• ᗰISᑕᕼIᗴᖴ ™ • on X - "Citizens at a Chicago City Council meeting chant “Go Red, No More Blue, No Matter Who”"
Why this Italian dairy plant only hires employees over 60 - "When launching a new project to market more specialized gourmet butter products, Brazzale was looking to set up a dedicated team. But the handful of 30-somethings who came for a trial period all turned out to lack drive and energy, he says. So he ended up giving the jobs to a couple of friends - all of whom are over 60 years old, creating a new team that he now describes as a gold mine. "To me, they are all young in a way, because age counts for nothing compared to the energy and enthusiasm you can still have when you're over 60," he tells dpa."
The Early Years - "According to popular lore, Albert Einstein was a poor student. It is true that he did not earn top grades in every subject, but he excelled at math and science, even though he skipped classes and had to cram for exams"
Was Napoleon Short? - "Napoleon was called Le Petit Caporal, but the nickname, translated as “The Little Corporal,” was not meant as a reflection of his stature. It was intended as a term of affection by his soldiers. Indeed, many contemporary French paintings, including David’s equestrian portrait, suggest that the general was not short but of average stature. In that painting he at least seems to be in proportion to his horse—but there are no other human figures nearby to which the viewer can refer. David’s other portraits of Napoleon don’t offer much by way of comparison either: in the majestic Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon and the Coronation of Empress Joséphine on December 2, 1804 (1806–07), the stepped platform from which Napoleon crowns his wife challenges any comparison with other figures, while The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries (1812) represents the subject standing alone at a desk. Works by contemporary artists show him similarly alone or sitting. One work by David’s student, Antoine-Jean Gros, however, offers a group of figures on the same plane with which to compare the general. Napoleon Bonaparte Visiting the Plague-Stricken in Jaffa, March 11, 1799 (1804), commissioned by Napoleon, represents an episode from his Egyptian campaign in which he visited his plague-stricken troops in a makeshift hospital. By touching one of the victims, Napoleon defies the men around him, who hold handkerchiefs to their faces. He appears not only heroic but also average! All the men standing near him seem to be about the same height. The English, however, were not so generous: their artists depicted Napoleon as diminutive. Around 1803 the celebrated cartoonist James Gillray introduced the character of “Little Boney,” who resembled a childish Napoleon. At first, Gillray seemingly emphasized brattiness: in “Maniac ravings—or—Little Boney in a Strong fit,” Napoleon is shown in the midst of a tantrum, flipping furniture, wailing about the “British Nation” and “London Newspapers,” and shouting “Oh Oh Oh. Revenge! Revenge!” Gillray then played up juvenility through smallness, whereby Napoleon was represented wearing huge boots and, as one source put it, “trying to talk tough beneath an enormous bicorne hat dwarfing his entire body. Or struggling to pull a sword from an unwieldy scabbard that dragged along the ground as he walked.” Soon Napoleon was just depicted as being short. In “The Empress’s wish or Boney Puzzled!!” another cartoonist, Isaac Cruikshank, depicted a peevish Napoleon at about half the height of his wife and troops. A wee Bonaparte thus became the standard for representing the emperor in English newspapers. Though it’s hard to say if and why the British invented the short Napoleon trope, there is some truth in Cruikshank’s representation: Napoleon was probably significantly shorter than his troops. Several sources note that his elite guards were taller than most Frenchmen, and thus Napoleon had the appearance of being shorter than he really was. Yet interpretations of Napoleon’s death certificate estimate that his height when he died was between 5’2” and 5’7” (1.58 and 1.7 meters). The discrepancy is often explained by the disparity between the 19th-century French inch, which was 2.71 cm, and the current inch measurement, which is 2.54 cm. Sources consequently estimate that Napoleon was probably closer to 5’6” or 5’7” (1.68 or 1.7 meters) than to 5’2”. Although the range may seem short by 21st-century standards, it was typical in the 19th century, when most Frenchmen stood between 5’2” and 5’6” (1.58 and 1.68 meters) tall. Napoleon was thus average or taller, no matter the interpretation."
Did brokers really throw themselves out of office windows in the Wall Street crash? - "J. K. GALBRAITH, in his classic study of the 1929 Wall Street crash, wrote: 'In the United States, the suicide wave that followed the stock market crash is also part of the legend of 1929. In fact, there were none."
being a pepper plant has to be so weird. Imagine... - "being a pepper plant has to be so weird. Imagine evolving capsaicin specifically to stop mammals from eating your fruits, and then a mammal comes along that not only will eat your fruits, but likes them specifically because of the capsaicin, so much that it starts using its weird paws to distribute and care for your seeds, which turns into a strong selective force that literally starts evolving you into producing MORE capsaicin and makes you a WAY more successful and wider ranged species than you ever were before simply because this mammal LOVES Pain Chemical. that evolved specifically to produce pain in mammals. It’s not that the capsaicin isn’t WORKING. It’s just that these freaks like it."
"This is the same mammal with social instincts so goddamn strong that they literally try to form social bonds with their predators, and end up evolving the predators into a new species that fits into their social communities as a form of mutualistic symbiosis, and exists in several different forms with unique morphology and behaviors based on the function they perform. Instead of, I don’t know, EVOLVING TO BE FASTER, this animal finds a faster animal and sits on it. Which shouldn’t even work because the faster animal is a prey animal and this animal is a predator, but SOMEHOW they FORM A SOCIAL BOND WITH THE PREY. So they can sit on it while it runs fast. And somehow the prey animal?? is cool with this?? and benefits from this relationship??? Literally how can you hate humans. Humans are possibly the most hilarious thing evolution has ever done."
"other things humans have done
eat poison plants, decide they like getting poisoned, and evolve the plants to poison them more
evolve to not have hair, but they find mammals with thick fluffy hair and put the hair on themselves, and evolve the mammals to produce extra hair so they can both have a warm coat of hair
split up their parasitic lice species into two separate species because they start taking other animals’ hair and putting it on themselves so much
learn how to set things on fire on purpose. maintain body temperature by just standing beside some wood that’s on fire instead of literally any normal option
figure out that their prey tastes better and is easier to digest when they hold it over a fire after killing it. get smarter because they digest food so good after it’s been held over a fire.
find a poisonous plant and try washing it in boiling water until they don’t die when they eat it anymore
go across the ocean by making a floating nest despite not being able to breathe underwater, drink ocean water, or even swim naturally
drink milk from other mammals even though they can’t digest it and it makes them sick. Evolve those mammals to produce more milk than their babies can drink so they can drink the milk. Some members of the species evolve to be able to digest milk because they were so hellbent on drinking it.
find flowers, bugs and minerals that are nice colors and crush them up to try to turn other things that color
eat mushrooms that make their nervous systems malfunction because they like malfunctioning their nervous systems"
8-hour time-restricted eating linked to a 91% higher risk of cardiovascular death | American Heart Association - "A study of over 20,000 adults found that those who followed an 8-hour time-restricted eating schedule, a type of intermittent fasting, had a 91% higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease."
A screenshot of this made a lot of people very upset, and many tried to claim this was misquoting the study, or fake
Meme - Harpreet Kaur Kandola @panthsprincess: "Formula 1 is a 'sport' for scumbags. @McLarenF1 are employing Oscar Piastri, a mu'derer who shot his girlfriend."
Readers added context they thought people might want to know: "She is confused with Oscar Pistorius who shot his girlfriend in 2013. Article about Oscar Pistorius:... Oscar Piastri is a F1 driver from Australia and driving for McLaren:"
Your Smartphone Photos Take up Too Much Space. Here’s How to Downsize Them. - "It’s all about balancing compression with quality."
Panu Höglund's answer to Why can't Irish speakers (many who have been using English all their lives) pronounce the English 'th' sound correctly? - Quora - "Because that sound didn’t and doesn’t exist in the Irish language. When a whole population switches language so speedily and so completely as in Ireland, that is bound to leave some influence in the newly acquired language. This is how the Irish accent was created. Even after generations, they still speak English with some trace of their original native language. You ask why this influence didn’t fade and disappear yet? Well, the point is that Irish children pick up their English from Irish parents, who still have this accent."
How our brains cope with speaking more than one language - "I'm standing in line at my local bakery in Paris, apologising to an incredibly confused shopkeeper. He's just asked how many pastries I would like, and completely inadvertently, I responded in Mandarin instead of French. I'm equally baffled: I'm a dominant English speaker, and haven't used Mandarin properly in years. And yet, here in this most Parisian of settings, it somehow decided to reassert itself. Multilinguals commonly juggle the languages they know with ease. But sometimes, accidental slip-ups can occur. And the science behind why this happens is revealing surprising insights into how our brains work... If you think about it, the ability of bilingual and multilingual speakers to separate the languages they have learned is remarkable. How they do this is commonly explained through the concept of inhibition – a suppression of the non-relevant languages. When a bilingual volunteer is asked to name a colour shown on a screen in one language and then the next colour in their other language, it is possible to measure spikes in electrical activity in parts of the brain that deal with language and attentional awareness... When he used to work in Germany, a regular train journey home to Belgium could encompass multiple different language zones – and a substantial workout for his language-switching skills. "The first part was in German and I'd step on a Belgian train where the second part was in French," he says. "And then when you pass Brussels, they change the language to Dutch, which is my native language. So in that span of like three hours, every time the conductor came over, I had to switch languages. "I always responded in the wrong language, somehow. It was just impossible to keep up with it."... "I think maybe one of the most unique things that we've seen in bilinguals when they're mixing languages is that sometimes, it seems like they inhibit the dominant language so much that they actually are slower to speak in certain contexts," she says."
High-fat keto diet may help those with bipolar, schizophrenia, study finds - The Washington Post - "A clinical trial, led by researchers at Stanford Medicine, recruited 23 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder and instructed them to follow a diet consisting of 10 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent protein and about 60 percent fat. The medications prescribed to treat serious mental illness can cause “major metabolic side effects,” such as insulin resistance and weight gain, researchers say, and all of the patients studied suffered from at least one of these conditions."
Cuckolding can be positive for some couples, study says - "For his forthcoming book, “Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help Improve Your Sex Life,” Lehmiller surveyed thousands of Americans and found that 58% of men and about a third of women had fantasized about cuckolding."
More Women Are Pumping, but Research Is Lacking - The Atlantic - "The number seems small, but gets larger and larger as you contemplate it: 6 percent. That is the estimated share of breastfeeding mothers who exclusively pump and bottle their milk for their infants, never directly nursing. It is a number that was functionally zero less than a generation ago... Women have become, in Jill Lepore’s evocative phrasing, their own wet nurses. When pumping, their breast milk becomes a commodity; they become producers and their infants consumers, the dyadic experience of breastfeeding unnecessary or secondary. Maybe this is a good thing, if pumping helps babies receive more breast milk, or if it enables mother and child to sustain a desired, direct breastfeeding relationship for longer. Maybe pumping helps women have it all—a full-time career and a breastfed baby. But there’s just one hitch, or two, or three. This “quiet revolution” is built on a foundation of surprisingly scant research and social support... “Does it matter to the woman?” she asks. “Does it matter to the baby’s health? Does it matter to the baby’s development? We really can’t say.”... time with the baby gets supplanted by time with the pump, leaving many women stressed out and exhausted—something that may have an effect on the quantity of milk produced, as well as the mother’s health and the overall stress level of the family."
Why Eating Meat Is Unhealthy - The Atlantic - "the findings of the studies were, overall, predictable: High intake of meat and processed meat was associated with an elevated risk of heart disease, diabetes, and cancers—though the authors said they had “low certainty” in their own findings. The news alerts came down to the sixth article, which was the set of “clinical guidelines.” In it, the researchers concluded that because of the “low quality evidence,” adults should continue eating meat as they do... People like eating meat... Gordon Guyatt, a member of NutriRECS and one of the guidelines’ authors, says he wanted to send the message to the public that there are many things science knows very little about. A distinguished professor at McMaster University, Guyatt has had an enormous impact on medicine. He coined the term evidence-based medicine, now taught in medical schools around the world, which urges doctors to do only what is clearly proven to work. The model prizes randomized controlled trials for testing drugs and clinical interventions."
The article tries to link meat to climate change to say that's why it's bad. Good luck getting the Chinese to stop eating meat
Meme - "Friend: are u a boob guy or a booty guy
Me: If one is to understand the great mystery, one must study all its aspects."
Meme - "- God's punishment upon the iniquities of ancient Rome was turning them into Italians"
'I called for my wife but there was no response': 3 die in China after strong winds blow them out of apartment building - "One moment, they were asleep. The next, they were falling to their deaths. Three people in China died in the early hours of Sunday (March 31) morning, after strong winds swept them out of their apartments, reported Chinese media. Residents of a high-rise apartment building in Nanchang, Jiangxi province, were jolted awake when the thunderstorm struck at around 3am, bringing strong winds and heavy rain to the city... When he went to the room the pair was sleeping in, he discovered that they had gone missing, and the window and mattress had been blown away. Xu and his other family members took refuge in their bathroom till the strong winds subsided."
Why Rich People Don’t Cover Their Windows - The Atlantic - "Americans who earn more than $150,000 are almost twice as likely to leave windows uncovered as those making $20,000 to $29,000, according to a large 2013 study for the U.S. Department of Energy—nearly 20 percent of the first group compared with just over 10 percent of the second... Ditching shades has a lot of upsides regardless of who you are. Uncovered windows bring in natural light, boost well-being, and offer a view of the world outside. The trade-off, of course, is that they also put those inside on display to passersby, and in the summer, they channel heat. For many, the concerns about privacy and finances outweigh the aesthetic and mental health benefits. But for those in the highest income brackets, the calculus is different: People with a big home can more easily get natural light and privacy, and they don’t need to worry so much about heating and cooling costs. Slowly, uncovered windows have become a status symbol. Forgoing curtains wasn’t always so appealing... “Close your curtains when you leave the house” so you “don’t tempt burglars,” one paper cautioned urban residents in 1985. The police often complained that people who forgot to cover their windows were “putting valuable goods on display.” Although city dwellers might have needed to draw their curtains, suburban homeowners, with their big open windows, were declaring that they had nothing to fear... n dense neighborhoods, people tend “to want more privacy, because you’re right on top of each other,” Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg, an architecture professor at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln who studies window light, told me. But these factors are less pressing for rich city dwellers, who likely have more rooms and, therefore, more windows... Although allowing a view into your home can seem vulnerable, it is actually a statement of security. Dutch people, for example, rarely cover their windows at night, letting their neighbors see inside as an act of faith. Similarly, in rural Denmark, drawn curtains are treated with suspicion, especially when newly arrived immigrants are the people keeping their blinds down."
Study: Putting religion on your résumé hurts your job chances — unless you’re Jewish - The Washington Post - "Researchers Michael Wallace, Bradley R.E. Wright and Allan Hyde of the University of Connecticut sent 3,200 fake applications to 800 jobs within 150 miles of two major Southern cities... The explanation that researchers found most convincing is that people are partial to those who are culturally similar to themselves. That would explain why groups least similar to the culturally dominant evangelicals – atheists, Muslims, pagans and Wallonians – faced the most discrimination. Catholics, while Christian, are a small minority in the South and are not considered true Christians by many evangelicals, one explanation for their unpopularity. Jews, on the other hand, do not seem so different to Southerners, the study suggests."
Religious Affiliation and Hiring Discrimination in the American South: A Field Experiment
Meme - Flower: "Damn I really wanna fuck this girl.."
"Bee: *psst* BRO LEAVE IT TO ME.BRO CUM ON MY FACE I'LL GO AND BUMP INTO HER"
Dani on X - "Can we talk about how cute motorcycle gangs are?
-inseparable friends
-matching outfits
-going on adventures together
What wholesome adorable fun."
Meme - "When you don't use a meme template the way it should be used
You know, i'm something of a scientist myself. *Oh Fuck You're Gonna Make Me Cum template*"
Kids: Today, my daughter-in-law taught my 4-year-old grandson to burst... - FML - "Today, my daughter-in-law taught my 4-year-old grandson to burst into tears and yell, "Am I not good enough for you?" whenever I ask her if she's going to have any more children. FML"
Meme - "Most people rejected His message.
'If you don't like pineapple or fruit on your pizza why tf do you use tomato sauce'
'Shut up!'
They hated Jesus because He told them the truth. Gal. 4:16"
Chris Selley: The war on vaping is a war on public health - "Fact: Vaping is less dangerous than smoking. This is one of those facts that doesn’t really need research attached to it. Cigarette smoke contains “carbon monoxide, ammonia, dimethylnitrosamine, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide and acrolein,” a British anti-smoking charity explains. Vapour from an e-cigarette contains water and either glycerin or propylene glycol. While it’s true the long-term effects of consuming the latter two in e-cig form have not extensively been studied, crucially, they are not smoke. In every context other than smoking, we human beings have always tried to avoid smoke. Even considering the addictive wonders of nicotine, it’s incredible we ever believed it was safe. If you need research to back up the vaping-better-than-smoking hypothesis, it’s out there. A 2013 study modelled various scenarios of e-cigarette uptake in the Russian Federation and estimated they might save 3.3 million to 38.5 million life-years over 80 years — as much as 19 per cent of the life-years currently lost to smoking... Just as common sense tells you vaping is preferable to smoking, it should tell you that it would be preferable not to inhale anything recreationally. Nicotine addiction is nothing compared to the ravages of smoking, but it’s not desirable. And there’ s plenty of mounting evidence that vaping isn’t harmless (though I’m not sure anyone ever confidently said it was). There are scientists, public-health officials and researchers who can wrap their minds around this not-very complicated concept: A and B are both undesirable, but A is more undesirable, and thus should be preferred over B if eradicating A and B isn’t on the table. Recent research from the University of East Anglia in England found that providing National Health Service patients with e-cigarettes, in addition to other help quitting smoking, boosted the quit rate six months later among their test group from 4.1 per cent to 7.2 per cent. (Both figures are depressing, but one is a heck of a lot better than the other.) And then there are scientists, public-health officials and researchers who cannot or will not wrap their minds around that very simple concept. On British television network GB News last week, University of Galway medical professor Sherif Sultan nearly blew his top at the idea of e-cigarettes as a harm-reduction tool. “We are witnessing a troubling conversion of public health objectives and corporate interests,” Sultan fumed. “The problem is … the lobbying … trying to show that vaping is much safer doesn’t have any scientific evidence. The World Health Organization (WHO) said it’s not true, and it’s a trap.”... Highly paid communications professionals come up with insulting crap like that all the time, not least in the field of public health, because they think their target audience is idiots. This was never clearer than during the pandemic, and the WHO was among the worst offenders... A recent poll of more than 28,000 British smokers, conducted for a University College London study, found 57 per cent believed vaping was equally or more harmful than their current habit, and that attitudes toward e-cigarettes were in fact worsening. Even allowing for smokers’ motivated reasoning, that is a wretched public-health failure by the WHO and its like-minded British organizations. If public-health officials wonder why their messaging on measles vaccination struggles to take hold, even amid alarming outbreaks in several countries, it should begin with a thorough post-mortem of their disastrous efforts at mind-changing throughout the COVID-19 nightmare — not just on vaccination, but on everything else besides."
Who are Canada’s ‘four screen’ Anglophones? - "35% of Anglophone Internet users are hooked up to a computer, smartphone, tablet and/or internet-connected TV. Of those connected, 35% have three screens, 21% have two, and 8% have one internet-capable screen. While smartphones were the first and second-most popular screens among the demographic, televisions were still the chosen device for watching content and computers remained the most commonly owned device among internet users. The main factor contributing to an Anglophone owning four screens is Netflix, according to the report, which shows it is twice as likely for a “Four Screen Anglophone” to watch the service on a television than any other device."
From 2018
Scientists Create Shapeshifting Robot That Can Liquify And Regain Shape
Meme - "Godzilla in the 20th Century
*Movie* A serious metaphor for nuclear destruction and scientific hubris
*Movie 2* LoL giant monsters go brrrrrr
Godzilla in the 21st Century
*Movie 3* A serious metaphor for the trauma of war and survivor's guilt
*Movie 4* Lol giant monsters go brrrrrr"
