Part of it is the sheer hassle of repeatedly identifying objects — traffic lights, staircases, palm trees, and buses — just so I can finish a web search. I also don’t like being forced to donate free labor to AI companies to help train their visual-recognition systems.
But a while ago, while numbly clicking on grainy images of fire hydrants, I was struck by another reason:
The images are deeply, overwhelmingly depressing.
CAPTCHA images are never joyful vistas of human activity, full of Whitmanesque vigor. No, they’re blurry, anonymous landscapes that possess positively Soviet anomie.
Even iPhone users with nothing to hide could be forgiven for being a little creeped out that Apple will scan their photos and see if they match existing databases of known illegal pornographic images. Privacy experts called the idea a potential back door for governments to request or demand scans for other images or files. Some of Apple’s own employees are reportedly pushing back on the idea.
It’s a good indication that things are headed in the wrong direction when your company’s anti-child-pornography initiative gets panned.
A major reason for the failure of Apple’s defense is that the photo-scanning program confirms a fear many users already harbor: Personal data, even the most sensitive, is effectively out of users’ control, accessible at the flip of a switch.
Apple says, relentlessly, that privacy is the central feature of its iPhones. But as the photo scanning demonstrates, that’s true only until the company changes its mind about its policies.
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America. It is bounded on the north by the Caribbean Sea, the northwest by Panama, the south by Ecuador and Peru, the east by Venezuela, the southeast by Brazil, and the west by the Pacific Ocean. Colombia is composed of 32 departments and the Capital District of Bogotá, the country’s largest city. It covers an area of 1,141,748 square kilometers (440,831 sq mi), with a population of 50 million. Colombia’s rich cultural heritage reflects influences by various Amerindian civilizations, European settlement, African slaves, and immigration from Europe and the Middle East. Spanish is the nation’s official language, besides which over 70 languages are spoken.
Colombia has been inhabited by various indigenous peoples since at least 12,000 BCE, including the Muisca, Quimbaya, and the Tairona. The Spanish landed first in La Guajira in 1499 and by the mid-16th century colonized parts of the region, establishing the New Kingdom of Granada, with Santafé de Bogotá as its capital. Independence from the Spanish Empire was achieved in 1810, with what is now Colombia emerging as the United Provinces of New Granada. The new nation experimented with federalism as the Granadine Confederation (1858), and then the United States of Colombia (1863), before the Republic of Colombia was finally declared in 1886. Panama seceded in 1903, leading to Colombia’s present borders. Beginning in the 1960s, the country has suffered from an asymmetric low-intensity armed conflict and political violence, both of which escalated in the 1990s. Since 2005, there has been significant improvement in security, stability, and rule of law, as well as unprecedented economic growth and development.
In 1985, Atlantic Records released one of the best hits collections ever compiled, Aretha Franklin’s 30 Greatest Hits. Covering just the years 1967 through 1974, it features one immortal track after another, songs the radio hasn’t really stopped playing since their release — some of which have come to define a whole era.But if there’s a problem with having a couple of-dozen-and-change hits that everyone knows, it’s that they can overshadow everything else an artist recorded. 30 Greatest Hits and its streaming-era descendants like Spotify’s “This Is Aretha Franklin” playlist understandably lean heavily on Franklin’s best-known tracks, as does the new Jennifer Hudson-starring biopic Respect. But you could wipe them from existence and still be left with a remarkable body of work. So consider this list a kind of alternate universe version of 30 Greatest Hits, an imaginary album beamed in from a world in which “Respect” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” never existed or at least took a back seat to some of the album tracks, one-off singles, and unreleased-in-their-time tunes featured here.
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Aretha Franklin performs in Los Angeles, May 16, 1975.Getty Images
For someone who played sports throughout the majority of her life, I admit I was never good at portion control or exercising for weight loss. My teammates were extremely lean while I looked — as my brother would say — chonky.
I didn’t have the best relationship with my body so I wanted to slim down and feel better about it, but I couldn’t find anything in the U.S that I felt like I could realistically accomplish. To be honest, the fitness culture in this country scares me. I knew I didn’t want to drink Kombucha every day or attend expensive SoulCycle classes for the rest of my life.
When I lived in Japan for a couple of years, I was shocked by the not-so-intense fitness culture. None of my peers went to the gym, drank protein smoothies, or ate granola bars for meals. Throughout my time learning about their culture, I realized that the health culture in Japan gravitates towards prevention rather than cure, which is different from the US philosophy. Rather than overworking the body to compensate for the overconsumption of high-calorie food, Japanese people eat balanced meals and walk miles for commute every day. Not many people go to the gym or buy expensive products to sustain their healthy lifestyle because their daily routine is already healthy.
There’s one question I hear as a personal finance writer more than any other. It’s not how to game the stock market, or become a billionaire—it’s simply how to make a budget work while still saving enough to retire comfortably.
And of course, it’s simple: Change your habits so you can put money aside for the things that matter to you. But that’s also really, really hard to do.
That’s because understanding personal finance is an uphill battle for many Americans. We’re not taught about the practicalities of money in school, because the truth is many industries profit from our ignorance. While wages have hardly budged in decades, shareholders and CEOs have never been richer. The cost of living in many major cities is prohibitive to just about anyone but the super privileged, or those willing to take on a lot of debt or make enormous sacrifices. While the stock market soars, just 52% of U.S. adults actually owned stock in 2016, according to Gallup, and the wealthiest 1% of households owned 38% of all stock shares in 2013. The government is actively working against consumers to make it easier for financial institutions to prey on its citizens, and a single medical bill can send a person into debt for the rest of their life.
Your shoulders are some of the most important muscles in your body. They’re involved in every upper body movement, whether you realize it or not. Every pushing and pulling movement you make with your arms uses your shoulder muscles one way or another. That’s why it’s so important to keep them healthy and strong, which you can do with these five shoulder exercises.
Best exercises to build bigger shoulders
The best way to build stronger and healthier shoulders is to incorporate a variety of exercises that target your shoulders from different angles and via different movement patterns. You’ll find that the best shoulder exercises mainly involve pushing in some variation of an up-and-down movement, but other great shoulder exercises involve pulling or rotational motions.
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Strong shoulders are healthy shoulders. Juanmonino/Getty Images
Some of music’s biggest names will descend on the Great Lawn at New York City’s iconic Central Park for the “We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert” on Saturday to perform for a vaccinated crowd of 60,000.
The concert is meant to be “a celebration of New York City’s comeback” after a challenging 17 months marked by the Covid-19 pandemic and will “promote health, safety, and equity,” according to a press release for the show.
The event, which is being aired exclusively on CNN, is produced by legendary music executive Clive Davis in coordination with the city of New York and Live Nation. The coverage begins with a pre-show hosted by Anderson Cooper at 4 p.m. ET, with the concert kicking off at 5pm.
The performers
Andrea Bocelli, Kane Brown, LL Cool J, Earth, Wind & Fire, Jennifer Hudson, Paul Simon, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Rob Thomas, Carlos Santana, The Killers, Julia Michaels, and JP Saxe, Barry Manilow, Jon Batiste, Elvis Costello, Lucky Daye, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, Cynthia Erivo, Wyclef Jean, Journey, Maluma, Polo G, and the New York Philharmonic. There will be some surprise performers taking the stage as well.
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.
Source: Diana Polekhina / Unsplash
