Dutch polls, first in years without PM Rutte at VVD helm, set for November
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -The Netherlands will go to the polls on Nov. 22, caretaker Interior Minister Hanke Bruins Slot said on
2023-07-14 20:22
Why trolling the likes of Andrew Tate is actually earning them money
Since Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, many controversial users who were previously banned from the platform have been allowed back on and are flourishing. Users such as Andrew Tate have regained a platform to spout his harmful views to millions of users. But, while it may feel satisfying to troll such users, engaging with their tweets actually earns them money. Here’s why: Twitter recently announced it was paying out thousands of dollars in advertising revenue to users to “benefit” from their high engagement on tweets, earning more money the higher their engagement is. As part of Twitter’s Ad Revenue sharing program, users require “5M+ Tweet impressions in each month for the last 3 months”. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter On Thursday (13 July), some eligible users began receiving notifications of how much money they would receive. The highest earner, Dogecoin co-founder Billy Markus, known online as Shibetoshi Nakamoto, earned $37,050. Tate also revealed in a tweet that he earned $20,379 from ad revenue generated in the reply threads under his posts. The money comes from the ad revenue generated in their replies below the content they post on the platform, and is paid out via the Stripe account that the user registered for creator subscriptions with. Twitter staffer, Patrick Traughber, said: “Excited to start sending our first payments to creators for ads revenue sharing today. “Creators are the lifeblood of this platform, and it's great to see so many creators I follow getting paid today. The program will be expanding soon—more to come!” The cash payouts come just a week after Meta launched its rival text-based platform, Threads. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
2023-07-14 19:50
Thailand's Move Forward seeks to curb Senate powers after loss in PM vote
By Chayut Setboonsarng and Panarat Thepgumpanat BANGKOK (Reuters) -Thailand's Move Forward party filed a motion in parliament on Friday seeking
2023-07-14 19:46
Who is Fran Drescher, the sitcom star taking on Hollywood?
A former star of US sitcoms, Fran Drescher is the union chief leading actors into battle with streamers.
2023-07-14 18:27
Doctors reattach boy's head after suffering 'internal decapitation'
Doctors have performed a minor miracle after re-attaching a “'decapitated” boy’s head after he was hit by a car. The miraculous surgery occurred after Suleiman Hassan, a Palestinian boy from the West Bank, was severely injured after being hit by a car while out riding his bike. He was airlifted to Hadassah Ein Kerem’s Trauma Unit in Jerusalem and went straight to surgery. He suffered what is known as an internal decapitation – this occurs when the base of the skull and top of the spine become detached by the skin remains intact. This extremely rare injury can occur when a strong, sudden impact on the head results in the muscles and ligaments that hold the head in place to sever, accounting for less than one per cent of spinal injuries. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Doctors explained that Hassan’s head was “'almost completely detached from the base of his neck” before he underwent painstaking surgery taking several hours. The procedure involves reattaching the skull and spinal column using technology such as screws, rods, plates and bone grafts. One of the surgeons who operated on Hassan, Dr Ohad Einav, told The Times of Isreal: “We fought for the boy’s life.” Dr Einav continued: “The procedure itself is very complicated and took several hours. While in the operating room, we used new plates and fixations in the damaged area… “Our ability to save the child was thanks to our knowledge and the most innovative technology in the operating room.” Surgeries such as the one that saved Hassan’s life are only possible if internal decapitation victims have their major blood vessels intact, keeping the brain alive. Hassan’s surgery took place in June but has only recently been made public as the boy continues to recover at home with rehabilitation. Miraculously, Hassan can walk unaided and has no neurological problems following the shocking injury. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
2023-07-14 16:49
Scientists have discovered that humans can actually hear silence
It is possible for human beings to hear silence, according to a team of philosophers and psychologists, in a huge win for 1960s crooners Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. In a study published on Monday by Johns Hopkins University researchers, the team decided that it’s not just sound that human hears pick up: silence is, indeed, something we can hear too. Rui Zhe Goh, a Johns Hopkins graduate student in philosophy and psychology who was the study’s lead author, wrote: "We typically think of our sense of hearing as being concerned with sounds. But silence, whatever it is, is not a sound — it's the absence of sound. Surprisingly, what our work suggests is that nothing is also something you can hear.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Per the study, published in the journal PNAS, researchers had participants listen to an array of audio illusions. They also periodically substituted the noise for pure nothingness, the measure whether people’s brains would react in the same way. “Philosophers have long debated whether silence is something we can literally perceive, but there hasn’t been a scientific study aimed directly at this question,” said study co-author Chaz Firestone, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences and the director of the Johns Hopkins Perception & Mind Laboratory. “Our approach was to ask whether our brains treat silences the way they treat sounds.” "If you can get the same illusions with silences as you get with sounds, then that may be evidence that we literally hear silence after all." The 1,000 participants’ responses were measured across seven different tests. Across all of them, their brains reacted the same way to silence as they did to noise. “We show that silences can 'substitute' for sounds in event-based auditory illusions,” said the study. “Seven experiments introduce three 'silence illusions,' adapted from perceptual illusions previously thought to arise only with sounds.” “In all cases, silences elicited temporal distortions perfectly analogous to their sound-based counterparts, suggesting that auditory processing treats moments of silence the way it treats sounds. Silence is truly perceived, not merely inferred,” it said. “The kinds of illusions and effects that look like they are unique to the auditory processing of a sound, we also get them with silences, suggesting we really do hear absences of sound too,” added study co-author Ian Phillips, a John Hopkins philosopher and psychologist. Hello darkness my old friend… Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
2023-07-14 16:23
'Alarming and unprecedented' Irish bird flu warning
Hundreds of seabirds with suspected avian flu have been found dead in recent weeks.
2023-07-14 13:58
'Like an oven but 1,000 times worse': Tourists describe horror of White Island eruption
Survivors of one of New Zealand's worst natural disasters have described the searing pain of being lashed by burning sand, ash and rocks during a volcanic eruption on Whakaari or White Island in 2019 that killed 22 people.
2023-07-14 11:25
MLB Rumors: Shane Bieber trade buzz, Mets lose-lose, Braves need heightened
All of the latest MLB Rumors, featuring the Mets situation, the Braves biggest need, and Shane Bieber's trade buzz heating up.The MLB season is in full swing and following the All-Star break, the trade market is expected to heat up tremendously.Teams will have to decide whether they wan...
2023-07-14 08:17
Jared Kushner and Hope Hicks testified before grand jury investigating 2020 election interference, sources say
Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law, testified before the grand jury investigating the aftermath of the 2020 election and the actions of the then-president and others, a source familiar with the testimony confirmed to CNN.
2023-07-14 06:45
Charges dismissed against Portland police officer accused of hitting photographer with baton
Assault charges have been dismissed against an Oregon police officer who admitted to hitting a photographer in the head with his baton during a demonstration in the wake of George Floyd's death in the summer of 2020, court records show.
2023-07-14 05:56
Chandrayaan-3: India set to launch historic Moon mission
If Chandrayaan-3 succeeds, India will be the first to land near the Moon's little-explored south pole.
2023-07-14 05:49