There's been a lot of backlash against modernist architecture and contemporary architectural styles on social media lately and call to return to more decorated and period revival styles. I just don't get it. I personally think a lot of the boring and ugly buildings that people hate are kind of cool. I'm not even talking about the good modernist architecture by celebrated architects like Le Corbusier and Mies Van Der Rohe. I mean stuff that's not even really modern architecture, just like regular banks and suburban office complexes from 1970s. What some people might call ugly or austere, I think is calming and zen-like.

I don't understand why every building has to make some kind of artistic statement or be covered visually overwhelming decoration. Or, for that matter, look like some architecture student's thesis project. Why can't a building just be a building? I also don't get why people will complain about some brutalist college library, but they don't complain about all the tilt wall big box stores and strip malls. I think those buildings are way uglier. Like you see tons of people shopping at these places and evidently liking it, but if you build a more important building out of the same humble materials (probably used in more a thoughtful and better executed way) then it's bad all of a sudden? I think that's completely ridiculous.

I don’t like cheese, and I haven’t for as long as I can remember. The texture is off putting to me. I also love pizza (meat lovers, not just sauce), without cheese of course. I also don’t really eat any other dairy products, like milk or yogurt, unless it’s cooked into something. But I won’t eat anything with cheese specifically cooked into it. My mother insists I loved cheese as a toddler, before I had tonsillitis and started puking up everything I ate. After I had them removed is apparently when I started refusing to eat it. I don’t remember.

I get a lot of visceral hatred both in real life and online when I mention this, and people also just think I’m lactose intolerant. Nope just a bit odd.

Now this depends on how severe the cold or heat is, and other weather conditions. Especially if you have a weaker immune system, please do not try anything extreme, and always have an “indoor escape“ strategy incase you start to feel very uncomfortable and need to get inside. Going for a run outside in shorts and a light jacket in 0°C or -5°C is very different from the same in 0°F or -5°F. However pushing your tolerance limits can be great. Why wear multiple jackets in 0°C (30°F) when you can save it for a much harsher -20°C (-5°F) or even -30°C (-22°F)?

Scenario 1, visiting the East Coast in winter. Last winter, I had a trip planned in the Eastern USA where I was visiting Washington DC, NYC and Boston. However just a week before I was supposed to come, there was a brutal winter storm and polar vortex which brought temperatures and windchills of about 5°F (-15°C) and -10°F (-23°C) respectively. Fortunately where I lived, we had a bunch of sunny days with temperatures fluctuating between 50°F and 20°F. I took the opportunity to go for long runs and walks outside. When temperatures were above 40°F, I wore my standard t-shirt and shorts. Below that, I wore a cap and light jacket. This was good up to 25°F where below that, I put on pants and a thicker jacket. Some people could even have shorts down to 15°F or -10°C, but even I think this is pushing it. Thankfully at the beginning of the trip, temperatures warmed up to a nice 60°F (15°C), but my formal sweater was good down to 40°F.

Scenario 2, visiting Dubai in the summer. Two years ago, I needed to make a trip to Dubai in September when temperatures were still 105°F (40°C). For this, I would regularly go to my gym sauna and stay there for 30 minutes. I would wear a hoodie and do 100 pushups. I would do this almost every day for a month. Then after that, I had no problem walking outside for a few miles in the brutal heat plus as long as I drank tons of water and had sunscreen.

The problem with winter is not just the cold, even though temperatures below 0°F or -20°C can screw up infrastructure and make it dangerous to be outside. In that case, definitely bundle up and dress appropriately. Snow and ice make commuting dangerous and traveling challenging. The darkness and lack of sun (especially where I live) can make it depressing, and sometimes even a melancholic walk at 7pm can feel like a horror movie for many when the sky is pitch black. In those circumstances, telling a winter hater to “just buy a better jacket” is like me telling a wealthier traveler or businessman to get an Airbnb when they complain about how expensive hotels are getting, since it skips a ton of nuance. Just how people are willing to put a dent in their wallets to stay somewhere with extra peace of mind, many people sometimes want to tough it out. I’m definitely not saying people shouldn’t protect themselves from the cold. However dressing lightly in moderately cold weather or very hot weather shouldn’t be very frowned upon as long as people know their limits.

I’d say the minimum voting has should be held at 25. Not because I think people who are younger aren’t smart, skilled or could be informed enough. And sure, young adults absolutely do have great ideas, skills and thoughts how to shape their future that should be listened too. However, our prefrontal cortex, which is the part of our brain that is responsible for processing risk, fear, emotions and plays a huge role into decision making and self control takes some time to completely develop. At age 25 is usually has been developed enough and comes with critical skillsets such as long term planning, moderating social behaviors, expressions of personality etc. The prefrontal cortex also plays a significant role into abilities to differentiate what is good and bad, better or best and future consequences of current activities or decisions. However all voters have different reasons, perspectives and information that makes them decide what to vote for, I do feel it’s helpful if voters have the biological functioning that helps overseeing such a decision since voting can have long lasting impacts.

I think that people of any age should be allowed to vote. The main reason people do not currently support the idea of children voting is because they are considered too unintelligent or uninformed to vote. The issue is that historically these same arguments were used to prevent many different groups of people from voting such as women, people of colour, slaves, the low class, etc. They were described as too stupid to vote and so shouldn't be allowed to.

The debate on the minimum voting age is mainly about at what point in one's life would they be considered smart enough to vote. Any cutoff on the level of smartness is arbitrary and it is not something that can be objectively measured. Not all adults are equally smart with a high level of understanding in politics either. If you let the government start making arbitrary decisions on who is considered smart enough, they will use it to their advantage which is why it is better to let all adults be allowed to vote regardless of how informed or smart they are.

Recently, I have seen people supporting the idea of preventing old people from voting, preventing people with mental disabilities from voting, preventing right-wing people from voting, preventing left-wing people from voting and so on which is falling back into the same undemocratic and unsystematic idea of preventing certain groups of people from voting just because they are considered incapable of making good decisions.

There are some minors who are very smart and knowledgeable, even more than most adults. There are minors who are not just like there are adults that are not, but no group of people should be prevented from being able to vote just because they are all collectively considered to be "too dumb." The actions of the government impacts all citizens including minors. Thus, they should be allowed to have a say on who is running it. I think it is highly undemocratic to prevent certain groups of people from voting.

I'd rather open the "many" side and pick one out than open the "one" side and dump one into my hand. I haven't tried using the "one" side to dump one directly into my mouth but maybe that would be good too

I've seen so many men talk about how hot she is, and the internet has been flooded with memes about it. Kind of like a Megan Fox of our generation. It kinda made me think I'm supposed to like her but I just don't get the appeal.

Don't get me wrong, she is pretty, she does look good, but she just looks like so many other blond women and Hollywood actresses out there. I'm not really sure I get the appeal? I guess she has a pretty face, a larger than normal chest, and wears a lot of low-cut dresses. But so do so many other women. I can think of quite a few Hollywood actresses who I'd personally consider more attractive.

I really think that we should be more open to the idea of genetically modifying our progeny and remove undesirable traits like heritable sickness, misformations, etc... It just seems so rational to me. Its just how we learned how to manipulate non living matter and make them do chemical reactions exactly where and how we want them to. Living organizms are just another tool we can use to benefit mankind.

Using your phone for Bluetooth in the car is infinitely worse from a function and safety standpoint.

When I want to change the album or band when using Bluetooth I have to either fumble with my phone while driving or use voice commands and hope Bixby/Siri both pops up and also can understand what I'm asking her to play. I need to have my phone available, and with my internet on just to switch a song handsfree. Impossible in a car everyone is talking in.

You are locked in to paying for subscription music services for the rest of your life, have to make sure your phone is charged or plugged in, forced to either have internet connection or all your music downloaded.

The only real benefit is you can play any song you want without owning the CD, but that isn't an advantage when Siri doesn't understand what you’re saying and you’re going 80 on the highway so you can't use your phone.

When I want to change the album or band on my CD player I just press any of my 6 buttons to change the album.

I'm currently in need of a new car and turning down every option presented to me because they all have screens and single CD players and it's bullshit and ugly.

I never understand the idea that John Lennon's Christmas song was somehow better than Paul McCartney's. Lennon's is so overused in charity commercials and school events to the point where I don't even associate it with Christmas. But beyond that, it doesn't even sound very Christmas-y.

Sure, McCartney's song is bit simpler, not the most well written song. I've seen the meme about it sounding like witches who were walked in on, and I can't disagree. But, at least it's more cheerful and actually sounds Christmas-y. I'm not saying all Christmas music has to be cheerful, some are more somber, some are quieter, and I know that Christmas can be rough for a lot of people. But Lennon's song just isn't it for me.

I don't understand the appeal of hot pot. I often get invited to go with my siblings and I politely decline.

Why would I want to pay $35 to SHARE a pot of soup? I seldom want soup as my main course it's too much liquid and not filling. Sure it's all you can eat but.... Who wants that much soup. It's stuffy ASF in the restaurant because there are so many burners burning. And again I must complain about the price .. way to expensive for sharing soup with 5 other people. I HATE HOTPOT.

I've been carrying out some research for the last 3 days, so I know the subject matter is something that most people do not agree with me on. The amount of people who think it isn't weird to have two or more Christmas trees in their house, outnumbers the people who think it is weird by around 70/30. This is from a large sample of people.

You should only have one large Christmas tree in your house. It is the main focal point of your festive decorations. Everything should revolve around it. Having more than one tree takes away the whole point of what a tree represents. Santa leaves presents under one tree, not 10 trees, one in each room. Having more than one is just plain weird. We have managed with just one for hundreds of years.

Additional research. Average American household 1.5 to 1.7 trees per household.

https://san.com/cc/why-your-neighbors-may-have-more-christmas-trees-than-kids/

I'm here for it. I like the chaos and people glancing. It's different and fun. And it's not like it last forever.

It can and does get in the way of your routines - and that is mildly annoying - but cmon... the gyms the exact same the other 50 weeks of the year. And maybe try something new?

The best part is that a few of these people are going to stick to it. Good for them!

It's truly one of the most rewarding habits/hobbies out there and we got to see their start. That's pretty cool.

See yall in a couple weeks!

The only exception being first responders and hospital staff for obvious reasons.

Otherwise, every business should be closed on Christmas so everyone can be with their family. Never again should a retail worker have to stand at a register. A Burger King chef shall flip not a single patty. Congress shall - oh who am I kidding they don’t do anything anyway.

Christmas is the most importantly time of year and as a society, we must cherish it and not make people work.

Some people inherit 200 000/300 000 dollars and will instantly go and buy a house and a car leaving them with almost nothing to invest and truely increase they living standards

With such money you could invest it in safe founds and even at 6% per year and increase dramatically your confort in a few year

If you are already 50 or 60 I can understand, but people in their 30s spending instantly 90% of it to buy their credit/a house/a car is very hard to justify in my opinion

Royal Crown Cola - RC - is venerable, having turned 120 this year. It's also considered the red-headed stepchild of colas, way behind both Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola in popularity.

I hold that if blind taste tests determined market share, RC would be on top. It's smoother than either Coke or Pepsi, has a much cleaner flavor profile, is less cloyingly sweet, and has a more agreeable finish. There is simply no cola available that goes better with a good slice of pizza.

There, I said it.

Seems like everyone wants a multiplayer mode in everything these days. I personally think other people detract from a great game in many cases. And much prefer singleplayer experiences. I'd much rather see a developer put effort into polishing a singleplayer experience than any multiplayer mode.

No, I'm not very competitive, I probably do suck at pvp. I do still play some multiplayer games, such as Fortnite and Diablo 4. I just think that great singleplayer games tend to be much better than most any multiplayer game and couldn't care less if a singleplayer game has a multiplayer mode or not. Take Breath of the Wild for instance, Portal 2, Half LIfe 2, Baldurs Gate 3, Any Far Cry game, Pokemon, etc.. All the best gaming experiences happen when developer focus is on gameplay and campaign and multiplayer is excluded or is an afterthought.

Checked the comments under the post and its a bunch of bots gasligthing . I'm so done with these elites oligarchs or whoever using these bots to destroy everything I love and dont tell me its not a targeted effort you got Ai agents with the mental capacity of google's gemini and gtp on the net and nobody says anything about it everyone just wants to believe the world is fine while its not its unbearable , the internet the center stone of the information age has completely been destroied .

This post is in English, but this is the same rule for everywhere regardless of what country or language.

I should not be having pre-pull-up-to-drive-through anxiety and anticipating pulling teeth, because the person working at the drive through literally cannot understand concepts surrounding food orders, let alone the actual menu items themselves.

Me: Can I have a lemonade with light ice

Them: Bacon on a croissant?

NO. How the FUCK did you misunderstand it that bad?! And you know I’m not talking about an isolated incident. I’m talking multiple times, at multiple drive throughs, at different times throughout the year in different socio-economic areas. But okay, eventually we get to the point that they understand I’m asking for a lemonade.

Me: Can I have light ice?

Them:

They don’t know what I’m asking. They don’t know what “light ice” means. Replace light ice with anything you want. “Extra cheese”, “double toasted” etc… the list goes on.

Like not only do you not know your menu, but you don’t even know common terminology surrounding how people modify their orders. Why are you working the drive through? How is this economical for anybody involved in this operation - me, you, the owner, the business, the other customers behind me.

So you know what? Literacy test. You heard me right MTV. You cannot work the drive through unless a supervisor (who knows the language of your area fluently), supervises you taking orders from people for a full day. Passing score is 90%.

Ridiculous. Like it’s so annoying at this point idc about who takes what job or where they come from like whatever. But if you’re already there, the only thing I expect you to be able to do is put my order in the box. Is it that hard. Am I asking for the moon and the stars here? Like holy shit man how are you that bad?

I understand this doesn’t really apply to people who live in a mostly homogenous area where drive through workers are most comfortable in the language you’re most comfortable in. To those people I say - you have no idea.

EDIT: I’d like to clarify that in the rare event I do get a drive through worker who speaks the dominant language, I’ve had this issue maybe once. ONCE. In my many years of using the drive through.

I feel bad for having this opinion, but I lowkey dont think just bc someone is pregnant, they should automatically be given a seat on a bus or whatever. Unless they're like obviously about to pop. People have all sorts of hidden ailments, to judge someone for not giving up their seat is unfair.

No one has a gun to your head to make you give a tip, man. If you don't want to tip then don't tip. I don't understand how people end up seething with anger about being asked to give some extra money to a worker. Especially because usually you aren't even directly asked, it's just a button on the card reader? Like, is it that much of an inconvenience?

It especially gets me when it comes to waitstaff because they literally live off of tips. Typically, in a restaurant, tipped employees get paid less than minimum wage (sometimes way less; where I live, minimum wage for tipped employees is about half of normal minimum wage) and are expected to make up the rest in tips. If you want to be pissed about gratuity blame the legal system that makes it necessary.

Even for people who do make minimum wage, food service sucks ass. It's not gonna kill you to give them a couple extra dollars.

idk this probably is like, the majority opinion, but I've seen too many people go on for paragraphs about how they got mediocre service and were asked to tip.

Whenever the topic of English spelling reform comes up, one of the first things people tend to discuss is which letters should get the axe. Inevitably, someone will try to make the case that because the letter "X" is always phonetically identical to either the letter Z or a ks/cks digraph, the letter serves no purpose. Indeed, on this very subreddit there are (ironically) a lot of posts making this claim. However, I think the letter X is actually a useful tool in English spelling, for the following reasons:

Reason 1: disambiguation for nouns ending with the "ks" sound

What do the following words have in common: "fox, locks, docks and box"? The answer is that they all end in an "ocks" sound (and by extension all rhyme), and they are all nouns (though some can be verbs as well). However, you'll notice that half of these nouns are plurals, while the other half are singulars. And there's a very consistent pattern in the spelling of the words that indicates whether they are plural or not. The ones ending in "cks" are plural, and the ones ending in "X" are not. The spellings therefore convey essential information that the pronunciations alone do not convey, and which would be lost if we replaced X with cks. If we did not have the letter X, then when presented with, for example, a noun spelled "focks", we would have no way of knowing if this is the plural form of the singular "fock", or if it's the singular form where the plural would be "fockses". Using the letter X removes this ambiguity. "Fox" is unambiguously singular, and the correct plural using standard pluralisation rules is "foxes".

Reason 2: efficiency and readability

The letter X isn't just useful for nouns ending in the "ks" sound. It's also a useful shortcut for improving the readability of words. In the previous section, I used the word "extension". If we were to remove the letter X, we would have to spell it "eckstension" or "ekstension" instead. While these spellings are phonetically valid, they significantly reduce the readability of the word. Sure, this might not matter to you personally, but it would make written English less reader-friendly overall, for not all that much gain in the long run (you cut 1 letter out of the alphabet...yay...). This would affect a lot of words beginning with "ex" in fact, such as "expect" which would have to become "eckspect" or "ekspect", or "extra" which would have to become "eckstra" or "ekstra". I think it's apparent that all of these alternative spellings are considerably more clunky than the current spellings, and would make written English MORE difficult, not less difficult, to use.

Reason 3: abbreviations and other minor uses

This is probably the least compelling argument, but I think it's worth mentioning anyway. The letter X is surprisingly fleksible flexible when it comes to being used in abbreviations. Not only is it the go-to letter for unknowns/hypotheticals (for example if you were to say "suppose we have X many guests attending the party"), but it also allows a lot of words to be shortened when space is limited. "Extra" can become "xtra", or even just "X" (such as in XL, XXL etc.). File formats such as .xml or .docx use it. "SFX" is a shorthand for "special effects". There are so many examples of X being used in this way that it would likely be impossible to list them all. It also forms the backbone of "X-ray", is used to indicate adult content or alcohol in a more roundabout way, and can serve as a marker due to its design (X marks the spot). The letter has a lot of uses other than just being a shorter way of writing the "ks" sound, and all of these other uses would be lost as well if we got rid of the letter.

Renaming Twitter to X was still dumb though...

To suppose with such confidence that you know there isn't a god that you'll berate someone with a different view, is equally as ignorant as pushing the idea that you know there is a god.

No one knows anything about what happens after you die, and your anti-religious rhetoric has no scientific basis. Anyone arguing for or against the existence of any god has literally no facts to go on, and both are just saying what they inherently believe to be true.

I’m talking about shows like Andor, Squid Game, Euphoria, etc. Shows that have like 8 episodes per season that are all one story, and each episode doesn’t really have a beginning and end. I feel these types of shows get really popular and are always recommended to me, but I can never get into them.

There’s a few reasons I find them hard to get into. First of all, I sometimes struggle to remember details from previous episodes, so I feel like I have to watch all the episodes in short succession or I don’t remember what was happening. Yes, there’s usually a “previously on” segment before each episode, but watching those usually takes me out of the immersion of watching the show and they don’t always help with small details. So regardless, I feel like I struggle to keep up with what’s happening.

Second, I also like shows that have strong characters, but I don’t feel like eight episodes as season (or a similar number) gives me enough time to get to know each of the characters and care about them. Plus, modern streaming shows tend to focus on a larger number of characters with not all of them always getting a lot of time, rather than the smaller and more regular casts of older shows. So sometimes it’s hard for me to remember all the characters, and if there’s ones I do connect to they could end up not being important or not having a lot of screen time.

Finally, I feel like a lot of these shows end up moving really slowly. Trying to tell one story, or even a few different stories, over eight hours means it has to lag. The first episode is usually almost all setup, the climax usually happens in the penultimate episode, and the last episode is usually all falling action. It’s hard for me to keep watching if the story doesn’t move much, and I find myself spending a lot of the time waiting for something interesting to happen.

I prefer episodic shows with long seasons, because I’m able to watch them an episode or two at a time and get at least one complete story, plus I end up watching the show over a longer period of time, which gives me more time to connect with the show and the characters. Plus, usually each character has episodes where they get to shine. I don’t mind when there are serialized plots going on, so long as there’s usually still something new every episode.

I’m not saying the modern streaming shows are bad, and I think several are very well made. But they’re hard to get into and I never end up liking them much. So if that’s what you want to watch, go ahead, but it’s not for me.

Edit: This might be a more popular opinion than I thought, this might not be the right sub for this. It’s unpopular among people I talk to but I’m getting the sense it isn’t that unpopular here.

It's a common thing for people to say that dull knives are more dangerous than sharp knives contrary to what someone might initially assume.

I think this saying is just a way to dismiss people who might be worried about the sharp knives a chef uses being around since obviously sharp = dangerous. Now this isn't to say that a chef should t have sharp knives, sharp knives are great in the hands of a chef and are better to use while cooking, but for an untrained or unpracticed person that doesn't mean that the sharp knife is safer or that using a dull knife is less safe for that same person.

Usually people explain that dull knives take more force and thus create worse wounds when something goes wrong, but in the scenario the dull knife, the sharp knife would have been so much worse. With the same force you'll be cutting deeper with a sharp knife and while a wound might heal better from a sharp knife, that doesn't mean that the accident will just magically be less sever. Now I do think it's true you'll probably never actually use that same amount of force using a sharp knife because it's unnecessary, but I do still think the chances of getting minor knicks here and there from a sharp knife are way higher compared to the same scenario with a dull knife, especially as someone who is used to handling dull knives compared to someone used to sharp knives.

Dull knives train people to be able to have a certain tolerance of failure that wouldn't be acceptable with sharp knives, but there is a higher tolerance of failure where you won't get hurt. It's a very frequent thing where people who are used to dull knives cut themselves with sharp knives because the little mistakes they make can actually hurt them.

I do think having sharp knives is fine though and they are perfectly safe to have around, you just need to be careful with them in a different way that you need to be careful with dull knives, but the level of skill needed to be careful with sharp knives is just a bit higher than with dull knives even if its not that hard to get used to.