All the best laptops you can snag for less during Dell's Black Friday Sneak Peek
It's not Black Friday quite yet, but many retailers are already rolling out some juicy
2023-10-27 23:48
John Stones out of Chelsea clash but injury not as bad as feared
Manchester City defender John Stones will miss the champions’ Premier League trip to Chelsea on Sunday, manager Pep Guardiola has confirmed. The England international was forced off at half-time of Tuesday’s Champions League win over Young Boys with a muscular problem. Guardiola has revealed the injury is not as bad as feared but there is no prospect of him travelling to Stamford Bridge. It is also not clear whether Stones will be available for England this month or the November 25 clash with Liverpool. Guardiola said at a press conference: “He is injured. He is not ready (for Sunday) and we will see when we come back from the international break. “The doctor said to me it’s not as bad (as first thought) but I still don’t know when he’s going to be fit.” Guardiola also delivered a positive update on Kevin De Bruyne, who could return before the end of the year, but he will not rush the Belgium playmaker back into action. De Bruyne has been sidelined since undergoing surgery on a hamstring injury in August. Guardiola said: “I spoke to him two days ago and he said, ‘I feel really good’ but still he is not training with us and not running much. Kevin’s was a tough injury with surgery, so step by step. Pep Guardiola “I don’t know but it is the last time (period) before he comes back to train with us. “I would like to say in two weeks or three weeks, but these type of injuries are better not to put any pressure on. When he feels good, the doctors and physios say go to the next step, then he is coming. Like John Stones, recover without pressure. “Kevin’s was a tough injury with surgery, so step by step.” City head to Chelsea fresh from securing their place in the Champions League knockout stages for an 11th successive year. The holders have hardly been troubled as they have cruised through with two games to spare – an achievement that, compared to last year’s treble success, seems relatively modest. Guardiola, however, insists it is something that should be savoured because – as this week’s opponents Chelsea, the 2021 European champions, have discovered – the good times will not last indefinitely. He said: “I can’t make any comment about Chelsea because I’m not there but always we remind ourselves. Last Tuesday we qualified and I told the players to celebrate because, maybe one day, if we stop doing what we do or the opponents are better than us, we will not be there. “What we have done is the past. If we are not doing well we will go down, and the down may never end. You can go down more. “So, take perspective, be calm and (enjoy) good moments. For every team around the world, not just the fact that we are Man City and the last years have been good, (it does not mean) it will happen in the future. “If you are aware of that, you are closer to still being consistent in Europe for many years.” Read More Mauricio Pochettino learned lessons from famous battle to mature as manager Andy Murray and coach Ivan Lendl split for a third time Mikel Arteta warns Aaron Ramsdale not to rush decision over Arsenal future Dawid Malan: I want to play on but I don’t know what my England future holds Evan Ferguson signs new Brighton contract until 2029 Football rumours: Tottenham identify Lloyd Kelly as January transfer target
2023-11-10 23:26
Nappy changes and tantrums over Michael Gove: I took my one-year-old to a music festival
It’s just after 9pm and lilac hues have spread across Dorset skies, shadows extending over a panorama of marquee tops. Perfect conditions for the first night of End of the Road, whose Friday headliners – Black Midi, Battles and Fleet Foxes among them – are minutes away from stepping on stage. Yet, rather than slipping through the masses to grab a good spot, I’ve been back at my tent for an hour already. Having unfolded a stool in the last of the sun, simmering lentils and a mug full of boxed cab-sav for company, my one-year-old daughter, Nancy, has finally nodded off in the tent, unaware of earlier negotiations between her parents. After an afternoon watching bands from a lower-decibel distance as a family, it’s my wife who’s out tonight, enjoying her child-free break for freedom. Although, with the Pixies – a band beloved since teen years but never seen live – top billing on Saturday night, I felt confident in my call as “White Winter Hymnal” carried on the breeze. We’re a day into our first festival as a family of three, an experience already proving quite a journey. As a sometimes music journalist, I’d covered events across Europe over the past decade, adept at negotiating stage splits, balancing reporting duties and life-affirming experiences with willing accomplices. Of these, End of the Road has remained a regular fixture, an informal end-of-summer meet-up with industry colleagues and friends – as well as my chosen stag-do destination. With a one-year-old in tow, this year would mark a stark contrast. From the freshly purchased family-sized tent – the subject of substantial research and investment, and an attempt to win over a camping-averse wife – to the travel cot, buggy, strings of fairy lighting, endless layers, toys and first-aid trappings for every eventuality, the baggage was endless. Shoulders ablaze, I’d carried it all in as my wife kept our daughter entertained. Stepping into my role as responsible dad, I’d practised the tent’s set-up at home prior to arrival and, with a tangible sense of optimism about the weekend ahead, started separating pegs from poles. Yet, with the tent almost up, something unsettled me. What was that smell? Unzipping the bedroom it hit me. My earlier garden practice run had provided the perfect sheltered toilet for a visiting fox –  evidence of which no amount of wet-wipe scrubbing could remove, resulting in a showdown with the reluctant camper and a smell that would accent a weekend in which expectations were continuously lowered. After my wife crashed back in on Friday night, earlier than anticipated and hamstrung by a fast-developing cold, we wondered if we were up to the challenge. Nancy was having a nice time, happy tracking insects in the long grass or studiously inspecting the contents of her snack bag. But could this equally have been any other field? Had we been too exhausted and distracted to embrace the experience? By contrast, our camping companions had brought their five-year-old, who enthusiastically shared stories about favourite bands and the wicker dragonfly he’d crafted, as his dad talked about the surprise sets he’d happened upon the previous night. Perhaps we’d just taken all of this on too soon. The next morning, I nudged Nancy’s buggy around the site, stopping at the kids’ area, where a neckerchiefed uke player offered up nursery rhymes with instruments for children, which were seized upon with pleasure. Various childless friends were never far away, entertaining our daughter in bursts. Later, after reuniting with my wife, a highlight was bobbing to Los Bitchos’ buoyant afternoon performance with Nancy held aloft, as was a brief glimpse of Jockstrap packing out a small stage in the woods. Yet other moments – flailing nappy changes amid aghast onlookers, straying too close to the stage with a buggy as the light faded and the crowd surged – presented a sharp learning curve. Still feeling under the weather, my wife headed back to the tent with Nancy as the Pixies arrived, Frank Black’s substantial presence now underscored by a pang of guilt. After checking in and being signed off to stay out, I’d joined an excitable crowd for an unannounced late-night set at the Tipi stage, which, after turning out to be one of the tiny handful of bands I’d already seen that day – again sounded another minor chord on my tiny violin. As the skies cleared, we’d discovered corners along the way we’d otherwise never have seen and met a similarly dazed yet determined community of parents With my wife’s health deteriorating further overnight – diminishing her perception of fox piss, at least – we made the call to leave on Sunday morning and I hauled everything back to the car. On the long drive home, and hours before Covid would be confirmed, it had to be asked: had this been fun for anyone concerned? Was this festival too aptly named for a new dad trying to reconcile past and present lives? This all happened in the summer of 2022 and, unfazed, we tried again this year – albeit at the even smaller scale and decidedly family-friendly Kite Festival in Oxfordshire. While Nancy’s advanced age presented new challenges – tentative first steps now a confident swagger – her inquisitiveness also marked her out as the perfect festival companion. Expectations now firmly in check, we let ourselves be led by circumstance and proximity, stopping for whatever drew the eye rather than dashing from act to act, allowing us to slow down and see the world through her eyes. Occasionally we tag-teamed the lineup, each picking a couple of acts to witness unhindered by short attention spans (my wife took former PM John Major’s packed-out talk in the big top, I took Suede). Under the hot sun, our meeting point at the shaded children’s area also helped keep Nancy from turning pink in the sun. Clapping furiously at the end of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’s morning debate, her grasp on Labour’s manifesto pledges seems better than most – although this mimicry of crowd behaviour proves an endearing feature at later events, too. An uncontrollable tantrum during Michael Gove’s appearance at a panel discussion saw us quickly extract ourselves from the tent, drawing smiles from an audience impressed by the effectiveness of her heckle. Further priceless memories included dancing together at Candi Staton’s sundown set, Nancy with a brioche in each hand – ear defenders askew – visibly finding her feet. The following day the skies suddenly broke, with an electrical storm closing all stages, sending Birkenstock-clad families sprinting for cover. The one attendee thrilled by it all was Nancy, who careered around cackling as security attempted to keep punters from the marquee’s lightning-conducting metal poles. As the skies cleared, we’d discovered corners along the way we’d otherwise never have seen and met a similarly dazed yet determined community of parents. We still hadn’t nailed the performative kids-at-festivals thing – there was no trolley adorned with decoration or whimsical outfits – but felt comfortable that we’d struck the right balance, fulfilled by a shared experience led by the spontaneity of a child’s impulses. It marked a shift from any naive attempt to carry on with our lives as normal. An alternative, of course, is to leave your family at home. A couple of weeks ago I joined 250,000 others at Glastonbury, my own spontaneity given breathing space once more. Thrilling, yes, but also a weekend that at times left me seeking my small festival companion among the other attendees. I was temporarily overcome watching a daughter on the shoulders of her father as he introduced her to a favourite band, excitedly explaining each musician’s role. “How old? I’ve got one a similar age,” was shared with various others. Yet it was also at Glastonbury, as the temperature nudged into the thirties, that I spotted another dad – fixed grin but dead behind the eyes – pushing three irritable kids in a trolley up a shadeless slope. I nod my solidarity, before skipping off to the bar – relieved, this time, that’s not me. Bumping into Joe Goddard from Hot Chip, whose bandmates collectively call their kids the Micro Chips, he says that of all the children he knows, it’s those who have always been dragged to festivals who have proved the most rounded. Something that resonates with me as the Glastonbury hangover subsides and – reunited with my family – I start looking forward to carving out new shared experiences in crowded fields once more. Read More The earthy magic and lawless energy of being a child at Glastonbury festival Too cool to love these acts 10 years ago? This year’s Glastonbury is for you Music festivals have saved me so many times Demi Lovato says she still struggles with vision, hearing impairment after overdose Marina Diamandis says she has been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome Should I keep my windows closed or open during a heatwave?
2023-07-16 13:30
Disgraced children's TV entertainer Rolf Harris dies at 93
Rolf Harris, the veteran entertainer whose decades-long career as a family favorite on British and Australian television was shattered when he was convicted of sexual assaults on young girls, has died
2023-05-23 20:21
17 Things You Might Not Know About Tammy Duckworth
From serving in the Iraq War to becoming the first U.S. senator to give birth in office, Tammy Duckworth has an impressive history of overcoming adversity with grit and humor.
1970-01-01 08:00
Is Ben Chan and Hannah Wilson's rivalry finally over? 'Jeopardy!' duo spotted at Chicago bar trivia night
Ben Chan ended Hannah Wilson's eight-day winning streak on 'Jeopardy!' on his return to the game show after a brief illness
2023-06-08 14:06
Humane AI Pin: Much-hyped tech product launches and makes major mistake in its first outing
Humane has launched its AI Pin, one of the world’s most hyped tech products, and it has immediately made a public mistake. The AI Pin has been the subject of speculation promoted by Humane, a company that has remained somewhat mysterious and includes designers and executives who have worked at Apple and Microsoft. The system is intended to be attached to clothing and then makes use of a range of microphones, speakers and a display that can shine onto its owners hand to give information. That information is provided by artificial intelligence systems built on technology from ChatGPT creator OpenAI and Microsoft. The pin costs $699 and will be available later this year. It has been promoted by its president Imran Chaudhri as a response to both the prevalence of phones and the future of mixed-reality headsets, instead aiming to allow people to engage with the world around them. One of the features intended to do that is access to artificial intelligence systems that can be used to get answers to questions. Users can just press the AI Pin and speak into the air, which will then allow the computer to access the internet and show an answer. During its reveal event, executives showed the pin being used to answer one such question. “I can also use it to ask questions, like: when is the next eclipse, and where is the best place to see it?”, representatives said, explaining that it would be answered by “an AI browsing the web, or grabbing knowledge from all over the internet”. The AI Pin is then showed answering by saying that the best place to view the next total solar eclipse, in April 2024, would be Exmouth in Australia or East Timor. But next year’s solar eclipse will in fact be visible in North America, and in fact has been given the name “the Great North American Eclipse”. It will not be at all visible in Australia, and can only be seen in Mexico, the US and Canada. The system may have made the mistake because a total solar eclipse earlier this year was in fact best viewed from Exmouth and East Timor. That eclipse, in April, brought widespread coverage to the small Australian town – and that coverage was presumably used to train the artificial intelligence system that answered the question. Humane did not say which assistant was being used for that answer. The AI Pin is built specifically to call on a number of different assistants depending on what question is asked. The error recalls a similar error made by Google’s Bard chatbot when it was introduced at the beginning of the year. An ad showed Bard being asked about interesting discoveries by Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope, and replying that it had taken “the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system” – which is not true. At the time, many noted that the error highlighted a central error with large language models. The systems tend to “hallucinate” – or confidently state falsehoods – and have no real way of being able to check whether the information they are given is true. Read More You can finally use one feature of the Apple Vision Pro headset – sort of ChatGPT creator mocks Elon Musk in brutal tweet Call of Duty launch sparks record traffic on broadband networks
2023-11-11 02:36
China to require all apps to share business details in new oversight push
By Josh Ye HONG KONG (Reuters) -China will require all mobile app providers in the country to file business details
2023-08-10 11:24
US investors extend equity fund sell-off amid rising bond yields
U.S. investors remained net sellers of equity funds in the week to Oct. 25 driven by higher bond
2023-10-27 21:45
Biden campaign names communications director
President Joe Biden has tapped Michael Tyler, a seasoned Democratic strategist, to serve as his campaign communications director, his campaign announced Thursday.
2023-06-16 04:49
HP misses quarterly revenue estimates as inflation saps PC demand
HP Inc on Tuesday missed Wall Street targets for second-quarter revenue, hurt by a slowdown in the personal
2023-05-31 04:21
EV startup Lucid enters lucrative SUV market with $80,000 Gravity
By Abhirup Roy and Peter Henderson LOS ANGELES Lucid, known for its flagship Air luxury electric sedan, unveiled
2023-11-17 01:09
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