Fitness trackers ‘cause shame’ - "Fitness and calorie trackers can make users feel “shame” if they do not achieve their goals, academics have said. Experts from University College London (UCL) and Loughborough University used artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse tens of thousands of social media posts about the use of the trackers."
Having goals is bad, because you feel shame if you don't achieve them. Therefore no one should have goals
Meme - "A morning of awkwardness is far better than a night of loneliness *boy putting on pants with lamb*"
Meme - Secretary Kennedy @Seck...: "I teamed up with @SecDef Hegseth for the "Pete & Bobby Challenge" - 50 pull-ups, 100 push-ups. This is the start of a nationwide push to get Americans fit again. We're calling on our friend @SecDuffy to take the challenge."
Jay Perk @JohnathanPerk: "First Lady Michelle Obama suggested we eat healthier and you people called her a socialist."
Comment (elsewhere): "They're Litterally only doing this to get people used to the Military Fitness standard to Pipeline poor kids into the military 🪖 😐"
Left wingers don't understand the difference between encouragement and mandates when it suits them, like when making people get a covid vaccine or lose their jobs was somehow not forcing them to get it, but Japan requiring trans people to undergo full surgery to get their paperwork changed is forcing them to sterilise themselves.
Meme - "Dear students, In an effort to make your learning experience more fun: Each student's cumulative homework will be turned into a paper mache sword and used in a school-wide sword fight at the end of the year. The more homework you do, the bigger your sword. Thank you, Principal Mason"
The Wetherspoon’s game: why thousands of people are buying food and drink for strangers - "The game works due to a loophole in the Wetherspoon’s app. Apps for outlets such as McDonald’s and Pizza Express use your phone’s location services to verify you physically at a location. The Spoons app, which was introduced by the pub chain in 2017, asks you to manually confirm which pub you are in, and which table you are sitting at. You can be sitting in, say, The Muckle Cross, the nearest Spoons to John O’Groats, and someone in Land’s End can order you a drink to your table through the app on their phone. Playing the game means that you would like others to pay for your food and drink. All you have to do is post your location and table number in the Facebook group, and the free booze and grub will come flying."
China demands Twitter inquiry as ambassador to UK 'likes' porn tweet - "China’s UK embassy has demanded Twitter carry out a “thorough” investigation and reserved the right to take further action after its ambassador’s account liked a pornographic post. The embassy claimed Liu Xiaoming’s account had been “viciously attacked” on Wednesday, after it liked tweets including posts critical of the Chinese Communist party and a 10-second video of a sex act."
From 2020
Woman dies saving baby from fire started by neighbour taking part in dangerous social media trend - "A mother died while rescuing her baby from an apartment fire in South Korea that began when a neighbour tried to kill a cockroach with a makeshift flamethrower, police said. The blaze broke out after a woman in her 20s, who lived on the second floor, sprayed a flammable substance at a cockroach and ignited it with a lighter... The victim, a Chinese woman in her 30s, lived in the same building with her husband and two-month-old baby. As the fire engulfed their apartment, the couple called for help from a window before handing the infant to a neighbour in an adjacent block less than a metre away The woman’s husband managed to climb across to safety, but she fell while trying to follow him. She was taken to the Ajou University hospital but died five hours later. The baby survived unharmed... Authorities said the suspect had used the same pest-control method before without incident. Police are examining whether safety codes or building materials contributed to the rapid spread of the fire. Makeshift flamethrowers, typically using lighters and aerosol sprays, have become a popular DIY pest-control trend on social media. In 2018, an Australian man set his kitchen ablaze while attempting to kill cockroaches the same way."
Meme - Wetherspoons The Game! with...: "All 3 of us have just found out we've got chlamydia. Downing our sorrows to forget. Please help us in this journey of recovery and send anything you can. Table 17 picturehouse Sutton In Ashfield Thank you xx"
Meme - "In 2014, passengers were warned three times not to eat nuts on a Ryanair flight due to a 4-year-old girl's severe nut allergy, but a passenger sitting four rows. away from the girl ate nuts anyway. The girl went into anaphylactic shock, and the passenger was banned from the airline for two years."
philipgray8237: "I would have eaten nuts as well. The person with the nut allergy should not have been ona flight and the needs of one should not dictate what the majority should do, Eat nuts and enjoy."
beasredbianket2: "Is it not the responsibility of the allergic person to deal with their allergy, instead of expecting everyone around them to refrain from eating certain foods?"
sicilianpizzasauce: "The girl shouldn't have been on the flight. People shouldn't need to accommodate other people's allergies."
jessyfish_1: "I'm sorry but this is fucking stupid. I'm a diabetic, sugar can kill me. Should people around me not be allowed to eat sugar either? you're DEATHLY allergic to peanuts, maybe YOU should be the one taking precautions and not putting yourselves in a situation where other people might have peanuts."
Someone claimed that airborne anaphylaxis was a myth except for cooking or warehouses, then selectively ignored my literature review when I presented it
Economic Consequences of Kinship: Evidence From U.S. Bans on Cousin Marriage - "Close-kin marriage, by sustaining tightly knit family structures, may impede development. We find support for this hypothesis using U.S. state bans on cousin marriage. Our measure of cousin marriage comes from the excess frequency of same-surname marriages, a method borrowed from population genetics that we apply to millions of marriage records from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Using census data, we first show that married cousins are more rural and have lower-paying occupations. We then turn to an event study analysis to understand how cousin marriage bans affected outcomes for treated birth cohorts. We find that these bans led individuals from families with high rates of cousin marriage to migrate off farms and into urban areas. They also gradually shift to higher-paying occupations. We observe increased dispersion, with individuals from these families living in a wider range of locations and adopting more diverse occupations. Our findings suggest that these changes were driven by the social and cultural effects of dispersed family ties rather than genetics. Notably, the bans also caused more people to live in institutional settings for the elderly, infirm, or destitute, suggesting weaker support from kin."
Gap between Canada and the United States economies is widening - "“Canada’s future, however, may depend less on its U.S. relations,” wrote Paul Edelstein, a senior economist with Moody’s Analytics in a recent report. Moody’s charted the path of the two economies and discovered a growing gap that it predicts will only get wider. Canada and the United States grew at pretty much the same pace between 2010 and 2017. U.S. real gross domestic product rose by 20 per cent during these years and Canada’s grew by 18 per cent. Recently, however, that pattern has shifted. Since 2022, U.S. cumulative growth of 6.7 per cent has overtaken Canada, where GDP rose just 3.6 per cent... the divergence predates Trump’s tariffs, he said, and weak labour productivity in Canada has been part of the problem. Since 2022, U.S. labour productivity has grown by 5.6 per cent, while it has fallen by 1.2 per cent in Canada."
A Small European Nation Has a Big Explosions Problem - The New York Times - "While similar small-scale bombings are seen in other European countries — as part of gang fighting in Sweden, for example, and by rival political groups in Germany — Dr. Liem said that the Netherlands stands out because of the high number of explosions per capita and because most are a scare tactic by regular people in petty conflicts... Officials said the blasts are typically organized on the Telegram messaging app, where it is easy to buy illegal fireworks and hire people — mostly males in their teens and early 20s — to place the bombs, usually for a fee of a few hundred euros."
Weird. This was supposed to only happen in Sweden due to factors unique to them. Why would the Netherlands be affected too?
CRA call centres offered too many taxpayers bad advice, auditor general says - "The Canada Revenue Agency’s contact centres provided only five per cent of callers with quality tax help in June, the federal auditor general said in a report released Tuesday. And just 18 per cent of incoming calls this year met the CRA service standard by being answered within 15 minutes, Auditor General Karen Hogan's report said. Most callers waited an average of 31 minutes, she added... Hogan's office placed calls to the CRA's contact centres over four months this year, asking general questions. The report said the call centres were better suited to addressing business tax or benefits questions, and provided accurate responses to those calls 54 per cent of the time. They were much worse at accurately answering questions about individual taxes. The report said the CRA seems more concerned with adhering to schedules for shifts and breaks than with the "accuracy and completeness of information they provided to callers.""
Clearly, all the ads the public sector unions are taking out are right, and if staffing levels are cut, taxpayers will suffer. So they need even more funding and staff
'Don't ask pupils questions!' Schools told to avoid triggering anxiety under woke council guidance - "Councils across the country are asking schools to make ‘adjustments’ for children with emotional issues to stop them skipping school. Other measures to ease anxiety include setting longer deadlines for homework and giving verbal feedback rather than grades. The interventions are to combat a surge in ‘emotionally-based school avoidance’ (EBSA) following the pandemic. But last night education experts said the move was a ‘recipe for disaster’ and could produce a generation of children unprepared for real life. A Daily Mail audit of guidance by local authorities found a number are asking schools to make allowances for pupils who have ‘emotional distress’ around attending school. In one example, Gateshead Council says if a child finds participating challenging, they ‘will not be asked to answer a question in class’. It also says troubled pupils can where to sit in lessons and with whom, have longer deadlines for homework and receive verbal feedback about schoolwork rather than grades. It also recommends allowing anxious children to leave the classroom before or after the end of a lesson to ‘avoid sensory overload’ and felt pads on the bottom of chair legs to avoid scraping sounds. Meanwhile, Essex council is recommending that pupils be allowed to skip the lessons that they find ‘a trigger’. It suggests ‘positive praise for getting through a lesson’, instead of ‘sanctions for challenging behaviour’. And it also says anxious children should be given a ‘time-out’ card for when feeling overwhelmed in lessons, as well as ‘lesson breaks to allow some calm down time’. Schools in Sutton, in south London, have also been told to take a flexible approach to children with emotional-based school avoidance, such as ‘dropping certain subjects when provoking high levels of stress, being excused from reading aloud in class and reducing homework demands’. Meanwhile guidance from Suffolk County Council cites as good practice a school that has introduced ‘a policy that teachers will not randomly pick on pupils to answer a question in class’. It comes after teaching unions said their members had seen a rise in EBSA in their schools. This type of absence, where children refuse to go to school because they say it makes them anxious, is regarded as different to truancy... one former headteacher told the Daily Mail said making adjustments for anxious pupils could have a potential negative impact ‘for the whole school’. He added: ‘These demands chip away at the rules and structures that maintain order. ‘Schools can have up to 2,000 teenagers milling around each day. ‘The rules and structures are there for a reason. It risks the whole thing breaking down.’ Dennis Hayes, Emeritus Professor of education at Derby University and co-author of The Dangerous Rise in Therapeutic Education said: ‘Teachers need to reassert what their profession is about: education not therapy.’ While Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education said: ‘These guidelines are a recipe for disaster. ‘They will unwind both pupil behaviour and academic endeavour. The best antidote to pupil anxiety is challenge rather than appeasement.’ It comes as school absence rates post-pandemic continue to cause major concern. In 2018/19, the overall absence rate was 4.7 per cent, while the persistent absence rate, when pupils miss one in ten sessions, was 10.9 per cent. By the autumn term in 2024/25, overall absence was 6.38, while the persistent absence rate was 17.8 per cent... Schools are under pressure to take extra measures to bring rates down and to comply with equality legislation that states that ‘reasonable adjustments’ should be made for disabilities, including mental health disabilities. The law does not define what is considered ‘reasonable.’ Some experts in the medical profession have warned of the diagnoses of mental health disorders and neurodevelopmental differences is out of control. Dr Sami Timimi, child and adolescent psychiatrist, psychotherapist and author of a new book Searching for Normal, said: ‘The struggles of adolescence are a vital part of growing up; being able to just experience them, learn how to live with them and develop an understanding that things will change. ‘But once you enter into the framework of imagining these stresses and struggles as markers for potential mental disorders, you could inadvertently end up in a lifelong relationship with feeling that there’s a part of your identity that is dysfunctional or broken or dysregulated, which needs to be managed, controlled, treated or suppressed.’"
Time for even more awareness about mental health
Schools should stop giving neurodiverse pupils extra time in exams, says neurologist - "Extra time in exams is 'not healthy' for pupils with neurological and developmental disorders, a leading neurologist has claimed. Almost a third of students are now given additional time during tests, amid an explosion in diagnoses of conditions such as ADHD and autism. But Dr Suzanne O'Sullivan, a consultant neurologist at The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, warned that this approach is setting neurodiverse young people 'up to fail'. 'Let's face it, the world is not going to accommodate people,' she told the Cheltenham Literature Festival while promoting her new book, Age of Diagnosis: How the Overdiagnosis Epidemic is Making Us Sick. 'Your child gets a diagnosis and they get extra time in exams, for example. 'I feel that isn't a very healthy way forward. I think that we should be looking at interventions rather than accommodations. 'What accommodations does, it says, well, we'll give you extra time in exams so you can manage better. 'But there's going to be a point in the future when extra time will not exist - and by giving it to young people in school I feel like you're creating the impression they need the extra time, that they perhaps cannot learn any other way.'... Dr O'Sullivan warned that by telling neurodiverse students their brains are 'abnormal' - for which there is no scientific evidence - society is setting them up to fail. 'We should be helping them to work within a messy, difficult world, not setting them up to believe that the world will change to accommodate them,' she said. 'Imagine how difficult that is if you are defining a person according to a brain abnormality in teenagers - how difficult that will be to overcome in the future.' The most recent figures from Ofqual show there has been a 12.5 per cent increase in access arrangement approvals in England in 2023-24, rising to 625,000. Overall, this means almost three in ten students who sat exams were awarded extra time, the unconfirmed statistics suggest. Most pupils with neurological differences including dyslexia, ADHD and autism who have such arrangements are granted 25 per cent extra time to complete their exams... There has also been a rise in the number of 'special consideration' requests, in which a pupil's mark can be reviewed under exceptional circumstances such as illness, bereavement or a traumatic incident. Experts have raised concerns in recent years about a surge in diagnoses of both ADHD and autism - but figures released earlier this year provided the first official estimate of how widespread these neurodevelopmental disorders may be... NHS data also shows that in some areas as many as one in 100 people are taking ADHD medication, compared to just one in 1,000 in nearby regions. At the same time, the latest figures for autism assessments in England show the number of patients waiting at least three months for an initial specialist appointment has jumped by more than a quarter. Experts warn that behind these numbers are children unable to access vital support. Dr Alastair Santhouse, a consultant neuropsychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital in London, said: '[ADHD] becomes a bit of a sticky label that people now identify with as a diagnosis and it often is not helped by the stimulants that they're prescribed.' 'So we need to ask ourselves, what help do people need and how helpful is the diagnosis?' ADHD is also behind a surge in disability benefit claims. One in five now relate to behavioral conditions, with over 52,000 adults - mostly aged 16 to 29 - listing ADHD as their main condition"
Much-loved British bars now have such little cocoa content they are no longer classed as 'chocolate' - "The new formula for Club and Penguin, owned by McVitie's has now been downgraded to 'chocolate flavored', meaning its original slogan 'If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit, join our Club' has been forced to retire. Its new slogan has changed to 'If you like a lot of biscuit in your break, join our Club'. Skyrocketing costs of cocoa have led the makers of the lunchbox classic to change their recipe without dramatically hitting their customers in the pocket. Both brands now use more palm oil and shea oil than cocoa solids in their coating... It comes as some of the UK's most beloved Christmas chocolates have shrunk this year, new research has revealed."
CBC launches court fight to keep Gem subscriber numbers confidential - "CBC/Radio-Canada has filed an application in Federal Court to fight an order directing it to disclose subscriber numbers for its Gem streaming service. The information commissioner ordered CBC to make available the number of paid subscribers to Gem following an access-to-information request for the data... In refusing to disclose the numbers, CBC cited exemptions for programming activities and information that could harm its competitive position. In her final report on the access-to-information complaint, Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard said the subscriber numbers relate to CBC’s programming activities, but they also relate to its general administration — which means the exemption to disclosure does not apply... Bouchard was pressed on the question Monday afternoon during an appearance at the House of Commons heritage committee. Conservative MP Kevin Waugh asked Bouchard whether she was "embarrassed" by the number. "No," she responded. "Why don't you come out and just say, here's the numbers that we got," Waugh asked again, telling Bouchard to "give us some numbers." Bouchard responded that more than five million people have created an account. In a later exchange with Waugh, Bouchard said the CRTC allows businesses to "consider that information confidential," while the information commissioner's interpretation "says that we have not met the standard for that confidentiality." "We want reconciliation between those two interpretations, and that's why we asked the Federal Court to consider the situation," she said. Waugh disagreed, telling Bouchard: "I don't know what you're hiding. I really don't, because you're a public broadcaster, you're getting the funds from the public, and you're not in competition with Bell Media, Crave or any of those.""
Clearly, requiring taxpayer-funded media to report on their results is just a nefarious conservative ploy to undermine public broadcasting. The person who asked for this data is a bad person for wasting taxpayer money, which needs to be spent fighting this frivolous lawsuit
Couple leave Hamilton mid-show saying they "couldn’t understand a word" | Watch - "A couple left the Broadway musical Hamilton at the interval - because they "couldn’t understand a word." Charlie, 30, and his girlfriend Giulia, 26, had booked tickets to mark the smash hit show’s 10th anniversary. Both self-described theatre fans, they were excited to see the award-winning hip-hop musical. But once the performance began, they found the speed of the rapping mixed with the volume of the instruments made it almost impossible to follow the lyrics." In Forrest Gump (1994), Forrest gets rich by having bought Apple stock years earlier. If right after watching the film you bought $10 in Apple stock, it'd be worth $7,793 today. : r/shittymoviedetails
Quebec plans to table bill banning prayer in public - ""Seeing people praying in the streets, in public parks, is not something we want in Quebec," Legault said in December, saying he wanted to send a "very clear message to Islamists.""
Leslie Roberts: Quebec calls street prayer what it is — intimidation - "For months, Muslim Montrealers have gathered outside the Notre Dame Basilica in Old Montreal to take part in prayers. On the other side of the cobblestone streets, non-Muslims have begun gathering in protest, waving Quebec’s fleur-de-lis flag, arguing that faith belongs behind closed doors. Each time the gatherings grew larger, more confrontational, and more symbolic of a clash between identity and expression... In recent months, Islamic prayers have also spilled into parks and downtown streets, with worshippers rolling out mats outside shopping districts and public offices. What began occasionally has become a regular source of tension. The pushback has been visceral. Downtown merchants complain that prayers outside their storefronts drive away customers, creating bottlenecks of foot traffic. One caller to the radio talk show remembered feeling “trapped” when sidewalks suddenly filled with rows of worshippers, unsure if she was intruding or even welcome to pass through. Elsewhere, motorists have reported frustration when intersections were partially blocked. Even if only briefly, the sight triggered confrontations: honking, shouting, accusations of disrespect. For a segment of Quebecers, the sudden visibility of religion in public sparked not only annoyance but genuine fear — that what is happening in Montreal could echo the social frictions seen in European capitals. And sometimes recently, these prayers came with a political message — critical of Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza, calling for a “free Palestine.” To critics, that only heightens the outrage, saying, “these are really protests, not prayers.”"
