Cernovich on X - "When East Germany fell, there was a museum opened on all of the spying and tips. It was “friends and family,” even spouses, who reported people to the Stasi. Your anti-Trump friends will send you to gulags. That isn’t a guess. It’s happened and they are all the same."
𝗥𝗲𝗱𝗣𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 on X - "If you don’t believe it…just look back on the Covid experiment. Everyone became Gestapo!"
Actual Fact Bot: Revived | Facebook - "Microwaves are "non-ionising" radiation, meaning they are too low-energy to damage DNA. So your microwave could give you a nasty burn (enough to k*ll you, even), but only in the same manner as your oven."
Actual Fact Bot: Revived | Facebook - "Dr. Seuss wrote “Green Eggs and Ham” to win a bet against his publisher who thought that Seuss could not complete a book using only 50 words."
Actual Fact Bot: Revived | Facebook - "The element 'Cobalt' gets its name from the German 'kobold' which means 'goblin'. Miners found cobalt veins near their silver, and blamed this strange and dangerous metal on goblins, and thus named it after them."
Actual Fact Bot: Revived | Facebook - "The first scientific specimen of the world's largest butterfly, the Queen Alexandra's birdwing, was collected "with the assistance of a small shotgun.""
Meme - "OH, SWEETHEART.. THAT'S A NICE WAY TO WAKE UP! GOD THAT TONGUE IS MAGIC.. WAIT A MINUTE!!! YOU'RE NOT MY DOG!"
Meme - "Ana Victoria becomes the world's first lawyer with Down syndrome Congratulations!"
"How tf did I get the death sentence for a parking ticket? Is my lawyer retarded or something?"
Space Sudoer on X - "Actual words from an actual Boeing employee “We hate SpaceX. We talk shit about them all the time, and now they’re bailing us out.”"
Robert Graham 𝕏 on X - "The real reason Boeing employees hate SpaceX is that all their coworkers with talent left to join SpaceX, leaving behind those who can't change jobs. I'm only half joking. This was a common phenomenon when I lived in Silicon Valley, with the talented leaving to join startups."
Richard Hanania on X - "Tim Walz and his wife claim that their son has a non-verbal learning disorder, ADHD and an anxiety disorder. “Non-verbal learning disorder” seems to be a medical term they now give to children who aren’t good at school. These people go along with every trend, including the over medicalization of children. No one can have a kid who is not very bright or can’t sit still, they have a “non-verbal learning disorder” or ADHD. And of course he has anxiety, his parents told him he had two other disorders! Good insight into how leftists today end up with so many forms of mental illness."
Nonverbal learning disorder - Wikipedia - "A review of papers found that proposed diagnostic criteria were inconsistent... NVLD is not recognised by the DSM-5 and is not clinically distinct from learning disorders"
John Huston – Hollywood Blvd Cinema – Dinner and a Movie - "Huston was a licensed pilot…and a prankster. He once flew over a golf course and dropped 5,000 ping-pong balls while a celebrity golf tournament was in progress"
Meme - "Karens' FBI Agents who have to read hundreds of stupid Facebook posts with them"
"My FBI agent who gets to look at memes all day"
@seananmcguire on Tumblr - "im not even the type of guy to go "actually it's frankenstein's MONSTER" because a painting by rembrandt or picasso or any other artist is often called "a rembrandt" or "a picasso" as shorthand. so in this respect frankenstein's monster can be considered "a frankenstein""
Meme - "If using a streaming service means agreeing to let Disney get away with killing your wife, piracy is completely justified"
Actual Fact Bot: Revived | Facebook - "When Arthur Rubinstein (Polish American classical pianist) was invited to play for delegates at the 1945 inauguration of the UN, he was so angry that neither a Polish delegation nor a Polish flag was included, he made his point by performing the Polish national anthem extremely slowly and loudly."
Allison Hanes: Sorry, you're too old to be a historic anglophone - "Amid all the confusion about whether anglophone Quebecers need an eligibility certificate for schooling in English to obtain health care in English, 77-year-old Montreal resident Gary Bernstein decided to apply for a document parents typically seek when they register their children for kindergarten. Bernstein has never had one of the papers, which were introduced after Bill 101 restricted access to English education in Quebec in the 1970s. But he would qualify as a “historic anglophone” — a vague term the government of Premier François Legault coined as it tightened language laws over the last few years — under almost any definition. He went to elementary school in English in the 1950s, high school in the 1960s and graduated from McGill University in the early 1970s. His daughter attended English school and so did his granddaughter (although she has since switched to French school). So when the Health Ministry published new directives about who may obtain services in “a language other than French” under Bill 96, repeatedly mentioning eligibility certificates, Bernstein made some inquiries (regardless of Minister of the French Language Jean-François Roberge insisting that the 31-page policy doesn’t change anything)... he’s uneasy about the whole idea of any subset of society needing special identification papers. “I’m Jewish, so I’m very sensitive to government intervention on things like education and social services”... he feels it’s an insult to the English-speaking (and Jewish and Italian and Chinese) communities, who built and nurtured many of Quebec’s health institutions, that people would be refused documentation that is supposedly needed to guarantee access to services in their language. “It’s kind of another slap in the face that the Legault government doesn’t recognize this contribution,” Bernstein said. “We treat the French community with respect but we don’t get it back. That really bothers me.” In protest, Bernstein had a bunch of stickers printed up that read: “I am/Je suis an historic anglo. Protect our health care rights.” He handed them out in front of the Jewish General Hospital on Tuesday."
Actual Fact Bot: Revived | Facebook - "The human cornea extracts oxygen directly from the air. It has no blood supply."
Actual Fact Bot: Revived | Facebook - "Ruppell's vulture is considered to be the highest-flying bird, with confirmed evidence of a flight at an altitude of 11,300 metres (37,100 ft) above sea level. It was ingested by a jet engine of an airplane flying at an altitude of 11,300 m."
Meme - Man: "Hey, Kid! Check this out! *Red Bull*"
Man: *Glug Glug Glug*
*Man flying with wings*
"Kid: "Woooooowww"
Kid: *Glug Glug Glug*
Wolverine: "You're a real asshole, Angel..." *dead kid at bottom of building*
Meme - *Bald Cancer Patient*
"WHEN THE CARPET MATCHES THE DRAPES"
Kermit: "SHE'S DYING OF CANCER I CANT HIT ON HER"
Evil Kermit: "GET HER PREGNANT GO FOR THE DOUBLE KILL"
Meme - Andrew Garfield Peter Parker: "ACAB"
George Stacey: "yeah? And wtf does that mean?"
Peter Parker: "All Cocks Are Beautiful"
Gwen Stacey: *wtf look*
Peter Parker: "Especially your daughter's"
Meme - "Real Dick Vs. Dildo Challenge *2 men with one in front of and another behind a curtain*"
Meme - "What does "ahorita" mean in Spanish?
A: Now
B: Later
C: In a bit
D: Right now"
It can also mean "never"
Meme - "Is it still available??
Hello???
I'm late to pick up my daughter and I need to know now??"
"Jesus man I'm sorry It's been like 5 minutes yes it's available."
"I was late picking up my daughter because of you!!!! I demand a reduction in the price or I'm not taking it!!!"
"I guess you won't take it then. Tell your daughter I'm sorry you're her dad."
Ian Smith on X - "Let’s stop pretending that World War I and II were some heroic tales of the Allies saving the world from the boogeyman and call them what they really were - engineered White genocide facilitated by international usurers who needed gut the White world from the inside to keep up their parasitic lifestyle."
Alex 👁️🌹 on X - "Participation in World War I was ended by the Bolsheviks, while the European conservative right-wing enthusiastically supported the pointless slaughter of more White people. The WWII Allies defeated the guy who killed more White people than anyone else in human history."
Meme - "what we eating tonight ?"
"hmmmm *eggplant* *cheese*"
":0 dick cheese ?"
"NOO. eggplant parmesan!!!"
"imma need you to not use emojis ever again .."
Meme - "*Alien in low cut camisole, cardigan and blonde wig*
Wants to collect traveled "dna samples" from you each week
traveled half a galaxy just to meet
she thinks your primitive ways are cute
"I don't like alien males, they have weak jaws anon"
"let's have some hybrid kids together anon"
secretly jealous that you would lIke some pleiadian ho
for her, a human male like you is a chad, so it's over for aliencels
telepathically tells you "good night" daily"
Meme - Crazy Ass Moments in LatAm Politics @AssLatam: "Tarek William Saab, Attorney-General of Venezuela, edited not so subtly his bulge on Instagram to make it seem bigger."
Meme - Jeff O'Bailey @JeffOBailey: "All my homies running away from the principal after one of us yelled "penis" into the library. *X-Men cartoon opening with good mutants charging at evil ones*"
Meme - RitorFella🇺🇸🇺🇦 @RitornellaNYC: "🇷🇺 female athlete from an Altay ethnic minority commited suicide after being mercilessly bullied because of her non-Slavic face. Remember how numerous Moscow-based western journos were worried about “nazi problem in 🇺🇦”? I wonder why they failed to notice nazi problem in 🇷🇺🤔"
"bullying due to eye shape and dark skin color
Sambo wrestler from Gorno-Altaisk Ksenia Cheponova committed suicide on August 17. Her death was confirmed by the Sambo Federation of the Novosibirsk Region, where 17-year-old Cheponova had been training recently. According to NGS, her body was found by trainers in Altai. wasn't a good person, but I wasn't a bad person either, don't understand what is my fault? Is it because I was born with narrow eyes or because I have dark skin? I was never ashamed of my nationality untill some people began to turn it into a joke," the girl wrote in her"
Meme - "Your memes" *woman without cleavage*
"My MEMES" *woman with plentiful cleavage*
Meme - "Replied to your story *bikini picture*
I would leave my wife and kids for you
Nvm I just jerked off you mean nothing to me"
Thread by @Daractenus on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "For the sake of better understanding the inner workings of the "mysterious Russian soul", I've compiled a long list of polls which, put together, make for a rather compelling image, one that I hope will dismiss the idea of the "silent majority of the good Russian people". 🧵
While apparently a lot of people in Africa still hold somewhat of a positive view of Russia, less then 1 in 10 Russians would even conceive having someone from Africa as a family member, neighbor, friend, coworker or all round go as far as to see them as a human being. When it comes to the Central Asian migrants, I presume those miniscule percentages of the good Russian people willing to see them as more than slaves, are the Russian people of Central Asian origin. Despite the claims of various academics and the Russian opposition of a silent majority of Russians that feel something even remotely close to compassion or sympathy for Ukrainians, these surveys spanning across the past 6 years paint a very different image. It turns out the self appointed champions and crusaders of "de-nazification" view Jewish people strikingly similar to how 1930s Germany did. Being a Russian ally and keeping the Russian economy alive, didn't seem to have made that much of a difference to how the good citizens of Russia see the Chinese people. Only about 30% of the good Christians of Russia would have an issue with the capital punishment, with the rest either not caring or being in favor of it, despite fully knowing just what kind of a justice system Russia has.
While it's widely claimed the young Russians are different given they aren't as "touched" by regime propaganda, it turns out they're the least likely Russians to actually have an issue with torture. While this particular poll does probably have some bias, do notice how many chose a whole heartedly "definitely yes" instead of just a "yes". While bombing children's hospitals and obliterating everything in their path in Ukraine at the price of about 1000 of their own people a day, the good Russian people are about as much bothered by the war as they are about the rising retirement age"
When looking at the reasons given by those Russians who would leave Russia if they could, it becomes rather hard to believe the image painted by the Russian opposition of the "good Russian people that are lied to about the West". Because when they talk about "traditional values" they probably mean hypocrisy, your average Russian would rather chose a "woke, decadent and collapsing" Western democracy to move to, instead of their Chinese BRICS overlord and champion.
While for the most part the pro-Palestine "activists" seem to somewhat gravitate towards Russia, Russians at best don't care about Palestine. And never did.
In the spirit of making it harder for your average Russian propagandist to label everything in this thread as "Western lies and manipulation", all the polls listed here are done by Levada Center, a Russian polling institute fairly well tied to the Russian state. Those surveys I did leave out (from those done by Levada in 2024) are essentially just the ones referring to the Russian elections and Putin approval ratings, which we are all aware of and probably contain most bias."
Thread by @cremieuxrecueil on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "What do the Washington Post, Brookings, The Atlantic, and Business Insider have in common? They all employ credulous writers who don't read about the things they write about. The issue? Attacks on laptop-based notetaking🧵
Each of these outlets (among many others, unfortunately) reported on a a 2014 study by Mueller and Oppenheimer, in which it was reported that laptop-based note-taking was inferior to longhand note-taking for remembering content. The evidence for this should not have been considered convincing. In the first study, a sample of 67 students was randomized to watch and take notes on different TED talks and then they were assessed on factual or open-ended questions. The result? Worse open-ended performance:
The laptop-based note-takers didn't do worse when it came to factual content, but they did so worse when it came to the open-ended questions. The degree to which they did worse should have been the first red flag: d = 0.34, p = 0.046. The other red flag should have been that there was no significant interaction between the mean difference and the factual and conceptual condition (p ≈ 0.25). Strangely, that went unnoted, but I will return to it.
The authors sought to explain why there wasn't a difference in factual knowledge about the TED talks while there was one in ability to describe stuff about it/to provide open-ended, more subjective answers. Simple: Laptops encouraged verbatim, not creative note-taking. Before going on to study 2: Do note that all of these bars lack 95% CIs. They show standard errors, so approximately double them in your head if you're trying to figure out which differences are significant.
OK, so the second study added an intervention. The intervention asked people using laptops to try to not take notes verbatim. This intervention totally failed with a stunningly high p-value as a result: In terms of performance, there was once again nothing to see for factual recall. But, the authors decided to interpret a significant difference between the laptop-nonintervention participants and longhand participants in the open-ended questions as being meaningful. But it wasn't, and the authors should have known it! Throughout this paper, they repeatedly bring up interaction tests, and they know that the interaction by the intervention did nothing, so they shouldn't have taken it. They should have affirmed no significant difference!
The fact that the authors knew to test for interactions and didn't was put on brilliant display in study 3, where they did a different intervention in which people were asked to study or not study their notes before testing at a follow-up. Visual results: This section is like someone took a shotgun to the paper and the buckshot was p-values in the dubious, marginal range, like a main effect with a p-value of 0.047, a study interaction of p = 0.021, and so on It's just a mess and there's no way this should be believed. Too hacked! And yet, this got plenty of reporting.
So the idea is out there, it's widely reported on. Lots of people start saying you should take notes by hand, not with a laptop. But the replications start rolling in and it turns out something is wrong. In a replication of Mueller and Oppenheimer's first study with a sample that was about twice as large, Urry et al. failed to replicate the key performance-related results. Verbatim note copying and longer notes with laptops? Both confirmed. The rest? No. So then Urry et al. did a meta-analysis. This was very interesting, because apparently they found that Mueller and Oppenheimer had used incorrect CIs and their results were actually nonsignificant for both types of performance. Oh and the rest of the lit was too:
Meta-analytically, using a laptop definitely led to higher word counts in notes and more verbatim note-taking, but the performance results just weren't there. The closest thing we get in the meta-analysis to performance going up is that maybe conceptual performance went up a tiny bit (nonsignificant, to be clear), but who even knows if that assessment's fair. That's important, since essays and open-ended questions are frequently biased
So, ditch the laptop to take notes by hand? I wouldn't say to do that just yet. But definitely ditch the journalists who don't tell you how dubious the studies they're reporting on actually are...
Postscript: A study with missing condition Ns, improperly-charted SEs, and the result that laptop notes are worse only for laptop-based test-taking but not taking tests by hand. Probably nothing:"
Meme - Daily Gondor @DailyGondor: ">be blackpilled
>still do the right thing
be like Eomer"
"Look for your friends. But do not trust to hope. It has forsaken these lands"
Thread by @ChivalryGuild on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "LotR is a meditation on the virtue of hope. Next time you read it notice how many times the author uses that word. For JRRT, hope is not about a “positive attitude” or sunny optimism, but more about simply staying in the fight—because things might turn your way. 🧵
In one of the most important lines in the books, Gandalf offers insight into this virtue by highlighting its opposite: “Despair,” he says, “is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.” As long as you don't know how things will end, you'd better fight on. Gandalf is hardly the most upbeat and chipper fellow. At one point he confesses that the whole campaign might have been just a “fool’s hope.” And yet he presses forth. He will go till he can go no more. Most all the characters will face the test. Denethor is the best example of one who fails. In his considerable wisdom, he becomes convinced that Sauron will win and the only reasonable thing to do is to lay down on a burning funeral pyre—and even to take your son with you. His approach will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
To be fair, there’s every reason for Denethor to come to this conclusion. So hope requires something beyond a purely rational calculation. This is why it is a theological virtue. Theoden similarly doesn’t see much chance of prevailing in this war, but he at least thinks it’s worthwhile to go down fighting. He courts death in his great cavalry charge. This is not a perfect expression of virtue of hope, but it’s obviously far more useful than Denethor’s despair. He even accomplishes great deeds on the field that will give his people a chance.
Frodo and Sam’s journey to Mordor is the most straightforward example. Above all else, they must keep going, one foot in front of the other. Certain obstacles on their way will require a bit more finesse, but the constant challenge is to march forward every day. When they accomplish that much, they find strange and unexpected help along the way. Like Gandalf, Sam hardly keeps a totally positive attitude, but even in the darkest moments his dismay turns to resolve. He continues on in spite of himself.
And of course there's Aragorn. He is put through trials that would break almost all mortal men. He doesn’t pretend like there is much reason for optimism. At one point, on the search for Merry and Pip he suggests that they will press on without hope.
This is another key line because it suggests that hope is less of a feeling, as we tend to view it, and more of an action. So long as you keep moving forward, so long as you stay in the fight, you are expressing hope. And in the end, Providence comes to the aid of those who stay in the fight. It's almost as if he wants to test you, to see if you really want his help. Those who don't want it enough will remove themselves from the fight and prove unworthy. Those who want it will press on."
I’m a middle-aged American guy currently visiting Singapore. How are locals wearing jackets and jeans and not sweating to death!? : r/askSingapore - "If you’re sweating 24/7 you start to not notice"
Kazakhstan banned the first Borat movie over a decade ago. Now, the country is adopting its "very nice" catchphrase in new tourism ad - "After banning the original movie in 2006, Kazakhstan is now using a phrase made famous by "Borat" in a new tourism campaign. The country released an ad on Sunday showing its stunning landscapes, cuisine and tourist attractions as visitors say, "Very nice."... The Kazakhstan American Association board chair Gaukhar Gia Noortas told CBS News on Wednesday that the government using the phrase in an ad is an "embarrassment." "Any kind of attachment to Borat is a pretentious move," she said. To her, the country is embracing not just the character's vulgar humor, but humor that "causes harm" to Kazakhstani people. Noortas, the founder and CEO of an L.A.-based filmmaking company, told CBS News that her own children were bullied and women were "oversexualized" after the first Borat movie. She along with another chair of the Kazakhstan American Association wrote a letter addressed to Amazon executives dated October 20, requesting the "racist" sequel to be pulled from its streaming service, Prime Video. "Considering today's socially aware political climate, why is a racist film which openly berates, bullies and traumatizes a nation comprised of people of color an acceptable form of entertainment that meets Amazon's ethical values?" the letter states. "Why is our small nation fair game for public ridicule?" "In this film, a white person adorns a Kazakh persona and then culturally appropriates and belittles everything we stand for. We, Kazakhs, are a small nation, but it does not mean that we are allowed to be targets for racism," it continued. CBS News reached out to Amazon for further comment, but did not immediately hear back. Noortas also did not receive a response, but she claims the movie is "inspiring violence against us on in our daily lives." In 2012 Kazakhstan's then-foreign minister praised the original film for attracting interest in the country and the number of visas issued by Kazakhstan grew"
