A Sip Through Time: 7 Captivating Facts About Tea

1. The health benefits of tea have been recognized for centuries. In the 1600s, Cornelius Bontekoe, a Dutch physician, touted tea as the remedy for numerous ailments. His advocacy for this warming brew may have unintentionally sparked a health revolution in England. As tea drinking surged in popularity, mortality rates declined between 7%-25%. The key … Continue reading A Sip Through Time: 7 Captivating Facts About Tea

People Who Signed An NDA That’s Expired Finally Spill The Tea

The Non-Disclosure Agreement, or NDA , is a tried and true method for keeping a secret.

Hollywood, corporations, political groups and even everyday people all use NDA’s to prevent the spreading of information they don’t necessarily want out in public purview.

The trick, though, is NDA’s have expiration dates.

Redditor SkullLikesCreepiness just had to ask: 

“People with expired non-disclosure-agreements, what’s the juicy info you can now tell us?”

The diamond in the rough? 

I signed an NDA after discovering that the diamond ring I dropped off at a very famous jeweler had the diamond removed and replaced with a junk version.”

“How did I know this? My father-in-law is a retired jeweler and he picked up the ring after sizing for me.”

“He knew the stone wasn’t the same and he immediately challenged the store manager and got a copy of the appraisal certificate.”

“Many apologies, a diamond worth significantly more than mine and an NDA later, all was remedied.”

“Moral of the story, always check the stones in your rings or other jewelry when it is returned from the jeweler for sizing etc.“~TinktheChi

The bark AND the bite.

“I walk dogs ..I’ll repeat this: I’m a dog walker- and I have signed three NDA this year.”

“It’s amazing what people want to protect.”~Quiavonna

Get them while they’re young!

“That the charter school I taught for was, in reality, a Scientologist school.”

“We had to do training in Scientology after school for two hours a day.”

“We had to sign an NDA to get our $1000 ‘bonus’ for doing the non-elective training.”

“Those parents had no idea the school was Scientology.”

“We did not teach them how to be Scientologists, but we certainly used the terminology and ol L. Ron’s ideas.”

“This was about 25 years ago before we knew much about Scientology.”

“I didn’t buy in and I wasn’t invited back the following year.”

“The school dissolved about 4 years later.”~momo871

It’s not who you know, it’s what you know. 

If you have a comcast voice remote and you say, ‘Make Robert Happy.’ It will turn the TV to Doctor Who.”

“There used to be a lot of hidden voice commands in the system.”

“We had to take a lot of them out over time, but that one is still in there.”

“Edit: A couple people have asked me who Robert is.”

“He is one of the software engineers working on the voice remote system.”

“As a proof of concept early on he put that in, and just never removed it.”

“Edit 2: Some people are asking for another one. If you say ‘Big Boss’ it’ll make your TV go to an empty page left over for the Minions movie and make your tv play a minion noise.”

“It seems they removed a lot of them, but that one is still there too.”~Baron_Greyfallow

The Trees know things…

“Had to sign an NDA in order to reforest an artillery range that was last active in the 1920’s, just in case we found some high-tech military secrets from 90 years ago.”~Synched2020

Behold the roar of the tiger!

“TigerDirect was once a pretty successful computer hardware store in North America.”

“There was a whole sh*tstorm of reasons why their brick and mortar stores collapsed quite quickly.”

“Some of that information is public.”

“However, I know they were being sued for shamelessly trying to force their clients’ to buy an antivirus software that was in fact just a well-dressed virus.”

“It dramatically impacted system performance, it didn’t really do anything more than Defender, it was alarmingly expensive and ultimately didn’t actually work without paying a ton of additional fees.”

“More worryingly, once your credit card information was recorded it continued to charge you even if you canceled the subscription, and your fees were astronomically higher after a few months.”

“And it was notoriously a problem to remove.”

“Calling their helpline for help only resulted in their agents refusing to help you unless you gave them your credit card info and more money. So;”

“Want to use the software? Gonna be more money.”

“Want help using the software? More money.”

“Want to stop using the software? More money.”

“Already giving them money? More money it is then.”

“Employees who questioned this software were terminated.”

“They were forced to sell it and fired if they did not sell a substantial amount.”

“It went so far that the stores stopped carrying any other antivirus just to prevent sales of anything but.”

“Couple this with illegal firing practices, with the company considering reselling computers abandoned at their tech bench back to new people, some employment violations…”

“And that’s just the stuff I know about.”

“There’s more, but I wasn’t privy to it all.”

“They like to cite the decline of brick and mortar stores and the success of their online store, but I haven’t seen any other brick and mortar stores for competition closing (actually the opposite!).”

“And focusing all your eggs on the, ‘let’s compete with NewEgg’ basket doesn’t seem wise either.”

“I am almost certain their collapse was due to overwhelming lawsuits and or an attempt to avoid more by almost dissolving, but like I said, I know only of the lawsuits and violations that happened in my district, not necessarily the whole chain.”~TheNorthernNoble

Of course, secrets often do more harm than good.

“I was given a near fatal overdose of Tylenol as a toddler at a daycare called la petite.”

“The young worker walked away when I was on a diaper changing table when I rolled over and fell off.”

“I ended up breaking my femur and was understandably wailing my little cubby head off.”

“She was afraid to get fired so she kept feeding me painkillers until I stopped crying.”

“Turns out that’s a bad thing.”

“Well safe to say I spent over a week in the hospital and some time in a full-body cast.”

“My legs grow got stunted just enough to make my legs just a bit shorter than my torso in portion.”

“Medical bills were paid and I got 25,000 dollars in an annuity.”

“Plus the girl got fired but not prosecuted.”

“My parents refused to press charges on her cause they believe in second chances and forgiveness.”~Hobbit893

Spelling is hard.

“The State of Oklahoma once busted a counterfeit check ring because the individuals misspelled Oklahoma on the front of some checks.”

“They were damn near perfect copies with valid account, check and amount numbers and were caught when an employee who ran a reader/sorter machine noticed a rejected check with the spelling Oaklahoma.”

“I was that employee and had to testify in court regarding finding the checks.”

“I think I’m still not supposed to talk about certain details, even though it was a long time ago.”~JustGimmeAnyOldName

NDA smash?

Into the Spiderverse was originally planned to be SpiderMan vs Hulk”~kidzordon

It’s all in the name. 

“Mercedes actually uses Renault engines on most of their smaller cars”~Jertzuu

NDA or not, secrets have a way of finding their way out into the public.

While not all of these secrets were terrible, it is nice to know that RDJ is a good person.

17 Uses for Coffee Filters That Have Nothing to Do With Coffee

We all love coffee, right? Or at least a lot of us do.

If you’re a coffee drinker, then you’re probably also familiar with coffee filters. You know, the brown (or white) paper you that you use with your coffee maker.

It turns out that filters are quite versatile. In fact, you can do much more with coffee filters than you might think!

Here are 17 uses for coffee filters that have nothing to do with coffee are definitely creative.

1. Dryer sheets

That’s right: you can totally use coffee filters in place of dryer sheets. All you have to do is add a few drops of essential oil!

Photo by Jason Briscoe on Unsplash

2. Cleaning stainless steel

Coffee filters won’t leave lint behind, so they’re pretty ideal for cleaning any stainless steel you might have.

3. Cleaning electronics

In that same vein, coffee filters are a great option for cleaning electronics, especially if you’re out of microfiber cloth.

4. Covering your food

If you’re microwaving a dish that has the potential to explode, you can use your coffee filters to cover the food and keep it contained.

5. Filtering cork crumbs

We don’t all open our wine perfectly, and that’s okay. If you’ve got bits of cork floating around in the bottle, just toss a coffee filter on top of it as you pour your drink into your glass.

Photo by Zan on Unsplash

6. Potting plants

A coffee filter is a great solution if you’re hoping to keep the soil in your potted plants from leaking out of the bottom of the pot!

7. Funneling liquid

In a pinch, a coffee filter can totally act as a makeshift funnel for brewing drinks, filling hummingbird feeders, and more.

Photo by Shengjun Shi on Unsplash

8. Spreading butter while cooking

If you don’t have a brush on hand, you can use a coffee filter to spread butter or oil in a pan while you cook.

9. Holding small parts

Anyone who has ever put together a Lego set knows that once opened, those pieces go everywhere! You can keep your pieces divided up inside coffee filters as you build.

Photo by Daniel Cheung on Unsplash

10. Protecting plates

If you have extra-special dishes that you definitely don’t want to be damaged, you can keep them stacked with a coffee filter between each one.

11. Lining tins and containers

People who like to bake know that sometimes the most delicious treats leave a little residue behind. Storing your snacks in coffee filters inside tins and containers will help!

12. Steeping tea

If you want to use your own herbs for tea, you can simply load them into a coffee filter, tie the filter with a string, and voila: you have your very own tea bag.

13. Snacking

If you don’t want to have dishes to clean up after snacking, pop your snacks into a coffee filter! They’re portable and you can recycle them when you’re finished.

14. Lighting photos

A coffee filter can be great for softening the flash on your DSLR.

15. Cleaning up your nails

You can also use coffee filters to clean up your nails after polishing them. They absorb nail polish remover well and won’t make a mess!

16. Preventing rust

If you like to cook with cast iron skillets, you know how important it is to prevent rusting. Storing your skillet with a coffee filter inside it will help.

17. Lining a sieve

Chefs are forever looking for easy ways to line their sieves while cooking — look no further than a coffee filter.

Some of these are so creative! I can’t wait to try out a coffee filter the next time I make tea.

Don’t forget to let us know which ones you try in the comments!

The post 17 Uses for Coffee Filters That Have Nothing to Do With Coffee appeared first on UberFacts.

Appalling but Real Scientific Research Says You Should Make Tea in the Microwave

Sorry to all my British friends out there…

It’s time to ditch those pretty, whistling teapots (and having to wait 10 minutes for hot water) because science says the best way to brew a cuppa is in the microwave.

There is a method to measure a good cup of tea, apparently, and it is by how much of the catechins and caffeine contained in the leaves you can get into the brew (more being better). With the microwave method, you get 80% and 92%, respectively.

Catechins are a complex group of chemical compounds that are potentially good for your cardiovascular health, while caffeine’s effects – positive and negative – on the human body are well-documented.

And the microwave gives you way, way more of both than the traditional method of adding kettle-boiled water to your teabag.

So, here’s your new tea-making routine:

  1. Put hot water in the cup with your teabag.
  2. Put the whole thing in the microwave, set to 500 watts, and set the timer for 60 seconds.
  3. Wait another 60 seconds, dunk your teabag up and down 10 times, squeeze it out, and enjoy.

If you need more reason, look no further than David Tennant, whose Broadchurch character was seen microwaving his tea on the show. It caused a flutter of horror among tea enthusiasts, but according to researchers like Dr. Quan Vuong, microwaving also extracts more nutrients from green tea leaves.

I guess technology might actually be worth something after all?

If you can bring yourself to retire your grandmother’s tea pot to the china cabinet, I mean.

The post Appalling but Real Scientific Research Says You Should Make Tea in the Microwave appeared first on UberFacts.