In the US and Canada, a person’s credit score is used to figure out how safe it is to lend them money. Big ticket items such as cars and houses are often bought on credit with a payment plan that includes interest - so the entity lending the money makes money off the loan. Good credit score = Less risk to the lender = Lower interest rate for the borrower = Less money spent in the long run.

Credit cards are an easy way to build a good credit score. I use mine for almost every purchase I make: groceries, gas, bills, subscriptions, donations. The things is, I pay it off in full each month (so I don’t pay interest fees to the credit card company) AND my card gives me 2% money back on my purchases. So if I use it for $20,000 worth of purchases, I automatically get $400 back. Free money!

Also, my bank limits the amount of transactions I can make in a month to 12. They charge a small fee from the 13th transaction onward. If I had to pay for everything directly by debit, I’d probably end up paying tens of dollars just in fees, each month!

Edited to add: By using my credit card and paying it in full, I demonstrate I’m trustworthy when it comes to credit, because I pay it back. That’s what a lender wants! This makes my credit score go up, which in turn helps me when I want to buy a car or get a mortgage on a house. I got my first credit card when I was 18, following the advice of my parents, and that has served me extremely well 15 years later! Who would you rather lend $20,000 to: someone who makes $50,000 and reliably pays back their credit card in full each month for 10 years and has zero debt, or someone who makes $500,000 but carries a $100,000 debt on their credit card?

So people who are savvy about credit do not buy everything “on credit” just because they pay for it with a credit card. It is legitimately a good way to save (or even make) money, at least in the US and Canada.

Many developed countries are majoritarily irreligious. But it’s also hard to draw the line between religion and culture.

I think we see aspects of this in the behaviour of the rich and ultra-rich (where “screw the rules I have money” applies). It’s pedophilia all the way down.

Is it unethical if they volunteer? I’d be down!

I use the right Shift key to capitalize when touch-typing. I only use left Shift for Ctrl+Shift+Esc.

Teaching: That moment when someone’s eyes light up and their whole facial expression changes from confusion to understanding. I love the challenge of figuring out how to reach that with each person.

Dancing or working out to my favorite songs: It feels like my body is taken over by the music, and I can keep going endlessly while everything else fades away.

Compare with this real concrete slide from Romania, built in 1964

Excellent at working under pressure

The colors are delightfully retro. Especially the yellow and red, very Kodak.

I looked it up and wow, that’s crazy. Messi is basically naturally domesticated. If the medical conditions are genetic, he could be the start of a lineage of house pumas.

Read-onlys be like while upvoting

Before reading the questions:

• The ball was uniformly gray, with a slight shine.
• The person was genderless and featureless. I only pictured their hand and arm pushing the ball. The moment of contact was indistinct, as if the arm was hiding the ball from view.
• The ball was the size of a large watermelon.
• The table was square, about 1m² , brown-gray, with four turned legs. Same material as the ball: uniformly colored and vaguely glossy.

If I pay attention to a written piece of information (name, phone number, address, short instructions, that kind of stuff) I will remember it for months and years. Comes in handy when working with complex policies and legislation!

This is balanced by the fact that I have trouble retaining auditory information. If you tell me your name, I’ve forgotten it before you’ve even finished talking. (But if I catch it on your badge out of the corner of my eye, I’ll remember it for years.) The only exception are dog names - those I have no trouble remembering.

Haha! We’ve been scouring the discount bin at the local hardware stores for faucetry (is that a word?). By now most of our stuff is matte black because that’s all that gets returned.

Xena

Using the wrong register for the material or topic. For example, using very literary language in a technical manual… No, “peculiarities” is not an appropriate synonym for “features” or “specs”.

First heard about it on r/dndmemes during the API shit storm. I stick around because it’s so much nicer. Smaller, yes, but easier to curate I guess? I read about my specific interests and just vibe.

I used to do that too! But living in Eastern Europe, our shampoo bottles had like twenty languages. I didn’t manage to learn any, but I did develop a sense of how closely related they were.

Cyborg-like implants. I want titanium joints and UV vision and magnetic field sensors and charging my phone by laying it on my belly. Uncap each finger to reveal a small tool: screwdriver, USB key, cutting blade, etc.

Note that none of that includes or requires a constant connection to a network/internet. I want to augment my interactions with the real world, not replace them with a virtual world.

Straw hat, stylish and functional.