In the US and Canada, a person’s credit score is used to figure out how safe it is to lend them money. Big ticket items such as cars and houses are often bought on credit with a payment plan that includes interest - so the entity lending the money makes money off the loan. Good credit score = Less risk to the lender = Lower interest rate for the borrower = Less money spent in the long run.

Credit cards are an easy way to build a good credit score. I use mine for almost every purchase I make: groceries, gas, bills, subscriptions, donations. The things is, I pay it off in full each month (so I don’t pay interest fees to the credit card company) AND my card gives me 2% money back on my purchases. So if I use it for $20,000 worth of purchases, I automatically get $400 back. Free money!

Also, my bank limits the amount of transactions I can make in a month to 12. They charge a small fee from the 13th transaction onward. If I had to pay for everything directly by debit, I’d probably end up paying tens of dollars just in fees, each month!

Edited to add: By using my credit card and paying it in full, I demonstrate I’m trustworthy when it comes to credit, because I pay it back. That’s what a lender wants! This makes my credit score go up, which in turn helps me when I want to buy a car or get a mortgage on a house. I got my first credit card when I was 18, following the advice of my parents, and that has served me extremely well 15 years later! Who would you rather lend $20,000 to: someone who makes $50,000 and reliably pays back their credit card in full each month for 10 years and has zero debt, or someone who makes $500,000 but carries a $100,000 debt on their credit card?

So people who are savvy about credit do not buy everything “on credit” just because they pay for it with a credit card. It is legitimately a good way to save (or even make) money, at least in the US and Canada.

Many developed countries are majoritarily irreligious. But it’s also hard to draw the line between religion and culture.

I think we see aspects of this in the behaviour of the rich and ultra-rich (where “screw the rules I have money” applies). It’s pedophilia all the way down.

Is it unethical if they volunteer? I’d be down!

I use the right Shift key to capitalize when touch-typing. I only use left Shift for Ctrl+Shift+Esc.

Yes! All of it, yes! It took me a long time to stop internalizing the “you’re not reaching your potential” message. Being happy where I am is not a bad thing! I’m glad you’re happy too, especially in such a demanding industry. Follow your happiness! 🫡✨

Program coordinator with the local government (civil servant). $65k a year, which I still can’t believe I got. It’s 15k more than what the previous person in my position was getting. I simply asked if it was possible to go higher, and that’s the offer they came back with.

Everyone tells me this means I could’ve asked for much more, but I feel that’s about fair for what I bring to the table. I overperform in entry-level jobs, but I don’t have the time management skills and emotional resilience to do well at higher levels. I’m already hitting my limit barely one year in - but this time, I’ve got a good team, a great manager, and will hopefully have my meds adjusted so I can keep going.

Chin-length layered bob, and also extremely happy with it. I wore my hair about bra strap-length most of my life, but once I went short I never went back. Shorter cuts are much more flattering for my face shape and personality.

You have “bras” twice in the proverb, it should be “On lui donne le doigt et il nous prend le bras”.

A Canadian Space Agency project about detecting life on Mars. My contribution was minuscule, as a young naive grad student, but I hope it gets built on over time.

https://falseknees.com/comics/268.html

Who throws out a nearly full bag of chips?! They’re like 6$ here in Canada!

I can’t remember if it’s mentioned in the books, but I think the idea is that Muggle technology stops working in the presence of magic. Guns would jam, electronics would brick, etc.

Granted, this raises the question of where do you draw the line? For example, the magical world has countless exploding substances. What if they took some, stuffed it down a long metal tube, insterted a small metal object in front of it, then set fire to the explosive stuff from the back end? That’s basically a gun or cannon, and it’s hard to argue that it’s technologically complex.

Teaching: That moment when someone’s eyes light up and their whole facial expression changes from confusion to understanding. I love the challenge of figuring out how to reach that with each person.

Dancing or working out to my favorite songs: It feels like my body is taken over by the music, and I can keep going endlessly while everything else fades away.

Before reading the questions:

• The ball was uniformly gray, with a slight shine.
• The person was genderless and featureless. I only pictured their hand and arm pushing the ball. The moment of contact was indistinct, as if the arm was hiding the ball from view.
• The ball was the size of a large watermelon.
• The table was square, about 1m² , brown-gray, with four turned legs. Same material as the ball: uniformly colored and vaguely glossy.

Xena

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the difference between these icons:

No more Pauli exclusion principle. I’m not smart enough to describe what that world would look like… which is exactly why I would do it.