First, don’t tell me that the answer is just to “not bottle things up”, because that’s objectively incorrect too.

Well, no, it’s not objectively incorrect. I get the sense that the main problem you have is communicating negative emotions without being overly confrontational or acerbic about it. My experience is that it’s very possible to tell someone you’re unhappy about something without making a major deal out of it.

Also, I’m curious about how often you find yourself in the situation we’re taking about. Everybody had occasions where they have to vent frustrating, but if that’s a super frequency occurrence, there might be something else going on. Sometimes it should be enough to take a deep breath, recognize that the issue is minor, and let it go.

That is both sad and likely accurate.

Maybe he’s a vibe journalist.

That quote really is the problematic part. The part about switches is fine - it’s an attempt to explain tech to a “normie.” But for a tech writer to ever say it’s not clear why they settled on 256 is worse than embarrassing. They had to be corrected by tweets.

Anyone whose ever had an intro to computers class has had a computing professional explain computers using simple language and analogies. That’s the way this kind of thing should work. It sounds like this author has no more clue about computing than the target audience, which isn’t going to work out well for the reader.

I wasn’t a big fan of goat

Some have a removable cover that you take off and wash. The ones that don’t I think are generally surface wash only, but all should have a tag with instructions someplace.

Well, maybe the pencils helped then.

It’s amazing how little thought people put into things. I mean, all they had to do was rotate the text 180 degrees to avoid the problem, but no one gave it a thought. I wonder how many people were involved.

There’s a cliche about the daughter of the preacher being a total slut or otherwise problematic.

Anecdotal observation from college: Lots of people got hammered on a weekend, at least sometimes, but the people who couldn’t draw a line and keep it from destroying their grades were mostly the ones whose parents kept them rigidly controlled at home. It seemed like those folks had no practice in drawing their own lines because their parents always drew the lines for them, so when they were on their own they went nuts. The preacher’s daughter is a cliche with a lot of truth.

I don’t think that attitude is as fringe as you seem to be thinking. There seem to be an awful lot of people who are horrified at any kind of nudity.

I can’t wait to pay for groceries with my free healthcare.

Is anybody shocked to see a nude statue in a museum or something?

Sadly, some are. I remember as a teen visiting my aunt and uncle who had a giant Catholic family. We were sitting around watching one of the Pink Panther movies, where the main character is in a museum at night. As he scans his flashlight across the room, it passes over some nude Greek statues. My aunt took the remote and switched the channel, saying “We don’t need to watch this smut.”

The counterpoint is that, for many women I know, their swimwear exposes way more skin than their underwear.

You should reflect back on that “less prude than Americans” part of his statement. It’s only “not really possible” because of widespread American taboos about nudity. If boobs were visible in everyday life - on TV shows and at a typical day to the beach - in a non-sexual way, your son wouldn’t give a crap.

It’s interesting that in many US cities, there’s no law against women going topless, but if a woman does it, it’s outrageous. Hell, some women get chastised for breastfeeding in public. We’re a messed up society.

I wish there was a good way to let publications know we feel that way. So they know is that we clicked.

My wife and I are both computer geeks, and so our kids were exposed to computers and played computer games from a young age. One day I was playing with our daughter - playing with her dolls - and she said, “I’m going to exit this Barbie and select this one.” Cracked me up because it made perfect sense, but it’s not the way people talk about things IRL.

I don’t see how people physically eat cookies without a glass of milk.

I grew up with milk being the main dinnertime beverage, and I still drink it quite a bit. My step-son’s gf clearly did not, and clearly thinks it’s strange, but tries to be polite about it. She’s asked me if milk is my favorite drink, if I feel like milk goes with most food, and a number of related questions. I think in her family, milk is something some people put in coffee.