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Why America — Where Only The Rich Get Richer — Is Not A Democracy
Bill Moyers has seen the rich getting richer since the 1950s, and he's sick and tired of it.
07.04.12
Making new friends as an adult is challenging. While people crave meaningful IRL connections, it can be hard to know where to find them. But thanks to one Facebook Group, meeting your new best friends is easier than ever.
Founded in 2018, NYC Brunch Squad brings together hundreds of people who come as strangers and leave as friends through its in-person events.
“Witnessing the transformative impact our community has on the lives of our members is truly remarkable. We provide the essential support and connections needed to thrive amid the city's chaos,” shares Liza Rubin, the group’s founder.
Despite its name, the group doesn’t just do brunch. They also have book clubs, seasonal parties, and picnics, among other activities.
NYC Brunch Squad curates up to 10 monthly events tailored to the specific interests of its members. Liza handles all the details, taking into account different budgets and event sizes – all people have to do is show up.
“We have members who met at our events and became friends and went on to embark on international journeys to celebrate birthdays together. We have had members get married with bridesmaids by their sides who were women they first connected with at our events. We’ve had members decide to live together and become roommates,” Liza says.
Members also bond over their passion for giving back to their community. The group has hosted many impact-driven events, including a “Picnic with Purpose” to create self-care packages for homeless shelters and recently participated in the #SquadSpreadsJoy challenge. Each day, the 100 members participating receive random acts of kindness to complete. They can also share their stories on the group page to earn extra points. The member with the most points at the end wins a free seat at the group's Friendsgiving event.
If you want to meet the group in person, NYC Brunch Squad, along with many other locally-based New York groups, is participating in the upcoming Facebook IRL event on December 2. This pop-up experience in New York City’s West Village will provide a space to discover new hobbies, find new friends, and connect with others around the things they love.
Learn more about the event and sign up to attend here.
Not in the New York area but still want to get involved? As a result of NYC Brunch Squad’s popularity, the group is expanding across the country.
“With a robust community established in NYC, we're now excited to announce our expansion with pop-up events in the works in 15 additional cities. What's more, we're launching a travel club, extending our mission to foster connections beyond the city limits and to help people build life-changing friendships in new and exciting places,” Liza says.
If you’re ready to make new meaningful connections, join NYC Brunch Squad! You might just meet your new best friends.
Your purchasing power can swing by 30% from state to state.
Map represents the value of 100 dollars.
As the cost of living in large cities continues to rise, more and more people are realizing that the value of a dollar in the United States is a very relative concept. For decades, cost of living indices have sought to address and benchmark the inconsistencies in what money will buy, but they are often so specific as to prevent a holistic picture or the ability to "browse" the data based on geographic location.
The Tax Foundation addressed many of these shortcomings using the most recent (2015) Bureau of Economic Analysis data to provide a familiar map of the United States overlaid with the relative value of what $100 is "worth" in each state. Granted, going state-by-state still introduces a fair amount of "smoothing" into the process — $100 will go farther in Los Angeles than in Fresno, for instance — but it does provide insight into where the value lies.
The map may not subvert one's intuitive assumptions, but it nonetheless quantities and presents the cost of living by geography in a brilliantly simple way. For instance, if you're looking for a beach lifestyle but don't want to pay California prices, try Florida, which is about as close to "average" — in terms of purchasing power, anyway — as any state in the Union. If you happen to find yourself in a "Brewster's Millions"-type situation, head to Hawaii, D.C., or New York. You'll burn through your money in no time.
The Relative Value of $100 in a state.
Image by Tax Foundation.
If you're quite fond of your cash and would prefer to keep it, get to Mississippi, which boasts a 16.1% premium on your cash from the national average.
The Tax Foundation notes that if you're using this map for a practical purpose, bear in mind that incomes also tend to rise in similar fashion, so one could safely assume that wages in these states are roughly inverse to the purchasing power $100 represents.
This article originally appeared on 08.17.17
2023's pie is an homage to her favorite word to use while stuck in traffic.
You never know where a holiday tradition will come from.
Tried-and-true holiday traditions certainly have their merit, but there’s something quite special, magical even, about discovering personal rituals that commemorate one’s unique life. In my household, for instance, nothing quite rings in the Christmas spirit like sipping my partner’s delicious coquito and putting up a cardboard gingerbread house for my cats.
The beauty of creating customized holiday traditions is that they can be as festive, sentimental, or as silly as you want them to be. And you never know how one small moment can become the catalyst for a tradition that sparks joy year after year.
For Jess Lydon, that tradition is baking expletive-laden pies for Thanksgiving. (This is your profanity warning—the images below contain swear words.)
“What started as a means to get a rise out of my Grammy has snowballed into a weird family tradition. I bake one pie a year,” Lydon shared to the subreddit r/Baking.
For 2023, Lydon chose the word “D---wad,” an homage to her favorite word to hurl in a fit of road rage, topped onto a decadent rosette-filled apple pie.
A pie with with word “D---wad" placed on top
“Asshat,” apparently her second favorite word, was used in 2016.
Lydon also added a litany of pies from former years— “F---wit,” “Penis,”“B----,” “F--- Off”…you get the idea.
Gotta say, watching Lydon’s baking skills progress over the years (thanks in large part to using the correct tools, she notes) to something worthy of a Paul Hollywood handshake on “British Bake-off” makes this even more enjoyable.
Folks on Reddit seemed to enjoy it too. If for nothing else, to add their own profanity-themed jokes.
“A culinary and visual delight! This is the best thing I've seen all day,” one person wrote.
Meanwhile, another quipped, “Your growth in pastry work is quite touching, c---,” to which Lydon replied, “Thank you, t---. I’m pretty proud of the progress. And grateful to my family for putting up with The Early Years. The first few pies were rough looking.”
Others had suggestions for next year’s pies, including “prick,” “nimrod,” “bollocks,” and “bastard.” All solid choices.As Lydon explained to TODAY.com, the tradition came about from trying to get a “giggle” out of her “sweet little Japanese” grandma. After seeing that first pie, which read “F--- Off,” Lydon recalled that her grandmother gave a lighthearted “double edged compliment” by saying, “Oh my, well, I can see that you’ve tried really hard. And you put a lot of effort into it.”
Sadly, Lydon’s grandmother passed away a few years after the first pie, but the cheeky tradition lived on. And in its own quirky way, it brings Lydon’s family together.
As for her Reddit popularity, Lydon told TODAY.com that she’s thrilled others shared her love of vulgar pastry making, and is happy to see that some folks might start their own version of the tradition.
“If we can make a few more people laugh because of rude words looking pretty, then I’m all for it.”
Whether it’s curse-word pies, funny sweaters, DIY decorations, or something else altogether, maybe this is a sign to create your own unique holiday tradition, however big or small.They were doing trigonometry 1500 years before the Greeks.
Dr. Daniel Mansfield and his team at the University of New South Wales in Australia have just made an incredible discovery. While studying a 3,700-year-old tablet from the ancient civilization of Babylon, they found evidence that the Babylonians were doing something astounding: trigonometry!
Most historians have credited the Greeks with creating the study of triangles' sides and angles, but this tablet presents indisputable evidence that the Babylonians were using the technique 1,500 years before the Greeks ever were.
Mansfield and his team are, understandably, incredibly proud. What they discovered is that the tablet is actually an ancient trigonometry table.
Mansfield said:
"The huge mystery, until now, was its purpose – why the ancient scribes carried out the complex task of generating and sorting the numbers on the tablet. Our research reveals that Plimpton 322 describes the shapes of right-angle triangles using a novel kind of trigonometry based on ratios, not angles and circles. It is a fascinating mathematical work that demonstrates undoubted genius."
\u201cAussie mathematician cracks code of famous 3,700-year-old Babylonian clay tablet https://t.co/f7h6oIfBDr\u201d— China Xinhua News (@China Xinhua News) 1503639811
"The tablet not only contains the world's oldest trigonometric table; it is also the only completely accurate trigonometric table, because of the very different Babylonian approach to arithmetic and geometry. This means it has great relevance for our modern world. Babylonian mathematics may have been out of fashion for more than 3,000 years, but it has possible practical applications in surveying, computer graphics and education. This is a rare example of the ancient world teaching us something new."
The tablet predates Greek astronomer Hipparchus, who has long been regarded as the father of trigonometry. Mansfield's colleague, Norman Widberger, added:
"Plimpton 322 predates Hipparchus by more than 1,000 years. It opens up new possibilities not just for modern mathematics research, but also for mathematics education. With Plimpton 322 we see a simpler, more accurate trigonometry that has clear advantages over our own."
"A treasure trove of Babylonian tablets exists, but only a fraction of them have been studied yet. The mathematical world is only waking up to the fact that this ancient but very sophisticated mathematical culture has much to teach us."
People were understandably excited by the news.
\u201cA 3,700 year olf Babylonian tablet revealed as the world's first trigonometry table https://t.co/AQlpsndM92\u201d— The Conversation (@The Conversation) 1503613440
Some mathematicians actually think studying the Babylonians back then could help us improve the way we do trigonometry today.
\u201cBabylonian tablet Plimpton 322 will make studying maths easier, mathematician says https://t.co/s13ReWdD0c | @abcnews\u201d— ABC Australia (@ABC Australia) 1503644411
\u201c"With Plimpton 322 we see a simpler, more accurate trig. (with) clear advantages over our own."\n@n_wildberger: https://t.co/xoZBNxvxZ8\n#TOK\u201d— Roo Stenning (@Roo Stenning) 1503658186
Of course, there were the haters...
\u201cFind someone who loves you as much as this guy dislikes a hypothesis about Babylonian math: https://t.co/AznQgoYxFP\u201d— Miles Brundage (@Miles Brundage) 1503605001
But all in all, Twitter users were pretty impressed with the Babylonians' skills.
And they figured it out 3,700 years ahead of me...and counting.— Marty (@Marty) 1503631905
\u201c@prophiphop And we're over here trying to figure out how to do trig with our TI-83s... man I love it when the ancients show what real intelligence is.\u201d— Kenny Hayse (@Kenny Hayse) 1503633184
Congratulations to Dr. Mansfield and his team on their incredible discovery... and for making trigonometry exciting!
This article originally appeared on 07.10.21
"Not sure I can comprehend what just happened! Unbelievable."
Peter Bence's piano cover of "Africa" by Toto
Peter Bence’s performance of “Africa” by Toto has over 17 million views on YouTube because of his creative reimagining of the song and, well, just about everyone loves “Africa.”
Bence is a Hungarian composer and producer who has become a viral sensation for his Michael Jackson, Queen, Sia, and Beatles covers. He has over 1.1 million followers on YouTube and has toured the globe, playing in more than 40 countries across four continents.
His performance of “Africa'' is unique because it opens with him creating a rhythm track and looping it by strategically tapping the piano and rubbing its strings to create the sound of shakers and congo drums.
The video eventually becomes rapturous, with Benace making the piano sound like an entire orchestra.
Released in 1982, “Africa” was Toto’s biggest hit, reaching number one 1 in the U.S., number 3 in the UK, and the top 10 globally. It’s a stirring piece of music that’s beautifully arranged with an anthemic chorus. However, the lyrics aren’t that accurate.
The song’s author, Toto keyboardist Jeff Pocaro, describes it as: “A white boy is trying to write a song on Africa, but since he's never been there, he can only tell what he's seen on TV or remembers in the past.”
Nevertheless, the song is an iconic tune that captures a specific spirit of the early ‘80s when the world turned its focus to Africa. Over 40 years later, the song’s wholesome sincerity has made it a piece of music that every few years captures the hearts of a new generation.
“We appreciate your concern but please do not knock on our door.."
Meet Huckleberry the dog.
If you were taking a stroll through a quiet neighborhood and happened to catch a glance of this majestic sight, you might bat an eye. You might do a double take. If you were (somewhat understandably) concerned about this surprising roof-dog's welfare, you might even approach the homeowners to tell them, "Uh, I'm not sure if you know...but there's a...dog...on your ROOF."
Well, the family inside is aware that there's often a dog on their roof. It's their pet Golden, Huckleberry, and he just sorta likes it up there.
To put passersby at ease and ebb the parade of concerned parties knocking on their door, Huckleberry's human put up a note explaining the whole weird scenario to those interested:
There’s a dog on the wooof!
via Reddit
It reads:
"Huckleberry is living up to his name and learned how to jump onto our roof from the backyard. We never leave him in the backyard without someone being at home. He will not jump off unless you entice him with food or a ball!""
We appreciate your concern but please do not knock on our door... we know he's up there! But please feel free to take pictures of him and share with the world! #hucktheroofdog."
Of course, they ended it with a hashtag for photos shared on social media. Also, it seems a little strange that the owners mention that Huck is willing to jump 10 feet off a roof to chase food or a ball, but do nothing to suggest that people refrain from urging their dog to make that (seemingly dangerous) leap. Maybe Huck's got the whole process down to the point it's just not a concern.
This may seem like a pretty odd phenomenon, but not so odd that there isn't a whole corner of Reddit devoted to dogs who just seem to really, really enjoy roofs. It's called r/dogsonroofs, and boy does it ever deliver on that name.
This article originally appeared on 12.05.18
Embarrassing stains on your T-shirt, sniffing someone's bum to check if they have pooped, the first time having sex post-giving birth — as a new mom, your life turns upside-down.
Some good not so good moments with babies.
Illustrator Ingebritt ter Veld and Corinne de Vries, who works for Hippe-Birth Cards, a webshop for birth announcements, had babies shortly after one another.
In the series "#ThingsOnlyMomsKnow" Ingebritt and Corinne depict the reality of motherhood — with all the painful, funny, and loving moments not always talked about.
Expectant moms plan for the bathroom.
All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.
Learning how to go with the flow.
All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.
Moms can be emotional... and dads too.
All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.
Falling in love with the necessary conveniences.
All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.
People have the ability to make normal situations feel weird.
All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.
The convenience of a pregnancy tests is also peeing on a stick.
All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.
Taking advantage of two bodily functions at one time.
All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.
Walking into a house with babies... yep.
All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.
Have a spare shirt ready to go.
All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.
Looking behind the magic of a breast pump.
All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.
No need to duck.
All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.
There are going to be changes.
All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.
This story first appeared on Hippe Birth Cards and is reprinted here with permission.
This article originally appeared on 09.13.17