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Former Defense Secretary General James Mattis famously said, "PowerPoint makes us stupid." Like many among today's top military brass, he sees our culture's addiction to PowerPoint as a threat to the efficiency and effectiveness of our armed forces. Similarly, many CEOs have banned PowerPoint from their meetings, including Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Twitter's Jack Dorsey, LinkedIn's Jeff Weiner, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and the late Steve Jobs. Smart leaders hate PowerPoint because business presentations straitjacket meetings into a slow-moving linear direction. This discourages conversation and discussion, turning the other attendees into passive chair potatoes. PowerPoint--when used as designed--reduces attention, understanding,...

My Hearing had degraded over time. I used TVEars for a while. In 2018 I purchased an inexpensive Hearing Aid for $59.(Britzgo) I started with one end later got a second. I found that in noisy environments I had difficulty hearing - the only thing the hearing aid did was make all sounds louder. As time went on I found one hearing aid in either ear - depending on surrounding work best but not in noisy area or when multiple people were talking. As technology improved I get a smaller pair for $300. (Britzgo). Result smaller buttons - harder to...

Time to once again consult the great hive mind that is my fellow FReepers... I am a relatively new (about 6 months) silver stacker (and gold, when I can afford it). One thing I've been hearing for a long time is "Silver is undervalued."I know silver is used for a zillion industrial uses -- solar, electronics, medical, etc. I know there is a huge deficit between "paper" silver and actual physical silver to back that paper. I know demand has been through the roof for many months -- not just in the U.S. but around the world -- and not...

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has announced it has recruited hundreds of thousands of “information warriors” to control the internet, policing social media and forums for “misinformation” and conspiracy content which will then be systematically shut down. According to Klaus Schwab’s WEF, misinformation on the internet is an “infodemic” that is “potentially deadly” and requires a “cure.” The definition of misinformation, according to the WEF, is any content on the internet that they disagree with. This means the WEF’s hundreds of thousands of information warriors will be engaged in the act of shutting down dissent against the globalist elite. Before...

Welcome to The Bicycle Thread. A monthly PING List for bicycle enthusiasts to share experiences, information and ideas. 🚴‍♂️👍

...To a number of scholars, there's more to Stonehenge's design than a symbolic reverence for the changing lengths of days. It's a timekeeper of some detail, a 'Neolithic computer' even...Last year, Bournemouth University archaeologist Tim Darvill published his claim that the monument operated as some kind of 'perpetual calendar', one based on a solar year equivalent to 365.25 days.Now, Polytechnic University of Milan mathematician Giulio Magli and astronomer Juan Antonio Belmonte from the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, Spain, have countered Darvill's claim, stating it is based on "a series of forced interpretations, numerology, and unsupported analogies with...

Gordon Moore, the tech pioneer and co-founder of Intel, has died at age 94, Intel and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation announced Friday. Moore died peacefully in his home, surrounded by family. Moore was best-known for his famous observation known as Moore's Law. In 1965, Moore made the observation that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double every year. Moore's prediction proved to be correct, and the idea of faster, smaller, and cheaper chip technology is still the driving force behind Silicon Valley's mission to this day. “Gordon Moore defined the technology industry through his...

AOC is on the House floor flailing around like a chicken again, this time over a Republican-sponsored bill that would -gasp- give parents more of a say in their children's education. Specifically: "The Parents Bill of Rights has 5 pillars to ensure parents have the right to have a voice in their kids' education: Right to know what's being taught in schools and to see reading material; Right to be heard; Right to see school budget and spending; Right to protect their child's privacy; [and] Right to be updated on any violent activity at school." This is, of course, horrifying...

More than half of the global population will be overweight or obese by 2035 if action is not taken on the issue, according to a new report. The World Obesity Foundation released its fifth annual atlas on the global status of obesity this week, predicting that 51 percent of the global population — about 4 billion people — will be obese or overweight in 12 years. The report also said that from 2020 to 2035, the share of the world’s population considered to be obese will increase from 14 to 24 percent. In 2020, 38 percent of the world population...

In the Northeast woodlands the most feared and hated nation was the Iroquois — especially the Mohawk and Seneca. The Algonquian speaking nations and Iroquoian speaking Huron were particular enemies of the Iroquois. In the 1640s, the Iroquois unleashed a virtual genocide on the other Nations of the region, one that was not quickly forgotten. The Ojibwa defeated a number of the Iroquois incursions and ran the Sioux out of their forested homeland onto the plains. The Ojibwa (Chippewa and associated bands) occupied more land than any other tribe ever has from Manitoba to Indiana and took over smaller tribes...

The Life of A Plane Captain in the United States Navy-1977Back in the mid-to-late Seventies, I was an Aviation Machinist's Mate in Attack Squadron VA-46, the Clansmen. In 1976 and 1977, I was a Plane Captain in the US Navy, aboard the USS John F. Kennedy on a Mediterranean deployment. At sea, you worked 12 hours on, 12 hours off 7 days a week at sea (I believe this is still the standard for all deployed vessels) Plane Captains were the entry level job for most Airmen in the Navy. You went to a training squadron (mine was the VA-174...

With a record 16% of American consumers paying at least $1,000 a month for their cars, it's no surprise that drivers are starting to fall behind on their bills. The percentage of borrowers at least 60 days late on their car payments is higher today than it was during the peak of the Great Recession in 2009.There are multiple factors driving this trend. Car financing costs are climbing as the Federal Reserve continues its aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes to combat persistent inflation. At the same time, used car values are dropping, leaving debtors at risk of owing more...

Old people in Japan should kill themselves to avoid burdening the state, a professor at Yale University has said. Yusuke Narita, an assistant professor of economics, has also suggested that euthanasia could be made compulsory. Last year, official statistics in Japan revealed that over-75s accounted for 15 per cent of the country’s population for the first time. Those over 65 account for 29.1 per cent of the total, making the Japanese population the oldest in the world. “I feel like the only solution is pretty clear,” said Mr Narita, 37. “In the end, isn’t it mass suicide and mass ‘seppuku’...

Al Arabiya English Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing to become the Prime Minister of Israel for the third time. He has until December 21 to form a government before taking office. In a wide-ranging interview with a group of print and television journalists at Al Arabiya, Mr. Netanyahu discussed Israel’s relations with Arab states, the US alliance structure in the Middle East, unrest in Iran, Israel’s new hard-right government, the future of the US-brokered maritime border agreement with Lebanon, and the Russia-Ukraine war. Mr. Netanyahu reiterated the paramount importance of normalization with Saudi Arabia, which would be a “quantum leap” toward...

Young people are discovering that “digital footprints” are real — and a real problem for our most-online generation. A TikTok user has gone viral after sharing their social media nightmare, claiming they missed out on a job because of something their potential colleagues had seen them post online. “Me realizing the digital footprint is real because when called for a job interview they loved me but when they did a background check they said they didn’t want to hire me anymore,” the TikTok user, @shoomew, wrote in text over a recent video — with more than 4.1 million views since...

California Screamin’! 6 of the top 8 metro areas with the largest home price crash in 2022 were in California, according to Redfin. Sadly, I lived in three of these metro areas (Austin TX, San Jose CA and Phoenix AZ), although I wouldn’t confuse correlation with causation. The trend for home price growth (blue line) is definitely on the downturn as The Fed removes its ample stimulus (green line). Here is California governor Gavin (Nancy Pelosi’s nephew) Newsome screaming about crashing California home prices.

The American Bar Association is under fire after taking steps to abandon LSAT entrance exam scores as a law school admissions requirement after a study showed that minority applicants score lower. The Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar approved the proposed standards revision earlier this month.The proposed change now goes to the association's policy-making body, the House of Delegates, for review in February. "But final approval to change ABA Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools rests with the council, which serves as an independent arm of the ABA for...

Hey smart folks, I'm one of those users who never figured out how to post italic, bold or underlined script, or how to embed photos from elsewhere into my posts. Any tips welcome. Thanks.

What's your favorite ice cream flavor? You might say vanilla or chocolate, and if I asked why, you’d probably say it’s because it tastes good. But why does it taste good, and why do you still want to try other flavors sometimes? Rarely do we ever question the basic decisions we make in our everyday lives, but if we did, we might realize that we can’t pinpoint the exact reasons for our preferences, emotions, and desires at any given moment. There's a similar problem in artificial intelligence: The people who develop AI are increasingly having problems explaining how it works...

Once upon a time, nearly 70% of all new builds were starter homes — single-family houses with 1,400 square feet or less that started at $6,990. But that was in the 1940s. Fast forward to 1980 and that share fell to 40%. Then, in 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that a mere 7% of all new homes were represented by the small, entry-level homes that are affordable for first-time buyers — and the prices aren’t even remotely similar.