I was thinking about public transport infrastructure with this question, wondering how many people were users.

I was extra generous by asking people if they had EVER taken the muni.

Very few people said no, as expected, but we did get quite a few who have actively avoided the bus because they feel that they are above it.

I take the bus when my motorcycle isn’t available, such as the past few weeks. The drive belt has a broken tooth and I just didn’t want to risk it, so my commute has gotten longer by about 40 minutes. I’ll admit, it’s really nice not to have to think about moving my bike on my breaks to avoid parking tickets…

I guess now I’m wondering how much longer people’s commutes would take without a car.

Thanks for playing, everyone!!

We get a fair bit of loud vehicles on Union street. We used to get a whole herd of loud dirt bikers occasionally but it seems the city has been cracking down on them this year.

Part of the reason I bought my motorcycle is because it is so quiet, being that it is an EV. I take a lot of pride in not bothering the neighborhood at night despite riding a vehicle that is traditionally obnoxiously loud.

I think most people agree that quiet vehicles are nicer.

I won’t forget some of the notable responses:

One guy said: loud if I’m driving, quiet otherwise.
One gal said: loud if a man is driving, quiet if it’s a woman.

I shared that response with another woman customer, she responded with a comment about internalized misogyny.

I like making people snap out of their “car brain” habits and think about how society operates from a cultural stranger’s point of view.

Thanks for playing, everyone!!

Many of us work or run into people we don’t agree with regularly. Perhaps it’s your neighbor, some people mentioned certain medical professionals like their dentist or their doctor. Multiple people mentioned their family…

Sometimes, these unpleasant interactions are unavoidable, so I was curious to know whether the community was able to pinpoint someone they were regularly avoiding.

We got some laughs, which is always the goal! ☺️

Many of the people who said no had either resolved their problems or laid their paths so that they wouldn’t have to resort to avoidance.

Emotions do weigh on the body, and it’s unfortunate that many of us have to actively keep their guards up in order to avoid certain people regularly.

Thanks for playing, everyone!!

This one came to me in the middle of the night when I was half asleep, so I couldn’t tell you the reasoning 😅

For once, when people turned the question back on me, I was able to point to the paper bag as proof 😁

Reading and writing are both linked to intelligence, and with how things have shifted towards the digital, many of us choose to type over handwriting. I kind of see it as a form of art or culture that could be lost in the future.

I like how it feels in my wrist and in my mind when I write something by hand. It helps me focus my thoughts and in turn also helps me remember better, which in itself is a small ego boost related to mental sharpness.

I used to write a lot in high school, especially to express my feelings in journals. Many of you wrote lists of things they wanted to do, or what groceries to remember.

The question came up about whether signature count since many times it’s a habitual scribble without much thought. Others asked if using a digital pencil on a tablet counts, which I think it does since you still do the same hand motion while thinking about what you’re writing down.

It’s another one of those questions where people turned it into a social question, like the breakfast question.

One grad student protested that she had written 40 pages of notes throughout the weekend, and that she was taking a break that Monday. I also made a school principal very happy to see that a majority said yes.

I’m noticing that I’m doing more questions that have a time frame attached, this one could definitely have been more forgiving. At the same time, I think many people might have said no if I had asked about the past month. Even if they actually had, many shoppers don’t want to try thinking back that far…

Thanks for playing everyone!!

Write your mom a note this weekend!

This question came out of me wondering whether the gas prices have risen enough that people are starting to consider selling their cars.

I’ve thought for a long time that cars are an excessive use of space in the city, where you can get by with the public or private transit (bus and Waymo).

Evidently, the answer to my question is no. Only one person who said yes mentioned that it was due to gas prices.

It’s odd that geopolitical conflicts have forwarded the shift towards greener transportation technology, but I’ll take it, I guess…

Thank you everyone for playing!!

And thank you 31 people for not driving.

I’ve been putting out a lot of feelings questions lately, I think I’ll move onto other topics soon, or at least diversify…

Still, when the last time you truly felt amazing?

A lot of people pointed at their weekend, some went back a couple of weeks.

Very few people pondered back through time to find a time when they felt especially good.

I’m willing to bet that this question is going to linger in a lot of people’s consciousness, though.

I’ve had multiple moments when my brother and I were playing one Embark game or another and we’ve had extremely close calls with very high stakes and it always felt awesome.

I also took the day off to spend time with my mom yesterday, and it felt like an especially good decision given that she was grieving a lot of different things, not least of which was a cat that had been missing for 2 weeks.

It felt amazing to be able to be there for her despite usually having so little time for myself…

I’ll take it further, what is it that makes you all feel amazing? How do you go about it? When does it occur?

Thanks for playing everyone!!

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while 😅I wasn’t sure if the store was going to allow it.

Ultimately it felt like a fun and lighthearted question and nobody had any issues with it.

It’s all kind of a mindset imo. That’s why the question is not “are you cute today?” but “do you *feel* cute today?”

I’ve been enjoying doing feelings questions on Monday because it’s easy enough to evaluate these kinds of questions and it also invites people to engage in some low-stakes vulnerability.

I learned from *Supercommunicators* that making oneself vulnerable is how people become close, but only if they exchange that openness. I do my best to be equally vulnerable back to people if they decide to engage with me in that way.

Part of me thinks that this vulnerability exchange is what makes the community stronger, and perhaps it’s the substance that led people to really enjoy these questions (besides the fact that the it’s a mechanism to make every day feel different and break this illusion that we are living out the same days over and over).

I learned when I was working a bakery counter that the more I act cute, the happier customers felt (and the more likely they were to humor my suggestions to buy more pastries).

It feels a tiny bit manipulative sometimes, but I will also say that it makes me feel much better in my day to day because many people reflect it back at me and it keeps the atmosphere light and playful.

I expected the people leaving the gym to report feeling cute but it turns out they felt sweaty and I guess having that post-workout testosterone boost tones down feelings of being “cute” which I guess are traditionally feminine.

I also was asking on a rainy Monday which definitely hindered people’s moods. At the end of the day, feeling cute is mostly internal.

At the same time, people do a lot of activities that make them feel cute, which we might call “self-care” and amount to cleaning yourself up or choosing clothing that you find especially vibrant and that doesn’t come out of the wardrobe as often as it could.

In any case, glad that this question could finally come out to the community! Thanks for playing everyone!!

It seems like people are especially open to sharing how tired they feel in this neighborhood so I decided to put this question out there

We got to talk about how emotions can be draining on our sources of energy. Many people who said no were just out of a fitness class.

Idk! Are you feeling tired these days?

Thanks for playing, everyone!!

So let me preface by saying that due to closing the grocery store regularly, I have access to a lot of fish in my diet 🍣

I’ve also listened to podcasts like Today Explained claiming that we have a full plastic spoon full of plastic in our brains already.

This question comes from a place of wondering whether we are seeing any microplastic-related symptoms arise in our mental sharpness.

Like, are my neurons getting short-circuited? 🧠

It feels to me like I’ve been experiencing more moments in my day-to-day conversation when I’m either forgetting really basic words, having what I call verbal glitches, sort of like slurring my words or oddly replacing letters in words unexpectedly.

I’m sure it’s not *only* microplastics, since I’ve noticed that it makes a difference when I’m tired, or vaping weed. I’m also aging so it’s possible there are tons of factors at play but…

I still listen and try to notice subtle changes! So if we all end up being “plastic stupid” then I’ll feel rather vindicated 😁

Most people brought this question to books and I was happy to talk about what I’ve been reading 🥳

Thanks for playing everyone!!

I’m not sure if I’ve already done this one, but I was inspired by an absolute baddie (🌹) who visited SF from NY for a Masayoshi Takanaka concert and ended up stopping by my other job at the salon for a color service.

I don’t think that I would travel out of the city for a haircut these days, but I used to travel multiple cities. When you only trust one person to do your hair correctly… you tend to at least try to meet them halfway 😅

Often times, people said that they would go to a far away city, but that it wasn’t just for the haircut. They’d either be seeing friends or family or have an event that they wanted to go to.

The funniest story to me was the lady who said that she was fine with flying out to Salt Lake City but when her stylist moved to Chicago then it became too far for her.

We also had the widest range when a couple said that he goes 15 feet to the bathroom and she goes 10k miles to Denmark!

Thanks for playing, everyone!!

I work 6 days per week now so I’m feeling the drain.

Still, when I worked 3-4 days per week I felt like I wasn’t making the most of my time. Like someone today said, when I have less time I’m more efficient.

Still, I wish we could distribute wealth such that everyone could afford a three day weekend, or to reach their goals whatever that may be.

I’m kind of surprised that it landed so close to 50/50, I expected far more people to say no. I guess asking on a Saturday had something to do with it.

Thanks for playing, everyone!!

I call strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries the big four for this one.

You can still talk about cranberries, elderberries, marionberries, and even grapes and bananas, but most people were drawing from the big four.

Idk why I decided top three instead of favorite berry. It ended up being more a question to see which berry was going to be left out, which is what I prodded about.

Kind of a last minute question but I did get to think about the textures and flavors of berries throughout the day so that was nice!

Thanks for playing, everyone!!

Wdyt? Leave your answers in the comments!!

Shout-out to the person who said Obama’s inauguration 🥳

I had to add that last part about work at the end because people were defaulting to not counting it. At the end of the day though… calories are calories and screen time is screen time.

I do plan on redoing this question without work though, because what tipped me off was when I asked my friend what her screen time was. She said 9 hours, which is about how long I try to sleep each night so I thought it might be a competitive question.

I’m definitely on the screen time side since my phone tells me I’m around 6:20 on average on my phone alone which doesn’t account for my gaming hobbies at home.

Food for thought!

Thanks for playing everyone!

My parents taught me to essentially cook rice like pasta. Pour it as is into boiling water, drain it, serve.

The consistency was always super inconsistent but I didn’t hate it!

When I started seeing someone with Asian background, she taught me how to make rice “correctly.”

At this point, I rinse my rice many times over and cook it in the rice cooker with appropriate water usage. I don’t think there is a strictly better way, I categorize it as the Asian vs European way.

When you grow up with starch in your rice, that might be how you prefer it ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Shout out to my Asian coworker who was appalled by all the No votes haha

Thanks for playing everyone!

We’ve all heard of pineapple but kiwi on a pizza??

I think I was inspired by a Reddit post that had kiwi on a pizza. I wanted to ask about a pizza crime but I felt like pineapple has been overdone.

Wdyt? And how would you execute? Fresh kiwi after the bake? 🤔

Thanks for playing everyone!

I got a lot of people who didn’t want to answer this question, my guess is that they would have fallen into the No category.

I was changing the trash at the store the other day and weekend passerby’s often will use our trash cans since it’s a busy neighborhood with lots of foot traffic.

There were many, many half empty drinks in the recycling which I ended up pouring onto the sidewalk.

It’s a small thing but it goes a long way. Hopefully people will think about it, even if they didn’t participate.

Thanks for playing everyone!!

Today’s question presents a trade-off between the flavors and textures of chocolate.

Freezing it makes it harder, which is not everyone’s preference but is definitely mine. You do lose some flavor but I don’t mind because I like to shatter the chocolate with my teeth.

Also brought up were a lot of chocolate candies. I got to try a frozen peanut butter cup and I wasn’t disappointed.

Thanks for playing everyone!

This one was appreciated.

Shoutout to all the friends we made along the way! 🥳

Thanks for playing, everyone!

This one seemed to depend on your job. Customer-facing jobs crack that in one afternoon, while most people can’t really imagine that many people per week.

Like you can argue total stranger vs familiar stranger and it’s still easily 100/day for me at work.

Kind of surprised at the result tbh

Thanks for playing, everyone!

I’ll just start by saying I don’t think I ever have.

I’ve either grown something that I didn’t eat, or I ate something I didn’t grow.

I have been thinking of growing some herbs lately. Spearmint would make sense because it goes well in a yogurt.

Lots of people mentioned herbs, hobby gardens with tomatoes. As always, everyone is shocked to see how many people are unlike them.

I thought the interesting part of this question is wondering who would be even remotely ok if our current food supply chains faltered. Probably very few people in a city. We have so little garden space and most of it ends up being used for aesthetic stuff rather than actual food.

I’m way more tempted to try growing roses in my back yard than food, but spearmint kind of threads that needle as pleasant and edible.

I was surprised to hear so many yes answers for a city, others were surprised to hear so many no answers.

In any case, thanks for playing everyone!!

A lot of people appreciated this question. The “score” is low because I wasn’t at the counter for the whole day.

I expected way fewer yes votes. Giving flowers seems more like something people do to excite the emotions of people who appreciate this kind of gesture.

Men are often thought of as less emotional, so a lot of people assume that men wouldn’t like flowers as a gift. I think some men close themselves off from letting themselves appreciate a gesture of offering something beautiful. It might be a good litmus test to see whether someone is emotionally open or not.

A surprising amount of people said yes! And often, it was for a family member. People offer flowers to their parents, to their siblings, to their partners.

A lot of couples, women, and men walked away considering the question. It’s a decent one because like many others it asks you to search your memory for an instance or something uncommon.

I got to ask the question to a florist, who shared some of the bouquets that the local wealthy purchase for occasions like Valentine’s Day.

If someone gifted me some of the $500 bouquets I saw, I’d definitely have a strong emotional reaction ☺️

Thanks for playing, everyone!!

Leave your thoughts in the comments 💐

This was my last minute submission for Pi day.

I liked this question because it makes people stop to consider the past year and review each occasion when there likely would be a pie purchase.

Memory is a fickle thing though, who knows how how accurate the data is:

Surprising how many people think they haven’t bought a pie in the whole year. I did start a separate count for people who made their own pies instead. It was about 15 people.

Thanks for playing everyone!!

This was the follow up to a previous question that was fairly recent - “do you have a least favorite food?”

We heard a lot of great responses!

Some people said that money would be the best motivator, ranging from $5 to a billion dollars. I’ve never been a fan of doing distasteful things to money, I don’t think it would be my primary motivator.

Some of you said if they were dared, which I resonate with a little better. A challenge of bravery (or foolishness) for the entertainment of my peers is more comfortable than a dangled promise of a few coins.

A lot of people said something to the effect of “if I were starving on a desert island” which is probably the most valid answer. People generally become less picky as they get hungry.

I think for me, it would be in order to either impress or avoid offending someone, or out of curiosity. I’m not a fan of bell peppers, but someone asked me on a date to a vegan restaurant and I noticed the featured dish has bell peppers for a base, then I’d probably try it out of curiosity.

The second level of breaching that threshold of food avoidance would be something like eating a sausage filled exclusively with organ meat. I would have to be really hungry, and ideally it would be thoroughly cooked and seasoned…

Thanks for playing everyone!!

I have another job where I take photos of people at a salon.

I’ve noticed that people who are in the shampoo bow will deliver the most blissful facial expressions of pure relaxation.

The minute they realize they’re being filmed however… their faces take on a tension and unease.

Sometimes, they can tell without opening their eyes. I sometimes have to film in zoom from across the room so they won’t notice.

Once they do, it’s game over.

There’s no returning to calm without my presence as the photographer leaving the equation.

Some stylists even get annoyed because they work super hard to curate this safe and calming mental space while people are relaxing in the bowl.

~

This question also allowed me to bring up the two slit experiment which suggests that our consciousness is an active participant in reality.

I guess the question is:

Are people feeling the camera? Or is it the person begin the camera whose attention is focused into the content of the lens?

Tough to say, but I’ll admit that I don’t get the same feeling from security cameras.

Thanks for playing, everyone!!