Casa dei Vettii in Pompeii reopens after 20 years – in pictures - "Erotic frescos feature in the house, which is believed to have incorporated a small brothel. ‘We’re seeing here the last phase of the Pompeian wall painting with incredible details, so you can stand before these images for hours and still discover new details,’ says Pompeii’s director, Gabriel Zuchtriegel"
Boiled peanuts could help children overcome allergy: Australian study - "Researchers from Flinders University recently published the results of a trial in which 70 children aged between six and 18 with allergies to legumes were given increasing doses of boiled peanuts over the course of 52 weeks. According to the study, through the oral immunotherapy, 80 per cent of the participants were able to eat peanuts without an allergic response... The trial was built on previous research showing that heat affects the protein structure and allergic properties of peanuts, meaning they were less likely to cause a severe allergic reaction. Peanuts are one of the most common food allergens in the world, with approximately 3 per cent of children in Western countries affected"
Japanese divers shoot rare video of a giant squid swimming along coast - "They say the squid was about 2.5 meters long and that they saw it swimming while it slowly moved its long tentacles."
French philosopher urges people to rebel – by making friends - "Building your life around close friendships rather than family or romance is a joyous and necessary act of rebellion, and governments should put in place “friendship ministries” to radically rethink the way society is organised, a key French philosopher has argued. Geoffroy de Lagasnerie this week publishes a manifesto for friendship, 3 Une Aspiration au Dehors, detailing his close friendship with two other writers, Didier Eribon and Édouard Louis.
Cannabis does not make you unmotivated: study - "The study found that cannabis users appeared to be better able to enjoy themselves than non-users, ranking slightly lower on anhedonia. There was no difference between both groups’ levels of apathy. It was also revealed that the frequency of cannabis consumption had no impact on either apathy or anhedonia."
As tip amounts rise, many Canadians say they'd rather skip the tip — and some restaurants agree - "inflation has led to higher menu prices (up 8.2 per cent higher in January compared to the previous year), and diners say they feel pressured to dole out bigger tips... 59 per cent of Canadians surveyed would prefer an all-inclusive, no-tipping model where staff is paid a higher wage. More than three in five Canadians also said that over the past few years, they've been asked to tip more often and dole out larger tips... Mentzer said he believes tipping is here to stay in Canada, because it's ingrained in our culture. Richard Alexander, the Atlantic vice-president of industry group Restaurants Canada echoes that thought. He estimates no more than two per cent of restaurants in the country have adopted the no-tipping model. "The gratuity is firmly established," he said. "What we hear from consumers is they prefer to have the control."... Lazy Daisy's owner, Dawn Chapman, supports such a model, but said she would only adopt it if it became the norm across Canada. That's because, in order to boost wages, Chapman estimates she would have to raise menu prices by 20 per cent."
DoorDash driver refused to hand over food after receiving $8 tip - "The video, which was been viewed nearly one million times on YouTube, shows Ring camera footage of the woman yelling at the man for the seemingly measly tip when she went on a 12-and-a-half mile trip for the food... Several people slammed the driver. “This woman has never worked for tips before. Eight dollars is a Home Run”... “As someone who used to do uber/uber eats, I find great joy when entitled drivers like this get fired,” a third person said. “The fact that she felt so entitled as to stand there and argue with him is fascinating,” said a fourth person. “Honey, you do realize you can accept or decline delivery jobs right? If you didn’t realize the distance, Maybe you should be more observant while doing your job.”"
New drugs could spell an end to the world’s obesity epidemic | The Economist - "A new type of drug is generating excitement among the rich and the beautiful. Just a jab a week, and the weight falls off. Elon Musk swears by it; influencers sing its praises on TikTok; suddenly slimmer Hollywood starlets deny they have taken it. But the latest weight-loss drugs are no mere cosmetic enhancements. Their biggest beneficiaries will be not celebrities in Los Angeles or Miami but billions of ordinary people around the world whose weight has made them unhealthy. Treatments for weight loss have long ranged from the well-meaning and ineffective to the downright dodgy. The new class of drugs, called glp-1 receptor agonists, seems actually to work. Semaglutide, developed by Novo Nordisk, a Danish pharmaceutical firm, has been shown in clinical trials to lead to weight loss of about 15%. It is already being sold under the brand name Wegovy in America, Denmark and Norway and will soon be available in other countries; Ozempic, a lower-dose version, is a diabetes drug that is also being used “off label” for weight loss. A rival glp-1 drug, made by Eli Lilly, an American firm, is due to come on sale later this year and is more effective still. Analysts think the market for glp-1 drugs could reach $150bn by 2031, not far off the market for cancer drugs today. Some think they could become as common as beta blockers or statins. The drugs could not have arrived at a better time. In 2020 two-fifths of the world’s population were overweight or obese... The new obesity drugs arrived by serendipity, after treatments meant for diabetics were observed to cause weight loss. Semaglutide mimics the release of hormones that stimulate a feeling of fullness and reduce the appetite. They also switch off the powerful urge to eat that lurks inside the brain, waiting to ambush even the keenest dieter... many patients who take the drugs may need them for the rest of their lives. As with ditching a diet, stopping a high dose of semaglutide is associated with much of the lost weight piling back on. Some people even gain more weight than they lost in the first place. Another preoccupation for policymakers is cost. In America the bill for Wegovy runs at around $1,300 a month; for Ozempic about $900. Judged by such prices, lifelong prescriptions look forbiddingly expensive. The longer view, however, is more encouraging. In time, companies may strike deals with governments and health providers to cover the whole population, ensuring high volumes in return for low prices. The prospect of profits is already luring competition and spurring innovation"
Thomas Snerdley's answer to Was Glorfindel the fourth Istari? And was the Witch-king the fifth? - Quora - "there’s no reason the Witch-king couldn’t have been an Istar … and plenty of reason to suspect he was... while all the Nine together besieged the relatively weak Gandalf the Grey upon Weathertop, only the Witch-king of Angmar dared face Gandalf the White at the gates of Minas Tirith. For a mere Man, regardless of how much power Sauron was able (or willing) to reinforce him with from the distant Barad-dûr, this would have been incomprehensibly suicidal. But if the Black Captain possessed the power and knowledge of an Istar, he may have had at least a shred of hope to survive the encounter (though of course he could never have genuinely expected to triumph)."
News Flash: Gandalf the White was not an Istar - Thomas Snerdley's Posts - Quora - "He was not a member of the Heren Istarion or the "Order of Wizards". In fact he was no longer even encased in a human body. The Maia spirit Olórin (Quenya: "Dreams") formerly known as Gandalf lost both of those distinctions when he violated the terms and conditions of being an Istar... it was no mistake that Gandalf the White deliberately used the past tense in referring to the name Gandalf: "Yes, that was the name. I was Gandalf. ... you may still call me Gandalf ..."... "Get up my good Gimli! No blame to you and no harm done to me. Indeed my friends, none of you have any weapon that could hurt me. ... Dangerous! And so am I, very dangerous: more dangerous than anything you will ever meet, unless you are brought alive before the seat of the Dark Lord." Gandalf the Grey was wounded by an orc sword during the Battle of Five Armies, but as a Maiarin spirit Gandalf the White’s new physical form was invulnerable to physical weapons, even Aragorn II Elessar’s powerful sword Andúril."
Meme - "Why did Gandalf bring a firework that suddenly transforms into a dragon to an elderly dragon attack survivor's birthday. does he not like Bilbo"
Meme - *Gandalf Cosplay with big breasts*
Aka GanDDDalf
Opinion: Netflix’s desperate crackdown on password sharing shows it might fail like Blockbuster - The Globe and Mail - "As streaming services pull their content from their competitors’ platforms, each of them is forced to produce more of it themselves, thereby forcing up costs across the board."
Meme - "When your Dad dies and you have to act like you didn't just do a choreographed musical number called "I Just Can't Wait to be King""
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Titus Oates and his 'Popish Plot' - "‘We had the popish marches with the effigy of the Pope. At one stage, the effigy was filled with live cats. So when they burned him, the cat squealed, and that was supposed to be the Pope in hell’...
‘They've been very well organized processions, there must have been some financial support, some serious financial support for these possession, processions.’"
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Pericles - "'He says that democratic our system is not one that we imitate from others, it's, we've made it. We are the model. And he says it's a regime for the many, not the few. And there's a little bit of an irony there because Pericles was one of the few, he was one of the few rich wellborn elite. The other thing that I thought I might pick up is what Edith just said about women, what he says to women is not to be inferior to your nature. In other words, don't caterwaul, don't wail and moan. But just man up as it were, and imagine that you've got a support of Athens and support your menfolk. It’s a little bit cruel, the last bit. Whether that was actually Pericles, one thing that anybody listening to it or reading about it would immediately think, what about your own women folk, Pericles?’"
How to survive as a Roman Emperor in 6 Visualizations - "If we factor infant mortality out of the equation, the roman population of the time actually lived until their late 50s, meaning that our emperors had the same — if not shorter — lifespans. The second interesting finding from the histograms is that despite having permanent positions, the emperors did not stay in power for long. The average time in power was 10 years, but over half of them occupied the position for only 6 years or less... Except for a few outliers, most emperors died right after rising to power, especially in the first years of the Empire. It seems like receiving total control of the most powerful civilization on Earth was more a curse than anything else... Out of the 121 emperors that I was able to get information on the cause of demise, 74 suffered a violent death — that’s 61%!... Assassinations are the clear winner when it comes to the death trends of the early Roman Empire, especially from 150 to 300 AD — we had a whopping 17 murders in merely 50 years. After violence stopped being mainstream, we saw a return in natural cause deaths and a small but meaningful preference for head severings. During the last 50 years, the decay of the Empire inspired a counterculture movement where each emperor started trying their own death style."
Meme - "Life is basically avoiding people who have seen you naked while trying to find new people to see you naked."
Meme - "It was meme day at school, and they posted this pic. They all got suspended *Piper Perri surrounded, but with 4 black guys*"
Oppai Ramen, Tokyo’s Ramen Shop That Gives You something special With Your Noodles
Aka boob/breast ramen
Canceled: Woke Soccer Player Megan Rapinoe Left Off U.S. Women's Team Roster - "Rapinoe and the rest of the USWNT struggled through an extremely disappointing 2021 Olympic performance. Heavily favored to win gold entering the tournament, the USWNT posted a mere 1-1-1 record after getting smashed by Sweden 3-0 in the opener, defeating a weak New Zealand squad, and then barely beating the Netherlands. Rapinoe and her merry band of wokesters then lost to Canada before squeaking by Australia and securing a disappointing bronze medal. Perhaps then, it’s no surprise that coach Andonovski decided to go a different route."
Meme - "YOU HAVE WITNESSED THE GOLDEN MONKEY. NOW YOU ARE FOREVER IMMUNE TO THOSE "REPOST OR BAD THING WILL HAPPEN" POSTS"
Tensions over Mandarin on the rise in Hong Kong after reopening | The Japan Times - "Wang said they had a good time communicating with a waitress in English, but things went in the opposite direction after she and her friend kept talking in Mandarin. The waitress was not actively providing customer service, according to Wang, and she pretended not to understand the word “separate” when they decided to split the bill. The problem was eventually solved after she turned to another waiter for help. “A gentle reminder: Please speak fluent English throughout your visit to Hong Kong,” Wang later wrote on her WeChat. According to the government’s 2021 population census, Cantonese remains the dominant spoken language in Hong Kong, with 88.2% of residents age 5 and over speaking it at home. But the percentage of people who are capable of speaking Mandarin has surged, going from 25% in 1996 to 54.2% in 2021... Zheng said some mainland visitors feel they are treated badly in some small shops, but it does not necessarily mean Hong Kongers in general discriminate against people from the mainland. “Maybe this is a common phenomenon in Hong Kong’s service sector, that they are not hospitable toward customers at all”... For Mai, this stems from the anti-mainland sentiment expressed during the pro-democracy protests in 2019, at which time mainlanders were reluctant to speak Mandarin for fear of being mistreated."
Meme - "THE GROUND TREMBLES WITH MY EVERY STEP. I HAVE INSTALLED MY FLOORBOARDS INCORRECTLY"
Meme - "On est environ 6 milllons d'hommes musulmans en France, si on marie chacun 4 femmes blanches et qu'on leur fait 3 gosses chacune (6 x 4) x 3 = 72 millions. d'ici 20 ans la France sera un pays musulman"
Meme - "Jesus: teaching about self-denial, hell, righteousness, immorality, the narrow gate, putting God first, holiness, rejecting the world, being rejected by the world
Progressive Christians: *love earplug*"
Meme - Jesus: "HELP YOUR NEIGHBOR AND TAKE CARE OF THE POOR AND HUNGRY"
Man: "You mean give money to the Romans and let them do it, right?"
Jesus: "...OK I'M GOING TO START OVER. LET ME KNOW WHERE I LOST YOU"
Liberals can't distinguish between private and public action. According to their logic, since Jesus told people to "go and sin no more", that means that the government should stop people from sinning
Meme - "I love this kid. She's got it absolutely figured out. Emma aged 8 <3
Name: Emma Knight
TO CELEBRATE THE 100th DAY OF SCHOOL
When I am 100 years old..."
"When I turn 100 years old, I will be tired of everything and everyone. So I will tell everyone I am going to Canada but actually go to the Bahamas. I’ll live in a tiny hut with my tiny dog. I will order fish tacos when I’m hungry & live my best life with no crap."
Toddler hack: Dad shows how to wear out your child before a flight - "Make your toddler take a stroll along a moving walkway — only in the opposite direction! The video begins with a shot of the interior of an airport. People stroll along, looking for their gates, while in the background, several people can be seen walking along a moving walkway. “POV: How to wear out your one year old before your flight”"
Music and dance therapy should be offered to dementia patients, research shows - "Music and dance sessions should be prescribed to more dementia patients in order to prevent ‘over-medicalised’ treatment, according to the Health Secretary. The announcement follows a recent study that found giving patients personal music playlists resulted in a 60 per cent reduction in the need for medication. Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has previously called on GPs to use music to reduce stress and agitation in patients, as doctors were ‘dishing out’ too many pills."
Elissa Slotkin Braces for a Democratic Civil War - "“You know, the one thing I will say about Donald Trump,” Slotkin began. “He doesn’t talk down to anybody. He is who he is, but he doesn’t talk down to anyone. And I think that there is a certain voter out there because of that who identifies with him and appreciates him.”... It has long been perceived that Democrats, in the post-9/11 era, are the party of inclusion and big-tent politics. But Slotkin has begun to question that notion. She fears that Democrats have created a barrier to entry, largely along cultural lines, that makes the party fundamentally unwelcoming to anyone with supposedly retrograde views of the world around them. This is not merely about race and racism. The schisms go far deeper, to matters of faith and conscience, economic freedom and individual liberty... There are millions of voters—working-class whites and working-class minorities—whose stances on social controversies put them out of touch with the Democratic Party. It’s a truth they might be willing to overlook, if only the party could do the same. “I remember, long before, literally, Donald Trump was even a twinkle in our eye, the way that people in my life here couldn’t stand political correctness. And I think [this is] the same kind of sentiment,” Slotkin explained. “Because the political correctness is thinking you’re better than somebody else—it’s correcting someone. Now, I happen to believe that we live in a different era, and that we have to be better than we were in previous eras. … But people do feel looked down upon.”... At the root of our polarization, Slotkin argued, is one half of the country believing it is enlightened and the other half resenting it... Over the course of our conversations this summer, the congresswoman returned time and again to a baseline observation of her party. It was something she had detected since arriving in Washington in January 2019 as part of a five dozen-member freshman class of Democrats. The key distinction within their ranks, she argued, wasn’t between moderates and progressives, but between politicians who represent competitive districts and those who do not."
Meme - CATS: "Hey! HEY! BOUNDARIES!" *to human trying to touch it*
ALSO CATS: *standing on torso of uncomfortable man*
This is ironic, given that feminists claim that cats are a good lesson in consent and you shouldn't trust men who don't like cats because it shows they don't respect consent
Rise of the BeaverTail: Origin of Canada’s Favourite Treat
Liberals Are Killing Art by Insisting That It's Always Political - "Do more and more liberals find the emotions unleashed by the arts—I mean all of the arts, from poetry to painting to dance—something of an embarrassment? Are the liberal-spirited people who support a rational public policy—a social safety net, consistency and efficiency in foreign affairs, steps to reverse global warming—reluctant to embrace art’s celebration of unfettered metaphor and mystery and magic? If you had asked me ten years ago, I would have said the answer was no. Now I am inclined to say the opposite... It is relatively easy to point to the deformations of art at the hands of politically correct left-wingers and cheap-shot moralists on the right, as the late Robert Hughes did in the fast-paced, witty series of lectures that he published as Culture of Complaint in 1993. It is far more difficult to explain why people who pride themselves on their carefully reasoned view of the world want to argue that art is not a value in and of itself, but rather a vehicle or a medium or a vessel through which some other human value or values are expressed... An illiberal view of art is gaining ground, even among the liberal audience. This is one of the essential if largely hidden factors that is undermining faith in our museums, our libraries, our publishing houses, our concert halls, symphony orchestras, and theater and dance troupes... we have come to a point where the irreducible value of art, far from being a controversial value, has come to be regarded as not even worthy of discussion—just “an old illusion.”... It is also, so I believe, a grave mistake to imagine that because art has so often been placed in the service of governments or religions that it is somehow essentially a medium through which political or social or religious beliefs are to be conveyed. By this logic, art has no independent life, and is never much more than a reflection of some particular set of values. But this argument can easily be turned on its head. The very fact that art has so often been embraced by those in positions of power suggests an awareness that art has some unique, autonomous value—some capacity or capability that trumps temporal concerns and lends to time-bound ideas, ideologies, and ideals an enviably timeless aspect... while avatars of the left and the right are glad to impose upon the arts a relatively crude ideological test—are the characters the sort of people we regard as good? are the opinions stated ones with which we agree?—the liberal wants to tease out of the very texture of the work of art some ideological stance. The liberal imagination all too often yearns for an art that is logical, responsible, well-behaved. And so formal values—“the smallest detail of the work,” as Orwell puts it—are dissected to see if they accord with some social or political stance... It seems that for the liberal-spirited critic it is never enough to point to the human failings of the artist; they must be linked to artistic failings, and the human must explain the artistic, the two becoming one. Barbara Will, in her widely admired book Unlikely Collaboration: Gertrude Stein, Bernard Faÿ, and the Vichy Dilemma, has cast a cold eye on Stein’s admiration for Hitler and Pétain. Stein’s beliefs and behavior are to say the very least deeply disturbing, and the arguments that Will makes are certainly complex, but when Will equates Stein’s avowed affinity for eighteenth-century prose with Stein’s sympathy for the pre-industrial agrarian peace that she believed Pétain restored to parts of France with the armistice, and wraps the equation up with the label “reactionary modernism,” I again find myself worrying. Do we really want to equate fascist politics and eighteenth-century prose?"
From 2014. Liberals push a political agenda into everything, then claim that the political agenda was always there (which, even if true, pretends that differences in degree don't matter)
How Dollar Stores Became Magnets for Crime and Killing - "Robberies and killings that have taken place at dollar store chains would not have necessarily happened elsewhere. “The idea that crime is sort of a whack-a-mole game, that if you just press here it’ll move over here,” is wrong, Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, told me. Making it harder to commit a crime doesn’t just push crime elsewhere; it reduces it. “Crime is opportunistic,” he said. “If there’s no opportunity, there’s no crime.”... as the area has lost several grocery stores, the dollar store chains have proliferated"
So much for the claim that taking steps to protect yourself doesn't actually reduce crime - it just displaces it (and so you're actually harming others by protecting yourself)
Apparently the moral of the story is that stores selling cheap shit are bad for communities due to their business model, but big chains are visible due to their number of stores (if smaller independent stores as a group suffer similar levels of crime, it's less sexy to write a story about them). So consumers need to suck it up and pay higher prices
Intimacy: FML: Uncensored - FML - "Today, my girlfriend was giving me head during the horror flick we were watching. Little did I know, my girlfriend isn't a big fan of horror films. It was during a sex scene that intensified the moment. The same sex scene from which emerged a sudden jump-scare. I now have bite marks on my penis. FML"
S'porean woman, 26, explains why all first dates should be at a hawker centre - "I know what some of you are going to say – if somebody likes me, they should like me for who I am and not be a judgey little sh*t just because I chose to eat at [insert name of eatery here]. But in my (possibly limited) dating experience, I have realised that the last thing I need during a first date is for my brain to be on overdrive, constantly second-guessing my choice of venue. And if I get to pick, I am likely to pick a casual setting where I would feel more comfortable in... If you aren't already convinced of how awesome hawker centres are, please hear me out. The sheer number of options available at a hawker centre means that we don’t actually need to decide on a particular cuisine in advance. Which is helpful because it gives both of us o p t i o n s when the day rolls around. Thai food? Tze-char? Western food? Noodles? Popiah? No problem. The overall quality of food at hawker centres also tends to be better (according to my plebeian tongue of course, for I am no fine food connoisseur). So even if the date turns out to be a complete failure, I'll know that it will be a decent, wallet-friendly meal at the very least. Another highly understated upside of going to a hawker centre is that neither of us need to worry about dress code, which means that we are free to dress more casually (potentially more comfortably as well)... assessing someone’s willingness to eat at a hawker centre is probably a good indicator of how high-maintenance said person is. And whether or not I can afford to be with them. So if my date refuses to eat at a hawker centre, that’s probably not a great sign for our relationship."
Karen's Diner forced to apologise after waiter asks 14-year-old girl if she has 'OnlyFans' - "A restaurant famous for insulting its diners has been forced to apologise after a family accused a waiter of taking things too far. Stacey Howard was dining with his family when he was left 'disgusted' by a waiter at Karen's Diner in Westfield Chermside, Brisbane, on Sunday. The restaurant is well-known for its unique service where waiters are intentionally rude and customers are encouraged to talk back with their own insults. Mr Howard claimed the waiter serving his table overstepped his bounds by levelling several sexual insults at the family that included calling him a 'pedo', accusing him of incest and asking his 14-year-old daughter if she had an OnlyFans account... 'No racism, no sexism, no homophobic comments, no body images comments, no ableist comments, do not touch our staff and no sexual remarks towards staff members,' the website reads"
Why go to a place that insults you if you're going to be insulted?
If Anyone Says Anything Back, That Is an Outrage - "A closely matching statement was spoken by Winston Churchill in the U.K. Parliament on October 13, 1943... 'So we must beware of a tyranny of opinion which tries to make only one side of a question the one which may be heard. Everyone is in favour of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.'"
Ontario man loses lawsuit against 'sugar baby' who wouldn't be his real girlfriend - ""The defendant... was 18 years of age when she met the plaintiff, Azmat Ramal-Shah, who was about 30 years of age, on a dating website called 'Seeking Arrangement'," reads a ruling handed down by Justice Robert Smith... the woman and Ramal-Shah first met online in 2016 while the former was attending university in Ottawa. "[The defendant] described her understanding of their relationship was that she would keep Azmat company, 'virtually', listen to the stresses of his schooling and job and provide friendship via phone, email, and text," reads the document. "[She] asked Azmat from money to assist her with various expenses, including rent, using his Uber Eats and Uber accounts on a regular basis." Ramal-Shah, on the other hand, "understood that [she] was his girlfriend and stated that he was in love with her." He is said to have transferred approximately $20,000 to the young woman in total during their "relationship," which ended at the request of the young woman in 2017."