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From paint testers to wardrobe hacks: 12 home DIY dos and don’ts
Mon, 27 May 2024 06:00:17 GMT
Whether you are taking the DIY route or employing someone more skilled, there are ways to save money
Whether you are DIYing it all yourself or getting tradespeople in, there are ways to cut some of the costs associated with sprucing up your home.
Continue reading...A new Sawday’s guide to dog-friendly days out selects ideal beaches for dog walkers year-round – plus places to stay nearby
Dog-friendly year-round but with an on-leads rule between 1 April and 31 August to protect ground-nesting birds, Holkham beach is a brilliant family destination. The walk down to the golden sand is enchanting – along boardwalks and through pine forest – and there’s a cafe serving homemade sandwiches and cakes. Lots of great local walks too.
Stay pet-friendly Sueda Cottage, with its own walled garden, is a minute’s walk from the harbour and pub. From £89 a night (sleeps 4, plus two dogs)
Is this what the “pro-life” movement wanted?
The post Sterilization, Murders, Suicides: Bans Haven’t Slowed Abortions, and They’re Costing Lives appeared first on The Intercept.
New requirements for face scans and fingerprints from 6 October threaten delays at the border
In a land just 20 miles from Britain, people can catch an international train just by buying a ticket and turning up. For Eurostar travellers from London it has never been that simple. But from 6 October, when the EU’s new border regime kicks in, a fresh headache of requirements will apply.
There may be some comfort in Eurostar’s promise that it “won’t be a shitshow”. It has spent a year discussing the precise requirements of the EU entry-exit system (EES), and invested €10m in revamping St Pancras International.
Continue reading...Petrolheads are quick to scorn the idea of electric car racing, but the series’ chief executive is sure that time, technology – and even geography – are on his side
Jeff Dodds has been a fan of Formula One “all my life”, he says. That is probably a good thing because, as chief executive of electric racing series Formula E, he must find the comparison with its fossil-fuelled cousin is constant.
So he takes it head-on. Such is the growth and improvement in technology in Formula E that one day, he says, it is “realistic that a question will be asked about whether both can exist together”. Talking to the Observer in the race company’s west London headquarters, he adds that maybe one day, as Formula E develops, “they won’t [both exist]”.
Continue reading...ICC warrants against Israeli officials would mean they can’t travel — and their patrons in the U.S. would be pressured over continued arms sales.
The post Can a U.S. Ally Actually Be Held Accountable for War Crimes in the ICC? appeared first on The Intercept.
When asked what makes this an “emotional support squid” and not just another stuffed animal, its creator says:
They’re emotional support squid because they’re large, and cuddly, but also cheerfully bright and derpy. They make great neck pillows (and you can fidget with the arms and tentacles) for travelling, and, on a more personal note, when my mum was sick in the hospital I gave her one and she said it brought her “great comfort” to have her squid tucked up beside her and not be a nuisance while she was sleeping.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered...
The 71-year-old veteran peace activist discusses the war on Gaza, the Biden administration, and shaking up Congress.
The post Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin on Disrupting the U.S. War Machine 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...As counterfeit fashion gets cool, the photographers Miguel Hahn and Jan-Christoph Hartung investigate the prevalence of luxury labels in south-east Asia, where high-end fashion blends with traditional and modern clothing
In some countries in south-east Asia, including Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand, a distinctive street style has emerged, characterised by counterfeit luxury fashion. Here, many people sport counterfeits of labels such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Prada.
Bangkok, Thailand
Continue reading...In seeking to understand his parents and his life, Flanagan merges memory and fiction to ponder the random nature of existence, resulting in a masterpiece of subtlety and depth
From the very first sentence of Richard Flanagan’s 12th book, Question 7, the model for this extraordinary, hybrid work is clear. WG Sebald is there in the subject matter: the second world war and the ethics of mass bombing campaigns; the interweaving of personal and political history; the blending of truth, memory and a kind of hyper-real imagined past. Sebald is there in the deeper currents: a somewhat solitary, occasionally ridiculous middle-aged man seeking to come to terms with his place in the world, wrestling in particular with his complex love for a father whose own life was defined by his experiences in the war. It’s there even in the rhythms of the prose. The book begins like a Sebald tribute act, with its stateliness, its subclauses, its melancholy: “In the winter of 2012, against my better judgment and for reasons that were not entirely to do with writing – much as I said they were – and which even now are not clear to me, I visited the site of Ohama Camp, Japan, where my father had once been interned.”
Question 7 is the story of Flanagan’s attempts to understand his parents, both of whom have recently died, and through them the strange contingency of his own life. His mother is presented as a warm, ambitious, eccentric figure, dragging the family up from hardscrabble poverty in rural Tasmania. Flanagan’s father’s wartime experience, first on the Death Railway, then in a prisoner of war camp, inspired his most celebrated book, the Booker prize-winning The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Here, though, Flanagan seeks to present his father’s life in a different way, as an example of the absurd calculus and complex happenstance of existence. This is the reason for the book’s title, which refers to an obscure Chekhov story that asks something like the same questions. Can life be reduced to a series of equations? Are we all here as a result of the whims of chance? Specifically, in Flanagan’s case, what would have happened to his father had the atom bomb not been dropped on Hiroshima?
Continue reading... submitted by /u/lila318 [link] [comments] |
submitted by /u/chrissyyx [link] [comments] |
Ukraine president urges Joe Biden and Xi Jinping to ‘show your leadership’ and send message to Moscow
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has released a desperate video plea calling on world leaders to attend a “peace summit” next month in Switzerland after a deadly Russian attack on a DIY hypermarket in Kharkiv on Saturday killed at least 16people and injured dozens more.
Zelenskiy appealed in particular to the US president, Joe Biden, and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, to attend the summit, which is due to start on 15 June. “Please, show your leadership in advancing the peace – the real peace and not just a pause between the strikes,” said Zelenskiy in English.
Continue reading...More than 3,000 people have used the law, inspiring legislation in Australia and Canada and debate in the UK, France and Japan
It’s three decades since Ann Jackson voted against the first assisted-dying law in the world.
But after watching two partners succumb to cancer, and fearing the prospect of a lingering death herself as she grapples with autoimmune diseases, Jackson is now a vigorous proponent of the Oregon legislation used by thousands of people to end their own lives, and providing a blueprint for other US states and countries considering similar laws, including the UK.
Continue reading...He tells the world he intends to be an authoritarian. So why won’t journalists repeat it?
The post The Media Still Doesn’t Grasp the Danger of Trump appeared first on The Intercept.
Foreign ministry’s claim follows death of ex-Royal Marine charged with spying in Britain for Hong Kong
China has accused the UK of false accusations, “wanton stigmatisation” and arbitrary arrests after the unexplained death of a man charged with illegally assisting Hong Kong’s foreign intelligence service.
China’s foreign ministry office in Hong Kong said in a statement on its website on Saturday that it strongly condemned Britain for what it said were false accusations against Chinese citizens, infringing their lawful rights.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Experts say changes to Grand Mosque of Shadian mark completion of five-year sinification campaign
The last major mosque in China to have retained Arabic-style features has lost its domes and had its minarets radically modified, marking what experts say is the completion of a government campaign to sinicise the country’s Muslim places of worship.
The Grand Mosque of Shadian, one of China’s biggest and grandest mosques, towers over the small town from which it takes its name in south-western Yunnan province.
Continue reading...Indian leader tells interviewer God ‘just keeps making me do things’ but that he ‘cannot dial him directly’
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has said he believes he has been chosen by God, as the multi-stage Indian election nears its completion.
“I am convinced that ‘Parmatma’ (God) sent me for a purpose. Once the purpose is achieved, my work will be one done. This is why I have completely dedicated myself to God,” he told NDTV news channel on Sunday.
Continue reading...For 40 years, Amit Shah has been at Narendra Modi’s side – his confidant, consigliere and enforcer. Today he is India’s second-most powerful man, and he is reshaping the country in radical ways. By Atul Dev
Continue reading...Bystanders ran in to rescue 12 newborns from fire at children’s hospital as PM Narendra Modi says deaths are ‘heart-rending’
Six newborn babies have died after a fire tore through a children’s hospital in the Indian capital, Delhi, with people charging into the flames to rescue the infants, police have said.
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, called the fire and deaths “heart-rending” in a post on social media.
Continue reading...Most of those who died in blaze were children, according to police in Rajkot, Gujarat
At least 27 people, most of them children, have died after a huge fire broke out at an amusement park in western India, police said.
The fire erupted at the park in the city of Rajkot in Gujarat state on Saturday. Police commissioner Raju Bhargava said the fire was under control and the rescue operation was under way.
Continue reading...Participant with the lowest resting heart rate wins contest aimed at reminding workers to stop and take a breather
In downtown Seoul, in front of the iconic Gyeongbokgung palace, dozens of people of all ages sit on wet yoga mats, staring into space. Some are dressed in doctors’ and dentists’ uniforms, while others wear the attire of office workers and students. Welcome to the international “space-out competition”.
The rules are simple: do absolutely nothing. Falling asleep, however, leads to disqualification. Organisers monitor the participants’ heart rates; the contestant with the most stable heart rate wins.
Continue reading...Khaled Al Serr, a young surgeon, vanished from Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis two months ago. He hasn’t been heard from since.
The post Hundreds of Palestinian Doctors Disappeared Into Israeli Detention appeared first on The Intercept.
Labor senator the first government member to publicly voice outrage over strike in southern Gaza that killed 35 people
Labor senator Fatima Payman has labelled Israel’s strike on a displaced person’s camp in Rafah “deplorable”, calling on her own government to stop trade with Israel and recognise a Palestinian state.
Payman is the first government member to publicly voice outrage over the strike on Rafah’s Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood, in southern Gaza. At least 35 people were killed, according to Palestinian medics.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed.
Malinauskas can’t ‘overstate the complexity’ of Aukus endeavour
Peter Malinauskas said his visit to the United States “unequivocally” confirmed what a massive challenge it will be to develop a workforce of 30,000 at the Osborne shipyard to build nuclear-powered submarines.
I don’t think I could possibly overstate the complexity of the task that is before us, simply because it is the most complex machine that has ever been built in human history.
And that is everything from developing the skills that are required at a vocational level but also the university level, but similarly making sure that we’re starting to upskill existing parts of the naval shipbuilding supply chain, amongst others who can participate in this process. And South Australia industry alone has got more than enough work on its hands for me to be able to say, as a premier, [it’s] time to sort of abandon the parochial nature of industrial policy we see between states around defence and instead invite everyone to lift their eyes and look what is important for the national effort in this regard.
We know that building nuclear submarines is going to take a national enterprise and a national effort, but our ambitions to be able to build these submarines domestically requires a supply chain and an industry that are capable of delivering the parts that are required.
Now, in order to be able to do that, I think as a first big step – we’ve got to see if we can’t participate in the nuclear submarine supply chain in advance of the … Aukus submarines construction commencing later this decade. So, what we’ve negotiated with [HII], that builds the Virginia class submarines, is an opportunity for South Australian suppliers to supply to the Virginia class program.
Continue reading...LNP MP Ros Bates sends concerns notice to Labor’s Shannon Fentiman demanding an apology and money to cover legal costs
A Queensland MP has raised the prospect of defamation action by sending a concerns notice to the state’s health minister over a social media post she claimed fuelled violent threats against her.
An explosive stoush erupted last week after the shadow health minister, Ros Bates, shouted “cross your legs” while the health minister, Shannon Fentiman, was speaking about maternity services in Queensland parliament.
Continue reading...Qatar Airways plane landed safely on Sunday, but six passengers and six crew reported injuries
Eight people have been taken to hospital after a flight from Doha to Dublin experienced turbulence.
Dublin airport said six passengers and six crew members had reported injuries during the incident on the flight while it was airborne over Turkey. The incident occurred five days after a British man died of a suspected heart attack and dozens of people were injured when a Singapore Airlines flight from London encountered severe turbulence.
Continue reading...Appeal allowed Sudharsan Ithayachandran to return to UK to be with his family, but he died in Sri Lanka while awaiting visa
The family of a man who died abroad after being wrongly deported by the UK Home Office have blamed the department for causing delays that stopped him being reunited with his children.
Sudharsan Ithayachandran, 41, was deported from the UK to Sri Lanka on 24 December 2019 – his wedding anniversary – after admitting to working illegally at Tesco and using false documents.
Continue reading...Sandra Oh is also among the cast of The Sympathizer, based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer-winning novel. Plus: D-Day 80: We Were There. Here’s what to watch this evening
9pm, Sky Atlantic
Park Chan-wook’s adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer prize-winning novel follows a French Vietnamese communist spy, the Captain (Hoa Xuande). Held in a North Vietnamese re-education camp, he writes his story – from his time in the special police before the fall of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) to being a refugee in the US, all while reporting to the people keeping him captive. It’s an ambitious production, which also stars Sandra Oh and Robert Downey Jr. Hollie Richardson
Thousands of children could die after court backs campaign group over GM crop in Philippines, scientists warn
Scientists have warned that a court decision to block the growing of the genetically modified (GM) crop Golden Rice in the Philippines could have catastrophic consequences. Tens of thousands of children could die in the wake of the ruling, they argue.
The Philippines had become the first country – in 2021 – to approve the commercial cultivation of Golden Rice, which was developed to combat vitamin A deficiency, a major cause of disability and death among children in many parts of the world.
Continue reading...As brutal police repression sweeps campus encampments, schools have been cutting ties with pro-Palestine faculty members without tenure.
The post University Professors Are Losing Their Jobs Over “New McCarthyism” on Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.
Kuo Chiu, known as KC to his friends, teaches urban design at Tunghai University in Taiwan. He’s also one of many of the country's citizens who practises rifle skills in his spare time, in case of a Chinese invasion.
The population of Taiwan has long grown familiar with Beijing’s pledge to one day ‘unify’ what it claims is a breakaway province. But recently, there has been a significant increase in aggressive and intimidatory acts.
Taiwan’s 160,000 active military personnel are vastly outnumbered by China’s 2 million-member armed forces, leading many civilians to turn to voluntary medical and combat training to protect themselves.
The Guardian's video team spent time with KC to see how he is preparing
Continue reading...From targeting humanitarian vehicles to standing by as mobs attack trucks, Israel is blocking aid from reaching Gaza.
The post The State Department Says Israel Isn’t Blocking Aid. Videos Show the Opposite. appeared first on The Intercept.
Since Dobbs, state-level Republicans have sought to strip power from DAs elected in Democratic cities who won’t prosecute abortion care.
The post Republicans Can’t Decide: Do They Hate Prosecutors Because of Bail Reform or Abortion? appeared first on The Intercept.
Ban Khun Samut Chin, a coastal village in Samut Prakan province, Thailand, has been slowly swallowed by the sea over the past few decades. This has led to the relocation of the school and many homes, resulting in a dwindling population. Currently, there are only four students attending the school, often leaving just one in each classroom. The village has experienced severe coastal erosion, causing 1.1-2km (0.5-1.2 miles) of shoreline to disappear since the mid-1950s
Continue reading...It was the year when arthouse brains met Hollywood brawn. But what made the last 12 months of the 90s so special? These films tell the story
In 1999, cinemagoers flocked to watch The Talented Mr Ripley, in which Jude Law smoked cigarettes in a lazily buttoned linen shirt. The same year, they could also watch the actor getting a socket stamped into the base of his spine so he could play a video game. In David Cronenberg’s Existenz, Law’s character is fitted with a gnarly looking “UmbyCord” and hooked up to a creepy, pulsing virtual reality game “pod” that mines his nervous system for data as he plays. While plugged in, the player is unable to take stock of the “real” world outside. “You won’t be able to stop yourself, so you might as well enjoy it,” says the game’s creator, a line that feels spookily resonant today.
I am certainly not the first person to notice that 1999 was a great year for film. At the time, Entertainment Weekly ran a piece with the headline: 1999: The Year That Changed Movies, declaring it the year “all the old, boring rules about cinema started to crumble”. It’s not that films such as The Virgin Suicides, The Sixth Sense and Fight Club are better than everything else that came before or after, but that 1999’s harvest was a bumper crop. That year’s freakish climate saw cross-pollination between Hollywood studios with money and independent-minded film-makers with vision. It was a period that saw cinema creating the culture instead of second-guessing it.
Continue reading...One computer scientist says we should embrace human-machine relationships, but other experts are more cautious
Hollywood may have warned about the perils of striking up relationships with artificial intelligence, but one computer scientist says we may be missing a trick if we do not embrace the positives that human-machine relationships have to offer.
Despite the travails of Joaquin Phoenix’s introverted and soon-to-be-divorced protagonist in the 2013 movie Her, one professor says we should be open to the comforts that chatbots can provide.
Continue reading...Residents of Snettisham, Norfolk, say birds are destroying their gardens, while food left out for them is attracting rats
The clucking nuisance of about 100 feral chickens has left residents of a Norfolk village spitting feathers, with locals claiming the birds destroy their gardens and keep them awake.
Dwellers in Snettisham, Norfolk, have said their life is being made “hell” as the chickens swarm in from a nearby wood. It is unclear who owns the land the chickens live on, but villagers believe numbers have soared recently.
Continue reading...
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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