How would you respond to a rude customer? A thread about a highschooler who works weekends at a coffee shop has gained popularity on Reddit’s AITA. According to this recent post, the employee thought it would be a fun idea to get back at rude customers by asking the shift manager to pretend-fire her after a hot headed customer made a complaint about the coffee not being hot enough.
Redditors on the r/AITA thread generally had mixed judgements on the situation, with some saying she was wrong for causing a big fuss and being unprofessional, others criticizing the customer and justifying her prank, and still there were those who said both the employee and customer suck.
Read the original article from Bored Panda, they also share helpful suggestions from the “How to be Barista Guide.”
Technology giants such as Facebook Inc. and Google will have to agree to new rules to ensure that they won’t abuse their market power and hurt their competition, the Australian government said, or else they will impose new controls over these tech giants.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) will create a code of conduct to address complaints that the technology companies have a stronghold on advertising, the main income generator of local media operators.
The guidelines will ensure substantial market power is not used to lessen competition in media and advertising services markets.
[...]
The move tightens the regulatory screws on the online platforms, which have governments from the United States to Europe scrambling to address concerns ranging from anti-trust issues to the spread of “fake news” and hate speech.
The Australian government stated that the technology companies would need to agree to the new rules by November 2020 or it will be imposed upon them.
According to a report which was jointly published by Goumin.com and Pet Fair Asia, urban residents in China have spent an estimated total of 202.4 billion yuan (about $28.8 billion USD).
The Chinese pet industry states that the number of pet cats and dogs kept by the Chinese urban residents is projected to reach nearly 100 million.
The number of pet dogs and cats kept by urban residents in China is projected to reach nearly 100 million, an 8.4-percent increase from a year ago, according to the study on China’s pet industry.
“I purchased tinned cat food from the United States, New Zealand, Japan and Thailand, and meat paste made from drumsticks, ox liver and pork to provide better nutrition and flavor,” a 28-year old woman said about her two cats.
I guess our love for animals can be seen anywhere and everywhere around the world.
Apple’s brand new Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR are now available in Australia, and, if you add all the optional extras, buying one would cost you around a whopping $100,000. Buying it, however, would ensure that you have the best Apple computer there might be up to this day.
But in truth the components here are completely unnecessary for anything but the most intensive creative professional tasks like video game and VR development or 3D animation.
Find out more about the Apple Pro and the monitor, as well as the add-ons you might consider having, over at The Sydney Morning Herald.
Archaeologists worked from 2011 to 2016 at a site called Beta Samati in Ethiopia. They uncovered a Christian church, a basilica to be exact, from the fourth century CE, which is when Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity. That makes it the oldest Christian church in sub-Saharan Africa. The site is only 30 miles from the ancient city of Aksum, the capital of the Aksumite kingdom, which controlled trade between most of Africa and the rest of the world.
The excavators’ biggest discovery was a massive building 60 feet long and 40 feet wide resembling the ancient Roman style of a basilica. Developed by the Romans for administrative purposes, the basilica was adopted by Christians at the time of Constantine for their places of worship. Within and near the Aksumite ruins, the archaeologists also found a diverse array of goods, from a delicate gold and carnelian ring with the image of a bull’s head to nearly 50 cattle figurines—clearly evidence of pre-Christian beliefs.
They also uncovered a stone pendant carved with a cross and incised with the ancient Ethiopic word “venerable,” as well as incense burners. Near the eastern basilica wall, the team came across an inscription asking “for Christ [to be] favorable to us.”
It's nice to see something focused on the good things that happened this year. That's an inspiring video, but to find out what people really searched for in 2019, check out the Google Trend report for 2019. Spoiler: the number one search term was Disney Plus. You can see by this graph that interest peaked during the week the service launched, and not when Baby Yoda first appeared.
A drug regularly used as an alternative to opioid painkillers might restore limb function to people who suffer have suffered spinal injuries, a new study by Ohio State University suggests. The drug is Gabapentin, which is also known by the brand name Neurontin.
Once a person suffers a spinal cord injury, a protein in the body can prevent the long, slender extensions of nerve cells, called axons, from regrowing. Gabapentin, OSU researchers found, might stop that protein from interfering with the regrowth of cells after an injury.
“What we found was quite surprising,” said Andrea Tedeschi, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Ohio State who co-authored the study. “The results of this study are very exciting, and this opens a number of possibilities.”
People in Thailand are in an uproar online since they heard that an unnamed all-female school has banned their students from having bangs. The policy of the aforementioned school was first broadcasted online on December 10 by the Education for Liberation of Siam, a student activist group.
The non-profit academic reformation community posted an image of the school's "contract" that were meant to be signed by students and their parents to show they agree to the ban.
In the description of the post, it describes the body of the contract.
"I (parent name) am the parent of (student name) who has acted wrongly," the contract reads. "I consent to the school carrying out regulations according to the rules without any arguments or conditions."
Students who do have bangs are required to pin them back using black hairpins at all times. There were no reasons given for the no bangs rule other than it's supposedly to help students stay tidy.
Many Facebook users are commenting on how ridiculous the bangs ban is.
Üziel Valles was a happy man, for he had a truck. It was a lovely and vigorous Chevrolet Silverado. Alas, it had one flaw: a yellow hood on an otherwise white body.
John Payan was also a happy man with a Silverado. He, too, loved his truck with the exception of one flaw: a white hood marring the appearance of the yellow body.
Valles posted on a private Facebook group called Denver Dropped Trucks. His cri de coeur was for a white hood. The Internet summoned his truck's soulmate, which was owned by Payan. Jalopnik describes their love story:
Enter: John Payan, who just so happens to have an all-yellow truck with a white hood. Is this destiny? Proof that soulmates do exist? I can’t say for sure, but whatever the case, it’s still a better plot arc than anything that made its way into the Twilight series. [...]
He and Payan even still appear to chat, which is the only thing I could have ever asked for from this story. I could not have accepted any other conclusion. These two fellas swapped hoods, and now they’re bros for life.
My, how things have changed since we adopted flat screens. Now dogs and cats see and follow what's going on. When they see themselves on a monitor, it's like looking into a mirror. Yes, cats pass the mirror test, often even in the wild. Pet cats learn it early, since they know what their human looks like, and humans love to pick up cats and look in the mirror. But when something odd happens, like applying a cat face filter, they freak out just a little. Look at me, kitty, I'm still the same old can opener you know and love! -via reddit
The faithful dog in Ipeúna, São Paulo, Brazil, saw that his human packmate was injured. He desperately needed canine support, especially as other, possibly hostile humans were converging around him.
Eventually, he broke free from captivity and rushed to his packmate, placing himself between his friend and numerous enemies. If it came to a fight, he would fight.
You can see the moving full video here. May all humans be worthy of such dogs.
A stick was a unit of measurement in medieval England. 25 eels is a stick. 10 sticks is a bind.
Why is this important? Because that's how your landlord expects his rent to be paid.
Medieval scholar John Wyatt Greenlee has a lot to say about eels. Eels were a big deal back then, when they were plentiful and good eating. They could be used, to an extent, as a form of currency. Greenlee has found that during the 10th and 11th Centuries, there were 221 known eel rental agreements requiring the payment of 539,785 eels. He has an interactive map of eels rents for your convenience. So pack your hovercraft and pay up.
Michele Banks has a good question. I speculate that these digital eel services were available in more modern markets, such as London and York.
And so Dave Pollot is continuing the banana meme with this gorgeous landscape featuring a duct-taped banana attached to a mountain. He is selling at auction to benefit a charity. So far, the price is $4,500.
That's a far cry from $120,000. But let's admit it: taping a banana to a wall requires skill worth $120,000.
The red leviathan had risen from the abyss to consume the symbol of the glory of America.
Fortunately, these Canadians were on site to rescue it. John Ilett and his friends, salmon farmers, came upon the scene off the northern tip of Vancouver Island. They closed the distance, hooked the beast on a pole, and pulled it off. CNN quotes Illett:
Ilett said he's been working on the water for about 20 years and admits he's seen incredible things, but this encounter ranks as the coolest to date. "It's moments like this why I love my job and being out in the environment where I can work and live," he said. "It's just amazing."
Illett has been reading comments on social media discussing whether or not his team should have intervened and said it's a different feeling when you're watching the situation unfold in front of your own eyes.
"Am I at fault because I'm human and I felt compassion for the bird?" he said. "At the end of the day both animals are alive and well and they went their separate ways and we feel pretty good about what we did."
British athlete and adventurer Kenneth Cecil Gandar-Dower imported a dozen cheetahs in 1936. He planned to stage races featuring both greyhounds and cheetahs and entice people to attend by challenging the dogs' reputation as the world's fastest animal. That would take time, as the cheetahs had to endure quarantine and then training. The idea was controversial, as various journalists and politicians were concerned about the treatment of the dogs, the cheetahs, and their prey. There were also concerns about the danger to the public, although Gandar-Dower assured everyone that cheetahs were both trainable and docile. This, despite a few attacks that led to two of cheetahs being put down.
But the assertions of domesticity did hold mostly true, and onlookers generally described the behavior of the cheetahs as indifference with a crafty streak. The rabbit attached to the electric hare was always killed in advance, as Gandar-Dower had promised, but had to be extremely fresh to entice the cheetahs. If another cheetah looked likely to win, they gave up quickly, but if the bait went past a turn without a pursuer, the cheetahs were clever enough to cut across the middle of the track. In December of that year, the cheetahs raced for the first time against greyhounds in front of a packed crowd at Romford Stadium, and seemed completely unperturbed by dogs, humans, and even large camera flashbulbs, save for a few domineering swats at a greyhound who got too feisty. Pongo, the tamest of the cheetahs, even allowed children to reach down from the stands and pet him, though another named Helen reportedly spat at a race announcer who tried the same.
We know now that cheetahs are faster than greyhounds, although they have little endurance over long distances. The cheetahs continued racing for several years, while changing owners, trainers, and venues, up to the the beginning of World War II. Read about Gandar-Dower's racing cheetahs at Damn Interesting.
