One person's return is another's bargain, or so the saying goes. People have various reasons why they would return products to Amazon, but where exactly do those go? According to a few reports, some of those returns unfortunately go to landfills.
However, there are other more entrepreneurial individuals at Amazon Return Stores who buy these returned products and sell them at cheaper prices. More than that, they don't only sell return items from Amazon, but also Target, Home Depot, and Walmart.
A simple Google search will give you the location of the nearest Amazon return store to your place. You may try other search terms as well such as Amazon liquidation store, Amazon bin store, and Amazon salvage store. You can also try searching on Facebook.
Depending on your local store's policy, they might give away the products from $1 to $12, just like the Bargain Bins store that Kyle James found. Since these are return items, products may be defective but typically, they will still be in decent condition.
A classic Christmas tradition my extended family had when I was younger was watching the Home Alone films during the holiday season. As a child, I was simply fascinated by the precocious main protagonist who outsmarted two adults basically pulling a Grinch on the neighborhood. Unfortunately for them, they came face-to-face with the McCalisters' cheeky youngest, Kevin. And we all know what happened.
Many people have had lingering questions about that film, and one particular question has just found an answer with the help of economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. That question is, "How rich were the McCalisters?". And apparently, extremely.
By the Fed's estimates, the house that the McCalisters resided in the film would have required at least $305,000 annually to maintain and be able to live comfortably. In 2022 terms, that would be around $665,000. In fact, the house shown in the film, or the exterior anyways, has been estimated to cost $2.3 or 2.4 million, according to real estate experts.
With these financial requirements, the McCalisters would easily be in the top 1% of Chicago residents. Apparently, Kevin's parents worked as a businessman and a fashion designer, so it would make sense how they could afford all that, and how Kevin was able to book a penthouse suite at The Plaza Hotel in the second film.
We often try to shield children from the vulgarities of life, so we have euphemisms for the most common swear words to replace them when we have that irresistible urge to just utter an expletive but we stop ourselves midway and come up with a softer alternative because children are present.
Redditor Live_Wallaby9683 shared this map, created by Atlasova, of different euphemistic swear words that each European language has. It's not a complete list for each language. They only give one word for each country, but several redditors chimed in with some of their own.
Some examples include "mercredi" or Wednesday in French, and the Spanish equivalent "miércoles" which means the same thing, both a euphemism of the same expletive.
The Portuguese say "fogo" meaning fire, Danes say "for hulen" which translate to "by the cave", and the Germans say "Gopfridstutz" or Gottfried Stutz.
Many of the euphemisms have references to food like how Croatians say "piska" and the Polish say "kurcze" both meaning chicken. Italians say "cavolo" meaning cabbage, the Dutch say "chips" which are chips, and the Finns say "persikka" meaning peach.
Perhaps, the most interesting euphemism is that from Lithuania "kasyk sliekui pazastis" which roughly translates to "go scratch the armpits of an earthworm".
Just as Nicolas Cage and Chuck Norris have become the quintessential celebrity memes in Western culture, Chinese Gen Zs have also found their celebrity memes in these two literary giants.
On the other hand, his peer Mo, has been dubbed the Chinese counterpart of Franz Kafka or Joseph Heller, and has also been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012. In particular, his 1986 novel Red Sorghum has received international critical acclaim, and was also adapted into a 1988 film of the same name, which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.
As to how these two Chinese authors became memes attest to their relevance in modern Chinese culture, in particular to China's youth. Although most of the memes feature the two in their most candid moments, what truly brought them so much internet attention was their empathy for young people. And so, the way their ideas and works resonate with the youth served as the fuel for the memes.
Further, a newspaper poll looking into the reasons for their rise in Chinese internet culture showed that 40% of people attribute this popularity to the writers' personal charisma while 27% believe it is because Chinese youth find solace in their works.
As a result of this, Mo has now accumulated more than 4 million followers on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo. Meanwhile, Yu, though having no social media accounts, has seen a spike in search results of more than 50 times since 2021.
Dubbed astrocartography, this branch of astrology practice uses the locations of the sun, moon, and planets on your birth date to determine which would be your next best travel destinations. But not just that, it also tells you what kind of experiences you might expect in certain locations or which places are great for relocation, relationships, career goals, and other milestones or life events.
Apparently, according to the guidelines prescribed in astrocartography, there are various lines that traverse the globe based on the alignments of different planets on your birth date. Each planet gives off certain energies related to things like romance, communication, curiosity, discipline, luck, wealth, spirituality, and more.
By tracing where those lines cross and which places they pass through, you might feel a certain pull toward those locations. But it's not limited just to the desire to visit those places. It may explain why you feel a connection or have particular interest in the culture of that place.
Though some people may use their astrocartography chart as a means of finding the best place to relocate or travel, astrology experts add that it still depends on how you act on the energies emanating from such intersections.
It's not an all-encompassing motivating factor to make your decisions but it can help give an idea on what to expect on your next travel destination. For believers, this may provide direction toward the achievement of certain goals or objectives in life. For others, it may be a fun thing to try out.
Eun Seo-ran (pronounced OON-SAW-RAHN), 44, met her best friend, Lee Eo-rie (pronounced EE-AW-REE), 38, back in 2016 after they had both moved to the Jeolla region of South Korea, wanting to escape the stresses of city life. Soon after meeting, they found out how they had many things in common and they developed a deep friendship. Later, they decided to live together.
However, even though they were particularly close friends, had been accustomed to each other's lifestyles, and can practically be called 'family', they still weren't legally related. This was especially the case during medical emergencies.
Under South Korean law, only family members have the right to visit patients in the hospital or sign off on anything that the patient needed such as urgent surgical procedures or any other invasive treatments which requires some form of consent.
So, Seo-ran and Eo-rie thought about ways they could become legally considered a family. They thought about faking a romantic relationship but since same-sex marriages are still not legally recognized in South Korea, it wasn't plausible.
After completing the paperwork, they started the process which finished within 24 hours. The story became viral so much so that Seo-ran wrote a book about it titled I Adopted a Friend.
Math can be fun, and there are some interesting bits of math trivia that we all can appreciate. Just like the one shared by Snehal Shekatkar, a reader of Futility Closet, which states that there are exactly 17 numbers whose prime factors add up to 17. Those numbers are enumerated above including their prime factors, which all do add up to 17.
Ed Emberley has been drawing and making art for children's picture books for six decades now. Some of his work include instructional drawing books, inspired by his belief that everyone can learn to draw.
In his drawing books, he illustrates step-by-step instructions on how to draw animals, insects, plants, people, faces, vehicles, structures, and even themed objects like those for Halloween and Christmas.
Using very simple shapes and figures that younger children (and even adults who don't necessarily have the aptitude for sketching) can follow, Ed shares his love for drawing through these picture books. He has illustrated or contributed to 50 books in his career, and has written 24 drawing books. -via Everlasting Blort
Born the third child and second daughter of Queen Victoria, Princess Alice should have lived a life of comfort and luxury. However, her life was anything but. From the moment she was born, she endured nothing but tragedy.
Her parents, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, had raised their children in modesty and middle-class family values. No opulence, no fancy clothes, no luxurious dinner parties. They wore humble clothing and lived in a simple home without regular heating.
Despite her position in the family, she was very close to her elder siblings, Princess Victoria and Prince Edward, and she got along well with the rest. But at some point down the road, her strong-willed nature and stubornness caused her to clash often with her mother.
Things became particularly intense when her mother pushed her to marry at a young age. With help from Princess Victoria, they found her a couple of suitors who she disliked. Thankfully, she fell in love with her third suitor, Prince Louis of Hesse.
But then, the first among a series of tragedies struck. Her maternal grandmother, with whom she was particularly close, died. Not long after that, her father, Prince Albert, died as well, severely affecting Queen Victoria, so much so that even during Alice's wedding, the queen forced her to wear black.
Alice's relationship with her mother soured even more after that. Then, her second son and fifth child, Friedrich, inherited hemophilia passed down from the queen. He died at the age of two and a half after falling from a window 20 feet high.
As if that wasn't enough, in 1878, the household had been stricken with diphtheria which claimed the life of her youngest daughter Marie. Wanting to spare her other children from the grief, she kept Marie's death from the others, until she eventually told her son Ernest, who did not take the death of his sister well.
Alice, wanting to console her son, kissed him to ease the pain. However, she ended up contracting the disease, and after a few days, succumbed to it as well. If only things ended there for Princess Alice.
Though it was a great relief that the Allied Forces won WWII, the events that followed may be less so. The four leaders of the Allied Forces -Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Chiang Kai-Shek- each had a different idea of what the world would look like after the war.
Churchill wanted to rebuild France and Germany, forging an alliance between them and the UK. This pact would serve as the counterbalancing force to keep Stalin's Soviet Union in check and maintain peace and order in Europe.
Essentially, Roosevelt's idea entailed that all countries except for the four WWII victors to be disarmed and world order to be maintained by each superpower in their respective 'spheres': the UK in Western Europe and its territories, Russia in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, China in East Asia and the Western Pacific, and the US in the rest of the Western hemisphere.
However, Churchill's concerns over Stalin and the Soviet Union proved to be true, as they crept ever closer into central Europe. Not to mention, Churchill had his own political struggles at home. Meanwhile, Mao took over China and pushed Chiang and his faction to Taiwan.
All this left Roosevelt's vision in shambles. Churchill's plan of rebuilding France and Germany, however, proved to be a wise decision and they have since been strong allies helping maintain balance in Europe.
Roosevelt's Four Policemen idea might have seemed a good idea at the time, but perhaps his naivete over European politics caused him to think that peace could be maintained in such a system and that the other "allies" would agree to his proposed setup. If only things were that simple.
During the era of absolute monarchy and the divine right, members of the nobility were untouchable. It was considered a punishable offense to lay a hand on nobles. At the same time, corporal punishment was still being implemented in educating children.
Whether or not these whipping boys actually existed has been debated by scholars, although several references about them in literature point to the practice having been employed by some royal courts, if not commonly throughout medieval Europe. Generally, people accepted the story of whipping boys to be true.
The concept seems straightforward enough. However, whether the presence of the whipping boys produced the desired effect depended upon the character of the monarchs in question. For example, Louis XV of France was said to have had a whipping boy. Louis' epithet of Louis the Beloved may hint at the effectiveness of the practice.
Another famous depiction of a whipping boy, shown above, was that of Edward VI, whose reign, though short-lived, greatly influenced the history of England as it sparked the flame for the English Reformation.
Despite their designation as the royal scapegoat or fall guy, whipping boys also received the same education as the young princes and kings. Some minor nobles thought of the vocation as a means of climbing the social ladder as it granted them access to future royals and aristocrats. So it wasn't all doom and gloom for whomever was to receive such an assignment.
Back to the question of its effectiveness. Though there are examples which may lend credence to such effect, we can argue that these could only apply to individuals who were predisposed toward empathy and compassion, as seeing their peer being maltreated for their sake would bring out those good traits from them. Meanwhile, those who lacked such traits might inevitably turn into cruel tyrants.
Thankfully, we have moved away from such practices and we can now only encounter them in the annals of history.
According to the researchers, this is most likely due to the reduced attention and resources given to each individual child, as every new child is born. Moreover, the research also found that the eldest child's cognitive scores decreased the most as they gained more siblings.
A few interesting observations came about from the study. They found that the youngest were often the most well-behaved, based on their mothers' assessments. Furthermore, the assumption that being an only child will cause behavioral and cognitive issues was not supported by the data. Instead, the reverse was true with the first-borns exhibiting more behavioral problems with each addition to the family.
Although the study seems to have been done with a fair amount of rigor and forethought, I think it all comes down to how parents raise their children.
It is true that with the pressures of society today, parents have the tendency to spread themselves too thinly if they were to have more than two children. However, I think it is entirely possible for parents to have a larger family without compromising their children's development. The opposite is also possible. Not all only children will receive an abundance of resources.
It might be good to understand how the parents, who participated in the study, raised their children so that we can figure out if the main factor for the deterioration of children's cognitive scores was really due to having more siblings or if there were other external factors. Otherwise, I will tend to look at this study with a grain of salt.
No one can completely understand how several wonders of the ancient world had been constructed by human beings thousands of years ago, or why they were even erected in the first place. Monuments like Stonehenge, the Pyramids of Giza, and Machu Picchu both inspire awe and bewilderment.
By looking at the alignment of different monuments on the map, Watkins claimed that ancient peoples had been aware of this invisible grid of straight lines and so they erected structures along that grid. It also provided a route that Stone Age traders used to arrive at the next settlement.
Many in the scientific community rejected the idea because Watkins' method of connecting these landmarks faced some challenges such as the geographical terrain which would have prevented people from following a straight path from one landmark to the next and the fact that drawing a straight line on a map would inevitably touch upon several of these landmarks.
Then in the '60s, Tony Wedd unearthed the ley lines idea, and suggested that they were used as runways for alien spacecraft. However, without any evidence, this too was shelved pretty quickly.
In 1969, perhaps one of the more plausible attempts at having the ley line idea accepted was John Michell's introduction of the 'Earth energies' concept. He asserted that these monuments oozed spiritual energy from deep within the earth, and ones with psychic consciousness could sense them.
However, through a decade-long research into the idea, scientists found no evidence that such things existed. -via Strange Company
Starting from 2017, the team from BookMarks.reviews has had a tradition of curating some of the most savage criticisms of books published that year. This year is no different with some books by or about celebrities and political figures comprising majority of their 2023 list including: a biography of Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson, a memoir by Paris Hilton, a self-help book by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and an attempt at literary fiction by Tom Hanks. -via Nag on the Lake
We're not talking about the peachy pigs being raised in farms. Wild pigs, boars, hogs (Sus scrofa) may just simply eat entire ecosystems away if they were to be left on their own. And this is because they are considered extreme generalist foragers which means they can practically eat anything that they can get their hooves on.
Although 90% of their diet consists of plants, they can also eat insects, fungi, clams, and mussels. But more than this, they can apparently engage in predatory behavior as well, killing and eating rodents, deer, birds, snakes, frogs, lizards, and salamanders.
This is the reason why the US has launched initiatives and efforts to control and eradicate these wild pigs, as they can cause wildlife to become extinct, whether directly by predation or indirectly by hogging (pun intended) the resources from other animals.
One might think that simply introducing a predator to these wild pigs may assuage the situation. However, these wild pigs apparently have no natural predators, so the only way to get rid of them is to hunt them.
