Post a controversial opinion

but don't, as its surface temperature is zero kelvin and yr fingers wd shatter into an icy dust

*cough*

"What would you ask us?"

Miss Lavis laid her hand pleasantly on Lucy's arm, as if to suggest that she, at all events, would get full marks."

OK, then, something I DO believe; Derek Bailey will have a number one single before this decade's out.

*does this controversial opinion necessarily have to be mine?

that's something I WANT to believe.

AND WHAT ANDREW SAID!!

The people who sometimes annoy me on ILE are on the whole the ones whose talents I most envy.

AND WHAT ANDREW SAID!!

I believe the Harry Potter industry is even more guilty of this.

But he DID!

I don't have a firm opinion on whether abortion should be legal. I've yet to see a totally convincing pro-choice argument (not that I've been reading in depth). My main reason for being sort of pro-choice is that it's a controversial topic and since I don't have a firm decided opinion I want to leave it up to personal choice.

I'm annoyed by the lack of cash. The other day it took me forever to find somebody to break a 20 just so that I could tip someone. A friend of mine was recently at a hotel in Columbus Ohio, and there was a single person hustling behind a free breakfast buffet. He really wanted to tip them, but there was no easy way, since he had no cash. He ended up having to cashapp her money.

But I am also sympathetic to the plight of businesses. No cash means no bringing money to the bank, no one skimming from the till, no theft in general, no need to balance out all the money at the end of the day ...

Concur with above, cash is good for privacy and accessibility. If they don’t take cash, I don’t go there.

I mean personally I quite like the convenience of contactless payment & use Apple Pay almost exclusively & only get cash so I can have change for the laundrette & to give to homeless ppl

I was in a cashless pub the other day tho & they were having a meltdown because their system had gone offline, they were telling ppl they could order something only if they had exact money because there was literally no change onsite, one party got to leave without paying their bill (meal + drinks) as they had somewhere to be & couldnt wait around for them to fix the problem… seems like a hazard

FWIW I have worked a lot of retail cash-register jobs and I know it is a hassle to deal with - count the drawer, have all the right denominations, make change, reconcile the drawer and deal with discrepancies. But commerce has been done this way since 500 BC and most people have managed.

My local bagel shop was cash-only until last year. Regulars knew to come prepared, but plastic and cash app fans often groaned. There is an ATM there, with like a $3.50 fee.

My thinking is that if 90% of your customers are just going boop with their phones or tapping/swiping, then it should be comparatively easy to equip a cash register to deal with the other 10%.

(Basically I agree with opposition to cashless businesses. But cash-only businesses ALSO need to evolve and catch up with their customers, even if it is just to get a Square reader.)

My main objection is that the most vulnerable ppl will not have access to credit or debit cards.

a lot of benefits are now paid via card, so that many actually do have access to cards ... I'm sure a lot of this was also related to the predatory check-cashing industry which ... is another topic.

Since Acme bakery went card-only, I've been less anxious about my gross filth-ridden dollars tainting my bread, but I do miss the small "thanks for using cash" discount.

Oh for controversial opinion: I wish girl scout cookies didn't have so many additives. Are there any rogue troupes that bake their own cookies?

there was an ill-fated Amazon store in San Francisco where they didn't even have a cash register or clerk, you just paid with your phone or something. The City forced them to install a cash register and a clerk, I think it's gone now.

It's not just homeless -there are plenty of immigrants and others who still exist in a 100% cash society

correction: they've JUST closed the stores, there were four

https://sf.eater.com/2023/3/6/23627466/amazon-go-san-francisco-closing

My daughters were girl scouts. No rogue baking allowed, although that was what they did back in the day. All GS cookies made in the US are manufactured by two different bakeries, and there are subtle differences between the two. Caramel Delights and Samoas are basically the same cookie, but Samoas are a little better.

I’m very glad they are out of it; that was such a pain in the ass.

xps to wins

Oh I know, I was trying to buy something from somewhere the payment system was down recently & they were like cash only, sorry, so I was like np and went to go get, except!

- nearest atm was out of service
- next nearest was one of those ones that charges you £1.95 per withdrawal
- next nearest to that was out of service
- finally the last one: ten minutes walk away

In any case, I usually have a £10 note for “emergencies” (ie coming home late & needing to get a taxi & most local ones only take cash), various coins for tipping assorted people (taxi drivers, restaurants, place that does my nails lashes etc, hairdresser!). Tipping on a card is pure savagery and there’s absolutely no way you know it’s going to the person and not the business.

I remember being at a gig in East Londom like 20 years ago and finding out, too late, there were no free ATMs for miles around. It's always been like that in poor areas.

I feel poor and naked when there's no cash in my wallet, even though I have a debit card and a credit card (that I almost never use)

Most of my cash comes from selling aluminium cans and change from buying a $10 roll of quarters (for laundry) with a $20 bill from the ATM.

Incidentally, my mentally disabled clients seem to value and accumulate coins more than they value cards or bills, even though all of them have problems counting change. I suspect that it's because there's more of it and it jingles.

CGLDI, that's interesting. I have an intellectually disabled middle schooler and I will tell you that schools REALLY press coin math on kids.

Same with my elder kid. I used to be mildly irritated about coin math and piggy banks because in our current world, most things that are worth buying cost more than a dollar. when I was a kid - 1977 or so - coins were useful for candy or soda or whatever. Now pretty much everything sub-$1 is crap that I don't want my kids to have.

Most adults mainly use coins only to avoid getting more coins.

That said, if your clients find coins more satisfying or comprehensible, I understand. My son's face lights up when he finds a penny.

But the connection between coins and actual economic literacy or financial independence is pretty tenuous at this point.

It's a decent way to visualize counting multiples of five.

I have a box of coins in my closet that's overflowing

Every few years I'll take some down to one of the CoinStar machines at the grocery store, and it feels like I've hit the big jackpot even though it's my own money lol (minus whatever fee they deduct)

Someone should create a specialty airline where no persons under 10 are admitted on the plane. And seats on flights that do include children under 10 should be heavily discounted.

No offense to all the ilx parents. I actually really like kids, generally speaking. I'm just a bit grumpy because I just returned from a work trip and a little Tuvan throat-singing toddler shrieked and caterwauled throughout the entire six hour flight home. Flying is stressful enough as it is and some of us just want to sleep

Two airlines already offer child-free zones:
https://www.airlineratings.com/news/child-free-zones-which-airlines-guarantee-a-child-free-flight/

Gotta admit, one of the best gifts I ever received was a set of noise-cancelling headphones.

I would like adult free zones tbh

Statistically speaking, most crimes against humanity gave been committed by adults. Just sayin.

id accept the point and counter by saying they couldve been prevented by drowning them as six year olds

well at least they got to experience kindergarten

you could say

🕶️

they didnt make the grade YEAOWWWW

😎

LOL, D.

Ponzi, firstly I don't think this can in any way be classed as a controversial opinion.

Secondly, perhaps a little compassion is in order as well as a short self-check on why you take a child's cry so personally.

Most importantly, are you suggesting an airline that has flights with passengers exclusively under 10 years old? I would happily steward these flights.

Further, are you also suggesting anyone 10 and older won't make a ruckus? I've seen more evidence of middle-aged adults causing mayhem than small children whose cries both can't be helped and can easily be made a non-issue by fellow passengers with earplugs and the aforementioned noise-canceling headphones.

I fairly recently had (what I presume was) an autistic boy in front of me who constantly, violently rocked his seat, so much that coffee spilled

I have the patience of Job, however, and I could see that his family tried to calm him on occasion, but I'm 6'1" and airplane seats already suck for tall people

But generally I don't care about caterwauling waifs, it takes a village

Andy, weirdly, my disabled kid (not autistic but autism-adjacent) has always been a delight on planes as long as he was fed constant digital crack.

The only time we had a tough kid/plane experience was with my (neurotypical) eldest, who was 18 months old (and getting over an ear infection). She made periodic mewling cries of agony from approximately Kansas City to Las Vegas. We apologized as much as possible and did all we could, but ultimately there was nothing to be done. Most folks were decently understanding. But when we got to our destination we overheard a dude on his phone saying "yeah there was a baby crying the whole flight."

Sorry you couldn't travel from DC to Oregon in a hermetically sealed luxury chamber, my dude. Airline travel in this century is a hive of germs and misery and inconvenience for almost everyone. If you want perfect peace and quiet, rent your own jet.

sunny successor your “firstly” humorously contradicts your “secondly” and furthermores.

Im a serial (and cereal!) contradictor. It's true.

Cereal contradictor = Cheerios / Gloomios

so in choir class, Freshmen were usually hazed when we rehearsed in the Color Guard room. the seniors would usually grab one of them and put them in the closet and lock it

weird! at my school the chess team did this

I was picked up and thrown into a garbage can once, and I had a sign on my back that said "My pussy smells like dried apples."

well, fuck

Yet, they do not get wedgied or shoved into lockers or trashcans.

i meant when i was in school (20+ years ago), but a lot of the jr/high school tropes you'd see on tv didn't apply so idk?

i do get the sense that kids these days are more sheltered and spend less time away from their parents, it would follow that they're less assertive and aggressive. you're right that the Biff archetype from Back to the Future didn't grow up to be the pathetic loser who doesn't know how to conduct himself, he's an elder stateaman now. This is the fucked up alternate universe that Michael J Fox would have averted. does that mean it's less discouraged, or is bullying more covert now? it used to be hidden in plain sight from adults.

But when we got to our destination we overheard a dude on his phone saying "yeah there was a baby crying the whole flight."

wrong thread lol

xp

In approximately 1981 I was picked up and shoved headfirst into a garbage can. Repeatedly. I have gotten over it but not forgotten it.

My children have never experienced anything like this. And, I can say with reasonable confidence they never will.

These days, kids have significantly more subtle ways to undermine and/or victimize one another. I don't fear a call from the school saying that someone beat up my kid on the playground.

My fears are more like doxxing, deepfakes, online brigading, and backchannel Discord ostracizing.

You get shoved in a 1981 trash can and it's over, it's done.. it may leave a scar but it's done

Some of this online shit will be around to haunt you for years to come

There is definitely thread drift afoot here but yeah, Andy speaks truth here.

it's my fault, i wrote a reply in keep notes and pasted it into the wrong thread.

i'll quote the above posts in the appropriate thread

Podcasts should come pre-eq’d to sound like AM radio broadcasts

Summer doesn't end at Labor Day weekend, it ends on September 21st

Not controversial here. For example, Christina Rossetti's poem In the Bleak Midwinter is set near the winter solstice. By the same token, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream takes place on the night of summer solstice. Thus we are reminded that for most of the past centuries, summertime ended on the autumnal equinox at September 21st, which was also when winter began.

Summer doesn’t end until October here

in a few years...it will never end.

ack! i just scared myself...

I guess it's more of an American mindset that I'm talking about.. mostly with the traditional 'back to school' blitz. But public schools here in Oakland started on Monday Aug 7th
Unthinkably early when I was a kid

Kids should go to school 24/7/365.

I'm not sure when summer ends in Montana but I'm pretty sure it'll be snowing by Halloween.

School should def be year round with more breaks instead of huge summer chunk.

Charter schools do this. If you're willing to sell your soul, of course.