While we’re at it, bring back shower doors/curtains. It’s such a pain having this huge puddle outside the shower just because they decided it shouldn’t have one. It’s not so common to be missing one in US hotels, but it’s common internationally. Edit: apparently the virus has spread, and some US hotels now don’t have them
Shower curtains are very much a North American thing (well, US and Canada at least). It's a cultural difference you're seeing not a weird hotel trend.
That's an overly broad generalization. Shower curtains are pretty common in Norway, and I've found them in hotels all over Europe and even one in Japan.
I once stayed at a very boutiquey, avant-garde hotel with a platonic friend. We had booked a twin room with separate beds, but what I did not expect was that the shower cubicle, with clear glass on all three sides, would be placed between the beds.
In London's Shard, the gent's toilets of the observation deck (on approx the 70th floor) have glass walls behind the urinals so if you look straight ahead while using them it is as if you are peeing on the city of London from a great height.
"Back in my day," Lake Helen (~10,000 ft) on Mt. Shasta had a pit toilet without walls that faced the valley. Depending on the weather, it could even be above the clouds/fog and IIRC on a clear day you could see the ocean.
If you don't feel disgusted by the idea of your poop particles being ejected and spreading around, I don't think anyone can instill it in you
tbh if I start worrying about poop particles in my day to day, I fear I'm one step closer to becoming a germaphobe. plus I feel if that's something that truly worries you, you'd start taking showers after each poop because clearly you will bring some poop particles with you when you leave anyway.
maybe this thread will end up being some kind of revelation, but I very much agree with the person you replied to. If I'm alone, I'm not bothered and the door may as well stay open
Booking.com has this grade inflation issue. if something is shit but you rate everything else fairly (things like location, staff friendliness, etc), the final score will be 7 or 8.. in summary: I had a lousy experience, 7/10! It takes some experience to realize that a place graded 7.x probably has serious issues.
Honestly, the ratings on those sites are essentially useless anyway, because people are bad at reviewing. I generally sample the lowest rating written reviews, to check if people are complaining about real stuff, or are just confused. For instance, if a hotel doesn't have a bar, some of the negative reviews will usually be about how the hotel doesn't have a bar; these can be safely ignored as having been written by i…
The worst thing I’ve found with positive reviews is ones that are obviously fake/incentivized. I looked up reviews recently for a hotel that I used to stay at a lot for work, and had gone way downhill with many issues (broken ACs, mold, leaking ceilings, etc.). I was curious if they ever fixed their problems. I was at first surprised that they had a fairly positive overall review rating. But looking deeper, the many negative reviews were just crowded out by obviously fake reviews. Dead giveaways: every single one named multiple people by name. “Dave at the front desk was just so friendly and welcoming! Barbara the housecleaner did a fantastic job cleaning. And Steve the bartender just made my day! I love this hotel! 5 stars!” (Almost) nobody reviewing a hotel for real does that.
It seems like the target hotel customer for fancy hotels is an Instagram model or a Kardashian. I get having a sliding door to the bathroom or translucent walls on the shower is annoying but the status symbols in hotels are not designed for your average hacker News poster. They're trying to make a small room in an older building look like a bigger room to justify the price.
I think it would be more effective if the site was analyzing existing reviews - and encouraging people to leave scathing reviews where a hotel decides that bathroom doors are optional.
A standalone web site isn't going to make it into the hotel's metrics, "the most driver of sub-9/10 ratings is the lack of bathroom doors" will make them find a way to reinstall them pronto.
https://ali.mk/posts/the-role-of-noises-in-chinese-dining-et... https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/6w5hux/slurping_nood... + personal questions to real Chinese people.
First link: That is a Swedish robotics blog and the sources linked are just landing pages for Chinese tours or language lessons. Second link: Where do they say that 'making loud mouth noises is a sign of respect'? They say 'people slurp noodles' which is exactly what I said.
> It's so common that the only logical explanation is that it is encouraged. It appears to be the norm and the non-slurper is the exception. I'm glad that your parents taught you to not slurp. You are an exceptional individual.
Anyway I’ve asked enough Chinese people about it to get the same answer. Not all do it, but some do it for these reasons.
> One of my short stories takes place in a not-to-distant future, where there is absolutely no privacy. You might like “We” by Eugene Zamiatin.
That's the book that was similar to 1948, but written a few decades before? I've heard of it, I will see if I can find an audiobook. Thank you! 1948 is one of my favourites, by the way.
I’m sorry, do you mean Orwell’s “1984”? Because all I can find for “1948” is an Israeli autobiographical novel, that, as far as I can tell, doesn’t resemble “We”. (Although, imho, “1984” is quite different from “We” as well.)