This ex-Power Rangers TV star is living in Singapore with a startup aimed at transforming community events
On Jason Chan
Meme - "The irony is not lost on anyone that the only age bracket that comes close to breaking even on whether the Canadian economy is good or bad, is the age bracket that's no longer in the workforce"
"How would you currently describe the Canadian economy overall:
19-24: 31% very good/good, 62% poor/very poor.
25-34: 29% very good/good, 65% poor/very poor.
35-44: 30% very good/good, 67% poor/very poor.
45-54: 31% very good/good, 65% poor/very poor.
55-64: 35% very good/good, 62% poor/very poor.
65+: 48% very good/good, 48% poor/very poor."
UK pornography taskforce to propose banning ‘barely legal’ content after Channel 4 documentary airs : r/worldnews - "If you ban barely legal porn, the next closest thing becomes barely legal."
Family of Saudi student stabbed to death says UK is not safe for visitors : r/unitedkingdom
The cope in the thread was amusing. People started talking about Jamal Khashoggi and freedom of speech and women's safety in Saudi Arabia
Hamburg 'caliphate' rally prompts calls for punishment - "A top Bavarian politician on Wednesday demanded tougher consequences for people advocating for Germany to become a "caliphate," saying they should face prison terms and lose citizenship. Alexander Dobrindt, who heads Bavaria's conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) in Germany's Bundestag, joined lawmakers from across the political divide in responding to a reported rally in Hamburg calling for strict Islamic law to replace German democracy. "Anyone who wants to introduce Sharia [strict Islamic law] in Germany and declare a caliphate is an enemy of our democracy," said Dobrindt, whose party sits in opposition to Chancellor Olaf Scholz's ruling center-left coalition in the German parliament. "The state must confront them with consistency and rigor," he said. Dobrindt demanded minimum prison sentences for "caliphate extremists," as well as social benefit cancellations, the loss of residence permits or dual citizenship, and a ban on all organizations that want to establish a caliphate in Germany. "In Germany, the following applies: the rule of law, not theocracy," he said... Those participating in the event, which took place in the city's St. Georg district, protested what they called Islamophobic policies and a media campaign against Muslims in Germany. Speakers accused politicians of "cheap lies" and "cowardly reporting" by labeling all Muslims in Germany as Islamists against the background of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza"
From 2024. Time to punish those who oppose this for Islamophobia
China finishes world’s highest bridge in time it takes Britain to build motorway overpass - "China is set to open the world’s highest bridge after just three-and-a-half years of construction – the same amount of time it is taking Britain to build a new motorway overpass near Manchester. The Huajiang Canyon Bridge, which was started in 2022, will soar twice the height of London’s Shard above the river in the country’s rugged south-western province of Guizhou when it opens next month. The rapid construction is all the more impressive compared to Britain’s sluggish pace. The National Highways has required the same amount of time as China to build a new motorway overpass above the M67 near Manchester... A colourful flotilla of 96 trucks weighing almost 3,000 tonnes rolled across the bridge last week in a final test of the structure’s strength. That almost brings to a close a 2.1bn-renminbi (£217m) construction project that only got going in January 2022 – an impressive pace even by Chinese standards. Engineers have marvelled at the Chinese builders’ prowess. “In other parts of the world, a project of this scale would typically take five to 10 years from groundbreaking to completion, depending on environmental, political, and logistical factors,” Calgary University professor Mamdouh El-Badry said... Chinese press reports credited the Huajiang Bridge’s rapid completion to the high-tech design software, the modular and prefabricated construction techniques, and the use of drones and sensors to check on the structure’s integrity. The bridge itself has not seemed to draw public controversy but it forms part of a motorway project that has upset environmental groups by ripping large V-shaped fissures through the limestone karst landscape. Environmentalists reportedly said the explosive, drilling and excavation techniques – used to allow the road to pass through, rather than over, the peaks – could have caused landslides, erosion and habitat loss. However, China’s Guizhou region would be familiar with projects of this kind: almost half the world’s 100 tallest bridges are in this province. But this one has been particularly feted in state media. It will not only reduce an hour-long drive across the canyon to just 90 seconds, but will also double as a tourist attraction, with a glass walkway, bungee jumping, paragliding and rope-swinging. China also holds other bridge-building records. The Danyang-Kunshan Bridge is the world’s longest, at a mind-boggling 102.4 miles. It opened in 2010 and took just four years to build."
The cope is that this was only done with slave labour, and that the bridge will soon collapse
The UK doesn’t have a productivity puzzle - "Britain’s weak productivity growth has been scrutinised for well over a decade. It has spawned a sub-industry of research into its causes, splicing the problem by firm size, sector and region. The main culprits for Britain’s sluggishness have, however, remained mostly the same. So this week, I argue that there is no “productivity puzzle” in the UK... “UK workers have to make do with a third less capital per hour than their counterparts in higher-productivity peer countries,” says Tera Allas, senior adviser to McKinsey. “This has accumulated from decades of under-investment in equipment, research and development, training and infrastructure, by both the public and private sector.”... “Every French city with a population greater than 150,000 has a mass transit system (tram or metro), while there are 30 British towns and cities that large that go without,” notes Ben Hopkinson, head of research at Britain Remade. Weak management skills are another challenge. A recent study finds that domestic manufacturing firms become, on average, 4.9 per cent more productive and 23.3 per cent more capital-intensive after hiring foreign managers. “The diffusion of best practices and technology across businesses and especially regions is also slower in Britain,” adds van Ark. Next, although English adults outperform the OECD average for literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills, the country is the worst among rich nations at matching workers to jobs at the appropriate qualification level. More than a third of all vacancies in 2022 were the result of skill shortages, according to a Department for Education survey. Again, this is partly a function of investment, not just in absolute terms, but also in its distribution across the country. “By failing to build homes in and around our most productive cities, workers are priced out of living near well-paying jobs,” says Hopkinson. “The lack of reliable mass transit shrinks the effective size of our cities by limiting who can easily get to the city centre.”... Then there is red tape. For measure, the UK’s tax code comes in at 22,000 pages, more than any other country in the world. The Federation of Small Businesses estimates that a small company spends 44 hours per year on average on tax administration, at a total annual cost of around £25bn across all small enterprises. The code itself contains numerous inefficiencies that distort work, growth and investment incentives, including cliff-edges in income tax and business valued-added tax thresholds, and transaction taxes on property and stocks... Building also requires hefty paperwork, which slows projects. As Britain Remade found, reopening a 3.3-mile train line to Portishead from Bristol took 79,187 pages of planning documents. Printed out, that’s 14.6 miles of paperwork — 4.5 times the length of the actual railway. The process has taken 16 years so far. (Construction should start soon.) There are two broader macro factors that tend to get lost in all the TFP microanalyses. First is Britain’s industrial electricity costs, which are the highest across the rich world. “As energy capacity has been destroyed or mothballed, it has not been adequately replaced,” notes Kallum Pickering, chief economist at Peel Hunt. “And since electricity availability peaked in 2005, Britain’s trend rate of productivity has slowed sharply.” Simply put, the more cheap energy available, the more goods and services can be produced per hour at competitive prices. Second is demand. Weak wage growth is itself a function of poor productivity growth. In Britain, since 2000, average earnings growth has only just pipped the change in price level. But the costs of compulsory expenditures — including house prices, council tax, utilities, education and childcare — have grown significantly higher than both wages and inflation in that time. Public sector inefficiencies are central to this. Squeezed household budgets crimp domestic sales revenue and impact investment plans. According to quarterly CBI surveys, throughout the 2010s, on average close to 80 per cent of UK services companies cited demand as a constraint on business. Over 50 per cent of manufacturing firms said uncertainty about sales limited capital expenditure over the same period. More recently, the UK’s departure from the EU has restricted the country’s access to a large external market. Demand for British exports has weakened since 2020... after over a decade of growth plans, white papers, government inquiries and think-tank research, Britain has little to show for it in on-the-ground growth improvements. The solutions are known, but delivering on productivity policy is hard. Retrofitting old, existing infrastructure can be costlier and harder than starting from scratch. Finding the optimal level of regulation isn’t easy. Major tax reforms risk alienating one group while benefiting another. Building irks NIMBYs. Reforms, for instance to healthcare, education and training, can take years to bear fruit, meaning they struggle to gain traction. Initiatives may not survive the next government, limiting their effectiveness. There is glut of research on why the country’s productivity has fallen, but far less action on designing practical solutions to turn it around. The UK isn’t alone here. Britain has a puzzle. But it is one of policy, not productivity."
Why food in Britain is so much better than France | The Spectator - "Britain is the land of foodie innovation, with every cuisine in the world represented, deconstructed, reinvented. Reopening after the lockdowns, even after a number of casualties, Britain will return to a cornucopia of diversity and plenty of quality. From gastropubs, diners, dim sum joints, tapas bars, and artisanal sourdough bakeries, to vegan sushi, Asian fusion cafés, Jerusalem falafels, and wines from every corner of the globe, including Surrey. France, meanwhile, reopened its restaurant terraces this week in an environment of weary culinary sameness, the great gourmet traditions abandoned, every corner of the country dominated by fast-food chains. The French filmmaker Jacques Goldstein calls the country ‘la république de la malbouffe’ — a junk food nation. The traditional brasseries of France are now often mere theatres pretending to be restaurants. They serve sous-vide pot au feu, supplied from gigantic industrial commissaries, run, inevitably, by an American private equity group. The food is reheated by a kitchen technician on minimum wage. The service is as undistinguished as the food. There are never enough staff because the employment code makes it too expensive to hire more. Good luck finding a restaurant that’s open, given the limited hours and eccentric schedules of many. Show up in my village looking for lunch after 1.30 p.m. and you’ll starve. The decline of French cuisine has tracked precisely the descent of the country itself during the past 40 inglorious years of economic stagnation. The great reopening of café and restaurant terraces should have been a renaissance moment after we have been denied any restaurant experience at all for eight months. But, predictably, it will be another opportunity for the French state to demonstrate its instinct for excessive, ridiculous over-regulation of everything. Barely comprehensible rules have been imposed for table separation and permissible capacity limits. The state is a malign influence on the hospitality business at the best of times with heavy social charges, punitive taxation and working time inflexibility. None of it is encouraging for restaurant investors. The state cannot however be blamed for the crippling lack of ambition by restaurants themselves, with their predictable menus and unpredictable opening hours. French consumers are perhaps ultimately responsible, with a lack of much curiosity for anything beyond steak and chips, cassoulet, and duck confit. Other than in the immigrant communities, the French don’t embrace the flavours of their former colonies, they ignore them. While the British have shamelessly appropriated all the chefs and cuisines of the old empire, the French have become creatively introspective and immobilised, having produced nothing of interest since Nouvelle Cuisine, an idea now 60 years old... It’s necessary to ground any discussion of French food with some metrics, of which by far the most interesting is that McDonald’s is the biggest restaurant business in France, serving one million hamburgers a day from 1,442 restaurants... Pizza and kebabs are huge here, though the business model is built on thousands of independent restaurants, not one giant chain, and is harder to measure. There’s a pizza van in every village. The pizza, charitably, is often terrible and made with the wrong kind of cheese, Emmental, instead of Mozzarella, and also the wrong kind of flour. (The pizza is nicer in Nice, where they are proper Italians). The kebab has been on a relentless march for 20 years. This meaty halal sandwich is known as a ‘grec’ and is hugely popular in the cités. Gira Conseil, a French consultancy, estimates that 360 million kebabs are sold each year in France. As an alternative to mediocre restaurants, one can always eat at home, but even here traditional family meals are being usurped by microwave dinners from Picard, the ubiquitous frozen food merchant. I’ve been to some splendid dinner parties here but also to many that wouldn’t pass muster in the Home Counties."
From 2021
How France’s luxury lorry parks could help Britain keep HGVs on the road - "For more than 80 years, lorry drivers across France have had access to Relais Routiers, a network of more than 1,200 restaurants serving up affordable three-course meals (wine often included), decent shower facilities and bountiful parking for the massive trucks. For many drivers, these stop-offs are also a welcome escape from the daily solitude of life on the road. “Drivers spend their entire day alone on the motorway, but when they come in here they can be guaranteed a good meal and good conversation,” says Fatima Castilho, co-owner of Aux Routiers, a Relais Routiers 15 miles south of Paris. Indeed, on a recent visit to the nondescript 70-seat roadside restaurant, the place was popping at 8pm with a mix of lorry drivers – mostly men in their 30s and 40s – sprinkled with a few in-the-know locals. “The decor doesn’t leave much to be desired, but that’s not why you come here,” says Anthony Drevet, a 33-year-old journalist who came with a group of friends – mostly mechanics – who work nearby. “You come here first and foremost for traditional French food at a cheap price.” Drevet has a point about the decor, which could be described as minimalist at best. Several antique toy trucks sit on the shelves accompanied by vintage posters and some kitsch wall clocks. The traditional wooden ceiling panelling adds a hint of charm for anyone that notices; most don’t. They’ve come to eat. For a mere €12.80 (£11), diners get a three-course meal, complete with a starter, main and dessert. Tonight’s special includes a tuna quiche, roast chicken with chips and salad, and homemade lemon meringue tart for dessert. A glass of wine costs as little as €1.50 (£1.28) extra. There are also a la carte options: eight different starters and nine traditional main courses including country paté, duck liver mousse, fish soup, tête de veau (calf’s head), white fish in Béarnaise sauce, and calf’s liver sauteed with parsley. If you’re pushing the boat out, there’s also steak... At Aux Routiers, the adjoining shower block is free to use, as is standard across the road network. Some 4,000 copies of Le Guide des Relais Routiers, the guidebook listing all Relais Routiers, are sold in France every year. All member restaurants must also meet certain criteria to obtain the coveted red and blue “Relais Routiers” label. This includes keeping the “spirit of a relais” so that customers feel “at home”, using fresh produce and offering traditional French cuisine, keeping menu prices below 14 euros, providing washing facilities and offering ample parking for the lorries. More than 60 of the Relais Routiers have also been given gold-star distinction, with a tiny casserole symbol distinguishing them as a cut above."
Meme - "Toddlers when they see a coffee table corner *Orc from The Hobbit running into wall*"
The Video Game Prescribed by Doctors to Treat ADHD - "Help came in the end from what initially seems very incongruous - a computer game called EndeavorRx. In 2020 it became the first such game to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in the treatment of ADHD in children. Currently only available on prescription from doctors in the US, EndeavorRx at first glance looks very similar to countless other games. You control a little alien that races on a spaceship through different worlds having to collect things. But the app-based game was developed in conjunction with neuroscientists, and is designed to stimulate and improve areas of the brain that play a key role in attention function... In London, UK app Thymia is using computer games to help doctors and other medical professionals detect and diagnose mental health issues, particularly depression. One game sees the user have to try to memorise moving objects, while another is a card game that also tests his or her memory. In addition to how well the patient performs in the game, their comments and facial expressions are also monitored and evaluated by the app, which accesses their computer or mobile phone's camera and microphone."
Breanna Morello on X - "🚨EXCLUSIVE🚨 Hundreds of conservative Americans found themselves on TSA terror watchlists, including the Quiet Skies program, due to their social media activity, a whistleblower has revealed. The source alleges that the TSA contracted a private company to monitor Americans’ online posts and flight reservations, funneling the data to various TSA watchlist programs. A Department of Homeland Security insider disclosed that the TSA fired several employees for “incompetence” tied to the Quiet Skies initiative. The whistleblower further claims the TSA misused its EVADE (Enhanced Video Analysis of Dust Exposures) program to bypass privacy protections, violating Americans’ rights on a scale “1,000 times worse” than Quiet Skies. The whistleblower accuses the TSA of sidestepping Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which governs transportation security, by outsourcing surveillance to a private contractor. This story builds on my prior exclusive reporting about TSA’s misuse of the EVADE program."
DC_Draino on X - "Wow - it turns out the TSA was secretly compiling a database of conservatives to add them to terror watchlists based on their social media activity Now a bunch of TSA traitors have been fired It’s insane how Orwellian our government was getting before Trump’s victory"
If you don't let the government persecute political opponents, that's literally fascism
Tokyo public schools will stop forcing students to dye their hair black, official promises - "The ostensible reason for the rule is that almost all Japanese people have naturally black hair, and so they'll only have non-black hair if they've chosen to dye it a different color. Such willful, discretionary standing out from the norm is seen as a distraction and/or lack of earnestness according to orthodox Japanese values, and thus counterproductive to the collective student body's academic development. However, an incident in 2017 sparked debate when it highlighted that requiring students to have black hair and forbidding them to dye it aren't always one and the same, and in fact can sometimes be complete opposites. You'll notice in the last paragraph that we sad almost all Japanese people have naturally black hair, and that's because some of them don't. While it's relatively rare, some Japanese people are born with hair that has a natural brown tint to it, and one such girl who was attending high school in Osaka was forced to dye her naturally brown hair black, resulting in damage to her scalp and prompting a 2.2 million-yen lawsuit against the school. While the lawsuit is still ongoing, opponents of school policies requiring students to dye their natural hair in order to look more like it isn't dyed to unaccustomed eyes can celebrate one victory. On July 30, Hiroki Komazaki, head of children and family advocacy NPO Florence, presented a petition to the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education. The petition, which had collected 19,065 signatures since May, asked that schools be prohibited from instructing naturally non-black-haired students to dye their hair, and the board gave its word that the request will be met"
Meme - Fight With Memes @FightWithMemes: "This is proof that you can't just retreat from society and expect them to leave you alone. They'll chase you down, seize or your kids, and destroy your life."
"AMISH CONTROVERSIES. Court: NO Vaccine Exemption For Amish Children; Amish FINED $118,000"
Leo Ross stabbing: Boy, 14, charged with Hall Green murder - "A 14-year-old boy has been charged with murder after Leo Ross, 12, was stabbed in Birmingham. West Midlands Police said Leo suffered fatal knife wounds to the stomach on Tuesday afternoon and was found close to Scribers Lane, Hall Green. He died in hospital at 19:30 GMT that evening... The 14-year-old accused, who cannot be named because of his age, has also been charged with seven other offences, including possession of a bladed weapon, police confirmed. The other charges include the assault of a woman on 22 October and two charges of assaulting police officers on 26 November. He is also accused of the serious assault of a woman on 19 January, the serious assault of a woman on 20 January and the assault of a woman on 21 January."
Nate Silver on X - "Electorally speaking it's more important for Democrats to avoid Blueskyism that leftism. Not that Bluesky is important but it embodies all the characteristics that make progressivism unappealing to normal people. If you could subtract those the left would win more often."
Razib Khan 🧬 ✍️ on X - "have heard from a few dem insiders that also that being a straight male, especially a white male, puts you under some suspicion"
Meme - Dhaaruni @dhaaruni: "The Democratic Party being perceived as a safe space for rule-following theater kids is really bad for our image."
Theater Kids and Playing Risk - "After Trump won the 2016 election, and education polarization began to really sink in, the Democratic Party become ideologically dominated by college-educated liberals, whose mentality then permeated throughout the entire staffer class, and became the perception of the party at large even if large numbers of voters without a college degree still vote for Democrats... The general perception of the Democratic party is that we’re hyper-sensitive, attuned to all forms of injustice, both real and fake, and extremely risk-averse to the point of dweebishness. But, we are also (allegedly) avid cheerleaders for crime and homelessness, and gleefully endorse the upending the social order of the country at large through open borders and drag queen story hour (or whatever). We embody the worst of all possible identities. In other words, we became the party of people who wouldn’t dare use a fake ID, even if we knew where to procure one, and now, we are reaping what we sowed."
Air India trip from Toronto diverted due to clogged toilets | Toronto Sun - "For the second time this year, an Air India flight had to be diverted after a number of its plane’s toilets were clogged."
Garbage Human on X - "Just so everyone understands how this happens. They refuse to shit on the toilet so they shit on clothing/rags/towels that they lay on the floor, then they pick it up and try to flush it. 💩"
Air India confirms Chicago plane returned due to clogged toilets - "Air India has confirmed that one of its flights from the US was forced to turn around last week after passengers trying to flush away plastic bags, rags and clothes clogged up most of its toilets... eight of the 12 toilets in business and economy class could not be used, "causing discomfort to all on board"... Air India said an investigation later found "polythene bags, rags and clothes that had been flushed down and stuck in the plumbing" of the plane's toilets. It released several pictures showing bags containing waste cleared from the toilets. One photo showed a crew member holding a drainage pipe completely stuffed with what appeared to be rags... Air India said it had previously found objects such as blankets, underwear and diapers flushed down its planes' toilets... "Only Air India has such frequent mishaps. Honestly what has happened is indefensible""
Woman fined £100 for walking dog without waste bag
'Airline poo' falls on India village causing confusion - "Mr Kalia told the BBC that a sample of the projectile had been sent for chemical analysis, but "we suspect strongly" that it is frozen airline excrement. "It was a very heavy icy ball of ice which dropped from the skies early on Saturday morning. There was big thud and people of the village came running out of their homes to find out what had happened," he said. "Some villagers thought it was an extra-terrestrial object. Others thought it was some celestial rock and I've heard that they took samples home," he said... people "sneaked a few pieces into their clothes", stored them in refrigerators at home... In January 2016, a woman in central Madhya Pradesh state suffered a severe shoulder injury when she was hit by a football-sized chunk of ice which fell from the air and crashed into the roof of her house. A newspaper said that she may have been hit by frozen airline waste."
Meme - Jo @JoJoFromJerz: "Charlie Kirk dropped out of community college."
Jo @JoJoFromJerz: "I'm currently attempting to help my daughter with her homework and I just need to say that third grade math is a motherfucker."
Overweight people had a 14% lower risk of developing dementia compared to those with normal weight, while obese participants had a 19% lower risk. However, those who lost weight from midlife to late life had an increased risk of dementia. This is the so-called obesity paradox. : r/science - "They literally write in the article that a consistent normal weight led to the lowest dementia rate: "However, when the researchers accounted for weight change from midlife to late life, the pattern shifted. Participants who maintained a normal weight over this 15-year period had the lowest risk of dementia.""
Meme - "How should you talk to friends and relatives who believe conspiracy theories?"
"Hey bro, you were right about everything. I'm sorry"
Meme - "YOU HATE ISLAM BECAUSE YOU'RE A RACIST PIECE OF SHIT AND CANT DISTINGUISH ISLAM FROM "BROWN PEOPLE"
I HATE ISLAM BEGAUSE I LIVE IN A MUSLIM COUNTRY AND KNOW THAT ISLAM OPPRESSES WOMEN, MICROMANAGES EWERY ASPECT OF LIFE, AND LITERALLY HAS A DEATH PENALTY FOR LEAVING THE RELIGION
WE ARE NOT THE SAME"
Libs of TikTok on X - "Two and a half minutes straight of Democrats calling for violence. The Democratic Party is the party of violence."
