US-ians, how has your week been?
Anything exciting/good/bad happen? My excitement for the week was playing this trick-taking game for the first time, it was pretty fun:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/324856/the-crew-mission-deep-sea
I think my favorite is dandelion wine, which a friend made for a party by picking dandelions and making the wine themselves. Quite good, and also quite strong
What is the best alcohol made in the US?
Beer, wine, liquor, whatever your favorite drink is. What are specific good products/brands/whatever?
X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*
Probably the closest you're going to get
T-mobile, because I got some plan years ago that gave me true unlimited data instead of "unlimited", and I don't want to try to find another plan with that.
My plan has like 10GB or so of tethered data, which pro-tip, you can get around by adjusting the TTL of packets sent by devices connected to your phone so that they appear to be coming from your phone. N.B. that t-mobile doesn't like this and may cut your service off.
Do you wear Calvin Klein underwear?
Coming from this post, I made an online Moldovan friend & he's asking me about life in the US :):
I for one just wear whatever Costco has for reasonable prices
Please don't respond to personal attacks with more of the same. Just report and/or downvote and ignore them
This really isn't what we're going for in this community, and it's also not productive. Nobody's going to change their mind because they were insulted on the internet. That energy is better spent effecting real-world change.
This will possibly be a contentious thread, so please be extra nice and assume the best of the other person when commenting!
I'm saying it sucks that Reagan pushed back on metric by abolishing the board responsible for the Metrication of the US, dooming us to the current situation where we're stuck in the middle
The Metric Board was abolished in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan, largely on the suggestion of Frank Mankiewicz and Lyn Nofziger.
One more thing to throw on his pile of sins.
The only real defense of our current system is that in construction, it's easier to divide 12 inches into thirds than metric. Seems like a pretty weak rationale still, and we should also just switch to dozenal anyways
Predictions for when the US will switch completely over to metric?
When do you think we'll accomplish it? Certainly not in the next four years, IMO. If we're lucky, we might be able to do it within like 20 years.
Do you think it's related to Boomers at all, and newer generations might be more willing to push it through? Here's a Boomer Death Clock that says about 35% of them have passed away by now.
Should the US get rid of the penny?
Is it about time, or is it still useful? If you think its time has passed, what about the nickel/dime/quarter?
I'm going to type faster than ChatGPT generates, and I'll hallucinate more
Yeah it totally isn't easy reading lol. Just compared to The Silmarillion it feels that way.
What is your 2025 Yule Boast?
Found out about this excellent tradition from this post: https://lemmy.world/post/23739600
Transcript:
> this will be the year I finally convince everyone to abandon New Year's resolutions in favour of Yule Boasting, the clearly superior tradition
> allow me to explain. Yule boasting is an old Norse tradition of getting shitfaced at the winter solstice feast and standing up to proclaim all the great, infamous, and wildly improbable deeds you will perform in the coming year. can range from an unlikely but technically possible claim, like "I'm going to rob 300 banks", to something you'd have to bend the laws of the universe to actually accomplish, like "I'm going to punch a god in the dick and steal his horse". these are not plans. they're not even goals. they're the things you'd do in a self-insert superhero fanfic. and honestly all I want this holiday season is for a bunch of friends to go all in on this nonsense with me and hyper ourselves up in ways previously unimaginable
I remember liking it, but I read it long ago so don't remember a ton of it. I might've liked it because it's Literature and you're obligated to like it.
I like the Shrike a lot, does that count as a character? I always imagined it as something cooler than depicted in a lot of art though, like something completely unreal, with angles and points that look like glitches in reality, like your GPU is trying to render something while its melting.
Nah, those are easy reads. The Silmarillion? Now that's daunting 😈
Including the ones by Brian Herbert? I've never heard anyone say a single good thing about those.
The audiobooks for HHGttG are quite good if that's your sort of thing. Stephen Fry does a great job on the first one. I didn't quite like the voices in the other ones, but they were still overall well done.
In the middle of reading Tress of the Emerald Sea, by Brandon Sanderson. I haven't read any of his stuff other than his completion of the Wheel of Time series. I saw that Tress is a good standalone book in the series so I figured I'd try that out. It's good so far, but seems rather YA compared to what I assume the rest of the series is like.
You probably won't be the first person responding to issues at work, because the people in Eastern timezone have probably already started to handle it by the time you're up. Likewise, if you have a deadline like "end of day", you have some extra breathing room over the other continental timezones. The downside of that is that if things are still broken by EOD Pacific, you're most likely to have to work late to fix it.
One nice thing about working in earlier timezones is that if a lot of people at your company are Pacific, you'll probably get a few peaceful hours before things really start going.
How far away from family do you live?
The US tends to be a lot more spread out than Europe and the rest of the world. It seems like we're also more likely to move long distances for jobs and the like.
I'm pretty close to most family, 10 to 40 minute drives for everyone that doesn't live out of state
When are we making the UK our 51st state?
It's about time. They can join us in rejecting metric and driving on the right side of the road. Also what's a catchy term for it? Brenter?
How long (if ever) did you believe in Santa for?
If you have kids or want to, what is the plan for them?
Merry Christmas! How is the holiday going for you?
Including if you don't celebrate. Just a normal day for you then?
If you do celebrate, was it a good time, or did something ruin it?
When do you arrive at a party?
I arrive on time, as that's just the polite thing to do and I'm not fashionable enough for fashionably late. I also like hanging out with people before things get crowded and/or loud, though I enjoy that too.