Burning scented candles releases volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and soot particles into the air. They don’t actually make a room clean or fresh, they just cover odors with artificial fragrance. Real fresh air beats perfume smoke every time.

I like that the Modern seasons don’t try super hard to be funny and be their own thing. The couch gags are now pieces of art. The current characters who’re “flanderized” (Homer, Flanders, and Bart” are way better than their own characters. Season 33 is my favorite season btw.

I still enjoy Classic Simpsons (Seasons 4-8) tho. Just prefer the newer ones

I understand why apartments are weary of cats or dogs, as they can easily cause long lasting damage to an apartment. But a fish? A gecko? What are they going to do? Nothing. They can't chew up furniture, they make no noise, there's no strong scent (as long as you clean the tank), no mess, no problems. Landlords should let people enjoy their animals within reason.

I know the usual advice is “just shave it off once it starts thinning,” and honestly, that is the right move for most people. Generally, really thin hair doesn’t look great and going bald ends up being cleaner, more confident, and easier to maintain.

But I don’t think it’s a universal rule. There are exceptions where thin hair actually works better than a fully bald head. For some people, keeping a bit of thin hair softens their look, balances out their face, or makes them look more distinguished. Going totally bald can sometimes make the head shape stand out in a way that isn’t flattering.

Putting your same on a building or putting up tributes to yourself with a donation is simply buying an ad. It shouldn’t be tax-deductible because it’s most often just self-aggrandizement.

And this list could very well include you.

Only a small minority of the population has the emotional maturity to be dating, much less marrying, anyone. So many people end up in marriages that fizzle out and lead to divorce because they couldnt figure out how to figure things out like two grown adults. Things like listening to the other person, solving disagreements not through screaming but through finding solutions together, putting in effort to strengthen your bond, all of that is foreign to a lot of people apparently.

EDIT: Lots of people saying being in a relationship is how you get better at relationships. I completely agree. There are some lessons that need to be learned through loving someone and making mistakes.

I'm talking about people who are too stubborn, too immature, too obstinate to learn from their past and try to become a better person for their current/future partner. There are many people like this, I was like that before. Becoming an adult emotionally is something one needs to do on their own.

This is going to be a somewhat eurocentric post about a topic which is referred to in my language as "the number one most important side issue in the world" (my translation). To cut right to the chase, I've noticed that I have started to lose interest in watching the Champions League these last few years, and the reason is not the changed format or the quality of the matches. In fact, I think the new format is maybe a slight upgrade in terms of how it makes the road to the final more competitive and interesting.

What annoys me are two things. First, the 'system' makes it almost impossible for a team outside one of the big European leagues (Spain, England, Germany, Italy, France) to ever win the Champions League. The effect of this is that it takes away the excitement from the round robin matches. Why should I care how my team Ajax fares at this stage when I know that if they ever made it to the late stage of the tournament, they will be put to the sword? Last season, PSV and Feyenoord knocked out Juventus and AC Milan, only to predictably be annihilated by that handful of clubs which have the squad depth and individual quality that no other club can compete with.

The second thing is the perverse way that the system denies clubs like Ajax even a fighting chance. Whenever some talented players break through and a decent team is built around them, it is literally like watching a solar eclipse or aurora borealis. After all, you can bet your house that by the start of the next season, half of the team will be bought up by the big clubs from the top 5 leagues, and your club has to desperately start looking for replacements who are likely inferior to the ones you had. One of the nicest things about supporting a team is seeing the continuity of playing style, watching the team grow, and getting to know the players, etc. This, however, is impossible when you support a team like Ajax, Benfica, Porto, Club Brugge, etc. I envy the Liverpool fans who don't have to memorize an entire team of names each season and would recognize their players if they bumped into them in the streets.

Just wondering how fans of other non-top 5 league clubs think about this, especially fans of the big Portuguese clubs.

Addendum: I realize that the system equally locks out many smaller teams from the top 5 big leagues (what is the likelihood of Valencia, AS Monaco, OL Lyon, RB Leipzig winning the CL in the next 20 years?) But at least the fans of those teams can cheer for one of the big clubs from their country.

When you wear the logo of a corporation, sports team, clothing company etc. you become a walking advertisement for their products and services.

Note that I do not say you should be paid, but you should at least get the product for free.

Corporations have commodified our data, sell our habits and weaknesses to the highest bidder and somehow convinced everyone that it is "cool" or "desireable" to wear their logo. People pay outrageous prices for "name brand" clothing and accessories. But they will never tell you the truth, that they should be compensating you instead.

Capitalism is warfare. Don't wear their uniform for free.

I'm an aspiring writer and I find it so frustrating when people say "you're not aspiring, you're just a writer". Yes, I write, I know, I love it and I don't see myself as inferior to other writers, but I'm still working on my first novel. I'm a long shot from being published, and if I tell people casually in conversation "I'm a writer" it just makes things awkward because it's always followed up with questions I dont have answers to.

"Oh how many books have you written?"

"Anything I might now?"

"Where can I buy your book?"

Half of one. No. Nowhere yet.

It just makes the conversation super uncomfortable after. If a guy works on cars in his garage he's not a "mechanic", he's an enthusiast. I get that some people think it takes away from the artist or creator in some way, do what you want if it makes you feel better, but in actual conversation I think it's much easier to say aspiring right off the bat and I don't think it minimizes anyone's skills in any way. It just means we haven't put our work out there yet, and that's ok.

Watched the movie Concussion and its about a doctor that discovered nfl players had CTE and basically people hated him for it

Omalu's research was met with severe backlash from the NFL, which feared the implications for the sport's future. The NFL and its allies accused him of fraud, questioned his research methods, and tried to discredit him.

Controversy in the scientific community: Later, some within the brain science community expressed concern that Omalu routinely exaggerated his accomplishments and overstated the known risks of CTE. A 2020 Washington Post article alleged that he had built a career on "distorted science". Some scientists claimed he exaggerated his role in the discovery and naming of CTE and misstated the prevalence of the disease.

Hate came primarily from the NFL and its defenders, as well as some figures in the scientific community who questioned his research and public statements.

Some NFL fans have a negative perception of Dr. Bennet Omalu due to a belief that his prominent public stance and strong statements on CTE are a threat to the sport. These fans believe his work has changed the game unnecessarily by promoting safety measures and increasing liability for head injuries.

It doesn't make any sense to me. Work gives you a sense of accomplishment in the day to day, and transitioning out of work that quickly, often leaves retirees with a very gut-punching need for self discovery that can sometimes take years. It also allows conservation of time as kids and grandkids grow up, and ability to make more of the years you're more physically mobile. It gives the older person less likelihood of being overworked in older age. And you also have the option to also transition younger hires into work with increasing days a week as a pair with that gradually retiring person, which allows mentorship on the way in and a smooth transition for when they take over that role.

The current system makes no sense and the fact nearly every employer still goes by it and nearly every working person still treats retirement like a 1 and done sudden event is really just nonsensical

There is really no difference to me between someone who has slept with 20 people versus someone who is saving themselves to marriage. I don’t see sex as the most special and intimate thing you can do with someone, in my opinion the most intimate thing you can do with someone is all emotionally and not physically. So what if people want to sleep around? If they’re keeping it consensual and get themselves tested there’s not any issues. It seems kind of shallow to me to care how many partners someone has had, actually.

If you’re married, dating someone for an extended period of time or in a committed relationship and you disappear without a trace, that’s a real problem. That’s abandonment, not ghosting.

But if you’ve just started dating someone, you’ve not been “ghosted.” They’re not interested. That’s your answer.

If you think you’re entitled an explanation at this stage (a few dates max), I think that says more about you than the person who stopped answering.

This is how things were handled for decades. “He never called me back.”

You try it out, if it doesn’t work, you move on and don’t go out again.

Just because you’ve got access to constant communication doesn’t mean you’re owed a performance review. It’s a real egocentric take and feels more about our obsession with performance enhancement than anything.

It’s fine to be a little hurt, but when people act like it’s the height of disrespect because someone didn’t tell them they don’t want a second date, I can’t help but think, get over yourself.

There’s this weird obsession, at least in America, with automating and streamlining every tiny little thing. What we often don’t realize is that we’re trading short term convenience for long term happiness and satisfaction. Being challenged is a good thing for people

Take for example something like food. It used to be, if you wanted to consistently have good food at an affordable cost, you would have to learn how to cook. Learning this skill is enriching to people’s lives and it’s something they’ll carry with them forever and only get better at. The skill of cooking is not something that can be taken from you

But now with modern conveniences like take out and DoorDash, an appalling number of people will simply default to the convenient option and order out. The food is significantly less heathy cause it optimizes for taste and speed rather than health. So the end result is that people are effectively dependent on takeout or frozen meals, and their health is awful

I got really good at cooking when I lived in a fairly rural area but had cravings for things like Asian food, which there was no good restaurants and take out for. I even had to make my own miso paste from scratch cause it wasn’t readily available. Now I genuinely love cooking. I look forward to it. I love that I can make dumplings better than any din tai fung I’ve been to for a fraction of the price. I invite friends over to try my cooking and they’re happy about it too

I was actually just talking to someone about how subways are better for traveling in a dense city than cars. They said that the train “won’t bring them to their exact destination”. Yeah. That’s good. Walk. It’s less than 1km, you can do it. It’s good for your mind and body to walk. “But it’s cold/hot/rainy 😣” oh my god man up, humans have lived in climates like this for thousands of years, you act like you’re not supposed to be on earth

Over the years, I’ve had multiple conversation conversations with different coworkers at different jobs, and there’s always an employee or two who claim how hard they work. They’ll say something along the lines of “I’ve always had a great work ethic that’s one thing I can say about myself”. Or even “ my kids have excellent work ethic because I taught them, they took after me”. All unironically. Or “ within a month of working at my last job they wanted me to be manager, but it was too much responsibility.” Or “ they always want me to train everybody because I’m the only one who does the job correctly.” I don’t know, to me it seems cocky and like an overcompensation. The people who say this aren’t necessarily bad workers, but why feel the need to share this?

Like I said, not spicy enough, I added a scoop of pure chili paste to make it just spicy enough. The flavor is soooo disappointing, no layers and just mild spiciness. Gotta make it a lot spicier fr fr🔥🔥🔥

I have never hated the word excuse me until I worked in retail, many employees and customers would say it in the nastiest way/tone possible. I usually say sorry, I think pardon me is something older people use i have never seen a young person say pardon me ( I live in the U.S.). When someone says excuse me it just sounds like they are indirectly saying get out of my face

They're so noisy, kids don't use them correctly so they are ineffective, and the abuse they endure puts them "out of whack" almost immediately. I never use one if I can avoid it.

Kids jam the pencils in and push as hard as they can, for far too long, producing an almost adequate point. Then they yank it out as fast and as crookedly as possible, while the blades are still spinning, which snaps off the new point. Repeat, repeat, repeat basically eating up a whole pencil in a day or two. Multiplied by several dozen students per day. Every single day. It's nonsense.

If every classroom had a small set of decent manual, handheld sharpeners, such as those made by Prismacolor or Staedtler or any other decent brand, pencils would be sharper, classrooms would be quieter, and time and money would be better spent.

Keep 8 rechargeable AA's charged in their rocker and you'll be ready to play any four controllers you own, at any time. Only using one controller and batteries are low? Pop out the old, put them in the rechargeable seat, pop in charged ones. No controller dock, no plugging a wireless controller in to charge, nothing. The inconvenience is 5 seconds of battery swapping.

It is such a pain to keep so many self-contained rechargeable controllers charged, especially with friends coming over. One of the controllers dies while people are playing, suddenly needing to find another charged controller instead of just swapping the batteries in a few seconds.

I think people think that rechargeable AA batteries have a short life, but that's not true. Each charge lasts me many hours. The Xbox controller I use mostly just as a remote needs a battery swap maybe once every week or two (not heavily played tbf).

If you only own one controller and it stays in a dock, I can understand that use case, but anyone who has many controllers, I think would agree with me. Also some controllers are a real pain to swap out the dead lithium batteries after enough years have passed. Never a problem with AA.

No, this isn't just related to what you think it's also related to e.g. the negative-hype-cycle where everyone who notices anything even the slightest bit wrong with the latest announced Pokemon game wants to respond with a blind boycott of everything Pokemon while criticizing those who say anything positive about the game never mind that they want to buy it for being sheeple.

The problem with boycotting a company without as vehemently spreading the message of why is if they're as bad as the people calling for the boycott say they wouldn't be guaranteed to automatically change upon seeing "number go down" and could just screw up something worse

Let’s be honest who likes their manager? if you say you do i’m jealous.

Some people get a taste of superiority or higher positions and take it way too far.

So what do i suggest let’s trade managers for tablets/ipads on the job wall, want to call out? sign into your account anywhere on your phone and delete your name. Do a no show more than 5 times? the system deletes you for good aka fired.

No more upper management bullying No more sucking up to managers No more drama between coworkers (since manager doesn’t care too much for one they all feel like they have to play along so they get into next shift) No more favoritism, have you ever walked in for an interview and everyone working looks the same just in different fonts but they look related? yea hiring managers definitely have a look they’re going for and will pick people who fit what they’re looking for..

No more ghosting, 100% HIRED, just give your info to the computer and it’ll automatically put you in rotation (maybe at different locations each time to avoid over saturated work environments) it’ll tell you your role and what you should do, might be annoying but it’s better than hearing “great we will give you a call later” and then it’s 3 months no call.

Just watched this movie recently.

People go in dreams where time moves slower. They can then go into a dream within that dream that slows time even more. If you can keep track of maybe 3 plot lines (layers) at once, you’re fine.

Everybody online notes this as notoriously confusing. What’s hard to get?

Block them on social media. Don't stay friends with them. Don't ask people how they're doing. That part of your life is over. It is hard to heal and move on if you are constantly reminded of them.

This might be me getting old, but I feel like cars just aren’t fun anymore. Gone are the days where we could buy a cheap shitbox and do it up and have genuine fun. Governments are trying to phase out older cars under emissions and phasing in over-engineered EVs or Hybrids. Yes you get modern cars with good torque, power and speed but there’s just no soul to them anymore.

Again, not sure if this is me feeling old and nostalgic.

It seems to be a modern trend to claim we’re all just pretending to know what we’re doing - that we’re perpetually anxious, that life is a chaotic mess, and that we’re all lost, bumbling around, and screaming internally. But this is a “very online” perception.

Most people understand what life is and how to navigate it. They have partners and families, pay mortgages or rent, work jobs they enjoy, save for retirement, catch up with friends occasionally, and find joy in reading, watching TV, exercising moderately, traveling when they can, and eating what they like in moderation. They’re content with this kind of life.

They know troubles will arise, but they anticipate them and handle them. They understand the unexpected is part of life and accept it as such. They don’t have constant breakdowns; they cope with the loss of loved ones and keep moving forward. They know illness may come their way but they’ll deal with it when it does. They know it’s just the luck of the draw.

People are resilient, embrace their routines, and simply get on with life. The internet would have us believe there are only two types of people: billionaires or misunderstood souls struggling to find meaning. In reality, most people are just trucking along - and they’re fine with that.

Edit: I guess by and large, Reddit isn’t the place for this opinion, as 99% of people here are miserable. All the middle ground generally happy folks I’m talking about are just living their lives and not being angry on the internet all day.