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The debate: is working out with other people beneficial?
Fri, 07 Jun 2024 16:00:21 GMT
Lauren Mechling and Madeleine Aggeler debate whether getting fit with friends is fun – or absolutely dreadful
Some think working out is best with a friend; others couldn’t think of anything worse. Guardian US writers Lauren Mechling and Madeleine Aggeler debate: is it best to sweat alone or with others?
Continue reading...Spending your weekends watching the kids while your other half heads out on another training ride? You’re not alone. Meet the Lycra widows and widowers picking up the slack
‘He’s treated like a hero when he does marathons,” says Julia. “But once, while we were watching him cross the finishing line, my aunt leaned over and said: ‘You deserve the medal, for doing everything behind the scenes, so he can do all that training.’”
From 5Ks to Ironman races, most people will have a friend, colleague or family member who is training for some kind of fitness challenge. The odd parkrun isn’t enough to merit kudos these days – the bar is set somewhere around “triathlon”. But what about the Lycra widows and widowers who solo-parent, fix bikes, sleep in cars while “crewing”, and diligently stick chicken in the air fryer five times a day to support their sport-mad partners? Where’s their “me-time” after they’ve done bedtime for the 11th day in a row because their partner has been out on a six-hour training ride?
Continue reading...Technology was once simply a tool—and a small one at that—used to amplify human intent and capacity. That was the story of the industrial revolution: we could control nature and build large, complex human societies, and the more we employed and mastered technology, the better things got. We don’t live in that world anymore. Not only has technology become entangled with the structure of society, but we also can no longer see the world around us without it. The separation is gone, and the control we thought we once had has revealed itself as a mirage. We’re in a transitional period of history right now...
The board had proposed appending a statement that would have undermined a Palestinian scholar's article. The students rejected it.
The post Columbia Law Review Is Back Online After Students Threatened Work Stoppage Over Palestine Censorship appeared first on The Intercept.
Researchers tested for bias in Facebook’s algorithm by purchasing ads promoting for-profit colleges and studying who saw them.
The post One Facebook Ad Promotes a For-Profit College; Another a State School. Which Ad Do Black Users See? appeared first on The Intercept.
The narrative that took hold ignored inland campuses, like in the Rust Belt and into Appalachia, where students formed their own encampments.
The post Not Just Coastal Elites: Here’s How Three Rust Belt Colleges Protested Israel’s War in Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.
“It’s hard to see this wildly disproportionate response as anything other than an attempt to chill speech on this issue.”
The post Columbia Coincidentally Rewrites Disciplinary Rules Just in Time to Screw Over Student Protesters appeared first on The Intercept.
The federal judge hearing a human rights case disputed allegations he might be impartial but recused himself out of an “abundance of caution.”
The post Judge Who Went on Israel Junket Recuses Himself From Gaza Case appeared first on The Intercept.
Activists suing the Biden administration over Gaza policy are demanding the judge recuse himself over the sponsored trip.
The post A Federal Judge Visited Israel on a Junket Designed to Sway Public Opinion. Now He’s Hearing a Gaza Case. appeared first on The Intercept.
Andrew Bailey’s office has a losing record of fighting against exonerations recommended by local prosecutors — but it’s not giving up.
The post Missouri’s Attorney General Is Waging War to Keep the Wrongly Convicted Locked Up appeared first on The Intercept.
Trump fans say his conviction is an overreach. But a close look at another recent fraud trial shows his case was run-of-the-mill.
The post To Understand the Trump Verdict, Look at the Case Against Shukhratjon Mirsaidov appeared first on The Intercept.
Three US nationals on trial in Democratic Republic of Congo over events in May described as an attempted coup
More than 50 people, including three US citizens and a Belgian, have gone on trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo over what the army has described as an attempted coup.
The actions of the three Americans were “punishable by death”, Judge Freddy Ehume told the military court in the DRC capital, Kinshasa.
Continue reading...The Infowars host dropped his petition for bankruptcy protection, now opting instead for liquidation of company
The Infowars host Alex Jones has asked a court to sell off his assets to help meet a $1.5bn defamation judgment against him and his companies over public comments he made claiming that the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting was faked.
In a court filing, Jones dropped his petition merely to go into bankruptcy, admitted that he has to pay the Sandy Hook families, and asked the judge to convert the bankruptcy into a Chapter 7 liquidation.
Continue reading...Dame Victoria Sharp says judge was wrong to pause trial after prosecutors said they did not plan to call Georgia Barton as a witness
Joey Barton faces a new criminal trial over an allegation he assaulted his wife, judges at the high court have ruled after proceedings against him were previously paused.
The former footballer was accused of assaulting Georgia Barton in a drunken row – which he denied – and was due to face trial at a magistrates court in 2022.
Continue reading...Grim figures show that children in poverty are dying needlessly. We desperately need a government that puts them first
In all the sound and fury of the election, annual statistics land unnoticed. Yet these grim Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures are the best benchmark for what has happened to the country during the Conservative years. Infant mortality has risen: more babies are dying, and more older children are dying, too, from causes including abuse, neglect and suicide. The long-term trend in infant deaths has been downwards, as you would expect. But not recently in the UK. The Nuffield Foundation reported in 2021 that Britain’s rate of infant deaths was 30% above the median across EU countries.
According to OECD data, the UK ranks 30th out of 48 countries for infant deaths. The risk rises for mothers who are poor, black, young or living in deprived areas. Last year, child deaths in England rose by 8%, and more than a third of these were officially judged “avoidable”, bringing an outburst from Camilla Kingdon, the president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. She explained: “The clear driver is rising child poverty. Figures such as these in a nation as rich as ours are unforgivable.”
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Democracy campaigners welcome move by Lord Sumption and Lord Collins, who cited political situation in statement
Two of the last remaining British judges to sit on Hong Kong’s top court have resigned, with one citing the political situation in the former colony.
Lawrence Collins and Jonathan Sumption, former UK supreme court justices, announced their resignations on Thursday. “I have resigned from the court of final appeal because of the political situation in Hong Kong, but I continue to have the fullest confidence in the court and the total independence of its members,” Lord Collins said.
Continue reading...Researchers tested for bias in Facebook’s algorithm by purchasing ads promoting for-profit colleges and studying who saw them.
The post One Facebook Ad Promotes a For-Profit College; Another a State School. Which Ad Do Black Users See? appeared first on The Intercept.
All over the country, architecture firms make the case for bigger jails — then get hired to design them.
The post The Little-Known Reason Counties Keep Building Bigger Jails: Architecture Firms appeared first on The Intercept.
US president says sorry for ‘weeks of not knowing’, referring to members of Congress holding up a $61bn aid package
Joe Biden has apologised publicly to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for the months of delay in American military assistance that allowed Russia to make gains on the battlefield, and announced a further $225m (£177m) in military aid to Ukraine.
Meeting Zelenskiy in Paris on Friday, the US president told him: “You haven’t bowed down, you haven’t yielded at all, you continue to fight in a way that is … just remarkable. We are not going to walk away from you.”
Continue reading...ANC leader and president accepts he will need help of opposition parties to tackle serious problems facing country
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said that his African National Congress (ANC) would seek to form a government of national unity with a broad group of opposition parties.
“The purpose of the government of national unity must be, first and foremost, to tackle the pressing issues that South Africans want to be addressed,” Ramaphosa said late on Thursday after a marathon ANC meeting.
Continue reading...Government employees are using their official badges to demonstrate against U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
The post “Not the Career in Public Service I Signed Up For”: Federal Workers Protest War appeared first on The Intercept.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, revealed the tactics and traits that help him face the daily frustrations of leading a country at war for more than two years.
Within a ceremonial room inside Kyiv’s presidential compound, Zelenskiy spoke for nearly an hour with a Guardian team, including the editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner. The interview took place during perhaps the toughest time for Ukraine since the early days of the war. Russia is on the offensive in Kharkiv, an advance that follows months of delay in the US Congress over the passing of a major support package, limiting Ukraine’s battlefield capabilities
Continue reading...In Gainesville, Florida, children are on the front lines of the hazards long ignored by local and state government officials.
The post For Decades, Officials Knew a School Sat on a Former Dump — and Did Little to Clean Up the Toxins appeared first on The Intercept.
Government prosecutors claimed they didn’t know a former detainee recanted his testimony in interviews with the government.
The post Guantánamo Prosecutors Accused of “Outrageous” Misconduct for Trying to Use Torture Testimony appeared first on The Intercept.
Found guilty on 34 counts by a New York jury, Trump might find himself campaigning behind bars.
The post These Convictions Thwart Trump’s Plan to Pardon Himself appeared first on The Intercept.
These embattled but valiant institutions are testimony to a basic human urge to collect and share enthusiasms
Have you heard the one about the museum of cuckoo clocks that may have to be wound up unless the two brothers who founded it 34 years ago can find someone to keep it ticking when they retire? Or the Musical Museum, set up in 1963 by an electrical engineer with a passion for the history of recorded sound, where you can listen to self-playing violins, and dip into one of the world’s largest collections of piano rolls? Or the UK’s newest natural history museum, at whose 2022 opening the ribbon was cut with the claw of a baryonyx – a large carnivorous dinosaur? They are located respectively in Cheshire, Brentford and Sheffield.
Of the 2,500 museums estimated to exist around the UK, the great national institutions take all the air, with their blockbuster shows and their rows over funding, restitution of plundered treasures and – in the case of the British Museum – alleged thefts. Scepticism about their scale and their colonising impulses goes back to their earliest days, with the writer GK Chesterton opining: “The Museum is not meant either for the wanderer to see by accident or for the pilgrim to see with awe. It is meant for the mere slave of a routine of self-education to stuff himself with every sort of incongruous intellectual food in one indigestible meal.”
Continue reading...Comfort Eating with Grace Dent is back for a seventh course on 11 June. Join her and celebrity guests as they reveal the comfort foods that have seen them through their lives in series seven
New episodes of Comfort Eating with Grace Dent will be released every Tuesday
Continue reading...Local agencies’ involvement with Alphonsine Djiako Leuga and her daughter will be subject to inquest and ‘full review’
On the last few occasions Alphonsine Djiako Leuga was seen in her neighbourhood, she is said to have told shopkeepers that she could not afford to heat her home or buy food for her disabled daughter.
Months later, Leuga and her teenage daughter were found dead inside their Nottingham home. Police said the pair had “lain undiscovered for some time” but they were “satisfied” no crime had occurred.
Continue reading...A bright, zingy, fruity drink with a refreshing hit of mint
This combines the flavours of the pornstar martini with the structure of the caipirinha, but replaces the vanilla-flavoured vodka typically used in a pornstar with Licor 43, a Spanish liqueur that’s more commonly used in Mexico’s famous coffee cocktail, the carajillo. The result is refreshing, with a bright, passion fruit aroma, a richness from the pineapple and a soft, vanilla finish.
Pietro Collina, bar director, Los Mochis London City
Continue reading...Professional body says outbreaks of foodborne illnesses will increase unless urgent action taken
Outbreaks of foodborne illnesses, such as E coli, will increase in the UK unless urgent action is taken to tackle severe shortages of environmental health officers, a body representing the profession has said.
The warning comes after more than 100 E coli cases were reported in a fortnight, having spread via food distributed across Britain.
Continue reading...Almost half of Brazil’s wine production is sparkling wine, but the country’s producers also make full-bodied reds and so called winter wine
Given the current interest in less familiar wine-producing regions, it’s surprising that virtually no one in the UK is stocking Brazilian wines. Well, it’s surprising to me, anyway. You might think – and quite rightly – that Brazil is more about coffee and cachaça; also, that vast swathes of the country are tropical or sub-tropical, which is not great for grape growing.
That said, Brazil is vast, and Rio Grande do Sul, an area to the south, is the centre of the country’s wine industry. Unfortunately, last month it was hit by devastating floods that have displaced more than 1.5m people, much of the state’s capital Porto Alegre has been under water for weeks, and at least 250 hectares of vineyards have been destroyed.
For more by Fiona Beckett, go to fionabeckett.substack.com
Continue reading...Many disenchanted farmers in England are seeking new political homes. Can Labour and the Lib Dems capitalise on this opportunity?
“Since I first voted for Thatcher in 1979, I’ve always gone Conservative,” says the Hertfordshire farmer Andrew Watts – a longer period than the three decades he has been managing his cereal farm near the village of Puckeridge.
But when he enters the voting booth on 4 July, the 64-year-old will be backing the Liberal Democrats. Watts says the switch is partly down to what he calls a “lack of coherent agricultural policy” from Westminster, but he mainly blames it on a loss of integrity within the Tories in recent years.
Continue reading...A restaurant that exists only in the minds of its owners
July, an Alsace-inspired restaurant, is a lovely idea, which is how all restaurants begin. Nobody, back in the blue-sky-thinking days of opening a joint, has ever planned to open a stinker. Restaurants are perilously expensive ventures. Pop stars KLF may once have burned £1m on Jura, but at least they got to go to bed afterwards. Hospitality, however, never sleeps, so if, like Solynka Dumas and Julian Oschmann, you are burning money by opening a 44-cover, all-day German/Swiss dining experience at the hectic end of London’s Charlotte Street, you’ll be pretty tied up.
The pair’s new restaurant in the heart of Fitzrovia is decked out in sumptuous, sunset-hued suede and leather, and offers a list of low-intervention wines that’s apparently curated by that wine-world name du jour, Honey Spencer. July also splashed the cash on employing someone to take lovely snaps of its Alsace-themed fantasy menu, including yummy-looking breaded deep-fried munster , pork terrine, herb dumplings in broth, exquisite salads, lamb hearts with green sauce, and white asparagus with ham and hollandaise. The dreamy list goes on: at weekends, I’m told, there will be whole Fosse Meadow chickens with homemade mayo, which I imagined as a bit like Bob Fosse chickens, having danced wild and free, and built up plenty of lovely, tasty flesh.
Continue reading...International aid organisations are warning Gaza is on the brink of famine. But since the start of the year groups of protesters have been trying to prevent food and supplies from getting in. Emma Graham-Harrison reports
Since the start of the year, groups of Israeli demonstrators have been gathering, first on the border with Gaza and then later in the West Bank, to lie down in front of food trucks – or in the West Bank even to attack them and their drivers – to try to prevent food aid getting into Gaza.
Who are these protesters and why would they try to prevent supplies from getting into the Gaza Strip, where international agencies say some children are already starving? Emma Graham-Harrison went to speak to the protesters to find out. She tells Michael Safi how, while their actions may seem extreme, believing aid should not be sent to Gaza is a worryingly mainstream view in Israel.
Continue reading...A court in the Philippines has banned the commercial growth of golden rice, a genetically modified rice which was created to help tackle vitamin A deficiency in developing countries. It’s just the latest twist in a long and controversial journey for this rice. Ian Sample hears from the Observer science and environment editor, Robin McKie, and from Glenn Stone, a research professor of environmental science at Sweet Briar College in Virginia who is also an anthropologist who has studied golden rice, about why it has taken so long for this potentially life-saving technology to reach the fields, if it is the silver bullet so many had hoped for, and whether this ban is really the end of the story
Continue reading...Andrew Bailey’s office has a losing record of fighting against exonerations recommended by local prosecutors — but it’s not giving up.
The post Missouri’s Attorney General Is Waging War to Keep the Wrongly Convicted Locked Up appeared first on The Intercept.
Technology was once simply a tool—and a small one at that—used to amplify human intent and capacity. That was the story of the industrial revolution: we could control nature and build large, complex human societies, and the more we employed and mastered technology, the better things got. We don’t live in that world anymore. Not only has technology become entangled with the structure of society, but we also can no longer see the world around us without it. The separation is gone, and the control we thought we once had has revealed itself as a mirage. We’re in a transitional period of history right now...
Tinned chickpeas are flying off the shelves at Tesco. Vegan influencer Christina Soteriou and child nutritionist Charlotte Stirling-Reed explain why – and share their tips for recipes and moreish snacks
“Chickpeas are flying off the shelves, so our priority is making sure they’re always available when customers want them,” says Ashley Wainaina, Tesco’s canned pulses buyer. “We’ve even changed our stocking system to make it more efficient, so we can keep up with demand.”
As the UK’s largest food retailer, Tesco is helping customers make better choices when they shop by highlighting better foods, such as snacks containing under 100 calories or foods that are high in fibre or low in sugar, through its Better Baskets campaign. Chickpeas are loaded with protein and fibre, they’re filling, a third of a tin counts as one of your five a day, and they can be cooked in a plethora of different ways. They’ve been eaten for millennia across the Middle East, India and the Mediterranean, and their popularity has soared here recently, too.
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...Michelle Roach bought a used ice-cream van in order to bring cheap, affordable food to Liverpool's struggling communities. She wanted a vehicle with freezers built in for frozen food, and also something cheerful that was able to break down stigmas around food poverty. Using a '10 items for £5' model, Michelle sources discount food from supermarket surplus and donations.
The Guardian's Christopher Cherry follows Michelle and the van on its rounds, with the service struggling to meet overwhelming demand as the cost of living crisis deepens, and the UK's general election fast approaches.
Continue reading...South Africa's case against Israel over allegations of genocide before the international court of justice has raised a central question of international law: what is genocide and how do you prove it? It is one of three genocide cases being considered by the UN's world court, but since the genocide convention was approved in 1948, only three instances have been legally recognised as genocide. Josh Toussaint-Strauss looks back on these historical cases to find out why the crime is so much harder to prove than other atrocities, and what bearing this has on South Africa's case against Israel and future cases
What is the genocide convention and how might it apply to the UK and Israel?
‘Famine is setting in’: UN court orders Israel to unblock Gaza food aid
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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
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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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The Shiva Baby and Bodies, Bodies, Bodies standout goes serious in an uneven and at times frustrating combination of disparate tones and genre
There’s a particular, distinctly online note – dead-eyed, chaotic, teetering between hyper self-consciousness and delusional confidence – that comedian Rachel Sennott can hit so effectively it will temporarily and memorably spark its container: Twitter, where she rose to prominence as a self-aware zillennial comedy It Girl; Bodies Bodies Bodies, where she provided the bulk of the horror comedy’s actual zingers; The Idol, where her bit part as a pop star’s assistant was one of the misbegotten HBO series’ few highlights. As a lead – in Emma Seligman’s claustrophobic feature Shiva Baby and, less successfully, in Seligmans’ follow-up comedy Bottoms – Sennott stretched her shtick but remained most successful in this familiar, self-deprecating zone, though she has hinted at something darker and less irony-pilled.
I Used to Be Funny, the feature debut from the Canadian writer-director Ally Pankiw, overambitiously tries to combine Sennott’s proven comedic chops with a trauma plot in the format of a thriller. Sennott plays Sam Cowell, a Toronto-based twentysomething reeling from a mysterious (though entirely predictable) Traumatic Event handled like a lump of coal (“things have been different since, you know …”). The fallout has made her, according to small glances at a Twitter-like timeline, a social media pariah and a recluse. Once a promising standup, Sam is now nearly bedridden, floating through life via the emotional and financial support of her friends, fellow comics Paige (Sabrina Jalees) and Philip (Caleb Hearon, by far the best asset of this movie), and concerned ex-boyfriend Noah (Ennis Esmer).
Continue reading...A raft of new films, from Challengers to Hit Man, have shown the importance and popularity of desire on screen
The success of Hit Man, Richard Linklater’s new comedy that has garnered glowing reviews heralding Glen Powell’s emergence as a true movie star, largely boils down to one factor: illicit attraction. It’s the kind that powers fantasies and a good portion of human behavior, whether we’d like to admit it or not.
There’s the pull of Powell’s Gary, a nerdy thirtysomething psychology professor in New Orleans, moonlighting as an undercover impersonator of hired killers, trying on different, more confident identities for size. There’s the longstanding, vicarious thrill of watching ethically dubious protagonists flitter through a well-oiled crime caper. And most especially, there’s the heat between Gary, in disguise as a suave hitman, and Adria Arjona’s Madison, a potential client with whom he has the type of identity-incinerating sex that leads to cocooning in a townhouse and making unwise choices.
Continue reading...Technology was once simply a tool—and a small one at that—used to amplify human intent and capacity. That was the story of the industrial revolution: we could control nature and build large, complex human societies, and the more we employed and mastered technology, the better things got. We don’t live in that world anymore. Not only has technology become entangled with the structure of society, but we also can no longer see the world around us without it. The separation is gone, and the control we thought we once had has revealed itself as a mirage. We’re in a transitional period of history right now...
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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The draconian restrictions on asylum-seekers owe a lot to Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, but the path was paved by Democrats.
The post Joe Biden’s Cruel Border Shutdown Follows in Clinton and Obama’s Footsteps Too appeared first on The Intercept.
UN secretary general makes plea for nuclear states to agree on mutual pledge not to be first to use nuclear weapons
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has warned that the spread of artificial intelligence technology multiplies the threat of nuclear war, and that humanity is now “on a knife’s edge” as dangers to its existence coalesce.
Guterres’s warning is due to be shown on a recorded video to be played on Friday morning at the annual meeting of the US Arms Control Association (ACA) in Washington.
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Conservative supreme court justice belatedly acknowledges two trips paid for by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, NBC News reports
As Joe Biden wrapped up his speech, he said the rangers who stormed Pointe du Hoc would want Americans to believe in the importance of democracy.
“I stand here today as the first President to come to Pointe du Hoc when none of those 225 brave men who scaled this cliff on D-day are still alive,” the president said.
So, listen to the echoes of their voices. To hear them, because they are summoning us, and they’re summoning us now.
They ask us, what will we do? They’re not asking us to scale these cliffs, they’re asking us to stay true what America stands for. They’re not asking us to give or risk our lives, but they are asking us to care for others in our country more than ourselves. They’re not asking us to do their job. They’re asking us to do our job, to protect freedom in our time, to defend democracy, to stand up (to) aggression abroad and at home, to be part of something bigger than ourselves.
Does anyone doubt that they would want America to stand up against Putin’s aggression here in Europe today? They stormed the beaches alongside their allies. Does anyone believe these rangers want America to go alone today?
They fought to vanquish a hateful ideology the 30s and 40s. Does anyone doubt they wouldn’t move heaven and earth to vanquish hateful ideologies of today? These rangers put mission and country above themselves. Does anyone believe they would exact any less from every American today?
Continue reading...The US president called for defence of democracy in an apparent reference to Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump
Joe Biden has said that the heroes of D-day would have wanted today’s Americans to stand up to aggression “abroad and at home”, in what appeared to be a reference to both Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
Biden pointed to the looming threats to democracy in remarks he made at the Pointe du Hoc in France, where US Rangers scaled the cliffs in a pivotal moment in the D-day landings 80 years ago.
Continue reading...Ex-president determined to destroy independence of justice department if he regains control of White House
Donald Trump is planning an assault on the American justice system should he win re-election to the White House, in which he would seek to destroy the independence of the justice department and turn it into an attack machine for his Make American great again (Maga) movement.
At the heart of his plans is the desire to impose his will on the individual prosecutorial decisions taken by the Department of Justice. The move, if successful, would end half a century of accepted practice that prevents presidents from politically interfering with specific cases.
Continue reading...Defeats for ruling Bharatiya Janata party in Uttar Pradesh highlight underbelly of malcontent over inequality and lack of jobs
A few weeks before the election that weakened Narendra Modi’s grip on India, the rich, powerful and beautiful descended on his home state of Gujarat. The occasion was what one Indian writer described as “likely the most ostentatious pre-wedding ceremony the modern world has ever seen”.
In March, to celebrate the forthcoming marriage of Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Ivanka Trump flew in. So did the entertainment: Rihanna and Akon. The airport near the venue was supposed to be reserved for India’s armed forces but the media reported that the authorities had granted special permission for non-military jets to land.
Continue reading...Republicans said verdict would hurt president’s standing, but data looks mostly the same with slight uptick for Biden
After a Manhattan jury found Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts last week, Republicans rallied around the former president, insisting the verdict would only damage Joe Biden’s standing in the presidential election.
But some new polling data casts doubt upon that argument, as a small but crucial number of Americans in key voting blocs appear to be moving toward Biden in the aftermath of the verdict.
Continue reading...Siwei Lyu of the DeepFake-o-meter explains how to tell when photos, videos and audio aren’t real
You – a human, presumably – are a crucial part of detecting whether a photo or video is made by artificial intelligence.
There are detection tools, made both commercially and in research labs, that can help. To use these deepfake detectors, you upload or link a piece of media that you suspect could be fake, and the detector will give a percent likelihood that it was AI-generated.
Continue reading...Activists suing the Biden administration over Gaza policy are demanding the judge recuse himself over the sponsored trip.
The post A Federal Judge Visited Israel on a Junket Designed to Sway Public Opinion. Now He’s Hearing a Gaza Case. appeared first on The Intercept.
With high levels of people seeking asylum, and after failed attempts to pass reforms, Biden has presented his most aggressive restrictions yet
Joe Biden on Tuesday signed an aggressive new immigration order suspending asylum rights, signalling that “securing the border” was a central tenet of his re-election bid.
At the southern US border, the policy is set to cause chaos and hardship for those seeking the protection of the United States.
Continue reading...Move comes after Russian hack on Monday which continues to cause serious disruption to NHS care
Hospitals in London have had to cancel cancer operations this week because of a Russian cyber-attack which is continuing to cause serious disruption for NHS services in the capital.
St Thomas’ and King’s College hospitals have postponed procedures that their surgeons were due to perform on cancer patients since the attack began last Monday, the Guardian can reveal.
Continue reading...US president says sorry for ‘weeks of not knowing’, referring to members of Congress holding up a $61bn aid package
Joe Biden has apologised publicly to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for the months of delay in American military assistance that allowed Russia to make gains on the battlefield, and announced a further $225m (£177m) in military aid to Ukraine.
Meeting Zelenskiy in Paris on Friday, the US president told him: “You haven’t bowed down, you haven’t yielded at all, you continue to fight in a way that is … just remarkable. We are not going to walk away from you.”
Continue reading...Amelia Sanjurjo, a member of Uruguay’s Communist party who disappeared in 1977, was identified and laid to rest
A Uruguayan woman who was abducted by security forces during the country’s military dictatorship has received a proper burial, nearly 50 years after she was forcibly disappeared.
Bone fragments of Amelia Sanjurjo were exhumed exactly a year ago from a military base in a small southern town in Uruguay. She was finally identified last week after investigators took DNA samples from her maternal aunt and nephews in Uruguay, Spain and Italy in hopes of finding a match.
Continue reading...They thought they were mounting a low-key protest against Russian oil – until balaclava-clad soldiers took them prisoner. The Arctic 30 talk about the guns, the alcohol theft … and how Paul McCartney got involved
The sun had barely risen on 18 September 2013 when Sini Saarela started to worry she might drown. The climate activist was trying to occupy Prirazlomnaya – a bright red oil platform in Russia’s Pechora Sea – and things were getting tough. Workers were using water cannon to stop her and colleague Marco Weber climbing up, crushing them under a relentless torrent of freezing cold water. He was showing signs of hypothermia.
“That was a frightening experience,” Saarela says today, on a video call from her home in Finland. It certainly looks that way in new BBC documentary On Thin Ice: Putin vs Greenpeace. The addictive six-part series tells the inside story of the Arctic 30, a group of Greenpeace activists who set out to halt work at the first offshore oil rig in the Russian Arctic, and ended up pawns in Vladimir Putin’s power struggle with the west. Edited from footage shot by the 28 activists and two journalists on board (some of it smuggled out of prison), it is this moment, as Saarela hangs off the edge of Prirazlomnaya, when the show kicks into gear.
Continue reading...Critics label as ‘absurd’ idea from government-backed thinktank as country seeks to address population decline
A government thinktank in South Korea has sparked anger after suggesting that girls start primary school a year earlier than boys because the measure could raise the country’s low birthrate.
A report by analysts at the Korea Institute of Public Finance said creating a one-year age gap between girls and boys at school would make them more attractive to each other by the time they reached marriageable age.
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The U.S. has trained 15 coup leaders in recent decades — and U.S. counterterrorism policies in the region have failed.
The post After Training African Coup Leaders, Pentagon Blames Russia for African Coups appeared first on The Intercept.
In today’s newsletter: After pollsters and pundits predicted a sweeping victory that never came, is India’s prime minister entering his final act in politics?
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Good morning.
For months, the consensus was that India’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) was going to win a thumping majority in the general election. A few days ago, exit polls indicated the BJP was going to secure a sweeping victory, and could even gain seats to win a two-thirds majority in parliament. The party’s confidence came through most clearly in its highly publicised goal of winning 400 seats.
Israel-Gaza war | At least 30 Palestinians including five children have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a UN school housing displaced people in al-Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, medical officials have said, with dozens more wounded. The Israeli military confirmed it had targeted a UN school in al-Nuseirat, saying it had been housing Hamas terrorists from the 7 October attack on Israel who were planning further attacks.
Wales | The Welsh first minister, Vaughan Gething, has lost a no-confidence vote less than 12 weeks after taking office, following a series of scandals that have called into question his judgment and transparency.
General election 2024 | The UK Statistics Authority has opened an investigation into remarks made by Rishi Sunak about the economy “going gangbusters” amid concerns that politicians could misuse economic data in the run-up to the election. The watchdog’s intervention came soon after the chair of the organisation began a review of Sunak’s claim that the Treasury calculated that Labour would raise taxes by £2,000 for everyone if it won the election.
Climate crisis | Fossil fuel companies are the “godfathers of climate chaos” and should be banned in every country from advertising akin to restrictions on big tobacco, the secretary general of the United Nations has said while delivering dire new scientific warnings of global heating.
NHS | A cyber-attack thought to have been carried out by a Russian group has forced London NHS hospitals to resurrect long-discarded paper records systems in which porters hand-deliver blood test results because IT networks are disrupted.
Continue reading...Naval exercises spurred by US support for Ukraine are likely to include port calls in Cuba and Venezuela, says official
Russia plans to send combat vessels into the Caribbean region this summer as part of naval exercises that will probably include port calls in Cuba and possibly stops in Venezuela, a senior US official said on Wednesday.
“As part of Russia’s regular military exercises, we anticipate that this summer, Russia will conduct heightened naval and air activity near the United States. These actions will culminate in a global Russian naval exercise this fall,” the official said.
Continue reading...Microsoft recently caught state-backed hackers using its generative AI tools to help with their attacks. In the security community, the immediate questions weren’t about how hackers were using the tools (that was utterly predictable), but about how Microsoft figured it out. The natural conclusion was that Microsoft was spying on its AI users, looking for harmful hackers at work.
Some pushed back at characterizing Microsoft’s actions as “spying.” Of course cloud service providers monitor what users are doing. And because we expect Microsoft to be doing something like this, it’s not fair to call it spying...
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, revealed the tactics and traits that help him face the daily frustrations of leading a country at war for more than two years.
Within a ceremonial room inside Kyiv’s presidential compound, Zelenskiy spoke for nearly an hour with a Guardian team, including the editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner. The interview took place during perhaps the toughest time for Ukraine since the early days of the war. Russia is on the offensive in Kharkiv, an advance that follows months of delay in the US Congress over the passing of a major support package, limiting Ukraine’s battlefield capabilities
Continue reading...Trump fans say his conviction is an overreach. But a close look at another recent fraud trial shows his case was run-of-the-mill.
The post To Understand the Trump Verdict, Look at the Case Against Shukhratjon Mirsaidov appeared first on The Intercept.
The charge of an illegitimate marriage is all that’s left after a court acquitted Khan over his handling of a classified cypher.
The post Imran Khan Remains Imprisoned Over His Wife’s Menstrual Cycles. State Department Says That’s “Something For the Pakistani Courts to Decide.” appeared first on The Intercept.
John Browne appears to back Labour energy policy as he underlines need for green transition
The former boss of BP John Browne has appeared to back a key Labour energy policy by calling for an end to new North Sea oil and gas drilling licences.
The oil industry veteran, who was known as the Sun King when he ran the oil company between 1995 and 2007, said an important test for the UK’s political parties before next month’s general election was whether they have “serious plans for the country’s green energy transition”.
Continue reading...Solar projects such as Botley West in Oxfordshire are latest net zero schemes bogged down by local disputes
A few hundred metres from her house, Rosemary Lewis stands at a clearing on a footpath overlooking a tract of rolling hills in the Oxfordshire countryside that could become home to UK’s largest solar farm. With plans to install 2.5m solar panels along an 11-mile (18km) stretch north of Oxford, the Botley West solar farm would be vast.
The proposal is one of 30 large-scale solar projects vying for approval, which could give the UK a much-needed shot in the arm to achieve its climate goals of generating 100% clean electricity by 2035 and reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Continue reading...The Guardian contacted 11 major organizations that run fossil-fuel ads after Wednesday’s speech by António Guterres
Major news and tech media that have run fossil-fuel ads were largely staying quiet after the UN’s secretary general called for governments and companies to place bans on advertisements for coal, oil and gas.
“Stop taking fossil-fuel advertising,” António Guterres implored in a major speech on Wednesday after railing against energy companies for “distorting the truth, deceiving the public, and sowing doubt” about the climate crisis.
Continue reading...Andrew Bailey’s office has a losing record of fighting against exonerations recommended by local prosecutors — but it’s not giving up.
The post Missouri’s Attorney General Is Waging War to Keep the Wrongly Convicted Locked Up appeared first on The Intercept.
Three men were convicted and fined $500 for ‘deliberately and intentionally’ performing the salute
Three Croatian men have been convicted and fined after separately making Nazi salutes during the 2022 Australia Cup soccer final.
Nikola Marko Gasparovic, 46, Dominik Sieben, 25, and Marijan Lisica, 45, performed the salute at Parramatta’s CommBank Stadium on October 1 2022, during the match between Sydney United 58 and Macarthur FC.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed
Max-Chandler Mather weighs in on Bandt’s potential legal action against attorney-general
Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather spoke to ABC News Breakfast earlier about the ongoing stoush between his party and Labor, with Adam Bandt threatening legal action against the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, over comments on pro-Palestine protests.
Asking me to comment on the specifics of a case like that – outrageous comments by the attorney general, completely baseless and without fact … this is an attempt to distract from the fact that the Labor government is complicit in a genocide being carried out by Israel in Gaza.
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Twelve jurors in New York have presented their fellow Americans with a simple question: are you willing to elect a convicted criminal to the White House?
On Thursday, Donald Trump was found guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in a criminal hush-money scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. The verdict makes him the first president, current or former, to be found guilty of felony crimes in the US's near 250-year history. Regardless, the conviction does not disqualify Trump as a presidential candidate or bar him from again sitting in the Oval Office.
Trump, who opted not to take the stand during the trial, has denied wrongdoing, railed against the proceedings and ahead of the verdict compared himself to a saint: “Mother Teresa could not beat these charges. The charges are rigged,” he said on Wednesday. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, is expected to appeal the verdict.
The Guardian’s Sam Levine has been in court over the last several weeks covering all the developments – here are three testimonies he found most memorable.
Could Trump go to prison? Here’s what happens next after the guilty verdict
Found guilty on 34 counts by a New York jury, Trump might find himself campaigning behind bars.
The post These Convictions Thwart Trump’s Plan to Pardon Himself appeared first on The Intercept.
Brian Krebs reports on research into geolocating routers:
Apple and the satellite-based broadband service Starlink each recently took steps to address new research into the potential security and privacy implications of how their services geolocate devices. Researchers from the University of Maryland say they relied on publicly available data from Apple to track the location of billions of devices globally—including non-Apple devices like Starlink systems—and found they could use this data to monitor the destruction of Gaza, as well as the movements and in many cases identities of Russian and Ukrainian troops...
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