Culture

The Company Making Billions Off China’s Worried Parents

"Ivy League strivers in the U.S. may think they have it tough with their Advanced Placement tests and résumé-polishing community service. But they have nothing on the offspring of China, where a ticket to prosperity boils down to a couple of exams that have been known to induce breakdowns or even suicides: a high school entrance exam, the Zhongkao, and a college test, the Gaokao."

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Lasers reveal lost Mayan civilization of ‘unimaginable scale’

"Researchers now believe the Maya had a population of 10 million, 'much higher' than previous estimates. The discoveries include urban centers with sidewalks, homes, terraces, ceremonial centers, irrigation canals and fortifications."

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I Paid To See A Movie About Singing. I Got 90 Minutes Of Pentagon Propaganda.

"Retired Army lieutenant colonel Thomas Lesnieski, who was involved with the production of the film, says that in order to 'make sure that the way the military is portrayed is done right,' changes were made to the script of Pitch Perfect 3 after the film enlisted 'DoD support'."

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Governments Try to Control Language to Hilarious Results

"The people of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Montenegro all speak the same language, the Serbo-Croatian language, yet their respective governments claim that they speak Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin. In reality, the differences between how people speak in the former Yugoslavia are as little as the differences between English in Britain and the United States. Nonetheless, their respective governments sought to courageously protect their people from not speaking a language named after their national identity."

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