Meme - "Ready to eject Lynda? This action cannot be undone. Flight attendants will eject Lynda from the plane mid-flight. Don't worry, your arrival time will not be impacted. Eject Lynda $2,703.50. Lynda will be able to counter your ejection bid."
Seeing the Mind Behind the Art: People Can Distinguish Abstract Expressionist Paintings From Highly Similar Paintings by Children, Chimps, Monkeys, and Elephants - "Museumgoers often scoff that costly abstract expressionist paintings could have been made by a child and have mistaken paintings by chimpanzees for professional art. To test whether people really conflate paintings by professionals with paintings by children and animals, we showed art and nonart students paired images, one by an abstract expressionist and one by a child or animal, and asked which they liked more and which they judged as better. The first set of pairs was presented without labels; the second set had labels (e.g., “artist,” “child”) that were either correct or reversed. Participants preferred professional paintings and judged them as better than the nonprofessional paintings even when the labels were reversed. Art students preferred professional works more often than did nonart students, but the two groups’ judgments did not differ. Participants in both groups were more likely to justify their selections of professional than of nonprofessional works in terms of artists’ intentions. The world of abstract art is more accessible than people realize."
Meme - Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes: "WHEN I GROW UP, I'M NOT GOING TO READ THE NEWSPAPER AND I'M NOT GOING TO FOLLOW COMPLEX ISSUES AND I'M NOT GOING TO VOTE
THAT WAY I CAN COMPLAIN THAT THE GOVERNMENT DOESN'T REPRESENT ME.
THEN, WHEN EVERYTHING GOES DOWN THE TUBES, I CAN SAY THE SYSTEM DOESN'T WORK AND JUSTIFY MY FURTHER LACK OF PARTICIPATION."
Hobbes: "AN INGENIOUSLY SELF-FULFILLING PLAN."
Calvin: "IT'S A LOT MORE FUN TO BLAME THINGS THAN TO FIX THEM."
Urban Farming Has A Shockingly High Climate Cost — Here’s How Growers Can Bring Carbon Down, According To Scientists
Oops. So much for "sustainability"
Urban Farms Are Supposed To Solve Our Food Woes. The Reality Is Not So Simple. - "While the interest in urban farming might be strong, there are mixed and incomplete data on the success of urban farms... two-thirds of urban farmers are not making a living from farming. “Farming is a hard business and it’s hard to make it profitable,” admits Claire Turner, partnerships and marketing manager for Brooklyn Grange, which is a for-profit enterprise. “And there are added challenges in New York City because of the cost of real estate. When the founders started the farm, they were tempted to make it a nonprofit, which is what a lot of urban farms do … but they wanted to see if they could make urban farming a successful business.”... “If you’re not a large-scale farm, you’re just not going to be able to compete in the market. An urban farm by necessity is small,” Dimitri says... environmental advantages can be overplayed, according to the Johns Hopkins report. The vast majority of emissions from food come from production rather than transportation, it says, and sometimes bigger farms can be more efficient thanks to economies of scale. Furthermore, farms that produce continuously in a controlled atmosphere, such as a vertical farm, can be enormously resource-intensive. A 2015 study found that during summer months, the vertical farm it modeled generated a carbon footprint that was five times higher than conventional field-grown crops. And while hydroponic production (where plants are grown without soil) leads to higher yields and uses around 12.5 times less water than conventional agriculture, it requires around 82 times more energy, according to a 2016 paper."
Meme - "Imao my mate went as psi Lara Croft for Halloween and she killed it *pokey angular breasts*"
Meme - "So...a crazy woman just sent me a text telling me I was the dad of her child... was about to block her when she sent me a pic of her daughter and she's so beautiful! Daddy already loves you sweetie! *busty woman in bikini with child*"
Jogger left bloodied, dazed and crying after getting mauled — by a gang of otters - "The unidentified victim had reportedly been jogging through Tanjung Aru Recreation Park in Sabah when she was beset by eight of the beasts... the woman, who was wearing dark pink running tights and a black shirt, is pictured sitting on the curb in tears with blood visible on her arms and head and several gouges in her legs. The victim was transported to a hospital, while a wildlife team was dispatched to the park to keep tabs on the otters... In 2021, a Singapore resident was hospitalized after getting accosted by a gang of the ferocious water frolickers, which reportedly bit him 26 times in 10 seconds. “I actually thought I was going to die – they were going to kill me,” otterly-devastated victim Graham George Spencer recalled."
The Invention of Fettuccine Alfredo: A Love Story - "A history of Italian pasta can only start here, with the legendary fettuccine Alfredo. A very simple dish, with just three ingredients, that has been wildly successful: it turns up in over 800 American cookbooks published from 1933 to the present. So why will your Italian friends tell you they’ve never heard of the stuff? It’s not their fault. Alfredo is by no means a household name in our country, which is why those of us who have heard of it put it in the same category as spaghetti and meatballs—which we’ve only ever seen in Lady and the Tramp—or carbonara with bacon, garlic, mushrooms and cream: some shoddy imitation of an Italian dish, seemingly unrelated to our traditional cuisine. This goes to show that fame has a way of ruining old friendships. Because although the average Italian may not know it, the “original” fettuccine Alfredo goes back centuries, and is actually the most ancient pasta dish in our tradition... its early history is surprising, because it takes us to the heart of Italy at the dawn of the twentieth century, when a cook discovered—or rather, rediscovered—a fabulous dish that uses a few simple ingredients to magical effect. Believe it or not, in those days Rome had not yet developed the pasta recipes we all know and love. Amatriciana was just starting to appear in a few eateries; cacio e pepe was not yet considered a local speciality; and carbonara and gricia had yet to be invented. Back then, the most famous pasta dish in the Eternal City was—you guessed it—fettuccine Alfredo. Alfredo di Lelio, inventor of the fettuccine that bears his name, was born in Rome in 1883 and got his start at the family restaurant in Piazza Rosa... After giving birth, the mother, Ines, was so weak that Alfredo strove to come up with a food that would be nourishing yet easy to digest, to help get his wife back on her feet. So here’s what he did: “he personally prepared some fettuccine, using a semolina dough, and mixed it with very fresh butter and parmesan cheese. Then he said a prayer to St Anne (patron saint of new mothers) and served it to Ines, saying, ‘if it’s not to your taste, I’ll eat it!’” It was to her taste, all right. So much so that she suggested putting the dish straight on the menu of their little trattoria. A simple recipe, with butter and parmesan perfectly blended to create a velvety sauce enveloping the fettuccine. What was so special about it, as opposed to just dumping butter on noodles? The quality and freshness of the ingredients, of course, but above all the method of emulsification used by Alfredo, whose skilled hands imparted an extraordinary texture to the sauce. Two years later, his parents’ restaurant, where fettuccine Alfredo first saw the light of day, disappeared as the city underwent all kinds of transformations. But in 1914 Alfredo managed to open a new restaurant—also in Rome, but this time in the very central Via della Scrofa—which he named after himself. Just how the fame of his dish travelled so far outside the Italian capital and rippled across the Atlantic is still a mystery. To be sure, some part was played by the fact that foreigners were enthralled by the histrionics of the owner, and that his fettuccine perfectly suited American tastes in pasta."
Meme - "Who's the Most Dangerous Human Alive Right Now?"
"My cousin Randy posts a lot of pictures on facebook of skeletons riding motorcycles and stuff with captions about how loyal he is but if you betray him he can be your worst nightmare so probably him"
Meme - Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion: "Lots of people claim that Europe is as rich as America once you take differences in work hours into account. But this is only true of a couple of extremely rich, extremely small European countries. Overall, European workers are much less productive than American workers."
Shyam Sankar @ssankar: "America is richer than Europe on a GDP per capita basis. The EU is both less productive and work less hours. Ouch."
Meme - "Sorry automation took away your mom's job
ON GOVT. DUTY
CUM SUCTION MACHINE"
Meme - Dr. Parik Patel, BA.... @ParikPatelCFA: "The CEO of Google is Indian. The CEO of Microsoft is Indian. The CEO of Adobe is Indian. The CEO of IBM is Indian. The CEO of Chanel is Indian. The CEO of FedEx is Indian. The CEO of Palo Alto Networks is Indian. But according to X, all we are known for is that we smell bad"
"You can be a CEO and still smell bad..."
"Have you ever smelled those CEOs?"
British 'Disinformation' Unit Shared Speech-Monitoring Techniques with U.S. Officials, Docs Show - "A British government unit devoted to fighting online “disinformation” gave high-ranking U.S. officials a detailed presentation on their efforts to pressure social-media platforms into censoring speech, newly disclosed documents show... The British government works with international partners in Europe and North America to prioritize the fight against “disinformation,” training governments and NGOs on how identify and curtail the allegedly harmful content. Additionally, the presentation has slides on British legislation empowering companies to strictly enforce content moderation and empowering the government to take action against companies that fail to comply with the government’s online speech regulations... “The Biden-Harris Administration’s desire to silence speech and control what information Americans are able to obtain is so extreme, so pervasive, and so over-the-top that they are willing to listen to foreign governments explain ways to better violate core constitutional rights of the American people,” said America First Legal executive director Gene Hamilton... Notoriously, the FBI’s warnings ahead of the 2020 presidential election influenced Facebook and Twitter to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story, a decision Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted was a mistake in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee. Zuckerberg also said that pressure from Biden administration officials influenced Facebook’s decision to restrict Covid-19 related speech, a central aspect of the Missouri v. Biden censorship case that the Supreme Court threw out due to the plaintiffs lack of standing. The House Judiciary Committee’s investigative pursuits have further illuminated how government agencies such as the FBI, State Department and Department of Homeland Security worked with nonprofits and social-media platforms to restrict speech leading up to the 2020 election and have continued to do so since then. Former DHS disinformation czar Nina Jankowicz was one of many partisan analysts in the field who spread false claims that the Hunter Biden laptop story resembled a Russian disinformation operation."
Churchill as Bricklayer - "Urging the Chancellor to become a unionized bricklayer, Lane noted that when William McKinley was President of the United States, he had to become a member of the appropriate craft organization before he could lay a foundation stone... Union branches protesting his admission as a “Brother” argued that Churchill’s application had not been completed properly, that the proposal hadn’t been seconded, that his cheque had not been cashed, and, most importantly, Churchill had not given any details of the length of time he had worked at the bricklaying trade. Although it was recognized that the matter was never intended to be taken too seriously and had been “viewed generally in a wrong light,” the Executive Council decided to act and reverse its initial decision"
Elon Musk on X - "Why are so many people raging FOR the machine? 😂"
Sydney homeowner’s ingenious solution to people peeing in his driveway - "For far too long, Stephen Bodnar from Waverley in Sydney has had to deal with inebriated individuals using his driveway as a place to relieve themselves. Men and women alike have stumbled from nearby pubs The Charing Cross Hotel and The Robin Hood Hotel and onto his property for years, leaving an unpleasant reminder of their visit... the electrician decided to install a $3,000 sprinkler and CCTV system to keep any perpetrators away - and it’s so far working like a charm. The deterrent includes a motion detector which triggers a light and then a three-minute downpour between the hours of 6pm and 6am."
Mogul sues real estate firm for allegedly hiding Jeff Bezos was purchaser of his $79 million home - "Everyone wants to get top dollar in a real estate sale — and that even goes for the extremely rich. Businessman Leo Kryss is suing real estate company Douglas Elliman over the $79 million sale of his Florida mansion, a 7-bedroom, 11.5-bathroom home located in what his lawsuit calls "the most prestigious and exclusive area in Miami, Indian Creek Village." In his lawsuit, Kryss claims he asked Douglas Elliman CEO Jay Parker point-blank if Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was behind the purchase. Parker allegedly "misleadingly assured Kryss that Bezos was not behind the offer and was not the purchaser," according to the lawsuit, filed in July in the circuit court of the 11th Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County. Parker also allegedly asserted that the buyer would not pay more than $79 million for the home, versus the $85 million listing price, the lawsuit claims. Because of the assurance, Kryss allegedly agreed to discount the property's price by $6 million, settling on the sale price of $79 million... Kryss speculated that Bezos might be behind the offer on his home because the Amazon founder had previously acquired 11 Indian Creek Island Road, a property adjacent to his mansion, the lawsuit notes. It added, "Kryss believed that it was highly material to his negotiations and his decision on the ultimate sales price of the home to know whether Bezos was interested in his home and if Bezos was attempting to anonymously acquire the home in order to assemble it with the adjoining property that Bezos already purchased." Kryss' property "would be significantly more valuable to Bezos than to other potential buyers," the lawsuit claims."
'She is dying': Lawsuit asks Lake Winnipeg to be legally defined as a person - "A court has been asked to declare Lake Winnipeg a person with constitutional rights to life, liberty and security of person in a case that may go further than any other in trying to establish the rights of nature in Canada. “It really is that simple,” said Grand Chief Jerry Daniels of the Manitoba Southern Chiefs’ Organization, which filed the suit Thursday in Court of King’s Bench in Winnipeg. “The lake has its own rights. The lake is a living being.”"
Killing Christianity did not kill superstition
Man brandishes knife in Yishun kopitiam after being told to pay for straw, gets 1 month's jail - "a 54-year-old man caused a scene in a kopitiam in Yishun after being told he had to pay ten cents for a straw Ismail Bin Abdul Rahman reportedly brought a beer from a convenience store and then went to a kopitiam located at Block 285, Yishun Avenue 6, to ask for a straw, telling the owner that he was accustomed to drinking beer with one. The 59-year-old stall owner then informed him that he had to pay ten cents for the straw since the beer was not purchased from the stall."
Google & Facebook partner admits it can listen to device microphone to serve ads - "A media firm that has worked with the likes of Google and Meta has admitted that it can target adverts based on what you said out loud near device microphones. Media conglomerate Cox Media Group (CMG) has been pitching tech companies on a new targeted advertising tool that uses audio recordings collected from smart home devices, according to a 404 Media investigation. The company claims it is partners with Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Bing. In a pitch deck published in November 2023, CMG referred to the technology used for monitoring and active listening as “Voice Data.” The firm also mentioned using artificial intelligence to collect data about consumers’ online behavior... In one section, CMG candidly states, “Yes, Our Phones are Listening to Us,” while explaining how businesses can leverage this data to more effectively target ads."
Weird. We kept being told that this wasn't happening, and that we were crazy for thinking it was
EU faces kebab identity crisis as Turkey and Germany clash - "Turkey demands that döner kebab be protected in the European Union (EU). Germany opposes this, arguing that "various methods of preparing the dish should be preserved" as it reflects the country's diversity... In April 2024, Turkey submitted a request for döner kebab to be protected under the status known as "guaranteed traditional specialty". This status provides less protection than the "protected designation of origin," which is applied to products specific to a geographical region, such as champagne from the region of the same name in France. Nevertheless, it could impact kebab shop owners, their individual recipes, and customers in Germany. "Döner" is a traditional meat product prepared by stacking thinly and horizontally sliced pieces of beef, mutton, or chicken onto the horizontally oriented stainless steel skewer called "döner" and then cooking them by rotating the skewer vertically around its axis in front of a fire," the Turkish application states. According to the proposal, the beef used for döner kebab must come from cattle at least 16 months old. It should be marinated in specified amounts of animal fat, yogurt or milk, onions, salt, and thyme, as well as black, red, and white pepper. The final product should be cut from the vertical skewer into pieces with a thickness of 3 to 5 millimetres. "The term 'döner' refers to the traditional cooking technique, not a geographical area," Turkey argues... In Turkey, this dish was originally prepared with lamb and served exclusively on plates. In the 1970s, Turkish immigrants in Berlin decided to serve it in pita bread and modified the recipe to attract Berliners... If the EC approves Turkey's application, popular kebabs in Germany with vegetables, turkey, and some veal kebabs will not be allowed. The issue is that these are not mentioned in the application, which would cause confusion in the German food industry. "Everyone should have the opportunity to decide for themselves how it is prepared and consumed in this country. We do not need guidelines from Ankara," wrote Cem Özdemir, the German Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture, who has Turkish roots, on social media platform X. According to the Berlin-based Association of Turkish Döner Manufacturers in Europe, this industry generates annual sales of around $3.3 billion in Germany alone and $5.2 billion across Europe. "From the government to the streets, everyone eats döner kebab," admitted Deniz Buchholz, owner of Kebap With Attitude, who is not worried about potential restrictions. "We will go the Berlin way and find a solution to call it something else," he said, adding that one name could be "vegetarian sandwich."
Kebabs have recently come into the spotlight due to price increases. In recent months, the prices of kebabs in Germany have doubled. Not long ago, one had to pay €4 (about $6), but now rates are $10-$14 (€7-$10). Due to the high prices of kebabs in Germany, there was even a proposal to implement a maximum price. This move was suggested by the far-left party Die Linke, but German Chancellor Olaf Scholz refused."
Dave Rudden on X - "Bartending at Longitude and a kid swaggers up with a very impressive ID that shows his age at being squarely 17. I point it out and he says 'Fuck you're the first bartender I've met that can do maths.' 10 minutes later he walks by with a pint and gives me a thumbs up"
National Ignition Facility - Wikipedia - "The NIF was used as the set for the starship Enterprise's warp core in the 2013 movie Star Trek Into Darkness."
Meme - Wolf of X @tradingMaxiSL: "17. In Australia, your tax return document shows where your tax money was spent"
How Elmer Fudd Became A Hunter - "Initially Elmer didn’t have intentions to hunt Bugs Bunny. He came to the country to photograph wildlife. In the cartoon from 1940 “Elmer’s Candid Camera” Elmer reads “How to Photograph Wild Life,” gets his camera kit and heads into the countryside. He comes upon a sleeping rabbit and wants to take photos of him. The rabbit is Happy Rabbit, the predecessor of Bugs Bunny. Elmer sets up his camera and that’s when he realizes that that won’t be an easy task. Before he could take the first photo, Happy Rabbit wakes up and then the real trouble starts for Mr. Fudd. In Elmer, Happy Rabbit found a convenient victim to harass just for the fun of it. At first the rabbit is seemingly helpful, but his various antics are driving Elmer insane, causing him to jump into a lake and nearly drown. Happy Rabbit saves him and ensures that Elmer is OK. After he was sure that Elmer is all right he kicks him back into the lake and throws Elmer’s photography book (“How To Photograph Wildlife”) on his head. That is the end of this cartoon and the start of the endless chase between Elmer J. Fudd and Bugs Bunny."
Meme - Sign: "Fiber Optic Cable Does Not Contain Copper"
Doge: "This sounds exactly like something a copper cable would say"
Meme - "elsa for kids *Elsa from Frozen*
elsa for adults *Elsa Jean*"
Former SAF regular gets jail and caning for raping 13-year-old girl, cries in the dock - "Muhammad got to know the victim in 2020 on chat application Telegram, when they were both in a group chat with more than 1,000 members. He initiated a private conversation with the girl, introducing himself as "Crimson". She told him she was 13 and they began chatting. Muhammad made sexually inappropriate comments to her and sent her an unsolicited photo of his private parts. The girl felt uncomfortable and uninstalled the app from her phone to stop communicating with him. However, when she reinstalled the app in July 2021, Muhammad sent her a message apologising for his behaviour. The girl forgave him and they continued chatting. Muhammad lied to her, saying that he was an 18-year-old polytechnic student named Zachary. After chatting online for some time, they began exchanging sexual communications and engaged in "phone sex", with the girl sending Muhammad photos of herself at his request. He got the girl to meet him twice in July and August 2021. On Aug 20, 2021, the pair met at a playground at about 6.20am before heading to a staircase landing on Muhammad's suggestion as it was raining. The girl told him she was worried about her science examination paper which she would be taking later. During their conversation, Muhammad touched her and complimented her handwriting in her study notes. He then got her to perform a sex act on him. The girl said she had to leave for school but Muhammad persuaded her to stay and continue. At about 7.10am that day, a 47-year-old American man who lived nearby looked out of his flat and saw the victim in her school uniform performing a sex act on Muhammad. He called the police, saying he saw a schoolgirl engaged in a sex act and that she "does not look happy ... doing it". The girl rushed off for school but received a phone call from her mother in the afternoon, saying someone had lodged a police report about her. The girl's mother instructed her to unblock Muhammad on Telegram - which the victim had done after declining an invitation to his home after her lessons that day. Using the victim's account, the girl's mother contacted Muhammad. Suspecting a police report had been lodged against him, Muhammad later confronted the victim and told her he felt betrayed, before removing his profile picture and deleting his messages."
Russia to spend over half a billion dollars to bolster internet censorship system
Yeah, But No, But Yeah: The Strange Tale Of 3 Million Hacked Toothbrushes - "A news story about the hacking of three million smart toothbrushes to create a massive botnet used to launch a distributed denial of service cyberattack against a Swiss organization has gone viral. However, many in the information security industry, including myself, have trouble finding evidence to support the story... the headlines certainly raised a few eyebrows within the information security community online, not least as there is very little by way of specifics in any of the reports and a distinct lack of technical explanations as to quite how such a massive botnet, one of the biggest on record, was created... One highly-respected industry veteran, Kevin Beaumont, better known as GossitheDog online, was quick to claim the story wasn’t true. Others such as Robert Graham, ErrataRob on Twitter/X, also called BS on the claim. Meanwhile, at my request, Dirk Schrader, vice-president of security research at Netwrix, and a native German speaker, took a look at the original article that appeared in the Swiss newspaper Aargauer Zeitung. Schrader told me that the original article doesn’t mention any type or model of toothbrush, the name of the victim or the suspected perpetrator, or the motive behind the distributed denial of service attack. “It appears to be a rather generic tale warning of the need to protect any device, large or small, connected to the internet,” Schrader says, “my feeling is that this is a theoretical and poorly explained example, later in the same piece there’s another such example of how to use open-source intelligence to infiltrate an organization.” Most smart toothbrushes are Bluetooth Low Energy enabled rather than connecting by WiFi, although some do have that capability. However, whether it’s feasible that three million could have been hacked is highly debatable"
