Another Canadian.
All-green money is weird, about as weird for us as ours is for you. Once I knocked over some products in a store and then picked it up. The staff acted like that was saintly, so I guess other people just make a mess and move on? Drive through liquor stores are weird, and seem like an invitation to drink and drive. Paying at a hospital is weird just in concept, although thank god I’ve never had to deal with it down there.
Uhh, other than that it’s been pretty similar in the places I’ve been. Etiquette around “sorry” is famously different, but aside from giving me away as Canadian it has little impact.
The flags on the cars.
The brown paper-bag thing with alcohol in public. I mean, everybody and their dog knows what’s in there, right?
And the fact that people ask if you need help if you decide to NOT take the car but instead walk the 5 minutes to somewhere.
As someone that sold liquor for a while, if the bag is dropped and the bottle shatters, the brown paper holds up a bit better when you’re cleaning that shit up compared to the thin plastic that rips when you breathe on it,
Everyone does know. I can’t speak for all states/counties/cities/etc, but the brown bag thing is mostly a legal grey area for allowing folks to drink in public. Most of the time drinking isn’t legal to just do while walking around and can be given fines by cops. However this can be problematic for additional resources being redirected from more important crimes. So as long as the cops don’t see a label or the whole bottle/can, then they can ignore it as “it could be anything.”
For example, in the summer people in my state like to go tubing down sections of rivers. While tubing you can have coolers and stuff, however open drinking of beer or other such drinks isn’t legal. So if cops were to be watching the river and clearly see the labels it can mean that they order you to get out and hand them over and/or be fined. But everyone makes sure to put their cans/bottles in foam cozies, and therefore it is a low-key unofficial understanding that as long as you aren’t smashed and/or causing lots of problems everything is good. The same also applies to other places like lakes and the beach (at least in my state). But if you are super drunk and/or being an asshole, then the cops will use that as probable cause to actually search the bag/cozies and all that.
I cannot even begin to imagine not having the Freedom©®™ to crack open a bottle of wine for a picnic
That’s insane
We have had many of these by-laws here in NZ over the last 20 years.
It is slightly as there was/is laws about being drunk and disorderly, just use these and let me have a glass of wine with a picnoc with family and friends
Tubing down the Delaware with my water bottle full of beer 😎
American flags everywhere. Like EVERYWHERE. I get a bit of national pride but holy crap, every other house in the street is flying a flag, clothing has flag patterns, bumper sticker American flag, it’s everywhere. And no, it wasn’t even close to July 4.
It’s like Americans are afraid they might forget what country they’re in if they aren’t in sight of a flag at all times.
Shoes. Indoors, in your own house, on your furniture?!
I’ve never been there, but apparently you guys don’t have blackberries, and have grape jam?
Grape jelly is more popular than jam, but we have both. Grape jelly is kind of an essential foodstuff in a lot of houses for making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which is a common food for children.
We’ve definitely got blackberries and blackberry jam, but grape does tend to be the norm in a lot of areas. I prefer raspberry myself.
We have both blackberries and grape jam. Though grape is more likely to come as a jelly rather than a jam.
We definitely have blackberries. We don’t really have blackcurrants though, may be thinking of that?
Yep, currants took a hit because they were a vector for a pine tree infection that rocked our logging industry and led to a ban on currant growing like a hundred years ago. Currants aren’t banned at the national level anymore.
And even through that, we have had creme de cassis as a liqueur that a decently built out bar would have.
Thanks for the info!
We absolutely have blackberries. In my neck of the woods, there’s apparently 2 species of blackberries, one of which is highly invasive. I was going for walks about a month ago, specifically routed to pass by as many wild blackberries as possible, and they were very delicious!
I avoid anywhere with blackberries and raspberries when they’re in season; that’s where the bears tend to hang out, and I’m not super keen on surprising a bear when I’m out hiking.
Surprised a family of bears (sow and two yearlings) trying to walk out of my basement last week in the dark. That was not fun.
Nice username. 😏 Dynavap fan? 🍃🍃🍃
Do you have blackberry jam? Or is it a different berry I was thinking of?
Edit: it’s blackcurrants, isn’t it?
I’m pretty sure we have blackberry jam, but I’m not much of a jam person, so I can’t say so from personal experience. Although if we have the berries, I can’t see why we wouldn’t also have the jam. Looks like blackcurrants is probably what you were thinking of, although they’re technically available in the US now.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackcurrant_production_in_the_United_States
Sizes for clothes, drinks and fries are all bigger than in Brazil. A medium size shirt in the US is easily as big as a large in Brazil. For drinks I would usually groan every time I forgot to buy a small drink since I literally can’t drink a medium soda in the US in less than an hour and I hate wasting food.
Fast food portion sizes. It’s out of control. Drinking 1 liter of soda for lunch shouldn’t be normalized. BTW most people are super friendly and nice, in Michigan at least.
Oh, and why is all the cheese orange ?
As an American, my top realization was… everywhere else in the world yall use electric kettles - Americans frequently only have a stove top kettle like it’s the fucking eighteenth century.
The stove top kettle might get a comeback since modern induction stoves are faster than an electric kettle. I’m about to get one and look forward to having one less appliance on the table.
I’m not sure it’s that much faster but we recently switched to a stove top kettle for our induction stove. It’s one less thing that needs to be plugged in somewhere. Also, the kettle makes a very cool sound! :)
They are common among US tea drinkers, but coffee seems more popular.
I thought this one was also to do with their power being on a lower voltage so Kettles take longer?
But it’s still super weird. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s not. Boiling water with 110V power works just fine.
Electric kettles are are slower on 110 but way faster than electric(non induction) stove
We have keurigs now 🤡
(They can dispense plain hot water)
Is there a generic (non-brand) name for these boiling-water faucets? (That’s not a mouthful like “boiling-water faucets”). I think we call them quookers here, which is also a brand name, and I slightly dislike that practice. I mean, “brand name for generic thing” is very common, but the brands and things differ per country, so it’s like a layer of jargon to decipher.
I dont think there is. There are, however, actual instant hot-water dispensers you can install as an extra sink faucet and they are amazing.
Yeah but anything that comes out of a keurig always tastes kinda sludgy.
Clean your keurig
Oh I don’t own one… they make crappy coffee anyway.
Ah the company that convinced people that adding DRM to coffee was okay because they made it “easier” to make coffee (meanwhile I’ve faught far more with every kurig I’ve encountered than any $5 drip coffee machine I’ve ever encountered)
We mostly use it like a regular coffee machine though, with the cups you can fill yourself. No DRM used here.
Honest truth is that people in the US don’t need to use kettles as much, so for a lot of households it’s just a question of why buy an extra appliance when the cheap $10 kettle from Target or a small saucepan will do for the few times a year a kettle becomes convenient.
+1 for the account name being on topic
But my electric kettle only cost me $10
You ever eat instant ramen? You enjoy boiling things? Do you drink tea multiple times a year?
The kettle is worth it.
That’s the thing, the answer for a lot of people in the US is no.
After coffee, the most common need for boiled water in US households is probably for pasta, and a kettle’s not really the tool for either of those.
People that do eat a lot of instant ramen or drink a lot of tea in the US are more likely to have electric kettles (as some people I know do) but most don’t eat ramen often enough and tea just isn’t as big here.
Ramen is most commonly sold in sealed plastic bags in America. We just cook it in a pot like any other pasta. Lots of people I know don’t own any kind of kettle. If they need to boil water a pot or the microwave both work just fine.
Personally, I like tea, but I also have an induction cooktop, so I just have a kettle for that. It’s great. All the advantages of an electric kettle without having to put an electrical appliance by my sink.
you can boil water in a pot on the stove, or in the microwave, we have options.
This is sort of the point - it’s such a pain compared to an electric kettle and I just don’t understand why Americans are so dedicated to avoiding such a useful appliance.
is it though?
- kettle: fill it with water, turn it on, and wait
- stove: fill a pot with water, put it on the stove and turn it on, wait
- microwave: put a cup of water in the microwave and wait
- coffeemaker: press the go button, it makes hot water
it’s useful in the same way that a rotary hammer drill is useful for drilling through masonry, i’m going to assume you probably don’t drill through much masonry in your life, therefore you don’t need it.
Americans aren’t stupid or daft, we just dont fucking need them. 95% of the time we need hot water, its for cooking, or coffee.
If we had a kettle it would literally just be landfill.
you’re effectively asking someone who doesn’t eat toast frequently why they don’t have a toaster, it’s a silly question.
Also: Microwave. Apparently, lots of people heat their water in the microwave. (See pinned comment here.)
I will admit as a kid when I wanted tea I used to just fill a mug with water and stick it in the microwave for a minute.
From Austria:
The amount of plastic waste you produce.
Every shopping trip you get (single use) plastic bags, every food item is packaged individually. Even your plates are often times made from plastic, as is the cutlery (sometimes).
All those plastic cups in every restaurant - it’s disgusting.
It’s insanity.
Also: general waste is labeled “landfill” in some places.
Extreme focus on sports, wearing sportswear (both men and women do this), always “exercising”, mentioning calories on a menu card (a Caesar salad contains 1200 calories!).
Canadian, so it’s not all that different, but why. can. I. buy. liquor. in. a. PHARMACY?
Don’t know if this is just a California thing, but it was weird as fuck. What’s even weirder, in light of this, is they don’t go whole hog and sell cigarettes too. 'Cause helf.
Donald Trump. I mean seriously WTF?
Canadian checking in.
Biggest oddity to me is that the default for restaurants is one bill, and waiters get annoyed if you ask them to split it by person.
Like why would I want to either:
- do math correctly splitting the bill while trying to leave; or
- be worried I ordered something more expensive than the average and unfairly make others cover it?
It’s complete insanity to me.
Signs telling you not to bring guns into shopping centers.
In some states, these signs don’t even mean that a person can’t carry a concealed weapon into the shopping center. In my state, for instance, assuming you are otherwise able to legally carry a gun (meaning you took a class and aren’t a felon), the list of areas where you can’t legally carry a gun is very limited: Federal buildings, courthouses, etc. If a business has a sign posted stating “no guns allowed,” you can still legally carry your weapon in that business. If an employee sees that you’re armed, they can ask you to leave, and you’re trespassing if you refuse, but nothing legally stops you from carrying a gun into the establishment in the first place.
As a disclaimer, I’m not arguing this one way or another. I have a license to carry a concealed handgun, in fact. Just sharing information.
If a business has a sign posted stating “no guns allowed,” you can still legally carry your weapon in that business.
I’m sure that’s the practicality, but I am skeptical of the legality of a CCW permit trumping the rights of the property owner.
It sounds more like breaking the law and just not getting caught. Do you have any links to CCW permit overriding property owner rights?
Yeah I’m sure minimum wage clerks are going to totally feel comfortable asking the armed person (someone who believes they need to arm themselves to enter a shopping center) to please leave.
Does this give you any increased sense of security as a non-american?
the opposite for me
Hmmm. Not overly, I assume it’s just a “suggestion” but am not sure. But I have had to travel there quite a bit for work, and I usually feel mostly secure. But I am aware a lot of people carry them in the US, and mostly just keep to myself moreso than I normally would outside of work things.
In a few states it’s a law but mostly it’s a suggestion and at worse you’ll get kicked out. I know New York has a law and maybe California.
Interesting. I had no clue. Thanks for the info.
The sign actually would give me an increased sense of security yeah.
Obviously a lunatic out to do a mass shooting would disregard the sign but your average gun wielder might be offended and take their business elsewhere – and statistically that’s the like who’s more likely to shoot me. That’s my logic as a Norwegian who’s lived there for just a year anyway.
and statistically that’s the one who’s more likely to shoot me. That’s my logic as a Norwegian who’s lived there for just a year anyway.
what for though? are you just harassing people in public? I don’t understand why someone would be concerned about someone just having a gun. You probably won’t even see this person, let alone bump into them, let alone get into an altercation with them.
And most of them are sane and reasonable people who understand how de-escalation works.
The question was whether or not a sign saying guns not allowed at a mall would make me feel more safe there. I would see them, I might bump into them, it’s a mall. The argument that most of them are sane and reasonable doesn’t reassure me much when we’re talking about people with a magic kill button.
i guess my point that you aren’t picking up on here is that this is quite literally an irrational fear. You should be more worried about being hit by a car, or punched in the face. Or falling down a set of stairs or something.
I’ve been punched before, complete blind violence. The difference is that being punched didn’t kill me. The fear of getting shot in America is not irrational. Again refer to the page full of statistics in my previous comment.
being shot doesn’t have to kill you either. A lot of people survive being shot, lots of people also die from getting punched.
What if they had a knife? Those aren’t exactly hard to get, knives arguably cause more violent injuries than guns do. Unless you’re shooting someone point blank with a 45 or something.
Statistically speaking, people that have conceal carry licenses are less likely to engage in criminal activity than the average person, and less likely to shoot a person in general. The people to worry about are the people that carry firearms without having a valid carry license. (This doesn’t apply in the relatively few states that don’t require permits to carry concealed firearms.) Essentially, people that obey one law–getting a permit before they carry a firearm–tend to be likely to obey most laws.
Fair enough, though a person with a gun is much more likely to shoot me than a person without a gun. Any measure to reduce the amount of people in my vicinity carrying guns has my full support. If 1/1000 (number pulled out of my ass obviously) gun owners end up shooing someone, and you reduce the amount of people around me carrying guns from 1000 to 10, you’ve just dramatically increased my statistical probability of living a full life.
I actually looked and couldn’t find the murder rate in the population of gun owners with basic googling but the actual number doesn’t matter when it’s being compared to 0.
According to a quick Google search, 3 in 10 American adults say that they currently own a firearm; that’s around 82,000,000 gun owners in the US. Last time I checked, there were around 45,000 annual gun deaths in the US, of which just under 2/3 were suicide. That leaves somewhere around 18,000 deaths that are homicides of some form (which also includes legal self-defense). So it’s far, far less than 1/1000 gun owners that are going to shoot someone (other than intentionally shooting themselves, and IMO that’s a different issue entirely).
But, sure, if in your opinion that only correct number of gun deaths is 0, then yes, removing guns and collectively forgetting how to make them is the only solution. Just like if your opinion is that the only correct number of traffic deaths is zero, then the only reasonable solution is the completely elimination of all means of transportation other than feet.
You’ve done your division twice there, it seems. The ~45000 is the number after you take away the suicides.. So pretty much 1/2000, so I guess I was pretty close.
Of course the only correct number of gun deaths among civilians is 0, do you disagree with that? As for your comparison to vehicular deaths, let’s remember the context here. The question is whether or not I feel safer in a place that doesn’t allow guns or one that does. So you should really be asking if I think it’s better to walk on the sidewalk or in the road shared with cars. Of course I might still get hit by a car on the sidewalk, but where would you feel safer?
Of course the only correct number of gun deaths among civilians is 0, do you disagree with that?
I absolutely do disagree, yes. If my life or safety is being threatened by someone, then I absolutely have the right to use any level of force necessary to defend myself, up to and including lethal force.
BTW, the way that you state that question is a form of manipulation. It’s a common tactic used in high-pressure sales.
Fair enough, though a person with a gun is much more likely to shoot me than a person without a gun.
they’re more likely to have the probability of shooting you in an extremely bad encounter. If you have an encounter that bad with someone, you’re going to get fucked up one way or another, and it’s probably you who caused the problem, since you’d be the common denominator here. Otherwise it’s basically just up to random statistics or not as to whether you get gun violenced.
Statistically, speaking, a person with a gun is more capable of shooting you than someone without a gun. I would be willing to be the number of gun owners that have shot a person is probably less than 0.01%
and you reduce the amount of people around me carrying guns from 1000 to 10, you’ve just dramatically increased my statistical probability of living a full life.
also this isn’t accurate since it would mostly matter on who shoots you, rather than a gun owner shooting you. Most of the gun violence in the US is done via illegal or unregistered guns. I.E. not legal license carrying gun owners.
I know the rough per capita numbers per 100,000 people iirc, is about 5-30 varying per state obviously. But states like NYC and cali have some of the lowest, with random buttfuck nowhere land no gun law states having upwards of 30. To be clear, this is a 0.0003% chance at the highest level. Most of which is probably going to be avoided by simply engaging in basic self preservation behaviors. Since most gun violence isn’t just random acts of violence.
Look are you really trying to argue that the amount of people with guns in my vicinity is irrelevant to my chances of getting shot?
between legal gun owners, and the statistical chunk of gun violence, yes it does matter.
If you’re in a place where legal gun owners are, and where illegal gun owners are unlikely to be (or at least unlikely to cause problems in) statistically yes, you would expect that to make a difference.
Just to be clear, walking into a room that has a gun in it doesn’t magically make you more likely to get shot. Walking into a room with a person whose armed doesn’t make them more likely to shoot you or for you to get shot, it increases the possibility that you could be shot by virtue of there being a gun now, but that’s irrelevant to actually getting shot yes.
You realize we have knives in kitchens right? Does walking into a kitchen automatically increase the chances of you getting stabbed?
it’s hard to explain this, because you’re essentially operating a rokos basilisk premise here. The very concept of a gun doesn’t increase the chances of you getting shot, the gun being nearer to you than it previously was doesn’t increase that chance. The gun being next to you or on you doesn’t change this. The hands of the person it’s in may change it, but that’s still a third party variable so we can’t really account for that one here. Even if the gun is pointed at you, it doesn’t arguably increase the chances that you can get shot, it might be unloaded for all you know. If someone who is aggressing you, or who you are aggressing on is pointing a gun at you, yes that would probably drastically increase the chances of you getting shot.
If you are aggressing someone who owns a gun, or they are aggressing you, it may increase the chances of them pulling the gun on you. But that doesn’t necessarily increase the chance of you getting shot.
to be clear here, the only real situation in which you are more likely to be shot, is in which someone is pointing a gun at you, and telling you that they are going to shoot you. Every other situation is going to be several orders of magnitude less significant, and effectively irrelevant here.
Never seen this where I live. Not every state is a complete shit hole thankfully
