https://xkcd.com/2827

Alt text:

Sequoia Brussels sprouts are delicious but it’s pretty hard to finish one.

  • snowe@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    This is especially funny to me because I tell people all the time about kale being a man made (cultivated) plant from the wild mustard seed.

    • NegativeInf@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I usually ask people to name a food stuff that hasn’t been genetically manipulated in some way by human hands. You can’t. There really are none. Even non-gmo food stuffs are still selectively bred or clonal species.

      • Whelks_chance@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Blackberries have grown wild in Europe for thousands of years. The US ones have been messed with by farmers and scientists, but in the UK they’re pretty much the original deal.

        • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yeah I was thinking about this recently. Wild blackberries you see all over the place growing like a weed are pretty much the exact same as the ones you see in a shop.

          It’s nothing like, say, apples, which have been changed a lot by humans.

      • Thisfox@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Fish.

        Also macadamias, and lillipilli. And the cabbage tree palm. Warrigal Greens.

        Coconuts, I expect.

        I am yet to believe the humble blackberry is a cultivar.

        Possibly kangaroo meat? Boomers such as the Eastern Grey are pretty unmanipulated, and taste like venison.

        But mostly fish. And lobsters/crays/crabs.

    • BigNote@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Is it not the case that kale, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage are all basically derived from the same plant?

      This is what I’ve been told, but I am very ignorant of such matters and while you will say that I can simply Google the issue, which is true, it’s never been enough of a priority for me to do so, goddammit.

      As for Sequoia sempervirens or Sequoiadendron giganteum being forms of broccoli, I do in fact know enough dendrology to know that it’s bullshyte.

        • Capricorn_Geriatric@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Not to mention 99% of sites being ad-ridden bullshit while serious responses on forums tend to be short, sweet and more educational than searching

      • wander1236@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        You haven’t had the right kale. The stuff they use for chips and salad is way too fibrous, but there are varieties that taste and feel a lot better.

      • lugal@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Alt texts have a purpose. Some people are dependent on them. But sure, make fun of me for caring, go ahead.

    • ReveredOxygen@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      In this case, it’s not really on OP; that’s what Randall puts in the xkcd alt text. There is a transcription for each comic on explainxkcd that ppl could copy to the post though

    • yolta@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Regardless of the other comment, you’re right, the alt text is wrong. Alt text is used by visually impaired users to understand what the image is about and is not the place to put the title of the XKCD.

      • agnomeunknown@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s not the title, but rather a sort of “bonus joke” that pops up when you hover a cursor over the image (or long press on mobile I think). It’s a staple of xkcd and other webcomics, but I’ll grant that it does present some confusion for those who rely on alt text.

        I for one appreciated that being in the post so I didn’t need to click thru for the bonus joke as I usually would. Perhaps it’s just better to call it something other than alt text.

        • JohnnyEnzyme@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Sequoia Brussels sprouts are delicious but it’s pretty hard to finish one.

          Yes, it’s a pretty obvious riff on the main joke, i.e. entertaining the idea that Brassica sequoia is a real thing, based on the fact that brussels sprouts, like cauliflower, collards, kohlrabi, cabbage and others, are all cultivars of B. oleracea.

          If you didn’t know that last bit, I can see getting confused about the alt-text.

          @yolta@programming.dev @lugal@sopuli.xyz

          • lugal@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            The point is that it’s not an alt text. Also I was quite tired when writing my first comment