Ukraine war: why Germany dragged its feet over supplying Leopard tanks to Ukraine
The decision to provide heavy tanks to Ukraine in significant numbers constitutes a step change in western military support for Ukraine. For the first time, western countries are providing substantial offensive capabilities to support a major campaign to regain lost territory. The decision has been long in coming. But for some months, the German chancellor Olaf Scholz resisted the decision to send German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. Even the Nato meeting held at the Ramstein US air base in Germany on January 20 to discuss the issue ended without a decision, much to the frustration of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky and some of Kyiv’s other western allies. Continued here |
Ukraine has a mixed record of treating its citizens fairly - that could make it harder for it to maintain peace, once the war ends
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the dominant Western media narrative has been clear – Russia is the “global villain,” and Ukraine a model country victimized by an unjust war. But while the war may be unjust, Ukraine had its share of problems before the conflict with Russia intensified in 2022. Expert analysis shows that Russia launched an illegal war and has committed the vast majority of the human rights violations in the conflict – such as targeting Ukraine’s civilians. Continued here |
�
Debates over sacred images in the Byzantine Empire show why it's hard to appease any side
An adjunct lecturer at Hamline University recently lost her job for showing an image of Prophet Muhammad in an art history class, which some students and administrators considered to be Islamophobic. The university later retracted the accusation of Islamophobia and said in a statement, “It was never our intent to suggest that academic freedom is of lower concern or value than our students,” but still insisted that “care” does not “supersede academic freedom, the two coexist.” An earlier statement from Hamline President Fayneese Miller had noted, “Students do not relinquish their faith in the classroom,” which suggested that classrooms need to be visually tailored to a specific faith. Continued here |
Nadhim Zahawi tax penalty: accounting expert on what it means when HMRC fines you for being 'careless'
Although the news that Tory party chairman Nadhim Zahawi had paid a penalty for failing to file his taxes properly first surfaced during his short tenure as chancellor from July to September 2022, his past tax affairs have come under scrutiny again more recently. In July 2022, the Independent reported that Zahawi’s tax affairs were under investigation by HMRC. More recently, the Sun reported that the ex-chancellor, now Tory party chairman, had paid “several million” to “settle a dispute with HMRC” about whether he had used an offshore company called Balshore Investments to hold shares in YouGov. This the polling company he co-founded with help from his father in 2000 and retired from in 2010. Balshore is registered in Gibraltar and has been linked to Zahawi’s family, but Zahawi denies setting it up or using it. Continued here |
�
Philosophers have studied 'counterfactuals' for decades. Will they help us unlock the mysteries of AI?
Artificial intelligence is increasingly being rolled out all around the world to help make decisions in our lives, whether it’s loan decisions by banks, medical diagnoses, or US law enforcement predicting a criminal’s likelihood of re-offending. Yet many AI systems are black boxes: no one understands how they work. This has led to a demand for “explainable AI”, so we can understand why an AI model yielded a specific output, and what biases may have played a role. Continued here |
Manage AI Bias Instead of Trying to Eliminate It
Asking how to prevent such bias is in many ways the wrong question, because AI is a means of learning and generalizing from a set of examples — and all too often, the examples are pulled straight from historical data. Because biases against various groups are embedded in history, those biases will be perpetuated to some degree through AI. Traditional and seemingly sensible safeguards do not fix the problem. A model designer could, for example, omit variables that indicate an individual’s gender or race, hoping that any bias that comes from knowing these attributes will be eliminated. But modern algorithms excel at discovering proxies for such information. Try though one might, no amount of data scrubbing can fix this problem entirely. Solving for fairness isn’t just difficult — it’s mathematically impossible. Hardly a day goes by without news of yet another example of AI echoing historical prejudices or allowing bias to creep in. Even medical science isn’t immune: In a recent article in The Lancet, researchers showed that AI algorithms that were fed scrupulously anonymized medical imaging data were nevertheless able to identify the race of 93% of patients. Continued here |
�
Australian teachers are dissatisfied with their jobs but their sense of professional belonging is strong
Kelly-Ann Allen is a fellow of the Australian Psychological Society and College of Educational and Developmental Psychologists. Teachers around Australia are preparing to head back to the classroom for 2023. But amid excitement about a new school year, there are ongoing concerns about teacher shortages and headlines saying kids are “falling behind” and education strategies are not working. Continued here |
People blame and judge parents for children's heavier weights
Americans stigmatize parents of heavier children, specifically blaming them for their children’s weights, according to experiments conducted by our team of psychologists. The more a person views parents as responsible for a child’s excess weight, the more likely they are to view such parents as bad parents who are lazy, overindulgent and incompetent. Continued here |
�
JWST captures Chariklo's rings and more: Understand the world through 8 images
The James Webb Space Telescope captured a never-before-seen feature far out in our Solar System the week of January 18–25, as researchers probed the causes of a rare form of cancer and heart failure. Continued here |
'Wolf Pack' review: Proof that supernatural teen shows can still be bad
Wolf Pack, Paramount+’s latest teen supernatural drama, comes from an esteemed pedigree. Not only is the werewolf series created by Teen Wolf mastermind Jeff Davis, it stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, the patron saint of the subgenre thanks to her star turn in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Continued here |
�
Overheard in New York: Auditing Exchanges in FiDi
Sign up for the Daily Humor newsletter and get The New Yorker cartoons and Shouts—plus more funny stuff—every day in your in-box! Continued here |
Why labour strife at universities should concern us all
In smaller cities and towns, universities are often among the largest employers in addition to serving as important community hubs. Perhaps nowhere has this impact become more apparent than Sudbury, Ont., where — as the province of Ontario’s auditor-general reported — mismanagement at Laurentian University led to significant job losses and disruption to the local economy. Given the public significance of the university sector, the increasing labour unrest that we are seeing there should be of concern to all citizens. Continued here |
�
What's effective altruism? A philosopher explains
Effective altruism is an intellectual and charitable movement that aspires to find the best ways to help others. People dedicated to it rely on evidence and rational arguments to identify what they can do to make the most progress toward solving the world’s most pressing problems, such as reducing malnutrition and malaria while increasing access to health care. A group of intellectuals, including the Oxford University philosophers William MacAskill and Toby Ord, coined the term in 2011. The movement was inspired in part by the philosopher Peter Singer, who has argued for an obligation to help those in extreme poverty since the 1970s. Continued here |
Ukraine: why supply of US and German tanks echoes cold war
The decision that Germany and the US will allow the export of M1 Abrams and Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, alongside the British Challenger 2 tanks promised in mid January is the culmination of Nato’s policy to assist Ukraine and an important symbolic step in the west’s response to Putin’s aggression. The export of German and US tanks to Ukraine is not without risk, both real and symbolic. In purely military terms, well-trained, well-led and motivated Ukrainian tank crews operating the Leopard 2 or M1 Abrams will be better protected, have better firepower and be more manoeuvrable than their Russian counterparts. Provided the Ukrainians can cope with the fact that they will need different ammunition, spare parts and possibly fuel they can make a difference, significantly enhancing Ukraine’s capability to defend its territory. Continued here |
�
The Holocaust: remembering the powerful acts of 'ordinary people'
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there,” the British author LP Hartley once wrote, hinting at the mystique of history – the idea that people in the past were somehow different to us in the 21st century. As many historians will tell you, it’s not particularly useful to project modern values onto the past, or to judge historical figures by contemporary ideals. But the idea that the past far away in space and time, is also flawed. It encourages people to overlook the fact that those involved in seismic past events were real human beings, just like ourselves. Continued here |
Four possible consequences of El Nino
PhD Candidate in Climate Science, Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, University of Leeds Every two to seven years, the equatorial Pacific Ocean gets up to 3°C warmer (what we know as an El Niño event) or colder (La Niña) than usual, triggering a cascade of effects felt around the world. This cycle is called the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) because every El Niño is naturally followed by a La Niña and vice versa, with some months of neutral conditions in between events. The change in sea surface temperature associated with ENSO events might seem marginal, but it is more than enough to disrupt weather patterns globally and even the large-scale circulation of air in the polar stratosphere 8km above the Earth. Continued here |
4 Ways to Optimize Your Marketing Strategy With Data Understand your audience and target more effectively. Continued here |
Is This the Real Reason Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft Are Having Layoffs? Are 51,000 people losing their jobs because their employers want to shift the balance of power? Continued here |
What are universities for? Canadian higher education is at a critical crossroads
These profound changes are encapsulated by the statements of former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, who said his government was “trying to retool the education system.” It is unsettling to consider the long-term trajectory and the consequences of narrowing universities in their scope to more closely emulate technical and training colleges and the manner in which they serve the current labour market and industry. Continued here |
You need to watch the weirdest monster movie on HBO Max ASAP
Before Tyler Posey made millennial teens feel some type of way about werewolves, Gen Xers were swooning over a furry Michael J. Fox navigating young adulthood. Werewolves have been beleaguered by a reputation that dates back to Ancient Greece. The full moon damns those affected to an eternity of painful nights, uncontrollable rage, and a tendency to get into hairy situations with silver swords and bullets. But in 1985, Rod Daniel’s Teen Wolf made the fuzzballs adorable, not abominable. Continued here |
Teaching the Holocaust through literature: four books to help young people gain deeper understanding
A survey commissioned in 2019 revealed the shocking result that over half of Britons did not know that at least six millions Jews had been murdered during the Holocaust. This result was all the more surprising given the fact that the Holocaust, as a topic, has been part of the national curriculum in England and Wales since its creation in 1991. The 2014 iteration of the national curriculum has the Holocaust as a firm part of key stage 3 history – compulsory for all 11 to 14-year-olds in state schools. Additionally, many secondary school pupils may encounter the Holocaust as a topic in English or religious education lessons. Continued here |
This election year, NZ voters should beware of reading too much into the political polls
With a new prime minister sworn in and a cabinet reshuffle imminent, it’s no exaggeration to say the election year has begun with a bang. Already the punditry and speculation are ramping up, with anticipation building for the first opinion polls. There will be more polls to come, of course, but a word of caution is in order: don’t treat them as gospel, and try not to let them become self-fulfilling prophecies. At this point, we can’t predict who will form New Zealand’s next government, and it could yet be a tight race. Continued here |
Colette: The most beloved French writer of all time
"How long Colette has lived, even after her death!" wrote the journalist Janet Flanner in 1967. More than half a century later, Colette lives on still, and this week sees the 150th anniversary of her birth. To mark the occasion, NYRB Classics has published a new translation of her twin masterpieces, Chéri (1920) and The End of Chéri (1926), translated by Paul Eprile – and this seems like a good opportunity to explore the life and work of this uniquely beloved of French writers. More like this:- America's greatest living writer?- Why the most difficult novel is so rewarding- The shocking memoir of the 'lost generation' Continued here |
Prince Harry: early leaks came from a Spanish translation, causing confusion about what was really said
Eight days before Prince Harry’s memoir Spare hit shelves elsewhere, copies went on sale prematurely in Spain. Over the next few days the UK media, scrambled to acquire Spanish copies of the book, having been unable to get English versions for themselves. Their reporting on the story was initially based on these Spanish versions. Continued here |
13 years ago, one sci-fi game revolutionized RPGs forever
Video games are inherently power fantasies, but Mass Effect 2’s opening completely strips that power away, forcing you to watch helplessly as Commander Shepard slowly suffocates in the void of space. It’s a startling and unsettling beginning that brilliantly sets the stage for a game that consistently bucks tradition, and doesn’t ever pull its punches. Mass Effect 2 is a rare sequel that takes the foundations of the previous game, but strips away everything that didn’t work, replacing it with bold new ideas. BioWare took chances, both mechanically and narratively, and it paid off wildly to create one of the most mesmerizing RPGs ever made. The stakes are already set ridiculously high in Mass Effect 2, with the mysterious Collectors taking Commander Shepard out. After being brought back to life by the criminal organization Cerberus, you’re set to the task of gathering a crew for a suicide mission to infiltrate the Collector base. It’s a pretty grim setup that lets you know that survival is not guaranteed — for anybody. Continued here |
Is 'Toadzilla' a sign of enormous cane toads to come? It's possible -
Last week, the world met “Toadzilla”, a cane toad the size of a football and six times larger than average. The rangers who found her – female toads are bigger than male – were stunned. Weighing in at 2.7 kilograms, Toadzilla may be the largest cane toad ever recorded. But there’s another possibility too. Last year, we found toads in urban areas have smaller parotid (toxin) glands than those in rural areas. That might be because bush toads experience higher predation, selecting for more toxins. In nature, an easy way to select for larger toxin glands is to make the whole animal bigger. Continued here |
Eliminating neglected diseases in Africa: there are good reasons for
Monique Wasunna is the director of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative Africa Regional Office. Togo had reason to celebrate in 2022 when it became the first country in the world to eliminate four neglected tropical diseases. The west African nation stamped out Guinea worm disease in 2011, lymphatic filariasis in 2017, sleeping sickness in 2020, and trachoma last year. Continued here |
Beavers and oysters are helping restore lost ecosystems with their engineering skills - podcast
Associate Science Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation Science + Technology Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation Continued here |
2 Daily Habits That Will Make You Super Focused and Productive All Day Be more productive during the day without exposing yourself to burnout. Continued here |
29 years ago, one pivotal sci-fi series got a second chance
One year after its slightly inauspicious pilot, Babylon 5 was back. And this time, things were different. While the 1993 pilot movie “The Gathering” set the tone for the series, the real first episode of the series — “Midnight on the Firing Line” — aired on January 26, 1994. This episode gave Babylon 5 the second chance it needed and, 29 years later, still holds up as a fine hour of sci-fi television. In almost every conceivable way, “Midnight on the Firing Line” was a reboot for Babylon 5. Several characters from “The Gathering” were suddenly new people. Dr. Ben Kyle (Johnny Sekka), and Lt. Commander Laurel Takashima (Tamlyn Tomita) were replaced by Dr. Franklin (Richard Biggs) and Lt. Commander Ivanova (Claudia Christian). And, somewhat hilariously, resident telepath Lyta Alexander (Patricia Tallman) was replaced by Talia Winters (Andrea Thompson), although Lyta would later return in Season 2 and replace Talia. But, the rest of these changes stuck, including a massive aesthetic overall for the pivotal character of Ambassador Delenn (Mira Furlan). In 1997, series creator J. Michael Straczynski took a refreshingly organic view of Babylon 5’s canon, saying, “My feeling is that fiction, like life, is open changes, and let’s use that to our benefit.” Continued here |
'Season: A Letter to the Future' explores a beautiful but aimless apocalypse
I tip over the edge, letting gravity take over and pull me down the long, winding road ahead. I fix my eyes on the sky, taking in its vivid purples and oranges in the feeling of peace before pulling over to snap a quick photo of the horizon and record the sounds of nature around me. In moments like this, Season: A Letter to the Future shines. Developed by Scavengers Studio, Season is an extremely chill game about leaving home for the first time, touring the world on a bike, and recording the wonders you find along the way. Also, the world might be ending, but no one is letting that ruin their day. While it’s filled with scenes of beauty, Season’s awkward pace and muddled message leave it feeling a little undercooked. Continued here |
How California's ambitious new climate plan could help speed energy transformation around the world
California is embarking on an audacious new climate plan that aims to eliminate the state’s greenhouse gas footprint by 2045, and in the process, slash emissions far beyond its borders. The blueprint calls for massive transformations in industry, energy and transportation, as well as changes in institutions and human behaviors. These transformations won’t be easy. Two years of developing the plan have exposed myriad challenges and tensions, including environmental justice, affordability and local rule. Continued here |
ChatGPT: why education should embrace the AI chatbot, not shun it
Just under two months ago, the US artificial intelligence company OpenAI introduced a program called ChatGPT. Essentially an advanced chatbot, it has been the subject of much debate. Some commentators have described its answers as very impressive, while others have drawn attention to factual errors in its output. Nevertheless, the product has been hailed as a potentially disruptive innovation for many different industries. Continued here |
Corey Stoll has the chops to make a live-action M.O.D.O.K. work
Marvel's bigheaded megalomaniac needs to strike the difficult balance between silly and scary in his upcoming MCU debut. “M.O.D.O.K. never compromises!,” as Marvel’s most infamous Mental Organism Designed Only For Killing has confidently asserted many times in trippy comic book panels. So it stands to reason that the MCU shouldn’t be expected to compromise on the floating megalomaniac in question, either, in his upcoming live-action debut. Continued here |
Prince Harry's kill count revelation could spark important discussions about war's effects on soldiers
When Prince Harry revealed in his new book, “Spare,” that he killed 25 Taliban fighters as an Apache helicopter pilot, he compared their deaths to “chess pieces removed from the board.” His comments have drawn ire from critics, such as Anas Haqqani, a member of the Haqqani Network, which is an Afghan Sunni Islamist militant organization and part of the Taliban government of Afghanistan. Haqqani shot back that those slain fighters “were not chess pieces, they were humans; they had families who were waiting for their return.” But others have questioned whether Prince Harry should have spoken about his body count at all. Here, L. William Uhl, an assistant professor of philosophy at the United States Air Force Academy, provides insight on what airmen are taught and told when it comes to the sensitive topic of taking lives in the line of duty. Continued here |
A major new exhibition in Nairobi reveals the history of east African art traditions
Mwili, Akili na Roho (Body, Mind and Spirit) – on in Nairobi, Kenya – is a major international exhibition presenting east African painters who are key players in the modernist art of the region. Modernism in the fine arts refers to a period of experimentation from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s, a break from the realism of the past and a search for new forms of expression. The exhibition features a group of artists from different generations who vary in backgrounds, as well as in the themes and forms of their art. They represent 50 years of east African art – from 1950 to 2000. They are: Sam Joseph Ntiro (1923-1990), Elimo Njau (1932-), Asaph Ng’ethe Macua (1930-), Jak Katarikawe (1940-2018), Theresa Musoke (1942-), Peter Mulindwa (1943-), Sane Wadu (1954-), John Njenga (1966-1997), Chelenge van Rampelberg (1961-) and Meek Gichugu (1968-). Continued here |
Ukraine recap: supply of German and US tanks to make Kyiv 'a real punching fist of democracy'
For the past several days the focus of war news has been squarely on Germany’s Olaf Scholz. The chancellor has been battling with his conscience over whether to accede to Volodymyr Zelensky’s plea to supply Ukraine with his country’s fearsome Leopard 2 tanks. The Ukrainian president has been hammering the message that with much of the fighting in the east of the country bogged down in a bloody and attritional battle around the city of Bakhmut in the eastern Donbas region while Russia is reportedly conscripting and training up hundreds of thousands more troops for a spring offensive, his country is desperate for the sort of increased firepower these tanks can provide. Continued here |
COVID booster vaccines: how a third dose may help vulnerable people 'level up' their immunity
COVID vaccines call our immune systems to action, generating antibodies which fight against any contact we have with the virus. Antibodies help to reduce the effects of an infection or even prevent it altogether. Scientists have estimated that vaccination has averted millions of COVID deaths worldwide. Studies have also shown the chances of having long-term or ongoing symptoms (“long COVID”) are significantly reduced for anyone who does catch COVID after being vaccinated. Continued here |
The Trump Enablers Dance On
With Donald Trump, there is nothing new, only new iterations of old scams. In 2019, the legendary sports journalist Rick Reilly wrote a book about Trump’s apparent epic knack for cheating at golf, noting that a plaque at Trump International Golf Club at West Palm Beach listed Trump as having won the club golf championship three times—including in 1999, seemingly before the club had opened. At his New Jersey golf club, Reilly reported, Trump once declared himself the winner of the senior golf championship after playing the “winning” round at a different course, eighty-seven miles away. This past Sunday, Trump repeated the feat, announcing that he had been victorious in his West Palm Beach club’s senior championship over the weekend, despite not playing in the first round. Trump had been in North Carolina that day, but apparently decided to give himself a lead in the tournament anyway by using a score he recorded before the tournament started. In revealing the “win” on his Truth Social social-media network, Trump cited it as proof of the exceptional “strength and stamina” he would bring back to “govern.” Continued here |
Can this new artificial skin transform touch screens and video games?
If you had to rank the most powerful sense, which would you choose? Over 88 percent of participants in a 2016 survey ranked vision as their most important sense, followed by hearing in a distant second. In fact, taste, smell, and touch are often overlooked entirely. But touch matters a lot — in ways most people don’t always recognize. For instance, it helps us steer clear of hot stoves, figure out an object’s weight and composition, and, of course, tap away at our smartphones and tablets. In fact, scientists are paying close attention to touch when developing futuristic robots and other electronics. Continued here |
The public or the state: who calls the shots at the BBC?
Richard Sambrook worked for the BBC for thirty years, finally as Director of Global News and the World Service. What’s the difference between a state broadcaster and a public broadcaster? The dispute over the close relationship between the BBC chairman, Richard Sharp and the former prime minister Boris Johnson, has seen some people – including on one occasion a BBC presenter – refer to it as a “state broadcaster”. The BBC is usually called a public service broadcaster (PSB) – and other PSBs around the world still look to the UK model as an example of good practise. The difference is significant and matters. Continued here |
Horror comedy 'The Menu' delves into foodie snobbery when you're dying for a cheeseburger
The Disney+ release of horror/comedy The Menu marks the beginning of what is already shaping up to be a reckoning year for the world of fine dining. The film, released this past fall, is directed by Mark Mylod, known for producing and directing the acclaimed series Succession, and satirizes the culture of high-end dining. Continued here |
'Dead Space' review: 2023's first GOTY contender revives a horror masterpiece
The wide-open Hydroponics section of the USG Ishimura is deeply familiar, and yet, I’m frozen in terror. I’m almost overwhelmed as the eerie, piercing sound of Necromorphs flood in, one after another. Thankfully, my trusty Plasma Cutter is enough to fend them off … at first. Then, a repulsive Pregnant Necromorph approaches, and my worst fear is realized: I’m completely out of ammo, and my health is low. Continued here |
It'll take 150 years to map Africa's biodiversity at the current rate. We can't protect what we don't know
The African continent is bursting with biodiversity. In a 2016 report, the United Nations Environment Programme wrote: Africa’s biomes extend from mangroves to deserts, from Mediterranean to tropical forests, from temperate to sub-tropical and montane grasslands and savannas, and even to ice-capped mountains. Continued here |
Xbox Game Pass January 2023: 'Hi-Fi Rush' and 8 more games coming soon
Xbox Game Pass added a small but excellent batch of games to start January 2023. The end of the month brings a bigger selection with even more incredible games among them. Continued here |
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek's Memo to Laid off Workers Is a Textbook Example of Why Toxic Positivity Is So Harmful
Experts panned Daniel Ek's memo to laid off workers as a classic example of toxic positivity. Continued here
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
|
No comments:
Post a Comment