#50s food science

[goshyesvintageads]

Carnation Milk Co, 1956

[stone-cold-groove]

Come and get it. Monsanto Chemicals and Plastics ad - 1950.

[manicpixiedreamtransladyperson]

I'm sick and drunk but seriously could talk forever about how Italian food "authenticity" is bullshit and fascist

[edsonjnovaes]

How to write books by yourself to make money.

50 Book Ideas for Writing a Book You Can Start Today. RABBI EMPIRE But writing a book can mean anything you want it to—it’s not just for novels. There’s the old saying that we should write what we know, and you may know more than you think. To get you started, here’s a list of 50 book ideas, including possible story title ideas, prompts, genres, and topics where you might find your next…

[rainbow-needs-help]

when i have more than two things on my to do list, my rooms a mess, and i haven’t showered in over a week so my hairs Gross and Greasy

[mostlysignssomeportents]

General Mills and cheaply bought "dietitians" co-opted the anti-diet movement

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in NEXT THURSDAY (Apr 11) in BOSTON with Randall "XKCD" Munroehttps://cockeyed.com/lessons/viagra/viagra.html, then PROVIDENCE, RI (Apr 12), and beyond!

Steve Bannon isn't wrong: for his brand of nihilistic politics to win, all he has to do is "flood the zone with shit," demoralizing people to the point where they no longer even try to learn the truth.

This is really just a more refined, more potent version of the tactical doubt sown by Big Tobacco about whether smoking caused cancer, a playbook later adopted by the fossil fuel industry to sell climate denial. You know Darrell Huff's 1954 classic How To Lie With Statistics? Huff was a Big Tobacco shill (his next book, which wasn't ever published, was How To Lie With Cancer Statistics). His mission wasn't to help you spot statistical malpractice – an actual thing that is an actual problem that you should actually learn to spot. It was to turn you into a nihilist who didn't believe anything could be known:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#harford

Corporations don't need you to believe that their products are beneficial or even non-harmful. They just need you to believe nothing. If you don't know what's true, then why not just do whatever feels good, man? #YOLO!

These bannonfloods of shit are a favored tactic of strongmen and dictators. Their grip on power doesn't depend on their citizens trusting them – it's enough that they trust no one:

http://jonathanstray.com/networked-propaganda-and-counter-propaganda

Bannonflooding is especially beloved of the food industry. Food is essential, monopolized, and incredibly complicated, and many of the most profitable strategies for growing, processing and preparing food are very bad for the people who eat that food. Rather than sacrificing profits, the food industry floods the zone with shit, making it impossible to know what's true, in hopes that we will just eat whatever they're serving:

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2003460

Now, the "nothing can be known" gambit only works if it's really hard to get at the truth. So it helps that nutrition and diet are very complex subjects, but it helps even more that the nutrition and diet industry are a cesspool of quacks and junk science. This is a "scientific discipline" whose prestigious annual meetings are sponsored (and catered) by McDonald's:

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/05/my-trip-mcdonalds-sponsored-nutritionist-convention/

It's a "science" whose most prominent pitchmen peddle quack nostrums and sue the critics who point out (correctly) that eating foods high in chlorophyll will not "oxygenate your blood" (hint, chlorophyll only makes oxygen in the presence of light, which is notably lacking in your colon):

https://www.badscience.net/2007/02/ms-gillian-mckeith-banned-from-calling-herself-a-doctor/

When the quack-heavy world of nutrition combines with the socially stigmatized world of weight-loss, you get a zone ripe for shitflooding. The majority of Americans are "overweight" (according to a definition that relies on the unscientific idea of BMI) and nearly half of Americans are "obese." These numbers have been climbing steadily since the 1970s, and every diet turns out to be basically bullshit:

https://headgum.com/factually-with-adam-conover/what-does-ozepmic-actually-do-with-dr-dhruv-khullar

Notwithstanding the new blockbuster post-Ozempic drugs, we're been through an unbroken 50-year run of more and more of us being fatter and fatter, even as fat stigma increased. Fat people are treated as weak-willed and fundamentally unhealthy, while the most prominent health-risks of being fat are roundly neglected: the mental health effects of being shamed, and the physical risks of having doctors ignore your health complaints, no matter how serious they sound, and blame them on your weight:

https://maintenancephase.buzzsprout.com/1411126/11968083-glorifying-obesity-and-other-myths-about-fat-people

Fat people and their allies have banded together to address these real, urgent harms. The "body acceptance" movement isn't merely about feeling good in your own skin: it's also about fighting discrimination, demanding medical care (beyond "lose some weight") and warning people away from getting on the diet treadmill, which can lead to dangerous eating disorders and permanent weight gain:

https://www.beacon.org/You-Just-Need-to-Lose-Weight-P1853.aspx

Fat stigma is real. The mental health risks of fat-shaming are real. Eating disorders are real. Discrimination against fat people is real. The fact that these things are real doesn't mean that the food industry can't flood the zone with shit, though. On the contrary: the urgency of these issues, combined with the poor regulation of dietitians, makes the "what should you eat" zone perfect for flooding with endless quantities of highly profitable shit.

Perhaps you've gotten some of this shit on you. Have you found yourself watching a video from a dietitian influencer like Cara Harbstreet, Colleen Christensen or Lauren Smith, promoting "health at any size" with hashtags like #DerailTheShame and #AntiDiet? These were paid campaigns sponsored by General Mills, Pepsi, and other multinational, multibillion-dollar corporations.

Writing for The Examination, Sasha Chavkin, Anjali Tsui, Caitlin Gilbert and Anahad O'Connor describe the way that some of the world's largest and most profitable corporations have hijacked a movement where fat people and their allies fight stigma and shame and used it to peddle the lie that their heavily processed, high-calorie food is good for you:

https://www.theexamination.org/articles/as-obesity-rises-big-food-and-dietitians-push-anti-diet-advice

It's a surreal tale. They describe a speech by Amy Cohn, General Mills’ senior manager for nutrition, to an audience at a dietitian's conference, where Cohn "denounced the media for 'pointing the finger at processed foods' and making consumers feel ashamed of their choices." This is some next-level nihilism: rather than railing against the harmful stigma against fat people, Cohn wants us to fight the stigma against Cocoa Puffs.

This message isn't confined to industry conferences. Dietitians with large Tiktok followings like Cara Harbstreet then carry the message out to the public. In Harbstreet's video promoting Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Puffs and Trix, she says, "I will always advocate for fearlessly nourishing meals, including cereal…Because everyone deserves to enjoy food without judgment, especially kids":

https://www.tiktok.com/@streetsmart.rd/video/7298403730989436206

Dietitians, nutritionists and the food industry have always had an uncomfortably close relationship, but the industry's shitflooding kicked into high gear when the FDA proposed rules limiting which foods the industry can promote as "healthy." General Mills, Kelloggs and Post have threatened a First Amendment suit against such a regulation, arguing that they have a free speech right to describe manifestly unhealthy food as "healthy."

The anti-diet movement – again, a legitimate movement aimed at fighting the dangerous junk science behind dieting – has been co-opted by the food industry, who are paying dietitian influencers to say things like "all foods have value" while brandishing packages of Twix and Reese's. In their Examination article, the authors profile people who struggled with their weight, then, after encountering the food industry's paid disinformation, believed that "healthy at any size" meant that it would be unhealthy to avoid highly processed, high calorie food. These people gained large amounts of weight, and found their lives constrained and their health severely compromised.

I've been overweight all my life. I went to my first Weight Watchers meeting when I was 12. I come from a family of overweight people with the chronic illnesses often associated with being fat. This is a subject that's always on my mind. I even wrote a whole novel about the promise and peril of a weight-loss miracle:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781429969284/makers

I think the anti-diet movement, and its associated ideas like body acceptance and healthy at every size, are enormously positive developments and hugely important. It's because I value these ideas that I'm so disgusted with Big Food and its cynical decision to flood the zone with shit. It's also why I'm so furious with dietitians and nutritionists for failing to self-regulate and become a real profession, the kind that censures and denounces quacks and shills.

I have complicated feelings about Ozempic and its successors, but even if these prove to be effective and safe in the long term, and even if we rein in the rapacious pharma companies so that they no longer sell a $5 product for $1000, I would still want dietary science to clean up its act:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2816824

I'm not a nihilist. I think we can use science to discover truths – about ourselves and our world. I want to know those truths, and I think they can be known. The only people who benefit from convincing you that the truth is unknowable are the people who want to lie to you.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/05/corrupt-for-cocoa-puffs/#flood-the-zone-with-shit

[bostonharbor]

notes challenge

10 notes: i’ll drink more water

20 notes: i’ll try and eat more food

50 notes: i’ll start taking my ocd meds

100 notes: i’ll tell the doctor about my pain relapse

150 notes: i will pay more attention to my chronic condition (and use my crutch)

200 notes: i’ll tell my dance teacher and class that i have leg issues

250 notes: i’ll finish writing my book

300 notes: i’ll get a proper crutch so i can walk without painkillers

400 notes: we probably won’t get here but i’ll stop cheerleading until my pain goes down

450 notes: i’ll appoint a co captain to help me with managing the science olympiad team (my mental health needs this 😭😭)

500 notes: i’ll come out as aroace to my family!!!!

Edit: I DID IT! thank you guys for supporting me because i literally would not have done this if i wasn’t being told to by yall so thank you!!

[hells-wasabii]

How would each of the Hell characters(Hotel group, Lucifer, Overlords, Vees) do while cooking entirely on their own? Can be platonic or romantic, whichever you want

A/N: So I know I said 2, but the other one isn’t ready yet I’m still writing it. It’s gonna be pretty big too since it’s that velvette part 2. But I had to get my cat spayed today so I’ve been super busy all day keeping her out of trouble and from hurting herself :/ but anywho, enjoy!

Characters: All that I write for

Type: Hesdcanons (hazbin cast cooking headcanons)

Charlie

With Charlie, I’m a little torn. On the one hand, she’s a princess, so cooking would likely be more of a novelty considering she likely had staff to do it for her. But this is Charlie we’re talking about. She would go out of her way to learn how to cook. Wouldn’t give up either, not until she could do it on her own. I would imagine that she started learning from Vaggie and reading cookbooks.

Vaggie

When it comes to Vaggie, she can cook some, but she’s definitely super humble about it, brushing off any compliments because it’s ‘just food’. If the issue is pressed I can see her getting a little embarrassed about it. It’s mostly dishes that she had been taught while she was growing up, along with basic dishes that don’t necessarily require a honed skill to make.

Angel

Angel can cook, though he doesn’t exactly put much effort into it. I can definitely see him just throwing something together so he can eat and move on with whatever else he has going. Baking is a different story. I can really imagine while he was growing up he would sneak his way into the kitchen while his mother and Molly were baking. He picked it up pretty easily. And as someone who enjoys baking let me just say that his extra set of arms would be so helpful.

Husk

Husk was an entertainer in life, growing up in a casino, learning the trades in the house. That also includes the kitchens. Sure he likely didn’t spend a whole lot of time there but he still picked up a thing or two. So he’d be able to hold his own fairly well when it comes to making a homecooked meal.

Alastor

While it’s canon that the radio demon can cook, I feel like he specifically likes to cook recipes his mother left behind. Cooking recipes from his youth reminds him of joining his mother in the kitchen whipping something up for lunch and helping her prep for dinner. He’s not all that adventurous in the kitchen, though. He likes to stick with what he knows and what he grew up with.

Niffty

Having died in the 50s as a young housewife, I genuinely believe that she at least knows some fad recipes, like those salads and casserole recipes. Jello molds too. But that’s not to say that she wouldn’t know some basic stuff. I can definitely see Niffty being the type to try to create whole new recipes with varying, mostly horrifying results.

Sir Pentious

Sir Pentious is a genius, there’s no doubt about that, but the man can’t cook. At all. He’d burn water honestly. But baking? Oh yeah, he can bake with out a doubt(but not necessarily the decorating part), it’s basically science, but not cook. He’d quite honestly have the Egg Bois help, but let’s be honest here, that’d be a disaster too.

Cherri Bomb

I’ll admit, I wasn’t to sure about Cherri. She just doesn’t seem like the type to cook. Nah. Cherri is the queen of takeout. She can boil water but that’s really about it. Honestly, she’s only really a couple of steps above Sir Pentious, but she can’t bake either. Sometimes though, before Angel went off to the hotel, she would go out and buy ingredients and stuff and go to his apartment and they (he) would make something.

Vox

This man absolutely can cook, and he’s pretty damn good at it too. Considering he’s the television demon, he’s going to have several cooking shows. Hell, he even stars in a couple of them. That being said, he’s not one to do things half-assed. Sure, a lot of cooking shows have stuff that was prepared beforehand, but with Vox’s he goes out of his way to actually make the dishes in real time.

Valentino

I stand by my headcanons from my Valentino posts. He can cook, but it’s honestly a solid 50-50 on whether or not it’s burnt or edible. He’s pretty easily distracted, whether it’s a phone call or something else entirely, so if it's a dish that you have to pay close attention to, it’s likely to not turn out right.

Velvette

Velvette can do some light cooking, but nothing too extravagant. She’s got more important things to do, such as keeping Vox and Valentino on track. With a schedule as busy as hers, I don’t think she would cook often, preferring either Vox’s cooking or takeout. Oh but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t take a picture and post it, because it’s Velvette, of course she does. Oh! But She’s probably been on Vox’s show as some sort of celeb guest type deal, the dish they made definitely stuck with her, so she might make it from time to time.

Zestial

Considering how long Zestial has been around, I would be more surprised if he couldn’t cook. You can’t convince me that after a while he at one point went through hobbies like a revolving door. Cooking absolutely would have been one of them. This man would absolutely try making the craziest things. He’d be up to date on all of the cooking fads, know recipes and cooking methods from several time periods and cultures. With him, there’s no telling what he might cook up next.

Carmilla

While I don’t think that she would really set aside time to cook often, she’s pretty skilled in the kitchen. Carmilla would likely have a couple of nights out of the month set aside to cook a meal with/for her and the girls, a tradition that carried on from their life before hell. She’d even take the opportunity to try new things while cooking.

Rosie

Oh, Rosie can absolutely cook, it’s canon that its a hobby of hers. She’s very well versed in a multitude of cooking methods, and while she may not entirely like a whole lot of new-age gadgets in the kitchen, she can’t really deny the fact that they can be quite useful. I’m willing to bet that she would have an Instapot (they’re great I have two and one of them has an air fryer attachment)

Adam

Adam would never openly admit it, but he knows how to cook. He was the first man, he would have had to learn eventually, even if it was something as simple as preparing meats. That being said, he can grill. I’d be willing to bet that he’d host a little barbeque after the annual exterminations for the exorcists, maybe even enter into grilling competitions.

Lute

Lute’s honestly a bit of a wildcard when it comes to cooking. She might have been able to cook while she had been alive, but nowadays not so much. It had been a long time since she actively made anything, so she’d be pretty rusty. But other than the basics, I don’t really see her being able to be too creative in terms of cooking either. She’d honestly probably stick to what she knows and wouldn’t stray too far away from that.

Emily

I don’t necessarily think that seraphim would really need to eat, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t or don’t. In Emily’s case, I would imagine it as a scenario where she wanted to do something to get closer to humanity. They were her charge after all, or rather their state of happiness. But all humans eat and many find joy in doing so and even in the act of cooking, so she absolutely would be thrilled to learn! She’s getting better at it by the day.

Sera

Sera had likely done the same as Emily when she was a young angel, though I don’t see her sticking with it. I definitely think that she taught Emily to start her on her little culinary journey. She can cook, she just… doesn’t. I’d even go as far as to say it’s been centuries since she’s actually cooked a meal of any kind. That being said, if she were to jump into the kitchen nowadays, she probably wouldn’t have a very easy time finding her way around.

Lucifer

Lucifer is a man of many talents. He can absolutely cook, possibly even Michelin level, he just chooses not to. He likely just considers it a novelty of sorts, considering he has the power to simply poof food right in front of him. Honestly, it’s pretty helpful whenever he’s depressed and doesn’t feel like making anything. But, when it comes to his family and friends, he’s more than happy to whip something up.

Lilith

Another one who would likely consider cooking to be a novelty. Considering how she’s the second most powerful being in hell, and fiercely independent with more important things to worry about. Lilith wouldn’t concern herself with cooking unless it was with her family, and even then it likely didn’t happen that often after Charlie grew up.

Bonus:

Alastor Cat

Would wind up burning what ever building its in down. Was it intentional? Was it an accident? The world may never know

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

"100-200 years ago, people ate organic unprocessed food and didn't have vaccines... ... and lived to the ripe old age of 'died in childbirth.'"

-

"Nature wants 5 of your 7 children dead. It wants you dead by 50. Everything better than that is brought to you by science & technology." -- David Frum

[centrally-unplanned]

We have results of the "Denver Basic Income Project" targeted at homeless groups in the region, which from their lens must be quite disappointing:

Groups A and B are the experimental groups, receiving $1k a month for a year or the same amount as a lump sum. Group C got $50 a month, a "compliance" payment to make sure they show up for data collection essentially. Hilariously, the website is pretending Group C is not a control group, since they got the pennies they dug out of the sofa cushion, and saying this is all a success!

"Statistically significant across all groups" this is a hate crime against data science. But it is so laughable that it isn't really worth getting into; what else can you say?

More substantially, what you are observing in this data is that the homelessness population is a little bit bimodal between the chronic and the temporary. Not fully ofc, but it's normally evident in the data - the median person is homeless for ~12 months, but ~1/3rd are chronically homeless while another ~1/3rd are generally only homeless for a few months, and then the rest bleed out in the middle. With no UBI the results above are what you would expect - half the group found income sources, found housing, and returned to being poor-but-housed, that is the default. For the other group, homelessness is a combination of the "willing" homeless and the structurally excluded, from drug problems to actively violent behavior to track records of similar that disqualify them as too high risk, or those who simply loathe all bureaucratic systems and refuse to comply (mood).

$1000 a month is pretty substantial, you aren't realistically going to have UBI higher than that. And it is not like recipients were excluded from SNAP/food stamps or anything. Giving radically more could maybe shift things, sure, but I think you are seeing close to the "cap" here on what you can realistically shift with lump sums.

For a certain kind of UBI proponent I could see this being a failure, like "oh why did money not fix this". I sort of view it as the opposite? Why would I expect money to fix this in that way? UBI is a consumption subsidy, the entire point is that it's no-strings. If people want to spend their consumption differently than I would expect, good for them? UBI is about broad based income support; it is not targeted at specific social ills by design. I think it can have structural changes in the economy - UBI permanently shifts bargaining power between workers & employers a bit for example - but I wouldn't expect it to say close the educational achievement gap outside of marginally.

I do think this should be a check on a sort of naive "poverty" lens for social ills; ~50% of homelessness is about money churn. This paper actually does a bad job of showing that, because it tracks everyone at "time zero" when they are all homeless. If you look at other studies where housed and unhoused alike get UBI, you see that they are less likely to become homeless to begin with. And it is just one study of course - additionally 2021-2022 was a bad year for housing as temporary Covid eviction & rent control measures expired, and this pilot started in 2022, while meanwhile it was a *really* good time for the poor-but-working income-wise as low-end wages increased dramatically, so it was a big dip combined with big churn in the poverty rates. Still, with all those caveats poverty is probably not the lodestone for that other ~50%. If you want to address those social ills you are going to need more involved social programs - or be a libertarian about it and let them do as they wish. Your call, as long as the limits of "throw money" at a problem is understood.

[mahafamily24]

Urgent Appeal: A🇵🇸🍉⛺🙏 Displaced Family in Need of Your Help

I am Maha, a mother of four children from Gaza. My husband is suffering from cancer and was receiving treatment in the West Bank before the war. Now, we are displaced and homeless, living in a tent after losing our home. My son Zain has epilepsy, and his condition has worsened due to the ongoing bombings and fear.

I am struggling to provide food, clothing, and blankets for my children as winter approaches. We are in desperate need of your help to secure a warm shelter, food, and basic necessities.

If you are able to help or share this appeal, please do not hesitate. Any support, no matter how small, will make a difference in saving our lives.

When you want to donate $10, put 100kr

https://gofund.me/9de06df5

Vetted by @gazavetters , my number verified on the list is ( #122 )

5$=52kr

10$=103kr

20$=207kr

50$=518kr

100$=1036kr

@UNICEF

@ICRC

@IFRC

@Charitywater

@GlobalGiving

@90-ghost @irhabiya @appsa @gaza-life-goes-on-blog @sar-soor @nabilhellis @marxism-leninism-utenaism @rebeccamock @el-shango-drew-and-shot @el-secreto-que-guardo @plomegranate

@90-ghost @ibtisam @fairtradeusa @sar-soor @palestine @palestinegenocide @vakarians-babe @interiordesignmagazine @gazaboovintage @finnslay @bibyen @autisicanarchist @walking-geema @bisexual-community @beefyfurrydaddy @gender-and-science @genderqueerpositivity @feefal @mobiles @riding-the-wavez @olocomermaun @sunsetquotes @montereybayaquarium @motivateyourselfeachandeveryday @longboxeson22s @beeeso0o-blog @lonelysandwich @sunclownsblog @selamat83 @appsa @iznabl @opencommunion @fairuzfakhira @iznabl @breathtakinglandscapes @sayruq @eva @freepalestinneee @freegazapalestine-blog @freepaleatine95 @freegazafomhamas-blog @mitarbeiterdesmonats1453-blog @freegazapalestine-blog @sayruq @fancysmudges @brokenbackmountain @baby-girl-aaron-dessner @freegazafromhamas @freegazafreepaiestine

[xosdr]

Road to Wealth

If you've any questions or find any problems or spelling mistakes. Please let me know in my Discord

Please Read Terms of Use

More Info about Road to Wealth

The road to Wealth mod adds a Net Worth system to your game. Depending on your Sims net worth (property value + cash) they will automatically receive a trait and the trait will also be automatically updated when your Sim goes into another class. The five traits are: poor, lower class, middle class, upper class, and wealthy.

The new traits have also been added to preferences, so your Sim can like or dislike a certain net worth class. If they are in a net worth class they don't like they will receive negative buffs and if they are in a net worth class they do like they will receive positive buffs. Also, it is harder to make friends with Sims who are in a net worth class your Sim dislikes and easier with Sims who are in a net worth class your Sim does like.

Not only does this mod add a net worth system it also adds more ways for your Sims to spend or earn money:

They can now go on activities, by themselves or with friends and family.

They'll have to pay an entrance fee on certain lots that have the new lot challenge activated: Entrance Fee.

They can purchase memberships, so they don't have to pay the entrance fee anymore. These memberships will last 7 or 14 days.

They might receive scam calls where they either loose or win a lot of money.

They can take out a loan. Paying back the loan works the same as the Discovery University loan system, but the system has been made Base Game Compatible and has become less buggy.

Poor and lower class Sims can now search for money on certain furniture items.

Instead of selling all your inventory items directly in the inventory your Sims can now sell their items at the new stores. The interaction can be found in the shopping tab on their phone or computer. Not only can your Sims sell their items at these store they can also purchase item from these stores.

And there is also a new aspiration available: Road to Wealth.

Then this mod also comes with a few optional files. All these optional files are optional and the reason they are optional is because they are either overrides or they require DLC.

Lot Prices: changes the price of each lot in game. You can choose to have them all as §0 or the original price x 5 or x 10.

Starting Funds: changes the amount of money a new household starts with. Your Sim will have to pay back this money. It's a loan! 

Adoption & Animals: changes the prices of all adoptions and animals (except for goats, sheep, cows, llamas, and chickens). Also, animal food has become more expensive.

Diaper & Bottle: adds pricing to each diaper change and each bottle feed. Cloth diapers and breastfeeding is free.

Reward Store: adds 50% of the original price to any rewards store item. For example if it costs 2000 it will now cost 3000.

Science Baby: makes having a science baby a lot more expensive!

Services: all services have now become more expensive. This includes massages, manicures, and pedicures.

University: All university classes have become more expensive.

Translations:

Russian by Pumpkin

Chinese by ImmoralSSS 

Spanish by RoshySims

PATREON | DOWNLOAD

[blueiscoool]

Skeletons With Rings Around Their Necks Uncovered at Ancient Cemetery In Ukraine

The discovery of a cemetery in Ukraine from a millennium ago has revealed axes, swords, jewelry and, unexpectedly, buckets around the feet of some of the dead.

Archaeologists in Ukraine have discovered a 1,000-year-old cemetery whose dead were buried with weapons, jewelry and, curiously, buckets around some of their feet.

The 11th-century cemetery is located about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Kyiv. Of its 107 graves, "most of the identified burials were deposed in wooden coffins," Vsevolod Ivakin and Vyacheslav Baranov, both archaeologists at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, wrote in a paper they presented at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, which was held Jan. 4-7 in Chicago.

The cemetery's dead include both men and women. Some of the men were buried with weapons, such as axes, spearheads and swords, Ivakin and Baranov wrote. A few of the women were buried with elaborate neck rings, which "are found only on necks in female burials and were apparently a kind of social marker," in this region at the time, Baranov said in an email. Some of the people were buried with wooden buckets at their feet, which may have been part of funerary rituals. Other sites that have buckets within burials have been found in the region.

The archaeologists also found a stone altar, as well as bracelets, beads and the remains of food offerings, such as chicken bones and eggshells, among other artifacts. The altar could have been used for Christian or pagan rituals, or possibly both.

Some of the artifacts are similar to those found in the Baltic, hinting that some of the people buried in the cemetery might have come from that region to serve in the militaries of the rulers of Kyiv, such as Volodymyr the Great (who reigned from 980 to 1015) and Yaroslav the Wise (who reigned from 1019 to 1054), the archaeologists noted. The territories that Volodymyr the Great ruled stretched to the Baltic region.

At the time the cemetery was in use, people in Ukraine were converting to Christianity, the researchers said. This included Volodymyr the Great, who left behind his pagan roots and was baptized around 987 before his marriage to Anna, the sister of the Byzantine emperor Basil II.

The researchers excavated the cemetery between 2017 and 2022. The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, however, has paused many excavations in Ukraine, including this one, the archaeologists said.

By Owen Jarus,

[ut-girl666]

Financial HCs for the G1 Transformers!

This is for the part all pre/post-war, but I still thought it was funny.

Optimus

Op is pretty responsible, and was decently stable. Not super stable, but not frequently worrying about food or anything kind of unstable. The only thing he’s bad at budgeting is when it comes to purchasing interface amenities.

Elita

Elita’s like Optimus, pretty responsible and stable. Again, only irresponsible with interface amenities, and hers is usually on restraints and collars, compared to his more on toys and other items. Usually Optimus is the one who spends more at a store floating around, where she’s in and out with exactly what she needed/wanted.

Jazz

For being a career criminal who stole money for a living pre-war, he’s not the best at budgeting. He sees one thing that he thinks he should get Prowl, and all responsibility goes out the window. So pre-war, he’s neither financially stable nor responsible, and is only stable post-war bc he’s got Prowl around and pretty much everyone is pretty stable.

Prowl

Prowl is stable, but isn’t super good at budgeting at first, even though Barricade taught him how to do it properly. Ultimately he gets better eventually, and by FOP he’s really good at taxes. And post-war he’s the one doing them (bc Jazz commits tax evasion on the regular-).

Starscream

Starscream is incredibly financially stable, and responsible. He is a prince born into old money, and when he went to the science academy he was cut off and forced to budget a small allowance every month, so he learned very fast how to properly manage money.

He does taxes (tax him more, for all he cares. He loves taxes), he is very cost aware and efficient (this does not mean he’s cutting corners, he’s just well aware of what he’s spending, and how it will affect him later down the line, when he gets things.), and is not typically known for blowing his money for fun. Sometimes he’s a small spending mood, most of the time he’s pretty stingy with anything >10-20$.

Megatron and Soundwave

These two have no sense of financial responsibility. Combined they have less than 50¢, and Starscream is betting the approximate number is 42¢.

They’re both broke, and don’t know how to handle any amount of money. Star can barely give them a 20$ bill without them immediately sending it down the drain, they’re that bad.

[dostoyevsky-official]

Argentine academics flee austerity drive a year into Milei’s rule

Protests in Buenos Aires against university cuts in April were so large that some surveys reported that up to a quarter of the city’s population had claimed to have taken part. The salaries of academics have lost up to 50 per cent of their real-terms value amid the spiralling inflation that Mr Milei was elected to bring down, and his “shock” dose of austerity has squeezed public universities’ ability to compensate staff for this, with many fearing that the thousands of scholars who have left their roles since the election are just the start of a much larger exodus. Junior academics have been hit hardest, according to Valeria Levi, deputy dean of the School of Exact and Natural Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires. The average monthly salary for a teaching assistant position is about $620 (£480), and the pay freeze has left many unable to cover basic expenses such as rent and food, she said. “Public universities are experiencing a massive loss of human resources,” said Dr Levi. “People are resigning with sadness because, despite their passion for their work, they simply cannot survive on such low salaries. “At my institution, we have already lost close to 10 per cent of our staff. If this situation persists, we will not have enough instructors to teach in the coming years.” [...] Mr Milei has not, however, totally dialled down the public attacks, recently saying “so-called scientists and intellectuals believe that having an academic degree makes them superior beings”. “If they think their research is so valuable, I invite them to go out into the market like any ordinary person, publish a book and see if people are interested, instead of cowardly hiding behind the coercive power of the state,” he told a right-wing conference. “Long term, I think this will be very destructive for the Argentine scientific community, and I already see a big exodus in the works. Anyone that can leave is leaving. This, sadly, is not the first time in Argentine history,” said Matías Vernengo, professor of economics at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania and a former senior research manager at the Central Bank of Argentina.

[sonichaunt]

So I had an idea, for a sonic AU: Black Arms infused Maria.

She still gets shot and sends Shadow to earth, but this time she just doesn't stay dead due to the Black Arm cells (from Shadow's blood) she's been infused with by her grandfather. Gerald did this in a last attempt to cure her as he feared GUN would soon come for him and his research- he was right of course... The cells mass multiplying to save the host have changed her body, slowed her aging significantly. Spending a large part of the last 50 years hiding away from GUN after escaping their facility thanks to the commander (once he reached a high enough rank to even discover she was there), she doesn't really look as kindly upon humanity any more. Even though the commander claims Shadow was never found ( and likely dead) she is is searching for him endlessly, becoming very science savvy in the process and gaining full control over her grandfather's creation, the artificial chaos.

She can sense Shadow is alive, the black arm part of her sharing a connection with him. However, this connection also extends to Black doom and when he returns to earth he becomes aware of her. Unlike Shadow this human "child" is far more susceptible to his mind control and influence. Shadow in turn might not fully remember everything, but he feels a strong bond with Maria, in more ways than just his lost memories could explain which confuses him. Since she's on the side of the Black Arms, going against them will become a lot harder for him. Hopefully Sonic and/or Rogue manage to get through to him, or earth will have an issue. Outside of Black Doom messing with her head her goal is to live with shadow on the ARK, away from the humans that could hurt either of them. Black doom offering a way for them to be able to live on earth itself without the threat of humanity coming after them (after all of humanity have become part of them- he meant as food, Maria thought he meant like she was, infused with their essence) did plant some ideas in her head however, even after their defeat, maybe she'd take a page out of Eggman's book and want Marialand, using her grandfather's memory altering tech to create a way to keep people in line.