All posts tagged: barely

‘Apex’ Review: Charlize Theron Netflix Thriller Avoids Rock Bottom, but Barely

‘Apex’ Review: Charlize Theron Netflix Thriller Avoids Rock Bottom, but Barely

Published by skeptic

Apex, a new survival thriller from director Baltasar Kormákur, debuts on Netflix Friday. The film stars Charlize Theron as Sasha, a grief-stricken woman who, after a rather predictable accident on a mountain, travels to Australia to find closure. Once there, she finds herself involved in a grueling cat-and-mouse game as she’s hunted by a ruthless local named Ben (played by Taron Egerton).   There’s a lot the movie could’ve explored during its roughly 90-minute running time, particularly around loss and letting go. Alas, it’s all surface, no depth. It’s a bummer — but at least that surface looks cool. Let’s back up a minute and discuss the movie’s opening moments. We’re quickly introduced to Sasha, who wakes up in a tent tied to the side of a mountain. This is normal life for her and her husband, Tommy (played by Eric Bana), and it’s understood that the couple does a lot of rock climbing. But Sasha comes to a rock side she just can’t climb over, and, in frustration, they stay on the side of …

‘Tranquil, natural and barely a tourist in sight’: readers’ favourite hidden gems in Spain | Spain holidays

‘Tranquil, natural and barely a tourist in sight’: readers’ favourite hidden gems in Spain | Spain holidays

Published by Sam Flores

Chilling out in La Rioja Recently travelling from Madrid to San Sebastián, we spent three days in picturesque Briñas in La Rioja, staying at the beautiful Finca Torre de Briñas (doubles from €189 B&B). The neighbouring town, Haro, reached via a 40-minute walk by the Ebro River, hosts several of the largest wine producers in the region (CVNE and Muga are recommended). You can stop in and sample them, before heading into the town centre, which has several tapas spots to fuel the walk back to the hotel. Bliss.Tom Dickson Forests and badlands in Murcia Aleppo pine forests in Sierra Espuña massif. Photograph: Juan Vilata/Alamy Less than an hour’s drive – yet a world away – from the bustling Murcia coast sits the brooding Sierra Espuña mountain range, a green respite from the summer heat and the site of a rewilding project started more than a century ago. After a morning’s hike through the shady pines, we drove up a switchback mountain road to check out the 16th-century Pozos de la Nieve, and descended steps …

Sam Altman’s Coworkers Say He Can Barely Code and Misunderstands Basic Machine Learning Concepts

Sam Altman’s Coworkers Say He Can Barely Code and Misunderstands Basic Machine Learning Concepts

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO and the public face of ChatGPT, has carved out an image for himself as one of the preeminent AI whisperers of our age, whose influence supposedly extends to the White House on the strength of his ideas alone. Or at least that’s the image he’s managed to cultivate. A new exposé in the New Yorker paints a different portrait, and it’s substantially more vexing. Drawing on interviews with numerous OpenAI insiders who worked with Altman, the article portrays the CEO not as a technical wiz, but as a skilled manipulator — and one with a surprisingly shallow grasp of the AI systems his company is building. According to numerous engineers interviewed for the article, Altman lacks experience in both programming and in machine learning — a shortage of expertise that becomes obvious when the CEO mixes up basic AI terms. It’s important to note that Altman dropped out of a Stanford computer science program after …

‘I could barely think because it was so bad’: how pain changes us | Well actually

‘I could barely think because it was so bad’: how pain changes us | Well actually

Published by Sam Flores

Chronic pain has a way of upending a life. In her memoir This Is the Door, writer Darcey Steinke writes that “pain, like failure, breaks into our everyday lives and upsets who we thought we were and what we thought we could do”. In her case, excruciating pain from a herniated disc forced a multitude of changes – sitting down hurt so much that she “basically had to stand up all day long”, she says. Emotionally, it was a rollercoaster: “I was roiling, anxious, fragmented,” she writes. Steinke, who has written books including Suicide Blonde, Up Through the Water (Jacqueline Onassis was her editor) and Flash Count Diary: Menopause and the Vindication of Natural Life, wanted to investigate others’ experiences of pain, posting signs up in her neighborhood and soliciting interviews with friends. From conversations with about 80 people, and research about the history and artifacts of pain – rare 17th-century books, the cadavers analyzed by anatomy students – she distilled a series of reflections on pain’s effects. “To be able to express your pain …

I stopped relying on a smart home hub and barely miss it

I stopped relying on a smart home hub and barely miss it

Published by skeptic

You used to have to put all your eggs in one basket. If you were setting up a smart home, you need one central device that was going to control everything. A smart home hub was how you were able to get the most out of your devices and make them function. There are still some devices that require a hub to work, which can be frustrating for those of us who don’t rely on one anymore. If I can avoid those, I do. Having to plug in an extra piece of equipment just to get another device to work is, frankly, annoying. I have given up on devices because of this before. That made me realize that there really isn’t a need for a smart home hub these days. It is just another piece of equipment. I can get so much more out of my other devices, and my devices can get so much more out of each other. A smart home hub isn’t a necessity anymore and I’m not upset I’ve moved on …

If You’re So Burned Out You Barely Recognize Yourself, These 10 Steps Can Help You Come Back

If You’re So Burned Out You Barely Recognize Yourself, These 10 Steps Can Help You Come Back

Published by Jenni Sidey

Whether you’re experiencing burnout from a place of workaholism-induced fatigue, situational depression, or a chronic lack of rest, research has shown how burnout affects your body. If you’re so burned out you barely recognize yourself, there are things you can do to recover from burnout faster than you thought possible. For three years, I barely took a day off — and I mean barely. Even saying barely feels generous.  While rest is a sound solution for most ailments, I wanted to do more to be proactive in my recovery. I noticed what moved the needle for me and what didn’t. There are 10 high-leverage steps I took to recover from my bout of extreme burnout. I noticed a significant uptick in my energy levels within two to three weeks and felt almost back to 100 percent in under two months. If you’re so burned out you barely recognize yourself, these 10 steps can help you come back: 1. Make health your number one priority Illnesses are what happen to our bodies when we’ve been ignoring …

When Life Feels Overwhelming And You’re Barely Holding It Together, These 5 Truths Matter Most

When Life Feels Overwhelming And You’re Barely Holding It Together, These 5 Truths Matter Most

Published by Jenni Sidey

I wish every day could be bright and happy, but it turns out that life doesn’t work that way. Life isn’t always easy, and some days feel overwhelming, like you’re barely holding it together, but the hardest days teach the most valuable lessons. When everything feels like too much, it’s easy to convince yourself that you’re falling behind or doing something wrong. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is pause, take a breath, and remind yourself of a few things that are easy to forget when the weight of the world feels heavy. When life feels overwhelming and you’re barely holding it together, these 5 simple truths matter most: 1. Appreciate the time you have because it’s limited Nobody knows how much time they have in life, so we need to make our lives count. Some days, we need more time to do simple tasks and rest our bodies. We should count each task and plan to manage the energy we need instead of rushing through life. It’s important for us to use …

Occupational Therapist Says Kids Today Can Barely Sit In A Chair Without Falling

Occupational Therapist Says Kids Today Can Barely Sit In A Chair Without Falling

Published by Jenni Sidey

Angela Hanscom, a pediatric occupational therapist, said she has seen an increase in parents’ complaints about kids falling out of chairs. Yeah, you heard that right. Kids are struggling to sit in chairs, and Hanscom thinks that it’s directly related to not spending enough time playing outside. Childhood has changed a lot over the years, especially with the creation of new technologies. When previous generations were growing up, there was pretty much nothing for them to do for fun other than go outside and play. Things are different now. Parents aren’t as quick to let their children go outside and have time for free play because of safety concerns, and a lot of kids just don’t want to go outside when they could play games on their tablet. It turns out that this lack of time to play and explore is actually causing a strange issue that experts are concerned about. An occupational therapist explained that many kids today struggle with the very simple task of sitting in a chair without falling. One parent asked …

Most Middle Class Families Can Barely Afford These 11 Once-Basic Items

Most Middle Class Families Can Barely Afford These 11 Once-Basic Items

Published by Jenni Sidey

Having a middle class family used to be a foundation of The American Dream, a dream of security, access and opportunity. Or, at least, that’s what it used to mean. From rising housing costs to the burdens of student loan debt and inaccessible grocery bills, many American families today can barely afford some of the items that used to be considered basic. Once an American economic class that was able to live comfortably on one full-time salary, there are now several everyday essentials that are no longer secure, even for families with two working adults.   A survey from the National True Cost of Living Coalition found that nearly 65% of Americans report that they are struggling financially in their daily lives, contributing to their reduced spending habits, inability to pay for basic monthly expenses, and difficulty planning for their future with savings and retirement accounts. That doesn’t even account for the dream of sending a child to college, which most middle class families, and even upper-middle class, can no longer afford.  Most middle class …