When I was a boy in High School, I studied French. I did so for three years, and pretty much max’ed out what was available at my school. I studied hard. Learned as much as I could, and did very well… grade wise.

Anyways, in the French Class were a series of books about the Adventures of Tintin. And joy of joys, I was able and permitted to “read” the books, trying to make out the French language in the illustrations.

I don’t know if it really helped me learn French, but it certainly helped me fall in love with the Tintin series. It really did.

If you ever get a chance, please take the time to enjoy these great and amazing works of art.

Just thinking about them put a smile on my face. I hope that it puts them on yours as well.

Todays…

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

I think the biggest surprise from a knock on the door I ever got was about 10 years ago.

An ex-girlfriend showed up at my door, 8 months pregnant …7 months after we split up (which was quite the shock, but I’ll get to that). Basically started dictating terms to me as to how things were going to be as soon as I opened the door. That I had to look after her because I got her pregnant and that she was going to stay at my place now because she had nowhere to go. She made some ridiculous demands about money and child support for an exorbitant amount. She told me that if I didn’t agree to her terms she was going to take me to court and to the cleaners.

I could barely contain my laughter at the situation…

What she didn’t know was that I am physically unable to father children (the conversation never came up because we were not that serious and it was none of her business). It was one of the reasons for my divorce previous to her after trying and going through multiple tests with my ex wife.

So here she (my ex) was at my door with all these demands, threats and looking for a handout and a place to stay after just obliviously outting herself for cheating on me (starting at least a month before we broke up, maybe longer.. maybe the whole time, Don’t know. Don’t care).

Turns out the guy she was with after me found out she was already pregnant before him (she tried to con him too but clearly the math didn’t work.…classy girl) and he gave her the boot.

I thanked her for letting me know that she cheated on me, quickly explained how I knew and knew that it wasn’t mine. Wished her the best and shut the door.

I will never forget that stupid look on her face for the rest of my life as that door closed.

What made your “jaw drop” during a family dinner?

Well my answer is not something I would usually speak of with people. And perhaps not so typical of what has been expressed in regards to this question already. But we are all here to honestly share so I will do so. And to be precise it was not MY jaw that dropped, rather my now ex wife’s and her daughter’s.

So at an extended family dinner one evening the conversation turned to family heritage. Things were variously mentioned about events and courageous endeavours of various relatives long passed away.

So I added a comment of praise for my Grandfather whom I never got to meet, and was coldly and angrily shut down by my Mother for the interest and praise that I bestowed on him.

So these are the words that came out of her mouth which will NOT be forgotten.

And I quote…

”what’s that got to do with you, you’re not even of our blood and you never will be”….

Well you could of heard a pin drop at the table, and I turned to see my ex and her daughter’s mouth’s agape in horror.

This was the moment I found out what being an adopted son really meant to her. And a reminder that to her (at least) I will forever remain a virtual outsider.

Please, this was shared not to provoke pity, because I’m cognitively stronger and happier in life than she will ever be. Rather, it’s just my honest answer.

What was the most satisfying time where you caught someone lying?

My family used to have a really bad problem with food thieves. My mom is a baker, so you can usually find some kind of pastry in my house.

When brownies, cakes, and other sweet treats started going missing in the middle of the night, my mom was LIVID. Of course, no one was going to admit to snacking on her stuff, so she found a scapegoat: Me.

Jackson! Why in the world would you eat my pastries!? You know that I was going to take some to work today, and now there aren’t enough! Go vacuum the house!

Despite my cries of denial and protest, I was forced to vacuum the house. Ugh.

I thought it was a one-time occurrence until it happened again. And again. I was repeatedly forced to vacuum the house. My mom was so convinced that it was me who was eating her pastries that she didn’t even bother looking further into it.

I didn’t know who it was, but I knew it wasn’t me.

I had a plan. I was going to stay up all night and catch whoever it was. I waited many a long hour, waiting to hear the rustle of Saran Wrap in the kitchen. Eventually I heard a faint crinkle, and I sprang into action. Lo and behold, my little brother Bennett standing in the kitchen stuffing his face full of Devil’s food cookies.

“I KNEW it was you!” I said.

“What?! Why are you in the kitchen eating cookies, Jackson!?” He replied.

Instantly, I knew what he was up to. He was going to try and tell our mom that I was the one eating cookies in the kitchen. There was no way I was going to vacuum the house again, so I ran down the hall to my parents’ bedroom. Bennett followed, hurriedly swallowing any remainder of cookie.

My mom is already waiting for us; awoken by the ruckus. Right away, Bennett and I start ranting about how the other had been in the kitchen eating cookies.

What Bennett hadn’t realized was that he had gotten chocolate on his face, and the truth was smudged all over his cheeks.

If there’s one thing that my mom hates even more than stealing, it’s lying and letting other people take the blame. I have a feeling that Bennett is going to be vacuuming the house for quite a while.

That’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

Slap Ya Mama Sweet and Spicy
Pulled Pork Soft Tacos

Add a Louisiana twist to your tacos.

Ingredients

• 1 (5 to 7 pound) pork shoulder
• 1 whole onion, quartered
• 2 teaspoons Slap Ya Mama Original Seasoning
• 1 1/4 teaspoons Slap Ya Mama Hot Seasoning
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 4 garlic cloves peeled
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• Taco size flour tortillas

Instructions

1. Heat oven to 300 degrees F.
2. Rinse and dry pork roast and place in a Dutch oven.
3. In a food processor combine onion, Slap Ya Mama seasonings, brown sugar, garlic cloves, oregano, olive oil, and vinegar. Pulse until completely combined. Pour the mixture over the pork. Rub into all the nooks and crannies.
4. Add 1 1/2 cups water around the bottom of the pork roast, cover tightly and roast for at least 5 hours, turning over every hour. Check to make sure roast is fork tender, then shred the meat using two forks to help pull it apart. I kept the meat in the juices so it would stay moist.
5. Serve pork on warm flour tortillas and add your favorite toppings. I used our favorite salsa, shredded cheddar, sour cream, fresh diced tomatoes and it wouldn’t be the same without squeezing fresh lime wedges over the top!

Do men like women who can defend themselves?

I married a woman who is a crack shot with a 9mm handgun (you should see her targets, they’re impressive), almost always has at least two long knives on her, and keeps a crossbow in the kitchen cabinet (yes, I’m serious, no joke). Plus she’s fucking formidable in a fistfight.

Yes. Yes, this particular man very much likes women who can defend themselves.

I once had someone, hand to God, tell me, direct quote, “Franklin, control your women.” Know what I did? I laughed, that’s what I did.

NUCLEAR WAR WITH IRAN?? What are we doing?

Do Chinese people think that their country is underdeveloped when compared to other countries around the world? If so, why?

You are right, this view is the same as what I saw.

All the Chinese people I interact with, without exception, say that China is an “underdeveloped country”.

It was already 2017 when I visited China for the first time.

The China I saw (at least the big cities I went to) was completely like a developed country, and many details even exceeded those of most developed countries.

At least in my mind, “underdeveloped countries” should at least be some like African countries, Bangladesh, or even India.

But China is nothing like these places.

They have unparalleled public transportation facilities, convenient cashless payment systems, the world’s widest urban roads, a spiderweb of highway networks, the world’s best high-speed railways, and the world’s most stylish airports.

When I was sick, their hospitals, although overcrowded, were still the most efficient I had ever seen. Their school is in good order. Shared bicycles can be seen everywhere on the streets, and express delivery and takeout are very fast.

There are all kinds of delicious food everywhere at night, it is very lively even in the early morning, and it is very safe.

Chinese people buy the most family cars and the most smartphones in the world every year.

In short, as far as I can see, I don’t see anything that looks like an “underdeveloped country”. Even when I go to a small village in Guizhou, what I see is clean and tidy, although there are not so many skyscrapers.

OK, I asked my Chinese friends with this question.

They always laughed and said to me: “What you said is true, but China is still an underdeveloped country.”

One person told me: “China will remain an underdeveloped country for at least 10,000 years.”

When I couldn’t understand their thoughts and needed further explanation, they would all mention one word invariably: “per capita data.”

I have nothing to say. Indeed, any huge achievements will be eclipsed by a population of 1.4 billion.

For example, per capita income is less than US$20,000

For example, the number of cars per capita

For example, the housing area per capita

For example, the number of doctors per capita

For example, the number of iPhones per capita

They will mention various data, various “numbers per capita”

One young man even mentioned the “number of aircraft carriers per capita” and “the number of nuclear weapons per capita” and then told me that China is the country with the weakest military power in the world. Of course, he meant “military power per capita.”

I think that in the eyes of the Chinese, until their “number per capita” catches up with the United States, they will feel that they are not an “underdeveloped country”.

If you think about it carefully, it seems that their logic is correct.

But every time I visit China and experience firsthand what Chinese society is like, I feel like something is wrong.

What’s something you’ve had stolen from you that you literally couldn’t replace?

After my stroke I ended up in assisted living a few years.

The facility where I was sent was corrupt. They threatened residents and broke laws. So I called up the state ombudsman for assisted living facilities, and she told me many people had complained to her, but none would file a formal complaint because their name would be visible.

I told her if she would support me, I’d file a complaint.

Long story short, I got all kinds of retaliation. Part of it consisted of staff pilfering my personal belongings. The first time it happened, I installed a wifi security camera.

I got footage, and again, long story short, the executive director was fired, and had to pay to move me to another facility.

But one of the things pilfered was not replaceable. It was a silver thimble inlaid with abalone that belonged to my recently deceased mother (b 1921, this was about a decade ago). My mother was a dressmaker, and her father was a master tailor. She said I cut my teeth on thread.

The people who managed that place made my life hell for 18 months. I won, but I suffered losses.

Genuine Burning Desire

What was your most physically painful experience?

Until last April, I would have said “kidney stones.”

Kidney stones are bad. I’ve now had them three times. The first time I had them, I woke up in the middle of the night with a sensation like someone shoving an ice pick in my lower back. It steadily escalated, growing worse and worse and worse until I could not stand up, could not even sit up, and ended up puking from the pain.

My wife at the time freaked out and called an ambulance[1]. When I got to the hospital, I was curled up on my side on the stretcher screaming in pain when this doctor came up to me and said, “On a scale from one to ten, how bad would you say the pain is?”

I was so incapacitated with agony that I couldn’t even answer his question, so he gave me a shot of Demerol and just like that, the pain was gone, as though someone had flipped a light switch.

That, I thought, was the worst pain I would ever experience.

I was wrong.

This past April, I was making a kettle of tea. The kitchen was a mess, with dishes stacked everywhere. A pot fell from a pile of dirty dishes and struck the kettle, knocking it onto my foot.

Boiling water burns are nasty.

The pain was blinding. I’ve never understood the phrase “blinding pain” before. I do now.

I ended up in the hospital again. I was unable to walk for about a month. My foot looked like a special effect from a zombie movie. I just barely avoided needing skin grafts, but I did end up making repeated trips to the burn clinic.

Burns are the worst. I don’t know if it’s physically possible for something to be worse than a burn.

[1] Because this was the United States, my insurance company ended up denying coverage for the ambulance ride on the grounds that kidney stones are not a bona fide medical emergency. That ambulance trip to the hospital ended up costing me more than a thousand dollars. America, hooah!

How To End Your Career In 10 Seconds Or Less

Why is happiness lacking in Singapore? Singapore’s wealthy are the least satisfied with their current work-life balance when compared with their peers in other parts of Asia Pacific, according to a survey.

If there is unhappiness among Singapore’s wealthiest, then perhaps a bit of introspection could help. People falsely say that money is the root of all evil. They are misquoting a Bible verse that actually says, “the love of money is the root of all evil.” Christian or not, surely most people can see the wisdom of those words. When a person works themselves silly so that they can keep up with the Jones’s they are bound to be unhappy. I’d wager those working themselves to the bone so their wives can keep up with Mrs. Jones are even more unhappy.

They say they do it for their families but how close is a family when all of the adults run themselves ragged working ungodly hours? When do they spend time together as a family? I don’t even mean this about Singapore, but in general! What is the point of children if you aren’t actively parenting them and watching them grow up? Maids and tutors get paid for the privilege of spending time with your children? I’m not saying it’s wrong to have a maid or hire a tutor, but if they get to spend more awake time with your child than you, then…why? I promise they’d rather have you than the things you can buy them by working long hours.

What good does it do to fill a bank account until you are too old to enjoy the fruits of your labors? What good does it do to work yourself into an early grave? Are those overtime hours worth the ulcers you’re nursing or the strain on your heart?

The job market is competitive in Singapore. If you don’t work overtime then your rival probably will. There’s this expectation that you should work long hours or you aren’t “hungry” enough. You can’t risk the foreign ex-pat stealing your job. But does it have to be that way? For a long time, the pioneer generation had to work without pause in order to build a country. But they did so hoping that this generation wouldn’t have to pay the high cost of happiness, balance, family time, and rest. Was their sacrifice for nothing? I know; I’m an outsider looking in.

You’ll say I don’t understand or that I’m too idealistic. Maybe. I might chalk it up to a difference between the Asian and Western worldviews colliding, but the Protestant West has had problems with work life balance as well. And I grew up in a family that never lacked for money, but I also never felt very loved by them either. I’d have given my eye teeth to have had a close knit family.

I would ask how many beds can you sleep in at once? How many houses can you live in at a time? How many cars can you drive at once, and do you even need to when Singapore has excellent public transport? Do you really need designer clothes, expensive watches, branded bags, exotic jewelry, or any of the other “ultra luxury” items you can think of? If those things bring you happiness, then by all means, work hard for those things. But I suspect those things don’t make people as happy as one might think if you are correct about those surveys among the wealthy.

I’m not against someone having wealth. I’m not against someone buying nice things. It’s not wrong to want to provide your family with the best you can give them. I’m not against someone living in nice homes or driving luxury cars. I’m not against sending your children to the best schools or leaving them an inheritance. But if you must sacrifice your peace of mind, your family time, your health, your mental health, or your rest in order to attain those things then perhaps reevaluating your life choices might be in order. I know this will be an unpopular opinion but nonetheless, it is my honest evaluation.

Why do so many Europeans think of the US as a third world country?

Why do you think it isn’t. It is so backward in so many matters. Education, social care, food, gun law. It is probably embarrassing to a lot of third world country to have America lumped in with them. At least they know what the problems with their country is. But American with its brainwashing, convinced their idiots they are the greatest country on earth.

Kitty Rescue

What is the fastest you wiped that smirk off your manager’s face?

New GM from the UK was bought in. He was there to get rid of people and make the business profitable. What is known in Australia as a “Toe Cutter.”

He flat out told me three things I will never forget:

1. “I hate how you are the only person in this company that doesn’t have to answer to me.” (My boss was in Canada)
2. “I’m going to micromanage you out of this business, any email you send for any reason I want you to BCC me in on the email.” (I stopped sending any emails and called everyone back when they emailed me.)
3. “Hey where are you going, SIT DOWN!”

Number three was the final straw. I turned back to him, whilst still standing I put my hands down on the table and leaned in towards him across the desk. “I’m not one of the your kids, and I’m not your fucken dog, don’t ever tell me to “Sit Down” again.”

Smirk wiped.

What is something in an old home that people wouldn’t recognize today?

When I was looking f or a house to buy, we looked at an old Victorian that I’d always liked the outside of. It was a magnificent hom,e. 3 stories plus a basement. Fine oak paneling in many rooms, wonderful fire place. In one of the upsatairs bedrooms, I opened what I assumed would be a closet…. it wasn’t. What it was was a dumbwaiter.. and still functional. I loved the house! But, it was above our price randge and they were not at all willing to negotiate. THe house had stood empty for quite some time and needed a lot of work, mostly cosmetic but still with the asking price and the work it was just too much for us. I’m still wistful about it whenever I pass by.

What do you do if someone parks their car so close to your driver side that you cannot get in your car?

That happened to me once at a Mall. It wasnt my fault as I was centred in the parking slot. I went back in the Mall, went to a Dollar Store and bought a small tube of crazy glue, and went back out. I then proceeded to glue his wipers to his windshield. It was a sunny day, so the owner wouldnt even know. I still had to wait, and the driver on my passenger side came out first, so I got in that side and drove away, smiling and hoping for rain soon.

Yes, I can be a vengeful prick.

American Woman In Thailand Found Out That Average MEN Are WINNING Overseas. She Was Shocked.

“I am a 43 year old man. I dated a 41 year old post wall woman for a few months, who had lived in Thailand for half a year when she was young. She stated that getting an Asian woman was no achievement for a (western) man. But apparently dating a post wall (western) woman is an achievement.. from her point of view. She was also miserable and boring, so our relationship ended quickly. My new girlfriend is from Philippines, she’s 25 year old, kind and feminine. Guess which is more fun..”

Why do so many famous people take drugs, that sometimes even lead to their death?

For the same reason people who aren’t famous take drugs, that sometimes even lead to their deaths.

See, here’s the thing. For a lot of people, drugs aren’t a problem. Drugs are a solution to a problem.

The problem is emotional pain, or depression, or physical pain, or loneliness, or alienation, or trauma.

A lot of folks look at famous, successful people and say, “Look at everything he has! If I had all those things, I’d surely be happy!”

No. No, you wouldn’t, at least not necessarily. Money above what you need to be comfortable doesn’t create happiness. Fame doesn’t create happiness.

In fact, sometimes fame does the opposite. When lots of people know who you are, but don’t really know you, that can create alienation and loneliness.

Not just for the obvious reason that you can never tell if someone is interested in you for who you are, or for your wealth and fame. It’s more subtle than that. You end up in this weird twilight land where people know you (or think they do), maybe have followed your life in the media for a long time, and so they feel a connection with you. But that connection is totally one-sided. You’re this important person to them, but they’re a total stranger to you.

Sociologists call this “parasociality.” It’s really weird and unsettling. It can be deeply, profoundly alienating.

Point is, it’s often pain that leads to drug use, and famous, successful people are no more immune to pain than anyone else.

Have you ever been mugged and had it end badly for the mugger?

Not mugged, strictly speaking, but attacked.

In my early twenties and spending a couple of weeks with a friend who lived directly on the beach in Venice, California. I was alone in the apartment when a man broke in. He made his way to the bedroom, where I was standing, looking out the sliding glass doors that opened on to the balcony that oversaw Ocean Front Walk and the beach.

When I was a preteen, more or less, my father took my brother and me to his Aikido classes and we eventually had our own little class with the teacher’s son or nephew. I liked it and was not bad at it.

So this guy comes barreling over to me while saying something nasty and reaching out to grab me with one arm. Without thinking at all, I responded with an Aikido move that I had learned as a kid. Along with my partner inertia, I ended up throwing the guy over my shoulder and over the balcony wall.

When the first responders came, he was unconscious, supine on Ocean Front Walk.

What are 20 things that are not worth it?

One Night Stands: if that is your goal. Plan to get rejected a lot, to put a ton of work in.

Plan on getting really drunk, and having bad sex with someone you’ll probably regret having sex with.

Side Chicks (dudes): a moment’s pleasure, the rush of something new, will quickly be replaced by the persisting paranoia of being caught and the shitty feeling of having cheated on your partner.

Expensive Weddings: just don’t. You aren’t royalty. It puts a lot of pressure on you both for the event and the marriage. And if things don’t work out, those expensive pictures will end up in a drawer anyway.

Marriage*: often – this is rushed. Make sure you know the person. It will make it much harder to leave and you’ll end up wasting your best years because you felt too ashamed to get divorced.

*if it is right – marry the hell out of them.

Trying to persuade someone to like you: love/romance should happen organically, not as a product of you having to oversell (beg) someone to be into you.

A Shot of booze after midnight (or last call): It’s time to start drinking water as soon as PM turns to AM. Otherwise you are just signing yourself up for a massive hangover.

Staying up late: just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Turn off the TV. Get some sleep.

Doing it later: nothing in this world destroys more potential than procrastination

Stop it before it stops you. Do it now.

Shiny Objects: Fancy cars, big diamonds, they will be fun for a moment. But you’ll quickly find that feeling fading.

And you’ll quickly learn that “Looking Rich” is a very expensive hobby.

Insurance/ “assurance” Plans: outside of health insurance and car insurance, avoid insurance like the plague. They are designed to be high-profit services for companies. (Now – if you buy something that you plan to use the shit out of, consider insurance.)

Warranties: same as above.

Self-Criticism: let it go. No self-haunting. Criticize yourself once and then correct the behavior. Don’t become your own ghost.

Driving your car fast to impress friends: I know people who are in wheelchairs for life because of this.

Appeasing your parents: you pick your own career – not them. Listen – but don’t become “Project Redo” for their own life.

Credit Cards Debt: avoid avoid avoid. Only use credit cards to build your credit score. If you don’t have stable income, you could end up being saddled with debt collection calls for decades.

Yelling/Hitting/Throwing – there are other ways to resolve disputes with your significant other. Nothing good comes of those things.

Excessive Pills: if you have clinical depression – I don’t discourage you from medicating – do it.

But remember – there is an over-medication problem, in the US and elsewhere. Don’t be another person taking a cocktail of pills every night. Address the underlying problem if you can.

Expensive Colleges: you don’t have to spend all four years at a $30K per year school. There are other options. $120K will be a monster to re-pay. And for god’s sakes – study something that will give you a job of some type. It doesn’t have to be engineering. But make it something.

Arguing with people on Quora: you won’t be turning anyone. You are wasting keystrokes and probably just signing yourself up for a moderation violation.

Winning an Argument: does winning this argument serve a purpose? Or does it serve your ego?

The USA has entered the twilight zone

Strange: U.S. Announces “Ohio-class Submarine has entered CENTCOM Area of Responsibility”

World Hal Turner

The United States has strangely announced that “An Ohio-Class Submarine has entered the CENTCOM Area of Responsibility. What makes this announcement strange is they didn’t identify WHICH ONE.

It makes a Gigantic difference.

There are, at present, eighteen (18) Ohio-Class Submarines.  Fourteen (14) of those carry TRIDENT II nuclear missiles with Eight (8) independently-targetable warheads each.  That means that EACH submarine has 160 nuclear warheads.

Four of those Ohio-class submarines (USS Ohio, USS Florida, USS Michigan, and USS Georgia) carry 154 Tomahawk (Land-attack) Cruise missiles, each.

So, the big question on everyone’s mind right now is, WHICH “Ohio-Class” submarine just arrived in CENTCOM’s Area of Responsibility?  Nuke or non-nuke?

HT REMARK: Things over there in the Middle East are growing more dangerous by the hour.   This situation between Israel and HAMAS has “Disaster” written all over it; and not merely for Israel/HAMAS, but for the entire region and maybe even the entire world.

Whatever is coming is apparently HUGE!   At about 4:00 PM eastern STANDARD Time (GMT-0500) here in the USA, the Israeli Defense Force put out a message on social media that they have **NEVER** put out before:  “Pray for us.”   It’s all over social media right now . . .

UPDATE 7:35 AM EST MONDAY — 

I have been told the submarine is the USS Florida, and SSGN as opposed to an SSBN.    The G stands for Guided Missile and is the type of submarine armed with 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

(Breathing a sigh of relief . . . .)

Men Made a List of Women to NEVER DATE!

“As a American Black woman and single mother of a young adult son; I’m actually not mad at this list Good for them for clapping back at this foolishness!”

“Basically, to sum up, modern dating for young people these days is pure hell.”

“Lord these gender wars between men and women especially in the black community is quite entertaining sometimes but ultimately just down right sad, smh.”

“I am actually shocked “plus-size” or obese are not on that list.”

“On a recent “Girls Trip” to Miami it was either 5 or 6 females all went there together and they all came home preggers and none of them know who the fathers are… MTR recently covered this story.”

What was the shortest interview you’ve had that led to a job offer?

It was a Hakka family takeaway.

I was actually a customer. I could see the massive massive queue and the flames reflected off the walls and the panicky slamming of woks from just how busy it was.

They couldn’t cope. I saw the old man who looked like a thinner version of my dad overwhelmed when he brought out a tray of food.

I said to her in my finest Hakka do you need some help? The old lady on the counter looked up and was what? How do you know how to speak Hakka? I thought you were a tai look lau… (Mainland Chinese). Short argument, wife (on the counter) says no, husband says ok. I go in and he’s looking after 5 Chinese cookers by himself just like my dad used to do. I help them out for an hour, turns out their sons had gone on holiday. Business dies down and we share a few cans of special brew.

He was a man from Yuen Long and had moved in the 1970s.

What’s the fastest you’ve wiped a smirk off of someone’s face?

It was an interview a few years ago when we still had to go into the office to attend. My interviewer was a young man, dandy. The interview started by him introducing himself as the ‘Best PM of the year’ at the company and currently working in the BigData department (BigData back a few years ago was similar to AI today, everyone talks about it and everyone claims doing it). And he said he would be my boss if I happened to ‘make it’.

The interview went just fine; some technical questions I was able to answer. Then he looked at my resume and asked if I was a teacher because I claimed in the resume that I did teaching. I said I’d prefer to be called a ‘trainer’ more than a ‘teacher’. Then he asked, ‘Teach me something. Better something interesting and something I don’t know about.’ I said, ‘Ok, I will teach you how to bake a cake.’ Then I got into my ‘teaching mode’ (I always think that we need to teach things with enthusiasm to draw interest from learners), and proceeded to talk about ‘baking is like doing science, we need to be precise.’ Then I told him the two biggest tips for baking a good cake: 1. Always prepare the pan before starting to prepare the batter, and 2. Even if the recipe doesn’t call for salt, a pinch of salt would kick the flavor to the next level.

He stopped me, and he went, ‘Jezz! You talk a lot. Really a lot. You don’t need to pretend to be a college professor here.’ I heard that and replied, ‘Oh, yeah, sorry. I don’t always talk that much to everyone.’ He smirked, ‘I’m special, huh? Well, I’m flattered, but you know sweet talk wouldn’t get you the job.’ I smiled, ‘Oh, no. I meant, to smart students, I never have to talk that much.’ His smirk dropped, and he told me the interview was over.

I didn’t get the job, have never seen him again, so I haven’t got a chance to ask him if he has ever tried to bake a cake?

Have you ever had a car crash where the other person was at fault but they acted like the victim?

My Aunt backed into my parked car. She came into the house and insisted that I pay for the damage. It was my fault that I was parked where she needed to drive. I told her that my insurance company would only cover the expense if she called the cops and filed a police report. They needed the report for the claim. She called the police who came out to investigate. She told them what happened. They came in to question me. Their first question was “is she for real?”

Welcome to my world.

I wouldn’t fuck you

You can hear the amount of disappointment in her voice when she asked him why. It was like her soul just got snatched.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Dg9VCj7b_z0?feature=share

What was the most legendary “I quit!” that you know about or witnessed?

I worked in a factory in a second level management position. I loved the job, worked hard, and was well paid. It was not unusual for me to be at work on Saturdays. I just did it-I was not expected to.

Well the operations manager called me into his office, and told me he wanted me to work every Saturday. I said that I was generally there on Saturdays, but didn’t like the demand he was making. I asked it I would get additional pay. He said no, and reminded me there were 2 people who refused to work on Saturdays, that we no longer here. I looked at him, and said “well now there are 3”! I walked out of his office, gathered up my personal stuff and left!

About 3 weeks later, he was fired! Did my heart good!

One evening as I was heading to my car after doing a little shopping I noticed a lady that seemed pretty upset on her phone while looking at the front tire of her car.

As any decent person would do, I walked up to her and I noticed 3 young children in the car so I knew I needed to act fast since it was a little chilly that evening, I proceeded to ask if she needed some help and she said “yes sir that would be great”.

I opened her trunk and to my astonishment, she had a spare tire but no jack to lift the car up with …. so since we were at walmart, I went and purchased a jack to change the tire on her car.

After about an hour, she and the 3 young children were on thier merry way.

My phone rang as soon as I got back in my car and a child I mentor called me to tell me about his day at school and he asked “what are you doing?” I told him “I was helping a lady with her car”.

He replied with “why?”

I responded “You’re never too important to be nice to people”.

~ Cody Bret

The most dangerous men…

What is the weirdest thing you’ve walked in on?

I was riding my horse on a trail that went through a kind of alley between the back yards of very expensive homes in a very upscale development.

The houses all had fences that were about 8 feet high, solid cinderblock. If you went walking down that trail, you wouldn’t be able to see into anyone’s yard.

But when you’re on the back of a horse, you could see over the fences into people’s yards.

There weren’t a lot of people who rode their horses down that particular trail, especially on Monday through Friday. It was usually very quiet.

So I was riding my horse there, on the way back from a long trail ride. I was riding at a walk, and because the trail was thickly covered with wood bark and chips, my horse didn’t make any noise.

As we went down the trail, I heard a rhythmic creak-creak-creak kind of sound. Not loud, but unusual enough that I started looking for the source. (When you’re trail riding on a horse, you stay aware of what’s going on around you, because there are a lot of things that can cause a horse to freak out.)

The sound grew louder as we got closer, and I finally saw the source.

A man and a woman were having sex on a trampoline in one of the yards adjoining the trail. Butt naked and in their own little world. Creak-creak-creak went the trampoline…

They saw me about the same time I saw them. I raised my dressage whip, which I carried on trail rides to sweep spiderwebs that crossed the trail away, saluted them, and kicked my horse into a fast canter and scrammed out of there.

WhaWhat is the biggest scam an auto mechanic ever tried on you?

I took my car for its annual safety inspection. The mechanic came out and told me that it had failed for three reasons. First, the front bumper was detaching. Second, the little light above the license plate was burned out. Last, the windshield washer wasn’t working. He suggested that I go to an auto parts shop and get the replacement bulb and also see if they had the right clips to reattach the bumper, or otherwise perhaps I could improvise something, but that I should bring it back to have them fix the windshield washer pump because it’s not easy to get to that so I probably couldn’t replace it myself.

I said to him, “Yeah, I’m going to go the parts store, thanks. But I know for a fact that the washer was working fine less than ten minutes before you took the car into the garage, because I washed the windshield while I was driving over. Look carefully, and you can even see the streaks. It rained this morning and that would have washed away any older streaks.”

I went to the parts store, got the bulb and the clips, and then went home, popped the hood, and activated the washer. A stream of water sprayed over the hood and onto the roof of the car. So, the pump was obviously working fine. What was the problem? After some poking around, I determined that the hose from the pump was simply disconnected. It wasn’t an easy reach, but I managed to reconnect it.

When I took it back to the shop to get my inspection sticker, I said “Y’know, it’s pretty amazing that that it would detach itself like that. It’s almost as if someone yanked on it while nobody was looking, sometime during the ten minutes between the time I used the washer while driving over and the time you pulled it into the garage.”

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

We were going to China on a trip to visit Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Xian. At the New Delhi airport, there was a group of Chinese tourists who were returning to China after visiting India. They were asked to fill some forms and were struggling to fill it in English. One of them requested me, and i happily obliged. Soon there was a small line of Chinese tourists getting there forms filled by me. I didn’t mind as flight was not leaving for next 2 hours.

We reached Beijing and realised that the hotel cab that was supposed to pick us up, was nowhere to be seen. We tried calling and the hotel reception, but they did not had an English speaking staff in the night. For the people who have not visited China, you should know that Hotel has different address and names written in Chinese and English. If you are not carrying Chinese name and address, its very difficult to ask for directions. New to China, we felt stuck and helpless at Airport.

Soon we saw the entire group of tourists i had helped. Seeing me and my wife they waved and asked if we need any help. They immediately made a call to the hotel reception and explained the situation in Chinese. They also waited untill our cab from hotel arrived at Airport.

I really believe that was one act of kindness that was immediately returned back to me as an instant karma!

Why is seeing an attractive young woman in her bikini fine but seeing her in her underwear isn’t?

Because what’s socially acceptable is based on social convention, and social convention is rarely rational.

Society has declared that bikinis are public wear and underthings are private wear that must always have something over them. That’s it. The fact they both reveal the same amount of skin isn’t relevant.

Often, what’s socially acceptable is about what’s common. That which you see in public becomes accepted; that which you don’t, doesn’t. Society doesn’t do consistency checking with each individual thing; that’s not how people work.

What was the biggest scandal at your high school?

A student got sassy with a teacher about a grade and the teacher kicked him out of the room. The student grabbed a pencil and stabbed the assistant teacher in the room. Just in the hand, but still.

So the teacher goes rage mode and physically marches the student down to the deans office. Everyone is initially furious at the student, he’ll be expelled for sure. Assistant teacher is shaken but fine.

Daddy was a big donor to the school and the kid was on the state championship bound Football team. Daddy argued with the school, who reverses the expulsion and instead fires the teacher for “laying hands on a student.”

There were walk outs, several other teachers quit, the local news picked it up, the whole nine yards. Nothing changed. The school kept the little asshole to keep Daddy happy and fired a very, very good teacher.

Who exactly tells girls to be powerless princesses?

For me it was my mother. I was told constantly how pretty I was. My little sister was told how smart she was. The message we received was that I wasn’t smart and my sister wasn’t pretty.

Upon graduating high school I was told I didn’t need to go to college because I was pretty and would always have a man to take care of me. My sister went to college (she graduated high school at age 16).

Instead of college, I became a stewardess. It was a great job and I don’t regret it at all. But at age 40, I decided I wanted to go college after all. I graduated with a degree in Accounting and a 3.9 GPA.

It took me that long to find out I was smart.

Congratulations! China develops world’s first super all-analog photoelectronic chip

Chinese researchers from Tsinghua University have developed an all-analog photoelectronic chip that can process computer vision tasks with greater speed and energy efficiency than existing chips, marking the first of its kind in the world.

The research team’s findings, which provide an alternative to existing technologies based around analogue-to-digital conversion, have been published in the journal Nature.

In the new study, the researchers designed an integrated photoelectronic processor to harness the advantages of both light, in the form of photons, and electrons, as found in electric currents, in an all-analog way. The result is called an “all-analog chip combining electronic and light computing,” or ACCEL.

Tests showed that ACCEL is able to recognize and classify objects with a degree of accuracy comparable to those of digital neural networks. Furthermore, it classifies high-resolution images of various scenes of daily life more than 3,000 times faster and with 4,000,000 times less energy consumption than a top-of-the-line graphics processing unit (GPU).

Analog and digital signals are two types of signals carrying information. Analog signals vary continuously, as with the rays of light forming an image, while digital signals are non-continuous, as with binary numbers.

In vision-based computing tasks like image recognition and object detection, signals from the environment are analog, and they need to be converted into digital signals for processing by AI neural networks, systems trained to recognize patterns and relationships in a data set.

However, the analog-to-digital conversion is time- and energy-consuming, limiting the speed and efficiency of the neural network’s performance. Photonic computing, which uses analog light signals, is one of the most promising approaches to addressing the issue.

“We maximized the advantages of light and electricity under all-analog signals, avoiding the drawbacks of analog-to-digital conversion and breaking the bottleneck of power consumption and speed,” said Fang Lu, a researcher from the Tsinghua team.

A review by Nature editors said that the team had minimized the need for energetically costly analog-to-digital converters. “This refreshing and pragmatic approach to artificial-intelligence hardware that is highly energy efficient makes the most out of both electronic and photonic computing technologies,” it said.

Fang noted that the advantage of ultra-low power will help improve the heating problem of chip scaling, and it has the potential to bring breakthroughs in the future design of chips.

Dai Qionghai, director of the School of Information Science and Technology at Tsinghua University, said that the team has developed a prototype chip, and will work toward making a general-purpose artificial intelligence chip for a broader range of applications.

Sizzling Shrimp Po’ Boys
with Blueberry Remoulade

Prep: 20 min | Cook: 15 to 20 min | Yield: 4 sandwiches

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 3/4 cup cornmeal
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons Old Bay seasoning
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 pounds large shrimp, peeled and deveined
• Vegetable oil, as needed
• 4 (6-inch long) sub rolls, split and hinged
• 1 small head Boston lettuce
• Blueberry Remoulade
• Pickled Blueberries and Onions

Instructions

1. In a medium bowl, combine milk and egg.
2. In another medium bowl, stir cornmeal, flour, Old Bay and salt.
3. To the milk mixture, add shrimp, a few at a time, to coat. Remove one shrimp, allow excess liquid to drain off, and roll in the cornmeal mixture to coat well.
4. Place on a plate or rack. Repeat to coat all the shrimp.
5. Meanwhile, pour oil 1-inch deep, into a large saucepan; over medium-high heat, heat oil to 350 degrees F.
6. Gently place 4 to 6 shrimp in the hot oil and fry until golden and crispy on both sides, 3 to 4 minutes; drain on paper towels.
7. Repeat to fry all the shrimp, adding more oil, if needed.
8. To serve, spread rolls with Blueberry Remoulade, add lettuce and top with shrimp.
9. Serve with Pickled Blueberries and Onions.

This is the most attention-grabbing car I’ve ever driven!

I have been considering buying this vehicle. Either the Z… shown in the video, or the Y… a Gull-wing SUV.