BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, United States: Presidential transitions - "‘At a long trestle table in the poetry room. Shawn puts together parcels for delivery to the United States. Each book is carefully stamped with the shop’s coveted logo. A bookmark is added along with a poem typed by hand on an old manual typewriter. It's all finished with a spritz of perfume. Amazon it's not. It's a really interesting experiment, Silvia told me, because we're seeing that when you sell books online, people do expect to have them quickly. But at what cost? We're trying to do it at the human level, we've realized that we're not an online store. Lockdown has sharpened France’s already clear battle lines between local shops and digital giants with their rapid robot-heavy production. France has been late to online shopping, and many bookshops badly hit by this crisis didn't even have working websites. By contrast, Amazon's business rose by 40 to 50% during lockdown, politicians, including the culture minister and the mayor of Paris, have urged people not to buy from it. Online giants are the only winners from this crisis, the finance minister Bruno le Maire said. Under pressure from him Amazon agreed this week to postpone its Black Friday discounts until local shops could open again. France has already announced a new tax on the biggest online retailers like Amazon starting next month. But this is about more than revenues for the French economy. This is a cultural war as much as an economic one... Amazon is evil in a way, said Francois, but in another way, they're very efficient. You're sure to get your stuff very quickly. And if there's a problem they deal with it. With French companies, it's not really like that’"
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Facing defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh - "‘Dozens of people accused of blasphemy have been killed in vigilante attacks, while many others have spent years languishing in jail. What stood out to me about Khadim Rizvi, the cleric, Mumtaz Qadri the bodyguard and the killer in Glasgow was while all of them were clearly capable of or supportive of extreme violence, they came from a sect of Islam aligned to Sufism, a more spiritual reflective interpretation of religion full of saints and shrines. One that has in fact been targeted by puritanical jihadist groups like Al Qaeda, and IS. When I met Rizvi in the hall, I asked if he was distorting that tradition. Yes, Sufis are peace loving, he said, but when it comes to the honor of the Prophet, no one cares more than us. A real Sufi is not one who sits in meditation when the Prophet is insulted, he added. Blasphemy in Pakistan is a deeply emotive issue, even more so it seems than in the rest of the Muslim world. Why that is, is something I'm still trying to fathom. When I pointed out to Rizvi examples of the Prophet Muhammad forgiving those who had insulted him. Rizvi replied that was his right. But true lovers of the Prophet could not abide it. Activists here say blasphemy allegations are so powerful, they're often used to settle personal feuds or to target religious minorities. My theory is that Pakistan society is so hierarchical, that attacking an alleged blasphemer becomes a violent catharsis for all the everyday injustices people, especially from lower classes, have to endure. It also speaks to the confusion at the heart of Pakistan's identity. Is this country meant to be a theocracy or a secular homeland for Muslims? Rizvi of course believed the country should be governed by Islamic law and portrayed religion as somehow under threat from a supposedly powerful liberal clique. His message was populist, and appeal to those frustrated by a lack of opportunities was a small, often westernized elite prospers.’"
According to a PC kumbaya narrative that was promoted some time back, Sufism was supposed to be the cure to Islamic extremism
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, American presidents and the Middle East - "‘One of the things you learn quickly after coming to live in Thailand is the importance of the wai, the typical greeting putting your palms together in front of your chest. It's an attractive custom and in a time of pandemic a lot more hygienic than shaking hands. Using the wai properly though, is an etiquette minefield. Depending on the status of the person in front of you, your wai should either be accompanied by a deep bow of the head for someone of superior status, or more of a perfunctory nod for someone younger or of lower status. But in that case, you should never wai first. It gets quite confusing if you can't ascertain either their age or status. Traditionally, Thai society has been bound by hierarchy, a strict social order where everyone knows their place and the king sits at the very top. There are at least 10 versions of the pronouns, you and I in the Thai language, some of which are very polite, others which are so informal, they could get you into a lot of trouble. The status of the palace is so exalted, it has its own language, and everyone, even the Prime Minister, is expected to prostrate themselves on the ground in front of the king. Thais refer to themselves as the dust under the soles of his feet. This constant concern about status helps explain the impeccable manners Thais show each other in public. It's at the heart of what conservatives in this country call Thainess: the set of values they see as the essence of national identity, and which they presume to be unfathomable to foreigners. But there's a younger generation of Thais now who are not following the official script, and who've been leading the street protests which have shaken up this country for the past five months… Some who've dared criticize the monarchy have simply disappeared. But these young protesters are openly mocking the king, parodying his outlandish dress sense, tearing into his private life. He's on his fourth wife, and has an official concubine, who was suddenly disgraced and disappeared last year, and then just as suddenly rehabilitated this year. And they've turned Thai etiquette upside down. At one protest, I saw a balloon carrying this demand to the king: I order you to be under the Constitution it said, written in Thai. Only the pronouns used for I and you were the most vulgar there are, an unpardonable breach of decorum with anyone you don't know intimately, let alone a king... He's so appalled by the language he's heard from the protests, he believes the students must have been brainwashed by foreign agents’"
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Egypt’s brief wind of change - "[On the Arab Spring in Egypt] ‘Working out what was really going on, was a much more difficult and uncertain process. Lots of Western reporters tended to give far too much weight to the views of a tiny elite bilingual in Arabic and English, using what were then the relatively new tools of Twitter, and Facebook. In truth, the real confrontation was between the two great forces of Egyptian society: the army and the Muslim Brotherhood... Egypt's army was not so much an instrument for fighting wars, as a kind of shadow society, operating its own network of petrol stations, banks and bakeries. One of them was going to emerge triumphant and the smart money always bets in the end on the guys with guns. But back then it didn't feel easy to predict... I knew Abdel Fattah El Sisi was the man to watch, not when I heard him speaking, but when I noticed bakeries producing cakes that carried his image in icing’"
Bradford announces support for Gardiner rebuild : toronto
This thread is revealing. Lots of the "fuck cars" crowd want to actively make driving a worse experience, to force people to take transit or cycle, and they don't care about the consequences (e.g. fewer people working and spending money in the city, which generates revenue, or massive traffic jams), and many imagine that the highway is only used by people from outside the city
Nurse Adopts Baby Who Had No Visitors For 5 Months - "Gisele is the light of Liz Smith's life"
Man found guilty of killing wife after being bailed out by nonprofit - "Samuel Lee Scott was found guilty of murdering his wife in 2019 after he was bailed out of jail by the St. Louis Bail Project. The nonprofit posted Scott’s $5,000 bail in April of 2019 while he was being held on assault charges that alleged he hit his wife, Marcia Johnson, earlier that year. Scott was also served with an order of protection, which prohibited him from being within 300 feet of his wife or from entering her home. St. Louis Bail Project officials claimed the order of protection was issued after the bail was posted and that the organization did not know about the order."
Meme - Soyjak: "CNN - New Study Finds..."
Normal person: "But this makes no sense because..."
Soyjak: "Shut up idiot, you're not an expert. The Science has settled"
Soyjak: "Newer Study finds: ..."
Normal person: "But this is exactly what I told you"
Soyjak: "Shut up idiot, The Science changes"
Meme - Her: "What are we"
Him: "Still brothers, take that wig off"
YouTube video causes Pixel phones to instantly reboot - "Did you ever see that movie The Ring? People who watched a cursed, creepy video would all mysteriously die in seven days. Somehow Google seems to have re-created the tech version of that, where the creepy video is this clip of the 1979 movie Alien, and the thing that dies after watching it is a Google Pixel phone."
Meme - "Ces actes barbares seraient partis... d'un oignon mal coupé
Un homme torturé à mort par ses compagnons de soirée à Sevres"
Meme - "No more unknown chemicals in my food. I am growing my own vegetables and cooking them in my home. Finally taking charge of my health! *Cooking mushrooms growing in toilet*"
A Roomba photographed a woman on the toilet and it ended up on social media. Now A.I. experts have this warning about bringing tech into your home - "A woman who signed up to help test a new version of a robotic vacuum cleaner did not expect pictures of her taken on the toilet to end up on social media. But through a third-party leak, that's what happened. The trial in 2020 went sideways after iRobot—which produces Roomba autonomous robotic vacuum cleaners—asked employees and paid volunteers to help the company gather data to help improve a new model of the machines by using them in their homes. iRobot said it made participants aware of how the data would be used and even affixed the models with "recording in process" tabs. But through a leak at an outside partner—which iRobot has since cut ties with and is investigating—private pictures ended up on social media."
The joys of outsourcing
World's best restaurant Noma is closing due to "unsustainable' fine dining model | Fortune - "the industry attempts to shed what Noma co-owner and head chef René Redzepi says has become a working model that tends to bleed employees dry. From long hours to extreme physical demands, working in the kitchen or on the restaurant floor can be one of the most demanding professions... the model that Noma’s success was based on has simply become impractical. The head chef said that maintaining meal prices that are high enough to provide competitive salaries to nearly 100 workers is untenable in the current market, echoing the affordability challenges many restaurant owners are facing due to rising food costs and pandemic-fueled changes in how diners eat. “It’s unsustainable,” Redzepi said of the industry in its current state. “Financially and emotionally, as an employer and as a human being, it just doesn’t work.”"
Meme - "Looking for recommendations any dog groomers doing 24hr emergency call outs, my dog got his head in the Sugar Puff box."
The Igon Value Effect - "[Malcolm] Gladwell uses "igon value" in an inessential way, to provide some local color in the chapter of What the Dog Saw called "Blowing Up: How Nassim Taleb Turned the Inevitability of Disaster into an Investment Strategy". But eigenvalue really is a very basic concept in linear algebra, and the analysis of the eigenvectors and eigenvalues of matrices is not just some ephemeral bit of esoteric mathematical fluff... Thus this silly mis-hearing tells us (as Pinker notes) that Gladwell's understanding of the ideas he's writing about is limited, here as often, to a sort of metaphorical caricature. And the resulting conceptual equivocation can be a critical part of the "insights" that he has to offer, which, as Pinker also tells us, often reflect his role as the anti-intellectual's intellectual (or the intellectual's anti-intellectual?)"
Meme - "Now hiring
Junkies, Felons, Prostitutes & Assholes
Join us!
Benefits include:
Get High At Work
Call Off Whenever
Ronal McDonlad
Borgar"
Meme - "At least once a month, I randomly remember that Dr Phil once invited the creator of the BumFights video series on his show to confront him about exploiting vulnerable people for financial gain-only for him to show up dressed up as Dr Phil & point out he does the same exact thing."
About Us | Ground News - "Ground News is a platform that makes it easy to compare news sources, read between the lines of media bias and break free from algorithms. Over the past decade, online news and ad-driven algorithms have made it profitable for news outlets to embrace a position on the bias spectrum to target specific consumers. Bias in the media affects everything from what events receive coverage, to how a news outlet frames those events in their reporting. As media outlets narrow their perspective and range of coverage, it’s become impossible to consult a single news story for a well-rounded view on important issues."
Meme - "Work: Dress for the Job you want, not the job you have.
Me: *arrives at work*
*Glinda from the Wizard of Oz*"
Singaporean man breaks down after getting 'touched inappropriately' at JB massage parlour - "It was supposed to be a relaxing trip to a JB massage parlour for two Singaporean men. But instead, they left the place traumatised after their masseuse allegedly sexually assaulted them... a female masseuse allegedly "touched their privates". One of the men said he asked her to stop, but she did it again twice. In fact, she even went as far as to ask him if he was gay as he was not getting aroused, according to that video. Additionally, she allegedly pulled open his underwear to "peek" at his genitals... when confronted, the masseuse allegedly "denied everything" and only said she had asked the man if he liked men or women."
Skull Charcoal - Shut Up And Take My Money - "Skull Charcoal – a unique piece of charcoal art that will give your fire’s atmosphere just a little more bad-ass than it would have otherwise."
Meme - "Financing a case of Mountain Dew
Mountain Dew Baja Blast (12 oz., 36 pk.)
NZ$ 9.95. 4 interest-free payments of $2.49 with afterpay"
Commercial - Mazda 2 - YouTube - "cruising along with your girl, but your car is a stick-shift? hmm, that can be damaging to the transmission, but the mazda 2 has something to offer. funny!"
Pub Mazda (Drague) - "Pub Mazda une femme blonde drague des hommes dans un bar et chaque homme montre les clefs de leur voiture pour savoir qui a la plus grosse, la femme choisit un homme pas très beau avec mazda b-series pour déménager un meuble on croirait qu'ils font l'amour sexe relation sexuelle"
Mazda B Series Commercial - YouTube
The YouTube version is poorer quality
Pub JBS (sous-vêtement) - "Une jolie femme avec une culotte pas sexy se comporte comme un homme en rotant pétant se grattant les fesses."
Men don't want to look at naked man. - YouTube
The YouTube version is poorer quality
Rachel Bilson’s Deleted Sex Scene - "Exclusive sex scene from Rachel Bilson's upcoming film “Hearts of Palm”…Is that a body double?"chat
King Charles dance video goes viral ahead of coronation - "The then Prince, now a king, can be seen breakdancing in the video from his 1985 visit to Middleton-on-Sea in West Sussex. He joined the young people and at one point even volunteered to have a go at breakdancing. Although, King Charles, then a 37-year-old young prince, didn't quite master the breakdancing moves, but royal fans were certainly impressed by his willingness to take part."
Education's Research Problem - "Educators and policymakers often ignore or distort scientific findings. Here's why—and what we can do about it. The education field, these authors assert, often alternatively ignores, belittles, or "weaponizes" scientific findings and evidence relevant to education. They show examples of how education does a worse job than other fields at either rushing to apply approaches without enough evidence of effectiveness or "underdelivering"—not using approaches backed by evidence. Other reasons educators struggle to tap into evidence (such as a refusal to openly discuss values) are explored."
Netflix’s ‘Love Is Sharing a Password’ Tweet Comes Back to Haunt Streamer - "the streaming giant intended to updates its U.S. policy on password sharing in an effort to generate more profits. The company confirmed it was moving forward with those plans in a letter to shareholders earlier this month, stating it would crack down on password sharing by the end of March. ... “Love is sharing a password,” the company tweeted on March 10, 2017."
Indoor Plumbing Still a Pipe Dream for 20% of Russian Households, Reports Say - "Russia leads the developed world with the worst sanitation record... Of the 22.6 percent of households without a centralized sewage system, 16.8 percent use a system of pipes connected to pit toilets, RBC cited the State Statistics Service, Rosstat, as saying. The other 5.8 percent lack a sewage system altogether"
Meme - "when my dad was in college he had a friend who told a girl he'd take her on a date unlike any other she'd ever been on and so he took her to the supermarket to watch the lobsters fighting in the lobster tank. they're married now"
Chicago mayor tells residents to stop using cash if they don't want to keep getting mugged - "Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has proposed a solution to end rampant crime in her city: Stop using cash. Lightfoot suggested those afraid of being mugged opt to use digital forms of payments instead... In other parts of the U.S. like Seattle’s King County, legislation has been introduced to ban the practice of refusing cash at local businesses. KOMO News in Seattle spoke with Jeanne Kohl-Welles, the King County Councilmember who introduced the legislation. She insisted to KOMO that cashless businesses disproportionately affect low-income individuals who depend on cash to survive and called the move to extinguish paper currency “a gentrification accelerator”"
They aren't even capable of getting ID so they can vote - how will they get electronic money? How racist of her
Heartland tours drawing tourists and locals in Singapore - "Tour operator Tribe, a two-year- old company, organizes trips to the 28-year-old Jie Bakery and Confectionery as part of its Disappearing Trades tour. The tour, which runs for four hours, takes people to three stops for about $75 a person. The other two stops are a coffee-roasting factory and a paper-house maker catering to Chinese prayer rituals. Tribe, this year's Singapore Tourism Awards recipient for best tour experience, started out with just two tours but now offers about a dozen. Co-founder Jason Loe said such tours fill a gap."
Meme - @LandsharkRides: "Friend I was hanging out with today told me a Tarot reading predicted that he will break up with his beloved girlfriend he plans to marry so I told him the story of the king and the astrologer
An astrologer predicts that the king will die in a month. The king is absolutely crushed and falls sick from despair. His most trusted knight calls the astrologer to come before the king and asks him "when will YOU die?" - the astrologer says in 20 years; the knight beheads him"
I can't find a source for this
Meme - Amanda @ms_emmalyon: "My parents are currently visiting Peru, and I feel I must share this picture mom sent from Lima. *Guinea pig in Inca outfit*"
Pádraig Belton on Twitter - "A digital billboard in Odessa malfunctioned, in the fog. Convincing unknown numbers of motorists not only were they living in the Matrix, but it was being run on Windows 98."
Windows Error Box Floating in the Air (5 pics) - Izismile.com
Meme - "This guy found a tattoo on his newly adopted dog and decided to get the same tattoo only to discover afterwards that it means "Been Neutered."
"Nothing to do now but to solidify that bond"
'Mortal Kombat' screenwriter reveals one iconic character almost got cut - "INVERSE: One of the best gags in the movie is a reference to players spamming the sweeping leg kick. Where did that joke come from?
Greg Russo: I have to give credit, it was the president of New Line who came up with the joke and pitched it to us. We were like, “Oh, that’s great.” That’s a fun Easter egg for the fans who played in the arcade, especially newbies who didn’t know the leg sweep. The trick with the bit was making sure it worked, that it didn’t come across too wink-wink and felt natural to the story. I wrote the line, “Is that the only move you know?” which is the callback to the arcade. It’s what I would say before I destroy them. [Kano actor] Josh [Lawson] is a great improviser and added his own touch. The actors played off each other, they embody those characters so well."
Meme - "Barbie. I <3 Valentine's Day *Barbie-sized sex toys*"
Shit Jokes on Twitter - "I thought my vasectomy would keep my wife from getting pregnant. But apparently, it just changes the colour of the baby."
Meme - "I remember saying "no we can't" to the Bob the Builder theme song. That's where the darkness in me began. The malice, the hatred. It was all from that moment."
'Welcome to Perth' sign in Sydney: Rooftop prank gives passengers flying into Sydney a scare - "Heasman took inspiration from artist Mark Gubbins who has welcomed passengers flying into Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee with a confusing sign that reads "Welcome to Cleveland" atop his house since 1978."
Meme - "DON'T BUILD YOUR ECONOMY ON CONSTANT EXPANSION THROUGH WARFARE.
IT JUST DOESN'T WORK LONG TERM, YOU INEVITABLY RUN OUT OF THE ABILITY TO EXPAND.
IT'S NOT "SOFT MEN", YOU EITHER OVER-EXTEND AND LOSE CONTROL OF WHAT YOU HAVE, OR RUN OUT OF TERRITORY TO EXPAND INTO AND FRACTURE FROM WITHIN
STOP TAKING ADVICE FROM A MEME AND MAKING IT A CORE BELIEF IN YOUR LIFE."
Stop Attributing Everything to Confucianism - "even in the premodern era, Confucianism took on different forms in different parts of the historical Sinosphere: China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam. And with the dawn of modernity, so-called Confucianism has assumed a yet more complicated role and identity in these countries, as well as in other, more recently established states like Taiwan and Singapore. To put it plainly, there is no one thing that we can call Confucianism; nor can we sum it up in a few words. Ignoring the substantial differences among such Asian countries and grouping them together to offer a singular explanation for their collective successes and problems is absurd — and frankly Orientalist... The man most often credited for spurring South Korea’s economic development is the notorious dictator Park Chung-hee. But he reportedly despised the C-word, attributing lack of entrepreneurship in South Korea to Confucianism and its focus on literary learning. His economic policy, characterized by state-dictated plans in close collaboration with select conglomerates, is widely seen as merging authoritarian control, cheap labor and big capital, in a way that eschewed any Confucian leanings or ideas... Confucianism, when reduced to a few key elements, can also be used to explain problems as well as successes, especially when tragedies strike. A case in point: Malcolm Gladwell famously opined in Outliers that the 1997 Korean Air crash in Guam was attributable to a burdensome work schedule and a power structure “dictated by the heavy weight of [the] country’s cultural legacy.” According to Gladwell (who, to his credit, doesn’t use the C-word), a junior pilot wasn’t able to report an error to his superior, and that was the reason behind the deaths of over 200 passengers and crew... A more recent tragedy — the 2014 Sewol ferry sinking — invited yet another round of Confucianism-bashing. The culture of obedience was blamed again — perhaps rightly — as most victims were high school students and they reportedly followed the crew’s instruction to stay where they were, sinking with the ferry. But is the streak of obedience due solely to Confucianism or something else entirely — perhaps ingrained militarism in South Korean society? (The country suffered nearly three decades of military dictatorship until 1987 and the conscription system in place today forces most young men to spend about two years performing military service.)... In modern China, Confucian values were demonized and nearly eradicated during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), and during the subsequent years of heady economic growth the vacuum was filled by another belief: materialism. But in recent years Confucianism has been making a comeback, as the Communist Party attempts to revive it as a tool for promoting social harmony and justifying oppression. Once attacked as being feudal and backward, Confucianism, rebranded as a distinctly Chinese system of ideas, is merging with capitalism on the one hand and ‘communism,’ defined as one-party rule, on the other to give rise to a new political ideology... Interestingly, South Koreans are increasingly subverting what might be called Confucian values: eating alone instead of with family, neglecting elders and forgoing dating and marriage. Within the country, some scholars have called Confucianism out for its ill effects on society (much as those intellectuals at the turn of the last century did), especially after the Asian Financial Crisis nearly decimated the South Korean economy twenty years ago. Kim Kyeong-il, a Chinese studies professor, lambasted Confucianism in his book titled “The Nation Lives Once Confucius Dies,” arguing that the tradition is fundamentally incompatible with democracy. “Confucius’s idea of virtue was not for the sake of people but politics. It was virtue for the sake of men, elders, the establishment and even corpses,” Kim said in an interview. Kim was sued for defamation by Confucian scholars who clearly disagreed, but was found not guilty in a court of law... no learned person would try to explain a certain country or region by invoking just one word, or define an intellectual tradition going back centuries with a few descriptives. Rapid economic development in East Asia occurred for a combination of reasons, including foreign aid, restrictions on individual freedom and collusion between the state and business sectors. Certain principles of ‘Confucianism,’ like obedience or loyalty, may have played a role. But trying to explain multiple countries’ varyious trajectories with a single broad brushstroke is lazy journalism and sloppy scholarship. So stop attributing everything in East Asia to Confucianism. At this rate, even the entire North Korean regime might be explained away with it. Oh wait — it already has been."
Tiny Portions Of Pasta At Kourtney Kardashians Wedding Get Flak On Twitter - "the pasta portion size at kourtney kardashian's wedding is the one of the saddest things i've ever seen"
Bringing cake to work is like passive smoking, suggests food regulator - "The head of a food watchdog has suggested well intentioned workers should think twice before bringing sugary foods such as cakes into the workplace, in case they tempt colleagues who really shouldn't eat the food. Professor Susan Jebb, chairwoman of Britain's Food Standards Agency, said it was an individual's choice to eat sweet treats, but people could help each other by providing a "supportive environment"... Professor Jebb also insisted restrictions on advertising junk food were "not about the nanny state" but would instead tackle what she described as a "complete market failure" where sweet goods take precedence over vegetables." First, they came for the smokers...