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No one applauds this woman because they're too creeped out at themselves to put their hands together.

This is a fascinating video, I have to admit. Pay special attention to how people react to the speaker.

The speaker in this video is actually an actress named Kate Miles, but the facts about produce and its marketing are 100% real. The audience is also real, and thus the looks of disgust are totally real too.

She opens with:

"I'm going to give you some of the secrets about how we make you buy what we want you to buy. So, as a marketer, when I'm first given a project, what's my job? Well, my job is to make you want it, to crave it, to need it, to think that it is the best innovation in food since sliced bread."

It starts getting creepy from there. The reality behind food marketing is pretty damn eye-opening.

"So how do you make the public feel OK with this? How does that happen? My job. How do I do it? I use the language of innovation."

I don't think I'd call this the language of innovation. What about you?

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Land O'Lakes
Land O'Lakes® products are made from milk sourced directly from member-owned farms, including butters, cheeses, spreads and other dairy staples loved by consumers for cooking, baking and snacking
Community

Land O’Lakes and Clove are filling the nation’s food banks with much-needed butter and shoes

Land O’Lakes and Clove are teaming up to bring comfort to communities in need.

True

Food banks are a community staple for millions of Americans. Not only do they provide nutritional assistance to low-income families, they’re also often one of the few places where people can get non-food essentials like diapers, toiletries, paper towels, clothing and more. For the 44 million people in the United States facing food insecurity, pantries can literally be a lifeline.

But that lifeline is at risk. Food pantries rely on donations, both from individuals and government programs, to stay stocked. Rising poverty levels and budget cuts mean that food pantries sometimes can’t meet the demands of their communities—and as a result, families go without.

No person should struggle for basic needs—which is why Land O’Lakes is teaming up with Clove in the name of comfort ahead of the 2025 holiday season.

Comfort, meet comfort.

A partnership between a farmer-owned cooperative and a modern footwear brand might seem like an unusual pairing. But the reality is that both organizations provide things that are enjoyable and much needed for American families.

You might be surprised to learn, for example, that dairy is one of the most requested but least-donated items at food banks around the nation. From a nutritional lens, dairy is a source of high-quality protein that provides 3 of 4 nutrients—calcium, potassium and vitamin D—that low-income households are at risk of missing from their diets.

But on a larger scale, dairy provides comfort. Items like butter, milk and cream are in high demand, particularly around the end of the year since so many families use these items for baking holiday treats. And while shoes can be stylish gifts, they’re also a basic necessity for hardworking frontline workers who provide care for others and spend hours on their feet. In fact, 96 million people in the U.S. spend their work shift standing.

"We are so excited to collaborate with Clove Shoes and take a moment to celebrate the color of the moment, but also our everyday favorite, butter yellow," said Heather Anfang, president of Land O'Lakes Dairy Foods. "As a company who shares our values of community, hard work and comfort, we are thrilled for the launch of their shoe but also for our shared donation to those in need in an important area for our two brands in Philadelphia."

Meaningful giving when people need it most

Together, the organizations have donated dozens of sneakers and more than 3,750 pounds of butter to Philabundance, one of the largest food banks in Philadelphia and part of Feeding America’s nationwide network of food banks, pantries, and meal programs. As they team up to donate needed supplies, they’re also helping families feel nourished—inside and out—ahead of the cold winter months.

"As a Philadelphia-based brand, we’re proud to give back to the community we call home—nourishing our city and supporting those who care every day," shares Jordyn Amoroso, Co-founder and CBO. Clove has also gifted 88 shoes to the students enrolled at Philabundance Community Kitchen: a free, life-changing workforce development program run by Philabundance.

At a time when so many are stretched thin and families are moving into the holiday season facing food insecurity, collaborations like these can provide an unexpected value—a chance to revitalize local communities, to nourish families, and show how comfort can take many different forms.

Learn more about this unexpected partnership here.

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Learning

27 English words people have a hard time enunciating properly, even native speakers

"The word I notice people struggle with is 'vulnerable'. Something about that N following an L is tricky."

Image via Canva/Povozniuk

English words that are difficult to enunciate.

The English language is hard to master, even for native speakers. With over an estimated one million words in the language, not only are English words hard to memorize—they can be hard to properly pronounce and enunciate. Getting tripped up with pronunciation can make your communication unclear, or worse—make you sound uneducated.

As American English teacher Vanessa explains, many mispronounced words are common and used in daily conversation due to tricky consonants and vowels in English words. But by knowing the proper pronunciation, it can help you become a more confident speaker, which is why she shared 33 words that are hard for English language learners to pronounce, such as "probably," "drawer," and "sixth."

On the subreddit r/words, a person posed the question: "What's a word you've noticed many native English speakers have difficulty enunciating even though the word is used fairly often?"

Turns out, there are a menagerie of words people notoriously stumble over. These are 27 English words that people say are the hardest to enunciate.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Tricky 'R' words

"The word I notice people struggle with is 'vulnerable'. Something about that N following an L is tricky." - common_grounder

"Rural." - Silent-Database5613

“'Nucular' for nuclear." - throwawayinthe818

"Remuneration v renumeration (first one is correct)." - RonanH69

"February. It sounds like you're pronouncing it like it's spelled Febuary. But it's spelled February." - SDF5-0, ShadedSpaces

"Mirror. Some people pronounce it 'meer'." - weinthenolababy, diversalarums

"Anthropomorphize is a word I have to use semi-frequently with limited success each attempt." - ohn_the_quain

"I can’t say the phrase 'rear wheel' without considerable effort." - ohn_the_quain

"Eraser (erasure, but they're talking about the pink rubber thing)." - evlmgs

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Multiple syllables

"Exacerbated vs exasperated." - SNAFU-lophagus

"'Asterisk'. A lot of people wind up inadvertently name-checking Asterix. I think it's best for those who struggle to use the alternative name for that punctuation mark, the 'Nathan Hale', after the American patriot who famously declared, 'I can only regret that I have but one asterisk for my country!'" - John_EightThirtyTwo

"I realized recently I have always mispronounced mischievous. It's mis-chiv-us, not mis-chee-vee-us. I don't know if I've ever heard anyone pronounce that correctly." - callmebigley"

'Supposebly' [supposedly]. Drives me up the wall." - BlushBrat

"Library. My coworker knows I hate it, so he’ll say Liberry every time." - Jillypenny"ET cetera, not 'ect' cetera. I think people are used to seeing the abbreviation etc and since there is no diphthong tc in English their mind bends it into ect." - AdFrequent4623

"The amount of people who say Pacific when they're trying to stay specific is pretty alarming. I'm not even sure if they know it's a different word sometimes." - Global-Discussion-41

"Then there was my old boss who would confidently and consistently use the word tenant when he meant tenet." - jaelith"

"Probably." - Rachel_Silver

"Contemplate. It's one of those word I hear people stumble over more than anything, often it comes out as Comtemplate, Contempate or a combination of both." - megthebat49

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Foods

"Turmeric. People drop the first R. It drives me nuts!" - Jillypenny

"Oh, and it’s espresso, no X [ex-presso]." - Jillypenny

"Also cardamom with an N." - nemmalur

"Pumpkin (punkin)." - evlmgs

espresso, espresso gif, sipping espresso, espresso drink, drinking espresso sipping modern family GIF Giphy

Awkward vowels

"Crayon 👑. My ex pronounced it 'cran'. Drove me up a wall." - rickulele, premeditatedlasagna

'Mute' for moot. A good friend of mine, who's extremely intelligent and articulate otherwise, says that. Unfortunately, it's a word she likes to use. I haven't had the heart to tell her she's pronouncing it incorrectly, and it's been three decades." NewsSad5006, common_grounder

"Jewelry." - weinthenolababy

"I hear grown adults calling wolves woofs and they're not doing it to be funny." - asexualrhino

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The fascinating reason why retro cartoon characters all wore this single clothing item

How did we not know this?!

Giphy, Giphy

Stills from The Flintstones and Yogi Bear

Ever notice how so many classic cartoon characters from your childhood had one oddly consistent fashion choice?

Fred Flintstone had that bright blue tie. Yogi Bear had his iconic green one, which, given that Yogi is indeed a bear with zero use for business-casual, he certainly didn’t need. Similarly, there was Huckberry Hound’s red bow tie, Quick Draw McGraw’s bandana, and so on…

It’s not that animators in the ‘60s were weirdly passionate about men’s neck accessories. Nope, these were all part of a clever animation hack.

hanna barbera, animation, cartoons, vintage cartoons, drawings, cartoon network, history, disney Like Yogi, Hanna-Barbera animators were smarter than the average bear. media4.giphy.com

Back in the mid-20th century, studios like Hanna-Barbera were churning out TV cartoons on tiny budgets and impossible schedules. While Disney made a name for itself enlisting entire armies of artists to work on ultra-smooth, hyper-realistic feature films that took years to perfect, Hanna-Barbera had to produce weekly TV shows with a fraction of the time, money, and people.

That’s where “limited animation” came in, a revolutionary technique first pioneered by animators Chuck Jones and John Hubley. While Jones and Hubley approached limited animation as more of a style choice, heads of Hanna-Barbera saw it as a way to save time without sacrificing personality.

Instead of redrawing an entire character for every frame (like Disney did, but more on that later), animators would reuse as much of the drawing as possible, usually by keeping the body still and only moving the mouth, eyes, or head.

But there was one small problem: if a character’s head was moving and their body stayed still, how could you hide that awkward line where the two met? Enter the humble necktie, collar, scarf, or necklace. Basically any neck covering that created a distinct visual separation would do. This made it easy to swap in the actual moving parts without it looking weird.

Even though these creative choices were primarily for practical reasons, they nonetheless gave Hanna-Barbera cartoons a signature aesthetic…one that you simply can’t unsee once you know it’s there

hanna barbera, animation, cartoons, vintage cartoons, drawings, cartoon network, history, disney Yep, this checks out. media0.giphy.com

hanna barbera, animation, cartoons, vintage cartoons, drawings, cartoon network, history, disney So does this one. media2.giphy.com

hanna barbera, animation, cartoons, vintage cartoons, drawings, cartoon network, history, disney And this one. media3.giphy.com

hanna barbera, animation, cartoons, vintage cartoons, drawings, cartoon network, history, disney And this one. media0.giphy.com

hanna barbera, animation, cartoons, vintage cartoons, drawings, cartoon network, history, disney And this one! media0.giphy.com

Take a look a Tom and Jerry, who seem to be the outliers, but really just have no necks to speak of.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Limited animation would expand beyond Hanna-Barbera as well. The style became very popular in Japanese anime, which certainly complimented the comic book (aka manga) vibes that make anime so distinct. Here’s an example from Miyazaki's 2001 film, Spirited Away.

hanna barbera, animation, cartoons, vintage cartoons, drawings, cartoon network, history, disney A clip from Spirited Away media1.giphy.com

Even Disney would end up using this trick on occasion. Many think this is the reason why so many classic Disney characters wear gloves. This is only part of the story, however. Gloves also made it easier for animators to make their characters’ hand movements visible against dark backgrounds. (Remember, OG cartoons were black and white.) Not to mention that hands are famously tricky to draw. Gloves solved this issue, while also making the characters feel a little more human.

Plus, no one needs to see Mickey Mouse with bare hands.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

So, next time you spot Mickey’s bright white gloves or Yogi Bear’s jaunty green tie, remember: they weren’t just accessories. Both of these feats show that sometimes necessity really is the mother of invention. A little ingenuity can turn the steepest budget cuts into something iconic. Especially when you don’t include AI slop.

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Science

The longest — and probably largest — proof of our current climate catastrophe ever caught on camera.

It was the largest such event ever filmed.

Exposure Labs

All GIFs and images via Exposure Labs.

Photographer James Balog and his crew were hanging out near a glacier when their camera captured something extraordinary. They were in Greenland, gathering footage from the time-lapse they'd positioned all around the Arctic Circle for the last several years.

They were also there to shoot scenes for a documentary. And while they were hoping to capture some cool moments on camera, no one expected a huge chunk of a glacier to snap clean off and slide into the ocean right in front of their eyes.


science, calving, glaciers

A glacier falls into the sea.

assets.rebelmouse.io

ocean swells, sea level, erosion, going green

Massive swells created by large chunks of glacier falling away.

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It was the largest such event ever filmed.

For nearly an hour and 15 minutes, Balog and his crew stood by and watched as a piece of ice the size of lower Manhattan — but with ice-equivalent buildings that were two to three times taller than that — simply melted away.

geological catastrophe, earth, glacier melt

A representation demonstrating the massive size of ice that broke off into the sea.

assets.rebelmouse.io

As far as anyone knows, this was an unprecedented geological catastrophe and they caught the entire thing on tape. It won't be the last time something like this happens either.

But once upon a time, Balog was openly skeptical about that "global warming" thing.

Balog had a reputation since the early 1980s as a conservationist and environmental photographer. And for nearly 20 years, he'd scoffed at the climate change heralds shouting, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

"I didn't think that humans were capable of changing the basic physics and chemistry of this entire, huge planet. It didn't seem probable, it didn't seem possible," he explained in the 2012 documentary film "Chasing Ice."

There was too much margin of error in the computer simulations, too many other pressing problems to address about our beautiful planet. As far as he was concerned, these melodramatic doomsayers were distracting from the real issues.

That was then.

Greenland, Antarctica, glacier calving

The glacier ice continues to erode away.

assets.rebelmouse.io

In fact, it wasn't until 2005 that Balog became a believer.

He was sent on a photo expedition of the Arctic by National Geographic, and that first northern trip was more than enough to see the damage for himself.

"It was about actual tangible physical evidence that was preserved in the ice cores of Greenland and Antarctica," he said in a 2012 interview with ThinkProgress. "That was really the smoking gun showing how far outside normal, natural variation the world has become. And that's when I started to really get the message that this was something consequential and serious and needed to be dealt with."

Some of that evidence may have been the fact that more Arctic landmass has melted away in the last 20 years than the previous 10,000 years.

Watch the video of the event of the glacier calving below:

This article originally appeared 10 years ago.

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Joy

Happiness researcher reveals the 'enduring' secret to being happy in the second half of life

It goes against what Mother Nature may be telling you.

via Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

Arthur Brooks speaking.

Happiness researcher Dr. Arthur Brooks says that one of the most important things people can do as they enter the second half of their life is to focus on internal well-being rather than satisfying all of their wants. Even though this may feel like it runs counter to how many live the first half of their lives, he says it's the best way to find joy in middle age and beyond.

Brooks is a professor at Harvard University, author of From Strength to Strength and Build the Life You Want (with Oprah Winfrey), and is a lifelong student of the science of happiness. He says the key to finding it in the second half of life is recognizing when enough is enough and reducing unnecessary desires.

“What happy, successful people do in the second half of their lives is they go from adding to subtracting," Brooks says. "Mother Nature tells you that satisfaction comes from having more. More of what? More money, more power, more pleasure, more honor, more everything. More. But that's not the secret. The real formula for happiness is all the things that you have divided by the things that you want.”

@evancarmichael

The Real Formula of Happiness Speaker: Dr. Arthur Brooks Source: Dr. Arthur Brooks #motivationalquotes #motivation #inspirational #happiness #arthurbrooks

For Brooks, finding happiness later in life is an inside job: we analyze our desires and decide which ones we can cast aside. It’s a worthwhile practice, given that as we age, our ability to achieve many of our desires is compromised by the aging process.

“There's two ways for you to get greater satisfaction," Brooks continues. "There's the old, inefficient way of have more, have more, have more. Or there's the efficient, enduring way of wanting less."

How to manage your wants, according to Brooks

It's easy to tell people to manage their desires, but how do they come up with a strategy for doing so successfully? He says one way is to audit your desires by putting them to a simple litmus test.

“One helpful exercise is to list your major goals and ask: Would this still matter to me if no one else knew I achieved it? If the answer is no, it may not be a goal rooted in meaning,” he writes on LinkedIn.

Brooks also believes that we can simplify our lives by redefining what it means to be a success.

“In research on midlife satisfaction, those who reoriented their ambition from status to service, especially men, reported higher purpose and deeper relationships over time,” he adds.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Another meaningful way we can find greater happiness is by setting some of our wants aside and being grateful for what we have. Because if you aren't grateful for the positives you have in life, they will never stick to your bones or be truly nourishing.

“Practice gratitude for what you have," Daniel Levitin, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at McGill University, writes in Successful Aging. "This is motivating, alters brain chemistry toward more positive emotions, and oils the pleasure circuits of the brain."

There’s something graceful about accepting a new challenge in life as we get older: learning to have the internal strength to set aside what we truly don't need and to nurture what we do, such as our relationships, friends, and community. Brooks' perspective is a valuable tool that will keep many from being led astray as they age by chasing things they no longer need.

happiness, happy woman, middle age, happy middle age, smiling woman A woman who is happy with her arms spread wide. via Canva/Photos

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A British farmer caught someone dumping 421 tires on his land. His revenge was poetic justice.

"I got sick of it, so I thought I would do a bit back."

via Canva/Photos

An angry farmer and some illegally-dumped tires.

In 2020, a farmer outside of Liverpool, England, served up one of the most beautiful helpings of karma the world has ever seen, and people are still talking about it to this day. It all began when Stuart Baldwin, then 56, visited his 2,500-acre farm and found that someone had dumped tires on his property. Stuart and his family own SED Services Ltd, a recycling company that turns green waste into usable materials like compost.

Start was no stranger to illegal dumpers, or fly-tippers, as they call them in the UK, but this was unheard of, and he had to do something about it. So, he set up a security camera on his property to see if he could catch the guy.

security camera, farm, surveillance, fly-tippers, camera Camera Cctv GIF by MOST EXPENSIVEST Giphy

"I was getting so angry with people fly-tipping on my land, it was time to do something about it, to take matters in our own hands. We put a camera up in the bushes and we caught the man who did it on the camera,” Stuart told the Manchester Evening News. “My daughter put a picture on Facebook and we found out who it was he actually came forward,” he continued.

tires, illegal dumping, tires in field, used tires, waste Tires dumped in a field. via Canva/Photos

Being a gentleman, Stuart found out where the man lived and gave him days to come to his farm and pick up the tires. “He came down and he said he was going to move them, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and a couple of days breathing–but he never moved them. I thought he must have forgot, so I took them back to remind him,” he told The Daily Mail.

In a video that later went viral, Stuart and his team loaded up all 421 tires onto a truck and then dumped them in front of the man’s house. Footage shows the tires rolling all over the front of the man’s house and bouncing into the street. “We have come to my land at Haydock, and somebody has put these tires here overnight. Luckily, we found out who has forgotten them, so we are going to take them back to the person who put them here, thank you,” Stuart says in the video.

- YouTube youtu.be

“We wish no harm to him or any property hence why we placed them in his garden without causing any damage, we just want to prove a point that you can't just go around fly-tipping wherever you want as it isn’t fair,” Stuart said. "I was so angry when I saw the tyres and I'm a big believer in karma—karma has got him here."

The act of perfect retribution done in the most fair way possible is a great message, and that’s probably why the story is still popular after five years. The moral of the story is simple: take care of your own garbage; don’t make someone have to do it for you. If so, you may not like how he handles business.

"Nobody likes a fly-tipper. We've been inundated with congratulations since the video went online,” Stuart told the Manchester Evening News. "The response has been amazing, it's gone the right way for us."

This article originally appeared in May.

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