I am originally from the States but moved to Australia.

Before I moved away I lived in a bible belt state that was one of the 18 US states that have a “tipped minimum wage” of $2.13 an hour. In those states if you have a job that earns tips you get paid $2.13 an hour, and your employer is supposed to match that wage to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

However you can imagine if you are one of the lucky ones who has a job in the only restaurant in town, that asking your boss for those missing wages after a slow night is not going to get you anything but fired. There are dozens of other desperate people willing to take your place in a heartbeat.

I find a lot of people aren’t aware of the situation for large swathes of the US. The amount of people who are homeless or hungry or sick with no help is astronomical for a “first world country”.

What I find interesting is that after a cursory google search it would appear that China indeed has minimum wages, and those are interestingly not far off that $2.13 an hour.

https://www.china-briefing.com/news/minimum-wages-china/

The lowest hourly minimum wage in a province I could find was 16.5 RMB which works out to $2.30 an hour.

Now there are of course nuances here, like those jobs in China not being tipped, the cost of living, healthcare, etc.

I do think that things in the States are becoming more dire than most realise, and things in China have been steadily getting better.

In any case I feel very privileged to live in Australia and raise my children here.

Husband and I have for giggles. You have to try things to know whether you’re into them, you know?

It wasn’t for either of us, but it was a fun distraction.

I am a disability support worker, and can absolutely attest that depending on the injury level and their age/muscle tone, something as dumb as pushing them sideways a bit can dump them on the floor.

Hell, the young ones do it to each other to be jerks lol. I’ve joined a stadium full of people teasing one of my clients for not wearing his seatbelt because he fell out of his chair with an epic splat after being bumped.

Yeah, it was a jokey way of saying I don’t get out a measuring cup anymore, but add enough vinegar that its around 1:4.

Measuring with your heart the same way you do with garlic, or vanilla. You know? Like you might have measured once but now you have enough experience and know that its forgiving enough to just yeet some in there.

I haven’t tested it on grapes, but have on all sorts of berries. I imagine it would work well on grapes as well actually… I’m totally going to do that when grape season is here!

This! This is one of those old timey things you hear about and think is bs, but actually works. I don’t even remove the berries from the packet because I am lazy.

I fill a tupperware with apple cider vinegar and water, measured with my heart, and dunk the berries in it, container and all and let sit while I unpack groceries. Then I give them a shake to remove as much vinegar water as I can and toss them in the fridge. I don’t rinse them, no they don’t taste like vinegar.

A couple years back strawberries were $1 a punnet here and I tested this - the ones dunked in vinegar lasted a week or more with no soft spots, the ones without lasted just a few days before developing soft spots.

So yeah. Dunk them shits in vinegar. It works!

Perhaps it was partially arrested and the lines snapped, leaving it too slow to get airborne?

Reading this hurts. None of them ever had a chance.

Going to work 10 hour days installing insulation two weeks after giving birth and having a traumatic c section and hysterectomy?

Any other country would find this absolutely vile and unbelievable. In the USA it’s a Tuesday.

I looked up the ingredients in the balm you loved and it mostly contains very moisturising oils and butters like shea butter.

A brand that behaves very well with my sensitive skin is Avene, they are known for having skincare with few ingredients and a whole line specifically for sensitive and allergic skin.

They have a “Tolerance Contol Balm” that contains shea and squalane, an oil that closely mirrors the skins natural oils.

It’s here: https://www.eau-thermale-avene.dk/p/tolerance-control-balm-3282770138856-c1428227

Make sure you get the balm and not the cream as they are completely different formulas.

I would also consider trying the cleansing lotion they recommend, as it would be very gentle on the skin. It is possible for some people to react to water, and something like a cleansing lotion that you rub in gently then wipe off with a damp cloth might help!

https://www.eau-thermale-avene.dk/p/tolerance-lotion-3282770142280-c1428227

I have been using The Ordinary’s Squalane Cleanser for ages now, and it works the same way. No soap, just rubbing a gentle cream on and wiping off with a damp cloth.

The doctors’ call sign, Zelenyi - means “green” in Ukrainian.

I also didn’t know until now that subscribers to the Kyiv Independent receive free weekly Ukrainian language lessons.

It’s such a neat idea, Russia wants to wipe out the Ukrainian language, so spreading it to more people is good!

Oh really? I do like him, thank you I will go have a listen!

You might try The Ordinary’s squalane cleanser, it’s similar to oil cleansing in that you rub it on without water then rinse or wipe it off. You could bring it and some water wipes (the super gentle water only baby wipes) to wipe it off again. It removes makeup and dirt well, has few ingredients, and is good on my stupidly sensitive skin. Worth a try if your skin tolerates squalane.

If you specifically want to try a facial cleansing wipe, I have used the Simple face wipes, the ones for sensitive skin.

I used to have a demonoid account too! Back then I could just torrent anything without a care…

Now I would need a VPN and a ton of reading to even begin. Sad times.

I’m sorry. ❤️

Beautiful.

I have had the pleasure of knowing a few Lebanese people who have made lives here in Australia. Every one has been a wonderful person. I also want the Lebanese to be known for everything they are outside of war.

What a beautiful photograph. It’s sad that nothing has changed… I hope they have somehow lived a long and happy life together.

Wait, this is going to be a Funcom game?? Oh man, Funcom has made some of our favourite games! We adored Anarchy Online, and The Secret World is still one of the mmo’s I would recommend to anyone who wants to try a really unique modern mmo with an amazing story.

Unfortunately when they were developing TSW and Age of Conan, someone made the call to go all in on AOC which was just… not unique in a space saturated with that kind of WoW clone.

TSW ended up not having the cashflow (devs) it needed to release updates and expansions and it fell into disfavour once the player base reached end game. Which is really sad, because even as a “dead” game the story and gameplay are so good.

I really hope they have retained the devs that worked on TSW and have enough cash to push everything into this game. Make it unique like TSW and AO were, push a couple expansions, and there will be players.

This is so wrong. The council claims to have offered everyone somewhere to go, but often they want to place people hours away from everyone they know, or split families up with the father in one shelter 45 minutes by car away.

With few trains and a ridiculous non-linear bus route system that takes “efficient” wandering routes, this 45 minutes is easily an hour and a half or more.

We live near a major bus interchange and our daughters are going to uni in the city. It is 20 minutes by car, and 56 minutes by bus. It would take 3-4 hours of the day for this family to visit wherever they have been placed. While trying to get their life together?

Criminalising homelessness is yet another step on the road to becoming more like America. I should know - I grew up there and this whole situation makes my blood run cold, because it’s what I left 10 years ago.

This article is feeling kind of clickbaitish, as the sources are … odd.

However, restricting blood flow to the brain can also have serious health implications.

While not all pressure on the neck will be fatal, research shows even relatively low pressure can cause death by strangulation.

The first source is a medical journal describing the physiology of the arteries in the neck, and does not seem to include anything about restricting blood flow (never mind temporarily) having serious health consequences.

The second source is a book from 1991 about autoerotic asphyxiation with the quote:

autoerotic asphyxia denotes death resulting from failure of a release mechanism of the device, apparatus or prop designed to attain cerebral hypoxia for heightened arousal.

Which is … not the same as doing this with someone, and doesn’t address the risks of a partner who releases pressure immediately after a loss of consciousness.

The issues around consent are troubling indeed, consent should always be paramount.

I also found it amusing that the beginning of the article said

Although rare, strangulation is the leading cause of death in consensual BDSM play.

Which links to a study that found a total of 16 cases that included strangulation between 1982 and 2020. Rare indeed.

My husband and I dabble in breath play, so I was curious and read a few studies myself. It seems that every case study I could find included atypical circumstances. Things like accidental hanging, or asphyxiation due to bags etc being over the head.

This paper includes a 50 year review of cases for anyone interested. https://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOFORSJ/TOFORSJ-1-1.pdf

It is also worth noting that loss of consciousness due to cutting off blood flow to the brain (cerebral hypoxia) is not dissimilar to the hypoxia experienced by pilots, who even train with repeated exposure to hypoxia in hyperbaric chambers.

I would be curious to know if there were any studies of the long term effects of this on pilots. (My dive into the rabbit hole is done for the day, lol.)