Ok, I'll admit I'm a douchebag and troll for saying the following:
'America, land of the free unchecked capitalism!'
I know, I suck but somebody would've said it anyways. Might've been me as well. Somet hings are bad here too. I forgot to buy Ravioli at the supermarket. See? This place ain't perfect either.

I remember watching him on Channel 5 out of NYC back in the early 70s, didn't realize he was still around. I grew up to think he was just another huckster but he has a point, I see mothers pushing shopping carts at the supermarket completely ignoring their kids while yakking on their cell the whole visit. Or a mom on the phone waiting for the school bus with her kid. Who knows, maybe they are completely engaged with the kids the rest of the day. But I suspect that next generation will end up glued to their phones as well.

Sure, farmers have it rough. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/01/farm-subsidies-blatant-transfer-of-cash-to-rich

(though to be fair, the protests are mostly targeting cut-throat market practices by the supermarkets... I just have a dim view of the artificially sustained, overproducing food market in Europe)

http://videosift.com/talk/UK-Supermarket

http://videosift.com/member/uksupermarket

[author flagged as a spammer - redacted]

Heya Seriously hope you don't mind me jumping in.

It's kinda like powdered cordial. I'm not sure if Cottee's would achieve the same effect or not. Maybe undiluted?

Otherwise there's a supermarket in Moorabbin, http://www.usafoods.com.au , that imports and sells them.

Sure lucky760, I'll do Splenda, since some varieties of Coke Zero have Splenda in them.

First off it is important to note that the majority of the anti-sweetener "science" has been done by one man: Dr. Joseph Mercola. Now, watch out here, because his name is deceptive. You see, Mercola is an osteopathic physician. Osteopathy is a form of pseudoscience that believes that all pathology can be solved by manipulation of the bones and muscles. There is little science to back up these claims because they are clearly insane and worthy of ridicule. So, much like his doctorate, the claims he makes against sweeteners are pseudoscientific. A number of his beliefs are: that AIDS is not cause by HIV but by psychological stress; that immunizations and prescription drugs shouldn't be prescribed but people should instead buy his dietary supplements; that vaccinations are bad for you and your children (a belief which is the cause of recent outbreaks of whooping cough, measles and mumps); and that microwaves are dangerous machines that irradiate their products (they do, but not with the kind of radiation he is thinking of). Since he made a movie called Sweet Mistery: A Poisoned World, he has been at the forefront of anti-sweetener rhetoric. If you watch the movie, note how hilariously bad it is at actual science; the majority of the "evidence" is people claiming side effects after having ingested something with a sweetener in it (anecdotes are worth nothing in science except perhaps as a reason for researching further). So, you have a movement against something seen as "artificial" by a man who is not a doctor, not a scientist and is clearly lacking in the basics of logic.

Now, Splenda. Created by Johnson and Johnson and a British company in the seventies, it's primary sweetener ingredient is sucralose. The rest of it is dextrose, which as I have said above, is really just d-glucose and is safe for consumption in even very large quantities. So really, we are asking about sucralose. Sucralose is vastly sweeter than sucrose (usually around ~650 times) and thus only a very small amount is needed in whatever it is you are trying to sweeten. The current amount that is considered unsafe for intake (the starting point where adverse effects are felt) is around 1.5g/kg of body weight. So for the average male of 180lbs, they would need to ingest 130g of sucralose to feel any adverse effects. This is compared to the mg of sucralose that you will actually be getting every day. The estimated daily intake of someone who actually consumes sucralose is around 1.1mg/kg, which leaves a massive gap. Similarly to aspartame, if you tried to ingest that much sucralose, you would be incapable due to the overwhelming sweetness of the stuff.

There is some evidence that sucralose may affect people in high doses, but once again, this is similar to the issues with aspartame, where the likelihood of you getting those doses is extremely unlikely.

The chemistry of sucralose is actually way too complicated to go into, but suffice it to say that unlike aspartame, sucralose is not broken down in the body at all and is simply excreted through the kidney just like any other non-reactive agent. The reason that it tastes sweet is because it has the same shape as sucrose except that some of the hydroxy groups are replaced with chlorine atoms. This allows it to fit in the neurotransmitters in the tongue and mouth that send you the sensation of sweetness without also giving you all of those calories. Once it passes into the bloodstream it is dumped out by the kidneys without passing through the liver at all.

In sum, if sweeteners were bad for you, they wouldn't be allowed in your food. Science is not against you, it is the only thing working for everyone at the same time. The reason sugar has gotten around this is because we have always had it. If you want to be healthier, don't drink pop, drink water or milk (unless you are lactose intolerant, then just drink water). Don't drink coconut milk, or gatorade, or vitamin water. Assume that when a company comes out with something like "fat free" it really reads "now loaded with sugar so it doesn't taste like fucking cardboard." Assume that when a company says something is "natural" it is no more natural than the oils you put in your car. IF you want to live and eat healthy, stay on the outside of the supermarket, avoiding the aisles. All of the processed food is in the aisles, not on the outsides and the companies know that you don't want to miss anything. Make your food, don't let someone else do it. And never, ever buy popped popcorn, anywhere, the mark-up on that shit is insane.

Just to clarify terminology. Heart attack is not the same as cardiac arrest.
Basically a heart attack is when the arteries to the heart become occluded causing chest pain and (as time goes by) cardiac muscle damage.
A cardiac arrest is where the heart is unable to pump blood to supply the brain causing a loss of consciousness. Cardiac arrest can be caused by arrhythmias, large blood clots in the lung and also heart attacks where either a large part of the heart is infarcted or because an arrhythmia develops secondary to infecting an important conducive pathway in the heart.

The majority of heart attacks cause chest pain and no loss of consciousness but the ones that do cause LOC have a poor survival rate.
When someone collapses like this you have no idea what the cause is but if they are not breathing then you should call for help and start CPR immediately.
Defibrillators are found on tube stations, supermarkets etc and are designed for members of the public to use - they talk you through the steps.
The pads analyse the rhythm of the heart to see if it's a 'shockable' rhythm. If it's not then no shock will be delivered which is why it's essential that CPR has been started and is maintained until help arrives.

A common misconception (in tv/movies) is that a 'flat line' can be shocked back into a normal rhythm when in fact if the defibrillator reads a 'flat line'( technical term asystole) then it will not initiate a shock.

Many many moons ago when I was seventeen we started doing life drawing at my school. there were a few models they used but the most common two were a lady about thirty, nice looking, slightly plump but attractive and Alan. Alan was a thirtyish year old gay guy who was just very average looking. Physique wise he was 5' 10" or so, maybe just under 200lbs, slightly balding, wore glasses. Nothing offensive but as a seventeen year old lad I obviously started off preferring drawing boobies to schlong.

Thing is, I always drew better when drawing Alan because I just wasn't as distracted I suppose. He was a really nice guy and we got to know him pretty well over the year or so we did the class. I'd grown up doing a lot of sailing at a club with communal showers for the men so naked guys were no mystery to me. I wasn't offended by him and he certainly never did any poses like the guy in this video.

Fast forward ten years and I'm at a friend's house party. I know about half the people there and there's a lot of people from her work that I don't know. She worked at a medieval castle as a wench for their banquets and a lot of her actor colleagues were there. I kept catching the eye of this guy, forty years or so old, 5' 10" and just over 200lbs, pretty bald. You know when you get that feeling that you know someone? The face is familiar but you can't for the life of you remember where you've seen him before. Worse was the feeling that it was someone I knew quite well, not just someone I'd bumped into in the supermarket or something like that.

He looked puzzled by me too and we eventually got talking in the kitchen about where we knew each other from. We went through everything, from what we did for a job, where we'd worked, where we lived and drew blanks every time.

We went further and further back in time until he stopped, grinned and said 'you didn't go to Woodland's school did you?'

In that instant I knew exactly who he was, laughed and completely without thinking blurted 'Alan! I didn't recognise you with your clothes on!'

Of course it went quiet and I had to explain to my wife why I didn't recognise the gay guy with his clothes on (not helped by the fact that it was an all boys school). I still have paintings and drawings of him in my attic somewhere, which my wife was 'thrilled' to be shown!

Life drawing is great, and you don't need a 'fit' or attractive model. Anyone will do, in fact the more normal the better I think. It helps you look at what's there rather than any sort of ideal you might have in your head.

I know exactly what this is like. I can't walk to the supermarket without obscene girls whooping and hollering at me from all directions.

I tell them I ain't no hollaback boy.

Bread update

part 2 - http://imgur.com/rGbao5X
part 3 - http://imgur.com/lmdHdL6
part 4 - http://imgur.com/rxh8prB

Brushing with water worked better than milk, but both worked better than the egg wash the recipe asked for. The end result was better than buying from a supermarket, but not as good as buying from a Turkish cafe. I think it's probably to do with the flour I used, which was 150g wholemeal and 350g bread flour... more wholemeal might have helped, or the more coarsely ground flour that is hard to get here.

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, then I've updated the wrong profile http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/12772/turkish+pide

Hello Chaos Engine.
It's not 'either or...'
It's not inevitable either.
Nor is it too useful or too profitable. (quite the opposite. Non GMO supermarkets are raking it in on both sides of the Atlantic)
It's an agenda than has been allowed to flourish, or massively sponsored by corporate interest (the huge campaign against GMO labels for example).

It can also be stopped.

Thanks mate, very nice comment of you.

Always like to hear different viewpoints, makes me consider ideas I hadn't and also bulk up my own point of view, so all good

I suppose they're all specific specialities of the broader business field, I would also add accounting but they are very broadly interrelated. For example in bank lending decisions, discounted cash flow estimations (finance) which are reliant on income statement and balance sheet information are just as important as IS/BS audit expertise (accounting) which assesses the credibility of their reporting. This is especially true for smaller, privately owned entities (who obviously can't rely on public equity, so are generally bank reliant). Large publicly listed companies have much more stringent auditing requirements already, and public disclosure means that they are highly open to scrutiny.

Economics beyond 101 basics is generally is more of an academic niche. The macroeconomic side looking at large scale GDP, inflation, employment etc., is relied upon in government, treasuries and policy think tanks. Large listed companies would certainly have a dedicated in-house team for consultations. Medium sized companies might contract dedicated industry research consultant firms, but outside of that their use is quite limited.

The microeconomic side is industry specific looking at competitive behaviour inter-firm, with suppliers and customers. It's generally a more wishy washy field which introduces some amateur psychology via behavioural economics and game theory. It's more of an academic field really. I can imagine large multinationals with few competitors employing them or hiring consultants. We have a near duopoly here in supermarkets and I can see them using microeconomic theory in pricing decisions for example.

"The chickens were apparently a reference to a 2010 stunt carried out by Voina, a radical art collective to which some Pussy Riot members previously belonged, in which a participant stole a whole raw chicken from a supermarket and inserted it into her vagina."
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/feb/20/pussy-riot-tour-of-sochi-protest-winter-olympics

@bobknight33 it seems your viewpoint rests on the fact that minimum wage should be an "entry level wage where one can better oneself [..] to ask for a higher wage."

At least in my country, a lot of the time the vast majority of jobs vacancies are in places that deal with minimum wage - fast food, supermarkets, that kind of thing - because they usually deal with the "basics" that people can't do without. Hence basic, menial and minimum wage for minimum stress at work.

The people who are in better jobs over here have seen a lot of similarly positioned people get sacked so they know they've got to keep hold of their job. Everyone's been cutting back, there's less jobs, and those jobs are tightly held by people with better experience. And then, when better jobs become available, you have lots and lots of low experienced workers applying alongside a select few who used to work - who's more likely to get the job?

Finer points aside, i'd love everyone in the thread to agree that there are a whole bunch of people spending a whole lot of money at walmart - and every other scary-large company. If that money is not cycling around between people then it's stagnating somewhere and doing nobody any good.

Take soccer here in england for example. Soccer players are paid something like £20 000 per week at every top team. A lot of them are actually between £40 000 and £120 000 per week but let's talk approximate. Now look, we should all be able to see that a person couldn't possibly hope to spend that much money. If you want to go to a match, let's call it £40, 60 000 people are giving £40 to go and watch, so that's £2 400 000 and let's say it all goes on wages. Well what's happening is this entire wad of cash is ending up sitting in a bank account somewhere, because this guy can't physically go out and redistribute this cash, spending his money in the normal way and keeping the economy moving and the money spreading.

It's not just footballers and i'm sure we can agree to some extent that this can be seen in a lot of places - a select few are in positions allowing them to amass huge fortunes they can't possibly use.

"Trickle-down" has not worked, it isn't trickling anywhere, they've got the cracks sealed up. Maybe we should be thinking about "trickle up" - if cost us less to watch a soccer match, metaphorically speaking (as in cheaper bills, higher wages, less stagnation at the top), maybe people might feel less stressed, less scared, more generous, more free, the world might be a better place so that services would be better, people would be more dedicated at their job to improve because they stand to earn more, less stress less violence, more money less crime, etc. Is there something to that perhaps?

The problem is it's hard to interject whilst it's all ongoing and say "you're taking this cut, you're taking this cut, all this money is going here, just trust us the world will be a better place." It's not fair to suddenly tell people what they do is only worth half of what it was yesterday. But between the top and the bottom what you have is a rich billionaire smoking a cigar whilst some child in the poorest neighbourhood is sat in 5th-hand-me-downs on a filthy carpet listening to his mother selling her body? That's a guess, i don't know how to best represent poverty, but take any example you like. If the rich person was stood directly next to the baby he'd probably feel outraged and help, but there's a lot of smoke and mirrors that stand between him helping every baby that is every born in the future, because warlmart suddenly can afford to double their lowest wages by halving some of their highest.

To conclude - i don't think minimum wage is as you suggest.