u/ChristianPacifist

I remember there were no Chick-Fil-A restaurants near where I grew up in the USA except a mall food court location no one ever thought much about that didn't seem anymore popular than any other fast food place. Now, there's a whole bunch of locations with massive drive through lines all over!

I am certain the modern popularity of Chick-Fil-A all stems from an early form of right-wing counter-cultural groupthink that we saw reach its zenith with the Bud Light controversy and boycott in 2023.

In 2012, Chick-Fil-A had a controversy related to the gay marriage debate at the time that involved early forms of cancel culture including Boston trying to block restaurant expansion, and this lead to an explosion in popularity of Chick-Fil-A as a form of contrarian solidarity among both conservatives and free-speech-supporting liberals (yes, many liberals were still very associated with free speech, especially for those they disagree with, at that time, the "classical" type before it joined MAGA). It was an early form of culture war signaling, and the momentum for Chick-Fil-A never stopped since then, and now it's popular and still rebellious-feeling to eat there even for reasons folks can't recall or aren't aware of.

And their chicken is quite good, but they are boring sandwiches that ought to come pre-sauced with bigger buns, and the use of romaine lettuce rather than iceberg lettuce on their sandwiches is awful since it's a strong tasting lettuce that is meant for salad, dammit, even though it gives off fancier connotations. The service can be excellent but also varies more than folks would admit, with institutional locations (like the Philadelphia airport) being less impressive.

I think it is an overrated fast food chain. It's still very good and worthy of being a standard option for chicken breast sandwiches, but its elevated allure and goodwill is merely just culture war contrarianism that never wore off.

I think I agree with this article but exempt Asian food halls in Queens.

I prefer old school mall food courts personally teeming with Sbarros and Sbarros knock offs, but even many malls have gone the trendy "food hall" direction.

I've lived in many apartments in my day including alone and with roommates, and I've had roommates ranging from horrible folks who ripped me off to amazing folks I wouldn't mind living with for the rest of my life, assuming I remain a childfree urban professional workaholic.

Granted, there are times when living alone is delightfully relaxing, but the sitcom energy and connection to greater social networks that come from living with a roommate cannot be beat especially if you are compatible and develop sibling-style comfort with them.

One piece of advice I'll give is that one of the best roommate situations possible is some kind of multi-lease scenario where each roommate is renting their room individually as part of a distinct agreement. In this situation, potentially incompatible, excessively eccentric, alcoholic, or unreliable roommates can be appreciated at a distance for their charms and adventurous excitement even if they are irresponsible in ways you'd never tolerate among someone you are tied to financially. It's also much easier when there are multiple leases even in scenarios where a good roommate finds new work or needs to move.

I understand that some are opposed to living with roommates, and in this scenario, if one is not financially able to live alone in their desired parts of the New York area in desired accommodations, I highly recommend other metro areas that are significantly cheaper but still offer a great urban experience with a newer housing stock, such as greater Washington DC.

The first dialect of SQL a person learns SQL with (or the first they use extensively) is heavily influential in developing one's style of SQL writing, and this can lead to prejudice or skepticism when one transitions to using other dialects of SQL with different practices, especially at a new org.

I find that those who began using SQL Server for instance tend to be obsessed with performance tuning and write in a more complex procedural way given the seamless integration of T-SQL control structures into the language. When someone who started out in SQL Server transitions to using another dialect of SQL, they may be criticized for writing over-engineered code and creating needless optimization, especially when using more forgiving big-data-centric SQL platforms. However, the discipline of SQL Server folks must be recognized!

I find that those (like myself) who began using Oracle, which did not have private temporary tables for the longest time, tend to be very good at writing and comprehending long complex SELECT statements and common table expressions. Oracle folks have a knack for tackling "confusing" code head on since they were forced to write "confusing" code and may naturally avoid the bite sized more linear code folks using other versions of SQL with more readily-accessible temp tables consider "table stakes". They may be criticized for writing verbose or "spaghetti" code when transitioning to other versions of SQL with historically more powerful read-only capabilities, but they are the folks you want on hand if you need to solve a SQL puzzle with one SELECT statement or untangle a mess!

Does anyone else have any other stories or experience with folks learning SQL using one dialect and then appearing idiosyncratic or facing prejudice or skepticism when they transition to another dialect especially at another org where they aren't familiar with the other dialect? A related phenomenon too is when one org migrates to another SQL version and translates their code without refactoring leading to code in one SQL dialect written using the common practices of another one.

Maybe two or three years ago I lamented the fact I had never gone into software development in spite of the fact I probably had the coding mindset for it, regretting the tedious and stressful aspects of Analytics as well as lower overall pay.

Now with AI leading to massive layoffs and / or reduce hiring in software development and other Engineering fields, I'm thinking Analytics was a good field to specialize in since it has that sweet spot of being just close enough to the business and just close enough to the tech side that it is hard to automate away via AI. Furthermore, I think demand for analysts in general to understand data and accommodate reporting changes will also increase if AI is accelerating software changes and changes to data models and systems.

There might be AI front ends replacing some dashboards, but by and large, this profession is safe from disruption I think.

I'm actually a Jersey person myself (though now commuting to New York for the first time) and really like New Jersey a lot on its own merits, though one thing I've disliked a lot is when New Jersey tries to equate itself to New York or when places like Hoboken or Jersey City try to position themselves as a 6th boro.

New Jersey's relationship to NYC in my opinion is not for instance like Maryland and Virginia's relationship to DC. In the DC area, many areas of Maryland and Virginia are seamlessly integrated into DC via one single metro system and multiple toll-less bridges. Taking a stroll across the state lines is a common occurrence, and at least one metro station even quite literally cross the state line with an entrance on either side. It's very fair to consider living in Bethesda, MD or Arlington, VA as basically the same as living in DC, and I'm sure this dynamic is at play with other cities and their suburban areas (maybe LA and LA county as another example). However, the barriers between even the most near cities in NJ and NYC are substantial and meaningful with no truly integrated logistical setup. Many folks in NJ rarely ever go to New York, and there's likewise a distinct culture and set of political, economic, cultural, dating and culinary realities in spite of all the bedroom commuting.

For this reason, I would never recommend a transplant lives in NJ when relocating to the New York area even if they're going to be working at an office in Jersey City or Hoboken. The true cultural and logistical New York experience is found in NYC itself.

If life is filled with suffering, there are certainly lesser and greater forms of suffering. For many, the suffering of being lonely and unfulfilled in life is far more preferable than the suffering of being overwhelmed with worry and obligations. It's true many childfree folks are depressed isolated urban single career people, but that's for many way better than being a depressed parent who has to do all this emotional and domestic labor on top of being depressed!

The conservative types who oppose the childfree movement make so many logical fallacies in their arguments. And one of the key fallacies is assuming a chidfree person's misery necessarily implies they would be less miserable with children as opposed to more miserable beyond their current misery. They have no concept of relative emotional states, just black or white gray states.

The truth is some people have fundamentally different ways of experiencing and enjoying life, and for some, the journey of life is more important than any kind of destination in life even if they don't leave a legacy or have some grand purpose. Also, for others they value their younger years over their older years. Folks who tend to value the day to day quality of their life over sacrificial long-term accomplishment are probably more likely to be childfree as are folks who are content with not having folks to take care of them or be obligated to them in old age. Others may take a different approach and want to achieve grand family legacy and / or view retirement as the point of their life and want an optimal situation with adult children. Many also have personalities where they actively enjoy having children net of the downsides. The point is there is nuance and a need to acknowledge folks are often different and can thus have distinct but still real concerns!

Anyway, does anyone have any thoughts on this topic or agree or not? I can't stand arguments about how unhappy childfree folks are without considering relative unhappiness... it's completely fallacious and platitudinous to a credibility vanquishing amount. Also, many parents downplay how unhappy the are in general, though their actions reveal it.

I used to live in Las Vegas and went to ACYE sushi often, and it was very common for there to be two similarly priced buffets tiers for lunch / late night and dinner. And the dinner tier usually was distinguished by costing maybe 5 or 10 dollars more and giving customers access to a bunch of items you could only order once per table including things like Wagyu or Halibut nigiri.

I recently went to an extremely good ACYE sushi spot in NYC that was structured different. It has two tiers for regular and premium with the premium tier being almost twice the price. However, there are no limits on how many items you can order in either tier (just some limits on quantity per round of ordering like 20 pieces max), and the premium tier includes the potential to order Wagyu and other high end dishes. Ironically, though, the regular tier still includes unlimited sashimi as well as fresh perfectly prepared rice for nigiri, but still, I am very intrigued by this restaurant and will likely go back to go all out on Wagyu!

Structurally, what do you prefer? No item level limits but more distinct tiers or closer tiers with lots of one item limits? I am still deciding personally.

One thing I'll say is that sushi restaurants ironically encourage people to order more high end items than they'd prefer otherwise by calling them out on the menu. I feel like tables feel obligated to order high end items if the menu marks them with red dots as one per person as if often the case, but when it's just part of a higher tier, people care less and will pay the same to not eat those items when at a lower tier and be just as happy.

I've moved back to the New York area after living in Las Vegas for a while, and the one thing I I loved about Las Vegas was the ready prevalence of excellent food, especially of the ACYE variety.

What would you say are the best all you can eat restaurants in NYC? There's probably many especially if you consider Indian lunch buffets as well as ACYE sushi and Brazilian steakhouses, so all is fair game. Do any go above and beyond and really stand out, however, whether for locals or tourists?

As an honorable mention, even though it's certainly not the best, I'll just point out it's pretty awesome there's a Golden Corral in the Bronx, and it has good vibes for what it is, which is one of the only buffets that provides freshly-baked hot-from-the-oven bread dammit. All the haters of this chain deny that basic fact and are just classists!

I notice that there are at least two distinct types of revenge / revenge-adjacent plots found in movies and stage plays that I've seen.

The first is the more subtle morally ambiguous type of revenge plot embodied for example by the film Memento and play Hamlet where revenge is the subject of the plot, but there are not clear cut hate-able villains or at least a clear cut sense of identification with the protagonist or the revenge activities in general. These stories are probably thematically deeper than the other kind of revenge story, but they noticeably lack the emotional satisfaction and sense of profound immersion often found otherwise. They are defined by a more nuanced examination of revenge as a concept and more complex relationships between the revenger and the object of the revenge.

The other type of revenge / revenge-adjacent plot is a bit more formulaic but for a good reason, since it's immensely emotionally satisfying and can make for some of the best storytelling in cinema and stage, particularly for those who enjoy graphic violent depictions in movies for their own sake. I call this the "Cathartic Revenge" plot where the main character is generally wronged in some way (or those they care about are wronged) by a villain or antagonist whose dehumanization or comeuppance then becomes the driving force of the plot. Central to this story is a deep emotional identification with the protagonist followed by sharing cathartically in their joy when they finally get vengeance on those who wronged them. There are many plots fitting this mold fairly exactly as well as many plots that have this framing or that play on these themes. Titus Andronicus is probably the best Shakespeare play embodying this contrasted with Hamlet, while in cinema John Wick is one of the most recent examples following in the footsteps of countless others. The Patriot from somewhat less recent cinematic history is another great example, especially in how it has a clear human face sought for revenge with the Tavington villain and embodies the personalized conflict that can often define these plots.

I want to note too, however, that it's also common for these types of Cathartic Revenge stories to involve revenge taken on generalized objects, like how the protagonist of Death Wish kills criminals as a whole to make up for what was done to his family by specific criminals or how Django Unchained involves vengeance against the totality of pro-slavery Southerners for what one can argue is the totality of their injustice. Cathartic Revenge plots almost by definition have to be less nuanced thematically in their own context in order to to achieve the raw emotion and identification required, but they can still be very meta nuanced as a matter of reflection. The sadistic glee the audience feels watching Django Unchained for instance helps one understand the emotions that drove many in history to commit or support genocide for example, the notion the perpetrators are themselves victims who are caught up in overwhelming emotionally satisfying dehumanizing vengeance against those they imagine to have tormented and dehumanized them. These type of revenge films at their best brilliantly work as pure catharsis and also as a way to understand humanity's capacity for darkness in a way that sometimes the ironically more thematically nuanced revenge films don't achieve even with their greater emphasis on morality and introspection.

I do want to finally just note there can be hybrids or middle grounds between these types of plots, especially when a story involves a plot twist revealing the antagonists aren't as unambiguously bad as we thought, where a simple Cathartic Revenge story is pushed into a more nuanced realm. I won't give examples here to avoid spoilers, but this is fantastic trope as well that I've seen used very well in certain tv shows or Anime too completely flipping things on their head in a good way.

I'm curious folks thoughts on revenge movies and if they have different thoughts or agree with me about how to best categorize them, and knowing this sub, I'm excited for mostly a bunch of short replies listing movie titles of revenge films in isolation!

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?