think it is just the public nature of it all. If
| there's a bunch of twitter posts on your page complaining
| about the product being crap that you're ignoring that
| already says something. Whereas if you resolve them in public
| you've turned bad PR into good PR. But bad customer service
| when they call in is just a rumor.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| I had to have my password reset a several years ago for some
| service, and the only mechanism they had to do this was to
| reach out to the company on Twitter. This would have been
| around 2018 and I remember thinking it was bizarre at the time.
| JaumeGreen wrote:
| A couple of years back I had a problem with a package that
| didn't reach me, and it was marked as delivered. The only point
| of contact that responded in any way was Twitter, the shipping
| company did not have other functioning way to connect to them.
|
| This was in Spain, so no, not only USA. I have not deleted my X
| user, even though I never use it, just in case I need to ever
| go in and contact some company that I can't contact otherwise.
| sedatk wrote:
| They don't?
|
| > To be fair, I hadn't really expected anyone in the company to
| get back to me
| btreecat wrote:
| I tweeted at DHL when the delivery driver didn't even knock on
| the door, they pulled up then left.
|
| They apologized and sent the dude back later the same day.
|
| Public shaming used to be a very effective tool
| aero142 wrote:
| The selling point software that monitors social media to do
| support is about brand reputation. If people are saying bad
| things about your company on social media, then that is hurting
| your public image, so you should respond to those issues and
| make sure they get resolved. In practice, this means that the
| people responding are less likely to be outsourced because the
| the funding is more than just a support cost. In practice, this
| means you can often get better support through Twitter than
| email.
| almog wrote:
| I wonder if it could prevent mice from chewing into food bags in
| the backcountry. Not sure what it would incur in terms of weight
| but could be another type of product instead of the alternatives
| (odor proof sack, Ursack and hanging).
| Damogran6 wrote:
| I use gloves when chopping up peppers. Don't want that
| capsaicin getting under the fingernails and then anywhere else
| mucosal membrane.
|
| Which is to day: It'd be good for bags you don't want to handle
| very much.
| mordechai9000 wrote:
| Bear spray is supposed to attract bears, and the story is they
| even like the taste - except when it's blasted into their
| eyes/nose/mouth/lungs. It is a food product. So I would be a
| little concerned about that.
| tomcam wrote:
| Easily one of the most informative rodent tape reviews I've read
| this week
| tyho wrote:
| I tasted the coin cell bitterant when I replaced my Airtag
| battery. Didn't taste very bitter to me.
| xnx wrote:
| An LLM would never predict the word sequence of this title
| KTibow wrote:
| Checking with GLTR:
|
| - 6 of the tokens were within the top 10 predictions - 8 of the
| tokens were in the #10-100 range - 3 of the tokens were in the
| #100-1000 range - 3 of the tokens weren't in any of the top
| 1000 predictions
| wolfgang42 wrote:
| TIL about http://demo.gltr.io/client/index.html
|
| The specific top_k counts were:
|
| I(4) tasted(927) Honda(5363)'s(0) spicy(327)
| rodent(11589)-(0)re(202)pelling(1) tape(5202) and(6) I(1)
| will(67) do(29) it(3) again(0)
|
| So we can conclude that the LLM doesn't think much of "tasted
| Honda" or "repelling tape", and was _very_ surprised by
| "Honda's spicy rodent", but it knows enough about human
| nature that "and I will do it again" came as almost no
| surprise whatsoever.
| glitchc wrote:
| This seems completely random...
| neilv wrote:
| That's a lot of faith in the supply chain, that someone didn't
| swap in an even worse material (because, who's going to notice;
| not the rats).
|
| Also, doesn't glamorizing this behavior, in a "lol im so random"
| way, encourage other people to do reckless stunts?
| nancyminusone wrote:
| Doing this once is probably no more reckless than licking an
| envelope.
| neilv wrote:
| The people who produce envelopes know that envelopes are
| likely to be licked, and that they would likely be in big
| trouble if they or a supplier substitutes in a material that
| sends someone to the hospital.
| mmmlinux wrote:
| Ah yes, Ive seen this episode of Seinfeld.
| the_af wrote:
| Well, those were a ton of envelopes... :)
| neilv wrote:
| I'm just guessing that the downvoters don't have young
| children, or haven't heard of some of the things that go on on
| social media.
| the_af wrote:
| My guess is that this is a funny column about whimsical
| things (often food related, the author seems to have worked
| as a restaurant critic) and it's full of "don't do this at
| home" disclaimers.
|
| So I'd say:
|
| - Your children shouldn't be reading her blog.
|
| - Adults reading her blog shouldn't imitate her behavior, and
| instead, take it as a bit of humor.
|
| I bet in reality she did a _little bit_ more fact-checking
| than she shows on her blog post.
| rozab wrote:
| NileRed has videos of him eating pure capsaicin, which evidently
| doesn't feel that spicy
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFvoCCRZWyI
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| I have a feeling NileRed's senses may be dulled; he also made
| some of the world's worst smelling stuff and didn't get much
| from it.
| alangibson wrote:
| He made military spec latrine odor and didn't think it was that
| bad. He's built different.
| treefarmer wrote:
| He also permanently damaged his sense of smell/taste, so I feel
| like he might not be the most reliable source...
| efitz wrote:
| Thank you Liz Cook for this brave and important research!
|
| Love the writing style.
| tofof wrote:
| Liquid capsaicin treatments for bird seed are an effective
| squirrel repellent.
|
| They also illustrate the evolution of this protein: birds have no
| receptors for capsaicin, while mammals do. Birds eat seeds mostly
| intactly. Their digestive systems are capable of breaking them
| down - but it's stochastic and some seeds make it through the
| bird undigested, being redistributed elsewhere. Obviously, having
| an agent sow your seeds widely is a fitness advantage, and so
| seedy plants are ultimately served well even if 90+% of their
| caloric investment into seeds goes into the birds.
|
| Mammals, on the other hand, have teeth - particularly molars.
| Mammals that eat seeds grind them apart orally before even
| swallowing. As a result, any seeds ingested by mammals are very
| likely to be completely destroyed. Plants - peppers, anyway -
| found a chemical irritant that repels the mammals without even
| being sensed by birds.
|
| I've used one such treatment (with an amusing logo illustrataion
| - https://i.imgur.com/JAl8vyW.png) to good effect to discourage
| squirrels at my feeder, so that they stick to my dedicated
| squirrel bungee with a log of compressed corn instead.
| cdaringe wrote:
| Incredible image. My squirrel neighbors may get a dose this
| spring
| nkrisc wrote:
| Interestingly, that very irritant is now the key to the
| widespread success of some pepper species by the way of a
| specific species of mammals.
| tofof wrote:
| Oh? Which pepper species and carrier mammal are involved
| here?
|
| Edit: DERP duh you mean humans. :D Literally made the
| comparison without recognizing it, too. /Edit
|
| Not challenging you, just curious and not immediately finding
| the answer myself with a quick search.
|
| The capsaicin receptor is TRPV1, which is a critical protein
| for thermoregulation and detection of being burned. In other
| words, it's not just a quick and easy evolutionary path to
| have a mutation break the receptor for capsaicin and now be
| immune to the taste. Obviously the animals could evolve
| behavior or even simply learn as juveniles to tolerate or
| even enjoy the taste (as many humans do).
|
| There are some other interesting things that happen with
| avian carriers, like reductions in fungal infection and
| attractiveness to other predators (ants).
| https://www.washington.edu/news/2013/06/21/airborne-gut-
| acti...
| jumhyn wrote:
| I believe it's a cheeky reference to humans intentionally
| cultivating hot peppers specifically because of their
| capsaicin-producing quality. :)
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| One of many in a long list of evolved pesticides
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Others are nicotine, caffeine and cocaine.
|
| What else?
|
| EDIT: and morphine!
| mofunnyman wrote:
| Those are resticides.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| I don't care what you call it, if it ends in "ine" its
| good enough for me.
| tonymillion wrote:
| Strychnine
|
| side note: It kills you by making all your muscles tense
| so strongly that you can't breath any more. The muscles
| in your face tense in a way that it gives you whats
| called a "Strychnine Smile".
| aqme28 wrote:
| >Strychnine Smile
|
| Can also be caused by Tetanus
| bregma wrote:
| Or running for political office.
| glenneroo wrote:
| Or getting into a car accident:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIbotIsLJWw
| tonymillion wrote:
| Amphetamine Dopamine Ketamine
|
| Now thats a party!
|
| (and as I said in another reply) Strychnine
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| THC from the cannabis plant. It is a very long list
| though, plants go to a great deal of effort to deter
| pests so the list would be more limited by the subset of
| plants that humans find useful to cultivate.
| markdown wrote:
| Kavalactones
| bobthepanda wrote:
| It is also somewhat anti microbial, so it became useful for
| food preservation. See: kimchi
| cnity wrote:
| Though you're right, in kimchi the primary preservative is
| initially the saltiness and then later the low pH caused by
| lactobacilli producing lactic acids.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I don't dispute that. My understanding is that the
| introduction of chili allowed a reduction in salt
| content, which was important in an era where salt was
| expensive to produce.
| cyberax wrote:
| You can make fermented cabbage without any hot peppers.
| It's common in Slavic cultures.
| dunham wrote:
| I'm guessing it was common in Korea before chilis were
| brought back from the americas.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| my understanding of the development was that chili was
| used to cut the amount of salt, which wasn't cheap to
| produce
| neom wrote:
| Chilli was introduced to Kimchi during the Imjin War. The
| Portuguese had brought them to Japan perviously, as far
| as I've seen all kimchi recipe prior to that is only
| garlic heavy, I like that style of kimchi better
| personally.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| It's common all over. Fermented cabbage is also called
| sauerkraut.
| bigiain wrote:
| Now I feel a need to spin up and emulator or something
| capable of playing Castle Wolfenstein.
|
| (Dear god, I'm showing my age there, aren't I?)
| jorvi wrote:
| Apparently (some) peppers are anti-inflammatory, which I
| guess I have to accept the science of, but still disagree
| with on an empirical level.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| [citation needed]
|
| (My peppers ferment just find using microbes.)
| bobthepanda wrote:
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8042654/
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4643145/
|
| https://www.ijrar.org/papers/IJRAR1944311.pdf
|
| Antimicrobial doesn't necessarily mean it literally kills
| everything.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Reminds me of the theory that wheat domesticated humans.
| fsckboy wrote:
| driving down the road I was inspired to taste some fresh
| wheat grains in a field: tasted a lot like flour. what is
| that "thing"? an attractive tasty flour nodule? the energy
| yolk to the seed's egg?
| meindnoch wrote:
| It's called endosperm. A bunch of starch that nourishes
| the embryo when the seed germinates.
| Diti wrote:
| Speaking of sperm, it reminds me of that funny theory
| about choanoflagellates:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38865865
| nkrisc wrote:
| Basically, yes. Though wheat didn't look like that
| initially. We've cultivated it to become like that over
| thousands of years.
|
| Same for corn (maize). There is no naturally occurring
| plant that looks like what we've turned it into.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| I picture your ancestors impulsively tasting mushrooms,
| and figuring out which ones were not poisonous enough to
| kill them. Thank you for your lineage!
|
| In Mexico, our ancestors cultivated corn despite not
| knowing fungicides to prevent mycotoxin contamination.
| Somehow they discovered nixtamalization, which is boiling
| corn in an alkaline solution that destroys mycotoxins and
| improves nutritional value. Guess they really loved corn.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization
| lawlessone wrote:
| >Somehow they discovered nixtamalization, which is
| boiling corn in an alkaline solution that destroys
| mycotoxins and improves nutritional value.
|
| that one always amazes me. How did they figure it out?
| it's not exactly intuitive, especially when they wouldn't
| have known about the chemistry underneath.
|
| It would probably take weeks or months to notice if doing
| A instead of B was making people sick or not
| smegsicle wrote:
| boiling corn in limestone pots makes it taste better
| kjellsbells wrote:
| It might not be that the process was discovered so much
| as the method of cooking pot production happened to suit
| the food being cooked.
|
| In particular, lots of civilizations learned to
| strengthen the basic clay pot by the addition of lime-y
| things, eg burnt mussel shells. If all your pots are made
| in this manner then you dont so much discover
| nixtamalization as experience it only by its absence when
| you meet settlers that have pellagra and dont use your
| style of pot.
|
| See [0] for a technical write up on this and many other
| pot themes.
|
| [0]
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/arcm.12986
| nemosaltat wrote:
| I was in Cape Cod for a wedding late last year with some
| friends, and came across what we later learned was a Yew.
| Some of us had popped into an ice cream shop, and one of
| the members of my party apparently decided to eat a sweet
| berry while they waited.
|
| When we came out, we were initially incredulous but they
| clarified that the flesh of the berry was sweet, but the
| seed was disgustingly bitter. Which prompted the rest of
| us to quickly do some research on what this plant was.
| The mood was initially somewhat light-hearted, however
| articles with titles like "Why is the Yew Berry sometimes
| called the Death Berry?" had us on the phone with poison
| control pretty quickly.
|
| Poison control was very professional, and once they
| confirmed that it was indeed a Yew Berry that had been
| ingested, things got pretty serious. Apparently even
| small doses can quickly cause irreversible heart failure,
| with death the earliest "symptom" in some cases.
|
| My friend didn't die-- just experienced some terror and
| gastric distress-- the latter likely exacerbated by the
| terror). No drugs or alcohol or involved, just an
| impulsive decision, and a sobering reminder about the
| fragility of life.
|
| One of the other replies in this thread mentions
| mushrooms. Which reminds of the aphorism: _There are old
| mushroom foragers, and bold mushroom foragers, but there
| are no old AND bold mushroom foragers._
| klik99 wrote:
| Yikes - I love foraging, but I am extremely conservative
| about what I eat. This makes me thankful I'm not a bold
| forager.
|
| My friend has a running joke calling Yew poison berries,
| but I never looked up the effects before. Great that you
| called poison control.
| thayne wrote:
| Being delicious to humans is a pretty good evolutionary
| advantage. Although, not necessarily good for the longevity
| of individuals of that species, see, for example, cattle.
| nubinetwork wrote:
| So you're saying that if I wanted to eat a lot of hot peppers,
| I should just swallow them whole? Asking for a friend of
| course...
| lupusreal wrote:
| That'll work the day you eat them. The day after however...
| jbotz wrote:
| It's called "the ring of fire".
| foobiekr wrote:
| I find that it is an effective rat repellent - a neighbor has a
| rat colony they will not address - but while it was effective
| for squirrels at first, they seem to have gotten over it, and
| we now see them eating dropped seeds without any pause at all.
| I think the first generation never overcame it but now they do
| eat whatever the birds spill.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Step 1: Buy poison station. Step 2: if poison station works
| in your yard, fling exhibit over the fence to delegate pest
| control duties to correct home
| pfooti wrote:
| Poisoned rats are eaten by owls and raptors, who then die
| or move out of the neighborhood.
| 1024core wrote:
| Why poison an animal just trying to survive?
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Mice are cute as hell, but we have traps on the kitchen
| counters (they come in in the fall) because they _shit
| everywhere they walk_. It 's not as clear-cut as you make
| it out to be.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Because I do not want hantavirus. Their droppings spread
| nasty diseases.
| xp84 wrote:
| I have a deal with all of the animals. They stay out of
| our houses, we leave them alone. We can't coexist in a
| home with wild rodents for sanitary reasons. Thankfully,
| at my home only ants don't get the memo and must be
| poisoned at scale outside their favorite point of access.
|
| (Spiders have a special deal: Just stay out of sight
| while inside and we're gucci. But I'll just move them
| outside because I see them as allies against the
| insects.)
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| Mint... it will grow like crazy and reodentia hate it. Catnip
| is even better because it attracts cats.
|
| https://www.evergreenseeds.com/do-mint-plants-keep-mice-
| away...
| mauvehaus wrote:
| A mouse died in my plow truck this summer and the smell was
| unreal. Like, thank god I got the power windows working
| bad.
|
| I was told that Irish Spring soap is minty enough to repel
| mice. Based on the scratch/tooth marks in the bar I left in
| the glovebox, it apparently isn't.
|
| Next summer, I'll try something with peppermint oil.
| Assuming I can get the transmission fixed for a reasonable
| price. Not having reverse is proving to be a hassle.
| jbotz wrote:
| Pure essential peppermint oil definitely works as a
| rodent repellent, even in very small quantities, although
| the effect wears off pretty quickly (that's the thing
| about essential oils, the essence is volatile). Plan to
| reapply every 3-7 days. Btw. the reason it works that
| that for rodents the sense of smell is primary, and mint
| smell overpowers everything else, so in its presence they
| are effectively blind.
| dunham wrote:
| In my previous house, I had mice get into a bag of gochugaru,
| so I guess some mice can tolerate it. For squirrels, I've
| only sprinkled it on the ground to keep them from digging up
| my garlic cloves.
| doubletwoyou wrote:
| for those unaware like I might've been, gochugaru is Korean
| red pepper powder
| adamrezich wrote:
| Not a good deer repellant, though--at least for the mule deer
| around here. My mom once sprayed some plants she had to prevent
| the local pests from eating them, but instead, they just ate
| the plants anyway, and then proceeded to shit all over the yard
| everywhere.
| intrasight wrote:
| >shit all over the yard everywhere
|
| They do that in any case
| adamrezich wrote:
| It was particularly messy in this case.
| gkoberger wrote:
| If the above comment was interesting to you... you might really
| like the YouTube video "The truth about Hot Ones sauces"! It
| goes into this theory, along with how spice levels are
| measured.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dutpBSKj8JY
| jasonpeacock wrote:
| Yep, you can get spicy bird food which completely eliminates
| squirrel, rat, rabbit, racoon, and other issues with your bird
| feeders:
|
| https://order.wbu.com/shop/bird-food/hot-pepper
|
| It's a game changer, it's the only bird food that I use now.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| > capsaicin
|
| they have no heat receptors?? capsaicin literally triggers the
| ion channel for thermosensing.
| burnished wrote:
| Probably a different channel that isn't triggered by
| capsaicin
| sitharus wrote:
| Capsaicin binds to TRPV1 receptors, which are mammal-
| specific. Other animals have different proteins in this role
| and birds in particular are not sensitive to it. Also TVRP1
| is only triggered by temperatures over 43degC, lower
| temperatures are sensed by other proteins.
|
| Capsaicin isn't just effective on mammals, it also has an
| effect on some fungi and insects, though mostly through
| metabolic disruption.
| widforss wrote:
| Have you seen birds swimming in the winter? Doubt they care
| much about temperature. /s
| sargun wrote:
| Where does the capsaicin go? How much ends up in the bird's
| blood, egg, and muscles?
| jbotz wrote:
| It gets metabolised. No you can't make Chili Chicken by
| feeding chilies to the chicken before killing and cooking it.
| afpx wrote:
| The fox population has grown a lot near me. I often have a
| couple foxes sleeping in my back yard at night. I used to have
| a major squirrel problem, but The foxes ate them all.
| conductr wrote:
| We have coyotes around in DFW. Not too many in the urban core
| areas (mid-century suburbs), so the squirrel are rampant. Out
| in the exurbs (more recent suburbs), the coyote population is
| high enough I practically never see a squirrel.
|
| Granted - the older areas have more mature oak, pecan, and
| other nut producing trees too. But there should be some
| squirrels out in the exurbs and I never see any. I've spent
| some significant time out there too. They have more rabbits
| than I see intown, which I imagine is the coyotes main food
| source.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Can I get bird seeds that the birds hate and then they stay
| away from my balcony because of bad associations?
| jader201 wrote:
| I need a good bird repellent for windows.
|
| We eventually took our feeder down after birds kept crashing
| into our windows near the feeder.
|
| I can only assume they were trying to get to "the other bird
| feeder".
|
| It was great while it lasted, though. We -- and our cats --
| loved watching them crowd around the feeder to enjoy some seed.
| jcoby wrote:
| Squirrels kept trying to get my squirrel proof bird feeder and
| then they'd get mad and chew on the furniture when they
| couldn't get the seed. And they'd poop in the rails because
| they're squirrels.
|
| I smeared some Last Dab on the bird feeder support and cayenne
| on the furniture and railings and haven't seen a squirrel
| since.
| unnamed76ri wrote:
| How exactly did plants find this chemical irritant?
| cyberpunk wrote:
| Survival of the fittest. One plant was a tiny tiny bit more
| spicy by freak chance and it did a little better than the
| others, over many years..
|
| Probably.
| bun_at_work wrote:
| Using a random walk algorithm through genetic space over
| millions (or billions) of years.
| rtkwe wrote:
| I friend of mine got that and spilled it in their house and I
| had me coughing the whole time I was over there till they were
| able to air it out so be careful if you're handling it indoors
| some people get got by it worse than others.
| RachelF wrote:
| >birds have no receptors for capsaicin, while mammals do.
|
| True. I suspect it is only placental mammals. Brush-tailed
| possums (a marsupial mammal) do not seem repelled by it at all.
| I've had my birds eyes and Carolina Reaper chilly plants and
| fruit eaten by them.
| timewizard wrote:
| > Mammals, on the other hand, have teeth
|
| Chewing is also an imperfect process. Mammals, and I can tell
| you this personally and with some disdain, sometimes pass seeds
| as well.
|
| > found a chemical irritant that repels the mammals
|
| Deer, and I can tell you this personally and with some disdain,
| seem to love peppers as much as we do. They're also harder to
| keep out of your yard.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| Land Rover/Jaguar could benefit from this tape.
|
| Rodents love chewing on the electrical harnesses in these
| vehicles.
|
| When I ran an import repair shop, my clients owned over 100
| Jaguar sedans, and every single one of them was towed in at some
| point due to rodent-damaged wiring. While the problem wasn't as
| severe with Land Rovers, we still had more than 40 of them towed
| in each year for the same issue.
| tim333 wrote:
| In one of my previous flats we had rats and mice which we
| ignored - my flatmate was jain so very live and let live -
| until one day I turned the cooker on and there was a huge bang
| - they'd gnawed off the insulation on the power cables.
|
| I didn't know about chillies but it might have helped.
| _moof wrote:
| It's a big problem in old airplanes too. I've known a few
| pilots who found out their nav lights (on the wingtips) weren't
| working anymore because a mouse got inside the wing.
| mythrwy wrote:
| We had trouble with deer mice eating car wiring.
|
| I found this spray at the feed store that looked to be a sort of
| small outfit based on the label. It was hot pepper extract,
| diesel, glycerin, a few other ingredients. Worked really well.
| But then it disappeared so I made my own.
|
| I bought a few bags of dried cayenne peppers, crushed them and
| soaked them in acetone (no I didn't care if the mice got cancer
| at that point). Then filtered and discarded the remaining pepper
| chunks and let the acetone evaporate in a pan outside. I then got
| a few glycerin suppositories from the pharmacy and mixed with
| kerosene, the pepper extract and a little peppermint oil and had
| my own spray. A few times a year I spray down the engine blocks
| and wiring harnesses and we haven't had an issue since.
| sitkack wrote:
| > It smelled like a Band-Aid-flavored Rockstar Energy drink. It
| tasted like...heat. The capsaicin was subtler than I expected:
| nothing abrasive or punishing, just a blushing, ambient warmth
| like a string of white Christmas lights. There was almost a
| numbing, mala element, in the vein of a Sichuan peppercorn.
| wiether wrote:
| The topic, the style...
|
| Love it!
|
| Just someone having fun doing something stupid and sharing it
| with the world.
| ielillo wrote:
| I remember reading that rodents chewed car cables since the
| insulation was made using the same compound as soy and that
| attracted them, but in reality it was just they liked chewing on
| stuff. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a21933466/does-your-car-
| ha...
| bityard wrote:
| I just read that article and it doesn't appear to agree with
| your conclusion. That was just a single quote from a a pest
| control guy who works for Orkin.
|
| The article does say that car owners and mechanics have noted a
| large increase in rodent damage to car wiring with the new soy-
| based insulation while manufacturers have denied any
| connection. Likely because they are fighting several class-
| action lawsuits over it.
| michaelmior wrote:
| In my case, I was told it was because the rubber was made using
| peanut oil. I had a squirrel chew through one of the O2 sensors
| on my car.
| nemo44x wrote:
| I had a car once that a chipmunk or mouse decided to give birth
| in. The car wasn't used often but as fate would have it the
| litter was born somewhere in the engine and when we went for a
| short trip they were all killed. This was not noticed until the
| stench of their decomposition wafted into the vehicle a week or
| so after the fact. Again, the car wasn't used often.
|
| The shop removed the mangled bodies, replaced all the air filter
| components, etc. It took a few months for traces of the scent to
| finally dissipate. Or maybe we got used to it?
|
| Regardless, the car sold a couple years later. My next car was
| new.
| zehaeva wrote:
| I love humans. You all are so weird, wild, and wonderful.
|
| I'm also inspired to use capsaicin to fight my personal fight
| with some squirrels that feel the _need_ to live in my garage.
| They ignore all my humane traps and are chill with all the light
| and sound disruptions I put in there.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| At least squirrel droppings aren't a hantavirus vector (right?)
| the_sleaze_ wrote:
| > This is the Haterade promise: I will only ever use your money
| irresponsibly.
|
| 10/10
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| I thought rodents like engines because they're warm. Isn't that
| what attracts them to those spots in the first place?
| magneticnorth wrote:
| Yes? And while they're there, you don't want them to chew on
| the wires.
|
| You can't prevent your engine from being warm (assuming you
| need to use your vehicles), but you can make it less appealing
| to gnaw on the nice chewy parts of it.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| That makes sense. I was reading some of the comments and
| thought people were implying that rodents seek out wiring as
| a food source.
| biscuits1 wrote:
| If I could upvote this article twice, I would.
| jfultz wrote:
| Fortunately for me, you left this comment, so I upvoted the
| article and your comment. Which kind of scratches the same
| itch.
| wsh wrote:
| The manufacturer's product page, with a link to the MSDS:
|
| https://www.teraokatape.co.jp/english/products/class/class00...
|
| Data sheet describing the "rat prevention effect":
|
| https://www.teraokatape.co.jp/english/products/Rat_Preventio...
| Lanzaa wrote:
| Those links are dead.
|
| Correct link to "Rodent-proof vinyl adhesive tape No. 347":
|
| https://www.teraokatape.co.jp/english/products/rodent-proof-...
| wsh wrote:
| Both links worked earlier, but they don't work for me now,
| either.
|
| Anyway, the data sheet explains how the manufacturer tested
| the tape's effectiveness with rats. The Wayback Machine has a
| copy:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20201017204509/https://www.terao.
| ..
| anoncow wrote:
| From 2021. Fun read.
| geephroh wrote:
| Dunno if it would have helped this poor guy:
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/09/30/squirrel-tr...
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Also effective: petroleum-based plastics for the wiring
| insulation.
|
| Some squirrels chewed on my add-on wiring harness in my pickup
| back when it was parked outside (this the thanks I get for hard
| braking when they run across the road in my neighborhood) but
| never touched the vehicle's wiring harness. Why? Because the
| vehicle was built in 2009 and used old formulations instead of
| the new plastics with tasty bits in their formulas.
| delfinom wrote:
| You are repeating FUD. There is no soy in the final plastic.
|
| The plastic is derived from soy that serves as a cheap source
| of organic molecules, but it's converted into polymers no
| different from petroleum based plastics.
|
| Did you know that most wall paint is made from corn? It's hyper
| processed into latex.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| There's something. Little guys could have more easily chewed
| on the harness for my trailer hitch, for example, or the main
| harness - thankfully they didn't, it might have totaled the
| vehicle - but went for the new stuff.
|
| There's enough anecdotal evidence to warrant a real
| experiment on whether rodentia prefer new plastics over old.
| gruez wrote:
| >You are repeating FUD. There is no soy in the final plastic.
|
| Did the parent edit his comment? I don't see any mention
| about soy, only "tasty bits".
| scythe wrote:
| From page 12:
|
| https://www.judicialhellholes.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2016/01...
|
| >This soy-based insulated wiring was touted as being more
| "environmentally friendly" due to, _inter alia_ , the
| biodegradable nature of the soy-based insulation as compared
| to traditional plastic insulation.
|
| While it is no doubt possible to process biochemicals into
| petrochemical-equivalent synthetic polymers, it appears that
| at least one law firm doesn't believe that happened here. And
| they go on to claim that Honda had claimed they were using
| biodegradable insulation, which a traditional wire generally
| is not.
| teslabox wrote:
| My dad lost two sets of sparkplug wires to pack rats [0],
| circa 2016-2017. I recall him sharing that the auto store
| staff told him the bioplastics used to insulate the wires
| tastes like peanuts. He switched to a different brand, and
| didn't lose another set.
|
| Searching now I found this website about the soy-based wire
| problem: https://www.howtopreventratsfromeatingcarwires.com/2
| 017/02/1...
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42074028
| sumea wrote:
| Maybe it is mostly FUD, but it does not mean it is
| impossible. Yes, soy-based plastics are very processed, but
| it does not mean that the end product has no impurities that
| "smell" like soy. Rodents have very sensitive smell and some
| can even detect landmines. Also, plastics made solely from
| biomaterial or with bio-based components (e.g. plasticizers)
| are not (always) chemically exactly similar to petroleum-
| based plastics.
|
| I found one research article from 2020 titled "Assessing
| Rodent Gnawing of Elastomers Containing Soybean Oil
| Derivatives". It did not find statistically significant
| difference in rodents gnawing when soy oil derivates were
| added to plastics. Maybe they have found a way to remove the
| tasty components.
|
| https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssuschemeng.0c05868
| ceroxylon wrote:
| "That is a pervert's question."
|
| This whole article seems to be revolving around getting
| engagement and being verbose, they could have just said "rodent
| repelling tape exists and they put spice in it" and I would have
| received the same message.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| If George Carlin had just told me what the seven words were, I
| could have saved myself 40 minutes watching his show.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| The seven dirty programming languages: perl haskell cobol
| brainfuck basic java c
|
| The seven dirty programming paradigms: imperative centralized
| mutable static object-oriented loosely-typed globals
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| Phew, I can still say PHP on TV.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| I remember when Python developers used to have a sense of
| humor.
| the_af wrote:
| It's not supposed to be informative, it's supposed to be funny.
|
| And while I'll readily accept that funniness is in the eye of
| the beholder, in my case it achieved its intended effect. I
| also read some other blog posts of the same author, and she
| seems consistently funny!
| mcny wrote:
| > Plus, my head wouldn't fit beneath the manifold.
|
| I love the funny idea that they tried
| Shank wrote:
| I'm sure the reasoning behind this is that it just has to
| discourage, and therefore the capsaicin amount is low enough to
| do that, but also cheap enough to manufacture in tape format and
| sell at a markup.
|
| What I'm more interested in is...does this actually work? Could
| you put this tape on things in your house that could actually be
| targets for rats? On random pantry items? On your siding?
| donaldihunter wrote:
| Rodents nibble (and destroy) _everything_ plastic adjacent in my
| garage. I guess it's time for high-scoville countermeasures.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Or seal the garage, trap and poison them, and keep
| accumulations of cozy nesting material to a minimum.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| The world needs more people like her!
| lolc wrote:
| Funny read. There could be a huge difference between licking the
| tape and chewing the tape. Which I guess is why they found it to
| be mildly spicy and not hellishly spicy.
| gradschool wrote:
| I wouldn't have expected tape infused with capsaicin to have any
| deterrent effect on mice given Mousetrap Monday's video evidence
| to the contrary [1]. Is it possible that the high price of the
| tape mentioned in the article isn't entirely justified?
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/LBWskgp-G00
| brie22 wrote:
| Would this be a good deterrent for cats? One of my cats has
| gnawed through several USB cables too in range to its mouth,
| destroying keyboards, webcams, ... Would be wonderful if so!
| noman-land wrote:
| You can often cut off the frayed ends and splice the wires back
| together. There's usually only 4-5 wires in there and they're
| color coded so they're simple to match back up.
| mv4 wrote:
| I enjoyed reading this.
| noman-land wrote:
| This is delightful, and hilarious. The bloody mary rimmed with
| spicy mouse tape made me lol. This is a creative mind here.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| I fear that the Spicy Rodent Tape Challenge will be the next
| Tiktok-propelled viral social media thing.
| nashashmi wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7d4gHBjA5NU
|
| Someone who actually tasted it and gave a review of the tape.
|
| Jerry rig everything.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| I notice the article predates this video by a few years.
| Clearly Liz Cook was tasting Honda's Spicy Tape before it was
| cool.
| mthamil wrote:
| I love Liz Cook, she's one of the best food writers around.
| giarc wrote:
| That's one of the best blog posts I've read in a while. It nails
| the idea of "write one line that makes the reader want to read
| the next". It's humorous but also serious. There's no fluff.
| Instant subscribe.
| taurknaut wrote:
| Damn I could have gotten the "no fluff" version by looking at
| wikipedia or just googling.
|
| Why do people expect their non-fiction reading to be
| entertaining? That's not the point and I inherently don't trust
| your judgement if that's what you're looking for. At some point
| you've got to provide insight.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| > At some point you've got to provide insight.
|
| Why though? Seinfeld had nine seasons of no insight and it
| did okay.
| devilbunny wrote:
| I read entertaining nonfiction all the time. Not everything
| has to be an algebra textbook. Try Ben Macintyre if you like
| spy/war stories.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Wikipedia won't inform me about the social media and email
| dynamics at a car manufacturer. Just the email response alone
| was entertaining and informative: self-aware humor-encrusted
| legalese that is very human. I can appreciate it for what it
| is: great PR work from a professional. Wikipedia is pretty
| humorless, it probably wouldn't even acknowledge the subtext.
| papertokyo wrote:
| But would you have thought to research how a specific car
| manufacturer's spicy anti-rodent tape tasted in the first
| place?
|
| There's an element of discovery in this article, as well as
| being entertaining and informative. Her writing is--
| subjectively and objectively--uncommonly good.
| tfehring wrote:
| It's like the opposite of clickbait. The author did, upon
| information and belief, taste Honda's spicy rodent-repelling
| tape, and made a strong case that she will in fact do it again
| unless someone stops her. Truly giving the people what they
| want.
| sizzle wrote:
| The cynic in me questions how much writing is enhanced with AI
| these days rather than being the authentic style of an author.
| Great read nonetheless...
| yojo wrote:
| It's from 2021, so you're probably safe on this one, but I
| feel your angst.
| bigiain wrote:
| If yiu have any real examples of llm written text that's as
| fun to read as that, I'd be curious to see them. Most llm
| text I see is vapid and uninspired. Kinda exactly the
| mediocre writing you'd expect from a machine designed to
| create statistically average sentences based on all the
| writing its creators could steal.
|
| LLMs write bland LinkedIn "thinkpieces", not Douglas Adams
| style creative wordplay.
| looneysquash wrote:
| Did anyone determine the heat of the tape on the
| [scoville](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale) scale?
|
| Personally, for stuff not intended for food or food prep, what I
| would worry about (even if the MSDS didn't have anything
| concerning) is an unlisted/unknown contaminant.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| I bet it's not that high. They've got to worry about the
| mechanic rubbing his eyes after applying this tape.
| jcims wrote:
| Obviously not recommended but pepper spray works to spice up a
| drink in a pinch.
| y33t wrote:
| Brilliant idea. Now we need to spray capsaicin all over the
| inside of our vehicles. I had mice chew up the firewall for
| nesting material. Pain. In. The. Ass.
|
| My neighbor keeps an old tuna can filled with gopher poison
| (strychnine laced grains) strapped to the inside of his car. Mice
| are destructive little bastards.
| leonixyz wrote:
| The most hilarious thing to me in this story is the PR guy who
| replied "most of the things sold in the US these days require
| warnings about causing cancer". And everybody seems fine with
| that. LOL
| larrik wrote:
| I caught that too, though I believe the California warnings are
| generally of the form "if you can't _prove_ nothing in there
| causes cancer, then it might cause cancer. "
| xsmasher wrote:
| It's ridiculous, but maybe not the way you think; Prop 65 in
| California classified a lot of things as requiring
| notification, including things like "Wood Dust." so now every
| apartment building has a sign in the hallway that says "this
| building may contain chemicals" and everyone ignores it. The
| law has lead to people being less informed rather than more
| informed.
| classichasclass wrote:
| I despise Prop 65 warnings in principle, but the damnable
| thing about them is they may actually have some
| effectiveness, if this study is to be believed (
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11651356/ ): "Levels
| of certain chemicals listed under California's law have
| declined in biosamples from people across the nation. ...
| Although the law did not require changes to product
| formulations or processes, interviews with representatives of
| affected companies have indicated that many businesses did
| alter formulations to avoid having to post warnings or
| manufacture special products just for California."
|
| The study has a lot of limitations, and NHANES is not really
| designed for this kind of analysis, but it sounds like the
| warnings do well as a cudgel to beat manufacturers with even
| if regular individuals ignore them. Even more interesting is
| the knock-on effects Prop 65 has on people _outside_ of
| California. Overall it seems like an argument to keep them
| around, sort of.
| bigtimesink wrote:
| They're as silly as they sound. Growing up, there was a sign
| when you enter the school's bus storage and maintenance area.
| More recently, I've seen them at Starbucks (for coffee), in the
| vinegar section of the grocery store, and on untreated lumber.
|
| This isn't California being California, but it is well-meaning
| legislation getting out-of-hand because of enforcement
| mechanisms. It's like website cookie warnings. It was a nice
| idea, but it lead to a silly place.
| kayge wrote:
| Whenever I see these warnings in the wild, I (jokingly...
| mostly) think to myself: "well I don't have to worry about
| getting cancer from this because I live in Texas now, not
| California"
| krick wrote:
| I remember when I first bought a knife either made in USA or
| just targeted at that market (not sure: I mean, I don't think
| it was the first thing I bought made by an USA company, but
| I've never seen that warning before), and found that warning
| inside the package I was quite puzzled, like WTF, I though I
| was buying a good knife, not some recycled hazardous waste-
| material or whatever this is. Then, of course, I googled and
| found out that they stick it on pretty much anything, so that
| plastic handle is probably just like any plastic handle of any
| knife I held before. But still it was very weird.
| _moof wrote:
| I once walked into a hospital that had a prop 65 warning on the
| door.
| pwillia7 wrote:
| Super writing. Very entertaining
| spicy-punk-fog wrote:
| Advertisements have gone out of hand these days
| morkalork wrote:
| Fun blog, I liked the review of a 20 something year old book on
| garnishing.
| DoubleGlazing wrote:
| On a similar note one of my childrens friends absolutely loves
| the taste of Nintendo Switch cartridges and licks them untill the
| bitter coating wears off.
|
| His tastebuds must be wired different.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Is it any weirder than adults that like India pale ales?
| austinprete wrote:
| Well, presumably he isn't drunk after polishing off a few
| cartridges in a sitting.
| mirawelner wrote:
| Sometimes I think to myself 'I should ignore HackerNews and do
| all my posting on lobste.rs' and then I come across a post like
| this and I remember why I love this site.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| We had a rat in our engine. I cleared it's nest out 3 times and
| tried putting peppermint oil everywhere. Nothing worked it kept
| coming back. Then one day it snowed and we saw blood everywhere.
| It appears the crows killed our rat. Problem solved!
| munchler wrote:
| Sorry, how does the snow factor into this tale?
| irjoe wrote:
| I imagine the red blood was very noticeable on the white
| snow. I might be wrong though.
| rolph wrote:
| someday soon were gonna see the movie scene where someone is
| restrained, gagged, and blindfolded with the stuff
| dheera wrote:
| I always thought bitter stuff would be a better repellent than
| spicy stuff.
| aschla wrote:
| When I lived in Chicago with a car, and parked it in the small
| lot behind a condo building, I had to battle with the rats
| chewing through my car's wires. Twice they chewed through the MAP
| sensor wires which caused all kinds of misfires. Had to rewire
| that whole section of the harness. Then wrapped every wire I
| could see with this rat tape, and it worked for a while, until
| maybe the hot/cold cycle of the engine bay degraded the tape
| enough to not be effective.
|
| They loved the warmth of the engine in winter. They'd climb up
| into the engine bay and hang out throughout it, bringing along
| nesting material, aka trash.
|
| To try get rid of them, I tried the typical bait boxes,
| specialized rat traps, regular rat traps, peppermint, moth balls,
| a motion sensor light underneath the car, and more. The only
| thing that really worked was sending so many rat reports to the
| city that they had to keep coming out to bait the burrows in the
| neighbors small yard, until they likely talked to the owner
| directly to do something about it. I had talked with the guy
| briefly once and asked him about the rats (that were obviously
| only coming from his small backyard), and his response was pretty
| much "well it's the city so yeah they're around." Pretty sure one
| of his tenants also abruptly moved out because the rats chewed
| through their car too.
|
| The lack of awareness from the guy contributed to me moving out
| of the city for good. Couldn't stand playing the lottery of good
| neighbors when most were either renters or inept owners, or a
| combination of both.
| apeace wrote:
| > The only thing that really worked was sending so many rat
| reports to the city that they had to keep coming out to bait
| the burrows in the neighbors small yard, until they likely
| talked to the owner directly to do something about it.
|
| I was recently deputized into the "Rat Pack" of New York
| City[1].
|
| The main thing I learned is that exactly what you said is true.
| When there are rat problems, you have to go to the source.
| Traps/poison in a localized area is not going to work, as the
| brown rat is easily able to reproduce faster than we can kill
| them with those methods.
|
| In fact, certain methods have ended up _helping_ the rats. At
| one point the city put out thousands of boxes with poison in
| them. The problem is the boxes were designed to be nice and
| cozy for the rats, so they 'd be tempted to go in and eat the
| poison. Instead, they go in there and mate. (They also use the
| boxes to evade predators).
|
| NYC's current strategy is to improve data collection on rats,
| and then use that data to better enforce standards (like
| garbage disposal), eradicate burrows, and plant different
| shrubs that aren't as friendly to rats. You have to fully
| eliminate the environments that sustain them, you can't
| exterminate your way out.
|
| Always report rat sightings in your area!
|
| [1]
| https://www.nycservice.org/opportunity/a0TQq00000DwaIoMAJ/ny...
| SunlitCat wrote:
| Spicy mouse tape: If I am ever in need of an funny username, this
| will be my go to one!
| jcgrillo wrote:
| Yet another reason to buy old cars. When I went for my annual
| inspection this year my mechanic was telling me about a 2021
| pickup truck he had to do like $10k worth of rewiring on because
| of rodent damage. Apparently newer cars have delicious and
| nutritious soy based wire insulation.
| ineptech wrote:
| > DEHP is a compound added to plastics (like vinyl tape) to make
| them more flexible. It's used in hundreds of household products,
| which means lots of people who bathe in Dr. Bronner's Useless
| Fluid think it will kill them.
|
| I get the joke (that people who use Dr. Bronner's soap are
| probably uninformed hippies) but am confused by the "Useless"
| part. I've used that soap and thought it seemed fine. Is it a
| known fact, or factoid, or meme, among smart people that Dr.
| Bronner's is ineffective?
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| It's normal soap, the writer is just taking a jab at Dr.
| Bronner's marketing.
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