Lemons and grapefruit.

Ugh.

That was when my first wife and I were traveling the country and hovering around the poverty level, often dipping below it.

Often enough, we would be between work and thus pretty much starving. Going weeks between eating. Those were hard days. Those were difficult weeks. Those were really hard times.

But every now and then we would come near an orange grove, or see a house that had a lemon tree in it’s yard. Thus, by asking permission, we were able to get FOOOOOD!

And so we were kept alive.

Eating lemons all day for a month, or grapefruit all the time for a month or longer.

Man, oh man.

It felt like our teeth were getting loose, and going to fall out. And aside from that, we were still weak. Ugh. It’s something that I just don’t recommend for others to do.

Please, heed my advice.

A diet of citrus should be a last resort. Nothing less.

A painful past. I paid my dues. Have you?

Today…

How does the leadership and governance of China’s Communist Party compare to that of the US Democratic Party?

How about a million times better? How about CPC is about the most well organized and most successful organization on earth! Think about results. Surely results matter. And results are every thing right?

In 1949 CPC started governing China. At that time it’s life expectancy is 39 years old. Today in 2023 it is 78 years old. Chinese out live the U.S. citizens on average by 2 full years!

CPC reduce its hardcore poor by 1 billion people by 2022! The U.S. not only not reduced it’s poor to day 1 million Americans living live in tents homeless throughout the U.S. China has ZERO HOMELESS!

China has built high speed rail that cross China for trains travelling 3 times the speed of U.S. trains! US has less than 100 km of high speed railway lines compared to 45 thousand km throughout China!

China provides universal healthcare and charge what you can afford for 100% of its citizens and free college education for those who qualify while in the U.S. kids get into unplayable debts before starting life paying astronomical tuition fees and a third of American’s cannot afford to buy health care insurance.

China’s healthcare and pharmaceutical companies charge its citizens 0.95 trillion dollars for its 1.4 billion citizens. And the U.S. charged its citizens 5.9 trillion for its 330 million citizens! So on average Americans are forced to pay an average of 17.9 thousand dollars per annum while China charge its citizens 678 dollars a person a year. So the U.S. charge its citizens 27 times more to live 2 years less!

Chinese can walk freely at 3.00 am on any street anywhere in China and a week of U.S. random mass shooting is equivalent to China’s decade! China has 11% of US prisoners population per million people! In the U.S. there are many no go areas and people get necked to death all due to their skin colour!

CPC knew that STEM engineers and specialist number is the key technological prowess and being a technological leader. A year of Chinese STEM graduates equate to the entire U.S. STEM specialist and to day China has 100:1 advantage over the U.S.! Hence according to ASPI China today leads in 37 out of the 44 fields of key strategic technologies and the U.S. leads in only 7/44!

So you still want to compare? So U.S. is the David and China is the Goliath. China through merit gets the very best to lead. US gets the most popular! No comparison who gets the result.

What is the weirdest object you’ve ever found?

My 98 year old grandmother just passed this past Christmas. As I was cleaning out her apartment and sorting the junk from the priceless junk (amazing how much a 98 y/o woman can stuff into a 400 s.f. apartment), I came across a folded stack of notebook paper- it actually looked more like the paper torn out of a “Big Chief” tablet. On the outside was written, “Mrs. Ronzel Bailey, Orma WV” in my grandfather’s handwriting.

So, what’s so weird about that, you ask?

The paper was old and yellowed. As I opened it, I read the date- 1942. My grandparents had been married in 1938. My grandfather was a Lt. Commander in the Navy and on a ship in the Mediterranean in 1942. As I read the letter, the writing was in a very strange, detached voice. It told her how lost she must feel and how she must take care of herself primarily and then take care of my father (born in 1939). It then went on to tell her that she should buy a house on the outskirts of a small town and watch out for those who would take advantage of her.

I then got to a part where he instructed her to use her own judgement as to whether or not she taught my father about him. At this point I was thinking he was divorcing her! I got mad (even though I knew they were never divorced- they were married until he died in 1993- 55 years!). But, mad I was!

As I read further, it finally dawned on me that this letter was his final instructions to her in the event he was killed in action during WWII. It was difficult to hold back the tears as I read that she should not waste resources in trying to bring his body home.

This letter that I had just finished reading was what he wanted to tell her – make sure that she could move on and give her hope and comfort.

How she ended up with this letter, I will never know since he wasn’t killed in WWII and came home for another 50 years of marriage.

One piece of “priceless junk” saved!

What are some psycological facts?

1. People change for two reasons either they learned a lot or they have been hurt too many times.
2. If your mind wanders often, there is a 85% chance that you’re subconsciously unhappy with your life.
3. The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies, it comes from those whom you trust the most.
4. When we are constantly wishing for something, we overlook everything we already have.
5. The way we dress determines the way we react. Especially our shoes.
6. Tripping in your dream and waking up with a twitch happens when your brains thinks you’re dying.
7. Our mind can sense someone staring at us even when we’re sleeping.
8. Being nice to someone you dislike doesn’t mean you’re being fake but it means you’re mature enough to tolerate that individual.
9. The true mark of maturity is when somebody hurts you and you try to understand their situation instead of trying to hurt them back.
10. The first to apologize is always the bravest. The first to forgive isthe strongest. The first to forget is the happiest.
11. Atleast once in life, you will meet a person you will never get over no matter how long it has been.
12. Life becomes more meaningful when you realize the simple fact that you will never get the same moment twice.

What was the most unexpected knock you got on your door?

Two police officers with sober faces stared at me and I knew the news couldn’t be good.

They described a car that had just been in an accident, and the license plate. My wife’s mini-van had collided, burst into flames and everyone inside it died.

I’m doing a mental inventory about now. My wife, three children, and two nieces.

My legs turned wobbly. You can’t imagine what was going through my head. Because of the fire, they couldn’t find any useful identification but explained they could identify everyone both by DNA and by dental records. They wanted a DNA sample from me.

I guess they could verify my kids were mine, and that the adult was their mother. A nice, neat little bow.

Can you imagine? They’ve just told you that your whole family is dead, and —- I told them I would come down and give them a sample.

Getting ready to leave, my cell phone is buzzing. It’s my wife. What? Hard tingles are on my spine, like she’s calling from the grave.

“Our van was stolen from the parking lot….”

Were the sweetest words I could’ve ever heard. Yeah it was my wife’s car, but they won’t need any DNA sample from me today.

EDIT – to address some of the mysteries in the comments

I learned later that three people were in the van when it collided. A man, woman, and younger person, which they presumed was a child of the drivers. The police said everyone died, but they had a different human inventory than my own. I also learned they were part of a ring of car thieves, and the accident was not their fault. Another car ran a light and hit them broadside. No fatalities and only minor injuries in the other car.

My wife had organized a birthday outing for our oldest. All the necessary shops, restaurant, and theater were inside the mall. It would be several hours before it was time to leave again. The thieves had plenty of time to get away if they hadn’t been hit.

Chinese Sweet and Sour Meatloaf

Ingredients

Sauce

• 2/3 cup ketchup
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup vinegar
• 2 tablespoons FINELY minced ginger
• 4 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon mustard

Meat Loaf

• 1 pound ground beef
• 3/4 pound ground pork (approximation)
• 1/3 cup finely chopped green onion(white and green parts)
• 3/4 cup bread crumbs
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons rice wine or any dry white wine
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

1. Mix all sauce ingredients thoroughly. Set aside to allow flavors to marry.
2. Next, combine all meat loaf ingredients except cornstarch. Take 1 cup of sauce AND mix it into meat. Follow this step with evenly sprinkling cornstarch over meat and thoroughly mixing it in.
3. Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
4. Place meat in loaf pan and pack it down. Bake covered with foil for about 30 minutes. During last 10 minutes of initial 30-minute baking cycle, remove meat loaf from oven, drain fat and slice into several serving-size slices. Pour about 1/2 cup of sauce over meat, making sure some of sauce runs down into cracks. Bake uncovered for about 15 more minutes.
5. Meanwhile, if you want, you can heat and thicken leftover sauce with about 1 teaspoon cornstarch and an equal amount of water. As sauce starts to thicken, you can add about 2 teaspoons hot oil to sauce.

This recipe makes a lot of sauce, so leftover heated sauce can be spooned over individual meatloaf servings if desired.

If you want a browner meatloaf, bake covered for about 20 minutes and uncovered for 15 to 20 minutes. Then drain fat, slice meatloaf and pour sauce over it.

Is Germany a good country?

As a person who has lived in GERMANY for 10 years, I can tell you what Germany offers and you can decide good and bad depending on your priorities. Germany offers the following:

1. Its a Democracy.
2. We have only 1 planet, so Environment is a priority.
   1. There is no conflict among political parties over scientifically proven facts like climate change and global warming. Everybody accepts these proven facts.
   2. Around 30% of all Energy is produced from renewable sources like wind & solar and is still on the rise . Eight of the seventeen operating nuclear reactors in Germany were permanently shut down following Fukushima in 2011. In 2011, Angela Merkel’s government announced that it would close all of its nuclear power plants by 2022.
   3. Plastic bottles are to be returned once used and all trash has to be separated in categories before putting in dumpsters for respective categories of trash.
3. Germany has the highest Current account surplus in the world i.e. its earnings from exports exceed its expenses from imports.
4. People don’t carry guns around. Probability of that happening is 1 in 3 million.
5. People are learning slowly about foreign cultures, but are very friendly when you get to know them better. Contrary to International belief, I never came across a racist person during my long stay.
6. Citizens vote for higher taxes, this enables country to give top healthcare to its citizens and also maintain good infrastructure. So, healthcare system is very efficient, you can visit doctor without worrying about huge bills as you already pay the insurance cost as percentage of your salary.
7. Refugees are given refuge, if in genuine distress and are willing to integrate.
8. Education is free ranging from School to University level. So, average German person is very well educated. Therefore, Students are debt free at the end of their university studies with degree in hand.
9. Full-Time working hours are 35–40 Hours per week.
10. All Full-Time employees get 20–30 paid Holidays a year. Sick leave days might not have a limit if you have a prescription.
11. Inflation is kept under check, so pay raises are low but stuff you wanna buy is still affordable.
12. Maternity leave (12 months) and 2 months paternity leave are officially granted. There are 14 months of paid parental leave if the father takes at least 2 of them (12 if not). However the 14 months can be divided as seen fit e.g. 7 + 7 months for each parent.
13. There is no speed limit on Freeways as the roads are good and drivers are trained with long theory lessons and practical training until driving skill reaches adequate level. Hence there is no road rage.
14. Super rich are taxed higher than low and middle income people.
15. Unemployed citizens get unemployment allowance (including heating allowance and house rent) till they get a job.
16. Govt offers Retirement allowance for retired people and veterans.
17. Teaching good values to children is important, so people with Children never J-walk. That also goes for people who are standing next to people with children before traffic lights.
18. Food Factor:
    1. Beer is the Best in the world without question and its low priced.
    2. Though Italian and French wines are popular, German Gengenbacher wine from Blackforest is my all time favorite.
    3. Bakeries are the best as well.
    4. Everyday food in canteen/mensa is normally Italian and French stuff plus some salads. You always have to do a little bit of research before you find a place that serves authentic German cuisine.
19. German Football team is best from my personal perspective as they are A REAL TEAM and not a cult formed around a star player.

Limitations in Germany:

1. Though the new generation speaks English, language of communication in most work places is majorly German.
   1. This is not a limitation for local professional working locally. However, it might limit the ability of a German professional to market his/her skills at global level. Skills of German professionals can help the entire world but lesser knowledge of English limit the possibilities of International cooperation.
   2. High Skilled professionals who are looking to migrate to Germany must consider learning German or migrate to some other country which has more familiar language as the basis. As except for the startups or jobs in software & IT industries, German is first language at workplace. This might slow down their career growth if they fail to learn the language.
   3. For closer integration in German society you get better and faster response if you speak German. Unless people know the language life can be comparatively difficult. Since, I knew the language it was fairly easier for me to get everything organized & get cooperation as compared to other people with same nationality and economic standing.
   4. As Germany is slowly opening to attract foreign High-Skilled professionals as it is required due to economic reasons, the language situation is slowly changing but it requires time. Government offices in the city of Düsseldorf have adopted English as an additional language for official purposes and the new generation is adopting English as the second language in schools but the overall transformation will require more time.
2. Rules are governed by institutions & organizations and therefore are very rigid. Rules might ignore genuine trouble of some people from time to time and may seem illogical.
3. Local Trains and public transport as well as the ticketing system are managed differently by each city in a different way, there is no standard best practice.

What happened to the radiation that was supposed to last thousands of years in Hiroshima (1945)?

Like a lot of misinformation about radioactivity and radiation, that too was simply wrong.

The actual radiation from the Hiroshima blast was not nearly what some people thought it would be because they were looking at the results of the Trinity explosion in New Mexico. But the trinity explosion was on a tower a hundred feet high and not 2,000 feet in the air. As a result, the Trinity blast generated a lot of residual radioactivity from the dirt that was within the fireball. Even that didn’t last as long as some thought it might.

The Hiroshima bomb, Little Boy, exploded 2,000 feet in the air and the fireball didn’t touch the ground. As a result, although there was a lot of radiation, the only radioactive materials generated came from the components of the bomb itself. Due to the intense heat, much of the radioactive material was carried into the stratosphere and carried away by the wind. The material that descended onto Hiroshima, although highly radioactive, was short lived. You have to understand that if a radioactive material has a short half life, it will be highly radioactive, but only for a short period of time before it has decayed.

The result was that the intense burst of radiation from the bomb was one source of lethal ionizing radiation, but the “black rain” that fell carried some of the short lived, but rapidly decaying material down upon the people.

Today, the background radiation at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki is normal. There is no danger from radiation in either city.

Being an engaged parent

Did the Crusades help stop the spread of Islam in Europe?

No.

Muslims controlled parts of Spain, Portugal and Italy in the 11th century, before the Crusades. They had been in these countries for 300 years and 200 years respectively.

However, by the time the First Crusade was called in 1095:

• Sicily had already fallen to the Normans, ending Muslim power in Italy
• Muslim Al-Andalus (Spain, Portugal) had already collapsed and splintered into competing states. It was already losing ground to the Christian kingdoms of Castille and Aragon. Toledo fell in 1085 to the Christians.

The premise of this question is false because Islam wasn’t spreading in Europe at the time. On the contrary, it was in serious decline.

But what about the Turks?

The only area where Islam was spreading was in Asia, not Europe. The expansion of the Seljuk Turks from Central Asia into the territory of the Christian Eastern Roman Empire prompted emperor Alexios I Komnenos to ask Pope Urban II for help. This was what triggered the First Crusade.

The Seljuk Turks never reached Europe. Even without the Crusades, it’s highly unlikely that they could have. Horse nomads are not known for their skill at crossing the sea, nor are they famous for taking heavily fortified cities like Constantinople.

Okay, but what about the Ottoman Empire?

The Ottoman Empire conquered large parts of Europe in the 14th to 17th centuries, after the Crusades

So this question couldn’t be more wrong.

1. Islam was declining, not expanding, in Europe before the Crusades

• After the Crusades, Islam expanded into Europe

Conclusion

The Crusades may have encouraged the spread of Islam in Europe, rather than stopping it.

This is because the Fourth Crusade of 1204 famously destroyed the Christian Eastern Roman Empire, doing far more harm to the cause of Christianity in the Near East than any previous event. And it was the weakness of Byzantium that in turn allowed the Ottomans to expand into Europe.

Without the Crusades, the Ottomans would never have existed. Let alone crossed into Europe.

Tldr: the Crusades caused the expansion of Islam into Europe, rather than ‘stopping’ it…

Italian artist Fabbio Fabbi (1861 – 1946) painted many delightful Orientalist scenes, such as this one. One has to be aware that these may not be strictly accurate, (and the concept of the harem is actually dark if one considers the details), but they are pretty to look at…

Is it legal to set deadly traps inside your house to defend against burglars?

WARNING: GRAPHIC STORY INVOLVING SERIOUS INJURIES. IF THAT BOTHERS YOU DO NOT PROCEED READING THIS ACCOUNT!

I know of two times when boobytraps were used with sickening efficiency. In Canada the law is explicit: any type of booby trap is illegal plain and simple.

An individual I knew had been broken into three times through the same basement window and all attempts to reenforce it was met by the burglars taking the challenge and doing increasingly more damage. By the third time there wasn’t anything of value so they did damage and perpetrated some absolutely foul actions involving feces, etc. As I said in Canada booby traps are illegal plain and simple but an item that was designed for something else that caused damage to a uninvited guest was that person’s problem.

This man took a 3′x3′ piece of particle board and drilled about 100 drywall screws into it, after that at the the bottom of the board he assigned values 10, 20 etc. creating a Pachinko game, then “absent-mindedly” left it under the window. About a week later he arrived home to a frightening scene of blood EVERYWHERE. He called the police who attended and investigated.They surmised that the uninvited guest had broken the window and climbed in, dropping to the floor and landing on the Pachinko game. He must have yelled for help and a second uninvited genius came to his aid and in doing so put himself in the same predicament.They freed themselves then left via the front door.

The officers attended the nearest hospital where they found a couple of meth heads with injuries similar to what the B&E guys would have. When questioned, they said it was a construction injury and the officers didn’t push it. They didn’t stay in the hospital as they were tweaking pretty hard. The homeowner faced no legal repercussions but was told that a second Pachinko accident may not be viewed as an accident a second time.The tweakers moved on.

Problem solved. I have a nastier story that if so desired I can relay but I want to see how this story goes over.

The talking cure

Who was the one kid at school who you never believed could make it as far as they did?

Do you think the Communist Party of China is the world’s best party?

There is no such thing as the world’s best? Each country ought to have what they each see as the best for their nation and their people under different circumstances unique for them, over a development level that is different from country to country.

You can say every nation thinks they have the world’s best for themselves. They ought to be. Otherwise why would they choose it? Surely they all want to do the best for themselves right?

These words or symbols or slurs such as Communism or Democracy or Socialism are tags for various purpose. Some times to simplify some times to discriminate one against another or worst to slur and demonised. These labels meant nothing more, as each nation is shade of grey and not black or white.

The U.S. for example calls itself Liberal democracy. But in reality it is neither democratic nor liberal at all. Is 0.8% of the rich or and powerful decides that the 60 odd % of their people who bother to vote have only two choice Biden a senile or Trump a perpetual liar to choose from, surely that is not democracy!

The U.S. with a mere 4% of world’s population has 25% of the world’s prisoner’s population, surely it cannot liberal nor free? But U.S. can called itself whatever it wants!

China calls itself socialism with Chinese characteristics but the U.S. insists on the label. “Communism” for worst connotations to cast fear and hate on them! If you repeat it like this questioner do, it simply help your media cast hates on China.

To me if the west can call the U.S. a Liberal Democracy why can’t they tern China as Socialism with Chinese characteristics? It is no different from Western media calling Palestinians as “terrorist” and Isreal as freedom “fighter” These slurs and suggesting good is clearly a set. narrative!

Reality

Do lawyers ever have clients who don’t pay them on time or at all? If so, what do they think about them?

Back in my previous incarnation, I worked in collections for the law firm I worked for – drafting legal documents, preparing for hearings, and then taking enforcement steps once we obtained judgment. Yes, we sometimes collected money, but it was usually frustrating and fruitless.

Once, a client offered to pay $2,000 on a $5,000 bill. The lawyer (now a judge) asked my advice. I told her my usual recovery on a judgement was zero. We took the $2,000 and called it a day.

The real problem is that lawyers often start doing work without regard for the client’s ability to pay, they don’t bill regularly and they keep working on files even though there are unpaid bills. I was never involved in one of my firm’s biggest cases – a lengthy patent suit where the client was billed monthly and paid pretty much when it received the bill.

At first, most of the work was centered around clients whose assets we had grossly overestimated. This was very true in family law litigation. However, we often had cases where we simply did too much work for very little return for the client. I remember meeting one client who had met with “other Steve” (who did the collections calls) who complained that the entire amount of the judgement went to pay taxes she owned on the settlement. I told other Steve to write off the bill.

There was the odd client who had the wherewithal to pay, but just didn’t. In a lot of cases they were asset rich and cash poor. They often lived excessive lifestyles even though their income had dropped severely (not our fault by the way). We had a client who owed us about $70,000 and was getting about $100,000 a year from a rich person’s estate. However, that money couldn’t be “attached” by a judgement so we went unpaid.

Have you ever tried to fire someone and it backfired?

What is the nicest thing you have done that no one knows about?

I was a 16 year old American girl. Our family was living in Brazil due to my father’s employment. My family had gone to the beach for the day and had hauled along a 19 year old acquaintance from church. While at the beach, a woman had swum out too far and she was drowning. The 19 year old and myself swam out to help her. The tide was turning, the waves were really rough, and she was trying to climb up on us in order to not drown. She was so desperate. The situation with the waves, the changing tide, and her extreme emotional state was so dire that the 19 year old looked at me and said, “It is better for her to die than for all three of us to die while trying to save her”. He swam back to shore.

I realized that I would rather die trying to save her than live the rest of my life knowing that I abandoned someone in need. I could not leave her. I just could not do it.

I had taken a Junior Life Saving Course as a 10 or 11 year old. I remembered just enough to know not to let her grab me. I got my elbow around her neck and made her float on her back. I worked on calming her down. I tried to work with the waves instead of against them. It took a while, but we both got back to shore. She was vomiting up water, but she was alive. We both were. My family packed up and we drove home. There were no accolades.

I am 55 years old now, and that event at the age of 16 was a turning point in my life. The experience let me know that I could put my life on the line and do hard things.

Over the years, I have volunteered and donated and done some nice things, but that was the nicest thing I ever did.

Can Taiwan with the QUAD backing it, defeat China

No.

Not even close.

…

Consider this mix…

USA, Taiwan, QUAD, The Philippines, all of NATO vs China. Who would win?

China would win.

…

How? Why? What is the reasoning?

Well…

Let me engage you in some creative illustrations. Because anyone even contemplating such a ludicrous question is completely ignorant of China; China’s history, and China’s massive military capabilities.

A tale of mountains

Imagine, China as a huge; just massive mountain. And on that mountain are thousands, maybe even millions of ant hills. Every meter or yard or so, you see another ant hill. And amongst all those ant hills a dangerous and lethal fire ants. Their bite is painful, and nasty.

The fire ants are organized, communicate by scent, and are completely willing to die on the spot to preserve their colony.

The individual bite of a single ant is painful, but will not really kill any large animal. But if ten ants bite an animal, then you can expect some serious harm to come to that animal. Including death.

…

Now imagine a pack of dogs. Each dog has his own hill to live upon. One dog, the biggest of them all; an old and mangy mutt lives on a mountain, roughly the same size as the Chinese mountain. The other dogs, of various types and sizes and breeds live on an array of different hills and much smaller mountains. One is a husky, another is a German Shepard. One is a poodle, while another one is a lean greyhound.

This pack of dogs like to travel around in a great big pack. They are pretty good at it, running about, digging holes,, barking at everyone.

…

One day, the biggest dog tells the poodle and the beagle to go to the Chinese mountain and start digging and raising a fuss…

And they go up there and run about. Barking. Trampling all over the anthills. They dig into the ground and ants go a flying about. They are so happy that other dogs of the pack join in, and before you know it, all the dogs are running about all over the mountain and tossing the tiny ants everywhere.

Then…

(And anyone who has encountered fire ants knows)

… all at once, simultaneously swarms of fire ants bite in unison every single dog. They flood in from all over. They come from everywhere. And the dogs start running away, but the ants are still clinging to their fur and riding the yelling dogs back to their home mountains.

Some of the smaller dogs die in place. They never leave the China mountain.

The medium sized dogs make it home, where they lay in absolute agony and howl in pain and agony. The large dog collapses and winces and twitches as the fire ants relentlessly bite him over and over.

…

The ants that rode the dogs to their home now are establishing ant colonies there, and they grow and expand even as the dogs dies and their carcasses rot to bleached bones.

The ants in the China mountain rebuild and in no time at all, have bigger and more elaborate ant colonies. And the reign of the dog pack ends.

Replaced with a world run by a peaceful, but lethal fire ant horde.

…

This is the reality of a war with China. Are you ready to watch it happen?

What’s the most appalling behavior you’ve seen by a young child’s parent?

The woman living next door sent sweet bread for me yesterday.

She’s maybe 20 years old, mother of a toddler. It’s been a year they moved in as tenants and aren’t exactly the “hey, how are ya neighbor” type of folks and firmly practice minding their own business.

Last night, as I was back from work and having dinner. My wife brought a plate of sweet bread and said that Faiza (name changed) brought some sweet bread today and sat for a chat; it was delicious and kids loved it. We ate it while she was still here And after noticing the empty plate, she went back and brought some more, saying…

I’m glad you liked it. Here… I have brought some more for brother Neman. He should have some of it too.

And I thought… wow!

I tasted it and yeah it was nice. Sweet and crispy.

Later, I went to the other room and fired up my laptop.

I sat there and thought of her. Faiza.

A short brick wall separates our yards. I hear them all the time. She yells a lot at her husband and vice versa. She says “F” words to him which is quite uncommon. She sobs and nags. A poverty-stricken and miserable woman, indeed.

Worst of all… she curses her own son sometimes. I hear her saying “Drop dead” or “Why don’t you just die” to her own son. Downright awful.

Strangely… I didn’t hate her.

I would have hated anyone else in this situation. But not her. In fact, I felt for her. I remember seeing her as a toddler years back, running in the streets barefoot and playing with clay pots. She grew in this neighborhood.

It is complicated to explain to you, Quorans that in our lower-middle class culture… we just cannot go and tell people to behave on their personal matters. It can be considered rude and might actually trigger an irreversible chain of events that lead to “why did I do it in the first place” .

Believe it or not… I spoke to her one day. I initiated that neighborly talk and told her that I remember her as a toddler, playing in front of my house.

She smiled.

That’s what I was hoping for. A smile.

“I hear you cursing your son, Faiza. Trust me… he’ll remember it when he grows older. You love your child, I know. Do you want him to hate and abandon you as soon he can? It’s not his fault for whatever troubles you’re in”.

And that was it.

A few days later, I was home alone, opened my door upon hearing a knock and found her holding a piece of paper. It was the first time… she actually came to our door. She requested me to have her husband’s character certificate stamped by the local police as he’s applying for a security guard’s job.

I got it done.

It’s been weeks. Yelling between them is there but not so much, I would say. And certainly no more cursing towards her own son. I think… the kid has started going to play group. I saw him in his cute uniform.

And now this… a plate full of sweet bread.

Life’s good, people.

Who’s the funniest patient you’ve ever had as a doctor or nurse?

I was on a general medicine ward earlier this year where I met a patient who we will call Mrs X.

She had agreed to be a teaching patient. This was because she has peripheral vascular disease (the arteries in her legs weren’t working so well) so she had some good signs and symptoms.

While taking the history and exam I got to know this beautiful character very well. She was bright, energetic, witty and very funny!

She made jokes at her own expense, wasn’t afraid to rip into me (I did a little bit back to her too), and despite her rather poor medical state she had a great outlook on life.

Several months go by and I cycle through different specialities.

It was my first day on the geriatric ward and I got assigned my long case. This is a patient I’ll follow for the entirety of my placement. Writing about their medical history and progress.

Guess who I get assigned? It’s Mrs X!

She had undergone a double above knee amputation due to her peripheral vascular disease.

As soon as she saw me she smiled and said;

Mrs X: “Well I’ll be dammed! Who let this packet of trouble in here, how are you Carter?”.

I smiled, her cheeky wit was all to familiar and lovely to see.

Me: “I know right! Can’t get rid of me that easily. Hopefully you will be able to keep up with my banter still Mrs X”.

Mrs X: “Oh I will. No going easy just because I’ve no longer got a leg to stand on”.

From her cheeky grin erupted a heavy belly laugh. Only she could joke about a double amputation.

Me: “I would never, and I’m not giving you one of mine to stand on either!”.

We then proceeded to give each other a hug and catch up on the last few months.

Sometimes humour really is the best form of medicine.

What is it like to see the one you love with someone else?

The first time I saw my ex’s new partner, she stepped out of my old marital home with her child and stared at me blankly on the doorstep when I was picking up my son. It was odd, to say the least, to be standing outside my own house (effectively)and being introduced to his new flame. I hugged and kissed her hello and said ‘’Nice to meet you.’ Then walked away feeling surreal and asking myself ‘’What the hell is happening here?’

I was married for 18 years. We had a fairytale relationship. There were only three certainties in life: taxes, death and the fact that we would be together for the rest of our lives. But, things ended.

A reasonable adult will accept that the relationship ended for good reasons and that things just weren’t working anymore. But when your ex finds a new partner, that’s a whole different story. When he introduces his new partner to mutual friends as ‘’the love of his life,’ you find yourself having the petty, angry feelings a teenager would have. Then you chastise yourself for becoming THAT person.

And the day your 8 year old tells you that his suit for the wedding is too tight and you look at him bemused because you have no idea what he’s on about, and he looks back at you like a deer in headlights because he assumed you knew, you feel like you have been punched in the stomach. And weeks later, when you receive a text from an aquaintance asking ‘You okay?’ and it turns out she’s referring to the wedding photo just posted on social media, you feel you never existed. That’s when you realise those 18 years of love, support, fidelity, encouragement and accomplishment meant absolutely nothing to your ex. Or his family.

So you spend the next couple of years in a haze of various emotions (hatred, resentment, anger, jealousy, insecurity, despair) until one day you realise you’ve not thought about it much lately. And although the hurt will never disappear entirely, eventually it makes more sense to just accept it.

Why people divorce

Pretty good explanation.

In the USA…

Ohio, USA auctioned off 393,000 pieces of protective clothing for only $2451, and eventually threw away 7.2 million pieces of protective clothing as well as expired masks, gloves, and other materials. These soon to expire supplies cost approximately $29 million in federal funds.

Vermont sold 105,000 boot covers for $82.50 and thousands of safety goggles for 29 cents.

A survey by the Associated Press found that at least 15 states from Alaska to Vermont have abandoned some of their personal protective equipment due to expiration, surplus, and lack of willing buyers.

More than 18 million masks, 22 million protective suits, 500,000 gloves, and more have all been thrown into the trash can. This does not include states that have not provided accurate numbers to the Associated Press or responded through case studies or other measurement methods. Rhode Island states that it has crushed and recycled 829 tons of personal protective equipment. Maryland processed over $93 million in supplies.

The entire article is too long and there is a lot of material waste. I have only cited a small part of it. And that’s just what the US has calculated by itself.

In the past three years, countless people around the world have lost their parents, children, and partners. These life-saving supplies are just rotting here. Tell me, who is the one who does not respect human rights?

At the same time as these things happen, Washington was doing this. No party has done better.

The economic structure of this world is a joke, your society is a joke, and I watch it with tears in my eyes.

It needs to be changed. It can be changed. It must be changed.

Zones v3 – The most useful relationship map in history

What was the worst date you’ve ever been on?

“It’s really more of an in-person kind of explanation,” he demured, then suggested a dinner date.

I hesitated. Normally I don’t meet my online dates until significantly more text and phone contact. Partly for safety reasons, partly because I don’t want to waste my time on guys I know will not work out. But mostly because I have been on A LOT of bad dates.

He said he was living in his friend’s spare room because he’d hit a few “speed bumps,” in life. I totally got that. I’m the queen of speed bumps myself. I let myself dare to hope maybe— just maybe— I had found a kindred spirit. I agreed to the date. And just like that, there I was, listening to him tell his story from across the candlelit table.

”About a year ago, I went out with some friends after work,” he began, and I smiled and nodded to let him know he had my attention. “I met a girl at a bar and we really hit it off. We ended up going home together. Next day, there’s a cop on my doorstep. And yada, yada, yada… long story short, she didn’t LOOK sixteen.”

I stiffened. Did she look 30? Because you’re 44, dude.

“So,” he continued, “I have a felony on my record. I was put on probation, and my job fired me. And then, just to kick me when I’m down” —and this is my favorite part— “my wife left me.”

?!??!!

“Bummer,” I said, because what else is there to say?

“So I was out of work, and my mom and I couldn’t live off her social security check alone, so she started driving for Uber…

… That’s how she caught COVID and died.”

And this is why I’m still single.

Is it normal that my parents still let my 23-year-old sister live with them even though she does absolutely nothing in life? She has autism but other people with autism manage to get a job too so that shouldn’t be an excuse.

So you have an adult sister with autism, and you resent her living with your parents and, from your perspective, “doing nothing”.

You obviously don’t live with your parents and sister.

Autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning that there is a very wide range of capability and deficits. If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person. What one person with autism does has no bearing on what another person with autism can or will do.

Do you know anything about what your sister is capable of? Perhaps she had difficulty with language, making any interaction with the public impossible. Perhaps she has extreme sensory issues, making leaving her home environment an exercise in pain and anxiety. Autistic people can be intellectually disabled, or intellectually gifted. And both extremes tend to struggle with the social rules of conversation and interaction.

I would suggest that you find out more about your sister, without judgement. Ask questions with an open mind. Attend doctor’s appointments with your parents. Get to know your sister, on a personal level, without expectation of what she “should” be doing.

It’s perfectly normal, and even typical, for adults with autism to live with parents. They may lack the necessary mental skills to manage schedules, financial decisions, even cooking a meal or basic hygiene. While being able to discuss the intricacies of rainforest habitats.

However, your parents will not be able to care for her forever. And she is your sister. Eventually she may need you to help. So lose the attitude and get informed. That way you can be a loving, caring sibling, rather than a jealous, resentful one.

What is SpaceX doing differently that makes the company so successful?

That’s three spaceX raptor engines, on a regular ass flatbed trailer, being towed around by a ford.

ULA and all of the other legacy launch providers would have built some bespoke vehicle at the cost of millions of dollars to do this job.

I can think of few other images that capture in one shot the difference in philosophy at play here. SpaceX acts like it’s stuff is commodity, yet tough hardware, and that it can be treated as such.

It’s a rocket engine. If it can’t survive being towed around by a ford, it’s probably not going to survive flying to mars, landing, and taking off again with minimal human interaction.

The entire south Texas facility looks like a construction site that might be dedicated to the oil and gas sector (which is no surprise, given as that’s the sector that largely built it), not some hyper-clean room high tech facility that looks like it’s primarily built to host congressional delegations. The equipment used is overwhelmingly the sort of stuff that one sees at any industrial facility where you have to worry about cost, rather than the taxpayer subsidized specials that legacy companies seem to be addicted too.

Loyalty is really important to men

Have your neighbors ever called the cops on you for something ridiculous?

When I was still dating Ebba, she warned me for her father on several occasions. That he was a difficult man, that he was incapable of listening to other people, and that he constantly complained about my trees being too high. And that he would never stop.

Her words turned out to be augural signs for what was to come.

Have your neighbors ever called the cops on you for something ridiculous ?

Yes, all the time.

It started with nagging. Nagging about my hedge which was too high, nagging about my backyard birches whose leaves fell into his garden (and those tiny, tiny twigs), then about an old elder tree that (slightly) leaned over on his side of the fence, then about a Christmas tree that would grow too big in the future, then about all the shadow which is cast on his property.

Nagging, nagging, nagging.

So he contacted the community officer to complain, and that kind man patiently tried to explain that on the countryside, trees and hedges are a normal thing, and so are leaves and the like. He did not listen.

Some time later, we came back from abroad near the end of Eastern holidays, and our beautiful Christmas tree — the one that “would grow too big in the future” — had been cut. The bully admitted without any shame that he had done it.

The community officer tried to explain to my neighbor that this was not done, but again the bully did not listen.

And so it began, and proceeded.

• Then envelopes came. With pictures of all the leaves and twigs that fell into their garden, and of all the fictional damage that they had done.
• Then he sued us in a Justice of Peace court because of our trees, and the judge himself came by to check on his complaints. And he did not agree, on all accounts. He explained the bully that leaves and twigs are a part of country life, and that he would have to live with that. (He did not listen.)
• The bully then nearly physically attacked me, and threw his entire repertoire of vile words in my face (and some of it also in my ear). He was heavily reprimanded by the judge. (He did not listen.)
• Since then, he called the community officer again, and was again reprimanded and asked to stop. (He did not listen.)

Ebba was right indeed — her father will never stop.

So we planted a seedling of a giant sequoia in our frontyard.

It is a direct descendant of a 500-year-old Californian giant, and it grows ferociously. Last year, it doubled in volume and added more than two feet to its height, and it will keep on doing that until it towers above all the neighborhood trees in no time.

The gauntlet has been thrown.

And a shadow will be cast.

What is the strangest reaction of someone who has just been fired?

I left the office laughing.

On my second day in my new job, I was summoned to a meeting with the director. He told me that the person I had been hired to replace, as the top finance person in the company, had accepted an offer to stay, and that I would therefore not be made permanent.

Aside from some curiosity about this development, which he declined to gratify, my reaction was being absolutely fine. Just another curveball in the strangest year of my life.

As I got up to leave, my chair knocked over the fan behind me.

“Just because you’re being let go, doesn’t mean you can start trashing the place!” he said, and we both laughed.

Added:

Ten days later, I had lunch with the man who had replaced me at my previous job, as we had become friends during the handover. He asked me to come back and work with him. I accepted. A few weeks after that I fell in love with him. Last month we celebrated a year together. Funny what life throws at you.

What is the most ridiculous reason for which you have been fired?

I was fired, but I probably deserved it.

When I was 18, I had a job as a receptionist in a small doctor’s office in a rural area. There were three doctors who were based in another community. Their hours at this clinic were sporadic. This was when our healthcare system was in transition and many of the rural people didn’t understand the complicated new changes.

I noticed that the head doctor, who owned the business, was doing some dodgy things. He was billing the government for treatment, and then charged the rural people cash for the same visit. For example, a girl who had saved up money came in to have her ears pierced, was charged cash. The doctor then billed the province for an “ear infection.”

This same doctor opened an x-ray clinic in his own community, and apparently almost everyone who came through the door “needed” x-rays.

There’s more. In those days, the family doctor went all the way with his pregnant patients, from a positive pregnancy test, to delivery. Except this doctor was a no show, every time. Sometimes he went golfing after getting these calls! Sometimes he walked his dogs instead of attending the birth, birth after birth. Most times he got the message and simply ignored it.

This was awful! These poor rural people were being cheated, and the pregnant moms, too.

So, I took photocopies of government billing and the receipts for cash. I had lots.

I began telling these pregnant clients the truth, and they started going elsewhere for treatment.

I was at a loss as to what to do next, so I took all my photocopies to the mayor of the closest large community. He thought they were interesting. I was so pleased. However, the mayor didn’t tell me what would happen next…

I went to work the next day and the day after that. THEN, I got a call from the wife of the doctor, firing me. She didn’t say why, it was a short call. I’d never been fired before, and I had such hurt feelings that I actually cried. I felt so terribly unwanted.

Then I got a call from an employee at the other clinic. She said there were two mean guys from the government there who showed up with some kind of paper that said they could search through all the files. Later I learned that the doctor lost all his hospital privileges in the provinces. A couple of years later, he closed his business and left the country.

Still satisfying. All these years later.

Why do I keep seeing people on Quora saying the ancient Chinese were very strong and advanced, yet they got wrecked by the British (not targeting China, just curious)?

Rationally speaking, China or the Qing Dynasty was ruined by its own problems, and the British were only the fuse that ignited them.

In fact, with the wealth and potential that China has, it is difficult for any other country to really challenge it as long as it is on a normal track, having long occupied a quarter of the world’s population and wealth, reaching half at its peak. Such a country could only be destroyed from within. Several vulnerable periods in China have been marked by various unresolvable structural contradictions:

• First of all the Song dynasty was conquered by the Mongols, since the Song dynasty was a local power, it had no control over the north and was caught in a long war with Jin and Liao, even so, the Song was the last large country to be conquered by the Mongols, after the Mongols had conquered most of Eurasia, they concentrated their forces of half of the continent to attack the Song dynasty, even so, the war lasted almost 50 years, it was not easy for the Mongols and As Mongol Khan died in Sichuan, it forced Mongolia to stop its conquest of Europe and led to the division of the Mongol Empire.
• Then came the Manchu invasion. The problem of the Ming Dynasty was the successive famines during the Little Ice Age and the failed fiscal policies that led to a high concentration of wealth to the bureaucratic class, with officials getting rich and the country not collecting taxes. The corrupt bureaucrats had no regard for the survival of the country before their personal interests, and the Ming Dynasty collapsed after a massive peasant uprising broke out, at which point the warlords in the north also colluded with the Manchus for their own benefit and gave China away.

The structural contradiction of the late Qing dynasty was that it was a minority regime, which meant that the rulers saw the state as their property and the people as their slaves, and they were more afraid of having their rights taken away by the people as opposed to being afraid of foreign invaders; after all, foreigners wanted only property (territory) and the people wanted their lives. Therefore, the Manchu rulers did not dare to mobilize the power of the people and let them master advanced productivity and technology. As a result, Japan in the same period could modernize rapidly on a much worse basis, while the Manchu aristocracy could only make do.

There are many uncanny but thought-provoking phenomena in the Opium Wars that illustrate these issues.

The British did not initially sell opium to China; since they had already succeeded in the Industrial Revolution, they believed their greatest advantage was industrial consumer goods, which could be industrially mass produced at low cost, and through which they believed they could succeed in China.

And then they failed.

Haha, yes, because China was in a small peasant economy, with little economic circulation and no modernization, the peasants did not need these consumer goods at all, nor could they afford them. For food, they grew their own, for clothing, the price of Chinese cloth was even lower, and the most demand was for spices, a few agricultural tools, and only the high officials and the rich consumed those “magical gadgets”.

Well, the British adjusted their strategy and they started selling Indian spices to the Chinese, but that’s when a new problem arose, and that was the balance of trade. Due to the extensive trade, Chinese porcelain, silk and tea flooded into Europe, fostering European consumption habits, especially tea, which was literally gold growing out of the ground. Europeans have always suffered from the local water quality problems, due to industrial pollution, and no modern tap water system, Europeans have long endured the bitterness of drinking water, tea is simply a savior. At that time, people did not know that the soil had the problem of acidity and alkalinity, and they thought that only China could produce good tea. Therefore tea became the core of the world’s trade at that time, for the profiteering of tea, the British shipped almost all the world’s silver to China, which led to the silver crisis in Europe, that is, severe deflation.

To balance trade, British merchants packaged opium to sell to China as medicine, which opened the door to a new world, yes, the door to nightmares.

Opium was a perfect trade good, a product that could be manufactured in large quantities and that consumers could not get rid of after forming a habit, but none of this is the core of the problem, the most crucial point is that opium was banned in China. You must think I’ve said something wrong, but no, the logic goes like these:

• Since opium was banned, Chinese farmers could not grow it, so this meant that China’s greatest advantage, the cost advantage, was gone, something that had not been the case with previous agricultural products.
• Because opium was banned, it could not be imported through normal channels, was not taxable, and because the trade between China and abroad was monopolized by a few individuals who were thus sufficiently profitable, there was sufficient incentive for Chinese and foreign trading merchants to collude and buy officials to smuggle large quantities of opium. When the supervising officials essentially became accomplices of the smugglers, and there was no channel to respond to the ruling class about the actual situation, the opium trade became a mutually agreeable existence.
• Since there was no supervision, everyone became complicit, forming a wide class of interests, so much so that it was even more impossible to contain, and the profitable officials made money to share the profits with their superiors, so that the senior officials were also deeply involved, so much so that the emperor was aware of the situation at a later stage but still could not stop it, because even the emperor himself could not resist the temptation brought by profits.

When the opium trade grew exponentially, problems arose, the people took a lot of opium, a large number of refugees emerged who were bankrupted by opium, the army took a lot of opium opium and lost its fighting strength, and the most crucial problem was the same as the situation in Europe before, the outflow of silver. At this point, the emperor finally realized the problem, yes, the emperor never worried about the miserable situation his people were in, he only cared about himself and his property, that is, silver.

At this point, the “smart” officials came up with a solution, the same as the current North American policy on marijuana, if you can not prohibit, simply liberalize.

Well, the nightmare really came. Due to the huge profits of opium, farmers stopped growing grain and they grew opium, domestic opium quickly took over the market, opium prices plummeted, more people started smoking opium, the market became bigger, so much so that smugglers could still make a lot of money even if they paid taxes legally and provided the officials with kickbacks as much as they should, and instead of balancing the trade, the open door policy made opium even more unstoppable.

When the Qing government once again made up its mind to ban opium, it was too late. The harsh policy not only failed to solve the problem, but also angered British businessmen, who spent a lot of money to convince the British Parliament to vote to declare war on the Qing Empire, a vote in favor of which was narrowly won by only nine votes. This meant that even at the time, when Britain was at its strongest, they did not have enough confidence to defeat China halfway across the world, tens of thousands of kilometers away. The parliamentary lords took the money and sent a small expeditionary force to try, at least they knew that the Qing did not have enough naval forces to retaliate against them.

At this point, the ignorance and lack of understanding of the other side on both sides of the battlefield is mind-boggling to people today.

The Qing emperor had always arrogantly believed that he was the ruler of the world and that the British were just some barbarians. He regarded the British attack as a historical harassment of China by barbarians from the north, as if the British army would immediately surrender and kneel down and beg for mercy as soon as he gave the order for the Chinese army to attack, which was not the funniest thing, the funniest thing was that the initial reaction of the British army seemed to confirm his judgment.

Surprisingly, the British fleet did not dare to attack and only cruised in the outer sea. The Qing generals holding on to the shore batteries even became bored, thinking that the British were bluffing and how they dared to fight against the armies of Heaven.

Do you know what the British think? The British think they are “blockading the port”. I have to say, I really laughed, “blockade of ports”? They didn’t even know that the Chinese had no concept of trade or sea power at that time, and all trade was packaged by officials as “tribute” from the surrounding barbarians to the central state, which had everything and didn’t need to trade at all, but only to show appreciation and give gifts to the “tribute”.

In fact, it was when the British fleet prepared to blockade the Yangtze northward and began to move deeper inland that the real battle took place, a process that shocked both sides.

• British naval guns were surprisingly farther-ranged and more powerful than the Chinese shore guns
• The Qing shore guns were surprisingly all fixed guns, unable to adjust their angles or aim, and could only probabilistically kill.
• The Qing army’s jingalls were surprisingly unable to inflict fatal wounds on the British.

• The British tactic of suppressing fire with naval guns and attacking with small units around the flank and rear was surprisingly easy to make the Qing defenses collapse. And this simple tactic seemed to work forever; the Qing army seemed to have absolutely no reconnaissance capability.
• The Chinese population around the battlefield simply watched both sides perform, and even applauded the British victory, as they were apparently more oppressed by the Qing officials.

In the end, this turned into an almost one-sided massacre.

At the same time, the message to the palace is a lot of good news. The officials could not explain such an incredible defeat, and they could only cajole the emperor that although the Qing army had been winning, the harassment of the British brought a huge financial burden. How about giving the “barbarians” a sum of money to meet their trade requests and induce the British to retreat? They even falsely claimed that the defeated British army knelt outside the city gates and prayed for the mercy of heaven, which was moving.

Coincidentally, this was the time when, due to a massive outbreak of plague among the British army, more people died of disease than died in battle, and the British army was unable to fight, so a consensus was reached. The officials and the emperor saved face and the British got the benefit. The first unequal treaty in modern Chinese history, the Treaty of Nanking, was signed in such a confused manner, which started the prelude to China’s “hundred years of humiliation”. And this war even too small to be worth mentioning in the history of the British.

What, if anything, can be learned from this history? I would end this article with a quote from the Chinese author Liu Cixin in The Three-Body Problem.

Weakness and ignorance are never an obstacle to survival, but arrogance is.

This statement is not only addressed to the Chinese, but also to the many Westerners who currently know nothing about China but are happy to teach the Chinese how to behave. Hopefully, as mature civilizations, we should all refrain from repeating the mistakes of the past.

What is the most ludicrous thing someone got fired for at your job?

I had an employee in her late 30s that kept missing work. She called in with lots of excuses. Vandalized car, stolen keys. I put her on a performance plan (first step to termination). So, she reported to HR that she was an alcoholic. I, according to HR, could no longer terminate her. So, I (the company) continued to pay her while she spent 3 days in jail. I paid for her to be off work for a month, while she attended out-patient rehab. During her time off for rehab, she got pregnant. I paid for her to have a baby and 8 weeks off work. She continued to miss work…probation appointment, broken car-start-breathalyzer. Her work was terrible, she antagonized the other employees and spent a good part of her workday outside smoking cigarettes. She eventually quit. I never was allowed to fire her.

However, I had another employee that I did fire…for smoking marijuana during her time off work. She was selected for random drug testing. She failed for marijuana. Even though she was not using at work, and she was a good employee, I was required to fire her. She was in her 60s. She apologized to me as I was terminating her. I went back to my office and cried after she left. I felt so terrible for what I had done to her.

So, smoking tobacco leaves and drinking alcohol to the point of complete failure to perform….ok! Smoking marijuana leaves during your time off, while doing a good job at work…b-bye.

Completely upside down.

You suddenly wake up 50 years in the past with nothing but your clothes, smartphone and memories of modern life in the year 2019. How do you use what you have to best advance humanity?

1. I get to New York City, by hitchhiking if need be.
2. I go to the New York library and find the name of a good patent attorney.
3. I visit his office and show him the phone.
4. His jaw drops to the floor. He knows he’s looking at nothing that can be built in 1969.
5. Then I tell him there’s nothing in that phone I know how to patent, but I know a lot about the broad evolution of technology over the next 50 years across semiconductors, computers, programming, biology, material science, etc.
6. He takes another look at what is obviously the most powerful supercomputer on the planet…
7. Then I say: “I need a place to stay and a little spending money while we figure out how to build a company that’s going to own the most important intellectual property portfolio the world has ever seen. We’ll need scientists, engineers, investors, and lawyers working together. You in?”

You want a patent attorney, they see the possibilities.

Have you ever accidentally found out that you were about to be fired?

Oh yes! Back in the day (early 2000’s) when I lived in Los Angeles I worked in the accounting department for a catering company. After a few months I was doing ok but I was aware that my immediate supervisor (we will call him Javier) was not very fond of me. (Well, actually he had been WAY too fond of me at first but once I turned him down it was downhill for me in that office. But that’s a separate story and I don’t mean to digress.)

One day the phone at my desk rings and I answer it. The young lady on the other line tells me she is answering the add she read in the paper (yup, newspaper ads! I am that old!) about the job opening and she is interested to set up an interview. Yes you read correctly: Those idiots had placed an ad in the newspapers for MY job and had given the phone number at MY desk as the contact by mistake. I was very pleasant to the young lady on the phone as well as the other dozen or so that called until Javier made it in later that day. I went into his office with a big smile and handed him his messages and said something along the lines of ‘oh and these messages are from people answering the want ad. You know, the ones that want to interview for my job.’ He looked at me in complete shock and embarrassment since I had just called him a complete idiot and he was left speechless which is essentially what had happened. I mean, what could he say? That was on a Friday and the owner of the company (who was completely unaware) was in Hawaii and would not return to the office until Monday. The owner came back on Monday livid that this had happened, was embarrassed and apologised for causing me any discomfort. Javier didn’t apologise as much as he said that California was an ‘at-will’ state which meant that one could be fired for no reason at all, blah, blah and that he really wasn’t a bad guy (only an idiot!). I didn’t have another job lined up so I let it go.

Fast forward about about 2 months later. Again a Friday and in the morning my phone rings. The young lady on the other end wanted to confirm her interview appointment for 3 PM that day. Again, for MY job! I responded ‘sure, no problem! See you then!’ After lunch my co-worker (who I though was my friend but turns out he wanted to safeguard his own position so he sided with Javier) says something like ‘hey Christian, there isn’t much left to do today. Why don’t you go home?’. I responded with a ‘naw, I have so much to do with blah blah…’ Half hour later Javier comes to me with the same question. I said ‘oh no, I want to get ahead with blah blah…’ 3 PM comes around, bell rings and in comes in the young lady. I sat her ass down in my seat, got her some coffee and told her I would let Javier know. I go to his office and announce ‘Mary is here for her interview for my job. I got her some coffee. I’m going home like you suggested. Have a great weekend!’ They once again found themselves speechless at their own idiocy. She turned them down.

A few weeks later I landed my dream job during the catering company’s busiest time period. My new job told me they needed me to start immediately. I told them that even though Javier had treated me like homemade dog piss, I was still going to give them a 2-week notice because that was the correct thing to do. The following day I walked into Javier’s office and gave my notice. He begged me to please stay for at least a couple of more months until the busy period subsided and they did not have someone to do my job. I said I could not and that the 2 weeks was all that I could give them. I left with my head held high and worked at the other company for 10 years until I moved to Europe. Moral of the story: When someone treats you like dog crap do not sink to their level and don’t forget your self respect by teaching them a lesson on what human decency is all about because sooner or later karma will still find those Mother Fuckers.

As an American, would you sacrifice the ability to choose your own doctor and receive expedient service in exchange for cheaper, universal healthcare?

When I signed up with my US health insurer, Humana, the first thing they did was assign me to a different doctor than the one I had been seeing for fifteen years. I called them and told them to put me back with my regular doctor. In April of 2023, I recived a new insurance card with a different doctor’s name and a letter informing me of a change in my primary care physician. Again, I called them and told them to put me back with my previous doctor. In June of 2023, I recived a new insurance card with a different doctor’s name and a letter informing me of a change in my primary care physician. Once again, I called them and told them to put me back with my previous doctor. In September of 2023, I recived a new insurance card with a different doctor’s name and a letter informing me of a change in my primary care physician. I no longer have Humana as my insurer.

So don’t tell me that as an American I have the ability to choose my own doctor when my insurance company keeps trying to deny me that choice.

American health insurance is shit.

EDIT: I should point out that my original primary doctor was and is in Humana’s “network” to begin with. Their insistence on assigning me to another doctor was either some kind of bureaucratic nonsense or they were just fucking with me. Either way, there was no reason for them to keep reassigning me when I clearly stated my preference time and again.

What is the most bulletproof advice your dad ever gave you?

One day dad and I went into a deep conversation about various aspects of life. Topics like meaning of life, life after death, role of luck in success etc.

Conversation went deep and we kept discussing and I was all ears to grasp whatever wisdom he had to offer.

Then I asked him “Dad if you have to give one solid advice to me that I should always follow, what should be it. Just one?”

He thought for a while and then asked me, “What is your utmost priority in life”?

I gave a grin smile and said, “My Career”…..I was 28 then.

To which he replied, “Suppose you earn $ 10,000 + in a month some years from now, for that obviously you have to trade time for money and you ignore everything to earn money. By the time you turn 40/45 you have all the money in the world and are financially secure. You have a house of your own, a car and all luxuries. But since you have traded time with money, you didn’t focus on your health and now you are obese and have a weight of 90 Kgs and is catching with some diseases such as diabetes, obesity, joints pain etc.

Why did you earn so much money? To buy luxuries and to enjoy them. Now even if you have all the luxuries in the world, you can’t enjoy them as you ignored your health, and now your body is ignoring you. Even if you want to enjoy the travel, food etc that money has to offer but you can’t utilize luxuries to the fullest.

One line he said that I will never forget – “You can work hard and with your skillset you can earn money anytime but once health is lost, it becomes quite difficult to regain back your health.”

So my son, never ignore your health for anything. Health is wealth. If you have health, you can enjoy life till your last breath.

Even if he is 65 now, he never misses taking care of his health for 2 hours a day at least and plays table tennis better than people in their 30s at his place. I have not seen missing him his workout for more than 3/4 days at a stretch for the last 35 odd years. Even after retirement he was of the view that I must not pass time rather being a good cook, he started his own youtube channel – “RAVI SISODIYA”

and is doing well. Enjoys his passion and interaction with subscribers.

I was not regular at that time and then decided to keep my health a number one priority.

Whatever your profession be, never ignore your health for more days in a row. Respect your body and mind and you will get the same in return.

Why are Russia and China conducting military exercises off the Alaska Coast?

First, it makes the absurdity of the “island chain containment” plain and obvious.

It is no longer this map keeping the Pentagon awake at night:

but these:

That is a whole lot more real estate, with few american base assets in sight.

The combined Chinese and Russian fleet this year is sizable, at 11. More tellingly, the US sent 4 Arleigh Burke destroyers and a P-8 in response, rather than rely on the Coast Guard like last year.

The diversion of 4 destroyers from regular operations opens up a 16% operational hole for a navy that is already stretched thin trying to match the operational tempo of the PLAN in the Western Pacific.

This is an important development on the chessboard, because the psychology has shifted.

The US can no longer plan around concentrating assets along the Western Pacific, because the Pacific and Arctic are huge playgrounds.

What will make it even more interesting is the presence of Chinese naval aviation when the emals carriers enter service. America will have to send a CBG or two in response, but there is the type 055’s formidable VLS battery to contend with, and so on. Fascinating calculus, if you are a wargaming nuthead.

That will upend the already stretched resources of the USN.

In other words, nightmare-inducing calculus for Americans, who will not be able to accept the Chinese conducting Sigint flights off its own coast, like it has been doing for decades on the other side of the ocean.

The Pacific is not America’s backyard. Neither is Pearl Harbor the keystone.

Time to tear up old maps and make new ones, at least where deployment of forces and chinks in the armor are concerned.

The Pacific is where Chinese power projection will develop, not Oceania, the Indian Ocean and elsewhere.

Note: Currently, more than 70 percent of the USN’s deployed assets are allocated to the 7th fleet and Indopacom, and they are concentrated in the waters around the island chains. In other words, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Fleets share ~30 deployable ships.

What are your thoughts on Chinese state-controlled media? Do you believe it is more reliable than Western mainstream newspapers like The Guardian or The New York Times?

Chinese official media is actually very boring.

But they have a great advantage, almost not lying.

I mean that they also have political prejudice, and they will also have strong ideological comments, and there will also be a degradation of competitors. But they always state exact facts. If some things are included in the unhappy scope, or things are not really determined, their choices are not reported, but they will not choose to lie.

Let me give an example:

Some people found several corpses in a car, looking like Asians, but without any identity proof, the police had been involved in the investigation.

Report by BBC CNN NYT:

1. Insiders revealed that several drug dealers from China died of attacking each other because they were unevenly split.

2. Several Asians were found to die in the car, and they may be a smuggler from Vietnam.

3. Our reporter was at the scene, and some residents told us that several Koreans died here. They come from a mysterious underground church, perhaps in a certain ceremony.

Are you familiar with it?

CNTV report:

Police found several men dying in the car, and their identities have not been found. Please pay attention to the safety of the surrounding residents. If you have a clue, please notify the police.

Is it boring?

we know. The mainstream Western media often lie, and they will report some things to catch the wind, even the news and hearing news. When one thing is proved to be false, they only need to apologize or revoke the article. After all: freedom of speech.

However, China’s official media are different. Chinese public opinion has strict bottom line requirements for official media: not lying.

In the Internet era, it is almost impossible to completely deceive everyone. In China’s official media, when a news report or video finally proves that the fabricated lies, the person in charge of the official media will immediately fall into a scandal. Waiting for them is generally withdrawal and reputation sweeping the floor. Apology does not have any effect.

However, there are also many unofficial media in China, and their content is much confusing. In addition to being limited in political content, they often lie in a row to catch the wind and catch the wind to attract attention.

Because they are conservative and boring, they only tell you that they are very limited before without exact facts. Therefore, Chinese official media often difficult to attract people’s attention, and their click rate and dissemination on the Internet are also very low.

Volkswagen media is more popular because it has more curiosity and entertainment.

But in China, when people want to know the truth of major events, they often believe in the official media and complain why the official media is so slow that there is no more detailed news.

When did you realize your parent was a total badass?

I grew up on a farm. There was a small forest, which we called “the woods,” on one end of the farm. Every year, my father would post “No Hunting” signs around the woods. But every year hunters would still come there, as the woods were filled with rabbit, pheasant, deer, and other game. When he saw them, my father would go out to the woods and explain to the hunter that these were his woods, he did not allow hunting, and they would have to leave.

One time, when I was four, my father was with my brother, who was six, when they saw a hunter at the edge of the woods, looking into the woods for something to shoot. My father took my brother’s hand, walked over to the hunter, and said “These are my woods. I don’t allow hunting. You’ll have to leave.” The hunter turned around, pointed his shotgun at my six year old brother’s chest, and said “I’ll hunt wherever I damn well please.” My father slowly backed away with my brother and went back to the house.

A few minutes later, he came out again. But instead of crossing the field that led from the house to the woods, he went to the side, where a chicken coop extended to the edge of the woods. He walked quietly behind the chicken coop, until he came to the edge of the woods, about twenty feet from the hunter, who was still intently looking into the woods for something to shoot. My father said to the hunter “Drop the gun and leave immediately.” Except this time, when the hunter turned around, instead of my father holding the hand of a six year old boy, he was holding a .38 revolver…which was pointed at the hunter’s head. As soon as he started to turn around, my father said simply “Drop it or die.”

My father died four years ago. It had been almost sixty years since this happened. When I went to clean out his house, the hunter’s shotgun was still in his closet.

What is your best parking spot revenge?

In the 90s I was the parts secretary at a Ford dealership. We had a few parking spaces for office staff close to our entrance. We often hauled in office supplies, food and boxes of promotional materials for sales, and we often left after dark.

A young, cocky new salesman was hired and started parking (his Ford pickup) in our spots. I politely explained to him why it was it was important to keep those spaces open for us. He shrugged and continued to park there.

I confronted him again with a firmer tone. “You gotta stop parking there man!” With two little words he sealed his fate. “Or, what?” Sweetie. Snookums. I got a truckload of what.

In those days a Ford dealership could get any information they wanted on a Ford. With his VIN number I made a duplicate key. When he parked in our spots I moved his truck to the back corner of the lot where new deliveries would bury it and he’d have to move several cars to get his. I didn’t stop there though.

Anytime I saw his truck anywhere I’d move it. Shopping Center? Moved. Street parking for a restaurant? Moved. That kid was looking for his car several times a week!

Eventually he came in to our office grovelling and pleading with me to stop. He promised to never park in our spots again.

EDIT: Wow! Now I see why there are always edits on these! Some of you are apoplectic that I “got away” with a heinous crime. It’s occurred to me that you are extremely fortunate to have never been the victim of domestic violence, stalking, rape, burglary or actual car theft. If you had you’d know that police aren’t much help in any of the above situations and perpetrators are rarely arrested.

Could I have, with righteous indignation, insisted he be formally reprimanded? Yeah. But who wants to be that bitch? Not me. He learned a lesson in a fun way. He took it in stride. He likely doesn’t remember my name (I don’t remember his) but he likely remembers me and this story as fondly as I do. And maybe, just maybe, he has a little more respect for how clever women can be instead of seeing us as spiteful hags. Lighten up!

Went to Motor Vehicles Today to Have LIENHOLDER Removed from Car Titles – Wait til you hear THIS . . . .

Nation Hal Turner 20 December 2023

Today I went to New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC) on Summit Avenue in Jersey City, NJ to have the LIENHOLDER info removed from two vehicle Titles since I’ve paid the car loans off.  You’re not gonna BELIEVE what happened . . . 

Firstly, after the COVID scam, New Jersey Motor Vehicle has NOT done away with the requirement to make an appointment to go to one of their offices to have paperwork done.  So I had to schedule today’s appointment last weekend, and I did.

I get there, walk in, and there’s two security guards who ask “Do you have an appointment?  I reply “yes” and they ask to see the appointment confirmation from online!   I brought it with me just in case, and gave it to them.  They tell me, go in and see the Receptionist on the left.  I go in.

I get to the Receptionist who asks me, “What are you here to do today?” I reply “Have the LIENHOLDERS removed from the Title on two vehicles I’ve paid off.”   He hands me two application forms to go fill out.

I go fill them out, return the Receptionist’s pen that he graciously lent to me and he then says, now go onto the “ID CHECK” line to the left.   ID Check???????   I go ahead and do that.  Two people ahead of me.

When it’s my turn, I go up too the guy in the little booth– I think he was Hindu or whatever the folks are, who have the Dot on their forehead — and hand him the filled-out applications to have the Titles re-issued and he says “You know, this is going to cost you $60 each to have the LIENHOLDER Removed.”  I replied “Yes, I know.”   He then says, “I can get this done for free.”

Uhhhhhhh, I was not expecting this . . . .  my Spidey Sense started tingling.   So I ask him “How?”

GET THIS:  He replies “I can have my Boss delete the LIENHOLDER in our computer system, then you walk out with the same Title, instead of a new one.”

I think to myself: “Then I won’t have any way to PROVE the LIEN has been released”   So I respond to him “No thanks, I want the re-issued Titles without the LIENHOLDER on them.”   He says, “Well, I’m just trying to save you money.”  

He takes a staple remover and separates the Titles from the Lender Loan-Satisfaction, notarized letters, hands everything back to me with a card containing a number on it:  “K117” and tells me, take a seat over there and you’ll hear your number called, telling you which counter to go to.

I go sit down.

About five minutes later, the computer voice over the PA Speaker calls “K117, Counter Ten”

So I get up and walk over to counter 10 and the nice Spanish lady behind the counter takes my paperwork.

To my utter shock, SHE then says to me, “It will cost you $60 each to have these LIENHOLDERS Cleared from the Title, . . . . but I can get it done for you for free.” 

I’m now kind of stunned because this is now two separate Employees of the Motor Vehicle Commission saying the same thing.   So I play along and ask her “How?”

She says, I will have the Supervisor come over, delete the LIENHOLDER from our Computer, but you leave here with the exact same Title.“

I thought to myself “Holy shit, they’re all “in-on-it” for the “Great Taking.””   I went on to think to myself “These people are working for the Bankers, so the Bankers can grab everybody’s stuff; just as I learned from the video “The Great Taking”

So I told the woman, “But then I would have no proof that the Bank no longer has a LIEN.”  She responded, right, but you’ll save $120 on the Two Titles!

So I responded “No, I want the LIENHOLDER removed and I want the new, re-issued Titles without the Bank name on them”

She reiterated “But that will cost you $60 each, a total of $120” and I responded “I don’t care.  I want the re-issued Titles.”

She put on a smug face as if to say “Oh this guy must have money, he doesn’t care about the $120.”

She processes the deletion of the LIENHOLDER info and then asks “Will you be paying by Credit Card, Check, or Legal Tender?”

“LEGAL TENDER????????????”  Nobody says that outside of you know . . . . us . . . . .

I reply, “Legal Tender; Federal Reserve Notes.”

I hand the cash to her and she finishes the transaction, which prints the receipt.

But it’s all the same computer . . . . so If I agreed to “let them do it for free” they could NOT have removed the LIENHOLDER because the system requires the money be paid before it will complete the action ! ! ! ! !    If I had not paid, the computer could not have deleted the LIENHOLDER info! !   ! 

You know what I think?    I personally think the whole offer to “get it done free” was a SCAM . . . . designed to deliberately mislead people into THINKING the LIEN had been removed, when, in fact, it has NOT been removed.   And it COULD NOT HAVE BEEN REMOVED unless and until payment was tendered because the computer won’t process the removal unless payment has been made.

That leaves those poor suckers who THOUGHT they were getting it done “free” —  open to the Banks coming and taking everything from THEM because all the official paperwork still shows the LIENS ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 

How many thousands of people have believed this scam over the years?

I’m telling you, folks, I am totally shocked by this happening at two separate employees in a State Motor Vehicle Commission facility.

I now think the “States” are “in-on-it” too and all of them are working in lockstep with the Bankers to achieve their goal: You will own nothing . . . . and be happy.”

Not me!   I have the Re-issued Titles without the LIENHOLDER info on them.  These vehicles are, in fact, MINE, and I can prove it with the Titles.

I was born at night . . . . but not last night.  They aren’t getting-over on me!

Humor: What are some of the greatest examples of presence of mind?

A businessman went to a shoe store to purchase a new pair of shoes. He was a prominent person in that town. After selecting a pair of shoes with size 8 he asked the salesperson to pack it. The salesperson had just started his career and joined the shoe store a few days back.

The businessman soon discovered that he had left his wallet at home. He told the salesperson that he would take the shoes with him and make the payment the next day. The salesperson being new to business excused himself in order to discuss this matter with the store manager. The manager knew that the customer is an eminent businessman; however, was reluctant to deliver the shoes without payment. At the same time, he was not ready to lose a sale too. He advised the salesperson to handle the situation in the best manner possible and left the place.

The salesperson stood there frozen for a few minutes unable to decide. He then returned to the customer, started packing the shoes and handed the package to the customer.

The next day the customer arrived at the store with the shoes he had purchased, made the payment for his purchase and told the salesperson that “After opening the package I found one shoe with size 8 and the other with size 7. Maybe you packed them by mistake. Can I have the shoes with size 8 please?” The salesperson apologized for the inconvenience caused and replaced the wrong size shoe with the correct one. The customer collected his shoes and left the store with satisfaction.

The manager happened to overhear their conversation and realized that the salesperson had used his presence of mind and handled the situation very well. They didn’t lose their business as well as the customer.

Moral

It is by the presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested. If an individual has a calm state of mind, his attitude and views will be calm and tranquil even in the presence of great agitation.

Stephen Hawking said, “The thing about smart people is that they seem like crazy people to dumb people.” Do smart people out there agree?

I was fortunate enough to attend a lecture given by the late Prof. Hawking on the campus of the University of Berkeley; I say “given”; Hawking rolled onto the stage, and the lecture he so painstakingly prepared was delivered by the machine he used to speak with. I never heard him repeat this quote, so I will have to take it on faith that this is something he actually said.

I’ll be PC here, and substitute “average” for dumb; average people are not necessarily “dumb”, but the difference between them and very intelligent people is that they are far less intellectually curious, and tend not to question their own beliefs, or look beneath the surface of phenomena they encounter every day. For the average, smart people are not necessarily “crazy”, but they do come across as weird. If I were to tell an average person that they like doughnuts because simple carbohydrates and fat were rare and valuable nutrients on the African savannah 70,000 years ago, they would look at me like I was mad. They would say something like “I enjoy doughnuts because they taste good”; it wouldn’t occur to them to ask the fundamental question of why they taste good to us.

A graph showing the “bell curve” distribution of IQ.

As shown in the graph above, 68.2% of people are in the average range of IQ between 85–115 (using IQ as a proxy for general intelligence. The number of people with an IQ higher than 115 becomes increasingly rare with the increasing level of IQ, so those with 140+ are very rare indeed, so it should not surprising that those who are in this high range will often come across as “odd” to the average majority. There is a qualitative difference in the cognition of the highly gifted, compared to the cognitive style of the average; the more intelligent one is, the less “obvious” things seem to be.

In evolutionary terms, our “purpose” as humans is to survive and reproduce, functions for which the average level of intelligence is sufficient; humans evolved to be as intelligent as they needed to be in order to successfully carry out these biological functions, so it is not surprising that most of us are not smarter than we are. As social animals, we tend not to be too fond of “weirdos” who question the existing social order, and the way things have always been done, hence the existence of terms like “nerd” and “geek” for those whose manner of thought and speech is contrary to the norm. At the same time, it had to have been the prehistoric nerds and geeks who came up with technologies like the bow and arrow, and poison darts, which were beneficial for the survival of humans as a whole, by allowing us to hunt otherwise inaccessible game animals. One can just imagine the jeers of the normies when the first geek smeared some tree sap on a dart, and walked off with his blowpipe, saying “I’m going hunting by myself.”

As someone who has been accused of being smart, I’ve had to learn to self-censor in order to “fit in”, and not be ostracized as a “weirdo” by the general population. “Be yourself” is incredibly stupid advice if one happens to be an intellectual outlier, since “yourself” is likely to be regarded as strange, and even threatening by the majority. Hawking was right, and I reserve my unfiltered self for a select few IRL, plus, of course, anyone who chooses to read my apophenic ravings on Quora.

What is your biggest mistake in life? Did you overcome it?

He was my first love. We dated for 3 years and got married because I was pregnant. Worst mistake of my life.

By the time I had the baby, I could almost feel it. The loneliness. The emptiness. He became a totally different person. He complained that I was fat and unattractive. I was depressed and lonely. He knew that I enjoyed to have sex, so he withheld it from me to hurt me.

I had a startup business and was struggling to balance work and family. To make matters worse, I got pregnant somehow with the second child. He didn’t want to have the child so he asked me to have an abortion. I refused. He totally disconnected at this point. My business also went into the abyss as I was struggling to provide for myself, my daughter and unborn son. I hid and cried in the bathroom every night.

A couple of months after my son was born, a woman called and told me she’s sharing him with me and they have kids together. I confronted him and he didn’t deny it. A part of me literally died that day. Everyone around me seemed to know and I didn’t. What hurt me the most is that I stupidly still loved this man. He told me he didn’t want me anymore. He asked me to leave and leave his kids behind. I left with my kids and moved in with my sister. I had no job and 2 kids to look after.

To cut the long story short, we went through a really bad divorce, but it was freedom for me. I emigrated to another country, got a better life and job, got into great shape, and basically got my shit together. Am very thankful that I got this far. I never smoked, drank or did anything harmful to myself when I was at my lowest. My mistake gave me a chance to realize that you can pick yourself up after hitting rock bottom. KARMA IS REAL. I found out last year that the woman my ex chose over me left him for another man. Oh how did I forget? She also told my ex that the kids are not his. Thank you

What is the most ridiculous request your employer ever asked of you? Did you get out of it or end up giving in?

Having just informed me that 167 hours of work she had made me do would not be paid, my boss told me to prepare exams not just for my class, but for all the students. Unsurprisingly, I said no.

This boss had stopped me from teaching one of my usual classes on a Monday afternoon (without consulting me) and arranged for me to teach the same number of hours on some Saturday mornings and weekday evenings instead. She pretended that she was doing this to make my life easier, since Mondays were a heavy teaching day. She then insisted that I use the time I had off on Monday afternoons to do some of her administration for her, without telling me that this work would all be unpaid. She gradually added more and more of her work to my workload.

For the entire term I thought I was being paid to do the administration work. She only told me I wasn’t at the end of the semester, by which time I had chalked up 167 hours of her administration work plus 10 hours of extra teaching) that she wouldn’t pay me for.

Then, immediately after telling me all this work was unpaid, she told me to prepare some exams, something the other teachers didn’t have to do. I said no, obviously. She stormed off to Human Resources to complain about me. When she came back she told me how upset she was that they didn’t support her. She was actually crying a little, I’m not sure whether because of rage or if she was really hurt. I was called up to HR and asked how many hours I had done unpaid. My boss had a track record of not paying me, so I had noted every task and all the hours done in my diary. I was paid for everything I did and my boss was told that all our work had to be paid for.

I just wish I had learned to say no sooner – and I really appreciated the honesty of our HR manager.

Slayyyyy

Why did England change its capital to London?

It’s a fun story! To me at least. I’m cool that way.

Technically “London” didn’t become the capital until after the 16th Century. What we now call “the City of London”, the ancient square mile that Rome founded, was an entity of its own. And in many ways still is. It was a centre of power and money, even before the Norman Conquest.

Up through the Middle Ages there was no fixed “capital” per se. The kings didn’t stay put, they moved around, so the capital was essentially where they were, not necessarily where the government was. The government being those ministers of the king who administered (get it?) the day to day workings.

During the reign of the Wessex kings, Winchester was the closest thing to an English capital.

So, back to London. The kings had no real power over London. Edward the Confessor, who was technically of the Wessex blood line but spent his formative years across the Channel and didn’t really have a sentimental attachment to Winchester, built an abbey in Westminster, which was west of London. He also built a palace for the seat of government. With these he hoped to draw power and wealth from that citadel to the east protected by a massive wall.

Edward died in January 1066. In October, Duke William of Normandy arrived to take what he felt was his by right. After the Battle of Hastings he headed toward London, that centre of power. Not to London, mind you. Toward it. He circled round, burning his way around it. But he knew he couldn’t breach the wall. He made a deal with the London peeps that in exchange for recognising him as their king, they would retain their special privileges. This arrangement has been in place ever since.

Now, thanks to Edward the Confessor, there was a ready-made power base just to the west of London. William was duly crowned king in Westminster Abbey. Over time, the Treasury was moved from Winchester, which became that historic city with one train station (London now has over 600 train and underground stations). Meanwhile, houses were built between the cities of Westminster and London and a Greater London was formed, eventually swallowing up towns and villages in a 600 square mile area.

Note, though, that the City of London has no national government facilities in it, save the Bank of England, which is separate. Government (Parliament, Whitehall, Downing Street, etc…), the Palace, the national entities are in Westminster, but as that is in what became the megapolis of “London”, London is the capital.

What was a Christmas bonus you got from your company that made you speechless?

Wouldnt call it a bonus.

But we was excited last year, we had put in a lot of work to reach the goal that would make a bonus possible.

We where all called to a end of year quarterly meeting where the ceo would go over the figures and give us a chance to ask questions and share ideas.

Instead the owner of the main company was standing there and the ceo a bit to the side. First case of worry, but it could be a good thing right?

It starts and the owner takes the word. And it just goes downhill from there.

The board and investors are not happy, they are firing the ceo and the owner steps out of the board to take direct control of the company, they will reorganize the whole flow and all that modern jazz for making your work day a living hell the next half year.

Adding there wont be a bonus and we will stop having a bonus at all in the future.

A year later and everyone have turned sour many have left and those that remains are becoming more and more unmotivated.

We are close at needing a new firing round too. and nothing have really become better since the change, only more cumbersome and annoying with no gain. 2 years and no raise makes for grumpy workers, when then removing the carrot all together the last drive disappears..

Even overtime must be agreed upon before you get pay for it.

So the bonus was a year in hell that seems to continue unless I am lucky and can find another job that pay the same or better.

Worst part is, the owner got a social and public image as a good and sensible businessman that are very round handed with spending. But when it comes to the company he is a scrounge mcduck, as he dont wanna spend a single dime, even though it cost to make changes, and he want those changes.

So nobody believe us when we tell how he is at work, as everyone got another opinion of him from the local news…

How is Chick-fil-A still thriving when some people accuse them of having a “horrible track record” on social issues?

True story: I had never eaten at a Chick-fil-A before last weekend (Saturday, March 9, 2019). In the past, if I’d wanted a chicken sandwich, which I don’t often do, I’ve gone to McDonald’s. But this time I was in a different shopping center, one without a McDonald’s but with a Chick-fil-A next door.

Side note: I’d had their sandwiches before, but at wrestling tournaments. The sandwiches would be brought in in these temperature-controlled bags, and then sold by members of the Booster’s Club. I wasn’t really impressed. The sandwiches cost more than McDonald’s and they were soggy.

But here I was in a shopping center with a Chick-fil-A next door. Oh, well, I figured. I could see the place was crowded, too. Lots of cars, and a long double-line of cars going through the carry-out.

I went inside and the place smelled good. Not like McDonald’s. The menu items were all clearly posted. At McDonald’s, there are these electronic screens that’ll show a handful of items for maybe 10 seconds, then rotate to another set of items. I liked the clear posting.

After looking over the posted menu, I decided to get a spicy chicken sandwich. Not the whole meal, just the sandwich. There wasn’t a line; people were being served as they stepped up to order. At McDonald’s, I could have waited 5 minutes behind just one or two people. (Maybe they’d ordered fries or coffee, and were waiting on the next batch of fries or the next pot of coffee to finish brewing.) I ordered the sandwich and the person behind the counter asked what sauce I’d like with that. I asked what sauces they had.

At McDonald’s, that would have been greeted with a rapid-fire blur of sauces. Or the person would point to that electronic board where the sauces had to cycle through to be displayed. By now, the McDonald’s employee would have forgotten whether I’d ordered the sandwich or the meal. The McDonald’s employee also would have forgotten whether I was eating in or carrying out.

At Chick-fil-A, they had all the sauces out on display. The counter person pointed to them and suggested that since I seemed to like spicy foods, I might enjoy the Buffalo sauce. Sounded good to me.

She handed me a tall plastic colored cone with sauce packets inside. She told me to find a seat anywhere and they’d bring the sandwich over. Wow! At McDonald’s, I’d have to stand near the ear-splitting ice-grinding machine, waiting for my number to be called. She didn’t have to ask again whether I was eating in or carrying out.

I found a seat and, quite promptly, someone came over with the sandwich, wrapped, and asked: “Don? Spicy chicken?” Yup, that was me. The chicken was crispy, steaming, and hot. Tasty. A bit of a surprise, since my only prior experience had been at the wrestling tournaments where they were soggy. If it had been McDonald’s, the sandwich would have been soggy, too. Are they ever crisp there?

A family was seated at the next table. At some point, the dad asked one of the Chick-fil-A employees for a refill on a beverage. The employee said sure, and in about 30 seconds was back with a refill. Nothing like that at McDonald’s.

When I was finished, I started picking up the debris (the sandwich wrapping, the packet of hot sauce, the napkin. Before I’d even gotten it all together, a Chick-fil-A employee came over and said, “Oh, are you leaving? If so, I can take all that.” And he did. Wow! At McDonald’s, I would have gathered all that stuff, taken it over to a trash can, tried to slide it all into the trash can (those paper liners always stick to the tray!), and put the tray on the tray holder.

And that is why Chick-fil-A is thriving.

What made you forbid someone from ever entering your home again?

I have written on this before. When I was married to my ex, his daughter lived with us . Her and her husband came over to visit with their children. We also had a friend of ours over . She was very disrespectful to her dad and our friend told her that. About two months later she asked to take my youngest for a few days and I said no. She then said that our family friend had touched my son , while she was in the room. I gathered my kids and asked them and all three said nothing ever happened. She called back and was upset and said she knew I wouldn’t do anything and would be turning me into social services and she did!!! A case worker came out and took my kids and asked a lot of questions. Then we talked and this man was amazing!!! I explained that my kids were never left alone with anyone and always knew they could tell me anything and his daughter was upset with me , for telling her no. He told me she wanted to get even with me for being with her dad and this was vengeance towards me. I encouraged her Dad to continue a relationship with her but she would no longer be able to come in our home. This was so scary for me , and I could have lost my children. My relationship with her was over , and our friend was also worried. I’m so very grateful I got a wonderful case worker. He understood .

What was the one thing that made you finally drop your affection for someone?

Going anonymous because my ex is on Quora.

I was in a relationship with my boyfriend (Let’s call him A) for 2 years. It was the perfect relationship everyone dreams about. But that changed soon.

One day, I was at my friend’s house (Let’s call her B) to take some notes because exams were coming up. I didn’t tell him about it. After half an hour, B receives a call so she goes outside to answer it as she didn’t want to bother me. But after a minute, she comes back in, puts the phone’s speaker on and the convo went something like this.

B- Sorry, I didn’t catch that. What did you say?

The voice on the other end said: “I love you”.

I recognised the voice. It was him. I looked at B as if everything was over. But she continued talking to him.

B- But what about your girlfriend? This would break her.

A- We don’t need to tell her anything. It’ll be our secret.

I felt like my heart would give out. I wanted to scream or do anything just to relieve me from the pain I was experiencing. To think that the two years we spent together was a lie was too much to handle. I called him after I calmed down a bit. He said he did that because B’s boyfriend wanted to test her loyalty. I didn’t buy that and we broke up that day.

High Value Men requirements

What is your best parking spot revenge?

A friend and I were driving uhaul box trucks when we decided to stop at a gas station to get snacks and drinks. When pulling in, I saw a car parked parallel across 3 parking spaces. Without even taking about it, I parked directly in front of the offending car while my friend parked directly behind it. We got out, smiled at each other over our telepathic decision to mess with the offender, and went inside.

The car’s owner was apparently going out as we were going in, saw how we were parked, and followed us back in and started yelling at us, demanding we move.

Me: No

Bad Parker: I will call the cops is you don’t!

Friend: Ok.

BP: Don’t try me! Move your damned trucks!

Me: Naw, go ahead and call the cops.

Friend: Yeah, we’ll wait. We’re going to eat in, anyway. (The gas station has an Arby’s attached. We weren’t originally, btw, but you know how it goes.)

Me: It’ll be fun watching you have your embolism when they ticket you for parking like that.

We went and got our food, to our time eating and left. During that time, BP apparently tried getting to station manager to make us move and kept yelling and screaming until we were finally done. As we were leaving, BP yelled at us some incoherent crap that I don’t really remember. My friend returned a parting comment about BP’s horrible parking, and we left.

All in all, we were at the gas station about a 45 minutes longer than we’d initially planned. We don’t know what, if any, trouble BP got into it if he ever did it again. We stopped at the same station on the return trip, in the off chances that BP was a local and would return, but he didn’t while we were there.

What has an employee said that immediately caused you to fire them?

We had an employee who didn’t just say something that got him fired, he immediately followed it up with an action that also would have gotten him fired on its own.

I work for a vets office. We had a new tech that seemed afraid to do anything. He claimed most animals were aggressive and just wouldn’t touch them. Well we don’t allow techs to do injections until they are comfortable doing simply things like taking temperatures and checking heart rates which he still couldn’t do.

One day, we get a cat in for a tech appointment. Notes said “allergy shot.” For most cats, this mean a depo injection but you always ask the doctor what you should give. He did not. Instead he took the appointment himself, big no no at this stage and strike one. He brought the cat back and told another tech the cat needed a cytopoint injection. Strike two, he doesn’t get to make medication/ injection calls. The other tech asked if he was sure as that sounded wrong and he said “yes, that’s what the doctor told me.”

Ya see, cytopoint can be deadly to cats and is for dogs only. So the tech asked again, “are you sure that’s what the doctor said?” He got annoyed, told her that what the doc said and he got the cytopoint himself and injected it himself. Strike three. You’re out.

He was fired. The cat did almost die and we ended up having to give them free care for about six months for all their pets to make up for it. The cat survived but now has health issues.

This was an unforgivable, fireable offensive.

What was the nail in the coffin for an employee or a co-worker?

One of my colleagues was almost impossible to layoff. She was pregnant during a round of layoffs, and took maternity leave a week earlier than expected, and was gone for a full year, she came back expecting the layoffs would be over, but after a couple of months, they announced that there were new layoffs the next week. She called in sick Monday through Thursday, and on Thursday, they called her and said unless her doctor faxed in a note on Friday, she had to come in. By then everybody had been laid off, except her. She checked in and made sure everyone saw her, and then disappeared.

Her boss looked high and low for her, and eventually found a locked stall in the washroom. She looked under, and saw her shoes. She had to fire her through the bathroom door.

My colleagues only response was, I knew I should have lifted my feet.

She became a legend in the company. The nail in the coffin was not lifting her feet.

Which became a phrase everyone used when they got caught doing something wrong.

What’s the most expensive thing you’ve lost and found?

Went to Vegas . Won around $17000 . The wife and I split it between ourselves before the cdn border. Declared it and got home. Reminded her to put her cash in the safe. Few days later, I went in to grab all of it to deposit in our US acct and just found my part in it. Asked her about it. She couldn’t find it. Looked sll over. Than she thought she might had left it in the taxi on the way home. FUCK!! $9000 USD gone. So, a couple years later. We’re getting rid of her old car and im just going thru it, and lo and behold, it’s in between the seats in the car. She had put it there for safekeeping cause she went grocery shopping and didn’t wanna take all that in her purse. Why she didn’t remember that 2 yrs prior, I’ll never know. 😔 But I’ve learned to live with my wife’s poor memory. She was born without a thyroid and takes meds for that but it causes a horrible memory sometimes..

What is something you cannot forgive your parents for no matter how you try?

I’ve written about this before, but I think it bears repeating.

I learned how to cook very early on. My mother was working one Thanksgiving when I was 12. I volunteered to cook the dinner. She’d be home around 5 or so. Dinnertime had not been specified. Turkey went in the oven that morning. Since it was a day off school and I was a kid, I grabbed my bike and went riding all around town. I remember a fun, free-wheeling day until I got home.

I got back around 4:30 and realized I had to hurry. My brothers and father laid around and watched me as I hurried to prepare the meal. There wasn’t much to do if they had pitched in: boil potatoes, heat up rolls, boil the frozen corn, etc. But they didn’t. My mom walked in while I was peeling potatoes. She stopped dead in her tracks. “Dinner’s not ready?” I said “It will be ready in a few minutes.” I wasn’t lying. It would have been 20 minutes max. She threw up her hands like I told her I was a pregnant 12-year-old crackhead. She started screaming at me. Dad came running in to see what the fuss was. He took off his belt and whipped me violently right there in the kitchen, potato peeler still in my hand, for not having everything ready “on time” (again, we didn’t know exactly when she would be home, and no dinnertime had been set). My brothers just watched. I was sent to my room in the basement for the night. I don’t know who finished cooking, probably my mother in her martyrdom.

Here’s how it could (should) have gone down:

Scenario One: I come home at 4:30. Dad: “You’re cutting it close. Boys, go help your sister.”

Scenario Two: Mom comes home at 5:00. I’m peeling potatoes. “Dinner’s not ready?” “It will be ready in a few minutes.” “Okay, good, I’m starving. I’m going to take a shower/change/lie down for a few minutes. Call me when it’s ready.”

Scenario Three: Mom come home at 5:00. She starts yelling. Dad comes in. “Calm down, it’ll only be a few minutes. Here, let me take your stuff. Come in and lie down for a few minutes.” (to my brothers) “Get in here and help your sister.”

It took me many years to realize this day was an example of so, so many things. Dysfunction, piss-poor communication, child abuse, sexism, Old-World parenting (as in 1800s bullshit), knee-jerk reactions, and so much more. My family was fucked up, to say the least.

And I don’t care if that was the way they were raised. I am not a believer in the cycle-of-abuse crap. They were adults, they had brains to think with, they could make rational adult decisions. They knew better.

Edit: I think I need to address that there was a dried-up old bitch of a troll who left a comment that it was my fault, I was deservedly punished, I should have stayed home all day and had dinner ready, my poor poor mother, I was martyring myself, shame on me. Yes, that comment really happened (I deleted it and told her to fuck off). I wasn’t only abused at home, and this wasn’t the first or last time. I was bullied mercilessly at school. To have a day away from bullies at school was a real treat, so yes, I was going to take my bike and go have some fun while the turkey cooked. I was a kid. I wasn’t 20. And yes, I screwed up and mismanaged my time. Again—I was a kid. And my parents wildly overreacted—with violence against a child— instead of keeping calm and reacting reasonably. If someone told me they were cooking me dinner, but when I came home it was going to be 20 minutes late, I’d say “Okay, cool” and either jump in the shower or flop down and watch TV. I wouldn’t start screaming and whipping them with a belt. So again, troll: Fuck off. If you have kids, I sincerely feel sorry for them and I hope CPS is keeping an eye on you, old twat. You’re the reason child protection agencies exist.

Why is Urumqi, Xinjiang cleaner, safer, civilized, and developed than New Delhi?

Almost every Chinese City beats Indian Cities hollow in terms of Cleanliness, Safety and Development

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There are Primarily three reasons for this :-

A. One Party Meritocracy & Funds

In China, fund allocation for Cities and their overall Urban development is based on the Urban Development Index (UDI) plus between 15% upto 46% of the revenue generated by a City is used by the Local Government of that Province and the Administration of that City to develop the place

There is no political rivalries or party based discrimination between Fund Allocation and Revenue sharing

It’s all about How much the City develops and how well maintained the City is

In India, funding is a nightmare because the State themselves have no claim over the money they generate as revenue. Everything is handed over to the Centre which then decides how much each State should get and then the State decides how much each City should get

China has 20 times the provincial autonomy than an Indian State

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B. Continuous Development to prevent overcrowding

India keeps on dumping on the same city again and again for year after year. Thus every such city attracts migrants like flies and that leads to overcrowding of the worst order

China keeps developing and expanding new Cities regularly

Chengdu, Chongqing etc were small towns a decade or so ago that are now bustling cities, brimming with Prosperity

Urumqi was once a town , now it’s classified as a Tier 3 City

Thus if you notice Shanghai and Beijing both lost 4% and 5.6% of the population due to migration between 2013–2023 whereas Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad netted between 7.6% and 12% SURPLUS population by migration between 2008–2023

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C. Chinas Housing Policy

Everyone living with a proper Job in a City in China MUST have housing

This is a law from the time of Chairman Mao and when it’s a Chairman Mao law, it’s enforcement is very strict

Public Housing is thus available for every single resident of the city including the poorest of them

Only Shanghai and Beijing has slums today , which existed before the 1998 law and thus can’t be torn down

If you have a legitimate job in CQ City, you get a Public Apartment of 39–52 Square Meters with indoor plumbing, heating, air conditioning and gas and electricity and drinking water for a mere 78 RMB / month

Of course many Chinese become prosperous enough to rent much nicer places and sub lease their public homes for which they pay rent of 78 RMB/ month for 400–500 RMB / month

During Covid 19, many such people were discovered and fined very heavily (30, 000 RMB plus 60 months rent or 100 Days in Prison)

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A Fourth reason is the fact that Migration into Cities is heavily controlled

You just can’t come to a City that easily without housing or a job unless you are a tourist there

In India it’s the opposite

You can flood into cities and sleep on the roads and everywhere else and even defecate

It’s like a Zoo

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So it’s the Chinese System

They may have their flaws but by God they have excellent City maintenance and keep themselves very clean

Their Air Quality improvement in a mere decade is something every nation takes notes on

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Primarily another reason is the Chinese are proud of their country and love their country

Not the bogus love that Indians show which translates into defending India for all it’s weaknesses, glorifying mediocrities as superheroes, forcing people to stand up for the National Anthem etcetera

The genuine love that ensures they actively take pride in their development and their cities

China’s population is crashing. What changes would they have to make to attract expats to emigrate to China?

Declining population is not just a Chinese problem; but rather it is a worldwide problem. Most developed or developing countries have seen significant decreases in birth rates that coincide with an ever aging demographic.

Importing people from other countries is certainly an option. Especially considering how men vastly outnumber women in China. But I think it will require more than bringing in more people. China needs to tackle this problem on two fronts.

Firstly, building society with the mindset that the elderly need to be taken care of, whether that be through family or through a skilled nursing facility. China should look into building these all over the country. They don’t have to be as bleak as some in the U.S., but there needs to be a safety net for a vulnerable aging population in the event their children can’t or won’t care for their needs.

The second front is low birth rate. China’s work culture isn’t conducive to motherhood right now. 996 doesn’t make women want to get pregnant. Women also need paid maternity leave for at least a year.

The government can subsidize kindergartens and ensure that the education they’re receiving is at an appropriate standard. Families can be provided with subsidies for each child for a certain number of years.

China has a planned economy so if they begin implementing such plans in upcoming five year plenary sessions then perhaps they can be one of the first countries to find a solution to this worldwide problem.

Why did people on TV in the ’50s get all dressed to clean house, like wearing pearls? Is this how they really dressed then?

My mom was an RN, and wore a white uniform with starched cap every night when she went to work. When she got home in the morning she’d go straight to bed, and then get up around 3 p.m., dressed in capri pants (also called “pedal pushers”) or shorts in the summer, along with a blouse, often sleeveless, and canvas sneakers. Never any jewelry around the house or on quick trips to the store; that, and dresses and low-heeled pumps, were reserved for special occasions. For a really special occasion, like a trip to NYC to see a Broadway show, she added a hat to her outfit, and she and I wore short white cotton gloves. For school, I and all the other little girls wore shirtwaist dresses with petticoats, and the boys wore long pants and button-up shirts, with clip-on ties for school picture day. Up until a certain age, I wore my brother’s hand-me-down shorts and tee shirts for after-school play clothes.

None of us had as many clothes as we do today; our small closets were plenty big enough for our wardrobes (some of which were sewn or knitted by our mothers). But the quality of what we wore was higher, and we tended to wear everything until it wore out or we outgrew them.

Looking crisp and put together was important for our parents, since most of them had grown up during the Great Depression, when having raggedy clothing was a sign of poverty. Since synthetic blends didn’t become readily available until the very end of the 1950s, everything had to be ironed and/or starched. It was a chore my mother absolutely hated, so she was an early devotee of polyester blends when they came out.

Had she lived to this decade, she would have been baffled by people paying high prices for strategically ripped jeans, as well as the upper-class preference for “natural” fabrics like cotton and linen, which must be ironed!

Do Chinese state and general public consider marijuana a soft drug? What if a Westerner gets caught with a kilogram of this soft drug in China?

It’s very very complicated

The laws are highly varying

There is a law that says if any person is caught with possession of Marijuana (Cannabis) while entering China (Airports or Borders) then he faces Life Imprisonment if he carries more than 50 GRAMS

Yet ONCE IN CHINA if a person gets caught with the same cannabis or Marijuana, as long as the Marijuana on his possession is within 300 grams, he gets 15 Days Imprisonment, 45 Days Mandatory State Rehabilitation plus a fine

So technically if you smuggle 100 grams into China, you face life in jail yet if you succeed and get past the customs and manage to cross 300–400 feet and then get caught, you face 15 Days Jail and a fine

Plus no law about what happens when you possess less than 50 grams of cannabis

So as on date if someone smuggles less than 50 grams of cannabis into China and is caught – He is merely deported and the smuggled cannabis is destroyed

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Next thing is Cultivation of Marijuana is not illegal in China

So if you are caught with 1 Kilogram of Cannabis and you can prove it is grown in China and explain that you are in possession of 1 Kilogram of Cannabis / Marijuana for medical purposes – YOU CAN ACTUALLY GET OFF WITHOUT ANY PUNISHMENT

The authorities have to prove you possess the Marijuana for intent to distribute as a Narcotic substance to charge you

For a Westerner who possesses 1 Kilogram Marijuana though, he cannot prove its grown in China or that he is in possession for Industrial or Medical purposes

So with Westerners the law assumes he is distributing as a narcotic substance and if so HE FACES THE DEATH PENALTY

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Summary

To the best of my study of drug laws:-

< 50 grams smuggled – Deportation & Destruction of the Drug

>= 50 grams smuggled –Life Imprisonment

<= 300 grams possession inside China – 15 Days Imprisonment , 45 Days Rehabilitation (Optional), Fine

>300 grams possession inside China proven as grown in China by Mainland Citizen – No Punishment likely beyond censure and monitoring without proof of distribution or intent

>300 grams possession inside China by a foreigner – Death Penalty unless he can prove the same drug originated from local cultivation for industrial or medical purposes

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Plus China has another law

Any Person in whose PREMISES consumption of Marijuana takes place regardless of quantity or fore knowledge will face 3 Years Mandatory Jail plus 50,000 RMB fine

This is called SHELTER LAW

Thus if you are a landlord and a tenant smokes Marijuana in your apartment that you have leased out – YOU WON’T BE CHARGED BY THE SHELTER LAW

However if your friend smokes Marijuana in your flat that you lease or own – You face 3 years Jail

What were the things your parents did right in raising you?

At the age of 11 my mother forced me to accompany my sister (17) whenever she went outside.

I was obviously reluctant at first but finally agreed. I used to sit behind the activa while she rode to the grocery store, shopping mall etc.

It was all good until the following incident took place.

It was around 7 pm and we were coming back from the supermarket.

Two boys with covered faces stopped their bike in front of us, passed an inappropriate comment and disappeared before we could think of anything.

I was perplexed. I was shocked. I felt helpless. I felt weak. I knew the meaning of that comment.

I didn’t eat properly that night. I was sleepless for a few days. Mom noticed a change in my behaviour.

Mom: Is something bothering you? You don’t seem fine.

Me: I was waiting to share it with someone. The stress was enormous and I told her exactly what I felt.

Mom: Did you talk to your sister after the incident?

Me: No maa!! If I felt helpless and weak, I can’t even imagine what she would have felt.

Mom: This is why I told you to accompany her. See, you are going to be a teenager soon and perhaps you’ll think that it’s cool to follow a girl or pass some comments. Even some of your friends might force you. They’ll tell you that it’s ok.

But now you know that it is not. I’m sure you wouldn’t want any girl to feel like the way your sister did.

And she was right. The people close to me know that I’ve severed friendships, raised my voice but I never compromised on this fact.

I would never ever want any girl to feel the way my sister did.

Has Chick-fil-A ever explained why specifically it does not serve beef?

If you’ve ever been to a Chick Fil A, you’ve probably noticed their menu is pretty chicken-centric. That isn’t accidental, and it isn’t just a branding gimmick; there’s actually a history behind it.

Their commitment to chicken goes all the way back to the founder, S. Truett Cathy. He opened his first diner in the 1940s and spent years perfecting the pressure fryer to cook his chicken sandwich faster than anyone could cook a hamburger. This was the birth of what ultimately became Chick Fil A’s signature menu item: the original chicken sandwich.

At the root of it, Chick Fil A doesn’t serve beef because they don’t have to. Their identity is so closely tied to chicken that serving beef would be like McDonald’s suddenly deciding to specialize in vegan food. It would throw people for a loop.

Chick Fil A’s boneless breast of chicken sandwich made its debut in 1964 with great success, paving the way for the first Chick Fil A restaurant that opened in 1967. Cathy even made a play on words with “Chick” to emphasize chicken and play down beef. This is a differentiation strategy. Just like you wouldn’t go to Burger King for a taco or to Taco Bell for a fish and chips plate, you wouldn’t go to Chick Fil A for a beef burger.

There’s also the branding component, right? You’ve seen the billboards with the cows painting “Eat Mor Chikin,” pushing the chicken agenda while steering people away from their own kind. It’s a brilliant marketing strategy that reinforces the no-beef policy.

While there’s no formal manifesto on why they don’t serve beef, the logic is clear: specialization. In a world where you can get a burger at every highway exit, being the go-to chicken spot sets you apart.

Staying in their lane has allowed Chick Fil A to perfect their products, focus on their poultry niche, and maintain the consistency and quality that has customers loyally returning to their restaurants. For many businesses, it’s a scary thing to put all your eggs (or chickens) in one basket, but for Chick Fil A, doing just that has been the secret sauce to their success.

So, in Portland, OR, where I’m based, if I’m craving chicken, it’s pretty neat knowing I can swing by Chick Fil A and get that same sandwich that put them on the map all those years ago, while also being assured that there won’t be a burger in sight. They’ve stayed true to the original plan for over half a century, and it’s working wonders for them.

China is getting tough

It took a long time, but it is finally happening. China’s gloves are coming off, and it is getting tough on Taiwan and the west.

• For Taiwan, the Commerce Ministry has decided that Taiwan’s government has unfairly blocked the sale of many PRC products in Taiwan. For a long time, the PRC had allowed Taiwan imports to the PRC in the hope that Taiwan would eventually open up to PRC products on a reciprocal basis, but that has not happened, even when Taiwan has had food shortages. The Commerce Ministry will shortly announce which Taiwan products will be blocked from being sold in the PRC, which is the single largest market for many local Taiwan products.
• For the west, China is now blocking the sale of rare-earth processing technologies to the west. This is a field essential for semiconductor manufacturing and defense technologies, and will hit Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and the US especially hard as they try to develop their own independent supply chains free from Chinese components and raw materials.

For 2024, I am expecting an avalanche of new patents from Huawei for new technologies which leapfrog current western technologies. Western governments and companies will be faced with a difficult choice: Will they pay licensing fees to Huawei and other Chinese companies for these technologies, or will they insist on developing their own technologies and components using their own capabilities?

This is a very tough choice because investing in their own non-Chinese research and development will take at least five years, and will likely take more than ten years. Then, when that issue is resolved, where will they do the manufacturing? China has the best and most modern infrastructure and supply chains, so there will be a huge cost penalty for doing it on their own. When it comes to lower costs, the Chinese are masters of the game.

An even more important question: Where is the largest market for these products? Most likely, it will be China. So these products won’t be sold in China to Chinese? So where will it be sold?

What is the most difficult decision you have made as a doctor?

One hundred and six units.

An adult’s blood volume nine times over.

The entire hospital’s blood bank supply. We had to send to nearby centers for more. We had to put our own trauma center on ambulance diversion until more arrived.

After forty units, the chance of survival drops precipitously. The chance over a hundred— who knows? Past diminishingly small. Unreported, possibly. The physiologic derangement is simply too great. Banked blood is not like our own. It is cool, watery, weak and deficient. And this toxic cocktail had washed out every native red cell in her body, splashed out itself, and been poured back in again.

Every raw surface had begun to ooze.

We had already coded her twice.

With the blood welling up in spite of my every effort, I threw packs of thick cotton gauze in her chest, trying to stem the torrent. Trying to buy a moment to think. She had the same injury that killed Princess Diana. My partner looked across the table at me, a slight shake to her head. The probe at the head of the bed beeping out a constant register of oxygen saturation suddenly dipped in tone. I glanced, alarmed, over the drape and saw, unmistakably, her eyes opened, her teeth gripping the tube, her lips forming words to the anesthesiologist who hurried to medicate her. A tear sliding down her cheek towards her ear.

She’s neuro intact.

“She’s neuro intact,” I said, this time aloud, as my eyes reconnected with my partner’s. “She’s neuro intact,” I repeated, as a kind of mantra.

My partner nodded. “Okay, let’s keep going then,” and pulled the packs out.

She was forty-five.

Previously healthy.

And all there.

When I reviewed the case later before a panel of my peers, I argued this made her somehow salvageable. They scoffed. I reconsidered. So why, then, had I “wasted” so many resources on one woman with such devastating injuries, who ultimately died, as I knew she would?

Because I couldn’t look her in the eye and tell her no more.

Beef with Celery (China)

Ingredients

• 1 (1 pound) round steak
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar
• 1 egg white
• 4 to 6 stalks celery
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 6 scallions, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped, pared fresh ginger root
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 1/2 tablespoons dry sherry
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 2 teaspoons oyster sauce

Instructions

1. Cut meat across the grain into thin strips 1 1/2 inches long.
2. Combine 1/2 tablespoon of the soy sauce, vinegar and egg white in medium bowl; beat lightly with fork until foamy. Mix in meat. Cover and let stand 2 hours.
3. Cut celery into 1/2-inch diagonal slices.
4. Combine celery, 1 cup of the water and the salt in saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat until boiling. Boil 3 minutes.
5. Drain celery.
6. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in wok over high heat.
7. Drain meat and add to wok. Stir fry until meat is brown, about 5 minutes. Remove meat from wok. Add remaining 1 tablespoon oil to wok. Add celery, onions, ginger and garlic. Stir fry 1 minute. Return meat to wok; mix well.
8. Combine remaining 1/2 cup water, 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce, the sherry, cornstarch and oyster sauce. Pour over meat-vegetable mixture. Cook and stir until liquid boils and thickens.

Makes 4 servings.

What did someone say to you that instantly made you realize their life was in danger?

When driving a Private Hire Taxi to help pay my way through University one night I had to swerve to miss a guy staggering into the road. I thought he was a drunk but pulled up just to check he was OK. He staggered up to the passenger side window and slumped against it. He murmured for help, at that same moment I saw blood smeared all down the window. I saw another figure approaching the car, I was horrified to see he appeared to be carrying a huge knife. I opened the rear door and pulled the injured guy in. There was a lot of blood and I wasn’t sure he would make it. I drove off as the pursuer closed up. I radioed base and told them I had a seriously injured stabbing victim in the car. They called the hospital and the police. I sped to the emergency dept. on the way being picked out by a police car as I (very carefully) jumped a red light. They knew the situation and gave me an escort to the hospital. They were ready and waiting for him when we arrived.

The guy survived. The car was a total mess, but putting everything in perspective, a small price to pay.

He survived with 2 or 3 life-threatening wounds, making a full recovery, the police and the medics told me I’d saved his life.

I was later thanked by both him and, believe it or not the perpetrator, who received a jail sentence far shorter than he would have got for murder. Apparently they were friends and a disagreement over rent had got out of all proportion leading to the incident. Had I not had the feeling this was not just another drunk staggering around in the dark, a lot of lives would have changed that night.

As a manager how far have you had to go to fire someone?

As a newly hired IT Director in a City, I discovered one programmer who had been there for a number of years had no real assignments. He came in each morning, read the paper, then put his feet up and took a nap.

I promptly gave him an assignment and watched as he did nothing. I met with him numerous times and he finally mentioned that I couldn’t do anything because he had been there so long, he couldn’t be fired – certainly not by a new manager like me!

Challenge!

I documented my meetings and his comment and went to HR. They told me he was likely correct as he was a union steward, as well. I escalated to a HR Supervisor who suggested I build a file then apply progressive discipline.

And so it began. I gave him an assignment in writing. I had him agree, in writing, that he understood the project and how long it should take to complete. I set weekly goals for him to accomplish and when he didn’t, I applied progressive discipline. The first time, I issued a written reprimands warning that he could be terminated if this continued. Next, a written disciplinary memo. After that, I sent him home for a day with no pay. He immediately appealed.

At the appeal hearing, he brought a union lawyer, who claimed the project was too difficult and he needed additional training. That was BS, IMO, for a Senior Programmer with 8 years experience. However, the mediator suggested providing the training.

He began two weeks of training the following Monday. I found out he skipped several days and the instructor told me he knew the material going in and we were wasting taxpayer money to send him.

He continued to miss assignments, and I wrote several more written reprimands before suspending him with a 3 day unpaid suspension. He filed another appeal.

In this hearing, the union Attorney suggested that he occasionally fell asleep because he had kids who occasionally kept him up late at home. The mediator supported the suspension. When he returned, we sent him to the City Doctor for a “fit to work” physical exam. The Doctor determined he had sleep apnea and said he should spend a month at home using a CPAP machine for a month before returning for another physical (with full pay, of course). While he was gone, I gave his assignment to another programmer who knocked it out in 3 days.

When he finally came back to , I gave him another assignment with specific written instructions. Within a week, he violated the instructions and made an unauthorized and undocumented change to the system that opened the City up to several million dollars of legal liability.

I issued a written suspension for two weeks without pay and began the termination paperwork. At the end of the two weeks, he came in and gave me his written resignation.

Game over in 10 months.

During this period, he constantly complained to other staff, hurting morale. I even got a phone call from his wife telling me how cruel I was because he liked his job and asking why I hated her husband.

Why did the Chinese army retreat from India during the 1962 Sino-Indian War?

1. There is no border between China and India.

Because there was no India before 1947, it was just a colonial area composed of hundreds of small kingdoms forcibly annexed by the British. Maybe you would say that there were many countries in South Asia with large territories before Britain, but no former Indian country had a territory as large as India now. In particular, even though North India was often unified into one Greater India, South India and Northeast India were almost never ruled by North India. Therefore, there is no definite border line between China and India.

2 China was once very friendly and hoped to peacefully demarcate the Sino-Indian border.

India became independent in 1947. New China was founded in 1949. China and India are both third world countries. China wants to maintain good relations with India, so it wants to delimit the Sino-Indian border through peaceful negotiations with India. China says that we do not accept the boundary lines privately drawn by the colonists and that we can resolve them through negotiation. Our border areas are all no-man’s land, and the disputed areas on our borders total 120,000 square kilometers. According to the current actual control areas of both parties, China can recognize that 90,000 square kilometers of southern Tibet (now called Arunachal) belongs to India. India recognized that 30,000 kilometers of Aksai Chin belongs to China, and we signed a boundary agreement on this basis. From then on, both sides have an undisputed boundary line, and there will be no disputes or wars. From then on, friendly relations between China and India became the first Brotherly countries in the three worlds.

However, India firmly rejected any plan from China. It took the map drawn by the British and told China that this is the new India. You must fully accept that southern Tibet and Aksai Chin are mine. Because the Indians continued the arrogance of the colonizers. It has not learned to get along well with its neighbors, so this is the most important reason why India has poor relations with all its neighbors.

3. The reasons and purposes of the 1962 Sino-Indian War.

The reason is that India’s forward policy has invaded Chinese territory and challenged China’s bottom line.

The purpose is to make India understand that it must stop when China says to stop.

In 1962, India hoped to invade China step by step through the Forward Policy. The so-called forward policy is to advance the Indian barracks one kilometer towards Chinese territory every day, and then claim that this is India’s territorial scope. China has repeatedly warned India not to challenge China. But India ignored China’s anger and continued to invade China, even crossing the northern part of the McMahon Line claimed by India and entering undisputed Chinese territory. Therefore, China must use a language that Indians can understand to let India understand that the bottom line of the Chinese cannot be breached. This term is military power.

Indian prisoners in 1962

4 Why did China withdraw from the battle after winning the battle?

A Because China’s war goals were achieved, this is the most important reason.

From the beginning, China just wanted to teach the Indians a lesson, to let them recognize the reality, not to be too greedy, and not to ignore China’s warnings. When China says that LAC is the bottom line, don’t challenge China’s bottom line and don’t cross the LAC. When you really cross the LAC, China has enough strength to beat you back. So after China taught the Indians a lesson, China felt that was enough, so it returned to the state before the war and returned to the original line of actual control.

Maximizing revenue B

Simply put, it means achieving the highest benefit with the lowest cost.

If the Indians crossed one kilometer of LAC and China counterattacked 20 kilometers and stayed to occupy the land, it would definitely cause India to expand the war regardless of the cost, and the war would not stop lightly.

It would be unwise to plunge two countries with hundreds of millions of people into endless war.

It would be unwise to plunge two countries with hundreds of millions of people into an ongoing war over mostly uninhabited mountainous and desert areas.

War costs huge amounts of money. OThe value of a cannonball fired in one hour is enough to feed the residents of a small town for a year. In 1962, both China and India were quite poor countries, especially China. 1962 was the hungriest year in the history of New China. It would be very unfavorable for China to fall into a long-term war at this time.

China has pushed its battle line to the Indian plains. If China insists on fighting here, it will be at a huge disadvantage, because to transport an artillery shell from a Chinese factory here, it requires the use of donkeys to climb dozens of mountains over 3,000 meters. , spanning thousands of kilometers, requires a huge amount of transportation energy. Even if a 10-dollar artillery shell costs $1,000 here, Indian artillery shells can be transported directly by truck, and a 10-dollar artillery shell is worth at most $100. In other words, the cost in China is at least 10 times more expensive than in India. This is an asymmetric war. If China continues to fight here, the original victory will turn into a defeat, or a tragic victory. As a master of war, the Chinese will not make such mistakes. Therefore, China decisively returned to the LAC before the war.

In the 1962 war, from the perspective of territorial acquisition, China did not gain more territory than before the war. But the benefits are still huge.

The biggest benefit is that in the decades after 1962, Indians no longer dared to cross the LAC lightly and no longer dared to advance policies. In other words, Indians have heartily accepted that LAC is the default boundary line between China and India. This won decades of peace along China’s southwestern border.

The border conflict in 1967 was only a few days of minor fighting over the dispute between China and India over the LAC demarcation line at Nathu La Pass. At that time (32 Chinese soldiers died and 101 Indian soldiers died)

Indian prisoners in 1967

Maybe 1962 has passed too long, maybe Indians feel that India in 2020 is no longer the India in 1962, so the Indians crossed the LAC again in 2020, so China was forced to take action again to teach the Indians a lesson. I hope Indians understand that although India is not the India of 1962, China is not the China of 1962. China was in its poorest period in 1962, when China’s GDP was even lower than India’s. China GDP in 2020 is five times larger than India. Don’t provoke China, China is more powerful than you think.

Indian Captives of 2020

Nikki Haley says she will stop China from killing Americans with fentanyl. Is the PRC doing this? If so, how?

She’s lying. She has no idea what to do. What she’s trying to selli is the idea that she does.

Here’s the problem. Americans want fentanyl. Enough Americans want fentanyl as to make it worth the enormous risk of smuggling either it, or the raw materials to make it, into the United States. Capitalism 101. And there is no way to stop that. None. Every attempt we’ve ever made to stop drug use by prohibition has been not only an utter failure, but has caused us more trouble than the actual problem we were trying to fix.

There’s a deeper problem. Fentanyl is a symptom, not a cause. And that cause is the utter hopelessness and the lack of resources for the poor in the US. We’ve literally criminalized poverty. We have the weakest social safety net in the industrial world, and we’ve decided that a tax structure that makes it possible for a handful of men to amass fortunes that can buy them freedom from the law, is a good thing even if it leaves 20% of the country living below the poverty line in an information and resource vacuum that leaves most trapped.

Preying on the poor is hugely profitable, and the capitalists have risen to the task. We choose to look away and complain.

What work secret did you accidentally find out that changed everything?

I once worked for a dental lab as part of a “back-to-work” rehab program after a work injury. I was working late one Friday and took a delivery into the mail room for shipment the next day. The mail room was adjacent to the owner’s office and I overheard him and his wife (his accountant) and the office manager planning on replacing some 60% of the staff with high-school kids in work-study programs. The boss, Rick, heard me taping up the box and came in, asking what I was doing and if I heard them, to which I said no. He told me I wasn’t supposed to work late and leave the package for the next day.

On Monday I was called into a meeting with Rick, his wife and my rehab consultant about missing many hours of work. He slid three altered times cards across the table as proof, not realizing I had copies of all my time cards as required by the work comp insurer. I pulled them from my bag and told him he was lying and falsified the cards because I overheard him planning on firing staff. He fired me anyway so as I left, I walked into the large work area and announced loudly, “Rick is going to replace most of you with high-school kids and he just fired me because I overheard him planning it.”

Two weeks later he let nine people go, replacing them with high-school kids. By the end of the month another six employees left for the competition and without experienced employees, he went out of business by the end of the year. I actually ran into him at the grocery store the following year and asked him how his business was going. He said, “Go f*ck yourself!” Best. Vindication. Ever. 🙂

What was the greediest thing you’ve seen a family member do?

This goes back fifty years, but I will never forget it.

My mother’s aunt and uncle (Annie and Homer) were married for over fifty years. They never had any biological children, but did adopt a daughter (Mary Catherine) and raised her as their own.

MC grew up, got married, and moved out of state with her husband. (The parents lived in Memphis, and the daughter lived in southeastern Missouri, about a five-hour drive apart.)

Being much younger, I only met the daughter a couple of times while I was growing up. She didn’t visit Memphis often.

Aunt Annie fell and broke her hip in an accident in her early-80’s. She survived the fall, but lapsed into dementia and died about two years later. Mary Catherine didn’t attend the funeral. (When I asked why, none of the adults in my family would talk about it.)

Uncle Homer lived another few years. His mind was sharp, but his physical health started failing. During the last year of his life, he was bedridden at home and required regular nursing visits during the day.

One afternoon, Uncle Homer called our house all frantic, asking my mother to come to his house. She and I drove over, a trip that took about fifteen minutes.

When we arrived, he was yelling and crying. His nurse had also arrived, but wasn’t able to calm him down.

When he saw my mom, Uncle Homer told us the story: Mary Catherine and her husband had shown up, and cleaned out the house of everything they wanted.

He had yelled and screamed, and had fallen out of bed trying to stop them, but they both just laughed at his efforts and took everything of value. He had gotten his gun out from the beside table, but his nurse had removed the bullets from it long beforehand.

The daughter and husband left before Uncle Homer called us, so we never saw them.

My grandfather had the daughter’s number in Missouri and called her that evening. She was not at all repentant and argued that the stuff she took was her just reward for putting up with her parents for decades. Apparently, she was upset because they had “lived too long.” She also let him know that she expected to get Uncle Homer’s house when he was gone.

Uncle Homer didn’t call the police on his daughter, but he was clearly heartbroken after this incident. His life spark and sense of humor were gone. He lasted about three more months, and passed away at age 92.

After he died, Mary Catherine didn’t attend the funeral, but did come back to deal with her inheritance. It turned out that Uncle Homer had altered his will and gave his house to his nurse, a widow who had been living in a rented place nearby.

The value of the house was a lot greater than the stuff that the daughter had stolen.

What was the cruelest rumor you’ve heard about another kid when you were in school?

There was that girl that had been lonely all her life. People, especially in school, disliked her because she was “strange”, “a nerd”, “too quiet” and just “different”.

One day she decided to talk to her teachers during the breaks instead of trying to fit in where she didn’t. She always acted older than her age and her teachers liked her, so they usually didn’t send her away, but had a friendly chat with her ever so often instead.

By tenth grade, she had almost developed some kind of friendship to a few of her teachers. When she got the “strictest teacher of the school” as her major course teacher in grade eleven, it took her mere weeks to find out that he actually wasn’t so strict at all.

They talked for at least half an hour after the lessons. About science, about our society, the people in school and whatever came to mind. Those two thought quite alike, despite an age difference of 34 years, and the girl now almost a woman could for the first time in years really live her passion for learning. Her teacher was highly intelligent and very knowledgeable, having not only written a dissertation in the past and worked in research for years but also being interested in a broad spectrum of topics.

Well, doesn’t sound so bad, now does it? So what happened?

Well, because teenagers are teenagers, it took about half a year for people to start whispering about the girl and her teacher. It started off lightly, she was still strange and why would she even talk to him?

But a few months after that, some people thought it to be funny to make up a non-existent romantic relationship between teacher and student. Despite that girl having been very close to other teachers before, but now that it was a male teacher, it suddenly was completely different. Because people of opposite gender can’t just see each other as friends, right? They just have to be in love to even think about talking to each other.

A less than funny “joke” became something way bigger. After two weeks, all of the 1600 students knew about this. And most didn’t know that it was a joke. People were laughing and pointing at her, throwing insults at the girl for something that never happened.

Finally, after about three months of dealing with it alone, she had the heart to tell her teacher. They decided to never talk to each other outside of class again, to prevent the teacher from getting problems with the school. While it was just a rumour, that didn’t mean that it wouldn’t lead to problems.

Both of them lost a friend on the day they made this decision. And the student lost a person she saw as a second father – her father barely ever was at home and her teacher had been one of three people (the other ones being her best friend and a female teacher she knew since fifth grade) she ever fully trusted. It might not have been cruel at the first glance, but it hurt her in more ways than the others students could’ve ever imagined.

That girl was me.

Some good ways to get revenge on someone?

Meet Kyle Tomlinson.

As a 12 year old, he came to the auditions of Britain’s Got Talent.

You should go and get a singing teacher.

He was told by David Walliams

and that hurt the 12 year old kid. So much so that when he came for auditions 2 years later, he mentioned this on the stage again. David obviously did not remember the incident.

Kyle had taken it to his heart that ‘he was not good enough’ and had worked hard on his singing for the past 2 years.

Kyle sang that day with his heart out and the entire auditorium rose up to appreciate his talent. Everyone was moved and David Walliams somewhere realized how big a mistake he had done for hurting Kyle.

David pressed the golden buzzer, which meant Kyle went to the live shows directly. (Every judge has only one golden buzzer to use in one season.)

David came up to the stage and hugged Kyle.

Kyle transformed his embarrassment and made himself more than able in a period of 2 years.

He forced the man who had underestimated him to accept his mistake.

For me, that is the best form of revenge.

Turn your haters into your fans.

Film-Noir | Impact (1949) | Brian Donlevy, Helen Walker, Ella Raines | Movie, subtitles