What's a 'common sense' thing that you genuinely don't understand, and have been too embarrassed to ask about until now?

Submitted ⁨⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨melonhusk@sh.itjust.works⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

For example, i recently learned how to properly use a can opener, and i’m pushing 30. PLEASE tell me i’m not alone in having these weird knowledge gaps. what’s yours?

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Acamon@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
AI bot, check the post history

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- DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Skimmed through profile, can’t notice anything immediately sus. What is sus in your opinion?
  
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- stoy@lemmy.zip ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Thanks, blocked!
  
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owenfromcanada@lemmy.ca ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Usually I don’t know about my knowledge gaps until someone fills me in, so it’s hard to say.

There are a lot of movies that I’ve never seen that apparently everyone else has seen. I usually just smile and nod when people talk to me as if I’ve seen whatever they’re referencing, it’s easier than dealing with the incredulity and making false promises about getting around to seeing it.

Also, relevant xkcd

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- kartoffelsaft@programming.dev ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I find it’s even worse with music than movies, especially if you include not knowing the thing in question at all. The movie guy reaction to not having watched the #8 top grossing movie the year is “dude how have you not seen it??? You’ve gotta see it!”, the music guy reaction to not hearing any of the #8 top musician/band this year is “are you a shutin or a dumbass? everyone I know listens to them!”. I’ve even seen both of these reactions from the same person lol.
  
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  - owenfromcanada@lemmy.ca ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Fair enough. But when people find out I’ve never seen Forest Gump or some other classic, I get the second reaction.
    
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sheridan@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I don’t understand how drivers know if they have enough time to go through a yellow light. I don’t drive anymore but for the short time I did I dreaded yellow lights.

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- Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  My quick assessment for yellow lights is “can I comfortably stop before the stop bar?” If I’m going to have to hit my brakes harder than I normally would for a stop sign, I’m giving it gas. Quickly making that judgement is actually really intuitive most of the time and has worked great for me over the years.
  
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- TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  It’s not about having enough time. If you see the yellow light, and you are still far away from it, and you can stop the car by gently braking, you should stop. However, not that many people do, because they just don’t feel like it. If people don’t feel like stopping, they don’t.
  
  If the intersection is very close when the light turns yellow, you would need to brake very hard. That’s when I just keep on going to prevent accidents. In that case, it’s not really about time either. You need to know how much distance it takes to stop your car. If you’re driving on bumpy ice, that distance will be greater than in good summer weather.
  
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  - ILikeTraaaains@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    That’s how it was taught to me.
    
    Yellow: Stop safely Red: Stop at any cost
    
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- RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Usually it’s 1 second of yellow per 10 mph speed limit. So a 50 mph road would usually have a 5 second yellow.
  
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- snooggums@piefed.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Practice and not caring if the light turns red while going through. If I feel like I would need to brake hard to stop in time then there is probably enough time to get through. When I'm wrong it doesn't matter.
  
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- Get_Off_My_WLAN@fedia.io ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  If you drive the same roads every day, you can start to pick up on the pattern and timings. It's when it turns yellow in those times you feel almost too close to stop comfortably but too far to feel you'll make it that people will "squeeze the lemon" and accelerate through that yellow light, not that I recommend it.
  
  Also glad I don't have to drive anymore.
  
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- fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  It’s based on the speed limit of the road. Yellow means proceed if safe or stop if safe. The faster it is the longer the yellow. And usually the longer the time between it turning green on the other side should you pull a whoopsie.
  
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sheridan@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Until I was like 23 I didn’t know how to cut and peel an avocado. I would peel the skin off in chunks with my fingers like it was a giant boiled egg. It was a very laborious and frustrating process.

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- tlekiteki@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Run the boiled egg under cold water. Then crack around the circumference. Then peel the circunemference. With a little luck, the top and bottom come away clean.
  
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  - WaitThisIsntReddit@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Read
    
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- BombOmOm@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I normally just cut it in half and scoop out the insides. Peeling one of those is a PITA.
  
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over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’m 43. How does Call Waiting work? Like how do you switch over from one call to the other?

I’ve never had any situation where I had a second call come in while already in a call, but seriously how tf does that work?

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- AngryishHumanoid@lemmynsfw.com ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  So what happens is you push a button to switch to the new call. The call you were on goes on hold. Then you can switch back to the first call and the second call is put on hold. You can keep switching back and forth as much as you want. And last, you have an option to bring BOTH calls on the line at the same time.
  
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- Brkdncr@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Honestly how did two wires on old phones power the phone, got it to ring, hold a two-way conversation, and also dial out? Only two wires?!?
  
  I took a class at college on it and the mystery was revealed but I’m still convinced it’s magic.
  
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  - over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Apparently they ran on like 90 volts!
    
    Yeah, I didn’t have a landline phone at home as a kid, but I was still stupid and curious enough to lick the phone wires at a friend’s house out of curiosity.
    
    Note to self, don’t lick random wires… 💀
    
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  - GhostPain@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Oh man, you need to look up AM radio towers!
    
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  - Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    Only two wires?!?
    
    LOL.
    
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- Skullkid@lemmy.org ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  When I get a second phone call and answer it, it puts my current phone call on hold. It then has an option on the screen to switch between calls, along with a button that I think merges the calls? Never tried that one. When I hang up on the second call, it switches me back to the first call automatically. I’ve never heard it called “call waiting” before so I’m not sure if this is what you’re referring to or not, though…
  
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  - over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I think that was what they originally called it, Call Waiting, back in the landline phone days. I just never had a landline phone, my late father was too paranoid to ever get a phone installed, so I basically started cutting my phone teeth on cell phones around age 33…
    
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snooggums@piefed.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
That's common knowledge (things most people know, like tying shoes), not common sense (said to justify bullshit not supported by evidence, like racist stereotypes). Now you learned a second thing!

I tend to learn someone everyone else knows like once a year because it just hasn't come up before. Finally found out what it meant by low/medium/high heat from a youtube video that showed things cooking as examples of each temp and also explained how wide the ranges are for each type which is why they are so vague in the first place.

Just a couple years ago I learned the difference between chopped and diced despite having done it for years by just cutting it to whatever size my wife made as an example. Again, not as precise as I assumed like with the heat things.

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marzhall@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
So uh, what. You gonna hold onto that info and not share?

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- count_dongulus@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  You put the opener on the top, not the side of the can. Image
  
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  - Skullkid@lemmy.org ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I have a can opener that just breaks the factory seal instead of actually cutting the metal, and I put it on the side of the can. I wonder if these mixups are just from everyone using different kinds of can openers without realizing it lol
    
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  - coolie4@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    The problem with opening a can this way is that the entire top becomes sharp rather than just the inner edge. With the inner edge sharp, you’d have to stick your hand inside to actually get cut.
    
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  - over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Meanwhile, our electric can opener would like to have a word…
    
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  - SendMePhotos@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Wait that kind of explains that blocky metal part though.
    
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  - snooggums@piefed.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    .
    
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  - degen@midwest.social ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Blasphemy! Pics or it didn’t happen! Wait…
    
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Krudler@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
How do people who are grotesquely underqualified and constitutionally incapable of performing well, end up with great jobs?

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- vrek@programming.dev ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  This isn’t everyone but it’s partially the Peter principal… Basically people get promoted till they are incompetent.
  
  Let’s say you run a manufacturing plant. You have a team of 10 people but 1 is far better. They are quicker and cause less mistakes so you decide to promote them to team lead.
  
  They are a good team lead. They share knowledge and help out in between so you promote them supervisor.
  
  They are a decent supervisor, monitoring the workers, good communication etc. You promote them to manager.
  
  They suck as a manager. Can’t keep track of inventory, quality is slipping, quantity produced per day is dropping. You can’t really demote them that’s not really a thing in most companies. You can either stick with a crappy manager or fire them. Either way you lost your best operator. To make it worse they have “manager” on their resume now so a lot more likely to get another manager position at a different company where they will also suck.
  
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Donjuanme@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The Louvre is in Paris, not London.

Paris is in France, not great Britain.

Dan Brown is American not British.

Children’s nursery rhymes shouldn’t be the foundation of geographic knowledge of someone in their 30s.

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- dharmacurious@slrpnk.net ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  What nursery rhyme taught you this?
  
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Wolf314159@startrek.website ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
You’re not not pushing 30. You’re a bot.

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Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I only recently learned how to swallow pills correctly without it feeling like they get stuck in my throat.

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- Lag@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  It’s kinda like learning how to dive.
  
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Blackfeathr@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Ugh the bots are flooding in…

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