Thursday, December 12
In The NEWS
> Time magazine taps WNBA Rookie of the Year Caitlin Clark as its 2024 Athlete of the Year (More) | North Carolina tops Wake Forest 1-0 to win 2024 NCAA women's soccer national championship (More)
> Two more hotel workers charged in Argentina in a case related to the death of One Direction's Liam Payne (More) | Former cycling world champion Rohan Dennis pleads guilty to charge related to the death of his wife, Olympic cyclist Melissa Hoskins (More)
> Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas," which debuted in 1994, tops Billboard Hot 100; the song extends its record with six distinct runs atop the chart (More)
Science & Technology
> Construction uncovers a 1,375-year-old pyramid along the site of a future highway in central Mexico; structure dates to the pre-Hispanic Metztitlán kingdom (More)
> James Webb Space Telescope measurements confirm gap in cosmological model, suggests additional factor needed to explain why the universe is expanding at a faster rate than its early stages (More) | What do scientists know about the Big Bang? (More)
> New cancer treatment eliminates bladder and lung tumors in mice without side effects by combining targeting drugs and engineered radioactive antibodies (More)
Business & Markets
> US stock markets close lower (S&P 500 -0.3%, Dow -0.4%, Nasdaq -0.3%); investors await new inflation data from November, set to be released today (More)
> Federal judge temporarily halts supermarket chain Kroger's proposed $25B acquisition of rival Albertsons pending Federal Trade Commission proceedings; Washington judge then permanently bars merger from the state, citing competition concerns (More)
> Walgreens shares close up nearly 18% on reports of potential sale to private equity firm Sycamore Partners, marking the highest one-day jump in shares in the pharmacy chain's history (More)
Politics & World Affairs
> Franklin Fire near Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, burns over 2,800 acres as of this writing, places 12,500 people under evacuation orders (More) | See live updates (More)
> Suspect in fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson appears in Pennsylvania court for extradition hearing to New York (More) | See profile on the suspect (More)
> Polygamous sect leader—who worked to start an offshoot of Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints—has been sentenced to 50 years in prison this week in Arizona for child sex abuse (More)
SOURCE: 1440 NEWS
Generations
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Every so often, we must understand and accept the fact that it is time for the younger generation to take responsibility for managing our country.
All to often, it is easy for us to accept the fact that it is easier to trust 80-year-old politicians than it is to trust 50-year-old politicians.
There is wisdom in age, I agree, but there is also a blind acceptance of this is how we used to do things rather than being open to trying something new.
The other issue that we never seem to wrestle with, even though it bothers many of us, is the fact that politicians seem to be more interested in re-election than they are in doing the right things for their constituent because they do not seem to mind.
We should have TERM LIMITS for all FEDERAL OFFICES including all Justices even in the Supreme Court.
ROTATING OFFICIALS would ensure that we do not become blinded by affiliation to the party versus serving the people.
YOUNGER PEOPLE
TERM LIMITS
Humanity Reaching SINGULARITY
By one unique metric, we could approach technological singularity by the end of this decade, if not sooner.
A translation company developed a metric, Time to Edit (TTE), to calculate the time it takes for professional human editors to fix AI-generated translations compared to human ones. This may help quantify the speed toward singularity.
An AI that can translate speech as well as a human could change society.
In the world of artificial intelligence, the idea of “singularity” looms large. This slippery concept describes the moment AI exceeds beyond human control and rapidly transforms society.
The tricky thing about AI singularity (and why it borrows terminology from black hole physics) is that it’s enormously difficult to predict where it begins and nearly impossible to know what’s beyond this technological “event horizon.”
However, some AI researchers are on the hunt for signs of reaching singularity measured by AI progress approaching the skills and ability comparable to a human. READ MORE...
However, some AI researchers are on the hunt for signs of reaching singularity measured by AI progress approaching the skills and ability comparable to a human. READ MORE...
Wednesday, December 11
Freedom of Speech
I am a believer in free speech that includes both sides of the argument not just one. Let me hear both sides so that I can make up my own mind. I dislike someone telling me how I should think.
If I think one way and that way is later discovered to be wrong, then sobeit... it is wrong... and we move forward onto the next concept.
I have listened to the rhetoric of both the liberals and conservatives and have discovered that both sides are obviously biased, but it seems that the conservatives as less biased than the liberals.
Not only less biased, but they are far LESS LIKELY to pass along misinformation or disinformation aimed at discrediting the opposing side.
Unfortunately, I know many people who are absolutely confident that the misinformation that they heard is correct and it matters not what I say, I will never be able to change their minds.
I have stopped trying and just accept whatever it is that they want to believe... and let it go at that.
In The NEWS
Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> New York Mets sign former New York Yankees superstar Juan Soto to 15-year, $765M contract, the most lucrative deal in sports history (More) | Dave Parker and Dick Allen elected to Baseball Hall of Fame via Classic Baseball Era Committee (More)
> President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Elon Musk among shortlist of candidates for Time magazine's 2024 Person of the Year (More)
> “Emilia Pérez” leads all films with 10 nominations for the 2025 Golden Globe Awards; "The Bear" tops on the TV side with five nods (More) | US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to perform in Broadway musical "& Juliet" this Saturday (More)
Science & Technology
> Nature Magazine releases its annual list of the top 10 people shaping science and technology in 2024; efforts range from AI weather prediction to the detection of fraud in academic papers (More)
> Social forum platform Reddit to test a conversational AI feature, allowing US users to ask questions and curate responses; model trained on years of user-generated content (More)
> Physicists make first-ever observation of the antimatter partner of hyperhelium, using Europe's Large Hadron Collider; study provides insight into first fractions of a second following the Big Bang (More) | The antimatter mystery (More)
Business & Markets
> US stock markets close lower (S&P 500 -0.6%, Dow -0.5%, Nasdaq -0.6%); investors await tomorrow's release of key inflation data—the consumer price index report (More) | Want to learn about Wall Street, the markets, and everything in between? Sign up for 1440 Business & Finance (Join here)
> Nvidia faces probe in China over possible antitrust violations related to the chipmaker's 2020 acquisition of Israeli tech company Mellanox (More) | Hershey shares close up nearly 11% on reports of Cadbury-owner Mondelez exploring acquisition; Hershey previously rejected Mondelez's $23B takeover bid in 2016 (More)
> Rupert Murdoch loses court bid to change his family’s trust to consolidate his eldest son Lachlan’s control of News Corp. and Fox Corp; the trust currently ensures all four of Murdoch's children have equal say in governing his media empire (More)
Politics & World Affairs
> Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take the witness stand for first time in ongoing corruption trial on accusations of fraud, breach of trust, and accepting bribes in three separate instances (More)
> Former Marine Daniel Penny acquitted of criminally negligent homicide in the May 2023 New York City subway death of Jordan Neely; jury's decision came three days after a more serious charge of manslaughter was dismissed (More)
> Haitian gang kills over 180 people, mostly elderly, in the capital of Port-au-Prince; gang leader reportedly targeted the group after consulting a voodoo priest who blamed them for giving the leader's son a severe illness through witchcraft (More)
SOURCE: 1440 NEWS
Premedicated Killing of a CEO
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A United-Healthcare CEO was shot in the back by an assassin and a good majority of the population said the killing was justified because this CEO caused the death of numerous people by slow-walking or refusing their claims.
A bartender can be held accountable if the drunk leaving their bar is responsible for killing someone while they are driving.
Should this apply to healthcare CEOs as well?
More importantly is the question: is the shooter who killed the CEO justified in doing so on behalf of the others who died?
The shooter stalked his victim and waited until the right time, so there is PREMEDITATION.
Now...
what if the jury is sympathetic to the plight of those who lost their lives as a result of this slow-walking or declining CEO and finds the assassin innocent: can and should the judge OVERRIDE?
Judges can do this, but it is rare.
Also important here is what will United-Healthcare do in retaliation for the killing of their CEO?
Will this case ever be resolved fairly for either side?
NASA: We Were Incorrect About the Universe
For decades, scientists have been grappling with what is considered to be the most fundamental question about the cosmos: How fast is our universe expanding?
The rate of expansion influences everything from how galaxies form to how they might one day drift apart.
Determining the expansion rate of the universe, a number called the “Hubble constant,” shapes our entire understanding of the cosmos, its age, and its ultimate fate.
“Hubble tension” expansion conundrum
Unfortunately, though many brilliant minds have dedicated their lives to finding the answer to this riddle, all who have tried thus far have failed, running repeatedly into a brick wall that has come to be known as the “Hubble tension.”
Adam Riess, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, has been at the forefront of this debate. “With measurement errors negated, what remains is the real and exciting possibility that we have misunderstood the universe,” Riess admitted. READ MORE...
Tuesday, December 10
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