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Monday, February 22, 2021

Noise of Opinions

"Who was the class clown?” Who are stepparents?" "Who has been madly in love?" "Who has felt lonely?" and slowly, one by one, people begin stepping out of their boxes and standing together in the centre.


This Danish ad by TV 2, about the need for cultural acceptance, All That We Share, has already clocked up over 1, 340,000 / so more than MEdia Dragon 🐉 in 19 years/ views on YouTube (and counting).

It opens with the line: ‘It’s easy to put people in (Iron Curtain) boxes’. And therein lies its core message.

The TV 2 ad has gone viral for its simple yet effective conveyance of a universal message, delivered at a time when it’s deeply needed. 

Classroom Class : All that We Share


WHEN YOU’VE LOST THE BEEB…: BBC News banned in China, one week after CGTN’s license withdrawn in UK.


Bitcoin hits $US1 trillion value but bubble fears hover

  • by Eric Lam

Deepfake porn is ruining women’s lives. Now the law may finally ban it MIT Technology Review


Why Conspiracy Theories Are So Alluring New York Review of Books


The Problem With the Postcolonial SyllabusChronicle of Higher Education




IS IT IN COFFEE, TOO?  Green tea compound aids tumor-suppressing, DNA-repairing protein


Bitcoin consumes ‘more electricity than Argentina’

BBC News: “”Mining” for the cryptocurrency is power-hungry, involving heavy computer calculations to verify transactions. Cambridge researchers say it consumes around 121.36 terawatt-hours (TWh) a year – and is unlikely to fall unless the value of the currency slumps. Critics say electric-car firm Tesla’s decision to invest heavily in Bitcoinundermines its environmental image. The currency’s value hit a record $48,000 (£34,820) this week. following Tesla’s announcement that it had bought about $1.5bn bitcoin and planned to accept it as payment in future. But the rising price offers even more incentive to Bitcoin miners to run more and more machines. And as the price increases, so does the energy consumption, according to Michel Rauchs, researcher at The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, who co-created the online tool that generates these estimates. “It is really by design that Bitcoin consumes that much electricity,” Mr Rauchs told BBC’s Tech Tent podcast. “This is not something that will change in the future unless the Bitcoin price is going to significantly go down.”…


Viral Zoom cat filter: How to copy that lawyer and turn yourself into a cat

CNET – “If you’ve been anywhere near the internet this week, you’ve probably seen the viral video of a virtual legal proceeding in Texas that wouldn’t have been very noteworthy — except for the fact that a lawyer accidentally switched on a filter that turned his face into an adorable kitten, and couldn’t figure out how to turn it off.  “I’m here live. I’m not a cat,” the lawyer said, identified on his Zoom screen as Rod Ponton. “I can see that,” the judge responds before trying to walk the lawyer through fixing the filter issue.  The faux-paws at first appeared to be the result of use of a Snap Camera filter, owned by the same company that makes Snapchat. However, it’s apparently actually a Dell webcam filter from circa 2007.  While this was obviously a mistake, you might be wondering how to turn yourself into a kitten (or try out a variety of other animals or effects) to spice up your next video meeting. If you don’t happen to have an old Dell computer around, we’ve still got you covered. Here’s how to set up Snap Camera and use the filters on your next Zoom…”




WE ARE BEING PATRONIZED BY OUR INFERIORS: Ann Althouse savages Andrea Mitchell’s literary ignorance. “If you really were a person who reads and understands literature, you would know that — in the world of novels — a character who corrects other people curtly in that pedantic ‘No, that’s Faulkner’ manner is an icky prig.”

Yep, that’s our Andrea. That she got it wrong is just the icing on the cake.

 

Antitrust Legislation Is Essential to Racial and Economic Justice in Agriculture TruthOut

 

The digital divide is giving American churches hell Ars Technica

 

Facebook, Twitter CEOs in talks to testify at House hearing as soon as March Politico

 

East Germany’s Shock Therapy Jacobin

 

No longer an outlier: New York ends commercial surrogacy ban AP