Well, as I type this up, it is CNY. This (today) is the first day of the new year, and I am in Wenzhou. It’s a standard fare of massive meals, lots and lots of drinking, and long bouts of lazing about.

The weather is cold out, but nothing like what I grew up with. Lots and lots of fireworks. Non-stop explosions and bangs. Day in, and day out, at all hours of the day and night. Very typical.

This is the first time that we are in Wenzhou since the COVID hit China. That was four years ago. My… a lot has happened.

I’ve been busy knocking these posts out, and now have a nice big backlog, but I will be altering my schedule and product mixes in the future.

I want to wish everyone a very nice and prosperous Year of the Dragon 2024.

Today…

As a car mechanic, what has been the most poorly maintained car you have worked on?

This reminds me of the early 90’s when I had just started Nick’s Racing in Denver CO

As anybody who starts his own business knows, money was tight and everything would just need to hold out a bit longer.
Every Saturday afternoon I went to the local mall/shopping-centre to buy whatever I needed for the week.
Whilst there I often saw this 70’s Camaro in the lot and it amused me how the inside looked like a pig sty. But I did love the shape & one day… Dream on Nick you are living from week to week.

Fortunately lady luck and my craftmanship smiled on me, work came in so that I had to hire 2 more engine builders and I started to have disposable income and no time to spend it. The American dream, right ?
One day I see this Camaro in the same lot with the bonnet (hood) open and a for sale sign on it.
I bought this car for a ridiculously low amount and spent a whole day cleaning out all the junk this lady owner had accumulated in it.
The first thing that hit me where the cigarette burn marks in the upholstery and the holes in the roof lining 😉

I had to redo the interior, the body had to be panel-beated and resprayed.
The engine was going to be replaced with a 383 stroker anyways
I just decided to redo the Electrics, as fixing this rats nest was not worth it.
I fitted a Classic Air Air Con
This car was trash- defined.

Luckily my 2 workers were foreigners also- Mexicans. We got on well and their friends and family did a lot of work on this car for good value.
Considering this was basically a rebuild, using performance part where possible, and not a hot-rod build, it still took close to a year of getting it on the road again. This car must have gotten 0 maintenance from the day she got it to the day it expired in a parking lot.

And then I left back for Namibia and sold it to one of my guys who then gave it to his daughter once she needed wheels.

A lot of them…

What is the most heartwarming behind-the-scenes fact about a movie?

A young Kurt Russell worked together with Charles Bronson. During shooting, Russell found out it was Charles Bronson’s birthday. So he got his older co-star a gift. Bronson looked at it, took it… then walked out of the room, without saying a word. Russell was terrified, worried he had insulted the man.

A little while later, Russell was called to the dressing room of Bronson. Bronson was silent, looked down and said to the child actor: “No one has ever given me a birthday gift before…” Charles Bronson was the son of dirt poor immigrants. He had fourteen siblings, and worked in the mines as a child. Never finished schooling, never had a kind word, he was worked like a mule since the day he learned to walk.

Charles Bronson hadn’t known a lot of kindness in his life. It caught him off guard to receive some from his young co-star. He later gave Russell a skateboard on his own birthday to play with between takes. The two men remained lifelong friends.

Modern Women Having MELTDOWN Over The FUTURE #2

Have you ever felt sorry for a teacher?

Yes. Several. Mainly because I know what’s going on in their lives, and the students don’t. If the students knew what I knew, they’d cut those teachers a little slack.

One teacher in particular, with whom I worked seven years ago, stands out for me among all of the teacher sob stories I know.

To make a long story short, when she was in her 40s and had been teaching preschool for half of her life, her husband left her for a much younger woman. Around the same time, the school’s preschool program changed from full-time to just two days per week and, in order to stay full-time and keep her benefits, she was forced to become the school’s art teacher for all students in grades PreK-8 (ages 3–14).

She was good with the younger students, but had no idea how to control the middle schoolers. She hated teaching the older kids, but she had no choice. She was still more than a decade away from retirement and needed the health insurance, but she also couldn’t afford to go back to school or change careers or anything like that. She was trapped teaching students that she wasn’t trained to teach.

And they were merciless to her.

The art class existed primarily to give the “regular” teachers a planning period, but I, along with my coworkers, ended up sitting with our classes to the art room most days, because we could control the kids, and she couldn’t. The students treated her class like recess, and treated her with a level of disrespect you usually only see in the movies, right before the “savior” teacher swoops in and sets things right.

The students didn’t see how the teacher cried after school every day, alone in her classroom, before she composed herself enough to walk down the block to her apartment, where she probably cried some more, alone, throughout the evening and night.

I left that school after teaching there just one year. The school closed two years after I left. I hope she was able to find a full time position working with younger children. Middle schoolers can be just as cruel to their teachers as they are to each other.

Hitting the jackpot

All in or fold.

The doctor, after an examination, sighed and said, ‘I’ve got some bad news.’ 👨‍⚕️

The doctor, after an examination, sighed and said, ‘I’ve got some bad news. You have cancer, and you’d best put your affairs in order.’

The woman was shocked, but managed to compose herself and walk into the waiting room where her daughter had been waiting.

‘Well, daughter, we women celebrate when things are good, and we celebrate when things don’t go so well. In this case, things aren’t well. I have cancer. So, let’s head to the club and have a martini.’

After 3 or 4 martinis, the two were feeling a little less somber. There were some laughs and more martinis. They were eventually approached by some of the woman’s old friends, who were curious as to what the two were celebrating.

The woman told her friends they were drinking to her impending end, ‘I’ve been diagnosed with AIDS.’ The friends were aghast, gave the woman their condolences and beat a hasty retreat.

After the friends left, the woman’s daughter leaned over and whispered, ‘Momma, I thought you said you were dying of cancer, and you just told your friends you were dying of AIDS! Why did you do that??’

‘Because I don’t want any of those bitches sleeping with your father after I’m gone.’.

Top 8 rules

Ricotta Lasagna Swirls

Ingredients

Lasagna

• 8 lasagna noodles
• 2 pounds fresh spinach
• 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 pound ricotta cheese
• Salt
• Pepper

Sauce

• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 2 cups tomato sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon basil
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano

Instructions

1. Lasagna: Cook and drain lasagna noodles.
2. Steam 2 pounds fresh spinach for 7 minutes, then chop. Mix spinach with 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 pound ricotta cheese, salt and pepper.
3. Coat each noodle with 2 to 3 tablespoons of mixture along the entire length of the noodle. Roll up. Stand on end in a baking dish.
4. Sauce: Sauté garlic and onion.
5. Add tomato sauce, basil and oregano.
6. Pour sauce over noodles and bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes.

Young Men Are Lonelier Than Ever (And It’s Getting Worse)

What one thing makes someone a very mature person?

Joe is having a bad day.

On this very day, Joe decides to eat out. He enters a restaurant, sits down, and has his order taken.

Just as the waitress arrives with his precariously balanced meal, someone knocks her aside. This causes an avalanche of food and drinks to tumble onto Joe in a non-majestic, yet sloppy manner.

Joe breathes in heavily and….

…asks if the waitress is alright, wipes himself to the best he can, and helps clean up a little without mumbling. Joe then comforts said waitress who is on the verge of crying, whilst assuring the seething and anxious manager that everything is all right.

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If shit happens to you and it’s not your fault, then more shit happens yet you are still cool, you are mature in my eyes.

Mature people don’t cause more shit, or simply throw their shit away, even when shit is thrown at them.

It’s not that they don’t give a shit, but they deal with their shit appropriately.

Be like Joe and deal with your shit correctly.

China’s New AI Microchip Just Destroyed US Sanctions Forever!

Very interesting.

What are the best examples of people who have “gamed the system”?

Meet Patrick Combs-

Years ago, Patrick received a junk mail “fake cheque”- supposedly, if he were to send money to the company, he would then soon get more huge cheques like the one he’d just received.

The fake cheque was made out for $95,093.35. It even had an attached authorised signature.

Now, most people would see this as the junk & total scam that it obviously was. Most people would rip it up and just toss it in their bin. Most people would ignore it.

Most- but not Patrick.

Patrick was extremely broke at the time – he had only $200 in his bank account.

He had a good sense of humour and thought, “What would happen if I tried to lodge this into my bank account?” Fully expecting to get a laugh out of it from both himself and the bank teller, that’s exactly what Patrick did.

He went to lodge the cheque into his bank account.

As Patrick said, “I didn’t think I was sticking money into the machine.”

He so fully was expecting the cheque to bounce that he didn’t even endorse the back of it.

Time passes and Patrick forgets about it.

Ten days later though, he checks his bank account and to his amazement, $95,093.35 now sits in his bank account!

It turns out that the cheque actually matched 9 of the criteria that the bank required for a cheque to be valid – the words “non negotiable” that the junk company placed on the front did not negate the cheque whatsoever. It turned out that they had been successful in making the cheque look real – too real.

Additionally- the bank managed to miss their own legal deadline to notify Patrick that his cheque had bounced as a non-cash item.

“The excitement of that much money was off the scale,” he said. “It was an addiction. For two months I obsessed on whether I should take the money or give the money back. I put my bank on speed dial and dialed it every ten minutes. I worried constantly that it would go away.“

Patrick, being the good person that he is, did return the money 6-months later.

And, there you have it, Patrick Combs is the man who received a junk mail fake cheque in the post – and managed to cash it to the tune of $95,000+! That, I think, is very much gaming the system.

Do you think Tucker Carlson’s Putin interview was great?

It garnered 164 Million views on X

Yet the content was something I have known and understood and have been talking about for more than two years on Quora

Anyone who follows Scott Ritter, Brian Berletic, The Duran, IEarlGrey and those guys would find most of what Putin said to be nothing surprising, given that this was what most of them have been discussing for both these years 2022 and 2023

However for the Average Americans, this gave them the other point of view

You have had almost 66 Interviews of Zelensky over the last 24 months and you have seen almost 4000 articles covering Zelensky and Ukraine yet Putins POV and Russias POV has never been covered in the West

This Interview filled the gap

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Why did Russia invade Ukraine?

Putins explanation makes a lot of sense

He says the Invasion was the LAST RESORT

He says Russia carved out Ukraine under Lenin and later on post WWII, more territories from Germany & Poland & Hungary & Romania were added to Ukraine after USSR got them under Post WWII restructuring

He says Russians and Ukranians were the same people and every Ukranian had 3–4 relatives in Russia and vice versa

He says Ukranian Language is just one of five languages spoken in Ukraine along with Russian, Polish, Romanian and Hungarian in different parts of Ukraine

He says Russia and Ukraine had a friendship and a relationship post 1994 and most of Ukraine’s Trade was with Russia

He says how Ukraine in 2008 began to start idolizing NAZIs and established Neo Nazism and began persecuting Russian Speakers of Eastern Ukraine

He says how Ukraine in 2014 deposed Yanukovich after the West Deceived HIM openly. He talks of how Yanukovich was assured by Merkel and others including Obama of a peaceful conclusion to Maidan if he didn’t use the Military and the Police and how once Yanukovich agreed, they openly deceived him and allowed Maidan to depose him

He then talks of how Zelensky spoke of ending the Russian Language from 2019 onwards and how Zelensky spoke of military conquest of Donbass

He talks of how Russia repeatedly talked to Western Leaders for a peaceful re implementation of the Minsk II Accords that Zelensky broke openly and which the guarantors ignored

He talked of Airplanes over Donbass and forced action against Russian Speakers for 8 years from 2014–2022, all chronicled and presented to the UN and yet IGNORED by the West

It was in the end the ONLY WAY for Russia to secure it’s borders and help the Russian Speakers in Ukraine and Denazify Ukraine

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Is Russia ready for Talks?

Yes. Putin confirms this.

He says it’s Zelensky who is not ready. Who in fact even decreed that any discussion on peace is in fact illegal.

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Is Russia ready to sell Gas to Germany?

Yes. Putin says he still has pipelines that can supply Gas to Germans.

So he says why are Germans throttling their own industries by paying 4.25 times more for Piped LNG???

He literally openly says Scholz is either Insane or a Traitor to his own people

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Putin talks of China & Russia

Putin says China is far more significant to the West because of their Population and their strong economy which even at 5% growth is DOUBLE AS FAST AS THE US

He exposes the China Bogey by citing how BRICS & SCO are both Consensus based organizations against NATO which is entirely US dominated

He gives an example of the Iraq War where France and Germany were openly muscled by George Junior Bush

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He cites how Sanctions failed

He highlighted how Russia simply DEDOLLARIZED as did many other nations

He cited that 61 Nations have reduced USD holdings by 10% or more since 22/2/22

He cited that 70% of Russian Trade is settled in Yuan or Ruble now and only 19% in Euros and USD (4.8% in Emirati Dirham and 1.7% in South African Rand & HKD and the rest in other currencies)

He cites how the US lost its own place in the world thanks to the Sanctions and how everyone now wants their own financial secure system and an independence from the Dollar and a preference for their own local currency

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He clarified why he retreated from Kiev

He was clear when he said, in Istanbul the Ukranians wanted Russians away from Kiev as a matter of faith and Putin complied

Yet again HE WAS DECEIVED

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So the conclusions are clear now

First Putin doesn’t care what the West thinks anymore. He will do what is best for Russians in his opinion. He won’t trust the West again.

Second Putin will not end this SMO unless he gets what he wants. A Guarantee that Ukraine won’t join NATO and security for the Russian Speaking population in Ukraine.

Third, Putin will not initiate WWIII unless NATO attacks Russia. He made this clear. He will attack any NATO member if they attack Russia first.

Fourth, Putin says his Hypersonic Missile System is the most advanced in the world and the fact that he talks less about it means he is accurate

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His final message to the Americans is WHY THEY ARE POKING THEIR NOSE IN UKRAINE WHEN THEY HAVE SO MANY TROUBLES OF THEIR OWN

It’s something that resonates with Donald Trump and his MAGA crowd

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It would have been enlightening to many people

Not to me

This is essentially everything I have been saying for two years now.

If you live in the US, was there an event in your life that made you decide to get a concealed carry license? If so, what was it?

When the kids were grown and gone, my wife and I considered getting a firearm for home protection. Two events finally pushed us to do it. The first event was my walking into a large drug buy in a gas station late at night in Miami. Lots of drugs, thugs, and guns. While they stood there looking at me. I said “Hey, I’m just here to get a receipt for the gas. The guy behind the counter (who was in on it), gave it to me and they let me walk out the door past a very confused lookout. Having a concealed weapon probably wouldn’t have done me any good that night. But it did reminded me that the world is a dangerous place.

The second event was back-to-back hurricanes, causing weeks of power outages with no cell or landline capability. The neighborhood was blocked in for a long time by fallen trees and debris. Even though we live only a mile or so from a precinct, there was no way to contact them or for them to quickly get into our neighborhood.

I asked my neighbor if I should be worried about looting. He responded, “everyone in this neighborhood is armed”, and everybody knows it. You are, aren’t you? A few weeks after the storm, I purchased my first gun.

I friend in law enforcement asked if I had a carry permit for it, reminding me that I lived within a 1000 feet of a school, restricting how I can transport the gun when off my property. Those restrictions (other than being on school property itself) are waived in my state if you have a carry permit.

I signed up for an approved NRA course that counted towards the permit, applied, and received one. Since then, I’ve purchased a few other guns, joined a gun club, and have had dozens of different firearm courses with a state LEO firearms trainer.

Like other “constitutional carry” states, Florida no longer requires a permit for concealed carry. But I keep mine current so I can carry reciprocally in other states.

While repairing a car, have you ever found something you weren’t supposed to see in it?

Yes. This was back in the late ’90s. I had a customer come in with a Corolla. He only had one remote for the security system, but had just purchased another one and needed to have it programmed to the car. I told him that was a very quick and easy job, and I could literally do it while he stood there. I opened the driver’s door, turn the key to the on position and moved the driver seat all the way forward. The computer for the security system was under the driver’s seat on this car. You had to access the computer and push and hold a small button on the side of the computer to put it in programming mode, but it was much easier to access from the back seat. So I then got out and opened the rear driver side door, leaned in, and moved the floor mat to get better access to the computer under the seat. When I moved the floor mat, there was a syringe, a spoon, a lighter, and a bag of white powder that I will assume had to be heroin. I put the computer in program mode, hit the buttons on the remote, and heard the confirmation chirp from the front of the car to signal the new remote was programmed. I put the floor mat back, climbed out, and with a death stare, handed the customer his new remote and told him you’re all done, have a nice day. The guy’s face was white as a ghost, and I never saw him in the dealership again.

Breaking Bad by Wes Anderson Trailer

Do you have a story about a boss who was so out of touch that they made a cringeworthy decision?

Having spent years working in a retail store, I saw so many decisions made by highly-paid executives in an office in another state that I knew instantly wouldn’t work out. And they didn’t.

I could write a book about the reasons for this, but mainly – either they don’t know because they don’t do the actual work, or they don’t believe the underlings who have tried to explain it to them.

I’ll give you an example:

So, I worked at a retail store that was part of a national chain separated into so many districts. I think our district had 10 or 12 stores. One quarter, I have no idea how, but somehow, one of the other stores in our district massively overspent their budget by like ten or fifteen grand. (I really wish I knew how, I bet it was a helluva story.) Probably someone got fired over that, but that didn’t solve the problem that they had a shortfall. (And no, firing the person responsible didn’t fix it either, because they then had to spend money to hire a new person to fill the role.)

So, somewhere up in the corporate office, a person whose name I don’t know had an idea to fix this problem. Since I don’t know who this person is, we’ll call them Bean Counter. I assume their job had something to do with accounting or finance.

So Bean Counter says, “Well, we can make up the shortfall by having every store in the district cut their budget by so much % for the remainder of the quarter.”

Bean Counter’s Boss ran the numbers and decided this was a grand idea. They may have even given Bean Counter a raise or promotion for such brilliant work. On paper, Bean Counter’s plan appeared to play out beautifully.

But this was around the beginning of December, just as the holiday rush was kicking into high gear.

Also, there are not a lot of ways to reduce spending on a store level, where budgets are already pretty tight. Management had very limited discretionary funding, and rarely went out and bought stuff for the store. Basically, the only way to really reduce spending by the amount Bean Counter wanted was to cut payroll hours….drastically.

So it’s the holidays and we’re working with a skeleton crew on every shift. One person at the register, one on the floor, and a manager who wasn’t *supposed* to get tied up with tasking.

And we’re busy, every day, because it’s the holidays, and we sell, among other things, a lot of tech items that are popular gifts. Sometimes we have 20 or 30 people in the store at once, and we can’t help them all. There is no “work harder” solution that allows one person on the floor to help 30 people at once. Even with the manager also helping customers on the floor, and “floating” between customers, they could realistically help maybe 10 people at a time.

Oh, and we weren’t supposed to get a line of more than 2 people at the register without opening a second till. HAHAHAHAHA. Yeah, that couldn’t happen with only two other people in the store and both of them working the floor.

So we had people walking out, unhelped, constantly. We did our best, assuring people we’d be with them in a moment, apologizing for the delay, etc. Even so, some people just couldn’t wait and they left and, presumably, went to a competitor.

But Bean Counter and Bean Counter’s Boss weren’t in the store watching this every day. They were back in their nice little offices, smiling at their Excel sheets because they turned a line green.

You see, an Excel sheet can’t show you how much revenue you lost because you didn’t have enough employees to help your customers.

And even without knowing any of the numbers on the Excel sheet, I can tell you that we lost money. I’m going to give you a VERY conservative estimate here. I’ll assume some of the people who left wouldn’t have bought anything anyway. Let’s say only half the people who came in would have bought something. And let’s say that only twenty people walked out in an hour. (Most hours it was probably much more than that, but I’m giving you a conservative estimate.)

And let’s say that the average sale at that point was $20. That’s a really low number for this time of year (usually it was $40–60), but no one had time to upsell and pitch the customer add-ons, so we’ll say $20. That’s $200 an hour lost.

Employees like me and the floor person were making about $7.50 to $8 an hour. Let’s say everyone was getting $8 an hour. Having two more employees would have cost an additional $16 an hour but would have prevented at LEAST $200 in sales losses. (And again, the actual number is almost certainly much higher.)

The store was open from 8 AM to 9 PM, so 13 hours. By cutting two employees all day, the store saved $208 a day. They lost AT LEAST $2,600 a day in sales.

BUT Bean Counter’s plan looked good on paper, before, after, and during the last quarter. They got the district out of the red! We were no longer over budget! Problem solved!

Why is Tesla failing so badly in the stock market?

1. Tesla primarily makes cars. And when regarded solely as an auto-maker – it is over valued.
2. Tesla pioneered electric vehicles and established a head start in that market. Newer entrants into that market (including Chinese manufacturers) are catching-up and offering products with similar utility and competitive prices. Tesla’s first-mover advantage is not being sustained. The company is taking too long to produce new models and is not iterating its current line-up fast enough. Where is the Roadster? Where is the new better battery tech? Why is the Cybertruck failing to match expectation?
3. The company presented itself to the stock market as more than a mere car maker. Rather it is a tech company which happens to make cars. It argued that it should be valued as such, and that initially convinced the market. However the various technical innovations it promised have yet to materialise. Self-driving has improved, but it is many, many years late. The robo-taxi idea seems to have evaporated – there are still safety issues and regulatory hurdles. It’s AI vision stack is a really impressive bit of technology – but it is not a product.
4. The company has a CEO problem. The CEO has a history of over promising and under delivering. Rather than finishing products and releasing them in a polished state, the CEO presents semi-baked ideas to the market in the conceptual stage, and then take years and years to materialise. The market is getting wise to this bait and switch strategy.
5. The CEO is distracted with other companies and is at best a part-time manager. The CEO has not been good at attracting and retaining the best staff. When the head of the AI project left, this should have been a warning sign. The CEO has not created a workplace culture that values attention to detail and quality. Instead the culture is gung-ho and reckless, which frequently ends up causing more damage than good.
6. The CEO seems to be having either a drugs and or mental health problem and has recently decided to become more politically active in support of various right and far-right political groups. In some companies this would not matter, but Tesla’s main market is selling vehicles to individuals and families who are aware of environmental issues and support the transition to greener energy. The far-right regard electric vehicles as a government imposed initiative to spoil their god-given right to drive a pick-up, full of firearms, while running over vaccine-users. – This makes Tesla vehicles less attractive to people who would have previously bought them. No one wants to own a vehicle which has become a repugnant political statement.
7. The CEO clearly regards Tesla has his personal piggy-bank and demands absurd amounts of compensation for his part-time and mercurial contribution. This naturally upsets shareholders.

AI Tool Deciphers Herculaneum Scroll, and It’s All About Pleasure!

A team of student researchers have combined 3D-mapping and AI to decipher a Greek scroll that was encased in ash during the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The philosophical musing reveals Greek thought on the complexities of “pleasure”.

In the ancient Greek world “pleasure” wasn’t just an occasional indulgence; it was an Olympic event of the senses. From lively symposiums colored with courtesans and entertainers, to dramatic theatrical productions and festivals, the pursuit of delight was as integral to Greek life as debating philosophy.

Now, offering new insights into pleasure across the ancient Aegean, where it wasn’t a guilty pleasure but a cultural cornerstone, a Greek philosopher’s thoughts regarding pleasure have been decoded by AI. And adding to the intrigue, the source material was an ancient papyrus scroll that was entombed in ash during the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

Text from the Herculaneum scroll, which has been unseen for 2,000 years. (Vesuvius Challenge/Nature)

Fusing 3D-Mapping and AI

The team of student researchers, comprising Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor and Julian Schilliger, who used AI to decode the damaged papyrus scroll, have scooped the $700,000 grand prize in the Vesuvius Challenge grand prize Vesuvius Challenge. They received the illustrious award for being the first team to “recover 4 passages of 140 characters from a Herculaneum scroll”.

Essentially, the young team combined 3D-mapping applications and AI to successfully penetrate a lump of blackened volcanic rock that has encased a scroll for almost 2,000-years, since Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. Known as the Herculaneum papyri, the new combination of technologies identified tiny patches of ink within the fused ash, revealing hitherto unseen musings of a Greek philosopher contemplating ‘pleasure.’

A Gigantic Boon for Philosophy

Not only did the winning team of the Vesuvius Challenge decipher more than “85 percent of the characters illustrated within four passages comprising 140 characters each,” but they included a further 11 columns of text, bringing their total to around 2000 interpreted characters.

The text discloses the personal thoughts of Philodemus, the philosopher-in-residence at the library which once housed the Herculaneum papyri. As such, Professor Michael McOsker from the University College London told New Scientist that the findings represent “a gigantic boon” to the understanding of philosophy in the ancient Greek world.

The Villa of Papyri at the archaeological site of Herculaneum (Erik Anderson / CC BY-SA 3.0)

When Pleasure Challenges Virtue

The ancient Greek text muses on how the scarcity and abundance of material items impacts the pleasure received from them. According to Philodemus, a philosopher of the Epicurean school, the enjoyment derived from food and other goods is closely tied to their availability. In line with Epicurean philosophy, which emphasizes pleasure as life’s primary objective, the scarcity or abundance of these commodities plays a crucial role in shaping our well-being.

Additionally, it was noted that in his two-millennium-old text, there seems to be a subtle attack at the Stoic school of philosophy, suggesting they have “nothing to contribute regarding pleasure.” While Epicureanism centers on the pursuit of pleasure and tranquility, considering them the ultimate goals in life, in contrast, Stoicism emphasizes virtue as the highest good, advocating for inner strength and moral excellence to navigate life’s challenges.

What this all means for modern researchers, is that they have fresh data pertaining to Greek ideas about the prioritization of pleasure and tranquility (Epicureanism), against virtue and inner resilience (Stoicism), being the key foundation for a fulfilling life.

It Cost What? This Has To Stop!

Having bagged the Vesuvius Challenge the team of students now plan “to scale up the 3D scanning and digital analysis techniques,” while at the same time keeping an eye on the costs of analysis. It might have read like the $700,000 prize was a big win, but not when we put that amount into perspective.

It cost the team $100 for every square centimeter of analyzed rock, which tallies to between $1 million and $5 million per scroll. This sounds within the realms of research budget, right? But when you then consider there are another “800 scrolls” lined up to be deciphered, that calculates to between 800 million and 4 billion USD.

Therefore, a lot of ancient philosophy will go undeciphered, and as such it will remain a mystery for future researchers to tackle when lower cost research methodologies are developed.

Top image: Left; One of the Herculaneum scrolls that are being deciphered. Right; Text from the Herculaneum scroll          Source: Vesuvius Challenge

By Ashley Cowie

What was the best way you left a terrible job?

I had already submitted my resignation. On the last day, the bitch who had committed all the prior unfair labor practices was, of course, at it again. She had me covering for other people, and didn’t let me take any breaks all day. An hour before the end of my shift, when a co worker had come to relieve me from covering for her, she told me the same supervisor wanted me down in her office so she could talk to me.”Oh really? Well, first I am going to take my morning 15 minute break, then I am taking my half hour lunch, then I am taking my afternoon 15, which I am legally required to do. That will bring me up to quitting time, so she can WANT all she wants”, and left. Heard later than she couldn’t believe I had done it, and went screaming my name through all 6 floors of the building looking for me LOL

CHINA WARNING! We Will Show Our Swords Against AMERICA

Has someone ever been fired because of you?

Yes, and they had it coming.

This was back in the mid 90’s, I was working at a pizza place. A good friend of mine had signed a contract with a major league baseball team, and he was back in town after his first season in the minors. He stopped in to see me at work, when he left one of the waitresses asked who he was. I told her, she seemed interested and asked if I could introduce her to him. I said sure, me and this girl had become good friends since she started working at this place.

I introduce them, they start seeing each other and things seem good. At some point, she learned about the signing bonus that he had received when he signed his contract. It wasn’t a ton, but it was a decent amount. I heard her tell a co-worker that she had stopped taking her birth control, she wanted to get pregnant so, “I can get some of that money”. I told my friend that she said this, and he broke up with her that evening.

She knew I told him, and she did not like that. I go into work the next day, she’s already working and she wants to have a talk. We’re talking, she asked if I told him, I said, “Yep, that was me”. There’s some shouting, and at some point, she grabs me by the throat and his her fist drawn back. The assistant manager grabbed her, and dragged her away. She was sent home for the day. The manager comes in, and he wants to fire both of us. A few coworkers and the assistant manager defended me, as I hadn’t started this fight. She was fired that evening.

Side note: a few weeks later, she tried to run me over with her car. As you can clearly see, she was a very stable individual.

What is the weirdest thing you have seen at Target?

I had the best laugh of my life in a Target.

A sales associate was pushing a very large cardboard box, filled with some kind of clothes, along one of the main aisles in the store. It didn’t look very heavy, but it was clearly much too large for any one person to carry.

She had picked up a lot of speed, and she was kinda racing forward, bent over the box like she was going for the gold in Olympic box-pushing, when she reached a spot where the floor changed to carpet. The two types of flooring were separated by one of those very narrow metal bands, flat enough to where it wasn’t generally noticeable.

The box hit the metal band and came to a full – and very abrupt – stop, but the woman did not. She could have done the maneuver a thousand times and never repeated her trick, but she somehow flipped over herself and landed in the box she’d been pushing.

I didn’t laugh at first. I actually managed to control myself, but then I saw the look on her face. She looked like a startled cartoon, anime style, and I just couldn’t contain my laughter after that. I knew that it was so, so wrong, but she looked like she was okay physically.

I still think of her sometimes, and whenever that happens, I can’t help but laugh like an insane hyena.

Rigatoni with Steak Sauce

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 (12 ounce) rib eye steaks
• Salt and pepper
• 2 onions, thinly sliced
• 2 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 3/4 cup dry red wine
• 1 (26 ounce) jar marinara sauce
• 1 cup beef broth
• 16 ounces dried rigatoni pasta
• 3 ounces Parmesan, shaved

Instructions

1. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a heavy large frying pan over high heat. Sprinkle the steaks with salt and pepper. Cook the steaks until they are brown but still rare in the center, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer the steaks to a plate and set aside to cool completely.
2. Add 2 more tablespoons of olive oil to the same pan. Sauté the onions and carrots until the onions are translucent, about 8 minutes, with additional salt and pepper, to taste. Add the garlic and oregano, and sauté for 1 minute. Add the wine and simmer for 1 minute. Add the marinara sauce and broth. Cover and simmer over medium low heat to allow the flavors to blend, about 10 minutes.
3. Season the sauce, to taste, with salt and pepper.
4. Meanwhile, trim off any fat from the steaks, then cut the steaks into bite size pieces and set aside. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the rigatoni and boil until it is tender but still firm to the bite, stirring often, about 10 minutes. Drain the rigatoni.
5. Toss the rigatoni and reserved steak pieces and any accumulated juices from the steaks with the sauce to coat.
6. Transfer the pasta to bowls.
7. Sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese shavings and serve.

What’s the best revenge to someone who robbed you?

Had a fella break into my house when on holiday in Brazil and a neighbour called the police and he was arrested in my house. She saw him break a small window to get in. Was big on the new consoles and computer games at the time, had all the latest. He’d taken suitcases from upstairs and filled them.

He told the policeman cockily he was going to come back and finish the job, he was a local heroin addict known to them.

When I came back from holiday I had to get a crime number, the policeman without giving a name gave me a massive clue who did it…off the record of course

.Not saying the two are related but I told a certain local person and the burglar was found tied to a lamppost naked a few days later in public view. I know a few locals had a vendetta against him so could have been anyone. A few months later the exact same happened to a teen who had been stealing cars locally and joyriding in them. I know the teen had to be cut free in public which must have seriously embarrassed him. An obnoxious fat kid who would gloat to folk who he had stole a car from.

Thought was a great way to deal with people who were getting away with petty crime and back out to do it again. Made the local papers as well which really would have rubbed it in.

What ignorant thing did a retail employee say that made you walk out of the store without buying a single item?

Ah! My little sister!

This was when she was 17. She decided she wanted to make the big plunge and purchase a stereo system with the money she’d saved from various jobs. But she was nervous about being taken by nefarious sales people, so she asked her big brother (the guy with a house account at Groove-N-Tube… yeah I bought a lot of that stuff back then) to go with her to recommend what to purchase.

We arrive at what at the time was a big name electronics and appliance store (out of business now, no surprise). The sales person gloms onto us right away and his eyes are sparkling. He thinks he’s landed a couple (probably dating but maybe a young marriage), and he goes into his spiel. We walk through the store discussing the various things they have to offer. I ask some questions. My sister asks some questions. Salesperson totally ignores sis. Probably figures I’m the one wearing the pants in this decision. At one point, he totally turns his back on her while he discusses the attributes of a system. I could tell she was fuming but was too polite to say anything.

Finally, it’s time to make a decision. With his back still to my sister, he asks me: “So what can I pack up for you?”

I look him dead in the eye and say: “What are you asking me for? She’s the one buying it.”

He went white. Looked at my sister. She beamed at him and said: “I think I’ll buy something from a store that values all its customers.” And out she sailed.

I love my little sis.

Different wiring

What screams “I’m asking to be pickpocketed”?

By the time I went to college in West Texas, my pickpocketing days were well and truly behind me. I had seen the error of my ways, repented of my mischief, and was endeavoring to live an honest life again.

Little did I know that my new Lone Star country was home to one of the most absurd and illogical bits of fashion stupidity in history.

No, I’m not talking about chaps. Don’t even get me started on those.

I’m not entirely sure what it’s called, but I have heard it referred to as a “cowboy wallet.” The primary difference between it and a non-stupid wallet is that it is extra super-duper long.

This means that when you put it in the back pocket of your Wranglers, it sticks out the top like a pull-tab.

Are you effing serious, Texas? Why not just hang a sign saying FREE MONEY?

There may be a reader or two out there thinking, “no, I’d definitely notice if someone pulled my wallet. I’d feel it slide out!”

Trust me, you wouldn’t. It’s not any failure on your part, either. Pickpocketing is a bit like cheating at cards. When done properly, it has nothing to do with luck.

I had several friends in college who used these cowboy goodie-bags and I made sure to let them know the economic dangers of their rustic fashion. I had one friend named Logan with whom it became a running joke that I would pull his wallet pretty much every time I saw him. I’d obviously return it to him immediately, but even when he knew full well that I was going to do it, he was still powerless to stop me because it really is that easy.

So Quora, if you are the owner/carrier of a cowboy wallet and you happen to find yourself in a big city or, for that matter, pretty much anywhere besides your family’s ranch, I suggest that you consider either putting it in your inside jacket pocket or getting a different wallet. You would actually be better off taping your money to one of those flag-football belts than putting that thing in your back pocket, as you’d be more likely to notice when it got pulled.

The New York pickpocket rings (to the best of my knowledge) have all either become defunct or transitioned to more profitable ventures, and the city is now very safe. Nonetheless, wear one of those things around here and someone’s likely to flint you on principle.

What is the most interesting fact that you know and I don’t, but I should?

McDonald’s most popular burger and the second most popular item on their menu (second only to their unique fries).

But have you ever stopped to wonder how it got its name?

You see, McDonald’s was originally founded by brothers Maurice and Richard McDonald.

They went by the nicknames Mac and Dick (for when Mac and Cheese just isn’t enough).

The “Big Mac” hit McDonald’s fast food restaurants in August 1968. However, before this, the executives at McDonald’s were struggling to come up with a name for this new super-sandwich.

The McDonald’s corporation tested out a couple of other names, including “The Aristocrat.”

Eventually, a secretary named Esther Glickstein (who was quite fond of co-founder Maurice), suggested the name “Big Mac”.

She admitted that the higher-ups initially laughed the name off when she first suggested it, but she got the last laugh when the name stuck!

But just imagine…

for one second…

if…

she had been more fond of Richard…

You could be enjoying a Big Dick, instead of a Big Mac.

My Girlfriend Asked For An Open Relationship, I Walked Out And Now I Laugh At Her Tears

What is the weirdest reason you got fired from a job?

I was general manager of a pregnancy resource center. It was a 501(c)(3) corporation, and we were completely dependent on donations. It was going broke when I took over. We got back to solvency within a year, without having to back off at all from the services we provided. In fact, we had grown quite a bit. There were 5 full time employees, and about 35 volunteers.

One day, right out of the blue, I was called to go to the office down the street of the chairman of our board of directors. When I got there, he and another board member summarily fired me. Before I left that office, the board chairman had written a glowing letter of recommendation for me.

Curious, I asked him why I was being let go. He said that the board had voted me out because I ran the place too much like a business and not enough like a charity. He had voted against firing me, but was outvoted. The reason they were going broke before hiring me was that no one in the place had any ability to manage money. So, making it more businesslike internally, without that being noticed by our clientele, just seemed wrong to them.

As a waiter, what is the cheapest thing a customer has done?

I’m not a waiter, but I will tell my experience. After work, a bunch of coworkers and I would go to the pub across the street. People came and left, as they got off work. We always ran a single tab. Someone would come, have one five dollar drink, and throw ten dollars into the middle of the table. The next person might have 3 $5 drinks, and throw in a twenty before leaving. Nobody wanted to risk stiffing their coworkers or the waitress.

The biggest problem was that at the end of the night, we often had a 35–40 percent tip.

Then a friend we used to work with, joined us for drinks, at first everything was fine, but after a few friday nights at the pub, he started to say. I don’t have any cash on me, just hand me the cash, and I will go put it all on my credit card.

Three weeks later, the waitress who had waited on us for years, sat down early in the evening, before our friend joined us and asked us if her service had slipped, because suddenly we had gone from 35–40 percent tips to exactly 10 percent the last few times. This was a few years ago in Canada, and 10–15 percent was the standard tip. It turns out our friend had been picking up our $300 for a $220 bill, and paying $242, with tip, and going home with $58 more than he came with, after drinking all night for free.

We said no, her service was still fabulous and suggested that she keep us on a group tab, and put him on a separate bill.

Our friend came and at the end of the evening went to grab the cash, and we said, no you have a separate bill.

He got all flustered, and we told him we didn’t want to see him for 6 months, until he learned his lesson.

What is your reaction to the visit by Lionel Messi and his Inter Miami team to Hong Kong?

Lionel Messi will go down in history as the man who united both Hong Kong and mainland Chinese football fans, both pro- and anti-establishment Hong Kong voters, and both its political elites and grassroots citizens, to have such seething hatred towards the same person.

I don’t think even bona fide war criminals like Tojo Hideki would be able to accomplish such a feat in the Sinosphere these days. There were people who paid thousands of HK dollars for a ticket, and traveled to Hong Kong all the way from Xinjiang and abroad, just for a glimpse of the legendary “king of football”. Instead, all they got was snubbed.

There’s no other way to put it. Messi messed up, big time.

Right now nobody really knows what’s going on, why he refused to fulfil his contract (of playing at least 45 minutes on the field), and why he behaved in such a cold and arrogant manner towards his fans in Hong Kong, to the extent that he didn’t even once smile or wave at them.

But judging from the fact that he did play ball in Riyadh, and that he said in an interview he will play again in Kobe, Japan later on, my gut feeling tells me this probably has to do with politics. And before some of you start going “but muh oppression/human rights”, remember that he didn’t protest being in Saudi Arabia.

It’s just too much of a coincidence. You see, right now Hong Kong is trying to pass a law known as “Article 23”. For those of you not from here, I’ll give you the rundown version: Hong Kong, which is part of the People’s Republic of China, has a constitutional duty to enact a law covering secession and subversion (pretty much every country and region in the world has this type of law, by the way).

This was supposed to have been done ages ago, but the anti-establishment, anti-China, right wing types pushed back against any discussion of it every single time. After the violent far right riots in 2019, the local government began to take national security more seriously, which is why western media, unsurprisingly, is trying to depict Article 23 as dystopic and totalitarian.

My instinct is that even if this whole ordeal in Hong Kong was not political at first (he could have just been a dick – not the most outlandish thing about footballers, honestly), Messi will make it political and milk all he can from it. He’s going to turn this thing into another Daryl Morey, NBA-China controversy, hijacking an entire sport for his own political virtue-signalling, and as a pledge of allegiance to both the United States and his home country of Argentina (which is currently being run by a far right neoliberal demagogue, who is trying to abolish the national currency in favour of the US dollar, outlaw abortions, and legalise the organ trade).

If nothing else, this would at least help him win over a few crowds in certain parts of the world where Sinophobia is politically correct. He might even run for political office on this far right platform after retiring from football. Who knows.

Again, I have to stress that this is all just speculation on my part. Nobody but Messi and those closest to him would know what’s really going on. I hope I’m proven wrong, and that the same shitshow that happened in Hong Kong would repeat itself in Japan, thus proving he wasn’t being disrespectful specifically towards the Chinese, and that he’s just a snobbish cunt to everyone. However, knowing how politicised football has become in recent years, I’m not counting on it.

I would be remiss if I didn’t give a shoutout to the real MVP on the field, Hong Kong singer G.E.M. (Gloria Tang), for doing her best to cheer up an angry and disappointed crowd, and trying to give them something worth their money. She’s the queen 🫅.

What is your reaction to the visit by Lionel Messi and his Inter Miami team to Hong Kong?

Lionel Messi will go down in history as the man who united both Hong Kong and mainland Chinese football fans, both pro- and anti-establishment Hong Kong voters, and both its political elites and grassroots citizens, to have such seething hatred towards the same person.

I don’t think even bona fide war criminals like Tojo Hideki would be able to accomplish such a feat in the Sinosphere these days. There were people who paid thousands of HK dollars for a ticket, and traveled to Hong Kong all the way from Xinjiang and abroad, just for a glimpse of the legendary “king of football”. Instead, all they got was snubbed.

There’s no other way to put it. Messi messed up, big time.

Right now nobody really knows what’s going on, why he refused to fulfil his contract (of playing at least 45 minutes on the field), and why he behaved in such a cold and arrogant manner towards his fans in Hong Kong, to the extent that he didn’t even once smile or wave at them.

But judging from the fact that he did play ball in Riyadh, and that he said in an interview he will play again in Kobe, Japan later on, my gut feeling tells me this probably has to do with politics. And before some of you start going “but muh oppression/human rights”, remember that he didn’t protest being in Saudi Arabia.

It’s just too much of a coincidence. You see, right now Hong Kong is trying to pass a law known as “Article 23”. For those of you not from here, I’ll give you the rundown version: Hong Kong, which is part of the People’s Republic of China, has a constitutional duty to enact a law covering secession and subversion (pretty much every country and region in the world has this type of law, by the way).

This was supposed to have been done ages ago, but the anti-establishment, anti-China, right wing types pushed back against any discussion of it every single time. After the violent far right riots in 2019, the local government began to take national security more seriously, which is why western media, unsurprisingly, is trying to depict Article 23 as dystopic and totalitarian.

My instinct is that even if this whole ordeal in Hong Kong was not political at first (he could have just been a dick – not the most outlandish thing about footballers, honestly), Messi will make it political and milk all he can from it. He’s going to turn this thing into another Daryl Morey, NBA-China controversy, hijacking an entire sport for his own political virtue-signalling, and as a pledge of allegiance to both the United States and his home country of Argentina (which is currently being run by a far right neoliberal demagogue, who is trying to abolish the national currency in favour of the US dollar, outlaw abortions, and legalise the organ trade).

If nothing else, this would at least help him win over a few crowds in certain parts of the world where Sinophobia is politically correct. He might even run for political office on this far right platform after retiring from football. Who knows.

Again, I have to stress that this is all just speculation on my part. Nobody but Messi and those closest to him would know what’s really going on. I hope I’m proven wrong, and that the same shitshow that happened in Hong Kong would repeat itself in Japan, thus proving he wasn’t being disrespectful specifically towards the Chinese, and that he’s just a snobbish cunt to everyone. However, knowing how politicised football has become in recent years, I’m not counting on it.

I would be remiss if I didn’t give a shoutout to the real MVP on the field, Hong Kong singer G.E.M. (Gloria Tang), for doing her best to cheer up an angry and disappointed crowd, and trying to give them something worth their money. She’s the queen 🫅.

Have you ever made a mistake that ended up saving your life?

Honestly, no way to be sure. On a Saturday night i was at a tavern having a few. I was supposed to leave and meet my Niece at another tavern. I wasted just enough time at the first place that my Niece and her friends decided to go to a different tavern. I was just about a mile down the road from the other tavern.

A whole load of police vehicles and emergency personnel trucks go flying by the first bar heading towards the other bar. A Shooting occurred at JB’s tavern; killing a bartender Named Jeff; who put himself between the gunman and his patrons.

The gunman did this because he was kicked out for harassing women. He went home shaved his head, dressed in camouflage, grabbed a rifle, and then finished his journey to insanity

He killed another man Rich; who I knew from my working in taverns. Jeff, I knew from school; he was a couple of years behind me. We weren’t best friends; but we both enjoyed playing poker. The killer also wounded like a dozen innocent people.

Luther Casteel was his name. I had to Google it because I was unsure of the spelling. He actually wounded 14 people and brought 4 weapons with him and a couple hundred rounds of ammunition.

I really cannot answer if my screwing around saved my life; but I believe that it saved my niece’s life.

What is the cutest mistake you’ve ever seen someone make?

Okay, this would have been cute if the guy wasn’t a huge piece of human garbage*. My crew and I were out to eat on Christmas Eve in Hawaii. One of the few places that was open was our hotel’s sushi restaurant. After eating a heroic amount of sushi, lard ass leaned back and explained, “that was so good. I’m famished!”

Read on for the rest of the story.

The flight attendant and I looked at each other and exchanged a glance. So, I casually said “How can you still be hungry after all that sushi?” He said “I’m not hungry, I’m famished.” I just said “famished is a synonym for starving.” He had to look it up. The n made some BS excuse.

Read on for my rant against this dumbass.

He was fucking stupid. His wife was pregnant with twins at the time. He was glad because he said twins would be easier than a single kid. Later, after they were born he would only talk about one of the. “Clair Bears” was what he called his daughter Clair. He rarely referred to her twin. We dubbed that one trash bag because it was obvious how he felt about his kids. He was just awful.

hong kong 香港 3/3 (if wong kar wai and wes anderson had a really bad short film as a baby)

As a landlord, did you ever have a terrible tenant that didn’t appear to exhibit any red flags in the beginning, but later on you realized you made a huge mistake to accept them?

My stepfather was an apartment building manager in Hollywood, California when I was a teen.

The modern building was large and well-kept. The one large ‘suite’ was a challenge to rent out because of the price and because it was just too luxurious for the neighborhood.

But the owner of the building found a tenant who exceeded her dreams: a young Arabian prince (a student?) who paid a hefty security fee and rental for a year upfront.

I rarely saw him and his entourage because they clubbed and partied until dawn.

When I did catch a glimpse, it was like watching a movie: a group of handsome, laughing young men dressed in flowing Arab robes, moving through the California sunshine.

When they left before the lease was up, the owner was told that the prince did not require rent and security deposit refunds.

The owner was delighted…until the suite was inspected.

The formerly white shag carpet had not been cleaned since the prince moved in, and much of it had a strange, dark tinge. The walls and ceilings were no longer pristine white either.

As the owner and my stepfather entered the massive livingroom, they discovered why the colors were so dingy.

The tenant had been using braziers ON THE CARPET to cook food, leaving greasy stains all over. Above, the ceiling was almost black from smoke. Mattresses had been dragged in from the bedrooms.

The kitchen was literally filled with spoiled food and dirty dishes and pans; the stove was caked all over with burned food. The refrigerator was a mold-filled, broken disaster.

The bathrooms were disgusting, and the owner backed quickly away and shut the doors because of the stench.

The 3 bedrooms had been used for pets (forbidden by the lease) – dogs and birds. Excrement and rotted food were everywhere.

Most cabinet and inside doors were damaged or missing. Old papers, clothes and other items as well as trash littered the apartment.

Reparing and refurbishing the suite took almost 6 months and cost way more than the substantial deposit and unused rent. A bill was forwarded to the prince’s lawyer and was paid promptly.

Note: In the interest of keeping this short, I have not written in detail about the destruction.

After being fed for two consecutive weeks, this beautiful stray cat became a part of the family.

I love this video.

Why did my dad think it was a good idea to get a lower-paying job and lower our standard of living just because he was stressed and tired? Isn’t it the parents’ job to make sacrifices for their children to be happy?

I’ll tell you what happened to my dad, and you might understand. My dad owned part of the family business, he was the working partner in the business.

He worked 12–16 days, 7 days a week to make ends meet.

When I was 8 or 9 he had what was called at the time a nervous breakdown, he was in the hospital for months, and the business didn’t close.

He was out for two months, and my mom went in, evidently she had worked herself into a git, worrying about my dad, and the effect that only seeing him for an hour or two a day was having on the marriage.

My mother got a job. That wasn’t rare in the early 1960s , but it wasn’t common. My dad cut his hours to 10–12 hours a day 6 days a week. Still way too much, but now we took a yearly, week long camping vacation.

When I was 19 my dad had a heart attack, and they put the company up for sale.

When my dad got out of the hospital he was under strict orders not to work more than 40 hours a week. I dropped out of university to help run the family business, while they were selling it.

It took 4 years to sell the business.

My dads heart was never the same. He went to work for the new owners, working 36 hours a week, weekends off, for the first time in his life.

He retired at 65, and died before he was 66 .

That is why you don’t work at a job that stresses you out.

Ex-CIA: Biden is NOW a National Security risk for the world