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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 13th, 2023

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  • This is a good point, although maybe I’m just unlucky, but quite a few times over the years, I’ve encountered friends, and friends of friends, who were vegetarian or vegan and seemed to make a primary hobby out of shoe-horning that information into any and every conversation they could. And every time, it was very deliberately and openly presented in a way to praise themselves and demonize anyone not like them.

    Not only is food very foundational, as you’ve said, but I also strongly feel that a reason this particular set of -isms is such a lightning rod is because (perhaps due in large part to that foundational aspect of food in society), it seems like vegetarianism and veganism very much becomes who someone is, as opposed to simply describing an aspect of their lifestyle.

    Not only that, but it becomes a part of their Identity in a way that frequently impacts the people around them.

    So someone is a Catholic. That’s cool. I’m not one and I might have my issues with the Catholic church, but unless they’re extremely devout, chances are, their Catholicism is more “how they worship” and less “who they are” in everyday interaction. It just isn’t likely to affect me, and as such I’m much less likely to really care. As such, I’m cool with Catholics. Add to that: most Catholic people aren’t painting their religious belief in superiority either overtly or implicitly these days. They’re just going to mass on Sunday and doing their thing.

    On the other hand, someone is vegan. That’s also cool. I might have preferences and a lifestyle that conflicts with their views and vice versa but we can coexist, and our preferences on what to eat won’t ever lead to conflict between us, right? Well…if they’re a coworker…or a member of a friend group, now any and every time that group of people wants to eat, that foundational aspect of society, now the group must accommodate that -ism which they don’t share. And that’s probably fine for everyone in the group sometimes…and some of the group all the time…but generally speaking, looking at all of the group, all of the time, that’s statistically likely to eventually rankle at least a few people. Then, depending on the individual, there’s a very real chance that they eat with this group, some of which may already be annoyed by having their food options limited by the choices of this individual…and on top of it, that individual takes that opportunity to make a comment that invokes morality into the situation…and it should come as little surprise that this type of person gets a generalized negative reputation.




  • I mean, in this case it’s what works for her then, but it’s literally the exact sort of thing the article is dealing with.

    Worse in this case because she’s owning the home, not living in it, and using it to generate passive income, specifically preventing what might have been a younger generation of homeowners from making that investment and instead forcing them into the very rental market she’s profiting from.

    And I’m not saying she’s a bad person or a bad landlord or anything, just that this is an example supporting the piece, not an exception to it.



  • I should get tested as well, even as an adult.

    As a kid it was really bad, and affected my entire schooling negatively (I was the kid who would ace every test and quiz but still end up with a C because I turned in zero homework assignments…gifted classes but struggling to make the honor roll)…but my parents were worried about both the stigma of a diagnosis as well as the fear that I’d get prescribed something that would turn me into a zombie. Probably both unfounded fears but that’s why they never got me tested and growing up, only having them for perspective, that’s what I thought as well.

    Basically they tried to make me afraid of getting a diagnosis in order to get me to “straighten up” and do my homework.

    Looking back, I really wish they’d have looked into it and at least got me evaluated. If there was something I could take that would’ve improved my focus, it probably would have been a huge help in my academics.



  • It’s so sad but this is completely true.

    Anywhere that I’ve learned a new skill in hopes of getting a promotion, the response has either been “why did you waste time learning that? That’s not your job.” or more commonly “great initiative! Now we can add that work to your workload without having to pay you a cent more! This is great management because we can have one employee do the job of 1.5, and we didn’t even have to pay to train them! Thanks for that and here’s your extra work! Deadlines and expectations remain the same on your old work of course.”

    In a few cases, once that inevitably led to job change, they had the gall to try and shame me with a line like, “You know, that’s a skill you learned under this roof, to do work for this company. While we are professionals here, if we weren’t, this might feel like a betrayal…”



  • Since then, I went back to Bosch, which are consistently great, then two summers ago I had a windshield crack that led to replacement, and the replacement company (Safelite) also recommended new wipers (to avoid any glass reside embedded in the wiper scratching the new windshield) and I took them up on buying their own brand to replace…and they’ve been oddly good.

    Not as good as Bosch to start, but better than PIAA, and then they’ve gone on to last almost two years at a pretty good performance level.

    While I’ll probably go back to Bosch in the spring, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend these Safelite wipers to anyone.

    (My luck: it’d turn out that Safelite uses PIAA for their wipers. 😝)




  • PIAA silicone windshield wipers (I think many silicone based wipers in general) are as BIFL as can be for windshield wipers. I think I have the same pair on my car from 2016.

    I was very disappointed with PIAA wipers when I got a set.

    Expensive, and while they did last slightly longer than the 1-1.5 years I usually expect from wipers, from day one, their performance was noticeably worse than all but the cheapest common brands. Basically they never, ever actually cleanly wiped away all the rain. Streaky and leaving trails of water from day one.

    So yeah, they lasted longer, but it was at the level of half-worn-out blades anyway, so to me, it was basically a wash on price of one set of PIAA vs two sets of some other brand…and with the other brand, at least I’d get the two honeymoon phases where they were brand new and working fantastically.