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Smart glasses in warfare
Smart glasses in warfare is a natural application of the technology.
Depending on the situation, the glasses for either prototype will overlay certain information onto a soldier’s field of view. This might be as simple as a compass or as complex as an entire map of the area, information about where nearby drones are flying, or AI-driven recognition of a target like a truck.
The soldier would then speak to the interface in plain language—for example, to order an evacuation for someone who’s been injured or to plan a route taking into account which areas are off limits.
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Beta Moms
A Beta Mom might be a new parenting trend.
Despite the name, “Beta Mom” isn’t about being passive or checked out. If anything, it’s a pushback against competitive, high-pressure parenting culture.
Many of the moms identifying with this trend are millennials (and some Gen Xers) who grew up with intense expectations themselves. They have packed schedules, achievement pressure, and the idea that success had to be engineered from childhood.
Now, they’re questioning that whole model.
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An interview with Fiona Cauley
That’s kind of my number one reason for doing all of this. I don’t think I initially understood what an impact bringing a neuromuscular disease or disability into mainstream comedy would have. Most people have a very two-dimensional concept of what disability is and what it looks like. I am a wheelchair user, but I’m not paralyzed. I have a neurological disorder, and people can get upset that I can move my legs.
It’s true. There’s still a large portion of the population that has a very narrow scope of disability.
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Instant coffee, how does it work
Apparently, instant coffee is a technological marvel.
Creating instant coffee required developing techniques to extract the soluble molecules in coffee from the insoluble plant matter without destroying the fragile compounds that make coffee worth drinking.
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Cocaine pollution affects fish
Drugs in wastewater isn’t new, but we now have evidence of its environmental affects.
Juvenile Atlantic salmon that were artificially exposed to the drug and its main breakdown product swam further and dispersed more widely across a lake, suggesting the substances can affect where the fish go, what they eat and how vulnerable they are to predators.
And
Scientists have said before that pollution from common drugs poses “a major and escalating risk to biodiversity” and have called on pharmaceutical companies to make greener medicines that breakdown in the environment. Concerns over the contaminants have been fuelled by reports of trout “addicted” to methamphetamine and perch losing their fear of predators because of antidepressant medications.
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Updating books with modern pop culture references
Updating a piece of media to adapt the to modern culture can be done well. Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew transformed into 10 Things I Hate About You quite well. But there’s a growing trend of updating contemporary books with dated references to more modern ones.
“You guys want to come over and watch this cool TikTok I found?”
This line, from a recent reprint of Sara Shepard’s young adult thriller “Pretty Little Liars,” drew criticism online this spring after a reader said it “ruined the whole book.”
In the original edition, from 2006, the same passage referred to the reality show “Fear Factor.” The updated version, from 2022, replaces it — and other early-2000s markers — with references to Instagram, Snapchat and artists like Billie Eilish and Doja Cat.
In publishing, the practice of updating cultural and technological references in older books is called modernization. It is most common in, but not exclusive to, middle-grade and Y.A. fiction, and is distinct from sensitivity editing, which targets language deemed offensive and became a subject of debate following revisions to Roald Dahl’s novels.
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Geography is 4 dimensional
Derek Sivers makes the case that geography can also be mentioned by time.
When someone speaks of a place, you have to ask, “When?” Geography is four-dimensional. You can’t know a place – only a place as it was at a time. Where is bound to when. Unless you are in a place right now, you can only speak of it in past-tense.
