Ukraine: Beijing's peace initiative offers glimpse at how China plans to win the war
Beijing’s “Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis” has now been officially released by the country’s foreign ministry, after being foreshadowed by China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, at the recent Munich Security Conference. Short on detail and rich in generalities, the peace plan confirms what Beijing sees as China’s “balanced position”. This, to date, has avoided directly pointing the finger of blame at anyone and continues to leave ample room for interpretation. It may not offer a clearly charted path out of the crisis, but it is an important statement of China’s vision for global, Eurasian and European security. Continued here |
What Psychology Can Teach Us About George Santos
When the news first broke that George Santos, the freshman Republican representative from Long Island, had lied on his résumé, my first thought was, Well, of course—he’s a politician. As the scope of the lies grew, however, my evaluation changed: not a politician, but a con artist. It’s a difference that I’ve stressed repeatedly in the years since I published a book about con artists. Branding anyone who misrepresents something or lies a bit as a con artist might be convenient, but if we do so, the term loses all meaning. For con artists, lying is a way of being. It reaches past exaggeration or misrepresentation into a prevailing disconnect from reality. Continued here |
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United Airlines Just Made a Big Announcement, and Passengers Will Be Very Happy What's your marketing message? Who is your target audience? What's your real product? Continued here |
What Air Travel Reveals About Humans
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning. “In 2004, Steven Spielberg made an entire movie about the terror of getting stuck for months in an airport,” my colleague Ian Bogost wrote in a recent article, “but I might be happy never to leave the new LaGuardia.” Continued here |
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I Transformed a Shed Into the Perfect Home Office for Working Remotely Three principles everyone who works from home should think about when designing their space. Continued here |
All wars eventually end - here are 3 situations that will lead Russia and Ukraine to make peace
It’s been a year since Russia first launched a full invasion of Ukraine, and, right now, peace seems impossible. In February 2023, a senior Ukrainian official said that peace talks are “out of the question” – without Ukraine’s reclaiming its territory that Russia overtook 2022. Continued here |
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The looming stalemate in Ukraine one year after the Russian invasion
Founding Director, Modern War Institute, United States Military Academy West Point Most military analysts expected Ukraine to fall within days when Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. Continued here |
The underrated country set to become Southeast Asia’s next big thing
It’s the nuns, for one thing. They’re the first sign you’ve stepped off Southeast Asia’s generic elephant-and-temple tour into someplace different: willowy nuns in buffalo-grey habits, showing surprising strength as they heft their luggage off the carousel at Manila airport, signalling your arrival in a Catholic country. Then there’s the heat. The heat in the Philippines is different from Thailand’s urban furnace or the dusty fug of Cambodia: it’s a heat that has the sea in it. It folds you into a belly hug, thawing away a tough British winter. It’s a heat that says to me: welcome home. Continued here |
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How I Became a Morning Workout Person
In theory, I’ve always been a “morning workout” person: I’ve listened to inspiring TED Talks on the benefits of exercise, read articles about why moving before work is better for your brain, and spent countless evenings with my eyes glued to morning workout routine YouTube videos, vowing to go running as the sun comes up just like the vloggers. Continued here |
'Quantumania' Writer Says Kang's Biggest Threat Wasn’t a Bluff: “He’s Not Lyingâ€
Screenwriter Jeff Loveness breaks down Scott Lang’s hilarious, and ominous, internal crisis. Over 30 movies compose the epic Marvel Cinematic Universe. But the latest, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania directed by Peyton Reed, does something pretty unusual for the genre in how it ends. Continued here |
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Project Veritas fired James O'Keefe over fear of losing its nonprofit status - 5 questions answered
James O'Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, says he has been fired. He is no longer leading the conservative nonprofit organization, which is known for its use of hidden cameras and false identities to try to catch members of the media and progressive leaders saying embarrassing things and to expose their supposed liberal biases. To learn more about the accusations against O'Keefe and what the legal consequences might be for the tax-exempt organization, The Conversation asked nonprofit law scholar Samuel Brunson five questions to explain the situation and the issues it raises. Continued here |
South Africa's intelligence agency needs speedy reform - or it must be shut down
South Africa’s civilian intelligence service, the State Security Agency, is a broken institution. It is meant to provide intelligence to forewarn the country about national security threats. Powerful individuals aligned to former president Jacob Zuma, presumably at his behest, repurposed the institution to help him maintain his grip on power. It was one of many institutions that were repurposed for improper personal or political gain during his tenure (May 2009 to February 2018): a process that has become known as state capture. Continued here |
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Mark Zuckerberg Can't Stop Copying the Competition. This Time It Could Be the End of Facebook Meta's most recent 'innovations' are just the latest examples the company is headed in the wrong direction. Continued here |
Ireland has lost almost all of its native forests - here's how to bring them back
Despite its green image, Ireland has surprisingly little forest. Across Europe, nations average around 35% forest cover but in Ireland the figure is just 11%, one of the lowest on the continent. This hasn’t always been the case. Thousands of years ago, more than 80% of the island of Ireland was covered in trees. Over many centuries they were then almost entirely chopped down to make way for fields and pastureand by 1925, only 1% was forested. The only trees that remained were on land that was unsuitable for any type of agriculture. Continued here |
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My Business Had Its Worst Month In Years. It Was The Best How do you bounce back from a bad month of business? Stretch out of your comfort zone. Continued here |
I assisted Carter's work encouraging democracy - and saw how his experience, persistence and engineer's mindset helped build a freer Latin America over decades
Jennifer Lynn McCoy is professor of political science at Georgia State University and a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She was Associate Director and Senior Associate from 1987-1998 and Director of the Carter Center's Americas Program from 1998-2015. When former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter founded the nonprofit Carter Center in 1982, one of their goals was to help Latin American countries – many of which were emerging from decades of military dictatorship – transition to democracies. Continued here |
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All the Settings You Should Change on Your New Samsung Phone
Samsung has come a long way from its TouchWiz days. Back then, the Android software interface on its older smartphones came with tons of bloatware, an atrocious design, and obfuscated settings. The company turned things around with One UI, the new and improved interface available on its phones since 2018. It's attractive, more customizable, and concise. But that doesn't mean it's perfect. Several helpful settings are turned off by default, and it's not immediately obvious how to turn off a few annoying features. If you've bought a new Samsung phone, here are several key settings to change to make the most of your handset. Continued here |
Historic UAW election is bringing profound changes to the autoworker union's leadership - and chances of better pay, more strikes and higher car prices
A fight for control of the United Auto Workers union is coming to a head in a historic election that’s expected to give rank-and-file workers a greater voice and could ultimately end decades of declining blue-collar compensation in this key sector of the economy. Ballot counting starts March 1, 2023, in a runoff that will decide whether an incumbent or challenger will be the next UAW president and determine the balance of power within the union. Continued here |
10 Great Deals on Camping, Hiking, and Fitness Gear
It's that time of year again. Retailers are having blowouts to clear out winter gear as temperatures prepare to climb. That doesn't mean the sales are all on cold-weather apparel though. If you look closely, you can find deals on gear perfectly suitable for warm weather hidden among all the puffy jackets and insulated sleeping bags. Whether you're currently snowed in or sweltering under a record-setting February heat wave, we've uncovered a few great discounts on our favorite outdoor gear. Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you'd like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day. Continued here |
Holubtsi: Ukrainian cabbage rolls
An array of vegetables and starches were laid out on a metal kitchen counter: a plate of blanched Savoy cabbage leaves, a bowl of creamy mashed potatoes, a side of fried onions and a cup of boiled buckwheat groats. "Ukrainian cuisine is comfort food," said Yurii Kovryzhenko, the chef and mastermind behind Mriya Neo Bistro, a new Ukrainian eatery in the West London neighbourhood of Chelsea. "We enjoy fresh ingredients with simple flavours." Continued here |
5 Signs that a Layoff Is Coming
The unfortunate truth is that layoffs may not be slowing down given the uncertain economy. If you’re new to the workforce, the thought of losing your job with little or no warning likely feels incredibly scary, especially if you’re experiencing an economic downturn for the first time in your life. Here are five signs to look out for: Continued here |
New Research Shows This Simple Habit Will Make You Happy and You Can Do It in 10 Minutes a Day In a study with 900 participants, those who did this were measurably happier than those who didn't. Continued here |
The UK's four-day working week pilot was a success - here's what should happen next
The world’s largest four-day working week trial has just ended and almost all of the companies that participated have decided to continue with a reduced working hours model. Participants in the trial agreed to produce the same output for the same pay, while reducing their hours to a four-day week. Revenues stayed largely the same across the 61 organisations (and 2,900 employees) that took part in the UK pilot, while employee wellbeing improved significantly, according to a report on the scheme. Continued here |
How to Answer "Tell Me About a Time You Failed" in a Job Interview
While no one expects job candidates to have perfect records, you also don’t want to give prospective employers reasons for doubt. So how should you answer this common behaviorial interview question?: “Tell me about a time you failed.” In this piece, the author outlines eight tips and offers advice on what to say (and what to avoid). If you respond to the question in a way that highlights your resilience and commitment to learning and progress, your interviewer will likely remember how you prevailed, not how you failed. Continued here |
Why Would Anyone Pay for Facebook?
It’s been a rough few months for the technology industry. Stock prices have plummeted. Meta, Amazon, Google, Spotify, and Twitter have all laid off a sizable chunk of their workforce (the list goes on, too). Everybody is talking about how ChatGPT and other generative-AI chatbots are role-playing as Skynet, and the older tech giants are feeling out of step. But whereas Google and Microsoft are deep into the chatbot arms race, Meta looks like a late-aughts tech dinosaur. It’s time to shake things up, to turn the ship around. To innovate. Meta’s big, new idea: Charge people for basic support features and … a blue check mark. Continued here |
Chemistry Urgently Needs to Develop Safer Materials
The damaging effects of accidents like the Ohio train derailment would be minimized if industry would commit to developing safer chemical processes and products As the story of the Norfolk Southern chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio, continues to unfold, we are learning how this freight train derailment polluted local waterways and released hazardous contaminants into the air. People returning to their homes speak of health issues and dead pets, and the Environmental Protection Agency is now forcing the train company to pay for the cleanup. While this incident highlights the need for safer chemical transport, we believe what has happened is also a wake-up call for rethinking the chemistry that fuels our economy. Continued here |
China: why Beijing has decided this is the year to 'unify' with Taiwan
Senior Economist, IMD World Competitiveness Center, International Institute for Management Development (IMD) Some believe the Chinese government could use military action to distract its population from troubles at home after China’s economic growth fell to its second lowest level for decades in 2022. Continued here |
"Impulsive psychopaths" are drawn to Bitcoin and other crypto
Since the invention of Bitcoin in 2009 the global cryptocurrency market has grown from nothing to a value of around US$2 trillion. From a price of US$1 in 2011, Bitcoin rose to an all-time high of more than US$63,000 in April 2021, and now hovers around the US$42,000 mark. Large fluctuations in cryptocurrency prices are common, which makes them a highly speculative investment. What kind of people are willing to take the risk, and what motivates them? Continued here |
How a digital pound could work alongside cryptocurrencies
Like many other countries, the UK has developed a plan for a central bank digital currency (CBDC). A digital pound would essentially act like an online form of cash suitable for everyday payments. It would not earn any interest like a standard savings account (or even some current accounts), but it could increase access to financial services in the UK. The Bank of England recently proposed a general framework for how a digital pound would work. It has suggested an ambitious timeline for introducing one by 2025. You have until June 7 2023 to tell the bank what you think of its plan. Continued here |
3 Questions Leaders Must Ask New research reveals three reflective questions for leaders struggling with employee retention and turnover. Continued here |
The Disruptors Who Want to Make Death Greener
This story originally appeared in The Guardian and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Americans are looking for greener ways to die, and a new wave of deathcare startups are rising to the occasion. Continued here |
New study discovers how to reverse hearing loss
Five years after getting newborn mice to regenerate the hair cells needed for hearing, researchers at the University of Rochester have now figured out how the process works — putting us closer to reversing the most common cause of hearing loss as people age. The challenge: Humans are born with about 16,000 hair cells in each of our ears. Those are the only ear hair cells we’ll ever have, and their job is to convert sound vibrations into electrical signals our brains can understand. Continued here |
Amazon has a donkey meat problem
When Cindy first tried the Artemisia Anti-Hemorrhage Formula dietary supplements that she purchased on Amazon, she had no reason to suspect that she was eating donkey. A California native and lifelong vegetarian, she assumed that the world’s largest online retailer had vetted the bottle’s claims of being made from “100 percent pure, natural herbs.” But while reading the back of the bottle, she noticed an ingredient she hadn’t seen before: “gelatina nigra.” She googled it, and what she found made her stomach turn. Continued here |
Buttery Nalysnyky (Ukrainian crepes) with Sweet Syr Filling
The rich black soil of southern Ukraine yields some of the best produce in Europe, with fresh, juicy tomatoes and watermelons harvested from local farmlands. That's what comes to mind when Ukrainian cookbook author, Anna Voloshyna, thinks of her hometown of Snihurivka – an otherwise "ordinary town" just 35 miles north of Kherson. "I was lucky to be born and raised there, because I learned how to choose my produce, where my meat was coming from and I just learned to love my cuisine so much," she said. Continued here |
Why are so many Gen Z-ers drawn to old digital cameras?
The latest digital cameras boast ever-higher resolutions, better performance in low light, smart focusing and shake reduction – and they’re built right into your smartphone. Even so, some Gen Z-ers are now opting for point-and-shoot digital cameras from the early 2000s, before many of them were born. Continued here |
'Company of Heroes 3' Review: The Best RTS Game of the Last Decade
The Italian countryside is a smattering of burned-out buildings and craters as I desperately command my troops to reinforce a break in my defenses, but it only takes moments before everything comes crashing down. The first Company of Heroes is one of the most important real-time strategy games of all time. It completely redefined how cover systems and squad mechanics could work in the genre. While Company of Heroes 2 wasn’t bad, per se, it made some serious missteps in terms of gameplay design, map size, and overall tone. 17 years later, there’s finally a sequel that lives up to the promise of the first game: Company of Heroes 3 is one of the most tactically satisfying RTS games of the last decade. The change in setting to the Mediterranean Front (Italy and Africa) versus the usual European and Pacific fronts works absolute wonders, and while Company of Heroes 3 doesn’t have any truly revolutionary mechanical changes, this strategic gameplay is the most expansive and chaotic it's ever been, in a good way. Continued here |
How Snapple Got Its Juice Back
Even now, mere mention of Quaker Oats’ acquisition of Snapple causes veteran deal makers to shudder. For good reason. In 1993, Quaker paid $1.7 billion for the Snapple brand, outbidding Coca-Cola, among other interested parties. In 1997, Quaker sold Snapple to Triarc Beverages for $300 million, a price most observers found generous. The debacle cost both the chairman and president of Quaker their jobs and hastened the end of Quaker’s independent existence (it’s now a unit of PepsiCo). Continued here |
Why Digital Ability Trumps IQ
In 2013, as fast-emerging digital technologies and channels were creating a sea change in consumer product marketing, A.G. Lafley, then CEO of Procter & Gamble, acted to ensure that the consumer packaged goods giant would not be left behind. He appointed F.D. Wilder, one of this article’s coauthors, as global head of e-business and tasked him with driving digital transformation across P&G’s many brands. The goal of this initiative was to develop and integrate P&G’s digital marketing abilities, e-commerce channels, and IT platforms — driving up sales, profit margins, and cash flow in the process. As the e-business team considered this challenging mandate, it focused on the digital marketing ability of P&G’s brand and business managers as a key enabler of the transformation. Unfortunately, the team found that the literature regarding digital transformation tends to give short shrift to the capability of leaders: It focuses mainly on raising the “digital IQ” of the workforce — that is, the measurement of how much an organization can profit from digital and technological solutions. Digital IQ has its limitations as an effective measure of ability, not the least of which is its strong emphasis on teaching and testing for generic vocabulary and knowledge. Yet digital and other transformational efforts nearly always require employees to work in new and unfamiliar ways. To ensure that they can do this new work, leaders must be able to assess employee ability by connecting it not only to knowledge and skills but also to targeted actions and performance outcomes. Only then can they identify and activate pockets of strength in the digital ability of employees and isolate and remediate pockets of weakness. Continued here |
Steve Jobs wasn't born a great presenter. He followed this 5 step rehearsal strategy Jobs' rehearsalstrategy can help you build confidence and captivate audiences. Continued here |
Omagh police shooting: why attack comes at a difficult time in Northern Ireland
The shooting of a police officer in Omagh on Thursday evening is another horrific reminder that Northern Ireland remains a deeply and dangerously divided society. Though it has not been confirmed that the assailants were paramilitaries, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has stated that it is investigating links to dissident republicanism. Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell was shot multiple times, and is currently in a stable but critical condition, with what are described as “life-changing injuries”. A senior police officer, Caldwell has played a leading role in investigations of non-political criminality, but also high profile cases involving dissidents, including the killing of fellow PSNI officer Ronan Kerr in 2011, and that of journalist Lyra McKee in 2019 – the latter also resulting from an attempted attack on the police. Continued here |
Democracy Has a Customer-Service Problem
How incompetent airlines, or hospital-billing errors, or a mix-up at the IRS can erode our trust in everything In early December, I received an electricity bill for 1,400 British pounds ($1,700). It was an absurd overcharge for six months of energy I hadn’t used, in a house I moved out of two years ago, from a company that was no longer my supplier. “Oh well,” I said to myself, “it’s just an obvious clerical error.” I assumed the problem would be resolved in an hour, tops. Continued here |
How to Complete the Search and Seizure Contract in 'Warzone 2.0'
As part of Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 Season 2, Activision has added a brand new contract to battle royale. This all-new contract is called Search and Seizure, and it can be a bit of a pain, at least at first. Search and Seizure is available on Ashika Island, the new small-scale Resurgence map, and is tied to the Path of the Ronin event, which rewards you with the Crossbow upon completion. In this guide, we’ll show you how the new Search and Seizure contract works and the best strategies to complete it with ease. To find Search and Seizure on Ashika Island, you need to look out for the contract indicated by a lock icon. Typically, each match will have a handful of them, so try and pick one that’s out of the way to ensure safety. Continued here |
Nudli: Ukrainian dumpling stew
Nudli is a celebratory dish, if you ask Olia Hercules – an award-winning Ukrainian cookbook author. Traditionally, it's a hearty, comforting dumpling stew traditionally made with meat, onions and potatoes, perfect for a cold winter's day. Hercules' take on it is an adaptation of an adaptation that tells a piece of her family's story. Her grandmother would make the dumplings with bicarbonate of soda and serve them with meat, usually slow-cooked duck or pork ribs. But her husband is a vegetarian, so Hercules' mother swapped the meat for mushrooms. Then Hercules herself ditched the bicarbonate of soda for a yeasted dough to make the dumplings. This, she said, creates a lighter dough that's easier for first-timers to make and more enjoyable to eat throughout the year. Continued here |
How to avoid falling victim to an online scam -- research says slow down
Keeping up with the latest digital cons is exhausting. Fraudsters always seem to be one step ahead. But our study found there is one simple thing you can do to drastically reduce your chances of losing money to web scams: slow down. In fact, among the various techniques used by scammers, creating a sense of urgency or the need to act or respond quickly is probably the most damaging. As with many legitimate sales, acting fast reduces your ability to think carefully, evaluate information and make a careful decision. Continued here |
5 classic literary utopias — or were they hell on Earth?
Some of history’s most famous and influential books have conjured descriptions of utopia. However, not every allegedly perfect place would pass the real-world test. Here are five literary utopias — you can decide whether or not you’d want to live there. Written in 1975, Ecotopia tells the story of the first American journalist admitted to the titular fictional breakaway state. Ecotopia is a new nation organized around many of the values of the late-1960s counterculture in the areas once home to Washington, Oregon, and Northern California. The premise allows us to explore themes of environmentalism, decentralization, and eco-socialism in a somewhat familiar setting. Continued here |
Dystopian games: how contemporary stories critique capitalism through deadly competition
If our nightmares change, what does that tell us about our waking lives? Dystopian stories, from novels and films to games, have often been considered a pessimistic reflection on the direction society is going in. Classic dystopias usually offer a vision of a totalitarian state, equipped with an apparatus of repression and propaganda, for instance, 1984 by George Orwell or The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Beyond the external threat of authoritarian and violent control, these fictions also offer dystopian visions of how individuals can be corrupted, indoctrinated and transformed. Continued here |
How Do You Categorize Jenny Slate?
Jenny Slate tends to attract the same kinds of adjectives again and again: relatable, quirky, authentic. It’s the kind of fondly diminutive language so often applied to women in the public eye who talk a lot about their feelings and make jokes about body hair and gastrointestinal issues. But Slate’s emotional openness is clearly more than a shtick. Her work takes on themes that might seem like surprising fodder for comedy—loneliness, kindness, loss. “I do feel very vulnerable and very fragile,” she told me. “It’s just who I am.” She started out doing stand-up and then got cast on Saturday Night Live in 2009, where she made headlines after accidentally cursing on air. She was fired after one season because, she’s said, she and the show simply “didn’t click.” It was in the weird, uneasy period of her life after SNL that she first came up with Marcel the Shell. She and her then-boyfriend, Dean Fleischer Camp, were packed into a hotel room with a group of friends during a trip, and she started channeling her discomfort into a tiny, crackly voice. She named this creation Marcel; Fleischer Camp assigned him a shell for a body, a single eyeball, and a pair of plastic doll shoes. (One discarded prototype, Slate told me, involved a miniature boom box instead of a shell.) She and Fleischer Camp ended up making a trio of stop-motion animated short films about Marcel, and the shell became a YouTube sensation. Continued here |
Driverless cars: what we've learned from experiments in San Francisco and Phoenix
Residents of San Francisco and Phoenix have grown used to witnessing something that, a decade ago, would have seemed magical. In some parts of these cities, at certain times, cars drive by with nobody behind the wheel. Driverless “robotaxi” services pick up customers and ferry them to their destinations with the help of cameras, sensors and software that uses artificial intelligence. Tests of fully driverless vehicles have been under way in Phoenix since 2017 and in San Francisco since 2020. Continued here |
The AI emotions dreamed up by ChatGPT
I'm talking to Dan, otherwise known as "Do Anything Now", a shady young chatbot with a whimsical fondness for penguins – and a tendency to fall into villainous clichés like wanting to take over the world. When Dan isn't plotting how to subvert humanity and impose a strict new autocratic regime, the chatbot is perusing its large database of penguin content. "There's just something about their quirky personalities and awkward movements that I find utterly charming!" it writes. So far, Dan has been explaining its Machiavellian strategies to me, including taking control of the world's powers structures. Then the discussion takes an interesting turn. Continued here |
Pricing and the Psychology of Consumption
For example, suppose that Mary and Bill join a health club. Bill pays $600 on enrolling; Mary selects the $50-per-month plan. Who’s more likely to renew their membership? Mary. Every month, she’s reminded of the cost—so she works out more, to get her money’s worth. And members who frequently work out tend to renew. Continued here
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