Where’s the beef?
ScienceAlert: Cashless Payments Are Changing Our Spending Behavior, Study Reveals
It seems that tapping a phone or card on a terminal leads to us being less strict with our budget, compared to picking notes or coins out – perhaps because there’s no physical representation of how much is being spent.
“To prevent spending more than planned, we recommend consumers carry cash instead of cards whenever they can, as it acts as a self-control method,” says marketing researcher Lachlan Schomburgk from the University of Adelaide.
UPI: Florida Panthers avoid collapse, win first Stanley Cup
The Panthers carried that edge into the third period. Star forward Connor McDavid and the Oilers proceeded to desperately deke and unleash endless assaults on the Panthers' defense, but Bobrovsky and his teammates stood strong, diving on the ice and throwing their sticks in the way to prevent a game-tying score.
NYT: China Prepares to Land Moon Rocks From Lunar Far Side to Earth
On Tuesday, a capsule carrying soil from the far side of the moon will parachute into the desert in China’s Inner Mongolia region.
The sample, retrieved by the Chinese National Space Administration’s Chang’e-6 lander, is expected to be the latest accomplishment in a series of near-flawless executions of Chinese lunar exploration missions since 2007.
NYT: ‘Tiny Crime Fighters With Wings’: Bees Go to Work on a Virginia ‘Body Farm’
Deep in the woods in Northern Virginia last month, two human bodies were carried to a remote spot among the trees and left to decompose. As nature takes its course, the bodies will exude organic compounds into the air and soil. Flowers growing nearby will absorb traces of the decay, which pollinating bees will carry to hives.
Forensics researchers at George Mason University plan to study the bees, their honey and the hives near the burial site, a new “body farm” in Manassas, Va., about 25 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. Because bees forage within a close range of their hives, the researchers hope to draw up a formula for human decomposition that investigators can use when searching wide expanses of land for the hidden dead.
TorStar: How Scotland started to kick its alcohol problem — and what Ontario could learn from it
Alongside its pricing strategy, Scotland reduced the legal limit of alcohol for drivers to 50 mg per 100 mL of blood from 80 mg — the level in Ontario. This change was bolstered by a forceful media campaign that increased public opposition to drinking and driving. “It’s not one for the road,” a campaign slogan ran. “It’s none for the road.”
Scotland was also the first country to introduce “alcohol brief interventions.” This involves training medical professionals to have short, structured conversations with people who abuse alcohol about their habits and how to access help.
Scotland still tolerates wide alcohol availability in supermarkets and small stores, something that flies in the face of what experts say is second only to pricing on the list of most important ways to reduce alcohol harms: reducing access.
CBC: Conservatives win longtime Liberal stronghold Toronto-St. Paul’s in shock byelection result
Stunning result raises questions about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s future.
pv magazine: The Hydrogen Stream: Rolls-Royce unveils hydrogen combustion engine for CHP
Rolls-Royce has started developing a hydrogen combustion engine for combined heat and power (CHP) systems in Germany, while Lhyfe has installed a 1 MW electrolyzer for Deutsche Bahn.
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Canada has enacted the first four Clean Economy Investment Tax Credits, which include the Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) ITC and the Clean Hydrogen ITC. The Canadian government said the CCUS ITC supports taxable Canadian corporations that incur eligible expenditures for qualified CCUS projects. The Clean Hydrogen ITC provides a 15 to 40 percent refundable tax credit for investments in hydrogen production projects, prioritizing those that produce the cleanest hydrogen. Eligibility may extend to equipment converting hydrogen into ammonia for transport purposes.
MacRumors: OpenAI’s ChatGPT App for Mac Now Available to All Users
The ChatGPT app for Mac is now available to all users, OpenAI announced today. The app first came out in mid-May, but it saw a slow rollout that was limited to ChatGPT Plus subscribers until now.
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There’s a built-in Voice Mode for having voice conversations with ChatGPT, a search feature for looking through past conversations, and more. With the wider rollout, no subscription plan is necessary for using ChatGPT on the Mac. OpenAI has made the latest version of ChatGPT, GPT-4o, available for free, but for a limited number of requests.
Time: The Coming Great Conflict
Pick a Side and Fight for It, Keep Your Head Down, or Flee
I believe we now have to face the fact that fighting for democracy as we know it–with thoughtful disagreement and compromises governed by rule of law–is unlikely to work. People like me who had a long shot hope for the emergence of strong middle that fights against the extremists to bring the country together and makes major reforms to improve the system must recognize that the differences are becoming too irreconcilable for this to happen.
Based on the lessons I learned from studying history about how things typically transpire under similar circumstances, I believe that what we are now seeing is the parties increasingly moving to greater extremism and a fight-to-win at all cost mode. This is threatening the rule of law as we know it and is bringing us closer to some form of civil war. (As I will explain below, this is not necessarily a violent conflict, though that is possible).
NYT: Bowman Falls to Latimer in House Primary in New York
Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York, one of Congress’s most outspoken progressives, suffered a stinging primary defeat on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, unable to overcome a record-shattering campaign from pro-Israel groups and a slate of self-inflicted blunders.
Mr. Bowman was defeated by George Latimer, the Westchester County executive, in a race that became the year’s ugliest intraparty brawl and the most expensive House primary in history.
A super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobby, dumped $15 million into defeating him, more than any outside group has ever spent on a House race.
This is going to be one very interesting election.
Last Updated: 25.Jun.2024 23:58 EDT
