Man suspected of starting fires in Oregon detained by 3 residents who tied him to tree - "The Curry County Sherriff’s Office received a call around 1:45 p.m. Monday about active fires in Marial, a community located about 95 miles northwest of Medford... three area residents spotted the suspect, identified as 30-year-old Trennon Smith, walking on the roadway near the flames and detained him until law enforcement arrived on the scene"
Meme - Catherine na Nollag: "i still think my favourite thing that's ever happened to me on the internet is the time a guy said "people change their minds when you show them facts" and I said "actually studies show that's not true" and linked TWO sources and he said "yeah well I still think it works""
Meme - "Every nationality joining a meme group and speaking english, so everyone will understand
Filipinos, speaking their language and posting their cringe memes thinking that everyone else is a filipino
Akbkbakba Tanginamo
anganga?"
Meme - "You ARe SUDDENLY AMBUSHED BY A LARGE GROUP OF COWFOLKS!
I TAKE ACTION! BY KISSING THEIR NIPPLES!"
"PLEASE USE NORMAL DICE..."
"YOU SAID I COULD BRING MY OWN!"
Man admits stalking young woman from JC to university, hired private eyes to film her - "Over a year and four months, a man stalked a young woman he had seen in school, through junior college and university, creating 17 Instagram accounts to harass her, emailing her father and hiring private investigators to film her. Toh Wen Jie, 20, pleaded guilty midway through a trial on Wednesday (Apr 14) to one count of stalking the victim between October 2018 and February 2020. He sent her sexually explicit messages, calling her his fiancee, girlfriend and wife. According to court documents, he used "burner phones" and accounts when she blocked or ignored him. Toh waited for her outside her university for three to four hours a time over about a week, and wrote on his own question-and-answer Tellonym account that he had "a lot of time to kill" and that "I will literally strangle you if (it's) not against the law"... In 2018, Toh was a student in Anderson Serangoon Junior College and began stalking other girls when he found the victim on Instagram... Toh got a third party to tell the victim that he had "ample resources and time to find out everything about her" and "the means to appear everywhere she goes", frightening the victim... On Oct 2, 2019, Toh made a written statement to the police that he would not contact the victim or her father, but continued to harass the victim and her family... Toh hired private investigators to establish the victim's daily activities, movements and circle of friends. He instructed them to follow the victim and film her from 7am to 11am each day from Jan 13 and Jan 17 last year. He then sent the victim the videos of her."
Pranks, Photography and Intimacy: Pleased to meet you - FML - "Today, I saw an elderly gentleman in the street wearing a shirt with a big QR code on it. Amused, I used an app on my phone to decode it. It gave me a shortened web address, which I followed, only to be faced with a picture of the same gentleman naked, grinning, and giving a thumbs up. FML"
Caramelized Onion Cream Sauce with Chicken Recipe
Prince William Labeled 'Prince Of Pegging' Amid Affair Rumor - "Prince William has once again been accused of alleged infidelity after a post from gossip site Deux Moi went viral on social media. The post made by Deux Moi, which detailed a "salacious" report about a "British extramarital affair," trended on Twitter with the #princeofpegging and left many users both confused and a bit appalled... "I was told the real reason for the affair was the royal’s love for pegging, which the wife is too old-fashioned to engage in.” "The wife doesn't mind her husband getting his sexual needs fulfilled somewhere else, as long as things don't become emotional, which was the case for the last woman," the post concluded. While the source doesn't explicitly mention Prince William or Kate Middleton's name, it didn't stop many people from speculating that the post was about the elder Royal brother, who has been accused of infidelity in the past. In 2019, rumors started coming out of the woodwork, claiming that Prince William had an affair with Rose Hanbury, the Marchioness of Cholmondeley, who had been a longtime friend of Middleton and William."
Nathan Fielder's Thrifty Boy Outfit on Twitter - "I think the "white people don't like spicy food" thing mostly applies to middle to upper class whites, because every redneck I know buys hot sauces with names like Asshole Prolapser and Shit Liquifier every time they go to Ace Hardware"
Meme - "Black people the only people who throw pool parties & do everything except get in the pool look at this"
"Who gonna leave they belongings unattended around all them niggaz???"
Happy St. Patrick's Day to One of 10 in U.S. Who Claim Irish Ancestry - "Irish heritage is strong in America: More than 31.5 million residents claim Irish ancestry, second only to German (43.0 million). And when it comes to U.S. presidents, including current President Joe Biden, exactly half (23) trace some of their roots to Ireland."
Meme - KayPwrgirl @KayPwr: "I was going to work in my hospital and another male nurse got on the elevator with me. He was holding a large insulated coffee cup that said Don't Tread On Me. I got chills of fear. It shouldn't be like this."
These are the people who go on about "white fragility"
Meme - *100kmph sign and narrow track*
Dursey Island, Ireland.
Meme - Parenting Through The Fog: "I don't get it. Is it because I'm Autistic? Disabled? Queer? Nonbinary trans? What? So many seemingly "well meaning" people keep acting like they have a right and a duty to tell me what and how I should post things on my own page. I'm not talking about trolls either. These are people who are acting like they're being supportive. "I just thought you should know." "Maybe you should..." "It would be better to..." STOP IT! How about this? Y'all post on your social media how you want to and I'll post on my social media how I want to. If you don't like what I'm doing here you don't have to follow the page."
Imagine not knowing how social media works. Is it because it's autistic?
Dead spiders reanimated as robot grippers in "necrobotics" breakthrough - "Rice University researchers are pioneers in the field of necrobotics—reanimating dead creatures as robots. They've demonstrated how a tiny dead wolf spider can become an air-powered gripper that can pick up tiny electronic parts from a circuit board"
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent, Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira: Amazon Defenders - "It was arguable that the 4 greatest writers of the 20th century were all from the island of Ireland. Joyce, the playwright Samuel Beckett, and the poets Seamus Heaney and WB Yeats. He wondered if this had something to do with the prevalence of conflict, whether literary prowess was the flip side to adversity; Joyce was finishing Ulysses during the Irish war for independence from Britain"
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent, Return of the Chagos Islanders - "The problem of vengeful or hungry ghosts is taken so seriously here, that you are obliged by law to tell potential buyers of any untimely or violent deaths that have happened on your property. That's created a very niche Japanese industry: real estate brokers who specialize in so called tainted properties. It is possible to get rid of these spirits: for a price. Japanese believe these hungry ghosts are stuck in limbo, unable to leave behind their unfinished business, unable to make it across into the afterlife or rebirth. In Japan, calling in the Ghostbusters means calling in a Buddhist priest, who will perform a ceremony known as or harai. A friend of mine who's a part time priest told me how this works. A variety of tasty foods are placed on an altar to sate the Hungry Ghost's appetite. Then the priest begins to chant, to let the Spirit know that he or she is dead, that they no longer have a body, that it's time to move on. How often do you do this, I asked him. About twice a year, he said. People usually give around $300 for a suicide, up to 1000 if it's a family murderer, and it's not just those who've died violently who can get stuck in this limbo. There's a real fear that the spirit of any loved one could become a so called Ikiryō, or living ghost. I've seen this myself with my own family. Last month my former father in law died. My son and ex wife, rushed to the family home. The old man's body was laid out on a futon, and that night his wife and daughters slept beside him. On the day before his cremation, they took it in turns to wash his hair, while a Buddhist priest chanted prayers. All of this is done to comfort and reassure the spirit of the deceased, to help it on its final journey, and to make sure it doesn't linger."
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent, 2022: A Year of Recovery? - "How much you show your optimism varies from place to place. In Finland, for instance, people have a saying that goes, if a stranger smiles at you, they're either drunk, mentally ill, or an American tourist"
Howard Mortman on Twitter - ""A recession is two quarters in a row of negative growth." -- President Clinton, Dec. 19, 2000"
Meme - James Forsyth @JGForsyth: "Using the UK definition, the US is now in a recession"
Matt Singh @MattSingh_: "More accurate I think to call it the "everywhere besides the US" definition"
Meme - "Haha, I remember as a kid I would find "boomers" saying stuff like "Social media is ruining the next generation, kids these days are so stupid because of social apps" absolutely ridiculous, now that I've matured a bit I couldn't agree more with them. I'm honestly scared of what the future has for humanity."
Meme - "My son drew this in Sth grade. Perhaps I'm biased but I thought it was clever and funny. *Snail terrified of bomb with 60 minute timer*"
Facebook - "The high at DCA was 78 today (for those thinking it was 79). The 5-minute obs take the actual Fahrenheit, convert to whole Celsius, and display systems then convert back to Fahrenheit. Example: 78F converts to 25.6C, transmitted as 26C, converted back to 78.8F, displayed as 79F."
Weird. I thought Imperial was superior
'You can do it' B&Q lorry gets stuck under bridge - "A lorry bearing the words "you can do it" has got wedged under a railway bridge. The orange B&Q lorry struck the bridge over the A41 at Blackthorn, near Bicester, Oxfordshire, at about 08:30 GMT."
Meme - "We aren't falling for it again Gary, we know your dick is in the fruit!!!"
Dea Poirier on Twitter - "Voldemort didn't try to kill Harry Potter until he was 55. Darth Vader was nearly 40 when he built the Death Star. Hannibal was 52 when he escaped from captivity. Thanos was over 65 when he collected the infinity gems. Annie Wilkes was 44 when she found Paul It's never too late ❤️"
For the Greater Glory of Science - Posts | Facebook - "The idea that those advancing from the left are the "good guys" and those from the right are the "bad guys" has a long history in film. It is thought to do so not just because of artistic choice but possibly a psychological component as well.
A 2018 study entitled "Which way did he go? Film lateral movement and spectator interpretation" looked into this and found that those viewing the same scene tended to view those coming from the left in a positive light and the same scene if reversed in a negative light viewing the characters as villains. The paper is in the comments.
The conclusion is as follows for those without full paper access:
"In summary, our analyses show a preference among spectators for rightward filmic movement over leftward filmic movement, and an evaluation of rightward movement as more ‘active’, but no difference between the two types of movement with regard to perceived uniqueness. Religion and most psychometrics do not make a difference with regard to the evaluations of film segments differing in directionality. This points to a perceived primacy of the right that seems robust and enduring. A consideration of this empirically observed phenomenon should be incorporated into future study and theory with regard to film and the moving image. This investigation, then, is a step along the path to providing quantitative, empirical support to phenomena that have heretofore been examined via other modes, such as semiotics (Eco, 1976; Metz, 1974). This convergence of critical cultural and empirical quantitative perspectives is rarely found in film studies, and is a much needed confluence in the scholarly literature.""
People in Toronto are still debating how much to tip for takeout and quick services - "A recent post on Reddit shared an experience at a Toronto bar that used tipping scales as a way to grade the staff's performance. The original poster said the 18 per cent range description displayed on the machine read "Needs improvement," 20 per cent with "Kay," 25 per cent with "Good enough" and 30 per cent "Great job." The post quickly spread throughout the community and a rigorous debate ensued stating tipping at 18 per cent - higher than the standard of 15 per cent - would be an insult to the bartender as "needs improvement." The descriptions also puts pressure on customers to A) Tip at a much higher percentange than normal; and B) Provide feedback to the establishment."
Josh Freed: We've reached a tipping point with 'tip creep' - "This for grabbing my own two litres of milk from the fridge and having the clerk point the credit card machine my way. In essence, I would be tipping him for asking for a tip... What next? Asking for tips at self-serve gas stations, where they should be tipping us? Tipping has always been complex. We do it in restaurants, hotels and taxis, but not supermarkets; we tip hairdressers and pedicurists, not shoe salesmen. Sommeliers make four times the tip for opening a $120 bottle of wine as for a $30 one that takes identical labour... Some of this “tip creep” started during COVID-19 when restaurants only served takeout, and employees were stressed out and facing some stubbornly unvaccinated, unmasked munchers. So we all contributed more to newly appreciated front-line workers by leaving better tips, a kind of hero’s hazard pay for keeping the world going in an era of germ terror. It’s been dubbed the Great Pandemic Tipping Boom of 2020. But though the pandemic has eased up, tips keep creeping up and we may have reached a tipping point. Adding to tip creep, cash has practically disappeared, replaced everywhere from farmers’ markets to food trucks by tiny, smartphone-linked card terminals that automatically ask for minimum 15 per cent tips. Again, there’s almost never a “no tip” option. You have to look for “custom amount,” usually under the guilt-inducing gaze of the employee you’re considering whether to tip. Once you tip, the machines often flash programmed messages like “BRILLIANT!” for 25 per cent, “EXCELLENT!” for 20 and “OK” for anything less. There are even reports that some garages and plumbers have requested 15 per cent and higher tips on $2,800 repair bills (that’s at least $420)... Thank you for reading. Choose one of the following tip options: $5 … $500 … $5,000. $5,000? BRILLIANT!"
Sex workers are thriving on Animal Crossing - "With Nintendo’s strict terms of service ruling out the possibility of kink chat, sex workers have been forced to get creative within ACNH’s limited confines. Fortunately, the in-game features lend themselves surprisingly well to ‘domming’, making it the preferred activity for both more traditional sex workers and bonafide dominatrixes looking to interact with clients... When it comes to humiliation -- one of domming's central tenets – Tia*, a 22-year-old London-based findomme currently furloughed from her retail job, said she’ll have her subs weed her virtual garden wearing nothing but a paper bag over their head. “I only view them as my ‘slaves’, which they love,” she says. “They don’t want me to acknowledge their hard work, they just want to be used.”"
From June 2020
The Air Force Is Having To Reverse Engineer Parts Of Its Own Stealth Bomber - "While it’s hard to say exactly why this approach is being taken now, it indicates that the original plans for these components are unavailable or the manufacturing processes and tooling used to produce them no longer exists. This could be the result of them having been so secretive that, at some point, they were inadvertently destroyed altogether. They could also have been simply misplaced, or the parts may have been produced by a smaller contractor that has long since disappeared, taking the bespoke tooling with it."
STREET FIGHTER 2 - OSCARS EDITION: Will Smith VS Chris Rock - YouTube
Mom of man in custody for McDonald's fries shooting reveals son's chilling words - "The mom of the man held in the shooting of a Brooklyn McDonald’s worker over cold french fries told The Post on Tuesday that her son said afterward he did what he had to do... “My son said, ‘Come outside’ to the boy in the back,’’ she said, referring to the worker who was later shot. The employee didn’t exit the restaurant at that point, and Fulmore said she then told her son to just leave “because I didn’t want him to get in trouble. “So I’m thinking my son was gone,’’ she said. “I’m thinking it was over because my son left the store.” Then 10 or 15 minutes later, the male worker came over to Fulmore asking, “Where your son at?,’’ the mom said. She said she told him her son had left and to mind his own business. But “he went looking for my son,’’ she said. “The next thing you know, maybe like 10 minutes later, you hear a gunshot. So I ran to the door. I said, ‘Who’s shooting?’ ” She said someone replied, “Your son... Law enforcement sources said the victim had no prior arrests and there is no indication he was carrying a weapon when he was gunned down. But Fulmore, referring to the victim said, “There was no reason for him to go outside looking for somebody. “Whatever happened outside, you caused that to happen”"
"Victim blaming" is okay in certain circumstances
If he had been shot by the police, his mother would be telling everyone what a good boy he was
NYC McDonald's shooting could've been avoided with hot fries, says kin of suspect's girlfriend - "Michael Morgan, 20, was charged with attempted murder after he allegedly shot the 23-year-old worker outside the Bedford-Stuyvesant eatery when his mom got into a heated spat with the employee over her cold order, police and law enforcement sources said. His girlfriend, Camellia Dunlap, 18, was also slapped with weapons charges over the Monday night shooting after allegedly handing her beau the gun... “I think it would have been solved if one they just gave the lady some hot French fries and let her been on her way,” Dunlap’s 66-year-old grandmother, Debra Dunlap... The grandmother conceded that Morgan’s mother could have also called cops to sort out the fast-food spat instead of getting her son involved, who has a lengthy criminal record... “He wasn’t that good of a person,” Debra said of the accused gunman. “I tried to tell her to stay away from him but she wouldn’t listen… She really not a bad person. She just got with the wrong person.” Meanwhile, Dunlap’s father, Kenyan Dunlap, 40, appeared unsympathetic to his daughter’s situation, telling The Post: “She has to learn her lesson.”"
Did Tolkien himself ever address the supposed plot hole concerning the eagles in his Lord of the Rings books or is that discussion reserved for the movies only? - Quora
tl;dr:
The eagles are not an airborne transport service - they can't go so far and have their own agenda and don't do what you want
They'd be seen and brought down (e.g. the Nazgul on fell beasts)
They're not supposed to interfere usually and are corruptible (remember even Frodo couldn't destroy the ring)
It wouldn't have resolved other threats - the ring might be destroyed but Saruman would be still around, Rohan would be under Grima (effectively), Aragorn wouldn't be King etc
Garry Hoy: The Man Who Accidentally Jumped Out A Window - "On July 9, 1993, Toronto lawyer Garry Hoy was doing his favorite party trick: hurling himself at his office's windows to show their strength. But this time, his stunt failed... A successful and respected corporate and securities lawyer at the Toronto-based law firm Holden Day Wilson, the 38-year-old Hoy had a lot going for himself. He was described by managing partner Peter Lauwers as “one of the best and brightest” lawyers at the firm. On the 24th floor of the Toronto-Dominion Bank Tower building is where the unbelievable story of Garry Hoy begins and ultimately ends... On July 9, 1993, a reception was held for law students interested in apprenticeships at Holden Day Wilson. Garry Hoy was giving a tour and decided to demonstrate his favorite party trick: throwing himself against the windows of the Toronto-Dominion Bank Tower so the students could see just how resilient the glass was... Hoy had performed the stunt to audiences countless times before. As well as demonstrating the strength of the windows, it was clear that he enjoyed showing off a bit. The first time Hoy body-slammed the window that day, he bounced off as he had every other time. But then he threw himself at the window a second time. What occurred next happened all too quickly and no doubt left everyone in the room utterly horrified. Instead of bouncing off the window as he had the first time, Hoy went straight through, plunging 24 stories down toward the building courtyard below. The fall killed him instantly. The glass didn’t shatter immediately, but rather popped out of its frame... “I don’t know of any building code in the world that would allow a 160-pound man to run up against a glass and withstand it,” structural engineer Bob Greer told the Toronto Star."... Hoy’s tragic death also possibly sealed the fate of Holden Day Wilson. In the course of three years, there was a mass exodus from the firm; more than 30 lawyers left after the trauma of losing one of their own."
Gender Discrimination in the Gig Economy: Evidence from Online Auctions for Freelancing | Ga Young Ko - "I study gender discrimination in an online auction-based platform for freelance jobs. To this end, I build an equilibrium model of demand and supply for freelance jobs, in which workers bid prices for each job they are interested in and the employer (who posted the job ad) makes a discrete choice from the offers tendered. The demand for workers in my model nests both taste-based and statistical discrimination against a gender within a random utility framework. I use rich and novel data from an online platform for different kinds of freelancing jobs (e.g., cleaning, moving, and gardening), which enables me to quantify variation in discrimination across job categories. To distinguish the two sources of gender discrimination, I combine past, present, and future performance measures of a worker to estimate workers’ true quality, which is not observed by the employer before hiring. I show that observing this measure is sufficient to separate the effect of taste-based discrimination from statistical discrimination in the hiring process. My estimates suggest that taste-based discrimination is the primary form of discrimination in most jobs. If the platform imposes a gender-blind hiring policy, I find that the welfare of the disfavored group increases by 2% to 18%, depending on the job category... I find evidence of discrimination against female workers in three out of the five job categories: moving, gardening, and repairs. The magnitude of discrimination is large and economically significant. For instance, to win a moving job, a woman has to bid $2.40 less than an (observationally) equivalent male. This “gender tax” amounts to approximately 9% of the median hourly wage. Out of this $2.40, $1.40 is due to statistical discrimination and $1 to taste-based discrimination. Consistent with these breakdowns, I find that female workers have lower quality for moving than male workers on average, which leads to statistical discrimination in hiring a mover. For gardening and repairs, the magnitude of discrimination is even larger. The “gender tax” for a female worker is $6.10 and$7.10, respectively, and is approximately 23% and 28% of the median hourly wage. For these jobs, taste-based discrimination explains more than 85% of the total discrimination. I find evidence of discrimination against male workers in cleaning jobs, with a “gender tax” for a male worker of $3, which is 11% of the median hourly wage. For cleaning jobs, taste-based discrimination accounts for most of the total discrimination. Lastly, there is no evidence of discrimination in delivery jobs... The statistical discrimination model implies that more information on individual worker quality reduces the level of discrimination. Wozniak (2015) shows that adoption of drug-testing legislation increases black employment, and Agan and Starr (2017) find that “Ban the Box” policies encourage racial discrimination, which suggests that the observed discriminationis driven by statistical discrimination. Farber and Gibbons (1996); Altonji and Pierret (2001); and Arcidiacono et al. (2010) examine whether wages become more correlated with hard-to-observe worker quality (e.g., AFQT test scores) and less correlated with easily observed worker characteristics (e.g., gender, race, or education) as employers learn about worker quality"
Milked and Feathered: The Regressive Welfare Effects of Canada's Supply Management Regime - "The production and trade of dairy and poultry products in Canada are controlled by a system of supply management (SM). Output is regulated with production quotas, and imports are restricted through a system of tariff-rate quotas. Many of Canada's trading partners are seeking better access to Canadian dairy and poultry markets in negotiations over proposed preferential trade agreements. These pressures have renewed debate about the future of SM in Canada. We investigate one criticism of SM: that high prices for dairy and poultry products impose regressive distributional effects on Canadian consumers. We apply the Exact Affine Stone Index demand model to data from the Canadian Food Expenditure Survey to estimate consumer responses to price changes for dairy and poultry products. Parameters from the demand model are used to generate welfare comparisons between the current SM regime and a counterfactual liberalized market. Canada's SM policies are highly regressive, imposing a burden of approximately 2.3 percent (339) of income per year on the poorest households, compared to 0.5 percent (554) for the richest households. The burden is larger for households with children."
Too bad "supporting" "farmers" is politically popular (unless it comes to climate change)
Olga Kiev: The Princess Who Buried People Alive - "In 945 Prince Igor traveled to meet up with a Slavic tribe, the Drevlyans, who owed him tribute money. Instead of paying Igor, the Drevlyans killed him. .. The Drevlyans did not support her at all. They sent ambassadors to arrange a marriage to Prince Mal – the leader they wanted to rule. This did not sit well with Olga. Olga commanded that a deep ditch is dug in the large hall of the castle. As Olga sat on her throne in the hall she sent for the Drevlyans. Fearing a trap of some sort, they insisted that they be brought by boat to see Olga. As they arrived at the great hall, the men who had brought the Drevlyans dropped them into the deep ditch. Olga went to the edge of the ditch and asked them if they found their visit to be to their taste. They were screaming as she orders them to be buried alive. And so they were. Burying people alive did not satisfy her thirst for revenge. She sent for better suitors from the Drevlyans so they sent a second group to see Olga. This time, she locked them into a bathhouse and set it on fire. They all burned to death. Then, she paid a visit to the Drevlyans to collect the taxes they still owed. She ordered everyone who came to her feast to be killed. It is reported that nearly 5,000 men were killed at this feast. Her last act of revenge on the Drevlyans was when she attacked the city looking to collect the taxes they owed. Instead of taking what was owed, she only asked them for three pigeons from each household. Of course, they agreed, thinking that they got a great deal! Olga gave each of her soldiers a pigeon and had them attach a thread with a piece of cloth wrapped sulfur to each bird. At dusk, they released the birds and they flew home to their nests located in the homes they came from. As they landed, the sulfur sparked and caught fire. All the homes and structures caught fire at once to it was impossible to control it. As the people fled the burning city, Olga’s troops caught them. Some of the captives she had killed and the others she kept as slaves... Olga was made a saint because of her efforts to create a Christian nation."
What Is An Orgy? How Many People Qualify As Group Sex - ""A common view for those who enjoy group sex is that three people is considered a 'threesome,' four people is a 'foursome,' and an 'orgy' needs to include five or more people," Dr. Allison says. The only real "golden rule" for an orgy is that orgy participants have to set boundaries beforehand to determine what's acceptable for all parties, she says. "For example, you might say, You can have oral sex with my wife, but I am not okay with penetration," she says. "It's very important to discuss what's okay and what's not beforehand.""
