gedhrel

The "satisfaction" is probably novelty. UK/EU, nobody thinks about it.

I think there's a kind of fetishisation of manual transmission in the US. Like your emergency scenario: I guess if you need to accelerate away from 30-50 feral hogs then you might welcome it.

"Lead with the foot that is going down" is missing from this.

You typically learn to feel the accelerator and brake with one foot but just engage the clutch (ie, all the finesse is letting the clutch out). But you know this. All your muscle memory works like that. When you switch to automatic, just use the one foot and it works much better.

You have probably already worked that out but it's handy advice if you're a passenger in an automatic with a first-time driver who is used to manual.

Yeah, there's no need to trade insults!

I think that's the point. It doesn't stop the occasional chancer from trying, but no this side of the pond at least you'll get short shrift if you do.

The whole thing is about limiting liability to the company. (In the pregnancy case I think there's an increased risk of thrombosis at late-stage.) Their policy says no paperwork is required, you say that applies to you; if something goes wrong after you lie then the onus is on you.

I think by-and-large it's easier to get a positive response from someone face-to-face than over the phone, but on the whole people are pretty nice.

It's less the person and more the company policy. I've total sympathy for the person on the phone/behind the counter who's probably had a long and thankless day; I'm not rude or aggressive to people.

It annoys me no end that often, offers and services are gated behind "new subscriber" conditions - which is basically a tax on being conflict-adverse. You have to go through a cancellation process to get someone who can "look to see if there's anything they can do" and get the thing that's plainly available.

But I'll joke about it on the phone to whoever I'm talking to - the last time this happened (changing mobile phone contract) the chap and I were laughing about "come the revolution" at the end of the call.

Previously I've had someone on the phone claim that water being three feet higher at one end of a drain than the other wasn't due to a blockage; some people will "go the extra mile" for their employer. I think I got as far as "if your company's position is that basic fluid statics is wrong I'd be happy to take it to court, but you don't have a leg to stand on, so it'll be cheaper for everyone involved to just send the drain guy out," which is about as annoyed as I get.

There's no reason for someone in a phone zombie role to actually give a shit one way or another, but some kind of human connection helps. Even a sarcastic response can be delivered in a disarming way - attack the blatantly stupid kafkaesque nonsense, not the poor schmuck who's not paid to care.

I use "are you calling me a liar?" which is probably more effective in the UK than the US.

Some of the GoF patterns over-emphasise inheritance, but by-and-large, you don't build large systems without either using or rediscovering software patterns, whether they're OO, FP, or what-have-you.

No, it didn't.

You haven't read it, but that's what you reckon? Okay.

As to the other point: JKR's stuff is trite and derivative, but I do think that some of its "problematic" aspects are likely just because it's regurgitating European fantasy tropes, which themselves may (originally or later on) encode antisemitism and so on.

And when it comes to it, subjecting any popular series to close reading with an eye for affront is likely to show up its flaws. Just think of all the janitors who blew up with the death star.

But Brown's stuff is utter garbage (not to mention just ripping off "the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail", which was pretty awful to begin with) - if you have the chance to pick it up second-hand I'd encourage you to see if you can finish it.

"If it was "terribly written" it wouldn't have made the success it did"

Dan Brown's millions beg to differ.

If people like HP stuff they might want to try Dianna Wynne Jones' stuff: earlier, better, and didn't have the same fortunate exposure.