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What Are the Dangers of Going to Space? We Asked a NASA Expert: Episode 55
Wed, 02 Apr 2025 19:50:20 +0000
What are the dangers of going to space? For human spaceflight, the first thing I think about is the astronauts actually strapping themselves to a rocket. And if that isn’t dangerous enough, once they launch and they’re out into space in deep exploration, we have to worry about radiation. Radiation is coming at them from […]
Match ID: 0 Score: 30.00 source: www.nasa.gov age: 0 days
qualifiers: 15.00 climate change, 15.00 carbon
NASA Boosts Efficiency with Custom X-66 Flooring
Fri, 28 Mar 2025 21:00:00 +0000
NASA designed temporary floorboards for the MD-90 aircraft to use while it is transformed into the X-66 experimental demonstrator aircraft. These floorboards will protect the original flooring and streamline the modification process. Supporting the agency’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project, a small team in the Experimental Fabrication Shop at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, […]
Match ID: 1 Score: 17.14 source: www.nasa.gov age: 5 days
qualifiers: 8.57 climate change, 8.57 carbon
NASA Sets Coverage for Crew Launch to Join Station Expedition 72/73
Wed, 02 Apr 2025 19:11:27 +0000
NASA astronaut Jonny Kim will launch aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft to the International Space Station, accompanied by cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky, where they will join the Expedition 72/73 crew in advancing scientific research. Kim, Ryzhikov, and Zubritsky will lift off at 1:47 a.m. EDT Tuesday, April 8 (10:47 a.m. Baikonur time) […]
Match ID: 2 Score: 15.00 source: www.nasa.gov age: 0 days
qualifiers: 15.00 carbon
NASA Continues Support for Private Astronaut Missions to Space Station
Wed, 02 Apr 2025 17:00:00 +0000
NASA is seeking proposals for two new private astronaut missions to the International Space Station, targeted for 2026 and 2027, as the agency continues its commitment to expanding access to space. These private missions enable American commercial companies to further develop capabilities and support a continuous human presence in low Earth orbit. “We are in […]
Match ID: 3 Score: 15.00 source: www.nasa.gov age: 0 days
qualifiers: 15.00 carbon
A 32-bit processor made with an atomically thin semiconductor
Wed, 02 Apr 2025 16:46:33 +0000
It's slow and inefficient, but the semiconductor is only one molecule thick.
Match ID: 4 Score: 15.00 source: arstechnica.com age: 0 days
qualifiers: 15.00 carbon
Lagniappe for April 2025
Wed, 02 Apr 2025 14:44:45 +0000
Explore Lagniappe for April 2025 featuring: Gator Speaks New beginnings feel a lot like the month of April. It is the heart of spring and the season that symbolizes growth and renewal. April is the perfect time to break free from old routines and try something new. If you have landed here in this website […]
Match ID: 5 Score: 15.00 source: www.nasa.gov age: 0 days
qualifiers: 15.00 carbon
NASA Webb Explores Effect of Strong Magnetic Fields on Star Formation
Wed, 02 Apr 2025 14:00:00 +0000
Follow-up research on a 2023 image of the Sagittarius C stellar nursery in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, has revealed ejections from still-forming protostars and insights into the impact of strong magnetic fields on interstellar gas and the life cycle of stars. “A big question […]
Match ID: 6 Score: 15.00 source: science.nasa.gov age: 0 days
qualifiers: 15.00 carbon
NASA Research Examines the Multicellular Behavior of Unique Bacteria
Wed, 02 Apr 2025 13:00:00 +0000
In a recent study, NASA-supported researchers gained new insight into the lives of bacteria that survive by grouping together as if they were a multi-cellular organism. The organisms in the study are the only bacteria known to do this in this way, and studying them could help astrobiologists explain important steps in the evolution of […]
Match ID: 7 Score: 15.00 source: science.nasa.gov age: 0 days
qualifiers: 15.00 carbon
Citizen Scientists Use NASA Open Science Data to Research Life in Space
Wed, 02 Apr 2025 09:30:00 +0000
How can life thrive in deep space? The Open Science Data Repository Analysis Working Groups invite volunteers from all backgrounds to help answer this question. Request to join these citizen science groups to help investigate how life adapts to space environments, exploring topics like radiation effects, microgravity’s impact on human and plant health, and how microbes […]
Match ID: 8 Score: 15.00 source: science.nasa.gov age: 0 days
qualifiers: 15.00 carbon
Ezra Klein on Trump, Vance and free speech: ‘It feels like we are in one of the darkest imaginable timelines’
Wed, 02 Apr 2025 09:00:08 GMT
The influential US commentator has written a book about how politics can change people’s lives for the better. But first, there are more pressing challenges to address ...
Ezra Klein, the New York Times podcast host and progressive media’s undisputed nerd king, starts his new book with something of a palate cleanser for our troubled times. For a few paragraphs, he and his co-author, the Atlantic journalist Derek Thompson, whisk us out of the grim reality of contemporary politics to a world of Abundance (the word they picked as their title).
“You open your eyes at dawn and turn in the cool bedsheets,” they purr, before conjuring a near-future utopia where the cost of living crisis is a distant memory. “You live in a cocoon of energy so clean it barely leaves a carbon trace and so cheap you can scarcely find it on your monthly bill.” The fridge is full of fresh fruit and vegetables from skyscraper farms that sit amid rewilded landscapes. This is what we can look forward to, they say, if we sweep away the bureaucratic cobwebs that mean government too often gets in the way of innovation, rather than leading it.
Continue reading...A holiday park on the lesser-known Côte Orientale offers lower prices, activities for all ages, and secluded sandy beaches
I had held out as long as I could, but there was no getting out of it. The catcalls were rising; the baying, cackling audience of under-11s intoxicated by a combination of ice-cream sugar rushes and my obvious, clammy fear. It was day 14 of a two-week summer holiday, and our final afternoon in blissful 30C Corsican sunshine. I just needed one more chapter, lounging with my book, soaking in the last of the bone-warming sun slowly edging down towards the island’s dramatic mountainous spine.
But my calculating offspring had not forgotten ill-fated promises made on a previous evening, probably a little too deep into the second carafe. I was probably caught off-guard at Barny’s, a sensational sushi restaurant in the town of Ghisonaccia, enjoying our best meal of the holiday. They know when my defences are down; when I’m fully relaxed into holiday “yes” mode, and prime for being taken advantage of.
Continue reading...Florida prosecutors say Michelle Taylor used gasoline to set a fire that killed her son. Top forensic chemists say they’re wrong.
The post The Arson Evidence Doesn’t Hold Up. Florida Is About to Convict Her for Murder Anyway. appeared first on The Intercept.
Net zero is a target that countries should be striving for to stop the climate crisis. But beyond the buzzword, it is a complex scientific concept – and if we get it wrong, the planet will keep heating.
Biodiversity and environment reporter Patrick Greenfield explains how a loophole in the 2015 Paris climate agreement allows countries to cheat their net zero targets through creative accounting, and how scientists want us to fix it
Continue reading...SEMrush and Ahrefs are among
the most popular tools in the SEO industry. Both companies have been in
business for years and have thousands of customers per month.
If you're a professional SEO or trying to do digital
marketing on your own, at some point you'll likely consider using a tool to
help with your efforts. Ahrefs and SEMrush are two names that will likely
appear on your shortlist.
In this guide, I'm going to help you learn more about these SEO tools and how to choose the one that's best for your purposes.
What is SEMrush?
SEMrush is a popular SEO tool with a wide range of
features—it's the leading competitor research service for online marketers.
SEMrush's SEO Keyword Magic tool offers over 20 billion Google-approved
keywords, which are constantly updated and it's the largest keyword database.
The program was developed in 2007 as SeoQuake is a
small Firefox extension
Features
Ahrefs is a leading SEO platform that offers a set of
tools to grow your search traffic, research your competitors, and monitor your
niche. The company was founded in 2010, and it has become a popular choice
among SEO tools. Ahrefs has a keyword index of over 10.3 billion keywords and
offers accurate and extensive backlink data updated every 15-30 minutes and it
is the world's most extensive backlink index database.
Features
Direct Comparisons: Ahrefs vs SEMrush
Now that you know a little more about each tool, let's
take a look at how they compare. I'll analyze each tool to see how they differ
in interfaces, keyword research resources, rank tracking, and competitor
analysis.
User Interface
Ahrefs and SEMrush both offer comprehensive information
and quick metrics regarding your website's SEO performance. However, Ahrefs
takes a bit more of a hands-on approach to getting your account fully set up,
whereas SEMrush's simpler dashboard can give you access to the data you need
quickly.
In this section, we provide a brief overview of the elements
found on each dashboard and highlight the ease with which you can complete
tasks.
AHREFS
The Ahrefs dashboard is less cluttered than that of
SEMrush, and its primary menu is at the very top of the page, with a search bar
designed only for entering URLs.
Additional features of the Ahrefs platform include:
SEMRUSH
When you log into the SEMrush Tool, you will find four
main modules. These include information about your domains, organic keyword
analysis, ad keyword, and site traffic.
You'll also find some other options like
Both Ahrefs and SEMrush have user-friendly dashboards,
but Ahrefs is less cluttered and easier to navigate. On the other hand, SEMrush
offers dozens of extra tools, including access to customer support resources.
When deciding on which dashboard to use, consider what
you value in the user interface, and test out both.
If you're looking to track your website's search engine
ranking, rank tracking features can help. You can also use them to monitor your
competitors.
Let's take a look at Ahrefs vs. SEMrush to see which
tool does a better job.
The Ahrefs Rank Tracker is simpler to use. Just type in
the domain name and keywords you want to analyze, and it spits out a report
showing you the search engine results page (SERP) ranking for each keyword you
enter.
Rank Tracker looks at the ranking performance of
keywords and compares them with the top rankings for those keywords. Ahrefs
also offers:
You'll see metrics that help you understand your
visibility, traffic, average position, and keyword difficulty.
It gives you an idea of whether a keyword would be
profitable to target or not.
SEMRush offers a tool called Position Tracking. This
tool is a project tool—you must set it up as a new project. Below are a few of
the most popular features of the SEMrush Position Tracking tool:
All subscribers are given regular data updates and
mobile search rankings upon subscribing
The platform provides opportunities to track several
SERP features, including Local tracking.
Intuitive reports allow you to track statistics for the
pages on your website, as well as the keywords used in those pages.
Identify pages that may be competing with each other
using the Cannibalization report.
Ahrefs is a more user-friendly option. It takes seconds
to enter a domain name and keywords. From there, you can quickly decide whether
to proceed with that keyword or figure out how to rank better for other
keywords.
SEMrush allows you to check your mobile rankings and
ranking updates daily, which is something Ahrefs does not offer. SEMrush also
offers social media rankings, a tool you won't find within the Ahrefs platform.
Both are good which one do you like let me know in the comment.
Keyword research is closely related to rank tracking,
but it's used for deciding which keywords you plan on using for future content
rather than those you use now.
When it comes to SEO, keyword research is the most
important thing to consider when comparing the two platforms.
The Ahrefs Keyword Explorer provides you with thousands
of keyword ideas and filters search results based on the chosen search engine.
Ahrefs supports several features, including:
SEMrush's Keyword Magic Tool has over 20 billion
keywords for Google. You can type in any keyword you want, and a list of
suggested keywords will appear.
The Keyword Magic Tool also lets you to:
Both of these tools offer keyword research features and
allow users to break down complicated tasks into something that can be
understood by beginners and advanced users alike.
If you're interested in keyword suggestions, SEMrush
appears to have more keyword suggestions than Ahrefs does. It also continues to
add new features, like the Keyword Gap tool and SERP Questions recommendations.
Both platforms offer competitor analysis tools,
eliminating the need to come up with keywords off the top of your head. Each
tool is useful for finding keywords that will be useful for your competition so
you know they will be valuable to you.
Ahrefs' domain comparison tool lets you compare up to five websites (your website and four competitors) side-by-side.it also shows you how your site is ranked against others with metrics such as backlinks, domain ratings, and more.
Use the Competing Domains section to see a list of your
most direct competitors, and explore how many keywords matches your competitors
have.
To find more information about your competitor, you can
look at the Site Explorer and Content Explorer tools and type in their URL
instead of yours.
SEMrush provides a variety of insights into your
competitors' marketing tactics. The platform enables you to research your
competitors effectively. It also offers several resources for competitor
analysis including:
Traffic Analytics helps you identify where your
audience comes from, how they engage with your site, what devices visitors use
to view your site, and how your audiences overlap with other websites.
SEMrush's Organic Research examines your website's
major competitors and shows their organic search rankings, keywords they are
ranking for, and even if they are ranking for any (SERP) features and more.
The Market Explorer search field allows you to type in
a domain and lists websites or articles similar to what you entered. Market
Explorer also allows users to perform in-depth data analytics on These
companies and markets.
SEMrush wins here because it has more tools dedicated to
competitor analysis than Ahrefs. However, Ahrefs offers a lot of functionality
in this area, too. It takes a combination of both tools to gain an advantage
over your competition.
When it comes to keyword data research, you will become
confused about which one to choose.
Consider choosing Ahrefs if you
Consider SEMrush if you:
Both tools are great. Choose the one which meets your
requirements and if you have any experience using either Ahrefs or SEMrush let
me know in the comment section which works well for you.
US president accused of blowing up country’s ability to respond to disasters by removing funding
As aid from China, Russia, India and the UK begins to flow into Myanmar, there is a conspicuous gap in global support from the world’s richest country: the US.
The powerful 7.7-magnitude quake that struck central Myanmar on Friday has caused widespread destruction, flattening swathes of the country’s second-largest city, Mandalay, and even a tower block in the Thai capital, Bangkok, more than 600 miles (1,000km) away.
Continue reading...Beijing continues drills in Taiwan strait, practising hitting key ports and energy infrastructure
The US has accused China of putting the region’s security at risk after it launched a second day of military drills targeting Taiwan with a rehearsal blockade and attack.
The China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) began the joint drills without notice on Tuesday morning, sending 76 aircraft and more than 20 navy and coastguard ships, including the Shandong carrier group, to positions around Taiwan’s main island.
Continue reading...Defence secretary’s trip to Asia shows the Trump administration is engaged with the region, but analysts warn Taipei to tread carefully
On Tuesday China’s military launched joint drills around Taiwan, sending ships, planes and some bizarre propaganda videos across the strait to both warn and punish Taiwan’s government over what Beijing calls “separatist activity”.
The purported provocation was recent assertiveness by Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, who in March designated China a “foreign hostile force” and announced 17 measures to counter its espionage and influence operations.
Continue reading...US president says new tariffs will become effective at midnight ET
Donald Trump’s planned tariffs will be negative across the world, with the damage depending on how far they go, how long they last and whether they lead to successful negotiations, the European Central Bank head, Christine Lagarde, said on Wednesday.
The Trump administration on Wednesday is set to announce “reciprocal tariffs” targeting nations that have duties on US goods. That move would come after it slapped new import levies on products from Mexico, China and Canada – the top US trading partners – as well as on goods including steel and autos.
Wisconsin beat the billionaire.
Wisconsin cannot be bought. Our democracy is not for sale. And when we fight, we win. Congratulations, @CrawfordForWI
Continue reading...The British & Irish Lions are set to face a number of former All Blacks with Rugby Australia’s chief executive, Phil Waugh, confident players based in Japan can be recruited for the Anzac fixture in July. Waugh also confirmed that players who have represented Australia and New Zealand but subsequently switched nationality will not be considered, ending Israel Folau’s hopes of appearing in another Lions series and ruling out Charles Piutau.
The Lions will lock horns with an invitational Australia and New Zealand side for the first time since 1989. When the fixture was announced in 2023, the then Australia head coach, Eddie Jones, turned his nose up, saying: “I don’t want to be involved with the Kiwis.” With the former All Blacks head coach Ian Foster leading the combined side, Waugh believes the fixture in Adelaide will have star appeal.
Continue reading...‘Japan is the mecca of cosplay. Monaka runs a cafe in Tokyo called Monster Party, where people go dressed as characters from a subculture known as tanganmen. Her brother is holding a picture of their mum’
My personal projects have often focused on the topic of identity, so the world of cosplay immediately appealed to me. I knew nothing about it until I saw some photographs on Instagram and became interested in these people who spend their free time turning themselves into characters from manga, anime, movies and video games – or even into creations they’ve come up with by themselves.
Italy’s biggest annual cosplay event is held in the region where I live, Tuscany. I started going and taking pictures, just on my phone at first, and that’s where I first approached cosplayers to ask if they’d like to help me with a project I had in mind. In the 1970s, John Olson took some portraits for Life magazine of musicians such as Frank Zappa and Elton John at home with their parents. They contrasted the individual identity of the rock stars and the social identity represented by their parents, and that seemed the right way to photograph cosplayers, too. I thought it was far more interesting to show them in a domestic setting, alongside people in everyday clothes, than in the environment of a fantasy-themed event.
Continue reading...If you’ve just bought a pair of these rubber sandals, you may want to think twice before wearing them down to the beach
Name: Flip-flops.
Age: They date from 1500BC, although the modern version is adapted from Japanese thonged sandals called zori, brought back by US soldiers returning from the second world war.
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s threats to impose widescale import levies have spooked governments, investors and analysts alike. Here’s why …
Donald Trump has said “tariffs” is the most beautiful word in the dictionary.
The US president is expected to announce his latest round of these border taxes on Wednesday at 4pm ET (9pm BST). In what he is calling “liberation day”, Trump has argued the step is needed to raise money and to encourage domestic manufacturing. But it is also rattling the global economy.
Continue reading...London PhD student convicted of 10 rapes may have 60 more victims, force fears
More than 20 women have contacted police to say they fear they may have been attacked by the serial rapist Zhenhao Zou, with detectives fearing there may be even more victims to come.
Zou, 28, was convicted last month of raping three women in London and seven in China between 2019 and 2024.
Continue reading...US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who started the now-infamous group chat coordinating a US attack against the Yemen-based Houthis on March 15, is seemingly now suggesting that the secure messaging service Signal has security vulnerabilities.
"I didn’t see this loser in the group," Waltz told Fox News about Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg, whom Waltz invited to the chat. "Whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical mean, is something we’re trying to figure out."
Waltz’s implication that Goldberg may have hacked his way in was followed by a ...
Charlotte Edwards has promised to make England’s players “more accountable for their fitness” as she seeks to improve the team’s fortunes after her appointment as women’s head coach.
The 45-year-old insisted that despite England women’s recent troubles against Australia they were capable of winning this year’s 50-over World Cup in India, saying she was “really confident we can turn things around very quickly”. Jon Lewis was sacked as coach last month after a miserable winter in which group-stage elimination at the T20 World Cup was followed by a 16-0 rout in the Ashes.
Continue reading...Brother of Jagtar Singh Johal claims he is being ‘mentally tortured’ through unwarranted detention
The British Sikh activist Jagtar Singh Johal, detained for seven years in an Indian jail, has been placed into solitary confinement and under 24-hour surveillance despite being acquitted of all terrorism charges against him by a Punjab court on 4 March, his family have claimed.
Johal is still facing the exact same charges in a parallel case in a clear example of double jeopardy, his brother Gurpreet said when giving testimony at Westminster to an all party committee on arbitrary detention. He said the Indian courts have not granted his brother bail, despite the prosecutor’s failure to produce any credible evidence or witnesses in the Punjab court.
Gurpreet said UK consular staff met his brother in jail on Tuesday and were told he had been put into solitary confinement with a 24-hour guard, adding no explanation had been given.
Continue reading...In what may be an American first, President Donald Trump pardoned a company sentenced to $100 million in fines for breaking money laundering laws.
The post Trump Just Pardoned … a Corporation? appeared first on The Intercept.
One of a series of photographs taken across India in which women, many of them abuse survivors, use traditional needlework to embellish portraits of themselves
This is a portrait of Praween Devi, a woman I met in 2019 through a local organisation while working on my project Nā́rī. I met her alongside other women who gather in their back yards to embroider together, sharing stories over cups of chai.
When I asked to take her photograph, she suggested the main hall of her home, mentioning its lack of decoration and how the walls were bare except for a framed image of flowers and, notably, a photograph of all the men in the house. Before we began, she brought in a rug from another room, subtly curating the space. As I composed the shot, I included the photograph of the men, wondering how she would choose to alter the image through embroidery.
Continue reading...Vast scheme aims to counter disinformation and increase awareness in country where low HPV vaccine take-up means many die from the preventable disease
Tens of thousands of doctors across India are being trained to promote the HPV vaccine, in a push to eliminate cervical cancer in the country.
They will check with mothers attending medical appointments that they intend to vaccinate their daughters, and visit schools and community centres armed with facts and slideshows to counter vaccine disinformation.
Continue reading...“Do your job!” the crowd chanted, urging Rep. Victoria Spartz, one of the most outspoken DOGE supporters, to rein in Elon Musk.
The post GOP Leaders Said Don’t Do Town Halls. This Indiana Republican Did — and Got an Earful. appeared first on The Intercept.
Inferno spread to nearby homes, trapping residents, while full extent of damage still being assessed
A fireball erupted from a burst gas pipeline outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring 145 people as it burned for several hours before being extinguished.
The national oil company Petronas said the blaze started at one of its gas pipelines outside Kuala Lumpur. The inferno sent flames 20 storeys high and left a huge crater near a residential neighbourhood.
The health minister, Dzulkefly Ahmad, was quoted by the New Straits Times daily as saying 145 people including three children were injured. He said 67 people were still being treated at public hospitals, mostly for second and third-degree burns, while 37 others had sought treatment from clinics and private hospitals.
The fire department said the fire damaged 190 houses and 148 vehicles.
The 7.7 magnitude quake on Friday wrought destruction across central areas of the country, including the capital
A devastating earthquake has wrought destruction across central Myanmar, toppling ancient sites, bringing down hospital buildings and collapsing homes.
The 7.7 magnitude quake on Friday was followed by a number of aftershocks along the Sagaing fault. It also caused damage in neighbouring Thailand, where a skyscraper under construction collapsed in Bangkok.
Continue reading...The law behind the warrants bars concealment of people in the country illegally, yet the students were legal residents living on campus.
The post ICE Got Warrants Under “False Pretenses,” Claims Columbia Student Targeted Over Gaza Protests appeared first on The Intercept.
Red Cross says devastation is of a level not seen in Asia for over a century as more than 1,700 people killed
Rescue volunteers, many of them poorly equipped local people, raced to find survivors in the rubble of collapsed buildings across central Myanmar, two days after a huge earthquake killed more than 1,700 people in the country and at least 18 in neighbouring Thailand.
Red Cross officials said Myanmar was facing “a level of devastation that hasn’t been seen over a century in Asia”, after a 7.7-magnitude quake struck near the centre of the country on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a 6.7-magnitude aftershock.
Continue reading...Rescue efforts are entering their third day and attempts to find survivors are intensifying after a devastating 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar and Thailand, killing at least 1,600 people and injuring more than 3,400. At least 139 others are missing. The initial quake struck near Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, collapsing buildings, downing bridges and buckling roads, causing mass destruction in Myanmar's second largest city
Continue reading...“We had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed.”
The post The Real Outrage About the Yemen Signal Group Is That It Called for Attack on Civilian Home appeared first on The Intercept.
China has dramatically increased military activities around Taiwan, with more than 3,000 incursions into Taiwan's airspace in 2024 alone. Amy Hawkins examines how Beijing is deploying 'salami-slicing' tactics, a strategy of gradual pressure that stays below the threshold of war while steadily wearing down Taiwan's defences. From daily air incursions to strategic military exercises, we explore the four phases of China's approach and what it means for Taiwan's future
Continue reading...The European Space Agency's (ESA) Director of Human and Robotic Exploration, Daniel Neuenschwander, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Vice President for Exploration and Human Spaceflight, Mayumi Matsuura, have signed a new statement of intent focused on Moon and Mars activities. This statement marks their intention towards a step forward in space exploration cooperation between ESA and JAXA, and lays the groundwork for expanded collaboration between the two agencies in advancing science, technology and international partnerships.
Citizen Lab has a new report on Paragon’s spyware:
Key Findings:
- Introducing Paragon Solutions. Paragon Solutions was founded in Israel in 2019 and sells spyware called Graphite. The company differentiates itself by claiming it has safeguards to prevent the kinds of spyware abuses that NSO Group and other vendors are notorious for.
- Infrastructure Analysis of Paragon Spyware. Based on a tip from a collaborator, we mapped out server infrastructure that we attribute to Paragon’s Graphite spyware tool. We identified a subset of suspected Paragon deployments, including in Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Israel, and Singapore. ...
A Cornell student suing the Trump administration over free speech — and now facing deportation threats — shares his story on The Intercept Briefing.
The post Exclusive: As Trump Threatens to Deport Him, Momodou Taal Says It’s “Time to Escalate for Palestine” appeared first on The Intercept.
Full-throttle star turns from Jack Black and Jennifer Coolidge raise laughs but don’t help the perfunctory plotting in this screen take on the game franchise
If you’re not familiar with Minecraft as a game then this film, notionally a big screen version of same, won’t necessarily solve that. Minecraft, even more than most computer games, is what you make of it, an experience generated by the player. So in a way, the idea of making a film set in the Minecraft world is counterintuitive, because it can never replicate what is good about Minecraft, it can only tell you what is good about Minecraft. In addition to that, this comedy-fantasy takes aspects of the Minecraft world and uses them as building blocks in a rollicking adventure suitable for almost all ages, giving Jack Black and Jason Momoa carte blanche to wild out and be deeply silly. Your affection for and/or tolerance of this latter prospect will dictate to a large extent your enjoyment of this film.
Black plays Steve, a crafter who in the game was the original default player, although that doesn’t especially matter here. Momoa is Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison, a washed-up video game champ with an aesthetic stuck permanently and delightfully in the 1980s: pink leather fringed jacket and luscious locks flowing down past his prodigious shoulders like the first snowmelt off a mountain range. As this is kinda-sorta an ensemble film, we also have Henry (Sebastian Hansen), Natalie (Emma Myers) and Dawn (Danielle Brooks) rounding out the good guys squad. It’s not the fault of any of the three latter actors, but it’s hard for them to make an impression alongside Black and Momoa going full-throttle – and it would become an exhausting experience if they tried. That does mean their storylines feel like downtime, a chance to relax and catch your breath, rather than providing the emotional core that the writers presumably intended.
Continue reading...The ex-member of Brother Beyond now writes chart-toppers for stars. Why has he decided to make a musical of seedy, gutter-life classic Midnight Cowboy, a film he can’t bear?
Troop into Eg White’s living room, past the bright, spacious kitchen and the yapping terriers (“Meet the unwelcoming committee!”), then descend into the snug basement studio with its underfloor heating and you will have reached the place where pop bangers are born: hits for Adele (Chasing Pavements), Will Young (Leave Right Now), Duffy (Warwick Avenue) and countless others. The Ivor Novello award-winning songwriter, born Francis White, sits in front of a desk cluttered with screens and consoles and thingamajigs. In T-shirt, jeans and trainers, he looks as lean as the neck of a Stratocaster. When he is in quizzical mode, as he very often is, four deep grooves appear on his forehead like the strings on a bass guitar.
White’s newest project is the music for a stage version of Midnight Cowboy, the Oscar-winning 1969 buddy movie with Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman as deluded outsiders adrift in New York, adapted now by Bryony Lavery. Most of its 15 songs – from sanguine ballads to Latin-tinged stompers – were composed not here in White’s west London home but on a family holiday to Colombia. For two hours each morning, while his wife and children were still in bed, he wrote on a cheap baritone ukulele, which he plucks off the wall from between rows of guitars to show me. “You can take it in the hand luggage,” he says cheerfully. “If your kid sits on it, which happened a few times, it lives.” Presumably he means the ukulele, not the kid.
Continue reading...‘Japan is the mecca of cosplay. Monaka runs a cafe in Tokyo called Monster Party, where people go dressed as characters from a subculture known as tanganmen. Her brother is holding a picture of their mum’
My personal projects have often focused on the topic of identity, so the world of cosplay immediately appealed to me. I knew nothing about it until I saw some photographs on Instagram and became interested in these people who spend their free time turning themselves into characters from manga, anime, movies and video games – or even into creations they’ve come up with by themselves.
Italy’s biggest annual cosplay event is held in the region where I live, Tuscany. I started going and taking pictures, just on my phone at first, and that’s where I first approached cosplayers to ask if they’d like to help me with a project I had in mind. In the 1970s, John Olson took some portraits for Life magazine of musicians such as Frank Zappa and Elton John at home with their parents. They contrasted the individual identity of the rock stars and the social identity represented by their parents, and that seemed the right way to photograph cosplayers, too. I thought it was far more interesting to show them in a domestic setting, alongside people in everyday clothes, than in the environment of a fantasy-themed event.
Continue reading...Known for his roles in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Tombstone, the prolific actor’s cause of death was pneumonia
Val Kilmer, the actor best known for his roles in Top Gun, Batman Forever and The Doors, has died at the age of 65.
His daughter Mercedes told the New York Times that the cause of death was pneumonia. Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 and later recovered, after treatment with chemotherapy and trachea surgery that had reduced his ability to speak and breathe.
Continue reading...Kilmer, who has died aged 65, made his name with Top Gun and The Doors – but his exceptional talents were often under-appreciated by the mainstream film industry
Why do some movie careers take off … and others go a bit sideways? Val Kilmer was a smart actor, a looker, a terrific screen presence and in later years an under-appreciated comic performer. His finest hour as an actor came in Shane Black’s comedy action thriller Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in 2005, when he was quite superb as the camp private investigator Gay Perry Shrike: a gloriously sleek, plump performance which was transparently – and outrageously – based on Tom Ford. If only Kilmer could have started his acting life with that bravura performance, and shown the world what he could do. Instead, and at a crucial stage in his career, he was trapped in the body and face of a staggeringly beautiful young man.
He could somehow never quite persuade Hollywood to accept him as a leading man and above-the-title player in the mould of his Top Gun contemporary Tom Cruise, who in 1986 played Pete “Maverick” Mitchell to Val Kilmer’s Tom “Iceman” Kazansky. As the 80s and 90s rolled by, Kilmer never ascended to the league of Cruise, Hanks, Clooney and Pitt. Medication for the illness he latterly suffered can’t have helped, and it is a great sadness that fate never allowed him to mature in the same way as, say, Kurt Russell.
Continue reading...“We had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed.”
The post The Real Outrage About the Yemen Signal Group Is That It Called for Attack on Civilian Home appeared first on The Intercept.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are the most popular digital assets today, capturing the attention of cryptocurrency investors, whales and people from around the world. People find it amazing that some users spend thousands or millions of dollars on a single NFT-based image of a monkey or other token, but you can simply take a screenshot for free. So here we share some freuently asked question about NFTs.
NFT stands for non-fungible token, which is a cryptographic token on a blockchain with unique identification codes that distinguish it from other tokens. NFTs are unique and not interchangeable, which means no two NFTs are the same. NFTs can be a unique artwork, GIF, Images, videos, Audio album. in-game items, collectibles etc.
A blockchain is a distributed digital ledger that allows for the secure storage of data. By recording any kind of information—such as bank account transactions, the ownership of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), or Decentralized Finance (DeFi) smart contracts—in one place, and distributing it to many different computers, blockchains ensure that data can’t be manipulated without everyone in the system being aware.
The value of an NFT comes from its ability to be traded freely and securely on the blockchain, which is not possible with other current digital ownership solutionsThe NFT points to its location on the blockchain, but doesn’t necessarily contain the digital property. For example, if you replace one bitcoin with another, you will still have the same thing. If you buy a non-fungible item, such as a movie ticket, it is impossible to replace it with any other movie ticket because each ticket is unique to a specific time and place.
One of the unique characteristics of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is that they can be tokenised to create a digital certificate of ownership that can be bought, sold and traded on the blockchain.
As with crypto-currency, records of who owns what are stored on a ledger that is maintained by thousands of computers around the world. These records can’t be forged because the whole system operates on an open-source network.
NFTs also contain smart contracts—small computer programs that run on the blockchain—that give the artist, for example, a cut of any future sale of the token.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) aren't cryptocurrencies, but they do use blockchain technology. Many NFTs are based on Ethereum, where the blockchain serves as a ledger for all the transactions related to said NFT and the properties it represents.5) How to make an NFT?
Anyone can create an NFT. All you need is a digital wallet, some ethereum tokens and a connection to an NFT marketplace where you’ll be able to upload and sell your creations
When you purchase a stock in NFT, that purchase is recorded on the blockchain—the bitcoin ledger of transactions—and that entry acts as your proof of ownership.
The value of an NFT varies a lot based on the digital asset up for grabs. People use NFTs to trade and sell digital art, so when creating an NFT, you should consider the popularity of your digital artwork along with historical statistics.
In the year 2021, a digital artist called Pak created an artwork called The Merge. It was sold on the Nifty Gateway NFT market for $91.8 million.
Non-fungible tokens can be used in investment opportunities. One can purchase an NFT and resell it at a profit. Certain NFT marketplaces let sellers of NFTs keep a percentage of the profits from sales of the assets they create.
Many people want to buy NFTs because it lets them support the arts and own something cool from their favorite musicians, brands, and celebrities. NFTs also give artists an opportunity to program in continual royalties if someone buys their work. Galleries see this as a way to reach new buyers interested in art.
There are many places to buy digital assets, like opensea and their policies vary. On top shot, for instance, you sign up for a waitlist that can be thousands of people long. When a digital asset goes on sale, you are occasionally chosen to purchase it.
To mint an NFT token, you must pay some amount of gas fee to process the transaction on the Etherum blockchain, but you can mint your NFT on a different blockchain called Polygon to avoid paying gas fees. This option is available on OpenSea and this simply denotes that your NFT will only be able to trade using Polygon's blockchain and not Etherum's blockchain. Mintable allows you to mint NFTs for free without paying any gas fees.
The answer is no. Non-Fungible Tokens are minted on the blockchain using cryptocurrencies such as Etherum, Solana, Polygon, and so on. Once a Non-Fungible Token is minted, the transaction is recorded on the blockchain and the contract or license is awarded to whoever has that Non-Fungible Token in their wallet.
You can sell your work and creations by attaching a license to it on the blockchain, where its ownership can be transferred. This lets you get exposure without losing full ownership of your work. Some of the most successful projects include Cryptopunks, Bored Ape Yatch Club NFTs, SandBox, World of Women and so on. These NFT projects have gained popularity globally and are owned by celebrities and other successful entrepreneurs. Owning one of these NFTs gives you an automatic ticket to exclusive business meetings and life-changing connections.
That’s a wrap. Hope you guys found this article enlightening. I just answer some question with my limited knowledge about NFTs. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to drop them in the comment section below. Also I have a question for you, Is bitcoin an NFTs? let me know in The comment section below
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