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Mock Turtle world

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

The religiously unaffiliated are a diverse group. Some still attend services, say that they are at least somewhat religious, and express some level of belief in God – although they tend to do these things at a lower rate than individuals who do identify with a religion. There is even diversity in how religiously unaffiliated individuals identify themselves. When asked their religion on surveys, unaffiliated responses include "agnostic," "no religion," "nothing in particular," "none" and so on. Only about 17 percent of religiously unaffiliated people explicitly identify as "atheist" on surveys. For the most part, atheists more actively reject religion and religious concepts than other religiously unaffiliated individuals. Our recent research examines two questions related to atheism. First, what makes an individual more or less likely to identify as an atheist? Second, what makes someone more or less likely to adopt an atheistic worldview over time?

Perhaps just a sign that change is occurring though.

Our study found that there are a number of other social forces associated with the likelihood of an individual identifying as an atheist, above and beyond their disbelief in God – particularly stigma. Many Americans eye atheists with suspicion and distaste. Notably, some social science surveys in the US include questions asking about how much tolerance people have for atheists alongside questions about tolerance of racists and communists. This stigma means that being an atheist comes with potential social costs, especially in certain communities. We see this dynamic play out in our data. Political conservatives, for instance, are less likely to identify as an atheist even if they do not believe in God. Just under 39 percent of individuals identifying as "extremely conservative" who say they do not believe in God identify as an atheist. This compares with 72 percent of individuals identifying as "extremely liberal" who say they do not believe in God.

As I have mentioned often, it does take quite an amount of courage to go against what is an overwhelming majority, even if they don't actually all agree as to what to believe.

In a second survey-based study, from a different representative sample of nearly 10,000 US adults, we found that about 6 percent of individuals who stated that they had some level of belief in God at age 16 moved to saying "I do not believe in God" as an adult. Who falls into this group is not random. Our analysis finds, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the stronger an individual's belief in God was at age 16, the less likely they are to have adopted an atheistic worldview as an adult. For instance, fewer than 2 percent of individuals who said that "I knew God really existed and I had no doubts about it" as a teenager adopted an atheistic worldview later on. This compares with over 20 percent of those who said that "I didn't know whether there was a God and I didn't believe there was any way to find out" when they were 16.

Which is what one might expect, given we are at our most vulnerable in our early years as to being indoctrinated and less likely to overcome such.

Regardless of how strong their teenage belief was, for instance, Black, Asian and Hispanic Americans were less likely to later identify as an atheist than white individuals. All else being equal, the odds of individuals in these groups adopting an atheistic worldview was about 50 percent to 75 percent less than the odds for white individuals. In part, this could be a product of groups that already face stigma related to their race or ethnicity being less able or willing to take on the additional social costs of being an atheist.

Perhaps because of colonial oppression and the need to 'fit in' with regards progress, but not taking note of the better arguments. :oops:


Pretty obvious, so we can count decimally - as God intended - and damn all these computer nerds with their binary or hexadecimal systems. :eek:


Good job we have moved on from this. :oops:

 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Very inspirational - but I hope to never need such skills. o_O


Even 13 might be too young as to many social media sites. This from the article:

UK-social-media-use-by-age.JPG



Hates herself, so easier to hate others, including defenceless animals? And best not to read the article. o_O


The race to save the planet is being impeded by a global economy that is contingent on the exploitation of people and nature, according to the UN’s outgoing leading environment and human rights expert. David Boyd, who served as UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment from 2018 to April 2024, told the Guardian that states failing to take meaningful climate action and regulating polluting industries could soon face a slew of lawsuits. Boyd said: “I started out six years ago talking about the right to a healthy environment having the capacity to bring about systemic and transformative changes. But this powerful human right is up against an even more powerful force in the global economy, a system that is absolutely based on the exploitation of people and nature. And unless we change that fundamental system, then we’re just re-shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.”

Future generations will hardly thank us.


Now that China has an economic stranglehold over so many countries perhaps it sees the time as being right to be more aggressive - especially when it might expect to have support from both Russia and India now or in the future. o_O


A luxury boat that flies above water instead of on it has gone up for sale – for more than £2.1million. Debuted during the Cannes Film Festival nearly a year ago, THE ICON showcased its ability to fly about one meter over water, ‘feeling no wave impact at all’, according to BMW, which developed it along with boat manufacturer TYDE. THE ICON is the world’s first battery-powered vessel of its kind that is emission-free and high-end, said BMW when it was unveiled last May.

As long as the weather is fine and one doesn't stray too far from the shore. :D

 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Karaganov has promoted the concept of “Greater Eurasia” and has defended a closer partnership with China. He is known as a foreign-policy hawk, and has argued that the long reign of the West in world politics is now at an end.

Rubbish! He thinks there is something better? Perhaps Russia (or the Russian people more naturally) just has this inferiority complex - being so huge as a country but only doing as much as many much smaller European countries might have done over history. :oops:

For 25 years, people like myself have been saying that if Nato and Western alliances expand beyond certain red lines, especially into Ukraine, there will be a war. I envisioned that scenario as far back as 1997. In 2008 President Putin said that if Ukraine’s membership of the alliance became a possibility then there will be no Ukraine. He was not listened to. So the first objective is to end Nato’s expansion.

Except it isn't NATO expansion but more the expansion of democracy, and the right for each of these countries to choose what they want to do. Tough if Russia doesn't like or agree with this. So it would help if these twits got the facts right first.

It is a war, and we’re in the fog of war, so opinions change, aims change. At the start, maybe some thought that the Ukrainian military would arrange some kind of a coup so we would have a real power in Kyiv with whom we could negotiate – recent presidents, and especially Zelensky, are considered puppets.

Special Military Operation, old chap. Some (Russian thugs) might have implanted enough Russian stooges into Ukraine to think such was possible, given that this is the Russian way with so many bordering countries, and just shows the inadequacies and insecurities of these Russians.

This war is a kind of proxy war between the West and the rest – Russia being, as it has been in history, the pinnacle of “the rest” – for a future world order. The stakes of the Russian elite are very high – for them it is an existential war.

The rest? As ever seeing Russia as some kind of leader? You are joking of course. For the 'Russian elite' read, the oligarchs and/or all those who still believe might is right. Which perhaps is still the Russian way of life and death - but where so many countries have simply moved on from this.

And the 'existential war' nonsense is purely for home consumption, given that Russia has been the threatening nation - as to those countries bordering it - for so long. Plus the fact that the necessity for nuclear weapons originated over different political systems - communism over democracy - and since this has mostly evaporated, there is no existential threat any more, but Russia has found a new use for such weapons - in threatening others whilst still doing its usual land-grabbing. Perhaps if they stopped doing this then they might calm down as to feeling attacked.

Put it this way: if the US intervenes against a nuclear country, then the American president making that decision is mad, because it wouldn’t be 1914 or 1939; this is something bigger. So I don’t think America could possibly intervene, but we are already in a much more dangerous situation than several weeks ago.

As above, which country has been the one threatening to use nuclear weapons, and which is the most mad? Obviously Russia is. :eek:

If we could have solved the crisis peacefully there’s no question that parts of Europe would have orientated themselves not towards Russia itself but Greater Eurasia, of which Russia would be a key part. That scenario is now postponed, but Europe needs to develop a relationship with Greater Eurasia. We lived through world wars and cold wars, and then we rebuilt our relationship. I hope that we shall do that in ten years. I hope I shall see that before I pass.

But you never did rebuild relationships, as to being trusted, and this war has made it even less likely for Russia to be trusted in the future or to have many ties with other European countries, unless Russia became more democratic - and which would have halted this piece of stupidity before it began - if such had happened after the USSR broke up. But of course that was an expectation too far after decades of communism.

I would say yes, this is an existential war. If we do not win, somehow, then I think we will have all kinds of unforeseen political repercussions which are much worse than at the beginning of the 1990s. But I believe that we will avoid that, first, because Russia will win, whatever that victory means, and second, because we have a strong and tough regime, so in any event, or if the worst happens, it will not be the dissolution of the country or collapse. I think it will be closer to a harsh authoritarian regime than to the dissolution of the country. But still, defeat is unthinkable.

So, just retreating to what the USSR was and hardly progress.

The problem is that during the last 500 years the foundation of Western power was the military preponderance of Europeans. This foundation started eroding from the 1950s and 1960s. Then the collapse of the Soviet Union made it seem for a while that Western predominance was back, but now it is done away with, because Russia will continue to be a major military power and China is becoming a first-class military power. So the West will never recuperate, but it doesn’t matter if it dies: Western civilisation has brought all of us great benefits, but now people like myself and others are questioning the moral foundation of Western civilisation.

Fortunately your kind of morality is not going to win, and neither are the religions that such seems to be allied with. Whatever the West might be accused of, democracy and liberalism are the things that are benefiting so many and where they would fight to defend such. Your major military notions are all wrong, given it is far better to spend any wealth on those things that actually enhances the lives of any population rather than just appearing big and threatening.


He is known for his homophobic views and admiration of ruthless Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, according to The Telegraph.

No doubt he will be wheelie good at demonstrating what a great ******* he is. :eek:

The biker leader is a known friend of Putin’s. After a bromance that is thought to have started in 2009, Putin awarded Zaldostanov the prestigious Order of Honour state medal which emboldened the biker and his gang as Putin’s unofficial henchmen.

Can't wait to see the photos. :D


Tend to agree, given the basic notion of human rights and consent - just like circumcision and FGM. o_O


Often a case of perhaps choosing sides or just not doing so, but when so many accuse someone of bad behaviour this is more often true. :oops:
 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Perhaps some, like me, will feel that this will never be completed. :eek:


Vladimir Putin was targeted by hackers who sabotaged TV coverage of his Victory Day parade in yet another humiliation for the dictator. While Russia celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, coverage of the event in at least four regions cut to footage of the destruction in Ukraine. It compared Putin to Hitler and showed his patriotic ‘Z’ symbol as being similar to the swastika. Each Russian soldier was labelled a ‘killer’, while viewers were also told how their president had freed murderers and paedophiles to fight in his war who had gone on to offend again.

Probably omitted too the pact made with Germany before this nation turned against them during WWII. :rolleyes:

Another caption referring to a business run by Putin’s former spouse Lyudmila, says: ‘Putin’s ex-wife earned a billion by lending to Russians at 300% per annum.’ There was also footage from the Crocus City concert hall massacre in March carried out by ISIS with claims Putin’s security services failed to protect people, leading to 145 deaths in the bloodbath. The TV hacking covered at least four regions – Omsk, Irkutsk, Orenburg, and Bashkortostan. Channels covering the parade – including Putin’s speech threatening the West with his strategic nuclear weapons – were interrupted.

Not that this will make any difference to how most Russians will view Putin. o_O

Many observers see Putin’s focus on World War II as part of his efforts to revive the USSR’s clout and prestige and his reliance on Soviet practices. ‘It’s the continuous self-identification with the USSR as the victor of Nazism and the lack of any other strong legitimacy that forced the Kremlin to declare ‘denazification’ as the goal of the war,’ Nikolay Epplee said in a commentary for Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. The Russian leadership, he said, has ‘locked itself up in a worldview limited by the Soviet past’.

Yeah, that old Soviet vibe still in the bloodstream of the old guard. :(


Seems to be a Via Ferrata, and not surprising, when one notices the queues on Snowdon, Striding Edge, or the steps down to the sea on Santorini, where in my time experiencing these there were no such queues, and perhaps down to media exposure (social media) and all that. Perhaps we should blame Wainwright - for all the UK ones at least. :D


The women shared that their father used belts, sticks, dog kennels and homemade cages as tools for punishment, in addition to chaining children to their beds and pulling on their hair when they misbehaved. "They literally used the Bible to explain their behavior to us," Jennifer said. "They loved to point out things in Deuteronomy, saying that, 'We have the right to do this to you.' ... That they even had the right to kill us if we didn't listen."

Whether either of the parents were mentally ill, it is hardly surprising that many will use the Bible, and other such, so as to justify what to many would be atrocious behaviour towards any others, let alone one's own children - and unfortunately because the dogma rules for so many.


A misguided ideology might be another factor. “Parents may tell themselves they’re protecting their children from the corruption of an awful society,” says Finkelhor, “or that children are evil and need to be chastised or brought into line.”

Yeah, and where might that come from, or as to such being expressed often on RF? :rolleyes:
 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

The outbreak decades ago saw me not eating beef for a long time. :eek:


Start praying being the first option for so many? :oops:


The challenge with AI, and specifically ASI, lies in its autonomous, self-amplifying and improving nature. It possesses the potential to enhance its own capabilities at a speed that outpaces our own evolutionary timelines without AI. The potential for something to go badly wrong is enormous, leading to the downfall of both biological and AI civilizations before they ever get the chance to become multiplanetary. For example, if nations increasingly rely on and cede power to autonomous AI systems that compete against each other, military capabilities could be used to kill and destroy on an unprecedented scale. This could potentially lead to the destruction of our entire civilization, including the AI systems themselves.

And who would trust so many nations as to not wanting an advantage over others - Russia, China, or others perhaps? o_O

As the historian Yuval Noah Harari noted, nothing in history has prepared us for the impact of introducing non-conscious, super-intelligent entities to our planet. Recently, the implications of autonomous AI decision-making have led to calls from prominent leaders in the field for a moratorium on the development of AI, until a responsible form of control and regulation can be introduced. But even if every country agreed to abide by strict rules and regulation, rogue organizations will be difficult to rein in.



After all, it is not as if they don't know or can't find out what doing so will likely entail. o_O

Jo also believes smoking is sometimes a "backlash against vaping", by people concerned with their image. "It's like this new modern, obnoxious thing… It's cool or retro. Because everyone smoked back in the 70s and people look back to those idols. I've got a great classic picture of David Bowie with a cigarette. I think people look back at that and think, oh, yeah, that was cool." Louis agrees that it's partly an "image thing". "I think that's why me and my friends do it - it goes hand in hand with it - sex, drugs and rock and roll type thing. You see the most famous musicians of old with cigarettes hanging out of their mouth."

Not if one had any sense then and perhaps were more into tough physical outdoor pursuits, as to which smoking is hardly helpful, plus the money is better spent elsewhere. o_O

Jo said they were not worried about health when they began smoking, even though they have family members who have died as a result of smoking. "I feel like my generation or people my age are very much in the moment. I have friends and I hear them coughing. You can hear their lungs deteriorating already and they're my age, but it's not something you think about when you're 18, 19." "I know about the health risks," says Louis. "The risk of cancer, emphysema, COPD, but obviously I think if I do it now while I'm young and get it out of the way it won't be that bad. I think I'll give up eventually".

But so many just don't (give up) - because it isn't so easy to give up addictions - and hence they might be smokers all their lives, as so many are until they die from some related issue - but then much of the young are not renowned for their common sense or looking into the future necessarily. :(


Authorities said the owner of the bus had been fined 23 times for various violations. Private companies run most of the city’s bus services. The bus driver was detained by police. His wife was quoted by Russian media as saying that managers forced him to work a morning shift after working for 20 hours the previous day. She claimed he had virtually no rest.


Our study has uncovered something that, until now, has received limited attention: the potentially harmful substances produced when e-liquids in vaping devices are heated for inhalation. We used an AI neural network model – a method that teaches computers to process data in a way that is inspired by the human brain – to simulate the effects of heating e-liquid flavor chemicals found in nicotine vapes. Then, examining all 180 known e-liquid flavor chemicals, it predicted the new compounds formed when these substances are heated in a vaping device immediately prior to inhalation. Worryingly, this revealed the formation of many hazardous chemicals including 127 classified as "acute toxic", 153 as "health hazards", and 225 as "irritants" (some were classified in more than one of these categories). Among these, volatile carbonyls (VCs) – chemicals known for their negative health effects – were predicted to form in the fruit-, candy- and dessert-flavored products that are most popular with younger vapers. Our findings indicate a significantly different profile of chemical hazards compared with traditional tobacco smoking. We could even be on the cusp of a new wave of chronic diseases that will emerge 15 to 20 years from now due to prolonged exposures.


"These primates' fierce battles were instigated by coalitions of adult males, with the sole aim of extending their territory. The areas where the fighting took place corresponded to the land conquered by force."

 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Why would it bother me, given that I stopped watching the series after the first iteration of the new woke agenda - and which seems to happen to so many programmes. :D


Father Thomas McHale, priest at Our Blessed Lady Immaculate in Blackhill, Consett, County Durham, shocked his flock by claiming during his Good Friday sermon that Jesus died with an erection. The 53-year-old American prelate told the roughly 100 gathered that execution by crucifixion would have sent all the blood rushing down to Christ’s lower body.

If Jesus was wearing the loincloth as depicted I would think all those witnessing would have seen too much - but no mention of this elsewhere? :eek:



Papua New Guineans, who have been genetically isolated for millennia, carry unique genes that helped them fight off infection — and some of those genes come from our extinct human cousins, the Denisovans. The research also found that highlanders and lowlanders evolved different mutations to help them adapt to their wildly different environments. "New Guineans are unique as they have been isolated since they settled in New Guinea more than 50,000 years ago," co-senior study author François-Xavier Ricaut, a biological anthropologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), told Live Science in an email.
 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Perhaps suspect?


The world’s oldest man-made wooden structures dating back to the Early Stone Age have been found in Africa – suggesting our ancestors were far more advanced than previously believed. It is the earliest evidence from anywhere in the world of the deliberate crafting of logs to fit together – and much earlier than previously thought possible. A research team from the University of Liverpool and Aberystwyth University analysed the well-preserved wood at the archaeological site of Kalambo Falls in Zambia. It dates back at least 476,000 years, before Homo sapiens – modern humans – had appeared. Expert analysis of stone tool cut-marks on the wood show that early humans shaped and joined two large logs to make a structure, probably the foundation of a platform or part of a dwelling. Until now, evidence for the human use of wood around this time was limited to making fire, digging sticks and spears. The research team said wood is rarely found at such ancient sites as it usually rots and disappears, but Kalambo Falls’ permanently high water levels preserved it. The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, challenges the prevailing view that Stone Age humans were nomadic.

More bad news for the YEC enthusiasts.


The names of some UK prime ministers still resonate with history students and the general public alike: Thatcher, Churchill, Lloyd George, Gladstone, Disraeli. But if you mention poor old Spencer Perceval to many Brits – at least those who aren’t regulars on the pub quiz circuit – you’ll likely be met with blank faces. The PM from 1809 to 1812, Perceval is only remembered today as the holder of a title which none of his successors hope to take away. He’s the only British prime minister to ever be killed in office. And the circumstances surrounding his assassination are so dramatic, it’s surprising the story has slipped out of our national memory. Unfortunately, that story isn’t really about Spencer Perceval. It’s more about a man called John Bellingham, from the Cambridgeshire town of St Neots, who was locked up in a Russian prison for five years in 1804. A merchant, he had travelled to the city of Arkhangelsk on a business trip that summer. While he was there, he was accused – rightly or wrongly – of failing to pay back a debt, and was thrown in jail. Over the half-decade Bellingham spent stewing away inside his cell, he developed an almighty grievance over what he saw as a false conviction for a crime he didn’t commit. He had tried writing to the British Ambassador in St Petersburg, then the capital of the Russian Empire, but was told no help could be offered. Upon his release, he kept on badgering officials in Whitehall for compensation, but again he got nowhere.

After five years in prison and three years of rejection, something inside Bellingham snapped. He decided the only way he was going to get anything done about this criminal record faff was by shooting the prime minister. Perceval, who had become prime minister the same year Bellingham was freed from jail, was the son of an earl and fathered 13 children of his own. A lawyer by trade, he remains the only person to have served as both attorney-general and head of the government. Perhaps that’s how he’d prefer to be remembered. Bellingham had other ideas. On May 11, 1812, he lay in wait on a bench in the House of Commons lobby. (Incidentally, this was the old parliament from before the massive fire in 1834, which resulted in today’s more familiar replacement.) At around 5.15pm, as Perceval was making his way through the busy room, the assassin leapt up and shot him at point blank range. The PM cried out: ‘Oh! Murder! Murder!’ He collapsed on the floor moments later, and his corpse was taken into the adjoining secretary’s room. The murderer simply went back to his bench. He knew from the start he wasn’t getting away with it: as mentioned above, it was a busy room. There were up to 30 witnesses to his shocking crime. In the end, no pardon was forthcoming for Bellingham’s debt fiasco. Instead, he was hanged a week after the shot was fired.


Hardly going to save those who die through the stupidity of others though. o_O

Once called ‘the craziest idea anybody ever had’, the men behind the doomsday seed vault have won the World Food prize. Around 20 years ago, Dr Cary Fowler and Dr Geoffrey Hawtin began thinking about ways to protect the world’s food supply and came up with the idea of a seed vault, hidden in the side of an Arctic mountain. Now, they have been named the 2024 World Food Prize Laureates by officials in Washington for their work in establishing the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the Norwegian island of Svalbard opened in 2008 and now contains 1.25 million seed samples from nearly every country. The large concrete structure provides genetic protection for over 6,000 varieties of crops and culturally important plants. It was built in case existing seed banks were threatened by wars, climate change or other upheaval.

And as before, the stupidity of some might see such destroyed before knowing its worth. :eek:


What one often finds when one has a brain and the other hasn't. :oops: And where some seem to forget all about consent when it is purely their own wants at stake - given that a baby has no such thing (consent). Just like religious education of children perhaps, but who cares, since children are obviously the possessions of the parents - until the children deem otherwise, if fortunate enough to have some autonomy in later life. :eek:


Summary: Robotics engineers have worked for decades and invested many millions of research dollars in attempts to create a robot that can walk or run as well as an animal. And yet, it remains the case that many animals are capable of feats that would be impossible for robots that exist today.

 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

The Royal Parks have called for a Regent’s Park cycling route to be removed from sports apps after an 81-year-old woman was killed by a speeding cyclist. The organisation, which runs some of London’s most loved spaces, has written to GPS app companies requesting the Outer Circle be removed from their tracking devices. Cyclists often use the apps to record training sessions or time trials over certain distances or routes. The Royal Parks has also reached out to cycling clubs to remind them they must respect speed limits set for vehicles in the park, the Telegraph reported. It comes after Hilda Griffiths was killed when she was hit by Brian Fitzgerald, a director at Credit Suisse, cycling at 29mph in the 20mph zone in June 2022. He was completing timed laps using a Garmin device. From the collision, the retired nursery teacher suffered bleeding in her brain, vomited blood and sustained several fractures. She died 59 days later. Police were unable to prosecute the banker because speed limits do not apply to pedal bikes, an inquest heard. Mrs Griffith’s son Gerard, 52, told the Telegraph more than 35 cycling clubs use Regent’s Park as a “velodrome,” with some cyclists exceeding the 20mph speed limit as they race around.

Surely he could have been charged with dangerous cycling if the route was a mixed one for cycling and pedestrians? Very sad for the old woman. :frowning:


A Border Force officer and a Home Office immigration official were among three people charged on Monday with spying for Hong Kong. Chi Leung Wai, 38, Matthew Trickett, 37, and Chung Biu Yuen, 63, are accused of spying on pro-democracy activists living in the UK. China reacted angrily to the charges. Its London embassy said: “We strongly condemn the UK’s unwarranted accusation against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government.”


Well, at one time we had age-related ratings so we knew what to expect (still have in cinemas presumably and related to such films elsewhere), but now it seems we need more so as not to upset our sensibilities. Given that we can't rewrite history so as to eliminate what we might not like now as to beliefs or behaviours - and this will not change in the future unless we do want to see this as the norm. That is, rewriting history to make us all feel comfortable (ala 1984, and The Ministry of Truth) - so, no slave trade, no horrific punishments, no appalling treatment of colonised peoples, etc. :eek:

Don’t go to the theatre, Dame Judi Dench has told “sensitive” fans, in her response to pre-performance trigger warnings. The warnings, which inform audiences about potentially distressing content, including abuse, violence and loud noises, have become a point of contention in the industry in the last few years. “Do they do that?” Dench said in an interview with the Radio Times. “My God, it must be a pretty long trigger warning before King Lear or Titus Andronicus!” The Oscar-winning actor, 89, added: “I can see why they exist, but if you’re that sensitive, don’t go to the theatre, because you could be very shocked. Where is the surprise of seeing and understanding it in your own way?”

Can't remember if I saw or heard any warnings before I saw some plays - like Afore Night Come, where a man's head was wrenched off via a pitchfork, or similar, but then such might not remain in my memory if I had expected such to happen. :oops:


I assume this was performed in another theatre later, since I doubt I would have been a member of the Arts Theatre unless such came with the price of the entrance ticket. o_O


This used to be quite infrequent although not entirely unknown but seems quite common now - and as to which there are still no full explanations apparently - and mainly smallish yachts - although if they did attack larger ships no doubts they would come off the worse. :eek:

Researchers are unsure about the causes for the behaviour, but theories include that it is a playful manifestation of the mammals’ curiosity, a social fad or the intentional targeting of what they perceive as competitors for their favourite prey, the local bluefin tuna.


Many, like myself, still have legitimate concerns as to the lone assassin not being the entire truth. o_O



Possibly not unique, but no doubt a good thing to get pupils involved and responsible in many areas - and even as to helping other children perhaps - which I have thought might be a good use for those quicker to get things and otherwise mostly twiddling their thumbs, and which might relieve the strain on teachers too. :oops:


Somewhat surprisingly, religious people don’t seem to be more inclined toward NDEs. There is, however, preliminary evidence of another group being more likely to have NDEs: those who are prone to REM sleep intrusion, a condition that occurs when rapid eye movement (REM) sleep intrudes into wakefulness and blends elements of dreaming and waking. During the seconds or minutes it lasts for, people may have an out-of-body experience, sense that someone or something is in the room with them, or want to move but find that they can’t. In 2019 Daniel Kondziella, a neurologist at the Copenhagen University Hospital network’s Rigshospitalet, and his colleagues recruited a sample of 1,034 adults from the general population in 35 countries. Ten percent of the study participants had experienced an NDE, and of those, 47 percent also reported REM sleep intrusion—a statistically significant association. Among the people who had not had NDEs, just 14 percent reported REM sleep intrusion.

 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Often where the parents are obese too, and hence might pass on their lifestyles/behaviour/whatever to their children - which is rather sad. o_O


Abstract: The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is currently being pursued using multiple techniques and in different wavelength bands. Dyson spheres, megastructures that could be constructed by advanced civilizations to harness the radiation energy of their host stars, represent a potential technosignature, that in principle may be hiding in public data already collected as part of large astronomical surveys. In this study, we present a comprehensive search for partial Dyson spheres by analyzing optical and infrared observations from Gaia, 2MASS, and WISE. We develop a pipeline that employs multiple filters to identify potential candidates and reject interlopers in a sample of five million objects, which incorporates a convolutional neural network to help identify confusion in WISE data. Finally, the pipeline identifies 7 candidates deserving of further analysis. All of these objects are M-dwarfs, for which astrophysical phenomena cannot easily account for the observed infrared excess emission.


The National Crime Agency (NCA) issued an unprecedented alert to teachers last month warning of the risk of children being targeted in sextortion scams. Primary and secondary teachers were warned by police children as young as five are at risk of exploitation by criminal gangs. The sickening offences targeting children have risen by 266 per cent in two years. In the UK 243 children were scammed in 2020 but by 2022 the number reported to the NCA had rocketed by 890. Children are being lured online and tricked into sharing intimate photographs or film themselves on webcam. The culprits are not always opportunistic paedophiles, some organised criminal gangs from West Africa and South East Asia also do it in order to blackmail kids. The heartless blackmailers threaten to release compromising photos, either real or fake, to their victims’ friends or family unless they pay up. At least three children have committed suicide as a result, the NCA warned.

 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

The Smer leader had himself faced criminal charges, which he has always denied, over allegedly creating a criminal group and misuse of power, but Slovakia’s prosecutor-general threw out the indictment. This offered further motivation to win back power. “He is borrowing from [Donald] Trump and will do and say what is needed, taking from right and left,” said Milan Nič, a senior research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, shortly before last year’s election. “He’s been very skilful at positioning himself as anti-establishment. His main interest now is to dismantle the judicial effort … He is escaping by winning.” To this end, Fico has embraced more extreme positions that include attacks on western allies, pledges to stop military support for Kyiv, criticism of sanctions on Russia and threats to veto any future Nato invitation for Ukraine. He has also worked hard to exploit the division between older, more conservative provincial voters and those in the capital, Bratislava, with its more progressive culture, and wealthier and often more educated population. One of Fico’s targets has been the country’s liberal president, the former human rights lawyer and activist Zuzana Čaputová, whom he has called a “US puppet” and who sued him last year for spreading lies about her. Fico has also labelled various opponents and NGOs as following the instructions of the US financier George Soros. Another target has been Slovakia’s LGBT community. Fico, whom analysts regard as being inspired by Orbán in Hungary, insists he has Slovakian interests at heart.


Reacting to news of the attack, Slovakia's outgoing President Zuzana Caputova said something "so serious had happened that we can't even realise it yet". "The hateful rhetoric we witness in society leads to hateful acts," she added.

Unfortunately it is more often right-wingers and populists like Fico (and Trump) who are the ones using inflammatory rhetoric so as to stir the pot. :eek:


Dr Katie Malbon, a consultant paediatrician and chief medical adviser for the teen wellbeing app luna, said: “Paediatricians in the NHS are seeing girls starting their periods earlier, as young as eight years old, so restricting education around sex and contraception until after this point only explains half of the biological story, which is only going to lead to more unanswered questions. “On top of this, surveys show that 96% of 8- to 11-year-olds have a smartphone, which means they can find ways to access this information in unsafe ways via internet searches and often via secret TikTok accounts – leading to misinformation and potentially distressing content being accessed.” School leaders also fear restricting topics to fixed age groups would create more difficulties than the government thinks it will solve. “We have serious concerns about how potential ‘limits’ would work in practice,” said Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers.


Bidzina Ivanishvili has spent much of the last decade gazing down at Tbilisi’s ancient rooftops from his glass castle, a home perched atop a hill that his critics say resembles a Bond villain’s lair. Since his tenure as prime minister from 2012 to 2013, the secretive oligarch has largely exerted his influence from behind the scenes and is widely described by many Georgians as the country’s shadowy “puppet master”. Last month, however, Ivanishvili made a rare public appearance at a pro-government rally to promote a highly controversial “foreign agent” law that has caused the biggest outbreak of unrest in Georgia in years. His speech was laced with anti-western sentiments and conspiracy theories, underscoring the extent the small Caucasian country has pivoted away from the west under Ivanishvili’s guidance. Opposition parties have long accused Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s, of loyalties to Moscow, Georgia’s Soviet-era overlord, which still regards the south Caucasus as its back yard.

Just another corrupt oligarch then? o_O


Late one night in November 2005, a small group of plain-clothed police officers pulled over a bus in western India. They escorted off a man named Sohrabuddin Sheikh, who was joined on the side of the road by his wife, Kausar. Sheikh and Kausar were put into separate police cars and driven 600 miles away, across state lines, into Gujarat. They would never see each other again. Sheikh had not been charged with anything. The Gujarat police did not have any legal grounds to detain him, let alone his wife. Upon reaching Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s most populous city, Sheikh and Kausar were not taken to a police station. They were instead detained in separate bungalows in a residential neighbourhood. Two days later, on 26 November, Sheikh was driven to a highway intersection in south Ahmedabad and shot dead. Police claimed that Sheikh was a member of an Islamist terrorist group and had been shot while trying to escape. Four days after Sheikh’s death, on 29 November, Kausar was killed. Policemen allegedly poisoned her, then carried her body to the Narmada River, where they burned it and dumped the remains in the water. According to records later obtained by central government investigators, the officers allegedly involved made several phone calls around the time of each killing. On the other end of the line, each time, was a senior Gujarati politician who ran the state’s home ministry, which put him in charge of the police. His name was Amit Shah. These details emerged in 2010, when the Central Bureau of Investigation, India’s equivalent of the FBI, was investigating the killings. The CBI charged Shah with kidnapping, extortion and murder. It alleged that the officers who killed Sheikh and his wife were working on Shah’s orders. (The CBI also confirmed that Sheikh was a gangster who had collaborated with Gujarat police for several years. He had, it seemed, outlived his usefulness.)

The CBI found that Shah had exchanged five calls with the superintendent officer at the scene on the day of the abduction. Over the next few days, they spoke regularly. On the day Sheikh was killed, Shah spoke to the officer five times. The next call they exchanged was on the day of Kausar’s killing. (Shah did not deny making these calls, but later stated that they concerned another case.) When a warrant was issued against Shah, in July 2010, he eluded arrest for four days, before surfacing in a press conference to deny any wrongdoing. He told the press that he was the victim of a political witch-hunt, orchestrated by the central government, which was then run by the Indian National Congress party, the main opposition to Shah’s own party, the BJP. “The chargesheet had already been made at the behest of the Congress. It is fabricated and had nothing to do with my summons,” Shah said. “I am not afraid of anyone. We will fight the legal battle, and expose those who have tried to wrong us in court.” Shah spent three months in jail and was then released on bail. To prevent any attempts to influence witnesses or judges, it was a condition of Shah’s bail that he stay out of Gujarat until the end of the trial. Banished from his own state, journalists informally referred to Shah as tadipaar, the fugitive. Witness transcripts recorded by the CBI, which included claims that Shah had been running an extortion racket through the state police, were published in national newspapers. But four years later, in December 2014, all the charges against him were dropped. Echoing Shah’s defence, the judge stated that the whole case against him had been “politically motivated”. After years of work on the case, the CBI didn’t challenge the court’s decision.

No comment. :oops:


And no doubt Huckle will also have had God inflict whatever punishment was deemed necessary. o_O


A top psychologist believes Donald Trump has three different mental disorders, which he says are obvious in the Republican frontrunner's behaviour. John D. Gartner - a psychologist, psychotherapist, author, activist, and former assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University Medical - explained these exclusively to The Mirror. He believes Trump has three psychiatric conditions - "malignant narcissistic personality disorder, hyper manic temperament, and dementia." “The hyper-manic temperament is where his anger is evident. The 40 tweets in one night.. on holidays even. His tweets are full of anger, always calling people losers. Trump is raging at 3am on a holiday talking about how everyone who doesn’t worship him is a loser," Dr Gartner explained to the Mirror. Dr Gartner points to Trump's erratic behaviour for the diagnoses: Trump's incessant posting of 'Truths' on his social media site, his incoherent stump speeches at campaign rallies, and the 77-year-old's inability to separate people's identities.

The author of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump continued: “[Trump’s narcissism] has four components, narcissism, paranoia, psychopathy, sadism. People who eat, drink, and sleep rage; if [narcisists] are not being worshipped, they want to destroy and cause pain to anyone who won’t worship them." Finally, Gartner shared: "I believe that he’s showing unquestionable signs of dementia, and that’s the diagnosis.. we have over 500 signatures from licenced mental health professionals on a petition asking for Trump's removal." While Gartner insists there is a basis for diagnosing individuals from afar, he also warns that if Trump does have untreated dementia, it'll make all of his angry outbursts far worse. "When people become demented.. whatever personality disorder they had, whatever sounds bad, becomes 10x as bad.. it’s hard to imagine.. the Donald Trump you see today is the best Donald Trump you’ll see," he explained. On April 5, Donald Trump blasted Joe Biden as a violent thug in a new campaign video - which also slams Madonna for bragging she "thought about blowing up the White House."

Something has to explain why he is such a dip****. o_O
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Youngsters who spend a lot of time on social media are more likely to vape and smoke cigarettes, research suggests. Children and young people on social media more than seven hours a day are eight times more likely to smoke than non-users, and four times more likely to vape. The researchers said companies that own social media platforms have “substantial power” to change how young people are exposed to smoking and vaping. The UK Household Longitudinal Study 2015–2021 included data for 10,808 people aged 10 to 25 and the results have been published in the journal Thorax.

The 2024 poll of 2,587 children aged 11 to 17 found that 7.6 per cent currently vape – the same proportion as last year, but up from 2.8 per cent in 2017 and 0.8 per cent in 2013. Figures showed that in terms of marketing, 29 per cent of 11 to 17-year-olds are aware of vape promotion online. Of those, 52 per cent see vapes promoted on TikTok, up slightly from 49 per cent last year. 32 per cent see them on YouTube, up from 29 per cent. Hazel Cheeseman, deputy chief executive of Ash, said of the new study: “This new study adds to the evidence that online promotions are contributing to children’s likelihood of trying vaping. “Young people deserve to be just as well protected in online spaces as they are in physical spaces and Government must look at what can be done to secure this.”


Weak leadership, poor economic management and Brexit have dragged Britain out of the top 10 countries in a global index on good government. The decline of Britain under the Tories has been charted by the global Chandler Good Government Index (CGGI) which saw it take 11th place. At a time when Rishi Sunak has been under siege from his own Tory MPs, the UK’s place on the annual list was made worse by scores for “leadership and foresight” putting it in 20th place. It was also hit by coming 27th in “financial stewardship”. The findings come amid a report of an exodus by companies from the City of London. Despite Brexit and the fallout of leaving the EU, Britain’s position was boosted by coming second in the “reputation and global influence” category, being only beaten by France. Overall Singapore came top of the index. However, Brexit hurt the UK badly in its international trade score, with it dropping by 26 places.


If there’s one thing you can say about JK Rowling, it’s that she certainly is a committed tweeter. This week, the Harry Potter author once again decided to share her thoughts on trans people to her 14.2million followers on X, formerly Twitter. This time the target was a specific trans person – a football referee called Lucy Clark – who was appointed as the new manager of Sutton United’s women’s team in January. In her original tweet Rowling quoted a post from an LGBT+ charity praising Lucy’s achievements and compared the trailblazing coach to a ‘middle aged bloke’. In several follow-up tweets where she repeatedly misgendered Lucy, she said it was ‘not bullying to call a man a man’, and that ‘crossdressing straight men’ were one of the most ‘pandered-to demographic in existence’, and followed by implying trans women were simply ‘caricaturing’ women. My immediate thoughts were ‘here we go again,’ followed by concern for Lucy and how it would impact her and her family. A tweet like that from someone so influential was only ever going to unleash a torrent of abuse. It was only a few years ago that JK Rowling claimed she’d march with trans people if they were discriminated against and only last year she told a podcast she would use the pronouns of a trans woman if they had gone through full sex reassignment surgery.

Celebrity and/or powerful because of wealth, perhaps such should just keep their mouths shut, especially when they might hardly be experts on any particular topic as to which they might pronounce.

Either the Harry Potter author doesn’t understand the power of her X account or simply doesn’t care about the impact it can have when she targets someone in this way. Frankly, she seems like a lost cause, and her tweets have only gotten more vitriolic and cruel.

Perhaps she lives/lived in some fantasy land - oh yes, she did, and which is where she gained all her wealth describing such. :D


A ‘mass poisoning’ put prison guards in hospital after inmates allegedly added the wrong type of ‘spice’ to a ‘staff special curry’. Prisoners working in the staff canteen of the high-security HMP Swaleside, on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, have been blamed for the incident, affecting up to 25 employees. The curry is suspected to have been ‘spiked’ with a drug called spice, the common name for a synthetic cannabinoid and New Psychoactive Substance (NPS). A psychoactive drug, it causes a cannabis-like high and can cause mood swings, anxiety, paranoia, tremors, seizures and fits. Prisoners are required to complete an employment risk assessment before they’re allowed to prepare and serve food to staff. A spokesperson for the Criminal Justice Workers Union (CJWU) said: ‘Although it is not unusual for prisoners to be working staff canteens, they are expected to be a low risk, which clearly hasn’t happened in this case.’ Drugs were found to be in ready supply at the prison, where levels of violence are high, according to the last inspection by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons.

High jinx from the lowlife? :eek:
 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Marnie, or both sisters, should be on stage, as comedians, and taking over from Al Murray's Pub Landlord. :D


More than 7,000 cannabis shops are estimated to have opened across the country which, until recent years, was known for having some of the world’s toughest drugs laws. There is, however, uncertainty about the future of the industry. Elections last year brought a change in government, and the Pheu Thai party, which had campaigned on a pledge to ban recreational use of the drug, now leads the ruling coalition. The prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, has said he wants cannabis to be relisted as a narcotic by the end of the year.

So get it while you can - but I won't be one. o_O


 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, nations are supposed to be responsible for damages caused by space junk, even if it was originally launched by a private firm. That puts taxpayers, not space-exploring billionaires, on the hook for damages from orbital debris if its origin can be proved and the company shown negligent—a tough proposition for untraceable paint chips. No surprise, this hasn’t worked. The problem is, after decades of discussion, there is still no international treaty that limits space junk or sets standards for negligence. We need one that outlines responsibilities and imposes fines on the companies whose spacecraft debris causes harm.

From the article:

Tracked-objects-in-space-2024.JPG


 

Riders

Well-Known Member
Well I've gone down from 330 to 241. I'm doing OK with my weight. But I know if I were down to 200 I'd be up walking so that's my goal.
My sister has prescribed pill for her appetite she thinks I should ask my doctor about it.to be continued.
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Well, apart from helping to win WWII, what did Stalin ever do for us, or anyone? :eek:


The stories are doom-laden, laced with vitriolic sneers about Emmanuel Macron, Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Ursula von der Leyen. Ukrainians are “ready to depose” their leader, Macron is breaking French “rules” with aid to Ukraine, an “uncontrolled influx” from the east is “seriously harming the Germans”. According to new research, these are just a few examples of a vast pro-Russian propaganda campaign washing over Facebook accounts of French and German citizens, before the European parliament elections next month. The adverts – collected by tech expert Paul Bouchaud and shared with the Observer – all ran on Facebook during the first 13 days of May. None were labelled as political advertising, according to Bouchaud, who sees that as a clear breach of Meta’s rules and a possible breach of EU law. In April, the EU executive opened an investigation into Meta over suspicions that it was failing to prevent the dissemination of deceptive ads and disinformation. Bouchaud, a PhD researcher at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris, thinks that the ads reveal a “systemic failure” at Meta. In an earlier report for AI Forensics, Bouchaud found that the pro-Russian propaganda ads had reached 38m individual accounts in France and Germany between August 2023 and March 2024, with most going undetected. Fewer than 5% of undeclared political ads shown on Facebook in 16 European countries were caught by Meta’s detection system, according to AI Forensics.

Nay, Putin and his coterie would never do this, since The Great Putin always tells the truth. o_O

Disinformation is just one facet of foreign interference that European democracies are confronting, alongside spying, influence operations and cyber-attacks. “The scale [of the threat] is very high,” Nathalie Loiseau, a French MEP in Macron’s party, who chairs the European parliament’s subcommittee on security and defence, told the Observer. “Russia has been investing for decades in interference in a certain number of western countries, notably France,” Loiseau said, referring to Kremlin support for French political parties, close links with French intellectuals and politicians, and Russia’s “massive” investment in information manipulation. Nor is it an abstract threat. “It is not science fiction, it is already here,” Loiseau said, citing the 2023 Slovak elections, where a pro-European, pro-Nato candidate, Michal Šimečka of Progressive Slovakia, lost a tight race to Robert Fico, the populist leader who was the victim of an assassination attempt this week that shocked Europe. Šimečka’s defeat came after a fake audio emerged purporting to show him discussing how to rig an election by buying votes. Katarína Klingová, a senior research fellow at the Globsec thinktank based in Bratislava, cautioned that “we really do not know” how that fake influenced the result, but said it played into well-established narratives. A poll by Globsec in March 2023 found that 53% of Slovak citizens expected the election to be rigged. “So this [audio] really confirmed that [narrative] and the people who are more vulnerable to pro-Kremlin propaganda believed it.”


Comment (and best explanation perhaps): The best explanation I’ve seen is that King Prince Charles asked him to make him look well read. :oops:


I think many who will have watched this act (very entertaining) might have recognised an already professional one - as per so many others too - so we have at least two issues with this programme. Such acts not entirely being amateurs, and thus having an advantage over many others, and secondly, many having an emotional component as to their claims for talent - and such being quite common in so many other TV programmes now. o_O


A NSPCC survey found that one in 25 primary school children had been shown or sent a naked or semi-naked image by an adult. That's the equivalent of one child in every class. But under this guidance, children wouldn't learn about specifically sexual harassment like this until they are in secondary school. A survey by the Children's Commissioner for England found that 10% of children had seen pornography by age 9, and the average age children see pornography is age 13. This means many children will have seen footage of sexual acts before the age their school would be permitted to teach them about this. Research has found that women who received inadequate sex education as children were more likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse. And evidence suggests that children who have received education aimed at preventing sexual abuse may [be] more likely to tell an adult if they experience abuse. A great deal of research also tells us that young people are more likely to delay sex the more information that they have about it.

 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
Well I've gone down from 330 to 241. I'm doing OK with my weight. But I know if I were down to 200 I'd be up walking so that's my goal.
My sister has prescribed pill for her appetite she thinks I should ask my doctor about it.to be continued.
You are probably doing better than myself as to losing weight, so good luck with your endeavours. :)
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

What the USA experienced having Trump as president should perhaps make one-term presidents the norm - so that idiots like him aren't tempted to skew or not accept the voting results or try to cause an insurrection based on false information or a personal agenda. o_O


The wave of book bans sweeping the US, typically reserved for works of fiction deemed controversial, has hit textbooks used in public schools, marking the next step in Republicans’ war on education. The board of trustees for the Cypress Fairbanks independent school district in Houston voted 6-1 earlier this month to redact certain chapters in science textbooks, including those about vaccines, human growth, diversity, and climate change. The motion to remove the chapters was made by the board’s vice-president Natalie Blasingame and almost unanimously supported. Blasingame, who has served on the board since 2021, did not give a specific explanation for the decision, but said the subjects go beyond what the state requires to teach and creates “a perception that humans are bad”. Last year, the Republican-controlled state board approved textbooks for the schools’ science curriculums, rejecting several books on climate, so the local school district’s censorship of these textbooks is even more restrictive. Education experts say the move could have far-reaching consequences, prompting similar decisions to omit information in other subjects, and public school districts across the country. The board’s decision drew the ire of local parents and education groups.


The state-run Mehr news agency then announced that the president and foreign minister had been “martyred”.


Raisi was elected president in 2021 after eight years of reformist leadership in Iran. Raisi, who was nicknamed the Butcher of Tehran, helped oversee the mass executions of thousands in 1988 and later led the country as it enriched uranium near weapons-grade levels and launched a major drone-and-missile attack on Israel. A longtime jurist and former chief justice, Raisi had been tipped as the most likely person to succeed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. A cleric first, Raisi once kissed the Quran before the United Nations and spoke more like a preacher than a statesman when addressing the world. Raisi’s presidency was plagued with protests against deteriorating economic conditions and the oppression of women, often resulting in violent crackdowns on the opposition and members of the public.


The computer scientist regarded as the “godfather of artificial intelligence” says the government will have to establish a universal basic income to deal with the impact of AI on inequality. Professor Geoffrey Hinton told BBC Newsnight that a benefits reform giving fixed amounts of cash to every citizen would be needed because he was “very worried about AI taking lots of mundane jobs”. “I was consulted by people in Downing Street and I advised them that universal basic income was a good idea,” he said. He said while he felt AI would increase productivity and wealth, the money would go to the rich “and not the people whose jobs get lost and that’s going to be very bad for society”. Professor Hinton is the pioneer of neural networks, which form the theoretical basis of the current explosion in artificial intelligence. Until last year he worked at Google, but left the tech giant so he could talk more freely about the dangers from unregulated AI. The concept of a universal basic income amounts to the government paying all individuals a set salary regardless of their means. Critics say it would be extremely costly and divert funding away from public services, while not necessarily helping to alleviate poverty.


We can now add testicles to the list of places where microplastics have managed to spread – alongside human placentas, ancient rocks, clogged arteries, blue whales, baby poop, the wilderness of Antarctica, near the peak of Mount Everest, and the bottom of the ocean. Research led by the University of New Mexico looked at testicular tissue taken from both dogs and humans, finding microplastics in every sample, with an abundance almost three times higher in humans than in dogs. The team found an average 122.63 micrograms of microplastics per gram of tissue in canines, and 329.44 micrograms per gram in people. Besides giving us another sobering reminder of how plastic pollution is penetrating every part of our bodies, the study raises some concerning questions in regards to how these microscopic fragments might impact male fertility. "At the beginning, I doubted whether microplastics could penetrate the reproductive system," says environmental health scientist Xiaozhong Yu from the University of New Mexico.

"When I first received the results for dogs I was surprised. I was even more surprised when I received the results for humans." Among the 12 different types of microplastics identified, the plastic polymer the researchers found the most of, in both dogs and humans, was polyethylene (PE) – used in the manufacture of plastic bags and plastic bottles, and a major contributor to our plastic pollution problem. While the human tissue couldn't be tested for sperm count, the researchers did do this for the canine samples. They found higher levels of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic correlated to a lower sperm count in the animals. With PVC widely used for many industrial and household products, the worry is that plastic could be contributing to falling sperm counts worldwide – which have already been linked to heavy metals, pesticides, and a variety of chemicals – though these PVC results seen in dogs would need to be replicated in men, of course, for us to understand whether the same thing was happening in people.

As Barbie said - life in plastic, it's fantastic! :eek: :eek:


Those who see non-human life as not having anything in common with humans will probably not even read this. :(


The late Ebrahim Raisi won the presidency in an election critics called "engineered". The Guardian Council, responsible for vetting candidates, disqualified any potential contenders. These manipulations have contributed to record-low turnout in recent parliamentary and presidential elections. For example, in the secound round of parliamentary elections this month, a Tehran MP won with the support of only 3.5% of eligible voters. With Iran needing a new president in 50 days, the same scenario is likely to repeat. A hardliner, loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, will be qualified to run and win in a dull election.

Oh well, a bit like Russia then (hobble or eliminate any opposition) - and no way to run a country worthy of respect. :oops:
 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

The sectors of the global economy most heavily exposed to artificial intelligence (AI) are witnessing a marked productivity increase and command a significant wage premium, according to a report. Boosting hopes that AI might help lift the global economy out of a 15-year, low-growth trough, a PwC study found productivity growth was almost five times as rapid in parts of the economy where AI penetration was highest than in less exposed sectors. PwC said that in the UK, one of the 15 countries covered by the report, job postings that require AI skills were growing 3.6 times faster relative to all job listings. On average, UK employers were willing to pay a 14% wage premium for jobs that require AI skills, with the legal and information technology sectors experiencing the highest premiums. The uptick in productivity in sectors more exposed to AI – such as financial services, information technology, and professional services – was marginally higher in the UK than the global average.


Ebrahim Raisi spent less than three years as the president of Iran before dying alongside his foreign minister in a remote helicopter crash last weekend. But over that period – and the decades he spent in the public eye beforehand – the 63-year-old gained a deserved reputation for brutality and fanaticism. His election in 2021 came more than three decades after the event that would later earn Raisi the nickname the ‘Butcher of Tehran’. Thanks to his die-hard loyalty to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and willingness to do the messy job of cracking down on his fellow Iranian citizens, his power only ever grew.

In 1988, Raisi was serving as the deputy prosecutor for the Iranian capital Tehran – a role he had taken on at the age of just 25. By virtue of his position, he had a seat on a four-person panel that would decide the fates of thousands of political prisoners, many of whom were not much older than himself. That panel would later become known as the ‘Death Committee’. Their secret tribunals led to the execution of a staggering number of prisoners. International human rights groups have placed the figure at around 5,000. Last December, Raisi decided to cancel a trip to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, out of fear he could be arrested over his role in the deaths.

It’s likely that Raisi’s presidency will be remembered for two main controversies: one domestic and one foreign. Just over a year into his term, a woman named Mahsa Amini died at a Tehran hospital five days before her 23rd birthday. She was in police custody after being arrested over rules requiring women to wear a headscarf, and her death unleashed levels of fury never seen before in Iran. Mass protests, led by women and girls, broke out across the country, with many tearing off their hijabs. The government responded with extreme violence, with shotguns and submachine guns used on the demonstrators. A UN report found that some detainees were raped by security forces.


A woman has been mauled to death by her two XL Bullies in what is just the latest gruesome attack involving the banned breed. The assault happened in Havering, east London, at around 1.10pm this afternoon. When paramedics arrived at her home at Cornwall Close in Hornchurch, there was nothing they could do to save her and she was pronounced dead at the scene. She was only identified as a woman in her 50s, but her name is yet to be released. The victim was attacked by the animals at the family home. Before Metropolitan Police officers arrived the dogs were shut in a room of the house.

"Will never happen with my dog(s)." :eek:


A woman who admitted killing an 11-year-old girl in east London with bed bug poison has also pleaded guilty to importing it. At an Old Bailey hearing on Monday, Jesmin Akter, 33, pleaded guilty to importing a regulated substance. She had previously pleaded guilty to a charge of manslaughter. The court heard how the girl, who lived in the flat above, suffered a cardiac arrest when the aluminium phosphide was exposed to moisture in Akter's flat and created a noxious gas, which spread through the building. Akter had bought the substance online and imported it to the UK from Italy.

Thames Magistrates Court had earlier heard how the girl went into cardiac arrest after being poisoned by phosphine gas from aluminium phosphide pellets in the flat below her family home. Prosecutor Varinder Hayre Hayre said of Akter: “She distributed a number of tablets on the floor of her flat, and on the top of the cabinets, using almost three times the required amount for the space she used it in. The aluminium phosphide was activated by exposure to the moisture in her flat, creating a dangerous gas known as phosphine gas, a highly toxic and poisonous gas. This gas then travelled to the flats above Mrs Akter’s flat, which resulted in the gas travelling to the 11-year-old victim’s own flat. As a result the victim went into cardiac arrest on the 11th December 2021, and she passed away shortly afterwards in the hospital, despite efforts being made by the medical team.”

Perhaps a case of - Read The Label - and be careful as to what one buys over the internet. And tragic for the poor innocent girl. :(

 
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