More means less: Extended copyright benefits the corporate few, not the public

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More means less: Extended copyright benefits the corporate few, not the public Lisa Macklem is a PhD Candidate in Law at the University of Western Ontario. She currently teaches at Western, King's University College and Brescia University College. She is cited in York University v. Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright), 2021 SCC 32 and The Statutory Review of the Copyright Act, both of which are cited in this article. Who benefits from Canada’s recent extension of copyright? Dead authors? Students? Marginalized writers? If you answered no to all of these, you’d be correct. Continued here

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In 1 Brilliant Sentence, Microsoft Execs Prove Once Again They're Building the Right Future Where technology meets employee experience. Continued here

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How to Get Press for Your Company Yes, this is very meta. A press piece on getting in the press. Continued here

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Google's CEO Said He Takes 'Full Responsibility' For Laying off 12,000 People. Why That's Mostly Meaningless Responsibility without accountability doesn't mean what you think it does. Continued here

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Can You Afford to Become a Digital Nomad? This New Online Calculator Will Tell You How much money do you have to make to qualify for various digital nomad visas? Continued here

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How Business Owners Can Protect Their Intellectual Property Without Noncompete Agreements A partial or full ban could prompt companies to use alternative methods to keep trade secrets safe after employees leave. Continued here

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6 Simple Questions to Assess Whether Your Leadership Has What It Takes Leaders must drastically evolve with the times. Continued here

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Dear Sundar Pichai, Here Is How You Lay off Employees Hey, Google, if you can hire one by one, you can fire one by one. Continued here

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Get Ready for the Fourth Wave of e-Commerce Brand manufacturers are developing their own DTC channels with the potential to capture large amounts of end consumer data. Continued here

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How to Build a High-Trust Workplace These days, it’s hard to read the news without encountering a story about quiet quitting — the notion that swaths of employees have become so disengaged that they’re doing the minimum required to keep their jobs. To address this issue, many organizations are investing in better office spaces, hybrid work support, enhanced employee wellness, and more targeted collection of employee feedback. Other companies in an array of industries are taking a more punitive approach, such as withholding benefits or strong-arming underperformers into taking a buyout. Our research shows that trust is a critical driver of engagement. Trusting employees are 260% more motivated to work, have 41% lower rates of absenteeism, and are 50% less likely to look for another job. But consider this: We also found that roughly 1 in 4 workers don’t trust their employer. At the same time, most employers overestimate their workforce’s trust level by almost 40%. With this misalignment in trust, it’s no wonder that worker engagement is suffering. Lack of trust is a huge and destructive problem with no easy fix. But, as we’ll show, systematic trust-building is a critical part of the solution. What has held many leaders back is that they have lacked a simple, robust way to measure, predict, and manage trust and to link specific actions they take to changes in trust levels. Without reliable methods of measurement, managers have struggled to know whether actions intended to enhance trust are actually working. Continued here

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The pressure on women to have the 'perfect' birth Warning: This story includes details of traumatic birth that some readers may find distressing When Emma Carr fell pregnant in 2021, she had a vision for her ideal birth. At the most basic level, she wanted to feel empowered, listened to and in control. But, like many women, Carr’s vision went further than that. In particular, she hoped for a 'natural birth' – generally described as a vaginal delivery with as little medical intervention and pharmacological pain relief as possible. Continued here

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Five ways to be calm - and why it matters Is calmness a passive state of being, involving numbing oneself to what's really going on? Is it in some cases unnatural – sociopathic even? Or is a sense of tranquillity one of the greatest qualities we can have? Here are five ideas about calmness, from the philosophy of serenity, to the music, art and poetry that can make us feel peaceful – and how to find our "flow". "Stay calm and serene regardless of what life throws at you," advised the Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius. Sounds easier said than done, you would think. But in fact, the Stoic Aurelius had a knack for making calmness seem easy to achieve.  Continued here

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Kenyan prisoners on death row weren't deterred by the threat of the death penalty: new research findings Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of the Death Penalty Project, University of Oxford Kenya’s last execution of a prisoner was in 1987. But the country still hosts a death row population of nearly 600. Almost all were sentenced to death for murder or robbery with violence. New sentences are handed down every year. Continued here

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COVID is running rampant in China - but herd immunity remains elusive After nearly three years of keeping COVID under control, China is experiencing a massive new wave of COVID infections. The official figures reporting 60,000 deaths between December 8 and January 12 are widely seen as underestimating the impact of the outbreak. Until December 2022, China had used lockdown policies to reduce the opportunity for COVID spread in the hope of eliminating the virus or building up enough population immunity through vaccination. The exceptionally strict zero-COVID policy was very successful in stopping the virus’ spread while the world faced returning deadly waves. Continued here

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Prince Harry is wrong: unconscious bias is not different to racism When Prince Harry sat down with ITV journalist Tom Bradby for a conversation about his marriage, his estrangement from the royal family and his tell-all memoir, Spare, one particular segment stood out. Bradby said that Harry had accused some members of his family of racism, but Harry shook his head firmly. “The difference between racism and unconscious bias,” he said, “the two things are different.” He went on to argue that unconscious bias could become racism if it was pointed out to the perpetrator they did nothing about it. Continued here

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Four reasons swimming should be your next workout When most of us think of exercising, images of long runs on the treadmill or picking up heavy weights often come to mind. But although these are both great ways of keeping fit, they aren’t for everyone. So if you’re someone who’s looking to keep fit but can’t stand the gym, it might be time for you to try something a little different: swimming. Not only is this exercise a fun change from your normal routine, it also comes with a slew of benefits that rival even the most intense gym workouts. Continued here

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Deepfakes: faces created by AI now look more real than genuine photos Recently, a fake LinkedIn profile with a computer-generated profile picture made the news because it successfully connected with US officials and other influential individuals on the networking platform, for example. Counter-intelligence experts even say that spies routinely create phantom profiles with such pictures to home in on foreign targets over social media. These deep fakes are becoming widespread in everyday culture which means people should be more aware of how they’re being used in marketing, advertising and social media. The images are also being used for malicious purposes, such as political propaganda, espionage and information warfare. Continued here

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Jewish doctors in the Warsaw Ghetto secretly documented the effects of Nazi-imposed starvation, and the knowledge is helping researchers today - podcast Associate Science Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation During the years of suffering and tragedy that defined the Warsaw Ghetto in the midst of World War II, a team of Jewish doctors secretly documented the effects of starvation on the human body when the Nazis severely limited the amount of food available in the Jewish ghetto. The doctors collected this work in a book and, 80 years later, Merry Fitzpatrick rediscovered the brave efforts of these doctors hidden in a library at Tufts University, in Massachusetts in the U.S. In this Discovery episode of The Conversation Weekly, we speak to Fitzpatrick about how she found this piece of history, the story of its creation and how modern scientists are learning from the knowledge so bravely documented by the Jewish doctors. Continued here

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Online racial harassment leads to lower academic confidence for Black and Hispanic students Online racial discrimination or harassment has a negative effect on the academic and emotional well-being of students of color. That is the key finding from a study I published recently in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence. For the study, I surveyed 356 Black and Hispanic teens across the U.S. I analyzed their responses to questions about their social media use and experiences. I also asked about their mental health and beliefs about their academic potential. The adolescents were 16 years old on average. Continued here

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Brazil, US show that secure elections require agreement - not just cybersecurity and clear ballot records There are a number of ways to run a legitimate election. But the U.S. has learned in recent years, and Brazil learned in recent weeks, that it’s not always simple. There are technical mechanics and processes of how votes are cast, collected and counted. But those are ultimately less important than the agreement – among opposing parties, and across a society – to abide by the results of those processes. Continued here

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As US-EU trade tensions rise, conflicting carbon tariffs could undermine climate efforts Rising trade tensions between the U.S. and the European Union, two of the most important global leaders when it comes to climate policy, could undermine key climate initiatives of both governments and make it harder for the world to put the brakes on climate change. The two have clashed over the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act’s requirements that products be made in America to receive certain U.S. subsidies. The EU recently announced plans for its own domestic-only clean technology subsidies in response. Continued here

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How has the inside of the Earth stayed as hot as the Sun's surface for billions of years? Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. How does the inside of the Earth stay boiling hot for billions of years? Henry, age 11, Somerville, Massachusetts Continued here

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Cochlear implants can bring the experience of sound to those with hearing loss, but results may vary - here's why Cochlear implants are among the most successful neural prostheses on the market. These artificial ears have allowed nearly 1 million people globally with severe to profound hearing loss to either regain access to the sounds around them or experience the sense of hearing for the first time. However, the effectiveness of cochlear implants varies greatly across users because of a range of factors, such as hearing loss duration and age at implantation. Children who receive implants at a younger age may may be able to acquire auditory skills similar to their peers with natural hearing. Continued here

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Cheap sewer pipe repairs can push toxic fumes into homes and schools - here's how to lower the risk Across the U.S., children and adults are increasingly exposed to harmful chemicals from a source few people are even aware of. It begins on a street outside a home or school, where a worker in a manhole is repairing a sewer pipe. The contractor inserts a resin-soaked sleeve into the buried pipe, then heats it, transforming the resin into a hard plastic pipe. Continued here

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Power cuts in South Africa are playing havoc with the country's water system South Africans had to deal with the worst ever series of power cuts in 2022. All in all the country lost a record 205 days of electricity due to constant breakdowns at the coal-fired power plants run by Eskom, the state-owned electricity utility. The plants are old and have not been sufficiently maintained. The country’s energy crisis has been escalating since April 2008, when scheduled power cuts were first implemented. Continued here

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Climate change: Africa has a major new carbon market initiative - what you need to know Climate finance for the African continent got a boost at the 2022 United Nations Climate Conference (COP27), with the launch of the African Carbon Markets Initiative. This aims to make climate finance available for African countries, expand access to clean energy, and drive sustainable economic development. Led by a 13-member steering committee of African leaders, chief executives and industry specialists, the initiative promises to expand the continent’s participation in voluntary carbon markets. Continued here

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Dartmoor wild camping ban shows why Britain needs a universal right to roam When the owners of the 4,000-acre Blachford estate in Dartmoor, a vast moorland in south-west England, recently won the right to exclude campers from their land, it demonstrated how fragile the right to enjoy Britain’s countryside is. For the time being, an agreement between landowners and the national park means that wild camping will still be allowed, but with the permission of landowners only. Until access rights are properly protected by law, and recognised as important by everyone, wild campers would be advised not to make themselves too comfortable. Continued here

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Peru riots: unrest in southern Andes lays bare an urgent need to decolonise Alonso Gurmendi Dunkelberg is an associate of AC Transparencia, a democracy watchdog in Peru, and occasionally consults on human rights issues in Peru for Human Rights Watch. Peru is in flames. Since early December, massive, often violent, protests have engulfed the South American nation. Demonstrators concentrated in the country’s southern Andean regions took to the streets after the then president, Pedro Castillo, was deposed for attempting to mount a coup by dismissing the parliament and ruling by decree. Continued here

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Strikes: why refusing public sector pay rises won't help reduce inflation The UK government has not yet resolved the thorny issue of ongoing public sector pay disputes, despite the fact that these workers are suffering much more from the cost of living crisis than their private sector counterparts. The government is worried about wage increases pushing up inflation that is already sky-high, but recent data shows that giving these workers more pay is unlikely to have that effect. In the year to October 2022, private sector pay increased by 6.8% compared with only a 2.9% increase for the public sector. This disparity has lead to widespread industrial action in the UK in recent months. On a longer-term basis, a growing pay gap is contributing to acute labour shortages, which is seriously affecting the delivery of public services such as healthcare and education. Continued here

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How consecutive Conservative governments destroyed union rights - a timeline of the UK's anti-strike laws since the 1970s Rishi Sunak’s government is attempting to introduce tough new laws that would further limit the right to take industrial action amid continuing strikes in the UK. This is just the latest in a long line of legislation brought in over the past 50 years that has almost completely eroded such rights. Trade unions were once a major force in British society, but that is no longer the case. Here, a timeline of key events explains how the UK got to where it is today. Continued here

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Consensus decision-making is surprisingly effective in both communities and workplaces If you’re in a leadership position — at work or in the community — you make decisions and oversee decision-making processes. Often it’s best to consult the people you are leading to reach a group decision. Voting may seem the quickest route to a resolution, but it isn’t the best way to enrol everyone. Worse, voting can silence voices and thwart creativity. Continued here

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The food systems that will feed Mars are set to transform food on Earth Could we feed a city on Mars? This question is central to the future of space exploration and has serious repercussions on Earth too. To date, a lot of thought has gone into how astronauts eat; however, we are only beginning to produce food in space. Read more: Humans are going back to the Moon, and beyond – but how will we feed them? Continued here

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Fashion, sex and drag: Vivienne Westwood's queer legacy I was 13 years old when I discovered Vivienne Westwood. The music came first. From the moment I heard the album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, I was hooked. Within a few months, I was spending my pocket money on a knock-off Westwood design – tartan bondage trousers. My punk look was completed with ripped t-shirts held together with safety pins, a denim jacket customised with bullet holes in the back, and Doc Martens boots. It’s only recently that I’ve come to understand that what appealed to me most about the punk aesthetic, pioneered by Vivienne Westwood in the mid-to-late 1970s, was its queerness. From the start of her career in design, Westwood’s clothes challenged and undermined gender norms, and it’s probably for that reason why she is so revered by the LGBTQI+ community. Continued here

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Photos from the field: our voyage investigating Australia's submarine landslides and deep-marine canyons The voyage on RV Investigator described in this article was funded by the Australian Government as part of the CSIRO’s Marine National Facility (MNF) program. Environmental scientists see flora, fauna and phenomena the rest of us rarely do. In this series, we’ve invited them to share their unique photos from the field. Continued here

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It's not all about gender or ethnicity: a blind spot in diversity programs is holding equality back In particular social class is ignored, and people with invisible, subtle or complex diversities are seldom considered. The almost exclusive and independent focus on gender and race is not surprising, given Australia’s history. Colonisation and the dispossession of Indigenous Australians, the legacy of the White Australia Policy and persistent discrimination against women at work are all realities with which, as a nation, we have not fully reconciled with. Continued here

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'No home to go to, and no means of living': how colonial vagrancy laws punished the poor Vagrancy – being found in the street without any visible means of support – was a crime in many parts of Australia right up to the final decades of the 20th century. In some jurisdictions, vagrancy laws were only repealed in the early 2000s. Police could arrest people who were found asleep in lanes, walking around country towns without a job to go to, or loitering near buildings. These people may simply have looked different or “out of place”. Continued here

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Why the tween years are a 'golden opportunity' to set up the way you parent teenagers The teenage years can be among the trickiest times for a parent. You have been used to being your child’s voice of reason. Then, all of a sudden, your authority is challenged by their peers, social media and huge developmental changes. But the good news is children aged ten to 12 are still more influenced by their parents than their friends. Continued here

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Our Solar System is filled with asteroids that are particularly hard to destroy, new study finds A vast amount of rocks and other material are hurtling around our Solar System as asteroids and comets. If one of these came towards us, could we successfully prevent the collision between an asteroid and Earth? Well, maybe. But there appears to be one type of asteroid that might be particularly hard to destroy. Continued here

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Ozempic helps people lose weight. But who should be able to use it? Semaglutide, sold in the forms of Ozempic and Wegovy, shot into public consciousness as an effective weight-loss medication last year, thanks to spruiking from social media influencers and people such as Elon Musk. The unexpected increased in demand for the drug for weight loss has caused a world-wide shortage. Producing the drug – delivered as a weekly self-administered injection – involves a unique manufacturing set-up, so it will take some time to re-establish a global supply. It’s expected back in Australia at the end of March. Continued here

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The world's carbon price is a fraction of what we need - because only a fifth of global emissions are priced Nga Pham is also the co-chair of the Financial Capital Committee of the International Corporate Governance Network. At the end of last year, the world’s average price to emit one tonne of greenhouse gases was around US$5.29 (AU$7.77). For pricing to work as we want – to wean us off fossil fuels – it needs to be around $75 by the end of the decade, according to the International Monetary Fund. Continued here

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Why can't the West agree on how much military support to send to Ukraine? German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been under tremendous pressure to supply Leopard tanks to Ukraine. The government in Kyiv has long argued it desperately needs them to regain territory seized by Russia in its 2022 invasion, and to protect the rest of Ukraine from the Kremlin’s looming spring offensive. So far, Berlin has refused, and in recent weeks it has expended significant political capital in forbidding other nations like Poland and Finland from transferring their own Leopards to Kyiv. Continued here

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Horror and anguish are playing out on repeat following the latest mass shooting - and the mental health scars extend far beyond those directly affected Yet another community is stricken with grief in the wake of the horrific shooting at Monterey Park, California, on Jan. 21, 2023, that left 11 people dead and 9 more wounded. Families and friends of the victims, as well as those who were injured, are no doubt gripped with grief, anguish and despair. In addition to those who are experiencing direct loss, such events also take a toll on others, including those who witnessed the shooting, first responders, people who were nearby and those who hear about it through the media. Continued here

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Why Russia's war in Ukraine today is so different from a year ago Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine is approaching its first anniversary. The war being fought by Russian forces today is, however, very different from that being fought when Russia first invaded Ukraine. In February 2022, the Russian attack on Kyiv — seemingly aimed at bringing about regime change in Ukraine — soon faltered. It quickly became apparent that the current Ukrainian regime would not simply collapse. Continued here

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How long does it take for skin to repair after sun exposure? H. Peter Soyer is a shareholder of MoleMap NZ Limited and e-derm consult GmbH and undertakes regular teledermatological reporting for both companies. He is a Medical Consultant for Canfield Scientific Inc and Blaze Bioscience Inc.. It’s impossible to avoid the Aussie sun entirely, but Australians are well aware of the dangers of too much exposure. Some 40 years of Slip Slop Slap (and more recently added, Seek and Slide) campaigns have reinforced this, not to mention the unpleasant experience of a sunburn most of us have encountered at some point. Continued here

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Fantasy football can negatively affect your wellbeing, but research shows it doesn't have to Erling Haaland or Harry Kane? Mo Salah or Marcus Rashford? Use the “triple captain” chip or save it? This weekend (and pretty much every weekend until the end of May), millions of people around the world will be making these sorts of decisions, hoping the right call will take them a step closer to fantasy football glory. Continued here

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The future of work: how John Curtin was calling for a new cooperative work ethic 80 years ago A boom in 2023 predictions is spurring more tips about thriving in fast-changing workspaces. But the talk about an Australian workplace revolution is not new – and a prime minister once offered a media model for renewing the national morale. Continued here

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They're on our coat of arms but extinct in Tasmania. Rewilding with emus will be good for the island state's ecosystems The emu is iconically Australian, appearing on cans, coins, cricket bats and our national coat of arms, as well as that of the Tasmanian capital, Hobart. However, most people don’t realise emus once also roamed Tasmania but are now extinct there. Where did these Tasmanian emus live? Why did they go extinct? And should we reintroduce them? Continued here

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Young port workers in the maritime city of Makassar lack digital skills. Vocational schools can be the solution Vice Dean for Resource, Venture, and General Administration, Faculty of Computer Science, Universitas Indonesia PhD Candidate in Operations and Supply Chain Management, The University of Melbourne Continued here

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ADHD more strongly linked to anxiety and depression compared to autism - new research Autistic people and people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often experience anxiety and depression. When these conditions occur together, though – as they often do – it can be hard to unpick which one is contributing the most to poor mental health. Our latest study aimed to find out. We discovered that people with more ADHD personality traits were more likely to experience common mental health problems like depression and anxiety than people with more autistic traits. This is the first study, as far as we are aware, which shows that people with ADHD are more likely to have poor mental health than autistic people. Continued here

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How we cracked the mystery of Australia's prehistoric giant eggs With the help of artificial intelligence software, our team has now resolved this scientific controversy, showing that Genyornis was indeed the bird that laid these eggs. With colleagues based around the world, we have published the findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Genyornis was a flightless bird between two metres and 2.5 metres tall that once roamed the Australian landmass. The eggshell fragments are an important line of evidence about this extinct creature, so being certain about the identity of the bird that laid them is vital. Continued here

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How spatial thinking could help children learn maths - and go on to use it in their careers Do you struggle to visualise how to rotate your shoes so that they nest together in a shoe box? These everyday activities require spatial thinking. Spatial thinking is important for mathematics, and it is what we use to understand the properties of objects, such as their location, size and shape, as well as the relationship between objects. Continued here

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Five non-alcoholic cocktails to take you past dry January More people, particularly young people, are opting to drink less or are cutting it out all together. This change in habits has inspired a healthy industry of non-alcoholic distillates offering reasonable substitutes for gin, rum and whisky, to be stirred up in “mocktails”. But despite the recent emergence of non-alcoholic spirits and beers as a burgeoning new category, this idea has actually been around for nearly two centuries. Continued here

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'Opt-out' alcohol bans in prospect for Indigenous communities after PM's Alice Springs visit New temporary restrictions on takeaway sales and the prospect of reimposed bans on alcohol in Indigenous communities – with “opt-out” provisions – have followed Anthony Albanese’s Tuesday visit to crisis-ridden Alice Springs. After a brief round of talks with local Indigenous, civic and police representatives Albanese fronted the media with Northern Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles, federal minister Linda Burney, senators Malarndirri McCarthy and Patrick Dodson and the member for Lingiari, Marion Scrymgour. Continued here

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The Local Paper That First Sounded the Alarm on George Santos George Santos is hardly the first scammer elected to office—but his lies, David Remnick says, are “extra.” Most Americans learned of Santos’s extraordinary fabrications from a New York Times report published after the midterm election, but a local newspaper called the North Shore Leader was sounding the alarm months before. The New Yorker staff writer Clare Malone took a trip to Long Island to speak with the Leader’s publisher, Grant Lally, and its managing editor, Maureen Daly, to find out how the story began. “We heard story after story after story about him doing bizarre things,” Lally told her. “He was so well known, at least in the more active political circles, to be a liar that by early summer he was already being called George Scamtos.” Lally explains how redistricting drama in New York State turned Santos from a “sacrificial” candidate—to whom no one was paying attention—into a front-runner. At the same time, Malone thinks, “the oddly permissive structure that the Republican Party has created for candidates on a gamut of issues” enabled his penchant for fabrication. “[There’s] lots of crazy stuff that’s popped up in politics over the past few years. I think maybe Santos thought, Eh, who’s gonna check?” © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Continued here

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Raising Felix: On My Fortieth Birthday Follow @newyorkercartoons on Instagram and sign up for the Daily Humor newsletter for more funny stuff. © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Continued here

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The Rules According to Pamela Paul Pamela Paul and I met twice, in the same Times conference room, and on both occasions she wore a black biker jacket. She paired it with soft skirts in floral print or pink stripes: a look to suit a provocateur temperamentally averse to provocation. “A kind of writing that I don’t like to do myself is deliberately contrarian writing—like, people who are just pushing buttons and testing waters,” she told me. “That’s not my way. To my mind, the role and responsibility of a columnist is to always write what you think.” Yet, since stepping down as editor of the Times Book Review to become an opinion columnist, early last year, Paul has produced a body of work—deliberately contrarian or not—that reliably results in buttons being pushed. Her inaugural column, “The Limits of ‘Lived Experience,’ ” took up the question of who has “the right” to address culturally specific subject matter. For example: “Am I, as a new columnist for the Times, allowed to weigh in on anything other than a narrow sliver of Gen X white woman concerns?” Paul wrote. “Not according to many of those who wish to regulate our culture—docents of academia, school curriculum dictators, aspiring Gen Z storytellers and, increasingly, establishment gatekeepers in Hollywood, book publishing and the arts.” One representative response, by the press critic Dan Froomkin, read, “Wow. New @nytopinion columnist comes out of the gates with a straw-man panic attack on wokeism. Just what the place didn’t need.” Continued here

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Is plastic recycling a scam? Here's the truth about the common practice A report found only 5 percent of plastic gets recycled. Experts explain what that means for the American consumer. Last fall, a Greenpeace report on plastic recycling made headlines around the world when news outlets led with the publication’s striking key finding: Only five percent of plastic household waste generated in the U.S. was recycled. Continued here

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'The Last of Us' Episode 2's ending rewrites one major video game death The first episode of HBO’s The Last of Us made it clear that, much like the game that inspired it, the series isn’t going to be precious with its characters’ lives. In its second episode, The Last of Us doubles down on that promise. After forcing Joel (Pedro Pascal), Ellie (Bella Ramsey), and Tess (Anna Torv), to endure a horrifying encounter with a pair of infected clickers, Episode 2 reveals that its central trio is destined to become a duo. The episode, appropriately titled "Infected,” ends with the explosive death of a character who casual viewers likely believed was going to have a much bigger role in Season 1. Continued here

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5 years ago, DC released the best Batman movie you haven't seen You’ve probably never given much thought to what Batman would be like in the Victorian era, but DC comic book writers Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola certainly did. In 1989, the comic Batman: Gotham by Gaslight was published as the first installment of DC’s Elseworlds series, non-canonical stories about DC characters set in different eras and realities. The Elseworlds line was canceled in 2003, but in 2018 DC released an animated adaptation of Gotham by Gaslight, loosely based on the comic book of the same name. Continued here

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Cutting back on deli meats may lower your risk of this chronic illness Nitrates and nitrites may as well be the creepy Shining twins of processed foods. Instead of appearing in deserted hallways, this pair shows up in deli and other cured meats. And, just like those creepy twins, these preservatives typically portend something bad. The preservative pair isn’t inherently bad. The organic nitrogen compounds naturally occur in plants and animals, including in humans, and they play a key role in helping plants and animals grow. But ingesting them, whether as preservatives in meats or in contaminated groundwater, comes with complications. Continued here

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Review: 'Forspoken's fantastic gameplay gets buried under a weak story After unlocking a fourth set of elemental magic, I’m brimming with enough confidence to take down anything Forspoken might throw at me — except a 90-minute exposition dump right before the final boss battle. Forspoken is vibrant, experimental, and undercooked all at once. It feels like a throwback to the Xbox 360-era of Square Enix games that were weird and experimental, like The Last Remnant and Infinite Undiscovery, only with a much bigger budget and flashier visuals. Its traversal and combat mechanics shine, but they’re trapped underneath a story and setting that feels painfully average and completely unwilling to engage with more challenging themes. Continued here

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'Last of Us' Episode 2's biggest change to the game is also the scariest One of the selling points of The Last of Us is how the television medium allows them to jump from perspective to perspective now that the narrative isn’t beholden to one or two playable characters. Because of this, we’re able to see more sides to the Outbreak, from the small child who is deceptively euthanized by Fedra to the 1960s talk show opening scene of the entire series. Episode 2 starts with its own big swing, following an Indonesian mycologist asked to inspect the victim of a freak attack at a flour mill. As she realizes the worst-case scenario of the talk show in Episode 1 is coming true, she’s forced to break some terrible news to the authorities — words that hang over the rest of the series. Continued here

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Your ultimate 'Persona 4 Golden' quiz and exam cheat sheet JRPG fans on Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox can experience the classic Persona games, as hot on the heels of Persona 5 Royal Atlus is releasing ports of Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden. Like the other entries, Persona 4 Golden casts you as a not-so-ordinary high school student, this time solving a deadly murder mystery in the sleepy town of Inaba. While you investigate the murders and a strange “TV world,” you’ll still need to go about your daily life and school activities. Of course, this entails answering a selection of pop quiz questions, along with specific exams. Acing all of these questions can give you a huge boost to your personal stats, so you’ll want to make sure you get everything right if you’re looking to see and do everything in Persona 4 Golden. Continued here

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Your ultimate 'Persona 3 Portable' quiz and exam cheat sheet With Persona 3 out on Xbox Game Pass, PS4, and Nintendo Switch, more people than ever can experience one of the franchise's most underrated entries. Just like the rest of the franchise, Persona 3 lets players live out an escapist video game fantasy of going to school, having a lot of anxiety about saying the right thing to people in hopes of becoming their friends, and answering a lot of questions over multiple pop quizzes and exams — Fun! Doing well on exams and answering surprise questions from teachers during school days will increase the protagonist’s charm and you the player will learn some fun facts along the way as a bonus. From April through January Persona 3 Portable will ask you to answer numerous questions. Here is your cheat sheet to get through the academic year without tanking your grade. Continued here

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Earth's inner core may have stopped spinning -- study Geoscientists found the core may move on a cycle, stopping every few decades to take a breath. Mysteries still abound for scientists studying the Earth’s climate, biosphere, surface topography, and even the oceans, but they all have a distinct advantage: the subjects of their inquiries are, to some degree or another, directly accessible for observations. Continued here

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'Dungeons & Dragons' trailer is the closest we'll get to playing the real game (with hot celebrities) Dungeons & Dragons may have ruffled some feathers in the tabletop gaming world recently, but the massively popular universe is still making its way back to the big screen with Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Written and directed by John Francis Daley, who’s been closely associated with nerd nostalgia since he was a teen starring in Freaks and Geeks, the movie seems like an entire tabletop campaign brought to life. In a new trailer, we finally get a glimpse of the dynamic between the eponymous thieves, as well as who they’re facing off against. Continued here

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Look: 5 futuristic tech concepts could help us explore distant worlds Every year, the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program awards grant money to scientists and engineers to explore new technology concepts that could boost future space missions. Continued here

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Here's exactly when you can start playing Square Enix's 'Forspoken' Upcoming Square Enix action RPG, Forspoken, is nearly here and it’s gearing up to launch exclusively for PS5 and PC. Previously referred to as codename Project Athia, Forspoken comes to us from Luminous Productions, the team partially responsible for Final Fantasy XV. Forspoken is an open-world action RPG with an emphasis on story and combat, and while reviews have been mixed, it’s one that many players are excited about. But when can you play it, and what are the pre-order bonuses? Here’s what you need to know to get started with Forspoken as soon as possible. Forspoken has different release times depending on region and platform. On PS5, it launches worldwide at midnight local time on January 24, 2023. However, in the United States, it releases at midnight Eastern on the early morning of January 24, meaning you can actually play it at 9 p.m. Pacific on the night of January 23 if you live on the west coast. Continued here

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This DIY joystick makes your Nintendo Switch impervious to Joy-Con drift If Nintendo won’t fix the problem, someone else will. GuliKit dropped its replacement kit for Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Con joysticks that uses Hall effect sensors instead. That means no more stick drift on your Joy-Cons, provided that you’re not afraid to crack open your controllers and do some tinkering. GuliKit’s replacement joysticks require a little bit of DIY know-how, but the instructions aren’t too complicated. The kit includes all the tools you need, including two magnetic screwdrivers, screws, and a tweezer. Just know that opening up your controllers and replacing the stock joysticks likely means voiding your warranty. Still, if you’re tired of replacing your Joy-Cons every few months because of stick drift, this replacement kit may be worth it in the long run. Continued here

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'Forspoken' has one incredible feature every AAA game should steal Sometimes you just need a quiet moment to yourself. However, more and more games nowadays seem to think that what players need the most is a companion who will incessantly talk your ear off, whether you like it or not. A solution to this problem is possible and one example comes from maybe the most unexpected source: Forspoken. Despite early impressions of cringe-worthy dialogue, Square Enix’s latest RPG also has a must-have feature for games going forward: a banter slider. Cuffing season — Throughout Forspoken, Frey’s constant companion is the talking cuff named ... Cuff (no points for originality here). From the game’s opening moments, the two establish a comedic rapport of nearly endless banter that seeks to entertain the player as they traverse the world with magical parkour. Continued here