Last Seen Blogs
Text
J.K. Rowling just made her thoughts about the latest Brexit news very, very clear
J.K. Rowling wants a second referendum. Image: Samir Hussein/WireImage
By Sam Haysom2018-12-10 10:50:32 UTC
Brexit is so nightmarishly complicated that even the mere mention of the word is enough to bring the average British person out in shudders.
Not J.K. Rowling, though. Despite the ongoing stress that goes hand-in-hand with the daily headlines about politicians, votes, and Article 50, the Harry Potter author remains undeterred.
SEE ALSO: J.K. Rowling has spoken, owls are better than Brexit
On Monday morning, following the EU court ruling that Britain will be allowed to cancel the Brexit decision if it decides to do so (even without permission from the 27 other member states of the EU), Rowling tweeted this:
If you truly want ‘the will of the British people’ to be implemented, you’ll be happy to have a second referendum to confirm what their will is. If you’re afraid your lies won’t fly twice and that breaking electoral law might be much harder a 2nd time, not so much. #PeoplesVote
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 10, 2018
She followed that up with a comment on the "will of the people" — a phrase that has consistently cropped up on both sides of the Brexit divide.
Media outlets parroting this ‘will of the people’ line is disturbing. Approximately 37% of electorate voted Leave and we’ve never been presented with a vision or plan that unites the 37%, let alone all the whole country. https://t.co/PWO4GGU5Q3
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 10, 2018
Kindly ignore the extra ‘all’ in that tweet. I’ve got 5 minutes until I have to put away Twitter and finish a screenplay (self-imposed start time) and I’m supposed to eat breakfast in now 4 minutes and actually it would have been quicker to rewrite without the typo goodbye.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 10, 2018
Those tweets aren't a first, either. Rowling's been doggedly tweeting her support for a second referendum for a while now.
I swear to God I'm trying not to bang on about #Brexit but for FUCK'S SAKE, every time I come out of my writing room and look at the news some more dumbassery has been committed. THE WHOLE POINT OF DEMOCRACY IS THE FREEDOM TO CHANGE YOUR OPINION WHEN THE CIRCUMSTANCES CHANGE.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) November 28, 2018
So, is a second referendum an actual possibility?
Well it's complicated, and that's putting it mildly. On Tuesday, the House of Commons is voting on whether or not to give the deal Theresa May has negotiated the green light.
If it doesn't get the seal of approval from enough MPs, a second referendum is a possibility — but it's only one of a fairly large range of possible scenarios.
Read More
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
50 years ago, 'the mother of all demos' foretold our tech future - Engadget
50 years ago, Doug Engelbart gave the world its first taste of modern personal computing.
Read More
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
3 Reasons Why Chat Support Is the Next Big Thing
Besides providing various call answering services, India and China offer quality chat support services as well. Employing live chat support adds a new dimension to your business and provides a convenient way to interact with your customers. India leads the race in terms of both quality and quantity when it comes to offering chat support services. Outsource chat support services India has many benefits, which are listed below:
Quick Resolution of Problem – By accessing knowledge bases and other technical documents, a chat support executive in India can solve your query quickly.
Better Medium for Providing Technical Support – Technical support involves complex steps that can be difficult to impart and understand for both customers and customer care representatives. Chat support service provides a better medium to impart difficult technical instructions.
Instant Access – Unlike, voice support, in which you have to wait for a long time before someone attends the call, chat support can be accessed instantly. Easy accessibility makes live chat support a lot more convenient than other modes of customer service.
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
Chicago Teachers Union Ends Strike Against Charter School Operator After Tentative Deal Struck
A teachers' strike against a charter school operator will end after negotiating protections for students and immigrant families living illegally
Read More
Read the full article
#daillyeducationnewsmagazine#educationnews#latestonlineeducationnewsmagazine#latestupdateoneducation#school#teachers#WriteForUsEducation
0 notes
Text
Chinese News Agency Adds AI Anchors To Its Broadcast Team
binspamdupenotthebestofftopicslownewsdaystalestupid
freshfunnyinsightfulinterestingmaybe
descriptive
104160948
story
Chinese News Agency Adds AI Anchors To Its Broadcast Team (engadget.com)
Posted
by
BeauHD
on Thursday November 08, 2018 @09:23PM
from the shockingly-natural dept.
Two AI anchors are joining China's state-run news agency Xinhua . "The two anchors, one that speaks in English and another in Chinese, have the likeness of some of Xinhua's human anchors, but their voices, facial expressions and mouth movements are synthesized and animated using deep learning techniques," reports Engadget. From the report: "AI anchors have officially become members of the Xinhua News Agency reporting team," the agency said. "They will work with other anchors to bring you authoritative, timely and accurate news information in both Chinese and English." China's South China Morning Post reports that the AI anchors are available through Xinhua's English and Chinese apps, its TV webpage and its WeChat public account. The technology behind the anchors is being provided by search engine company Sogou.
Xinhua says its AI anchors can deliver the news with the "same effect" as that of human reporters. But if you watch the video, that isn't exactly true. It's pretty clear you're watching a non-human anchor as the mouth movements and facial expressions aren't quite human-like, and the voice can come off as a little robotic.
"It is hard to overstate the debt that we owe to men and women of genius."
-- Robert G. Ingersoll
Working...
Read More
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
Nor'easter leaves some students stranded at schools overnight
Some students in New Jersey were forced to sleep in their schools overnight as the first snowstorm of the season crippled the tri-state area the region.
Read More
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
Antarctica's hidden landscape shaped by rivers in warmer era
Antarctica's mountainous landscape was shaped by rivers rather than carved by glaciers as previously thought, a study has revealed.
Read More
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
We don't know how much Village Roadshow paid to buy Australia's new censoring copyright law
Australia just passed into law one of the world's most censoring copyright law, which allows the country's media giants like Village Roadshow to use one-sided administrative process to get court orders to censor any website whose "primary effect" is infringem…
Read More
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
Fox Nation, the new streaming service for Fox News 'superfans,' dumps news coverage and goes all-in on conservative opinion
Fox News has built a reputation for serving its news, analysis, and opinion with a conservative edge. With Tuesday's launch of its opinion-only streaming service, Fox Nation, it's leaning further into that sometimes controversial brand. "I think our brand identity is pretty clear at this point," said Fox News senior vice president of development and production John Finley. "We want as many of the superfans as we can get." To cater to Fox News' already massive audience, which according to Nielsen averages 1.7 million daily daytime viewers and 2.8 million nightly primetime viewers, Fox Nation has recruited some of its most popular and most controversial figures to produce new content for the platform, which will apparently feature no traditional broadcast news coverage. Tomi Lahren, who recently caused a stir after calling the conflict between migrants and border agents "the highlight" of her Thanksgiving weekend, has so far been the figurehead of Fox Nation's promotional material and will have a twice-daily show on the platform. "Tomi is a massively important part of this," said Finley. "She's very popular with our audience and has a tremendous following." But Finley says Lahren's prominence in Fox Nation's promotional material was simply because she was one of the earliest personalities to sign on. Other notable Fox News names appearing are on the new platform's roster include Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, and Jesse Watters, who have all made headlines for their distinctly conservative commentary. "Basically all of our big talent here at the Fox News channel have some sort of participation in Fox Nation," explained Finley, characterizing the platform's stars as "people that our fans have come to know and love and want to see more of." Read more: A Fox News guest suggested that the tear gas being used on migrants at the border was so 'natural' you could 'put it on your nachos' Finley stressed that Fox Nation will also host some personalities that are new to the network. The day before the platform's launch, Fox News announced conservative YouTube duo Diamond & Silk will be releasing weekly 5-minute videos for Fox Nation. The duo rose to fame on the conservative web during Trump's 2016 campaign and have been the center of their own share of controversy over payments from the Trump campaign and accusations of censorship against Facebook. Their selection seemingly represents an appeal to a more-connected, web-based audience that Fox News may be trying to tap into with its service — Nielsen estimates that over half of Fox News' audience is over the age of 65, despite the network coming out on top in ratings for the younger demographic. Finley denied the idea that Fox Nation and its roster are a direct play to bring younger conservatives into the Fox News fold, but suggested that that could be a fundamental effect of the platform: "If younger viewers find us through mobile, then terrific... based on the numbers we've seen with the pre-sale program in the last two or three weeks or so there are a lot of people who are signing up who are on mobile devices, which leads us to believe that there is a younger audience that's interested in this." Fox is using well-known Fox News personalities to stack its Fox Nation roster. Fox News Besides an effort to cast a wider demographic net, Fox Nation may serve other goals for Fox News. Fox Nation is a unique service among its competitors. No other major news channel in the US has an opinion-only streaming service. Fox has received multiple signals that their viewers want more opinion content. Between October 2017 and October 2018, Fox News' primetime viewership, which is stacked with its opinion all-stars, increased by 25% compared to their 16% daytime viewership increase, according to Nielsen. CNN saw just a 1% increase in primetime viewership over the same period. Yochai Benkler, co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and co-author of the recent examination of partisan media Network Propaganda, suggested that Fox News is uniquely suited to benefit from such an opinion service, saying that it appears to be designed to "jettison any connection to news." According to Benkler's network research, Fox News and other conservative outlets have created their own media ecosystem separate from centrist and liberal sources. Benkler theorizes that the conservative ecosystem has created a feedback loop where a "steady flow of stories and opinions provide viewers a way of understanding who they are in opposition and in outrage to someone else." Benkler says this strategy has created a loyal base, but only to a certain ideology. Benkler's research showed that "Fox News lost some audience during the primaries, because it was slower than some to jump on the Trump train, and it eventually reasserted its dominance and became more secure by becoming more right wing." Benkler speculated that Fox Nation will create a more steady stream of viewers, generate revenue, and provide insulation for some of Fox's major personalities from ad boycotts that have recently hit the network. Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham both faced serious ad boycotts in the last few years where consumers targeted companies and demanding they pull their ads from those programs. Reece Peck, assistant professor at the College of Staten Island and author of the upcoming book Fox Populism, said that while Fox Nation is essentially doubling-down on the conservative media formula that he believes made Fox News so successful, it could threaten to hurt the network's bottom line. "Fox News made its mark by innovating an opinion-heavy broadcasting formula," Peck said. "It was more responsive to audience trends on the ground" and, he added, "political talk shows are exceptionally cheap to produce." By those economic considerations, it's understandable why Fox News wants to double down on its conservative opinion content. "By primarily featuring low-cost opinion shows, Fox can test the performance of its conservative media brand in the younger, OTT market and do so with relatively low financial risk," said Peck. However, adding an online service to Fox News' roster could disrupt its business in a way that may not benefit them. "Giving Fox News fans an online alternative could incentivize cord-cutting, even among the older segments of their audience," said Peck." If they embrace the OTT model too much, they may very well kill the golden goose that is currently laying all the eggs." But according to Finley, Fox News isn't concerned about that: "I don't think that Fox Nation is going to change the DNA of Fox News. I think that Fox Nation is an extension of the Fox News Channel's brand." "Fox News is obviously massively successful — we do what we do," added Finley. Fox Nation is available Tuesday for $5.99 monthly or $64.99 yearly.
Read More
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
Student activists object to NUS plans to get rid of diversity officers
Cost-cutting proposals to cut liberation officers to plug £3m deficit meets with outrage The National Union of Students has come under fire after it emerged that proposals are being considered to get rid of liberation officers, who represent black, LGBT+, tra…
Read More
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
Politics Election 2019 'May has no credibility left': readers on the Brexit deal
Politics Election 2019 Readers are discussing cabinet resignations and the prime minister’s statement in the Commons Join the discussion at our politics live blog May, along with her plan, is dead in the water. The proposed agreement (should we now call it the “Draft Disagreement”?…
Read More
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
Politics Election 2019 Duncan Hunter Is Running the Most Anti-Muslim Campaign in the Country
Politics Election 2019 The Republican congressman's reelection bid is a microcosm of the politics of fear in Trump's America.
Read More
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
Politics Election 2019 Scholar Who Escaped Nazis Dies After a Push by a Subway Rider in a Rush
Politics Election 2019 A Hofstra professor escaped Austria as the Nazis took control. Eighty years later, he died after someone knocked him down on a subway platform.
Read More
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
Politics Election 2019 Democrats Should Un-Friend Facebook
Politics Election 2019 It’s time to treat Facebook like the ruthless monopoly it is.
Read More
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
These 4 myths about the skills gap will hold your company back
“If companies really want to help employees gain new skills, there has to be a basic understanding of what learning is really all about.” When it comes to competing in the workplace of the future, 80% of executives are worried about the availability of key sk…
Read More
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
Politics Election 2019 Why Trump's secret weapon works so well
Politics Election 2019 Trump has perfected the art of unabashed, unapologetic and unrepentant conviction, Juliana Silva and Bill McGowan write. Researchers have argued that people are willing to look the other way on truthfulness so long as that candidate appears to authentically c…
Read More
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
Microsoft PowerPoint is getting real-time captions and subtitles for presentations - The Verge
Microsoft is adding real-time captions and subtitles to PowerPoint for Windows, Mac, and online in early 2019. The new features will allow speakers to translate their presentations automatically, or provide captions
Read More
Read the full article
0 notes