Actual Fact Bot: Revived | Facebook - "The Space Invaders game was intended to always be played at the same speed, but as you destroy more aliens, the computer can render faster. This is why the aliens speed up as you near the end of the level."
"Violin Scam Artists" operating in Richmond Hill parking lots : richmondhill - "Also a bunch of “refugees” that beg for money at Bathurst and Rutherford. Follow them at the end of the day and they get in a Mercedes to drive home"
"One of my friends used to work as an assistance for a personal injury lawyer. One time, she was assigned to work with a panhandler who was run over by a car. Her job was to find out how much money panhandler was losing for those days she was hospitalized because of unable to go out and beg. My friend went out with that panhandler for a week and took note of how much money she made. Turned out, she made 1500/day on average. My friend was like “maybe i should quit my job and start panhandling”. That was 10 years ago by the way."
If you cast aspersions on beggars, you're a heartless monster
Meme - "We threw our Landlord a surprise party"
Meme - "My Ex Wife"
"I'm sorry to inform you that the daughter you kept for 20years is not your daughter.... She belong to your best friend Johnson. Foolish man, Take heart byeeee"
"Thank you Jesus for answering my prayers, I'm free now. All this years I thought I was sleeping with my daughter. Kindly encourage her not to abort our pregnancy"
Meme - "If i was superman I would convince bad guys my one weakness was getting sucked off so that they would suck me off and i would act all crazy nutso lol toes curling like nooo ahh wooah anything but this noo oh god ooo fuuukc my one weakness as blast one across lex luthors stubble"
Meme - Joseph Bronski @BronskiJoseph: "Do cigarettes increase GPO? Countries with higher GDP see significantly higher cigarette usage. Maybe nicotine built modernity."
Meme - "Poop in the church brownies
When I was younger I used to make brownies for church every month. I feel guilty because I used to include a special ingredient no one knew.... I used to go to the bathroom with a ziplock bag and poop in it, then I would rinse it a little just to clean them a bit, and I would work it into my brownie mix. If I ate something that didn't digest like corn or broccoli I would obviously pick it out. I tried to eat nuts and things of that nature if I was making brownies that weekend. It wasn't a lot, just like 2-3 tablespoons for a batch. Everyone loved my brownies, I got special requests for baptisms, confession, confirmations, and some events for Jews. This went on for years and I didn't realize what I was doing was wrong, thankfully I realized it pretty early on and stopped when I turned 19. I feel bad that I had done this since I was like 6 years old, but I was still very young when I realized it was wrong. Honestly they tasted amazing though, better than without. But now I know it's wrong and I wouldn't do it again."
Meme - Salty Irish Girl: "This is a straight up lie."
"INSTITUTE FOR BLACK IRISH TRUTH
DUBLIN WAS BUILT BY PEOPLE OF COLOUR. The Viking name for Dublin was the 'Black Pool' this was named for the original black Irish who built the city, including Christ Church Cathedral. The Vikings invited the black Irish to a large banquet where they teamed up with their white Celtic fellow racists and kidnapped the black children to stop us ruling the next generation. Those children were deported and became the Igbo tribe."
The accurate history squad is nowhere to be seen. Because they are for falsifying history to push a political agenda. Soon, we will be told it is racist to criticise this
Music as aposematic signal: predator defense strategies in early human evolution - "The article draws attention to a neglected key element of human evolutionary history—the defense strategies of hominins and early humans against predators. Possible reasons for this neglect are discussed, and the historical development of this field is outlined. Many human morphological and behavioral characteristics–musicality, sense of rhythm, use of dissonances, entrainment, bipedalism, long head hair, long legs, strong body odor, armpit hair, traditions of body painting and cannibalism–are explained as predator avoidance tactics of an aposematic (warning display) defense strategy. The article argues that the origins of human musical faculties should be studied in the wider context of an early, multimodal human defense strategy from predators."
A father’s desperate – but dangerous – strategy to keep his ‘brain dead’ son on life support - The Washington Post - "Pickering recounted that his son had had seizures in the past, so he knew the procedure. He also knew that contrary to what the hospital told him in January, his son wasn’t “brain dead.” Call it father’s intuition. Something told Pickering that the hospital was wrong to order a “terminal wean,” which would have slowly removed his son from life support. According to KPRC, someone had even already notified an organ donation organization of an incoming donation. “They were moving too fast. The hospital, the nurses, the doctors,” Pickering told KPRC. “I knew if I had three or four hours that night that I would know whether George was brain dead.” No one was listening, Pickering said, so he bided his time the only way he could think of — by pulling out a gun... His desperate strategy worked. During the hours in which Pickering refused to leave his son’s room even at the behest of SWAT officers, he felt his son squeeze his hand several times on command. With confirmation that his son was responsive and wasn’t brain dead as doctors believed, Pickering peacefully surrendered... Today, George Pickering III is healthy and fully recovered, an indication perhaps of his father’s prescience. According to KPRC, the pair share “an unbreakable bond,” running a small electrical engineering business and building their own home together. The younger Pickering, his father’s spitting image, was moved after learning about what took place. “Everything good that made me a man is because of that man sitting next to me,” he said. “There was a law broken, but it was broken for all the right reasons. I’m here now because of it. It was love.”"
A Bank That Accepts Parmesan As Collateral: The Cheese Stands A Loan - "Besides holding the cheese as insurance, Credem stores and ages the wheels in climate-controlled vaults for the duration of the loan. The farmers save on operating costs. And in turn, the bank gains some expertise about a risky industry... The more it ages, the more delicious and valuable it becomes—like cash in an interest-bearing account. Eighteen-month cheese gives pasta zing. Thirty-six-month cheese makes angels sing. "The producers face very long lead times," Trichakis says. "They basically have working capital tied to inventory for two years. They could shorten the maturation to cut down on costs, but then the cheese that we eat would not be as tasty."... Prices for Parmigiano-Reggiano tend to fluctuate wildly, along with market demand. A one-percent difference in demand can equal up to a 10-percent change in price, according to the HBS case. Economic downturns hit the industry especially hard, as the expensive cheese is somewhat of a luxury item. Meanwhile, a lot can go wrong with the cheese as it matures: It can sweat, it can form bubbles, or, worst of all, it can swell so much that it cracks. Every flaw lowers the value of the cheese, regardless of the going market rate. Too many cracks will render a cheese wheel useless. "So, it's clear that you need a finance infrastructure that is tailored to this kind of environment," Trichakis says. "So the question is, can you do it? And the answer is yes." Credem accepts young cheese as collateral, valuing it at the current market price of mature cheese. The case explains that the typical loan-to-value ratio is 70 to 80 percent, which cushions the bank against market price fluctuations and product degradation... During the maturation process, only one percent of the cheese suffers degradation necessitating a value downgrade, compared with an industry average of 10 percent, according to the case. And because the cheese is aging under the bank's own roof, the bank is constantly aware of what the product is worth. If producers default on their loans, the bank sells their collateral upon maturation. "From the bank's perspective, it becomes almost risk free"... Lest students think the collateral model is totally risk-free, the authors of the case included an extreme cautionary tale—the so-called Salad Oil Swindle of 1963, in which crooked trader Tino de Angeles used his soybean oil inventory as collateral for huge loans from several Wall Street banks. Inspectors regularly conducted inventory checks, but the tanks contained mostly water, with just enough oil floating on top to fool them... While the Credem case study focuses on the cheese-as-collateral model, Trichakis notes that this comprises only one percent of the bank's overall business. But in terms of goodwill, the model is worth a lot more than that. "It allows Credem to be perceived as a bank that cares about the community, cares for the region, and cares for the producers," he says. "Lending is something that people don't really like in Italy. They think of usury, going back to Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. Many people still perceive lenders and banks that way. So for a bank to be able to set up this infrastructure, and to showcase their value to the community, it's significant.""
23andMe’s Fall From $6 Billion to Nearly $0 - WSJ - "23andMe’s valuation has crashed 98% from its peak and Nasdaq has threatened to delist its sub-$1 stock. Wojcicki reduced staff by a quarter last year through three rounds of layoffs and a subsidiary sale. The company has never made a profit and is burning cash so quickly it could run out by 2025... At the center of 23andMe’s DNA-testing business are two fundamental challenges. Customers only need to take the test once, and few test-takers get life-altering health results... In another blow to its brand, 23andMe had a data breach this fall that exposed nongenetic information of 6.9 million customers, highlighting the same privacy concerns that Wojcicki once blamed for slowing sales and exposing the company to a class-action lawsuit, which was filed last Friday... She’s also dedicated to her personal brand, those who know her say. Last March, Mattel made Barbie dolls based on her and her two sisters, former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and pediatrics professor Janet Wojcicki, in a promotion for International Women’s Day. Anne said she had to convince her more press-shy sisters to do it. Some 23andMe employees had found it odd that she spent time on it so soon after the year’s first round of layoffs... Wojcicki said she jumped at the chance as a way to encourage science education for girls and connected it to 23andMe’s genetic tests for quirky traits such as asparagus odor detection in urine. “I mean, honestly, there’s parts of this in my personality that come through in the product,” she said. “Like, if you make things fun, people engage more.”... A small percentage of customers have a rare genetic variant increasing their risk of breast cancer, for example, and 23andMe’s test is a reliable screen that can lead to lifesaving doctor follow-ups. But most people don’t have a life-changing disease lurking in their genetic code. It’s not clear 23andMe has a compelling product worth $69 annually for either group."
Meme - "My child sent this to me and told me to find the truck"
Dare to Approach: Single Dose Testosterone Administration Promotes Threat Approach in Patients With Social Anxiety Disorder - "Persistent fear and avoidance in patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) has been associated with reduced testosterone levels. Because threat avoidance is a major maintaining factor in SAD, and because testosterone administration promotes social approach, we tested whether testosterone administration can directly facilitate threat approach behavior in SAD. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, 17 female participants with SAD received a single dose of testosterone before performing a well-established social Approach-Avoidance Task. This objective implicit measure of social motivational action tendencies requires participants to approach or avoid visually presented emotional faces. After testosterone administration, the patients showed increased approach tendencies to angry facial expressions. These results suggest that testosterone can counteract persistent automatic social avoidance tendencies in SAD. This finding advances our understanding of steroid involvement in the regulation of social motivational action in general and in SAD in particular, and may have important clinical implications, promoting testosterone’s candidacy for pharmacological treatment-enhancement studies."
Pasta and Rice May Be Healthier as Leftovers. Here’s Why. - The New York Times - "It sounds like just another internet health hack: Cook some pasta or white rice and let it cool overnight in the refrigerator. By the next day, some of the natural starches in the food will have transformed into healthier versions, called resistant starches, which have been linked to a range of health benefits including lower blood sugar, better gut health and a reduced risk of certain types of cancer. The idea that you could change the health properties of a food by merely cooking and cooling it may sound too good to be true. But according to experts like Balazs Bajka, a gut physiologist at King’s College London, there’s something to it. Cooling starchy foods can cause some changes to their structure that may benefit your health... Cooking and cooling causes the food’s starch molecules to become tightly packed together, making them more difficult to digest, Dr. Bajka said. When this happens, some of the starch becomes “resistant,” meaning its sugar molecules aren’t as easily broken apart and absorbed into your bloodstream as they normally would be. Even if you reheat the food as leftovers the next day, most of the resistant starch formed during cooling will remain... Because resistant starches aren’t easily digested, they don’t spike your blood sugar as much as regular starch does, said Kimberley Rose-Francis, a dietitian in Florida who specializes in working with patients with diabetes. Instead, the resistant starch continues on in your intestines, where it can feed the good microbes in your gut... There’s also some evidence that resistant starches may play a role in reducing the risk of certain types of cancer, said Annette M. Goldberg, a dietitian at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, though more research is needed... When you cook and cool a starchy food, you’re also effectively increasing its fiber content, said Mindy Patterson, an associate professor of nutrition and food sciences at Texas Woman’s University. Fiber has been linked to a host of health benefits including a reduced risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer. And when consumed as resistant starch, it seems less likely than other forms of fiber to cause unpleasant effects like gas or bloating... aside from eating foods that naturally contain resistant starch, like beans, barley, green bananas and oats, you can increase the levels of resistant starch in foods like pasta, potatoes and rice by cooking and cooling them, Dr. Patterson said. This technique may be especially useful for those with Type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes"
'Drugged, robbed, killed': The city catching US tourists in dating trap - "Tou Ger Xiong loved coming back to Colombia. "He talked about the high spirited people… just enjoying life," his brother, Eh Xiong, told BBC News. "He even picked up Spanish. "It never, ever even crossed his mind that he would end up in a tragic incident this way." Tou Ger, 50, was a Hmong-American community activist and comedian from Minnesota. Prior to his most recent trip to Medellin, he had been speaking to a woman online... his death is one of eight in Medellin that prompted a warning from the US embassy about the risks of using dating apps. All eight victims were Americans who died in suspicious circumstances in November and December. The US state department said it was aware of a gang in the city that previously used dating apps to isolate victims before abducting and killing them. But it's unclear if a gang was behind the US deaths. In the first 10 months of 2023, Medellin's tourism observatory had already recorded 32 violent killings of foreigners in the city - including at least 12 Americans and three from the United Kingdom - a 40% increase from the previous year... Prostitution is legal in Colombia and widespread in tourism hotspots like the cities of Medellin and Cartagena. But there's nothing to suggest the men killed were using prostitutes... The Texas resident had matched with a Colombian woman in her mid-20s on Tinder. They first went out for coffee, but Shah later decided to buy beers and bring her to his hotel. He says he hadn't felt unsafe during his previous frequent visits to Medellin, or like prostitution was as prevalent when he first came in 2017. But he knew women were a draw to the city. "If you're a single guy, the women are very lovely here," a friend had told him. Before his watch, jacket and $200 in cash disappeared that night, he remembers his date rubbing a powder on his neck. But he stayed conscious enough to realise something was wrong, threatening to call the police and chasing her away. "I generally don't interact with the locals there now," he said. "There's just too much danger, there's too much risk." The new US embassy notice recommends its citizens avoid taking dates to private places like hotels, plus inform friends, family or building staff about who they're with. And don't resist a robbery because that could be fatal."
Murder culture is out of control. Damn victim blaming! Don't tell foreigners to take precautions. Tell Colombians not to kill foreigners
Meme - Dilbert: "THE ORIGINAL SCHEDULE LOOKED LIKE THIS... ONE MONTH FOR A MANAGEMENT DECISION AND ONE YEAR TO DO THE PROJECT. THE REVISED SCHEDULE IS THIS... ONE YEAR OF INDECISION FOLLOWED BY INTENSE PRESSURE TO DO THE IMPOSSIBLE BEFORE THE DEADLINE. NOW IF YOU'LL EACH TAKE A PAIR OF 3D GLASSES... YOU CAN SEE THE LAYERS OF MANAGEMENT INCOMPETENCE PRACTICALLY JUMP OUT AT YOU. NOW SCRATCH ONE OF THESE SCENTED CARDS TO SNIFF THE UNMISTAKABLE ODOR OF DOOM."
Pointy Haired Boss: "I DON'T SMELL ANY- THING. IS MINE BROKEN?"
*Wally and Alice stunned*
Bob Reisner's answer to Scott Adams is clearly finished, but was he making very much off Dilbert before he imploded? - Quora - "Scott Adams supposedly lost everything. Comics in newspapers, book deals and maybe appearance fees. I’m not saying that Scott Adams wanted to be ‘canceled’, just that it might be financially rewarding. Before the big ‘cancel’, Scott Adams appeared to earn money from books and a terminally declining newspaper comic strip. He shared earnings from these activities with his syndicator, agents, legal, accounting, etc. people. He got far less than 100% of the revenue generated. And likely, his partners partially owned much of the IP. Then came ‘cancel’ and all of his partners unilaterally closed their business relationship with him without any regard to contracts in place. Remember, this cancellation involved no crime or conviction. It’s unlikely common ‘morality’ clauses would apply to the cancellation situation, especially without some form of adjudication. So to me this looks like a huge opportunity for Scott Adams"
The Differences Between Thai, Indian & Japanese Curry Dishes - "Indian curries are made with dry spices like coriander, turmeric, cumin, fenugreek, and chili powder to provide intense, lingering flavors. They are combined with yogurt, oil, ghee, or dal, a purée made from chickpeas or other lentils... Thai food uses a variety of ingredients including hot chilies, lemongrass, ginger, garlic, shallot, shrimp paste, and dried herbs like cumin, coriander seeds, and turmeric. These fresh ingredients make Thai curry spicy and flavorful... Contrary to Indian and Japanese curries, Thailand is famous for its signature ingredient of wet rice agriculture - coconut milk... Japanese curry sauces are made with spice powders, flour, and oil to give it a distinct brown color. This base remains consistent, but the spice levels vary. The ingredients to make the right Japanese curry include onions, celery, carrots, potatoes, etc. There are also turmeric, red peppers, and saffron pistil for coloring. Pepper, chili, and ginger create a spicy taste. And there are cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom seeds to help stimulate the taste buds. It is because of these ingredients that Japanese curry sauce is considered extremely healthy and contains very little harmful cholesterol."
Meme - Dilbert: "I'M PREPARING FOR THE COMPLETE MELTDOWN OF OUR FINANCTAL SYSTEM. I'VE GOT SIX MONTHS OF FOOD AND WATER. I HAVE BATTEAIES, FLASHLIGHTS, AND GOLD COINS"
Alice: "I'M PREPARED TOO. I HAVE YOUR HOME ADDRESS. AND I NOTICED THAT YOUR PREPARATIONS ARE LIGHT ON DEFENSIVE WEAPONRY. CAN YOU ADD SOME PROTEIN BARS TO THE SHOPPING LIST?"
Meme - "Gypsy-Rose Anderson
Hi Gypsy, I am very happy to see that you are finally able to live your life free. I do have to inform you though that many consider your first name to be an ethnic slur. Might I recommend possibly changing your name to Romani-Rose Anderson?"
How Much Does (And Should) It Cost to Have a Baby? - "There is an assumption out there that to effectively raise kids you need to constantly upgrade your surroundings, a bigger house and bigger car, more stuff, more money... two of the biggest factors in determining how unaffordable kids are, are driven by housing and transportation. Even for the statisticians there’s an unspoken understanding that parents must, and will, move on to larger homes — adding a bedroom for each kid, of course — and if not multiple cars, at least a bigger one with more and roomier seats. Are either of those things actually necessary? I’m not convinced... That extra bedroom, roomier car, and pricey stroller won’t change the real work of caring for a child"
Meme - "Trying to bond with my male cat, but idk what men do for fun so I took him to Home Depot"
Commentary: Are Singaporeans losing their competitive edge by staying within their comfort zones? - "Many of my business counterparts have observed that it is often difficult to get Singaporeans to take up overseas roles. Many of us are risk-averse, shying away from unfamiliarity and choosing to remain within the structured comforts of our home environment. One big reason is remuneration, particularly if one is not on an expatriate package or where pay is not equalised. Workers in Singapore are among the highest-paid in Asia, with a median annual income of around S$60,000 (US$44,000). In comparison, the average salary is around US$17,000 in Malaysia, US$9,600 in Indonesia, US$35,400 in South Korea and US$42,000 in Japan... Another reason is family: It’s difficult to move to another country with children. There is also the concern over reintegrating them into Singapore’s education system upon return... Ultimately, leadership is like a muscle that needs to be trained - it is all about practice. Learn to volunteer for various roles. Hone your resiliency and adaptability by seeking international experience. Such moves will also help build Singapore’s pipeline of local leaders with global capabilities, ensuring that we are ready to take charge on the world stage. But we must first take that first daunting step out into the unknown."
Cecil the dog ate $4,000 in cash. His owners recovered most of it, but they had to wait a few days. 😭 - "in the end, they were able to piece together $3,550 of the cash."
The Mind as a Coloring Book - "What if I told you there was a society in which all the young men marry elderly widows? If you had even an entry level understanding of evolutionary biology, you might think I was making it up. The Tiwi of North Australia, at first glance, seem like solid support for the old school view of the Mind as a Blank Slate. According to anthropologists C.S.M. Hart and Arnold R. Pillig: "... nearly every man in the tribe in the age group from thirty-two to thirty-seven was married to an elderly widow...But very few of them had a resident young wife." The Tiwi seem like a blatant exception to an assumption widely held by evolutionary psychologists - of a universal male attraction toward younger fertile partners... Because menopause is a feature of our species, not of any particular culture, it made evolutionary sense that older men in all societies would be attracted to relatively younger women (who are more likely to be fertile). Indeed, we reported data from several societies and historical time periods that supported that argument. For example, on the remote island of Poro in the 1920s, older men married substantially younger women - "trophy wives" just like the ones sought by CEOs of American corporations. Several anthropologists commenting on our paper chimed in with consistent data from yet other societies. Social psychologists Alice Eagly and Wendy Wood have suggested that many such sex differences in mating behavior might disappear in a society in which gender differences in social power were erased. If their social roles model applied to Tiwi society, you might expect Tiwi women to be relatively powerful. But Tiwi society is highly patriarchal. In fact, Tiwi men dictate who a woman is to marry. So the Tiwi pose a puzzle from both sociocultural and evolutionary perspectives"
The Mind as a Coloring Book 2 - "How do the Tiwi reproduce themselves? Several features of Tiwi society help us resolve the puzzle. And when we put the pieces together, it helps us see why cultural diversity does not equal support for the Blank Slate viewpoint (or any of its modern disguises). Although young Tiwi men are married to elderly women, a closer examination reveals that it's not because of a strong sexual attraction between the two age groups. Tiwi men are, like men in other societies, strongly attracted to young women. Unfortunately for the young guys, the powerful elder Tiwi men monopolize them all. Indeed, the elders enforce a strict rule that all Tiwi females must marry. As soon as she is born, every young girl is betrothed to one of the elders. The society is polygynous, and the powerful older men betroth their young daughters to other patriarchs. So the older men exchange younger wives with one another, and young men, with no daughters to offer, are thereby excluded from obtaining young partners. If a young man was caught with the young wife of a patriarch, he could be punished severely - by being gored with a hunting spear, or expelled from the group (which in Northern Australia would be tantamount to a death sentence). So that explains why younger men do not marry women, but why do they marry older widows? That's because all Tiwi females (but not all males) are required to be married. So an older widow must remarry as soon as her husband dies. The powerful older men, who have used the marriage rule to obtain several young wives, are not interested in marrying older women. At this point, a younger man steps up. What's in it for the young guy? By marrying a widow, a young man builds alliances with her relatives, and he gets the right to determine who her younger daughters marry if they become widowed early (remember, all the young girls are also officially married to elderly guys, who may kick off and leave some fertile younger wives as well as the older ones). Once a young man marries a widow, then, he is in the game of acquiring younger wives. The Tiwi pattern demonstrates a dynamic interaction in which new social norms emerge from the combined influences of different evolved psychological mechanisms (men's attraction toward women in the years of peak fertility, women's attraction toward high-status men) and local social factors (a geriatric patriarchy that monopolizes younger women, in combination with a rule that all women must be married). The Tiwi are one example of why I argue that social scientists' default metaphor for the mind should be a Coloring Book, rather than a Blank Slate. While a Coloring Book can, in one sense, be colored in an infinite number of ways, in not so passively receptive as a Blank Slate, since the outlines in a coloring book strongly suggest (though do not determine) particular palettes of inputs to be used on the different pages"