Can Travel Curb Its Global Emissions and Create a Better Future?
One of Saudi Arabia’s “giga-projects,” NEOM, is committed to regenerative tourism, like coral reef protection off of Yabou Island in the Red Sea.
If you are a regular reader of AFAR, you know we’re dedicated to making travel a force for good in the world. Our tagline is “Travelers Who Care” and we are proud to speak to and for travelers who are conscientious about how they explore: experiences that enrich the traveler personally, support the communities visited, and are sensitive to the effects on our planet.
Continued here �  S66No fair: Make Zack unstoppable with these 'Crisis Core' Materia combos
Crisis Core Reunion uses a lot of the same mechanics as Final Fantasy 7, with the iconic Materia system returning once again, in an even larger way. Zack can equip a variety of Materia that let him use magic spells, abilities, give stat boosts, make certain DMW reels more likely, and more. Materia is your primary way of powering up Zack, and Crisis Core Reunion has dozens of options for loadouts and combat styles. The further you get into the game the more options you have, and it can be a bit tough to parse what Materia is worth investing in. Here are a few suggestions for some of Crisis Core’s best Materia setups.
Costly Punch is easily the most useful Materia in the entire game, as it uses your HP to cause non-elemental damage that bypasses armor. This means if you bump up your HP, you can easily start dishing out 99,999 damage per hit. This setup is absolutely essential for taking on later missions and Crisis Core’s secret boss, Minerva. The easiest way to get Costly Punch is to fuse it by using any of the “Punch” Materia (Goblin Punch, Iron Fist) and combining it with any DMW Materia.
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S6� S2S1011 of the best TV shows to watch this January
Seven years after the last season ended, we finally have the third and final instalment of Sally Wainwright's lifelike, emotional police drama set in Northern England. Catherine Cawood (played with brilliant down-to-earth realism by Sarah Lancashire) is about to retire from the police force in the Yorkshire town of Hebden Bridge – then a dead body points her toward the series' once-and-future villain, Tommy Lee Royce, who raped Catherine's daughter and caused her eventual suicide. The usually dashing James Norton returns in evil mode as Royce, the father of Catherine's 16-year-old grandson. With Lancashire's bracing performance and Wainwright's deft mix of family ties and detailed detective work, the series has always surpassed the tropes of the police genre. In the runup to the new season, The Guardian declared it "one of the best TV dramas of the 21st Century."
It's choose-your-own chronology in this heist drama. Giancarlo Esposito stars as Leo Pap, mastermind of a gang trying to rob mogul Roger Salas (Rufus Sewell) of $7 billion held in his supposedly impenetrable New York City vault. The trick is that the eight episodes are designed to be watched in any order you choose (except for the finale), so that different viewers will piece together the would-be crime in different ways. Pap plays the long game, as the story covers 25 years. The episodes, each identified by a colour rather than a number, have titles like, The Blue Episode: 5 Days before The Heist and The Violet Episode: 24 Years Before the Heist. Sounds like work, but it also looks like Esposito, so smoothly criminal in Breaking Bad, is worth it.
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� S14Israel's new hard-line government has made headlines - the bigger demographic changes that caused it, not so much
Israel’s new goverment is the most right-wing and religious leadership the country has had in the 75 years of its existence, as many observers have pointed out. And this style of leadership may last because it represents the next generation of Israelis.
You don’t have to look far to see that the religiously observant Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox sectors of Israel’s population are growing quickly. The new minister of Jerusalem affairs has 12 children. The minister of national missions – one of the few women in the cabinet – has 11, the housing minister 10, the interior minister nine, the finance minister and the minister of immigration have seven each and the minister of heritage has six.
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S42Labor's scheme to cut industrial emissions is worryingly flexible
The federal government today proposed new rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s polluting industrial sector. The rule changes apply to a measure known as the “safeguard mechanism”, and are supposed to stop Australia’s top 215 emitters, such as new coal, oil and gas projects, from emitting over certain thresholds, or “baselines”.
The safeguard mechanism was established by the Abbott Coalition government in 2016. It’s been widely criticised for lacking teeth – indeed, industrial emissions have actually increased since the mechanism began.
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S64This leaf-inspired device could be the key to hydrogen farms
Hydrogen fuel may not sound like Hollywood material, but it plays a key role in Rian Johnson’s latest murder mystery, Glass Onion. Without spoiling too much, a crystal of solid hydrogen acts as a Chekov’s gun that pays off in spectacular fashion.
Moviegoers may be forgiven for thinking that this futuristic fuel is a purely fictional creation. To be fair, room-temperature crystal hydrogen is no easy feat.
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S35Vince Copley had a vision for a better Australia - and he helped make it happen, with lifelong friend Charles Perkins
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people.
In his memoir’s final chapter, Vince Copley wonders: if the first legal marriage of an Aboriginal woman and a white man had been socially accepted in the 1850s, would his own wife have been spared being pushed to the end of the 1970s bank queue because she was with him, a blackfella? Would that real estate agent have considered their application instead of throwing it straight in the bin? Would their daughter have been spared the schoolyard bullying and their son the name-calling?
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S69New 'Ant-Man: Quantumania' trailer is already setting up next 'Avengers'
The newest trailer for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is already looking to the future of the MCU.
During the CFP National Championship on Monday night, played between Georgia and TCU, Marvel Studios premiered a new trailer for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the next film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the third in the Ant-Man series.
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S3S18How to unlock your creativity - even if you see yourself as a conventional thinker
Many people believe that creative thinking is difficult – that the ability to come up with ideas in novel and interesting ways graces only some talented individuals and not most others.
Together, they seem to paint a dire picture for those who consider themselves conventional thinkers, as well as those who do not work in creative occupations – including roles that are often considered traditional and noncreative, such as accountants and data analysts.
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S30How the pharmaceutical industry uses disinformation to undermine drug price reform
Canada’s drug prices are the fourth highest in the developed world. Despite this, Innovative Medicines Canada (IMC), the lobby group for Big Pharma, put out a call in November 2022 for the Canadian government to suspend consultations on guidelines aimed at lowering prescription drug prices.
The proposed guidelines were expected to come into effect on Jan. 1, but were postponed in late December.
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S11An 'unapologetically Indian' universe
A video depicting an otherworldly India flashed across screens in New York's Times Square in 2022. In one scene, a warrior resembling Lord Ganesha appeared in Transformers-esque battle armour. Elsewhere, a tower in the style of a minaret from the Mughal era glimmered with gold and lasers. These powerful visuals featured in a trailer for Indus Battle Royale, a video game set in space and based on the Indus Valley Civilisation – one of mankind's oldest urban societies, which arose on the Indian subcontinent around 3000 BCE.
Combining Indian mythology and architecture with science fiction, Indus Battle Royale is one of the latest manifestations of a philosophy known as Indofuturism – an aesthetic, a genre and a narrative that envisions what India could look like in the future. These visions, whether expressed through science fiction, music or art, are rooted in staples of traditional Indian culture such as spirituality and folk customs. But they're also universally appealing, thanks to provocative design, cutting-edge technology, captivating sonics and their emphasis on diversity and self-reliance.
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S5S41Dog theft is increasing, and so are new laws targeting this awful crime. But will they help?
Amid the first year of the pandemic in 2020, crime statistics in Victoria showed an increase in the number of dogs reported stolen. Since then, media reports suggest there’s been an increase in dog theft in Australia.
The price of dogs has increased during the pandemic given higher demand and decreased supply, particularly of purebred and designer dogs. Dog theft is said to be rising due to offenders exploiting this situation. Media reports suggest dogs are being targeted to be sold on the black market.
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S21Women work harder than men -
For most people around the world, physical work takes up a great amount of time and energy every day. But what determines whether it is men or women who are working harder in households? In most hunter-gatherer societies, men are the hunters and women are the gatherers – with men seemingly walking the furthest. But what’s the labour breakdown in other societies?
We carried out a study of farming and herding groups in the Tibetan borderlands in rural China – an area with huge cultural diversity – to uncover which factors actually determine who works the hardest in a household, and why. Our results, published in Current Biology, shed light on the gender division of work across many different kinds of society.
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S12The online 'hierarchy of credibility' that fuels influencers like Andrew Tate
The arrest of influencer Andrew Tate in Romania on charges of sex trafficking and sexual abuse will do little to deter his supporters. For some time now, those outside his sphere of influence have looked on bemused as to how he appears to have accumulated so much power over young people.
The fact is that Tate, like many others, has tapped into the understanding that people who feel disenfranchised seek leadership, guidance, and hope via the internet. He is part of a new social hierarchy that is forming around people who feel let down by conventional leaders.
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S8Flexibility Is Key to Integrating Meaning and Work | Lynda Gratton
Our shared experience of the COVID-19 pandemic created an opportunity to question a lot of things. We revisited long-held assumptions, picked up new habits, and let go of past ways of being. Over the past two years, my team and I have led a series of workshops and seminars where we asked people to talk about what they have learned about themselves.
For some, the pandemic kick-started an urge to change their working identity — how they describe themselves. For example, some said they have started side hustles to experiment with creating the small businesses they’ve always dreamed of. Others said they have gained clarity on how to advance in their work lives: “I want to become a coach in two years’ time, so I need to build the experience and skills that will help me to do that,” said one participant.
Others have identified what they deeply care about. “My parents are getting older, and although they don’t need my care now, I want to spend time with them while I still can,” said one person. Time away from the norms of office work brought home to others just how important friendship is: “I realized that I’ve let my connections with my two closest friends get weaker, and I want to fix that.”
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S9What's the problem with inventing flashy new job titles?
Chief executive officer. Marketing director. Lead writer. Sales associate. Job titles like these have generally been standard across work for years. They’re succinct and clear, communicating essential employee details such as job function and seniority. They make sense to employees and recruiters alike, leaving little room for ambiguity.
However, job titles are yet another feature evolving in the changing world of work. Labels like ‘chief visionary officer’, ‘chief innovation evangelist’, ‘business development guru’ or ‘chief remote officer’ are emerging, making the traditional system seem too rigid, and perhaps even stale.
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S43S27S19Why Ghana relies heavily on used cars
The sale of electric cars is growing. Globally, some 2 million electric vehicles were sold in the first quarter of 2022 – 75% more than in the first three months of 2021. Most, though, are sold in high income countries.
As transport electrification takes hold in rich countries to reduce emissions that lead to climate change and air pollution, increasing numbers of internal combustion engine vehicles are likely to land in used vehicle markets.
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S26S68The 5 biggest EV announcements of CES 2023
Mercedes-Benz, RAM, Sony, and Volkswagen made this year’s CES another big one for electric vehicles.
As CES continues its annual swelling, growing to encompass every type of consumer device (and swallowing much of Las Vegas along the way), the job of spotting trends gets harder and harder. There are just so many to choose from!
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S15S24S4S36S7S44North Korea: record number of missile tests in 2022 has raised fears of nuclear confrontation with the South
North Korea began 2023 as it had ended 2022 – with some characteristic sabre-rattling in the form of missile tests. Having launched more missiles in 2022 than in any other year, on the morning of January 1 this year, North Korea tested a large new multiple launch rocket system that, according to Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, can strike any part of South Korea with tactical nuclear warheads.
On the same day, Kim called for the North to “exponentially increase” its stock of nuclear weapons. There has been a substantial reshuffle at the top of the military, including the dismissal of Kim’s number two, Pak Jong-chon, who has been replaced by the chief of the general staff, Rim Kwang-il, as part of an effort to push the military harder to achieve greater readiness and combat capability.
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S29S25S13S16S17The South African government has been buying farmland for black farmers. It's not gone well
When the African National Congress came to power in South Africa in 1994, an expressed priority was land reform. This was to address the fact that black farmers had been excluded from the agricultural economy for most of the 20th century. The aim of land reform was to provide agricultural land to disadvantaged people, raising their productivity, income and employment.
A plethora of policy initiatives were launched. The target was to distribute 30% of agricultural land to black farmers. In 2006 the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLAS) was adopted. This replaced the land redistribution programmes implemented between 1996 and 2006. The acquisition programme involved the government buying farmland previously owned by white farmers and redistributing it to black farmers.
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S65SpaceX Starship orbital flight date: Elon Musk offers a new launch window
SpaceX’s giant rocket to Mars and beyond could take its first orbital flight sometime within the next year — but questions around where it will fly from caused delays in the company’s planning applications. Now, we know that the company will launch Starships from the SpaceX Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas (which has prompted controversy).
So far, SpaceX has tested all six Raptor engines on its Starship upper-stage prototype called Ship 24. The vehicle will be launched by Booster 7 — a prototype for the Super Heavy first-stage rocket. As for Booster 7, the company has only fired up 14 of the 33 engines so far.
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S31Islamic paintings of the Prophet Muhammad are an important piece of history - here's why art historians teach them
Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, recently dismissed Erika López Prater, an adjunct faculty member, for showing two historical Islamic paintings of the Prophet Muhammad in her global survey of art history. Following complaints from some Muslim students, university administrators described such images as disrespectful and Islamophobic.
While many Muslims today believe it is inappropriate to depict Muhammad, it was not always so in the past. Moreover, debates about this subject within the Muslim community are ongoing. Within the academic world, this material is taught in a neutral and analytical way to help students – including those who embrace the Islamic faith – assess and understand historical evidence.
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S28S40England may be set to flood at the end of winter - here's why
Within the space of a week in February 2022, England and Wales were affected by three severe storms (Dudley, Eunice and Franklin). Persistent heavy rain led to the flooding of around 400 properties and severe flood warnings were issued for several major rivers, including the River Severn. Now, the UK Met Office is predicting that England is again set to experience severe flooding in February 2023 – a prediction the forecasters attribute to a global weather phenomenon called La Niña.
El Niño and La Niña are the two separate phases of the El Niño southern oscillation (ENSO). This is the name given to the phenomenon of irregular annual variations in sea surface temperatures (by as much as 3℃), air pressure and rainfall across the Pacific Ocean. A La Niña event is characterised by significantly lower sea surface temperatures in areas of the Pacific.
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S557 post-apocalypse games like 'The Last of Us'
With the upcoming release of The Last of Us HBO TV adaptation, now is the best time to play the video game series it’s based on. But what if you’ve already finished both installments and the DLC? Thankfully, there’s no shortage of stellar post-apocalyptic games to try — many of which feature compelling stories and gameplay to match. Some focus more on narrative, others are geared towards challenging gameplay, and some can even be experienced with a friend online. These are seven games like The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II you need to play ASAP.
When it comes to mirroring the relationship of father and daughter, Telltale’s first season of The Walking Dead comes closest to The Last of Us. Sure, The Walking Dead is a point-and-click adventure game, but in terms of its story — which involves a father figure taking a young girl under his wing — both games are quite similar. It’s also a fantastic choice for those who don’t play games often, as The Walking Dead doesn’t require twitch reflexes to complete. Bet you can’t make it through this game without crying.
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S62D&D's community is up in arms over a controversial change
The best Dungeons & Dragons adventures I’ve ever had — whether as the Dungeon Master guiding the story or as a player experiencing it — have been original “homebrew” creations not published by Wizards of the Coast. Sure, they might adapt locations and storylines from official materials and use the game’s core systems, but it’s wholly original content.
In some cases, the creative process is akin to writing a novel or video game, and some of the best content creators make a living producing and reselling remixes of existing storylines or entire unique adventures. But now, Wizards of the Coast and parent company Hasbro is poised to put major restrictions on this type of content — and the community is not happy about it.
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S59Sniping in 'Warzone 2.0' is rough — but one Victus XMR loadout makes it fun again
In Warzone 2.0, coming equipped with a long-range sniper will serve you well, especially since many of your engagements in Al Mazrah occur from hundreds of meters away. The game boasts many excellent sniper rifles, but a fan favorite is the Victus XMR, which is available for free as part of the battle pass. As always, building the best version of a weapon can be tricky due to the sheer number of attachment options the game has to offer. But here, we’ll highlight the very best Victus XMR loadout in Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0.
There are lots of different ways to build the Victus XMR sniper depending on your playstyle. However, the recommended build focuses on fast aim-down sights (ADS) time and high bullet velocity.
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S23Invasive rats are changing fish behaviour on coral reefs - new study
Coral reefs are degrading rapidly to the extent that their marine inhabitants must either adapt or die. For many animals, including reef fish, behaviour is one of the first responses to changes in environmental conditions.
Behavioural changes may be critical for predicting the future survival of many animal species. This is encouraging marine scientists to study how, why or when these changes happen.
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S56Astronomers find a way to detect a bizarre stellar object that exists for just a few milliseconds
Cram the Sun into the diameter of a city, then do the same to a second star, and now have them clash. When this happens in the cosmos, reverberations in the fabric of space-time carry throughout the Universe.
This is the realm of the emerging science known as gravitational wave astronomy. Sometimes, astrophysicists at LIGO get lucky enough to notice these crashes. But the field is new and evolving. To understand the merger of two neutron stars — dense remnants of massive stars that met explosive ends as supernovae — astronomers are turning to archival data from energetic radiation that bursts out of these events.
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S58Tim Blake Nelson's 'Dune 2' casting can only mean two things
The year of Dune is upon us. On December 12, 2022, according to Timothée Chalamet (and other sources), Dune: Part Two completed filming. And yet, we’re still learning about new cast members. On January 6, 2023, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that actor Tim Blake Nelson is set to appear in Dune: Part 2. But his character has not yet been named. As journalist Borys Kit put it: “details for Nelson’s role are being kept deep in the sand.”
So who is Nelson playing? Most signs point toward one pivotal character in the first Frank Herbert novel. Then again, there might be a bigger twist that could lead to a hypothetical third Dune film. Speculation ahead.
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S63'Skinamarink' review: Nightmare fuel that will keep you awake for the rest of your life
When we talk about the “scariest movie of all time,” we talk about a lot of different movies. The corner where variety and taste meet is the busiest intersection in all of arts discourse. Because not everyone is going to be scared by the same things, the horror genre has been allowed to flourish.
But from now on, when we talk about the “scariest movie of all time,” we’ll be talking about Skinamarink, a slow-burn lo-fi nightmare by independent filmmaker Kyle Edward Ball.
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S45Gary McKee: what it takes to run a marathon a day for a year
For many runners, a marathon is a lifetime achievement. But a British man named Gary McKee took marathon running to another level by running one a day for 365 days in 2022 to raise money for charity.
Not only did McKee achieve his goal, he ran an average time of just over four hours. Astonishingly, this is faster than the average worldwide marathon time of four and a half hours. He travelled over 9,500 miles in the year (around 800 miles a month) – a distance many of us don’t even achieve by car – and used 22 pairs of trainers to reach his goal. The amount of miles McKee ran is something that many elite distance runners don’t even achieve.
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S46Vicky Krieps Meets Her Painted Doppelgänger
"Someone told me there's a painting here that looks just like me," the actor Vicky Krieps said not long ago, as she climbed the marble stairs of the Neue Galerie, on Fifth Avenue. She wore cowboy boots, a pink Lacoste sweatshirt, a green velvet blazer, and a fuzzy white beret that had belonged to her grandmother; two feathers hung, dream-catcher style, from one ear. Upstairs, she considered the Klimts. "Definitely not that one," she said, pointing to "The Woman in Gold." She gestured toward a small half profile of a woman dressed in black. "Perhaps I look a little like her, in the movie," she said, glancing doubtfully at her sweatshirt.
In Krieps's new film, "Corsage," she plays the Empress Elisabeth, who, with her husband, Franz Joseph, ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the late nineteenth century. In "Corsage," which was directed by Marie Kreutzer, Elisabeth (or Sissi) is by turns willful and melancholic, a reflexive rebel who kicks at the ankles of the Hapsburg hierarchy but is obsessed with her place in it. "Sissi was a little in touch with something ahead of her time," Krieps said. "She was very vain, she was very strict. In a certain sense, she was very ignorant—but you see signs of something else."
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S22S6038 years ago, a goofy Nintendo prototype changed video games forever
These days, Nintendo is synonymous with video games, and it’s hard to imagine the medium without Mario and The Legend of Zelda. But that wasn’t always the case. Nintendo emerged into gaming after the large-scale recession known as the video game crash of 1983. It’s not an overstatement to say that Nintendo “saved” video games with the release of the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) in 1985. But before that, the console took a surprisingly different shape.
Each January, CES gives a glimpse of the future of electronics, and video games have long played a part in that. (Fun fact: the summer gaming convention E3 is a spinoff of CES.) In 1983, Nintendo released the Famicom in Japan, and the company entered into negotiations with Atari to bring the console to Western markets. Originally, the Famicom was going to be brought West as the Nintendo Advanced Video Gaming System, and it was shown off only once at CES in 1985.
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S53You need to watch the most underrated vampire movie on HBO Max ASAP
"I believe there are forces of light and darkness in the world, and I don't want to be a contributor to the force of darkness.”
What sinister force of darkness was talk show host Oprah Winfrey referring to? The answer is neither tied to the occult nor the real-life horrors of our world, but rather a movie where Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt get hot and heavy while wearing creepy colored contacts.
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S61One episode in, the 'Nier: Automata' anime is already a must-watch
NieR: Automata Ver1.1a has the difficult task of adapting one of the most complex video game narratives into a 24-episode anime that will air for only a fraction of the game’s runtime. The show’s first episode laid any questions to rest about whether or not the anime could live up to its source material. Offering newcomers to the story an accurate retelling of the game while peppering in new wrinkles and Easter eggs for long-time fans to obsess over, it is already shaping up to be the must-watch anime of the season, regardless of how familiar you are with the work of Yoko Taro.
Beginner friendly — NieR creator Yoko Taro has stated that in making the animated Automata adaptation, the rest of the production team had to reel him in from making many changes to the story. From the opening moments of episode one, titled “Or not to [B]e,” this is true (mostly, but we will get to that later).
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S52Marvel's 2023 lineup can't fix the MCU's biggest problem
The general consensus among Marvel Cinematic Universe fans seems to be that 2022 was a pretty bad year for Hollywood’s most dominant franchise. Despite releasing more projects than it has in any other past year, Marvel Studios’ reputation as a creative powerhouse took a major hit last year.
Now that 2022 has come to an end, it’s time for fans to start looking ahead at what Marvel has planned for the next 12 months.
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S50Maxwell Frost’s Vision Meets Washington
Just before noon last Tuesday, Maxwell Alejandro Frost walked into the Capitol for the first session of Congress. Dressed in a sleek navy suit, with a gold-plated pin on his lapel, he made his way to the eastern side of the House chamber, joining other newly elected Democrats. At twenty-five, Frost is Congress's first Afro-Cuban and Gen Z member. Less than two months had elapsed since Frost won his seat in Florida's Tenth Congressional District, an area that encompasses most of Orlando, by nearly twenty percentage points. The day was to mark a transition long awaited by Republicans, who won a slim four-seat majority in the House. But, first, there needed to be a roll-call vote.
"Pursuant to law and precedent, the next order of business is the election of the Speaker," Cheryl Johnson, the House clerk, sternly declared from the rostrum. Each party introduced its nominee, with Republicans hailing Kevin McCarthy, of California, as a leader who would "save the United States of America," and Democrats uniting behind Hakeem Jeffries, of New York, the first Black lawmaker to be nominated for the role, proclaiming him "a Speaker who will put people over politics." A tense silence followed as, one by one, the House's four hundred and thirty-four members cast their votes. Some used their time to make a political statement, but Frost had his own preoccupations. "All I could think of was, Don't say McCarthy, don't say McCarthy, don't say McCarthy," he later told me. When his turn came, Frost leaped from his seat, and, after a moment of hesitation, yelled, "Jeffries!"
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S57S47McCarthy Asks Whatever Joker Hid His Gavel to Give It Back
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Kevin McCarthy’s tenure as Speaker of the House got off to an awkward start as the California congressman asked “whatever joker” hid his gavel to return it at once.
“O.K., guys, you’ve had your fun,” McCarthy said, his voice barely audible over the derisive hoots of his fellow-Republicans. “I’m going to count to ten, and then I expect to have my gavel back.”
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S51Wedding Speech for My Podcast Co-host
Hello, my name is Genevieve, and although many of you might not recognize me I’m sure you recognize my voice, as I am the co-host of the socialist, stoner, dating-advice, pop-culture-commentary, beauty-tips, and humor podcast “High, Help, Hooray,” alongside our beautiful bride, Daphne.
When we started the show, Daphne was single and an aspiring poet, and we both were bartenders at Skinny Dennis, where we spent most of our time spewing Karl Marx quotes and talking about “The Bachelor” with drunk patrons. Now she’s getting married, and we get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by people on Patreon to spew Karl Marx quotes and talk about “The Bachelor.” So, yes, I’m one-half of the reason that Daphne and Micah were able to pay for their own wedding. You’re welcome! Also, thank you to Blue Apron for providing today’s wedding feast; thredUP for these bridesmaids dresses; and Stamps.com for the wedding goodie bags filled with Forever stamps.
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S54Asking yourself one fun question could help boost your well-being and longevity
Carrie Wyland is looking forward to a little alone time at home now that her kids are back at school after a two-week break. “As much as I love them, I’m looking forward to having some of my own space, feeling productive, and getting back to a regular schedule,” the social psychology professor at Tulane University tells Inverse.
Finding or creating something to look forward to is an easy way to manufacture some joie de vivre when you’re feeling sucked dry. Some events we await with great anticipation, like a wedding or luxurious vacation, but there are good things even on a granular level. Most of the time there’s some part of the day or week everyone is looking forward to, like finishing a shift, eating lunch, or going to bed.
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S49Fictional Novel or Real Woman’s Diary? How to Tell What You’re Reading
It's a common dilemma: you've brought home a book and are about to dive in, when you notice a woman's name on the cover. Rats! you think. An authoress! It can be difficult, in such cases, to know what you're dealing with—could it be a work of fiction, or is it an exact transcription of the lady writer's real-life thoughts, feelings, and experiences? How to tell?!
Whoever coined the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover" has misconstrued the function of the book jacket on quite a fundamental level. A great way to tell what's going on in a book is to peruse its exterior. For instance, if there are a number of colorful blobs on the front, you are unlikely to be dealing with a diary but instead possess a work of intergenerational fiction about nationhood, identity, and "the ties that bind." If the book is called something like "The Potion Maker's Associate's Mistress," you are in for a spicy tale involving magic and not a little sensuality. If the title is scrawled in childish handwriting and says something like "PERSONAL! KEEP OUT!!! (THAT MEANS YOU, DARREN)," it may be safe to assume that you're dealing with a diary. Some publishers will helpfully print the words "a novel," right there on the front, to clear up any confusion. If you see such a subheading, I promise, you can trust it.
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S48What if Wishes Could Be Bought and Sold?
Aziza is in mourning. Her husband, a close childhood friend and an early love, has just died, and she’s been feeling terribly alone. Shy and unassertive, she’s often been overlooked by others and kept to herself. Her heart has been broken before—she lost both her parents in quick succession when she was young—but she fears her husband’s death has made her unhappiness irreversible.
Then she hears a rumor that first-class wishes are being sold at a discount at a Cairo street stand. A friend advises her to wish for a new love. But first-class wishes, the only kind that have the power to reliably fulfill immaterial desires, are expensive—for someone like Aziza, who grew up in one of the city’s slums, prohibitively so. She works several low-paying jobs, sweeping streets and scrubbing bathrooms, until, at last, she manages to save enough money to buy a bottle containing her own first-class wish. But, after she leaves the stand, she is stopped by a hulking police officer, who snatches the bottle out of her hand: wishes, he tells her, must be reported at the Wish Registration Bureau.
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