China now publishes more high-quality science than any other nation -- should the US be worried? - "For many years, researchers in the West wrote off Chinese research as low quality and often as simply imitating research from the U.S. and Europe. During the 2000s and 2010s, much of the work coming from China did not receive significant attention from the global scientific community... in 2019, Chinese authors published a greater percentage of the most influential papers, with China claiming 8,422 articles in the top category, while the U.S had 7,959 and the European Union had 6,074... Our research also found that Chinese research was surprisingly novel and creative – and not simply copying western researchers. To measure this, we looked at the mix of disciplines referenced in scientific papers. The more diverse and varied the referenced research was in a single paper, the more interdisciplinary and novel we considered the work. We found Chinese research to be as innovative as other top performing countries. Taken together, these measures suggest that China is now no longer an imitator nor producer of only low-quality science. China is now a scientific power on par with the U.S. and Europe, both in quantity and in quality."
Time for the US to have more equity initiatives
Italy slams 'absurd' EU-approved health warnings on wine - "Italians are spluttering into their pinot grigio over a plan to put health warnings on alcohol, with vintners and politicians calling it an “absurd” affront to the Mediterranean diet. The initiative to slap health warning labels on beer, wine and spirits has come from Ireland but has the blessing of the European Union. The Italians are deeply concerned that it could be adopted by other countries in the bloc, putting Italy’s €14 billion wine sector at risk. Unlike their northern European counterparts, Italians generally drink in moderation and are incensed by what they see as state interference in what should be a matter of personal responsibility."
Meme - chloe ellen @chloellene: "this is my favourite piece of literary criticism of all time"
"Pride and Prejudice (Vintage Classics)
mr carlton b morgan: "Just a bunch of people going to each other's houses""
Chocolate consumption and Noble laureates - "At first glance, the positive correlation of chocolate consumption per capita and the accumulated number of Nobel laureates per capita, as reported by Messerli (2012), seems spurious. The intention of this paper is to check whether this correlation vanishes if relevant covariates and a sophisticated estimation method are employed. A two-stage Heckman selection model is estimated where the stock of Nobel laureates per capita is regressed on chocolate consumption per capita, as well as the number of published scientific papers, R & D expenditures per capita and GDP per capita. In addition, coffee and tobacco consumption per capita are also included. In contrast to the expectation, it is found that a positive correlation between chocolate consumption per capita and the stock of Nobel laureates per capita persists although more recent data and relevant covariates, as well as a sophisticated estimation method are used. In addition, a further negative correlation between coffee consumption per capita and the number of Nobel laureates per capita is detected. Albeit no clear causal relationship between winning a Nobel prize and chocolate or coffee consumption seems to exists, it remains unclear whether the effects are caused by hidden variables or by chance. However, the results are limited due to the lack of individual consumption data."
Meme - "Cow caught casually eating snake in outback Australia"
"I am confused as to how the food chain works in Australia."
Async (London Arc 🇬🇧) on Twitter - "No mom it's not a "messy pile of clothes on my chair" it's an L1 cache for fast random access to my frequently used clothes in O(1) time. It needs to be big to avoid expensive cache misses (looking in my closet). I NEED to be minimizing latency, this is important to me. Please."
Meme - itskellydiane @itskellydiane: "Kids rooms get messy because it exists for them to play in. The kitchen gets covered in flour because that's what it's for. The yard fills with toys because it's meant for adventures. Remember, the house is meant to be utilized. Not displayed."
Meme - ""Fatpieceofshit Fatasspussy is with Gaybitch Tightpussy.
December 6,2021
In a Relationship with Gaybitch Tightpussy December 6, 2021"
Meme - "I believe Japan doesn't yet understand Christmas *Crucified Santa*"
Japan 'Santa Crucified' Christmas Meme - "In 2005, Japanese artist Yoshio Itagaki created the work Santa Cross as part of a series looking into urban legends, specifically for their propensity to reflect “uncensored reflection of our desires, fears, expectations or curiosity”."
Non-Belief Research in the United States - "In what we hope will become at least a modest crack in the monolithic “religious none” category, we proudly present a very brief overview of our findings based on the diverse “types” of non-belief that make up an important and growing sub-population of America today. A typology of six characteristics emerged within the data and is presented as follows.
Intellectual Atheist/Agnostic (IAA)
Activist (AAA)
Seeker-Agnostic (SA)
Anti-Theist
Non-Theist
Ritual Atheist/Agnostic (RAA)"
"An Examination of the Needham Question: Why Didn't China Have a Scient" - "Joseph Needham (1900–1995) formulated several important queries about science and technology in China. Known as Needham’s “Grand Question” or “Puzzle,” he asked why modern science developed in Europe rather than in China, despite China’s advanced technology, and examined the inhibiting factors in Chinese civilization that prevented the rise of modern science by the seventeenth century. The question itself has prompted a variety of answers, all of which are partial. In this thesis, some of the complex social, cultural, political and economic factors that contributed to the Scientific Revolution in Europe will be discussed, as well as some of the key historical factors that prevented the development of modern science in China. In particular, I will focus on the imperial examinations in China and will argue that these examinations aided in hindering the development of modern science in China."
Burke on the Inhumanity of the French Revolution - "Burke reminded his audience, never did the Revolution seek to better the condition of humanity or even of France. Rather, it sought nothing less than pure, unadulterated power... the Revolutionaries would never be content with mere revolution in France. They were radicals, seeking civil war not only in France, but also in all of Christendom. Britain, in alliance with other European powers, must eradicate the Revolution. There can be no compromise with such an infection."
Singapore has the unhappiest workforce in the world: study - "Singapore has the unhappiest workforce in the world, a study found, after 48% of its employees stated they were unhappy in their workplace and will unlikely recommend it to a friend... Singapore, along with the UK, ranked as the country with the least happy workforce, followed by Malaysia (42%), New Zealand (41%) and Australia (40%)."
How Intermarriage Created One of the World's Most Delicious Foods - "Of all the food that the Peranakans brought with them, it was laksa that spread most rapidly and extensively through trade channels in Southeast Asia. Why? Laksa’s wide popularity is largely due to its adaptability, which makes it an appealing meal across many cultures and contexts. Even the name itself metaphorically empowers laksa’s cultural flexibility. The word “laksa” originates from the Sanskrit word for one hundred thousand, and refers to the large variety of ingredients used in making the dish. Local women were able to manipulate the noodle soup brought over by their Chinese trader husbands to include their own plethora of existing ingredients. Because laksa was so easily adaptable into new varieties, it was able to serve as a bridge between cultures when traders and locals began intermarrying. “The successful story of Laksa challenges the idea that people always like to eat familiar food,” writes Veronica Mak Sau Wa in Southeast Asian Chinese Food in Hong Kong. There is nothing quite like laksa, and no two laksas are the same"
Perfectly Timed Photos That Had Us Looking Twice
Chinese Blue Rabbit Zodiac Stamp Becomes Unexpected Viral Hit for Looking "Horrific" - "A zodiac stamp issued by China Post on the occasion of the Year of the Rabbit has become an unexpected viral hit. Not because of its pretty design, but because the red-eyed blue rabbit triggered controversy for being “monster-like.”
Robert De Niro has become an embarrassment to cinema – and for what? - "You can date the self-parody era and abandonment of quality control quite precisely – it started right after 1997, when De Niro started delivering those gurning comic impressions of himself in the likes of Analyse This, Meet the Parents (albeit quite capably there), The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, and the fully depressing Showtime. It was shocking, even back then, to witness the sudden plummet. Did his contemporaneous marriage have something to do with it? That doesn't seem wildly improbable. But the slide has only continued to this day, with some particularly dreadful thrillers (Godsend, Hide and Seek, Righteous Kill, Killing Season) amid the lowbrow yucks. The general stooping hasn’t done justice to the actor De Niro can be, serving only as an annual testament to his unfortunate money-management and cavalier taste in scripts. All this especially stands out by contrast with his old pal Pesci – his precise opposite, who saw the danger of such barrel-scraping a mile off in the late 1990s, and retired from the screen for 20 years, only to be lured back reluctantly, wow us all in The Irishman, and get an Oscar nod for his pains."
Thread by @AntnHz on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "My grandmother passed away. Her funerals were today, but here I'd like to talk about the most important thing I couldn't spend too much time on in her eulogy: her love for Dungeons & Dragons. #DnD She started very late, at 75, only a little over a year ago. One day I simply asked her if she'd like to try, and, like always when presented with something new, she said "Of course!". So we grabbed my PHB and built up a character together. My grandmother chose to be a forest gnome because they seemed the most happy of the races and she really liked the fact that she could talk to small animals. She went with druid just to double down on the animal-friendship theme. (Also when we went through the character traits, I asked her: "Do you want to be a boy or a girl?", and she answered right away "I've been a girl my whole life, it'd be fun to try being a boy for once".) So, we're making her character sheet, rolling her stats (she gets a 17 and puts it in WIS) and chosing her first spells, and I ask her if she has a name in mind. "I don't know, I'll find one by tomorrow". That night, she does something that even I never expected: she goes on the Internet and reads every piece of lore she can find about gnomes. She barely knew how to Google, and yet here she was, browsing Wikipedia articles and D&D fansites. The next day, right before we play for the first time, she reveals her name to the party: Terminatur. Oh, and she'd also drawn him. Thing is, she didn't know about the Terminator (although she probably heard the name somewhere and it came back subconsciously). She doesn't speak English, so she has no idea about the connotation. She made up the name from "termite", because she liked the idea of gnomes living in burrows, and "nature", because she was a druid. Both words are the same in French. And she dropped the final "e" because, I kid you not, "it's cooler". So we start playing. It's a new campaign starting at 1st level, and I decided to approach it like a series of one-shots, so that players could come and go without having to bend the story when a character's absent. Essentially, they're adventurers sent on missions by their guild. The party is made up of a Kalashtar sorcerer, a half-elf ranger, and our little gnome druid, who never goes anywhere without his goose friend. They chose to undertake the cleansing of a reportedly haunted house. And that's when I knew my grandmother would fall in love with RPGs. They explore the house a bit, and in the night, get attacked by the kitchen table, who turned out to be a mimic. My grandmother's genuinely scared by the (light) horror movie vibes, but she's smiling through it all. My grandmother lives it. So much so that sometimes she has to close her eyes to calm herself down. Now, I'm not a particularly good nor experienced DM, but she made me feel like I was @ChrisPerkinsDnD or @matthewmercer . Unwilling to get too close to the mimic, she casts for the first time a cantrip that would become her signature spell: Thorn Whip. From then on, she would use Thorn Whip any time she could, or when she didn't know what to do. She loved that spell. So anyway, she casts it, and makes her very first attack roll... natural 20. The whole table went WILD (by which I mean the players, not the mimic). It couldn't have been more perfect. Thus Terminatur was born. The party ended up establishing this house as their home base, and she made it a home; over the sessions, she used druidcraft to literally grow a new kitchen table where the mimic had been, and planted a vegetable garden where she invented a new fruit. That fruit, that she named cipal, would months later serve as a bargaining chip with fairies that where tending to a fey orchard. It eventually led to Terminatur becoming a member of a multiplanar ecology group, the Circle of the Green Hand. I invited Terminatur to be part of this group by sending him a letter IRL to my grandma's address. She was ecstatic, and she answered in the same way by sending me a letter written entirely in-character. She covered it with old stamps representing trees and dragons. The last few months were rough. She'd been fighting against pancreatic cancer, and things had took a turn for the worst. Sometimes, the pain and exhaustion from chemo were too much to bear and she couldn't play. She still did it when she could, though, and updated her drawing. The colours of Terminatur's outfit were inspired by the comic book character Bécassine, that she had loved since she was a kid. "Bécassine" is a national treasure and one of the most recognizable character in France, even though she's virtually unknown outside of her homeland. By the way, we decided that canonically, Terminatur looks like #DiceCameraAction's Simon as drawn by the amazing @genkaiko in this picture, with curlier blonde hair and a "Bécassine"-like colour palette. I almost forgot to mention: my grandmother's also the one who came up with the party's name. In this campaign, my players all wear real necklaces with little trinkets that they found in their adventures and that I hand out to them to reward them: medals, rings, monster teeth... My grandmother's was particularly overloaded, so one day she comes up with a potential name, "les Bijoutiers Fantaisistes". The Fanciful Jewelers. It was SO funny and unexpected, everybody loved it at once, and they've been calling themselves it ever since, often shortened as BF. Less than a month ago, the cancer took over her whole body. She was hospitalized and stayed there until her passing, on Wednesday morning. The last thing she told me was "Never change, never loose your family spirit, and keep on playing Dungeons & Dragons". So the BF will go on, without their druid. And in all my future campaigns, players will hear of a legendary planar-traveler gnome with a goose on his head that gives out strange fruit, cracks his whip and disappears. Here's to the best grandma in the world. I miss her already."
Meme - "aceofsquiddles:
Pro Christmas, Anti capitalism: Jesus
Pro Christmas, Pro capitalism: Santa
Anti Christmas, Anti capitalism: The Grinch
Anti Christmas, Pro capitalism: Scrooge
I was thinking about how ‘Grinch' and ‘Scrooge' are words for people who hate Christmas but aren't exact synonyms and then this chart happened."
Taiwan Seniors Battle In League of Legends Tournament - ""Even my grandma can play better than you," is no longer an insult, it's a fact."
Meme - "Whenever I'm in trouble, I think to myself: "What would Jesus do?" Then I pretend to be dead and disappear for three days."
Meme - "Al is beautiful and brutal
*Fat woman with man and child*
*Horse with man and child*"
Meme - "Saddest thing you've seen on internet
*egg with Mother's Day card looking at roast chicken"
Winter Lessons: How to walk on ice - "You can minimize your risk of falling on the ice. The Penguin walk helps remind us how to walk on ice."
Steven Haddock's answer to Who is a better actor, Dwayne Johnson or Dave Bautista? - Quora - "It’s Dave Bautista, and it isn’t even close. Dwayne Johnson has no range. In each and every movie, he either plays: “The Rock”, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson; or Dwayne Johnson About the only two roles where he’s shown any kind of range whatsoever are “Black Adam” (where his is not good) and “Be Cool” where he’s actually kind of entertaining as a gay gangster who wants to get into show business. It’s not that DJ can’t make an entertaining film. “The Rundown” is very underrated. It’s just that he’s the same character in pretty much every movie he makes. But Dave Bautista. He’s got range."
SPH staff taken to task after inflating circulation figures - "Several senior employees of SPH Media have been taken to task or left the company, after daily circulation figures of the media giant's titles were found to have been inflated. According to The Straits Times, the numbers were inflated by between 85,000 and 95,000 daily average copies across all titles, which represents 10 to 12 per cent of the reported daily average circulation. The senior employees were not named in the news report. An SPH spokesperson said that some of the methods they used to inflate the circulation figures include "double-counting" of subscriptions across multiple instances; lapsed contracts continuing to be counted into circulation data; instances where copies were printed, counted for circulation and then destroyed; and a project account that was injected with additional funding to purchase "fictitious circulation". Circulation figures are an important benchmark for setting the price of advertising in the media industry. SPH Media became a company limited by guarantee in December 2021, after it split from the Singapore Press Holdings. As a trust, it receives public funding of up to $180 million annually over five years, and it will be required to provide half-yearly progress updates to the Singapore government."
Meme - "So my ex said he would get me a iPhone if i sleep with him"
"Please tell me u didn't do it" (sent via SMS)
"No I'm not a cheater"
"Good i love you baby" (sent via iMessage)
Meme - Busty woman: *storage on my phone*
Even bustier woman: *my memes*
Meme - "Gentlemen. We are aware of the bathroom hole caused by our resident gremlins. They need no assistance making it bigger and have no need for things to be put into it! They also bite, keep your body parts clear of the hole!"
French president's wife proposed ‘phallus and golden balls’ for Notre Dame rebuild - "The wife of French president Emmanuel Macron pushed for Notre Dame to be rebuilt in the shape of a "phallus with golden balls” the former French culture minister has revealed. According to a memoir released by Roselyne Bachelot, Brigitte Macron approached her with the phallic design after pushing for a more contemporary spire design."
Meme - "Notre dame on fire is the most aesthetically pleasing visually i've ever seen"
"Je vais cramer ta mére on va voir si c'est esthétique
I'm going to burn your mother we'll see if it's aesthetic"
Meme - "*plates* 50% off because lets be honest, they are pretty ugly!"
My name is "Nasser". The game is censoring the word "ass" and its making it worse. : totalwar - "N***er"
Man being fired brings emotional support clown to meeting - "A New Zealand man facing the ax at work brought a support clown to his recent redundancy meeting — the $200 performer provided comedic relief as his bosses fired him. Auckland ad man Joshua Jack said he sensed the bad news when he received an email from his agency employer telling him they needed to have a meeting to discuss his role this week... News of the support-clown stunt quickly proliferated when the New Zealand Herald published a picture of Jack having a serious meeting with the emotional-support clown and two employers seated across from him. Jack did get fired in the end, but he said his bosses at the advertising agency FCB were grateful he decided to “spice up the meeting” and “could see the humorous side.” Joshua Jack and his "support clown." Joshua Jack The clown mimed crying as Jack’s employers slid the redundancy paperwork across the table and created a balloon unicorn and poodle to lighten the mood. “They were getting a free service and also getting the entertainment from Joe the clown,” Jack said, but conceded the clown was a little distracting. “It was sort of noisy, him making balloon animals, so we did have to tell him to be quiet from time to time.” The clown thought it was a “touch unusual,” Jack said, but was “overall supportive” in the meeting. “He was $200 so basically he was, I assume, one of the best clowns in Auckland,” Jack said. “I definitely recommend bringing Joe or another clown. Highly recommended.”"
I'm disappointed he didn't have a white face
GUY LOST HIS VIRGINITY TO SINGLE MUM WHO JUST WANTS A RANDOM HOOK UP
The grim reason why Finland is the “happiest” place on Earth. - "Is hygge still a thing? The Danish concept of comfortable conviviality and all things cozy is supposed to capture the essence of Danish culture and has been marketed as the secret for happy living... If there has been a downturn in the hygge industry in recent years, it may be because Finland, my home country, has surpassed Denmark in the World Happiness Report four years running. Denmark occupies the third place, after Iceland, in the most recent edition, released in March, and its distance to Finland is growing. As reported by multiple media outlets, the Finnish spiritual equivalent to hygge is something far less convivial and much more difficult to pronounce: kalsarikännit, which translates as “pantsdrunk,” refers to the practice of binge drinking home alone in your underpants. If this is a secret to happy life, let’s keep it that way: a secret. Nobody is more skeptical than the Finns about the notion that we are the world’s happiest people. To be fair, this is hardly the only global ranking we’ve topped recently. We are totally fine with our reputation of having the best educational system (not true), lowest levels of corruption (probably), most sustainable economy (meh), and so forth. But happiest country? Give us a break. As reported by a correspondent for the Economist, when a Cabinet member of the Finnish government was introduced at an international conference as “the representative of the happiest country in the world,” he responded: “If that’s true, I’d hate to see the other nations.” Finland hasn’t always had such a blissed out international reputation. In 1993, when I was living in New York and still fresh off the boat, 60 Minutes featured a segment on Finland, which opened with this description of Helsinki pedestrians going about their business: “This is not a state of national mourning in Finland, these are Finns in their natural state; brooding and private; grimly in touch with no one but themselves; the shyest people on earth. Depressed and proud of it.” As far as facial expressions of the Finnish people, not much has changed since then. We are still just as reserved and melancholy as before. If happiness were measured in smiles, Finnish people would be among the most miserable in the world. As it turns out, the World Happiness Report—the annual study responsible for these rankings—does not pay any attention to smiles, laughter, or other outward expressions of joy. Instead, the report relies on Gallup polls, which ask respondents to imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero to 10. The top rung (10) represents the best possible life for you, while the bottom rung (zero) represents the worst. The survey participants are then instructed to report the number that corresponds to the rung on which they are currently standing. In other words, you are deemed happy if your actual life circumstances approximate your highest expectations. No need to clap your hands or stomp your feet. Given this emotionless definition of happiness, it is not so surprising why my compatriots score high on what should be described as average life evaluations. Compared with most other countries, objective living circumstances in Finland are very good indeed: the rates of poverty, homelessness, and other forms of material deprivation are as low as they get; people have universal and free access to world-class education and health care; parental leaves are generous and paid vacations are long. These are the kinds of factors most experts focus on when making sense of why Finland, Denmark, and the other Nordic welfare states dominate the happiness rankings. But there is more to the story. We should not ignore expectations, the other aspect of the formula used in the World Happiness Report. Consistent with their Lutheran heritage, the Nordic countries are united in their embrace of curbed aspirations for the best possible life. This mentality is famously captured in the Law of Jante—a set of commandments believed to capture something essential about the Nordic disposition to personal success: “You’re not to think you are anything special; you’re not to imagine yourself better than we are; you’re not to think you are good at anything,” and so on. The Nordic ethos stands in particularly stark contrast to the American culture characterized by “extreme emphasis upon the accumulation of wealth as a symbol of success,” as observed by the sociologist Robert K. Merton in the 1930s... If I had to pick a Scandinavian word to capture the correct cultural ingredient in Nordic happiness, it would probably be the Swedish and Norwegian term lagom, which can be translated as “just the right amount,” i.e., neither too much nor too little. Similar to hygge in Denmark, lagom is frequently thought to capture the essence of Swedish culture—its embracement of modesty and rejection of excess—but, in reality, these values characterize the entire Nordic region, and most certainly Finland"
Denmark, Finland, and the ‘Secrets’ of the Happiest Countries - The Atlantic - "Wanting to copy the happiest people in the world is an understandable impulse, but it distracts from a key message of the happiness rankings—that equitable, balanced societies make for happier residents. In the process, a research-heavy, policy-oriented document gets mistaken, through a terrible global game of telephone, for a trove of self-help advice... For the people who come up with policies and run countries, the lessons of the report are not shocking: People are more satisfied with their lives when they have a comfortable standard of living, a supportive social network, good health, the latitude to choose their course in life, and a government they trust. The highest echelon of happy countries also tends to have universal health care, ample paid vacation time, and affordable child care. A central takeaway from nine years of happiness reports is that a wealthier country is not always a happier country. In the U.S., “we are living with such incredibly frayed social trust and bad vibes and addictions and so many other things, and still [people say] ‘Don't tax me,’ ‘Don’t tax the rich’”... Data from the World Happiness Report do indicate that moving to a country higher up in the rankings makes people happier... Even nuanced reporting can leave the impression that some quirky local custom is essential to people’s fulfillment. Marveling at the warm communal pools in Iceland (No. 4 in the most recent rankings, released in March), writers for The New York Times and the BBC both thought that they could be “key” to the country’s happiness... Hygge has served as marketing copy for sweaters, blankets, and candles, and was once blamed by the Financial Times for helping spike the prices of cozy spices such as cinnamon and cardamom. Some countries also promote their status when courting tourists... No lifestyle blogger is studying Afghanistan, the least happy country in this year’s report, and recommending that readers avoid Afghan pastimes and customs such as flying kites and going to communal bathhouses... he met people at every destination who seemed truly happy and had habits that brought them pleasure. “Everywhere had a custom that I could latch on to,” he said. “I hung out with a guy in Siberia who ended every evening with a generous pour of vodka and half a pack of cigarettes. He seemed pretty happy—is that the secret to happiness?”"
I'm a psychologist in Finland, the No. 1 happiest country in the world—here are 3 things we never do - "For five years in a row, Finland has ranked No. 1 as the happiest country in the world, according to the World Happiness Report...
1. We don’t compare ourselves to our neighbors.
2. We don’t overlook the benefits of nature.
3. We don’t break the community circle of trust."