December 19, 2022 - How to Write Email with Military Precision

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How to Write Email with Military Precision When you send an email, the first thing your recipient sees is the subject line, so make sure it’s as clear as possible: What is your email’s purpose? What do you want your recipient to do? Take a page from military personnel. Their subject lines use keywords in all caps to note the email’s purpose. For example: Continued here

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Looking back on the 2022 FIFA World Cup: A tournament of surprises and controversy Associate professor, Kinesiology & Physical Education; Fellow, Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University After a month of football, the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Qatar has concluded with Argentina beating France 4-2 in a penalty shootout after drawing 3-3. Record numbers of fans were expected to watch the nail-biting final match at the Lusail Stadium just outside of the Qatari capital Doha. Continued here

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How the 20 year rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has transformed Turkey In 2002, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP), obtained a parliamentary majority in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The seemingly unstoppable rise of political Islam throughout the turbulent 1990s had finally culminated in a much-dreaded loss for a Kemalist political establishment committed to the secular vision of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the modern Turkish republic. Twenty years on, many of the prophesies about Erdogan’s leadership remain unfulfilled. The fears of his opponents were encapsulated in the slogan “Turkey will not become Iran!” Turkey decidedly did not turn into Iran, but it did turn into something that even the most pessimistic observers could not have predicted at the time. Though Turkish democracy has always been illiberal to a certain extent, it has never resembled an autocracy as much as it does today, save for the early republican period. Continued here

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How to Support Your Jewish Colleagues Right Now In 2021, antisemitic incidents reached an all-time high in the U.S. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), this increase represents the highest number ever recorded since the organization began tracking them in 1979. In addition to these attacks — assault, harassment, and vandalism — we’ve seen a number of influential individuals over the years making headlines for antisemitic comments and hate speech. It’s time organizations acknowledged the experiences of Jewish employees and included them in DEI efforts. The author, a DEI leader, reached out to Jewish leaders to understand and include their perspectives. Based on their input, here’s how leaders and individuals can support their Jewish employees and colleagues and fight antisemitism in their workplaces. Continued here

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How to live up to the true spirit of Christmas If the media, popular entertainment, and retail habits are taken as indicators then the celebration of Christmas is no longer just the reserve of Christians. This has some consequences for the religious and non-religious alike. In popular culture and the media, Christmas is portrayed as a time of happiness, togetherness, generosity, and peace. In the “made for Christmas” movies, such as those on the popular Hallmark Channel, a “feel good” message is the order of the day. Continued here

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Fighting For Housing Justice In Los Angeles From the Los Angeles Tenants Union to Downtown Crenshaw, communities of color in L.A. are rewriting the rules of housing rights. Downtown Crenshaw Rising board members Damien Goodmon, Niki Okuk, Dwayne Wyatt and Jackie Ryan stand along Crenshaw Blvd. on November 2, 2022 in the Leimert Park area of the Los Angeles, CA. Photo by Jose Lopez/Yes! Magazine Continued here

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New CRISPR tech makes it possible to wipe out invasive mice Australian researchers have developed a gene drive that renders female mice infertile, while allowing male mice to pass the mutation on to nearly all of their offspring. Within a few generations, this system could cause an isolated population of mice to collapse.  While it has yet to be tested in the world, researchers envision it as a way to eliminate invasive pests from islands where they have devastated local ecosystems. Continued here

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New York City Expands Domestic Violence Intervention Program This fall, New York City expanded its local program serving survivors of domestic violence, their children, and those who cause harm, which has been offered since 2019 in the Bronx and on Staten Island. This article is being co-published with The Imprint, a national nonprofit news outlet covering child welfare and youth justice. Continued here

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Why some people choose to live the nomadic van lifestyle As the movie Nomadland revealed to the world, ever since the 2008 financial collapse, people have moved into vehicles as a way of surviving the high cost of living. The pandemic also fuelled an increase in the nomadic lifestyle. Read more: It's not all nomadland: how #vanlife made mobile living a middle-class aspiration Continued here

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Violence Intervention That Begins In The Hospital – And Is Publicly Funded In California, a new law makes such violence preventative services a benefit under Medi-Cal, ensuring professionals doing frontline work are funded. MaryAnn Alvarado, program manager of Teens on Target, and the Youth ALIVE! board. (Photo courtesy of Youth ALIVE!) Continued here

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The Need For Trauma-Informed Care In American Cities Op-ed: The pandemic has underscored our cities’ mental health crises. In Baltimore, we’re pioneering an approach of trauma-informed care to help communities that are suffering. The man in the blue baseball cap takes two steps, wobbles and then collapses onto the library floor. A woman rushes to his side and begins administering CPR. People gather around, unsure what to do next. The library security guard calls 911 but hangs back. Another woman kneels next to the man. She shoves a canister of Narcan deep into his nostril and takes over the CPR. After a few minutes the man regains consciousness and sits up. Continued here

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The top 10 science stories of 2022 As the year draws to a close, it’s time to look back at the groundbreaking advances that made news in 2022 and will shape the world for years to come. Here are Big Think’s selections for the top science stories of 2022: In July, the startup Mojo Vision announced that their CEO wore the company’s prototype augmented reality (AR) contact lenses for the first time. Each device is equipped with a display that is 30 times sharper than an iPhone’s and is outfitted with all the technology needed to track a user’s eye movements. Though extremely preliminary, the technology makes real the sci-fi dream of implanted vision that allows the wearer to seamlessly interact with digital images overlaid on perceptual reality. Continued here

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This Southern Oregon Fire Resiliency Project Could Cut Severe Wildfire Risks In Half The West Bear forest restoration collaboration provides a blueprint for creating climate-resilient cities. A Lomakatsi ecological forestry crew in the West Bear All-Lands Restoration Project. (Photo courtesy Lomakatsi Restoration Project) Continued here

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When It Rains, These Philly Sidewalks Reveal A Hidden Message About Flood Resilience In the low-income, flood-prone neighborhood of Germantown, community members make their voices heard through a poetic intervention. The sidewalk decals and water-activated art, featuring Germantown residents' poems, was demonstrated at the Philadelphia Water Department's Wingo-WHAT?! event on June 4, 2022. (Photo courtesy Philadelphia Water Department) Continued here

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The Universe in 90 minutes: The Multiverse, time, free will, God, & more Do you have free will? Is our Universe the only one, or do we live in one of many? And what does Einstein’s theory of relativity really say about the nature of reality? These are some of the big questions that theoretical physicist Sean Carroll tackles in this Big Think video. Continued here

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Mastodon Features That Twitter Should Steal (but Won't) I'm not sure if Elon Musk has ever been in a town square. He seems to imagine them as places where people loudly argue with each other to get as much attention as possible, ideally while paying him to rent megaphones.  I, personally, wouldn't hang out in a town square like that. I want somewhere to sip my beer and chat with friends, ideally with as few Nazis around as possible. The ideal town square, in my mind, is a place for the occasional serious discussion but mostly just a chill place to hang out—a place, crucially, not owned by any one person or corporation.  Continued here

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Iran’s Protest Culture - JSTOR Daily The civil unrest that erupted in Iran after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was allegedly beaten to death by the Islamic Republic’s morality police in September continues to spread across the country. Demonstrations initially aimed at abolishing compulsory hijab laws are now calling for a complete dismantling of the republic itself. Overnight, protestors went from taking off their headscarves to lighting them on fire, from tearing down portraits of their Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, to shouting, “Death to the Oppressor!” in the streets. Many reports present these developments as unprecedented, and for good reason. As Assal Rad, a research director at the National Iranian American Council, says in a Zoom call, the current level of civil disobedience would have been “unimaginable” a few months ago. Continued here

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How Cleveland’s Circular Economy Programs Help Reduce Waste And Build Jobs In Ohio and across the Great lakes Region, programs find new life for items including rejected carrots, NFL banners, and discarded clothing. Sharie Renee from Cleveland Sews (left), Sean Corrigan from Cleveland Sews (center) and Paula Coggins from Oh Sew Powerful (right) sew leftover banners from the NFL Draft into handbags. (Photo by Sophie Kannberg) Continued here

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RocketLab's first North American launch set for Sunday On Sunday, RocketLab plans to send its small launch rocket, the Electron, into orbit from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, or MARS. The launch is scheduled for 6 pm US Eastern; we've embedded a livestream below. Continued here

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How do floating wind turbines work? Northern California has some of the strongest offshore winds in the U.S., with immense potential to produce clean energy. But it also has a problem. Its continental shelf drops off quickly, making building traditional wind turbines directly on the seafloor costly if not impossible. Once water gets more than about 200 feet deep – roughly the height of an 18-story building – these “monopile” structures are pretty much out of the question. Continued here

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Two Houston Developments Show Two Approaches To Gentrification A mile and a half apart, two Houston developments show two different approaches to address the neighborhood’s rapid gentrification. A rendering of a patio at The Plant House, planned by Concept Neighborhood in Houston's East End. (Rendering courtesy of Cultivate Land) Continued here

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Thinking about a gap year? Here are some questions to ask yourself (and a note for anxious parents) Many year 12 students who are receiving their exam results at the moment will go straight to further study and training next year. But others may be planning or dreaming about a break. As a professor of education with a focus on positive psychology, I think of a gap year as a dynamic transition time that allows you to be your own person. It is a chance to reconnect to who you are and what you want in life. It is so much more than a break! Continued here

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Stephen 'tWitch' Boss's death should spark real conversations about the cost of Black celebrity Last week, dancer and DJ Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss died from suicide at age 40. Like many, I was incredibly shocked and saddened by the news. As a scholar of Black entertainment history, I also reflected on the longer history of Black male entertainers dancing or telling jokes to their deaths despite cultivating a public image as “pure love and light,” which is how tWitch’s former co-producer, Ellen DeGeneres described him on her Instagram upon hearing of his death. Continued here

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Housing In Brief: L.A.’s New Mayor Declares Homelessness A State Of Emergency Los Angeles’ newly-elected mayor Karen Bass was sworn into office on Monday and officially declared a state of emergency on homelessness, CBS News Los Angeles reports. She outlined a broad vision but provided few hard details on what that would mean. Bass said she would address homelessness with “the emergency management way of doing things,” using a coordinated model akin to addressing fires or earthquakes. Bass pledged greater coordination of shelter services, faster housing construction and that she would work to bring people indoors faster, and promised an upcoming executive order initiating a program called “Inside Safe” for “tackling encampments and street homelessness” which would “restore our public spaces.” She said this would lean on a “strategic, proactive rapid housing” model. Her administration will lease apartments and motel rooms across the city, she said, and people accepting motels prioritized for permanent housing. Continued here

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Making "The Right To The City" Real For Urban Dwellers Worldwide Op-ed: All urban residents have a right to the city. On Human Rights Day, let’s follow the lead of São Paulo and other cities partnering with civil society to protect that right. This International Human Rights Day, as our mostly urban world is increasingly challenged by rising poverty, migration, inequality and climate risk, let us think about what it would mean to truly enjoy the “right to the city.” Continued here

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Are We Loving Venice to Death? “The Venice of to-day,” wrote Henry James back in 1882, “is a vast museum . . . and you march through the institution with a herd of fellow-gazers.” A century and a half after James wrote those words, some 30 million visitors overwhelm La Serenissima each year. Its resident population meanwhile has shrunk to fewer than 53,000, from a peak of 175,000 in 1951. Mammoth cruise ships damage its centuries-old foundations and its fragile lagoon, and there is even talk of putting up permanent turnstiles for Piazza San Marco, Italy’s most iconic square. Continued here

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How much memory loss is normal with ageing? You’ve driven home from work along the same route for the past five years. But lately, you’ve been stopping at the same intersection, struggling to remember if you need to turn left or right. Many occasions in everyday life can make us question whether lapses in memory are normal, a sign of cognitive decline, or even the beginning of dementia. Continued here

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Restoring an Ancient Indigenous Site in St. Paul There are limited community gathering spaces in St. Paul for members of Minnesota’s 11 tribal nations. The Wakan Tipi Center is helping to change that. A land blessing ceremony for the Wakan Tipi Center (Photo courtesy of the Wakan Tipi Center) Continued here

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Housing In Brief: Eric Adams’ Flawed Plan For Mental Illness In November, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced new guidance for police and emergency medical services, directing them to take severely mentally ill people – often experiencing homelessness – off the street so they can be evaluated for psychiatric hospitalization. The state’s mental health law allows police to move people who appear to be a threat to themselves or others to hospitals or psychiatric care. Mayor Adams’ guidance interprets that law to mean police officers can detain people based on the suspicion that someone is a danger, “even when no recent dangerous act has been observed,” in line with a guidance published by the state’s mental health agency earlier this year. If someone appears unable to care for themselves, the mayor said, police and clinicians should be able to remove them for evaluation. The guidance was criticized by nearly every entity that would have to carry it out, including the NYPD and EMS workers. The state has long had a shortage of psychiatric hospital beds, seeing a reduction in 20% from 2004 to 2014 as part of a national trend of cost-cutting, and the Adams administration has not done much to rectify this. One potentially helpful intervention – though by no means a panacea – would be a greater availability of supportive housing, which provides on-site social support for people experiencing mental health problems. The city has a shortage of this type of housing, yet 2,600 units are currently vacant citywide, according to the New York Times, a result of bureaucratic red tape. Mayor Adams vowed to address the problem in March but without hiring any additional staff to process the backlog resulting in about 100 more vacant units than 8 months ago. Continued here

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I Went to Taiwan to Say Goodbye It wasn’t a great time to visit Taiwan. Nancy Pelosi’s layover in Taipei in early August had heightened tensions with China, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine had people asking whether Taiwan faced a similar threat. My father and I scrolled through news—of aggressive Chinese military drills and endless U.S. delegations—and debated whether it was safe to go. But when weighed against a hypothetical, the reality of my grandmother’s cancer won out. She was refusing chemotherapy. We left in September; better to be early than late. Continued here

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How an Indian student made Sanskrit’s ‘language machine’ work for the first time in 2,500 years Support Scroll.in Your support is crucial: India needs independent media and independent media needs you. A grammatical problem which has defeated Sanskrit scholars since the 5th Century BC has finally been solved by an Indian PhD student at the University of Cambridge. Continued here

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A Recession Looms Over the Posh World of Influencers When Lydia Millen’s heating broke in late November, she checked into Britain’s oldest luxury hotel, the Savoy, where gilded rooms go for anywhere from $700 to $5,500 a night. “I’m going to make full use of their wonderful hot water,” the British influencer told her 797,000 TikTok followers. The response—3.9 million views later—was predictably vehement. Many commenters compared Millen to Marie Antoinette; others cracked jokes like “My TV is broken so I’ve hired a private jet to fly me to Qatar so I can watch the footie.” One comment with more than 14,000 likes summed up the sentiment best: “The room (a very cold one) has not been read.” Continued here

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Economics In Brief: D.C.’s Domestic Workers Bill of Rights DCist reports that the D.C. Council voted unanimously in favor of the Domestic Worker Employment Rights Amendment Act of 2022 (also known as the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights) in the first of two votes needed to pass the legislation. The next vote will be held Dec. 20. “The bill has three main provisions,” the D.C. Line reports. “It explicitly grants domestic workers basic human rights protections, requires employers and employees to sign contracts to define work scope, and authorizes grants to community organizations to publicize the requirements.” Continued here

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Like Uber, but for Militias The far-right group People’s Rights has expanded far beyond its rural paramilitary roots. So how menacing is it still? One problem with defining extremism in America today is how many people think the U.S. government is what’s extreme. In his 1995 essay “The Militia in Me,” Denis Johnson describes meeting two men campaigning for the 1992 presidential candidate Bo Gritz, a far-right former Special Forces officer. “Both men believed that somebody had shanghaied the United States, that pirates had seized the helm of the ship of state and now steered it toward some completely foreign berth where it could be plundered at leisure.” Continued here

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An Unmistakable Stain in America’s Most Pristine Rivers Dozens of once crystal-clear streams and rivers in Arctic Alaska are now running bright orange and cloudy—and in some cases, they may be becoming more acidic. This otherwise-undeveloped landscape now looks as if an industrial mine has been in operation there for decades, and scientists want to know why. Roman Dial, a professor of biology and mathematics at Alaska Pacific University, first noticed the starkest water-quality changes while doing field work in the Brooks Range in 2020. He spent a month there with a team of six graduate students, and they could not find adequate drinking water. “There’s so many streams that are not just stained; they’re so acidic that they curdle your powdered milk,” he says. In other streams, the water was clear, “but you couldn’t drink it [because] it had a really weird mineral taste and tang.” Continued here

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Economics In Brief: Black Lives Matter Goes After Student Debt The Supreme Court has announced that it will hear oral arguments around the Biden Administration’s plan for federal student loan forgiveness in February. With mass student debt relief stalled, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation has announced a $500,000 relief fund aimed at Black former and current college students, the AP reports. Through a public application process, the organization plans to grant 500 awardees with relief payments of $750-$4,500, depending upon their total debt burden. “We could sit around and wait, and hope that legislators do what they promised by providing loan relief, or we could step up and do it ourselves. And we’ve decided to do the latter,” BLM foundation board chair Cicley Gay tells the AP. Continued here

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Sri Lanka's most beautiful train journey I was woken by the long, forlorn sound of the siren. The brakes hissed and screeched as our train chugged up the hill and pulled into Radella, a station along one of the most beautiful train journeys in the world: the Colombo to Badulla railway. "The journey is so enthralling that you don't want to take your head out of the window," said Dayawathie Ekanayake, who has travelled extensively by train across the island during her career as a finance consultant. "It makes you feel constantly in awe. You wonder about what comes next – is it a waterfall? A stupa-like tea garden? Or is it mist-clouded peaks? You never know. You just have to keep looking." Continued here

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Your Favorite YouTube or TikTok Star Now Probably Owns a Restaurant From MrBeast’s mall burger restaurant to David Dobrik’s pizzeria and Dylan Lemay’s ice cream shop, YouTube and TikTok’s biggest stars are getting in on owning restaurants Dylan Lemay had worked at Cold Stone Creamery for eight years before he started posting on TikTok in early 2020, motivated by a friend’s goal of becoming “TikTok famous.” Through POV-style videos of himself decorating ice cream cakes and tossing balls of ice cream into the air, he became the platform’s top food and beverage creator by the end of 2021. Continued here

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In search of an attainable New Year’s resolution It’s that time of year again — when seemingly every advertisement, social media post, or well-meaning loved one is quick to remind you how you’re due for a refresh, a restart, a rebrand. Self-improvement is difficult any time of year, but you may feel extra pressure to embark on a life change at the top of the new year. The desire to set goals often comes on the heels of the start of a new week, month, year, semester, or birthday, dubbed the “fresh start effect.” When the slate is wiped clean in any capacity, people feel more compelled to conquer a challenge. New Year’s resolutions get a bad rap for being notoriously unattainable. Studies and surveys show that people aren’t great at sticking to resolutions, ditching them within the first month. However, the process you take in reaching the goal holds more weight than simply making a choice to change. Continued here

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Wool swimsuits used to be standard beachwear - is it time to bring them back? Woollen swimwear, popular a century ago, might soon make a splash on Australian beaches again. In the 19th century, when natural fibres were the only option, beach-goers donned costumes made of wool or cotton. Swimsuits worn at the water’s edge or in the crashing waves transformed across the 20th century from natural fibres to sleek, high-performance synthetics. Continued here

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Guaranteed Income Initiatives Are Moving From Pilots To Policies A new dashboard highlights the proliferation of guaranteed income programs, which are rapidly moving from fringe local experiments to state-level policies. In February 2019, Michael D. Tubbs, mayor of Stockton, California, launched a radical experiment. He started one of the nation’s first guaranteed income pilots, randomly selecting 125 residents at or below the city’s median household income to receive $500 a month for 24 months, no strings attached. Two years later, the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, as the pilot was called, analyzed the first year of the program and found staggering results. Continued here S19 Long-acting injectable PrEP is a big step forward in HIV prevention After successful clinical trials, long-acting cabotegravir was found to be almost 100 per cent effective at preventing HIV. It was approved in the U.S. on Dec. 20, 2021, for use as HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). This approval means that eligible individuals can now receive this medication every eight weeks to prevent sexually-acquired HIV infection. However this new drug, which would help address some of the ongoing challenges with HIV prevention for those who remain at high risk, is still not available in Canada. Continued here S56 In These Cities, Car-Free Streets Are Here To Stay Cars? In this economy? Here’s how four cities took back miles of pavement from cars, making a popular pandemic solution into a permanent fixture. In San Francisco, JFK Promenade is now awash with bikers, pedestrians and cultural activities. (Photo by btwashburn /  Continued here S49 Six Classic Books That Live Up to Their Reputation When I was in college, I made the mistake of telling a teacher that I was never going to read James Joyce’s Ulysses. My teacher promptly assigned it as my required reading for the term. Stubborn as I can be about such things—on the other end of the cultural spectrum, I refuse, to this day, to watch Titanic—I’ve always been an obsessively good student, so I caved immediately. It took me about nine months to get through it, and I finished, entirely by coincidence, on “Bloomsday”—June 16, the date the book takes place. I discovered, one difficult page at a time, that Joyce’s novel isn’t merely important, but also funny, raunchy, and delightfully weird. A decade later, I still remember the keen pleasure of burrowing into a story that requires that kind of close attention; it feels like intimacy. Continued here S61 Is gossip really so bad? In 2022, anonymous stories became the news Some statements made on this account have not been independently confirmed. This account does not claim information published is based in fact. So goes the Instagram bio of @Deuxmoi, an account that trades in sightings and supposed secrets of famous people around the world. Whether or not the information is true is incidental for some of the 1.7m people who follow the account, instead, the proposition that privileged intel can be served up by anyone standing near Ed Sheeran in Wholefoods keeps people scrolling. Continued here S34 The Charge '67 EV Mustang Is a Rare Beast If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Cross-breeds are all the rage in the dog world right now. There's the cockapoo, springador, puggle and labsky; the morkie, chiweenie and whoodle. The idea of these "designer dogs" is you get a kind of genetic Goldilocks breed, with the best characteristics from both parents: the loving loyalty of a retriever, for example, with the fluffy coat of a poodle. Continued here S52 Girls’ School There were two Hannahs. There were   eight Amandas. There were three Lindsays,   and each one wanted a nose job. One got it. One Hannah ran 12 miles in the morning, the Los Angeles dust moving under her steps. The other studied the brains of zebra finches that were simultaneously held captive Continued here S63 What if TikTok really just wants to sell you stuff? Keep abreast of significant corporate, financial and political developments around the world.Stay informed and spot emerging risks and opportunities with independent global reporting, expertcommentary and analysis you can trust. Continued here S55 The Lionel Messi Guide to Living Like any great artist, the aging soccer phenom showed a youth-obsessed world the potential glory of a late-style triumph. The literary critic Edward Said coined the phrase late style to describe the final works of a composer or writer—when the decay of the body can’t help but inform artistry, when creativity is infused with the bumps, bruises, and wisdom of a life almost fully lived. Continued here S57 The World Cup's Forgotten Team Hundreds of thousands of Nepalis were part of an army of migrant workers who remade Qatar for its World Cup moment. But in chasing desperately needed paychecks abroad, many pay a heavy price. A mosaic made of thousands of photographs of the workers who built the World Cup stadium in Lusail, Qatar, decorates the stadium’s exterior.Credit...Tasneem Alsultan for The New York Times Continued here S27 'He played his ukulele as the ship went down': Frank Bongiorno on the political year that was Two summers did for Scott Morrison. The first was that of 2019-20, with its fire, smoke and ash. The second occurred two years later when, having earlier muddled the vaccine program, the federal government failed to secure sufficient access to rapid antigen test (RAT) kits. The removal from the country early in 2022 of an unvaccinated Novak Djokovic ahead of the Australian Open tennis tournament provided some diversionary drama but contributed to the overall impression of pandemic mismanagement already etched on public opinion. 2022 was a year of three elections. The first seems almost forgotten outside South Australia, but the March 19 election there mattered beyond its borders, because it saw the first pandemic-era government ejected from office when Peter Malinauskas defeated the Liberal government of Steven Marshall on a two-party preferred swing of more than 6.5%. Continued here S51 Why No Singer Has Replaced Lady Gaga Spencer Kornhaber’s culture picks include BeReal, online comedy stars, and an irresistible Nigerian singer. This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Continued here S54 'SNL' Bids Farewell to Cecily Strong The show delivered a moving goodbye to the 11-season veteran during its Christmas episode last night. Compared with last year’s Saturday Night Live Christmas show, when the extremely contagious Omicron coronavirus variant necessitated a reduced cast and crew, this year’s managed to avoid any major disruptions. But one piece of news, released mere hours before last night’s airing, delivered an unexpected turn: The show would be Cecily Strong’s last. Continued here S46 A new name and improved efficiency--we drive the 2023 Audi Q8 e-tron LANZAROTE, SPAIN—The electric vehicle market is still nascent enough that most models are in their first flush of youth. But prevailing wisdom in the industry is that a model should live for about eight years, with a midlife spruce-up or refresh scheduled around year four. Not coincidentally, it's been about four years since Audi started the production of its first electric SUV, the e-tron, and since then, it has gone on to sell more than 160,000. Now the German automaker has a growing range of EVs, and "e-tron" has been converted from a proper noun to an adjective in its corporate lexicon in the same way "quattro" did several decades before. So this midlife refresh includes a name change—e-tron becomes Q8 e-tron, making plain the rather obvious similarities between this EV SUV and the gas-burning Q8. Continued here S53 The Qatar World Cup Is History The tournament lent itself to moments of drama that also fit into broader historical narratives. Picture scenes of a battle or from a play; a massive religious ritual; a game of chess. The penalty kick that decided the Argentina-Netherlands quarterfinal game was all of these things. Continued here S10 New Docuseries Shows Some Love For, And From, Lesbian Bars Lesbian bars are dwindling across the country. “Our community made us believe in things again,” says the owner of one of America’s the last lesbian bars. During the pandemic’s hardest, most uncertain days, regulars at Boycott Bar in Phoenix would sometimes show up with a lawn chair, just to hang out for a few hours outside one of the last remaining lesbian bars across the entire country. Continued here S59 That annoying ringing, buzzing and hissing in the ear – a hearing specialist offers tips to turn down the tinnitus Not a week goes by when I don’t see someone in my clinic complaining of a strange and constant phantom sound in one of their ears, or in both ears. The noise is loud, distracting and scary – and it doesn’t go away. The kind of sound varies from patient to patient: buzzing, blowing, hissing, ringing, roaring, rumbling, whooshing or a combination thereof. But whatever the sound, the condition is called tinnitus. And one thing tinnitus patients have in common is that the sound is not an external one. Instead, the noise is literally inside their head. Continued here S26 Not Big Brother, but close: a surveillance expert explains some of the ways we're all being watched, all the time Nearly ten years on, surveillance technologies permeate all aspects of our lives. They collect swathes of data from us in various forms, and often without us knowing. Although China has more than 50% of all surveillance cameras installed in the world (about 34 cameras per 1,000 people), Australian cities are catching up. In 2021, Sydney had 4.67 cameras per 1,000 people and Melbourne had 2.13. Continued here S60 A Brief History of Silent Protests Activists in China are using blank sheets of paper to speak out against the country’s draconian zero-Covid policies The cry in Manhattan’s Washington Square Park rose over the syncopated sounds of a jazz combo and a loudspeaker blasting rap. Clustered near the park’s iconic arch, about 200 protesters joined a chant. “End the lockdown!” they shouted. “Abolish ‘Covid zero’!” A college student threaded past the participants, handing out blank sheets of white paper. Continued here S37 How to Use Google Health Connect You probably have multiple health and fitness apps on your smartphone that are capable of tracking everything from your steps, to your heart rate, to your water intake, to how well you sleep. But it can be tricky to get an overview of all that information in one place. That’s where Google Health Connect comes in, a new service that gathers up everything from those various apps and funnels it to a single app of your choice, synced across multiple devices if needed. The service is now in beta, which is how Google likes to launch its products: It’s not finished, but you can start using it right now. Head to the Health Connect listing on the Google Play Store to install it on an Android device. (iOS isn’t available.) Continued here S33 Science News Briefs from around the World: December 2022 Lightning-resistant trees in Panama, an Australian avian arms race, hydrogen-powered trains in Germany, and much more in this month’s Quick Hits An “innovation arms race” may be brewing between humans and trash-can-raiding cockatoos in Sydney’s suburbs. Humans keep trying new defenses, such as placing bricks or rubber snakes on their bin lids, but the birds continue developing strategies to open them. Continued here S35 The Best Sleep Gadgets and Apps If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Insomnia is a waking nightmare that can rob you of your health and sense of well-being. Everyone knows we need to prioritize sleep to stay healthy and clear toxins from the brain, but getting to sleep when you’re anxious can prove impossible, and obsessing over it is counterproductive. Sadly, there is no quick fix or cure for insomnia, but the best sleep gadgets and apps can help some. Continued here S29 A knife-edge election in Fiji sees power shift - and a chance to bring back real democracy When the final election results were announced around 4pm on Sunday, many Fijians, at home and around the world, breathed a collective sigh of relief: the government of coup-maker Frank Bainimarama looked like it had finally been defeated at the ballot box. Could it be that the militarised political culture, pervasive in Fiji since the 1987 coups, was finally being effectively challenged – peacefully? Continued here S38 The Best Electric Kick Scooters If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Riding an electric kick scooter isn't the coolest way of getting around. There you are, standing stock-still and upright, gliding around like a penguin on wheels. But reducing our reliance on gas-guzzling cars is cool and important. If bikes or electric bikes aren't your thing, escooters are another eco-friendly way to travel relatively short distances without burning fossil fuel. They're easy to fold up, they're lighter than ebikes (usually), and you don't need to wait on public transportation. Just hop on and go.  Continued here S28 Clearer rules on reporting companies' climate risks could soon put us on a path to decarbonising corporate Australia Australian company directors have long had legal obligations to identify, disclose and manage material financial risks to the company. Where risks result from climate change, or from measures to mitigate climate change, they have an obligation to address and report these. A new proposal from Treasurer Jim Chalmers on which the government wants comment by February 17 will require a standardised internationally‑aligned form of disclosure of climate‑related risks and opportunities, phased in from 2024-25. Continued here S32 Emotionally Intelligent People Use 3 Simple Words to Beat Perfectionism and Work Faster (and Better) Make your perfectionism work for you. Instead of against you. Continued here S39 These At-Home Skincare Tools Make Beauty Feel Accessible Beauty feels beyond my reach. This isn’t about self-deprecation, I swear. I’m talking about accessing the tools that can help you feel beautiful. Facials and fillers and blowouts seem expensive and exclusive to celebrities and influencers. Like Ariel from The Little Mermaid, I want to be a part of that world, but my jaw dropped the first time I paid more than $100 for a haircut. There’s no way I could ever afford (or justify) frequent skincare and hair treatments, right? The at-home beauty market disagrees. Companies like Therabody and Dyson have expanded into high-end beauty in recent years with trendy tools like the Airwrap and the TheraFace Pro, and other companies have quickly popped up and followed suit. Now, you can get Drybar-like hairdos, LED light treatments, and even dermaplane your skin from the comfort of your home.  Continued here S36 A New Discipline Pushes Back Against Sowing Doubt The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was founded in 1988 after scientists had spent decades raising the alarm about global warming. Thirty-five years later, there is effectively zero binding international policy to address climate change. In the United States, the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gasses and second-largest polluter today, there have been repeated legislative failures, including the recent Supreme Court ruling limiting the government’s authority to regulate power plant emissions. We now know that a large part of the reason for the political failure to act on climate change is because the fossil fuel industry built a network to challenge the science and policy of climate change. The industry’s efforts, which are ongoing, have included at least 4,556 individuals with ties to 164 different organizations. The investment in climate change denial—at least $9.77 billion from 2003 to 2018—bought the companies a half-century to continue the extraction of fossil fuels and delay the transition to clean energy. Continued here S30 Labor just ahead in two Queensland polls and retains large federal poll lead Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Poll Bludger reported on two Queensland polls on December 12. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted December 1-8 from a sample of 1,000, had a 50-50 tie, unchanged since June. Primary votes were 38% LNP (steady), 34% Labor (steady), 13% Greens (down one), 11% One Nation (up one) and 4% for all Others (steady). Continued here S31 Travelling around Australia this summer? Here's how to know if the water is safe to drink Australians are fortunate to have access to safe and healthy drinking water in our towns and cities, which is acknowledged as a basic human need globally. Sadly, the World Health Organization estimates about 2 billion people across the world are not so lucky. Drinking water is important for our health, but water-borne diseases are a common cause of illness. Avoiding water-borne illnesses is particularly important for people with weakened immune systems, or for the very young or aged. Many people travelling around Australia over the summer holidays might wonder if it is still safe to drink the water when they are far from home. Continued here Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Followers Blog Archive ►  2024 (50) ►  October (2) ►  August (2) ►  July (4) ►  June (3) ►  May (5) ►  April (4) ►  March (2) ►  February (10) ►  January (18) ►  2023 (834) ►  December (20) ►  November (54) ►  October (44) ►  September (108) ►  August (91) ►  July (29) ►  June (68) ►  May (104) ►  April (33) ►  March (30) ►  February (99) ►  January (154) ▼  2022 (208) ▼  December (117) January 1, 2023 - This Scientist Fled a Deadly Wil... January 1, 2023 - This Scientist Fled a Deadly Wil... January 1, 2023 - Man charged in Idaho student mur... 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