My unpopular preferences

There are certain aspects in life where I find myself constantly swimming upstream against the popular, default, and/or socially acceptable preference(s). My own choice is mostly based on technical superiority (in my opinion) plus a bit of personal taste (e.g. there is no right or wrong in music).

Below is a long but not exhaustive list of my unpopular preferences. These are long-held stances that are unlikely to change in the future. The groupings are somewhat arbitrary, as things can fall under multiple categories (e.g. transportation affects people and society). There are also things I cannot say for the fear of getting lynched.

Explanations

Drinking water

People drink tap water because it’s cheap and safe, but I don’t like the taste of minerals. People buy bottled water when they don’t trust the local tap water, and I think this is unnecessarily expensive and produces excessive plastic waste. Instead, I use a water distiller at home to convert tap water into mineral-free, pathogen-free water. I have a whole page on the topic.

Food energy balance

It is commonly believed that eating sugar and drinking alcohol makes you fat because of the energy content (calories) of these foods. However, as Robert Lustig points out, different chemicals are metabolized differently by the human body, and the raw thermodynamic heat energy of combusting a certain food is not remotely equal to the amount of energy extracted by the body, nor does the calorie number account for side effects. Lustig asserts that fructose (a component of table sugar / sucrose) and ethanol are processed by the liver in such a way to cause inflammation and stimulate fat production, and that fructose and ethanol have very different effects compared to eating the same amount of calories in glucose.

Music

I dislike the sound and lyrics of western popular music, such as those on most people’s personal playlists, those sold in music stores, those played on television, and those played public events. I find my musical taste having very little in common with what is popular in Canada and the USA. I especially hate hip-hop for the obnoxious sound and the inane lyrics.

The music that I like include Japanese pop (Jpop), Japanese anime music (such as many opening and ending theme songs, as well as some insert songs, character songs, and background music), video game music (including game series that originated in Japan such as Mario and Kirby, but also western ones like SimCity), and a small number of western pop songs. Interestingly, I found that some public venues and stores in Japan play songs that I recognize / like / can recite from memory, so at least some places in the world share my preferences in music.

Musical keyboard layout

I learned the very basics of piano from a young age, but never put in the time to get good at it. Along the way, I acquired adjacent skills like relative pitch, transposing songs, and transcribing melodies by ear onto paper. For the longest time, I never questioned the design of the piano keyboard layout, but eventually noticed that it exhibits a strong preference for C major - because C major uses all white keys and no black keys, whereas other key signatures require at least one black key. I always found it difficult to play songs that are not in the key of C, and enjoyed using the transposition feature on electronic keyboards which shifts everything by a specified number of semitones.

Randomly browsing the web, I discovered the Janko keyboard layout, where major scales have the same fingering pattern regardless of which key it is in; transposing a song is simply a matter of shifting one’s fingers by a constant offset vector in the 2D plane. With my existing piano experience, I learned to play Janko on the first song I ever tried, in less than 5 minutes of experimentation. The Janko keyboard has made it much easier to play songs from memory in any key signature, without having to worry about the 12 possible patterns of white/black keys on a standard piano.

Pets

When I lived in a suburban house, I rarely saw dogs on the street, I rarely thought about their existence, and they didn’t bother me. I experienced pet-related nuisances only a few times per decade, mostly consisting of hundreds of pet hairs being smothered over all my clothes when visiting the homes of various friends who had dogs or cats.

When I lived in a downtown apartment, my opinion of dogs drastically worsened. I have firsthand experience of these negative experiences: Multiple neighbors who allow their dog bark at the door whenever there is any hallway movement/noise (including random people but also the owner entering home), barking from dogs ~200 m away that I can still hear through my window, neighboring dog owners hosting friends’ dogs when they visit, street lamp posts and corners and garbage cans being covered in pee every day, poop on the sidewalk, an unleashed dog running from behind me and dangerously cutting in front of my bike, dogs greeting people or especially dogs on the street by barking loudly, dogs shaking their spines even when their fur isn’t wet, dog owners habitually using their nearest schoolyard as a daily pooping ground.

Secondhand problems I am aware of include: Dog owner friends who report their personal belongings (headphones, etc.) getting chewed up, apartment property management sending out reminder emails against owners who let their dogs pee/poop in the balcony/hallway/stairs/elevator, the sheer sense of entitlement that dog owners exude about having a dog and not acknowledging that it can distress other people, news reports of dog bites and maulings – especially with children, and the fact that I know some dog owners with the cognitive dissonance that they unconditionally love their dog (no matter how annoying I find that dog to be) but say nasty things about some other people’s dogs.

Some companies boast a “bring your dog to work” policy as a gesture of friendliness, but this is not a benefit to me and instead causes anxiety because of their unpredictable movements and the associations with all the negative behaviors at home (e.g. barking, littering. Otherwise, if your pets are not a nuisance to me, then I neither like nor dislike them – I wouldn’t care if you keep a goldfish, hamster, bird, or turtle at home.

Personal vehicle

In North America, owning and driving a car is seen as a requirement for being an adult - to work, shop, socialize, and raise a family. And in much of the world, having a car is a status symbol whereas not having one is associated with being poor and/or dependent. This societal mindset toward cars developed over the 20th century and resulted in cities and suburbs that are structured to be car-dependent. That is to say, you can't effectively commute to work or run errands by non-car transportation such as mass transit (subway/bus/etc.), bicycling, or walking - due to lack of service, dangerous high-speed roads, large distances, lack of protected bike paths, and lack of sidewalks.

Places where you can live a full life without a car are the exception rather than the norm. I'm fortunate that downtown Toronto allows me to get around by bike, which is faster and a bit cheaper than public transit (TTC), and only a bit slower but significantly cheaper than driving. But the majority of society disagrees with my stance and continues to perpetuate car-oriented city planning, despite the enormous personal and societal costs of cars and the ugly environments it creates.

Medium-distance travel

Americans and Canadians like to romanticize about making long road trips across the continent, driving through mountains and forests and plains in the comfort of their own vehicle. In practice, an average family might only go on one road trip a year, and it is misguided to pay for a personal vehicle and excessive road infrastructure to support this rare use case.

My ideal way to travel outside a city is by trains. The Japanese Shinkansen (high-speed train) left an excellent impression on me with its expeditiousness and frequent schedule, and even their conventional rail network was convenient enough and reached all sorts of small towns. I believe that excellent passenger rail coverage also exists in Korea and China, and is still good in much of Europe. By contrast, passenger rail is terrible in Canada and USA - infrequent departures (sometimes just a few per day), poor coverage of smaller cities, slow speed, and poor connections to local public transit.

I have little to say about long-distance travel (e.g. over 2000 km), as airplanes are the norm and the alternatives are hardly viable. Driving is possible if you enjoy the tourism aspect of stopovers. Train services sometimes exist and sometimes don't, but the slow trip would be recreational in nature and enjoyed for its own sake rather than reaching the destination. Boat trips rarely exist (e.g. America to Asia, America to Europe) because these would be 1- or 2-week journeys and not cheaper than flying.

Car parking

All over the world, people hate paying for car parking; they feel entitled to store their car for free at whatever place they happen to be visiting. They see paid parking as a cash grab and a punishment, especially as the payer doesn't receive a tangible good (e.g. burger) or service (e.g. lawyer).

In actuality, parking is vastly underpriced - even in places where it's not free. The land costs money to acquire, the pavement costs money to construct, the above-ground / underground garage (if applicable) costs a lot of money to construct (compared to ground-level parking), and the ongoing maintenance also costs money (e.g. sealing, snow clearing, lights, ventilation fans). More importantly, the opportunity cost of the land is enormous - the owner and the city could earn much more money if the parking space was instead used for residences, offices, or retail.

Also, when parking is "free" (to the user), it means everyone pays for it - even those who didn't arrive by car. The costs of the parking construction and maintenance get rolled into the price of goods, housing, and taxes. To say it more explicitly, non-drivers end up subsidizing drivers. And with drivers having more wealth on average than non-drivers, it is a case of the poor subsidizing the rich.

Road funding

Similar to parking, drivers hate paying for using the roads; they hate toll roads and fuel taxes and see it as yet another government or corporate cash grab. But the truth is that these tolls and taxes don't fully pay for all the costs of constructing and maintaining road infrastructure, so non-drivers from the rest of society end up subsidizing drivers once again. Furthermore, in countries that mainly charge drivers through a fuel tax, electric vehicles and efficient hybrids pay much less than ordinary combustion vehicles - despite behaving the same as other vehicles in terms of the road space used, free street parking used, and congestion generated.

Personal computer

I personally experienced a number of changes in computer form factors in my life. Growing up, my first computer was around the year 1995, being a desktop tower with a 80486 CPU. Around 2005, I got my first laptop and saw my friends slowly transition to them over the next 5 to 10 years. Around 2010~2015, I saw my friends transition to smartphones and tablets, and I only started near the end of that period.

Despite owning and using a desktop, laptop, and smartphone daily, I prefer them in that order - unlike many people around me who spend most of their time on phones (most common) or laptops (somewhat common). I know many people who own nothing larger than a laptop, and a few are excited to build their first desktop PC - something I have continually done every ~5 years since ~2000. I know many who actually enjoy texting, shopping, web browsing, and watching videos (usually YouTube) on their phones.

Meanwhile, I appreciate larger devices. I only use my phone for short chats and web browsing (e.g. research) when traveling. I still sit down and use a proper laptop computer in a hotel room. I do 99% of my web browsing and video watching on a laptop or desktop. When I need to be productive in creating, editing, or analyzing information, my desktop is indispensible with its full-size keyboard, mouse, and big monitor(s). I very much feel that the smaller my screen, the less intelligent I am - like, a phone seriously limits my IQ because it's hard to access and cross-reference information.

Web browser

The overwhelming majority of computer users use Google Chrome as their primary web browser, and a decent share of macOS users use Apple Safari. Small minorities use Chromium derivatives such as Microsoft Edge, Brave, et cetera. I am the weirdo in the even smaller minority who uses Mozilla Firefox.

Why? I've been using Firefox since ~2004, back when it was still named Firebird, and predating the release of Chrome in 2008.

Things I like about Firefox include: Better and more detailed UIs for bookmarks and history, better ad-block add-ons due to Manifest V2, a confirmation dialog when closing a window with multiple tabs, less excessive technology like WebUSB, lower chance of implementing advertiser-friendly features and policies - unlike Chrome trying to shove stuff (e.g. FLoC) down people's throats.

Some downsides of Firefox include: Chrome is a bit faster in rendering and JavaScript - thus making the user experience snappier, Chrome introduces some useful web technologies (e.g. new HTML/CSS/JS features) earlier than Firefox, developers tend to only work and test in Chrome (and maybe Safari) and make websites that break in Firefox, and rare instances where user-agent detection code is wrong and rejects Firefox for no good reason even when it supports all the features that the website requires.

Online content/service delivery format

With the gradual but significant uptake of smartphones among consumers from around the year 2010 to 2020, companies began prioritizing phone/tablet applications over websites. Such apps are available for essentially only two proprietary platforms (Android and iOS), whereas websites can be accessed on all modern computers, tablets, phones, and e-readers. Although phone apps are convenient for the majority of people, they also make many use cases needlessly hard: Sharing a URL link to a particular page/screen, copying text from the user interface, using a full-size monitor and keyboard and mouse, editing text efficiently with a keyboard and mouse (as opposed to clumsy fingers on a touchscreen), having multiple apps on screen simultaneously, debugging the application logic to understand or customize it (very easy to do on websites), extracting data such as images and tables in a way that is not intended by the app developer (easy for websites).

Some companies took the route of making their service only available on an app, such as the Snapchat messaging service / social network - there is no desktop or web version. Other examples include the Chinese WeChat super-app, which was initially app-only, disallowed multiple simultaneous log-ins (it kicked out the previous device), but eventually allowed that as well as adding a web version. Examples from financial institutions include that the Rogers Bank Mastercard lets you view essentially all information on the website, but only allows you to redeem cashback rewards through the app; the Wealthsimple app and website have largely overlapping features but neither is feature-complete and some actions can only be done through the app or website; Bitstamp's website is essentially fully featured but they forced you to install the app to authorize certain transactions like withdrawals.

Chinese character set

As a matter of personal aesthetic opinion, I perceive traditional Chinese characters to be beautiful and simplified characters to be lazy, ugly abominations. Examples of my complaints:

• The ugliest simplified characters I can think of (followed by the traditional): 为/為, 卫/衛, 书/書, 汉/漢, 长/長, 厂/廠, 龙/龍, 东/東, 发/發, 乐/樂, 兴/興, 专/專, 过/過, 还/還, 气/氣, 丽/麗, 见/見, 华/華, 后/後, 头/頭, 无/無, 万/萬, 叶/葉, 个/個, 处/處, 这/這, 几/幾.

• Inconsistent replacement with a horizontal line: 马/馬, 鱼/魚, but not 黑, 杰, 烈, 热/熱

• Ugly radicals that affect many characters: (食) 馆/館, (金) 银/銀, (言) 话/話.

As for Japanese simplified kanji (新字体), I tolerate them because the language kept more traditional characters, and the ones that changed are not as radical as PRC simplified Chinese. Many Japanese simplified kanji are easily recognizable to someone who can read traditional Chinese characters. Examples: 気/氣, 発/發, 関/關, 証/證, 様/樣, 戦/戰, 験/驗. There is only a small number of simplified kanji I dislike, such as: 児, 箇, 亜, 円, 広, 沢, 氷, 転.

Miscellaneous

Popular preferences

Obviously, there is a lot of stuff in society that I agree with. It is impossible to even try to list every idea, procedure, invention, etc. that is popular and agreeable, and it would not be interesting anyway. So, I will only highlight a few such examples.

Although English is not the natural language with the absolute highest number of speakers (behind Chinese and Spanish), it is arguably the most useful lingua franca internationally. English is spoken natively in many countries outside of its birthplace of England – something that only a small handful of languages can claim (e.g. French, Spanish, Arabic). English is the language of the Internet, computer and information technology, scientific journals, aviation, commerce, and more. English is a major language in the tourism sector, where signage will often be in the local language plus English. I feel very fortunate to have grown up in an English-speaking country (Canada), thus letting me communicate with many people on Earth.

Before the 1950s, smoking was popular and allowed in restaurants, airplanes, and more places. By the 2000s, non-smoking indoor spaces and vehicles became the default, through a monumental shift in societal attitudes. As a non-smoker, I thank the people who fought this fight to make the world a better place.

No strong opinions

There are also many things where I have no strong opinions. Here are a few examples.

Throughout my life, I have seen video codecs come and go since the year ~2000: Cinepak (for downloaded files), RealVideo (download/streaming), Windows Media Video (download/streaming), MPEG-1 (download, VCD), MPEG-2 (download, DVD), MPEG-4 ASP (download), MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 (download/streaming, Blu-ray, consumer cameras), MPEG-4 HEVC/H.265 (download, consumer cameras), VP9 (download/streaming), AV1 (download/streaming). Generally, I prefer newer and more space-efficient codecs over older codecs, which exceptions for speed and hardware compatibility.

When it comes to computer software development, I certainly have a current set of tools that I like and practices that I follow, but I am willing to change them if something better comes along. For example in Java development, I prefer the Eclipse IDE over NetBeans, but I'm not so wedded to it so as to preclude switching to a suitable competitor. I choose Debian Linux for servers but have dabbled in BSD-based systems too.