Her Novel Was Pulled for Plagiarism. Her Explanation Was, Too. - The New York Times - "A writer’s personal essay explaining why she plagiarized portions of what was to have been her debut novel was removed from a literary website on Monday after the essay itself was also found to have included plagiarized material. The writer, Jumi Bello, had reached the final stages of publishing her book when she admitted to plagiarism"
Del Duca's plan for schools won't fix the education system | Toronto Sun - "His pitch for smaller class sizes and hiring 10,000 more teachers though is aimed at getting the votes of teachers as much as it is aimed at parents. For most of their 15 years in office, teachers’ unions were powerful allies for the Ontario Liberals. The unions spent millions of dollars in each campaign to help ensure a Liberal win and they were rewarded handsomely for it. Smaller class sizes, more prep time and less teaching time, and big pay raises were all part of the deal. Between 2003 when the Liberals took office and 2018 when they were defeated, the education budget more than doubled even after accounting for inflation. We had a shrinking enrolment but kept hiring more teachers. It’s a trend the Ford government has not reversed despite all the claims of classes being packed and not enough teachers being available. When the Liberals took over in 2003, there were 112,235 teachers overseeing 2,129,742 students. By 2018 it was 125,980 teachers plus 9,054 early childhood educators overseeing 2,020,301 students. Now we have 130,923 teachers, plus 10,072 for a student population of 2,025,258. We’ve gone from 18.8 students per teacher in 2003 to 16.1 in 2018 and now it sits at 15.4. The total education budget now stands at $32.4 billion, or $15,998 per student. Where is this gutting of education that Del Duca claims needs to be reversed? What his pitch for a hard cap of 20 students is really all about is playing up to the false idea that ever shrinking class sizes will increase student performance. This claim has been called into question, especially in areas of teaching science, or in Ontario’s case math. Yet parents feel that if their kid has fewer students in class, they will get more one-on-one attention and do better. It’s a major part of the sales pitch from private schools and it also works well on upwardly mobile middle-class parents who aspire to private school education for their children but can’t afford it... Del Duca knows that to make good on his promise would require hiring more teachers, teachers that aren’t easy to find. We now have a teacher shortage and with baby boomers continuing to retire, it only gets worse. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. That’s why he is promising to recruit teachers in other provinces and other countries. It’s easier said than done... The plans put forward though should be about improving the outcome for students, not for allies like the teachers’ unions. They should offer practical solutions that will get students ready for the future, not offer sales pitches to win votes of concerned parents."
Teachers are a lot less overpaid in Finland, yet Finland is praised as having a world-leading education system.
Liberals love paying teachers even more money, and all education problems are to them caused by a lack of money. So firing up the helicopter is the solution.
Meanwhile in Singapore they have 40 to a class.
Meme - "'insect noises*
long take of HDB corridor
*construction noises*
Singaporean HDB living in the 90s
dimly lit dinner at a tiny table flushed against the wall in a HDB flat kitchen
lush overgrown vegetation
young people walking along railway tracks
road trip to Malaysia
dementia
wise grandparent - grandchild relationship
*Singapore's changing landscape*
MRT hurtling by
~WILDCARD~
flashbacks to childhood
cigarette + contemplation
slow lost person walking amongst skyscrapers
hurtling by in the MRT
"pa. ma. chi fan.*
"tackles taboo issues in a non-confrontational manner"
taxi uncle
giant long kang
rediscovery of a non-English song from one's childhood
porno close up shot of hawker food
"exploration of nation-building"
wide shot of HDB block where each flat looks like tupperware"
"[Singapore] localcinemapekcek bingo"
Alan Garner: ‘The Chronicles of Narnia are atrociously written’ - "I never enjoyed CS Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. I read the books with horrid fascination. They were, in my opinion, and remain, nasty, manipulative, morbid, misanthropic, hectoring, totalitarian and atrociously written."
Employee awarded US$450K for unwanted office birthday party - "A Kentucky jury has awarded a man US$450,000 who sued his employer after he asked them not to celebrate his birthday at work — and they did it anyway. Kevin Berling told his manager at Gravity Diagnostics in Covington in 2019 that a birthday celebration would cause him immense stress. But the company didn’t heed his request, and Berling suffered a panic attack, the Courier Journal reported. The next day Berling had another panic attack when his supervisor chastised him for “stealing his co-workers’” joy and “being a little girl,” according to a lawsuit. Berling was fired after the second attack... Berling had told his supervisor that a birthday celebration would bring back bad childhood memories surrounding his parents’ divorce. The supervisor forgot to pass along his request"
Hallmark movies are fascist propaganda | Salon.com
Anyone to the right of Stalin is fascist
KFC on Twitter - "I don’t care A) what your politics are 2) what your gun stance is d) what happened in Kenosha & at the trial if you see those clips of Rittenhouse saying “I like butts and boobs” and your reaction isn’t “well that was weird & uncomfortable” you’re a weirdo"
KFC on Twitter - "The Great Barstool Boobs vs. Butt Debate is live. Vote here and answer this once and for all"
Meme - "Only a master of the four races can save the pop world *Ariana Grande looking Asian, white, black and latino*"
Sunlight affects whether languages have a word for ‘blue’ - "People with more exposure to sunlight are more likely to speak languages that lump green and blue together, under a term that linguists dub “grue.” That’s because of the effects of a lifetime of light exposure, the team speculates: Lots of Sun causes a condition called “lens brunescence” that makes it harder to distinguish the two hues... if cultures begin to dye clothing with hard-to-produce blue pigments, that could also prompt the emergence of new color terms... Living near a lake increased the chance of having a separate word for “blue.” So did living in a larger society."
As People Flee New York City, The Rats Are Moving In
Opinion | For Uber and Lyft, the Rideshare Bubble Bursts - The New York Times - "Piece by piece, the mythology around ridesharing is falling apart. Uber and Lyft promised ubiquitous self-driving cars as soon as this year. They promised an end to private car ownership. They promised to reduce congestion in the largest cities. They promised consistently affordable rides. They promised to boost public transit use. They promised profitable business models. They promised a surfeit of well-paying jobs. Heck, they even promised flying cars. Well, none of that has gone as promised (but more about that later). Now a new study is punching a hole in another of Uber and Lyft’s promised benefits: curtailing pollution. The companies have long insisted their services are a boon to the environment in part because they reduce the need for short trips, can pool riders heading in roughly the same direction and cut unnecessary miles by, for instance, eliminating the need to look for street parking. It turns out that Uber rides do spare the air from the high amount of pollutants emitted from starting up a cold vehicle, when it is operating less efficiently, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University found. But that gain is wiped out by the need for drivers to circle around waiting for or fetching their next passenger, known as deadheading. Deadheading, Lyft and Uber estimated in 2019, is equal to about 40 percent of rideshare miles driven in six American cities. The researchers at Carnegie Mellon estimated that driving without a passenger leads to a roughly 20 percent overall increase in fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions compared to trips made by personal vehicles. The researchers also found that switching from a private car to on-demand rides, like an Uber or Lyft, increased the external costs of a typical trip by 30 to 35 percent, or roughly 35 cents on average, because of the added congestion, collisions and noise from ridesharing services... Uber and Lyft envisioned a future in which software algorithms would push each car to host three or more passengers, easing traffic and providing a complement to public transit options. Instead, passengers have largely eschewed pooled rides and public transit in favor of private trips, leading to downtown bottlenecks in cities like San Francisco. The duration of traffic jams increased by nearly 5 percent in urban areas since Uber and Lyft moved in. Lyft’s president, John Zimmer, once claimed the majority of rides would be in autonomous vehicles by 2021, but the company has largely backed away from its self-driving efforts, including selling its developmental unit to a Toyota subsidiary this year. Uber, which once characterized robot cars as “existential” to its future, sold off its autonomous vehicle division last year after mounting safety and cost concerns. The efficiencies of ride hailing were supposed to all but end car ownership; instead vehicle sales are on the rise again this year, after a down year in 2020. There is also evidence that Uber and Lyft may actually spur an increase in car sales in cities where they begin operating. Public-transit use in some areas, despite the companies’ claims, has been waning, according to several studies, as more consumers opt to jump in Ubers and Lyfts that drive them door to door... Underwritten by venture capital, Uber and Lyft hooked users by offering artificially cheap rides that often undercut traditional yellow cabs. But labor shortages and a desperate need to find some path to a profitable future have caused rideshare prices to skyrocket, perhaps to a more rational level. After burning through billions of venture capital dollars, Uber said it was on a path to profitability last year, using an accounting metric that ignores many of the costs that actually make it unprofitable"
Dara Khosrowshahi: Uber CEO works on app for a day and reveals how much drivers can make - "he earned $106.71 during a half-day period, meaning his hourly rate was roughly $30 an hour, well above the local, state and federal minimum wages. Uber declined to answer questions about the average earnings of drivers in San Francisco and nationally as compared to the minimum wage. According to April 2021 data from the company, an Uber driver in San Francisco on the app for 20 hours a week earns a median wage of $25.28 per hour before tips or expenses. Uber Eats drivers, however, are part-time contractors who provide their own transportation, food, healthcare, etc, and it has been claimed that they can take home less than that median figure, sometimes less than minimum wage."
DoorDash and Uber Eats Are Hot. They’re Still Not Making Money. - WSJ - "Delivering food is an expensive logistical undertaking. Apps earn money by charging restaurants a percentage of the order, as well as by charging consumers a service fee. They then dip into those earnings to pay drivers, their biggest expense. After accounting for advertising costs and refunds to customers, among other operational expenses, DoorDash on average is left with 2.5% of a customer’s overall bill, according to a Deutsche Bank analysis. That means DoorDash ended up with 90 cents on the average order during the height of the pandemic, worth around $36. The math isn’t pretty, but it’s the best in the industry. While DoorDash hasn’t posted an annual profit in its eight years of operation, it slipped out of the red for one quarter last year, becoming the only food-delivery company in the U.S. to do so during the health crisis... Uber says that starting next month it will allow consumers to combine their food order with a convenience run from a nearby store. DoorDash is testing a similar feature. A grocery or alcohol order is typically more lucrative than food, so apps can drive up people’s basket sizes and, in turn, their revenue. They can also get “better and better about upselling,” said Mr. Payne, the DoorDash COO. Now, he said, apps can ask: “Do you want fries with that? Do you want a Cabernet Sauvignon with that?”... The strategy is also helping apps drive down their biggest expense: the cost of the delivery itself. Food-delivery apps couldn’t always wait to combine a tiny order with a more lucrative one because hot meals needed to be delivered quickly. Executives say expanding into nonperishable items is letting them bundle deliveries in a way they couldn’t with food alone... Analysts say food-delivery penetration is still low despite last year’s rapid adoption—only 6% of the U.S. population uses DoorDash, the nation’s biggest food-delivery service by market share—so “outside of a city like New York, it’s still very early days”... Uber’s Mr. Gore-Coty was struck at how many consumers complained about missing combo meals during the early months of the pandemic. When he dug into the problem, he found that in fact, major parts of the combos generally arrived, but often missed items like a side salad or dessert. The app didn’t allow consumers to say that one of the items within the combo was missing, leaving Uber to refund the cost of the entire meal. Last summer the company began allowing consumers to break down items missing from a combo. To minimize errors, apps are tweaking the technology they provide restaurants, too. Before the pandemic, the item most commonly missing from Cheesecake Factory Inc. delivery orders was cheesecake itself. Restaurant staff would pack hot food but leave cold cheesecakes to be packed later. That increased the likelihood that staffers would forget about the cheesecake. DoorDash’s solution was to integrate reminders into the restaurant’s delivery tablets so orders with cheesecakes displayed notes in big, bold letters. The change reduced missing desserts as staffers were less likely to overlook them when they handed orders to Dashers. DoorDash says cheesecake is no longer its most-forgotten item... DoorDash now provides delivery services for Walmart Inc., Macy’s Inc. and Petco Health and Wellness Co., among others. These orders are more profitable because apps don’t need to refund consumers for errors, nor do they need to spend money on marketing. Clients like Walmart bring big business, meaning drivers typically carry more than one order at the same time, lowering apps’ delivery cost. Deutsche Bank’s Mr. Walmsley estimates that DoorDash makes a profit of $2 on such a delivery, as opposed to the 90 cents it made on the average food order in the middle of last year."
And this is ignoring the tip, which consumers pay
‘This can’t be real’: Grubhub promotion turns New York City restaurants into a ‘war zone’ - "What were they thinking? That’s what customers, restaurants and delivery workers want to know after a surprise promotion by the food delivery platform Grubhub went badly awry – and proved there’s really no such thing as a free lunch. Grubhub’s plan was ambitious: to feed everyone in New York City and the surrounding Tri-State area for free, during lunch hours on Tuesday. The platform cited a survey it had conducted that found that 69% of working New Yorkers said they had skipped lunch. But that’s exactly what the stunt ended up doing, after Grubhub’s platform crashed as New Yorkers rushed to place orders. The fiasco left restaurants overwhelmed, delivery workers frustrated, and many customers with empty stomachs... many users never saw their food after spending money, with some kept hungry and waiting for hours by the app’s promises that the food would soon arrive."
The Two Sides of Singapore, As Seen By A Food Delivery Rider - "The deliveries I get in the town area, the final figure is like … $110. That kind of crazy number for very few items, because each item is very expensive. I’m always carrying a light backpack for very very expensive things. One pizza and one pasta for $85. That they order for dinner on Tuesday. No special occasion. Like, there’s a bunch of Japanese expats who live in Martin Place and they’re always ordering from Ma Maison. And delivery fee is not that cheap, right? So you order things that make sense, like a full meal. But I get the weirdest orders from Grange Road, Leonie Hill. One scoop of ice cream from Häagen-Dazs. I pick up the thing and it’s like weightless. Then I will hold the ice cream, look at the Häagen-Dazs lady, and be like, “This? That’s it?” And she’s also like, “You know, rich people like that la,” and we laugh and pretend we’re friends. There’s also this guy who always orders one latte from Dal.komm at Centrepoint. One latte. Just one latte. Every time. It’s roughly $6 to $7 for that stupid latte, But with the delivery, he’s paying $11 to $12 for the latte every day. Don’t you think this guy has an expensive espresso machine at home? I’m sure, right? But he must have his daily $11 Dal.komm latte. But they’re paying my salary, so thank you... The job gets very exhausting because it’s a cycle of negativity. Can you imagine if you never feel satisfied with your job? You’re always tired. You always feel like you’re not earning enough. You always feel people don’t respect you. You always feel invisible."
Commentary: Does rise in food delivery roles suggest something's wrong with full-time employment? - "In 2020, Singapore’s proportion of own-account workers — self-employed workers who are not employers — among working residents was at a decade-high of 9.7 per cent... Instead of stealing workers from the traditional economy, platform firms may be adding new workers to the Singapore economy - workers who would otherwise not have entered the workforce in the first place - and putting a floor on unemployment during this pandemic. Instead of stealing workers from the traditional economy, platform firms may be adding new workers to the Singapore economy - workers who would otherwise not have entered the workforce in the first place - and putting a floor on unemployment during this pandemic... While the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) 2020 Labour Force Survey shows that there are more residents who do own-account work on a non-preferred basis — 37,400 in 2020 compared to 21,500 in 2019 — this number is smaller than the pre-pandemic level of 46,700 in 2017. The proportion of own-account workers who did it not because of their preference, at 16 per cent, also pales in comparison to the 84 per cent who chose to do it because of the flexibility and freedom. The same MOM survey showed that while 52 per cent of own-account workers faced challenges at work in 2020, primarily because of the pandemic, only 12 per cent of this group sought employee work as a solution. As the economy readies for the pick-up, delivery work and other gigs may provide a bridge between permanent jobs, as a Grab survey of driver partners show. More than 70 per cent said they planned to stop driving after two years... About 70 per cent of Grab’s partners only had a highest education level of secondary school or lower"
The Big Read in short: Bridging the Singaporean-foreigner divide - "Despite having learnt the quirks and way of life in Singapore, both Ms Jia and Mr Goutham said that outside of work, their social circles remain limited to mainly fellow expatriates. On their part, Singaporeans told TODAY that while they are quick to help their foreign co-workers adjust to the Singaporean way of life, not all of the locals are able to form deeper relations beyond the professional setting. Singaporean Gouthaman Haridass, a 33-year-old consultant in the fintech industry, said that he has invited his foreign colleagues over to his home to celebrate local festivals or tell them about places in Singapore beyond the usual expatriate haunts like Bugis, Orchard or Holland Village. On the other hand, Ms Nur, a 28-year-old who works as a manager in the banking industry and declined to give her full name, does not feel the need to proactively educate her foreign colleagues on local culture as most leave their jobs in a few years, and conversations on local culture may not be of relevance or interest to them. Indeed, even as Singaporeans and foreigners live and work alongside each other, both groups have found it difficult to break out of their existing social circles and build deeper relationships with people from the other side... while two in five Singaporean youth feel that foreigners are able to integrate into local culture comfortably, a slightly higher proportion of half think that foreigners tend to stick to their own social circles. Foreigners in the professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMET) category whom TODAY spoke to also acknowledged that their social circles comprise predominantly other expatriates. Although they are keen to get to know more Singaporeans, the foreign PMETs cited limited opportunities, existing networks and “reserved Singaporeans” as among the reasons they are unable to do so. Ms Jia, for instance, said that her friends are mainly expatriates from the United States or Europe as she got to know them through her American husband who is also working in Singapore. And while she is open to making Singaporean friends, Ms Jia said that foreigners tend to seek each other out as there is a sense that they should “get close and help each other out” in a new country. Mr Goutham, the Indian national and Employment Pass (EP) holder, said that his relationship with his colleagues does not extend beyond work... Some Singaporeans interviewed also felt that their foreign counterparts are sometimes hungrier and more competitive at work. On this, Mr Goutham, the Indian national, said: “There’s a perception that as a foreigner, you need to perform well. Otherwise, you might lose your job and be thrown out of Singapore. That very feeling makes you work a little harder because you need to keep the job."... Debunking the misperception that all foreigners in Singapore are living in riches, Mr Goutham, the Indian national, noted that Singapore is expensive to live in and many foreigners like himself “spend a bomb” to live here."
Jean-Pierre Jeunet on why he won't make 'Amelie' sequel: Paris is ugly now
Turkish DNA Project Calls For Boycott After Ancestry.com Highlights Many Greeks Were Turkified - "The Turkish DNA Project, a misinformation portal on Facebook and Twitter known for posting genetic graphs and charts without references or sources, expressed frustration with Ancestry.com, the largest for-profit genealogy company in the world. The misinformation project called for “all Turks to boycott this company: Ancestry.” “AncestryDNA prioritizes to demonize the Turkish people and delegitimaze their presence in Turkey rather than giving information about the genetic structure of the relevant population”... Ancestry.com correctly highlighted that many Turkish citizens are indeed mostly unrelated to Turkic peoples from Central Asia and are rather native Anatolian people that have been Turkified. Of course, the Turkish DNA Project’s graphs, charts and data present another “truth.” However, these are in complete opposition to science, hence their call for Ancestry.com to boycotted as science continually disproves their misinformation campaign. Ancestry.com highlighted that after the Ottoman conquest of Pontos in today’s Turkey’s southeastern Black Sea coast, the “Pontian Greeks adopted Turkish language and culture, and many converted to Islam in order to have greater opportunities in Turkish society. Ancestry.com also highlighted that another round of Turkification of Pontian Greeks occurred after the second Russo-Turkish War (1828-29)... A famous case of a Turkish citizen discovering they are Greek is Yannis Vasilis Yaylalı, born Ibrahim Yaylalı. Yannis was a former Turkish ultra-nationalist that was proud of his enmity towards Kurds and other indigenous peoples of Asia Minor. However, he soon discovered he was actually Greek, became Christian and then became an activist for minorities in Turkey despite originally joining the Turkish Army to kill them... Uzay Bulut, a Turkey-born journalist, also responded to the call by the Turkish DNA Project to boycott Ancestry.com. “Why are Turkish nationalists so terrified of the truth? Because if they face it, the lies they’ve come up with will be shattered to the ground,” she said on Twitter. “Through these lies, hatred has grown which made them commit so many crimes against Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, Jews and others,” Bulut said. “Then they will realize that by destroying those peoples, they’ve actually destroyed their own ancestors and cultural heritage,” the journalist said, adding: “The truth will set us all free and bring much needed peace to the region.””
Turkish Spokesman Says Modern Greeks Are Unrelated To Ancient Greeks, But What Do Genetic Tests Find? - "A spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has shown once again why Turkey remains an extremely unscientific country with the third lowest IQ on the European continent and its surrounds, according to the Ulster Institute for Social Research. İbrahim Kalın questioned whether the Greeks of today are connected to the Ancient Greeks... “I remember some of the left-leaning professors at the university saying the same thing. Greece is proud of its history. Let Kalın burst. We are Greeks, we were Greeks, we are a continuation of the ancient Greeks, we defend our history and in this history we do not go back. The Turks came here much later,” he said. Genetic testing conducted in a peer review process and analysed by several American hospitals have confirmed that there is a clear link between the Ancient Greek Bronze Age civilisations of the Minoans and Myceneans, and the Greeks of today.""
Why Navy SEALs in Vietnam Wore Bluejeans Instead of Jungle Fatigues - "“Mosquitoes couldn’t get through the denim,” Berta, who was an adviser for Lien Doi Nguoi Nhai, or LDNN, the South Vietnamese frogman unit, told author Dennis Cummings in The Men Behind the Trident: SEAL Team One in Vietnam, a collection of stories about notable Vietnam War SEALs. “The leeches could crawl up the legs, so we’d put rubber bands around the bottom of the pant legs,” Berta said. “The mud didn’t cling to Levis like it did to the cammo pants, and there were no large side pockets on the jeans, like there were on the cammo pants, that would fill with water when you came out of a river or canals.”"
Spoiling Rice in Vietnam Show Perils of Food Protectionism - Bloomberg - "Hoa is one of more than 100 traders in Vietnam hurt by a government measure last month to restrict shipments on concerns that global demand will spike as the coronavirus upends supply chains. While the world’s third-biggest rice exporter has since reopened some trade, hundreds of thousands of tons of spoiling rice at the country’s ports show the dangers of curbing exports... If the rice isn’t shipped, the companies involved will struggle to survive, the Vietnam Food Association said in a state newspaper... In Can Tho, a city in Vietnam’s rice belt, officials estimated that a majority of its rice exporters have been losing as much as $14,000 a day each on damages paid to shipping companies, container fees, and fines for being unable to fulfill export contracts"
Meme - Authoritarian Left: "Blame the Americans"
Authoritarian Right: "Blame the Jews"
Libertarian Left: "Blame the Rich"
Libertarian Right: "Blame the Government"
Ascended: "Blame the RICH JEWS in AMERICAN GOVERNMENT"
Couple Permanently Lives On Cruise Ship Because It's Cheaper Than Mortgage - "Angelyn Burk, 53, and her husband Richard have been hopping from ship to ship for around $44 a night each since May 2021. This includes accommodation, food, beverages, and all transport."
Married couples who meet online are SIX times more likely to divorce - "Married couples who meet online are six times more likely to divorce within the first three years than those who meet their partners through more traditional routes. Research has found that 12 per cent of couples who met over the internet did not make their leather – third – anniversary, compared to just two per cent who found love via family or friends. The report, by the Marriage Foundation, suggests that those who meet online are at higher risk of divorce because they could be 'relative strangers' when they tie the knot. 'Gathering reliable information about the long-term character of the person you are dating or marrying is quite obviously more difficult for couples who meet online without input from mutual friends or family or other community,' said Harry Benson, the foundation's research director."
Controversial influencer couple who euthanised dog refused to adopt baby because of social media ban - ""After you pick up your child, they are your child, but you are not allowed to talk about them or share any images, photos, videos, anything about them online for a year"... Holt International, the adoption agency referenced in the video, told Business Insider that Thai adoption law restricts the release of an "adopted child’s information, photos, videos and films to mass media or Internet before finalisation”. Social media users were quick to hit out at the couple, accusing them of wanting to adopt a child for “profit” through the creation of content for the page."
S'porean couple met online playing Diablo III, has a themed pre-wedding shoot in honour of it
Gonzalo Lira on Twitter - "Do you know why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941? Because the US imposed a total trade embargo. And then an oil embargo. With the explicit aim of crushing Japan's economy. And ever after always claimed: “The Japanese attacked us for no reason whatsoever!”"
If trade restrictions justify war, the Opium Wars were good and the East India Company did nothing wrong
Chemistry papers find themselves on the scrapheap quicker than physics ones - "Perhaps unsurprisingly, papers in history journals had the highest proportion of references to older journal articles. In history papers from 2019, more than 41% of references were to studies more than 20 years old, while 10% of citations relate to articles more than 50 years old. In chemistry, just 11% of citations were to articles that are over 20 years old. This is less than half the rate seen in physics, where a quarter of references are to papers published more than 20 years earlier. Over 50 years, the survival rate for papers in chemistry is seven times lower than in physics, and around 50 times lower after 100 years. Of the eight subject areas that Dorta‑González and Gómez‑Déniz analysed, the lowest survival rates were seen for papers in electronic engineering and medicine. Only 8% of references in electrical and electronic engineering articles, and 9% of references in medicine papers, are to studies more than 20 years old. In these disciplines, just over 0.1% of references are to papers over 50 years old, compared to around 0.4% of references in chemistry papers."
Couple in India sue son for not giving them a grandchild - "A couple in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand are suing their only son and his wife for not giving them a grandchild after six years of marriage. Sanjeev and Sadhana Prasad, 61 and 57, say they used up their savings raising their son, paying for his pilot's training as well as a lavish wedding. They are demanding compensation worth nearly $650,000 (£525,000) if no grandchild is born within a year... The highly unusual lawsuit was filed on grounds of "mental harassment". Mr Prasad said he had spent all his savings on his son, sending him to the US in 2006 for pilot training at a cost of $65,000. He returned to India in 2007, but lost his job and his family had to support him financially for more than two years... Shrey Sagar, 35, did eventually get a job as a pilot. His parents say they arranged his marriage to Shubhangi Sinha, now 31, in 2016, in the hope that they would have a "grandchild to play with" during their retirement. The parents say they paid for a wedding reception in a five-star hotel, a luxury car worth $80,000 and a honeymoon abroad. "My son has been married for six years but they are still not planning a baby," Mr Prasad said. "At least if we have a grandchild to spend time with, our pain will become bearable." The couple's lawyer, AK Srivastava, told The National that the couple had demanded the money "because of mental cruelty". "It is a dream of every parent to become a grandparent. They had been waiting for years to become grandparents.""
A $71 Billion Plunge Casts Doubt on Singapore’s New Economy Aura - Bloomberg - "Singapore’s two largest new-economy firms have been touted as the next big thing for years. A $71 billion rout in their share prices in 2022 seems to show investors aren’t buying the story. Shares of ride-hailing company Grab Holdings Ltd. have more than halved since the start of the year while gaming and e-commerce giant Sea Ltd.’s stock price has tumbled by 46%. The two U.S.-listed firms are languishing at the bottom of the MSCI Asean Index, with Grab among the biggest losers on the Asia Pacific stock benchmark as well."
