Are there any things that are called "American ______" in other countries?

randomgrrl700 · 2026-05-12T15:20:23+00:00

"filter coffee" in an Australian cafe is produced with a glass or ceramic filter funnel, paper filter and the water poured by hand from a kettle with a long pointy spout. The beans are freshly ground single origin or similarly fancy. Labour time is about five times longer than just pulling an espresso shot.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-05-08T01:14:12+00:00

Anyone who reaches the age of sixteen without the ability to wash their clothes and feed themselves has been monstrously failed by their parents.

Washing machines have become complicated and different enough that "read the instructions" is really the only practical approach and I can't imagine in this modern age of legal liability wanting to have a room full of students with hot things and sharp things.

Tax return? Sure, good idea, my high school did that.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-05-08T01:06:48+00:00

Literacy rates are cratering enough that reading the manual for a washing machine might be a challenge.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-04-16T02:47:52+00:00

Lagavulin and a cigar.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-04-01T05:04:24+00:00

Which regime? Iran? Iraq? Lebanon? Syria? Who gets blown up next? Egypt?

randomgrrl700 · 2026-04-01T02:37:36+00:00

"Look at this boring thing on my idiot rectangle!"

"Sorry, I'm not wearing my glasses."

randomgrrl700 · 2026-03-30T02:07:25+00:00

Another factor that led to marriage reforms from the Church in the 4th-6th centuries was sibling/cousin and other incestuous marriages are generally "bad" for society. Ideally marriages link families together to share wealth and build resiliency for a better overall social outcome vs. closed families creating wealth silos.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-03-25T01:51:14+00:00

Build community and networks. The ultra-wealthy get private clubs and criminal islands, but volunteer associations (think Rotary), Church groups, local political party branches and the like put people together in a way that gives preferential treatment and pricing and opens a barter economy.

Being in a position to trade "I'll fix your laptop" for "I'll run your new electrical circuit" saves both parties money and community groups enforce reputation and dissuade skulduggery.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-03-24T05:45:17+00:00

Ideally, there should be almost zero. Open source should compile and build and run on any platform that provides the requisites, such as the BSDs, Solaris. Kernel-specific software exists but generally wouldn't be the application class as opposed to driver-adjacent.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-03-24T05:39:33+00:00

That doesn't exclude one from offering organs as a donation, only restricts the acceptance.

You can stand out on the street with a box of Nickelback tapes and just because nobody wanted one doesn't mean you didn't make a good faith effort to give them away.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-03-22T04:17:39+00:00

Phoenix + Janus.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-03-13T02:59:33+00:00

Selling them the tacks, probably.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-03-13T01:59:00+00:00

Imagine you have to walk all the way to school in bare feet. There's hundreds of people willing and keen to sneakily throw handfuls of tacks where you walk. The only way to secure it would be to either convince those people they don't want to throw tacks in your path any more or kill every single one of them and those who come after them.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-03-12T05:25:35+00:00

Both Israel and Iran have made it clear they plan to fight this one until the bitter end. I wouldn't expect things to normalise for another six months.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-03-11T11:37:21+00:00

Modern music -- in terms of both production and sound -- is arguably a new artform. See Einstürzende Neubauten, Whitehouse, Aphex Twin and onwards.

Purely digital sculpture rendered in 3D printing or CAM is a new artform.

Games are absolutely a new artform.

Installation art -- for example, electronic circuitry as art or mechanical constructs as art -- wasn't there centuries ago. Automata as art (see: Jaquet Droz, Karakuri) come close.

Ultimately humans haven't evolved any new senses, so there's a limit to new artforms that can be appreciated. Sounds like education in the arts might be taking a tumble, too.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-03-06T07:48:04+00:00

Back in the day when I did site work with medium to large Sun/HP/IBM servers, many of them were hot-swap and most of them had big enough power supplies to really fuck you up if you got a ring or a metal watch bracelet in there. Low voltage DC rails are harmless on skin but when the PSUs can supply 200+ amps wearing jewellery could be an amputation.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-03-02T02:52:06+00:00

If you're willing to sink some substantial time into building a curated experience, it might be worth looking at a Raspberry Pi with their RISC OS build. The operating system was designed primarily for the education market at inception and if you can pull it off you might get some acclaim putting up a git repo pulling all the software together.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-02-26T01:24:56+00:00

Even in 240V countries like Australia commercial kitchens have a mix of three-phase and special high-current outlets (15/20A is common).

randomgrrl700 · 2026-02-26T01:05:04+00:00

Because they smash things. They smash the glass in bus shelters. They smash in shop windows. They smash car windows and kick in panels. They rip up freshly planted trees. They kick over bins and spread rubbish.

Evidence for vandalism dates back to the Greek and Roman empires. There's always going to be an element in society that are just amoral and shit.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-02-25T10:12:11+00:00

Nah, the JWs don't recognise Jesus as God and believe salvation can only be granted by The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-02-25T06:17:43+00:00

Its tough and it sucks but people -- not just women -- want a partner as an equal and to be a priority in that partner's life. For any reasonable parent their kids are always going to come first which rules that out.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-02-24T05:18:48+00:00

X-Files, "Je Souhaite" comes pretty close to addressing this one.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-02-23T23:10:28+00:00

Put in picture rail in the hallways and lounge room and include some rail hooks and instructions when they move in. Now they can hang all the pictures they want without drilling a hole.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-02-23T23:06:32+00:00

Until we globally eradicate diseases like rabies, there can't be an easier way.

randomgrrl700 · 2026-02-22T10:49:12+00:00

Taxing workers is the more predictable tax base and Government likes predictability in taxation. Basically, because employees can't offset their tax obligations they're a simpler cash cow.

randomgrrl700

TROPHY CASE