Esoterica

Robots are pouring drinks in Vegas. As AI grows, the city's workers brace for change

Walk any direction in Las Vegas and it's easy to find machines doing human work.

Check-in kiosks have replaced people at the front desk of hotels. Text-bots now make restaurant recommendations instead of a concierge. Robots can serve food, and behind the bar, machines are pouring out drinks.

Automation and technology replacing jobs has long been a conversation in Nevada's most populated city. Studies show that between 38% to 65% of jobs there could be automated by 2035.

With the use of artificial intelligence on the rise, the economy of this city --which relies on tourism and hospitality — is at an inflection point, as companies look to technology to reduce labor costs.

Esoterica

Pastor alarmed after Trump-loving congregants deride Jesus' teachings as 'weak'

Evangelical Christian leader Russell Moore revealed this week that many evangelical pastors have become alarmed that their Trump-loving congregants have become so militant that they are even rejecting the teachings of Jesus Christ.

In an interview with NPR, Moore said that multiple pastors had told him disturbing stories about their congregants being upset when they read from the famous "Sermon on the Mount" in which Christ espoused the principles of forgiveness and mercy as central to Christian doctrine.

"Multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — 'turn the other cheek' — [and] to have someone come up after to say, 'Where did you get those liberal talking points?'" Moore revealed. "And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, 'I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ,' the response would not be, 'I apologize.' The response would be, 'Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak.'"

. . .

"When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis," he said.

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The Sun is defying forecasts

The Sun's activity is defying forecasts and highlighting how difficult it is to predict the machinations of Earth's nearest star.

Why it matters: Space weather, which is largely driven by the Sun, can shorten the lifespans of satellites, cause radio blackouts and, in extreme solar storms, bring down power grids.

. . .

• Sunspots — dark areas on the face of the Sun — can spit out major solar flares that sometimes come with coronal mass ejections (CMEs), bursts of electrically charged plasma that can interfere with satellites, electrical grids and supercharge the auroras.
• If coronal holes — cooler spots in the Sun's atmosphere — rotate into the view of Earth, they can send extremely fast solar winds into our part of space, warping Earth's magnetic fields in the process.

Yes, but: The Sun is extremely complicated and even after decades of study, researchers don't understand exactly how it works.

Esoterica

When Satan Club went to school: What’s behind the group that created controversy in Chesapeake

The Satanic Temple was ready to pick a fight — lots of fights, actually, and it got them — in Illinois, in Pennsylvania and in Chesapeake.

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Eventually, after the ACLU of Virginia took on the issue, the club held its first meeting in February and has continued to gather monthly since.

. . .

“Because of their actions, people who normally talk about the importance of religious freedom, some of them have said, ‘Actually, I don’t like religious freedom, if religious freedom means satanists can do this kind of stuff.’”

“This small group has kind of been able to punch above its weight in forcing these kinds of questions on people.”

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‘Headed off the charts’: world’s ocean surface temperature hits record high

The temperature of the world’s ocean surface has hit an all-time high since satellite records began, leading to marine heatwaves around the globe, according to US government data.

Climate scientists said preliminary data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) showed the average temperature at the ocean’s surface has been at 21.1C since the start of April – beating the previous high of 21C set in 2016.

“The current trajectory looks like it’s headed off the charts, smashing previous records,” said Prof Matthew England, a climate scientist at the University of New South Wales.

. . .

Current observations show moderate to strong marine heatwaves in several regions, including the southern Indian Ocean, the south Atlantic, off north-west Africa, around New Zealand, off the north-east of Australia and the west of Central America.

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John Paul II Allegedly Knew About Priestly Sexual Abuse While Archbishop In Poland

St. John Paul II knew about sexual abuse of children by priests under his authority and sought to conceal it when he was an archbishop in his native Poland, a television news report has alleged.

In a story that aired late Monday, Polish channel TVN24 named three priests whom the future pope then known as Archbishop Karol Wojtyla had moved among parishes or sent to a cloister during the 1970s, including one who was sent to Austria, after they were accused of abusing minors.

Two of the priests, Eugeniusz Surgent and Jozef Loranc, eventually served short prison terms for the abuse, TVN24 said its 2 and 1/2 year-long investigation found. Wojtyla served as archbishop of Krakow from 1964 to 1978, when he became Pope John Paul II. He died in 2005 and was declared a saint in 2014 following a fast-tracked process.

. . .

The findings will gradually lead to a “deconstruction of the image of John Paul II that we have been using so far,” Dominican friar Paweł Gużyński said Tuesday on TVN24, noting that some people may not be prepared to cope with the new facts.

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Inside the Unholy Sex Scandal Rocking Trump’s Ex-Adviser

Frank Pavone, a defrocked priest who was formerly a Catholic adviser to Donald Trump, is engulfed in a sex scandal that is rocking the anti-abortion movement.

. . .

Now, at least four different women have accused Pavone of sexual misconduct according to reporting by The Pillar. Pavone and Priests for Life have strongly denied the accusations.

The women, some of whom gave their accounts anonymously, accuse Pavone of inappropriate behavior in the workplace, ranging from unwanted sexual advances, non-consensual touching, grooming and lewd suggestions.

. . .

“Priests for Life had an excellent sexual harassment policy on the books. But they had no human resource department and their sexual-harassment committee reported to, and was headed by, Frank Pavone. So it was neither safe nor independent,” [Father Stephen] Imbarrato says. “I went directly to the board and demanded a safe and confidential, independent sexual harassment committee that reported to the board directly.”

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Humans can understand apes’ sign language, new study finds

From pointing to animated arm movements and nodding, people regularly employ gestures to accompany and create language.

Now, it’s been suggested that humans can also understand sign language used by apes, meaning humans may retain an understanding of ape communication from their ancestors.

Great apes deploy more than 80 signals to communicate everyday goals, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Biology.

. . .

Chimpanzees and bonobos, which share more than 90% of their gestures, are humans’ closest living relatives, the study said. Their gestures have been suggested to be an important framework in the evolution of human language, according to study authors Kirsty E. Graham, a research fellow at the University of St. Andrews’ School of Psychology and Neuroscience in Scotland, and primatologist Catherine Hobaiter, a principal investigator at the university’s Wild Minds Lab.

Infants ages 1 to 2 have been found to use more than 50 gestures from the ape repertoire, researchers said. It was therefore thought that humans may have retained their understanding of core features of ape gestures.

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#GoldenGlobes host Jerrod Carmichael makes a dig at Scientology: "Backstage, I found these three Golden Globe awards that Tom Cruise returned...I think maybe we take these three things and exchange them for the safe return of Shelly Miscavige." https://t.co/m069JEKekW pic.twitter.com/fw25ng5nU2

— Variety (@Variety) January 11, 2023

The Scientology Joke That Sucked the Air Out of the Room at the Golden Globes

If, like me, you spent much of Tuesday’s 80th Golden Globes scanning Twitter, you probably noted that its host, Jerrod Carmichael, received some mixed reactions. During the ceremony, the comedian told the audience to shut up (he was justified), made a new joke about The Slap™, and spent much of his monologue reminding viewers why he was hired for the not-not-racist Hollywood Foreign Press Association-helmed show in the first place: “I’m here ‘cause I’m Black.”

In this girl’s book, though? Carmichael scored even more points when he dared to mention the wife of a certain terrifying institution leader. In case you stopped watching after the first award, midway though the ceremony, the host returned from a commercial break, toting three statues in his hands. “Backstage, I found these three Golden Globe Awards that Tom Cruise returned,” Carmichael began. “Look, I’m just the host briefly, whatever, but I have a pitch: I think maybe we take these three things and exchange them for the safe return of Shelly Miscavige?”

Invoking Scientology’s She-Who-Must-Not-Be-named elicited “shocked gasps,” per reports. I know! How dare this man mention a woman who hasn’t been seen in public since 2007!

Now, in the if you’ve never heard her name (unlikely), Shelly is (was?) the wife of the Church of Scientology leader, David Miscavige. For nearly two decades, questions have swirled surrounding Shelly’s whereabouts. In 2013, former Scientologist and friend of the Miscaviges, actress Leah Remini, filed a missing person’s report with the Los Angeles Police Department after she left the institution. She’s since dedicated entire episodes of her A&E series to her investigation, mentioned it innumerable times in the press, and wrote viral Twitter threads about Shelley’s disappearance from public life.

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Pope warns Vatican staff an ‘elegant demon’ lurks among them

Pope Francis warned Vatican bureaucrats on Thursday to beware the devil that lurks among them, saying it is an “elegant demon” that works in people who have a rigid, holier-than-thou way of living the Catholic faith.

Francis used his annual Christmas greeting to the Roman Curia to again put the cardinals, bishops and priests who work in the Holy See on notice that they are by no means beyond reproach and are, in fact, particularly vulnerable to evil.

Francis told them that by living in the heart of the Catholic Church, “we could easily fall into the temptation of thinking we are safe, better than others, no longer in need of conversion.”

. . .

Beyond that, Francis appeared to also want to take broader aim at arch-conservatives and traditionalists who have become the pope’s biggest critics. Francis blasted their way of living the faith, insisting that being Catholic doesn’t mean following a never-changing set of dicta but is rather a “process of understanding Christ’s message that never ends, but constantly challenges us.”

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Rare cosmic collision acted like one of the ‘factories of gold’ in the universe

“When we followed this long gamma-ray burst, we expected it would lead to evidence of a massive star collapse,” Fong said. “Instead, what we found was very different. When I entered the field 15 years ago, it was set in stone that long gamma-ray bursts come from massive star collapses. This unexpected finding not only represents a major shift in our understanding, but also excitingly opens up a new window for discovery.”

Neutron stars are compact cosmic objects, so researchers never expected them to contain enough material to create a gamma-ray burst that could last nearly a minute.

The explosion occurred in a galaxy about 1 billion light-years away from Earth. Since the event happened relatively close, astronomically speaking, astronomers used multiple telescopes to glean unprecedented detail.

“We found that this one event produced about 1,000 times the mass of the Earth in very heavy elements. This supports the idea that these kilonovae are the main factories of gold in the Universe,” said Dr. Matt Nicholl, an associate professor at the University of Birmingham in the UK and coauthor of one of the Nature Astronomy studies, in a statement.

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Detective Leah Remini Just Dropped Another Scientology Bombshell

When Remini left the church, she said her “first goal” was to find her missing friend. “In 2013, after I left Scientology, I filed a missing person’s report with the LAPD on Shelly,” Remini began. “By the time I filed the report, it had been nearly eight years since I had seen or heard from Shelly.” She recalls being told she “didn’t have the rank” to ask about Shelly, when Remini inquired as to why she wasn’t present at Cruise’s wedding. “Shelly was always with her husband. She was his shadow, not only because she was married to him but also because she was his top aide. For her not to be in attendance was not only unusual but also unimaginable.”

Mere hours after filing the report, Remini said she found out the case had already been closed via the press, and the LAPD was uncooperative when she prompted them for further information. “When I asked if detectives had spoken to or had seen Shelly themselves, I was told that was “classified” by the LAPD,” she tweeted. “I was told to file a public record request if I wanted further information. I spent $50k in attorneys fees filing various requests. My requests for information from the LAPD were shut down. I still don’t know anything about the circumstances of this investigation,” she continued.

The most unsettling detail in the thread, however, is Remini’s memory of meeting with LAPD veteran Cory Palka. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because Palka is currently being investigated for his close (read: entirely inappropriate and deeply suspect) relationship with CBS and its besmirched CEO, Les Moonves. Palka is alleged to have colluded with Moonves and other executives in fighting a former employee’s accusations that Moonves had sexually assaulted her.

. . .

Palka, Remini recalls, was the officer to whom she filed the report about Shelly. Even then, she suspected he had ties to the institution. “When I met with Cory Palka about Shelly, he had a letter on his desk thanking him for all his help with Scientology matters and inviting him to come and have lunch, as a guest, at the Celebrity Center.”

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William Shatner experienced profound grief in space. It was the 'overview effect'

"I was crying," Shatner told NPR. "I didn't know what I was crying about. I had to go off some place and sit down and think, what's the matter with me? And I realized I was in grief."

While he wasn't sure what to expect, Shatner did not predict this. He had been excited to travel to space, and had thought about it for nearly 60 years, but didn't think he'd be overwhelmed with sadness, or that he'd go through "the strongest feelings of grief" that he's ever experienced.

There's a name for what Shatner felt: it's called the "overview effect." The term was coined by space philosopher Frank White in his 1987 book of the same name.

"The overview effect is a cognitive and emotional shift in a person's awareness, their consciousness and their identity when they see the Earth from space," White told NPR. "They're at a distance and they're seeing the Earth ... in the context of the universe."

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‘The Daily Show’ and William Shatner Join Forces to Expose Elon Musk

“What do you think of when you think of the future?” actor William Shatner asks at the top of this exclusive segment from Tuesday night’s episode as images of rockets, robots and “cybertrucks” appear on the screen.

Over the next several minutes, Shatner helps make the case that Musk might actually be the “supervillain” his biggest detractors fear him to be. The piece traces the Tesla “Technoking’s” origin story as a young kid who “overcame many hardships, although unlike other South African celebrities, he didn’t make his childhood into a whole thing,” referring to Trevor Noah’s backstory.

“Like so many tech entrepreneurs, he earned his unimaginable wealth by doing something invaluable for society,” Shatner says dryly. “Selling a start-up you’ve never heard of to a company that doesn’t exist anymore.”

The narrator goes on to mock Musk for having a “mid-life crisis” in his twenties by crashing his million-dollar “supercar” and starting a record label to release his own EDM track. “A banger all the more impressive considering Musk had clearly never heard music before,” he says. “Yes, Elon Musk refuses to stay in his lane, much like a Tesla on auto-pilot.”

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Damien Echols loses bid for DNA testing of evidence from West Memphis murder investigation. He’ll appeal.

Circuit Judge Tonya Alexander ruled today in West Memphis that Damien Echols could not obtain evidence from the West Memphis Three murder case for enhanced DNA testing.

A release from a spokesman for Echols:

After two years of lies and unnecessary delays by the state of Arkansas that prevented the West Memphis 3’s Damien Echols from conducting state-of-the- art DNA testing on the evidence in the murder of three children in 1993, a court today ruled that Echols did not have the right to test forensic evidence.

The prosecution had argued, and the judge agreed that only those who were still incarcerated could test for DNA. This conclusion is based on the flawed assumption that the only consequence that matters from a conviction is its sentence. Hundreds of wrongfully convicted have sought relief after they were paroled and were “free.”

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Pastor Greg Locke threatens to dox ‘witches’ that infiltrated wife’s Bible book club

The Tennessee pastor known for burning so-called "witchcraft" books like Harry Potter and Twilight has threatened to expose six supposed "witches" in a new video that has gone viral.

Pastor Greg Locke, who styles himself as a prophet for predicting Donald Trump would beat "demon-possessed" Joe Biden, went on a wild sermon against the so-called "witches" that infiltrated his congregation.

In the video taken on 13 February, Mr Locke demanded the six "get out" or he would expose them during the next sermon to his Global Vision Bible Church this coming Sunday.

"Three of you are in this room right now. Three of you in the room right now. You better look in my eyeballs, we ain’t afraid of you, you stinkin’ witch, you devil-worshipping Satanist witch. We cast you out in the name of Jesus Christ! We break your spells, we break your curse. We got your first name, we got your last name, we even got an address for one of you!" he screamed.

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Do not condemn your children for their sexual orientation, Pope Francis tells parents

Parents of gay children should not condemn them but offer them support, Pope Francis said.

He spoke in unscripted comments at his weekly audience in reference to difficulties that parents could face in raising offspring.

Those issues included "parents who see different sexual orientations in their children and how to handle this, how to accompany their children, and not hide behind an attitude of condemnation", Francis said on Wednesday.

He has previously said LGBTIQ+ people have a right to be accepted by their families as children and siblings.

He has also said that while the church could not accept same-sex marriage, it can support civil union laws aimed at giving partners joint rights in areas of pensions, health care and inheritance issues.

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Humans just 'touched' the sun for the first time using a spacecraft

Many questions about our sun remain, like the nature of the energized wind that streams away from it across the solar system, or why the fiery orb's outer atmosphere is so much hotter than the surface.

It's why NASA sent the Parker Solar Probe on a seven-year mission to investigate in 2018. The spacecraft has already uncovered surprising things.

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The Parker Solar Probe successfully flew through the sun's corona, or upper atmosphere, to sample particles and our star's magnetic fields. This NASA goal was 60 years in the making.

Because the spacecraft will continue to draw closer to the sun, especially during an anticipated peak in solar activity, even more surprises are sure to be in store as the mission goes on.

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Study finds California condors can have "virgin births"

Endangered California condors can have “'virgin births," according to a study released Thursday.

Researchers with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance said genetic testing confirmed that two male chicks hatched in 2001 and 2009 from unfertilized eggs were related to their mothers. Neither was related to a male.

The study was published Thursday in the the Journal of Heredity. It's the first report of asexual reproduction in California condors, although parthenogenesis can occur in other species ranging from sharks to honey bees to Komodo dragons.

But in birds, it usually only occurs when females don’t have access to males. In this case, each mother condor had previously bred with males, producing 34 chicks, and each was housed with a fertile male at the time they produced the eggs through parthenogenesis.

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In tree rings and radioactive carbon, signs of the Vikings in North America

Vikings from Greenland — the first Europeans to arrive in the Americas — lived in a village in Canada’s Newfoundland exactly 1,000 years ago, according to research published Wednesday.

Scientists have known for many years that Vikings — a name given to the Norse by the English they raided — built a village at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland around the turn of the millennium. But a study published in Nature is the first to pinpoint the date of the Norse occupation.

The explorers — up to 100 people, both women and men — felled trees to build the village and to repair their ships, and the new study fixes a date they were there by showing they cut down at least three trees in the year 1021 — at least 470 years before Christopher Columbus reached the Bahamas in 1492.

“This is the first time the date has been scientifically established,” said archaeologist Margot Kuitems, a researcher at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and the study’s lead author.