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Heroes

This is what California's water problem looks like. And here's one way to address it.

There's a silver lining here, I promise.

UPDATE 4/2/15: California Gov. Jerry Brown has enacted the first ever statewide water restrictions.

"California only has 1 year of water left" is a statement we all started paying attention to recently.

(The truth is more complicated. But still, it's a crisis.)


Now, before you start building your “safe rooms" and compounds hidden far from civilization, check this out.

This is not a doom-and-gloom post — by the end I'll have laid out a couple of solutions for you. However, we need to put a few cards on the table first. Think of this like ripping off a Band-Aid. It'll hurt at first, but we're going to get through it.

Why should the other 49 states care about California's water? Food.

When you think of California you may think of self-absorbed actors, major tech companies, and lots of beaches. However, you should probably start thinking about your food. The sunny state on the left coast is responsible for more than 400 yummy foods that keep you alive. The state produces half of U.S.-grown fruits, veggies, and nuts. Y'all, think about that for a second ... that's a shit-ton of food. California is an agribusiness state.


Without water, we've got a lot less food.

NASA just released new maps of how the drought is affecting the state, and it's not good. This is just another sign of the earth's changing climate. And the entire world (sans a very small group) agrees that humans are a major factor in climate change.

If you're a meat-eater like me, listen up. When you bite into a delicious burger, it took 1,847 gallons of water to make just one pound of beef. Do you like almonds? Well, it takes about 1.1 gallons of water to grow a single almond. You get it.

Selling food is super duper profitable.

First of all, farmers rock. I love them. When I was a kid, my family grew our own food, and many of our friends were farmers of some sort. I think farmers deserve profit because they are super important. However, we are not talking about the mom-and-pop farmers you might see at a local farmers market. We are talking about companies that own a ton of land and tweak environmental laws for their own benefit. Those companies rule places like California and...

Brazil.

Brazil is heavy on agribusiness just like California. And it produces lots of food, including veggies and beef. The states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas Gerais might run out of water soon. Brazil is home to roughly 12% of the world's fresh water. Because of growing cities, drought, and rising temperatures (people are using more energy, which requires more water), Brazil's water reserves have been decimated. So we can learn a little from them, right?

Agribusiness is wasteful.

Agribusiness, like most everything, requires water. I mentioned that it takes a heaping 1,847 gallons of water to make a pound of beef, but beef is just the tri-tip of the iceberg (see what I did there?). It takes about 395 gallons of water to make one pound of eggs and about 28 gallons of water to create one glass of beer. The list goes on. Plus, 30%-50% of food is wasted in production before it gets to your belly. Ooof. We grow enough food to feed the world, but we feed it to the animals we end up eating.

OK, you know how earlier I mentioned we'd revisit the silver lining to this?

Agribusiness is a "necessary" problem because we've gotta eat. But we are doing it wrong, yo. Right now agribusiness = climate change = super bad droughts = worse climate change = no water = no food.

But good news: The amount of Americans who don't think climate change is caused by humans is decreasing. And there is a way our generation can start the path and march toward building a sustainable solution.

What can be done?

Some of those Americans who don't think climate change is caused by humans are the people we vote for (yikes!), and that's a whole heap of messed up.

But! You have control of this. Seriously. You, me, and everyone else who votes. Elections are super important, and you have more tools at your fingertips to see how your representative is voting. I use Greenhouse. Here's how it works: When I'm reading a story about a politician, I can hover my pointer over their name, and everyone who contributes to that politician pops up. This is what it looks like:



Check out this amazing animation below — it'll show you how Brazil is asking its residents to deal with one of the largest problems we've seen, very similar to ours. Plus, it'll make you feel empowered.

A Korean mother and her son

A recently posted story on Reddit shows a mother confidently standing up for her family after being bullied by a teacher for her culture. Reddit user Flowergardens0 posted the story to the AITA forum, where people ask whether they are wrong in a specific situation.

Over 5,600 people commented on the story, and an overwhelming majority thought the mother was right. Here’s what went down:

“I (34F) have a (5M) son who attends preschool. A few hours after I picked him up from school today, I got a phone call from his teacher,” Flowergardens0 wrote. “She made absolutely no effort to sound kind when she, in an extremely rude and annoyed tone, told me to stop packing my son such ‘disgusting and inappropriate’ lunches."

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YouTube creator Steve Mould shows us what echo looks like through an acoustic camera.

It’s bizarre to think about seeing sound, but nowadays we can do just that. If you haven’t seen an acoustic camera before, that’s because they’re mainly used for industrial purposes, but they’ve been available commercially from gfai tech since 2001.

YouTuber Steve Mould, who has a science channel with over 2.1 million subscribers, took the complicated concept of the acoustic camera and made it easy to understand in his latest video, “Acoustic cameras can SEE sound.”

In the video, Mould explains how an acoustic camera is much like your smartphone's video recorder. But it also creates visual representations of sound emanating from where it’s generated within the video.

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Pop Culture

Woman was mocked online for calling an $80 purse a 'luxury item.' Her response went viral.

"I'm so grateful that my dad was able to get me one. He worked so hard for that money.”

@zohtaco/TikTok

Zoe Gabriel, showing off her new purse from Charles & Keith

Insults of any kind are painful, but jabs towards someone’s financial status are their own breed.

In January 2023, Singapore-based Zoe Gabriel was on the receiving end of this particular flavor of mockery when she posted a TikTok about a purse from local retail brand Charles & Keith—a gift bought for her by her father.

In her excitement, the 17-year-old called the bag, which costs around $80, a “luxury” item as she unwrapped it. Her excitement was sadly cut short by some of the negative comments she received.

One comment seemed to stand out above the rest and prompted Gabriel to post an emotional response video.

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Family

Dad gives his young daughter a 'spa day' while mom and sister are out and people are gushing

"This healed a part of me. Thank you for doing this with your daughter."

Mason Smith pampered his baby girl during her "spa day."

Raising kids is no small feat. Just the basic logistics of caring for a human being from their helpless newborn stage to the full-fledged adult stage is a lot, much less doing the countless other things that will actually help that human thrive.

Parents who go above and beyond to create a nurturing environment and build strong core memories with their kids are inspiring examples for us all, and one dad's spa day with his daughter has people positively gushing.

Mason Smith (@thedadsocial) shared a video of a special spa day he gave his young daughter when her mom and older sister were having their own pampered outing. "Mom and sister went to the salon so I couldn't have her feeling left out," he wrote.

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Jennifer Reardon shares her question that gets her the job everytime.

Job interviews are one of the most stressful situations people go through. A recent poll of over 2,000 people found that job interviews are the fifth most stressful experience a person can have, right after health and financial problems, family issues and running late.

That’s why it is vital to be prepared to handle any questions you have to field during the interview. You’ll be less nervous and make a better candidate. However, many people never think to have a question prepared for their potential employer at the end of the interview when they ask, “Do you have any questions for us?”

Communications director and consultant Jennifer Reardon, who goes by the name @notjenneeree on TikTok, says that she has the perfect question to ask at that pivotal moment at the end of the interview. And she claims that she got the job every time she’s asked the question.

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Photo by Egor Vikhrev on Unsplash

Let's talk about what makes people read articles.

The adage, "If it bleeds, it leads," refers to the media's tendency to headline stories involving death or violence, but it can also be used to point to people's negativity bias. Simply put, people tend to pay more attention to negative news stories than positive ones.

A new study seems to reinforce this idea. And much to our surprise, it's centered on headlines used in Upworthy stories.

Using a public archive of Upworthy headlines and traffic data from 2012 to 2015, two separate teams of researchers analyzed whether people's click tendencies changed with negative or positive words in headlines. In those olden days of Upworthy, a handful of headlines for a single story were tested on the website to see which one would receive the most clicks. The research teams analyzed those results and found that negative words in headlines led to more people clicking on a story (2.3% more), and positive words in headlines led to fewer clicks (1.0% fewer). They also found a preference for headlines that express sadness over those that express joy, fear or anger.

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