I am originally from the States but moved to Australia.

Before I moved away I lived in a bible belt state that was one of the 18 US states that have a “tipped minimum wage” of $2.13 an hour. In those states if you have a job that earns tips you get paid $2.13 an hour, and your employer is supposed to match that wage to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

However you can imagine if you are one of the lucky ones who has a job in the only restaurant in town, that asking your boss for those missing wages after a slow night is not going to get you anything but fired. There are dozens of other desperate people willing to take your place in a heartbeat.

I find a lot of people aren’t aware of the situation for large swathes of the US. The amount of people who are homeless or hungry or sick with no help is astronomical for a “first world country”.

What I find interesting is that after a cursory google search it would appear that China indeed has minimum wages, and those are interestingly not far off that $2.13 an hour.

https://www.china-briefing.com/news/minimum-wages-china/

The lowest hourly minimum wage in a province I could find was 16.5 RMB which works out to $2.30 an hour.

Now there are of course nuances here, like those jobs in China not being tipped, the cost of living, healthcare, etc.

I do think that things in the States are becoming more dire than most realise, and things in China have been steadily getting better.

In any case I feel very privileged to live in Australia and raise my children here.

Because we are the product…

I am a disability support worker, and can absolutely attest that depending on the injury level and their age/muscle tone, something as dumb as pushing them sideways a bit can dump them on the floor.

Hell, the young ones do it to each other to be jerks lol. I’ve joined a stadium full of people teasing one of my clients for not wearing his seatbelt because he fell out of his chair with an epic splat after being bumped.

The doctors’ call sign, Zelenyi - means “green” in Ukrainian.

I also didn’t know until now that subscribers to the Kyiv Independent receive free weekly Ukrainian language lessons.

It’s such a neat idea, Russia wants to wipe out the Ukrainian language, so spreading it to more people is good!

I used to have a demonoid account too! Back then I could just torrent anything without a care…

Now I would need a VPN and a ton of reading to even begin. Sad times.

I’m sorry. ❤️

I unfortunately am a victim of this. My Sense was great. Then a forced update pushed despite never allowing the Fitbit app to update. Now the battery life is horrible and I am of course encouraged to buy a new one and move my Fitbit information to Google.

I have had the pleasure of knowing a few Lebanese people who have made lives here in Australia. Every one has been a wonderful person. I also want the Lebanese to be known for everything they are outside of war.

What a beautiful photograph. It’s sad that nothing has changed… I hope they have somehow lived a long and happy life together.

Wait, this is going to be a Funcom game?? Oh man, Funcom has made some of our favourite games! We adored Anarchy Online, and The Secret World is still one of the mmo’s I would recommend to anyone who wants to try a really unique modern mmo with an amazing story.

Unfortunately when they were developing TSW and Age of Conan, someone made the call to go all in on AOC which was just… not unique in a space saturated with that kind of WoW clone.

TSW ended up not having the cashflow (devs) it needed to release updates and expansions and it fell into disfavour once the player base reached end game. Which is really sad, because even as a “dead” game the story and gameplay are so good.

I really hope they have retained the devs that worked on TSW and have enough cash to push everything into this game. Make it unique like TSW and AO were, push a couple expansions, and there will be players.

For anyone in a state without fluoridated water, you can get fluoride drops to put in your/your children’s water.

The loyalty thing is what kept me.

I was wary of another gaming platform, there were so many and they all seemed the same, I never liked one over the other - they were just means to an end.

A few years back I really wanted to play RDR2 with my friends. It was expensive and I never pre-order, but as soon as it came out on (a small) sale I bought it for all 4 of us.

It was a lot of money for me, but I really wanted the story to play with everyone.

All was well at first, until we had each completed the tutorial and met up in open world. That’s when we learned that the game was based on GTA and the devs do not care about hackers.

We had one fucking with us for over an hour, teleporting us into the air and dropping us, setting us randomly on fire, spawning space ships and so on.

I begged in voice for them to just leave us be, to no avail.

We are all older, we rarely have time to play together. I was crushed.

I was an hour over the return time on Steam, one of the other friends took a bit longer exploring and was even more than that.

I contacted steam anyway and tried to get a refund, and they granted it for all of us.

Later I learned this was a thing in RDR2 and there was now the ability to create private lobbies, but I just can’t make myself try it and give Rockstar any money.

Steam however, won a lifelong fan. They didn’t have to honour the refund, and they don’t have to provide personal support that offers more than just the canned responses, but they do.

I hope Gabe lives forever, or finds another like him to carry the torch after he’s gone.

This was really neat! I miss tf2, it’s nice to see all these spaces that I have never got to see before. I wonder if there are little easter eggs the devs left?

My daughter. <3

I live in Australia where the temperatures get insane and destroy most electronics left in cars.

I have a Viofo A229 PRO 3CH, it has a module that faces forward, and a separate camera that gives a view of the inside of my car as well as some of the outside sides, and a third camera on a long line that is mounted on my rear window that has a view of the rear.

The images are clear, I can read licence plates easily day and night, and after being in two accidents it gives me peace of mind that I am protected in court if someone hits me again.

If only us Aussies would do the same…

This was in the side bar of that article.

What the fuck is this timeline?

It’s common in kink circles, but so is proper cleaning. It is common to use Madacide or similar hospital grade cleaners with toys that will be shared. At home we use a chlorhexidine surgical wash on all our toys.

I wouldn’t trust a random guy during a vanilla encounter to have proper cleaning and storage techniques, but would be fine if he showed me that he did.

I was a stay at home mom/wife at various times in my 10 year marriage. I hate the term tradwife, but I guess I fit the picture.

If I wasn’t working, the house was my job. I did all the shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry. I made an effort to freshen up before he got home from work.

We found that when I was a housewife we actually had more time together, instead of trying to smash out laundry and un-fuck the house on weekends, it was all done, meaning we could just hang out when he was off work.

I do enjoy my work so for now I keep doing it part time, but I don’t think being in a marriage that has traditional roles is all that polarising.

This is interesting, I’m currently in Japan and noticed the Starbucks here are huge with many tables and chairs and they are packed with people sitting and reading, doing homework, etc. Many don’t have drinks or appear to hang out there all day.

Why has America made everything so hostile?