2022 was a dumpster fire.

2023 was a cracked sewer pipe…

But 2024 is going to be different. How different, remains to be seen. But I have hope; I am optimistic.

It is the year of the DRAGON.

Chinese Horoscope 2024 – Year of the Dragon

The Chinese zodiac marks the start of a new cycle with the Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, when one animal gives way to another. On February 10, 2024, the Year of the Dragon begins.

The Dragon is a powerful and auspicious creature in Chinese mythology, representing courage, creativity, and innovation. 2024 promises to be a year full of possibilities and opportunities.

According to the Chinese zodiac, the Dragon is the most powerful and auspicious animals. It represents strength, wisdom, luck and prosperity. The dragon is also associated with one of the five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal or water. Each element gives the dragon a different personality and destiny.

The Year of the Wood Dragon 2024 is also known as Yang Wood on Dragon, or Jia Chen 甲辰 in Chinese. The fixed element of the Dragon (Chen) is Earth (Wu 戊), which represents stability, honesty and loyalty. The variable element of the Dragon in 2024 is Yang Wood, or Jia 甲, representing growth, creativity and flexibility.

The Wood Dragon is the most creative and visionary of the dragons. They are optimistic, ambitious and adventurous. They like to explore new ideas and challenge themselves. They are also generous, compassionate and loyal to their friends.

Therefore, the Year of the Dragon in 2024 is expected to be a time of visionary leaders, innovators and problem solvers. 2024 is also predicted to be a great year to start new projects, explore new opportunities and create value for yourself and others.

Some of the most promising sectors for business growth in the Dragon Year 2024 are fintech, AI, cybersecurity, blockchain, and solar energy. These industries are driven by innovation and demand for cutting-edge solutions. To succeed in these competitive markets, businesses need to embrace new technologies and communicate their value proposition effectively.

The year of the Wood Dragon 2024 is special because it is a rare combination of the dragon’s power and the wood’s creativity. It is a year of innovation, vision and growth. It is a year to pursue your dreams, express your ideas and expand your horizons. It is also a year to be generous, compassionate and loyal to your friends. The next Year of the Wood Dragon in the Chinese zodiac will be 2084, which is 60 years from now.

A Black and White Cat Kept His Owner Awake Until the Ambulance Arrived

Happy 2024

WTF??????

What is the best piece of advice you could give someone about life?

Mr. Andrew Carnegie arrived in America in 1848, with no money and with no formal higher education.

His parents decided to move the Carnegie family to the United States after a famine hit the Scottish countryside.

At thirteen years old, Carnegie found a job that would pay him $1.20 for a 70-hour week.

During his free time, Carnegie read books loaned to him from one of the local libraries.

These books impacted his life so much that later he donated millions of his money to building over 2,500 public libraries and educational institutions around the world.

When Carnegie was about 18 years old, Thomas Scott, the owner of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, employed him as a telegraph operator at a salary of $4.00 per week.

By age 24, Mr. Scott saw great potential in the young Carnegie, and promoted him to superintendent of a division of the Railroad Company.

Mr. Scott eventually became Carnegie’s mentor, a relationship that changed his future.

The experience Carnegie gained working closely to Scott was a vital ingredient in his success in the steel industry.

Years later, Carnegie sold his company to JP Morgan. That was what made him the wealthiest man on earth, and the philanthropist he later became.

To answer your question, what is the best piece of advice you could give someone about life?

1.- What are you filling your mind with?

Are you consuming your free time with worthless social media? Carnegie read books. He invested continuously in his personal growth.

Stop wasting your time!

2.- Are you trying to figure out how to do it alone! Who do you take advice from?

Carnegie was inspired by Mr. Scott. He listened to his advice. He was a hard worker. He was coachable.

Don’t try to do it alone!

Meaningful

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/URkqD59wmj4?feature=share

Rhodes Runzas

Ingredients

• 12 Rhodes Texas™ Rolls, or 24 Rhodes™ Dinner Rolls, thawed but still cold
• 4 cups sliced cabbage
• 1 cup sliced yellow onion
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 8 ounces ground beef
• 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 cup mozzarella cheese, grated
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted

Instructions

1. Sauté cabbage and onion in oil. Cover and steam for 40 minutes.
2. Brown ground beef in a large pan, and drain well.
3. Add cabbage, onion, sugar, vinegar, salt and pepper and cook for an additional 20 minutes.
4. Flatten each Texas roll, or 2 dinner rolls into a 6-inch circle. Divide filling among 12 circles (about 1/3 cup).
5. Place 1 tablespoon mozzarella cheese on top of filling. Pull edges around filling and pinch to close.
6. Place on a large sprayed baking sheet, pinched side down. Brush tops with melted butter.
7. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 to 35 minutes.

Russian missile strike kills 200 foreign Mercenaries, Intelligence officers, military commanders.

What was the most satisfying display of instant karma you have ever seen?

In January 2019, Copdy Litz made a 10-foot snowman with his fiancée and his sister, and then posted this on Facebook:

It received a lot of admiration online as well as from his neighbours. However, when something marvellous attracts admirers, it also brings jealous assholes. Same thing happened with this snowman.

Turns out that one day when Copdy was away, a douche driver tried to destroy the snowman by ramming their car into it. To their horror, however, the result wasn’t as amusing as the driver was expecting.

When Copdy returns home, he sees this:

Tyre tracks leading to the snowman but they stop abruptly and the imprint of a bumper can be seen exposed in the snow. The snowman is still standing. Any idea how?

Do you see that black-brown part where there’s no snow? Well, that’s a thick tree stump used as a base for this snowman, but it was concealed by the snow. Hence, when the driver decided to ram their car into the snowman, they had no idea of the surprise they were in for, and ended up crashing their car into the sturdy stump. That’s why you see the imprint of a bumper on the snow and no more tyre tracks beyond the snowman.

[1] Sadly, the driver fled the scene after this surprise they received, and therefore, there’s no photo to show the damage on their car, but I bet it must be a good one (lol).

Copdy Litz later revealed in an interview that the purpose of using a tree stump as a base for this snowman was to teach vandals a lesson because such incidents were very common in his region. For sure other vandals must have learned the lesson.

Anyway, this display of instant karma seems pretty satisfying to me. If only I could see the damaged car, I’d be more satisfied.

Glitches In The Matrix People Can’t Explain

Wow!

What is your most “you’ve got to be kidding me” experience at a car mechanic?

I bought a car in TX. Private party. In winter. To drive to MN. On turnpike it was getting cold. I stop at Goodyear shop near a hotel. “I want radiator flush, engine block heater installed, -20 antifreeze”

got estimate, signed, walked to hotel, called with room info as next day Saturday they were open till noon. Next day 11:30 am check out, walk over. “owe did not have correct size front plug replacement block heater. So we put a lower hose heater in. We charged your card, here are keys we are closing early”

I KNEW lower hose not recommended. As angles all wrong. Warmed water flows to radiator first. NOT engine. But what can I do? So I will drive. Go to local Goodyear shop have it corrected.

50 miles hose blows apart. I had bought gallon antifreeze as knowing how shops screw filling empty radiator. But gauge looked great. Using knife I tighten hose clamps, add gallon antifreeze strait, limp to rest stop, gallon water, next town.

Get to local Goodyear. “we are not in same Goodyear chain as that place. But we will give you $5 off new hose, new frost plug heater, installation and full antifreeze replacement”. I did it myself.

10 American Cities That Are DEAD Forever

What did your boss say to you during a meeting that resulted in you immediately resigning?

Many years ago, I worked in a small sewing factory that made water ski vests. When I was hired, I was paid by the hour but was told that I would get raises based on my work, and the sky was the limit. I soon discovered that there was a very low cloud cover.

I got a small raise after one month. I was assigned to do the finishing job, but devised a new method and could complete 600 vests a day. The other workers could not keep up with me, and I had to learn all of the other jobs so that I would have at least 300 vests ready to finish.

Minimum wage increased; new employees were now being paid 10 cents an hour less than I was. I asked for another raise based on my performance and was told that if I kept doing what I was, I would get a raise in 6 weeks.

A month later, the owner brought in an “efficiency expert” who looked at my finishing job and suggested “improvements”. The improvements made me do twice the work for half the numbers.

The next day, I tried to talk to the owner about it. He told me to try it for six weeks, and I would get a raise. But, I was two weeks away from my promised raise. I said, “I quit!”

A couple of weeks later, I ran into my supervisor. She said she had to do my job until they could train someone else. After two hours of doing the “improved” method, she realized why I quit and went back to my method.

I also ran into the person they trained to replace me. She could complete 50 vests a day, instead of my 600.

The business went bankrupt 3 months later. There was a riot and police were called when the boss showed up with no paychecks on payday 🙂

What is a slap-in-the-face job offer?

I once responded to a job ad that advertised a pay rate of $10–25 per hour.

I showed up to the business to do an interview with the owner. The guy was busy so I had to wait 30 minutes past my scheduled time. Apparently, the guy didn’t even remember what was on my resume, nor did he seem to care. He didn’t even ask about my skills and mostly just talked up about himself and his business.

Finally at the end of the interview, he offered me the current minimum wage ($9.25 at the time, it was going to increase to $10 in a few months) and that we can “sit down and talk” about increasing the rate after a month.

This was an IT software and hardware repair shop and I had a master’s degree in computer science with several years of work experience. I wasn’t looking for a massive salary rate, but a side gig that paid reasonably well. I wasn’t going to work for minimum wage and then hope to God this business owner was going to be convinced to double the rate after one month.

I was really surprised by the salary rate, but I caught myself before I might have reacted negatively and said, “I’ll think about it.” I probably would have accepted it at $15 an hour, but minimum wage for a position that requires some technical knowledge, did not make any sense to me.

I thought about it and there were just too many red flags:

• He didn’t read my resume, which isn’t respectful of my time to go to an interview.
• Did not even offer the pay rate mentioned in the advertisement. He lied.
• Clearly a sign that this guy is going to be very stingy, so the 1 month “sitdown” salary evaluation meeting did not look promising at all.
• Doesn’t seem to be able to keep employees for very long. This was based on what I asked during the interview.

Needless to say, I followed up with an email saying that this wasn’t what I was looking for.

Update: Some bonus info I recalled recently. I remembered him mentioning in the middle of the interview that he had a mortgage to pay as if to get sympathy. I realized after the interview he was already thinking about making that shitty offer.

All empty stores all San Francisco

Have you ever caught someone in the action of stealing packages off your doorstep?

I used to be an Amazon Flex driver on the weekends to make some extra money. The base pay was $18 an hour and if I did my deliveries quickly, I was making more than $25 an hour.

They have a program where you sign up to be an “independent contractor” and get paid for delivering a certain number of packages in a prescribed amount of time. It was a lot of fun even though you have to basically fight other people online to get a run.

One day I was out making deliveries and I noticed a car pull over at a house where I had just dropped off a package. I thought to myself that it must be the homeowner and stopped to deliver the next. But, I kept an eye on the car and sure enough, they were following me and grabbing my packages.

I called the police and kept on delivering. Within 5 minutes, a police car pulled them over and as soon as I saw that they had them stopped I turned around and went to speak with the officers.

Come to find out that they had followed me out of the station and began taking my packages from the start. I looked in their car, and they had grabbed 9 of my packages! Had I not called the police, who knows how many more they would have gotten. They were arrested on the spot and taken away in handcuffs.

I was incredibly angry, because not only had they stolen my packages, but now I had to go back and deliver them all again!

It screwed up what should have been a very simple day, but I was thrilled to know that these porch pirates got what was coming to them!

1940s Life

People all over the world see the US as terrorist, look down on the US and have a bad image of the US, but why are only the Americans not aware of this?

Americans thinks the world thinks the world of them!

They are full of it!

Can you believe that the U.S. thinks people in Iraq welcome them warmly after they carpet bomb Baghdad killing civilians including women, children and babies! What Iraqis are doing is the lured them into the lions den and sniped them and bomb them into smitten! But U.S. officials and some Americans think the Muslim and Arab communities loved them!

The critical question

When being terminated from a job, have you ever warned the company of something important that only you knew how to do, and your advice has gone unheeded?

About 20 years ago I worked for a huge Multinational American Call Centre that had opened a centre in Belfast. I worked hard and got several commendations and promotions, eventually being in charge of Annual leave for all the Call Centres in the UK. Problem was, the call centre didn’t want to spend money on software to track annual leave.

So I made it, on excel, as they didn’t support Access, go figure. Anyone who knows, will tell you access was far better for something like tracking annual leave for over 2000 employees across 3 sites on, but I am damn good at excel, and I made it do things its really not designed to do.

For 3 years I told them that it wasn’t fit for purpose and I needed proper software. Eventually we got a new director and they seemed to take note of what I was saying. So they looked at what I was doing, how I was doing it, and then decided to outsource it to a team in a South African Call Centre and Lipa City in the phillipines, apparently paying the two teams was less than my salary. They asked me to create an instruction manual for the tracker so that these guys could do my job, and they would move me to another department.

Once completed, they terminated me, paying me 10 weeks severance for my time served plus owed leave. I warned the centre Director he was making a mistake, he just laughed.

4 weeks later I got a phone call from a friend who still worked there, the Leave tracker had crashed as the teams running it weren’t doing the daily maintainence in the manual, they had also deleted the back ups to save disc space. There was no record of who had taken what leave and who had what leave left to take. So with 3 months left in the financial year, they ended up having to give all 2316 members of staff their full leave entitlement again (turns out payroll didn’t bother recording what they had paid to whom and for why).

I phoned the Director and simply said, “I warned you what would happen, but you decided you knew better, good luck.” He simply hung up, no response. 3 weeks later he was terminated for costing the firm millions in additional payments for all the extra leave.

I lasted just short of 8 years, he lasted just short of 8 months.

Not a lady

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VMAFAuibDlI/frame0.jpg

What is a slap-in-the-face job offer?

I worked for a large aerospace company in the Midlands. I never worked more than my contracted 38 hours/week, travelled away from base once a month and needed an overnight stay 2-3 times a year.

I was approached by a large consultancy to work for them and had a first round of informal meetings. Their HR person then phoned me and asked me about my current salary and expectation. Before I answered, I asked her to confirm what had been hinted at in the first meeting, 50–60 hours per weeks, 2–3 overnights a week. Yes she said. In that case, current salary +20%. She went quiet and then asked why I expected that much. Extra hours and nights away. We are only allowed to offer 7% over current. I replied “I’m sorry, but that fails the Tesco test.” What’s that she asked. “I could work the extra hours stacking shelves in my local Tesco for minimum wage, make more money and still sleep in my own bed.”

She Changed Her Face In Front Of The Camera Within 10 Seconds

2023 was a strange year

What is the difference between a king and an emperor?

A king is ruler of a sovereign country. An emperor is the ruler of the whole continent, considered to be higher than any other secular rulers. The Islamic equivalent is caliph, the Zoroastrian equivalent is shahanshah and the Hindu equivalent is maharaja.

Traditionally there were two Emperors in the Christian world: the Holy Roman Emperor (Western Emperor) and the Eastern Roman Emperor (Eastern Emperor).

---

Once the Eastern Roman Empire fell in 1453, the Russian grand prince Ivan III the Great assumed the title of Czar (from caesar) and Peter I the Great nominated himself as the Russian Emperor.

The French Revolution was basically a re-enactment of fan fiction of Rome. First they deposed the King, then they declared Republic (which went pear-shaped in five years instead of 500) and finally Napoléon imitated Augustus and declared himself the Emperor of France. By doing this, he juxtaposited himself with both the Habsburgs (Holy Roman Empire – itself more or less a fan-fiction of the Western Roman Empire) and Romanovs (Russian Empire – a fan-fiction of the Eastern Roman Empire). Naturally there could be only one, so Napoléon had the Holy Roman Empire abolished in 1806. Instead, the Habsburgs would claim the title of Kaiser des Österreiches (Austrian Emperor). Which made sense, as Czech was a kingdom, Hungary was a kingdom, Croatia was a kingdom and the rest of the Austrian lands were principalities.

Finally Germany unified under the Kingdom of Prussia in 1870. Since Germany was a hodgepodge quilt of kingdoms, princedoms, republics and city states, King Wilhelm declared himself as the Kaiser (Emperor) of Germany (from caesar).

All European Kaisers and Czars fell in the WWI. Ever since 1918, there hasn’t been an Emperor in Christian lands.

---

Also China and Japan have had an Emperor. The Chinese emperor was deposed in 1912, China becoming a republic, but Japan has maintained its emperor (mikado). The current Emperor of Japan is Naruhito, and his reign is called Reiwa.

Peculiar

When did you realize that you had grown up?

I know the exact moment when I realized I was an adult.

It was the Christmas of 1998. I was in Beijing. I was one of those spoiled rich brats who went on a joyride with my fancy friends in my fancy car that my dad bought me. So that night, although none of us were Christian, it seemed like a good idea to celebrate some random holiday, drive to a dance club and have some fun. We were fully prepared to get drunk and party until dawn.

I was driving with 4 other friends in the car and I got into an accident. I was very scared, it was completely my fault. We realized no one was hurt and tried to leave. But the police arrived at the scene before we could drive off. And things got really serious.

I remember this old police officer, he had this “seen it done that” attitude, and asked “Who’s the driver?” I said that it was me. And he asked “Could you explain to me what happened?” I said “I want to wait until my dad is here.” And he asked again: “Are you the driver?” I said I was. And he replied, “If you’re old enough to drive and get yourself into this mess, you’re old enough to explain to me what happened and take responsibility.”

He was not mean, he was not angry with me or anything. He just said it as a matter of fact. And that’s the moment I realized I was an adult.

Why I choose to raise my child in CHINA and not the WEST

Why isn’t anyone talking about the Zhaoxin KX-7000 CPU?

Nobody was talking about Chinese EVs until they took the world by storm at the Munich car show this year.

It was all Tesla, and more recently, the Germans and Koreans. The Japanese were not in the game at all, preferring ICE hybrids.

No one was paying attention to the charging infrastructure put in place in China, or the huge number of models from diverse manufacturers no one outside of China had any experience with.

My friend says there are at least 100 Chinese EV brands operating today.

100! China today is where the US automobile industry was pre-war.

Why isn’t anyone talking about the CPU? Because this is the English medium, and there is an automatic filter on any news that puts a positive spin against the narrative of the Chinese being a backward sub-human species who cannot innovate and therefore copy and steal exclusively from the west.

Read the Chinese to keep up with the Chinese.

Don’t read ABOUT them.

Otherwise, be prepared to be surprised/shocked repeatedly by the Chinese.

This Just ΗΑPPΕNED In The Netherlands, Υet Something Εven More Bizarre Is ΗΑPPΕNING IN AMERICA

Have you ever had such a close call it makes your skin shiver everytime you think about it? If so, what happened?

It was 1989 in Richmond Virginia. Even though I was in my first year as a cop with the police department I was assigned a new recruit from the academy to be his field training officer. This young man was an immigrant from Jamaica. He said that his mother had read my future and that I needed this to keep me safe, and he handed me a bloodstone. As I was looking at it we got an alarm call for an industrial site that was a quarter of a mile away from where we were parked. I turned the key to the patrol car and nothing happened. I decided we would get out and run the distance to the site. When we were about two hundred yards away the building exploded, blowing the both of us back ten to fifteen feet. I still have scars on my left forearm that I instinctively put over my eyes. When we went back to the car it turned over the first time. My trainee looked at me and said, “My moms be looking out for you!”

If the car had worked we would have been there when the building exploded, and we would have both been dead.

Never break this rule

What aspects of life in middle ages Europe do movies always get wrong?

My mother-in-law always pointed out that, if Hollywood were depicting medieval Europe accurately, between one-third to one-sixth of young adult women between the ages of sixteen to forty should be visibly pregnant when they waddle into range of the camera and every shot of urban areas should be swarming with young children (the majority of which will eventually die before reaching adulthood). You should have at least four children visible in every scene in which at least one adult is visible.

It was a world without legal birth-control, and women had a large number of children if they weren’t nuns. Walking down a medieval street, you would have seen swarms of children—think Rwanda-level disparities in the young compared to adults. Margery Kempe in the early 1400s, for instance, had fourteen children by the time she was forty. A reasonable guess at the normal number would be for an average married medieval woman to have ten children, of which fewer than a third would survive to adulthood. The most common cause of adult female mortality in the medieval world appears to be death in childbirth.

During each woman’s pregnancies, I believe there is little visible bulge until the the last few months of pregnancy. After that, she should be visibly pregnant. The swarms of children should be everywhere, running in the streets, crammed into alleys and houses, and pouring through doorways constantly.

Visiting the USA After 5 Years Living Abroad

What is the most selfish act you have ever witnessed?

A little background — I was working in a chain drug store in Southern California, the only employee who came to work, on Christmas Eve. We were a 24-hour store, so, having cleaned everything, and faced all the stock on the shelves, I was thinking how to murder the “dancing Santa” (bad recording, 2 1/2 feet tall, and poorly made).

10:30 (22:30 for 24 hour clocks) a guy comes in, freaking out. His wife has recently left him for her “hot stud boyfriend”, with whom she has a brand-new baby. They are divorced, but she got the kids on holidays. He had bought and wrapped the presents for the kids (daughter, son), and dropped them off at her boyfriend’s house — left them on the porch, because she refused to open the door until he left. He gets home, and finds the kids waiting on his front porch. His ex-wife’s mother had just dropped them off, and left them alone, because ex-wife, new baby, and “Hot Stud” were going to his parents for Christmas, and she didn’t want the kids “getting in the way”. Grandma had plans of her own, and refused to take the kids with her.

Ex-wife left him with two kids with no change of clothes, no presents, not enough groceries, on Christmas Eve. And there was no way he could not make her sound like the totally selfish bitch she was.

Semi-happy ending. I abused the hell out of my authority as the manager, and “store-used” or “over-ride discount”ed everything we needed to put together a Christmas for his kids.

Each of them got a ream of paper, the largest box of Crayola (crayons) we had, a generic fuzzy toy, and two other toys that he thought they might like. Each present was individually wrapped in a different paper, with big fancy (store-bought!) bows, and a Christmas card on each present, plus each one got a good sized bag of “stocking stuffers”. (Pocket sized toys and games, candy, fruit, nuts, etc). Then I threw in (from me) a couple of bags of Christmas candy and chocolates.

It’s Christmas Eve, and your mother has her mother drop you off at your father’s house — who isn’t even home — because she doesn’t want you, because she has the new baby that you aren’t even allowed to touch.

I really, really hope she got what she deserved.

Why are so many AMERICANS moving to CHINA?

What was something small you went to the doctor for that turned out to be very significant?

A few weeks before my nineteenth birthday, I was sitting to the right of my mom. When I went to look at her, she pointed out that my left eye did not track with my right eye, which made it look like I had a lazy eye.

The next day, after we had all laughed it off (because it did look quite goofy), my mom made an appointment with a neuro-opthalmologist. We went in on a busy Saturday and after he examined my eye, he requested that we make another appointment on a day when he would have more time to dedicate to me and the testing that would have to be done.

About two weeks later, my mother and I went to his other office and he examined my eye. He asked me if I had experienced any double-vision recently, and I realized I had. So, he explained the possible reasons for the eye (which he diagnosed as sixth cranial nerve palsy): it was an infection, or, in very rare cases, a brain tumor. He ordered a chest x-ray, blood work, and a head MRI.

The blood work and chest x-ray went well and nothing was found. Going into my MRI, my mother was optimistic, but I just had a feeling that the diagnosis was going to be bigger than a little infection. After the MRI, my mother and I got lunch and were high in spirits. When we returned home, I got to work on my classes (they were online- thanks, 2020). A few hours later, my mother ran into my room, very upset, and told me to come to the phone.

My doctor was on the other end. He told me that I had a mass in my brain that was pressing against my sixth cranial nerve. He suggested that it was a very rare form of bone cancer in my brain called chordoma that had grown on my skull base, in the middle of my head. I was diagnosed two days after my nineteenth birthday.

Since then, my diagnosis was confirmed and I had surgery to remove the tumor. I had many complications, like infections and brain fluid leaks, but I made it out. There was about 5–10% of the tumor left, so I underwent proton radiation therapy to kill the rest of the cancer. In a few weeks, I will have been in partial remission for a year 🙂 I also had eye surgery about ten months ago to correct my eye, which was stuck looking inward since my first surgery. Since then, I’ve been dealing with a lot of other issues because of my tumor and treatment, like chronic nerve damage/pain, Hashimoto’s disease and hypothyroidism, but I have a wonderful team of doctors who have provided me with great treatments.

I was a freshman in college when I was diagnosed, and now I’m going to be a junior. I’m studying psychology and music, and I participate in my college’s choirs, theatre productions, and student life team. In the future, I’m hoping to get my Master’s degree in mental health counseling and work as a therapist for adolescents and young adults with disabilities, rare disease, and cancer. I would also love to perform professionally in my city’s symphony orchestra/choir and maybe even audition for America’s Got Talent.

Remembering 2023

From HERE

If I were to pick the first biggest reason 2023 will be remembered (if it isn’t because of the brewing World War III that seems to be on the verge of breaking out) it will be as the year that A.I. became a reality.

No, I’m not talking about generalized artificial intelligence, but I am talking about A.I. that’s useful enough to start taking jobs away.  This won’t be the first time that’s happened.  Google Translate® has cratered the market for interpreters/translators.  Why?  Even if Google Translate© isn’t right, it’s probably close enough for 99% of tasks that people used to use translators for.  I mean, I can now ask, “What is this growth in my armpit?” in Swedish.

Translator wages have been flat, and in the United States (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) there is the need for a total of 14,000 in the country at a stagnant average wage of about $50,000 with roughly 10% unemployment in the field.

Finding out

Bohemian Goulash Soup

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 2 large onions, coarsely chopped
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon vinegar
• 1 1/2 pounds beef stew meat, diced
• 6 cups beef broth or bouillon
• 1/2 teaspoon marjoram
• 1 tablespoon caraway seed
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 pound potatoes, peeled and cubed
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Heat butter or margarine in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Sauté onion until golden.
2. Stir in paprika and vinegar.
3. Add meat, broth, marjoram, caraway seeds, tomato paste, salt and pepper. Mix well. Cook gently, covered, for 1 to 1 1/2 hours until meat is tender.
4. Dilute flour with a little cooled liquid from pot. Stir into soup.
5. Add potatoes and cook until potatoes are tender.

Yield: 6 servings

Go and get it

Killing C.I.A. Informants, China Crippled U.S. Spying Operations

NYT

By Mark Mazzetti, Adam Goldman, Michael S. Schmidt and Matt Apuzzo

• May 20, 2017

阅读简体中文版

WASHINGTON — The Chinese government systematically dismantled C.I.A. spying operations in the country starting in 2010, killing or imprisoning more than a dozen sources over two years and crippling intelligence gathering there for years afterward.

Current and former American officials described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades. It set off a scramble in Washington’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies to contain the fallout, but investigators were bitterly divided over the cause. Some were convinced that a mole within the C.I.A. had betrayed the United States. Others believed that the Chinese had hacked the covert system the C.I.A. used to communicate with its foreign sources. Years later, that debate remains unresolved.

But there was no disagreement about the damage. From the final weeks of 2010 through the end of 2012, according to former American officials, the Chinese killed at least a dozen of the C.I.A.’s sources. According to three of the officials, one was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building — a message to others who might have been working for the C.I.A.

Still others were put in jail. All told, the Chinese killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 of the C.I.A.’s sources in China, according to two former senior American officials, effectively unraveling a network that had taken years to build.

Assessing the fallout from an exposed spy operation can be difficult, but the episode was considered particularly damaging. The number of American assets lost in China, officials said, rivaled those lost in the Soviet Union and Russia during the betrayals of both Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, formerly of the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., who divulged intelligence operations to Moscow for years.

The previously unreported episode shows how successful the Chinese were in disrupting American spying efforts and stealing secrets years before a well-publicized breach in 2015 gave Beijing access to thousands of government personnel records, including intelligence contractors. The C.I.A. considers spying in China one of its top priorities, but the country’s extensive security apparatus makes it exceptionally hard for Western spy services to develop sources there.

At a time when the C.I.A. is trying to figure out how some of its most sensitive documents were leaked onto the internet two months ago by WikiLeaks, and the F.B.I. investigates possible ties between President Trump’s campaign and Russia, the unsettled nature of the China investigation demonstrates the difficulty of conducting counterespionage investigations into sophisticated spy services like those in Russia and China.

The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. both declined to comment.

Details about the investigation have been tightly held. Ten current and former American officials described the investigation on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing the information.

The first signs of trouble emerged in 2010. At the time, the quality of the C.I.A.’s information about the inner workings of the Chinese government was the best it had been for years, the result of recruiting sources deep inside the bureaucracy in Beijing, four former officials said. Some were Chinese nationals who the C.I.A. believed had become disillusioned with the Chinese government’s corruption.

But by the end of the year, the flow of information began to dry up. By early 2011, senior agency officers realized they had a problem: Assets in China, one of their most precious resources, were disappearing.

Better Understand the Relations Between China and the U.S.

The two nations are jockeying for influence on the global stage, maneuvering for advantages on land, in the economy and in cyberspace.

• Spy Balloon: A Chinese surveillance balloon floating over the United States has been raising a lot of questions for people who live under its path.
• Wooing Indonesia: China and the United States are engaged in the strategic battle for influence over the resource-laden nation of nearly 300 million people. So far, Beijing has the edge.
• The Philippines’ Role: The U.S. military is expanding its presence in the Philippines, a sign that the United States is positioning itself to constrain China’s armed forces and bolstering its ability to defend Taiwan.
• Investing in Mexico: Alarmed by shipping chaos and geopolitical fractures, exporters from China are setting up factories in Mexico to preserve their sales to the United States.

The F.B.I. and the C.I.A. opened a joint investigation run by top counterintelligence officials at both agencies. Working out of a secret office in Northern Virginia, they began analyzing every operation being run in Beijing. One former senior American official said the investigation had been code-named Honey Badger.

As more and more sources vanished, the operation took on increased urgency. Nearly every employee at the American Embassy was scrutinized, no matter how high ranking. Some investigators believed the Chinese had cracked the encrypted method that the C.I.A. used to communicate with its assets. Others suspected a traitor in the C.I.A., a theory that agency officials were at first reluctant to embrace — and that some in both agencies still do not believe.

---

What we consider before using anonymous sources.Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.

Learn more about our process.

Their debates were punctuated with macabre phone calls — “We lost another one” — and urgent questions from the Obama administration wondering why intelligence about the Chinese had slowed.

The mole hunt eventually zeroed in on a former agency operative who had worked in the C.I.A.’s division overseeing China, believing he was most likely responsible for the crippling disclosures. But efforts to gather enough evidence to arrest him failed, and he is now living in another Asian country, current and former officials said.

There was good reason to suspect an insider, some former officials say. Around that time, Chinese spies compromised National Security Agency surveillance in Taiwan — an island Beijing claims is part of China — by infiltrating Taiwanese intelligence, an American partner, according to two former officials. And the C.I.A. had discovered Chinese operatives in the agency’s hiring pipeline, according to officials and court documents.

But the C.I.A.’s top spy hunter, Mark Kelton, resisted the mole theory, at least initially, former officials say. Mr. Kelton had been close friends with Brian J. Kelley, a C.I.A. officer who in the 1990s was wrongly suspected by the F.B.I. of being a Russian spy. The real traitor, it turned out, was Mr. Hanssen. Mr. Kelton often mentioned Mr. Kelley’s mistreatment in meetings during the China episode, former colleagues say, and said he would not accuse someone without ironclad evidence.

Those who rejected the mole theory attributed the losses to sloppy American tradecraft at a time when the Chinese were becoming better at monitoring American espionage activities in the country. Some F.B.I. agents became convinced that C.I.A. handlers in Beijing too often traveled the same routes to the same meeting points, which would have helped China’s vast surveillance network identify the spies in its midst.

Some officers met their sources at a restaurant where Chinese agents had planted listening devices, former officials said, and even the waiters worked for Chinese intelligence.

This carelessness, coupled with the possibility that the Chinese had hacked the covert communications channel, would explain many, if not all, of the disappearances and deaths, some former officials said. Some in the agency, particularly those who had helped build the spy network, resisted this theory and believed they had been caught in the middle of a turf war within the C.I.A.

Still, the Chinese picked off more and more of the agency’s spies, continuing through 2011 and into 2012. As investigators narrowed the list of suspects with access to the information, they started focusing on a Chinese-American who had left the C.I.A. shortly before the intelligence losses began. Some investigators believed he had become disgruntled and had begun spying for China. One official said the man had access to the identities of C.I.A. informants and fit all the indicators on a matrix used to identify espionage threats.

After leaving the C.I.A., the man decided to remain in Asia with his family and pursue a business opportunity, which some officials suspect that Chinese intelligence agents had arranged.

Officials said the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. lured the man back to the United States around 2012 with a ruse about a possible contract with the agency, an arrangement common among former officers. Agents questioned the man, asking why he had decided to stay in Asia, concerned that he possessed a number of secrets that would be valuable to the Chinese. It’s not clear whether agents confronted the man about whether he had spied for China.

The man defended his reasons for living in Asia and did not admit any wrongdoing, an official said. He then returned to Asia.

By 2013, the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. concluded that China’s success in identifying C.I.A. agents had been blunted — it is not clear how — but the damage had been done.

The C.I.A. has tried to rebuild its network of spies in China, officials said, an expensive and time-consuming effort led at one time by the former chief of the East Asia Division. A former intelligence official said the former chief was particularly bitter because he had worked with the suspected mole and recruited some of the spies in China who were ultimately executed.

China has been particularly aggressive in its espionage in recent years, beyond the breach of the Office of Personnel Management records in 2015, American officials said. Last year, an F.B.I. employee pleaded guilty to acting as a Chinese agent for years, passing sensitive technology information to Beijing in exchange for cash, lavish hotel rooms during foreign travel and prostitutes.

In March, prosecutors announced the arrest of a longtime State Department employee, Candace Marie Claiborne, accused of lying to investigators about her contacts with Chinese officials. According to the criminal complaint against Ms. Claiborne, who pleaded not guilty, Chinese agents wired cash into her bank account and showered her with gifts that included an iPhone, a laptop and tuition at a Chinese fashion school. In addition, according to the complaint, she received a fully furnished apartment and a stipend.

Cheating GF

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HytNH3FVC7k?feature=share

AI generated

The NORD Sea

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/eEL8mZbElFQ?feature=share

What is a slap-in-the-face job offer?

Once, I was truly between jobs: had quit the old one, and a signed contract to start the new one in 2 months.

I was looking forward to spending 2 months doing nothing but sleeping, playing pool, drinking, and having fun.

Then an ex-colleague and friend called: the little firm he worked at was having serious IT problems; could I come in and consult/fix things?

So I put on a suit, pack a CV, head down to their office, and quickly see the worst computer setup I have ever witnessed on Wall St. Like, it’s a bundle of ancient Windows boxes doing God knows what. They couldn’t do things like keep the system running, never mind managing risk, or managing orders, or any normal business function.

I figure $40K for me, plus $20K in real server hardware, and they can have this on the road to fixed in a month.

My friend and I go into the CEO’s office, lay out my CV, I present a rough plan and cost estimates. The CEO just grabs a black marker and starts crossing out everything in my CV he feels is inapplicable: stuff like “Yale University” and “computer science.” Then he says “Your resume says you’re unemployed, $10K should be enough!”

My friend turns green with embarrassment, but I just get up and walk out. Through the trading floor of frustrated people yelling that the system has crashed again and they can’t enter trades.