Replace with:

(1) I am from $region_X and I went to $region_Y

(2) $region_Y'ers do things in a way I find unusual and/or distressing

(3) The cause must be a character flaw shared by all $region_Y'ers (<insert stereotypes of choice here>).

and your statement is still valid about this formula.

I think we tend to preferentially notice them when we're in one of the two regions involved, but in general the world (and so the internet) is full of this sort of semantically null comparisons about culture and stereotypes. I've started seeing these as idle chatter akin to "Hey, look at that weirdly painted bus". At most I'd respond with "oh heh cool" but I'm not going to spend any more of my energy trying to explain choices of bus colors to anyone.

PHP dev? ;)

Another stereotype? It could be Perl or Bash.

Or Ruby, or TCL...

I didn't know that there are still people out there that program in Perl or Tcl??

Booking.com is mostly Perl and doing gangbusters. Tcl is, for example, the lingua franca for F5 load balancers. I have more examples, but both are far from dead.

Tcl is a household name in the field of EDA tool scripting.

Virtually all software tools designed by Cadence, Synopsys, and Mentor include a Tcl REPL/console.

Any task performed in the GUI is actually executed in the REPL, making it easy to replicate a specific flow by just copy/pasting the commands displayed in the REPL into a Tcl script.

To load a script, you simply pass it as an argument when running the software.

There are. There's even a Perl 6 that is production ready: https://perl6.org

or PowerShell

I thought Perl was the only language that has ' as a valid character in variable names along with the $. Ada allows the quote, too.

First thing that came to my mind too! But it could also be bash...

bambax's comment is particularly silly too: "It seems, Americans don't trust one another to sit alone in a toilet". One could just as easily remark that "It seems Europeans must be so childishly shy about normal bodily functions that they must build walls from floor to ceiling in order to pretend that they don't happen". But obviously, both versions are stupid.

Both may be stupid, but perhaps also true of a large enough portion of the population as to provide the reason for those differences?

There are a million possible reasons, some cultural but very many economic or historical accident. In principle it would be possible to try and infer something about culture from this, but it's overwhelmingly obvious that this excercise is indulged in so people can gleefully confirm their existing beliefs.

Eh, when someone says "it sure feels strange, and very difficult to get used," it doesn't have to be negative. You can take it as a "character flaw" jibe, but it's really just an observation.

source: American that is still in shock by septic tank users that have to throw their feces-paper in the trashcan.

That's only if your septic tank is improperly sized or otherwise malfunctioning.

Around 20% of homes in America have their own septic tank. And essentially all of them flush their toilet paper like everyone else.

My home is on a septic tank. We flush TP. No problem so far (18 years).

I grew up near Tacoma, WA with a septic tank. Every house on the street has one. We had to have a septic truck come out and pump it every few years. Otherwise it was just like sewer.

They did put sewers in about 15 years after the houses were built, and mandated hooking into it on the next septic tank pumping. But the tanks are left underground, as removing them would leave a 20 foot hole in the backyard of each house.

In short, what's this about tossing your stool in the trash?

When I lived in a house with a septic tank, I was shocked at how much of a non-issue it was. Even with a family, the tank really didn't need to be pumped more than every 5+ years at the most, and was very inexpensive. Never backed up or had any issues.

> source: American that is still in shock by septic tank users that have to throw their feces-paper in the trashcan.

What? Where/when/why is that necessary?

Greece/present day/crap plumbing.

https://www.worldnomads.com/travel-safety/europe/greece/toil...

When you have an undersized septic tank, this can become necessary. But not necessary for most.

I lived in the Dominican Republic for a few years, and it was a little weird to me at first, but after a while you get used to putting dirty paper in the trash. I never once had to deal with a clogged toilet.

After moving back to the USA it was just as weird to put paper in the toilets (though drinking the same water you bathe in was the weirdest part).

I think people exaggerate the weirdness and difficulty of adjustment, because in both instances it took me a week at most to get used to either way.

> though drinking the same water you bathe in was the weirdest part

Surely you mean the water that enters the house via plumbing, is used for both bathing and drinking from via a faucet. As opposed to drinking bath water.

Is the weirdness of that because they don't drink tap water in the Dominican?

> Is the weirdness of that because they don't drink tap water in the Dominican?

Yes, almost nowhere in Central America would you (or locals) drink water from the tap. Things like brushing your teeth are a grey area.

Unless you are on well, you don't drink tap water in most places in the DR

The fact that the vast majority of people don't travel more than a week or two (if ever) probably contributes to the lack of perspective.

Puritanical reasons would be a character flaw, maybe, but not security. From the other comments it seems the main reason is easiness to clean.

But my point was about the fact that the author of the article was shocked that latrines in Pompei were public and shared, while in the US toilets are almost as public as in Pompei (not exactly as much, but still too much for someone from a different culture).

I'm from America, lived in Europe, and definitely prefer European toilets at the office. It's an actual room that gives you real privacy.

This notion of privacy probably results in people taking way longer to do their business. Americans don’t have time for that shit.

lol - that reminds me of the quote from the boss baby justifying wearing a diaper.

I'm interested in knowing what percentage of users are not in America. It seems that it's increasing.

We've always enjoyed here to mean America. I guess it won't be for long.

Apparently the very private Puritan outhouses were really time machines which they used to time travel to the 20th century and help pass the ADA.

>Pretty sure HN is suffering from serious forum sliding, and it's just time to move on to some other aggregator.

Has to be a better solution than this imo.

If there is, it's been a long time coming. The Eternal September started in 1993, and has been repeated across every social site or service ever created since then. The only way to avoid the flood is to leave before they arrive.

No doubt diversion of purpose clashes as well. I don’t particularly care what the owners thought HN would be or how they think it should be run. I found a better reddit (because tech and politics was already most of what I was interested in) and so I stayed here doing what I did on Reddit. The whole ‘SV startup’ thing is just an annoying undertone I have to filter out (yes I know what ycombinator does) as I navigate the site.

Thank you for your comment! It confirms so much of what I've been thinking for the past few years that someone with your stated interest in politics and disinterest in "The whole ‘SV startup’ thing" would see this site as a "better reddit".

The HN I once loved is well and truly dead. May this site serve its current demographic well.

which reddit?