‘The Chinese Restaurant 3.5 Star Rule’ Highlighted by Viral TikTok - "He then says Din Tai Fung, a restaurant chain with four stars, has “too many stars — too many white people like it.” Wong then goes on to imply that, because of this rating, “the service is too good” so “the food is not as good as it could be.” Wong then explains the restaurants that fit his thesis, including restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles, an area known for its Chinese culinary enclave. He mentions an eatery called Happy Duck House and goes into detail on a spot called Shanghai Dumpling House, where he says the dumplings “are better” since he’s been there and tried them firsthand. “The waiters are not going to pay attention to you, they’re going to be rude. But it’s going to taste better.” “Why is this the case? Well, here’s my theory: The cultural expectations for service are different in Asia,” Wong says in the video, referring to the widespread principal in the U.S. that the customer is always right. “It’s not as proactive. They’re not going to come up to you, they’re not going to just proactively give you refills, you need to flag down the waiter.” “People on Yelp are insufferable; they’re digging all these restaurants,” Wong adds at the end of his clip. “The service is bad, however the food balances it out so you end up with a three-and-a-half stars. It’s the sweet spot. Trust me.”... “A good Yelp review doesn’t mean it’s a good restaurant — it simply means the restaurant is good at doing things that won’t hurt their online rating,” Wong told TODAY Food, adding that service is a huge reason why people get annoyed enough to leave negative reviews. “Not surprisingly, highly rated Yelp restaurants are often those with counter service and limited menus, minimizing potential negative interaction with staff,” he added. “I don’t have anything against those places, but I think people who only eat at the ‘highest rated’ restaurants on online review sites are only eating at the most boring restaurants.”... When asked if he has any other restaurant tips for curious minds, Wong said simply to not rely on reviews, only on intuition. If the locals like a restaurant, common sense would imply that the restaurant serves the best cuisine of that locality."
Customers' Responses to Crowded Restaurant Environments: Cross-Cultural Differences Between American and Chinese - "The study aims at demonstrating cultural differences between Americans and Chinese in terms of customer's perceptions and satisfaction of crowded environments within the context of restaurant settings. It has been noted that culture has a substantial impact on customer affection and judgment, and crowding in service environments is a critical antecedent of customer satisfaction. Considering these main themes, this study examined how cultural differences play a role in predicting customer satisfaction within the crowded restaurant setting. With the use of customers from the two different cultures in an experimental study, participants' responses to similarly crowded environments in a restaurant were compared. It is revealed that customer perceptions of crowdedness negatively influence their satisfaction, but the relationships vary depending on customer's cultural background. Cultural differences also appear to be substantial in predicting customer satisfaction."
Google threatens Canada, because it can - The Globe and Mail - "If there was ever an action with a message, it was Google’s decision to block Canadian news sites for some people searching the internet. It came just as Parliament was reviewing a bill that had a lot to do with Google and Canadian news sites. The message was this: Don’t even try it, Canada. One day, whole swathes of information were disappeared from the internet that some Canadians see. Google told reporters it was just testing out its response in case the Parliament of Canada actually passes the law. It only affected about 4 per cent of Canadian users... Google knows it is powerful enough to threaten governments that try to regulate them. It holds a dominant position that makes it the front door to the internet and gives it monopolistic power – at least, that is the legal position of the government of the United States. There is a good chance the threat can succeed. When a similar law was going through the Australian Parliament in 2021, Facebook blocked sharing of that country’s news and only relented when the government cut a deal. To be fair, the bill that has Google flexing its internet-giant muscles in the face of puny Canada is a debatable thing, for sure. It would make online platforms that make news available to Canadian audiences pay compensation to the providers... In 2020, when Donald Trump was president, the U.S. Attorney-General and 11 states launched another suit asking courts to stop Google from “unlawfully maintaining monopolies in the markets for general search services, search advertising and general search text advertising in the United States through anticompetitive and exclusionary practices.” That suit called the company “the monopoly gatekeeper of the internet.” When monopolies arise, governments should try to create competition, or dismantle them, or, failing that, regulate them. Alphabet is fighting such efforts. In Canada, which is trying nothing so ambitious, Google is firing a shot across the bow: Don’t try it, little Canada, or your internet gets it."
Some websites I go to block users with EU IP addresses because they cannot guarantee they are GDPR-compliant. Presumably they are trying to bully the EU
Meme - "Tatiana Lin being a punk at Bohey Dulang Island
NO PUBLIC NUDITY *pose*"
Harvard study: Luxury products make you feel bad about yourself - "At the heart of the study is the idea that buying luxury products is a form of performance. Luxury brands invest a lot of money in marketing a lifestyle of comfort and good taste. Consumers who buy these products aren’t just buying a physical item. They’re also buying the opportunity to feel like they are acting out this desirable lifestyle. But the study suggests that consumers struggle to reconcile who they feel they really are with this artificial role they are playing, and this leads to feelings of discomfort. Put another way, their desire to reflect their authentic self is in tension with their desire to aspire to something better. The researchers call this the “imposter syndrome from luxury consumption.”... even people who can handily afford these products feel uncomfortable carrying them around, because they feel like they are telegraphing an identity to the world they believe is untrue. It’s worth pointing out, however, that the researchers found one group of people who didn’t feel bad about their luxury purchases, and these were people who had higher levels of “chronic psychological entitlement” than usual. This is an official term for people who believe that they are “special and should receive more resources and praise than others” based on psychological assessments... None of this research is flattering to people who own luxury goods. Either the luxury clothes and accessories make you feel inauthentic, because you somehow don’t believe you deserve them, or you love them but that’s only because you’re chronically entitled."
Jonathan Kay: If there really are 300 neo-Nazi groups in Canada, why can't anyone name them? - "For years now, progressives have been warning that neo-fascism represents a growing cancer within Canada. Since the riot at the Capitol, in particular, the Toronto Star has instructed us that “white supremacy” — not just everyday racism, but the real deal — is now an overt presence in public life. The NDP has jumped on board hard as well. Under the banner, “Take Action: Dismantle White Supremacist and Neo-Nazi Groups in Canada,” Jagmeet Singh’s party informs us that “there are 300 active far-right extremist groups operating across the country.”... Since we apparently know the identifying details of these 300 groups — how else could the NDP offer such a precise number? — surely, we can now *expose* them. Even if they haven’t broken any laws, there’s enormous value in warning the public about their identities. After all, Nazis don’t announce themselves with names like “League of Right-Wing Canadian Racists” — much in the way Antifa doesn’t call itself “Guys Who Started Off Pretending to Oppose Fascism But Now Just Randomly Wreck Stuff.”... obviously what we need is a public database that contains all 300 entries, so that when we get invited to a Facebook group, or a local bake-sale fundraiser, or a neighbour asks for help burning an effigy or what not, we’ll be able to check the invitation against a list of known hate groups. In fact, I’m surprised Jagmeet Singh hasn’t already posted the list to NDP.ca. Remember: The forces of white supremacy are massing as we speak. *Lives* are at stake. But here’s where it gets awkward. I phoned around, and no one at the NDP offices seems to have that list. Instead, they referred me to Barbara Perry, Director of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism at Ontario Tech University. The 300 figure appeared in a 2019 interview with Perry published in a sponsored-content outlet funded by the Ontario government and labour unions. In that interview, Perry claimed that, even by 2015, she’d identified “more than 100 active far-right groups across Canada.” Then in the intervening four years, she apparently discovered another 200. The new 300 estimate is cited in a March, 2019 Star interview — though, oddly, several months later, Perry was heard telling the CBC that the number is closer to 130. More recently, in August, 2020, she repeated the 300 figure to an Oshawa Express reporter, and added that these are real groups — not just one-off Twitter or Facebook accounts operated as fanboy relay stations for foreign haters — that (in the reporter’s words) “could range from three or four members up to several hundred.”... she told me that she wouldn’t be releasing the information till spring, even though she’s been sitting on the list for two years. When I asked why, she explained that releasing the list “wouldn’t make sense” unless the data were couched within a larger published report, such as the one she has planned. (I would like to quote her full response, but she would allow me to do so only if I showed her a draft of this article first, which I declined to do.) I find it odd that, to my knowledge, I’m one of only two journalists who’ve publicly asked to see this information (the other being Lindsay Shepherd, who first raised this issue in late 2020). The Star and CBC, in particular, now regularly publish articles darkly suggesting that Canada is on the cusp of some kind of full-on white supremacist apocalypse. Given the urgent need to fight off the forces of Nazidom, shouldn’t they be leading the charge for this data rather than just repeating Perry’s bottom-line number? Or consider the aforementioned NDP petition, which demands “measures to tackle online hate, including regulations to have social media platforms remove hateful and violent content.” But in pursuit of that goal, what resource could be more valuable to regulators and tech workers than a definitive catalog of the 300 Canadian groups that are actively fomenting white supremacism? Perry’s research is funded by Public Safety Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces. Shouldn’t the NDP, of all parties, be the first to demand that the public receives the benefit of this subsidized outlay? In a 2018 Critical Criminology article entitled A Climate for Hate? An Exploration of the Right-Wing Extremist Landscape in Canada, Perry defines the focus of her research — right-wing extremism, or RWE — as “a loose movement, characterized by a racially, ethnically and sexually defined nationalism … often framed in terms of white power … grounded in xenophobic and exclusionary understandings of the perceived threats posed by such groups as non-Whites, Jews, immigrants, homosexuals and feminists … in the interests of ‘preserving’ [RWE] heritage and their ‘homeland.’” That definition sounds precise. But as I read through Perry’s 20-page journal article, I became progressively more interested in how she applied it... she glides into a more general discussion of “populist right-wing groups” that promote the “language of ‘borders,’ ‘boundaries,’ ‘transgressions,’ or ‘territory.’” Hate “does not emerge in a vacuum,” she warns, citing Antonio Gramsci’s theories on “the ongoing struggle for hegemonic supremacy,” but rather “is embedded in broader patterns of subjugation.” This kind of language could easily sweep in anyone who expresses concern about, say, immigration levels, or even advocates travel bans to stop the spread of COVID-19. In her conclusion, Perry writes that “the vitriol of the hate groups is not so much an aberration as it is an albeit extreme reflection of racialist views that permeate society,” which suggests that the line between hate groups and everyone else is blurry. Approvingly quoting Bell Hooks’ denunciation of the “white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist bloc,” she accuses all of us — “politicians, judges, political lobbyists, and more” — of creating “a climate which bestows ‘permission to hate.’”... "Hate groups are nourished by diets of public and political sentiments that resist change, and seek to counter the advancement of typically Canadian values of inclusivity, equity, and multiculturalism.” “Political sentiments that resist change”? That’s literally just a derogatory description of mainstream conservatism, as the movement has existed since Edmund Burke polemicized against the French Revolution. And if that’s all it takes to get labeled a “right-wing extremist,” you can see why the NDP is happy to cite Perry’s claims without asking inconvenient questions about when we’ll be allowed to scrutinize them."
From January 2021. I looked and more than 2 springs later, her list still hadn't been released
British school ski trip stranded in New York after hotel shreds passports - "Pupils at a West Midlands school have been left stranded in the US for five days after a hotel inadvertently “shredded” their passports, parents have said. Students from Barr Beacon High School in Walsall had travelled for a ski trip to Lincoln, New Hampshire, only to find that the hotel they were staying at had accidentally destroyed the travel documents. Speaking to the local paper The Express and Star, one parent whose child is currently stranded said: “I could not believe my eyes when I was reading the email about the emergency travel documents. “How can a hotel shred 41 passports? It is not like they were pieces of paper, they were actual passports.” The Telegraph has contacted Kancamagus Lodge, the hotel where the pupils were staying, for further details on why the documents had been destroyed... “The group are at the British Embassy in New York today (27 February) to finalise all of the documents before they fly home.” The school trip was initially expected to return to Walsall on Friday, but are now set to fly back on Wednesday, five days later than planned. During the extended stay, teachers had to arrange impromptu sightseeing tours in New York for the students. Photos on the school’s social media shows the students on open top bus tours and the top of one of the city’s skyscrapers."
M&S lambasted for displaying poisonous daffodils with spring onions - "Marks and Spencer has apologised for displaying spring onions and daffodils next to each other, amid fears customers could mistakenly eat the poisonous flowers... Botanist James Wong, who has worked for The Observer newspaper and the BBC, posted an image of the vegetables and spring flowers displayed side-by-side. He wrote on Twitter: “Daffodils are the single most common cause of plant-based poisoning as people mistake their bulbs (even cut flower buds) for crops in the onion family."... It comes after a local council said it wouldn’t plant any more daffodils near to a children’s play park, as they are toxic. And in a 2012 Health Protection England (HPA) and Bristol City Council suggested there should be “explicit labelling and positioning of daffodils, away from produce” after a number of members of the city’s Chinese community fell ill after accidentally consuming them."
Meme - "I wish I lived in ancient rome, where men were real men, the bois were based Chads and the women were subserviant, Roma Invicta!"
"Bad news, young pleb. Your brother was tenth in the decimation, but look on the bright side. You have less people to use the communal shit rag, your mother still washes your clothes in your father's urine, we just installed new Christians to light up the streets, and you've still got six months until your mandated 25 year service in the legion comes due. I'd suggest visiting the brothels while you still can--say hi to your sister for me!"
Meme - "BAD HABITS. NOT AN IDEAL BOY
Disrespecting Your Parents. Not Doing Your Homework. Smoking. Dacoity. Dealing Heroin. Unprotected Sex With Prostitutes. Insider Trading. Arms Tracking In East. Stem Cell Research. War Crimes. Run Illegal Abortion Clinic In The Back Of Playschool. Not Washing Hands Before Meals *Hindi*"
Meme - "My ex boyfriend is now gay and my ex girlfriend is now straight
august7937: "they should hire you at conversion camps"
Meme - ">be me
>shopping at Toys R Us
>pick out some Barbie dolls
>go to checkout
>clerk smiles and asks "oh, are you shopping for your sister or cousin?"
>"nope, for me"
>"aren't those toys a little girly for you?"
>"I need some whores for my GI Joes""
Meme - "So you never advanced past the stone age?"
"Wypipo don't spice dey food"
Woman behind bars after allegedly driving SUV into Popeyes building - "According to an incident report filed by the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, the Popeyes manager says that Miller drove her SUV into the building after becoming angry that her order did not have any biscuits. The manager says that prior to the crash, the mistake was corrected by giving Miller her biscuits, but the manager says that Miller was still not happy and “was already on ‘Papers’ and would drive her vehicle into the building.” According to the incident report, a witness who allegedly waited in line with Miler told them to hurry and get their order “because she was coming back,” and an 18-year-old employee was allegedly standing near the front of the building when the vehicle driven by Miller crashed through the building and was almost struck by the SUV."
Alexander Stoyanov on Twitter - "St. Peter asks a newcomer:
- Born?
- Austro-Hungary.
- Went to school?
- Czechoslovakia
- Married in?
- Hungary
- Kids born in?
- The Third Reich
- And your grandchildren?
- USSR.
- Where did you die?
- Ukraine.
- Man, you traveled a lot!
- Nonsense, I never left Mukachevo."
'Holy Water' Seeping From Feet of Jesus Christ Statue in Mumbai; Some Residents Call It a 'Miracle' - "The Jesus statue is located near the Infant Jesus Chapel, which is under the supervision of St. Anthony's Parish in Kharodi village. Locals have been coming to the place, forming long queues, to collect what they believe to be "holy water."... A similar incident was reported in 2012, also in Mumbai, The Guardian reported. Water also started trickling down a statue of Jesus Christ at the Church of Our Lady of Velankanni in the Indian city of about 20.7 million people. Locals quickly declared the incident a miracle and began collecting the alleged holy water. However, Sanal Edamaruku, a renowned rationalist, later revealed that upon inspection he found out that the water dripping from the feet of the Jesus statue was due to clogged drainage pipes behind the wall where the statue stood... Edamaruku warned believers not to drink the water, which they believed could cure ailments. "This was sewage water seeping through a wall due to faulty plumbing," he said. "It posed a health risk to people who were fooled into believing it was a miracle." His disclosure was met with death threats from religious zealots. He was then charged with blasphemy in the Mumbai high court, an offence that carries a three-year prison sentence. The death threats eventually forced him to seek exile in Finland."
Meme - "When you're about to change his his life with your two hand twist and slurp combo but his dick is only long enough for one hand"
Meme - "Dream: Harry Potter sitting at Platform 9 3/4 with Sirius Black directing Harry to cast a spell. To the left, Hagrid is with a squirrel and Buckbeak, and Hedwig flies overhead. To the right, Snape shows Ron and Hermione a potion. And there's a broomstick
Reality: Schoolboy is in a daze sitting at a railway platform after having injected himself with drugs with a black dog licking his face. To the left, a pimp is with two women, and a pigeon flies overhead. To the right, a drug dealer gives a boy and girl something. And there's a cleaner's pail on wheels and mop"
Meme - "What's the farthest you've gone to get laid?"
"Well this one time..."
*black guy with Confederate flag and 4 white girls*
David Szymanski on Twitter - "One of the most frightening things I've ever heard is when someone pointed out that the existence of the uncanny valley implies that at some point there was an evolutionary reason to be afraid of something that looked human but wasn't."
Dumb Ways to Die - Wikipedia - "Dumb Ways To Die is an Australian public campaign made by Metro Trains in Melbourne, Victoria, to promote railway safety. The campaign video went viral on social media after it was released in November 2012... According to Metro Trains, the campaign contributed to a more than 30 per cent reduction in "near-miss" accidents, from 13.29 near-misses per million kilometres in November 2011 – January 2012, to 9.17 near-misses per million kilometres in November 2012 – January 2013"
India's Supreme Court grants protection to filmmaker attacked for movie poster featuring Hindu goddess - "A Toronto-based filmmaker from India has been granted protection from India's highest court after facing multiple police investigations and death threats over a depiction of a Hindu goddess on her movie poster. "I feel really heard," said Leena Manimekalai, who is currently the inaugural artist-in-residence at the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). Manimekalai says she has received thousands of death and rape threats as a result of a movie poster she tweeted promoting her film, Kaali — which uses an alternate spelling of the goddess's name. The poster showed the Hindu goddess Kali smoking and holding a Pride flag. Police in six different Indian states issued first information reports (FIRs) against Manimekalai for allegedly offending the religious sentiments of Hindus... The High Commission of India in Ottawa, which essentially functions as the Indian embassy, got involved, urging authorities to "take action" against what it called a "disrespectful depiction" of Kali. Chandra Arya, a Liberal MP representing the Ottawa-area riding of Nepean, also weighed in. He said it was "painful" to see the poster and welcomed the apology from the Aga Khan Museum. In the past few years, "traditional anti-Hindu and anti-India groups in Canada have joined forces," he wrote, "resulting in Hinduphobic articles" and "attacks on our Hindu temples." The Aga Khan Museum apologized for screening the film, saying the presentation is "no longer being shown," and that it "deeply regrets" that the movie and social media post "have inadvertently caused offence." TMU also distanced itself from Manimekalai, first pulling the film from the series and then posting a statement on its website saying it had done so because it regretted "causing offense." That statement has since been removed. In the wake of the threats, the TMU faculty association's equity committee held a protest screening in November to show support for Manimekalai. "It's really important in the academic world to stand up to that attack on academic freedom and artistic freedom," James Turk, TMU's director of the Centre for Free Expression, said... "The current government of India has an agenda to make India a Hindu nation in its own interpretation." According to Chew, that includes labelling any behaviour out of line with its definition of Hinduism to be "Hinduphobic." She says Manimekalai isn't the only one receiving online hate and is fearful that such hate often results in physical violence. She says the governments of other countries, including Canada, can easily play into the narrative, which can result in artists, journalists and human rights activists being condemned and censored. Chew said the High Commission's complaint that resulted in Manimekalai's film being pulled from the screening is a clear example. "There's a political agenda that is taking advantage of peoples' ignorance or desire to be inclusive," she said. "It's very, very dangerous.""
Luckily she's a "minority", or she'd be uniformly condemned in Canada too for "hate speech"
We need scepticism more than ever - "the freedom of speech on which scepticism depends has come under ever-more fire in recent years. It is increasingly portrayed as a problem, a risk, a threat. Free speech harms the vulnerable, we’re told, and victimises the weak. Politicians, academics and commentators now routinely talk of the ‘weaponisation of free speech’, usually by nefarious, far-right forces. A group of law professors from prestigious Ivy League universities even argued recently that, thanks to Trump’s use of it, free speech, protected under the once sacrosanct First Amendment, now imperils democracy itself. That free speech, which is the very precondition for democracy, can now be portrayed as a threat to it, shows the increasing extent to which those in control of cultural and political institutions are reluctant to tolerate dissenting opinions... Scepticism is now routinely portrayed as dangerous, something to be quashed lest we all suffer. It is not just criticism of lockdown restrictions that is under fire. Criticism of other aspects of the establishment’s outlook is also treated in much the same way – that is, as dangerous or threatening. Indeed, it is the attempt by our cultural, political and educational elites to demonise criticism that has contributed to the broader demonisation of scepticism itself. Think of the whiff of sulphur that hangs around those called Eurosceptic or climate-sceptical. They are not presented as mere holders of dissenting opinions; they are presented as morally inferior, and potentially dangerous. Likewise, their books, articles and broadcast appearances are treated much as medieval church authorities treated heretical texts: as sources of corruption. Take Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz’s review of Bjorn Lomborg’s False Alarm, which criticises aspects of contemporary environmentalism. Stiglitz declares that ‘it would be downright dangerous were it to succeed in persuading anyone’. Or take the hysterical criticism levelled at the authors of the lockdown-questioning Great Barrington Declaration, and lockdown-sceptical individuals, such as Sunetra Gupta, a professor of theoretical epidemiology at the University of Oxford University. They have been personally and professionally maligned, and, more troubling still, their critics want them removed from the public sphere. This has all the characteristics of a modern high-tech witch-hunt... Historically, calls for censorship were justified on the grounds that a text was either politically subversive or morally corrupting. This justification is now a key part of anti-scepticism dogma. n this regard, it is telling that Stiglitz accused Lomborg’s False Alarm of threatening ‘mind pollution’. This is a term that echoes the accusation levelled at heretical and morally corrupting literature during earlier periods — namely, that it was morally polluting, or a form of moral poison. For instance, in Concerning Printed Poison (1885), Josiah Leeds distinguished between the ‘obscene’ and the ‘pernicious influence of cheap novels’, which he claimed, were not ‘necessarily filthy’ but nevertheless had a ‘poisonous’ effect on society. Of course, today’s sceptics are not accused of obscenity or moral corruption. No, they are accused of ‘denialism’. This is their evil deed, their heresy. By categorising scepticism as denialism, one is attributing malign intent to the exercise of scepticism. The sceptic is therefore not questioning or interrogating an establishment position; rather, he or she is denying the truth of the establishment position. Such is the quasi-religious force of this strategy that the Guardian, which largely cleaves to establishment positions, updated its style guide in 2019, meaning that climate sceptics were from then on to be referred to as climate-science deniers. Unsurprisingly, this same rhetorical strategy has been applied to those sceptical of lockdown policies, with accusations of ‘Covid denialism’ now routine on social media and in the press. The idea of denialism is certainly theologically charged, deriving as it does from the once unpardonable sin of denying the word of God. But much of its contemporary moral force draws on its association with Holocaust denial... To apply the same term to those who question the establishment position on lockdowns or climate change is a gross exploitation of the legacy of the Holocaust... As one commentator puts it: ‘Denial is pernicious and can have dire impacts. Climate-change denial leads to lack of action that would preserve a healthy planet. Mask denial leads to increased spread of and mortality from the Covid virus.’ Indeed, it often appears that moral crusaders have become so familiar with acts of denial that they can no longer tell what a difference in opinion looks like. Which is hardly a surprise. The accusation of denialism is fuelled by an intolerance of anyone challenging received wisdom... this is one of the distinctive features of contemporary anti-sceptical thinking: the psychologisation of the perpetrators of denialism. Sceptics are not simply wrong; they are also ill. Hence a 2009 academic conference asked whether those who deny climate change are ‘suffering from an addiction to consumption’... If brainwashing people is ‘how science works’, then society is in big trouble. It is worth remembering that ‘science’ such as this was practised in the Soviet Union, where those holding dissident views were routinely diagnosed as suffering from a psychological disorder. Which is hardly a surprise. Pathologising scepticism allows those in positions of power to dismiss critics as not just wrong, but sick, too... The 19th-century biologist Thomas Henry Huxley once wrote that ‘scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the unpardonable sin’. Now, more than ever, this is a statement worth heeding. Our future freedom may well depend on it."