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The digital age is just one big con
đ Balloon head | đˇď¸ Censoring Peppa | đ° $30,000 a minute
In the headlines
British water companies are under fire after new data revealed that the amount of raw sewage discharged into rivers and seas has more than doubled in a year. According to the Environment Agency, untreated waste flowed into waterways for a cumulative 3.6 million hours in 2023, up from 1.75 million in 2022. Angela Rayner has refused to publish details of her tax affairs, amid questions over whether she dodged capital gains tax during the sale of her old council house in Stockport. Greater Manchester Police are reassessing their previous decision not to investigate the Labour deputy leader, who denies any wrongdoing. More than 20 Japanese words have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary. Most of the new entries relate to food, including donburi, a rice-based dish, and katsu, which refers to deep-fried morsels. Others include omotenashi, meaning good hospitality, and kintsugi â the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by joining pieces back together with gold lacquer, to make a feature of the flaws and âembrace imperfectionâ.
Comment
Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv after the October 7 attack. Miriam Alster/AFP/Getty
Is Israel alienating its strongest ally?
âAmerica is something you can easily manoeuvre,â Benjamin Netanyahu told a family of Jewish settlers in the West Bank back in 2001. âAnd if they say something, they say something. So what?â Two decades later, says Donald Macintyre in the I newspaper, it looks like the Israeli PMâs âproclaimed masteryâ of his countryâs relationship with its biggest ally has âbegun to unravelâ. On Monday, the US decided to abstain from, rather than veto, a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Furious, Netanyahu has âpetulantlyâ cancelled a planned visit to Washington by two of his most senior lieutenants. Joe Biden has long been distinct among US presidents for his âlong and visceral attachment to Israelâ. But faced with serious discontent among his partyâs base over the administrationâs âsteadfast supportâ for Israelâs war, it looks like he might change tack.
If only, says Mohamad Bazzi in The Guardian. Though Netanyahu cancelled one delegation to Washington, he didnât recall his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, who is currently in the US âwith a long wishlist of US weaponsâ, including thousands of the bombs and other munitions that sustain Israelâs âbrutalâ bombardment of Gaza. As a sop to progressive voters, Biden has instituted a requirement that countries which receive US military aid must comply with international law. But this is no more than âbureaucratic ass-coveringâ. The US has âinexplicablyâ declared that Israel has not violated international law â despite onerous restrictions on food aid getting into Gaza, which teeters on the brink of âcatastrophicâ famine â so it can merrily continue to ship weapons over. The Israeli PMâs âstrategic temper-tantrumâ hasnât affected the US-Israeli relationship where it matters most.
đşđ¸â¤ď¸âđŠšď¸đŽđą Biden and Bibi: how it all went wrong â for our in-depth look at their decades-long friendship, visit our new site, The Knowledge Premium by clicking here.
Tomorrowâs world
OpenAI has given some filmmakers access to its new video generator, Sora, says Tomâs Guide, and the results are impressive. One clip imagines a boy growing up with a yellow-balloon for a head, including his recollection of a close encounter at a cactus shop; another depicts a menagerie of fantastical hybrid animals, such as a swimming cat with the behind of an eel. There are concerns that programmes like Sora will eliminate human jobs in the creative industries, but one argument in their favour is that theyâll give low-budget directors the ability to bring ideas to life â like a horror-movie monster or a spaceship exterior â âwithout breaking the bankâ. See the other Sora videos here.
Property
UK property âoffers the worst value for money in the developed worldâ, says Bloomberg. Thatâs according to an analysis by the Resolution Foundation, which found that British housing was more expensive relative to other goods than in any OECD country. Not only does the average Londoner have less floor space per person than the average New Yorker â the average resident in the whole of England does too.
TV
Banned in Australia: Peppa Pig befriends a spider
People mocked North Koreaâs state broadcaster for blurring out Alan Titchmarshâs jeans, on the basis that they were a âsymbol of US imperialismâ, says Stuart Heritage in The Guardian. But the Hermit Kingdom is hardly alone. China forbids TV shows and films that depict time travel because it can âdisrespect historyâ. Australia has repeatedly banned an episode of Peppa Pig where the piglets learn that spiders are âultimately harmlessâ, as many spiders Down Under are deadly. And Britain is âno stranger to berserk censorshipâ. As recently as the 1990s, the government banned the voices of Irish republicans and loyalist paramilitaries from being broadcast â interviews had to be dubbed over by an actor, lest the sound of their voices somehow managed to âcorrupt our brainsâ.
Comment
David Bowman being let down by technology in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
The digital age is just one big con
On the radio yesterday morning, the manager of a big NHS trust said the key to improving patient satisfaction is to invest more in digital technology. Just at that moment, says Jemima Lewis in The Daily Telegraph, âmy phone pingedâ. It was the GP surgery, reminding me to book a vaccination for one of my children. You canât make appointments by phone, so I went online, where I was asked to click on an outline of a body to identify the location of the ailment. I clicked on the arm and was confronted with a list of 60 arm-related conditions, ranging from âlumpsâ to âparalysisâ, but no mention of vaccines. At that point I gave up and â âlike some kind of crazed ludditeâ â tried calling the surgery. No answer. So, no vaccine.
Itâs a stark reminder that âdigital technology doesnât actually make life easierâ. The tech firms keep promising us more âspeed, efficiency and convenienceâ, and we keep buying their âawful productsâ, and then what? When the app glitches and the website canât answer your question and the customer assistant is a bot and the simplest task is suddenly impossible, âwe blame ourselves for being bad at techâ. It would be one thing if the benefits were âso overwhelmingly wonderfulâ that they balanced out the bad stuff. But what, really, is easier now than 40 years ago? âGetting junk food delivered to your door, starting culture wars and destroying the mental health of a generation.â What would improve my patient satisfaction would be considerably less digital technology in the NHS. Ideally, there might even be real humans answering the phones, listening to patients and organising appointments. âI think they used to be called receptionists.â
Food and drink
Better than vinegar? Getty
If youâre looking for a new way to zhuzh up the evening meal, says IFL Science, âthe next hot seasoningâ could be ants. Research shows that ordinary black ants are âpacked full of formic acidâ, making them a crunchy alternative to vinegar or lemon juice. If you prefer the âmeaty, fatty aroma of burgers and sausagesâ, apparently the one to go for is the Chicatana variety â their segmented bodies contain chemicals which âmatch those produced when meats and bread are cookedâ.
Nice work if you can get it
NBC News is parting ways with its newest hire, former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, after a backlash from the networkâs presenters over her efforts to overturn the 2020 election. It could be a costly decision, says Politico. McDaniel says she expects to be fully paid out for her two-year, $600,000 contract, because she didnât breach its terms. Given she made only a single appearance on the channel, lasting around 20 minutes, this would work out as an earnings rate of $30,000 a minute, or $500 a second.
Snapshot
Snapshot answer
Itâs a sculpture of Prince Philip in Cambridge, says The Independent, which is being taken down years after it was erected without planning permission. The four-metre-high bronze effigy, which features an abstract face, has been standing outside an office block since 2014, despite once being described by a council official as âpossibly the poorest quality workâ ever submitted. No artist has admitted to creating it: the Uruguayan sculptor Pablo Atchugarry described claims that he was responsible as âan abuseâ.
Quoted
âOur comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.â
Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who died yesterday aged 90