The Globalist Podcast (January 5, 2024) – A discussion of the effect of the Israel-Gaza war on Lebanon and the potential for a broader fallout after a series of Israeli strikes on Hezbollah.
Also, the latest on Russia’s war in Ukraine, following the biggest prisoner swap since the beginning of the invasion. Plus: Louis Vuitton’s first luxury hotel, film news and Helsinki’s annual light-art festival.
The killing of a top Hamas leader in Lebanon and mysterious twin explosions in Iran heighten fears of a regional war that could draw in the United States.
With Covid deaths rising to about 1,500 per week, researchers question why Paxlovid use has remained low among high-risk patients.
A few years ago, Kornelija Maceviciene ruled against Soviet officers for a brutal crackdown on pro-independence protesters in her country in 1991. That has made her a target for a Russian court.
The tiny Gulf state has cultivated relationships with powerful people and institutions to raise its global profile, and to protect its interests.
Specific brain pathways can lower or raise the willingness of monkeys to take risks
Rethink of familiar object may boost odds that its name, offensive to some, will be changed
Video timeline: 01:07 AI is changing the music business 04:09 How big data revolutionised entertainment industries 05:20 Can AI predict a film’s success? 09:26 How generative AI is creating new opportunities 12:36 What are the risks of generative AI?
Video timeline: 0:00 On preferred subjects for writing 3:20 On Karen Blixen /Isak Dinesen 4:24 On families 6:54 On the mother figure 9:00 On the novel ‘Babysitter’ 17:27 On the novel ‘Night. Sleep. Death. And the Stars’ 22:48 How traveling resembles writing 28:47 On Donald Trump
“What is so exciting about the novel is that it mimics life and that you end up doing something you never thought you would do,” says Joyce Carol Oates, one of America’s greatest living novelists, when looking back on a life of writing.
It might be a violent event or something politically relevant, or it could be a racist experience that sets off a novel. In her storytelling, Oates finds it interesting to focus on girls at the beginning of puberty: “There’s a kind of wonderful neutrality of childhood that gets conditioned out when girls get to be 12 – 14 years old. And then, from that point on, when they’re so shaped by what we call the male gaze and the expectations of others that they grow into being someone who is this female image.”
But today, the family is very different and there are all kinds of families: “There are families of same-sex couples who got married and they may adopt a child or they may have a child of their own, but then there may be families that are like communes where people are living, sharing a house, but they are a family and they may have dogs and cats who know who they are. […] The so-called nuclear family – which is just a father, mother, and children – still exists, of course, but it’s not the only example of any longer, which is wonderful. It all begins with the emancipation of women”, Joyce Carol Oates concludes.
Oates feels attracted to writing because writing is storytelling and “what’s interesting about storytelling is that you have to have revelations. That you start off with a situation, and a little bit of a mystery evolves, and then you have to follow the tendrils and the roots of that mystery, like an investigator. And then there has to be a revelation.” This means that Oates focuses a lot in her writing on the pacing and the suspense and the movement, like “how long is a paragraph, how short is the dialogue, and how much dialogue is there in proportion to the exposition, and the craftsman side of writing is actually where many people write.“
In failing to look past Joe Biden, Democrats have shown cowardice and complacency
To be safe, Israel needs new leadership
Israeli officials see Hizbullah as an unacceptable threat
The Guardian Weekly (January 4, 2024) – The new issue features ‘Make or Break 2024’ – The biggest election year in history.
About 2 billion people have the opportunity to cast their ballots in polls that span the globe from the United States to Taiwan, and India to Mexico in 2024. The outcomes, as our analysts and correspondents explain in our big story, have implications for us all.
Washington bureau chief David Smith looks at the likely rerun of 2020’s Biden v Trump contest in November and explores what has changed and what has not in the US as the old adversaries square up. It is an almost foregone conclusion that Narendra Modi will be back for a third term as Indian prime minster, reports Hannah Ellis-Petersen from Delhi where analysts fear his victory will further imperil the country’s Muslim minority. And while Vladimir Putin will certainly continue as president in Russia, Pjotr Sauer explains why the man about to become fifth-time president might allow other candidates onto the ballot list. From Taiwan’s poll on 13 January to the 27-state European elections in June, how citizens vote will influence the geopolitical landscape for us all, while the conduct of campaigns will reveal how vulnerable democracies now are to misinformation and cyber interference from malign actors.
The killing of Saleh al-Arouri, a key Hamas strategist, in Lebanon sets the organization back at a vulnerable time. The group has rebuilt after the assassination of other leaders, though.
No one claimed responsibility for the bombing at a memorial for Qassim Suleimani, the top commander killed by a U.S. drone strike four years ago.
With aquifers nationwide in dangerous decline, one part of California has tried essentially taxing groundwater. New research shows it’s working.
A government-approved news program intended to counter Russian disinformation and boost morale is coming under criticism for painting a rosy picture of the war.
Researchers at the National Ignition Facility are consistently creating reactions that make more energy than they consume.
In December 2022, after more than a decade of effort and frustration, scientists at the US National Ignition Facility (NIF) announced that they had set a world record by producing a fusion reaction that released more energy than it consumed — a phenomenon known as ignition. They have now proved that the feat was no accident by replicating it again and again, and the administration of US President Joe Biden is looking to build on this success by establishing a trio of US research centres to help advance the science.
Large language model improves on efforts to solve combinatorics problems inspired by the card game Set.
The card game Set has long inspired mathematicians to create interesting problems.
Now, a technique based on large language models (LLMs) is showing that artificial intelligence (AI) can help mathematicians to generate new solutions.
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