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Types of Eclipse Photo
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********** TRAVEL **********
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We revel in the remoteness: wild camping and hiking in the Scottish Highlands
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 06:00:34 GMT
A five-day mindful adventure on the Knoydart peninsula – one of the last great wildernesses in the UK – offers the chance to fully unwind and leap into the unknown
It’s a relief to lay my rucksack down, plunge hot feet into the cool stream and pause to revel in the fairytale surrounds. Foxgloves stand tall against a cornflower-blue sky, ferns look almost luminous, the water glints in the early summer sunshine. A patch of moss-covered ancient forest provides shade, a cuckoo calls in the distance, mountains layer on the horizon.
I’m in Knoydart in the Highlands of western Scotland, one of the last great wildernesses in the UK, on a hiking and wild camping adventure. No roads cross the 22,000-hectare (55,000-acres) peninsula, a rugged place where a trio of Munros soar skyward, sandwiched between sea lochs Nevis and Hourn (poetically translated as heaven and hell). Over five days our group of eight will explore this land on foot, carrying our sustenance and shelter on our backs, led by two guides from The Living Project, Josh and Emily.
Continue reading...For days now, every time I try to book, a pop-up menu adds £42
I have been trying for days to book a £520 train and hotel package to Lille in September via the Eurostar website. Each time I enter my card details and hit “continue” to pay, a pop-up window advises that the trip has increased by an extra £42. Each time I have cancelled the transaction and started again. Each day it’s still advertised at £520 on the Eurostar site, but the same price increase pops up when I try to pay. It seems Eurostar is counting on me not bothering to cancel and go through the booking process again.
CB, Congleton, Cheshire
Eurostar seems to think that if it makes the right noises, customers will overlook shoddy service. “We prioritise the safety and wellbeing of our customers and staff above all else,” it explained last week when asked to justify a new policy that prevents staff pushing the wheelchairs of passengers with disabilities.
Continue reading...Firms such as Serco and Virgin Active pull facial recognition and fingerprint scan systems used to monitor staff attendance
Dozens of companies including national leisure centre chains are reviewing or pulling facial recognition technology and fingerprint scanning used to monitor staff attendance after a clampdown by the UK’s data watchdog.
In February, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) ordered a Serco subsidiary to stop using biometrics to monitor the attendance of staff at leisure centres it operates and also issued more stringent guidance on the use of facial recognition and fingerprint scanning.
Continue reading...Death anxiety and end-of-life planning are all in a day’s work for a care worker who helps shepherd clients off this mortal coil
There is little about Alua Arthur that emanates the deathly or morbid. The 45-year-old Los Angeles resident has a radiant, gap-toothed smile, a propensity for citrus-colored nail polish and an inclination to laugh before she finishes a sentence.
But not long ago, she was a Legal Aid worker struggling with depression, frequently taking breaks to travel around the world, attend music festivals, visit friends and enjoy short-lived romances with fellow searchers. While backpacking in Cuba, she boarded a bus and sat next to a woman around her age who revealed that she had been diagnosed with uterine cancer. What followed was an hours-long conversation that sent her world off its axis.
Continue reading...Olaf Scholz says European cars should have equal access to Chinese customers
The chancellor of Germany has urged industry bosses in China to play fair by not overproducing cheap goods or infringing copyright rules.
Speaking on a three-day visit to China, where he is travelling with leading business representatives and three government ministers, Olaf Scholz said he, in turn, would encourage the European Union not to be driven by self-interested protectionism, in which governments restrict international trade to help domestic companies.
Continue reading...Authorities continuing ‘intimidation’ including separating children from their parents, despite pledge to end collective punishment
China continues to unlawfully target the families of activists and dissidents, despite a pledge to end the practice of collective punishment, a Chinese human rights group has said in a report.
The persecution, which includes intimidation and harassment, forced evictions, travel bans, criminal proceedings against family members and preventing children from attending school, has affected people across China and the diaspora community for decades, the report by the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) group said.
Continue reading...Some people in Ambelia camp waiting for treatment to wounds resulting from ethnic violence last year
Hundreds of displaced Sudanese people living in a refugee camp across the border in Chad have been unable to access vital medical care for injuries sustained during fierce battles in the Sudanese city of Geneina in the past year.
Some of those in the vast Ambelia camp near the city of Adré have permanent disabilities that could have been avoided had they undergone surgery, according to the refugees themselves and activists who are trying to arrange travel to Port Sudan in eastern Sudan, where they say medical facilities are relatively better than in Chad.
Continue reading...From Puerta del Sol plaza in Madrid to the Tuileries Garden in Paris, guides reshape stories continent tells about itself
Dodging between throngs of tourists and workers on their lunch breaks in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol plaza, we stop in front of the nearly 3-tonne statue depicting King Carlos III on a horse. Playfully nicknamed Madrid’s best mayor, Carlos III is credited with modernising the city’s lighting, sewage systems and rubbish removal.
Kwame Ondo, the tour guide behind AfroIbérica Tours, offers up another, albeit lesser-known tidbit about the monarch. “He was one of the biggest slave owners of his time,” says Ondo, citing the 1,500 enslaved people he kept on the Iberian peninsula and the 18,500 others held in Spain’s colonies in the Americas. As aristocratic families sought to keep up with the monarch, the proportion of enslaved people in Madrid swelled to an estimated 4% of the population in the 1780s.
Continue reading...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...Joining Grace this week is the multi-talented actor, comedian and rapper, Kiell Smith-Bynoe. Long before becoming a household name as the exasperated boyfriend in the hit series Ghosts, Kiell (AKA MC Klayze Flaymz) tells Grace how, as a teenager, he combined his performance skills in the ultimate London arena: the chicken shop. With the taste of success, Kiell and Grace chat about his journey to the stage and screen, via several years working in a call centre for unemployed actors. Answering the big question: what is an appropriate lunchtime meal to eat at your desk?
Continue reading...If the experience of robot-served fast-food dining is any indication, the future of sex robots is going to be very unpleasant
On 1 April, the same day California’s new $20 hourly minimum wage for fast-food workers went into effect, a new restaurant opened in north-east Los Angeles that was conspicuously light on human staff.
CaliExpress by Flippy claims to be the world’s first fully autonomous restaurant, using a system of AI-powered robots to churn out fast-food burgers and fries. A small number of humans are still required to push the buttons on the machines and assemble the burgers and toppings, but the companies involved tout that using their technology could cut labor costs, perhaps dramatically. “Eat the future,” they offer.
Continue reading...Jamie Oliver jumps on the culinary bandwagon in this bewilderingly cringey two-parter. Hasn’t even he tired of his own shtick by now?
I don’t really know what to tell you about Jamie Oliver’s new series Jamie’s Air Fryer Meals. It’s presented by Jamie Oliver, who first bounded on to our screens as The Naked Chef (no, he wasn’t) in 1999. He cooks meals in an air fryer. An air fryer is a little convection-type oven with a perforated basket that you put food in and the hot air circulates round it and makes things crispy without you having to dunk it in a panful of boiling oil. So, in essence, Jamie makes meals and puts them in a small oven to cook. Oh, and the programme is made in association with Tefal, who sell a line of pans endorsed by Jamie. The air fryer shown in the programme is a Tefal one. Jamie is very impressed with what air fryers can do. Maybe you will be prompted to buy one after watching his show.
There are only two episodes in Jamie’s latest venture and things are starting to feel stretched long before the end of the first. I mean, there is not much you can say about a little oven that is good at making things crispy and does so slightly faster than a normal oven would. “Two minutes!” shouts Jamie as he pushes another basket home. “Real cooking, with love and care!” If you say so, petal. “I love the way you can use this to bake and to roast and also to make beautiful sauces!” he says, as if pouring meat juices off a roasting joint was not the basis of most sauces and unique to the air fryer’s capabilities. “Wilt some spinach in 40 seconds! Happy days!” His cheddar and chive scones take 12 minutes, which is only a couple of minutes faster than the ordinary way of doing things. But no matter! Because while things are air frying, he explains, you can get on with boiling or steaming or cooking other things in ways that the air fryer cannot manage. I feel a fool to have stood by my ordinary oven for so long, watching a chicken roast when I could have been getting on with the potatoes. No wonder it takes me four days to make a family meal.
Continue reading...Columbia is one of several universities that seriously disciplined students protesting against Israel’s war in Gaza this month.
The post Ahead of Congressional Testimony, Columbia President Cracks Down on Student Advocacy for Palestine appeared first on The Intercept.
Ticket sales might have lagged for the once-unbeatable double weekender but an array of crowd-pleasing female acts made it a worthwhile journey
It takes a lot of time, money and willpower to make it to Coachella: the desert locale sits three hours from Los Angeles on a good day (five in the case of my drive) and general admission passes for the festival start at $499. Then there’s the cost of lodging, food and booze to consider – no small expense, considering a cup of black coffee at the food court costs $10, a large pizza set campers back $65, and White Claws went for $16. In this economy? Not everyone can do it, and maybe that’s why ticket sales lagged this year amid a less-than-buzzy lineup. In the lead-up to the festival, fans and press alike dubbed 2024 a flop year, with the Daily Beast going so far as to publish a curtain-raiser obit last month with the headline, “Is this the end of Coachella?”
As someone who attended (for free, as press … though I did succumb to the call of the $16 Claw), I can confirm that rumors of Coachella’s demise are a little premature. Yes, there were fewer people. But the diehards still showed up – with a notable exception being the so-called Queen of Coachella, Vanessa Hudgens, who skipped out this year due to her pregnancy.
Continue reading...Team GB’s triathlon stars are already preparing for pollution in the Seine during the Paris Olympics by eating more yoghurt and taking probiotics, it can be revealed.
British triathletes have also been told they should not touch recovery drinks or food after training in the water until they have been “sanitised to within an inch of their lives” in a bid to avoid gastrointestinal issues.
Continue reading...Owner of Al Condominio in Verona says response to the initiative during meals has been very positive
An Italian restaurant is offering a free bottle of wine to customers who relinquish their mobile phones during meals.
Angelo Lella, the owner of Al Condominio, a restaurant that opened in the northern city of Verona in March, said the aim was to encourage diners chat to each other instead of constantly glancing at their phones.
Continue reading...Poverty reduction drive all but halted across many nations as Bank calls for more money to tackle a ‘great reversal’
The devastating impact of the pandemic on the world’s poorest countries has brought poverty reduction to a halt and led to a widening income gap with nations in the rich west, the World Bank has warned.
In a report released to coincide with its half-yearly meeting, the Washington-based organisation said half of the world’s 75 poorest nations had seen income per head rise more slowly than in developed countries over the past five years.
Continue reading...We need protein to build muscle, produce hormones, regulate mood and appetite, and strengthen bones. But how much, and what kind, should you eat every day?
Eating protein is non-negotiable. Like carbs and fats, it’s a macronutrient that bodies need in relatively large, regular doses (compared with micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals). But our protein needs change throughout life, according to age, sex, activity levels and more. In fact our requirements can be highly individual and hence easily misjudged, especially when, says the dietitian Linia Patel, “There are conflicting messages around how much protein we should be eating.” On the one hand, the National Diet and Nutrition Survey shows that we exceed our daily protein recommendations, which scientists say could shorten our lives. On the other hand, says Patel: “What I see in my own clinical practice is that around 80% of my clients are not eating quite enough.” The booming protein industry, with its bars, pouches and shakes, would have us believe the more is always the merrier. So how much protein should we be eating?
Continue reading...As the war in Sudan moves into its second year, 1,000 refugees a day continue to cross its southern border. Within the small town of Renk in South Sudan, a rapidly growing refugee population faces desperate shortages of water, food and shelter. For many, South Sudan marks a return to a land they thought they had left behind, having fled the country after civil war broke out in 2013. Now new fighting in their adopted country has forced them back again
Continue reading...
Video:
00:07:30
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.
We want to know how livestock and crops have been affected by the weather in recent months and the impact on your livelihood
The amount of food being produced by British farmers has been badly hit by the record-breaking rainfall, it has been reported.
Farming groups say that both livestock and crops have been affected by the “exceptionally wet” past 18 months, meaning the UK will be reliant on imports for wheat in the coming year and potentially beyond.
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.
Sign up below to start receiving the best of our culinary journalism in one mouth-watering weekly email.
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
Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you
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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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