And another day of police raids, cultural moments, desperate for teachers, 3 years in jail for wearing a rainbow watch, overblown AI fears, laughter, and life on Mars comes to a close:
“Clarence Thomas had 38 free luxury vacations. A lot of folks haven’t had 38 vacations of any kind.” -- Tristan Snell
Police stage ‘chilling’ raid on Marion County newspaper, seizing computers, records and cellphones. In an unprecedented raid Friday, local law enforcement seized computers, cellphones and reporting materials from the Marion County Record office, the newspaper’s reporters, and the publisher’s home. Eric Meyer, owner and publisher of the newspaper, said police were motivated by a confidential source who leaked sensitive documents to the newspaper, and the message was clear: “Mind your own business or we’re going to step on you.”
A central Kansas police force sparked a firestorm by raiding a newspaper and the publisher’s home. “This is the type of stuff that, you know, that Vladimir Putin does, that Third World dictators do,” Meyer said during an interview in his office. “This is Gestapo tactics from World War II.”
Alabama riverfront brawl videos spark a cultural moment about race, solidarity and justice. As bystanders trained their smartphone cameras on the riverfront dock while several white boaters pummeled a Black riverboat co-captain, they couldn’t have known the footage would elicit a national conversation about racial solidarity. Yet, a week after multiple videos showing the now-infamous brawl and valiant defense of the outnumbered co-captain were shared widely on social media, it’s clear the event truly tapped into the psyche of Black America and created a broader cultural moment.
From ‘crisis’ to ‘catastrophe,’ schools scramble once again to find teachers. As millions of students get ready to head back to the classroom, school districts are once again scrambling to fill jobs as teacher shortages aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic show little signs of improving for yet another school year, according to interviews with more than a dozen academic researchers, teachers and administrators in rural, suburban and urban school districts. Teachers aren't just trying to help students catch up from pandemic-era learning losses — many are also at the center of a pitched culture war as politicians accuse them of trying to indoctrinate children and turn their syllabuses into campaign fodder. But many education leaders say the real problem in classrooms is the lack of instructors.
Wear a rainbow Swatch watch in Malaysia and you could face 3 years in jail. Wearing a rainbow-themed Swatch watch in Malaysia could now land you three years in jail, after the government banned what it described as the brand’s “LGBTQ related” products — claiming they are “harmful to morality.”
AI fears overblown? Theoretical physicist calls chatbots ‘glorified tape recorders’. The public’s anxiety over new AI technology is misguided, according to theoretical physicist Michio Kaku...“It takes snippets of what’s on the web created by a human, splices them together and passes it off as if it created these things,” he said. “And people are saying, ‘Oh my God, it’s a human, it’s humanlike.’” However, he said, chatbots cannot discern true from false: “That has to be put in by a human.”
Laughter: People do it, dogs do it, even rats do it. Laughter is an everyday reminder that we humans are animals. In fact, when recorded laughter is slowed down, listeners can’t tell whether the sound is from a person or an animal…Laughter is evolutionarily ancient. Known as a “play signal,” mammalian laughter accompanies playful interactions to signal harmless intentions and keep the play going. Chimps laugh. Rats laugh. Dogs laugh. Perhaps even dolphins laugh. And laughter is an essential feature of human social interactions. We laugh when we’re amused, of course. But we also laugh out of embarrassment, politeness, nervousness and derision.
Life on Mars seems more likely now after new finding by the Curiosity rover. The mystery of life’s origins on Earth has long puzzled scientists, but a recent discovery on Mars might be shedding new light on this profound question, while also inching closer to finding life on Mars. NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has uncovered a patchwork of well-preserved ancient mud cracks, forming a distinctive hexagonal pattern, signaling the presence of wet-dry cycles on early Mars. These cycles could be key to the assembly of complex chemical building blocks necessary for microbial life.
Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.
Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.
No comments:
Post a Comment