Company in India denies firing stressed employees after screenshot of HR email circulates, says posts were planned - "An internal email apparently sent by YesMadam's human resource manager Ashu Arora Jha to the employees of the home-based beauty service provider has been making its rounds on the internet. In the email titled "Update on Stress Survey Results", the email references a recent survey — though when exactly it was conducted is unknown — to understand how employees feel about stress at work. "As a company committed to fostering a healthy and supportive work environment, we have carefully considered the feedback," the email read. "To ensure that no one remains stressed at work, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with employees who indicated significant stress."
US man given $4.1m payout for wrongful conviction admits to murder over $1,200 - "After spending 24 years in prison on an overturned murder conviction, Shaurn Thomas received a $4.1m payout from the city of Philadelphia – and became a standard-bearer for the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. Now, seven years after his release, Thomas has admitted to killing a different man in early 2023 over a comparatively paltry $1,200 drug debt. And as a result, Thomas will probably go back to a cell for the rest of his life. In another bizarre twist, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, Thomas, 50, met his victim through an association of former inmates who had their convictions overturned. A girlfriend whose brother was also wrongly imprisoned for murder introduced Thomas to a childhood friend, who took cocaine worth $1,200 from him to sell but failed to pay him the money... The Philadelphia district attorney’s office declined to retry that case after Thomas’s conviction was thrown out. But prosecutors also expressed doubt that Thomas was entirely innocent."
Clearly, not just was he innocent but the payout wasn't enough, which was why he needed to (re)turn to crime
Opinion: Pension funds are a Canadian success story. Politicians must leave them alone - The Globe and Mail - "A 2017 World Bank report, citing benchmarking analysis, found that Canadian public pension funds had net returns that substantially outperformed those of comparable global funds over the preceding decade. This outperformance aggregated to $4.2-billion per year over that period. And all major Canadian funds have delivered substantial added value when measured on an appropriate long-term standard, after taking all costs into account. Recently, it was reported that the Public Service Pension Plan (PSP) has a surplus of approximately $9-billion. This position of strength is a bright spot while many plans around the world are trapped in an inexorable deficit position. Now there is a mounting push for an “invest in Canada” mandate for pension funds and efforts from politicians to potentially advance ideological and regional interests through closer control of fund management. We are looking at solutions in search of problems. This carries great risks for Canada’s economic future. Given Canada’s economic challenges, including demographic shifts and miserable productivity, the stakes are high for millions of Canadians. In fact, especially for funds like CPPIB, it is essential to diversify investments outside the country, as the nightmare scenario is that overexposure to an underperforming Canadian economy sees poor investment returns at the same time as higher unemployment and low wage growth, leaving both diminished inflows and flaccid asset returns to pay fixed pension obligations for Canadians. The bottom line is this: Politicians are desperate to get their hands on more cash. One problem – this money is not theirs. Pension funds are the pooled savings of millions of individual contributors and beneficiaries, and we should be wary of those who try to expropriate them for personal or political ends. Because while anyone can tear down an institution, building one up is not easy... Strapped for cash, without the ability or willpower to raise revenue through more taxes, and running significant deficits, the federal government has appeared to signal that it wants a piece of the Maple Eight success... Canadian funds are already heavily invested in Canada, with a strong home country bias. On average, the Maple Eight have 18 per cent of their portfolios invested in Canada, as compared with the approximately 3 per cent of global capital markets that Canada represents. So, one has to ask, why governments are so keen to have pension funds invest more domestically? Everyone wants a piece of the more than $2-trillion saved in Canadian public pension plans... There are two critical issues with this approach. The first concern is the risk of political interference. Canadian pension funds have been successful in large part because they have been managed independently... The second issue is that a dual mandate would encourage too much domestic concentration in pension portfolios, reducing the diversification that is crucial for managing risk. Consider that Norway’s massive US$1-trillion sovereign wealth fund is not permitted to invest domestically – both to ensure diversification and to prevent political interference... While it is true that Canada faces economic stagnation and lagging productivity, the solution lies not in politically driven mandates but in more effective policy measures to actually address the underlying causes of economic malaise. Reducing interprovincial trade barriers, liberalizing foreign investment restrictions, and simplifying pathways to skills development could more directly address the country’s economic issues, without compromising its pension system and our social security... In Ireland, for example, the government withdrew billions from its national pension fund to bail out its banks during the 2008 financial crisis. While this reduced immediate borrowing needs, it depleted pension resources, increased public debt to 125 per cent of GDP by 2013, and shifted the National Pension Reserve Fund’s focus away from the best interests of beneficiaries. Similarly, Argentina nationalized $30-billion in private pension funds during the 2008 financial crisis to avoid default and stabilize public finances. While providing immediate relief, the move dismantled the pension system, shifted retirement savings to a state-managed pay-as-you-go scheme and increased long-term debt and inflation, weakening both individual retirement security and fiscal stability. Even closer to home, CDPQ has seen its returns diminished compared with other funds that have remained focused solely on returns."
College students used Meta’s smart glasses to dox people in real time - "Two Harvard students have created an eerie demo of how smart glasses can use facial recognition tech to instantly dox people’s identities, phone numbers, and addresses. The most unsettling part is the demo uses current, widely available technology like the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and public databases... Nguyen and Ardayfio are also shown chatting up complete strangers on public transit, pretending as if they know them based on information gleaned from the tech."
Meme - Oilfield Rando @Oilfield_Rando: "On the left is how NC Democrats drew NC-12. On the right is how NC Republicans drew NC-12. Which one looks like a partisan gerrymander, @RepJeffries ?"
Hakeem Jeffries @RepJeffries: "America is a closely divided nation. And so is the House of Representatives in the next Congress, even with extreme partisan gerrymandering in North Carolina."
Meme - "r/amiwrong
Am I wrong for screaming at my mom and storming out after she gave me coal for Christmas because of my job?
Hi, I'm 19F and I work in the adult industry. It's a decision I made for myself, I enjoy it, and I'm doing well. This Christmas, my mom (48F) gave me coal as my gift. When I opened it, she laughed and said something like, "It seemed fitting, given your job." I was absolutely furious. To me, this wasn't a joke it felt like a direct attack on my work and who I am. I lost my temper, yelled at her, and told her she was being incredibly disrespectful and judgmental. I I also told her I work hard for my money and don't deserve to be treated like this, especially by my own mom. She rolled her eyes and said I was overreacting and needed to learn how to take a joke. I shouted back something like, "You don't get to talk to me this way!" and left the room. The rest of Christmas was obviously ruined, and now I'm left wondering if I took things too far. Did I overreact by screaming and leaving? Should I have just shrugged it off as a bad joke? Or am I justified in standing up for myself when the "joke" felt so personal and mean? Am I wrong here?"
Bathing 24-year-old woman dies after iPhone falls into water - "Olesya Semenova’s lifeless body was found by her roommate in their apartment in Arkhangelsk... In August, a 15-year-old schoolgirl identified as Anna K died in Moscow after suffering an electric shock in her bath."
Teen dies after dropping her phone in bathtub while calling a friend - "Maria Antonietta Cutillo is thought to have been home alone at her parent's house in Montefalcione, southern Italy, when she decided to take a bath. The teenager got into the tub but wanted to continue using her phone, which was low on battery... In 2017, a 32-year-old man in Britain died after his iPhone charger made contact with the water at his home in west London."
Italian girl, 16, is electrocuted to death in the bath while on the phone to her friend - "in 2019, a 13-year-old girl in Amsterdam was electrocuted when her smartphone fell into the bath while it was charging. The teenager's mother dragged her out of the bathtub after racing to the bathroom when she heard a loud scream. She had called the emergency services. Paramedics woke up the unconscious girl by punching her in the sternum, before whisking her straight off to hospital, where she spent two days. In this instance, the girl didn't die but was left with amnesia as a result of the incident, and couldn't recall the moment she dropped the phone in the bath."
Girl suffers fatal electric shock after cellphone falls in bath - "A 13-year-old girl in France has died after dropping her cellphone into the bath, causing an electric shock which eventually killed her. The young teen was initially revived after paramedics rushed to her home in the French city of Macon, the newspaper Le Parisien reported. The phone had been plugged into a charger at the time it dropped into the water. She remained in a coma and clung to life for days at the university hospital in Lyon before succumbing to her injuries."
Teenage girl dies after dropping phone into bath while charging it - "Yulia Vysotskaya, 14, was listening to music on the phone while she was in the bath at her home in Cheboksary, near Moscow. It’s believed that when the phone fell from her hands, it sent a live current into the water. The teenager lost consciousness from the electric shock before she drowned... a 15-year-old girl and a 12-year-old were killed in separate cases. In 2017 another 14-year-old was electrocuted while using her mobile in the bath at home in New Mexico. Madison Coe died after touching the frayed extension cord she was using to charge the phone."
Meme - "Shout out to all the dads that eat lunch like this... *construction workers sitting on floor*
so their kids' stepdad can eat like this. *family at table*"
Wojak Resources and Sites : r/WojakCompass - "Since Wojak Paradise was shut down a few months back finding wojaks has been... difficult to say the least. To help ease the pain, here’s a collection of various websites that could prove to be quite useful for everyone in the future."
Meme - "Amazon Basics *Jeff Bezos with MacKenzie Scott*
Amazon Prime *Jeff Bezos with Lauren Sánchez*"
Meme - DAKKADAKKA @DAKKADAKKA1: "I'm so tired of this literal Neanderthal." *Zendaya*
cinesthetic. @TheCinesthetic: "Who's an actor with zero chops or range yet somehow keeps getting work?"
New Zealand Parliament suspended after haka protest over Māori rights bill : r/anime_titties - "If you're like me you've wondered "hang on, why exactly is populism a bad thing? Isn't democracy supposed to serve the interests of the population?" For everyday people it seems obvious that a candidate who has wide support among the voters is generally more legitimate and desirable. It's the elite who use the term populism with disdain. They would prefer a system of, well, elitism."
Washington Post slammed, changes headline after op-ed calls for 'elites' to have 'bigger say in choosing the president' - "An op-ed published Tuesday in The Washington Post was panned, and its headline later changed, after it called for "elites" to have a "bigger say" in choosing a president. As part of a series on "how to improve the presidential nominating process," Marquette University associate professor Julia Azari said the "flawed" 2020 Democratic nominating process has had a "rocky start," pointing to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., having won the "popular vote" while former Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg led the delegate count in the Iowa caucuses. The headline, which originally read, "It's time to give the elites a bigger say in choosing the president," was changed to "It's time to switch to preference primaries" without any editor's note after the op-ed was blasted on social media... She pointed to the election of President Trump as "proof that nominations shouldn’t be too democratic" because he lacked "conventional qualifications and appreciation for democratic norms" versus previous nominees such as former President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney... This isn't the first time that Sanders' campaign manager has sounded off on alleged bias against the 2020 front-runner. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Shakir alleged that MSNBC was trying to "undermine" Sanders' candidacy and how the network is "among the last to acknowledge that Bernie Sanders' path to the nomination is real."... Shakir told Vanity Fair that Fox News has been "more fair than MSNBC.""
The elites are threatened by democracy
Gamblers Take Note: The Odds in a Coin Flip Aren't Quite 50/50 - "even the 50/50 coin toss really isn’t 50/50 — it’s closer to 51/49, biased toward whatever side was up when the coin was thrown into the air. But more incredibly, as reported by Science News, spinning a penny, in this case one with the Lincoln Memorial on the back, gives even more pronounced odds — the penny will land tails side up roughly 80 percent of the time. The reason: the side with Lincoln’s head on it is a bit heavier than the flip side, causing the coin’s center of mass to lie slightly toward heads. The spinning coin tends to fall toward the heavier side more often, leading to a pronounced number of extra “tails” results when it finally comes to rest."
Difference Between Real and Fake White Chocolate - "The truth is that most products that resemble white chocolate either contain very little cocoa butter or none at all. For example, the familiar Nestle brand of white ‘chocolate’ products does not contain cocoa butter but instead uses other fats such as fractionated palm kernel oil. If you look closely at the label of such products, you’ll notice they are not called white chocolate, but ‘white morsels’ or ‘white baking bars.’ Be aware that most candy bars that use “white chocolate” use these types of white coatings. Since the color of white chocolate comes mostly from the cocoa butter, you can sometimes tell real from fake by the color. Real white chocolate will have a slightly yellow color. It can also be normal to see a few tiny brown specks, which are cacao solids that remain in the fat. If the product is very white, it is more likely fake, or the cocoa butter has been bleached... cocoa butter melts faster than the fats used in ‘fake’ products, and can more easily break, becoming oily. It also solidifies at a lower temperature and can become grainy if cooled too quickly."
Defining the problem of elevator waiting times - "Below is an interesting story about a building where tenants were complaining about long elevator waiting times. The solution shows how the key to solving a problem is often defining the problem correctly in the first place.
A classic story illustrates very well the potential cost of placing a problem in a disciplinary box. It involves a multistoried office building in New York. Occupants began complaining about the poor elevator service provided in the building. Waiting times for elevators at peak hours, they said, were excessively long. Several of the tenants threatened to break their leases and move out of the building because of this… Management authorized a study to determine what would be the best solution. The study revealed that because of the age of the building no engineering solution could be justified economically. The engineers said that management would just have to live with the problem permanently. The desperate manager called a meeting of his staff, which included a young recently hired graduate in personnel psychology…The young man had not focused on elevator performance but on the fact that people complained about waiting only a few minutes. Why, he asked himself, were they complaining about waiting for only a very short time? He concluded that the complaints were a consequence of boredom. Therefore, he took the problem to be one of giving those waiting something to occupy their time pleasantly. He suggested installing mirrors in the elevator boarding areas so that those waiting could look at each other or themselves without appearing to do so. The manager took up his suggestion. The installation of mirrors was made quickly and at a relatively low cost. The complaints about waiting stopped. Today, mirrors in elevator lobbies and even on elevators in tall buildings are commonplace."
Carl Tanzler, The Man Who Lived With A Corpse For Seven Years - "Carl Tanzler fell in love with Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos, a young tuberculosis patient at the Key West hospital where he was a radiology technician — but his fondness grew into an obsession after she died in 1931... Tanzler spent more than a year sitting by the mausoleum he’d commissioned for Elena each evening, singing to her corpse and speaking with her spirit. Then, one night in April 1933, Tanzler exhumed her body and took it home with him. He wired Elena’s limbs together, replaced her skin with wax, and stuffed her torso with rags to maintain its form. For the next seven years, Carl Tanzler slept next to the corpse of Elena de Hoyos as if she were still alive."
Scientists Are Writing Honest Reviews of Amazon Products, And They're Just So Good - "a zoologist left a four-star review on Amazon for a tea strainer, which he had been using to sift ants. No big deal. The review sat quietly on the site until this week, when other scientists found it, shared it and instantly started a Twitter trend. We lay-folk have long known that scientists use common objects for strange reasons - see NASA researchers sending rubber ducks into a glacier to track ocean currents, or environmental scientists floating tampons down streams to find pollution... Tea strainers and colanders are one of the most-reviewed items, having been used to drain mashed testicles, sift bones out of cat feces and for "sieving parasites out of poop.""
The ancient fabric that no one knows how to make - "Nearly 200 years ago, Dhaka muslin was the most valuable fabric on the planet. Then it was lost altogether. How did this happen? And can we bring it back? In late 18th-Century Europe, a new fashion led to an international scandal. In fact, an entire social class was accused of appearing in public naked. The culprit was Dhaka muslin, a precious fabric imported from the city of the same name in what is now Bangladesh, then in Bengal. It was not like the muslin of today. Made via an elaborate, 16-step process with a rare cotton that only grew along the banks of the holy Meghna river, the cloth was considered one of the great treasures of the age. It had a truly global patronage, stretching back thousands of years – deemed worthy of clothing statues of goddesses in ancient Greece, countless emperors from distant lands, and generations of local Mughal royalty... Dhaka muslin was also more than a little transparent. While traditionally, these premium fabrics were used to make saris and jamas – tunic-like garments worn by men – in the UK they transformed the style of the aristocracy, extinguishing the highly structured dresses of the Georgian era. Five-foot horizontal waistlines that could barely fit through doorways were out, and delicate, straight-up-and-down "chemise gowns" were in. Not only were these endowed with a racy gauzy quality, they were in the style of what was previously considered underwear... By the early 20th Century, Dhaka muslin had disappeared from every corner of the globe, with the only surviving examples stashed safely in valuable private collections and museums. The convoluted technique for making it was forgotten, and the only type of cotton that could be used, Gossypium arboreum var. neglecta – locally known as Phuti karpas – abruptly went extinct. How did this happen? And could it be reversed?... Saiful Islam, who runs a photo agency and leads a project to resurrect the fabric, says most versions made today have thread counts between 40 and 80 – meaning they contain roughly that number of criss-crossing horizontal and vertical threads per square inch of fabric. Dhaka muslin, on the other hand, had thread counts in the range of 800-1200 – an order of magnitude above any other cotton fabric that exists today... Six gruelling months, many more improvisations and plenty of snapped threads later, Amin had made a 300 thread count sari – nowhere near the original Dhaka muslin standard, but significantly higher than any weaver had achieved for generations. "He had the dogged patience that was needed to work with us," says Islam. "We contributed 40% of the effort, but the rest came from him." Fast-forward to 2021 and the team have made several saris from their hybrid muslin, which have already been exhibited all over the world. Some have been sold for thousands of pounds"
30 Unique Japanese Words That Are Hard to Explain in English - "30. Kapo-n (カポーン)
Kapo-n is a word that expresses the sound that the Shishiodoshi (ししおどし), which is shown in the image above, makes when the top bamboo empties itself of water and falls back onto stone. Shishiodoshi was used to scare away the animals that ate crops. Now it's used as decoration in a Japanese style garden."
John Stuart Mill's philosophy shows arguing online is futile (aka "150 years ago, a philosopher showed why it’s pointless to start arguments on the internet") - "Mill highlights the often overlooked reality that many opinions aren’t based on facts at all, but feelings. And so, contradictory points of information don’t shift emotionally rooted arguments, but only cause people to dig deeper into their emotions to hold onto those views. Intuitively, most people recognize that emotions motivate opinions, and behave accordingly. We use rhetorical techniques, such as verbal flourishes and confident mannerisms, to help convince others of our views... chartered psychologist Rob Yeung, whose book How to Stand Out emphasizes the effectiveness of emotions, rather than logic, in convincing others to agree with you, points to research showing that use of metaphors motivate people to make decisions. Online, when we can’t see others’ faces or their moods, it’s easy to lose sight of these emotional instincts. Instead of engaging with and respecting others’ feelings, there can be a tendency to bombard those with opposing views with “facts.”... Instead of seeking to convince others, we can be open to changing our own minds, and seek out information that contradicts our own steadfast point of view. Maybe it’ll turn out that those who disagree with you actually have a solid grasp of the facts. There’s a slight possibility that, after all, you’re the one who’s wrong. "
Florida man threw live gator in Wendy's drive-thru window, police say - "Joshua James, 24, was arrested Monday and charged with assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill after Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation officials say he threw a 3.5-foot alligator through a Palm Beach County Wendy's drive-thru window in October. He's also charged with illegally possessing an alligator and petty theft... James' mother, Linda James, told WPTV that her son's actions were a "stupid prank." "He does stuff like this because he thinks it's funny," she said. She said he meant no harm and had "no problem turning himself in.""
Florida man denies syringes found inside rectum are his - "A Florida man denied syringes were his after jail officials found them in his rectum during a strip search. Wesley Scott, 40, was arrested on Friday on an outstanding warrant charging him with drug possession"
The Colonial Tavern Dishing Up 18th-Century Vittles - "In colonial America, a family might enjoy a Cheshire pork pie filled with pork tenderloin, apples, and spices. Another might enjoy a corncake, thanks to the maize long cultivated by Indigenous people. A wealthy family might indulge in a bird—but not just any bird, you see. A bird that had been plucked, cooked, and reassembled to sit in the center of the table. Dishes like these once appeared on the menu at King’s Arms Tavern, a “public house” that opened in 1772 in Williamsburg, which was then the capital of Virginia. The restaurant is still serving food, albeit as a careful reproduction in Colonial Williamsburg, the world’s largest outdoor living-history museum, where actors in period costumes share stories about colonial dining history... seasonality and the lack of refrigeration dictated what appeared on dinner plates in Colonial Williamsburg. That’s how carrot puffs, which are similar to hush puppies and made by mashing the carrots, made the new menu—cooks made the dish when carrots were nearing expiration. Similarly, hunters game pye is a hearty reminder of a time when meat pies weren’t just a culinary delight. Made with valuable scraps of venison, duck, and rabbit, this colonial classic was a safety measure, since baking the pie would kill any bacteria that had developed in the meat since it was first roasted."
People Explain Which Things Are Considered Disrespectful In Their Country - "Australian here. If someone let's you merge in on the road, or if you let someone pass on a tight street, its SUPER important you give them a little wave. If you don't, it makes you a massive cunt. Also, using overly formal/respectful language is like, a way of showing disrespect to someone"
"playing music in public. Even on hiking trails around my city its a guarantee that you'll pass at least one person with a speaker, blaring music. I came out here to get away from the city grind wtf"
"I went to China for a month and ate a ton of noodles while there. One day we were eating really long noodles with oil/sauce on them and as I was eating I noticed that I had to continuously wipe my mouth with the napkins while my asian friends did not. Then I realized that when you slurp it leaves room between the noodle and your lip to let the sauce enter your mouth and it doesn't end up piling up on your lips as you suck the noods in. That was the day I learned why slurping is big in Asia."
"There are very specific rules about offering tea to someone in Ireland. When someone offers you tea you have to say no. Then they have to "are you sure?" and you have to say "no thank you I'm certain". Then they have to go "ah go on you'll have a bit. Then you have to go "no I'm fine thanks". It keeps going on like this until one person gives in. So if you offer someone tea and they say no you have to keep pushing. If you don't it's just not Irish."
Good luck with the anti-blackness
Looks like the Irish don't know that consent is as simple as a cup of tea either
Oddly, one person says in Peru people are dishonest in transactions
bestsongs.com.ng 
