The weather, often derided as a mundane conversation topic of last resort, has actually been a prolific source of entertainment. Natural disasters drive big-budget blockbusters. Solar power fuels Lorde’s latest single. Double rainbows produced a lasting meme. But is the weather worthy of an entire streaming service?
Fox certainly thinks so. This fall, the network is set to launch Fox Weather, a platform for meteorology programming 24/7, rain or shine.* So does the Weather Channel, which is starting a streaming service it hopes will have 30 million subscribers by 2026—a far cry from Netflix’s more than 200 million subscribers, but on par with smaller streamers such as HBO Max and Hulu. According to TheNew York Times, these impending launches have led to bidding wars over star TV meteorologists, the building of posh new high-tech studios, and debates over the potential influence on public opinion: The prospect of Fox Weather is already worrying many, given the network’s history of climate-change denial.
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H. Armstrong Roberts / ClassicStock / Getty; Josh Edelson / AFP /Getty; The Atlantic
Eugene Schieffelin was the eccentric ornithologist who in 1890 shipped 60 starlings from London to New York City and set them free in Central Park. The next year he released 40 more, and today there are maybe 200 million starlings in the United States and Southern Canada. As immigrants go, starlings are shrewd flyers, clever mimics, and often unwelcome. The truth is they’re no more than uptown blackbirds, stocky, three-ounce grifters with iridescent blue and green plumage, along with yellow beaks and a long history of displacing woodpeckers and flycatchers, and destroying entire crops of berries and cherries. Not to mention the havoc they cause at many airports.
Ah, but when they come round in their murmurations on fall afternoons, or in early winter, what magicianry is that, gathering up out of nowhere, arriving in strands or massive clusters, over inlets or forests. You’ll see them fill up neighboring trees and fall into an oily, high-pitched chatter. Sooner or later, they settle and fall silent, like an orchestra before the first note. And then—the most subtle spooking will do it, a dog’s bark, the slam of a car door down the street, or nothing at all, and off they go at 50 miles per hour, wheeling around the countryside, sheets and sheets of them, thickening and thinning, blackening and scattering, merging and splitting, sometimes looking like a tornado cloud, or else some strange omen, and it’ll go on for 15 minutes or more, a merry band thrashing through the sky in vast clouds of star-shaped dots, like the vanishing images on a Buddha board.
Big Bend National Park is an American national park located in West Texas, bordering Mexico. The park has national significance as the largest protected area of Chihuahuan Desert topography and ecology in the United States and was named after a large bend in the Rio Grande/Río Bravo. The park protects more than 1,200 species of plants, more than 450 species of birds, 56 species of reptiles, and 75 species of mammals. Additional park activities include scenic drives, programs led by Big Bend park rangers, and stargazing.
The area has a rich cultural history, from archeological sites dating back nearly 10,000 years to more recent pioneers, ranchers, and miners. The Chisos Mountains are located in the park and are the only mountain range in the United States to be fully contained within the boundary of a national park. Geological features in the park include sea fossils and dinosaur bones, as well as volcanic dikes.
The park encompasses an area of 801,163 acres (1,251.8 sq mi; 3,242.2 km2). For more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km), the Rio Grande/Río Bravo forms the boundary between Mexico and the United States, and Big Bend National Park administers approximately 118 miles (190 km) along that boundary.
Because the Rio Grande serves as an international boundary, the park faces unusual constraints while administering and enforcing park rules, regulations, and policies. In accordance with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the park’s territory extends only to the center of the deepest river channel as the river flowed in 1848. The rest of the channel and the land south of it lies within Mexican territory. The park is bordered by the protected areas of Cañón de Santa Elena and Maderas del Carmen in Mexico. Wikipedia
When we conjure up ancient philosophers the image that springs to mind might be a bald Socrates discoursing with beautiful young men in the sun, or a scholarly Aristotle lecturing among cool columns.
But what about Aspasia, the foreign mistress of the foremost politician in Athens who gave both political and erotic advice? Or Sosipatra, mystic, mother, and Neoplatonist who was a more popular teacher than her husband, Eustathius?
Women also shaped the development of philosophy. Although their writings, by and large, do not survive, their verbal teaching made a significant impact on their contemporaries, and their voices echo through the ages.
More than two millennia later, intelligent, verbal women still struggle to have their own voices heard. So here are six ancient female philosophers you should know about.
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Michel Corneille the Younger: Aspasia surrounded by Greek philosophers. Photo by Wikimedia Commons
The 2021 Emmy nominees are out! Outstanding Drama will come down to “The Boys,” Bridgerton,” “The Crown,” The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Lovecraft Country,” “The Mandalorian,” “Pose” and “This Is Us.”
On the comedy side, the trophy will go to “Black-ish,” “Cobra Kai,” “Hacks,” “Emily in Paris,” “The Flight Attendant,” “The Kominsky Method,” “Pen15” or “Ted Lasso.”
The 73rd Emmy Awards, which will be hosted by Cedric the Entertainer (“The Neighborhood“), will air Sept. 19 on CBS. There will be a limited, in-person audience.
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Click the link belowfor the article with a complete list:
Utrecht is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very center of mainland Netherlands; it had a population of 357,179 as of 2019.
Utrecht’s ancient city center features many buildings and structures, several dating as far back as the High Middle Ages. It has been the religious center of the Netherlands since the 8th century. It lost the status of prince-bishopric but remains the main religious center in the country. Utrecht was the most important city in the Netherlands until the Dutch Golden Age when it was surpassed by Amsterdam as the country’s cultural center and most populous city.
Utrecht is host to Utrecht University, the largest university in the Netherlands, as well as several other institutions of higher education. Due to its central position within the country, it is an important transport hub for both rail and road transport; the busiest train station in the Netherlands, Utrecht Centraal, is in the city of Utrecht. It has the second-highest number of cultural events in the Netherlands, after Amsterdam. In 2012, Lonely Planet included Utrecht in the top 10 of the world’s unsung places. Wikipedia
Sleep is such a double-edged sword. A solid night of shut-eye makes you feel like you can rule the world while tossing and turning all night long makes you want to cry. Plus, go a few days without enough sleep, and you’ll be moody, anxious, and constantly fatigued. Not fun.
Lately, for me, getting a good night’s sleep was a struggle. Thanks to some stressful circumstances, I had trouble falling asleep. I’d wake up at 3 a.m. with anxious thoughts, and I’d feel groggy and useless in the morning until I had three cups of coffee.
With my under-eye circles darkening and anxiety levels rising, I realized I needed to change how I approach bedtime. Experts call this “sleep hygiene”—the practices and habits you can do to help improve sleep quality and your alertness during the day. After doing some research, I came up with these eight tricks and tips to improve my sleep hygiene. Some are based on science, others are old wives’ tales, but no medications were involved. For one week, I put them all to the test. Here’s what worked best in my quest for more restful nights.
The “language police” have a point: words matter. There are plenty of verbal habits or throwaway phrases that can undermine our credibility and ability to communicate.
Conversely, there are also words that throw open the doors to better communication. Few people know this better than Alexandra Carter, negotiation trainer for the United Nations and director of the Mediation Clinic at Columbia University Law School, and author of Ask for More: 10 Questions to Negotiate Anything. Carter started using the phrase “tell me” when she was trained as a mediator in the early 2000s, and she was astonished at the information it revealed.
A dolmen is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more vertical megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or “table”. Most date from the early Neolithic (4000–3000 BC) and were sometimes covered with earth or smaller stones to form a tumulus. Small pad stones may be wedged between the cap and supporting stones to achieve a level appearance. In many instances, the covering has weathered away, leaving only the stone “skeleton” of the mound intact.
It remains unclear when, why, and by whom the earliest dolmens were made. The oldest known are found in Western Europe, dating from c 7,000 years ago. Archaeologists still do not know who erected these dolmens, which makes it difficult to know why they did it. They are generally all regarded as tombs or burial chambers, despite the absence of clear evidence for this. Human remains, sometimes accompanied by artifacts, have been found in or close to the dolmens which could be scientifically dated using radiocarbon dating. However, it has been impossible to prove that these remains date from the time when the stones were originally set in place. Wikipedia
Wanting to understand how Einstein learned physics may, at first, seem as pointless as trying to fly by watching birds and flapping your arms really hard. How do you emulate someone who is synonymous with genius?
However, I think the investigation can still bear fruits, even if you or I might not have the intellectual gifts to revolutionize physics. Whatever Einstein did to learn, he clearly did something right, so there’s merit in trying to figure out what that was.
How Smart Was Einstein? (Did He Really Fail Elementary Mathematics?)
One of the most common stories about Einstein is that he failed grade school math. I think this is one of those ideas that sounds so good it has to get repeated, regardless of whether it is true or not.
Unfortunately, it’s not true. Einstein was a strong math student from a very young age. He himself admits:
“I never failed in mathematics. Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus.”
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
H. Armstrong Roberts / ClassicStock / Getty; Josh Edelson / AFP /Getty; The Atlantic
An image from Big Bend National Park, Texas
Einstein
James' World 2 