Minor things that bother you

[kphoger]

I try to time bowel movements for when I am at home

Wow, that's even a possibility?  I go to the bathroom whenever I feel like poop wants to come out.  I don't have much control over when it wants to come out.

to avoid feeding other people's curiosity about how far off the rails I may be in terms of diet.  (As an example:  a stool that smells of burnt coffee is often a sign of constipation.)

I quite sure nobody at my work cares what sort of diet I'm eating, and I very surely don't care what sort of diet they're eating.  Do you have any evidence that people might be thinking such things about you?

[J N Winkler]

Wow, that's even a possibility?  I go to the bathroom whenever I feel like poop wants to come out.  I don't have much control over when it wants to come out.

Yes, it's a possibility.  The key is to orchestrate things so that the urge arrives at a consistent time of day.  An approach that works for some, not all, is to keep fiber intake at a high level that varies little from day to day (if you get 100% of the fiber RDA on a daily basis, you are ahead of 95% to 97% of Americans), maintain good hydration, and sleep at roughly the same time each day.

I quite sure nobody at my work cares what sort of diet I'm eating, and I very surely don't care what sort of diet they're eating.  Do you have any evidence that people might be thinking such things about you?

I've been part of conversations where it was noted that raw garlic could be smelled not just in the eater's feces, but also his urine, and that pork adds greatly to the stink of a stool.  None of this has been in the context of humiliating someone who has just defecated--aside from being grossly improper, this is bullying--but it does testify that what happens to food in the GI tract is a matter of intellectual interest at the very least.

For the avoidance of doubt, I should say that I don't think the goal should necessarily be to produce a stool that doesn't smell.  I am interested in life patterns that preserve good GI function as long as possible, and for a large share of the population, I suspect (but have not empirically verified) that these correspond to stools that stink more than might otherwise be the case.  If it is a problem that bathroom smells bother other people, then I think that should be mitigated through better odor handling rather than through efforts to address the smell at the source that might be counterproductive in terms of health.

[kphoger]

Wow, that's even a possibility?  I go to the bathroom whenever I feel like poop wants to come out.  I don't have much control over when it wants to come out.

Yes, it's a possibility.  The key is to orchestrate things so that the urge arrives at a consistent time of day.  An approach that works for some, not all, is to keep fiber intake at a high level that varies little from day to day (if you get 100% of the fiber RDA on a daily basis, you are ahead of 95% to 97% of Americans), maintain good hydration, and sleep at roughly the same time each day.

Oh, I have fairly regular stools.  That is to say, they are consistent.  I generally have to go about an hour or two after I arrive at work.  I assumed you were saying you could time them to hit at, say, early evening instead.

[hbelkins]

I've been part of conversations where it was noted that raw garlic could be smelled not just in the eater's feces, but also his urine, and that pork adds greatly to the stink of a stool.

Garlic can also be detected in the body odor/sweat of those who ingest it in significant amounts as well. Years ago, at the community newspaper where I worked, we also had a TMC publication (a "shopper") in which the inserts were placed by hand in the publication. A number of those who were contracted to do the inserting were heavy garlic eaters. When they were all congregated in one area for a couple of hours, their smell permeated the building, drifting up from the basement where they were working to the first floor where our offices were. The smell was overwhelming -- and, much like marijuana smoke, caused me to have headaches. Even today, with my various nasal allergy issues, I can smell a garlic eater when I get near them.

[JoePCool14]

The trend of removing capital letters from corporate logos/names.

I can expand this to anyone who thinks only using lowercase letters is "cool" and "hip". This is common in people who turn off auto-correct on their phones.

[Takumi]

The trend of removing capital letters from corporate logos/names.

I can expand this to anyone who thinks only using lowercase letters is "cool" and "hip". This is common in people who turn off auto-correct on their phones.

It was cool in 1995.

[kphoger]

The trend of removing capital letters from corporate logos/names.

I can expand this to anyone who thinks only using lowercase letters is "cool" and "hip". This is common in people who turn off auto-correct on their phones.

It was cool in 1995.

On mIRC, no less.

[jakeroot]

The popularity of lower-case letters can be explained thusly:

WHICH OF THESE SENTENCES APPEARS MORE AGGRESSIVE
which of these sentences appears more aggressive

[JoePCool14]

The popularity of lower-case letters can be explained thusly:

WHICH OF THESE SENTENCES APPEARS MORE AGGRESSIVE
which of these sentences appears more aggressive

That's what I was thinking. Corporations gotta appear more "friendly". As for individual people typing like that, it's more common with girls than guys, and that's no coincidence either.

[CtrlAltDel]

The trend of removing capital letters from corporate logos/names.

That doesn't bother me as much as the blandification of logos does. Almost nothing, in my opinion, looks good in a bold sans serif font:



That said, that last logo, despite its similarity to the others, was so poorly received that it only lasted in the wild for about a month. A rare victory.

[Scott5114]

The trend of removing capital letters from corporate logos/names.

That doesn't bother me as much as the blandification of logos does. Almost nothing, in my opinion, looks good in a bold sans serif font:

---

That said, that last logo, despite its similarity to the others, was so poorly received that it only lasted in the wild for about a month. A rare victory.

This is due almost totally to the rise of smartphones and thus smaller display sizes that are less accommodating of graphical frills. Case in point:

The trend of removing capital letters from corporate logos/names.

I can expand this to anyone who thinks only using lowercase letters is "cool" and "hip". This is common in people who turn off auto-correct on their phones.

Generally, I find that only using lowercase letters imparts a more casual tone. If I post here in all-lowercase, for instance, that is generally a sign that I am trying to make a joke without being too obvious about it.

[JoePCool14]

The trend of removing capital letters from corporate logos/names.

I can expand this to anyone who thinks only using lowercase letters is "cool" and "hip". This is common in people who turn off auto-correct on their phones.

Generally, I find that only using lowercase letters imparts a more casual tone. If I post here in all-lowercase, for instance, that is generally a sign that I am trying to make a joke without being too obvious about it.

That's completely true. Meme culture thrives off of different text formatting.

you could be like this

O R L I K E T H I S

oR eVEn LIkE tHiSssSS!

That's all well and good, but I don't care for it when people use all lowercase for no good reason.

[SSOWorld]

Or JuSt AlTeRnAtInG cAsE fOr ThE LoLs.  (I sEe ThAt WoRkEd OuT pErFeCtLy!)

[CtrlAltDel]

This is due almost totally to the rise of smartphones and thus smaller display sizes that are less accommodating of graphical frills. Case in point:

That's what they say, but I'm pretty sure it's just a trend. Time will tell, I guess.

[Big John]

Or JuSt AlTeRnAtInG cAsE fOr ThE LoLs.  (I sEe ThAt WoRkEd OuT pErFeCtLy!)

espn2 in 1994.

[hotdogPi]

Getting back on topic: Example_username posts something trollish and irrelevant. I report, it gets removed in 15 minutes. A few hours later, Example_username posts something similar, and the thread is now completely derailed. (Not this thread!) Shouldn't you have figured it out the first time, or are you trying to get the thread locked? Doing so when people have already stated "I don't know how long this thread will last" is not a good idea.

[Max Rockatansky]

Getting back on topic: Example_username posts something trollish and irrelevant. I report, it gets removed in 15 minutes. A few hours later, Example_username posts something similar, and the thread is now completely derailed. (Not this thread!) Shouldn't you have figured it out the first time, or are you trying to get the thread locked? Doing so when people have already stated "I don't know how long this thread will last" is not a good idea.

I'm pretty sure that the person in question only posts here nowadays to derail threads into a lock.  It's too bad because even though that has always been a thing they also used to post meaningful historic content that I found useful.

[Scott5114]

If you see posts get deleted that means stop talking about what was being talked about in those posts.

[JoePCool14]

This is due almost totally to the rise of smartphones and thus smaller display sizes that are less accommodating of graphical frills. Case in point:

That's what they say, but I'm pretty sure it's just a trend. Time will tell, I guess.

It is probably (hopefully) just a fad. It's similar to how we went from skew-morphism design to flat design, and then we'll end up going back again. Or glossy to flat to glossy. Anything to keep things looking different.

If you see posts get deleted that means stop talking about what was being talked about in those posts.

Purple and bold, things gettin' serious now! 

[tolbs17]

What bothers me is my new crown feels funny.

[Takumi]

When people continuously feed trolls.

[Roadgeekteen]

What bothers me is my new crown feels funny.

Either put that in the dentist thread or you don't need to share every detail of your life on the forum.

[kkt]

I'm not sure what the term for this is. But people trying to be too nice always makes me want to punch a wall. In most situations it is a minor thing:

Other person: "Which restaurant do you want to go to?"

Me: *thinks about it* "Let's go to restaurant A."

Other person: "Are you sure you don't want to go to restaurant B? We were thinking about going to restaurant B."

If your decision is made then don't give me an open ended question to think about. Simply asking "Do you want to go to restaurant B?" makes things much easier.

I personally don't think of this as being "too nice"--it's really an example of bait and switch, though I realize that in context, the motivation is often to avoid feeling responsible for inflicting a personal preference on the group.

There are situations, though, where trying to be too nice is a major thing, and not in a good way. For example, if the first office of a plane is too afraid to offend or annoy the pilot, he might not speak up urgently enough if he notices an issue, which can lead to disaster. That's an extreme example for sure, but it does happen.

This is thought to have contributed to the Tenerife airport disaster in 1976 (still considered the deadliest aviation accident in history).

Yes, and it did lead to training all the flight crew to speak up if they thought the pilot in control was making a mistake, and pilots in control to listen to them.  Like a lot of aviation disasters, there were a lot of contributing factors, but the last real chance to avoid the accident was the 1st officer asking "Hey, did the tower actually clear us to take off?" while the captain just shut him up saying "Yes.  Taking off."

[CNGL-Leudimin]

If you see posts get deleted that means stop talking about what was being talked about in those posts.

This. This means one of my favorite threads is going to be locked and I'm going to really miss it. So please, seriously, stop.

But at least this one has managed to reach page 100 (using the forum standard of 25 posts per page). I initially thought it was going to be locked quickly.

[jakeroot]

That's what they say, but I'm pretty sure it's just a trend. Time will tell, I guess.

It is probably (hopefully) just a fad. It's similar to how we went from skew-morphism design to flat design, and then we'll end up going back again. Or glossy to flat to glossy. Anything to keep things looking different.

Skeuomorphism was not so much a design option as it was a design requirement for the time. It bridged the gap between real life and virtual. That gap, arguably, has long closed; most people have experience with touchscreens, smartphones, etc. With that being the case, there is no longer any advantage to skeuomorphism in the traditional sense, and going back to it serves little functional purpose. Many of the emulated objects are just as unfamiliar to today's users as the smartphone was to the average person 15 years ago. Additionally, many applications and uses for modern smartphones have no physical counterpart; how does one have a skeuomorphic UX when most applications have nothing physical to emulate? If the past is anything to go by, we end up with an overly glossy, drop shadow-heavy, 3D-ish user interface that succeeds only at feeling overdesigned.