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Comment by orange_joe | Hacker News Reader

I don't think women really have the best perspective on the difficulties of being short as there's never been a strong sexual stigma against being short for women. This seems particularly pronounced through the commoditization of human dating interaction through digital apps, something that isn't even touched upon in this article. Also not touched upon but felt by men and women is the general problem of being undersized for the world, which seems to be broadly sized for a 5'10" man (in the US at least).

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> Also not touched upon but felt by men and women is the general problem of being undersized for the world, which seems to be broadly sized for a 5'10" man (in the US at least).

I'm 6' tall and feel oversized for the world. Any time I have to use a counter, table, wash dishes, etc, I have to bend over just enough to jumpstart some back pain, and I imagine that's a contributing factor to chronic back and neck pain.

A friend looked into it once and found resources suggesting the standard kitchen counter is made for people 5'6". It's long been a dream of mine to get a custom made kitchen made for my own height. Well, it's a dream that follows the dream of owning my own place. One problem at a time.

> I'm 6' tall and feel oversized for the world. Any time I have to use a counter, table, wash dishes, etc, I have to bend over just enough to jumpstart some back pain, and I imagine that's a contributing factor to chronic back and neck pain.

I am 6'2" and I really connect with this. I am constantly shocked by washroom vanities set low enough that they feel like a child's toy, shower heads set at nose level, and kitchen counters just a few inches below the lowest level that I could comfortably work.

I am probably a foot taller than my wife, I do more of the cooking but whatever counter top height we go for will be a compromise!

FYI the kitchen company we bought our last kitchen from proposed a mixed height design with some counter tops at the max height for me, and some lower ones for my partner. Especially if you have an island or a separate section it's an easy way out of having to compromise.

I agree that the consequences of height are drilled into us in adolescence when we're mostly dealing with sexual competition, not yet competing for promotions and such. Teenage girls are more likely to be picked on for being tall than short.

In retrospect, I was lucky that I went to a high school where I was only a tiny bit on the short side, good enough that when I was feeling down on myself (i.e., all the time when I was in high school) I could tell myself "at least I'm average height." I didn't realize until I left home that the demographic people judge me by is quite a bit taller than the demographic of my hometown.

1.7m is a common height used for Russian optics of military weapons, used to measure distance based on the height of a person in the scope.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSO-1#/media/File:Distance_mea...

The average height of a woman in Russia is 1.65 so I guess that explains why they choose 1.70.

So it is better to be taller, causing the bullets fired at you to fall short, than be shorter and have the bullets fire over your head? I'd rather them open fire thinking I am further away than I actually am.

They're not going to be able to guess that, or be especially concerned with the range -- if bullets are coming by they're getting down or hauling ass.

You aim for the center of mass -- roughly at the heart. A bullet, thusly aimed, that drops slightly short can still hit someone in the leg or lower abdomen. Or it'll hit the ground and kick up dirt, be more visible.

A fixed height for each tick mark also means you can use the enemy high to roughly calculate distance.

The dating app business is a problem. On the other hand, my colleague from a former workplace was maybe 5'4", a splendid guy who had no problems with the ladies, but he knew how to box.

With women it's the opposite - smaller are usually more attractive. Maybe nature's way to balance average height, pairing up tall men with smaller women?

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