All posts tagged: helpful

US says new UN draft resolution on Gaza ceasefire ‘not helpful’

US says new UN draft resolution on Gaza ceasefire ‘not helpful’

Published by Sam

Back to homepage / Middle East AS IT HAPPENED The United States’ deputy ambassador at the UN said Wednesday that a new resolution on the war in Gaza would “not change the situation on the ground”. The draft seeking an immediate ceasefire and a halt to Israel’s offensive in Rafah is being circulated at the Security Council by Algeria. Israel’s military earlier said it had seized full control of the strategic Philadelphi corridor, a buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt. Read our liveblog to see how all the day’s events unfolded. Issued on: 29/05/2024 – 03:53Modified: 29/05/2024 – 22:54 2 min Smoke rises following Israeli strikes during an Israeli military operation in Rafah, as seen from Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip on May 28, 2024. © Mohammed Salem, Reuters This liveblog is now closed. For all the latest, please click here. Summary: Algeria is circulating a proposed UN Security Council resolution that would demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and order Israel to halt its military offensive in the southern city of Rafah immediately. Street fighting …

Spotting scams online: Some helpful tips from Cash App

Spotting scams online: Some helpful tips from Cash App

Published by skeptic

Today, thanks to peer-to-peer (P2P) services like Cash App, our money is more accessible than ever. That means fewer obstacles between us and the things we want in our lives.  Unfortunately, the P2P nature of these platforms also means that scammers are likely to take advantage of those who aren’t aware. By keeping some essential rules in mind, you can protect yourself, family, friends, and most importantly — your money. While there are many different types of scams online, a few overall rules can majorly help: 1. Only send payments to accounts you trust While Cash App does hold giveaways, these will only come from official social media accounts, and not third parties who may not be affiliated. Be sure to double-check all info. Here is a list of Cash App’s verified social accounts: Mashable Top Stories Instagram: @CashApp Instagram: @CashByCashapp Twitter: @CashApp Twitter: @CashSupport Twitter:@CashAppStudios Tiktok: @CashApp Twitch: twitch.tv/CashApp Reddit: u/CashAppAndi Facebook: SquareCash 2. Never send money on a promise of getting more in return This trick even predates the Internet: If a message …

Helpful virus could save billions of gallons of wastewater produced by the oil and gas industry

Helpful virus could save billions of gallons of wastewater produced by the oil and gas industry

Published by skeptic

Ramón Sánchez (pictured right), a doctoral candidate within UTEP’s chemistry program, has identified a novel method for treating bacteria in ‘produced water’ through the use of bacteriophages. Ricardo Bernal, Ph.D., (pictured left) is an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UTEP and Sánchez’ doctoral advisor. (CREDIT: UTEP) The oil and gas industry generates vast quantities of wastewater, also known as produced water. A 2022 report by the Texas Produced Water Consortium estimates a staggering 168 billion gallons annually in the Permian Basin alone. This massive waste stream presents a significant challenge due to its complex chemical composition, making traditional treatment methods difficult and expensive. Bacteriophages, or phages for short, are viruses that specifically target and infect bacteria. Often lethal to a single bacterial species, phages hold immense potential for a rapid and cost-effective approach to treating produced water on an industrial scale. Ramón Antonio Sánchez, the study’s lead author and a doctoral candidate in UTEP’s chemistry program, emphasizes the potential impact. “If successful, this could revolutionize the way the oil and gas industry manages …

Sam Altman says helpful agents are poised to become AI’s killer function

Sam Altman says helpful agents are poised to become AI’s killer function

Published by skeptic

It’s a leap from OpenAI’s current offerings. Its leading applications, like DALL-E, Sora, and ChatGPT (which Altman referred to as “incredibly dumb” compared with what’s coming next), have wowed us with their ability to generate convincing text and surreal videos and images. But they mostly remain tools we use for isolated tasks, and they have limited capacity to learn about us from our conversations with them.  In the new paradigm, as Altman sees it, the AI will be capable of helping us outside the chat interface and taking real-world tasks off our plates.  Altman on AI hardware’s future  I asked Altman if we’ll need a new piece of hardware to get to this future. Though smartphones are extraordinarily capable, and their designers are already incorporating more AI-driven features, some entrepreneurs are betting that the AI of the future will require a device that’s more purpose built. Some of these devices are already beginning to appear in his orbit. There is the (widely panned) wearable AI Pin from Humane, for example (Altman is an investor in the …

Ordinary Angels: Hilary Swank on the true story of a ‘snow baby’ and a helpful stranger | Ents & Arts News

Ordinary Angels: Hilary Swank on the true story of a ‘snow baby’ and a helpful stranger | Ents & Arts News

Published by Sam

Hilary Swank says playing roles based on real stories have made her a “better person”. The 49-year-old has portrayed a real-life single mother, a lawyer and a high-school dropout – and won her first Academy Award in 2000 for Boys Don’t Cry, a story based on the life of Brandon Teena, a trans man who was murdered in 1993. She tells Sky News: “Each character that I’ve ever played is in my heart, and I am so grateful for that because it just made me, I think, a better person and certainly helped me challenge myself as an artist”. Image: Hilary Swank as Sharon in Ordinary Angels. Pic: Sony Pictures/Allen Fraser Swank says she never thought her acting choices would have such an impact on others and finds it “so beautiful to have those conversations” with people who relate to the roles she has played. “[My filmography] touches not only different, genders, which is so unique, but different races and, and different classes of people and that is so beautiful because I then get to …

Helpful Advice On How To Deal With Birth Trauma

Helpful Advice On How To Deal With Birth Trauma

Published by skeptic

Giving birth is a life-changing experience. Whether you gave birth vaginally or through a c-section, it’s a major day in any parent’s life. But it might not always go as planned or be the day you imagined. In fact, nearly 30,000 people suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder after giving birth in the UK. Though it can seem PTSD is limited to the birthing parent, diagnosis of PTSD also includes birthing partners who have been present at the birth. Geeta Nayar, a senior associate solicitor at Irwin Mitchell, sustained life-changing injuries and post-natal PTSD after the birth of her first child. Recently she gave evidence at the National Birth Trauma Inquiry, sharing that she had sustained life-changing Obstetric Anal Sphincter Injuries (OASI) and Post-Natal PTSD following the traumatic birth of her first child, Maya, in 2008. The impact on her health, career and family has been profound and she still suffers with after-effects on a daily basis — like Geeta, there are of course thousands of people who have unfortunately experienced the same. What can be …

Helpful Video Maps Out Gen Z Mental Health Crisis

Helpful Video Maps Out Gen Z Mental Health Crisis

Published by skeptic

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s new book The Anxious Generation topped the New York Times bestsellers’ chart two weeks in a row, and has been stirring up a lot of commentary in the meantime. Haidt’s basic thesis is that we have drastically overprotected children in the real world and woefully under-protected them in the virtual world. A new video helpfully lines out this argument, and shows why today’s generation, more than the Millennials who preceded them, struggle so intensely with anxiety, depression, and loneliness. In a recent interview, author and public intellectual Andy Crouch said that while he doesn’t know if it can be backed up neurologically, there is something about the “glow” of screens that wakens something primordial in the human psyche. We are drawn to things that glow. Anything that resembles fire, or a sun or moon, will automatically draw us to it. The problem is that this can have an entrancing effect, almost like we’re being put under a magic spell. In turn, the real world can start to become dull, and we …

Apple Shares 5 Helpful AirPods Tips and Tricks

Apple Shares 5 Helpful AirPods Tips and Tricks

Published by skeptic

Popular Stories iPhone 16 Plus Rumored to Come in These 7 Colors Apple’s iPhone 16 Plus may come in seven colors that either build upon the existing five colors in the standard iPhone 15 lineup or recast them in a new finish, based on a new rumor out of China. According to the Weibo-based leaker Fixed focus digital, Apple’s upcoming larger 6.7-inch iPhone 16 Plus model will come in the following colors, compared to the colors currently available for the… When to Expect a New Apple TV to Launch It has been nearly a year and a half since the current Apple TV was released, so the device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade. Below, we recap rumors about the next Apple TV, including potential features and launch timing. The current model is the third-generation Apple TV 4K, announced in October 2022. Key new features compared to the previous model from 2021 include a faster A15… Macs to Get AI-Focused M4 Chips Starting in Late 2024 Apple will begin updating its Mac lineup with …

The Download: AI is making robots more helpful, and the problem with cleaning up pollution

The Download: AI is making robots more helpful, and the problem with cleaning up pollution

Published by skeptic

November 2023 Technically speaking, neuroscientists have been able to read your mind for decades. It’s not easy, mind you. First, you must lie motionless within a hulking fMRI scanner, perhaps for hours, while you watch films or listen to audiobooks. None of this, of course, can be done without your consent; for the foreseeable future, your thoughts will remain your own, if you so choose. But if you do elect to endure claustrophobic hours in the scanner, the software will learn to generate a bespoke reconstruction of what you were seeing or listening to, just by analyzing how blood moves through your brain. More recently, researchers have deployed generative AI tools, like Stable Diffusion and GPT, to create far more realistic, if not entirely accurate, reconstructions of films and podcasts based on neural activity. But as exciting as the idea of extracting a movie from someone’s brain activity may be, it is a highly limited form of “mind reading.” To really experience the world through your eyes, scientists would have to be able to infer …

6 helpful Steam tips for leveling up your PC gaming

6 helpful Steam tips for leveling up your PC gaming

Published by skeptic

Steam continues to be a juggernaut in PC gaming—it recently set a new record for 36.4 million concurrent players all gaming at the same time. And it’s not difficult to see why it’s so popular, with an unbeatable selection of titles, a straightforward interface, and plenty of extras around user communities and content sharing too. If you’re only using the Steam client to buy and launch your games though, you’re missing out on a lot of other features it offers too—from sharing games to managing the stress on your network. We’ve pulled together six essential Steam tips, which should be helpful for users at all levels of experience. 1. Put your games in collections By default, Steam will simply catalog your games in a long list, ordered alphabetically—but as you start to get more and more titles added to your library, that can quickly become unwieldy. The built-in collections feature is one way to bring a bit of order to the chaos. All you need to get started is right-click on one of your games …