Ask Lemmy

Why do you have so many measurement units for car engine power?

Like, with HP and kW is enough.

For starters, I couldn't find any bugles. But I did spend a month or two over there and a few hotels had these weird showers where there was only a half pane of protection abridged to the wall. So the shower head pointed away from the coverage and there was no curtain! Every shower seemed to be just flooding the bathroom and not be in the tub. Either that or I'm an idiot. I will equally accept both scenarios

I'm not American but i've worked in Western Europe. I don't know why but there seems to be a lot of taxes for everything. You have to get govt permission for everything. People seem to rely on the govt to provide things rather than have some agencies fill niches that aren't filled by the govt (for example I saw signs like don't help homeless people, the govt is helping them).

I'm from an Asian country, we don't have much tax, we don't rely on the govt for anything (we can't), and we have many NGOs. I think it's similar in America.

As an Asian, there are a few things I can note about Europeans.

• Europeans seem to have lost their sense of traditions, to me as an Asian it doesn't make sense since keeping our traditions and values is a huge part of our culture and society.

• Europeans also accept blame for bad things they did in the past (which is a good thing) but I think they can go overboard to compensate for that (to their detriment). I don't think accepting blame for things in the past is a thing that's done in Asia; we rewrite history instead. It would help if we acknowledged what we did and can have better relations with others moving forward.

• Europeans identify more with nationality than ethnicity. For example, someone from Czech Republic moving to France is considered French. In North America I think they would be considered Czech-French. In Asia they would be considered to be a Czech expat living in France. Our ethnicity matters a lot.

More specifically Nordic countries I guess, but surstromming. I understand even amongst them it's a niche delicacy but just fermented gelatinous fish doesn't sound like something that would be enjoyable to eat.

Why is Opel still a thing when Vauxhall is clearly the better brand?

Tiny things, like tiny doorknobs, tiny stairs cases, tiny doors, tiny houses, tiny cars, and a tiny say in government legislation, etc.

And all the smoking! Eek. And we thought we had a drug problem in the USA. I've never seen so many people addicted to nicotine in my life when I've been there. It's everywhere. No thank you, I don't want to inhale nasty odor while eating my lunch. Jeez, WTF?