Disney has announced that its iconic Walt Disney World attraction "Carousel of Progress" is getting a major upgrade, updating its animatronic-presented history of how technology affects American life.
The attraction was originally created for the 1964 New York World's Fair. It's a circular, segmented theater, in which seated guests are rotated through four scenes, with animatronic figures discussing the progress of technology over the years. — Read the rest
Search for office products, from boxes to broomsticks, and you'll likely get buried in ads for Uline. The listed prices are high, but the marketing is omnipresent on search engines, and the company reports $11 billion a year in revenues. I'm glad I was never tempted: it turns out every cent sent their way supports the founders' right-wing political agenda, as Refuse Uline details. — Read the rest
Working as an art director in New York City in 1962, Joel Meyerowitz was tasked with designing a booklet, the imagery for which was shot by Swiss-American photographer Robert Frank. Knowing very little about photography or the acclaimed documentarian, Meyerowitz’s life and career were nevertheless indelibly altered during that collaboration.
“When I watched him work, something transformed in me,” Meyerowitz says in an interview with SKIRA CEO Catherine Castillon. “I understood that time and instinct were the resources of photography.”
New York City, West 46th Street and Broadway, 1976
Meyerowitz returned to the agency he worked for and announced he’d be leaving to take up photography, even though he didn’t yet own a camera. His boss removed a Pentax from his desk drawer and handed it over. After purchasing a couple rolls of film from a local camera store and reading how-to instructions on the spot, Meyerowitz took his first photo from a Manhattan street corner, unwittingly spurring a lifelong career.
A Sense of Wonder, forthcoming from SKIRA, chronicles the prolific photographer’s work over the course of six decades. The volume highlights more than 90 images that helped redefine street photography through his unique and pioneering “use of color to interpret and fully capture the complexity of the modern world,” the publisher says.
No matter his subject, from throngs of people on city sidewalks to empty residential streets, Meyerowitz emphasizes the fundamental experience of seeing—empathetically observing and immersing himself in daily life in order to capture fleeting, unique, intimate moments.
Along with the hustle and bustle of 1960s brownstone stoops and busy airports, he also captures atmospheric settings like quiet city mornings and empty pools. In 2001, his striking images of the decimated World Trade Center offer a raw glimpse of the destruction.
Red Interior, Provincetown, Massachusetts, 1977
“Joel Meyerowitz is gifted with rare and special receptors,” says Denis Curti in the book’s introduction. He continues:
Walking along the city sidewalks, he observes the movements of the crowd from the inside; his point of view is “being there,” since so many unpredictable events can be captured in a single frame to structure a renewed process of meaning in photography. In this way, he reveals the hidden aspects of places, people, and life itself, illuminating the dark corners of the social and cultural languages of our time.
A Sense of Wonder is out on September 30. Pre-order your copy on Bookshop, and explore more of Meyerowitz’s work on his website.
Los Angeles Airport, California, 1976New York City, 1963 Florida, 1978New York City, 1975View of the Site from the World Financial Center, Looking East, New York City, 2001New York City, 1978
A "decision science partner" at a seed-stage venture fund (who is also a cognitive-behavioral decision science author and professional poker player) explored what happens when GPT-4 Turbo converses with conspiracy theorists:
Researchers have struggled for decades to develop techniques to weaken the grip of conspiracy theories and cult ideology on adherents. This is why a new paper in the journal Science by Thomas Costello of MIT's Sloan School of Management, Gordon Pennycook of Cornell University and David Rand, also of Sloan, is so exciting... In a pair of studies involving more than 2,000 participants, the researchers found a 20 percent reduction in belief in conspiracy theories after participants interacted with a powerful, flexible, personalized GPT-4 Turbo conversation partner. The researchers trained the AI to try to persuade the participants to reduce their belief in conspiracies by refuting the specific evidence the participants provided to support their favored conspiracy theory.
The reduction in belief held across a range of topics... Even more encouraging, participants demonstrated increased intentions to ignore or unfollow social media accounts promoting the conspiracies, and significantly increased willingness to ignore or argue against other believers in the conspiracy. And the results appear to be durable, holding up in evaluations 10 days and two months later... Why was AI able to persuade people to change their minds? The authors posit that it "simply takes the right evidence," tailored to the individual, to effect belief change, noting: "From a theoretical perspective, this paints a surprisingly optimistic picture of human reasoning: Conspiratorial rabbit holes may indeed have an exit. Psychological needs and motivations do not inherently blind conspiracists to evidence...."
It is hard to walk away from who you are, whether you are a QAnon believer, a flat-Earther, a truther of any kind or just a stock analyst who has taken a position that makes you stand out from the crowd. And that's why the AI approach might work so well. The participants were not interacting with a human, which, I suspect, didn't trigger identity in the same way, allowing the participants to be more open-minded. Identity is such a huge part of these conspiracy theories in terms of distinctiveness, putting distance between you and other people. When you're interacting with AI, you're not arguing with a human being whom you might be standing in opposition to, which could cause you to be less open-minded.
Answering questions from Slashdot readers in 2005, Wil Wheaton described playing poker against the cognitive-behavioral decision science author who wrote this article...
Luigi Mangione, the alleged killer of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has become something of an icon in recent months. Many could relate to the motivation behind the killing without condoning the action themselves, and the no-holds-barred manhunt showed many more just how skewed in favor of the rich the justice system really is. — Read the rest
The DEA's scare tactics likening Adderall prescriptions to the opioid epidemic betrays its addiction to manufacturing drug panics to protect its authority amid the drug war's failures.
The Drug Enforcement Administration has found a new bogeyman to justify its failed prohibitionist crusade — prescription medication for people with ADHD. — Read the rest
Amazon is laying off hundreds of people across Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, as reported by Variety. This is for the usual reason. The company found a way to save some money and went for it. You know the drill. Amazon's entertainment chief Mike Hopkins wrote in an email to staff that it has “identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas while increasing our investment and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the most impact.”
Hopkins didn’t give an exact number, but did note that “several hundred” employees would be given walking papers and that most American workers will know by the end of the day, with global employees following suit by the end of the week. He also wrote that “it is hard to say goodbye to talented Amazonians.”
Amazon says it’ll help laid off workers with benefit packages that will include a separation payment and external job placement support. The company promises “continued investments in programming, marketing and product," despite the layoffs.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-is-laying-off-several-hundred-employees-at-prime-video-and-mgm-studios-161307199.html?src=rss
The Flux Keyboard takes a more practical approach to the dream of keys that change to fit the current app, game or other layout required. Instead of the spectacularly expensive Optimus keyboard, where every key is a miniature display, the Flux has a single large display visible through individual, magnetically-levitated keys. — Read the rest
Photography is all about capturing moments and telling stories through images. One powerful technique that can greatly enhance your photos is using compositional rules, such as triangles and leading lines. Leading lines are linear elements within a photograph that guide the viewer’s eye through the frame, either pointing towards the subject or creating a path […]
Every month, Engadget features what our editors are currently into, whether it be video games, podcasts or gadgets. These are not official reviews; they’re simply our first-hand experiences. This week, Senior Editor Nicole Lee gives her take on the Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy rice cooker.
A long-standing joke among my family and friends over the past couple of decades is that I’m not a true Asian. Why? Because I didn’t have a rice cooker. Since rice is a staple of the Asian diet, rice cookers are commonplace in most Asian households. But for years, I refused to get one. That is, until recently, when I finally gave in and got a $195 Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy rice cooker. And ironically, what I ended up liking most about it isn’t rice at all.
The reason I held off was mostly that I didn’t think I needed it. Since I only live with my husband, I told myself I didn’t need a single-purpose appliance. After all, I could already make rice on the stove with just a saucepan. I’ve become adept at making small portions of rice over the years. Plus, it only takes 18-or-so minutes. A rice cooker, on the other hand, can typically take 35 minutes or longer. So even though I enjoy rice enough to make it regularly, I just couldn’t quite justify the seeming inconvenience.
This, however, was challenged over this past winter break. We had our family over on Christmas Eve, so I ordered takeout from a local Chinese restaurant. At one point, we ran out of rice, so I set about making more on the stove. I had to make rice for around 10 people, which I’m not used to doing. Long story short, my calculations were off, and the rice I made ended up crunchier than I would like. Of course, my family didn’t complain, but I was still a little upset with myself. That’s when I reconsidered getting a dedicated rice cooker.
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After some research, I opted for the Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy rice cooker. Sure it’s expensive – you can easily get basic models for less than $50 – but I wanted one that can cook all kinds of rice such as short-grain and medium-grain white rice, long-grain jasmine rice, sweet (or sticky) rice, brown rice and more. More importantly, I wanted a cooker with “fuzzy logic” (yes, that’s an industry term), which essentially means that the device has a computer chip. This gives it the smarts to adjust temperature and cook time to accommodate other variables, such as human error (like what I experienced over Christmas), to ensure perfectly cooked rice every time.
I’ve now had it for a few weeks, and I love it. It really does make cooking rice so much easier. Instead of having to fuss over the stove, I can just rinse the rice, add water, push a button and walk away. It also has a “Keep Warm” function that lasts over five hours, giving me plenty of time to prepare dinner as the rice cooks. It also comes with a handy guide that tells you the proper rice and water ratio for all the different kinds of rice. On top of that, it has a timer so you can have the rice ready whenever you want it.
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But I’d argue the killer function of the Neuro Fuzzy isn’t rice at all. I’ve discovered that it actually makes amazing oatmeal from steel-cut oats. I learned about this from an NYT Cooking recipe for “Rice Cooker Steel-Cut Oats,” (link requires subscription) and it is really such a game changer for me. Steel-cut oatmeal usually takes 20 or so minutes to make, and I don’t usually have time for it in the mornings. But with the rice cooker, I just dump in one cup of oats followed by four cups of water and a teaspoon of salt before I go to bed, set the timer for 8AM, toggle the menu to the Porridge setting, press Cook, and I get to wake up to fresh oatmeal every morning. What’s more, the resulting oatmeal is the best I’ve ever had. The texture is so creamy and smooth, making it the perfect vehicle for both sweet and savory applications. I like mine with spam, spinach and furikake.
Additionally, and it admittedly sounds silly to talk about a rice cooker this way, but the Neuro Fuzzy is just adorable. Its long oval shape gives it a rounded, egg-like appearance that I find aesthetically pleasing. It also plays a tune whenever it starts or ends cooking. My favorite design feature, however, is its power cord: it’s retractable! This way you can store it away without a nest of cables to contend with.
Perhaps the only real downside of the Neuro Fuzzy rice cooker is that it’s pretty slow. White rice takes around 40 or so minutes to cook, while brown rice can take 90 minutes or longer (stovetop timing on the other hand, ranges from 18 minutes for white rice to 45 minutes or so for brown rice). Still, that’s a small price to pay for perfectly cooked rice, creamy morning oatmeal and, hopefully, no more ruined Christmases.
