u/ChristianPacifist

I'm looking for cocktail bars that burnt out folks in middle age or approaching middle age can go to meet other folks in similar situations, current and former workaholics, childfree unmarried or married folks with professional jobs who did the grinding before or are still grinding, the types of somber but very classic vibes you got in shows like Sex and the City or Woody Allen movies? The type of place where the booze washes down a life of big city materialism and crushed dreams... but there's a glimmering hope of connection somewhere!

I propose the definition as this: "Those parts of New Jersey primarily in the New York metropolitan area that refer to Taylor Ham as Pork Roll."

Central Jersey is associated with New York more than Philadelphia in terms of commuting and sports teams, but they absolutely say "pork roll" instead of "Taylor Ham" as the main term.

I'm from the USA and have worked in a few different parts of the country including at urban offices in major Northeastern metropolitan areas and suburban offices further out west.

One of the key parts of corporate culture in my opinion is the responsible appropriate use of legal stimulants, in particular caffeine from coffee, tea, and energy drinks... though a small minority get large quantities of caffeine from diet soda as well. One of the most important factors in making an office more desirable is the quality of caffeinated products provided to employees, and one of the most desirable aspects as far as services near an office is the frequency and availability of coffee shops and the like.

I find when the caffeine balance strikes right, work becomes not only more fun doing intellectually demanding tasks in a caffeinated dreamy focused state, but it it also leads to more connections between employees as well as brainstorming and networking. It just makes corporate life more fun overall. I even sometimes get to a point I call "caffeine drunk" where one feels disinhibited socially from all the caffeine stimulation but still very solid in terms of the ability to do work and make sound decisions.

So, yes, I think the USA has a great amazing caffeine culture, and I can only imagine it varying possibly in areas where folks may have religious objections to caffeine or hot drinks?

What is the culture like in other countries as far as the office and caffeine? Perhaps it's even stronger and perhaps there are coffee shop or other kinds of happy hours in countries where alcohol is less commonly consumed?

I started my career in SQL, so even if I'm using Python for my ultimate data work, I'll try to do the brunt of my logic and data manipulation in an upstream database or one of those Pandassql / Dfsql local sql packages whenever possible when working in a language like Python.

However, what do I think of the raw functionality in Python using Pandas for SQL-esque data frame manipulation?

It's fine I guess, but quite clunky. I feel bad for any analyst who only knows about raw Pandas as a tool for SQL-style data manipulation. They are missing a universe of possibility and elegance!

I generally tend to take the approach of limiting use of non-standard or unsupported languages in any corporate environment I'm working in... assuming what's available can do the job. If SQL is a standard, use that. If Python or SAS is a standard, use that. If SQL is the standard but Python is supported secondarily, I guess it's fine to use Python, but there should be a good reason. If someone's making a request to get Python anew to solve a problem already solvable with supported tools, I'd argue that's done as a POC alongside a standard solution, not as a sole solution.

It's clunky. It's idiosyncratic with data types and missing value logic, and its Proc SQL capability is inefficient and lacking in contemporary basics like window functions... but man, it sure is powerful and stable. The macro functionality with dynamic code allows you to do a lot out of the box even procedurally, and if an organization has enough horsepower with SAS, the sky's the limit with analytics and modeling capabilities.

I understand why organizations are moving away from it, but I fully understand why many organizations keep it around. The only trouble it seems is that it will be more difficult as time goes on to get new talent to move over to SAS from other languages and adapt to its quirks. It may become like COBOL for data analytics languages, though, a legacy legend that will always have a valued place!

A sentence is not a run-on if it is long and contains an excessive number of non-restrictive clauses, adverbial prepositional phrases, parentheses, appositives, comma-separated lists, and / or properly conjoined complete compound sentence parts, like this sentence here arguably; it is a run-on if it quite literally is incorrect in having two or more complete independent sentences together without any proper conjunctions or semicolons or similar conjunction-equivalent punctuation, and that's the boundary of the definition of a run-on.

A sentence like the above can be called stringy or poorly written or verbose, for sure, a run-on, though, is quite explicitly a punctuation error that is always objectively incorrect from a prescriptive grammatically perspective. The only exception where I think run-ons are fine in practice is perhaps maybe in the case of certain technically complete idiomatic micro sentences when used as interjections or adverbial phrases in their own right. For example, "I like reading books, I do indeed" is a run-on that really ought to have a semicolon separating its two independent complete components not comma, but many writers find the comma more natural given the overlap and brevity of the sentences combined.

Anyway, I'm curious folks thoughts? Any agree they are annoyed when folks use the term "run-on" to describe grammatically correct sentences they don't like or sentences that are incorrect for different reasons? Anyone else also have examples where true run-ons make sense in practice?

I think it's probably fairly common a non-trivial number of asexuals at one point or another were on a medicine with a sexual dysfunction side effect they never fully recovered from. I don't know for sure, but it's plausible I'm in this boat given my history.

And I honestly don't care. Folks are who they are now, and whatever the reasons for their experience, they have a right to pursue happiness and experience relationships in a mutually beneficial way with others on the same page. Eunuchs were commonplace throughout history, and they lived fulfilling lives. And who is to say it's not better to be this way too... folks remove sexual function from their pets to improve quality of life and these pets are also some of the most affectionate creatures on Earth creating bonds with their owners many value as much as human relationships?

I think asexuality should reclaim its non-sexual roots from the postmodern over-classification that ruined it in the past decade or two. And it can do this by merging with the concept of eunuchs and being inclusive of those who were "made asexual".

Asexuality as a concept is only useful as much as it improves lives by connecting folks, and I have way more in common with someone who was chemically made asexual than someone who adopts the label for show!

I came across this quote written by Plutarch in the Life of Pericles from ancient times in a conservative post shaming folks who are child free. Personally, I think it's amazing and childfree folks should embrace this image!

"On seeing certain wealthy foreigners in Rome carrying puppies and young monkeys about in their bosoms and fondling them, Caesar asked, we are told, if the women in their country did not bear children, thus in right princely fashion rebuking those who squander on animals that proneness to love and loving affection which is ours by nature, and which is due only to our fellow-men."

I truly believe being childfree is a typical and admirable path for human beings that's very natural throughout history with great precedent. The problem is that children aren't necessarily exposed to childfree adults growing up as much as they are exposed to adults with children for the most part, for obvious reasons, and this creates a false sense that having children is the default. There also aren't any descendants of childfree folks to continue their legacy, but they've always here among the generations!

Zombies or the equivalent idea of an infectious disease that makes human beings violent are definitely impossible in real life, and if even if such a disease were real, it wouldn't be a big deal.

To the first point, from what I've read, rabies (the archetypical "zombie" disease) specifically does not cause violence in humans the same way it does in animals even if it does create neurological symptoms, and human to human transmission is much much less common (primarily via organ transplants) with biting as a vector almost entirely (if not 100%) unheard of... though theoretically possible if someone infected were already a serial killer like Ted Bundy who was inclined to bite folks beforehand I suppose. And even in animals, the disease does not cause violence in all cases, and I even read articles saying that more recent strains and mutations that may be even more dangerous in some sense are strains that make animals unusually docile rather than unusually aggressive. A family in the USA had a raccoon acting all cute and friendly come up to their cabin, and foolishly, they went to go pet it because they're idiots and then of course they had to get shots when it tested positive as not infrequently is the case. A widespread version if ever possible is more likely to be a non-violent one!

As it turns out, biting and close physical contact isn't a particularly effect disease transmission method anyway, which is why rabies has been around for thousands of years without creating any kind of pandemic even among animals, and of course it's literally the OG preventable disease as far as having the first highly successful vaccine associated with it back in the 1800s. It's of course still a very serious disease especially in countries with large populations of wild mammals that are near human settlements, but even if it did function like a zombie virus from movies which it doesn't, all evidence points to the notion it would not spread far and / or be something vaccines could be developed fairly easily for.

Other neurological infectious diseases like mad cow disease or "zombie deer disease" also don't really cause violence rather more so dementia and are spread by mainly by close contact or eating infected meat / brains, definitely nothing that could cause a pandemic. And actually dead bodies that are brought back to life are physically impossible for a host of reasons, and even if it were possible somehow, surely they would be so slow and beaten back by decomposition they would waste away before being a problem.

And for this reason, I actually have grown to appreciate zombie or zombie adjacent films that treat zombies as a non-apocalyptic situation. Rabid by David Cronenberg is my favorite of these, describing a prophetically COVID-style response to an outbreak where it's acknowledged the death toll is just in the hundreds. The Night of the Living Dead 1990s remake and even the first film to an extent also see zombies as manageable in society even with reanimating of dead corpses. I've also started Happiness on Netflix and find the first episodes pretty grounded too.

I know there's also a lot of fantasy stories too where zombies are just a mundane thing folks deal with. Can anyone think of any other stories where zombies are not treated as causing an apocalypse or risking causing an apocalypse that take a more grounded view? Any other thoughts on this topic as well? I think I'm tired of the zombie apocalypse setting but still am interested in zombies as a theme to explore!

Two disclaimers at the beginning. First, I'm an American and speaking primarily of the American culinary experience, though I'm curious how steakhouses work in other nations too. Second, I'll insist classic versus contemporary as a steakhouse distinction does not necessarily have to do with price, Lawry's for example being one of the quintessential expensive classic steakhouses in the United States.

So to kick off the discussion, what are the differences between these types of steakhouses fundamentally? I'd say there's three:

1. Classic steakhouse tend to have a table-cloth-oriented more old school decor that emphasizes comfort or western / cowboy vibes, and if it is fancy, it's more like a hotel lobby than it is in any way chic or stylized.

2. Classic steakhouses by definition cannot have à la carte menus, and sides or a soup / salad at least must accompany entrees. In the most extraordinary of cases, an unlimited salad bar comes with entrees as well. The contemporary steakhouse on the other hand is most defined by its à la carte menu and the general lack of lower price steak choices, though there are often cheaper non-steak options on the menu.

3. Classic steakhouses also tend to have different more tried and true menu items with a greater likelihood of offering true prime rib roast beef or sirloin steak, while contemporary steakhouses frequently only offer a filet, New York strip, and one or more ribeye variations. Mushrooms side dishes tend to also be more standard delicious varieties at a classic steakhouse while they're more likely to be some exotic variety or medley with Brussels sprouts or something gimmicky and awful at a contemporary steakhouse.

Now, my understanding has generally been everyone prefers classic steakhouses, but even at higher price points, they're structurally far less profitable than contemporary steakhouses, so this is why contemporary steakhouses proliferate as the classic steakhouse experience become more rare or only offered by chains, in spite of the fact they're generally way less enjoyable experiences for customers almost entirely.

However, I wonder if I'm wrong. Can anyone defend the contemporary steakhouse from a patron-oriented viewpoint? Does anyone actually prefer this style to classic steakhouses?