Meme - "GIFTS FOR DAD
the lesbian Kama Sutra
Kat Harding"
Mindful employees are more likely to experience self-control depletion as a result of “surface acting” at work - "Mindfulness in the workplace has both positive and negative consequences, according to a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. The researchers found that employees with greater mindfulness were less likely to engage in surface acting on the job, but more likely to experience self-control depletion when they did. This loss of self-control was negatively associated with job performance. It has been widely touted that mindfulness — the ability to be aware and present in the moment — is beneficial for both employees and organizations. Studies have indeed suggested that mindfulness boosts self-control, which then enhances employee well-being, performance, and relationships. But study authors Christopher J. Lyddy and his colleagues suggest that mindfulness at work may have its drawbacks."
New Study Links Some Forms Of Spiritual Training To Narcissism And "spiritual Superiority” - "spiritual training might in fact enhance people’s need to feel “more successful, more respected or more loved”... The first scale, “spiritual guidance,” relates to how much people try to help others acquire the same wisdom they have acquired. It includes statements such as “I help others whenever possible on their path to greater wisdom and insight,” “I gladly help others to acquire my insights too,” and “I am patient with others, because I understand it takes time to gain the insights that I gained in my life and my education.” The second scale is “supernatural overconfidence,” and it encompasses self-ascribed abilities in the paranormal domain. Example statements include “I can send positive energy to others from a distance,” “I can get in touch with people who are deceased,” and “I can influence the world around me with my thoughts.” The third scale, “spiritual contingency of self-worth,” measures how much a person derives their self-esteem from their spirituality. Sample statements include “My faith in myself increases when I acquire more spiritual wisdom” and “When I gain new spiritual insights, this increases my self-worth.” In the three studies described below, the researchers found that their scale of spiritual superiority is a valid instrument. Moreover, it correlates significantly with the other three scales. It also correlates significantly with narcissism, self‐esteem, and other psychological variables. Finally, it also correlates, to varying degrees, with diverse forms of spiritual training."
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe Guest Edits Today - "'The Iranian regime have cut the internet and yet the Supreme Leader still tweets. So he's got broadband and people are very angry about this so they go and demonstrate outside his house. And then the regime says this is not a demonstration, these are people just trying to find a Wi-Fi hotspot… I had an experience on a platform called Clubhouse. It's a bit like Twitter but people can talk. When you go on clubhouse, about 100 people in a room. Iranian Clubhouse is massive, there's like eight nine thousand people. So when I was trying to learn some Persian over the pandemic I went into some of these rooms and they brought me up on the platform so I could talk and I realized that actually a joke for me and chappie or a British audience that was so normal was horrifically edgy for them… if I was a comic in Iran I would do this joke, simple joke. There's an executioner about to kill a homosexual and he goes do you have any last words and the homosexual says can I tell a joke. He says go on then. So the homosexual says two gays walk into a bar. And the executioner says I've got to stop you there, you're just making things worse for yourself. That's a joke which I think we would laugh at in Britain. They threw me out the room. Of the nine thousand I think seven thousand emptied, they just left. And then it was explained to me afterwards that if there are people who are laughing or even listening to this there could be someone coming around to their door and arresting them just because you listen to a comedian in the West telling a jokes'"
This doesn't stop TRAs for praising Iran for being progressive for sponsoring sex change surgery
She : Your dick is probably the size of a Tic-Tac. : Jokes - "Me : Well no wonder your moms breath is so fresh."
Stopping auto play | Firefox Support Forum | Mozilla Support - "You can look at these prefs on the the about:config page to see what settings work for you to block autoplay.
media.autoplay.default = 5 [0:allow;1:blockAudible;2:Prompt;5:blockAll]
media.autoplay.blocking_policy = 2
media.autoplay.allow-extension-background-pages = false
media.autoplay.block-event.enabled = true"
When editing the settings doesn't work
Dr. John Kellogg Invented Cereal. Some of His Other Wellness Ideas Were Much Weirder - "1. Chewing, chewing…and more chewing
Kellogg was a disciple of Horace Fletcher, a dubious health expert who advised people to chew each bite of food at least 40 times before swallowing.
2. Electric light baths
3. Sinusoidal current
Kellogg’s interest in the therapeutic powers of electricity didn’t end with light baths. With a device he cobbled together from telephone parts, he began to administer mild doses of electrical current directly to his patients’ skin
4. The continuous tub bath
5. Fifteen-quart enemas
6. The vibrating chair
Unlike today’s well-padded vibrating recliners, Kellogg’s version consisted of a plain wooden chair that shook up to 60 times a second, with the apparent goal of stimulating the bowels. Kellogg’s other marvels included both beating and slapping machines, which gave patients the choice of being pounded or flogged, in order to stimulate their circulation.
7. Masturbation cures
A zealous lifelong foe of what he called “the solitary vice” and the “vile practice,” Kellogg wrote that masturbation led to poor digestion, memory loss, impaired vision, heart disease, epilepsy and insanity—to name just a few insidious side effects. To break young boys of the habit, Kellogg suggested procedures that ranged from ridiculous to barbaric, including tying their hands, bandaging the offending organ or putting a cage over it. If that didn’t work, he recommended circumcision without anesthetic—"as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind,” he wrote in his book, Plain Facts for Old and Young. Kellogg had an even more gruesome set of treatments for girls, including the application of pure carbolic acid to the clitoris or, in more extreme cases, surgical removal"
Meme - "Music connects people *man and woman hanging from beamed note*"
Meme - "I mean... How fast was that kid going *toy car and dented road barrier*"
Meme - "When the CPR dummies are having more fun than you *sex in cupboard*"
Meme - "better deal than the other?
Pizza slice: 60 degrees, 6 inch radius, $1.50
Pizza slice: 45 degrees, 7 inch radius, $1.70
clippie: math just got important"
The Harpsichord: When It’s Baroque, Gerald Self Can Fix It - "Conductor Sir Thomas Beecham once quipped, “The sound of a harpsichord is two skeletons copulating on a tin roof in a thunderstorm.” Beecham, however, never heard one of Gerald Self’s harpsichords... Self is one of the leading harpsichord makers in Texas. Step inside Self’s San Antonio home and you’ll see why. It’s filled, wall-to-wall, with harpsichords. “Three, four, five, six, seven, eight and then nine and 10. And this one being worked on out there, and one here for a repair. So, it’s a bunch,” Self explained. All of them are Self-built. And each was constructed while paying exact attention to historic detail. He is one of about two dozen harpsichord master craftsmen in America. “Everything you see here is plagiarism. In fact, everything you see here is outright plagiarism. I have old pictures of old instruments, and I just did my absolute best to copycat.” Even down to the ornate paintings of flowers and insects that populate the inside of the case... Tuning a harpsichord is a bear. It takes a lot of time and patience. Slowly and methodically each string is tested and adjusted. And harpsichords are very sensitive to changes in temperature and humidity."
TIL Thomas Beecham described the Harpsichord as sounding like "two skeletons copulating on a tin roof". Have you got any other weird but spot on descriptions of sound? : Music - "I think it may have been Beecham who berated a cello player, saying " Madam, you have something between your legs that can bring joy to the world, and yet you just sit there and scratch it"."
A Catfishing With a Happy Ending - The Atlantic - "Alan had done it before, at least five times, he admits. He’d become online pen pals with single women from all over the world, but avoided video calls and meetings. He found the thrill of the chase electrifying, with none of the awkward stuff like first dates. Emma was just another mark, and their flirty exchanges were innocent fun, he said. “Catfishing is prevalent across the internet,” he told me, “Everybody does catfishing.”... They both agreed to delete the dating app. Emma constantly asked for a physical date, but was crestfallen when Ronnie made excuses. This had happened before. Alan knew how to prolong the relationship with a combination of evasion and false promises. He told Emma that decorating new shops took him all over Europe. Any free time was spent drinking whiskey with his father, or on vacation at his parents’ villa in Spain... Little scientific research exists about catfishing, but experts say that victims tend to be lonely, vulnerable, or missing something in their lives... Like Malvolio in Twelfth Night, Alan had donned a ludicrous disguise to win the affections of his Olivia. And in a world where Alan felt ugly and invisible to the opposite sex, Emma showered him in “adoration.” In his mind, Alan minimized his lie: “Everything I told her about me, apart from who I was, and the age, was true.”... In a quiet corner, Emma produced an egg-and-mayonnaise sandwich, which she had bought in case Adem was hungry. When he lifted it to his mouth, she noticed his hands were shaking too. “I was really nervous,” Adem said. They walked into the bitter cold air, and Emma summoned an Uber. It seemed to take forever. Adem was very quiet and there was a nervous energy between them. When he stepped off the curb to look for their car, Adem turned around and found Emma at eye level. Inexplicably, she kissed him. “Three minutes later I felt like I know her a long time,” Adem said. The spark was undeniable. She gave him a key to her apartment, and together they discovered the city like tourists, goofing around with a selfie stick. Later, when Adem opened his suitcase, Emma spotted the leather jacket from her favorite photograph, and felt starstruck. And Adem couldn’t believe his luck—his soul mate had appeared in his inbox as if by magic. On April 23, 2017, their story became a tabloid sensation in England. “My catfish became cupid,” Emma told the Daily Mirror, “And now we’re living happily ever after.” Soon, other victims of Alan Stanley reached out to Emma... “I think it’s brilliant Emma and Adem have met,” he said. “It’s almost like fate.” Alan added that he no longer uses fake identities, and has since met someone special, he said, on Twitter"
I'm the world's best catfish — you won't believe my 'daughter' transformation - "Chloe Fountain, who refuses to reveal her age, regularly posts TikToks showing how she allegedly takes years off her appearance by using makeup and tape. The Canadian mom often has people confused by her dramatic makeovers, with many refusing to believe she’s the same person after posting clips supposedly depicting her drastic changes... Although she assures viewers her videos are “100% real,” she admits she does ham it up for the camera a little bit by making herself look messier."
Being fed at your friends' places - cultural differences - iFunny - "I recently came across this map and the claim that in Nordic countries you're unlikely to get food as a guest at somebody's house, especially kids at their friends' places. Now it's easy to say that this is awful and whatnot but honestly I'm not interested in that. Cultural habits have reasons behind them and that's what interests me. Anyway in the Middle East where I'm from hospitality is very ritualized and even though it varies from one place to the next the common theme is that you gotta honor your guest meaning you'll go all out to overfeed them so that they will leave with heartburn and indigestion. But what is the flip side of that same coin as a guest you're supposed to resist whatever you're being offered because you need to show that you are neither hungry nor thirsty. As kids we're taught that at other people's houses we're supposed to say no thank you when offered food. Only upon them offering a third time and insisting will you accept the invitation. Even with all of that you will still hear mothers telling their kids you ate at their place now they'll think I don't feed you. That part resonated when I was reading some of the stories by older Scandinavians. One mentioned that her mom pinned a note on her coat saying do not feed name of the child, she gets enough food at home. So by not offering food here the positive rationale is that you're avoiding embarrassing the other parents through implying that they don't feed their kids. That's why I called it the flip side of the same coin. I'd love to hear what you think other than value judgment. No interest in those"
So much for consent being as simple as a cup of tea - feminists have no idea what they're talking about
The Phantom's Lair | alloverthegaf: thranduil-stormborn: ... - "Tolkien died in 1973. Reverse it and you get 3791. Three rings for the elven kings under the sky, seven for the dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, nine for mortal men doomed to die, and one for the dark lord on his dark throne."
Meme - "SUPER ANTICS #9
OKAY, GOOD PLAN. WHAT DO YOU THINK, DIANA?
WHAT DO I THINK?
*To Superman* I THINK YOU TELL EVERYONE YOU SHAVE BY BOUNCING HEAT VISION OFF A MIRROR, BUT ACTUALLY YOU JUST CAN'T GROW A BEARD.
*To Batman* I THINK STANDING IN THE DARKEST PART OF THE ROOM DOESN'T AUTOMATICALLY MAKE You COOL
*To Green Lantern* I THINK NAMING YOURSELF AFTER A LANTERN IS STUPID
*To ???* I THINK A MAN WITH SUCH SMALL HANDS, MUST ALSO HAVE A SMALL...
Sorry, MY LASSO OF TRUTH GOT WRAPPED AROUND MY LEG"
How to reduce 'attention residue' in your life - "in recent years, a cluster of Australian universities have been helping students tackle this issue through dedicated Get Your Life In Order (GYLIO) practices. Essentially, GYLIO is about bundling tasks into a single morning, day or week in order to clear your mind; learning to prioritise and find focus so that you can enjoy guilt-free downtime... Focusing on one task at a time until completion helps reduce what Sophie Leroy, associate professor of management at the University of Washington, calls “attention residue”; the way that having multiple tasks and obligations on our mind splits our attention in a way that reduces overall performance. “If you have attention residue, you are basically operating with part of your cognitive resources being busy, and that can have a wide range of impacts – you might not be as efficient in your work, you might not be as good a listener, you may get overwhelmed more easily, you might make errors, or struggle with decisions and your ability to process information.”"
Woman thinks she's helping 'police' to catch hackers, ends up losing $18k - "When the 'police' told her that they needed her help to lure a hacker out, she used her hard-earning savings as bait. But the 35-year-old woman, surnamed Li, was swindled $18,000 on Monday (Jun 26) after it turned out that the so-called cops were part of a scam... the scammer had initially requested that she use her company's bank account to transfer the money to the online platform. She asked her boss for authorisation to use the company's funds but as the latter was in a meeting at that time, he hung up in a hurry after telling her that it could be a scam. "I also approached the boss' wife but she too, warned me that it could be a scam," Li said, adding that the latter lodged a police report after the scammer called her. Li shared that she even received a phone call from an actual Singapore Police Force officer who warned her against transferring money to the scammer. "When I told the scammer that everyone doesn't believe him, he told me that my boss will face prosecution for not cooperating," Li said. The scammer claimed that they are from Interpol, which means local police would be unaware of the supposed hacking case, Li added. "After being convinced by him, I transferred the money using my own bank account." Li shared that she had received such fraudulent phone calls in the past, but had never fallen for them. The scammers this time spoke to her in English with a local accent, which did not raise her suspicions. "After telling my boyfriend about the phone call, I still didn't think that I was scammed," Li said. "Until I saw the 'zero' in my bank account — that was when I realised it was a scam, and it's impossible to get the money back.""
Deep-Fried Noodlefish 椒鹽白飯魚 - "Deep-Fried Noodlefish 椒鹽白飯魚 (Cantonese: jiu yeem bak fan yu) is one of my favorite things to order at restaurants. You can find them at casual Cantonese restaurants where they serve congee and beer. I also see them on dim sum menus sometimes. I love eating it with congee since it’s packed with flavour with a crispy texture. It’s like adding crispy airy croutons to congee…yum! Realistically, I can eat them with anything or with nothing! They’re like chips! Noodlefish is also called silver fish and is always wild caught."
“Incredible Achievement of Incompetence”: How the Liberals’ Capitulation to PSAC will Widen the Public-Private Wage Gap | C2C Journal - "“The government can’t expect workers who have been getting us through the pandemic to shoulder the costs of Canada’s recovery.” Shoulder the costs of Canada’s recovery? Aylward’s PSAC members not only were paid their full salaries during the pandemic – with most of them allowed to work from home – but also thereby added two more years to their generous pension benefits. After the pandemic faded, many of them bitterly resisted returning to the workplace. What about all the private-sector workers who either lost their jobs entirely or were forced to work part-time for lower wages and fewer or no benefits? This Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey shows that in the two-year pandemic period through February 2022, total employment nationwide ended up virtually flat. In January 2022, all of the country’s 206,000 job losses that month were private-sector workers. Meanwhile, public-sector employment has increased by 305,000. Aylward’s statement is worse than fiction; it’s an inversion of reality. The most rapid growth in public-sector employment was at the federal level. Government of Canada data indicate the federal public service now employs more than 336,000 people. As Jack Mintz, President’s Fellow at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy and former president of the C.D. Howe Institute, wrote in the Financial Post in January, annual compensation of federal employees has risen from $38 billion to $58 billion since the Justin Trudeau government gained office in 2015 – a 52 percent increase that far exceeds the growth in the number of federal employees. And still these workers and their unions want even more. A study by the Fraser Institute using data for the pandemic year 2021 found that government-sector workers enjoyed a 5.5 percent wage premium over private-sector workers even after controlling for differences in age, gender, education, work type/experience, unionization and other labour market factors. Just two years later, the study’s most recent edition finds, the disparity had jumped to 8.5 percent. That was before this week’s deals... Government workers are much less likely to lose their jobs. They have longer paid vacations and take an average of five more days off per year for “personal reasons” than private-sector workers. Moreover, they typically retire more than two years earlier, most likely thanks to their generous pensions... No wonder Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre observed during a recent Question Period that, “It’s one thing to increase the size and cost of the public service…and another thing to be faced with a massive strike by public servants…but it is an especially incredible achievement of incompetence to do both of those at the same time.”... This is a dangerous time for our country. We have a federal government that sinks the nation further and further into debt with profligate spending while deliberately hobbling the resource industries that provide much of Canada’s GDP and export revenue. The government is kept in power by a deeply socialist opposition party whose sole agenda is to blackmail the minority Liberals into expanding social welfare programs that are already unaffordable. And now we have clear evidence that members of our largest public-sector union just don’t care about the fellow Canadians who pay their wages. Our prime minister talks constantly about environmental sustainability. The real question is the social and economic sustainability of the course he has plotted for our beleaguered nation."
Meme - @FUBUKIIPP: "Watching child po rn makes me appreciate my parents more. *Kungfu Panda*
Wait. I shouldn't have put "rn""
The Man Who Opened a Store Selling Heroin and Cocaine Has Died From an Overdose - "Jerry Martin, 51, opened the store in Vancouver because he wanted to give people access to clean drugs and challenge Canadian drug laws... In May, Martin opened The Drugs Store—the first brick-and-mortar shop in Canada and the U.S. openly selling drugs that had been tested to ensure they did not contain fentanyl of other harmful adulterants. He was arrested within 24 hours of opening the store in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, the epicenter of Canada’s overdose crisis... “He wanted to save lives,” Thomas said Friday."
‘I’m paycheck to paycheck.’ I make $350K a year, but have $88K in student loans, $170K in car loans and a mortgage I pay $4,500 a month on. Do I need professional help? - "While having a high income is great, there’s a concept called Parkinson’s Law, which essentially states that your spending will always rise to meet your income no matter how high that income rises, explains Paddock. “Working with a money coach will help you defeat Parkinson’s Law, eliminate your debt and then enable you to supercharge your investing and life planning with a financial adviser,” says Paddock."
Clearly Americans are always broke because the system has failed and capitalism needs to be overthrown - not because they spend money like water
A Deep Dive into the Culture of Living Beyond Your Means - "I decided to dig deeper into the lack of savings the average American has. In my deep dive, it has become obvious to me that despite an improving economy, Americans still have trouble saving — a shocking number of adults have less than $1,000 in a savings account, even when their incomes are more than $150,000... For earners of $150,000 annually or more:
6% had $0 saved
23% had less than $1,000 saved
It is evident that Americans are some of the worst savers in the developed world. U.S. adults currently save just under 6% of their disposable incomes, which includes savings in retirement accounts. Almost half of American adults could not cover an emergency expense of $400 without selling something or borrowing money. About 31% of non-retired adults have no retirement savings or pension at all; among those who were employed but not enrolled in a retirement savings plan, 19% said they weren’t even sure if their workplace offered a savings plan, such as a 401(k) or something similar... Much has been written about apps that can help people keep track of their finances. But technology has also made it easier for people to spend more money. As companies compete for consumers’ loyalty, they’ve made paying for items as easy as sending a Facebook message, talking to Apple’s voice-powered virtual assistant Siri or clicking one button. Not to mention subscription services, such as music and video streaming, meal delivery kits or monthly clothing delivery, which have become commonplace, also add up and can be difficult to cancel — or difficult to even remember you signed up for in the first place. And of course, you can show off all those purchases on Facebook and Instagram; almost 40% of adults with a social media account said seeing other people’s purchases and vacations on those networks encourages them to look into buying something similar, according to a survey by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. So not only are we not saving enough, we are also excessively spending beyond each of our individual capacities because someone else we are following on social media went out and bought that fancy new watch, with for all we know money they don’t have. It is a perpetual cycle of debt fueled splurging"
Texas teenager strangled two newborns in hospital until they turn blue - "Marcus Dewayne McCowan, 18, was taken into custody on Monday at Odessa Regional Medical Center. He was at the hospital to watch his own girlfriend give birth but had been thrown out the area where she was being cared for after behaving strangely towards nurses... McGowan snatched a second infant from its crib and began choking and shaking the child until she turned blue, screaming 'die!' as he throttled her."
Today’s crybaby actors have much to learn from Angela Lansbury - "When people talk about her death marking the end of an era, they’re referring to a career that took in Golden Age Hollywood and the post-war heyday of the Broadway musical. But they’re also alluding to her decency, restraint and kindness. There’s a feeling abroad that she was one of a kind, and the last of a kind. Without wishing unfairly to hold a magnifying glass up to every shortcoming or slipup to which the acting profession today is prone, often inevitably enough, it’s striking that the kind of self-composure, commitment and, yes, gentility that was a hallmark of Lansbury’s approach to life and art looks in too short supply in the age of snowflakery and social media self-promotion. Fellow actor (and noted TV sleuth too) David Suchet tweeted “She epitomised grace”. A gent himself, he politely didn’t add that some lessons could be learnt from that graciousness, and graft."
Mike Primavera on Twitter - "Don't be boring with your midlife crisis and buy a sports car 👎🏼 Go hard. Learn magic. Lease a falcon. Start a cult. Are people worried about you? Sure. But are they also a little curious? Yeah man sign them up for the cult, you gotta make those falcon payments."
