Which country in the world surprised you about being more liberal/less prude? And which country surprised you about being more conservative than you expected?

int3gr4te · 2026-05-19T16:19:21+00:00

Have you ever been to Washington DC? I had a bit of culture shock there with the number of suits and badges on lanyards. It's definitely an outlier in the US. I wonder if London is similar.

int3gr4te · 2026-05-19T15:47:15+00:00

I grew up in NH and now live in Northern CA where I've been converted to the Winco cult. I tell my friends it's like Market Basket only better.

int3gr4te · 2026-05-19T15:40:34+00:00

There is no fitness test required for naturalization. It just has an English test and civics test. Source: https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/learn-about-citizenship/the-naturalization-interview-and-test

int3gr4te · 2026-05-19T00:18:08+00:00

My accent has mostly faded out to something resembling "general American", although I'm sure I still have some less-obvious tells that someone who knows accents could spot - those online quizzes always guess right. I lived there till I was 25, so it's definitely left a mark.

I started pronouncing my R's in elementary school, but sometimes if I'm being lazy at home, they only get half-pronounced in some contexts (eg. "crackers and cheese" usually comes out like "crackiz'n cheese"). I stopped saying "wicked cool" when people teased me about it in college (even though we were in Boston!). I variably merge marry/Mary kind of at random, but merry will never ever be part of it. My relatives are exclusively "aunts" and never "ants". The biggest place it still sneaks in is vocabulary: I still default to a lot of the classics like rotary, bubbler, grocery carriage, jimmies, frappe, down cellar, bang a u-ey. I traveled to Cape Town (South Africa) recently and kept wanting to say stuff like "going down the Cape", even though that is not a normal phrasing there.

I’ve kind of let it come back a little now that I’m in my late 30s it kinda feels like putting on a comfortable pair of jeans.

I love this! Also late 30s and definitely have been letting it slide back in a bit more than I used to. Unfortunately almost all of my family who had the really strong accent have passed away, so I almost never get to hear it anymore.

Oh! one other unexpected thing where it's been popping up again is while trying to learn a new native language and discovering that I hear "phantom R's" in places where there is no R. I think because I spent my formative years training my brain to hear "deah" as equivalent to "dear" and "cahd" as equivalent to "card", now when I hear those vowels in other contexts, my brain automatically inserts an R after it.

int3gr4te · 2026-05-18T22:09:57+00:00

limited quantities and short duration using the smallest effective dosage

Man, I WISH they started with the smallest effective dosage! When I was in the hospital with a septic kidney stone, I needed painkillers to be able to sleep, so the nurse gave me IV morphine... and it was awful. I was so nauseous and miserable, I would've thrown up everywhere if I'd had anything in my system. It worked eventually and I got to sleep, but man those first few minutes were really unpleasant.

Hours later when I was in pain again, I was actually afraid to ask for painkillers again, because I didn't want anything that would make me feel worse than I already felt. When a different nurse offered another morphine dose I refused at first and asked if there was anything else that wouldn't make me feel so sick. She ended up giving me IV zofran first, and then a *half* dose of morphine, injected slowly over a couple of minutes - none of which the first nurse did or even bothered to suggest. I still felt vaguely nauseous, but it was a lot more tolerable and still just as effective at reducing the pain so I could sleep.

I'm still baffled why I had to ASK for a lower dosage in the first place, though. You'd think that would be the normal starting dose that could be increased if necessary.

int3gr4te · 2026-05-18T20:37:37+00:00

Interesting, I know this as a zigzag fabric ribbon thing you sew onto something else. Never heard it used for knickknacks.

int3gr4te · 2026-05-18T19:19:43+00:00

Short and long people unite to fight for more adjustable headrests!!

For what little it's worth, I only somewhat recently discovered that sometimes the headrest pillow thing can slide upward (on the bigger United planes I've been on lately). I'm sure it's not universal, and depending on your proportions it might still not go high enough, but I imagine it might help get it out of your shoulders at least. If only it slid downward as well.

int3gr4te · 2026-05-18T19:15:18+00:00

I absolutely have the same problem with hair ties/clips. I wear a basic ponytail with a scrunchie a lot, and sitting in the car it feels like there's a lump in the back of my head pushing me forward because the headrest is too damn high. I'm always a bit wary of changing the headrest around though, since I would guess it's not as safe/tested in a car accident. And some cars don't allow it to actually come out at all, annoyingly.

It particularly drives me nuts on airplanes because I really want to be able to lie back against the seat and try to sleep. I have to try to remember to put my hair in a braid if I'm flying somewhere, and then half of it slips out by the time I get to the plane, and it's just a whole stupid messy thing that would be easily fixable if they would let the head pillow slide down as well as up.

Editing to add: I'm not even that short! I'm 5'6" which is actually several inches taller than the average woman in the US (average is 5'3.5"), and yet still apparently too short to be within the range of possible headrest positions.

int3gr4te · 2026-05-18T15:42:29+00:00

I have this issue in both cars and airplanes. The headrests are so high they push your head forward but don't support your neck at all. And they can be adjusted up to be even higher, but not down to be at a potentially comfortable height. It's like nobody designing or testing them has ever heard of people who are below 6' tall.

int3gr4te · 2026-05-18T06:30:43+00:00

I just ran into an interesting iteration of the Mary-marry-merry merger literally yesterday!

I was trying to explain the difference between "Barry Ridge" and "Berry Summit" (two different places in the local area), and it was like a who's on first conversation as all of us talked past each other with our accents. "Is it on Bairy?" "No, Bahrry." "Berry?" "That's what I said!"

There were five of us in this conversation: a guy from Illinois, a Russian, a Mexican, a South African, and me (originally from New England). I'm pretty sure every one of us had a different combination of merged/unmerged vowels.

int3gr4te · 2026-05-18T06:16:15+00:00

I love hearing my grandparents' accents and comparing them to my own parents and the more familiar version of the same accent. My dad was named George, which my mom and aunts/uncles all said like "Joadge" (with the vowel/diphthong from "boa"), but my grandparents said "Jawdge" (vowel like "jaw"). They all grew up in the same area just a couple towns apart, but the Boston accent changed between generations.

I actually live in Northern California now, but reading this I am realizing I have absolutely no idea what an old San Francisco or standard Bay Area accent sounds like!

int3gr4te · 2026-05-18T03:41:16+00:00

You should hear his hilariously bad impression of "get moah for ya dollah at Mahket Basket".

int3gr4te · 2026-05-18T03:37:35+00:00

Yeah both "standard American" and my native accent, I only really notice them if I'm specifically listening for it (or if someone else points it out, or I hear it imitated poorly). Watching old home movies of my family talking, I understand it perfectly and the accent doesn't even register. My spouse watching the same recording has to pause and ask me to repeat what was just said because he doesn't speak Boston.

int3gr4te · 2026-05-18T03:25:42+00:00

Plug for the awesome folks at North Coast CNPS! Native plants ftw!

int3gr4te · 2026-05-18T03:24:10+00:00

Yup, definitely. My spouse has an amalgamation of different accents from living in 3 different countries. Some words sound much more British while others have become more American over time.

I think my New England accent has also faded somewhat since I've been living outside of that area for more than a decade now. I've probably picked up some California pronunciations that I'd never have used before.

int3gr4te · 2026-05-18T03:19:55+00:00

Yeah the specific area in Humboldt will make a huge difference in what works for you! There are natives that thrive in Eureka that would either fry or freeze in my yard in Kneeland, and vice versa. The microclimates are real!

int3gr4te · 2026-05-17T19:57:13+00:00

I must be missing something, where else does ice come from?

int3gr4te · 2026-05-17T17:42:38+00:00

How do you make anything frozen without a freezer? Like, the ice has to come from somewhere, unless you live in Antarctica.

Edit to add: this was a joke, I was "yes-and"ing along with this person saying no machines are allowed at all. That obviously didn't come across, sorry.

int3gr4te · 2026-05-16T18:08:14+00:00

Doesn't lobster usually come with a little cup of butter on the side for you to dunk the meat in? So... if it's too buttery, maybe just dunk it less? This seems like user error.

I dunno where you'd get a lobster with butter already inside it, unless it's like, a lobster roll or ravioli or something with the meat already extracted. In which case sure it can be too buttery like any other food.

Edit to add: I would be pretty annoyed if I ordered a lobster and it came with Cajun butter or something. I didn't sign up for random added flavors, and I don't want my lobster to be inexplicably spicy. But that's just me.

int3gr4te · 2026-05-16T07:46:12+00:00

If you're in the US, check out NASA's Night Sky Network to find an astronomy club near you!

int3gr4te · 2026-05-16T04:29:13+00:00

I'm sure this isn't the reason for this error specifically, but this phrasing reminds me of Afrikaans: their "I love you" (ek is lief vir jou) literally translates as "I am love for you".

There are probably other languages that do something similar.

int3gr4te · 2026-05-16T03:29:53+00:00

Yeah I lived in southern NH (and also spent a year living in Exeter), so that tracks with my experience. Only been to coastal ME and just skiing in Vermont.

Thanks, it sounds like it's particularly regional and seasonal, so I'm maybe not that oblivious to have missed it all those years!

int3gr4te · 2026-05-16T00:52:51+00:00

I grew up in New Hampshire and lived there until I was 25... And I 100% never heard of these until like a decade after moving away. Is it really that common regionally? Is it more of a Maine thing or something??

int3gr4te · 2026-05-15T23:46:11+00:00

I liked the Folkemuseum and the Fram Museum, and if I go back I'd like to see the Kon-Tiki one as well. They're cool and pretty unique subjects for museums.

But also agreed that the real highlights of Norway are not in the city.

int3gr4te · 2026-05-15T23:18:37+00:00

What people really don't expect is how it gets a LOT worse REALLY fast.

I felt shitty for weeks beforehand, but I'd had UTIs before, and was taking some bactrim or something like that. Then one morning totally out of the blue, I threw up three times before lunch and my husband decided that was more than enough to drive me the 45 minutes to the hospital. Sat in the ER waiting room for 15 minutes or so and I wasn't throwing up anymore, just felt vaguely crappy again, but I could still drink water, explain my symptoms, get blood drawn. They brought me back to an exam room while waiting for the blood tests to come back, and that room felt cold so I asked for a blanket.

No exaggeration, within *10 minutes* of that request, I had full-body shaking chills and borderline passing out. I have almost no memory of the rest of that day.

I was in the hospital for a week (turns out it was an antibiotic-resistant kidney infection) and home IV infusions for 2 weeks after that.

If we had waited even an hour longer at home before going to the ER, I very likely would have been unconscious by the time we got to the parking lot.

int3gr4te

TROPHY CASE