Rijo Stephen Cletus: Madosini, a South African national treasure whose music kept a rich history alive

Madosini, a South African national treasure whose music kept a rich history alive

Boudina McConnachie is affiliated with Rhodes University and hosted Madosini at ILAM funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2021.

Renowned African musician, songwriter and storyteller Latozi “Madosini” Mphahleni passed away late in 2022. The cultural and indigenous music activist, who laughed as often as she played, was loved by everyone she met. She has left behind a rich legacy of Xhosa music, heritage and history. She also taught and nurtured a new generation of bow players, reinvigorating an art that was dying.

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How to evolve PokÃ©mon #1,000 Gholdengo in 'Scarlet and Violet'

Gholdengo is built different. According to its Pokémon Scarlet Pokédex entry, its body is comprised of 1000 coins, which makes its status as the 1000th Pokémon even more fitting. They don’t call it the Coin Entity Pokémon for nothing.

Unfortunately, the “golden boy” of Pokémon is also one of the most difficult ones to get because of how tedious it is to gather enough Gimmighoul coins to evolve Gimmighoul into Gholdengo. Thankfully, they can pop up at multiple stops throughout your journey while you’re solving gym puzzles and breeding Pokémon.

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Why Don DeLillo is America's greatest living writer

"A brilliant story about death and the fear of death," said the original jacket blurb on Don DeLillo's 1985 novel White Noise – adding that the book "is a comedy, of course." This month, Noah Baumbach's Netflix film of White Noise dazzles its way on to our screens, and we're promised "a fascinating, invigorating spectacle," a "thrillingly original" blast of cinematic lustre.

So this feels like a good time to look again at White Noise's author – and consider why Don DeLillo is one of the great novelists of our time. He published his first novel in 1971, and for half a century has been one of those writers who makes us think in a new way: read him for long enough and the world begins to look different.

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Western Sahara: the six-decade struggle to liberate Africa's last colony

PhD candidate, College of Social Sciences and International Studies, University of Exeter

Meriem Naili is affiliated with OUISO, the International Academic Observatory on Western Sahara.

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What does ESG mean? Two business scholars explain what environmental, social and governance standards and principles are

Environmental, social and governance business standards and principles, often referred to as ESG, are becoming both more commonplace and controversial.

It’s shorthand for the way that many corporations operate in accordance with the belief that their long-term survival and their ability to generate profits require accounting for the impact their decisions and actions have on the environment, society as a whole and their own workforce.

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Look! Astronomers discover weird crisscrossing jets lurking in 14-year-old Hubble photo

The Butterfly Nebula is really “a tempestuous fire-sneezing dragon, with eyes that project ultraviolet light,” according to astronomer Bruce Balick.

The star (or stars) at the center of the nebula seem to blast powerful jets of energy out into space in random directions, creating chaos in the expanding gas that forms the Butterfly’s wings. Fourteen-year-old photos from the Hubble Space Telescope helped astronomers discover the mystery behind the jets, and infrared images from the James Webb Space Telescope might eventually help solve it.

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You need to watch the most underrated sci-fi space-thriller on Amazon ASAP

If filmmakers are going to shamelessly lift premises for their movies, they might as well lift from the best. In the 40-plus years since it was released, Ridley Scott’s Alien has inspired dozens of imitators, most of which can’t come close to Scott’s sci-fi horror masterpiece. Still, the idea of a deadly alien presence loose on a self-contained spaceship is simple enough to offer plenty of twists and be realized with relatively modest resources.

So it’s no surprise that filmmakers are still borrowing from it. And in the hands of accomplished filmmakers with a decent budget and a talented cast, a riff on Alien can be an entirely satisfying film in its own right.

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Mike Colter would "entertain" the idea of coming back to Luke Cage

Mike Colter burst onto the scene as Marvel’s “Bulletproof Black Man,” Luke Cage. But it wasn’t a bullet that felled the superhero: it was a Netflix cancellation.

Luke Cage was one of the casualties of the doomed Marvel-Netflix deal, which saw Marvel TV attempt to expand its catalog with “streetwise” superheroes like Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Punisher, and Luke Cage, only to have to dismantle the whole empire (dubbed The Defenders Saga) when Disney introduced Disney+ in 2019.

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Nintendo theory reveals a wild Kirby secret hidden in plain sight for decades

In Nintendo’s pantheon of characters, there are quite a few contenders for the most powerful. There are evil superbeings like Ridley and Ganon, and literal gods like Palutena and Arceus. But none can match the sheer raw, unrestrictive (and cuddly) power of Kirby.

Looking back over the games, there’s some pretty compelling evidence that Kirby might be the same species as many of the series’ one-eyed eldritch horror bosses. The hidden lore behind the pink fluffball reveals a secret potential that other Nintendo heavy hitters can’t hope to reach.

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How Mike Colter's surprising first acting role prepared him for 'Plane'

Mike Colter plays an enigma in the new action thriller Plane. And he’d like to keep it that way.

With his hulking physique and intimidating presence, he’s used to being cast as the strong man or the heavy. It’s what made his casting as Marvel’s bulletproof man in Luke Cage so perfect. And it’s what makes him such a formidable presence in Plane, the new action flick in which Colter plays a convicted murderer being extradited in a commercial plane piloted by Gerard Butler’s Captain Brodie Torrance. But when a storm forces Brodie to make a crash landing in hostile territory, Colter’s Louis Gaspare becomes Brodie’s best bet at survival.

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An Extremely Laudatory Oral History of Your High-School Theatre Program

TRIPLE-THREAT ACTRESS: Sometimes, there’s a moment. And after that moment? Nothing is the same. For anyone who was there, that moment was the 2006 spring production of “Annie” at Marshallville High School.

SUPER-AMBITIOUS STUDENT DIRECTOR: A lot of people are completely delusional about their high-school theatre programs being special, but not us. There was just something in the air.

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Bidenâ€™s Classified Documents Should Have No Impact on Trumpâ€™s Legal Jeopardy

Given the facts as they are now known, only the most superficial parallel can be drawn between the two situations.

The recent discovery of a small number of classified documents, left over from President Joe Biden’s time as vice president and found at his private office and home, has injected confusion into the public’s understanding of whether any criminal liability might be appropriate for former President Donald Trump in connection with the huge trove of classified documents found last year at Mar-a-Lago.

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Special counsels, like those examining Biden's and Trump's handling of classified documents, are intended to be independent - but they aren't entirely

Attorney General Merrick Garland has now appointed two veteran prosecutors as special counsels to oversee investigations into how President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump handled classified documents after leaving office – Biden after he ended his terms as vice president in 2017, and Trump after leaving the Oval Office in 2021.

Robert Hur, a former federal prosecutor in Maryland, will investigate whether Biden or any of his staff or associates mishandled classified information. Jack Smith, a longtime top investigator in the Department of Justice, is overseeing two criminal investigations into former President Donald Trump.

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Marriage provides health benefits - and here's why

The new year is traditionally a time when many people feel a renewed commitment to create healthy habits, such as exercising regularly, drinking more water or eating more healthfully.

It turns out that when it comes to health, married people have an edge, especially married men. But surely the act of walking down the aisle is not what provides this health advantage.

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Andrew Bridgen: how anti-vaccine misinformation hampers the conversation about genuine vaccine injuries

MP Andrew Bridgen was suspended from the Conservative party on January 11 for persistent misinformation about COVID vaccines, including numerous false claims around their safety. The final straw appears to have been his comments comparing the vaccination programme to the Holocaust.

With more than 13 billion doses administered to date, we know COVID vaccines are overwhelmingly safe, effective, and a vital tool that must continue to underpin the pandemic response.

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Pricing and the Psychology of Consumption

For example, suppose that Mary and Bill join a health club. Bill pays $600 on enrolling; Mary selects the $50-per-month plan. Who’s more likely to renew their membership? Mary. Every month, she’s reminded of the cost—so she works out more, to get her money’s worth. And members who frequently work out tend to renew.

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AI Isn't Hollywood's Villainâ€”It's a Flawed Hero

Disruption is one of the few constants in the history of cinema. Early film theorists considered silent cinema a universal language until "talkies" transformed storytelling for the big screen. The domestic proliferation of TV after World War II drew audiences away from theaters and in the process helped dismantle the old studio system. The "digital revolution" has recalibrated where, when, and how we watch, even as it has caused cinephiles to mourn the loss of celluloid. Joining this line of creative destruction, the rise of AI-enabled (or "synthetic") media suggests that cinema is, once again, under threat.

Synthetic media rely on machine learning tools that perform a range of tasks.Â They enable micro-targeted systems of distribution; streamline production and post-production workflows; and animate, edit, or even create entire audiovisual works from a text prompt.

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In Politics, How Old Is Too Old?

It wasn’t so long ago that Ronald Reagan running for office at sixty-eight was considered over the hill; the Presidential race in 2024 may feature two men close to eighty. What accounts for the change in attitudes? David Remnick talks with the staff writers Jane Mayer and Jill Lepore, along with the prominent gerontologist Jack Rowe, about how to evaluate a candidate’s competency for office—and what to make of public opinion on the matter. Plus, the author Deepti Kapoor talks with the staff writer Parul Sehgal about Kapoor’s highly anticipated new novel “Age of Vice,” a sprawling thriller of crime and corruption set in India’s capital.

Should advanced age disqualify Joe Biden or Donald Trump from another term in the White House? The staff writers Jane Mayer and Jill Lepore, plus the gerontologist Jack Rowe, weigh in.

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Relying on carbon capture and storage may be a dangerous trap for UK industry

We are reminded of climate change all the time. Every week seemingly brings a “once in a hundred year” disaster or new scientific evidence saying that the time to act has passed. Had we taken small steps 35 years ago, when climate change first became a public policy issue, the scale of the challenge might not seem so daunting.

But now urgent climate action is required and will involve more than just personal lifestyle choices. Such action will be expensive and involve huge sums of public and private money.

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Decade of progress on making England's homes safer threatened by austerity and the pandemic

In her ruling on the death of two-year old Awaab Ishak in Rochdale in 2020, senior coroner Joanne Kearsley concluded that the child had died as a result of “prolonged exposure to mould in his home environment”.

According to the English Housing Survey, in 2020, 116,000 other social renting households in England faced condensation and mould bad enough to count as a “serious” hazard to health, as defined by the official housing health and safety rating system(HHSRS). The survey also found 137,000 homeowners and 191,000 private tenants – for a total of 1.8% of all households in England – are impacted by serious damp and mould.

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4 Simple Ways to Make Yourself Really Happy in 10 Minutes or Less, Backed by Harvard Research

An 85-year-long study reveals the secret to long-term happiness. Should you try it?

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After a slow start, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket is about to hit its stride

Nearly five years have passed since the massive Falcon Heavy rocket made its successful debut launch in February 2018. Since then, however, SpaceX's heavy lift rocket has flown just three additional times.

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A Study of 597 Logos Shows Which Kind Is Most Effective

Great logos help sell products. But what kind of logo is right for your brand? Researchers analyzed 597 companies to answer this question. They discovered descriptive logos (those that include visual design elements that communicate the type of product) more favorably affect consumers’ brand perceptions than nondescriptive ones (logos that are not indicative of the type of product). They also found that descriptive logos are more likely to improve brand performance — unless consumers associate your product with sad or unpleasant things, in which case a nondescriptive logo is probably better.

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How National Champions Kirby Smart and Nick Saban Use Process Goals as Their Competitive Edge

Leverage the science of progress goals to achieve organizational success.

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Why Tim Cookâ€™s $50 Million Pay Cut Is the Best Example of Emotional Intelligence Iâ€™ve Seen Yet

Shareholders expressed concern over Apple's CEO pay. His response was good leadership.

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Kevin McCarthy Celebrates One Week of Being Barely Tolerated by Colleagues

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Declaring that “it’s time for a victory lap,” Representative Kevin McCarthy celebrated one week of being barely tolerated by his Republican colleagues.

The California congressman was unable to contain his jubilation after a week in which the G.O.P. caucus appeared to keep its profound loathing of him marginally in check.

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5 great (and underrated) songs about cities

Though it comes in a wide variety of styles, music tends to be quite repetitive when it comes to topic selection.

One study from June 2014 in the Journal of Advertising Research found that the primary themes in the most popular songs from 1960 to 2009 were loss, desire, aspiration, breakup, pain, inspiration, and nostalgia; the secondary themes included rebellion, jadedness, desperation, escapism, and confusion. In other words, if we aren’t singing about love, we’re singing about how terrible life is — which means the book I Hate Myself and Want to Die: The 52 Most Depressing Songs You’ve Ever Heard roughly captures the modern musical zeitgeist.

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When Did the Anthropocene Actually Begin?

This story originally appeared in The Guardian and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Exactly where and when did the Anthropocene begin? Scientists are attempting to answer this epochal question in the coming months by choosing a place and time to represent the moment when humanity became a “geological superpower,” overwhelming the natural processes that have governed Earth for billions of years.

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Bringing manufacturing back to the US requires political will, but success hinges on training American workers

Supply chain disruptions during COVID-19 brought to light how interdependent nations are when it comes to manufacturing. The inability of the U.S. to produce such needed goods as test kits and personal protective equipment during the pandemic revealed our vulnerabilities as a nation. China’s rise as a global production superpower has further underscored the weaknesses of American manufacturing.

In addition to fixing supply chain disruptions, bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. will benefit national security. Advanced computer chips, for example, are disproportionately made by a single firm, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. These microchips are critical to smartphones, medical devices and self-driving cars, as well as military technology. TSMC, from a U.S. national security perspective, is located too close to China. Taiwan’s proximity to China makes it vulnerable because the Chinese government threatens to use force to unify Taiwan with the mainland.

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NetflixÃ¢Â€Â™s (Less Popular) Shows About Ex-Royals

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What to Do When It Rains on the Winter Games

New York’s newly elected governor, Kathy Hochul, stood center-ice on the fabled Lake Placid hockey rink on Thursday night, welcoming fourteen hundred athletes from around the world to the thirty-first World University Games—Olympics for college kids—winter edition. Flags of the nations had been paraded on toboggans, aerialists had descended on wires from the rafters, and now the Governor was beaming in the spotlight. (I’m a longtime denizen of the Adirondacks, and got to watch close up as an honorary bearer of the—electric, renewable-powered—torch.) The Governor paid homage to the Miracle on Ice, from the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics, when the upstart American hockey team had defeated the Soviet Union; she saluted the local officials who had helped win more than five hundred million dollars in government funding to refurbish the town’s ski trails and bobsled runs; and then she noted that New York is the only state ever to host the World University Games three times. “Third time’s definitely the charm,” she said, and the rink roared.

Outside, however, it had begun to rain, and by the time the crowd began to stream out almost no one wanted to party on Lake Placid’s closed-off Main Street. The buildings and trees shone with gold and white lights, but the glow reflected in growing puddles; what should, indeed, have been charming was glum. It was one more reminder—in a winter when ski resorts in the Alps have had to turn off their lifts and offer their guests mountain bikes—that we can no longer take winter for granted. Lake Placid had also hosted the Winter Olympics in 1932, but the cold that made it a model Olympic town can no longer be counted on anywhere. A study last year predicted that, out of the twenty-one cities that have previously hosted the Winter Olympics, only four will still be able to do so by mid-century. As one of the four is Lake Placid, even that might be an optimistic count.

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Keep Forgetting Things? A Massive New Study Says This Is What Happens to Your Brain If You Retire Early

"If you rest, you rust."

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What the FDA's accelerated approval of a new Alzheimer's drug could mean for those with the disease - 5 questions answered about lecanemab

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the medication lecanemab, sold under the brand name Leqembi, on Jan. 6, 2023, through an “accelerated approval pathway” that fast-tracks promising clinical treatments for diseases in which there are no other currently effective options.

The Conversation asked James E. Galvin, a neurologist from the University of Miami School of Medicine who specializes in the study of Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia, to explain the drug’s clinical potential to help ease the suffering of the roughly 6.5 million Americans who live with Alzheimer’s.

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The Top MIT SMR Articles of 2022

In 2021, Anthony Klotz, professor of management at the University College London School of Management, coined the term “Great Resignation” to describe the burgeoning economic trend of employees leaving their jobs in the wake of COVID-19. In 2022, we’ve seen how this reshuffling in the labor market has affected workplaces and managers. Employees are more vocal than ever about their dissatisfaction at work, and companies must now strike a balance between addressing employees’ needs to increase their engagement and planning for economic uncertainty in the months ahead.

It’s not surprising that, during the past year, readers sought out articles focused on removing friction from the workplace — from fixing toxic culture to rooting out bad bosses — and dived deeply into topics such as work design, decision-making, and corporate purpose. Employee engagement and well-being were also top of mind for managers, with articles on building a respectful hybrid work culture and supporting mental health among the most popular.

No-meeting days allow for efficient collaboration while preventing disruptions of focused, heads-down work. The authors suggest several ways to deploy a no-meetings policy or adjust an existing one.

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Charles Simic in The New Yorker

When I was a student in his workshop at N.Y.U., the poet Charles Simic would frequently counsel me and my classmates, “You could write a poem about anything!” (A toothpick, for example, or a rat on the subway tracks—he would perform a little impression, protruding his front teeth and waggling his fingers before his cheeks like whiskers.) Simic, who died this week, at the age of eighty-four, served as the United States Poet Laureate and won the Pulitzer Prize, among other national and international honors, and his advice is borne out in his body of work: a trove of surreal, philosophical verse, melancholy yet marked by a profound sense of humor and joie de vivre, in which the everyday mingles with the existential.

Simic contributed regularly to The New Yorker for half a century, starting in 1971, with “Sunflowers,” an oblique riff on the King Midas myth that reads simultaneously like a love poem and an ars poetica. Writing, after all, is an alchemical act—the poet’s touch transforming the stuff of life into art—and one that is often if not always intertwined with desire. The poem ends: “Sunflowers, / my greed is not for gold.” For what, then? Romance, experience, the world itself—or something more intangible, immense, whose mystery is realized and deepened through the language of the lyric? In their compression, Simic’s imagistic poems, whether looking inward, outward, or in many directions at once, convey a sense of vastness. “Harsh Climate,” from 1979, describes the brain as “Something like a stretch of tundra / On the scale of the universe.” But his work is also sensually abundant and imbued with earthly appetites, such as in “Country Lunch,” which begins, “A feast in the time of plague— / That’s the way it feels.”

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The Overwatch League ruled esports. Then everything went wrong

Since its formation in 2017, the Overwatch League—the professional esports program for Activision Blizzard’s Overwatch hero shooter—has drawn frequent comparisons to traditional sporting institutions. Its stated aim, as WIRED put it in a 2017 feature, was to become the new US National Football League.

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A Russian Ransomware Gang Attack Destabilizes UK Royal Mail

A WIRED investigation this week found that the app SweepWizard, which some US law enforcement agencies use to coordinate raids, was publicly exposing sensitive data about hundreds of police operations until WIRED disclosed the flaw. The exposed data included personally identifying information about hundreds of officers and thousands of suspects, including geographic coordinates of suspects’ homes and the time and location of raids, demographic and contact information, and some suspects’ Social Security numbers.

Meanwhile, police in the Indian state of Telangana are using grassroots educational initiatives to help people avoid digital scams and other online exploitation. And the industrial control giant Siemens disclosed a major vulnerability in one of its most popular lines of programmable logic controllers this week. The company does not have plans to fix the vulnerability because, on its own, it is exploitable only through physical access. Researchers say, though, that it creates exposure for the industrial control and critical infrastructure environments that incorporate any of the 120 models of vulnerable S7-1500 PLCs.

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Noma to close: why it's so hard to run a sustainable innovation-focused restaurant

On January 9 2023, Noma’s Danish chef and co-owner René Redzepi announced an imminent and significant transition: Noma would close as a restaurant in 2025 to focus on pop-ups and culinary innovation. Over a decade ago, El Bulli in Spain, one of the first innovation and R&D-led restaurants, made a similar transition.

Exploring the reasons behind the decision, an article about the upcoming changes at Noma in the New York Times explained:

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'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' could be the reboot the franchise needs

Sometimes, it feels like the sci-fi franchise world is a duopoly of Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In fact, because both are owned by Disney, that’s more like a monopoly. But there are plenty of sleeper hits that could be bumped up to big-league status with the correct move. The rebooted Planet of the Apes trilogy could be poised to do just that with its latest film, which is garnering some big stars for an event that looks like a reboot-to-the-reboot.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the upcoming fourth film in the rebooted Planet of the Apes franchise, but it’s more like another refresh for the long-running sci-fi saga. It’s set years after the events of the previous three movies and stars Owen Teague as Cornelius, the ape we saw born in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and as a mere toddler in War for the Planet of the Apes.

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The Making of a Corporate Athlete

If there is one quality that executives seek for themselves and their employees, it is sustained high performance in the face of ever-increasing pressure and rapid change. But the source of such performance is as elusive as the fountain of youth. Management theorists have long sought to identify precisely what makes some people flourish under pressure and others fold. We maintain that they have come up with only partial answers: rich material rewards, the right culture, management by objectives.

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Britain is a net electricity exporter for first time in 44 years

PhD in Probabilistic Supply and Demand Forecasting of UK Hyper Local Energy Systems using Machine Learning, University of Birmingham

Volatile prices in international energy markets sparked unrest throughout 2022, with governments seeking to reduce the impact of unprecedented price increases on their respective economies. As energy experts focused on how data can be used in the transition to a low-carbon economy, we have closely followed how this volatility has played out in Britain. Full data for the year 2022 is now available and here are a few things we have noticed.

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Cleaning Up After the Bolsonaristas in BrasÃƒÂlia

On the afternoon of Sunday, January 8th, exactly a week after the inauguration of Luiz InÃ¡cio Lula da Silva, the leftist popularly known as Lula, to his third term as the President of Brazil, a march held by supporters of his predecessor, the right-wing nationalist Jair Bolsonaro, reached its terminus at the National Congress of Brazil, in BrasÃlia. The protesters, many of whom were dressed in the colors of the Brazilian flag, were united by the conspiratorial claim that the election had been rigged and Bolsonaro had won. Shortly before three in the afternoon, instead of dispersing, the marchers forced their way past a meagre police presence into the most important federal buildings in the country, which they proceeded to vandalize and smash.

That afternoon, I was in Rio de Janeiro, a city where, in the days after the inauguration, the giddy optimism of Lula's supporters had been visible on the streets. At Bar do Omar, a live-music venue in the hillside favela of Santo Cristo, the opening time was listed as five-thirteen, in honor of his having been the thirteenth candidate on the ballot, and a cardboard cutout of the reÃ«lected President (Lula's first two terms were from 2003 to 2010) stood by the door. Victorious Lula signs hung in the windows of Copacabana high-rises, and that Sunday, as a few of the many blocos de samba that parade through the streets during Carnaval gathered at a plaza in downtown Rio for rehearsals, I saw a Lula flag hanging from a trumpet.

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How to Write a Winning Business Plan

You’ve got a great idea for a new product or service—how can you persuade investors to support it? Flashy PowerPoint slides aren’t enough; you need a winning business plan. A compelling plan accurately reflects the viewpoints of your three key constituencies: the market, potential investors, and the producer (the entrepreneur or inventor of the new offering).

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Subway Just Ran a Very Strange National Contest, and I Have to Admit It Was a Stroke of Genius

No more than 10,000 winners, they said.

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Voters have few options to remove George Santos from Congress - aside from waiting until the next election

There are mounting calls from both politicians and voters to force the newly elected apparent fabulist U.S. Rep. George Santos from Congress following revelations he fabricated his background and other details of his life.

But New York’s 3rd Congressional District voters, who elected Santos as their representative in November 2022, cannot directly force him out of office until the next election, in November 2024.

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Ã¢Â€ÂœSaint Omer,Ã¢Â€Â Reviewed: A Harrowing Trial Inspires a Complex, Brilliant Film

On a long and deep beach at night, with little but moonlight shimmering vaguely on the waves, a woman gently but unhesitatingly deposits a baby in the sand, near the rising tide, and walks away. I'd have sworn that I saw this in the French director Alice Diop's film "Saint Omer," yet I'd also swear that I didn'tâ€”because, although no such scene is included in the movie, it's described so vividly in the course of the action that I felt as if it was shown onscreen. The person who describes the event is Laurence Coly (played by Guslagie Malanda), who is accused of killing her baby in this manner, and whose detailed confession of her crime occurs in the courtroom, in the course of her trial. Diop does more in "Saint Omer" than create an original and far-reaching courtroom drama; she establishes an aesthetic, distinctive to the courtroom setting, that seemingly puts the characters' language itself in the frame along with the psychological vectors that connect them. This spare and straightforward method gives rise to a film of vast reach and great complexity.

"Saint Omer," which goes into wide release Friday, is both a docudrama and an implicit metafiction, placing the filmmaker's surrogate in the onscreen action. The movie's protagonist isn't Laurence but, rather, a thirtysomething writer and professor named Rama (Kayije Kagame), who attends the trial in order to write a book about Laurence, and whose point of view as an observer is the one through which the details of the trial are conveyed. Diop based the movie on the real-life case of Fabienne Kabou, who was tried, in 2016, in the northern French town of the title, for killing her own babyâ€”and Diop in fact attended that trial.

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17 Great Deals on Headphones, Gaming Gear, and Switch Games

If you didn’t spend all your time over the holidays hunting for deals (like we do), you’re in luck. Plenty of gadgets that normally go on sale later in the year—including headphones and video games—are already dropping in price again. The deals just can’t hide for long. Be sure to check out our deals on WFH gear and phones from earlier this week for more savings.

Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you'd like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

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Krispy Kreme donuts to be filled, frosted, and packaged by machines

Donut chain Krispy Kreme has had a rough year, but it has a plan to get profitable again — and it includes a $6 million investment in automated systems to frost, fill, and package its donuts.

The challenge: Krispy Kreme’s shops are set up so that customers waiting in line can watch as rows of freshly fried donuts ride a conveyor belt under a waterfall of silky, sugary glaze.

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Time Is on Ukraineâ€™s Side, Not Russiaâ€™s

The war in Ukraine began trending toward the defenders soon after Russia launched its full-scale invasion on February 24. In the summer and fall of last year, Ukraine rapidly recaptured territory that Russia had seized in the war’s early days. Yet the relative stability of the front line in recent weeks has fueled fresh suggestions that Russia may soon go on the offensive again. Many analysts were hypnotized a year ago by what they saw as Russia’s overwhelming firepower, modern weapons, and effective planning and leadership. Although the Ukrainians almost immediately proved far more formidable than nearly anyone had anticipated, lulls in the war play to the expectation that Russia will soon start massing its supposed great reserves and recover the situation on the battlefield. The underlying assumption is that Ukraine has little hope of ultimate triumph over a fully mobilized Russia. In this account, the longer the war goes on, and the more rounds of forced conscription that Vladimir Putin and his military impose on the Russian population, the more decisive Russia’s supposed advantages will be.

In reality, the logistical, planning, and organizational failures that stalled Russia’s advance and allowed Ukraine to recapture territory are likely to keep occurring. As long as its NATO partners keep increasing their support, Ukraine is well positioned to win the war.

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Why Do Kids Hate Music Lessons? | The Walrus

As a former violin student, I decided to investigate why so many promising players quit early

In Bob Rafelson’s 1970 film Five Easy Pieces, the hero, Bobby Dupea, abandons a career as a promising concert pianist to live life as an itinerant labourer. His belligerence is as deeply rooted in him as is his innate musicality. We’re left to understand it wasn’t music Dupea rebelled against but how it was delivered. Despite his skill, he turned away from the environment he associated with music, an environment he found distasteful and antithetical to his being.

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Serbia and Kosovo: why the EU is intent on resolving border tension stoked by the Ukraine war

The Russian invasion of Ukraine serves as a sombre reminder that Europe’s unresolved issues can reignite. Given the rising tension in the Balkans, Germany and France have made settling the unresolved problems between Serbia and Kosovo a top priority for 2023.

This is particularly important after a confrontation in December 2022 over licence plates in northern Kosovo stoked fears of a renewed conflict in the Balkans. Some ethnic Serbs do not acknowledge Kosovo’s independence, and therefore thousands of residents in northern Kosovo refuse to use Kosovan licence plates. Kosovo declared its independence in 2008, but Serbia continues to claim the territory.

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5 Ways to Acquire New Skills Without Going Back to School

Whether you want to change jobs or prepare for the next-level role, the most important thing to know about upskilling is that every employee needs to be doing it all the time. Jobs are changing as business demands change, and employees are expected to prove their value with increasingly higher expectations. There are plenty of ways to educate yourself and upskill without going back for a traditional undergraduate or graduate degree. The author presents five ways to upskill without going back to school.

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How Transparent Should You Be with Your Team?

Transparency is a critical leadership attribute. It helps to build trust, and it’s a prerequisite for building a constructive, high-performance culture. But it’s easy for leaders to get into trouble if they don’t understand the nuances of transparency. When is it critical to demonstrate full transparency? When is it more appropriate to offer no transparency at all? First-time leaders need to learn to make sound decisions about how much transparency is appropriate under a few different scenarios.

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The best chef in the world | Psyche Films

Although her name might not be familiar, if you’ve ever dined ‘farm-to-table’ you’ve likely tasted the influence of the visionary chef Sally Schmitt (1932-2022). She and her husband Don Schmitt founded the renowned restaurant the French Laundry, putting the Napa Valley outpost on the map as a culinary destination, and transforming an unassuming stone cottage in Yountville, California into one of the most exciting restaurants in the world. But, as The Best Chef in the World attests, this was not a title she ever aspired to hold. Filmed two years before her death, the short documentary celebrates her legacy and captures her sage perspectives on food, family and ambition – including her decision to sell the French Laundry at the peak of its success.

The film’s opening minutes provide a culinary tour of Schmitt’s kitchen, and beyond, to explore where her love of food began. In quick close-ups, butter melts on the hob, fresh peppercorns grind in a pestle and mortar, and bright, home-grown leaves tear, ready to be plated. Viewers travel via archive footage and photography to 1930s California, the time and place of Sally’s birth. It was an era marked by the dawn of supermarkets and a move away from a soil-to-table connection to food. However, growing up in a ‘food-centric family’ that lived off the land, Sally’s enthusiasm for fresh, seasonal ingredients started early, and sprung from necessity. From braised meats to citrus fruits, the dishes served up throughout her childhood inspired the menus that would later dazzle diners at the French Laundry.

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Why winter walks at the seaside are good for you

Dreary weather, freezing temperatures, long dark days, no festivities to look forward to – it’s beginning to feel at lot like the middle of January. The idea that there is a “Blue Monday” somewhere around the middle of the month where people feel most miserable may be a bit of a myth, but seasonal affective disorder is real enough. No wonder many people take off at this time of year in search of winter sun.

To lift your mood, however, you don’t need to go as far as that. Plenty of us go for winter walks near nature, and for many that can mean a trip to the local coast. The health benefits of spending time near the seaside are increasingly well documented, including making people feel happier and more relaxed.

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Starts With A Bang podcast #89 - The active threat of the Sun

For life on Earth, there’s no more important source of energy than the Sun; without it, it’s doubtful that life would have arisen on Earth, and it certainly wouldn’t have evolved to give rise to the wild diversity of biological organisms seen today. But the Sun is more than just a constant source of heat and light; it also emits particles, and there’s a darker side to that activity: flares, coronal mass ejections, and the threats this space weather poses to living planets like our own.

It turns out that for technologically advanced civilizations like our own, the threats that arise from the Sun are far greater and more dangerous than at any time prior in Earth’s history, and despite the knowledge we have of what the Sun can do to the Earth, we’re woefully unprepared for the inevitable. Thankfully, there are not only people studying it, but many of them are also fighting and advocating for solutions and planetary protection, including Sierra Solter, a plasma physicist specializing in solar plasmas, who joins us on this edition of the Starts With A Bang podcast.

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House Republicans Launch Their Campaign Against the Bidens

The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government was launched on Tuesday, with Representative Jim Jordan, a combative ally of Donald Trump and a co-founder of the far-right Freedom Caucus, at the helm. This powerful new committee has the authority to investigate the federal government and how it has collected, analyzed, and used information about American citizens. Its mandate includes access to sensitive documents and details about covert actions, all of which fall under Congress’s typical oversight authority. But the new committee also provides a way for Republicans to advance the narrative that conservatives are systematically under attack. The staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos gather for their weekly conversation to look at historical parallels of this new committee, and how it will likely handle issues such as Hunter Biden’s laptop and the recent revelation that Joe Biden had a number of classified documents in his possession.

Personal History by David Sedaris: after thirty years together, sleeping is the new having sex.

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BTS singer set for military training - but South Korea is far from alone in retaining national service

Late last year, the first member of the most successful and famous boy band on the planet – BTS – began military service. Singer and songwriter, Kim Seok-jin (popularly known as Jin), 30, began five weeks of compulsory military training in South Korea by posting a selfie of his new “buzz cut” hairstyle.

There had been speculation this call-up was on the horizon and that upcoming military service for several members of BTS was the real reason for the band’s break-up which had been announced during the summer.

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Indonesia's emergency labour regulation changes spark worker anger a year out from election, but Jokowi's government is unwavering

Just weeks ago, Indonesia’s government changed its controversial Job Creation Law – better known as the Omnibus Law – into a “Government Regulation in Lieu of Law” as it was considered an emergency to issue the regulation.

It was a sudden manoeuvre to bypass Indonesia’s Constitutional Court ruling stating the law was unconstitutional in 2021. The 2021 verdict gave the government two years to adjust the controversial law. By changing it into an emergency regulation, Indonesia government evades the possibility of the law being fully annulled.

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How Do You Know If You Work InÂ a Toxic Company? You Will See Any of These 6 Types of Coworkers

Toxic coworkers can be a big problem that you need to deal with. Here are some tips to keep your sanity.

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An aviation expert explains how the FAA's critical NOTAM safety system works

Late in the evening of Jan. 10, 2023, an important digital system known as NOTAM run by the Federal Aviation Administration went offline. The FAA was able to continue getting necessary information to pilots overnight using a phone-based backup, but the stopgap couldn’t keep up with the morning rush of flights, and on Jan. 11, 2022, the FAA grounded all commercial flights in the U.S. In total, nearly 7,000 flights were canceled. Brian Strzempkowksi is the interim director of the Center for Aviation Studies at The Ohio State University and a commercial pilot, flight instructor and dispatcher. He explains what the NOTAM system is and why planes can’t fly if the system goes down.

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Frene Ginwala remembered: trailblazing feminist and first speaker of South Africa's democratic parliament

Frene Ginwala, feisty feminist, astute political tactician and committed cadre of South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), has died at the age of 90. In a country blessed with exceptional leaders, Ginwala must surely count among the best. Typically for her, but unusually for the ANC leadership, she will be laid to rest in a private ceremony. While she was modest about her achievements, she has left an indelible mark on South Africa’s constitution and democratic institutions.

Frene Noshir Ginwala was born in 1932 in Johannesburg. Her Parsee grandparents immigrated from Mumbai in India in the 1800s and made a life for the family in Johannesburg. Ginwala left South Africa after high school, to pursue an LLB degree at the University of London. She qualified as a barrister at the Inner Temple. Around this time her parent moved to Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) in Mozambique. She returned to South Africa after graduating and moved to Durban where her sister, a medical doctor, had settled.

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Why You Already Forgot That Book Plot

This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.

Before writing this newsletter about how hard it is to remember things, I decided to test myself. I wasn’t sure how much of the recent culture I’d consumed would jolt back into my brain; if it turned out I was a memory savant, I figured I should mention that here.

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'The most dangerous Negro': 3 essential reads on the FBI's assessment of MLK's radical views and allies

Left out of GOP debates about “the weaponization” of the federal government is the use of the FBI to spy on civil rights leaders for most of the 20th century.

As secret FBI documents became declassified, The Conversation U.S. published several articles looking at the details that emerged about King’s personal life and how he was considered in 1963 by the FBI as “the most dangerous Negro.”

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Jeff Beck: the unorthodox techniques that made him such a unique guitarist

The praise Jeff Beck, who has died aged 78, received from indebted musicians during his lifetime already read like unbridled eulogies. Eric Clapton had called him “the most unique guitarist”, Steve Lukather (Toto) “God’s guitarist”, and Joe Satriani “just a genius”.

Jazz great John McLaughlin described Beck as “the best guitarist alive”, Steve Vai as “unique in the most superlative use of the word”, and Noel Redding (Jimi Hendrix Experience) as his “personal favourite”. Queen’s Brian May said Beck “radically changed” his view of the guitar.

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Sunday, January 15, 2023

Madosini, a South African national treasure whose music kept a rich history alive

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