user: Once, while grating potatoes to make potato pancakes, I had a Proustian moment. I can't lay claim to much in the way of literary knowledge, but I do know that Proust's 'Remembrance of Things Past' was prompted by his biting into a pastry and feeling a sense of overwhelming pleasure with no recognizable cause. In my case, I was instantly transported back to the grandmother's kitchen as she and my mother grated potatoes in order to make 'poutine râpée', also known as 'poutines'. People will immediately flash to the Quebecker ethnic food known by the same name. However, in spite of all the Franco-culinary posturing, this is really only French Fries with gravy and, oh yeah, can I have some cheese curds on that? One etymological source indicates that 'poutine' really means 'mess'. If you come from my part of the country, the Quebecker poutine is just another entry in the long list of dishes that will cause you to keel over from a myocardial infarction while shoveling a foot of snow out of the driveway shortly after you've retired; sometimes before. Nope, poutines as I know them are a different creature entirely. They seem to be more of an Acadian thing and none of my friends had even heard of them, much less eaten a single one. Because of the work involved, my mother only made poutines for special times: Christmas, say or Easter. My mother would borrow this grater that was about two feet long and she and my grandmother would set to work. Generally, they started off with an enormous paper sack of potatoes, about 25 pounds or so (We used to buy potatoes by the cartload and store them in a wooden bin in the basement. Because we were cheap labour, the kids would be sent down to retrieve a few for the family meal. It was creepy to descend into the dank cellar, feel our way through the dim obstacle course formed by my grandfather's thousands of tools and bits of wood and locate the bin. After a time in storage, the eyes on potatoes began to sprout pale tendrils and it didn't take much imagination to visualize all kinds... Why we did not like being sent to the cellar Pick the correct answer from the following options:  A. not enough information  B. because it was dark  C. because there were spiders  D. because it was dangerous
B

Gunshots rang out once again on a campus in the United States on Wednesday. Students and faculty raced out of harm's way, ducked under furniture, barricaded doors and hid in interior rooms, bathrooms and labs. The short-lived nightmare on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles came one day before Wear Orange: National Gun Violence Awareness Day. Wear Orange was inspired by friends of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old Chicago high school student killed by gunfire in 2013. The group decided to honor her life by wearing orange — the color worn by hunters in the woods to protect themselves and others. While the idea has been embraced by civic organizations, politicians and celebrities, it has been rejected by gun rights advocates. The National Rifle Association has attacked the campaign as "pointless," and said "participating is an easy way of scoring points for being 'socially conscious.'" Here is a look at the unique relationship between Americans and their guns. Any law-abiding citizen in the United States is allowed to own or carry a gun. That right comes from the U.S. Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It says: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The Second Amendment was based partially on English common law, which describes an auxiliary right, supporting the natural rights of self-defense, resistance to oppression, and the civic duty to act in concert in defense of the state. To purchase a gun in the majority of states, a person needs to be of age, pass the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check and fill out a firearms transaction record. However, background checks are not currently required for private sales, including those conducted at gun shows. Certain people are banned from owning weapons, including convicted criminals, people with mental health illnesses or non-U.S. citizens. But the system has major holes in it. What was the second Amendment of the US constitution partially based on? Pick the correct answer from the following options:  A. Natural rights to self-defense.  B. English Common Law.  C. not enough information  D. Civic duty to defend ones state.
B

Recently the news broke that Microsoft are acquiring GitHub. Effusive opinions flowed from all directions: some saw the acquisition as a sensible fit for Microsoft to better support developers, and some saw it as a tyrant getting their grubby fingers on open source’s ecosystem. I am thrilled for Microsoft and GitHub for many reasons, and there will be a bright future ahead because of it, but I have been thinking more about the reaction some of the critics have had to this, and why. I find it fascinating that there still seems to be a deep-seated discomfort in some about Microsoft and their involvement in open source. I understand that this is for historical reasons, and many moons ago Microsoft were definitely on the offensive against open source. I too was critical of Microsoft and their approach back in those days. I may have even said ‘M$’ instead of ‘MS’ (ugh.) Things have changed though. Satya Nadella, their CEO, has had a profound impact on the company: they are a significant investor and participant in open source across a multitude of open source projects, they hire many open source developers, run their own open source projects (e.g. VSCode), and actively sponsor and support many open source conferences, events, and initiatives. I know many people who work at Microsoft and they love the company and their work there. These are not microserfs: they are people like you and me. Things have changed, and I have literally never drunk Kool-aid; this or any other type. Are they perfect? No, but they don’t claim to be. But is the Microsoft of today a radically different company to the Microsoft of the late nineties. No doubt. Still though, this cynicism exists in some. Some see them as a trojan horse and ask if we can really trust them? A little while ago I had a discussion with someone who was grumbling about Microsoft. After poking around his opinion, what shook out was that his real issue was not with Microsoft’s open source work (he was supportive of this), but it was with the fact that they still produce... What is probably true about the narrator? Pick the correct answer from the following options:  A. he uses Microsoft software  B. he hates Microsoft software  C. not enough information  D. he does not use Microsoft software


assistant: A