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Visakan Veerasamy Profile picture
@visakanv
Aug 26, 2019 • 9 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X
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The Wikipedia page for Mentos says that it was first produced in the Netherlands in 1948. Learning more about the history is annoyingly hard, as is the case with several other shy and secretive European billionaires. But let's go digging and see what we can find
our story begins with the Van Melle brothers, Michael and Pierre. I think their... dad? had a candy shop in the Netherlands? And they went to Poland. TIL they also made Fruitella!! I loved Fruitella as a kid, I seldom see it around anymore

medium.com/@rakhoi_wholes…
translated from a Polish page – it must be so fun, as a young person in Europe, to be able to take the train and go around to completely different places and experience totally different cultures. Travelling around Southeast Asia is a little bit more tedious, I feel
it's so interesting to contrast the english and non-english pages on wikipedia

english

italian

dutch

(thx @listmouse for the suggestion)
@listmouse TIL that Salvador Dali designed the Chupa Chups logo in 1969

"Acutely aware of presentation, Dalí insisted that his design be placed on top of the lolly, rather than the side, so that it could always be viewed intact."

fastcompany.com/1669224/salvad…
@listmouse I know I started out on Mentos but Chupa Chups is also fascinating. (Founded in Spain by Enric Bernat, acquired by Mentos's parent company.) Chupa Chups supposedly do their best to get their lollipops into the mouths of celebrities, here's Madonna

fastcompany.com/45619/these-lo…
@listmouse TIL that Americans found the Mentos commercials to be "campy, cheesy and stupid".

Americans have no taste. 😂 Those ads were masterpieces!!

rewindandcapture.com/why-is-mentos-…
@listmouse Honestly, 20 years later, this guy is still a mood
@listmouse mentos was really providing an important public service with these ads

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More from @visakanv

Visakan Veerasamy Profile picture
May 2
one thing about the japanese, they will develop a special interest in something and then do it better than you
the chief sculptor of the sagrada familia basilica is a japanese guy Image
Read 9 tweets
Visakan Veerasamy Profile picture
Mar 26
there are several interesting things to be said about the mass Ghibli event

First thing is that people don’t often know in advance what they’d want out of a tool until they see it for themselves. “generate any image you can think of!” draws a blank for lot of people
so lesson in there for anybody making things; customers/users need more guidance than you might think.

Second thing is I think this is an ongoing preference cascade and consensus cascade, at least some of the people who are adamantly anti-AI concede this is a cute/fun use case
for a lot of people this is the first time they’re like “ok fine I want one for myself and heck the whole timeline is doing it so what’s so wrong if I do it too”

I think this is probably a good thing. I think it gets more ppl interested in art and visuals etc
Read 13 tweets
Visakan Veerasamy Profile picture
Feb 26
favorite subreddit I’ve discovered in a long while, /r/thatsabooklight, where people point out the mundane origins of movie props Image
Image
a lot of futuristic weapons turn out to be painted toys Image
Image
a lot of futuristic interfaces turn out to be audio/visual equipment Image
Image
Image
Read 4 tweets
Visakan Veerasamy Profile picture
Feb 24
i haven't really bothered to make a deliberate effort to grow my twitter following or to write bangers etc in years, but i still have a clear sense of how to do it and i've advised other people who wanted to do the same, and witnessed them succeed. here are a couple of thoughts
one of the most important things you have to remember, especially if you're still a small account starting out and trying to get more attention, is that people aren't reading your tweets in isolation. your tweets are showing up as a 'beat' on a timeline
so if your tweet is something that's moderately unclear or confusing, or has too many details, or the sentiment is too complex, people's likeliest response is to scroll past it

this changes once people know you, care about you, believe that it's worth the effort to decipher you
Read 10 tweets
Visakan Veerasamy Profile picture
Feb 21
there’s a thing I often wish I could explain to people… but hilariously, it fits the same pattern I’m trying to explain:

a lot of the most interesting, valuable things you can do are things that have very small windows of opportunity Image
so in the case of matchmaking, a beginner matchmaker might think it’s a matter of finding the best possible people (according to some set of metrics) for the best possible people.

but the expert matchmaker will tell you that actually timing and seasonality etc matter more
in something like football you might think that the player with the most stamina, best striking ability, etc is the strongest

but the guy that scores the most goals is typically the guy who is most sensitive to the situation. Messi famously just walks around the pitch Observing Image
Read 15 tweets
Visakan Veerasamy Profile picture
Feb 9
one of the oldest stories we have on record is from 1850BC Egypt called "The Eloquent Peasant". It's fairly short yet interestingly complex. i'll try and retell it as quickly and entertainingly as i can

we begin with our boi Khun-Anup, a poor peasant just tryna sell his wares... Image
to get to the market he has to pass thru land that's owned by nobles. ultimately i believe the land is owned by the pharaoh, but it's administrated by the high steward Rensi, who in turn lets it be run by the local goon Nemtynakht... a ~4000yo matryoshka of bureaucracy Image
so anyway. the local goon Nemtynakht is a corrupt mf and decides to rob our boi Khun-Anup. he lays out a cloth across the narrow path, which is in between a river and the goon's private fields of barley.

Khun-Anup is like, pls sir, I can't move, I don't wanna trample your cloth
Read 17 tweets

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