Tesla's Cybertruck Is Two Years Late and Still Crazy

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Tesla's Cybertruck Is Two Years Late and Still Crazy     Paul Snyder has mixed feelings about Tesla's Cybertruck, the first of which will be unveiled during an event for investors and fans on Thursday in Austin, Texas. One of them is horror.When Tesla revealed the vehicle's design in November 2019, his first reaction was a question. "Like, what is going on over there?" says Snyder, chair of the Transportation Design program at the College for Creative Design in Detroit. The triangular, flat, sharp-edged thing was, as he puts it, "a total departure from conventions and rules for car design as have been taught in the West for the last 100 years." The Cybertruck also saw Tesla reject the sleek lines of its latest smash hit, the Model Y SUV, in favor of a design that looked to Snyder almost offensive, exuding martial aggression. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made clear that was intentional. "We want to be the leader in apocalypse technology," he said back in 2020. Continued here

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Sun Unleashes 'Canyon of Fire' Filament of Plasma     A filament erupted from the sun on Nov. 27, 2023, and left a “canyon of fire” visible in the bottom right of this view.A long filament of roiling plasma arcing over the sun’s surface snapped this week, leaving behind a scalding scar that has been dubbed a “canyon of fire.” It also spat a burst of solar plasma into space. There’s a chance this solar outburst and several that followed it could trigger minor geomagnetic storms on Earth. Continued here

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COP 28 Is a Crunch Point for Countries on the Front Lines of Climate Change     To achieve climate justice, developed countries need to put their money where their mouth isCyclones, like this Category 5 one that hit Vanuatu in 2015, are becoming more frequent and stronger because of climate change. In 2023 alone, three highly destructive cyclones, Lola, Judy and Kevin, have caused extensive damage on the small Pacific island. Continued here

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A shark nursery may be a stone's throw from Miami's bright lights     As with all members of the Sphyrnidae family, the great hammerhead sports a head that looks less like something a living creature would have and more like an spare part from a racing car prototype. Two eyes sit on either side of an aerodynamic spoiler (technically a "cephalofoil") above the mouth, like lifting surfaces on an aircraft.After decades of research, we still don't quite know the evolutionary forces that led to the hammerhead's oddly shaped cranium. It's most likely because it helps the species better pick up the minute electric signals generated by their favourite prey – stingrays – hidden under sand. The underside of their head is studded with electroreceptors – pores that detect electromagnetic fields produced by living creatures, although tests have shown they are no more adept at using this sense than other sharks with normal shaped heads. The hammerhead shape can also be used as also be a weapon to help immobilise the sharks' prey. The position of their eyes either side of the cephalofoil gives them better depth perception, and the separation of the nostrils also allows them to "smell" more water as they swim. Continued here

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The 26 Best Movies on Max (aka HBO Max) Right Now     As the birthplace of prestige TV shows like The Sopranos and The Wire, HBO—and, by extension, Max (aka the streamer formerly known as HBO Max)—is best known for its impressive lineup of original series. The network has also been upping the ante with feature-length content that is the stuff of Oscar dreams. However, because Max is not (yet) a production powerhouse like, say, Netflix, hundreds of great movies come and go each month. So if you see something you want to watch, don’t let it linger in your queue for too long.Below is a list of some of our favorite films streaming on Max—from iconic horror flicks to piercing documentaries you’ll see near the top of any “Best Movies of the Year” list. If you decide you’re in more of a TV mood, head over to our picks for the best shows on Max. If you’re looking for even more recommendations, check out our lists of the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Amazon Prime, and the best movies on Disney+. Continued here

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Why Childhood Vaccination Rates Are Falling     Fewer kids got their routine childhood vaccines since before the pandemic. Are lack of access and a loss of trust in science to blame?Josh Fischman: We bring you the latest vital health news: Discoveries that affect your body and your mind.   Continued here

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Shukubo: The Japanese temples where you can sleep alongside monks     In the serene world of Japanese Buddhist monks, life takes on a distinctive form, interwoven with discipline and mindfulness. These monks subscribe to a unique method of meditation, often sitting upright, supported only by a modest cushion. In this position, they uphold a constant state of awareness, embodying the Buddhist quality of prolonged concentration. This approach to faith is just one facet of a monk's lifestyle, which revolves around spiritual dedication and mindfulness.Their days typically commence with pre-dawn meditation, followed by a simple breakfast composed of vegetarian or vegan offerings. As the sun rises, the monks chant to foster self-awareness and inner peace. Continued here

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Stable Diffusion XL Turbo can generate AI images as fast as you can type     On Tuesday, Stability AI launched Stable Diffusion XL Turbo, an AI image-synthesis model that can rapidly generate imagery based on a written prompt. So rapidly, in fact, that the company is billing it as "real-time" image generation, since it can also quickly transform images from a source, such as a webcam, quickly. Continued here

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The psychology of persuasion, as told by an Ivy League professor     In appropriate contexts, the art of persuasion can go a long way. Wharton School of Business professor Jonah Berger shares three strategies for getting your peers and target audiences to “yes.” Learn how to make your communication more convincing and easier to agree with.JONAH BERGER: A number of years ago, some researchers were interested in what gets people to say, yes, Continued here

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Seeing Yourself as a Leader     How to effectively grow leadership in yourself and your employees. Continued here

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Introducing the Future Earth newsletter: Get the latest climate solutions delivered to your inbox     Our changing planet is one of the biggest stories of our time. The scale of this challenge calls for groundbreaking solutions.Covering climate change and sustainability is a key part of my job as a correspondent for BBC News. Now, there is a newsletter that will bring my journalism on the subject direct to you. Continued here

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Google to pay Canada's "link tax," drops threat of removing news from search     Google has agreed to pay Canadian news businesses $100 million a year to comply with the country's Online News Act, despite previously saying it would remove Canadian news links from search rather than make the required payments. Continued here

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Azeem's Picks: The Promise of AI with Fei-Fei Li     Can we build beneficial AI through interdisciplinarity? Continued here

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Google caught placing big-brand ads on hardcore porn sites, report says     The appearance of any big brand's ads on websites that the brand has specifically blocked is one of a brand's biggest nightmares. That could include specifically blacklisted sites—like Breitbart—or any category of generally controversial site, like sites in countries sanctioned by the government, sites featuring hardcore pornography, or sites containing pirated content. Continued here

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Sam Altman Officially Returns to OpenAI--With a New Board Seat for Microsoft     Sam Altman marked his formal return as CEO of OpenAI today in a company memo that confirmed changes to the company's board, including a new nonvoting seat for the startup's primary investor, Microsoft.In a memo sent to staff and shared on OpenAI's blog, Altman painted the chaos of the past two weeks, triggered by the board's loss of trust in their CEO, during which almost the entire staff of the company threatened to quit, as a testament to the startup's resilience rather than a sign of instability. Continued here

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Trick Yourself into Breaking a Bad Habit     First, recognize that you’re profoundly influenced by outside forces. Continued here

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How to Set Your Thermostat--According to Science     The house in New Jersey came with a menagerie of control panels. Pallid little rectangles with fuzzy LCD screens, of varying brands and designs. Some were decades old, and there were six of them in total, dotted around various rooms. Joe Truncale, a customer engineer at Google, remembers trying to get his head around the system when he moved in two years ago.Each thermostat had a piece of paper sticky-taped to it, with a helpful scribble from the previous homeowner explaining how to operate the gadget. Not exactly an intuitive user experience. And it wasn't economical, either. In one area the heating was running constantly. Truncale balked at the idea of trying to fine-tune each of the fiddly little thermostats. "That's when I started to think … maybe I build my own," he says. Continued here

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Curing cancerphobia: How the psychology of fear distorts our view of cancer     We are more afraid of risks that are human-made than those that arise naturally. When the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) in 2001 asked people what they thought increased their risk of getting cancer, 80% believed that pesticides and food additives raised their risk, and 88% said pollution. In a 2019 version of the survey, 79% agreed a lot or somewhat that “everything causes cancer.”The widespread fear that many modern products and processes cause cancer arose amid the smog, burning rivers, and hazardous waste dumps that spurred our awareness of and concern about environmental problems in the sixties and seventies. In chapter 14 of Silent Spring (ominously titled “One in Four,” as in, one in four of us will get cancer), Rachel Carson wrote: “With the dawn of the industrial era the world became a place of continuous, ever-accelerating change. Instead of the natural environment there was rapidly substituted an artificial one composed of new chemicals and physical agents, many of them possessing powerful capacities for inducing biologic change. Against these carcinogens which his own activities had created man had no protection.”  Continued here

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Netflix lands its first big-name games with Grand Theft Auto trilogy     Netflix subscribers will be able to play the three original 3D Grand Theft Auto games on iOS and Android starting in December, according to a blog post from the streamer. Continued here

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Did Australia's boomerangs pave the way for flight?     The aircraft is one of the most significant developments of modern society, enabling people, goods and ideas to fly around the world far more efficiently than ever before. The first successful piloted flight took off in 1903 in North Carolina, but a 10,000-year-old hunting tool likely developed by Aboriginal Australians may have held the key to its lift-off. As early aviators discovered, the secret to flight is balancing the flow of air. Therefore, an aircraft's wings, tail or propeller blades are often shaped in a specially designed, curved manner called an aerofoil that lifts the plane up and allows it to drag or turn to the side as it moves through the air.   Continued here

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Are big international teams leaving creativity out of science?     Over the last few decades, research has grown ever more international. Big projects, like major astronomical observatories, genome sequencing, and particle physics, are all based on large teams of researchers spread across multiple institutions. And, because of the technology that makes remote work possible, even small collaborations that cross countries or continents have become increasingly commonplace. Continued here

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Nvidia CEO: US chip independence may take 20 years to achieve     The US could be up to two decades away from maintaining its own domestic chips supply chain, Nvidia Corp.'s CEO, Jensen Huang, told an audience gathered in New York for the New York Times’s DealBook conference. Continued here

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Putin's Deal With Wife Killers     During the war in Ukraine, the number of annual murders has increased in Russia for the first time in two decades, according to the country’s bar association. The Russian legal system—sometimes not good, sometimes not bad—investigates, prosecutes, and sentences some of these killers. But President Vladimir Putin has undermined the country’s already patchy justice system by pardoning even the worst of sentenced murderers if they agree to go and murder more in Ukraine. After serving in the mercenary Wagner Group or so-called Storm-Z units of convicts on the Ukrainian front, killers and thieves return to Russia, where they go free.One murderer whom Putin recently pardoned, 27-year-old Vladislav Kanyus, spent more than three hours killing his former girlfriend, Vera Pekhteleva. Forensic records describe 111 stab wounds, including several on the woman’s face. Then Kanyus choked his 23-year-old victim with the electrical cord of an iron. Continued here

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Can we hack photosynthesis to feed the world?     Photosynthesis is one of the most important processes on the planet, helping produce the food we eat and the air we breathe. Crop scientist Steve Long thinks it could be more efficient — and he's intent on giving it a boost. He shows how hacking photosynthesis could help feed the world all while reducing climate change. Continued here

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How many animals get slaughtered every day?     The scale of humanity’s meat consumption is enormous. 360 million tonnes of meat every year.This number is so large that I find it impossible to comprehend. What helps me to make these numbers more relatable is to turn them from the weight of meat to the number of animals and from the yearly total to the daily number. This is what I have done in the graphic below. It shows how many animals are slaughtered on any average day. Continued here

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Web browser suspended because it can browse the web is back on Google Play     Google Play has reversed its latest ban on a web browser that keeps getting targeted by vague Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices. Downloader, an Android TV app that combines a browser with a file manager, was restored to Google Play last night. Continued here

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Elon Musk Just Told Advertisers, 'Go Fuck Yourself'     Elon Musk says that advertisers fleeing X after his endorsement of an antisemitic post could "kill" the platform formerly known as Twitter. And he has a simple message for those companies, which include Disney, Apple, and IBM: "Go fuck yourself."Musk, speaking Wednesday night at the New York Times' DealBook Summit, said that advertisers with concerns about his conduct should stop spending on the platform, which has historically been dependent on ad revenue. "Don't advertise," Musk said in response to a question about X's recent problems. "If someone is going to try and blackmail me with advertising? Blackmail me with money? Go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself. Is that clear? Hey Bob, if you're in the audience. That's how I feel, don't advertise." Continued here

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College Football, NFL, PGA     In this episode, Wharton experts discuss college football, the Ohio State vs. Michigan rivalry, and more.Wharton’s Cade Massey, Shane Jensen, Adi Wyner, and Eric Bradlow discuss college football and the Ohio State vs. Michigan rivalry, going for it on fourth down in the NFL, PGA golf, and more. Continued here

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Generative AI Will Transform Virtual Meetings     Generative AI will forever change the way meetings are conducted. In the near future, meetings will offer personalized content and purpose-driven expertise, while also serving as guardians against bias and promoting active learning. As AI continues to advance, every meeting holds the promise of being productive, efficient, and influential, unlocking infinite possibilities for teams and organizations. Continued here

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How a fetus can save its mother's life     In rare cases, a woman’s heart can start to fail in the months before or after giving birth. The all-important muscle weakens as its chambers enlarge, reducing the amount of blood pumped with each beat. Peripartum cardiomyopathy can threaten the lives of both mother and child. Viral illness, nutritional deficiency, the bodily stress of pregnancy, or an abnormal immune response could all play a role, but the causes aren’t concretely known.If there is a silver lining to peripartum cardiomyopathy, it’s that it is perhaps the most survivable form of heart failure. A remarkable 50% of women recover spontaneously. And there’s an even more remarkable explanation for that glowing statistic: The fetus‘ stem cells migrate to the heart and regenerate the beleaguered muscle. In essence, the developing or recently born child saves its mother’s life. Continued here

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Running a food-delivery service in Nigeria is hard; Chowdeck makes it look easy     For the past six months, Allen Idoko, a 28-year-old food delivery worker in Lagos, has been earning up to 400,000 naira ($497) per month — nearly 12 times the minimum wage in Nigeria.While he has been a food delivery worker for more than two years now, Idoko’s fortunes changed around May when he stopped working for Bolt Food and Glovo, and joined local startup Chowdeck, he told Rest of World. Continued here

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Beware Populist Politicians Who Threaten to Kill     In June 2016, Rodrigo Duterte, the former mayor of Davao City, on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, easily defeated four other candidates in the country’s presidential election. Within hours of taking office, the new president began to make good on his campaign promise: killing those whom he called the “sons of bitches” involved in the country’s illegal narcotics trade. The first corpse, described by the police as an “Unidentified Male Person” in his 20s, turned up around 3 a.m. in an alley just a five-minute walk from the sports complex where Duterte had declared victory. The victim had been shot once behind the left ear. The killers had placed a cardboard sign on his chest that read I AM A CHINESE DRUG LORD.Over the following months, the killings spread across the Philippines. Men wearing masks burst into homes and shot people in front of their children. They snatched others off the streets in unmarked cars and disposed of their bodies in trash heaps. Dealers—most selling crystal meth, or shabu, the drug of choice of the Filipino poor—as well as addicts, former addicts, and small-time criminals became targets. National Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa described a rising tide of bodies: “The dead who were just found floating along canals, the dead who were dumped along the road with their hands tied and their faces, eyes, and mouths taped.” Dela Rosa classified those deaths as unsolved homicides. In the first six weeks of Duterte’s presidency, according to the police count, 899 people were killed in “deaths under investigation.” In many other cases, the police took responsibility but always claimed that they had acted in self-defense. Three years into his administration, when I traveled to the Philippines to report on the drug war, the number of estimated extrajudicial killings neared 30,000. Continued here

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The 'Secret' Formula to Jerry Seinfeld's Success? Embrace the Right Mindset and Follow the Surest Path to Sustained Excellence     To achieve 'differently,' you have to think and work differently. Continued here

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State of College Football     Wharton’s Cade Massey, Adi Wyner, and Eric Bradlow speak with Bill Connelly, staff writer for ESPN, about the state of college football, the CFP race, Heisman candidates, and more.©2023 Knowledge at Wharton. All rights reserved. Knowledge at Wharton is an affiliate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Continued here

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Elon Musk on X antisemitism controversy: "Don't advertise. Go f*** yourself"     Elon Musk addressed an antisemitism controversy in characteristically unwise fashion during a public interview today, telling businesses to "go fuck yourself" and to stop advertising on the social network formerly named Twitter. Continued here

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Hypnosis Could Work Wonders on IBS     As far-fetched as it may seem, research suggests that hypnotherapy can help patients find relief from all sorts of gut disorders.The change in Zack Rogers was sudden. In the middle of his 12th birthday party, his stomach started hurting. He went to bed early that night, missing much of his own slumber party, and then stayed home from school the whole next week. The stomach pain was excruciating, and he couldn’t keep any food down. He lost 40 pounds in just a few weeks. Continued here

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What Makes a Great Resume?     If you’re struggling to get your resume noticed, it’s time to add some soul into it. Don’t treat it like a document with laundry list of your responsibilities and successes. Rather, work on converting it into a document that conveys what truly motivates you as a professional. Start by creating a back-office version of your resume. Write down an unedited list detailing your complete work history, including the jobs you took up to earn additional money or the one you were fired from. Then, reflect on your personal and professional strengths and talents. Use your back-office resume to discern what you want to share on your actual resume. Consider what work has left you with strong negative or positive emotions. Both feel-good emotions and difficult emotions can help you describe your accomplishments in a nuanced way and identify what you want in your next role. Now use the back-office resume to rework what you want to showcase. Instead of saying, “Secured a grant funding of $500,000 for youth programming,” say, “Critical thinking and exceptional writing abilities allowed me to secure $500,000 in grant funding for an innovative youth program that helped them develop their leadership skills by writing an online magazine alternative to Teen Vogue.” You can take your resume to the next level by adding some creative sections that reflect the uniqueness of what you bring. Consider an international work and living section or one that showcases your artistic practice. Continued here

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2023 has been another year with a record number of orbital launches     Led by SpaceX and China, the world's launch providers have put more rockets and payloads into orbit so far in 2023 than in any prior year, continuing an upward trend in launch activity over the last five years. Continued here

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What was it like when the last antimatter disappeared?     Things happen fast in the earliest stages of the Universe. In the first 25 microseconds after the start of the hot Big Bang, a number of incredible events have already occurred. The Universe created all the particles and antiparticles — known (as part of the Standard Model) and unknown (including whatever makes up dark matter) — it was ever capable of creating, reaching the highest temperatures it ever attained. Through a still-undetermined process, it created an excess of matter over antimatter: just at the 1-part-in-a-billion level. The electroweak symmetry broke, allowing the Higgs to give mass to the Universe. The heavy, unstable particles decayed away, and the quarks and gluons bound together to form protons and neutrons.But that only gets us so far. At these early stages, there may be protons and neutrons in the Universe, as well as a high-energy bath of photons and neutrinos-and-antineutrinos, but we’re still a long way from the Universe as we recognize it today. In order to get there, a number of other things must occur. And the first of those, once we have protons and neutrons, is to get rid of the last of our antimatter, which is still incredibly abundant. Continued here

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How to Better Support Mental Wellness at Work     In the new year, companies can take these steps to provide more comprehensive mental health support for employees. Continued here