Nick on Twitter - "My girlfriend said we should each pick a “hall pass”, just in case we ever met that person. I chose Kate Upton and she chose her roommate Connor"
Meme - "Jesse Kelly @ We did not win the Cold War. The Cold War was meant to stop the spread of communism. The communists now educate your American children, sell you communist products, and bring you the news. Total myth that we won the Cold War."
Thread by @SYSCAbout on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "so you all know barilla pasta right?
well they have a Spotify account
with playlists that last for the EXACT AMOUNT OF TIME IT TAKES TO COOK EACH TYPE OF PASTA SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO SET A TIMER"
A sign of maturity or the times? Tim Hortons closes its much ballyhooed innovation cafe - "Innovation, usually a cheery buzz word, can actually be a sign of distress in the fast-food business, said Sara Senatore, a senior analyst at Bernstein who has studied turnaround efforts at Starbucks Corp., McDonald’s Corp. and, more recently, Tim Hortons. The dark phase leading up to most restaurant turnarounds usually involves a period of frenzied innovation or limited time offers, all aimed at finding a quick fix for deteriorating results... those flashy attempts don’t often succeed in turning around a brand’s fortunes because “you’re not doing a good job with the core of what customers want”... The following phase, after all the innovation, is usually boring but successful, with the chain heavily investing to get better at what its customers expect it to be good at in the first place. Tim Hortons was firmly in that innovation phase when the innovation cafe opened in 2019. That year, it tried serving Beyond Meat burgers — a notorious flop — as part of then-president Alex Macedo’s strategy of being the first, “or the very quick second,” to serve trendy new things in the market. That summer, the coffee chain also served poutine. “Everything that we saw was very typical of a company that is searching for answers in the wrong places,” Senatore said. In early 2020, following Macedo’s departure from the chain, Tim Hortons announced a new “back-to-basics” strategy, admitting that its flurry of innovations had only served to confuse customers and slow down its kitchens."
So much for innovate or die, or disrupt your business model before someone else disrupts you
Why Nonnative English Speakers Actually Speak The Best English - "Decades of research show that when a native English speaker enters a conversation among nonnative speakers, understanding goes down. Global communication specialist Heather Hansen tells us that's because the native speaker doesn't know how to do what nonnative speakers do naturally: speak in ways that are accessible to everyone, using simple words and phrases. And yet, as Hansen points out, this more accessible way of speaking is often called "bad English." There are whole industries devoted to "correcting" English that doesn't sound like it came from a native British or American speaker. Try Googling "how to get rid of my accent," and see how many ads pop up. It turns out that these definitions of "good" and "bad" English may be counterproductive if our goal is to communicate as effectively as possible... "Proper" English can be used to shut people out of spaces and opportunities, Repečkaitė says. While volunteering at the African Refugee Development Center in Tel Aviv, Israel, she helped a Sudanese refugee prepare for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) — an English-proficiency standardized exam that stood between him and his dream to go to an Israeli university. According to Repečkaitė, the student was fluent (English was his country's colonial language), but he didn't pass on his first attempt. How can a person fluent in English fail TOEFL? There are a few reasons, she says. One, the test requires writing an argumentative essay — "a very specific genre," Repečkaitė explained, that requires knowledge of specific writing conventions and linking words like "moreover" that are rare in other contexts. The test also requires making a clear choice between British and American spelling and vocabulary. That "can trip up people whose English comes from various sources" — say, a third from British textbooks and two-thirds from American movies, Repečkaitė said. Ultimately, Repečkaitė said, the test does not simply measure communication skills. "I knew and made it very clear to him that TOEFL is not about English. It is a gatekeeping tool to enter middle-class spaces." "Good English" (and the educational resources, like tutoring, needed to acquire it) is tied to class status; it functions as a barrier to success that not everyone can pass... When he started as a professor in Toronto, he faced criticism and ridicule from his colleagues. "I remember quite vividly," he said, "when about 10 years ago, I had to chair the dissertation defense of a student from the department of English." At one point, Rodríguez asked the group, "Does anybody else want to intervene?" "Professor C leaned back in his chair and repeated in a dramatic mock British accent, 'Intervene!' " The professor was drawing attention to Rodríguez's way of pronouncing the word. Rodríguez says he "had an utopian idea of the university as a space for constructive debates and respect among peers" and was disappointed and shocked to be mocked by a colleague in this setting. When he looks back, Rodríguez says, he sees this moment as "another example of microaggression based on my accent." In the moment, he didn't react. "I was young and still believed in the redemptive power of nonviolent goodwill." "Nowadays," Rodríguez notes, "I would have filed a grievance against [this professor] so heavy that he would have had to sell his soul to remain employed... Research shows that it's not just judgment and ridicule from native English speakers that impede communication. It's also their unconscious use of esoteric idioms and unnecessarily confusing vocabulary that makes language less accessible... Instead of policing others' accents, native English speakers can focus on changing their own enunciation to be more understandable. For example, research shows that clearly enunciating hard "t" and "r" sounds in your speech makes it easier for nonnative English speakers to understand you."
I'm sure filing grievances makes people love foreigners/immigrants/minorities and want to work or otherwise interact with them
Police find Nintendo Switch in park, beat high scores before returning it to owners - "Someone found the Switch in North Canyon Park in Bountiful, Utah, and turned it in, according to the Bountiful Police Department. “I’ve beaten all your high scores and spent all your gold coins and I’m bored now so you can come pick it up,” police said in a Facebook post addressed to Mason and Ali."
Breast Implants Save Woman's Life by Deflecting Bullet Away From Her Heart - "thank's to her D-cups, the woman suffered only a fractured right rib and the loss of her breast implants. Her implants were removed, and her wounds were cleaned. As a precaution, she was given antibiotics by her doctors."
Overdue VHS Tape of 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch' Prompts Arrest Warrant - The New York Times - "She was charged with embezzlement of rented property, and a warrant was issued for her arrest in March 2000. The store where she rented the tape, Movie Place, closed in 2008... Ms. Davis, 52, discovered the outstanding warrant for her arrest after she got married and tried to change her name on her driver’s license... prosecutors dropped the embezzlement charge against Ms. Davis in consideration of the “best interest of justice”"
Egypt jails belly dancer for debauchery in social media crackdown - "Sama el Masry, who is well known in Egypt, was arrested in April as part of an investigation into videos and photos on social media. Prosecutors described the posts as sexually suggestive and Cairo's Misdemeanours Economic Court said she had violated family principles and values, as well as using accounts on social media with the aim of committing "immorality"."
Rodent suspects in alleged lumber theft won’t face charges: RCMP - "Porcupine Plain RCMP say one or more beavers are to blame for a rural lumber theft... “Who could really blame these little bucktooth bandits, considering the price of wood these days?”"
D.Muthukrishnan on Twitter - "Lend money to a friend; lose both friendship and money. By saying no, lose only friendship."
Facebook - "This morning an AsiaOne ( a subsidiary of SPH) article heaping praise on Workers' Party's Dr Jamus Lim's performance on last night's televised General Election debate was published. Hours later it was yanked. Then it was republished just now with a more flattering headline for the ruling party's Minister. It included one tiny, added paragraph "As for Dr Balakrishnan, the Minister for Foreign Affairs also scored tons of brownie points online for his composure under the keen queries fielded by the opposition". It looks like the writer got a memo from the Government to give the poor Minister some credit. It's like they need that extra support so badly. And thats why SIngapore's mainstream media tanks on independence and true journalism"
Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts | Facebook - "This is just offensive. The Washington Post is using the occasion of a horrific building collapse to pitch a global warming message. We don’t know the cause of the collapse yet but it almost certainly wasn’t due to global warming."
Building's Damage 'Has Gotten Significantly Worse,' Condo Board Warned : Live Updates: Miami-Area Condo Collapse - "Before a large portion of Champlain Towers South came smashing down, the building's condo board sent a letter to residents noting significant deterioration and explaining the need for a $15 million special assessment to be paid by members... It is signed by Jean Wodnicki, president of the board of directors of the condo association. In the letter, Wodnicki said discussion of construction and the related expenses had stretched for months and years... since then, Wodnicki wrote, the cost of the work had increased as the building's condition had deteriorated significantly and visibly... The cost for such extensive repairs appears to have been a cause for concern for owners of units in the building. Morabito's 2018 estimate for repairs had been $9.1 million, but that figure had risen to $15 million when the letter was written."
Clearly it's the condo board's fault for not telling the residents that the building was unsafe
Florida Condo Residents Argued Over Repairs Months Before Collapse - "Seven months before the collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Fla., the condominium association board and residents were still sparring over expensive repairs needed in their building... the board and residents were shown an urgent PowerPoint presentation from the property manager dated November 10-11, 2020. The language was stark. One slide explained in bold, uppercase lettering: WHY WE HAVE TO DO ALL THIS NOW."
Champlain Towers in Surfside was a mosaic of Miami’s cultures - "The close-knit Jewish community has been devastated by the Champlain tower collapse. About one third of the people still unaccounted for are Jewish"
Is this a "stereotype"?
Bethesda sues Warner for ripping off Fallout Shelter in its Westworld game - "Warner Bros. released a mobile game based on HBO's Westworld series yesterday, which isn't something we'd normally pay much attention to. We are in this case, however, because the launch of the game was followed shortly by the launch of a lawsuit, filed by Bethesda, alleging that the game is "a blatant rip-off of Fallout Shelter," that's actually built on the same code... The lawsuit examines the many similarities between Westworld and Fallout Shelter in detail, but what makes the case seem particularly egregious is Bethesda's allegation that Westworld contains the same bugs as Fallout Shelter did when it was launched. One such bug causes the view to be off-center and out of focus at startup, "as if a camera capturing the scene had been inadvertently pointed to the lower right foreground and then slowly refocuses on the central image.""
Meme - "VICE TV: We Paid A Freelancer To Say A Thing You Like Is Dogshit Because The Duopoly Ate The Whole Digital Ad Market And Now Harvesting Hate Clicks Is The Only Viable Business Model For Online Media"
Kodak Black throws $100 bills in the ocean, down the toilet - "Kodak Black threw $100 bills into the ocean and down the toilet in a now-deleted Instagram post, then deactivated his account. Black, real name Bill Kahan Kapri, was filmed disposing of the cash by throwing the notes off the side of a boat and stuffing them down a toilet until it became clogged... “Hes from one of the poorest places in Florida and yet he rather impress people for views instead of giving that money to black poverty stricken families. This could be one of the saddest and out of touch videos I’ve ever seen (sic).”"
Meme - "Ernie Isn't Sure if Killing Kermit and Stealing His Skin Was a Good Idea of Spicing Up the Roleplay. Bert However Feels Pretty and Really Enjoys His Role as a Princess"
Meme - "Elmo bets Natalie she can’t fart around the buttplug."
Remove Xbox Game Bar - Microsoft Community - "In Powershell Admin. Right-click Start and select PowerShell (admin)
Enter the following commands and wait for each to complete before the next one
Get-AppxPackage -allusers XboxApp | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -allusers Microsoft.XboxGamingOverlay | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -allusers XboxApp | Remove-AppxPackage"
Why Doesn't American Produce Taste as Good as Europe's? - "It turns out that there’s nothing different about the soil in North America. We have the ability to grow produce that is just as delicious as what’s grown in Europe. It's just that we choose not to. It all comes down to differences in culture and preference. In Italy, France, and other parts of Europe, taste reigns supreme. It is the most important factor in growing and selling produce, since that is what customers want. They have higher standards that would not accept a gigantic mealy tomato in the middle of January; rather, they would wait for smaller, juicier, more flavorful tomatoes in the right season. Growers in North America, on the other hand, have responded to decades of pressure to grow bigger, heavier fruits and vegetables that are uniform in appearance. Customers want their produce all-year-round, even if it’s out of season, and they want to pay minimal price. Picking larger tomatoes, for example, costs the grower less because it takes less time and labor to yield more product. Harry Klee is a tomato grower from Florida who developed a great-tasting, nutrient-rich tomato called the Garden Gem that will never be sold in the United States because it’s considered too small. He told Belluz:
“The bottom line here with the industrial tomatoes is that tomatoes have been bred for yield, production, disease resistance. The growers are not paid for flavor — they are paid for yield. So the breeders have given them this stuff that produces a lot of fruit but that doesn’t have any flavor.”
Most supermarket tomatoes sold in North America share a genetic mutation that makes them all round, smooth, and deep scarlet red when ripe. The only problem is that this widely-embraced mutation deactivates a gene that produces the sugars and aromas that are essential for a flavorful tomato... In the meantime, it’s possible to seek out European-tasting produce from small-scale growers at farmers’ markets and CSA shares."
Meme - "Tina. 27. 1,69 m pieds nus. 1,78 m avec talons. 1,10 m si t'es gentil"
Meme - "Comme beaucoup de femmes, je fuyais la science dure et l'informatique car ils sont exercés à 98% par des hommes moches que je souhaite pas côtoyer personnellement et professionnellement, c'est à cause d'eux que du coup j'ai fait des études de socio par défaut. Les choses doivent changer, ils ont gâché ma vie"
Il faut que les hommes deviennes moins sexiste !
Sargon of Akkad - Posts | Facebook - "Leftist pages complaining about a lack of civility is my new fetish."
MemeAsked a - "Any women in here with cancer? I'm Looking for a relationship but not long term."
Meme - "I'm a Mother first. But if you have a child get away from me. I do not like other people's children *vomit*"
Antonio García Martínez on Twitter - "When the wealthy laundered their guilt through Catholic indulgences instead of NGOs, we at least got Michelangelo and gorgeous cathedrals out of it."
Michael Holding exclusive: 'If I had grown up in the UK, I would be dead now' - "Growing up in Jamaica I didn’t experience racism. I experienced it every time I left Jamaica"
Crime in Jamaica - Wikipedia - "When Jamaica gained independence in 1962, the murder rate was 3.9 per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the lowest in the world. In 2005, Jamaica had 1,674 murders for a murder rate of 58 per 100,000 people. That year, Jamaica had the highest murder rate in the world"
Examining Race in Jamaica: How Racial Category and Skin Color Structure Social Inequality - "access to household amenities and years of schooling are starkly structured by racial category, and even more robustly by skin color, across all dimensions. The findings challenge long-held assumptions that marginalize race with regards to social inequality in Jamaica."
Row over overhanging tree becomes a saw point between neighbours - "Neighbours have cut a tree almost in half after a row over bird mess in the driveway. Graham and Irene Lee, both in their 70s, called in tree surgeons to the suburb of Waterthorpe in Sheffield to cut overhanging branches from the fir tree on Friday. The result was more than a light trim... Joanne Ellis, a specialist in neighbour and land disputes at the London-based law firm Stephensons, said: "They’re perfectly entitled to do this because you’re entitled to cut off anything that overhangs and when you own property you own all of that space. “But if the tree dies because it’s been hacked so severely, then potentially that could be criminal damage - as they’ve destroyed something that belongs to somebody else.""
Facebook - "English Literature: I shall die for honour
French Literature: I will die for love
American Literature: I will die for freedom
Russian Literature: I will die"
Last gasp for the breathalyser as scientists create earmuffs that can detect alcohol - "One reason the ears offer a potential alternative to breathalysers is that they don’t get particularly sweaty, as sweat interferes with the ethanol vapor reading... The auditory organ contains 140 glands per centimetre, almost half that of the forearm (225), a third as many as cheeks (360) and four times less than the palm (620)... The researchers proposed that the device could also be used to measure other gases released through the skin, for example in disease screening, and would only require a different enzyme to be used to switch from spotting ethanol to identifying other chemicals or biomarkers."