Because American banks are large and have been willing to absorb the risk of fraud versus the added cost of newer technology. Even now, while Canadian cards all have PIN numbers, U.S. ones don’t (concerned that cardholders would forget their PINs and not use their cards, thus losing out on fee income), and they even…

At the time, it was pretty much a giant tech demo for 3D cinema, which is a good argument as to why these sequels might fail spectacularly—3D isn’t special anymore.

In my experience, from both history and life, religion doesn’t lead. It is a reflection of culture. If religion evolves, it is only (sometimes long) after culture has changed, which religion will likely previously have resisted every step of the way.

Netflix is truly global, and that comes with a major concern that Americans often don’t think about—namely, that TV/film is typically treated as a very protectionist industry in most countries, and Netflix’s very existence in these countries generates outrage from certain politicians and labor unions who worry that a…

Quite frankly, the socialist left like Corbyn and Sanders may be stuck in the 1970s, but the centrist left like Blair and Clinton is stuck in the 1990s. These two factions continue to snipe at each other, but voters have shown repeatedly that they’re disinterested in both.

Also, if you’re so opposed to socialism, I guess you hate public roads.

I would always use “they are.” To use German as an example, it has three forms of “you are”—du bist, ihr seid, Sie sind—meanwhile “they are” is “sie sind” (note the lowercase “s”). The pronoun might change depending on the context (Is it one person or multiple people? If it’s one person, do you have a formal or…

Quite frankly, there is a third-person singular neuter pronoun—“it”—and if we still had the grammar of any of our Germanic language relatives (German, Dutch, one of the Scandinavian languages, etc.), we probably would use it to refer to people more often, since these languages still have the “neuter” grammatical…

You should consider a periodic eye exam (once every 2-3 years) to check out your eye health, not necessarily for corrective lenses. Some conditions, like glaucoma, can be symptom-free in the early stages.

The food of “Final Fantasy XV” always looked tantalizing to me:

Complicated geopolitics aside, the natural route would be to connect Europe through the Middle East. Part of the reason the whole region is such a perennial clusterfuck is because it easily connects to the rest of the Old World.

I chose my words carefully here, because I agree your average lay Catholic is not the problem here. It is a strain of ultra-traditionalist Catholicism that rejects the rather modest reforms of Vatican II in the 1960s and wishes to turn back the clock to a complete rejection of “modernism,” as quite broadly defined by…

The culture wars are essentially a game to them. It’s not about the merit or nuances behind any of these issues—it’s about “taking back control.” Conceding any amount of reform means surrendering to “the enemy,” as far as they are concerned, and the consequences are meaningless.

The biggest holdout is gaming, really. Also, in a more specialized sense, since Apple doesn’t support Nvidia video cards, I’ve read of how some people are using Bootcamp to run an Nvidia eGPU in Windows 10, since Nvidia is still the dominant force in 3D, although Apple is working hard to change that in the future. For…

Spend some time outside of the U.S. and you’ll see why nobody in the first-world wants to emulate American healthcare. It is great if you are rich and money is no object—and doesn’t every American fantasize that they are part of this group?—but it can be absolute hell if you are not. Paying exorbitant premiums with…

It’s worth highlighting that excessive rumination can be symptom of a something greater, such as depression, anxiety or obsessive compulsive disorder. There’s no shame in seeking professional help if embarrassing old memories cross the line into intrusive thoughts.

I actually had one of these growing up. It was loud, slow (it topped out comfortably at about 60 mph) and a bit of a challenge to learn how to drive (since it didn’t have any luxuries like power steering or power brakes), but I have to admit that it made me love driving manual, which I still love to this day.

I learned how to drive on that car in the mid-1990s. It had power-“nothing” and could maybe drive comfortably at 60 mph, which made for some interesting highway trips.

I never noticed much of a taste difference, just the difference in digestibility. I can’t say what it is; regular milk in Canada doesn’t give me any issues, so I’ve tended to think it might be whatever hormones, additives, etc. are permitted in the U.S., but not in Canada.

Standard, non-organic milk in the U.S. would often give me indigestion, whereas organic milk was quite fine—even better if it was whole milk, which I’ve also read is easier on digestion.