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Australia has never been known for its food. It has meat pies. It has Weet-Bix. It has Vegemite. Most fare native to the land down under is at best an acquired taste, and at worst flat-out objectionable. Now, a café in Melbourne has devised arguably the nation's most abhorrent culinary creation yet, one that would've incited riots in the streets of Brooklyn, were it to have been unveiled in New York's hipster haven. Earlier this month, the Truman Cafe poured a latte in a hollowed-out avocado and called it the avolatte. Related: Millennials oppose banning controversial college speakers "Combing two of Melbourne's obsessions - lattes and avo _," the café wrote on Instagram, along with a video of a barista pouring milk into an avocado-tinged shot of espresso. Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now If this seems like it has to be a joke, it's because it is. Or it was. "It was actually just a joke," Jaydin Nathan, a barista, told News.com.au. "We weren't actually selling them, but then someone came in today and wanted one. I think it's ridiculous. It's literally coffee in a piece of rubbish." But on Monday, Nathan confirmed to Australian Associated Press that the café was actually selling the creation, including four that day at the same price as a regular coffee. "Maybe some people thought it was meant to be a joke, but food is meant to be fun. Food is meant to be art," he said. It's been a busy month for avocados, especially in Australia. Earlier in May, billionaire real estate mogul Tim Gurner insinuated on the country's version of 60 Minutes that high-priced hipster culture was responsible for the generation's inability to buy real estate. "When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn't buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each," he said. Gurner's comments were widely maligned and, ultimately, debunked. Data suggest that the 18- to 34-year-old demographic does not spend more than other generations, and the reasons home ownership are down among millennials are far more complicated than an imaginary predilection for avocado toast. Bizarrely, it wasn't the first time an old Australian has equated home ownership with avocado toast. In October, a "social demographer" named Bernard Salt published a screed against millennials in The Australian. It included this passage.
It appears that Gurner was drafting off these comments, and now avocado has become something of a joke in Australia. A real estate agent in Brisbane recently offered a year's supply of avocado toast to the buyer of a townhouse priced at nearly $600,000. Nothing, though, as matched the lunacy of the avolatte, and with people now wanting to buy it—and cafés around the world copying it—we have further proof that the line between lunacy and reality has never been so blurry. Not everyone, however, is recognizing the legitimacy of the avolatte. Once again, Merriam-Webster proves it is the voice of reason the world needs. |
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This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Sometime around 2011 or 2012, it suddenly became very easy to predict what people would be doing in public places: Most would be looking down at their phones. For years, mobile phones weren’t much to look at. The screens were small, and users needed to press the same key several times to type a single letter in a text. Then, 10 years ago—on June 29, 2007—Apple released the first iPhone. Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now “Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” former Apple, Inc. CEO Steve Jobs said during the iPhone’s introductory news conference. Within six years, the majority of Americans owned a smartphone—embracing the new technology perhaps faster than any other previous technology had been adopted. Today, smartphones seem indispensable. They connect us to the internet, give us directions, allow us to quickly fire off texts and—as I discovered one day in spring 2009—can even help you find the last hotel room in Phoenix when your plane is grounded by a dust storm. Yet research has shown that this convenience may be coming at a cost. We seem to be addicted to our phones; as a psychology researcher, I have read study after study concluding that our mental health and relationships may be suffering. Meanwhile, the first generation of kids to grow up with smartphones is now reaching adulthood, and we’re only beginning to see the adverse effects. Sucked inIn the beginning, sociologist Sherry Turkle explained, smartphone users would huddle together, sharing what was on their phones. “As time has gone on, there’s been less of that and more of what I call the alone together phenomenon. It has turned out to be an isolating technology,” she said in the 2015 documentary “Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine.” “It’s a dream machine and you become fascinated by the world you can find on these screens.” This is the new normal: Instead of calling someone, you text them. Instead of getting together for dinner with friends to tell them about your recent vacation, you post the pictures to Facebook. It’s convenient, but it cuts out some of the face-to-face interactions that, as social animals, we crave. A 2007 ABC News segment on the iPhone.More and more studies suggest that electronic communication—unlike the face-to-face interaction it may replace—has negative consequences for mental health. One study asked college students to report on their mood five times a day. The more they had used Facebook, the less happy they were. However, feeling unhappy didn’t lead to more Facebook use, which suggests that Facebook was causing unhappiness, not vice versa. Another study examined the impact of smartphones on relationships. People whose partners were more frequently distracted by their phones were less satisfied with their relationships, and—perhaps as a result—were more likely to feel depressed. Nevertheless, we can’t stop staring at our phones. In his book “Irresistible,” marketing professor Adam Alter makes a convincing case that social media and electronic communication are addictive, involving the same brain pathways as drug addiction. In one study, frequent smartphone users asked to put their phones face down on the table grew increasingly anxious the more time passed. They couldn’t stand not looking at their phones for just a few minutes. iGen: The smartphone generationThe rapid market saturation of smartphones produced a noticeable generational break between those born in the 1980s and early 1990s (called millennials) and those born in 1995 and later (called iGen or GenZ). iGen is the first generation to spend their entire adolescence with smartphones. Although iGen displays many positive characteristics such as lower alcohol use and more limited teen sexuality, the trends in their mental health are more concerning. In the American Freshman Survey, the percentage of entering college students who said they “felt depressed” in the last year doubled between 2009 and 2016. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a sharp increase in the teen suicide rate over the same time period when smartphones became common. The pattern is certainly suspicious, but at the moment it’s difficult to tell whether these trends are caused by smartphones or something else. (It’s a question I’m trying to answer with my current research.) Many also wonder if staring at screens will negatively impact adolescents’ budding social skills. At least one study suggests it will. Sixth graders who attended a screen-free camp for just five days improved their skills at reading emotions on others’ faces significantly more than those who spent those five days with their normal high level of screen use. Like anything else, social skills get better with practice. If iGen gets less practice, their social skills may suffer. Smartphones are a tool, and like most tools, they can be used in positive ways or negative ones. In moderation, smartphones are a convenient—even crucial—technology. Yet a different picture has also emerged over the past decade: Interacting with people face to face usually makes us happy. Electronic communication often doesn’t. Jean Twenge is Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University. Tags: vending-telemetry, cashless-vending, light-industrial-, commercial-, distribution-automation, distribution-power-line-monitoring |
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Not even the stiffest and stuffiest of British traditions is safe from the June 2017 heatwave—these things are relative—sweeping across much of the U.K. As temperatures soared past 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), Royal Ascot, one of the country’s most famous horse-racing venues, announced a relaxation of its rule forbidding men to remove their suit jackets. “If it gets very hot a dress code notification would be put out,” a spokesman for the Berkshire racecourse said in quotes reported by The Times. “If it is becoming uncomfortable, we would let people take their jacket off and relax a little bit. A course-wide announcement would be made and it will be up to individuals to make their own decisions. Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now “Health and safety is obviously paramount. This will be the hottest environment we have had for a very long time. It is only common sense. We have to be careful.” The annual June meeting at Ascot is one of the most important in the British flat-racing calendar, and climaxes with the Ascot Gold Cup on Saturday. Ascot—around six miles from Windsor Castle and attended every year by Queen Elizabeth II—has a famously strict dress code. Inside the Royal Enclosure, for instance, top hat and tails are required at all times. “Fancy dress and replica sports shirts are not permitted at Ascot Racecourse,” the official website proclaims sternly. “Ascot Racecourse reserves the right to refuse entry to anyone deemed to be dressed inappropriately.” The Times also reports that guests will be allowed to bring bottled water onto the site for the first time. The stars of the show, of course, are the horses. “We will be particularly mindful of horses coming off the track, especially those going to the winner’s enclosure,” the spokesman continued. “If it is not sensible for them to go, they will stay in the unsaddling enclosure.” |
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Uber's popular ride-sharing network has repeatedly failed to promptly suspend and investigate its California drivers when passengers report them driving drunk, state regulators charged in an enforcement action, recommending $1.13 million in fines. The consumer protection arm of the California Public Utility Commission found Uber has violated "zero-tolerance" rules governing drunken-driving complaints on 151 occasions over the course of a year, out of 154 complaints reviewed. In only 21 of those cases did the company conduct any follow-up driver investigation, the commission inquiry found. Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now The recommended fine for alleged violations is believed to mark the first such citation issued against the San Francisco-based ride-hailing network or its competitors since the rules were adopted in 2013. The enforcement action follows a recent consumer backlash against the company and its senior management over a series of revelations about its corporate culture and business tactics, including complaints of sexual harassment. The drunken-driving findings, which stem from a review of passenger complaints lodged between August 2014 and August 2015, were contained in a nine-page investigative order issued by the commission's Consumer Protection and Enforcement Division on Tuesday. Those charges and the proposed penalty are now subject to examination by an administrative law judge who will conduct further proceedings before recommending to the five-member commission itself what action, if any, should be taken against the company. Uber spokeswoman Eva Behrend, noting that the report relates to complaints dating back two or three years, said, "We've significantly improved our processes since then." "We have zero tolerance for any impaired driving," she said, citing Uber's "community guidelines," which state that any driver found to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol while on the job will be "permanently deactivated" from the network. "Uber may also deactivate the account of any driver who receives several unconfirmed complaints of drug or alcohol use," it says. According to the commission's own findings, the company received 2,047 zero-tolerance complaints statewide against its UberX and UberPool drivers during the year in question, and the company dismissed drivers in 574 of those cases. The company, which operates in 74 countries, says it currently has 147,000 drivers on the Uber platform in California, accounting for nearly one-fourth of its U.S. total. Tags:InHand Networks - Global Leader in Industrial IoT, Global Leader in Industrial IoTn>, android-computer, m2m, industrial-m2m |
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The U.S. military said Monday that it had conducted its first-ever raids against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in Yemen, a country ravaged by more than two years of war. U.S. Central Command, the body that oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East, said in a statement that its strikes had killed dozens of members of ISIS at training camps. The compounds were named after two high-level ISIS figures, its late spokesman Abu Muhammed al-Adnani, who the U.S. killed in an airstrike in August 2016, and its Yemeni leader Abu Bilal al-Harbi. Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now “U.S. forces killed dozens of ISIS members in a strike on two ISIS training camps...in Al-Bayda governorate, Yemen, disrupting the organization’s attempts to train new fighters,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement. “ISIS used the camps to train militants to conduct terror attacks using AK-47s, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and endurance training.” The militant group has seized upon the instability in Yemen, where Shiite Houthi rebels are waging an insurgency against the Sunni government backed by a Saudi-led coalition. It has conducted a series of suicide bomb attacks in the capital, Sanaa—controlled by the Houthis—and particularly on Shiite mosques, leaving scores of people dead. The wider civil war has left almost 9,000 people dead, according to U.N. figures. “Strikes against ISIS targets disrupt and destroy militants’ attack-plotting efforts, leadership networks and freedom of maneuver within the region,” the U.S. military statement read. “ISIS has used the ungoverned spaces of Yemen to plot, direct, instigate, resource and recruit for attacks against America and its allies around the world,” it continued. “For years, Yemen has been a hub for terrorist recruiting, training and transit.” Before Monday’s strikes, the U.S. military had exclusively conducted drone strikes and commando raids against the other prominent jihadi group in Yemen: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. President Donald Trump’s first foreign mission order was a special forces raid against the group on January 29 that failed to capture or kill its target, a senior AQAP leader, and resulted in the death of one U.S. Marine. AQAP is the most powerful wing of Al-Qaeda and one that has plotted high-level attacks on U.S. and European soil, such as the failed bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 to Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009, when a suicide bomber only partially set off explosives sewn into his underwear. The group also claimed the attack on the Paris offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, led by brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, both French nationals of North African descent. |