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Briefly Noted Book Reviews
Mon, 29 Apr 2024 10:00:00 +0000
“Knife,” “A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages,” “Neighbors and Other Stories,” and “Butter.”
Match ID: 0 Score: 57.14 source: www.newyorker.com age: 4 days
qualifiers: 32.14 travel guide(|s), 25.00 travel(|ing)
Hubble Hunts Visible Light Sources of X-Rays
Fri, 03 May 2024 11:02:32 +0000
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the dwarf galaxy IC 776. This swirling collection of new and old stars is located in the constellation Virgo, in the Virgo galaxy cluster, 100 million light-years from Earth. Although IC 776 is a dwarf galaxy, it’s also classified as a SAB-type or ‘weakly barred’ spiral. This highly […]
Match ID: 1 Score: 35.00 source: science.nasa.gov age: 0 days
qualifiers: 35.00 travel(|ing)
‘If I could be teleported to any beach, this would be it’: readers choose their favourite European beaches
Fri, 03 May 2024 10:00:14 GMT
Seaside idylls from Île de Ré to eastern Crete feature as our tipsters report that even popular destinations such as Menorca and Sicily have their quieter spots
Cala Galdana beach – and its neighbours – are spectacular. Turn off at Ferreries and take the attractive Me-22 road that brings you to a breathtaking horseshoe bay shrouded by pine trees. The golden sandy beach is peaceful, even on a busy day. There are beach toilets and a cafe. There are also water sports facilities if you want a bit more activity. Neighbouring Cala Mitjana, a beautiful beach a short walk to the east, is wilder, as is Cala Macarella, two miles by footpath to the west. If I could be teleported to any beach on my day off here’s where I’d go to.
Bethan Patfield
With the chain selling off 126 restaurants, I’m worried. Will I be able to get the bottomless glasses of orange juice I need?
It’s 8:25am and I’ve made it down, bleary eyed, to breakfast at Premier Inn – all the more miraculous because I haven’t even stayed the night. I’ve just come to eat. My visit comes hot on the news that Premier Inn’s owner, Whitbread, is to cut 1,500 jobs and sell off 126 restaurants as part of a £150m three-year cost-cutting drive, although it sounds as if they’ll still have some in-hotel restaurants for guests only.
You know the restaurants: usually large, noisy pubs run by the Brewers Fayre chain, although sometimes Beefeater, the other side of the car park from your digs. If you’re staying at a non-city-centre Premier Inn, they’re usually the only place to eat that doesn’t involve getting back in the car or dicing with death as you meander down a busy A road to a 24-hour McDonald’s.
Continue reading...One tornado in Oklahoma was the first of 2024 to be rated as EF-4, the second most severe category
Severe thunderstorms affected parts of the US last week, spawning at least 129 tornadoes across midwestern and southern states between 25 and 28 April. The majority occurred on 26 April, with most touching down in Nebraska and Iowa.
Two that formed were particularly large and long-lived, lasting about an hour and reaching a mile in diameter, with surface wind speeds of about 160mph at their strongest. The first travelled over 31 miles across eastern Nebraska, causing severe damage in the Omaha suburb of Elkhorn. The second, which also developed secondary vortices, travelled almost 41 miles across western Iowa, and killed one person in Minden.
Continue reading...Sunday’s Sounds from the Other City festival is a joyful celebration of Greater Manchester’s leftfield culture
On the first Sunday of May every year, Chapel Street, where central Manchester and Salford meet, comes alive with DIY art, music and spectacle at the Sounds from the Other City festival. It is a vibrant public celebration of the “community spirit and collaborative working” which co-director Emma Thompson says sustains much alternative culture in the region.
“Collaboration is core to what we do, to Greater Manchester as a city,” Thompson says. “People come together, and it crosses genres and art forms. Sounds from the Other City wouldn’t be turning 20 next year if it wasn’t for that. The fees we offer aren’t huge but people really get behind it, do it for the love of it.”
Continue reading...We would like to hear from people who have been affected by postponements and cancellations at the Co-op Live arena
The Co-op Live arena has postponed or cancelled several of its music and comedy shows in recent weeks due to technical problems at the venue. Olivia Rodrigo, Peter Kay and A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie are among the performers whose gigs have been disrupted.
We would like to hear from people who have been affected by the disruptions at the Co-op Live arena. Had you planned to travel to see the show? Will you make it to a rescheduled show?
Continue reading...The far right are on the march in Germany and the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany has become the most popular party in several states. Immigration and a sense of being economically left behind have been driving factors in the rise in popularity but the Green party and the federal government’s climate policies have also borne the brunt of public anger. The Guardian travelled to Görlitz, on the German border with Poland, to find out to what extent Germany’s green policies are fuelling the far right
• How climate policies are becoming focus for far-right attacks in Germany
Continue reading...We’d like to hear from people who have been purchasing luxury goods and experiences in recent years, and how they feel about their spending habits
We’re interested to hear about people’s spending habits in the area of upmarket or luxury goods, services and experiences, and whether they are generally happy with their spending on non-essentials.
We’d like to know whether you have spent money on expensive non-essential items such as designer clothing, high end housewares, luxury holidays, expensive beauty or wellness treatments, or exclusive dining, for instance, in the past year, and if so, whether you have struggled to afford this.
Continue reading...For years, the political establishment opportunistically railed against sex trafficking. Then came Pizzagate.
The post QAnon Was Born Out of the Sex Ad Moral Panic That Took Down Backpage.com appeared first on The Intercept.
A measure passed by the House seeks to block Americans from traveling to Iran on U.S. passports.
The post House Responds to Israeli-Iranian Missile Exchange by Taking Rights Away From Americans appeared first on The Intercept.
The web has become so interwoven with everyday life that it is easy to forget what an extraordinary accomplishment and treasure it is. In just a few decades, much of human knowledge has been collectively written up and made available to anyone with an internet connection.
But all of this is coming to an end. The advent of AI threatens to destroy the complex online ecosystem that allows writers, artists, and other creators to reach human audiences.
To understand why, you must understand publishing. Its core task is to connect writers to an audience. Publishers work as gatekeepers, filtering candidates and then amplifying the chosen ones. Hoping to be selected, writers shape their work in various ways. This article might be written very differently in an academic publication, for example, and publishing it here entailed pitching an editor, revising multiple drafts for style and focus, and so on...
The White House brushes off accusations of hypocrisy, courting TikTok while seeking to ban it.
The post As Biden Cheers TikTok Ban, White House Embraces TikTok Influencers 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...Songwriting courses are exploding in popularity, with everyone from Mark Ronson to Alicia Keys as teachers. On a retreat in north Wales, our folk music critic tries to write her first song
Imagine you’ve spent the past 20 years writing about songs but never had the chops to write one. This is my penance: sitting in a room in north Wales, with a tiny keyboard and notebook spidery with attempted lyrics, the only rhythm in my ears my rave-energy heartbeat, the only melody in my mind the lilting panic of my inner critic going: “Argh!”
It’s the final day of a four-day songwriting course at Literature Wales’s 16th-century HQ, Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre, led by Brian Briggs of folk band Stornoway and Welsh poet and songwriter Paul Henry. Tonight, I have to perform an original song with two relative strangers, in front of people I didn’t know four days earlier. This particular terror is the climax of a bigger endeavour on my part: to explore the growing popularity of songwriting courses, and to find out if they work.
Continue reading...If the Italians sitting near me looked confused at their pricey plates of sepia stodge, I can’t blame them
I am just a lone woman, eating a pickled egg and asking Poppies to love her. Yet, from my table in the new Portobello Road branch, the love is not reciprocated. Solo dining is one of my specialist subjects, and my advice for lone wolves hoping for a walk-in anywhere is to turn up slightly earlier than the rush, when the staff are likely to be less fractious and dismissive of you turning up to clutter a table.
Poppies starts serving its famous fish and chips from 11am, so I arrived 10 minutes before noon. Once inside, and as usual when I’m on my tod, I scan the room so I’m able to dispute whichever dismal crevice the server might try to stuff me in. By the toilet door? Next to the Epos machine? In this all-new Poppies, the worst seats out of the 64 available are those next to the open front door, where the queue is sorted into takeaway and eat-in diners. Armed with the knowledge that I’m intending to spend about £30 on regular fish with chips and a slice of apple pie, I fight the server’s urge to seat me there. “How about there or there?” I ask, pointing a hand towards a couple of nicer spots, but he seems to have suddenly become acutely myopic.
Continue reading...Cucurbits such as courgettes, cucumbers and squash produce fruits all season long – including one that makes a perfect summer drink garnish
I absolutely love cucurbits. They belong to the gourds, a plant family that has been cultivated for millennia and includes courgettes, cucumbers and winter squash – all crops I grow every season. Cucurbits show remarkable vigour, with their hairy palmate leaves and curling tendrils. And with any luck they will produce a bounty of fruit throughout the summer.
Most species hail from warmer climates, so when grown in the UK are cultivated as annuals. However, beyond the more familiar vegetables mentioned above, a wealth of more unusual (for the UK) cucurbits can be sown now.
Continue reading...With the chain selling off 126 restaurants, I’m worried. Will I be able to get the bottomless glasses of orange juice I need?
It’s 8:25am and I’ve made it down, bleary eyed, to breakfast at Premier Inn – all the more miraculous because I haven’t even stayed the night. I’ve just come to eat. My visit comes hot on the news that Premier Inn’s owner, Whitbread, is to cut 1,500 jobs and sell off 126 restaurants as part of a £150m three-year cost-cutting drive, although it sounds as if they’ll still have some in-hotel restaurants for guests only.
You know the restaurants: usually large, noisy pubs run by the Brewers Fayre chain, although sometimes Beefeater, the other side of the car park from your digs. If you’re staying at a non-city-centre Premier Inn, they’re usually the only place to eat that doesn’t involve getting back in the car or dicing with death as you meander down a busy A road to a 24-hour McDonald’s.
Continue reading...I’ve tried peanut butter and bacon pizza, and had a caviar one, too
There is nothing I like more in this world than pizza. I grew up in the early 90s in Connecticut, where my dad owned a pizzeria called Kenny V’s until I was three. I still have his old restaurant sign in my garage.
For the last six years, I’ve eaten pizza every single day. Sometimes it might just be a slice, but most days I will get through a whole one. My favourite is a classic American deep-pan pepperoni. I also love tomato and cheese on a nice thick crust, so a plain margherita will never go amiss.
Continue reading...Sunday’s Sounds from the Other City festival is a joyful celebration of Greater Manchester’s leftfield culture
On the first Sunday of May every year, Chapel Street, where central Manchester and Salford meet, comes alive with DIY art, music and spectacle at the Sounds from the Other City festival. It is a vibrant public celebration of the “community spirit and collaborative working” which co-director Emma Thompson says sustains much alternative culture in the region.
“Collaboration is core to what we do, to Greater Manchester as a city,” Thompson says. “People come together, and it crosses genres and art forms. Sounds from the Other City wouldn’t be turning 20 next year if it wasn’t for that. The fees we offer aren’t huge but people really get behind it, do it for the love of it.”
Continue reading...As the climate crisis forces people to abandon their land in Rajasthan, a new industry has sprung up in the desert state, with thousands of gaily decorated vans setting off to sell ice-cream across the country
The parched villages of Gangapur in the desert state of Rajasthan have a new season in their calendar. Between November and February, car workshops along the town’s dusty mile-long market open before sunrise, cylindrical stainless-steel food containers are put on display, and traders stock up on chocolate and strawberry syrups.
Come March, the villagers start preparing to migrate. In the workshops, thousands of vehicles are converted into vans for selling a variety of ice-cream, from plain condensed milk flavoured with cardamom to chocolate, vanilla and pistachio, while local farmers turned dessert makers have their old mini-trucks serviced in readiness for the drive to distant towns and cities, where they will sell the sweet treat for the next nine months.
Continue reading...The population of El Fasher, which includes thousands of displaced people, is in ‘dire need of food, medicine and water’
Water, food and fuel supplies for people in the largest city in the Darfur region of Sudan are being choked off as fighting intensifies, according to reports.
El Fasher has been encircled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group over recent weeks, besieging the population as well as the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and allied militias.
Continue reading...When police attacked student protesters, a lone trash can was the only damaged property I saw around City College of New York.
The post I’ve Covered Violent Crackdowns on Protests for 15 Years. This Police Overreaction Was Unhinged. appeared first on The Intercept.
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.
Sign up below to start receiving the best of our culinary journalism in one mouth-watering weekly email.
Continue reading...Like countless other hostilities, the stealthy Israeli missile and drone strike on Iran doesn’t risk war. It is war.
The post Israel Attack on Iran Is What World War III Looks Like appeared first on The Intercept.
On the last day of his Huginn mission, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen takes us on a tour of the place he called home for 6 months: the International Space Station. From the beautiful views of Cupola to the kitchen in Node 1 filled with food and friends and all the way to the science of Columbus, the Space Station is the work and living place for astronauts as they help push science forward.
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
Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you
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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