Ask Lemmy

I am convinced that being "smart" in high school and college stunted my career. I didn't do any work in high school, and had like 2 classes that I'd consider difficult in college. I never learned the value of hard work.

Bonus points I discovered after a bachelor's degree and most of a master's:

If you pay attention in class you'll understand most of the material, and the rest you can ask the professors directly. Truly astounding.

All through high school/college I just always wrote my notes once during class, then almost never referred to them again. For me, just the act of writing out the notes was usually good enough to help me retain the information, for the tests at least. I've forgotten most of it, but it was there when I needed it.

I was you once

That annoying character

How dare you

English spelling is just fantastic. If you hear a new word, there’s pretty much 0 chance that you can look it up in a dictionary on the first try. Just imagine how “epitome” sounds to someone who isn’t already familiar with it. You’re going to have to go though every vowel before you actually find it.

Also, if you’ve never heard a special word being pronounced, but you’ve read it many times, you are pretty much guaranteed to make a fool of yourself when you finally get to use that word in a social situation. No wonder why spelling bees are a thing in English speaking countries.

Ain’t nobody got time for that!

No dentist has ever said this to me.

To be fair:

The word pony derives from the old French poulenet, meaning foal, a young, immature horse.

Quoth wikipedia.

Well this is a TIL moment. You saved me at ~28 years.

Common sense is a fundamentally broken concept.

It's not that "few people have common sense" (the fact that this phrase gets tossed around should be clue #1 for you), but that there cannot be such a thing as sense that is common. Every region, every community, every social circle, and every individual have vastly different personal experiences and ways of doing things in life. Some people may have similar experiences to eachother, but thats no guarantee.

Typically you see the word "common sense" only used as an insult and a way to tear someone else down. You rarely if ever see it used as a complement or an objective fact. "That person has a lot of common sense" sounds wrong the first time you hear it right?

Freetaxusa.com Isn't expensive. It's dumb it still costs money for state but the company that lobbies the government to make our tax code complicated costs a lot more.

You can also do your taxes manually if you know you have a simple return. Or use the expensive software and check it against your manual.

It all sucks though. It should be dead simple as the government already knows 99% of everyone's tax info.

..and when you take a detour, you are getting off your original tour. (Tour de France, tour of the countryside, etc)

Hence, why you de-tour.

Did everyone work this out at first glance? The etymology of 'detour' took me way too long.

Wait until you hear about butterflies and dragonflies.

Wanna see something cool?

≠

Holy shit. I found this out less than 6 months ago. I always heard "pre-Madonna" thinking it had something to do with Madonna. I thought I was the only one. For context it took me like 30 years of hearing it before I saw it in writing.

'Moron' was (and technically may still be) a clinical term meaning someone of intelligence so low they're unable to function without supervision. Every time they invent a new non-emotionally-loaded term for low intelligence, we ruin it by using it as an insult.

It's a beautiful thing.

It fucking broke me when I learned that kids today instead of learning "Stop, Drop and Roll" learn "Run, Hide, Fight." Fucking kindergartners are being taught, if you see a shooter, Run. If you can't get away, Hide. If you can't hide, try to be a hero because you are going to die anyway.

lol Taylor Swift dating a player and just attending the Super Bowl (not doing anything) might genuinely bring in multiple million extra viewers.

always dispose of the excess grease in an empty container and trash it instead of putting it down a drain.

This will likely vary greatly by country, but here in the UK some supermarkets have a section in their recycling centre where used grease and cooking oil can be deposited to be recycled into fuel of some sort.

That bit about the toilet paper isn't true unless you have roots growing through your sewer line. A bit of copper sulfate down the drain will take care of that, though.

*Unless your landlord raises your rent 20%

Tbf 1L of water is 1kg, so that's probably where the confusion is.