All posts tagged: hitting

UK Government wants more evidence before banning hitting children

UK Government wants more evidence before banning hitting children

Published by skeptic

The UK Government has once again rejected a proposal to ban hitting children, claiming it needs to look at evidence coming from Wales later this year to make a decision. Humanists UK joined a coalition of children’s and medical organisations, including the NSPCC, Barnardo’s, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and the British Medical Association, to call for a change in the law to repeal the reasonable punishment defence and in support of Jess Asato MP’s amendment.  Labour’s Jess Asato brought back her earlier amendment for the report stage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill on Monday 17 March. She, along with Liberal Democrat and Green MPs, pushed for the UK Government to remove legal defences against corporal punishment, as was done in Wales in 2022, Scotland in 2020, and the Republic of Ireland in 2015.  Early Education Minister Stephen Morgan rebuffed calls for such a change, stating: ‘We are looking closely at the legal changes made in Wales and Scotland, but we have no plans to legislate at this stage. Wales …

Is OpenAI hitting a wall with huge and expensive GPT-4.5 model?

Is OpenAI hitting a wall with huge and expensive GPT-4.5 model?

Published by skeptic

GPT-4.5 is OpenAI’s latest chatbot model CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images OpenAI has unveiled its latest AI model, GPT-4.5, but the firm’s boss says it is running out of hardware to power it. If ever-larger AI can no longer be run at scale, then are we looking at the end of the technology’s rapid progress, and perhaps even the bursting of a bubble? There are certainly signs that things aren’t going as planned within OpenAI. As recently as 12 February, CEO Sam Altman acknowledged on X that the company’s product offering had created a confusing picture – at the… Source link

The Odds of a City-Killing Asteroid Hitting Earth Keep Rising

The Odds of a City-Killing Asteroid Hitting Earth Keep Rising

Published by skeptic

An asteroid discovered late last year is continuing to stir public interest as its odds of striking planet Earth less than eight years from now continue to increase. Two weeks ago, when Ars first wrote about the asteroid, designated 2024 YR4, NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies estimated a 1.9 percent chance of an impact with Earth in 2032. NASA’s most recent estimate has the likelihood of a strike increasing to 3.2 percent. Now that’s not particularly high, but it’s also not zero. Naturally the prospect of a large ball of rock tens of meters across striking the planet is a little worrisome. This is large enough to cause localized devastation near its impact site, likely on the order of the Tunguska event of 1908, which leveled some 500 square miles (1,295 square kilometers) of forest in remote Siberia. To understand why the odds from NASA are changing and whether we should be concerned about 2024 YR4, Ars connected with Robin George Andrews, author of the recently published book How to Kill an Asteroid. …

No ban on hitting children until at least 2026 says UK Government

No ban on hitting children until at least 2026 says UK Government

Published by skeptic

The UK Government has rejected a cross-party proposal to ban hitting children in England, arguing it is better to wait to see the assessment of the impact of a similar ban in Wales that will be published at the end of 2025.  Humanists UK welcomed the cross-party amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill that would have removed the legal defence of ‘reasonable punishment’ for hitting a child. While regretting the delay, it now hopes the Government will look at the matter promptly in late 2025. The amendment was proposed by Labour MP Jess Asato, who is not on the Bill’s Committee. Speaking for the amendment at the Committee Stage, Green MP and member of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group (APPHG) Ellie Chowns said: ‘It is totally unacceptable that in 2025, children have less protection from assault under English law than adults do. The existence of the “reasonable punishment” defence perpetuates ambiguity in the law. It leaves children exposed to potential harm and undermines efforts to safeguard their wellbeing.’ But the School Standards Minister …

MPs propose to ban hitting children in England

MPs propose to ban hitting children in England

Published by skeptic

Humanists UK welcomes a cross-party amendment to abolish hitting children tabled by Labour MP Jess Asato to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. This comes at a time when the NSPCC has recorded an over 300% increase in calls about physical violence against children. The amendment would abolish the   common law defence of ‘reasonable punishment’, used to justify violence against children, giving children equal protection to adults. Humanists UK has long campaigned for this defence of corporal punishment against children to be removed. In recent years Wales Humanists supported the Welsh Government in changing the law, which happened in 2022. Scotland similarly outlawed all violence against children in 2020. A ban is also in place in the Republic of Ireland. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recognises that any physical punishment of children, however minor, is incompatible with their human rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), and has called for it to be abolished. And last year, Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for …

‘It’s just not hitting like it used to’: TikTok was in its flop era before it got banned in the US | TikTok

‘It’s just not hitting like it used to’: TikTok was in its flop era before it got banned in the US | TikTok

Published by skeptic

TikTok is facing its most credible existential threat yet. Last week, the US Congress passed a bill that bans the short-form video app if it does not sell to an American company by this time next year. But as a former avid user whose time on the app has dropped sharply in recent months, I am left wondering – will I even be using the app a year from now? Like many Americans of my demographic (aging millennial), I first started using TikTok regularly when the Covid-19 pandemic began and lockdowns gave many of us more time than we knew how to fill. As 2020 wore on, the global news climate becoming somehow progressively worse with each passing day, what began as a casual distraction became a kind of mental health lifeline. My average total screen time exploded from four hours a day to upwards of 10 – much of which were spent scrolling my “For You” page, the main feed of algorithmically recommended videos within TikTok. At the time, content was predictable, mostly light …

How hitting with RISP has been Shohei Ohtani’s one Dodgers flaw

How hitting with RISP has been Shohei Ohtani’s one Dodgers flaw

Published by skeptic

The timing was coincidental. But, on Shohei Ohtani’s first off day as a Dodger, the discourse Wednesday centered on the one big struggle of his 2024 season — a weakness that had cropped up again the night before. When there hasn’t been a runner at second or third base this season, Ohtani has been the best hitter in baseball. He is batting an MLB-best .398 in such spots. His .774 slugging percentage is more than 100 points better than all but two other players. When the Dodgers need to start a rally, the $700-million signing is often their most potent spark. However, with runners in scoring position over the first month of the season, the slugger’s production has unexpectedly cratered, leading to a trend of frustratingly empty key at-bats. With RISP, Ohtani is batting just .184 (seven for 38) with a .237 slugging percentage. Of the 14 big leaguers with at least 35 such at-bats, he is the only one with fewer than 10 RBIs. And, somewhat amazingly, he has driven in more runs without …

Across the Spider-Verse Concert Tour Hitting United States

Across the Spider-Verse Concert Tour Hitting United States

Published by Sam

Following last week’s announcement of the now fast-selling U.K. tour, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse composer Daniel Pemberton is revealing that the film’s live-in-concert experience is now web-swinging across the Atlantic and into the States.  Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Live in Concert’s 50-plus-date U.S. tour will kick off Sept. 1 in Nashville, Tenn., featuring a live-to-picture performance of Pemberton’s mold-breaking orchestral and electronic score. A scratch DJ on turntables and a designated whistler will also be present to add two of the score’s most unique ingredients, and at a select number of events, you might even catch Pemberton on guitar and a number of other instruments including his own face. (He’ll explain below.) For more U.S. tour information, visit the official website, beginning at 10 a.m. ET today. The Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated composer channeled the rave and club scene of ‘90s London to create the musical identity of the Oscar-winning Spider-Verse saga. And while this experimental approach could be done with relative ease in the recording studio, Pemberton was initially uncertain if the multidimensional scores of …

Amazing Lofts expands to Kent after hitting £4m turnover in two years

Amazing Lofts expands to Kent after hitting £4m turnover in two years

Published by skeptic

Three friends who started a loft boarding and insulation business with a rented van, storage unit and £5,000 of their own money have expanded their operation into Kent this month. Kevin Baker, Richard Blane and Neal Thorne founded Amazing Lofts in Banbury, Oxfordshire after quitting their jobs at the height of the cost-of-living crisis. They’ve now turned over £4 million in their first two years of trading. The business currently employs more than 35 full-time staff and is set to create another six local jobs after cutting the ribbon on a new depot near Orpington. The depot will serve as the firm’s south-east headquarters with capability to cover all of Kent and stretch as far west as Portsmouth. Amazing Lofts’ growth into Kent follows a poll of 2,000 homeowners by EDF Energy which revealed 30 per cent had never entered their loft. Fears of falling, dirt, poor lighting and spiders are among the most common reasons cited. Kevin Baker, CEO of Amazing Lofts, describes lofts as the forgotten room of UK homes and believes many …