All posts tagged: last spring

Joe Biden and Donald Trump Have Thoughts About Your Next Car

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] Get ready for the EV election. Doug Mills / The New York Times / Redux March 20, 2024, 6:32 PM ET The Biden administration earlier today issued a major new rule intended to spur the country’s electric-vehicle industry and slash future sales of new gas-powered cars. The rule is not a ban on gas cars, nor does it mandate electric-vehicle sales. It is a new emissions standard, requiring automakers to cut the average carbon emission of their fleets by nearly 50 percent by 2032. It would speed up the transformation of the car industry: The simplest way for automakers to cut emissions will likely be to shift more of their fleets to electric and hybrid models, and the Biden administration estimates that the rule would result in electric vehicles making up as much as half of all new cars sold by 2032. It also gives the country more of a chance of meeting the administration’s goal of cutting U.S. emissions in half by 2030 and eliminating them by 2050. The final rule is a …

Putin’s nuclear theatrics – The Atlantic

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Last spring, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would station nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus. Evidence suggests that this move is imminent, but it is strategically meaningless. First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic: Cold War Games Last week, Foreign Policy reported that Putin was in the process of making good on his announcement from last spring to station Russian nuclear arms in Belarus, thus putting Russia’s nuclear-strike forces that much closer to both Ukraine and NATO. Foreign Policy attributed the news to “Western officials,” but so far, only Lithuania’s defense minister has offered a public confirmation. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed in December that weapons had arrived in his country, but no public evidence confirmed that assertion, and so far, no Western governments or intelligence services have commented on this news. What intelligence analysts are …

A 17th-century nun’s feminist manifesto

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is Gisela Salim-Peyer, an assistant editor who has written about the fantasy of heritage tourism, the Venezuelan government’s project to redeem a dead rapper, and Italy’s millennia-old ambition to build a bridge to Sicily. Gisela fell in love with Mexico City and Mexico’s national anthropology museum on her first visit last spring, was transfixed by the opening paragraph of Juan Rulfo’s novel, Pedro Páramo, and views the 17th-century Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz as the last word on everything. First, here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic: The Culture Survey: Gisela Salim-Peyer The last museum show that I loved: Last year, I went to Mexico City for the first time and …

If Online Ads Feel More Annoying, It’s Because They Are

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] These days, turning on my Amazon Fire smart TV is like a reflex test. Hesitate for even a second, and the home screen starts blasting an ad for the latest show or movie from Amazon Prime. Even if I do manage to navigate away in time, I still have to scroll past an ad for, say, toothpaste. Only then can I access the entertainment I actually want to watch, typically on a once-ad-free streaming service that is now … showing ads. This advertising assault—one that’s particularly acute when my cat attacks the remote at 4 a.m. and interrupts my sleep with a trailer for an explosive thriller—wasn’t as invasive when I purchased the TV three years ago. Online advertising is similarly exhausting whether you’re using a smart TV, phone, laptop, or really any other kind of screen. My fitness and nutrition app advertises Eggo waffles as I input my smoothie, my friends are enduring ads in exchange for swipes on dating apps, and when I do go searching for something to buy, it comes …

Silicon Valley’s New Start-Ups: City-States

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] I. The international airport serving the capital of Montenegro has only two arrival gates, and last spring they were busier than usual. I was there for the same reason many others were: The tiny Balkan state had become the unlikely center of a mostly American social and political movement. Specifically, I had come to observe Zuzalu, a two-month co-living experiment that had been organized—and to some extent paid for—by Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of the eco-friendly cryptocurrency ethereum. It was being hosted at a new resort and planned community on the Adriatic coast, not far from the village of Radovići. Part retreat and part conference, it was also a dry run for the more permanent relocation of tech-industry digital nomads to different parts of the world, where they could start their own societies and design them to their liking. Some 200 people had signed up for the full two months. Others, like me, popped in and out. The slate of talks for the days I was there was titled “New Cities and Network States.” …

Chase Hall’s ‘Post-Victimhood’ Storytelling – The Atlantic

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] In his Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, André Breton wrote, “The marvelous is always beautiful, anything marvelous is beautiful, in fact only the marvelous is beautiful.” That line came to mind when I stood before Mother Nature, a giant canvas depicting a killer whale lifting a naked man into the air, eye level with a flock of gulls. The image was a highlight of “The Bathers,” Chase Hall’s standout debut at the David Kordansky Gallery in Chelsea this fall. The show, of mostly immense paintings priced from $60,000 to $120,000, was billed as an investigation into “nature, leisure, public space, and Black adventurism.” The playful and enigmatic scenes involved men swimming, surfing, and sometimes levitating, in solitude or among a living bounty of fish and birds. They were at once beautiful and formally striking meditations on the richness and versatility of a single color: brown. At the time of the exhibition, Hall was on the cusp of turning 30. He floated through the gallery in a white tank and loose gray slacks that broke over …

What really happens when you’re sick

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] 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. When you’re suffering from a cold, the situation might seem perfectly clear—your nose is stuffed. But the truth about what’s happening to you is a little more complicated. For starters, the nose is actually two noses, which work in an alternating cycle that is connected to the armpits. In a new article, our Science writer Sarah Zhang explains what’s really going on in your body when you’re congested. There’s something oddly empowering in understanding how colds work, even if the knowledge won’t cure you. Today’s newsletter will help you get to know the inner workings of your body when it’s not at its best. On Colds Everything I Thought I Knew About Nasal Congestion Is Wrong By Sarah Zhang Start with this: You really have two noses. Why Has a Useless Cold Medication Been Allowed on Shelves …