Group-Chat Culture Is Out of Control

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Group-Chat Culture Is Out of Control     Here’s just a sample of group chats that have been messaging me recently: college friends, housemates, camp friends, friends I met in adulthood, high-school friends, a subset of high-school friends who live in New York City, a subset of high-school friends who are single, a group of friends going to a birthday party, a smaller group of friends planning a gift for that person’s birthday, co-workers, book club, another book club, family, extended family, a Wordle chat with friends, a Wordle chat with family.I love a group text—a grext, if you’ll permit me—but lately, the sheer number of them competing for my attention has felt out of control. By the time I wake up, the notifications have already started rolling in; as I’m going to bed, they’re still coming. In between, I try to keep up, but all it takes is one 30-minute meeting before I’ve somehow gotten 100 new messages, half of them consisting of “lol” or “right!” I scroll up and up and up, trying to find where I left off, like I’ve lost my place in a book that keeps getting longer as I read. Continued here

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Books 3 has revealed thousands of pirated Australian books. In the age of AI, is copyright law still fit for purpose?     Thousands of Australian books have been found on a pirated dataset of ebooks, known as Books3, used to train generative AI. Richard Flanagan, Helen Garner, Tim Winton and Tim Flannery are among the leading local authors affected – along, of course, with writers from around the world. A search tool published by the Atlantic makes it possible for authors to find out whether their books are among the nearly 200,000 in the Books3 dataset. Continued here

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The fight for 2% - how residuals became a sticking point for striking actors     Streaming disrupted the entire entertainment industry, upending the DVD-purchasing, film-renting, moviegoing model of decades past.That shift has also changed how actors get paid. And some of the gains actors made through prior labor struggles – particularly through residuals, which are a small percentage of shared earnings from film or television – have vanished. Continued here

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From pests to pollutants, keeping schools healthy and clean is no simple task     Parents send their children to school to learn, and they don’t want to worry about whether the air is clean, whether there are insect problems or whether the school’s cleaning supplies could cause an asthma attack.I’m an extension specialist focused on pest management. I’m working with a cross-disciplinary team to improve compliance with environmental health standards, and we’ve found that schools across the nation need updates in order to meet minimum code requirements. Continued here

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Soccer kiss scandal exposes how structural sexism in Spain can be a laughing matter     Amid expressions of outrage and disgust over a nonconsensual kiss between the male head of Spanish soccer and a Women’s World Cup-winning player, there was also laughter.Luis Rubiales, the now ex-president of the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) and former vice-president of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), was forced to resign from those leadership positions as a result of the forced kiss on Aug. 20, 2023, which took place in front of a packed stadium in Australia and a global audience. He is also under investigation by prosecutors in Spain for sexual assault and coercion. Continued here

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Three rules for adding weight to your backpack that will boost the benefits of exercise     Walking is a great exercise for keeping your physical and mental health in check. But if you’re looking to give your daily walks a boost, you might want to give “rucking” a try.Rucking is a military term used to describe a march or hike with weight. This is commonly done using a weighted rucksack or vest. It’s an extremely versatile exercise, meaning it can be done almost anywhere. You can also adjust the length of your walk, the amount of weight you carry and even where you walk (such as on level ground or hiking trails) depending on your fitness level. Continued here

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Change Management Requires a Change Mindset     Every organization of every size struggles with change in some way. While midsize companies are no exception, their size offers a competitive advantage. Unlike small companies with limited resources, or large companies saddled by bureaucracy or “this is how we do it” norms, midsize companies are in the sweet spot for rethinking how to relate to change and uncertainty effectively. Helping your team develop and strengthen their change mindset should be a priority. Team discussions about one’s orientation to change could unlock hidden superpowers and create new pathways for internal mobility. This article discusses how to integrate scenario mapping into your strategic planning process to boost your “flux capacity” (your tolerance for change) and contribute to the kinds of futures you’d like to see. Continued here

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French schools' ban on abayas and headscarves is supposedly about secularism - but it sends a powerful message about who 'belongs' in French culture     France’s decision to ban public school students from wearing the abaya – a long dress or robe popular among women in certain Muslim cultures – and the male equivalent, the qamis, has faced criticism since Aug. 27, 2023, when the country’s education minister announced the new rule.Yet polls suggest that more than 80% of the French population supports the ban, as does the country’s highest court: The Conseil d'État has upheld the challenged ban twice – most recently on Sept. 25, 2023. Continued here

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Sci-fi books are rare in school even though they help kids better understand science     Scientists and engineers have reported that their childhood encounters with science fiction framed their thinking about the sciences. Thinking critically about science and technology is an important part of education in STEM – or science, technology, engineering and mathematics.Of the 59 elementary teachers and librarians whom I surveyed, almost a quarter of them identified themselves as science fiction fans, and nearly all of them expressed that science fiction is just as valuable as any other genre. Nevertheless, most of them indicated that while they recommend science fiction books to individual readers, they do not choose science fiction for activities or group readings. Continued here

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Why Today's Leaders Need to Be Perpetual Learners     Andrew Liveris likes to defy expectations. Born to immigrant parents in the Australian outback, he would eventually rise to the top of the corporate world, taking over in 2004 as CEO of Dow Chemical. In that job, which he held for 14 years, he won widespread credit for pushing an ambitious sustainability agenda, no easy task at one of the world’s biggest chemical producers. In this episode of “The New World of Work”, he offers his thoughts on leadership in tough times. He says executives need to be far more proactive, to find ways to discern relevant facts in a society that increasingly offers competing narratives of the truth. To do this, he says, leaders need to get out to the front lines, to travel, to perpetually reinvent themselves. Continued here

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Lessons for today from the overlooked stories of Black teachers during the segregated civil rights era     Staff K-12 Initiatives, Office of the Chancellor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign As one of the handful of Black teachers in Mississippi during the Jim Crow era of racially segregated public schools, she faced a daunting challenge in providing a first-class education to students considered second-class citizens. Continued here

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How the age of mammals could end     Throughout the past 500 million years, our planet has experienced a total of five mass extinctions. One of these – the Permo-Triassic mass extinction event – led to the demise of roughly 90% of Earth’s species. Most of these events have coincided with the formation of a supercontinent, where Earth’s tectonic plates slowly come together and combine. Continued here

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Labour set to win Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection - but only a thumping majority will herald big Scottish gains next year     More than three years after the COVID law-breaking that cost the SNP’s Margaret Ferrier her job as MP, voters in Rutherglen and Hamilton West will be summoned to the polls on October 5 for a byelection to choose her successor. Why is Labour’s Michael Shanks very widely expected to win? And what would a Labour gain here mean?The first thing to say is that this is one of Scotland’s friendlier seats for Labour. Since the independence referendum in 2014, the party has been frozen out of 52 of Scotland’s 59 constituencies, including many of its former strongholds in Glasgow and the central belt. Rutherglen is one of the few seats that it has won in that period – albeit just once and very narrowly, during the SNP’s dip in 2017. Clearly the party can win there, given a little bit of national tailwind. Continued here

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Marketing When Budgets Are Down     The general rule of enterprise finance is that marketing budgets drop like a stone at the first sign of trouble and rise like a feather once the environment is more settled. In mid-2023 we’re far from a settled state — projected GDP growth in western markets is depressingly flat, inflation is proving to be rather stubborn, and those disruptions just keep on coming. It’s tough to see a significant increase in marketing budgets in the near term. Gartner’s annual survey of hundreds of CMOs charts the evolution of marketing spending over recent history, offering guidance for how enterprise leaders can deliver results and build the capabilities to fuel growth in a time of less. Continued here

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The 'Barbie' and 'Star Wars' universes are entertaining, but they also unexpectedly can help people understand why revolutions happen     Barbie dolls and “Star Wars” movies and toys have entertained generations of American children – in many cases, well into adulthood. But these brands’ influence stretches beyond a penchant for hot pink and lightsaber battles. In particular, both the “Barbie” movie, released in July 2023, and a “Star Wars” franchise television series called “Andor” offer important lessons about revolutions. Continued here

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The incomparable Bombay sandwich     If there is one thing people in India never tire of debating, it is whether Mumbai or Delhi is the better city. More accurately, the argument centres around which metropolis has the better food. Delhi often comes up tops with its incredible range of street eats, but Mumbai trumps any competition when it comes to the sandwich.The sandwich may have come to India through the British, but the people of Mumbai (as Bombay is now called) have added their own fillings and spices to make it their own. Continued here

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A New Approach to Strategic Innovation     Companies typically treat their innovation projects as a portfolio, aiming for a mix of projects that collectively meet their strategic objectives. The problem, say the authors, is that portfolio objectives have become standardized, and innovation projects are often only weakly related to a company’s distinctive strategy. Continued here

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How to challenge toxic behaviour and help someone being bullied or harassed at work     The average person will spend more than 3,500 days at work, so toxic behaviour in the workplace can have a big impact on your wellbeing. Whether it’s the sexual assault of a theatre nurse by a senior surgeon, harassment at Westminster, or the allegations against Russell Brand (which he denies), workplace scandals arising from unacceptable behaviour are happening on an all too regular basis. Continued here

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Jellyfish: our complex relationship with the oceans' anti-heroes     Ding! The courier hands me an unassuming brown box with “live animals” plastered on the side. I begin carefully unboxing. The cardboard exterior gives way to a white polystyrene clamshell, cloistering a pearly sphere-shaped, water-filled bag. Lightly pulsing, I spot them: three cannonball jellyfish (Stomolophus meleagris). Each the size of a 50-pence coin. Cannonball jellyfish are an unusual pet choice. Whether stinging beachgoers, clogging power station intake pipes, or outcompeting more popular ocean wildlife, jellyfish are often labelled nuisances. Continued here

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Should You Launch Products During a Recession?     Economic downturns are frightening. Consumers curb spending, companies cut costs, and we all wait anxiously for the economy to recover. In such a climate, launching a product—an expensive and uncertain endeavor in the best of times—would seem to make little sense. But a new study finds that products launched during recessions outperform on several important measures. Continued here

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NASA Astronaut Frank Rubio Just Accidentally Broke The Spaceflight Record     NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, who returned home from the International Space Station (ISS) this week, has shattered the American record for the longest time spent in space.Rubio spent a whopping 371 days onboard the ISS. He traveled a staggering 157 million miles over the course of 5,936 orbits around Earth, which, according to NASA, is roughly equivalent to 328 trips to the Moon and back. This wasn’t how he had planned to spend his first mission to space, however. Continued here

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How to Build Wealth When You Don't Come from Money     The first step to attaining wealth — at least for people who are not born into it — is much more personal than building millionaire habits or investing wisely. Such approaches often fail to address the systemic and mental barriers faced by many of the marginalized groups who grew up without access to wealth. The author argues that changing your mindset, or building a mindset conducive to wealth, is the real first step. Continued here

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How Deep Tech Can Drive Sustainability and Profitability in Manufacturing     Companies are facing more pressure to become more sustainable while remaining profitable — and deep tech can help. Deep tech, which combines physical technologies and digital technologies, is moving out of the lab and into real-world supply chains. Younger firms, working alone or in collaboration with large companies, are doing much of the work to commercialize it. Continued here

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Remembering Dianne Feinstein, and Biden Clashes with the Hard Right     The Washington Roundtable: Dianne Feinstein, who was the longest-serving female senator in U.S. history, died on Thursday, at the age of ninety. The New Yorker staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos remember the Democrat from San Francisco, who leaves a legacy as an advocate for gun control and against the torture of detainees after 9/11. She fought to enable the release of the sixty-seven-hundred-page report of the C.I.A.’s interrogation program, though she worried about the effect on national security of criticizing the program, Mayer recalls on this week’s episode. “But she went with it on her own instincts,” says Mayer, “and then commissioned a study that laid out the guts of that program in a way that was incredible.”Also this week, President Biden, speaking at Arizona State University, called MAGA Republicans “a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions” and to the “character of our nation.” “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a President feel the need to say in the course of a speech, ‘I stand for the peaceful transfer of power,’ ” Osnos says. “But that’s actually what’s required at the moment.” Continued here

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Can Biden bounce back as the US presidential race turns nastier?     Antagonism between the two expected candidates for US president in 2024 is ramping up as the political battleground turns increasingly nasty. US president Joe Biden suggested that Donald Trump and his allies pose a threat to democracy, “our institutions, to our constitution itself”, in a recent speech honouring former Republican senator John McCain. Continued here

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How to Develop a 5-Year Career Plan     Turns out, having a long-term plan for your career can be beneficial. Taking time to actively think about your path can reduce career-related stress, increase your perceived employability, and help you connect more deeply to your purpose. Yet, a Gartner survey conducted in March 2022 found that fewer than one in three employees knows how to develop their career over the next five years. Continued here

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South Africa has one of the strongest navies in Africa: its strengths and weaknesses     The deaths of three members of the South African Navy (SA Navy) on 20 September 2023, when a freak wave swept them off the deck of the submarine SAS Manthatisi, has put the spotlight on the organisation and its work. André Wessels is a military historian; his latest book is A Century of South African Naval History: The South African Navy and its Predecessors 1922-2022. The Conversation Africa asked him for insights.The South African Navy has always been one of the strongest naval forces in sub-Saharan Africa. Continued here

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Conservatives Are More Open to Seemingly Inferior Products Than Liberals Are     Dartmouth College’s Nailya Ordabayeva and Arizona State University’s Monika Lisjak photographed the purchases of customers at a Boston farmers market and surveyed the shoppers about their political leanings. They rated each person’s items on aesthetics and mapped the results against the survey responses and found a correlation: Conservatives were more likely than liberals to have bought misshapen or blemished produce. Eight subsequent studies found a similar pattern with other goods. The conclusion: Conservatives are more open to seemingly inferior products than liberals are. Continued here

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Innovation Doesn't Have to Be Disruptive     The era of international travel began in the mid-19th century, with the golden age of transatlantic ocean-going. The British company Cunard, a leader in the industry, transported millions of immigrants from Europe to the United States around the turn of the 20th century. By the end of World War II it had emerged as the largest Atlantic passenger line, operating 12 ships to the United States and Canada as it captured the flourishing North Atlantic travel market in the first postwar decade.That golden age came to an end with the advent of commercial jet flights. Whereas one million passengers crossed the Atlantic by boat in 1957, air travel caused that figure to fall to 650,000 by 1965, with roughly six people flying for each passenger going by sea. Ocean liners simply could not match the speed and convenience of jet planes. Continued here

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US Supreme Court refuses to hear Alabama's request to keep separate and unequal political districts     For the second time in three months, the U.S. Supreme Court has rebuffed Alabama’s attempts to advance its legislature’s congressional maps that federal courts have ruled harm Black voters.The court had first rejected the maps in its stunning June 8, 2023, decision that upheld the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But in an act of defiance, Alabama lawmakers resubmitted maps that didn’t include what the court had urged them to do – create a second political district in which Black voters could reasonably be expected to choose a candidate of their choice. Continued here

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Getting Out of a Creative Slump: Our Favorite Reads     I know that this feeling is neither new nor permanent. Over the years, I’ve learned that a creative slump is just a phase — one that eventually passes. We all experience moments in which seemingly effortless things are a struggle. Getting up on time. Finishing that one simple task. Staying motivated enough to just make it through the day. None of this makes us unproductive. It makes us human. Continued here

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10 Signs Your Company Is Resistant to Change     In their new book, Move Fast and Fix Things, Frances Frei and Anne Morriss outline five strategies to help leaders tackle their hardest problems and quickly make change. The first step is to identify the real problem you need to solve. Often that’s not clear to everyone – because people have developed a number of effective ways to tolerate the problem instead of fix it. Continued here

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"It Was Really Scary for Us." How 'The Creator' Pioneered a New Kind of Blockbuster     Gareth Edwards didn’t set out to change how blockbusters are made — it just happened to end up that way.“I had no agenda for anybody else, but I definitely wanted to change how I made films,” The Creator director tells Inverse. Continued here

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Every science lab should have an artist on the team - here's why     Despite their importance in education and society, science and art are often seen as distinct fields, which, in my opinion, stifles beneficial connections. I want to foster these connections by helping to make sense of scientists’ work for a wider audience through my own work as an artist. I have seen the enormous potential that exists when scientists and artists work together. Like advanced imaging specialists, I am fascinated by light, colour, lasers, technology and science. When I discovered the Wellcome Trust’s Sci-Art scheme in 1998, its ethos – to foster connections that produce art directly inspired by science – encouraged me to seek out life scientists to collaborate with, because the methods we employ to create images are connected. Continued here

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'Picard' Season 3's Alternate Ending Could Have Given One Star Trek Character Justice     Despite the absolutely triumphant ending of Picard Season 3, even the most ardent advocate for the entire series would agree that taken as a whole, this Trek spinoff is thematically incongruent. Season 1 told a bold story about the rights of sentient AI, forced to live in secret. Season 2 was a psychological story about Jean-Luc’s trauma, wrapped up in a time-travel romp. And then, Season 3 was a classic Star Trek galactic action-adventure mystery with personal stakes for the entire Next Generation crew. Each of these seasons, essentially, had a different showrunner, Michael Chabon in Season 1, Akiva Goldsman in Season 2, and then, Terry Matalas, with complete control in Season 3. (Though Matalas worked on Season 2, also.)For most fans, the journey of Picard had an endpoint that very clearly stuck the landing: Seeing the Next Generation crew all together, playing poker, just like in 1994’s finale episode “All Good Things...” That said, it seems that there was one other ending in mind for Season 3, one which Sir Patrick Stewart himself suggested. And, within this alternate ending, it seems possible that one discarded character could have made a big comeback. Continued here

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Suella Braverman is wrong about the UN refugee convention being 'not fit for purpose' - here's why     The UK’s home secretary, Suella Braverman – the minister responsible for setting immigration policy – has said the United Nation’s refugee convention is not “fit for our modern age” and should be renegotiated.The refugee convention (formally, the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees) was established by the UN to protect the millions of people displaced in Europe after the second world war. It was expanded beyond Europe with its 1967 protocol, which applied the convention’s protections to all refugees around the world. Continued here

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'Gears 6' Release Window, Plot, Platforms, and New Game Director for the Anticipated Sequel     Gears 5 was a spiritual reboot to the 14-year-old Gears of War series that laid the foundations for more generations for many more years to come.Besides the obvious name change seemingly inspired by The Fast and the Furious' reduction to Fast & Furious and eventually just Fast, Gears 5 shifted its focus away from JD Fenix to make Kait Diaz its protagonist, experimenting with an RPG element during a pivotal moment of the story. This change in direction, coupled with sharpened controls expected from any modern sequel, made Gears 5 the uncontested best Xbox exclusive of 2019. Continued here

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Aziz Pahad: the unassuming South African diplomat who skilfully mediated crises in Africa, and beyond     Aziz Goolam Pahad, who has died at the age of 82, was a South African anti-apartheid activist, politician and deputy minister of foreign affairs in the post-1994 government. Together with a small group of foreign policy analysts, I worked with Aziz over the span of 30 years, shaping the post-apartheid South African government’s approach to international relations and its foreign policy. We spent countless hours debating foreign affairs and the numerous crises and challenges government had to face as a relative “newcomer” in continental African and global affairs. Continued here

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John Fetterman might be the first to try to bare his legs in the Senate, but shorts have been ticking people off for almost a century     When Sen. Chuck Schumer quietly relaxed the U.S. Senate’s dress code, supposedly to accommodate Sen. John Fetterman’s desire to wear hooded sweatshirts and gym shorts, the backlash was swift.Apparently, it was enough to compel senators to unanimously pass a resolution on Sept. 28, 2023, mandating a coat, tie and slacks for men on the Senate floor. Continued here

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AI disinformation is a threat to elections - learning to spot Russian, Chinese and Iranian meddling in other countries can help the US prepare for 2024     Elections around the world are facing an evolving threat from foreign actors, one that involves artificial intelligence.Countries trying to influence each other’s elections entered a new era in 2016, when the Russians launched a series of social media disinformation campaigns targeting the U.S. presidential election. Over the next seven years, a number of countries – most prominently China and Iran – used social media to influence foreign elections, both in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. There’s no reason to expect 2023 and 2024 to be any different. Continued here