Neewday 365

Despite Cheating Fears, Schools Repeal ChatGPT Bans

2Oct

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

News

Despite Cheating Fears, Schools Repeal ChatGPT Bans

For decades, Walla Walla High School in the wheat basket of Washington State has maintained an old red wooden barn on campus where students learn a venerable farming skill: how to raise pigs and sheep.Now, as the new academic year starts, some teachers at the school are preparing to help students learn the latest digital skill: how to navigate A.I. chatbots like ChatGPT.This month, Walla Walla Public Schools, which serves some 5,500 students, held a daylong workshop on the A.I. chatbots, which can generate homework essays, fictional stories and other texts. About 100 local educators showed up at the high school for the event.It was a remarkable turnaround for a district that had blocked student access to ChatGPT on school devices only in February.“I do want students to learn to use it,” sa...

China Uses ‘Deceptive’ Methods to Sow Disinformation, U.S. Says

1Oct

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

Technology

China Uses ‘Deceptive’ Methods to Sow Disinformation, U.S. Says

The State Department accused China on Thursday of using “deceptive and coercive methods” to shape the global information environment, by acquiring stakes in foreign newspapers and television networks, using major social media platforms to promote its views and exerting pressure on international organizations and media outlets to silence critics of Beijing.The accusations, detailed in a report by the department’s Global Engagement Center, reflect worry in Washington that China’s information operations pose a growing security challenge to the United States and to democratic principles around the world by promoting “digital authoritarianism.”China not only pushes its own propaganda, the report said, but exports digital surveillance tools to police information and people online. Although many ...

With Relief Room, a Fan Pays Tribute to Phillies Relievers

1Oct

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

Sports

With Relief Room, a Fan Pays Tribute to Phillies Relievers

HATBORO, Pa. — It’s the top of the ninth inning at Citizens Bank Park, and the Philadelphia Phillies’ relievers are at it again. They have already blown one lead, with Jeurys Familia and Seranthony Domínguez giving up homers in the seventh. Now after a comeback, the game has unraveled with closer Corey Knebel on the mound.The Miami Marlins win it, 11-9, and from his living room couch in the suburbs here, Matt Edwards sighs.“Celebrating some of these guys is really hard,” he said.Indeed it is: The Phillies are the only National League team without a playoff appearance in the last 10 years, and their bullpen is an annual adventure. Nostalgia can be an enticing escape (beer helps, too), and nobody celebrates the past quite like Edwards, a 45-year-old telecommunications salesman with a wife, C...

How West Africa Can Reap More Profit From the Global Chocolate Market

1Oct

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

Economy

How West Africa Can Reap More Profit From the Global Chocolate Market

The first leg of the 35-mile journey from Ghana’s capital city, Accra, to the Fairafric chocolate factory in Amanase on the N6 highway is a quick ride. But after about 30 minutes, the smoothly paved road devolves into a dirt expanse without lanes. Lumbering trucks, packed commuter minivans, cars and motorcycles crawl along craggy, rutted stretches bordered by concrete dividers, muddy patches and heaps of rock.The stopgap roadway infrastructure is one of the challenges Fairafric has had to navigate to build a factory in this West African country. The area had no fiber-optic connection to Ghana’s telecommunications network. No local banks were interested in lending the company money. And it required the personal intervention of Ghana’s president before construction could even begin in 2020.T...

One Village, Two Houses — and a New Tactic to Win the War on Mosquitoes

1Oct

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

Health

One Village, Two Houses — and a New Tactic to Win the War on Mosquitoes

The world spends at least $22 billion every year to kill mosquitoes that spread malaria, dengue and other devastating diseases.That money buys billions of liters of insecticides, millions of kilograms of larvicides and 75 million insecticide-treated bed nets. Hundreds of millions more dollars are poured into research each year on new ways to kill mosquitoes.But as quickly as humans invent new ways to control them, the insects evolve ways to resist.What if we left mosquitoes alone? What if we focused instead on fixing the things that make people vulnerable to getting bitten?The area around the town of Ifakara has one of the highest malaria rates in the world. The Ifakara Health Institute, a tropical disease research center, has been studying ways to fight the illness for more than a half ce...

Ukraine Downplays Uncertainty Over U.S. Support After Funding Bill Passes With No Aid

1Oct

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

News

Ukraine Downplays Uncertainty Over U.S. Support After Funding Bill Passes With No Aid

Ukraine’s government said on Sunday it was confident that the United States would continue to support it in its war with Russia, even after the House passed a stopgap spending bill to avert a government shutdown that did not include any additional money for Kyiv.The White House and leaders of both parties in the Senate had pushed for more Ukraine funding to be included in the bill, which passed late Saturday. Members of both parties said they were confident that further financial commitments would be agreed to, but the failure to do so on Saturday highlighted the decreasing willingness of some Republicans to fund Kyiv’s war effort. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine had made the case for continued U.S. support during a visit to Washington last month, and his office suggested on Sunday...

Wearables Resurface at the Paris Shows of 3 Fashion Brands

1Oct

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

Technology

Wearables Resurface at the Paris Shows of 3 Fashion Brands

In 2014 Jony Ive, then the chief design officer of Apple, came to Paris Fashion Week with his Big New Product, the Apple Watch, to convince the fashion crowd that wearables were the future of fashion. That turned out to be not exactly true (at least style-wise), but it hasn’t stopped two former Apple designers, Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, from returning nine years later to try again.This time around, the product is the Ai Pin — a stand-alone smart assistant that attaches to clothing via a magnet and so can be worn pretty much wherever you want it — which made its runway debut on the jackets and pant pockets at Coperni. The brand’s founders and designers, Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant, have become known during fashion week for their technology-based stunts: spray-painting fa...

How the unexpected blockbuster Damian Lillard trade to the Bucks came together

1Oct

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

Sports

How the unexpected blockbuster Damian Lillard trade to the Bucks came together

As the NBA offseason calendar shifted to September and there was no trade in sight to his preferred trade destination of the Miami Heat, Damian Lillard incorporated himself back into the Portland Trail Blazers’ ecosystem. For the last two weeks, team sources say Lillard has been working out at the Blazers practice facility, interacting with players and coaches.Nearly three months after his trade request, was there a reconciliation in the works? No, but Lillard wanted the Blazers to know he was willing to remain patient while his uncomfortable exit played out.On a call between Lillard’s agent, Aaron Goodwin, and Blazers general manager Joe Cronin earlier this month, it was communicated that Lillard would be content rejoining Portland for training camp. Lillard let the Blazers know he was wi...

1Oct

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

Economy

The Honey Pot: What’s Behind the Rise of the New Feminine Care Brand

On a recent July evening in Midtown Manhattan, a trio of teenage girls swooped into the feminine care aisle at Target. Skipping over the boxes of Always and Tampax tampons, they made a beeline to a shelf with sanitary pads from the Honey Pot Company. One asked her friend if she was going to pick out the pads with a “minty sensation.”The herbal pads, which are advertised as providing soothing comfort during menstruation, have been fodder for many videos on TikTok. In posts that have racked up thousands of likes, women wearing the pads bounce around with startled looks and compare the sensation to applying Icy Hot cream. (Some even have their boyfriends try it.) Others say they hate the feeling and the pads need to come with a warning. Regardless of whether consumers like the product, the Ho...

A Nobel Prize Might Lower a Scientist’s Impact

1Oct

By Nicolas H. SpeedNo Comments

Health

A Nobel Prize Might Lower a Scientist’s Impact

Winning a Nobel Prize can be a life-changing event. The winners are thrust onto a world stage, and for many scientists the recognition represents the pinnacle of their careers.But what is the effect of winning such a high-profile prize on science?John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Stanford University, wants to find out. Awards like the Nobel Prize are “a major reputational tool,” he said, but he questions “whether they really help scientists become more productive and more impactful.”In August, a team of researchers led by Dr. Ioannidis published a study in the journal Royal Society Open Science that attempted to quantify whether major awards push science forward. Using publication and citation patterns for scientists who won a Nobel Prize or a MacArthur Fellowship — the so-called genius...