Could office emails go the way of the fax machine and the rolodex? They have not joined those workplace dinosaurs yet, but there were signs of evolutionary change at the annual gathering of business leaders in Davos this week, where tech bosses said emails were becoming outdated.
The chief executive of the IT firm Wipro, which employs 260,000 people worldwide, said about 10% of his staff “don’t even check one email per month” and that he used Instagram and LinkedIn to talk to staff.
“They’re 25, they don’t care. They don’t go on their emails, they go on Snapchat, they go on all these things,” said Thierry Delaporte. Anjali Sud, the chief executive of video platform Vimeo, said at the summit emails were “outdated”.
Delaporte’s comments, reported by the Daily Telegraph, referred to Gen Z professionals – typically people born after 1997 – but according to one UK business owner, it cuts across all generations.
“If I want something done quickly, I rarely rely on email myself,” says Farhad Divecha, owner and managing director of London-based digital marketing agency Accuracast. “I tend to send a [Microsoft] Teams message, or even WhatsApp if it’s really urgent. I might send an email with details, but over the past three to five years I’ve learned that email’s just not good enough if you want something done quickly.”
He adds that some clients with Gen Z employees preferred to bypass email, using alternatives such as the messaging service Slack. “It’s not uncommon to have clients with more Gen Z employees tell us: ‘let’s take the discussion on Slack because we tend not to use email much’,” he says.
Email has many rivals that offer messaging services. Instagram is used by more than 2 billion people a month, LinkedIn has 875 million members, Snapchat has more than 360 million daily users and 2 billion people are on WhatsApp. Microsoft’s Teams platform is also popular, with more than 270 million users.
But email is not going away and its use continues to grow. The total number of business and consumer emails sent and received each day will exceed 333bn in 2022, says the tech research firm Radicati, which represents a 4% increase on the previous year – and will grow to more than 390bn by 2026. More than half the world’s population, 4.2 billion, uses email, according to Radicati.
“We don’t feel email is dying,” says the research firm’s CEO, Sara Radicati. One major source of growth in email use comes from the consumer sphere, such as emails related to online purchases. Also, an email account is needed for all sorts of online activity, such as setting up social media accounts and buying goods.
Radicati acknowledges, nonetheless, that in the world of work, social media and instant messaging are playing a role alongside email. “Email tends to be used for official communications, while more interpersonal, casual communication is finding its way through social media and instant messaging”, she says.
Professionals who spoke to the Guardian described a mixed approach to email use. Jordan, 28, a project manager in the construction industry from Bristol, says there was a split between formal and informal communications at work: “I use emails purely to talk about formal things that need to be written down. That’s in terms of agreements or anything like that. But for anything that is remotely informal, I move straight over on to Teams.”
Tracy, 29, a scientific researcher from London, says she often checks her personal email “for keeping track of things like theatre tickets or other purchases”. At work, she has a separate email address “which I draft out and use very formally” but also uses instant messaging on Teams for quick checkups with colleagues. She adds that she “never” uses text or social media to contact colleagues in the workplace.
Gen Z workers who contacted the Guardian also said they used work emails regularly. “I generally check personal emails once a day and work emails regularly between 9 and 6,” says Matthew, 23, a human rights paralegal based in London. Meanwhile, Owen, 25, a programmer from Aberdeen, says: “Like any professional environment, my workplace uses email. Were I asked to check something like Instagram at work, I would expect some kind of wrongdoing was taking place.”
For one expert, the Davos comments reflect a constant of professional life: relentless technological and cultural change. Emails were frowned upon by the “telephone and letter” generation, says Thomas Robinson, senior lecturer at Bayes Business School in London. But a shift happened anyway.
“We can partner up with younger generations and add our experience to that, partner up with that community, or we can make enemies of the future. But thinking you can hold back techno-cultural change is for the birds,” he says.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
SRINAGAR: As the Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission (JKPSC) declared the final results of the Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service (JKAS), the hearts of three siblings were in their mouths.
Ifra Anjum , Huma Anjum and their brother Suhail Wani created history by cracking JKAS 2022 together. They are wards of an erstwhile Baglihar project mechanic from Doda
Soon unprecedented happened. The silence was broken by tears of joy as all three qualified for the most coveted examination to make them part of the Jammu and Kashmir administrative set-up. It has happened for the first time in the history of now JKAS competitive examination that three siblings have qualified for this examination in the same year.
Interestingly the two sisters and their brother are from a far-off Doda village. They are settled in Jammu. The siblings include Ifra Anjum Wani, Huma Anjum Wani and their younger brother Suhail Ahmad Wani. They had painstakingly prepared together without any formal coaching.
“It was the first attempt for Ifra and Suhail, but elder sister Huma qualified it in her second attempt. The siblings had their formal high schooling in Doda in a private school. Later they shifted to Jammu for higher studies” said their jovial father.
According to him, one of his daughters Ifra did her master’s in physics, however, the other two siblings; Huma and Suhail have been pursuing their master’s degree in political science.
The preparation for the examination started together as all of them aimed at the same goal and achieved it together.
According to their father, the siblings started preparation in 2021 and have been studying meticulously and complementing each other since then without formal coaching.
“We were inspired by our father. His words and support and belief in us helped us achieve our goal,” Irfa said. “It is a good way to do social service, however, if one want power and money we could have chosen other fields.” She said they have had to face lot of financial difficulties but they were never let down by parents.
Ifra said she and Suhail passed it in the first attempt, the credit goes to their elder sister because they located the mistakes that prevented her quality the examination in the first attempt. Interestingly, they did not stop after their sister failed to crack it n 2021, they quickly grouped and started studying together.
At a time when technology is taking over every aspect of human lives especially education, the siblings claims are unbelievable even for laggards.
“We do not have a phone and social media presence. We used our mother’s phone to connect virtually and download any essential reading material,” said Ifra.
“It is a journey which started much early in their life. They were clear about a goal,” father Wani said who was working as mechanic in Baglihar project and now a private contractor.
“Lockdown broke my back but I did not let it deter my children’s education. I still don’t own a bicycle. My children have always made me proud by being obedient and never yielded to ostentatious norms of society,” Wani said as he also credits their mother also for silent contribution.
Suhail who is younger to sisters has secured 111th rank and obtained 1055 points followed by Huma Anjum Wani having 117th rank with 1050.5 points and Ifra Anjum Wani having 143rd rank with 1034.5 points.
SRINAGAR: Social media influencers and celebrities will face a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh, which can go up to Rs 50 lakh on repeat offence and even lead to a ban of up to six years, on violation of guidelines for them, which were released by the consumer affairs ministry on Friday.
Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh told mediapersons, while releasing the guidelines, that the whole issue is centred around consumers’ right.
“It is the responsibility of the endorser, celebrities and influencers or other advertisers to truthfully disclose whatever information the consumer must know before making any decision for purchase,” the guidelines said.
Singh further said social media influencers should disclose the nature of their endorsements.
“Individuals or groups who have access to an audience and the power to affect their purchasing decisions about a product, brand or service because of the influencer’s authority, knowledge, position or relationship with their audience,” the guidelines said.
Influencers are defined as creators who advertise products with a strong influence on the decisions or opinions of their audience. Virtual influencers, which are defined as fictional computer-generated people with realistic features of humans, are also required to disclose their endorsements, the guidelines said further.
The department noted that, “When there is a material connection between an advertiser and celebrity/influencer that may affect the weight or credibility of the representation made by the celebrity/influencer.”
These material connections include monetary or other forms of compensation, free products, contests and sweepstakes entries, trips or hotel stays, media barters, coverage and awards, or any personal, family or employment relationship, the rules note.
The influencers should be able to substantiate the claims made by them. The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 provides the framework for the protection of consumers against unfair trade practices and misleading advertisements.
The product and service must have been actually used or experienced by the endorser, the ministry said, adding that consumers can seek legal actions against those defaulting. (IANS)
A number of big themes emerged from the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort Davos. Here are five of most pressing questions that came to dominate this year’s gathering of the global elite.
Will China be forced to make friends with the west?
Donald Trump’s trade war with China – continued by his successor Joe Biden – has left relations between east and west at rock bottom. But with Covid and trade tensions halving Chinese growth last year to just 3% and western businesses such as Apple moving business out of the world’s second-biggest economy, Beijing has hinted it may adopt a less-hostile approach.
Vice-premier Liu He appeared on the main stage at Davos to assure foreign investors that after three years of Covid disruption, it was open for business. “We have to abandon the cold war mentality,” he said. “We must open up wider and make it work better.”
Whether the west is ready to believe that remains to be seen. Executives at several tech companies said they were approached by American intelligence officials at the summit who were keen to understand their operations in China. “They want to know which side you are on,” said a tech boss.
The FBI director Christopher Wray gave a speech arguing that China’s artificial intelligence (AI) programme would be weaponised by the country, telling attenders: “The Chinese government has a bigger hacking programme than any other nation in the world.”
Several economists also forecast that China’s rapid reopening could reignite rapid inflation by fuelling demand for commodities just as central bankers hoped they had got a grip on surging prices.
A slogan for the World Economic Forum on Davos’s promenade, the sentiment undermined by fears about AI’s impact on jobs. Photograph: Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters
Is artificial intelligence coming for your job?
Rapid advances being made in AI have prompted a wave of warnings, not only about what it means for the world of work, but also the risks that it might produce misinformation on a grand scale.
Mihir Shukla, chief executive of Automation Anywhere, said that as a result of AI it was now possible for a machine to process a mortgage application in three minutes that previously would have taken 30 days.
Erik Brynjolfsson, digital economy professor at Stanford University said in the past machines had not been a substitute for workers but complemented the activities of humans, enabling them to do things better and leading to higher pay.
Yet IBM’s chairman and chief executive Arvind Krishna predicted a wave of job cuts from AI. “You should worry more about the clerical, white-collar jobs than the physical [jobs]. A large number of them will get replaced. So the question is: ‘What jobs do you create to replace those?’”
Brynjolfsson identified another threat. The world risked being flooded with bot-generated emails, posts and tweets peddling disinformation on a massive scale and warned there was a need for a control mechanism to separate the true from the false.
The Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg (left) takes her environmental campaign to Davos where there were fears US and EU green economy plans could spark a trade dispute. Photograph: Laurent Gilliéron/EPA
Will Biden’s $369bn green subsidy scheme help or hinder?
The US and EU nations arrived at Davos with a $369bn row simmering in the background: Joe Biden’s vast green subsidy scheme, known as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). It provides extensive state aid for companies investing in green technologies crucial to the transition away from fossil fuels, including electric cars, batteries, and renewable energy technologies such as solar panels and wind turbines.
Jozef Síkela, the Czech Republic’s minister of industry and trade, equated it with “doping in sport” and said it was luring companies away from Europe to the US. But Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, said the IRA is the “most important climate action after the Paris 2015 agreement”.
Some have speculated it could lead to a trade war between the US and EU, akin to the decades-long Boeing v Airbus dispute over subsidies. The EU is responding with its own Net Zero Industry Act which will simplify and fast-track clean tech production sites.
Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, said she hoped the subsidy race “is not going to be a race to the bottom”. While leader of the UK’s Labour party, Sir Keir Starmer, embraced the idea of a more activist state, the UK business secretary, Grant Shapps, was distinctly cooler on the idea, describing it as “dangerous”.
Kristalina Georgieva, the International Monetary Fund’s managing director. Photograph: Gian Ehrenzeller/EPA
Is a new debt crisis looming?
About a quarter of the countries in the world are in debt distress or on the brink of it. In Davos every one of the multilateral organisations that keep tabs on the financial fragility of poor countries – the UN, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank – expressed concern.
Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Programme said there was an urgent need for a comprehensive solution but was unsure whether there was the bandwidth or leadership required.
“Nothing is happening commensurate with the problem,” Steiner said. “There is a growing recognition that there has been a year of inactivity by the institutions created to deal with this – the G20 and the Bretton Woods institutions [the IMF and the World Bank].”
Countries are having trouble paying their debts amid slower global growth and rising interest rates. Many also borrowed in US dollars, which have appreciated on currency markets. Steiner said there needed to be an urgent injection of financial support through a fresh issuance of IMF special drawing rights – a form of money creation that boosts a country’s reserves – with debt restructuring. That will require more flexibility by two important creditors: China and the private sector.
Saudi Arabia promotes it Neom $500bn megacity plan in Davos, part of a strong Middle East presence. Photograph: Getty Images
Can the Gulf states modernise and wean off hydrocarbons?
The corporate logos that plaster shopfronts on the Davos promenade are a good barometer of changing economic fortunes. With Russia blacklisted after its invasion of Ukraine and China keeping a low profile, the Gulf states – flush with petrodollars – took over the Swiss ski resort en-masse.
The long road that winds towards the conference centre was dominated by Middle Eastern brands: from the United Arab Emirates’ logistics company DP World, to Neom, the $500bn megacity that is the cornerstone of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s plan to modernise Saudi Arabia.
The Gulf states need to prove to the world that they can modernise as companies and businesses switch away from oil and gas. The Saudis used the World Economic Forum to promote the kingdom’s modernisation plan, called Vision 2030, and the increasing role of women in the economy, while hoping the west would ignore atrocities such as the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post journalist whose death in October 2018 has been linked to Crown Prince Mohammed.
Several senior Saudi ministers were joined on a panel by Jane Fraser, boss of US banking giant Citi, and Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, to discuss more women joining the workforce and economic change.
“When one turns up in Saudi looking at what are the opportunities from a business perspective … it’s quite breathtaking,” said Fraser. “As a banker, one gets frightfully excited.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Despite brewing resentment the Jammu and Kashmir administration has asked the concerned revenue officers to ensure 100 per cent removal of encroachments from state land, including Roshni and Kahcharai by January end.
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The order by Vijay Kumar Bidhuri, Commissioner Secretary Revenue to all deputy commissioners of the Union Territory was passed even as several review petitions challenging Roshni Act judgment lie pending before the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
Bidhuri has also listed a set of instructions for effective monitoring of the anti-encroachment drive. The encroachment list involves highly influential persons of J&K including politicians from all major political parties and businessmen who have taken prized locations for peanuts.
Today, Office of Tehsil kokernag issued public notice for removal of encroachment on state /kahcharai land in Tehsil kokernag, Says Remove self illegal possession on state land within ten days
Download District/Tehsil/Area/Block Wise PDF below
4021 kanal state/kahcharai Land retrieved from encroachers across Kupwara district/ DC says drive will continue to retrieve encroachments
KUPWARA, JANUARY 20 : Over 4021 kanals of State/kahcharie land was retrieved in Kupwara district during the present drive initiated against the land encroachers by the government .
On the directions of Deputy Commissioner Kupwara, Dr.Doifode Sagar Dattatray, a major anti encroachment drive was held across Kupwara district, from 11th of this month till date. The teams of Revenue Department headed by concerned Tehsildars conducted operation on state/ Kahcharie land which was illegally occupied by encroachers in different parts / tehsils of the district.
Accordingly, over 4021kanals of kahcharai/ state land have been retrieved from the encroachers in all Tehsils of the District during the present drive, till date.
As per the reports of Tehsildar Drugmulla, 301 kanals of kahcharai land have been retrieved in Drugmulla tehsil of Kupwara district which include 276 kanals single patch of land and 25 kanals which was used as commercial purposes.
Likewise, as per Tehsildar Kupwara, 280 kanals of land have been retrieved during the drive till date in Kupwara tehsil which include 205 kanal kahcharai Land and 75 kanal state land.
In Keran tehsil, 712 kanals of land have been retrieved as per Tehsildar Keran, which include 617 kanals state land and 95 kanals kahcharie land. In Vilgam tehsil of Kupwara district 1863 kanals including 758 state land and 1105 kanals kahcharari land have been retrieved from 11th of this month till date, as reported by Tehsildar Vilgam.
Likewise, in Kralpora Tehsil, as per concerned Tehsildar 247 kanals of land have been retrieved in the tehsil which include 142 kanals state land and 105 kanals Kacharie land.
In Sogam and Lalpora tehsils, as reported by respective Tehsildars, 114 kanal and 14 marlas retrieved from Dardapora Lolab, 20 kanals from Chandigam and 20 kanals from Sogam tehsil.
Similarly, 70 kanals of kahcharari/ state land have been retrieved from Trehgam tehsil, 50 kanals in Karnah Tehsil, 46 kanal 15 marlas in Handwara tehsil, 26 kanal 5 marlas in Zachaldara tehsil, 5 kanals in Taratpora tehsil , 80 kanals in Langate, 70 kanals in Qalamabad tehsil and 116 kanals in Qaziabad-kralgund tehsil during the ongoing drive against land encroachers.
While talking about the anti-encroachment drive, the Deputy Commissioner Kupwara said that anti-encroachment drives will continue in all the parts of the district to retrieve entire State and Kahcharai land encroached by the land grabbers. He sought cooperation of the general public in its action against encroachments and also warned of action under CrPC in matters of encroachment on State/kahcharie lands.
Pertinently, District Administration has given strict directions to the Tehsildars and enforcement teams to speed up the drive against the land encroachments in their respective jurisdictions with added zeal and dedication so that all State/Kahcharai land is retrieved in the district, which can be subsequently used for public purpose.
A chubby red toadstool glides back and forth on a mountain ledge while a row of spinning golden coins levitate nearby, hovering above a line of brick blocks. Turtles waddle along the surrounding clifftops, like lookout guards patrolling the valley below, while a tower of angry brown blobs with big frowns teeters to and fro on another precipitous ledge. Elsewhere, gigantic red plants snap their hungry jaws at passersby, a serrated stone block slams down with a great “thwomp!” and a big castle crowned with horns looms on a hilltop, providing a menacing backdrop to the trippy scene.
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Welcome to Super Nintendo World, the closest thing you can get to diving head-first inside a video game and experiencing the likely effects of swallowing one of Mario’s magic mushrooms. It is the latest attraction to open at Universal Studios Hollywood, the sprawling Californian theme park that began over a century ago as a humble studio backlot tour on a former chicken ranch.
German-born film producer Carl Laemmle first welcomed visitors to his “movie city” in 1915 – four decades before Disneyland was established – to marvel at the million-dollar film-making paradise, complete with a zoo, post office and police department, as well as a community of Native Americans who lived in tepees on site and performed in his cowboy films. For a 25-cent admission fee, visitors could watch westerns being shot, gawp at stunt shows, see a simulated flash flood and enjoy a chicken lunchbox for a nickel.
Tunnel vision … the warp pipe entrance to Super Nintendo World. Photograph: Oliver Wainwright
A century later, the stunt shows and flood simulators remain, in souped-up form, but the surrounding park has been transformed beyond recognition. The Universal complex now rambles across more than 400 acres, three-quarters of which are still dedicated to film studios, although they make up an ever-shrinking proportion. The theme park is gradually nibbling away at the studio’s soundstages to make room for ever more elaborate rides and immersive worlds. In the age of the experience economy, fantasy thrill-seeking is big business: with resorts in Florida, Osaka and now Beijing, NBCUniversal’s theme park division reported record revenues of over $2bn in the third quarter of 2022. Post-pandemic, the appetite for physical, immersive experiences is stronger than ever.
Announced in 2015, Nintendo’s partnership with Universal Studios came in response to several years of declining gaming revenue and console market share. After a foray into physical toys, in the form of its Amiibo line, the theme park was seen as a way to monetise the Nintendo brand outside of the screen. For Universal, it represents the first expansion beyond film- and TV-themed rides, and a step up in designing a total environment – with the opening timed to capitalise on the release of an animated Super Mario Bros movie this spring. Super Nintendo World (a larger version of which opened in Osaka in 2021) is the theme park’s most complete, all-encompassing world yet, an entire work of real-life video game architecture. It is an astonishing place to explore, for Nintendo fans and the uninitiated alike.
The journey begins by walking through a green warp pipe, the familiar tubular tunnel that transports Mario around his various lands (complete with the sound effect from the game), which drops you in the porch of Princess Peach’s castle – the heroine that Mario spends his life trying to save from the big baddie dragon-turtle, Bowser. From here, the castle gates open into a spectacular saturated landscape where every last detail has been transported from the Super Mario games, pixel for pixel. It looks as if the entire world might have been 3D-printed, but the technology is surprisingly low-fi: most of what you see has been hand-carved from plaster and painted on site by an army of fastidious set decorators.
Virtual reality … Super Nintendo World. Photograph: Oliver Wainwright
Steep cliffs of pixelated earth, their cartoonish sedimentary layers exposed, rise up to blocky terraces of bright green grass, where the various creatures from the games patrol back and forth, their springy, waddling gait meticulously simulated IRL. Yellow question mark blocks project out from the walls, some within striking height: whack their rubbery undersides and they flash and chime with the classic coin-winning sound effect. Interactive games are scattered around the landscape, Mario theme tunes are piped through hidden speakers, while cutouts of rolling green hills cleverly block out the surrounding rides and neighbouring buildings, creating the effect of being completely immersed in the Mushroom Kingdom.
“It is one of the most complex and varied worlds we have ever built here,” says Jon Corfino, vice president of Universal Creative, who also oversaw the Simpsons-themed Springfield attraction, the Despicable Me Minions ride, and the recent revamp of the blockbuster Jurassic World. “We’ve spent the last six years layering together animation, physical effects and new digital technology to bring the video game to life.”
Developed in close collaboration with Nintendo’s design team in Japan (and overseen by Mario’s creator, 70-year-old Shigeru Miyamoto, himself) the attraction follows the story that Bowser’s son, Bowser Jr, has stolen a golden mushroom from Princess Peach, and you are tasked with getting it back. You must complete a series of simple challenges – which range from cranking a handle to dislodge an angry Goomba, to whacking a set of alarm clocks to keep a Piranha Plant snoozing – before you can attempt the “boss battle” with Bowser Jr in an interactive projection-based game.
Plant life … keep the flora (or is it fauna?) snoozing. Photograph: Hamilton Pytluk/Universal Studios Hollywood
The catch is that, in order to collect the various digital stamps, keys and coins that are dotted around the world, you must first buy a $40 Power-Up RFID wristband (on top of the $109 theme park admission fee), which lets you track your progress in an app. Just like the $60 interactive wands sold in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter next door, it is another gimmick to keep visitors coming back, tempting you to beat your high scores and see your rank on a public leader board. It’s a clever use of tech, but it also makes you long for the simpler, cheaper days of Laemmle and his nickel lunchbox.
The novelty culinary stakes have been upped in the form of the Toadstool Cafe, housed inside a colossal red mushroom. Here, a $16.99 Mario Burger (with a moustache stamped on the bun) and $9.99 Princess Peach cupcake can be washed down with a drink from a $20 collectible mushroom cup. You can momentarily forget the hole being burned in your wallet with dreamy views out through the windows, which are actually digital screens that play animations depicting life in the bucolic Toad world outside, and chaotic scenes in the Toad-staffed kitchen.
Mock turtle … a statue of Bowser in his villain’s lair. Photograph: Oliver Wainwright
All of the intricate scenography and narrative detail makes it easy to forget there is an actual ride here too, themed around the Mario Kart racing game. Queueing has long been elevated to an art form at both Universal and Disney’s theme parks, and this is one of the most elaborate environments for waiting in line yet. The queue takes you through a sequence of rooms in Bowser’s Castle, a brilliantly conceived villain’s lair, complete with bomb-making workshop, a library of self-help books (including How to Talk to Princesses and Sibling Rivalries and How to Exploit Them), and a gigantic statue of Bowser himself, looming at the centre of a rotunda. With its sense of menace combined with unbridled kitsch, it feels a lot like walking the halls of the palace of Kim Jong-il.
The ride itself is Universal’s first experiment with augmented reality technology, with visitors donning a plastic Mario cap, to which an AR visor is magnetically clipped. Rather than a fast and furious race, the ride is more of a sedate crawl through a series of environments, with an interactive shoot-em-up element overlaid on the visor. Buttons on the steering wheel allow you to fire shells at various baddies along the way, to accrue points and extra ammo. But with four people to a kart, it’s tricky to work out who is shooting what, if the steering has any effect, and what exactly you’re supposed to be doing. There are moments where the AR comes into its own – such as when you accelerate into hyperdrive on the Rainbow Road – but a lot of the time it’s a confusing distraction from the impressive animatronics and physical sets around you.
“It’s designed for repeat rides,” says Corfino. “Each time, you will have a different experience, gain more rewards, and understand more about how the game works.” It sounds like a good idea in principle, a ride that gets more sophisticated the more you play it, but it makes less sense when it takes an hour and a half to queue up again for the fleeting frisson of a four-minute experience.
Park and ride … the Mario Kart ride features augmented reality. Photograph: Oliver Wainwright
Still, there’s a lot more to enjoy back out in the psychedelic surrounds of the Mushroom Kingdom. Dedicated explorers will discover a series of stairs that lead to raised vantage points, where binoculars allow you to look down at the teeming world below, overlaid with more weird and wonderful AR things from the Mario games, like gliding bullets and flying turtles.
It feels fitting that, in this city of fakery and simulacra – where, as Noël Coward once put it, “there is always something so delightfully real about what is phony, and something so phony about what is real” – Universal has conjured the ultimate synthetic landscape. And you’ll have that pesky theme tune ringing in your ears for days to come.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
The Colombian navy has rescued a man from Dominica who says he survived 24 days adrift in the Caribbean on a sailboat by eating ketchup, garlic powder and seasoning cubes.
Elvis François, 47, had scrawled the word “help” in English on the boat’s hull, which officials said was key to his rescue.
The sailboat was spotted from the air 120 nautical miles north-west of the Guajira peninsula and François was taken to the port city of Cartagena by a passing container ship, the Colombian navy said in a statement on Wednesday.
François told Colombian authorities that his ordeal began in December when currents swept the sailboat out to sea while he was making repairs off the island of St Martin in the Netherlands Antilles, where he lives.
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“I called my friends, they tried to contact me, but I lost the signal. There was nothing else to do but sit and wait,” François recalled in a video released by the navy.
He said subsisted on a bottle of ketchup, garlic powder and Maggi cubes.
Carlos Urbano Montes said that François said he collected rainwater with a cloth. He said François was found in good health, but told official he had lost weight.
François said on the videotape that he had to constantly remove water from the boat to prevent it from sinking. He also tried to light a fire to send a distress signal without success.
Finally, a plane passed by and he signaled with a mirror. He said the navy told him that he was spotted when the plane passed again.
“At some point I lost hope and thought about my family, but I thank the coast guard. If it weren’t for them I wouldn’t be telling the story,” François said.
Urbano Montes said the sailboat was abandoned at sea when François was picked up by the merchant ship.
The navy said François received a medical check on shore and then was handed over to immigration authorities for his return home to Dominica.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir Waqf Board here has launched a comprehensive exercise for valuation of its hundreds of commercial properties across the Union Territory.
“Continuing with its reformative agenda initiated under the leadership of Chairperson, Dr Darakhshan Andrabi, J&K Waqf Board has started an exhaustive Valuation exercise of its hundreds of commercial assets spread across the UT of Jammu & Kashmir,” news agency KNO quoted a statement as having said.
Interestingly, despite being the second largest asset-rich organisation in the UT after the Govt itself, no significant efforts have been made till date for assessment of Commercial Properties by the previous authorities at the helm of affairs in Waqf over the last several decades, revealed the sources in Waqf, it said.
In an order issued by Executive Magistrate, Tehsildar J&K Waqf Board, it has been revealed that, in absence of proper valuation, “random assessment values have been used to insure commercial properties in the past and that has also created difficulties in settlement of claims with insurers”.
The move is also expected to “result in creation of a permanent data base for smooth rent assessment of structures in future”.
The Administrators and other Waqf Supervisory staff have been directed to facilitate and provide all necessary support & manpower for smooth conduct of the exercise, the order said.
Jacinda Ardern has no gas left in the tank to continue as the prime minister of New Zealand. Her resignation speech was the sort of rare and dignified moment that we have come to expect from her, as a woman who presented the world with the kind of leadership that uniquely lent on her emotional intelligence. I’ll miss her tone and grace. She leaves a legacy she can be proud of.
I have been thinking about what burned the fuel that she relied on to govern.
Firstly I have no doubt that she felt the constant guilt that pretty much every woman in the world feels the moment they evacuate their womb of a child. Even the Mary Poppins-style perfect, Instagram-polished mothers of the world fret that something they do will harm their child in some way. I asked my husband, who has always been our son’s primary carer, if he ever felt guilty for missing a school play or staying late at work. He looked at me baffled; the concept was lost on him. He just thinks, “I had to go to work,” and that’s the beginning and end of that moral maze for him. For me, there is a constant torture and self-loathing about how my choices might affect them. No matter how I try to push away the societal grooming, it is always there. For Ardern there will have been column inches aplenty to keep the torture prickling her skin.
This is not to say that most working women don’t just push through this: they do so every single day in every single workforce in the country. It just burns up fuel, fuel that others don’t need to spend. It is tiring and saps our bandwidth.
The pressure pushed on to working women is tiring enough without it being amped up by being a public woman – and the worst of all offences, to some, a political woman. The thing that burns my fuel to the point of a flashing emergency light and a blaring alarm is the abuse and threat of violence that has become par for the course for political women. Jacinda Ardern will have suffered this mercilessly. Today, colleagues and admirers discussed the extent to which that constant threat of abuse contributed to her burnout.
Those threats came from many sources, too: people who hate progressive women and believe they are damning masculinity; anti-vaxxers outraged by her tough Covid stance; those with a general loathing of all politicians.
Combine the two fuel burners and what you end up with is the terrible guilt, fear and shame that decisions you have made in your career, or your political stances (no matter how much you believe in them), put your children, loved ones and employees in danger.
Moments before I started writing this, I spoke to a woman who works for me who told me she wouldn’t be in work on a particular day because she had to give evidence in court after an incident in my office. She was not the target: it was me. When my children at school have to answer questions from their classmates about stances I have taken, or are told hateful and untrue things that have been published about me, or when they act hyper-vigilantly in public crowds, aware of the threat to us, my heart breaks and more fuel burns up.
No doubt this is something all men and women in political life experience. However, studies show that the level of violence – often sexualised violence – and the threat that female politicians face is incomparable. I am used to it. I wish I wasn’t; but I also wish I was a size 10. but I will also never get used to the effect it has on other people; it is so very tiring. It’s just something else I have to consider on top of worrying about policy and details, and fallout, and loyalties. It burns fuel.
What can we do about it? Like Jacinda, I believe the answer is being honest about the fact that politics is an emotional not a bureaucratic game. And constantly pushing for a more empathetic political environment, which will be brought about by having more female leaders and politicians, not fewer.
I am not so idealistic as to think politics is going to change its stripes in my time. But we must build the structures into our politics and our media that damn and criminalise the perpetrators of this abuse, and those who make massive profits from spreading it. We must create support structures female politicians and activists can lean on without being seen negatively or as weak.
Alas, even as I pen my suggestions for change, I know that it is women who will have to do the labour to achieve it, just like we always do. This work takes more fuel – fuel others don’t have to use up in the pursuit of a political life. No wonder Jacinda’s knackered.
Jess Phillips is Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
