zlatiah

@zlatiah@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Well… I might be a special case. Most folks I know don’t acquire languages that easily

  What does an “Average American” look like? I thought it would be whatever the stereotypes one would get from popular American TV shows… which is not very Asian all-things considered. But I guess the language plays a role too. This is something that is hard to grasp while I was in the US, but Americans as a whole do have a rather distinct English accent that is different from folks from say Britain, Australia, other places where English isn’t the primary language, etc…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, being in a country since 18 yrs old does something to you… Fun fact about the accent. Apparently most ppl I’ve met in the EU assumed I’m from the US, despite me not looking remotely like an average American

  US visa system is a bit… Interesting. Student visas also work for PhD programs, which can last a while. And after the study concludes there’s an option for ppl to extend it by 3 years (OPT). So one could be into their mid-30s and still be technically on a student visa in the US

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:
  • Mandarin Chinese. Native, but actually not that good. Can’t speak Cantonese though
  • English, basically native-level fluency
  • Japanese. Somewhere between B2-C1 based on test results but that was a long time ago. I can probably get to C1 if/when I have the time to practice
  • French. Still actively learning, around A1 across the board

  I also have some passive knowledge of Dutch and German… But really passive though

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨(serious) What would we be losing in a world where most people didn't own a car? Please read the OP before posting.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think I’d be a good person to answer this. I’ve lived in Houston (needless to say, extremely car-friendly) without a car for almost 2 years; currently I’m living in a city that banned cars within its city center in 2015, but the rest of the country is still very pro-car and quite car-friendly

  A couple of things that cars benefit everyday life that would be difficult to do without a car. There’s probably more but these are the ones I can think of:

  • Accessibility to places that have difficulty justifying being served by public transit. These include poorer neighborhoods that are far away from city center, semi-rural natural preserves, extreme geographical difficulties, … Case in point, Houston has a lot of nature/green spaces that were 20-30 miles outside of the city center… good luck getting to these without a car (trust me, I tried once)
  • For certain physically disabled people, driving would be easier than walking/biking/public transit… Especially in particularly hilly cities, centuries-old cities where roads were paved no better than playgrounds, or sometimes both. This can be somewhat mitigated with good infrastructure projects, but cars are usually an easier solution
  • Car-free zones can get very crowded, very fast. This is usually a good thing in terms of urbanism… but some find it uncomfortable for various reasons. My current city is actually a rather extreme example: they are now considering banning bikes in the city center too, due to pedestrian injuries
  • I know cars are prone to needing repair, but with how the road network functions, personal vehicles can reduce a lot of dependencies on external factors such as public transit being functional. Case in point, two months ago NL’s national rail company became essentially non-operational due to extreme weather, which would be rather devastating if your only way of commuting to work relies on the train

  Also I think these two positive points associated with cars are actually quite doable without cars:

  • Hauling stuff from point A to point B: delivery companies and car-rentals exist for a reason! This is surprisingly doable even without owning a car (you are technically using someone else’s car in this case). Of course doing it without your own car will be more expensive… but we do have the logistics for it, especially if the entire society shifts to a car-free model
  • Not all rural areas need cars: some are actually quite doable by walking alone due to how small they are (I have a friend who lives in a rural American town like that: yes everyone drives, but everything is also 30-minutes on foot if you don’t mind walking). And there are quite a few parts of the world where rural towns are served by trains frequently
  • Road trips: scenic railways exist for a reason… and unlike point 1 I made, sightseeing trains actually do make money, so there is pretty good justification for building them
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come in American classrooms they make another language an elective. Why not teach our kids as many languages possible that way if we go somewhere we will kind of have uper hand?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think this is a matter of the microeconomics concept of “scarce resources”? It’d be lovely if everyone in the US learns at least Spanish. But school can only teach a limited number of subjects, so in the US where most people don’t need to use anything other than American English, it might be argued that it is more beneficial to spend more time on, say, STEM and history, rather than getting kids to learn Spanish/German/Chinese…

  Besides, learning and teaching a foreign language is hard lol. China used to (I’ve heard rumors that some places changed, not 100% sure) require mandatory English education from 1st grade elementary… social issues with the English teacher expats aside, the English literacy rate in China still looks like that. There are even multilingual countries in Europe where a good number of people struggle to learn/speak the other national languages so… Even if the US wants to do it, it’s not that staightforward

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a culture/country that doesn't have sarcasm in its language?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I guess Japanese really doesn’t have in-your-face sarcasm now that I think about it…

  Now that you mentioned it, Japanese also has a rather interesting quirk of not having what most people would consider as “swear words”. Read it somewhere that Japanese does have swear words, but they tend to be quite tame, and the words themselves aren’t “taboo” (as compared to just about any swear word in English)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I am looking for a Linux OS⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I play a lot of games over steam

  If my main concern is playing game with Steam, most mainstream Linux OSes should be fine. If I have to pick one… Linux Mint is very beginner-friendly, and I’ve heard great things about Bazzite too. SteamOS works flawlessly with Steam out of the box, but I don’t know how easy it is to set up by yourself

  If you happen to also like non-Steam games: a lot of them can be added as a custom application/game via your Steam Library, which does most of the heavy-lifting: you only have to specify which compatibility layer to use & sometimes do keymapping. Setting up wine on its own is not for the faint-hearted

  I personally use Arch because AUR (a user-uploaded repository, a lot of popular Linux OSes have their own versions) makes it easy to play a lot of FOSS games… but I can’t recommend Arch Linux for beginners

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How far do you wear your daily shoes out before bothering to replace them?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s a small brand started by a few Chinese marathon runners, modelled exactly after HOKA. So it’s equally as comfortable at like 1/2-1/3 the price. Only available in China unfortunately…

  The main annoyance is that this pair doesn’t have much sideways support, so it’s easier to slip sideways. Probably not a worthwhile concern for most people of course

  Also… Durability isn’t a strong suit for HOKA shoes, so I’m not sure if I can really recommend them for daily drive regardless

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How far do you wear your daily shoes out before bothering to replace them?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I just realized that nearly all of my daily shoes were replaced by my dad… who is a semi-professional marathon runner and would go through shoes in months… So probably every 1-3 years, depending on when my parents visit I guess; I think their definition of wearing out is when there are a good amount of rips/holes

  My last pair was a pair of HOKA that lasted a year and a half; they are designed for long-distance running and have massive toe boxes (which I need) but are not known for their durability… Dad basically urged me to get a pair of Chinese HOKA knockoff to replace it, got it half a year ago. It’s showing signs of wear but I think it can still go for at least another year

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What do all the subgenres of music mean? How does anyone make sense of them?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve actually been looking into this for the past few months due to the fact that my favorite genre “doesn’t exist” (I’m not joking someone wrote a research paper on this)

  I think there are research articles on this if one wants to go into details… Like how certain genres separate. Sometimes there are strict definitions (most techno I think are quite well-defined). But practically I think most ppl tend to enjoy ranges of genres that are close to each other… There are also plenty of genre-blend songs too so there’s that

  Also I second for Every Noise At Once, they have some really obscure genres too for detailed comparisons

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨as a young person, what must one look for when it comes to finding a new country to live in?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  … This may sound a bit pessimistic, but I think the main thing to look for is whether there are viable ways for one to enter said new country in the first place

  Using the Low Countries as an example… For non-EU (or a select few countries) citizens, these three only grant residency permits to people who have a really good reason to be there… I believe they allow things such as having a job, having family, going to university, and some other situations. NL has the DAFT visa, but that’s only for American citizens (I believe?) and is quite difficult to follow-through

  Depending on how young… maybe uni would be a good bet? NL has some extremely strong universities. I’m not familiar with the system there though, from what I just looked up looks like they’re quite expensive for non-EU citizens

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you were dropped into a pool of people's spit and prevented from getting out, would you melt to death?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Physically, I don’t think so; the main enzyme in saliva mainly digests starch, which humans are not made of

  More likely, you’d drown eventually due to not being let out, which would be one of the crazier ways to die I guess, up their with that time when some nobles drowned in fecal matter

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a real, actually working way to earn money online without having a job?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  There are! Problem is that most of them seem to be either “jobs” that companies don’t want to pay a full-time employee for, or require lots of entrepreneurship skills that I don’t think fits most people… I don’t see how someone living in a developed country would benefit more from an online gig than getting a shitty minimum-wage job at the local grocery store, but there definitely are options

  A few non-scummy ones (at least by my standard) I could think of:

  • Most practical one I could think of is to teach English/foreign languages. The East Asian countries (especially China) have a huge demand for these types of roles, and I’d presume they have platforms where you can do it as a freelance tutor (at least that’s what my parents told me lol)
  • If you have any in-demand skills, it is possible to become a self-proprietor to do contracts for businesses… ranging from the classic IT consultant to selling art commissions on Twitter/X
  • If you are good at crafts, I believe it is possible to make a small but reasonable amount of money by selling crafts online on places like Etsy, some ppl are really into these and I think ppl generally have a very positive view of these type of careers. Bonus is you might even be able to do some in-person events at conventions/markets/etc
  • If you have a fun personality (or if you are a complete train-wreck), content creation/streaming. Standard Twitch streaming, YouTube streaming, making edutainment like the funny bike guy, if you are willing to let go of some morals then Kick… Quite fun if you are into it, but competition is fierce and most people don’t make it; and a lot of people who “made-it” chose to relocate to low cost-of-living countries where they only need like $500 a month so…
  • Extension of previous point, if you have any sex-appeal… lots of places to “sell your body” online and make decent profits. Not doable without good genetics though
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Disclaimer: level 1 ASD, low support needs

  Was it ableist for my ex-friend to say “[all] autistic people make her uncomfortable “?

  … maybe? It is true that the majority of Autistic people (including those with subtle symptoms, maybe especially those since uncanny valley and everything) tend to make NT people uncomfortable whether we like it or not, so just having that thought alone might not say much. I would assume most reasonable people would prefer to keep thoughts like that behind closed curtains even if they have those

  As for your ex-friend’s specific case… I think the bigger issue is that your ex-friend was an asshole more than anything else. My understanding is that talking behind someone’s back is a big no for most people. There are… some parts of Asian culture where this type of behavior is more accepted, but if your ex-friend is American then I’m not entirely sure

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's quite impressive that most English speakers across the world understand each other, despite variations in accents/dialects⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s cool! For me Chinese (Mandarin), although it has something to do with language regulations: a lot of Chinese dialects really should be classified as different languages…

  Speaking of that and Spanish… I was quite curious about Catalan actually, have a colleague that’s from that part of Spain. My understanding is that Catalan is considered a separate language but is quite similar to Spanish?

• It's quite impressive that most English speakers across the world understand each other, despite variations in accents/dialects
  Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨showerthoughts@lemmy.world⁩ | ⁨105⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is gold investing a scam?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Obligatory not an economist, only know some basics about investing (and quite lazy about it)

  I always thought that gold is just a rather unique commodity that people can also have the option of holding physically (not that it’s advised to do so). Professional investors invest in just about anything as long as there is a potential return on investment, like typical stocks and bonds, gold and silver, housing/land, art, literal truckloads of food… frankly gold isn’t even remotely the weirdest or “scammiest” on this list

  As for more regular people, I do have a suspicion a lot of con-artists and/or people with suspicious intents heavily promote gold investing though. Also some libertarian types have a weird… fantasy? of total societal collapse, which I do not quite understand, but I’d presume gold would be attractive to those types since gold has been used as a means of transaction for a long time in human history

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Who shops at small businesses?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  From personal experience. I am willing to assign a higher value to products made by local and/or small businesses, even if it doesn’t otherwise make any practical sense. But it is a very conscientious moral judgement on my end, so I don’t expect most people to behave this way… and I have a limit too, +100% is probably too much.

  Although I guess the benefit of being a “small” business is that you also don’t need as many customers… There are also some types of small businesses that are competitive: I suppose most ethnic food stores or your local market stall won’t struggle with competing on price.

  how is it that there are any little shops left at all?

  Maybe this depends on the area? I don’t know if it is just me, but it seems to me that these days small businesses do better in larger cities… maybe larger cities have more “ethical shoppers”

• Is there an optimal home/apartment size that most people would be happy with?
  Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩ | ⁨32⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Where do you typically leave/read reviews⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes they are… the reason I think that way is that I like to look at relative rankings; as in, it’s not accurate to just look at how many stars a place got, but rather compare it with other places around it

  If I recall… at least in Chicago where good restaurants easily get 500+ ratings. I have never had a “miss” at a place 4.7 stars or above on Google, and the local “cult classic” was at like 4.9; 4.5-4.6 can be hit-or-miss; any fine dining below 4.5 is almost always a miss. Obviously since almost none of those establishments got below 4, just looking at the number of stars isn’t useful… but if I have a comparison it’s actually quite useful

  Sadly I have no clue whether it translates to other places. Fairly certain ppl in my current city are a lot more critical (so maybe a 4.7 in Chicago would be… 4.4 here, or something like that)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Where do you typically leave/read reviews⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Now that OP mentioned it, I just realized how few alternatives to Google Maps…

  For reading reviews, sadly I think Google is still by far the best review aggregator especially for restaurants, in big cities especially the star ratings are scarily accurate. I guess expert reviews (such as all of Michelin’s ratings) are good too but they are limited

  For writing reviews, I sometimes use apps (recently using Too Good To Go) so I’d still leave comprehensive reviews on those. If the place is not on OpenStreetMaps I’d add it. Other times sadly I just don’t, I don’t really have a functional Google account at this point

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨That moment when you graduated from MEME⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What? At least their whole career isn’t defined by a Suite of MEMEs

  (William Stafford Noble is a very famous computational biologist)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"United States" in French (États-Unis) would have made a very confusing acronym⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I thought it would be so funny if any of the EU employees would go to a bar in Brussels (majority French-speaking) and have an aneurysm explaining what they do to a local in broken French. Not that it would ever happen… but it would be funny

• "United States" in French (États-Unis) would have made a very confusing acronym
  Submitted ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨showerthoughts@lemmy.world⁩ | ⁨65⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Does anyone else notice an up tick in hostility on Lemmy lately?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, but sometimes I wonder if it is just the nature of what happens when a social media network grows large. I did observe how some subreddits instantly get more toxic as they grow bigger too

  … On the other hand though, coincidentally I did see some very recent comments that are decidedly more right-wing than the general Lemmy userbase. I personally try not to judge ppl’s political orientation but I do wonder if there’s something weird going on

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mary E. Brunkow, one of this year's Nobel Prize winners in Medicine, has only 34 published papers and an H-index of 21.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Important additional context on this… TLDR is that the post is only a “feel-good” post and misrepresented reality; real life is a lot more nuanced and fucked up

  Mary E Brunkow solely worked in industry (a.k.a. the scientific slang for working in something like a pharmaceuticals cpmpany) after her PhD, instead of in academia like most Nobel Prize laureates. Industry researchers rarely publish. And 34 published papers may seem low by Nobel standards but is a lot. I don’t think I personally know any industry researchers that are this prolific; some full professors even don’t have this many papers

  The bigger takeaway from this story is not “anyone can make it” if they have a good idea… Brunkow was extremely prolific as a researcher. If anything, her old company (Celltech) went defunct in 2004 and Brunkow was allegedly laid off (and no one at the time realized the importance of her discovery) which is probably a better take home message

  Her Wikipedia page as reference: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_E._Brunkow

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I landed in another toxic workplace after quitting a previous one. What would you do in this scenario? (Open to all suggestions)⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Currently none; the country is known for having a very high union participation rate, but I don’t know what’s the situation is for researchers specifically… As in, I don’t even know if there ks a union for PhD students/postdocs. I’m convinced to do something about this though, we’ll see. Thanks!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I landed in another toxic workplace after quitting a previous one. What would you do in this scenario? (Open to all suggestions)⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I… learned something new today about Lemmy I guess

  No that’s definitely not me, my workplaces may have asshole bosses but actually all have surprisingly little drama all things considered (and I hope I don’t jinx it)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I landed in another toxic workplace after quitting a previous one. What would you do in this scenario? (Open to all suggestions)⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  … Thanks, is there an in joke that I didn’t quite get somewhere??

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I landed in another toxic workplace after quitting a previous one. What would you do in this scenario? (Open to all suggestions)⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I did unironically tell my old mentor that I’d quit academia if my next job doesn’t work out, so there’s that… I have seriously introspected for the last position and didn’t resort to blaming my boss until like 6-8 months in and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t at fault. But rest assured I do introspect a lot. Maybe too much sometimes but that’s a separate discussion…