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Mock Turtle world

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Sounds of the natural world are rapidly falling silent and will become “acoustic fossils” without urgent action to halt environmental destruction, international experts have warned. As technology develops, sound has become an increasingly important way of measuring the health and biodiversity of ecosystems: our forests, soils and oceans all produce their own acoustic signatures. Scientists who use ecoacoustics to measure habitats and species say that quiet is falling across thousands of habitats, as the planet witnesses extraordinary losses in the density and variety of species. Disappearing or losing volume along with them are many familiar sounds: the morning calls of birds, rustle of mammals through undergrowth and summer hum of insects. Today, tuning into some ecosystems reveals a “deathly silence”, said Prof Steve Simpson from the University of Bristol. “It is that race against time – we’ve only just discovered that they make such sounds, and yet we hear the sound disappearing.” “The changes are profound. And they are happening everywhere,” said US soundscape recordist Bernie Krause, who has taken more than 5,000 hours of recordings from seven continents over the past 55 years. He estimates that 70% of his archive is from habitats that no longer exist. Prof Bryan Pijanowski from Purdue University in the US has been listening to natural sounds for 40 years and taken recordings from virtually all of the world’s main types of ecosystems. He said: “The sounds of the past that have been recorded and saved represent the sounds of species that might no longer be here – so that’s all we’ve got. The recordings that many of us have [are] of places that no longer exist, and we don’t even know what those species are. In that sense they are already acoustic fossils.”


Pickering is a vegan who was brought up by vegans and sets out to answer the anti-vegan remarks he hears from his friends all the time; they could never go vegan because meat is too delicious, or because climate change isn’t real, or because plant-based diets don’t deliver the protein, or because these days free range or organic meat industries make animals’ lives better. Pickering dispenses with each and every one, with the help of compelling testimony from Guardian columnist George Monbiot among others. The one about meat being delicious is difficult to combat, and Pickering’s garish closeups of a sinful fry-up, intended to dismay and disgust, had me thinking … mmmmm, yum. (Perhaps Pickering should have interviewed vegan and comedian Romesh Ranganathan who is funny and insightful on this subject.) Vegan recipes are certainly getting better all the time, and Pickering also dispenses with the notion that “free range” farming is a Shangri-La of happiness for animals. It is a little bit better than non-free-range, maybe, but the animals are still kept in grim conditions and the distinction has basically been invented to create a spurious “luxury” consumer tier. Pickering’s style isn’t perfect. I could have done without his goofy and staged-looking phone calls to his mum, and I also think he could have given us a basic run-down of what exactly he eats for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, along with the inter-meal snacks. The film is tasty, though.


Drug shortages are a “new normal” in the UK and are being exacerbated by Brexit, a report by the Nuffield Trust health thinktank has warned. A dramatic recent spike in the number of drugs that are unavailable has created serious problems for doctors, pharmacists, the NHS and patients, it found. The number of warnings drug companies have issued about impending supply problems for certain products has more than doubled from 648 in 2020 to 1,634 last year. Mark Dayan, the report’s lead author and the Nuffield Trust’s Brexit programme lead, said: “The rise in shortages of vital medicines from rare to commonplace has been a shocking development that few would have expected a decade ago.” The UK has been struggling since last year with major shortages of drugs to treat ADHD, type 2 diabetes and epilepsy. Three ADHD drugs that were in short supply were meant to be back in normal circulation by the end of 2023 but remain hard to obtain. Some medicine shortages are so serious that they are imperilling the health and even lives of patients with serious illnesses, pharmacy bosses warned. Health charities have seen a sharp rise in calls from patients unable to obtain their usual medication. Nicola Swanborough, head of external affairs at the Epilepsy Society, said: “Our helpline has been inundated with calls from desperate people who are having to travel miles, often visiting multiple pharmacies to try and access their medication.”

And rather plain to see, when one just happens to want some particular medicine but that day it appears absent from the shelves.


The boat-sinking orcas are on the move. Since 2020, orcas has been attacking boats in southwest Europe, and were recently spotted circling a ship in Spain for the first time this year. However, the most recent sighting of one such pod is hundreds of miles from where they should be this time of year, suggesting the group is changing its tactics – and scientists have no idea why. The group is made up of 40 orcas who live off the coast of Spain and Portugal, as well as in the Strait of Gibraltar, and since 2020 some of the orcas have been approaching and occasionally attacking boats. The most recent sinking happened on October 31, 2023, but the orcas have sent at least three other boats to the bottom of the sea, although thankfully no humans have been injured or killed. But just a few days ago, on April 10, three of the orcas were spotted swimming near a large yacht in northern Spain, a local news site reported.


She said: ‘I was not there. I find that a remarkable story at best. President Trump, you know, he reads a lot.

Well that is news - that he can read. :D


The possibility of a second US civil war is becoming ‘increasingly plausible’ according to a new study – with additional insurrections even more likely. There are also ‘striking similarities’ between the 1850s – the decade before the first civil war – and today, according to the team from California State University, San Bernardino. The American Civil War broke out on April 12, 1861, and lasted until April 26, 1865. It followed the secession of 11 Southern states following decades of arguments over slavery. However, other issues that sparked the conflict included government reach, states rights and taxes. Writing in the journal Administration and Society, the team said: ‘Here, our purpose is to compare the zeitgeist of the divisive decade before the Civil War on the one hand with today’s hyper-partisan era on the other, demonstrating the two periods do indeed have extensive, striking similarities.’ In the US of today, society is again split over many issues, such as abortion, immigration, gun ownership, identity politics and, almost four years on, the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. On January 6, 2021, supporters of the then-president Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building, the US’s equivalent to the Houses of Parliament, claiming the previous November’s election had been ‘stolen’. Nine people died as a result of the insurrection, either during or after the event.

From what I am seeing I tend to agree, and no doubt Russia and China, amongst others, will be laughing their socks off - especially as the GOP seem to be doing their work for them. o_O


In 2022, UK experts reviewed international evidence and found that 'in the short and medium term, vaping poses a small fraction of the risks of smoking'. The NHS says because vaping hasn't been around for long, it's hard to know the risks of long-term use. Dr Khan agrees that more research is needed for us to have a better understanding - but says some evidence suggests potential health risks associated with chronic vape use. "Prolonged exposure to the aerosolised particles from vaping products may contribute to chronic lung damage and respiratory issues," he told the Mirror. "Although the risks might be lower compared to traditional smoking due to the absence of combustion, long-term vaping could lead to reduced lung function over time, resulting in symptoms such as shortness of breath. This could potentially limit an individual's ability to engage in physical activities and exercise." Long-term vaping can also lead to skin problems such as dehydration and irritation, as well as fine lines and wrinkles around the lips - just like smoking standard cigarettes.

No matter the warnings, people will seemingly pay to be addicted to something worthless.


My particular experience was similar - a booked seat on a train and where I evicted the young girl sitting there - but subsequently I would have acted differently if another seat was easily found, given it hardly mattered where I sat but more important for her to be near her family. But I believe I was a bit different then. :oops:

 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Thus following their buddy Russia's lead. Not aiding their claims to being the most moral - both. :eek:


"It's just not nice at all, and obviously not just in a selfish way, but also towards the other women. A lot of them will be really, really young girls, maybe even underage girls not knowing that they were being recorded. "There's videos of girls like falling over and having their underwear on show and stuff. And then being posted online like that, something really needs to be done about it."

Might make them wake up to realising how vulnerable they might be, and as to placing themselves in danger, especially if they might be drunk enough to fall over. And it might be some doing this to highlight the bad ways of Westerners - given that it is often the religious who like to shout about us all going to Hell with such behaviours. o_O

GMP said although it is not illegal to film people in public, if the action is causing distress or harassment it could be considered criminal. PCs Ellison and Seu from GMP said it could be difficult to spot people filming due to the technology they use.

Does this apply to the ubiquitous CCTV in most cities? :eyes:


Although not mentioned, Bangkok has a similar problem, and probably more pressing. :oops:


Yes dear, now take the medicine as requested. :D
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Crucially for Tesla's future, we may have reached a tipping point: The Cybertruck has become a punchline in a way that its owners cannot get out from under. The joke is that they are dupes who paid through the nose for an extremely expensive vehicle that looks like it was designed by a child and does not actually perform many of the functions we expect from a truck, and that they'll put up with any design flaw whatsoever.

I think this is what many thought when they first saw it - and not, ooh, I'd like one of those. o_O


It wouldn't save me money - probably would lie unused, as per so many other such items I have. :oops:


 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

The A (H5N1) strain has become "a global zoonotic animal pandemic", Farrar said. "The great concern of course is that in… infecting ducks and chickens and then increasingly mammals, that virus now evolves and develops the ability to infect humans and then critically the ability to go from human to human." So far, there is no evidence that the influenza A(H5N1) virus is spreading between humans. But in the hundreds of cases where humans have been infected through contact with animals, "the mortality rate is extraordinarily high", Farrar said.


But perhaps those who rely on such are 'brain-damaged' already? :oops:


AI could allow for customized learner support - adapting to the individual pace and learning style of each student, helping to make education more inclusive and tailored to specific needs. Generative AI can better the humanities by making reading and writing more accessible to diverse students, including those with learning disabilities or challenges with traditional writing methods.

This could become the norm - as to education individually geared to each student, and perhaps where some don't actually slip through the net, as I apparently did. :(


We had a case of this on the new UK BGT series seemingly, where images of the judges were used to perform live for one act. :oops:


In his later years, Dennett wasn't shy about sounding the alarm regarding AI, even writing an article for The Atlantic last year on the topic about the dangers ahead, particularly with the advent of large language models like ChatGPT. "The most pressing problem is not that they’re going to take our jobs, not that they’re going to change warfare, but that they’re going to destroy human trust," he told Tufts Now. "They’re going to move us into a world where you can’t tell truth from falsehood. You don’t know who to trust. Trust turns out to be one of the most important features of civilization, and we are now at great risk of destroying the links of trust that have made civilization possible."

Quite possible too, given what we have seen so far. :worried:
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

The technology behind England's smart motorway network stops working on a regular basis, the BBC has discovered. Figures obtained by Panorama have revealed hundreds of incidents when crucial safety equipment was out of action. A traffic officer who works on the network told the programme he no longer considers it safe. National Highways - the agency in charge of smart motorways - denies the claims. Smart motorways are stretches of road where technology is used to try to regulate traffic flow and ease congestion. There are 193 miles of what's called "all-lane-running" motorway - this means the hard shoulder has been permanently removed to provide an extra lane.

I've only ever broken down once on a motorway (the M1), when they did have hard shoulders (late 1960s), and in an old and cheap A35 van - student days, and going home to London. The engine conked out, possibly due to an oil leakage, and it seemed terminal. I managed to push it back to the nearest exit, which fortunately wasn't that far away, and left it to be collected later. Which happened shortly afterwards when I bought another cheap car (Morris Minor van) and towed the A35 to a scrapyard - never did like it. :D

Four pounds for the scrap value and five pounds for the new car left me with a one pound car - which took myself and two others down through France and across Spain for a nice holiday later. Plus a few bits and pieces obtained from scrapyards during its life to make sure it was generally quite reliable. Being an engineer in training at the time and doing all the necessary work myself helped with the costs. Ah, those were the days. :oops:

Without technology or a hard shoulder, smart motorways become very dangerous, says Edmund King, president of the AA. "If you haven't got that technology, it's not even a basic motorway because you haven't got the hard shoulder," he says. "It means that you're playing Russian roulette with people's lives."

I'm tempted to agree with this - given that failures of technology are always likely, and when no safety options are available, like hard shoulders, then people will be injured or killed - as has already happened to many.


It was obviously a hugely upsetting experience for victims. But it’s also one way in which, contrary to popular opinion, baby boomers might just need protecting from the risks posed by social media more than Generation Z. Much has been made of the fact that the younger generation can’t get off their phones and struggle with IRL interactions; that they’re all addicted to TikTok and regularly get sucked down YouTube rabbit holes pushing ever-more polarising viewpoints. But, in some ways, they are best adapted to digital life – there’s an argument that, having grown up online, they understand its pitfalls better than their older counterparts.

Being pre-Boomer I couldn't give a toss, but many Boomers grew up with computers and the earliest forms of social media far earlier than the younger lot so aren't necessarily that gullible - and they are probably more sensible in not being so tied to social media anyway.



Summary: A detailed reconstruction of climate during the most recent ice age, when a large swath of North America was covered in ice, provides information on the relationship between CO2 and global temperature. Results show that while most future warming estimates remain unchanged, the absolute worst-case scenario is unlikely.


Summary: Scientists have discovered that the magnetic nanobubbles known as skyrmions can be moved by electrical currents, attaining record speeds up to 900 m/s. Anticipated as future bits in computer memory, these nanobubbles offer enhanced avenues for information processing in electronic devices. Their tiny size provides great computing and information storage capacity, as well as low energy consumption. Until now, these nanobubbles moved no faster than 100 m/s, which is too slow for computing applications. However, thanks to the use of an antiferromagnetic material as medium, the scientists successfully had the skyrmions move 10 times faster than previously observed. These results offer new prospects for developing higher-performance and less energy-intensive computing devices.


Summary: Researchers have made a groundbreaking discovery regarding number sense in animals by confirming the existence of discrete number sense in rats, offering a crucial animal model for investigating the neural basis of numerical ability and disability in humans.

Number sense is a fundamental ability in animals' perception of the world and increases their chances of survival. It is also an important cognitive ability, which is fundamental to mathematical aptitude, a hallmark of human intelligence. About 3% to 7% of people suffer from dyscalculia, a learning disability that affects the ability to learn arithmetic and mathematics of people of normal intelligence; a deficit in number sense is one of the major symptoms.

And where perhaps the intelligence of someone might be underestimated.


Summary: Mountain chickadees have among the best spatial memory in the animal kingdom. New research identifies the genes at play and offers insight into how a shifting climate may impact the evolution of this unique skill.

These half-ounce birds, with brains slightly larger than a pea, stash tens of thousands of food items like seeds in tree bark, under dead leaves and inside pinecones across the mountains. When winter arrives, they can recall the exact locations of their caches, a skill that helps them survive the bitter cold and deep snow.

 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

It's fine of course - since he was asleep too. :D


No doubt it was a lot different before this and not so nice either for many. o_O


Paedophiles are being urged to use artificial intelligence to create nude images of children to extort more extreme material from them, according to a child abuse charity. The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) said a manual found on the dark web contained a section encouraging criminals to use “nudifying” tools to remove clothing from underwear shots sent by a child. The manipulated image could then be used against the child to blackmail them into sending more graphic content, the IWF said. “This is the first evidence we have seen that perpetrators are advising and encouraging each other to use AI technology for these ends,” said the IWF. The charity, which finds and removes child sexual abuse material online, warned last year of a rise in sextortion cases, where victims are manipulated into sending graphic images of themselves and are then threatened with the release of those images unless they hand over money. It also flagged the first examples of AI being used to create “astoundingly realistic” abuse content. The anonymous author of the online manual, which runs to nearly 200 pages, boasts about having “successfully blackmailed” 13-year-old girls into sending nude imagery online. The IWF said the document had been passed to the UK’s National Crime Agency.

Someone needs to reassess their morality, as this is just so despicable. :mad:

The IWF has also said 2023 was “the most extreme year on record”. Its annual report said the organisation found more than 275,000 webpages containing child sexual abuse last year, the highest number recorded by the IWF, with a record amount of “category A” material, which can include the most severe imagery including rape, sadism and bestiality. The IWF said more than 62,000 pages contained category A content, compared with 51,000 in the prior year. The IWF found 2,401 images of self-generated child sexual abuse material – where victims are manipulated or threatened into recording abuse of themselves – taken by children aged between three and six years old. Analysts said they had seen abuse taking place in domestic settings including bedrooms and kitchens. Susie Hargreaves, the chief executive of the IWF, said opportunistic criminals trying to manipulate children were “not a distant threat”. She said: “If children under six are being targeted like this, we need to be having age-appropriate conversations now to make sure they know how to spot the dangers.”

And perhaps parents/carers need to be monitoring children more. :oops:


Let's hope his suffering is soon over. ;)


Toddlers are becoming so ill from vaping that they are ending up in hospital, the latest NHS England statistics have revealed. There were 50 admissions for vaping related disorders involving children in 2023 – including 11 aged four or under. Professor of paediatric respiratory medicine at Queen Mary University of London, Jonathan Grigg, warned this is a ‘totally predictable consequence of the Tory government’s decision to allow a vaping free for all’. In 2020, no pre-schoolers were given hospital treatment for using the e-cigarettes – and only six children needed hospital help. But total admissions of all people – kids and adults – for such disorders has soared by 276% in the four years since 2020. In 2020, admissions of kids made up just 6% of total admissions, but last year 14% of the 365 vape-related hospital admissions related to patients aged 19 and under.


Well done to these girls - That's the way to do it! :pizza::pizza::pizza: etc.
 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Like anything regarding Savile, one feels it necessary to watch programmes like this, perhaps to recognise how so many do exploit their fame or celebrity status to get into positions so as to abuse children. Fortunately I had better things to do than listen to his music and those associated with the Glam-Rock genre. :eek:


Best to stay away from anything that claims to be Smart - when such is more likely to simply promote advertising and such. o_O


And doing away with faith schools will undoubtedly aid this. :praying:

Even some animals have a sense of what is wrong, as ethologist Frans de Waal of Emory University and others have demonstrated. In an experiment de Waal conducted with Sarah F. Brosnan, now at Georgia State University, a capuchin monkey became furious when she got a piece of cucumber as a reward for handing the experimenter a rock while another monkey instead got a real treat: a grape.


Perhaps this is garbage but we know that the Russians are rather fond of the more exotic means for disposing of their enemies - perhaps because it seem as kudos to them but merely shows their silliness in being found out and wasting resources on such things when more conventional murder will do suitably, like shoving someone out of a high window - which they probably also do. o_O

 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Fifteen-year-old boys in Scotland have the highest rate for smoking cannabis according to a new report from the World Health Organisation (WHO). The study, external found that nearly a quarter (23%) of boys aged 15 in Scotland surveyed said they had tried the Class B drug at some point. In one of the largest studies of its kind the WHO examined data from 280,000 children aged 11, 13 and 15 from 44 countries around the world. The survey also suggested that the UK has more of an issue with under-age vaping than many other countries. The survey asked children living in Europe, Central Asia and Canada about their use of cigarettes, vapes, alcohol and cannabis. It found that children in Scotland and Wales are more likely to have smoked cannabis than those in many other countries. Both countries are in the top five globally. From the Scottish sample, which involved 4,000 teenagers, 23% of 15-year-old boys said they had smoked cannabis within their lifetime, while 16% of girls the same age said the same. Canadian girls ranked highest with 25% saying they had smoked the drug. Just 13% of boys and 6% of girls in Scotland said they had used cannabis, also known as weed, in the last 30 days.

The study also looked at trends in smoking, vaping and drinking alcohol among the three age groups. It found two-fifths of girls in England and Scotland have vaped by the age of 15. That is higher than in other countries such as France, Austria, Germany, Albania, Spain, Canada and Norway. The study found 40% of 15-year-old girls in Scotland, and 33% of boys have used an electronic cigarette. Of those, 30% of girls said their use was in the 30 days prior to the 2022 survey, while for boys the figure was 20%. "Vaping in the UK is higher than the average across all the countries that took part in the survey as a whole," said Dr Inchley. “Steep increases in vaping among young people in the UK threaten to reverse some of the positive trends we’ve seen in substance use in recent years with overall declines in alcohol use and cigarette smoking since the 1990s," she said. "Rates of vaping have doubled in the last four years among girls in Scotland. "Vapes are far too readily accessible to young people and the health risks are underestimated. New legislation to ban single use vapes is an important step forward but further action is needed to address these worrying trends,” she added.


A third of 11-year-olds and more than half of 13-year-olds in England have drunk alcohol - putting it top out of 44 countries examined in a report by global health experts. Girls were found to be more likely than boys to be drinking and getting drunk aged 15 in England, Wales and Scotland. The World Health Organization (WHO) report said alcohol, which can damage children's brains, has been normalised. It called on countries to introduce more measures to protect children. The report looked at data from about 4,500 school-age children from each country in Europe, central Asia and Canada in 2021-22 on cigarette smoking, vaping, alcohol and cannabis habits among adolescents. The UK has always had relatively high alcohol use among young people but it has been declining for some time.


Not sure that the UK could ever manage to have a decent nationalised rail service but I'm of the opinion that all transport services as well as all major utilities should be nationalised - purely from the regulatory, consistency, integration (of transport systems), and stability aspects. And we could no doubt learn from countries such as France, Germany, and Switzerland as to running transport services - at least when I have visited them, and even if they are not nationalised.


I'm sure many of us would prefer an even higher tax than this. :oops:



Maiden UK (03) has won the McIntyre Ocean Globe Race taking first in IRC handicap rankings against a 14 strong fleet of very experienced and committed sailors. They have also been written into the history books as the first ever all-women crew to win an around the world yacht race.

Well done to them! :beercheers:
 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Tricky question - as to culling invasive species - even if we might have preferences and where one species apparently is an introduced one. :(


Severi said that the evidence was clear on what could further be done to discourage alcohol consumption, particularly among young people, across the UK. “We have known for decades how to reduce alcohol harm: reduce its affordability through duty increases and minimum pricing policies, give local areas control over its availability and restrict alcohol marketing,” Severi said. “We know that alcohol marketing leads to children starting to drink from an earlier age and at heavier levels than they would have done.”

And should they do this with regards smoking, vaping, and recreational drugs?


I should be so lucky. All my credit cards have gone out of date from lack of use. :D


Live and let live? Oh no, she seemingly has to push her beliefs, and probably being religious, as to how others should behave. :eek:


A schoolgirl who had a complete personality change overnight had to wait 18 months to find answers for the mystery condition. Ava Holden, nine, always loved school and had gone to bed her normal, cheery self. But when she woke up, she suddenly refused to go. She began to have outbursts of rage, panic attacks, extreme anxiety and phobias – including terrifying thoughts about germs, vomit and psychosis. Ava also started to kick, bite and scream and refused to sleep on her own, while car journeys saw her attempting to open the door while the vehicle was moving. Parents Claire, 38, and Simon, 39, told doctors it was like a “light switch” transformation. Ava was out on the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) waiting list and is still yet to be seen, Devon Live reports. But 18 months after the sudden change, a school nurse managed to find answers for the change. She suggested Ava should be examined for paediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders such as PANDAS. PANDAS is a rare condition associated with streptococcal infections. Young people with common infections that lead to a misdirected immune response and brain inflammation can pick up PANDAS.

Mum-of-two Claire said: "It has been absolutely horrendous for the whole family, in particular, of course, for Ava. When I asked her what it felt like going through it she said, 'it was like my brain was on fire and I was sad all of the time'. It's just so heartbreaking she was in that state. For such a long time we didn't know what it was. PANDAS presents in patients with sudden extreme anxiety and some can develop ticks or even can't walk. Others have regression in their speech and it is all caused by the inflammation of their brain due to an infection." The family now hope to raise awareness of the condition, with so few people knowing about PANDAS. Claire said: "We desperately wanted help but it felt like we had just been left on a list and had to deal with it alone at home. The terrifying part about it is that many children are misdiagnosed and are being treated for mental health conditions or told they have special educational needs when actually their body is trying to fight infection. "In Ava’s case, it was caused by streptococcus infections but we have learnt from other parents viruses such as chicken pox and Covid can also cause it. Both times the infection Ava had was missed as she was asymptomatic. The only reason we knew something was wrong was because of her sudden dramatic change in behaviour. Ava was just the total opposite of what she had been like before. You couldn't compare the two as it was like completely different children. "Her behaviour was off-the-scale rage and panic like she was in the fight or flight stage in her brain. She no longer liked being in the car and tried opening the car door when we were moving. There were numerous times when we had to call the mental health crisis team as she was having psychotic episodes that could last over an hour. It was utterly terrifying and nothing we seemed to do could calm her."


Besides the fact of the health issues from those taking up such silliness at an early age might cause, or even those old enough who might know better. :oops:


Hardly news, since heavy accents can often be less understandable (or take one's attention away), and given that who wants to decipher heavily laden speech, in news bulletins for example, when a more neutral tone would convey the information much more readily. Neil Nunes, BBC (off to play Othello soon?, take note) - and for me it is merely his deep voice seemingly taking away from what he is trying to present - which in my view is a deficit rather than benefit. o_O



Owners of some sports utility vehicles (SUVs) in north London have said their car tyres were deflated by an environmental group. A leaflet left on the vehicles by the group Tyre Extinguishers, in Islington on Tuesday, said SUVs and 4x4s were "a disaster for our climate".

Is it my brain-fade or did we have this scenario several decades back and where people were seemingly shamed into not buying these vehicles? Or is that with electric vehicles they all tend to be bigger and heavier now, so why bother?
 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

New research has found a possible link between vitamin D and improved immunity to cancer. The study in mice found that the vitamin encourages the growth of a type of gut bacteria which gives the animals better immunity to the disease. The researchers found that mice given a diet rich in vitamin D had better immune resistance to experimentally transplanted cancers, and improved responses to immunotherapy treatment. Caetano Reis e Sousa, head of the Immunobiology Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute, and senior author, said: “What we’ve shown here came as a surprise – vitamin D can regulate the gut microbiome to favour a type of bacteria which gives mice better immunity to cancer. “This could one day be important for cancer treatment in humans, but we don’t know how and why vitamin D has this effect via the microbiome. More work is needed before we can conclusively say that correcting a vitamin D deficiency has benefits for cancer prevention or treatment.”


I'm sure many of us suspected such, just as it might apply to so many others too, but it's a risky strategy when many will have doubts as to such. But I'm sure so many liked Top Gear from the interactions between the three of them, being quite different, and the situations they got into, and not the same with different people in my view. :oops:


On April 23, 2006, the bodies of Marc Richardson, 42, his wife Debra, 48, and their 8-year-old son Tyler were discovered in their basement and upstairs rooms, respectively. Their 12-year-old daughter Jasmine was missing, raising fears that she too might have been a victim. The next day, Jasmine was found in Leader, Saskatchewan, 130 kilometres away from the crime scene. She was in the company of 23-year-old Jeremy Steinke and in a shocking turn of events both were arrested and charged with the murders. As the investigation unfolded, disturbing details emerged about the couple's relationship. Jasmine's friends revealed that her parents had grounded her for dating Steinke due to their significant age difference. Despite criticism from friends and family, Steinke proposed to Jasmine shortly after her arrest, and she accepted. Steinke, with his unsettling fascination with the supernatural, claimed to be a 300-year-old werewolf. He wore a vial of blood around his neck and frequented the website VampireFreaks.com. Jasmine had a profile on the same site, leading to speculation that they had met online. However, an acquaintance later revealed they had met at a punk rock concert earlier that year. Days before the murders, Steinke and his friends watched the film "Natural Born Killers," a violent tale of a couple on a killing spree. Steinke expressed admiration for the film, suggesting that he and Jasmine should carry out their plans in a similar fashion. During his trial in November 2008, Steinke admitted to the murders in conversations with undercover officers. He was found guilty and sentenced to three life sentences, eligible for parole after 25 years.

Bad Lolita - or just another young person enticed away by someone older and apparently a lot nastier/disturbed/psychopathic? :eek:


Naturally, privacy campaigners strongly oppose the IPB and the changes that it brings to UK law, saying they expand an already robust arsenal of tools to collect data on UK citizens in bulk. Tech trade body techUK said in a March statement that it had "substantial concerns" about the Bill, which was being "rushed" through parliament without proper scrutiny. It believes the IPB will weaken the safety rails that guide the intelligence services when collecting data in bulk, and that it could lead to the wider data harvesting of millions of facial images, internet records, and social media data. techUK told The Register this week: "As the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill receives Royal Assent, we are disappointed that the government did not address the widespread concerns about its potential negative impacts. "We remain concerned that these reforms will weaken privacy protections, expand surveillance powers, hinder security innovation, and risk exacerbating international conflicts of law without sufficient safeguards. "As we look towards the next steps for this legislation, with consultations on how these regulations will work in practice, we look forward to further engagement to ensure a more workable and proportionate regime."


Between shutting down or selling TikTok, owner ByteDance would prefer doing the former. This according to Reuters, which cites four sources. ByteDance's worst-case-scenario decision comes after President Joe Biden signed a bill forcing TikTok's Chinese parent to either sell the social media platform to an entity that satisfies Uncle Sam, or have its video-sharing app banned from US software stores. There is a fear stateside that China-based ByteDance could be forced by Middle Kingdom mandarins to manipulate TikTok, one of the biggest social media platforms in the United States, to spread misinformation or snoop on Americans. The House, Senate, and Biden all rubber-stamped the sell-or-ban bill.


I'm surprised China isn't there along with Russia. o_O
 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Now, let me get this straight. We have a fissiparous [having a tendency to divide into groups or factions], Brexit-supporting government, many of whose MPs are stepping down, convinced that their party is heading for its wilderness years. Correspondingly, we have a Labour opposition that is riding high in the polls, led by Keir Starmer, who – unlike his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn – played a noble part in the remain campaign and argued passionately for a second referendum. Proponents of a second referendum hoped that the country would acknowledge its historic mistake, and return to the European Union it should never have left. I was one of them. We failed.

Which is another reason why I was not enamoured with Corbyn, apart from his delusional notion that his left-wing credentials would ever get him elected. Given that the UK populace, much like the USA, are more likely to vote for selfish things, that the right-wing tends to promote so as to obtain votes, than that which will benefit the country as a whole. And I was more questioning as to the size of the win not necessarily giving any government the right to act on such. o_O

Since that failure, what we were worried would manifest itself has indeed manifested itself. Brexit is an economic disaster, with the Office for Budget Responsibility and National Institute of Social and Economic Research estimating the hit to the nation’s GDP at anything between 4% and 6%. There are daily reports now of the bureaucratic disruption at customs to what was once the ordinary course of business for small and medium-sized firms. Exports and imports alike are affected. There are mounting supply chain shortages; costs are rising as a direct result of Brexit, with more disruption to come. Farmers who voted for Brexit now regret not having been more careful about what they wished for. As for those famous trade deals, promised as substitutes for deals with our nearest and largest market, they have been replaced by – er, well, let’s face it, they have not been replaced. It’s pathetic: a national example of self-harm that makes us an international laughing stock. But the disaster is not just about business, trade and the economy. It embraces people’s rights, privileges and opportunities – made possible, indeed taken for granted, via our membership of the EU. This is especially bad for the young, not least for the 60% of 18- to 24-year-olds who, surveys indicate, think leaving the EU was a mistake.

Blame the nasty EU for this of course - if one has no integrity but simply staunch beliefs. :D


The singer-songwriter’s brand of stubborn protest songs with a strain of tenderness has kept him relevant for 40 years. Here he talks about why he’s fighting for trans rights, his late-night tweeting habit and his forthcoming tour – with his son.

Nowt wrong wid young Billy! :musicnotes:


Given that the vast majority of these were probably Muslims, one has to wonder if their beliefs as to age suitability played a role, or simply because they saw these girls as 'Western whores' to be treated as they liked. :eek:


A woman thought to be a potential running mate for former President Donald Trump at the November election has admitted to killing a dog she thought was ‘worthless’. Conservative South Dakota governor Kristi Noem made the claims in her new book, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward. She wrote how she ‘hated’ Cricket, the dog she killed, further describing it as ‘untrainable’, ‘dangerous’ and ‘less than worthless as a hunting dog.’ Noem then details how she took the animal to a gravel pit on her farm and shot it dead. On the same day, she claims to have also killed an unruly goat, botching her first attempt before finishing the animal off with a shotgun. In recent weeks Noem has sought to model herself as a suitable candidate for embattled former President Trump, who enjoys her unconditional support.

A nasty dimwit - seems like an ideal running mate for old Trumpy! o_O
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Should make this compulsory for ISPs too - rather than them accepting or making some have 'Password1' or similar then. :eek:


This seems to have the same issues as BGT - that emotional tugging will often dominate over sheer talent - but then this is perhaps what the majority might want to witness. :oops:


After Ben Bradshaw was selected as the Labour candidate for Exeter in 1997, Peter Mandelson apparently said: “Bloody hell, where did you come from?” Bradshaw had been a journalist, BBC Radio’s man on the ground at the fall of the Berlin Wall. He won the seat, at the age of 36, surfing the wave of enthusiasm for Tony Blair. Perhaps more importantly, as an openly gay candidate – only the second in British parliamentary history – he proved that the country had had enough not just of the Tories in general but of raging homophobes. Adrian Rogers, whose majority he overturned, notoriously described homosexuality as a “sterile, disease-ridden and God-forsaken occupation”.

Fortunately times have changed, and I doubt any would be voted in if they said this now - other than so many in the more backward countries, like Russia, or other such. o_O

He served his time under Blair, the first term as a backbencher and the second as a junior minister. He’s known as a Blairite – you could even call him an arch-Blairite, depending on your mood – but was personally closer to Gordon Brown, in whose cabinet he served as a health minister, and later as secretary of state for culture, media and sport. He has been on the backbenches for almost 14 years – not a fan of Ed Miliband (“He was never going to win. I remember thinking very strongly: ‘We’ve chosen the wrong brother’”) or of Jeremy Corbyn, whom he held at least partly responsible for Brexit.

Much like me then - as to being more appreciative of Blair than most - where the Tories would likely have done much the same as to Iraq if they had been in power, and that it was mainly the Americans who fouled it up by not planning sufficiently as to what might happen after Iraq was defeated and Saddam Hussein was gone. We now have the same issue with Iran likely having nuclear weapons soon and being even more aggressive as to pushing their particular Islamic doctrine. Blair might be as hated as Thatcher but whereas Thatcher deserved this, I don't see Blair deserving of the same - Iraqi deaths or not. :shrug:


Oh dear, this will likely make many go off him even quicker than the allegations of sexual abuse might have done. Still, forgive and forget, after all, that is what God apparently does (after repenting and confessing one's sins - for so many Catholics). :eek:


Homosexual behaviour between animals may have evolved to ‘keep the peace’ in species where social conflict can lead to death.

Note the 'may'.

However, given the prevalence of same-sex sexual behaviour in both males and females across a wide range of animals, the authors noted their study does not exclude other theories behind its evolution. Same-sex behaviour has only been studied in a minority of mammal species, and so further research is required to better understand its evolution and benefits. In addition, the authors stress their findings are unrelated to the evolution of sexual orientation in one particular primate species – humans. This is because the study only considers the short-term physical interactions involved in same-sex sexual behaviour, not permanent sexual preference.

And as to such being unrelated to humans or as to 'sexual preference'. :oops:


Thousands of customers on Three and O2 will begin to lose their 3G connection in the coming months. Those with giffgaff, Tesco Mobile, Sky and iD Mobile will also be affected, reports the Sun. Three plans to shut off its 3G signal before the end of the year, while O2 says that it will start in 2025. All mobile networks are required to shut down their 2G services by 2033, making any device without 4G-capabilities obsolete.

Oh goody, my dumb 2G phone might be OK to 2033, but my Android phone seems to spend more time on 3G than 4G, so that might have problems. :facepalm:


I find the easiest way is to have two rooms slightly more warm on washing days (once a week) and to hang clothes in the doorways via those multiple hanger thingies - apart from towels or bedsheets, the latter going in the dryer and the former hung up in the conservatory with the door open. Fine for one no doubt but not so easy for more. :D
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Perhaps his best bet, if the cancer cannot be cured, is to go for cryogenic suspension - given the amount of money he has and which could be invested - and where in the future his condition might be easily treated. And because he is only 46 at the moment - but then there is always the gamble that the current means of doing cryogenic suspension will just not work so as to enable resurrection. o_O


Forget about collapsing lungs and heart failure, vaping could be stunting the growth of teens’ brains due to toxic metals like lead and uranium. Children as young as four have ended up in hospital with vape-related conditions like collapsed lungs as vaping fast becomes a ‘youth epidemic’. Roughly 15% of children aged 11 to 15, and more than a third of 16 to 17-year-olds in the UK have vaped, according to an Action on Smoking and Health survey. The problem has got so bad, that a Scottish schoolteacher had to install vape alarms in toilets to stop students puffing between classes. This could be stunting the growth of their brains and other organs due to higher levels of toxic chemicals found in their bodies, a new study warns. It may also harm children’s school achievement by limiting their cognitive and behavioural development. Vapes are full of metals like lead and uranium that also cause cancer, breathing problems and cardiovascular disease in children at an age when they’re most damaging.

Quite likely that those younger who do vape just will not heed any warnings - just as most smokers didn't decades ago. :eek:


A 54-year-old man who raped a 14-year-old girl in the US is set to be physically castrated as part of his punishment. Glenn Sullivan Sr, from Springfield, Louisiana, groomed the girl and ‘used threats of violence against her and her family’ to stay quiet, state prosecutors say. After the girl came forward and told detectives he had raped her ‘multiple times’, it was discovered she was pregnant and DNA evidence confirmed Sullivan was the father. Sullivan was sentenced to 50 years in prison and ordered to undergo castration as part of his plea agreement with prosecutors. Louisiana laws allow for judges to sentence a man to chemical or physical castration if he’s convicted of certain rape offences. In chemical castration cases, the rapist is given a drug which reduces testosterone levels while the treatment continues in order to lower his libido. Physical castration involves surgically removing the gonads, permanently reducingtestosterone levels and causing the offender to become sterile.

He might be a nasty rapist but he's not strictly a paedophile. Apart from this, many states in the USA apparently don't have a minimum age for such things. o_O


Where attraction to those younger hardly leaves many males - and where these two are ACTING! :eek:

Jade Halley Bartlett directed the film and has previously explained that Jenna somewhat took the lead while filming scenes. She told What To Watch: “Jenna, I mean she’s a savant. You watch her heart break in real-time and then you watch her calcify, you watch the scales grow over her and it’s a very subtle thing that I think is quite terrifying. I mean she scared the s**t out of me. She definitely went to places with Cairo that… it’s even tricky to explain. Cairo thinks she is such an adult, but she’s not. She’s an isolated young woman who is a ghost in her house. Her entire education about romance is from 18th and 19th-century literature and old movies, which are inherently problematic. But she thinks she is such a grownup.” The director added: “And there are some moments that Jenna has when she is looking at Jonathan or when she is talking to him when she is like I almost believe… she’s like a vampire, like a 900-year-old vampire. There’s something very ancient that she does that really scares the s**t out of me.”


What a surprise.

Children who are banned from bringing their mobile phones into classrooms get better GCSE results, a study has found. The report discovered that schools with a ban in place are twice as likely to be rated 'outstanding' by Ofsted. Think-tank Policy Exchange found kids get GCSE results that are one or two grades higher if they're separated from their phones all day. Some 43% of secondary schools with an effective mobile phone ban - requiring children to leave their phone at home or in a locker all day - were rated 'outstanding'. This is more than double the 21% average in England. Professor Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University who believes smartphones are a threat to children’s mental wellbeing, described allowing them in classrooms as "utter madness". He added: "We must stop doing it." Prof Haidt went on: "Phones must be locked up at the start of each school day in phone lockers or locked pouches, from which they are retrieved at the end of the day… We can give them six or seven hours each school day in which they can be fully present to learn, connect, and flourish."


Succession star Brian Cox has said that the Bible is the "worst book", in his opinion, as it is filled with "propaganda and lies". Brian, 77, who is known for playing Logan Roy in the hit HBO series, recently sat down with Rich Leigh from The Starting Line Podcast , with them chatting about all kinds of topics from religion, God and spirituality. Asked by Leigh if religion holds humanity back, the beloved actor responded: "Oh considerably, yes - I think religion does hold us back because it's belief systems which are outside ourselves." He went on: "They're not dealing with who we are, we’re dealing with, 'Oh if God says this and God does that', and you go, 'Well what is God?' We’ve created that idea of God, and we’ve created it as a control issue, and it’s also a patriarchal issue ... and it’s essentially patriarchal - we haven’t given enough scope to the matriarchy." Brian continued: "The mothering thing is the thing which is the real conditioning of our lives, our fathers don't condition ourselves because they're too bloody selfish, but our mothers have to, because they have an umbilical - that’s what the umbilical cord is about... "Even though it’s cut away, there’s an umbilical relationship to your child, and the women have that, men do not have that, they're just sperm banks."

He certainly has a point as to the patriarchy dominating so many religions, and where in fact it is the matriarchy that usually performs the most useful role. :oops:


I've always found this series worth watching.
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Judge Juan Merchan began proceedings began on Tuesday by saying he would give the trial a day off to allow Mr Trump to attend his son Barron Trump’s high school graduation before ruling that he found the former president in contempt of court on nine of the first ten violations of the gag order, fining him $1,000 for each. Further violations may result in “an incarceratory punishment”.

Do us all a favour and put him away now. :facepalm:


Donald Trump has warned that Joe Biden and his family could face multiple criminal prosecutions once he leaves office unless the US supreme court awards Trump immunity in his own legal battles with the criminal justice system. In a sweeping interview with Time magazine, Trump painted a startling picture of his second term, from how he would wield the justice department to hinting he may let states monitor pregnant women to enforce abortion laws. Trump made the threat against the Biden family in an interview with Eric Cortellessa of Time, in which he shared the outlines of what the magazine called “an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world”. Trump made a direct connection between his threat to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Bidens should he win re-election in November with the case currently before the supreme court over his own presidential immunity. Asked whether he intends to “go after” the Bidens should he gain a second term in the White House, Trump replied: “It depends what happens with the supreme court.” If the nine justices on the top court – three of whom were appointed by Trump – fail to award him immunity from prosecution, Trump said, “then Biden I am sure will be prosecuted for all of his crimes, because he’s committed many crimes”.

One would have to be really dumb or have no morals ever to vote for this despicable piece of work, in my view. :oops:


Just like our little mice or hamster friends might do within their cages - but actually quite a useful idea.


Faith schools in England will no longer have to offer up to half of their places to children who don’t belong to their religion, under changes to state school admissions rules announced by the government. Currently, new faith schools can only fill a maximum of 50% of their places using faith-based admissions criteria, but the change announced by the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, will allow them to turn away other children.

Personally I would prefer they banned faiths schools altogether - given they don't fulfil any useful function but merely endorse divisions. :oops:


Another item added to the - Only in America - list.


Daniel Radcliffe has broken his silence on J.K Rowling 's recent comments about himself and his Harry Potter co-star's. The dad-of-one, 34, says in a new interview that the author's controversial views on transgender people and their allies make him "really sad" and he will continue to support "the rights of all LGBTQ people" going forward. Radcliffe also addressed claims he "owes" his career to Rowling - something the actor's critics often say in response to his support of the LGBTQ community - and stated "nothing in my life would have probably happened the way it is" without Rowling penning the Harry Potter series. The Woman In Black actor's comments follow Rowling expressing her disappointment with Radcliffe and his Harry Potter co-star Emma Watson last month, stating "I will never forgive" them for their staunch support of the transgender community.

As if these actors owe her anything! Rowling went down in my opinion when she used her celebrity status to express her views, as happens with so many.



OnlyFans acts as a marketplace for adult performers, who upload their own material and keep 80% of the revenue. It requires subscribers to provide their name and credit card details when signing up and also uses age estimation technology from the software company Yoti, which scans a user’s face and approximates their age. If applicants fail the automatic scan they must provide formal ID to register, such as a driving licence or passport.

I wonder how they have used technology, even AI, to judge ages when even a group of experts were wrong most of the time - in one such test apparently. o_O
 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Much of my youth consisted of listening to his sounds, and his singles were probably some of the first records I bought or acquired from my brother - which also included a great Benny Goodman album and a Gene Krupa one.


What would it be like to meet one of our closest human relatives from 75,000 years ago in the flesh? Scientists have produced a remarkable reconstruction of what a Neanderthal woman would have looked like when she was alive.


Dugin has long been at the forefront of Russia's conspiracy theory–laden ultranationalist community. The Putinist power bloc's gradual shift into anti-Western revanchism and chauvinism has seen Dugin's ideology increasingly align with the Kremlin's. The 62-year-old was once an anti-communist dissident, and in the early 1990s, he was a co-founder of the neo-fascist National Bolshevik Party, which combined communist and fascist imagery and ideology and leaned heavily on nostalgia for the Soviet Union. Dugin left the party in 1998. In 2007, it was outlawed by Russian courts and branded an extremist organization. His school of thought has been described as "Eurasianism," the foundations of which were set out in his 1997 book The Foundations of Geopolitics. He asserted that Russia should become a world empire dominating both Europe and Asia, standing against the "American empire."

That is, after Russia has destroyed Europe (and probably itself) with their nuclear weapons of course. :eek:


This is how the world ends – not with a bang, but a ‘triple whammy’ event, according to scientists. A combination of failing food supply, rising sea levels and areas of the planet becoming too hot to live will ultimately lead to almost all mammals, including humans, to die out. However, the cause may not be what you imagine. While climate change is a very real threat to today’s population, this apocalyptic scenario, predicted by a supercomputer, will be caused by all the continents crashing into each other to form one giant landmass. A hot, dry and largely uninhabitable supercontinent – luckily 250 million years from now.

Well there are plenty of scenarios more at hand that might produce a bad result, and there is still the risk of a meteor strike - one we missed seeing perhaps, or a mega-volcanic eruption, or a really nasty pandemic. But apparently the AI might have memories of that old Pangea. :D

The model predicts that when the supercontinent – called Pangea Ultima – forms, only between 8% and 16% of the land will be habitable for mammals.

Bah, who's bothered, by then we will have exited Earth and gone elsewhere anyway. o_O


Laurence Fox has been slammed online after he posted an unearthed upskirt photo of a TV host. The actor-turned-politician, 45, took to X to mock Jeremy Vine and GB News star Narinder Kaur as he posted a compromising paparazzi photograph of the 51-year-old television star in the back of a vehicle. The photo in question shows Kaur without any underwear on. Fox has been slammed by countless X users, who have claimed that his decision to post the picture was "low, even for him". Alongside the photo, Fox appeared to criticise the GB News star for her alleged opinions on fellow UK TV host Leilani Dowding. Fox wrote: "I for one applaud the celebration of modesty which Narinder highlighted in her criticism of ⁦@LeilaniDowding for getting her b**s out. We need standards in public life." Upskirting is a criminal offence in the UK, and the photo was removed from picture sites following it becoming a criminal offence. The photo was taken without Narinder's knowledge or consent when it was sent to pictures sites by the paparazzi.

Following his post, Fox has been blasted by X users, but he has not backed down on his decision to re-share the photograph. Broadcaster Esther Krakue complained: "This is low, even for you." To which Fox replied: "She’s a nasty racist who has mocked @LeilaniDowding for her page three days. She can go cry victim all she wants. It’s not my fault she forgot to put her pants on, the whining cry bully hypocrite." In response Fox's defence, another user replied: "Surely you must see that "mocking" someone isn't on the same level as posting intimate images of them online without their consent. It's like if someone said you were a racist, you couldn't then accuse them of the crime of being a paedophile it's not an equal response." Not backing down, Fox replied: "I don’t take the photo and I didn’t forget to put my pants on. Jog on." The X user then claimed that while Fox may not be the original source of the photo, sharing it amounted to criminal intimate image abuse. Another X user hit back: "Revenge porn isn't worthy of you darling." To which Fox responded: "I think you might need to look up the definition of “revenge porn”. It’s not my fault she forgot to put her pants on."

If anything is needed to know this plonker is a bad'un, here we have it - and another -->


 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Not a bird that one might mistake for a local resident. My luck includes a peregrine on my garden fence once (after pigeons I suspect), a Kentish plover at a beach, and a red-rumped swallow whilst out cycling (the bird sitting on a telegraph pole and where I had some binoculars with me).


A second whistleblower has gone public to say it was “widespread knowledge” in government that Boris Johnson ordered the prioritisation of an animal charity based in Afghanistan for evacuation during the Taliban takeover last summer. Josie Stewart, who worked in the Foreign Office for seven years, including a stint in the Kabul embassy, suggested senior civil servants in the department had lied to cover up the embarrassing episode.

If true then this is a moral failure to many no doubt, including me, given that humans should have been prioritised over any animal, no matter how painful this might have been.


Psychotic or Schizophrenic?


In my view, a decent password manager is probably the best bet, but failing this then being able to remember long and meaningless strings of characters is next best. o_O


Found his true vocation at last then. :D

 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Well the Cybertruck has to be one of the ugliest things on four wheels - and seems to be the least fault-tolerant so as to be reliable. o_O


I'm surprised he didn't have the money to employ someone to do this, given that this would have been the more sensible option at his age (63).


"The material used for the Titan's hull was a carbon fiber composite. It is well known that under compression loading the fibers in such composites are susceptible to micro-buckling and that they may delaminate from the matrix that surrounds them. "If the Titan's hull experienced such damage under the extreme compressive pressures it experienced during its dives, then its stiffness and strength would have significantly decreased, and together with the inevitable geometric imperfections introduced during its manufacturing, may have contributed to its buckling-induced implosion."

Given that I don't believe they actually tested such a structure to the repeated loads that would have occurred during diving to such depths, such as they might do as to any metal's fatigue resistance, they will have had no evidence to compare any sounds heard to such, and damage caused, so as to know how much damage was occurring or when such amounted to it being dangerous to use the vessel after any particular amount of damage. So, as many have pointed out, wrong choice of materials and/or procedures to ensure the safety of the vessel.

 
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Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Very sad, and especially for someone so young. My friends and I walked the whole length of these cliffs (apparently between 400ft and 700ft for much of the way and the walk being about 11 miles), whilst staying in Doolin and caving in the region. The cliffs, as usually depicted in images, are very photogenic. We were all cavers and climbers, and even if we did get quite close to the edge for most of the way, we knew enough to be safe as to walking this route. Although I've never seen any photographs of this (perhaps for good reasons), there is/was a square finger of rock sticking out from the cliff, near the top, and being more like a walk-the-plank thing, such that one might be tempted to have a picture taken on this. Fortunately none of us were so tempted. :oops:



Moher at the Movies: Over the years, the Cliffs of Moher along Ireland’s famous Wild Atlantic Way have starred in many much-loved movies. Popular titles like Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince (2009) and The Princess Bride (1987). Romantic adventures such as Leap Year (2010), and Ryan’s Daughter (1970). Action & Adventure movies like The Guns of Navarone (1961), The Mackintosh Man (1973) and Into the West (1992). Comedies Hear My Song (1991), Burke & Hare (2010) and The Yank (2013). The Cliffs have also featured in music videos such as Maroons 5’s Runaway (2011) and Westlife’s My Love (2000).


Probably one of the last places one might want to live now or ever perhaps, a neighbouring country of Russia. :eek:


Brain implant technology is rapidly advancing, helping people to find their voice or beat neurological disorders. But what happens when an implant is no longer supported by its producer? Upgrading to a new model when your five-year-old smartphone can no longer support updates is hard enough – it's another matter entirely when we're talking about gadgetry that's buried inside your brain. That's hardware that your local repair shop can't help you with. The authors behind a recent review summed up existing research on tech abandonment before adding their own suggestions for creating guidelines to ensure it doesn't become a growing issue in the future.

Not an unlikely outlook either, so should a national health service take over responsibility for such things, and hence even having such an organisation being a necessity? o_O


Our world is riddled with fascinating, perilous, but beautiful holes into the quiet depths of the crust. To explore a cave is to meet with awe – a calm, almost alien world, far removed from the babble and busyness of the world above ground.

Ah yes, when one ignores the incessant cold, damp, muddy, dangerous or even lethal bits. :D

One of the most spectacular known cave networks in the world is the Saint-Marcel Cave in France. The entrance area has been occupied by humans for millennia, dating back to the Middle Palaeolithic. But there's a lot more to it than the entrance. The cave extends for at least 64 kilometers (40 miles), a twisting, convoluted cavity bored through Earth's crust. Because of its long history of habitation, it's of keen interest to anthropologists. But now, scientists led by geomorphologist Jean-Jacques Delannoy of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) have found a puzzle. Deep in the cave, across a hazardous path including deep pits, they have found broken stalagmites more than 1.5 kilometers (0.93 miles) past the entrance, suggesting the presence of humans – around 8,000 years ago.

It's not uncommon for well-known caves to have broken speleothems. It was kind of the done thing for cave explorers and tourists in the late 19th century to break off bits of rock as souvenirs, or leave marks on the cave walls to commemorate their visit. It was assumed that the broken speleothems in Saint-Marcel were the work of such tourists. But Delannoy and his colleagues have found ancient traces of human presence in other caves, which raised questions about when, exactly, the rocks in Saint-Marcel had been disturbed. Luckily, with rocks, there are ways we can find out, and this is what the researchers set out to do. Speleothems form from a long, ongoing interaction with water; you can break a stalagmite off at the root, but if the water continues to flow and deposit minerals, that stalagmite will regrow. The researchers examined the regrowth on the broken formations, but that's not all. They also analyzed the ratios of uranium and thorium in the speleothems, a technique known as uranium-thorium dating. It works because uranium is water soluble, but one of its decay products, thorium, is not – so any thorium in a sample is the decay product of uranium after the mineral has precipitated. Because the decay rate of uranium into thorium is fixed and known, scientists can look at the amount of each in the sample to determine how long it has been since the mineral formed. Using these techniques, the researchers found that the speleothems mostly formed between 125,000 and 70,000 years ago. The team found that the earliest broken tip was around 10,000 years ago. The most recent was around 3,000 years ago. But there was another clue. A large number of the broken pieces appear to have been deliberately placed, creating a structure in the chamber. This structure, the researchers found, was created around 8,000 years ago.

There is no doubt about it, the researchers conclude. Humans were here, long before we thought they could have been, somehow navigating the dark, dangerous passage, and breaking rocks to build something. How they did so is for future work; soot deposits on the chamber walls could be a clue, if they were placed at the same time as the construction. "The evidence for prehistoric human activity in the cave of Saint-Marcel is conclusive," they write in their paper. "Our study results are changing the way we look at the Saint-Marcel cave network, giving them a cultural dimension linked to prehistoric use … the results from Saint-Marcel cave invite us to take a new look at these societies, their use of caves, which has hitherto been considered to be limited to the entrance areas, their engagement with deep underground landscapes, and the associated symbolic dimensions." Their findings have been published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory.

Apart from perhaps a very few, and which might be more open to any without special equipment, I doubt I have been in any caves that our predecessors have even been in, given that no evidence seemed to exist as to such.


:D - as if! :D


Even as to belief in some particular religious text being an overwhelming one? Answers please. :shrug:
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Although I have put in many miles over hills and mountains, running has never appealed that much (have done some), given that I suspected this might lead to the necessity for surgery later if done to excess or as to extremes - like multiple marathons or similar - but I suppose I have done the equivalent of a marathon, this being fell-running over 12 miles and having several thousand feet of height gained and lost (two of the Three Peaks in Yorkshire). Plus I suppose doing the Cuillin Ridge on Skye which I think involves about 12,000 feet of climbing, and I think both of these were much more enjoyable than just plodding along various pavements or roads. :oops:


Laurence Fox in the news again - well I never! :D


Devotees were speaking to an entity who didn't exist – imagine that.

Tut, tut - so cynical. :rolleyes:


Summary: A new study finds people who have nature-based experiences report better well-being and lower psychological distress than those who do not. Birdwatching in particular yielded promising results, with higher gains in subjective well-being and more reduction in distress than more generic nature exposure, such as walks. Because birdwatching is an easily accessible activity, the results are encouraging for college students - who are among those most likely to suffer from mental health problems.

And even if the activity title suggests otherwise, as being a simple non-engaging sort of activity, it isn't, given that one has to learn the bird calls, and the size, appearance, and coloration of any of their features, as well as the environment within which they are found and any activities that will engage them. So building a memory bank as to such things, and of course often making one more empathetic towards wildlife in general.


Summary: A new study sheds light on the role that new and traditional media play in promoting and affecting character development, emotions, prosocial behavior and well-being (aka happiness) in youth.

* Adolescents who flourish in their digital communication over time are more likely to have parents who know their way around technology and who actively support their children to positively communicate online.
* For adolescents who digitally flourish less, their self-control over digital communication decreases.
* To increase digital flourishing, interventions can aim in assisting adolescents in their control over their digital communication and encourage parents to take an active role in their young adults' digital communication.


Summary: Researchers uncovered compelling evidence that Earth's magnetic field was in a highly unusual state when the macroscopic animals of the Ediacaran Period - 635 to 541 million years ago - diversified and thrived. Their study raises the question of whether these fluctuations in Earth's ancient magnetic field led to shifts in oxygen levels that may have been crucial to the proliferation of life forms millions of years ago.
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member

Donald Trump’s New York hush money trial will continue at Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday after Judge Juan Merchan found the former president in contempt of court for a tenth time during Monday’s session. The justice fined the defendant another $1,000 and warned him the next violation of his gag order would result in jail time.

Oh, please do so - and preferably sharing with some big guy that might not like him. :eek:


Patriarchy and Religion - such a wonderful combination - to negate progress and constrain or stamp on female freedoms. :(


A woman will be jailed after she admitted to killing two people in a car crash. Jessica Higgs, 20, pleaded guilty to two charges of causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drugs, Taunton Crown Court heard. Driver Tony Mist and passenger Thelma Huse, both 69, died on the A303 in West Camel, Somerset, in May last year. Higgs was driving a Mercedes van when she crashed into Mr Mist’s car. Mr Mist died at the scene, while Thelma Huse was taken to hospital but died from her injuries a short time later.

Would such get as bad as driving with alcohol if recreational drugs were legalised? :shrug:


Researchers have devised an attack against nearly all virtual private network applications that forces them to send and receive some or all traffic outside of the encrypted tunnel designed to protect it from snooping or tampering. TunnelVision, as the researchers have named their attack, largely negates the entire purpose and selling point of VPNs, which is to encapsulate incoming and outgoing Internet traffic in an encrypted tunnel and to cloak the user’s IP address. The researchers believe it affects all VPN applications when they’re connected to a hostile network and that there are no ways to prevent such attacks except when the user's VPN runs on Linux or Android. They also said their attack technique may have been possible since 2002 and may already have been discovered and used in the wild since then. The effect of TunnelVision is “the victim's traffic is now decloaked and being routed through the attacker directly,” a video demonstration explained. “The attacker can read, drop or modify the leaked traffic and the victim maintains their connection to both the VPN and the Internet.”

Yeah, who would ever trust the internet and the implementations of such! :eek:


Most scammers and cybercriminals operate in the digital shadows and don’t want you to know how they make money. But that’s not the case for the Yahoo Boys, a loose collective of young men in West Africa who are some of the web’s most prolific - and increasingly dangerous - scammers. Thousands of people are members of dozens of Yahoo Boy groups operating across Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram, a WIRED analysis has found. The scammers, who deal in types of fraud that total hundreds of millions of dollars each year, also have dozens of accounts on TikTok, YouTube, and the document-sharing service Scribd that are getting thousands of views. Inside the groups, there’s a hive of fraudulent activity with the cybercriminals often showing their faces and sharing ways to scam people with other members. They openly distribute scripts detailing how to blackmail people and how to run sextortion scams - that have driven people to take their own lives - sell albums with hundreds of photographs, and advertise fake social media accounts. Among the scams, they’re also using AI to create fake “nude” images of people and real-time deepfake video calls. The Yahoo Boys don’t disguise their activity. Many groups use “Yahoo Boys” in their name as well as other related terms. WIRED’s analysis found 16 Yahoo Boys Facebook groups with almost 200,000 total members, a dozen WhatsApp channels, around 10 Telegram channels, 20 TikTok accounts, a dozen YouTube accounts, and more than 80 scripts on Scribd. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Ah, just taking their revenge over colonialism perhaps. :D

Comment: Good old social media. A key driver in the proliferation of most things not good in the world today.

”We take this sort of thing very seriously”.
“It’s against our of Terms of Service to allow this“.
”We‘re investing in people (hahahahaha!!!) and tools to address the problem”.

The same old garbage is churned out from their corporate mouthpieces over and over and over. Rinse and repeat.

Standard Operating Procedure:

Rule #1 Maximize profits.
Rule #2 Follow Terms of Service.
Rule #3 If rules #1 and #2 are in conflict, follow rule #1*

*Unless enforcing Terms of Service generates increased profits. Terms of Service may be updated at any time.

“Follow the law” regrettably did not make the list. Corporations typically do not get punished for their bad actions. When fines are incurred (rarely), they are typically for a negligible amount of money and do not affect the bottom line in any meaningful way.

Seems to be what many social media platforms tend to operate by as to principles. o_O


In October 2022 a bird with the code name B6 set a new world record that few people outside the field of ornithology noticed. Over the course of 11 days, B6, a young Bar-tailed Godwit, flew from its hatching ground in Alaska to its wintering ground in Tasmania, covering 8,425 miles without taking a single break. For comparison, there is only one commercial aircraft that can fly that far nonstop, a Boeing 777 with a 213-foot wingspan and one of the most powerful jet engines in the world. During its journey, B6 — an animal that could perch comfortably on your shoulder — did not land, did not eat, did not drink and did not stop flapping, sustaining an average ground speed of 30 miles per hour 24 hours a day as it winged its way to the other end of the world.

Quite commonly seen in the UK too.


Dementia is often described as "the long goodbye". Although the person is still alive, dementia slowly and irreversibly chips away at their memories and the qualities that make someone "them". Dementia eventually takes away the person's ability to communicate, eat and drink on their own, understand where they are, and recognise family members. Since as early as the 19th century, stories from loved ones, caregivers and health-care workers have described some people with dementia suddenly becoming lucid. They have described the person engaging in meaningful conversation, sharing memories that were assumed to have been lost, making jokes, and even requesting meals. It is estimated 43 percent of people who experience this brief lucidity die within 24 hours, and 84 percent within a week.

Never happened with my mother but perhaps I just wasn't there at the right time.
 
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