Fondant isn’t icing and is cheating when making a cake. It also tastes gross.
this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
261 points (95.8% liked)
Casual Conversation
3310 readers
404 users here now
Share a story, ask a question, or start a conversation about (almost) anything you desire. Maybe you'll make some friends in the process.
RULES (updated 01/22/25)
- Be respectful: no harassment, hate speech, bigotry, and/or trolling. To be concise, disrespect is defined by escalation.
- Encourage conversation in your OP. This means including heavily implicative subject matter when you can and also engaging in your thread when possible. You won't be punished for trying.
- Avoid controversial topics (politics or societal debates come to mind, though we are not saying not to talk about anything that resembles these). There's a guide in the protocol book offered as a mod model that can be used for that; it's vague until you realize it was made for things like the rule in question. At least four purple answers must apply to a "controversial" message for it to be allowed.
- Keep it clean and SFW: No illegal content or anything gross and inappropriate. A rule of thumb is if a recording of a conversation put on another platform would get someone a COPPA violation response, that exact exchange should be avoided when possible.
- No solicitation such as ads, promotional content, spam, surveys etc. The chart redirected to above applies to spam material as well, which is one of the reasons its wording is vague, as it applies to a few things. Again, a "spammy" message must be applicable to four purple answers before it's allowed.
- Respect privacy as well as truth: Don’t ask for or share any personal information or slander anyone. A rule of thumb is if something is enough info to go by that it "would be a copyright violation if the info was art" as another group put it, or that it alone can be used to narrow someone down to 150 physical humans (Dunbar's Number) or less, it's considered an excess breach of privacy. Slander is defined by intentional utilitarian misguidance at the expense (positive or negative) of a sentient entity. This often links back to or mixes with rule one, which implies, for example, that even something that is true can still amount to what slander is trying to achieve, and that will be looked down upon.
Casual conversation communities:
Related discussion-focused communities
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
People that tell you to use *nix are so limited in a technical sense, they cannot be trusted
It's just a tool, it's like somebody telling you that you need to use a certain brand of Philips head screwdrivers because they're the best tool
It's revelatory that the person does not have a robust understanding of technology really
And before you come at me, I spent more than two decades in tech, two of them were professional game developer and web startup dude, don't even try me.
The KISS (keep it simple, stupid) philosophy often results in *nix being the best tool for the job (philosophically speaking). Other OSs obviously have their merit, but when the goal is simplicity (in terms of "moving parts") then LFS, DSL, or Gentoo are going to be the simplest (in terms of moving parts) options for most tasks.
load more comments
(4 replies)
I'm so out of shape right now, it'll probably be whichever one I try to climb next.
load more comments
(5 replies)
Spanish food sucks! Although I think I already died in that hill today.
That's at least a very controversial opinion! Wanted to downvote you so bad ;-)
load more comments
(2 replies)
Starship Troopers isn't a smart movie pretending to be a dumb movie, it's a moderately intelligent movie with pretensions of being a smart movie pretending to be a dumb movie.
Robocop, on the other hand, is a masterpiece.
load more comments
(4 replies)
Analog media was better and more fair to artists, and easier to make money off of (why sell an album when people will stream it), and allowed people to become more intelligent and involved music fans. The digitization and non stop consumption of media cheapened it. Not to mention, I'd bet 90% of young Americans have never heard a good home stereo that actually represents how the music is supposed to sound.
And no, I'm not 80 years old!
load more comments
(2 replies)
The Petty One: Optical Media is Bad. It has always been and always will be. We used it for as long as we did because there was no better choice. But when it came to music I went straight from tape to mp3 because I never trusted CD's, and I will continue not to trust CD's.
The Serious One That Might Ruffle Feathers: The entire school curriculum of every country should be wiped out -- And replaced with fifteen years of nothing but reading comprehension. We live in an era where information is extremely cheap but knowledge is priceless. And to go from information to knowledge, one needs to have a well developed reading ability and bullshit filter. There's no point memorising a bunch of nonsense when it is easier and faster to use technology -- We stopped doing recitations when we invented writing, you know? -- What IS important is understanding what you are seeing and recognising lies for what they are.
Reading comprehension is incredibly important. Bullshit filter also sorely needed. I get very frustrated when I see people falling for obvious false information. I've been shown AI videos that are clearly fake but they believe it.
I think my favorite are conspiracy theories who won't believe something backed with like, facts, but will believe this 30 seconds tik Tok from someone they don't know quoting someone they also don't know.
load more comments
(11 replies)
Sexuality is the point.
We spend a lot of time pursuing staggeringly and self-evidently pointless and stupid shit while suppressing and teaching being ashamed of sex and sexuality, to the point many just categorize their sexuality under potential trauma if engaged.
If we spent a lot less time grinding for nothing of import and more time fucking one another rather than fucking one another over for paper simulacra of supposed value, our species would be far more well adjusted. Even the difference between less prudish Europe and the puritanical US in general mental health is extremely apparent.
The way we treat sex, as something to shame behind close doors rather than celebrate, as we glorify plastic and silicon garbage, is beyond ridiculous and leads to shame and trauma in girls who become women and anger and resentment in boys that become men. We aren't economic value producing machines, we're fucking machines. We denied that at our peril, and now very few are happy with the state of things. Breathtakingly bad priorities.
The point of what? Life? Humanity? Existing? Existence?
I get the anti-anti-sexuality, but doesn't this boil life down to.... Not even procreation, but ... Sex?
What about asexual people? What about... Wonderful moments or beautiful things or cake or socializing beyond sex? What about WORDS and complex thought and ideas and puns and coffee and art and adrenaline and naps and music?
I can't say I entirely disagree with you, but I also don't agree, primarily because I'm not sure exactly what the hill you're dying on is. Can you elaborate a bit to help me/us understand exactly what you're trying to say?
I'm saying that human civilization, and especially puritanical societies of this civilization of which we are one in the US, have walled away the core of what we are, animals that want to fuck, trained us through a prism of shame to loathe that part of us, that we darkly call being civilized, and filled our days generating things that will provide us no meaning, as the closest thing to meaning that can be derived by our biology is getting as much dopamine and serotonin as possible through physical human connection, and we spend most of our time being told the greatest lever for that is shameful and harmful usually because it doesn't make strangers richer, which is ridiculous in an age where if we had the correct priorities we would be able to do for fun as procreation that comes as a result is now chemically optional.
My point is humanity spends a whole lot of its time being miserable, toiling for widgets, to pursue or accept sexual partners in a roundabout way because we've made that that a small, token, conditional cookie for doing the "important" stuff, which I find sad and fascinating to observe. The point being used as a bargaining chip for the pointless, and then all parties wondering why they're still anxious and depressed because they either didn't come to terms, or because they did and it turns out all the plastic, silicon, and tea in china can't provide even a passing shadow of the fulfillment of genuine, physical human connection can, and even that physical human connection is tarnished being turned into just another form of currency or coercion for stuff that doesn't matter at all. How much does humanity toiling for that does not matter instead of fucking?
Tldr humanity would be happier if we were trained to see sex as connection with one another and not that dirty, evil thing of which we rarely speak and if we do it is with the utmost sense of serious danger. It's too late for most existing humans though, as you can't go to full grown adults steeped in that cultural stigma and say "oops we fucked up, our sexuality isnt some taboo evil thing with no place in society." The damage is done. My hill is that shouldn't continue that harmful culture going forward, but I recognize I'll die on that hill as a tiny minority that sees the harm it does.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Javascript is a great language
I can think of worse ones and at least knowing JavaScript has paid my bills for 8+ years.
load more comments
(2 replies)
There should be a general speed limit of 20mph/30kmh on city streets.
Also no parking on public space for any vehicle that isn't for deliveries, emergencies, trades, or people with disabilities.
If you want to park your car at home, or want your customers or employees to park near your business, you need to buy or rent space for parking privately.
Any citizen documenting a parking infraction with photo evidence should have the option of giving police their bank details and will then receive part of the paid fine.
Of course there will be valid exceptions, like a private emergency, moving, a woman in labor, and such.
Just imagine what our cities could be like if there weren't long rows of cars parked along every street.
The freed space could be turned into bicycle lanes, wider sidewalks, outdoor seating for cafes, green lanes, urban gardens and so much more.
Car lanes could be separated from bike paths and sidewalks by hedges in most places.
Children could play and move safely in public.
load more comments
(20 replies)
Fahrenheit is a perfectly cromulent unit of measure when the use case is for referencing human comfort.
The rage it incites in others on the internet is just a side benefit. It's hilariously awe-inspiring just how wound up some people get over a personal preference for a unit of measure. Mr. Fahrenheit should be proud of what he accomplished.
The issue is not in the accuracy, ease, and convenience of describing and being compatible with the human experience. It has never been that.
The issue is Fahrenheit's/imperial units' compatibility and division factor of 10's compatibility with other units, and all of those scales and units being consistent and predictable.
It's literally just two philosophies of going about seeing the world.
To disclose my bias, I was brought up with imperial units. The problem in most discussions of these two ideas facing off is that nobody discusses the real topic: The pros and cons of unification vs. the rote arbitrariness of the human existence and whether or not we want to stand behind yet again another self-centered description of the universe.
Measuring horses with hands is fucking weird, but because we experience horses from our own perspective, which is limited to our physical body, measuring in hands is a really easy way to understand that unit of measurement, as opposed to decimals of meters.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(10 replies)
CROCKS AND SOCKS ARE PEAK FOOTWARE! I WILL STILL WARE THEM AND YOU CANT STOP MEEEEE!
:)
You do you! I respect that
load more comments
(3 replies)
Calling Buddhism or Confucianism not a religion is a political claim which the speakers usually have zero knowledge of and I’m sick of it. The history of what is religion in China from the republic onwards with the very Protestant understanding of what is a world religion is very important to understand this question. But most people either claim this for their hippy means or to be derogatory
load more comments
(2 replies)