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From grape stomping to truffle hunting: 10 great harvest festival trips in Europe
Sun, 29 Sep 2024 10:00:29 GMT
Autumn is a great time to join locals as they celebrate the fruits of the season, from the vineyards of Provence to the forests of Transylvania
Croatia’s northernmost region is famous for its olives, and the Meneghetti hotel and winery produces four different varieties of oil from the 750 trees dotted across the estate. From early October to mid-November, guests can join the olive harvest and oil-making process, as well as oyster-shucking on the nearby fjords and truffle hunting (until the end of October). The hotel also offers wine tastings and tours, while the restaurant produces dishes created from the 1.5 hectare kitchen garden, with more than 44 species of fruits, vegetables and herbs.
Doubles from £210 B&B, meneghetti.hr
Over just a few days in 1964, the launch of the shinkansen and the Tokyo Olympics trumpeted the emergence of a new economic and democratic power
At 6am on 1 October 1964, two trains set off in opposite directions in a daring experiment that would quickly turn them into symbols of Japan’s transformation from militarist pariah to global economic powerhouse.
Black-and-white footage shows smartly dressed men, women and children marvelling at the countryside whizzing past their windows, some perhaps trying to calm their nerves at being whisked along at speeds unheard of in rail travel.
Continue reading...But the national carrier says contingencies are in place to prevent traveller chaos in capital cities on Monday morning
More than 1,000 Qantas engineers across Australia will walk off the job in industrial action they claim could kick the week off with peak-hour travel chaos, but the airline says it has contingencies in place and is not expecting any disruptions to travel.
Flights between 7am and 9am across three timezones on Monday morning are set to be affected in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...Keir Starmer’s parochial stance on mooted scheme is short sighted and bodes ill for resetting relationship with Brussels
Britons aged 18 to 30 can apply for visas to live and work for a limited time in 13 countries, including Australia, New Zealand and Canada, as part of reciprocal youth mobility schemes. They are a good opportunity for some young people to broaden their horizons and experience living abroad, and for cultural exchange. But there is no such scheme in place with countries across Europe; after Britain left the EU in 2016 and British citizens lost their right to free movement across its member states, any prospect of youth mobility disappeared with it.
There are clear signs that the EU wants to change that. The European Commission has drafted proposals for a UK-EU youth mobility scheme that would enable UK and EU citizens aged 18 to 30 to travel to the EU or the UK respectively to live there for up to four years for any purpose including work, travel or study, so long as they have health insurance and can prove they have the means to support themselves. The commission has also proposed that UK and EU students should be treated as domestic students in the EU and UK respectively. There are many in Brussels who see agreement to at least some form of youth mobility scheme as a precursor to any Labour reset of relations with the EU.
Continue reading...18 at St Andrews serves huge steaks to golf lovers, but more imaginative dishes are well below par
18, Rusacks, Pilmour Links, St Andrews KY16 9JQ (01334 466 899). Starters £13-£18. mains £24-£57.50, desserts £10-£12.50, wines from £32
Busy restaurants often have their own particular smell: of good things searing on the grill, or garlic fizzing in hot butter, or perhaps of a strategically placed trolley full of ripe cheeses trying to make a run for it. The 18 restaurant atop Rusacks, a fancy hotel in St Andrews, smells of newly pumped testosterone. On a weekday night the place is filled with a certain kind of middle-aged man, most of them American. They are not just seated at the tables but thronging between them and leaning over the shoulders of friends at other tables to bark with laughter at each other’s jokes and war stories. The thing that unites them lies on the other side of the long plateglass window at the back of the dining room, shrouded now by night’s fall. It is the 18th hole of the Old Course, the oldest golf course in the world and therefore the holy of holies for golfers the world over. Let us pray.
Continue reading...Days after floods hit, further heavy rain likely to cause travel delays and flooding from late Sunday afternoon
Weather warnings have been issued as strong winds and heavy rain approach the UK, days after some areas were hit by flooding.
The Met Office issued a yellow rain warning – meaning further heavy rain is likely to cause some travel delays and flooding – covering much of southern England and south Wales between 4pm on Sunday and 9am on Monday.
Continue reading...A subtle bipartisan shift in the language of immigration has opened the door to vilification and dehumanization.
The post You Should Stop Calling Immigrants “Migrants” appeared first on The Intercept.
Stoking and exploiting racist fears of immigrants is essentially all that Trump is running on.
The post Trump’s Conspiracy Theory Campaign appeared first on The Intercept.
We’d like to hear from people who experienced flooding recently, whether it affected their homes, communities or journeys
Flood warnings have been issued in parts of England as more than a month’s worth of rain could fall on Monday.
An amber weather alert for rain has been issued by the Met Office until 9pm in areas including Milton Keynes, Oxford, Reading, Bath and Gloucester, meaning some flooding and travel disruption was expected. There is a yellow warning for heavy rain until midnight for a much wider area, covering the majority of England.
Continue reading...An Intercept investigation reveals that the Army National Guard has known about poisonous lead dust at armories open to the public for years, but is doing little to respond.
The post The National Guard Knows Its Armories Have Dangerous Lead Contamination, Putting Kids and Soldiers At Risk appeared first on The Intercept.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors. You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors.
You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
Continue reading...Sumptuous rich flavours to help you step from summer into autumn
For those who cook with the seasons, this is the bridge between summer and autumn. Many vegetables linger from the abundance of summer, while new things quietly arrive.
As dear to me as they are, it’s not just about porcini mushrooms and game. Sardines, for a example, come into their own, are easier to find and cheaper than ever. Wild fennel is in flower. You can find squash at the market and we fight to be first for new-season apples. These recipes reflect this moment.
Continue reading...Autumn is a great time to join locals as they celebrate the fruits of the season, from the vineyards of Provence to the forests of Transylvania
Croatia’s northernmost region is famous for its olives, and the Meneghetti hotel and winery produces four different varieties of oil from the 750 trees dotted across the estate. From early October to mid-November, guests can join the olive harvest and oil-making process, as well as oyster-shucking on the nearby fjords and truffle hunting (until the end of October). The hotel also offers wine tastings and tours, while the restaurant produces dishes created from the 1.5 hectare kitchen garden, with more than 44 species of fruits, vegetables and herbs.
Doubles from £210 B&B, meneghetti.hr
If the Labour leader can’t make a minor slip in a speech without being accused of being anti-Israel, no wonder he’s retreated to Arsenal’s corporate box
Addressing the subject of Gaza on Tuesday, Sir Keir Starmer called for the “return of the sausages”, which was a surprise to those of us who didn’t know they were missing. Although, come to think of it, when was the last time you saw a big fat bulldog with a string of them in its mouth being chased down the high street by a butcher in a straw hat? And, when I was young in the 1970s, any drive to the West Country would see the car windscreen covered in splattered sausages, but these days its stays spotless. Make of that what you will.
I’m not thinking straight. I’ve got a virus that’s smothered my brain like psychedelic cement and I’m already a day late filing this. But at least I didn’t say “sausages” when I meant “hostages”. Starmer’s mistake was genuine though. When Boris Johnson talked, just once in June 2019, about his soon-forgotten passion for model buses, it was to game search algorithms away from those other buses, the ones he wrote massive Brexit lies on.
Stewart Lee’s Basic Lee is on the streaming service Now TV, and his 2025 tour Stewart Lee vs the Man-Wulf begins at London’s Leicester Square theatre this December
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk
Continue reading...The end results are almost as good as the fun process of making them – and the stories and histories add another layer of flavour
If you like chocolate, a wonderful thing to do, for yourself, for someone else or, maybe all together, is a chocolate course. Lots of places now run them, where you learn all about chocolate, how to temper it and then usually make various incarnations of the stuff.
I went with my two bambine to Melt just off Westbourne Grove in London, up the road from where I grew up, to attend one of its chocolate courses. It was meant to last three hours but, four and a half hours later, we were all still there, laughing and learning.
Continue reading...By focusing on its strengths and pooling information, the west can disrupt Russia’s war machine – but there’s no time to lose
Russia is a “mafia state” trying to expand into a “mafia empire”, the foreign secretary, David Lammy, told the UN, nailing the dual nature of Vladimir Putin’s political model. On one hand Russia represents something very old – a world of bullying empires that invade smaller countries, grab their resources and indoctrinate their people into thinking they are inferior. But it is also something very new, weaponising corruption, criminal networks, assassinations and tech-driven psy-ops to subvert open societies. And if democracies don’t act to stop it, this malign model will be imitated across the globe.
Ukraine is resisting the older, zombie imperialism every day on the battlefield, and democracies will have to arm Ukraine and ourselves to constrain Russia properly. But how should we fight the more contemporary tools of political warfare that Russia pioneers? These are becoming ever more prevalent. Globalisation was meant to make us all so integrated that it would diminish the risk of wars. Instead, the free flow of information, money and people across borders also made subversion easier than ever. At the Labour party conference, Lammy indicated that democracies need to work together to stop Russia: “Exposing their agents, building joint capability and working with the global south to take on Putin’s lies.”
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk
Continue reading...More than 30 businesses have written to the environment secretary calling for mandatory reporting of wasted food
Food companies should have to report how much they throw away as a first step towards reducing the vast amounts of edible food squandered in the UK, a group of prominent businesses have said.
About a third of the food produced globally every year is binned, much of it before it reaches the consumer at a cost of almost £22bn annually to the UK economy.
Continue reading...Growing up poor blights children’s lives, and results in lower work and health outcomes that cost the exchequer long term
What’s Labour’s governing philosophy? That was the question posed at a dinner I went to with some MPs and former staffers during the party’s annual conference in Liverpool last week. Is Keir Starmer more influenced by the communitarian blend of leftwing economics and socially conservative values that is “blue Labour”, or is he driven by the Fabian democratic socialism that was at the heart of his campaign to become Labour leader?
A prime minister’s motivating beliefs are always pored over by those interested in what direction a particular government might take. But in this case I’m not sure how much it matters, because there is a third governing philosophy dominating Labour that renders almost everything else moot. Fiscal conservatism.
Continue reading...A pet is a symbol of virtue, its happiness a test of our humanity. This year it’s also a marker of electability…
My friend Shay has acquired a cat. It started when her family got a kitten, but then the kitten attracted a stray, who entered the house and ate all the food, much like that awful tiger who came to tea. He’s a big guy, muscular, itchy, needy, and they took him to the vet, to discover he was unchipped. They put up posters, they asked online if neighbours had lost a cat. “Enjoy your new cat!” said the neighbours. The vet’s advice was not to feed it or pay it any attention. The cat shelter’s advice was to feed it and love it.
They compromised, with a bed in the shed and food outside. Foxes used the bed as a toy – the cat stoically remains at their window. Along the way, Shay’s young daughter has named it Mr Fish, a name both formal and disgusted. I have enjoyed my Mr Fish updates, not just because it’s very funny seeing my friend compelled to care for an animal that, to quote, “gives her the ick”, but because I am refreshed by the admission, in a time when our pets have come to define us, that our relationships with them can be… complicated.
Continue reading...She thought acting was ‘silly’, despite having A-list sisters. Her interests lay in dance, accountancy, agriculture, construction. Here she explains how she conquered her anxiety and embraced being a Hollywood star
The actor Elizabeth Olsen and I are in a London hotel, staring down at her dinner. She lifts the lid from one plate: a bowl of plain black beans. She lifts another: a bowl of similarly spare couscous. You wouldn’t know it, but Olsen is something of a foodie. She takes a set of knives around the world when filming, makes her own ricotta, knows what brand of caviar is best, and records the name of every restaurant she visits. She’s been engaged for years in an LA “croissant crawl” to find the best French pastry in the city, though she takes the hunt international every chance she gets. This past week she’s eaten a huge amount of red meat, she tells me, and developed high cholesterol as a result. Hence the simple grain and pulse dishes before her. Carefully she returns the lids. Then she says, “I am probably not going to eat while we talk.”
In person, Olsen, who is 35, manages the curious combination of being at once unnerving and disarming. Those wide eyes – so expressive and searching on screen – would be unsettling if it weren’t for her easy wit. It’s the eyes that Hollywood has latched on to: they have been deployed to reveal the trauma of an ex-cult member (her indie breakout Martha Marcy May Marlene), a wife in a loveless marriage driven to murder (Love & Death), a grieving widow (Sorry For Your Loss). As Wanda Maximoff, appearing in the Marvel films that have dominated her last decade, her eyes have been used to portray a virtual assault course of loss.
Continue reading...18 at St Andrews serves huge steaks to golf lovers, but more imaginative dishes are well below par
18, Rusacks, Pilmour Links, St Andrews KY16 9JQ (01334 466 899). Starters £13-£18. mains £24-£57.50, desserts £10-£12.50, wines from £32
Busy restaurants often have their own particular smell: of good things searing on the grill, or garlic fizzing in hot butter, or perhaps of a strategically placed trolley full of ripe cheeses trying to make a run for it. The 18 restaurant atop Rusacks, a fancy hotel in St Andrews, smells of newly pumped testosterone. On a weekday night the place is filled with a certain kind of middle-aged man, most of them American. They are not just seated at the tables but thronging between them and leaning over the shoulders of friends at other tables to bark with laughter at each other’s jokes and war stories. The thing that unites them lies on the other side of the long plateglass window at the back of the dining room, shrouded now by night’s fall. It is the 18th hole of the Old Course, the oldest golf course in the world and therefore the holy of holies for golfers the world over. Let us pray.
Continue reading...From Keir Starmer in the back garden of 10 Downing Street to London fashion week: the best original photographs from the Observer commissioned in September 2024
Continue reading...South Korean skincare brands expected to follow country’s music, film and TV exports in becoming blockbusters
We’ve had South Korean pop, film, fashion and food, and now the latest trend is K-beauty, with sales of Korean skincare brands taking off in the UK as consumers are seduced by products that promise to conjure a radiant complexion.
Britons are cutting back in other areas, but they are still chasing what the beauty industry describes as the “glass skin” look, with retailers reporting a rise in spending on high-end skincare.
Continue reading...A weekly email from Yotam Ottolenghi, Meera Sodha, Felicity Cloake and Rachel Roddy, featuring the latest recipes and seasonal eating ideas
Each week we’ll send you an exclusive newsletter from our star food writers. We’ll also send you the latest recipes from Yotam Ottolenghi, Nigel Slater, Meera Sodha and all our star cooks, stand-out food features and seasonal eating inspiration, plus restaurant reviews from Grace Dent and Jay Rayner.
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Continue reading...Lila Tamea was one of the worshippers inside Abdullah Quilliam Society mosque in Liverpool when it was targeted by far-right rioters in August. Alongside Imam Adam Kelwick, she went out to speak to them and offer food. In the weeks that followed, Lila took a leading role in trying to rebuild her community after the violence. But now, despite promises of community cohesion in Liverpool, fear and paranoia are still a daily reality for Muslim women
Continue reading...Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved, direct to your inbox every Thursday
Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved, delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday
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Continue reading...Imagine a world in which you can do transactions and many other things without having to give your personal information. A world in which you don’t need to rely on banks or governments anymore. Sounds amazing, right? That’s exactly what blockchain technology allows us to do.
It’s like your computer’s hard drive. blockchain is a technology that lets you store data in digital blocks, which are connected together like links in a chain.
Blockchain technology was originally invented in 1991 by two mathematicians, Stuart Haber and W. Scot Stornetta. They first proposed the system to ensure that timestamps could not be tampered with.
A few years later, in 1998, software developer Nick Szabo proposed using a similar kind of technology to secure a digital payments system he called “Bit Gold.” However, this innovation was not adopted until Satoshi Nakamoto claimed to have invented the first Blockchain and Bitcoin.
A blockchain is a distributed database shared between the nodes of a computer network. It saves information in digital format. Many people first heard of blockchain technology when they started to look up information about bitcoin.
Blockchain is used in cryptocurrency systems to ensure secure, decentralized records of transactions.
Blockchain allowed people to guarantee the fidelity and security of a record of data without the need for a third party to ensure accuracy.
To understand how a blockchain works, Consider these basic steps:
Let’s get to know more about the blockchain.
Blockchain records digital information and distributes it across the network without changing it. The information is distributed among many users and stored in an immutable, permanent ledger that can't be changed or destroyed. That's why blockchain is also called "Distributed Ledger Technology" or DLT.
Here’s how it works:
And that’s the beauty of it! The process may seem complicated, but it’s done in minutes with modern technology. And because technology is advancing rapidly, I expect things to move even more quickly than ever.
Even though blockchain is integral to cryptocurrency, it has other applications. For example, blockchain can be used for storing reliable data about transactions. Many people confuse blockchain with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum.
Blockchain already being adopted by some big-name companies, such as Walmart, AIG, Siemens, Pfizer, and Unilever. For example, IBM's Food Trust uses blockchain to track food's journey before reaching its final destination.
Although some of you may consider this practice excessive, food suppliers and manufacturers adhere to the policy of tracing their products because bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella have been found in packaged foods. In addition, there have been isolated cases where dangerous allergens such as peanuts have accidentally been introduced into certain products.
Tracing and identifying the sources of an outbreak is a challenging task that can take months or years. Thanks to the Blockchain, however, companies now know exactly where their food has been—so they can trace its location and prevent future outbreaks.
Blockchain technology allows systems to react much faster in the event of a hazard. It also has many other uses in the modern world.
Blockchain technology is safe, even if it’s public. People can access the technology using an internet connection.
Have you ever been in a situation where you had all your data stored at one place and that one secure place got compromised? Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to prevent your data from leaking out even when the security of your storage systems is compromised?
Blockchain technology provides a way of avoiding this situation by using multiple computers at different locations to store information about transactions. If one computer experiences problems with a transaction, it will not affect the other nodes.
Instead, other nodes will use the correct information to cross-reference your incorrect node. This is called “Decentralization,” meaning all the information is stored in multiple places.
Blockchain guarantees your data's authenticity—not just its accuracy, but also its irreversibility. It can also be used to store data that are difficult to register, like legal contracts, state identifications, or a company's product inventory.
Blockchain has many advantages and disadvantages.
I’ll answer the most frequently asked questions about blockchain in this section.
Blockchain is not a cryptocurrency but a technology that makes cryptocurrencies possible. It's a digital ledger that records every transaction seamlessly.
Yes, blockchain can be theoretically hacked, but it is a complicated task to be achieved. A network of users constantly reviews it, which makes hacking the blockchain difficult.
Coinbase Global is currently the biggest blockchain company in the world. The company runs a commendable infrastructure, services, and technology for the digital currency economy.
Blockchain is a decentralized technology. It’s a chain of distributed ledgers connected with nodes. Each node can be any electronic device. Thus, one owns blockhain.
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which is powered by Blockchain technology while Blockchain is a distributed ledger of cryptocurrency
Generally a database is a collection of data which can be stored and organized using a database management system. The people who have access to the database can view or edit the information stored there. The client-server network architecture is used to implement databases. whereas a blockchain is a growing list of records, called blocks, stored in a distributed system. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, timestamp and transaction information. Modification of data is not allowed due to the design of the blockchain. The technology allows decentralized control and eliminates risks of data modification by other parties.
Blockchain has a wide spectrum of applications and, over the next 5-10 years, we will likely see it being integrated into all sorts of industries. From finance to healthcare, blockchain could revolutionize the way we store and share data. Although there is some hesitation to adopt blockchain systems right now, that won't be the case in 2022-2023 (and even less so in 2026). Once people become more comfortable with the technology and understand how it can work for them, owners, CEOs and entrepreneurs alike will be quick to leverage blockchain technology for their own gain. Hope you like this article if you have any question let me know in the comments section
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It’s quite a leap for a ‘fragile, sensitive kid’ to find himself starring in a Hollywood action movie. After the huge success of Industry and his new part in Joker, Harry Lawtey reveals why being in denial is the only way he can make sense of it
It’s not that Harry Lawtey is kidding himself. He’s fully aware, as we chat in a west London pub, that a giant billboard with his face plastered across it is now towering over New York City’s Times Square. “A friend sent me a video of it just this morning,” he says, prodding at a plate of steak and chips. “My mug, that big in Manhattan? I can’t make any sense of it, so I don’t think about it. It feels better for me to live as if it’s not actually happening.”
Lawtey has been thinking a lot like this lately, as his career and public profile have rapidly accelerated. The 27-year-old already has two critically acclaimed seasons of the HBO/BBC co-production Industry under his belt: a highly stressful, cash, cocaine and hormone-fuelled drama about a group of graduates during their first forays working at a fictional London investment bank. Lawtey plays a leading role – and its third instalment is about to hit UK screens.
Continue reading...Over just a few days in 1964, the launch of the shinkansen and the Tokyo Olympics trumpeted the emergence of a new economic and democratic power
At 6am on 1 October 1964, two trains set off in opposite directions in a daring experiment that would quickly turn them into symbols of Japan’s transformation from militarist pariah to global economic powerhouse.
Black-and-white footage shows smartly dressed men, women and children marvelling at the countryside whizzing past their windows, some perhaps trying to calm their nerves at being whisked along at speeds unheard of in rail travel.
Continue reading...An Intercept investigation reveals that the Army National Guard has known about poisonous lead dust at armories open to the public for years, but is doing little to respond.
The post The National Guard Knows Its Armories Have Dangerous Lead Contamination, Putting Kids and Soldiers At Risk 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
Moderate faces challenges over cost-of-living crisis, public trust and threats to regional stability from China and North Korea
Shigeru Ishiba’s determination to lead Japan has never been in question, and now the veteran MP is poised to achieve that goal at the fifth time of asking after winning the race to lead the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP) on Friday.
The 67-year-old will be installed as Japan’s new prime minister on Tuesday by the LDP-controlled parliament.
Continue reading...Tory leadership contender says: ‘There was a time when there wasn’t any maternity pay and people were having more babies’
Q: Do you agree with Kemi Badenoch that some cultures are less valid than others?
Jenrick says culture matters. But he says he disagres with Badenoch on immigration numbers. He says he thinks you have to have a cap on numbers. And he also says he believes the UK has to leave the European convention on human rights. He says Badenoch is just talking about developing a plan in a few years time, and that’s “a recipe for infighting and for losing the public’s trust”.
Continue reading...Over just a few days in 1964, the launch of the shinkansen and the Tokyo Olympics trumpeted the emergence of a new economic and democratic power
At 6am on 1 October 1964, two trains set off in opposite directions in a daring experiment that would quickly turn them into symbols of Japan’s transformation from militarist pariah to global economic powerhouse.
Black-and-white footage shows smartly dressed men, women and children marvelling at the countryside whizzing past their windows, some perhaps trying to calm their nerves at being whisked along at speeds unheard of in rail travel.
Continue reading... submitted by /u/MetaKnowing [link] [comments] |
submitted by /u/newzee1 [link] [comments] |
Sergei Lavrov accuses west of using Ukraine ‘to defeat’ Russia days after Putin shifts Moscow’s nuclear posture
Russia’s top diplomat warned on Saturday against “trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power”, delivering a UN general assembly speech packed with condemnations of what Russia sees as western machinations in Ukraine and elsewhere – including inside the United Nations itself.
Three days after Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, aired a shift in his country’s nuclear doctrine, his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused the west of using Ukraine – which Russia invaded in February 2022 – as a tool to try “to defeat” Moscow strategically, and “preparing Europe for it to also throw itself into this suicidal escapade”.
Continue reading...Anniversary of pro-democracy demonstration takes place in city where protest has been largely criminalised and activists silenced
A decade ago today Hong Kong’s Central district filled with protesters, angry at Chinese government plans to renege on a promise of a fully democratic vote. What became known as Occupy Central, or the Umbrella protests, paralysed the city’s financial centre and galvanised a generation of young people.
Today Hong Kong’s streets are quiet. Protest has been largely criminalised, and many of the leaders of the Umbrella movement have been exiled, jailed or otherwise silenced.
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Continue reading...Fishermen are catching more squid as other fish are depleted.
Former defence chief elected leader of Liberal Democrats and vows to end ‘widespread distrust’ in party
Shigeru Ishiba, a veteran moderate, will next week be installed as Japan’s prime minister after he was elected leader of the governing Liberal Democratic party (LDP).
The 67-year-old, a former defence minister, beat his rightwing rival Sanae Takaichi, who was attempting to become the country’s first female prime minister, by 215 votes to 194 in a runoff election at the LDP headquarters in Tokyo on Friday.
Continue reading...Loss of state-of-the-art vessel in May or June is setback to Chinese push for naval parity with US
China’s efforts to achieve maritime military parity with the US have suffered a serious blow after its newest state-of-the-art nuclear submarine sank in a dock, American officials have confirmed.
The incident happened last May or June at the Wuchang shipyard near Wuhan – the same city where the Covid-19 pandemic is believed to have originated – and came to light, thanks to satellite imagery, despite efforts by the country’s communist authorities to stage a cover-up.
Continue reading...Chung Pui-kuen sentenced to 21 months while Patrick Lam gets 11-month term but is released on medical grounds
The former editor-in-chief of Hong Kong’s Stand News has been sentenced to jail on sedition charges for the publication of news reports and other articles that prosecutors said tried to promote “illegal ideologies”.
Chung Pui-kuen, 55, the former editor-in-chief and the former acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam, 36, were found guilty of conspiring to publish seditious materials in late August after almost a year of delays. The parent company of the now-defunct Stand News, Best Pencil Ltd, was also convicted.
Continue reading...Flooding and landslides strike southern Appalachians after hurricane pummeled region and wreaked havoc
At least 64 people have been confirmed dead and almost 3.5 million were without power on Saturday, after strong winds and torrential rain from Hurricane Helene wreaked unprecedented havoc across large swathes of the south-eastern United States.
Historic flooding continued over parts of the southern Appalachians on Saturday, as first responders worked to reach stranded communities in trying conditions while local authorities began to assess the scale of the damage and displacement.
Continue reading...Hurricane John is moving along Mexico’s north-east coast, while India experiences monsoon levels of rainfall
On Monday, Hurricane John hit the southern Pacific coast of Mexico, having intensified from a tropical storm to a category 3 hurricane in less than 24 hours.
John made landfall with sustained winds of 120mph, causing destructive storm surges. However, it quickly weakened back to a tropical storm, with sustained winds falling to 50mph by Tuesday morning. John moved relatively slowly, leading to more than 400mm of rainfall in a few days. This rain brought widespread flooding, leading to mudslides in which two people are reported to have died.
Continue reading...At least 46 people, most of them children, drowned in the eastern state of Bihar while bathing in rivers swollen by recent floods in observance of Jivitputrika Vrat.
At least 46 people have drowned, most of them children, while bathing in rivers and ponds swollen by recent floods, during the observance of a Hindu religious festival celebrated by millions in India.
The dead include 37 children and seven women who drowned in the eastern state of Bihar in scattered incidents across 15 districts, authorities said on Thursday.
Continue reading...Israel’s brazen attacks on Hezbollah last week, in which hundreds of pagers and two-way radios exploded and killed at least 37 people, graphically illustrated a threat that cybersecurity experts have been warning about for years: Our international supply chains for computerized equipment leave us vulnerable. And we have no good means to defend ourselves.
Though the deadly operations were stunning, none of the elements used to carry them out were particularly new. The tactics employed by Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied any role, to hijack an international supply chain and embed plastic explosives in Hezbollah devices have been used for years. What’s new is that Israel put them together in such a devastating and extravagantly public fashion, bringing into stark relief what the future of great power competition will look like—in peacetime, wartime and the ever expanding ...
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South Korean skincare brands expected to follow country’s music, film and TV exports in becoming blockbusters
We’ve had South Korean pop, film, fashion and food, and now the latest trend is K-beauty, with sales of Korean skincare brands taking off in the UK as consumers are seduced by products that promise to conjure a radiant complexion.
Britons are cutting back in other areas, but they are still chasing what the beauty industry describes as the “glass skin” look, with retailers reporting a rise in spending on high-end skincare.
Continue reading...Maura Finkelstein was terminated by Muhlenberg College for an Instagram repost.
The post Meet the First Tenured Professor to Be Fired for Pro-Palestine Speech appeared first on The Intercept.
Poor performances and turbulence at the PCB have left the team desperate to follow their visitors’ comeback example
When the imminent Test series against England was described as “a momentous occasion for Pakistan cricket” by the team’s coach, Jason Gillespie, he was not being hyperbolic. The players will gather in Multan on Monday desperate not just to win three games of cricket, but to cast off the stench of chaos and crisis that is hanging over them with ever-increasing pungency.
Pakistan have won three of their past 17 Tests and if they draw a blank in this series will have gone three full calendar years without beating anyone except Sri Lanka. After losing 2-0 at home to Bangladesh this month – the second home series whitewash of their history and of the past two years, the other coming when England last visited – they slipped to eighth in the ICC’s Test rankings, their lowest position since 1965. They were knocked out of the most recent 50-over and T20 World Cups in the group stage, suffering a humiliating defeat by the USA in the latter.
Continue reading...A subtle bipartisan shift in the language of immigration has opened the door to vilification and dehumanization.
The post You Should Stop Calling Immigrants “Migrants” appeared first on The Intercept.
JVP leader has positioned himself as opposite to political elites but not all have greeted his win with optimism
As he was sworn in as Sri Lanka’s new president on Monday morning, Anura Kumara Dissanayake heralded a “new era of renaissance” for the country. Many believe Dissanayake’s election marks a significant political pivot for Sri Lanka, which has been ruled by a rotation of the same few parties and families for decades, leading to a continuing economic recession and deep-rooted mistrust of traditional political leaders.
Swathes of the population said it was the promise of change that brought them to vote for the leftist leader for the first time last weekend.
Continue reading...Second-round victory viewed as widespread rejection of the old political elite amid economic crisis
The Marxist leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake has won Sri Lanka’s presidential election, in what was viewed as a widespread rejection of the old political elite who are blamed for the country’s ongoing economic woes.
For the first time in Sri Lanka’s history, the election went into a runoff on Sunday after no candidate managed to get more than 50% of the votes. However, after second-choice votes were counted, Dissanayake was declared the winner in the evening. “This victory belongs to all of us,” he said, writing on X.
Continue reading...The FBI has shut down a botnet run by Chinese hackers:
The botnet malware infected a number of different types of internet-connected devices around the world, including home routers, cameras, digital video recorders, and NAS drives. Those devices were used to help infiltrate sensitive networks related to universities, government agencies, telecommunications providers, and media organizations…. The botnet was launched in mid-2021, according to the FBI, and infected roughly 260,000 devices as of June 2024.
The operation to dismantle the botnet was coordinated by the FBI, the NSA, and the Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF), according to a press release dated ...
Along the Madeira river basin, in the Amazon, locals blame climate change and human greed for the wildfires
“All of that up there is Paradise,” said Maria Moraes de Souza, gesturing to the string of villages among which she lives along one of the Amazon’s most important waterways.
But lately life in this supposedly Arcadian community has taken a toxic turn, as the River Madeira’s waters have fallen to their lowest level since the 1960s and the skies overhead have filled with smoke from wildfires that are raging across Brazil.
Continue reading...Climate change and pesticides have combined to pose a deadly threat to the vivid species. The Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards celebrate the fightback
Jaime Rojo has been following the fate of the monarch butterfly for more than 20 years. In the process the Spanish photographer has watched one of the planet’s most colourful, flamboyant insect species succumb to the combined onslaught of habitat destruction, climate change, pesticides, drought and wildfires. Its population has crashed in the process.
It is a dramatic, disturbing story that will be recognised next month when Rojo is given a highly commended award for his photojournalism at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London.
Continue reading...Research also reveals that a mixture of arable crops and cattle helps improve the biodiversity of the land
Cows may belch methane into the atmosphere at alarming rates, but new data shows they may play an important role in renewing farm soil.
Research by the Soil Association Exchange shows that farms with a mixture of arable crops and livestock have about a third more carbon stored within their soil than those with only arable crops, thanks to the animals’ manure.
Continue reading...After 250,000 installations across the UK, we look at the devices central to Labour’s vision of a ‘home upgrade revolution’
Heating the UK’s 28m homes creates almost a fifth of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, so after decades of relying on gas and oil boilers, households will need to break their addiction to fossil fuels if the government hopes to meet its climate targets.
For most homes, the alternative to traditional heating systems is likely to be an electric air source heat pump.
Continue reading...Industrial civilisation is close to breaching a seventh planetary boundary, and may already have crossed it, according to scientists who have compiled the latest report on the state of the world’s life-support systems. They say ocean acidification is close to critical threshold, posing a threat to marine ecosystems and global liveability. Ian Sample speaks to Prof Helen Findlay, a biological oceanographer at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, to find out why the oceans have reached this state, and whether there is anything we can do to reverse the damage.
Earth may have breached seven of nine planetary boundaries, health check shows
Continue reading...An Intercept investigation reveals that the Army National Guard has known about poisonous lead dust at armories open to the public for years, but is doing little to respond.
The post The National Guard Knows Its Armories Have Dangerous Lead Contamination, Putting Kids and Soldiers At Risk appeared first on The Intercept.
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.
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Attorney General Andrew Bailey scuttled a deal that would have spared Williams’s life, and the courts and governor failed to intervene to stop the execution.
The post Missouri Kills Marcellus Williams Over Objections From Prosecutor and Victim’s Family appeared first on The Intercept.
As the state keeps details around the death penalty hidden, an investigation into its execution team raises questions about how incarcerated people are treated in their final moments.
The post In Alabama, Officers Accused of Violence and Misconduct Carry Out Secretive Executions appeared first on The Intercept.
Activists are drawing parallels between the state-sanctioned killing of Williams in Missouri and U.S. backing for Israel’s war on Gaza.
The post “I Saw a Mirror”: Marcellus Williams’s Execution Enrages Palestine Solidarity Protesters appeared first on The Intercept.
The source of the quote corrected Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, but they kept accusing the Palestinian House representative of antisemitism anyway.
The post CNN Anchors Won’t Stop Lying About Something Rashida Tlaib Never Said appeared first on The Intercept.
A subtle bipartisan shift in the language of immigration has opened the door to vilification and dehumanization.
The post You Should Stop Calling Immigrants “Migrants” appeared first on The Intercept.
Weapons used in earlier Israeli strikes into Lebanon that have killed civilians have been found to be U.S.-made.
The post Israel Bombed Lebanon Today, Killing Hundreds. The U.S. Is Sending More Bombs. appeared first on The Intercept.
For the first time in more than 30 years, the Council of UC Faculty Associations filed a formal complaint against the UC system.
The post California Professors Fight Back Against Violent Repression of Palestine Protest appeared first on The Intercept.
So far, no one has been able to hold the notorious Israeli spyware firm accountable for complicity in human rights abuses.
The post These Human Rights Defenders Were Hacked by Pegasus. Now They Want Police to Charge the Spyware Maker. appeared first on The Intercept.
An Intercept investigation reveals that the Army National Guard has known about poisonous lead dust at armories open to the public for years, but is doing little to respond.
The post The National Guard Knows Its Armories Have Dangerous Lead Contamination, Putting Kids and Soldiers At Risk appeared first on The Intercept.
Since 2021, Israeli soldiers have met weekly protests in the West Bank village with deadly force.
The post Israeli Soldiers Killed 15 Protesters in the Same Place They Shot Aysenur Eygi appeared first on The Intercept.
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