Chris Eggleton, In Their Natural Habitat. A portrait of the accumulated disposal of unwanted objects within a river estuary in Kent, revealed at low tide. Earth Photo, the international photography competition, has announced its 2022 shortlist. Created by Forestry England and the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), Earth Photo celebrates photographs and videos that tell stories about the planet, its inhabitants and its future.
This button combo is your ticket to see the hidden list of keyboard shortcuts for your favorite websites. I first stumbled upon it while browsing YouTube: Somehow, I accidentally hit Shift + /, and, all of a sudden, I was presented with this complete collection of keyboard shortcuts for the site... It’s worth scanning the full list to see if any of these keyboard shortcuts are new to you, and whether some of them might actually be helpful during your next YouTube binge. As someone who takes screenshots on YouTube as part of his job, the frame-by-frame scanning is particularly useful...It’s not just YouTube: Other popular websites you use every day hide keyboard shortcuts behind Shift + /... Other websites I’ve found that have these lists of keyboard shortcuts tucked away are Reddit, the Spotify web app, the WhatsApp web app, and Twitch. I’d love to know just how many websites include these hidden keyboard shortcuts as an option, but it’s difficult to find any information on the subject. Until then, the best thing to do is to experiment on the websites you frequent. It doesn’t seem to matter which browser you use (the shortcut works for me in both Chrome and Safari).
From toilet paper to yogurt and coffee to corn chips, manufacturers are quietly shrinking package sizes without lowering prices. It's dubbed "shrinkflation," and it's accelerating worldwide.In the U.S., a small box of Kleenex now has 60 tissues; a few months ago, it had 65. Chobani Flips yogurts have shrunk from 5.3 ounces to 4.5 ounces. In the U.K., Nestle slimmed down its Nescafe Azera Americano coffee tins from 100 grams to 90 grams. In India, a bar of Vim dish soap has shrunk from 155 grams to 135 grams...Dworsky began noticing smaller boxes in the cereal aisle last fall, and shrinkflation has ballooned from there. He can cite dozens of examples, from Cottonelle Ultra Clean Care toilet paper, which has shrunk from 340 sheets per roll to 312, to Folgers coffee, which downsized its 51-ounce container to 43.5 ounces but still says it will make up to 400 cups. (Folgers says it's using a new technology that results in lighter-weight beans.)Dworsky said shrinkflation appeals to manufacturers because they know customers will notice price increases but won't keep track of net weights or small details, like the number of sheets on a roll of toilet paper. Companies can also employ tricks to draw attention away from downsizing, like marking smaller packages with bright new labels that draw shoppers' eyes.That's what Fritos did. Bags of Fritos Scoops marked "Party Size" used to be 18 ounces; some are still on sale at a grocery chain in Texas. But almost every other big chain is now advertising "Party Size" Fritos Scoops that are 15.5 ounces — and more expensive.
Welcome to the hidden-cost economy, where sneaky fees are lurking everywhere, whether you’re buying concert tickets or plunking down your credit card at a bar, making everything much more expensive than they initially appear. It’s a retail strategy known as “price dripping.” Brands reel buyers in with a misleadingly low headline price before “dripping” an extra charge on top during the purchasing process...Restaurants are adding “kitchen appreciation” fees, and both airlines and Uber began implementing fuel charges as oil prices skyrocket.“Inflation has made the costs of raw materials more expensive,” Ching says. “But businesses are worried that if they raise the retail prices, that would upset consumers. Drip pricing is a ‘hidden’ way to raise prices.”... hidden costs that, in some cases, add up to more than the original price of the service or good... screenshot of an Airbnb charge that included $307.17 in cleaning, service, and occupancy fees—more than the $189 it costs to stay in the vacation rental for a single night.
... [there are] Facebook groups with names such as “Not Putting on a Shirt” and “Flat and Fabulous” that included many hundreds of women’s happy stories — and photos — about their choice to have an “aesthetic flat closure,’’ the term used by the National Cancer Institute starting in 2020, and forgo breast reconstruction.So Attai did her own survey of close to 1,000 women who’d had a single or double mastectomy without reconstruction. Published last year in Annals of Surgical Oncology, it found that close to three-quarters of the women said they were satisfied with the outcome...While many women still opt for breast reconstruction, as the numbers from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons make clear, Champagne and others engaged with the issue of flat closure tick off a list of reasons, including increased awareness of the option, for what cancer doctors and surgeons say is a growing interest in going flat...“A breast cancer diagnosis can be particularly overwhelming because there are so many decisions to be made in a short period of time including choices of doctors, a treatment plan and the woman’s post-mastectomy chest,” says Attai, in an email. There’s more awareness now that the process of reconstruction has risks. “Women who opt for reconstruction, whether a breast implant or their own tissue (called autologous reconstruction) could face multiple surgeries, post-surgery recovery, a 10 percent risk of infection which can get in the way of a chemotherapy or radiation schedule, and, occasionally, implant recalls and removals.”For women who want to do reconstruction, Attai says, they often feel the effort and risk is worth it. “But for others, it isn’t.”
Human urine... is full of the same nutrients that plants need to flourish. It has a lot more, in fact, than Number Two, with almost none of the pathogens...At first, collecting their urine in a jug was “a little sloshy,” Ms. Lucy said. But she was a nurse and he was a preschool teacher; pee didn’t scare them. They went from dropping off a couple of containers every week or so at an organizer’s home to installing large tanks at their own house that get professionally pumped out...Toilets, in fact, are by far the largest source of water use inside homes, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Wiser management could save vast amounts of water, an urgent need as climate change worsens drought in places like the American West...Chemical fertilizer is far from sustainable. The commercial production of ammonia, which is mainly used for fertilizer, uses fossil fuels in two ways. First, as the source of hydrogen, which is needed for the chemical process that converts nitrogen from the air into ammonia, and second as fuel to generate the intense heat required. By one estimate, ammonia manufacturing contributes 1 to 2 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Phosphorus, another key nutrient, is mined from rock, with an ever dwindling supply.
At the age of 17, competitive swimmer Lynne Cox had already accomplished a lot in the open ocean. She’d set two world records crossing the English Channel. But it wasn’t until a practice swim one morning that year in California that she did something we’d never heard of any human doing in the water. Phoebe Judge, host of the “This Is Love” podcast, tells her story. (14 minutes)
How then to explain the current popularity of greens that have first been grilled? There’s no clear origin story; the practice didn’t go viral on TikTok. And yet charred salads are turning up on menus across the country. Most versions plate the salad wedge-style to be cut with a knife, rather than use a bowl, but the dishes can take many forms...The key to a successful grilled salad, says Feges chef, owner, and general partner Erin Smith, is to find the right lettuce. “The greens that have been successful are the ones that hold their shape,” she says. “Like romaine, even radicchio. You wouldn’t want to grill a spinach salad.”The other cardinal rule, Smith says, is to let the greens cool: “People might want a grilled salad, but they don’t want hot lettuce.”
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Geico could be required to pay a Missouri woman $5.2 million because she said she contracted a sexually transmitted disease while having sex in the car of a man who is insured by the company...According to court documents, the woman, identified as M.O., and a man, who were in a relationship, had sex in the man’s car. She contends she contracted HPV, human papillomavirus, because the man did not tell her he had the disease. HPV can cause cervical cancer, certain other cancers and genital warts.In February 2021, M.O. notified Geico she planned to seek a $1 million insurance settlement against the man. She argued the man’s auto insurance provided coverage for her injuries and losses.The insurance company refused the settlement offer, saying the woman’s claim did not occur because of normal use of the vehicle, according to court documents...An arbitrator eventually determined she should be awarded $5.2 million for damages and her injuries.
The once mysterious show-as-a-puzzlebox has, four seasons in, become nothing but an endless MacGuffin hunt. How maddening for its seven remaining fans... There’s only so much I can tell you about where we are at the start of season four, but, as is typical for Westworld, they are truly making it up as they go along... Nobody in Westworld seems to be capable of answering a direct question without reciting a riddle. It is maddening... Normally when I hate something, I hate it with no remorse. But with Westworld, I genuinely feel sorry for the few remaining viewers who are invested in this story. You are not going to get a satisfying conclusion to all of this. What an amazing first episode that once was. What an absolute mess it is now.
