How do you spot an amateur?
How do you spot an amateur in your trade, profession, or hobby? Specifically, what are some examples of things that people without experience do, while attempting what you do or know well, because they...
View ArticleWhat are some examples of other products that are presented as being American...
I am fascinated by both the ubiquity of American sauce in Western Europe and the tangy substance's complete lack of apparent relation to any of the many sauces that are authentically American. Examples...
View ArticleNon-intuitive food combinations that work
So when I was little I was the weird kid who mixed up food in weird and non-intuitive ways that grossed out many of my peers, but many of those combinations, discovered through largely blind trial and...
View ArticleHelp me prank my PI
When I first started my current job as a graduate researcher at a nominally Catholic university as an American in Belgium, my boss played a quick prank on me where he came into my office, plopped down...
View ArticleI'm looking for flowcharts depicting the oddities of English
In my lab I was hired in part so as to have a native speaker of English on hand to improve the general knowledge of the language if only by osmosis. So, deciding to take my duties seriously, the other...
View ArticleHow do real grownups host small professional-ish dinner parties?
So a little while ago I invited my supervisor over for dinner with his partner at my little studio in a couple of weeks and it just occurred to me, I've never actually done this kind of thing before...
View ArticleLooking for awesome alternate theories about the plots of movies
What are some of the most interesting theoretical models for understanding the plots and themes of movies that were not designed to generate them like Inception was? I am familiar with Cool Papa Bell's...
View ArticleWhat are your most badass web-based reference resources?
What are the best obsessively cataloged reference websites from your field? I mean the kinds of places you can go to when things are being reported on in a confusing way, or just seems off and worth...
View ArticleWhat are some particularly impressive OKCupid answers you've made/seen?
There is a whole bunch of witty awesomeness decorating OKC profiles like bower bird nests, from neat extended explanations for the questions they ask, to clever attractive ways to display things that...
View ArticleAmerican Shibboleth
With the global saturation of American culture I've gotten to wondering about a question relating to American identity that is surprisingly difficult to answer well, are there any Shibboleths that...
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