All posts tagged: explains

Chris McCausland explains why he thinks Strictly scandal happened

Chris McCausland explains why he thinks Strictly scandal happened

Published by Sam

Strictly Come Dancing star Chris McCausland has given his view on the scandal that rocked the show months before he won it. The comedian, actor and presenter McCausland, who became the first blind person to lift the Glitterball trophy in 2024, has mused on the “clash” that can occur between celebrities and their professional partners. McCausland was one of the first celebrities to sign up to the show after the surfacing of a behind-the-scenes scandal, which erupted after actor Amanda Abbington claimed she was subjected to a “toxic environment” and “inappropriate, mean, nasty bullying” behaviour during her time on the show. An investigation into her professional partner Giovanni Pernice’s behaviour was launched – and the BBC upheld some, but not all, of Abbington’s complaints. Pernice has strongly denied all allegations. However, the investigation found that another Strictly pro dancer, Graziano Di Prima, had acted inappropriately during rehearsals of the 2023 series with his celebrity dance partner Zara McDermott. Di Prima, who joined Strictly in 2018, was dropped from the show, and he said that he “deeply …

Robbie Williams explains why he paid £20k for Eric Morecambe’s glasses | Ents & Arts News

Robbie Williams explains why he paid £20k for Eric Morecambe’s glasses | Ents & Arts News

Published by skeptic

Robbie Williams has said he bought Eric Morecambe’s glasses and pipe because he has always seen the comedian as an “uncle of sorts”. The singer said he cried “happy, childlike tears” after submitting the top bid last month with a final offer of £20,000. This far exceeded the £2,000 to £4,000 estimate. In an Instagram post featuring photos of Williams using the glasses and pipe, he said he treated himself to the items ahead of his 51st birthday. Instagram This content is provided by Instagram, which may be using cookies and other technologies. To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies. You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Instagram cookies or to allow those cookies just once. You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Instagram cookies. To view this content you can use the button below to allow Instagram cookies for this session only. Enable Cookies Allow Cookies Once …

Why Democrats are switching off the news – a psychologist explains

Why Democrats are switching off the news – a psychologist explains

Published by skeptic

Many Democrats appear to be switching off mainstream news channels and other media, following Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election. Around 72% of Democrats say they feel a need to limit their consumption of news about politics and government, according to a recent poll by AP-NORC. Research has highlighted the negative effects of news avoidance (resistance to, or avoidance of, news) on people’s political knowledge and civic engagement, the cornerstones of democratic thought and action. Research also shows what prompts news avoidance generally – and the return of Trump may be increasing the percentage of people in the US who are turning away from news and current affairs. Research from the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland measured how news avoidance varied across several nations between 2016 and 2019. It also attempted to identify the drivers of news avoidance. Researchers found the proportion of consumers who actively avoided the news varied significantly from one country to another – and for some, it was temporary. In their sample of five countries, they found news avoidance …

Has SpaceX Done Anything NASA Hasn’t? Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains His “Feud” with Elon Musk

Has SpaceX Done Anything NASA Hasn’t? Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains His “Feud” with Elon Musk

Published by José

One would count nei­ther Elon Musk nor Neil deGrasse Tyson among the most reserved pub­lic fig­ures of the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry. Giv­en the efforts Musk has been mak­ing to push into the busi­ness of out­er space, which has long been Tyson’s intel­lec­tu­al domain, it’s only nat­ur­al that the two would come into con­flict. Not long ago, the media eager­ly latched on to signs of a “feud” that seemed to erupt between them over Tyson’s remark that Musk — or rather, his com­pa­ny SpaceX — “has­n’t done any­thing that NASA has­n’t already done. The actu­al space fron­tier is still held by NASA.” What this means is that SpaceX has yet to take human­i­ty any­where in out­er space we haven’t been before. That’s not a con­dem­na­tion, but in fact a descrip­tion of busi­ness as usu­al. “The his­to­ry of real­ly expen­sive things ever hap­pen­ing in civ­i­liza­tion has, in essen­tial­ly every case, been led, geopo­lit­i­cal­ly, by nations,” Tyson says in the StarTalk video above. “Nations lead expen­sive projects, and when the costs of these projects are under­stood, the risks are …

how trustworthy is a Welsh accent? A sociolinguist explains

how trustworthy is a Welsh accent? A sociolinguist explains

Published by skeptic

One of the more unexpected plot twists on the latest series of the BBC’s The Traitors was contestant Charlotte revealing that despite being from London, she was putting on a Welsh accent to seem more trustworthy to her fellow contestants. Leaving aside the fact that, if she gets found out, faking her origins will hardly inspire confidence among her peers, has Charlotte stumbled upon a reasonable strategy? Are Welsh accents genuinely perceived as trustworthy? Before getting into the details of how people view Welsh accents, it’s important to underline that our attitudes to accents in general – whether positive or negative, widespread or personal – are merely perceptions. No accent is intrinsically smarter, friendlier, or more trustworthy than any other. No accent is inherently dishonest or unintelligent either. When we judge someone by their accent, we are engaging in a form of stereotyping. As a sociolinguist, I’ve been researching the accents and dialects of English spoken in Wales for more than a decade. In one study, I examined several thousand tweets featuring the words “Welsh” …

Heidegger’s “mood theory” explains why you do anything at all

Heidegger’s “mood theory” explains why you do anything at all

Published by skeptic

What made you click on this article? What part of your bubbling unconscious made you open this link today? I suspect there wasn’t much of a conscious decision. You probably didn’t stare into space for five seconds weighing up the pros and cons of clicking versus carrying on your internet scroll. Something about you, something in your being, pushed you to open this article. And thank you for doing so. You’re very welcome. This article will carry on a bit longer, but will you? Because just as there was something that made you click, there will be something that makes you read to the end or something that pulls you away. There is no easy answer to what that thing is. The neurolimbic, biological processes underpinning decision-making are unknown to the best of modern science, let alone available to you right now. And those swirling, unseen forces deserve more recognition. They push us far more than we appreciate. For Martin Heidegger, we need to pay far more philosophical attention to our moods. Thrown into the …

Richard Feynman Enthusiastically Explains How to Think Like a Physicist in His Series Fun to Imagine (1983)

Richard Feynman Enthusiastically Explains How to Think Like a Physicist in His Series Fun to Imagine (1983)

Published by José

“It’s inter­est­ing that some peo­ple find sci­ence so easy, and oth­ers find it kind of dull and dif­fi­cult,” says Richard Feyn­man at the begin­ning of his 1983 BBC series Fun to Imag­ine. “One of the things that makes it very dif­fi­cult is that it takes a lot of imag­i­na­tion. It’s very hard to imag­ine all the crazy things that things real­ly are like.” A true sci­en­tist accepts that noth­ing is as it seems, in that noth­ing, when you zoom in close enough or zoom out far enough, behaves in a way that accords with our every­day expe­ri­ence. Even the nec­es­sary scales — in which, for exam­ple, an atom is to an apple as an apple is to Earth itself — are dif­fi­cult to con­ceive. Despite his much-cel­e­brat­ed bril­liance as a physi­cist, Feyn­man also admit­ted to find­ing the quan­ti­ties with which he had to work unfath­omable, at least when exam­ined out­side their par­tic­u­lar con­texts. At the atom­ic lev­el, he explains, “you’re just think­ing of small balls, but you don’t try to think of exact­ly how small …

Apple Acknowledges iCloud Notes Disappearing and Explains How to Fix

Apple Acknowledges iCloud Notes Disappearing and Explains How to Fix

Published by skeptic

Earlier this month, we reported about some iPhone users temporarily losing all of their notes in the Notes app after accepting Apple’s updated iCloud terms and conditions. Apple has now indirectly acknowledged this issue in a new support document that outlines steps to follow if your iCloud notes are not appearing on your iPhone, iPad, or Vision Pro. Fortunately, the notes can be re-synced from iCloud. Apple’s steps are pretty much identical to the ones we shared earlier this month: If your iCloud notes aren’t appearing on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Vision Pro, follow these steps. 1. Open the Settings app and tap your name.2. Tap iCloud, then tap Notes.3. Make sure Sync this [device] is on, then check the Notes app.4. If you still don’t see your notes, restart your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Vision Pro. After restarting, check your settings again. After these steps, your iCloud notes should appear and start syncing again on devices signed in to the same Apple Account. When syncing completes, content previously synced to iCloud should appear. …

King Charles faces indigenous activists for second day after senator explains outburst – Royal family news

King Charles faces indigenous activists for second day after senator explains outburst – Royal family news

Published by skeptic

King Charles heckled by Australian senator: ‘Give us our land back’ Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email The King faced indigenous activists questioning the supremacy of the British monarchy for a second day as he tours Australia. When Charles met First Nations elders during a visit to the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence (NCIE) in Sydney, Elder Allan Murray from the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council told him their goal was “sovereignty”. The visit came after the King was accused on Monday of “genocide” against Australia’s First Nations by senator Lidia Thorpe who told him “You are not my King”. The Indigenous senator has spoken out to explain why she confronted him after his parliamentary adress. Senator Lidia Thorpe shouted at the monarch “you are not my king” and demanded a treaty between Australia‘s First Nations and its government on Monday. Ms Thorpe, an Indigenous woman from Victoria, has long advocated for a treaty between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians to …

George Harrison Explains Why Everyone Should Play the Ukulele

George Harrison Explains Why Everyone Should Play the Ukulele

Published by José

George Har­ri­son loved the ukulele, and real­ly, what’s not to love? For its dain­ty size, the uke can make a pow­er­ful­ly cheer­ful sound, and it’s an instru­ment both begin­ners and expert play­ers can learn and eas­i­ly car­ry around. As Harrison’s old friend Joe Brown remarked, “You can pick up a ukulele and any­body can learn to play a cou­ple of tunes in a day or even a few hours. And if you want to get good at it, there’s no end to what you can do.” Brown, once a star in his own right, met Har­ri­son and the Bea­t­les in 1962 and remem­bers being impressed with the fel­low uke-lover Harrison’s range of musi­cal tastes: “He loved music, not just rock and roll…. He’d go crack­ers, he’d phone me up and say ‘I’ve got this great record!’ and it would be Hoagy Carmichael and all this Hawai­ian stuff he used to like. George was not a musi­cal snob.” “Crack­ers” may be the per­fect word for Harrison’s uke-phil­ia; he used it him­self in the adorable note above …