Tag: begin
Eliminate These 4 Pushdown Mistakes And Begin Torching Your Triceps
NI council elections 2023: Vote counting to begin
NASA’s Artemis 2 Crew Set to Begin Training for Upcoming Moon Mission
Ahead of their 10-day mission to the Moon, the Artemis 2 crew members will be undergoing 18 months of training to learn how to operate the spacecraft and what to do in case of an emergency.
A-levels and GCSEs: Covid support in place as exams begin
Wendy’s To Begin Replacing Drive-Thru Staff With AI Chatbots
Verbal AI tech has advanced in leaps and bounds — not that you’d know it trying to talk to my Google Home, mind you — and the two companies have worked together to train up a system called FreshAI. This model understands the entire menu, including the street slang for certain orders, and it’s capable of having conversations — within a set of “guardrails” — as well as taking custom orders and answering questions. It integrates with the company’s point of sale systems and has been trained to follow the rules the company currently gives to its human drive thru window staff. Wendy’s will begin with a pilot program at a site in the Columbus, Ohio, area next month, expecting that some customers won’t realize they’re not talking to a human. From there, the company hopes to expand to include other drive-thru locations.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Why the mysterious love affair between video games and giant elevators may begin with Akira
It’s funny how some aspects of game design are so ubiquitous that we stop questioning them, or even noticing them. After decades spent playing video games, I know that if I look behind the waterfall, there’s likely to be some sort of shiny goodie to collect. If I head left rather than right at the start of a level, I’m bound to find a juicy secret. There are conventions. Traditions. I can’t remember a time when games didn’t have giant lifts – and yet, I’m not entirely sure why they’re there. I’m not talking about the regular kind of lifts that you pile into, usually at the end of a level, to transition from one part of the game to another; those ones have historically been used to hide lengthy loading times, like the interminably long lifts of Mass Effect.
What I mean is the lifts that are essentially tennis-court-sized moving platforms, usually with little more than a flimsy guard rail around the edge to stop elevator enjoyers from plunging down the shaft. Even more specifically, I’m talking about the diagonally moving elevators that trundle slowly into the depths, often to some nefarious laboratory. There’s a good example in the Resident Evil 2 remake, where you fight the final boss on an inclined elevator as it slowly, ever so slowly, descends towards the train that will grant your escape. So where did these giant elevators come from? And why do developers keep putting them in their games? I set out to answer both questions, and went somewhere unexpected.
Voter ID issues begin to emerge as counts under way in local elections
Brits warned to use NHS services ‘wisely’ after striking nurses begin walk out
THE public were urged to use NHS services “wisely” today after striking nurses began their walk out across the country last night.
Royal College of Nursing members in more than 100 NHS organisations have walked out until midnight tonight.
The increasingly isolated union is under pressure to u-turn on fresh strikes after their 28 hour walk ends.
After climbing down on staffing kids hospitals, the RCN must seek a new mandate for any further strikes after Tuesday.
Unions including Unison and the GMB have voted in favour of a Government pay offer to end the strikes, while Unite and the RCN have voted against.
Ministers have urged them to “think again” as what they are doing “clearly does put patients at risk.”
Last night the RCN agreed to staff “life and limb” services including special care babies and A&E.
But NHS bosses warned this would still mean delays at hospitals and represent a “very significant” risk.
Chief Nursing Officer Dame Ruth May said: “Positive discussions with the RCN this weekend have resulted in a number of national agreements to ensure staff are able to provide direct patient care needed to protect life-and-limb services, covering neonatal ICU, paediatric ICU, intensive care and emergency departments.
“These mitigations do not represent a return to standard staffing.
“The industrial action will still have a very significant impact on services during the strike period and patients can expect to see longer waits for care.”
She added: “The public should use the NHS wisely, with those needing non-urgent care using pharmacies and 111 online as their first port of call.
“And if you have a life-threatening emergency, please seek help in the usual way by dialling 999.”
Dril and other Twitter power users begin campaign to ‘Block the Blue’ paid checkmarks
On Thursday, April 20, Elon Musk made a rare move: He delivered on a promise.
Since acquiring Twitter in October of last year, Musk has been open about his disdain for Twitter’s old verification system. Musk has made it clear that “legacy verified” users would eventually lose their checkmarks. And, after missing the originally scheduled date on April 1, yesterday Musk finally removed the blue checkmark from all accounts unless they opted to pay for it via the $8 per month Twitter Blue service.
There are up to about 630,000 subscribers to Twitter Blue at this time, according to independent research Travis Brown, who has been tracking the data.
Now, that it’s finally happened though, the campaign to “Block the Blue” – that is, any user still with a blue checkmark which signifies they are paying Musk for it – is in full swing.
“99% of twitter blue guys are dead-eyed cretins who are usually trying to sell you something stupid and expensive, and now they want to pay a monthly subscription fee to boost their dog shit posts front and center,” Twitter user @dril told me in an email when I asked about his thoughts on the #BlockTheBlue campaign.
“blocking them and encouraging others to do the same on a massive scale is the complete opposite of what they want,” he continued. “Its funny.”
That’s big coming from @dril. Part of the “Weird Twitter” subculture of funny shitposting accounts, @dril is a legend on Twitter and his reach goes far beyond any niche community. His tweets are regularly used as replies and memes. Screenshots of his tweets often spread on other platforms. His content empowered him to co-create an Adult Swim show. @dril has built a following of more than 1.76 million followers just with his funny Twitter posts over the years and he’s done it almost completely anonymously – he finally confirmed his identity just earlier this month.
To stress how important @dril is to Twitter, let’s put it this way: Last month, Platformer reported on a secret “VIP” list of just 35 popular accounts that Musk wanted to promote to users via the algorithm to encourage more use of the platform. That list included NBA star LeBron James, President Joe Biden, YouTube’s most subscribed creator Mr. Beast, and @dril.
“I am actively rooting for the downfall of twitter,” @dril tells me. “I hope to sabotage their efforts to become profitable, no matter how futile, in the hopes that they will eventually close up shop and release us all from this toilet.”
Despite 15 years of apparent neutrality, @dril was one of the earliest – and certainly biggest – Twitter users to encourage those on the platform to block anyone with a paid bluecheck. This account that was once all about pure comedy is now at the center of a protest movement.
“absolutely block on sight,” @dril tweeted back in November, when Musk’s Twitter Blue first launched. Included in the tweet was a screenshot of the label Twitter use to put on Blue subscribers in order to differentiate the paid checkmarks from the old “legacy verified” users.
But, @dril is far from the only big Twitter user to follow this new unwritten “Block the Blue” rule on the platform. NBC News reporter Ben Collins, Harvard Law Cyberlaw Clinic’s Alejandra Caraballo, and countless other highly-followed Twitter accounts have already shared their intention to block all Twitter Blue subscribers.
There’s even a Twitter account for the campaign, @BlockTheBlue, which is run by the creator of the automated Twitter account blocking app The Block List.
The Block List creator tells me that the app has unfortunately since shut down due to Twitter’s move from its free API plan to its high-priced new enterprise plans for API access, starting at $42,000 per month. However, before the app was killed off, more than 10,000 users were able to get in 610,677,100 automated blocks on Twitter Blue subscribed accounts. And, he’s still using the @BlockTheBlue account to urge users to manually block blue checkmarks.
The checkmark stands for something very different now
To be clear, as Max Collins of the hit 90s rock band Eve 6 puts it, Block the Blue is not “just a petty retaliation” against Musk.
“Verification used to mean a person was like an actor or a journalist or something and now it means they’re a white nationalist with 30 followers or they’re hawking crypto or something,” said Collins, who is also blocking the blue from his band’s @Eve6 account, which he runs.
Collins isn’t exaggerating about the types of users subscribing to Twitter Blue either. Disinformation and extremism researchers, like Shayan Sardarizadeh of BBC, have noticed neo-nazis and white supremacists getting verified by Twitter to spread their hate messages.
“Twitter blue subscribers are without fail the dumbest and most boring twitter users,” Collins told me, moving on to the other, non-straight-up-hate accounts who subscribe. “I’ve gotten really good at being able to tell who pays for their blue check just by the quality of their replies to my tweets.”
Many who are blocking Twitter Blue subscribers have shared that same sentiment. Paid checkmarks on the site often have very little presence on the platform – and Mashable previously reported, nearly half of all subscribers have less than 1,000 followers – and create low-quality content.
Eve 6 frontman Collins said even before Twitter Blue subscribers were the only ones left with a blue checkmark, you could tell they paid for the account due to their content. For example, Collins told me that if someone was in his replies and “completely misunderstood an obvious joke and he had a blue check, chances are he paid for it.”
Of course, not all accounts with a blue checkmark fit the above descriptions. Recent Twitter Blue unsubscribers note that Twitter doesn’t remove the checkmark right away. Some former Twitter Blue subscribers have noted that they canceled their paid subscriptions months ago, yet the blue checkmark remains stuck on their account in some apparent glitch. The feature has also been popular among some specific communities like sex workers and users who post long form videos. Still, those saying they’ll block the blue have reflected they’ll continue on with the blocking.
Under the old Twitter, the company provided blue checkmark badges to “notable” users on the platform. These users included Hollywood celebs, musical artists, pro athletes, and media figures. While the Musk fans who criticized the old system often focused on the “elitism” of the checkmarks, the real reason Twitter created verification is far from nefarious.
Celebrities and other well-known users were often impersonated by scammers or others looking to hurt their brand. After facing a lawsuit from former baseball player Tony La Russa over a fake account, old Twitter decided to roll out its new verification feature in 2009. Twitter quickly grew in popularity with celebrities and musical artists due to the move and in turn many promoted Twitter as the sole way for the public to interact with them on social media.
That now seems to be changing under Musk. Since the removal of the checkmark, a number of celebrities have announced that they were leaving the platform or were considering a move.
And others, including the one of the platform’s biggest self-made users @dril, are looking forward to seeing the fallout.
“everyone has always Hated twitter, even before the day elon dragged a sink into the main office while grinning like a doofus,” @dril explained. “nobody respects it, it is almost certainly responsible for a sharp increase in overall human misery, and if my brand must suffer so that this entire Shit hole will perish, that is fine to me.”
UPDATE: Apr. 21, 2023, 4:15 p.m. EDT Shortly after this story was published, Twitter suspended the @BlockTheBlue account. It’s currently unclear why.