A Gray
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When I went for my operation, the nurse told me that I'd have to take off anything that wasn't 100% cotton. I guess polyester fucks things up if it gets inside a wound.
So what if I'm riding a bike, and I scrape my leg bloody? Presumably I should wear 100% cotton clothes all the time to avoid getting polyester inside me?
I've also heard that fabric softener makes clothes more flammable - presumably something you want to avoid if you work in a lab. Presumably polyester melts and clings to skin - so you'd want 100% cotton for that reason too.
IIRC, there's a criminal case where a child was convicted of burning her mother to death, based on the fact that an 'accelerant' was discovered on the mother's body - which was later overturned when an expert engineer testified that it could easily have been an accident caused by plastic melting into a burning liquid like napalm. I wonder how many people have been wrongfully accused of horrific acts just because of a freak accident setting off some of the death traps of modern life.
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Teachers who paste their students' coursework into ChatGPT and ask it if it was written by AI - then falsely accuse the student of cheating.
'AI detection' tools that show 60% similarity to AI text (quite normal for a well-read human who knows 'complicated' words) - then falsely interpreted by staff as 60% chance of being written by AI.
On HN, someone wrote that written answers are part of the interview process at their company. To combat interviewees using AI, there are 'secret' instructions (in size 0 text), so that if an interviewee copies it into ChatGPT, these 'secret' instructions result in ChatGPT using specific words. Thus any response using these words is automatically discarded. So that means, as a human, you should select all the text, copy it into an ASCII text editor, and look for the words that you should avoid writing!
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I'm going through some of my school-era web scraping projects. One of these was my first 'big' Python project, and it taught me Object Oriented Programming (OOP), which I had been fervently avoiding previously.
OOP used to confuse me, because the guides didn't explain why you would use it. They simply used examples, like a class 'Cat' and class 'Dog' both inheriting from class 'Animal' - but then they'd add a function 'bark' for 'Dog' class, which is not a use case for OOP!
At the time of writing, I haven't looked at the code again, but the data is structured with each user, post, forum and comment in their own unique subdirectories - tens of thousands of directories. I had diligently collected all the metadata needed to display comments, but for some reason the list of avatar file names was stored as a text file underneath a subdirectory in the user subdirectory. Hundreds of megabytes - the majority of the disk size - was used on these inodes instead of data!
With just a few minutes' investment, I repackaged this data into combined JSON files, remembering to keep the file modification times, because the API did not provide timestamps and file modification times are the only method to know roughly what time the comments were posted (making some decisions such as getting modification times from directories instead of files).
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In my first relationship, I made the mistake of assuming she knew how beautiful she was. She genuinely looked like the most beautiful woman in the world to me - even though, in hindsight, she looked like every other geeky brunette white woman.
Now, I think every woman has body dysmorphia, and it's best to not only be more vocal about compliments - even if she verbally doesn't respond too much or thinks they are too frequent - but also to bear in mind that some compliments will be misinterpreted (female brain vs male brain).
For example, don't point out her unusual features which are not traditionally attractive. It took a long time to realise why this was not received well - I think it is because it makes her self-conscious about it, and it becomes a callback to something she has long wanted to change about herself. E.g. “I like your freckles, I think they are cute” might be perceived as “I think it's okay you have freckles” and she won't genuinely believe you like them. But maybe I'm just overthinking things.
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I've always struggled to know what gifts to get.
Utility is how most men show they care. I think I avoided that (and some other traps) just by copying my first girlfriend's behaviour - one of the ways my lower social competence ironically has some advantages with women, because I listen more closely for social cues from them (because I know that I can't trust my instincts).
Also, to be honest I think utilities should be investments, not gifts. Imagine if I bought her a vacuum cleaner for her apartment, but waited until her birthday to give it to her!
Also childhood Christmas was usually the worst day of the year for me, so I just don't like gift-giving or special days. But I don't want to be a 'grouch', so I play along with what I'm expected to do.
She always buys what she needs; maybe I can anticipate some need that she has, but that probably wouldn't a well-appreciated gift.
She isn't materialistic, so I could perhaps buy her a more luxury version of what she already has. But there are two problems:
I could ask a female friend, but they're actually worse at this than I am - I guess because they are the complete opposite personality type.
I'm pretty selfish about my gift-giving anyway. I don't just want to buy something useful, I want the gift to remind them of me a bit, so it needs to be unique enough that only I would have given it. So:
Here's what I've been doing:
Buying something unique that fits her apartment 'decor'
A candleholder didn't fit her personality, and a cushion seemed too generic, so I got a bonsai tree. It turned out to be a terrible gift, because it required too much maintenance and she found that annoying, but when I re-gifted it to my female friend she loved it.
Making a stuffed animal
Every girl has a favourite type of animal and they are also easily-impressed that you can sew.
If you really want bonus points you can stab your fingers with the needle to make it seem like you literally spilled your own blood to make it for her (I haven't done this but I won't rule it out).
Make it smell like you. Wash the materials first in your own detergent, and hug it while you sleep for enough nights. It's basically the only gift you can give that can carry your scent.
Spending time together
Planning and paying for trips.
The first time I did this, it was a train journey to London and to be honest it was dull; the only memorable part was visiting a museum that I knew she'd like.
The next time, I staked out a long stretch of riverside walk with a farm shop at the end of it. But it turned out she was afraid of birds (!!!???!!!) so she couldn't cope with the ducks and swans and we had to turn back. I genuinely put so much effort into this, going there in person and pre-walking the walk to see how beautiful it was - how could I have guessed she didn't like birds? How can a tall woman be scared of a hand-sized thing? (Yes, yes, phobias are a thing, but she literally lived in the countryside, how can she exist with a birdphobia?!) At least I didn't make the packed lunch like I originally planned to.
Dancing classes. Bleh. Bleh bleh bleh. Oh my god though she so heavily hinted about it, I had to do it. At least this way I could choose what style of dancing! OK I did actually enjoy it too, I'm just not gay enough to be a good dancer.
The reverse situation is pretty similar - but entirely my fault.
I actually hid my birthday from my first girlfriend because it came so soon after we started dating, so I thought it would be awkward, because I didn't want to have a situation where she felt compelled to buy a gift (which I probably wouldn't like) or where she didn't buy a gift (and I'd feel sad).
The only thing in this world I materially 'need' is a powerful GPU to run neural network experiments. It would be so sweet to get something she personally made, even just a potato she carved into my face or something stupid like that, but alas, that seems to be a foreign concept to the girls I've dated (far from the arts-and-craft type, and generally wealthier than me).
I value time together more than any gift, so scheduling a sick day for us to go hiking through some remote forests would be perfect. But they just latch onto random things I've mentioned and get me things associated with that - so I accumulate books by authors I've mentioned, or get taken to a Chinese restaurant (neither of us are Chinese but I just mentioned once that I liked Chinese food!).
In hindsight, I'd find it cute if she signed the books herself. I'd throw them away as soon as we broke up, but I do that anyway (eventually) and it'd be a cute touch. I'd have to ask for this, because without knowing it would feel (to her) like a massive ego trip to sign books like she's more important than the author.
Maybe I could strategically 'lose' items prior to gift-giving events, so she can feel good about herself by giving a cheap but useful present. The problem with this is that I unstrategically wear broken clothes all the time, because it's hard to find clothes that are long enough or shoes that are big enough, and she might buy clothes that don't fit, so I already have to make it clear that I don't mind things being slightly broken, so this avenue of gift-giving is already closed.
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'Cringe' is the sense of second-hand social embarrassment. It presumably helped early humans hone their social skills (or exclude asocial people), back when an individual would only socialise with several dozen other people in total in their life.
Today, an individual will socialise with thousands of people, from all sorts of different social/economic/cultural/etc environments. It is no longer helpful to dismiss other peoples' behaviour as 'cringe' - it's just a bit pathetic. It's like being the 'fun police', deciding what is and isn't funny, and getting annoyed at people for laughing at bad jokes.
People who enjoy each others' company will be cringe with each other. Its because they don't waste time thinking of a 'clever' thing to say, they just say something, anything, to keep the conversation going and keep having an excuse to stay in their company.
Isn't life enough of a social climbing nightmare enough already? Do we really need to be so status-conscious that we have to be careful not to act 'cringe' in front of anyone else?
Any time someone has a genuine expression of a natural emotion in public, but he does it in a slightly incorrect and thus 'cringe' way, someone takes a video of it and posts it on Youtube or Reddit or Tiktok, to deluge him with the anonymous mockery of thousands of people who are lying alone in their beds or sitting on the toilet. I think bullying comes naturally to most people, but for some minority of these bullies it must also be vicious jealousy: this person is dumber than me, he doesn't deserve to be happy, he should be ashamed of himself!.
The worst people in my life have always been the status-aware ones - those who turn every interaction into a chance to gain social status, who always insist on being correct on everything, who desperately try to prove how much smarter or knowledgeable or 'correct' they are. I used to be like that - when I was a friendless child! What motivates people to continue being like this into adulthood?
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Injokes are bonding moments for subgroups within a larger group.
I think injokes are often rude unless they are subtle. You shouldn't make people feel excluded by an injoke - word them so that those 'in the know' get it but not so that those 'out of the know' know that they don't know. Or at least, just do that slightly-apologetic-explanation of “That's just an injoke we have”, to acknowledge that you don't want to make the others feel excluded.
Modern memes are basically injokes on social media sites - except everyone is eventually in on the joke, and the joke is so simple (usually just 'say the funny thing') that everyone can join in. I thought I was going somewhere with that but turns out I wasn't.
I like taking injokes further - having injokes with myself. E.g.:
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“I want to believe.” That's what I always tell people when they ask me if I'm religious. It would be nice to believe there is something always looking out for me, and some kind of unconditional love.
It's surprising that nobody has ever groomed me to join a cult or something. I feel left out!
I literally walked into a cult's office in Glastonbury. They had a pyramid thing I was invited to lie in while wearing headphones with the 'messiah' voice telling me to relax and pray. Then after the 10 minutes were up, this cultist tried to get me to purchase the magic crystals (which are wrapped in copper wires).
I'm interested in learning about their beliefs so I try to probe into the 'science' of their magic. But the cultist clearly doesn't care about it! He's a pure salesman. A totally unconvincing act, repeatedly stressing the 'low price' of the gifts but not making any effort to convince me of the reason to buy it!
My friend visited this place before I did and the woman was apparently way more genuine. Shame I arrived at the wrong day!
So you see, even when I literally walk into a cult they still won't have me!
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Having watched livestreamers, videos of street fights, and overheard certain professions of people, I conclude that stupid people often repeat the same phrase a lot in conversations. This seems to be for emphasis or for lack of other things to say.
I think it's different when parents do it when speaking to children, or owners speaking to pets - that is exclusively for emphasis, a way of giving a serious warning without raising your voice.
The latter is something I've started doing with one of my parents - it seems like they don't take anything in, or take it seriously, they just say “Yep” automatically, before I've finished talking, and I have no way to gauge if they have bothered to remember it or not. But I don't want to be like my sister (who just shouts very loud at them to get messages taken seriously).
The other thing I could do is write a computer program their laptop to display a message every time they log in - that would rub the message in, at least (emails are ignored and unsuitable for privacy-sensitive family matters). That's easier than it sounds - a simple 'ECHO ... PAUSE' shell script could be run at every startup. But I think it's a bit dangerous to condition someone to automatically dismiss a message box - they'll start automatically closing other error messages.
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Visiting my family for Christmas - a duty I mus fulfil to ensure my parent doesn't kill themselves - it seems like every year they find a way to make their living situation worse.
Of course, I don't share this with anyone in real life, except closest friends or housemates (who aren't friends but who are fun to talk to). When asked about my Christmas plans, I just mash together and repeat back to people what people have told me their plans are, so I seem normal and nothing seems amiss, which is exactly what they want to hear.
They've never heated the home much over winter - making it uncomfortable to shower or go to the toilet or not wear shoes indoors. One year we had a pipe burst because the indoor pipes froze.
They easily eat £20 of food each day - I reckon it would cost only £6 each day to heat the house. Why not skimp on food a bit (especially when they are all overweight) instead of skimping on heat? Especially when, at least for me, the cold temperature makes me 'pig out' on food.
They changed their car to a small one - a good decision, but now I don't fit in it without my head being literally squashed tight against the ceiling, which is dangerous for going over bumps, and the top half of my head being above the maximum seat height, which would be very bad in a crash.
They used to cough all the time (psychosomatic, i.e. habitual, coughing), which drove me crazy and started driving them crazy too. After 10 years of it, my sister stopped doing it last year, now my parent has stopped doing it this year. The coughing made their throats sore and made them feel like they needed to cough - an endless cycle that they didn't bother breaking for years.
There aren't clean dry towels to dry our hands - only tea towels that get wet quickly. I don't know why they rarely replace them - I always find myself replacing them every day while I stay there.
Every room filled with junk that is never used - apparently it took 5 hours just to transport out of my room the junk that had filled it prior to my arrival.
The toilets are stupendously dirty, the water pressure is so weak it doesn't flush big poos, and the doors don't lock - but instead of fixing that they refurbish the furniture and walls in the toilet rooms.
Because the toilet doors don't lock, to indicate my presence in the toilet, I have to flush the toilet (even if I'm 'mid-flow'), giving me only a little window of opportunity to finish pissing before people will forget the toilet is occupied. Only at the very beginning of a piss-flow, when my stream is at its strongest, am I able to place my feet at the door (thus blocking it) while also aiming my stream into the toilet bowl.
They'll say we'll do X at time Y, but when Y arrives, they are still not ready. So I hang around, until 5 minutes past Y, at which point one of the other people has given up and has gone away somewhere. Then finally everyone else is ready, and I go to get the other person back - but then my parent says “right, I'll just pop to the toilet quickly.” and it's another 5 minutes.
One morning, I flushed the toilet, and it was blocked. Nothing I did could unblock it.
After a while trying to fix the issue myself, I raise it with the household at large. They are unsurprised - apparently this has been happening for months.
Turns out, the problem wasn't the toilet - the problem was the plumbing, which was bunged up. My sister's boyfriend had apparently semi-trained as a plumber, and he dug up the manhole things for us to shove flexible pipes in to unblock.
One manhole was heavily bunged up by paper napkins that hadn't disintegrated - my grandmother's handiwork. It seems like she uses napkins instead of toilet paper, because in total there must have been over a metre of tightly packed napkins in there, holding back clumps of poo of course.
But there was a blockage further up, in a place we couldn't reach - perhaps under the patio in a C-turn pipe, or perhaps between ours' and the neighbours' manholes.
A lot of this, he believes, could have been avoided simply by a once-a-month application of some chemicals down the toilet and sink and in the dishwasher. Exactly the same situation that I had previously fixed with the laundry dryer - my parent was thinking they needed to buy a new one because it had slowed to the point of taking 5 hours to dry clothes, but I fixed it just by completely cleaning out the filter and unclogging the parts around the filter.
Apparently the kitchen cupboard has been rotting, and the dishwasher broken, from poor drainage. More expensive than preventative plumbing would have been.
But what a Christmas - digging up shitpipes to shove shitsticks into to drag clumps of shit out. As terrible as every other Christmas has been, I could never have predicted this.
Now they have 3 guinea pigs and a dog. The dog is a Terrier - it has more energy than they are capable of releasing. The dog loves me because I play games with it (i.e. chase it or play football with it, etc), but my family just seem to feed the dog and let it hang around - what point does its existence have?
The dog often hides under grandmother's bed and bites her; the dog bites them when they try to take it out from under the bed. Why not pile boxes under the bed? I point out boxes that would fit and make it impossible for the dog to hide there, but they just reply “oh yeah that might work” and I know they will never bother.
My family doesn't even bathe it - I asked if they had and it hadn't even occurred to them to try. And I know they won't bother to try even though I suggested it. They just live with the smell, and it becomes yet another fact of life for them.
What is the point of having the dog? It's a nuisance that they aren't fond of. A friend just abandoned the dog with them one day, and now they're keeping it. I wouldn't say 'looking after it', because it's life seems miserable. Maybe they are just too conflict-avoiding to ask the friend to take it back or tell the friend they are giving it away to someone else.
The guinea pigs - what's the point? They are in cages and are terrified of any humans, so just hide whenever there's a human in sight. All they do for my family is shit and make smells and make mess. The guinea pigs were originally in my sister's room, but made too much noise that it kept her awake, so they were moved out into the hallway. Nobody does anything with them except to feed them or briefly show them to visitors. One pig lives on its own inside, two others live outside with heated blankets. Serving no purpose and having no proper existence, but kept housed and fed in their little cages. This satisfies my family perhaps because having pets feels like a middle class lifestyle.
The day after Christmas, my grandmother seemd to be 'confused'. Her blood oxygen levels, as measured by one of those BPM/SpO2 clip-on oximeters, cycled between 80% to 97%. The oximeter gave warning beeps whenever it went 'too low' - but I suspect it is too cautious considering her age, i.e. it gives warning beeps for levels that are abnormally low for a middle-age person but which might be acceptable levels for an 87-year-old.
They had the idea of us all crowding around her to keep her BPM higher. I don't know why they thought this would help - isn't it just going to confuse her, if she's mentally present at all?
They were too pre-occupied with her low BPM (it was usually above 40 BPM, but sometimes briefly dipped to 25 BPM). Considering that the oximeter was probably slipping around on her finger, I didn't think this was too dangerously abnormal. It didn't seem consistently low enough to require hospitalisation - the oxygen saturation level was the more dangerously abnormal metric.
BPM between 40-60 is acceptable for an average person during sleep. Stationary, obese, extremely old people probably have even lower levels.
I just tried to keep my parent occupied by getting them to Google acceptable blood levels for elderly people, to stop them flapping about in a panic. I kept my eye on the oxygen saturation - it gradually returned to acceptable levels and stayed there.
They complain that I don't phone them often, but I did try to - it's just that every time I phoned they quickly handed me off to speak to my dementia-or-something-ridden grandmother for ages (it usually takes 10-20 minutes to find a way to end the conversation because she just doesn't hear what I say half the time).
They make pointed comments about how I never introduce my girlfriends to them.
To be sure, I never talk about my dating life with them (partly because I find the questions creepy and intrusive, though that just seems to be how old people are with dating in general). At one point, my parent listened in on a conversation I was having with a female friend at a pub for half an hour, and assumed I was dating her (I was not!) and that my girlfriend was Chinese because I had referenced some China news and one of her China-manufactured panties (my girlfriend's, not my friend's) made its way into the bag of clothes I took to Christmas.
But it's hard enough for a girl to put up with me - how could I expect her to put up with them too? I would probably introduce my girlfriend to my aunt/uncle/cousins before my immediate family, if things became properly serious, though how that would work I'm not sure.
Towards the end of my time here, my parent is crying because we didn't spend much time together playing board games. I don't really know how to respond. I understand the importance of it to them, but the limiting factor is my sister, who only allocates an hour or two each day for playing board games with us.
If they spent less time preparing food - literally hours each day! - and if my parent communicated time properly (i.e. less vague, and not constantly misleading us about schedules) then everyone would be free to play board games more often. Every time a scheduled event is not ready at or near the scheduled time, it makes everyone less willing to bother committing to another event. Maybe we'd have been able to do twice as many family activities as we ended up doing. It's baffling - they just cry about it instead of trying to improve it. What can I do? My parent is aware of how little time we now have together as a family (hence the crying), while my sister is oblivious, and I am numb to it (I get a general sense of dread or sadness when I think about it, but I've developed a good coping mechanism to 'temporarily lobotomise' myself so it's under tight control).
My sister's boyfriend smokes 6 times a day, and they keep scheduling the family activities straight after he smokes, whereas I want to wait half an hour for everyone else's lungs to absorb the smoke before I have to breathe it too. But he smokes when he has nothing else to do... so when I suggest we do something in half an hour, he spends that half hour smoking, and we have to delay again.
I told my sister and my parent from the start (when I first noticed him smoking - they never bothered telling me before I arrived) that I'm avoiding his smoke - I just met the boyfriend several days ago so it would be considered horrifically rude to tell him directly. But they do nothing to mitigate things - they don't find ways to stop him smoking before scheduled activities (e.g. asking him, or finding ways to keep him busy), they don't alert me when it is a suitable time to schedule a family activity (i.e. they don't inform me half an hour after he has stopped smoking).
Now, with grandmother here, we have to go to a public Christmas Eve dinner; with my parent dressed, as usual, like a clown or Jimmy Savile or Gary Glitter (not an exaggeration). I'm uncomfortable and embarrassed out of my mind. My parent spends most of the time speaking with my grandmother; I actually get along fine with my sister's boyfriend, but it's hard to hear what he is saying (does he speak quietly or do I just struggle to discern speech in crowds?).
Whenever I ask about something, I always get a non-committal positive response - e.g. asking “have you made your move in chess?” will be responded with by “oh yes I'll just do that now” - but they don't do it, while I wait around passively to make my response move. Why not just tell me you won't do it now but later?
Ultimately, what is the point of me being here? It's the same as the dog: to be part of a performance that keeps them content with life, to pretend they are living normal and fulfilling lives.
Every single Christmas is a misery, and has been since mid-childhood. But performing this 'ritual' is probably important for their mental health. Had I known my sister had a boyfriend before I booked the train tickets, maybe I would have avoided going - but I believe my parent needs at least two 'young' people at Christmas to make the performance that keeps them running.
I do wish I could say “I love you” and stuff to my family, or tell them how much I care for them. But that's strangely only easy to do with my girlfriends, because there's so much pre-existing intimacy. Maybe it's because I'm worried being open with my family will open up other things too - too much sadness and regret - or maybe it's something else. I treat my family the same way I'd treat my cousins - it's a side-effect of the social restrictions that I have to place on myself habitually, to function how society demands I function.
My sister has started losing weight. She had previously gained a lot of weight from her 'keto' diet, where she insisted that half the weight (not calories!) had to be taken from fat, thus she was forcing herself to eat blocks of cheese to reach that. I'm genuinely not joking or exaggerating. But she has lost that extra weight now, which is good, and if it continues, she might reach a healthy weight - a feat which I should give her a lot of credit for.
My parent is only gaining weight. I keep on trying to find ways to get them to exercise more, but they completely ignore it, giving me automated responses like “yeah, I should do, shouldn't I?” and taking no action. And exercise wouldn't really help their weight, only their health, because they would just use exercise as an excuse to eat more.
How do they eat so much food? Each time I ask for a list of food they've eaten in the last few days, it doesn't sound like enough for a normal person - but it must be much more than that.
The dog is fat, the grandmother is fat, they are fat - my parent obviously doesn't know how to judge what is enough food. I'm shocked at how much my grandmother is eating - she is probably greedy out of habit and not genuine hunger, but my parent accidentally encourages it by asking her if she wants more food.
They get into so many arguments with each other over pointless things, and needle each other too instead of de-escalating.
They both have a 'partner' who backs their side up 100% - my sister's boyfriends always agree with her 100%, my parent's mother agrees with them 100%. So now, neither side really bothers being tactful, they just rage and cry and split into two groups to resentfully talk about the other.
Neither seems to appreciate what each other do for each other - a lot of which is work that they never really have to do, like labour-intensive projects that they've suddenly decided to do and which compel the other to help to complete.
My sister has too much glee at my parent's crying . She's not a psychopath, she's just self-righteous from built-up resentment, some of which is well-founded. All normal people who become self-righteous are cruel - it's one of the scarier parts of human psychology.
I don't really know the full story of this resentment. It's a bit hard to ask, because I don't want to potentially drag up old resentments and make them fresh in their minds again.
But I believe my parent could have navigated this in a way to avoid the resentment - by explaining things better, by demanding less perfection, by 'not letting perfect be the enemy of good enough'.
I can only really change my sister's attitude, because my parent is too old or lazy to learn new ways. I can only really find ways to make my parent tolerate things more. But my sister is self-righteous - all I'd ask of her is for her to stop escalating situations even when she's in the right, but that's the one thing she refuses to do.
Even when I convince one of them to apologise to the other, the apology is usually insincere. But if it is sincere, the other refuses to gracefully accept it, instead rubbing salt into the wound and doing a victory lap of self-righteousness and grievance.
My parent pushes my sister away with all these petty arguments; my parent should accept my sister's 50% or 80% efforts instead of demanding 100%.
My sister's medication has certainly made her more aggressive - she proudly boasted to me on the phone months ago that she had started punching my parent to resolve arguments. And she does seem to be knowingly cruel or at least neglectful of the dog, something that would have been unthinkable when she was younger. But the medication is important to her, so it's probably best that she stay on it. And the medication can't really be blamed for much - it's only, at most, amplifying grievances that already existed.
tl;dr: They can't stop lashing out because they are both driven by stubbornness and a sense of self-righteousness that overrides my attempts to make them reconciliate. My parent needs friends... why can't they just get into some not-weird hobby?
All of this above - this is a parable for how Britain is as a whole.
British people are beaurocratic, conflict-avoidant, checkbox-ticking, inside-the-box thinkers - though they pretend these attributes only apply to other people (British people often complain Indians are psychophantic, and that Germans are beaurocratic and rigid and unrebellious). I have not met a European who disagrees with my assessment of the British character, but of course I don't mention it to British people.
When I'm invited to a party, I'm the idiot who shows up on time! I don't understand why if you say the party starts at 6pm everyone arrives only after 7pm. In fact I deliberately try to arrive half an hour late, to avoid looking crazy, and that still isn't enough! Nobody has told me why this is, and I can't keep asking because even asking the question makes me look weird.
Any time there is a problem in Britain, the British peoples' solution to it is to throw money at it, privatise or nationalise it, or pretend it doesn't exist. No structural changes, no self-awareness of their role in what is often a social problem - just allocate a budget for it and let that budget get eaten up by some private companies or NGOs who promise to fix the problem but end up spending the money on pointless vanity projects.
Or, more generally, to change numbers instead of processes. Reforming the immigration system - such as keeping immigration but making citizenship or benefits harder for immigrants to get - could keep the supposed 'economic benefits' without the economic downsides and without so much public anger at demographic change. But this is almost never discussed - only increasing or decreasing the number of immigrants.
Any time there is behaviour British people don't like, their solution is to ban it. Don't ask what causes it, don't ask if it's a more pressing concern than the real crimes that police aren't currently bothering to fight - just ban it and slap 10 years imprisonment for it! British people want to live in what they claim China is - a police state where everyone is an informant. I think George Orwell probably mentioned something about 'curtain-twitching' being in the British character a century ago - is it because all our adventurous people flee to America?
We arrest far more people for 'speech offenses' per-capita than Russia did (at least before the Ukraine War), British courts will fine you for 'defaming' oligarchs (we're the jurisdiction of choice for oligarchs to censor their critics), but British people still believe they live in a 'free' country, because our censorship is a 'necessary' fact of life, just like all the other miseries our stupid country chooses to live with (physical crime, political corruption, poor public transport).
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I've seen so many huge spiders in my room. I don't mind the spindly ones, but there are real spiders - almost spanned the size of a woman's hand, legs almost as thick as a USB cable cord. They looked like 'brown recluses' but with patterns.
My housemate has had pigeons down her vents and now she's also getting almost as many spiders as I am (and screaming bloody murder each time).
Today, I also saw 'Trachelas Tranquillus' on the kitchen window, maybe ~3-4cm. It looked exactly like this.
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It took me a long time to get the concept that things in the universe couldn't be entirely mechanical.
In a completely mechanical universe, if you knew the state of the universe at some point in time, you could accurately calculate the complete future state of the universe at any future point in time.
There's 3 problems:
When you throw a coin, that is mechanical. The outcome is not actually random - it is simply modelled as random because we can't easily calculate how it will land. But if we measured the position/shape/movement of your hand and coin, and the air flow, then we could theoretically know exactly which face it will land on.
Quantum events are fundamentally random. It isn't a lack of ability to measure the initial variables - they are truly, purely random events. What this means is that quantum events depend on time, whereas mechanical events do not depend on time (only on position and momentum: x and ẋ).
Don't be confused by mechanical formulas containing time in them - like distance = speed x time - those aren't events, they are not what I'm talking about. An event is a distinct change, like a mechanical clock ticking to the next minute. The clock doesn't care about time - the mechanical parts are set up in such a way that its ticks coincide with the desired time duration, but if you looked at each part of the setup, you could model each part purely with position and momentum, taking time out of the equations, something you could not do with quantum mechanics.
If you made it this far, I actually made up those previous 2 paragraphs. I have no idea what I'm talking about. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't have anyone to discuss this with so it's staying up.
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As I walk around my city, in suburban areas I will sometimes hear a loud high-pitched screech in my ear. No, it's not Havana Syndrome - it's one of those Mosquito anti-youth devices that became popular in Britain after the 2011 'England riots'.
It works by emitting a loud sound at a very high frequency, so that only young ears can hear it (because we lose the ability to hear higher frequencies as we age).
How could a device like this be legal, when age discrimination is illegal in Britain?
Not only is it legal, it is used by police and councils too.
Well, it turns out that 'age discrimination' only recognises one age group: age 40+. Or two, if you count various protections pensioners have. There is no law preventing discrimination against age groups younger than 40.
These devices scream at me not when I enter their property, but when I am walking on the path near their property. Basically, I need to walk in the road to avoid them. Isn't that ridiculous?
Is it morally different to making a device that specifically heats up breast tissue, to cause women (and only women) sharp pain if they walk within a close distance of it? Why is there immediate, total and silent acceptance of devices that deliberately inflict pain on all youth?
I've got lots of 'bookmarked' URLs in text files all across my filesystem... I'll just dump some of the most interesting tech ones here, and delete the least-interesting tech ones.
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