Monday, January 12

Tag: better

Starbucks Or Dunkin Donuts, Who Has Better Coffee?
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NUTRITION

Starbucks Or Dunkin Donuts, Who Has Better Coffee?

People love their coffee. Some people can't go through an entire day without it, and some people can't go through half a day without it. Coffee provides an instant burst of energy for those who need it, and caffeine is a stimulant of the body and the mind. Two of the most popular brands in the nation are Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. In bigger cities, you can't go a few blocks without seeing one of the two and there are branches of each present in both towns as well. Some people swear by Starbucks and some people swear by Dunkin Donuts. Let's look at some of the pros and cons of each in order to determine whose is better. First, let's look at Starbucks. The coffee giant has exploded during the last 15 years, and they've even expanded to various drinks and foods beyond coffee. Stil...
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Philosophy Can Help Us Become Better Friends
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ATTRACTION

Philosophy Can Help Us Become Better Friends

Friday essay: how philosophy can help us become better friends. Friends, family, lovers – these are three mainstays in our intimate lives. We typically expect familial relationships to be solid, essentially for life. In our romantic lives, we search for the “one” to be with for life. Friendships seem less important, at least in comparison. It is easy to think about friends as people who come and go with the seasons of life. This could be a massive miscalculation. There is a case to be made that friendship is not the third wheel to these other, more significant relationships. Losing friends can be extremely painful. I was working as an ordained minister in the Anglican Church when I gave up my faith and ran off with a fellow church worker (who is still the love of my life). This had profoun...
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Do Smart Chatbots Such As ChatGPT Make Dating Online Better Or Worse?
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DATING

Do Smart Chatbots Such As ChatGPT Make Dating Online Better Or Worse?

ChatGPT and Tinder: do smart chatbots make dating online better or worse? Tinder and other dating apps have come to define modern dating, and notoriously so. Users download the Tinder app to their phones or other devices and can then view the profiles of potential dates nearby. If they think someone might be a match, they swipe to the right on their touchscreens to show interest. If the other person swipes right too, a chat can begin, which might lead to an in-person meeting. This initial introduction involves minimal information – a photo and some basic details about yourself. The result is that romance and trust are sometimes assumed to be missing from the dating process. Added to this are fears of harassment and scams as well as uninspirational (and often sexually aggressive) Tinder ope...
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Employees Want Better Pay, And Status
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FINANCIAL HEALTH

Employees Want Better Pay, And Status

There has been endless chatter about the great work from trend. Resignation. Renegotiation. Reshuffle. Regardless of the descriptor used, employees in the United States are purportedly re-evaluating the role of work in their lives. While some of this is related to deeper existential questions — like “What am I doing with my life?” or “Is this really how I want to be spending most of my waking hours?” — there might be a much simpler and more practical explanation for the take-this-job-and-reinvent-it wave. A classic quote from the 1996 film Jerry Maguire captures it well. Sports agent Jerry Maguire (played by Tom Cruise) has been fired and as he embarks to become an independent agent he desperately tries to retain one of his clients, football star Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.). Tidwe...
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Better Known For Her Slave Rescues, Harriet Tubman Led Military Raids During The Civil War As Well
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AMPLIFYING DIVERSE VOICES

Better Known For Her Slave Rescues, Harriet Tubman Led Military Raids During The Civil War As Well

Harriet Tubman was barely 5 feet tall and didn’t have a dime to her name. What she did have was a deep faith and powerful passion for justice that was fueled by a network of Black and white abolitionists determined to end slavery in America. “I had reasoned this out in my mind,” Tubman once told an interviewer. “There was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive.” Though Tubman is most famous for her successes along the Underground Railroad, her activities as a Civil War spy are less well known. As a biographer of Tubman, I think this is a shame. Her devotion to America and its promise of freedom endured despite suffering decades of enslavement and second class citizenship. It is only in mod...
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Red Wine Better On The Waistline Then Beer And Spirits
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SELF-CARE

Red Wine Better On The Waistline Then Beer And Spirits

Beer and spirits have more detrimental effects on the waistline and on cardiovascular disease risk than red or white wine. Drinking beer and spirits is linked to elevated levels of visceral fat – the harmful type of fat that is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, and other health complications – whereas drinking wine shows no such association with levels of this harmful fat and may even be protective against it, depending on the type of wine consumed. In fact, we found that drinking red wine is linked to having lower levels of visceral fat. These are some of the key takeaways of a new study that my colleagues and I recently published in the Obesity Science & Practice journal. Although white wine consumption did not influence levels of viscer...
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Try These 6 Underprescribed Lifestyle Medicines For A Better, Longer Life But They Don’t Come As Pills
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SELF-CARE

Try These 6 Underprescribed Lifestyle Medicines For A Better, Longer Life But They Don’t Come As Pills

The majority of Americans are stressed, sleep-deprived and overweight and suffer from largely preventable lifestyle diseases such as heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes. Being overweight or obese contributes to the 50% of adults who suffer high blood pressure, 10% with diabetes and additional 35% with pre-diabetes. And the costs are unaffordable and growing. About 90% of the nearly $4 trillion Americans spend annually for health care in the U.S. is for chronic diseases and mental health conditions. But there are new lifestyle “medicines” that are free that doctors could be prescribing for all their patients. Lifestyle medicine is the clinical application of healthy behaviors to prevent, treat and reverse disease. More than ever, research underscores that the “pills” today’s physici...
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Some Types Are Better Than Others – But Too Much Sitting Is Bad For You
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SELF-CARE

Some Types Are Better Than Others – But Too Much Sitting Is Bad For You

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced a number of new behaviours into daily routines, like physical distancing, mask-wearing and hand sanitizing. Meanwhile, many old behaviours such as attending events, eating out and seeing friends have been put on hold. However, one old behaviour that has persisted, and has arguably been amplified due to COVID-19, is sitting — and it is not surprising to see why. Whether sitting during transportation, work, screen time or even meals, everyday environments and activities are tailored nearly exclusively to prolonged sitting. As such, sedentary behaviours, like sitting, make up the vast majority of our waking day. Pre-COVID-19 estimates place the average Canadian adult’s sedentary behaviour at around 9.5 hours per day. Current daily sedentary time is likel...
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5 ways life would be better if it were always daylight saving time
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SLEEP, VIDEO REELS

5 ways life would be better if it were always daylight saving time

In my research on daylight saving time, I have found that Americans don’t like it when Congress messes with their clocks. In an effort to avoid the biannual clock switch in spring and fall, some well-intended critics of DST have made the mistake of suggesting that the abolition of DST – and a return to permanent standard time – would benefit society. In other words, the U.S. would never “spring forward” or “fall back.” They are wrong. DST saves lives and energy and prevents crime. Not surprisingly, then, politicians in Washington and Florida have now passed laws aimed at moving their states to DST year-round. Congress should seize on this momentum to move the entire country to year-round DST. In other words, turn all clocks forward permanently. If it did so, I see five ways that America...
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