Scottish Highland clans would use something called the "Fiery Cross" or "Cross of Shame" as a symbol for a call to arms/war. Basically sending a person carrying the thing from village to village and every able-bodied man had to get ready for war or be shamed.

But whether or not they actually used a burning cross is very disputed. The main source for this is the author Walter Scott. He wrote Rob Roy, The Lady of the Lake and other Scottish mythology/historical fiction. While he claimed to try to be as historical accurate as possible, there are a lot of made up facts in his books. So not really a good source and sometimes even the only source for Scottish mythology.

The original KKK didn't burn crosses. But in the early 1900s Thomas Dixon wrote a book series that romanticized the KKK. He was very inspired by Walter Scott and included the Fiery Cross in his novel. Saying the flames symbolizing purity, purifying the people of their sins, and the light it gave is a symbol for "The Holy Light".

His books were the source for the movie " The Birth of a Nation" and that movie included the burning cross scene. And KKK members thought it looked cool and started to use cross burnings using the made up justification of purity and holy light.

Don't read to much into it. This is a pure publicity stunt to slow down the rate of people leaving the church. But they don't change at their core. In a few years from now we will find out about all the abuse and dirty businesses going on right now that the Pope and the rest of the Catholic Church is sweeping under the rug as we speak.

They have done similar publicity stunts before. Pope Francis was preaching tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality as far back as 2013. Did things really improve since then?

I see it the same way as Nestle announcing some kind of charity or "commiting" to some kind of sustainability. Yeah sure it does some good but they only do it to hide all the bad stuff.

Knowing I had to look out for something spotting the IPS was easy. Don't know if it would have been as obvious without knowing something is wrong. But I receive so many fake parcel emails (at least at one of my email addresses) that checking the website/app rather than klicking a link is the default option. And I usually add the email adress of the legitimate shops to my contacts so I can easily filter out emails from new e-mail addresses and ignore them.

The big issue with removing the headphones jack is just that it's now impossible to use wired headphones while charging the phone.

For a lot of people that doesn't matter but for some of us that's a big deal. If they added a second USB-C port that would fix the issue.

But saying the 3.5 jack is legacy technology is also kinda wrong. A USB headset is not inherently better. You have to compare the digital audio converter that's used. While USB headphones use their own dac, the jack uses the dac of the phone. So a cheap phone with high quality USB headphones will be better but a high quality phone with cheap USB headphones would be worse than using the jack.

Which even means jacks would be more sustainable because you only need one dac per phone rather than one per headphone.

And any form of wireless headphones are just inferior to wired connections.

The professional shows are staged. The contestants might not know the exact prank that will be played on them but they usually are aware that something will happen. They sometimes give a rough time frame of "in the next few days" or even an exact time.

~~No, HIPAA only applies to people who work in the health sector or are associated with it. Anyone else, including journalists and media people don't have to follow these rules. They can talk about the healt status of others as they please. The only concern would be defamation but that's also only an issue if the statement is false.~~

While HIPAA doesn't apply in this case, it's irrelevant. It could still be considered Publication of a Private Fact which is punishable under US law.

It's unlikely this would be successful but there is enough grounds for a lawsuit to not be thrown out immediately.

I totally understand Piastri trying to put himself in front in the situation. F1 is so unfrogiving towards rookies and drivers in general. If Piastri would let Norris pass everytime just because Norris is the #1 driver, many teams would dismiss him as potential #1 driver in the future because "he lacks the fighting spirit". Given his recent performance there is no doubt he will get a new contract somewhere even if he were to fall out with McLaren. So he only stands to lose by staying too passive.

If McLaren followed their own philosphy of "The Team above all" they would have pitted Piastri first. There was no reason to pit Norris first. They didn't have to protect against an undercut from someone else. And if Norris actually were faster and held up by Piastri the undercut would have worked.

Mozilla can't compete against Google. Any attempts of growing their marketshare by advertising is going to fail. Google will just outspend them. Then Mozilla will either go bankrupt or have to recoup their investment by jumping on the data collection train. I much prefer they stay sensible with their business modell and focus on being sustainable. Firefox will naturally grow as people start caring more and more about their online-privacy.

Same with any kind of new innovations or projects. I don't want to outright discourage them but I much prefer their current pace of doing things slow and safely. Because if we lose Firefox due to Mozilla taking some kind of gamble the alternative browsers remaing don't really seem appealing.

I wouldn't say he is sentenced to destitution. Wage garnishment is capped at 25% of disposable income. And you keep a minimum of 217.5 per week (30 hours of minimum wage a week).

A 25% pay cut certainly hurts but depending on his income he could still have a decent life.

The amount is ridiculous but even a more reasonable sentence around 500k-5mil would probably not change anything for his situation. Most people wouldn't pay that off in their lifetime at 25% of income.

Es sollte eignetlich egal sein ob Rettungsaktionen einen "Pull-Faktor" haben oder nicht. Man kann ja Menschen nicht ersaufen lassen nur dass wenigere es versuchen.

Aber wenn die Wettervorhersage eine Rolle spielt, dann tun es Rettungsaktionen auch. Der einzige Unterschied ist, dass es keine Prognosen gibt wann es mehr oder weniger Rettungsaktionen gibt.

Sie spielen wohl keine Rolle bei der Entscheidung sich auf den Weg zumachen aber sie spielen sehr wohl eine Rolle welche Route man nimmt. Genau wie das Wetter halt. Keiner geht los nur weil das Wetter gut ist, die Entscheidung ist schon vorher getroffen. Und wenn die Situation I'm Heimatland besser wäre, würde es viel weniger Versuchen geben, egal ob das Wetter gut oder schlecht ist.

For mid-level writers, which she was, using AI doesn't work. The few remaining clients you have specifically don't want AI to be used. So you either lie and deceive them or you stay away from AI.

And using AI to lower prices and finding new clients also doesn't work. Writers are already competing against writers from nations with much lower cost of living who do the same work for a fraction of the cost. But the big advantage that domestic writers had was a batter grasp of the language and culture. These advantages are mostly lost if you start using AI. So if that's your business plan you are in a race to the bottom. It's not sustainable and you will be out of a job in maybe 3-5 years.

The issue is that lots of minorities didn't have the opportunity due to years of systematic discrimination. Affirmative actions counter that. Yes, eventually they need to be removed but I don't think we are at that point in time.

For example, the effects of the crack epidemic in the 80s and 90s can still be felt today. Where disregard for how black communities are affected by this lead to a much worse situation for them than other communities. And calling it a "disregard" might even be a very lenient interpretation of what happened.

Minorities still have a harder time getting a job due to discrimination. So children growing up don't have the same opportunity. They grow up in worse school districts because they live in poorer neighborhoods. Then they fall behind academically way more often because of that. Moving to better school districts is also harder for them due to not having the same job opportunities.

And even if they land a good job the discrimination doesn't stop there. There is discrimination going on in real estate. Homes owned by minorities are often appraised lower. So wealth of minorities doesn't rise at the same rate. And even renting is more difficult, landlords are less likely to respond to inquiries from people with "foreign sounding names".

All of these things mean minorities don't have anywhere near the same opportunity getting prepared for a good college. Affirmative action will help breaking this cycle. I fully agree it's not a permanent solution but it's still necessary for now.