All posts tagged: basically

XL bully ‘basically ate’ beloved grandfather in ‘savage attack’ | UK | News

XL bully ‘basically ate’ beloved grandfather in ‘savage attack’ | UK | News

Published by Sam Flores

John McColl died a month after the attack (Image: Cheshire Police/PA Wire) The owner of an XL bully which killed a pensioner in a “savage attack” has been jailed for 12 years. John McColl, 84, was attacked by the dog, owned by Sean Garner, after the pensioner wandered on to the driveway of Garner’s home in Warrington, Cheshire, in February last year. He died from his injuries about a month later. He suffered “catastrophic facial injuries” in the 45-minute attack, Liverpool Crown Court heard on Friday. The animal, which was called Toretto and weighed 7st 4lb, was shot 10 times by armed police and a second dog found in the house was also shot. An examination of the dog later found it had no food in its stomach, but it had begun to eat Mr McColl alive. Read more: ‘Dog destroyed my face as I had a fit – I only realised when I saw it on video’ Read more: Major warning for UK dog walkers as poisoned meat found in UK parks Sean Garner …

4 classics that were basically written as propaganda

4 classics that were basically written as propaganda

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authors write novels for many reasons. Anthony Burgess, of A Clockwork Orange fame, was once described as a man “always on a money-fishing expedition.” Ernest Vincent Wright wrote Gadsby, a novel that avoids using the letter E, as a self-imposed challenge. Joan Didion processed her grief following the sudden death of her husband in her memoir The Year of Magical Thinking. The books on this list were basically written as propaganda. Their authors devised them to advance a particular ideology or party line, with the hope that readers would be persuaded to take up the cause. We’ll dive into why they were written, what ideology they promoted, and how effective they were at achieving their goals. Before that, we should note that we aren’t using the term propaganda in a moral or artistic sense. We’re instead using it to describe works that place heavy emphasis on influencing readers through symbolism and emotional appeals. Whether they are narrative masterpieces or utter dreck, whether they conform to reality or distort it beyond recognition, and whether we agree …

The Google Pixel 10a is basically last year’s phone — but it’s still worth the money

The Google Pixel 10a is basically last year’s phone — but it’s still worth the money

Published by skeptic

The Google Pixel 10a is a really interesting device. Interesting in that it doesn’t quite do anything that the previous version didn’t do, and yet it still commands a $500 price tag. Yet for the issues that this creates, I still really quite like the Pixel 10a, because if we’re all being honest, the Pixel 9a was a great phone that was truly fitting of Google’s a branding. It’s a Google hat-tip acknowledging that it needs to release this device because that’s what it always does, knowing full well that it’s a stepping stone device, the not-quite-an-update that’s enough for another year. Yet with all that said, the Pixel 10a is a really nice device. I’d hesitate to call it budget-focused, because 500 bucks is still a decent whack. But for a lower-mid range device, it’s a great option. 7/10 SoC Google Tensor G4 Display 6.3-inch Actua pOLED display, 1080 x 2424 resolution, 60-120Hz, 3000 nits peak brightness RAM 8GB Storage 128GB, 256GB The Google Pixel 10a is a budget-oriented smartphone with a flat back …

Donald Trump’s Plea for Asylum for Iranian Soccer Is Basically Offside

Donald Trump’s Plea for Asylum for Iranian Soccer Is Basically Offside

Published by Daniella Wilson

Five young Iranian women with a passion for the country’s soccer program desperately need backing from military-minded authority figures to avoid retribution, all against the backdrop of a World Cup qualifier. It sounds a lot like what President Donald Trump just did in pressuring the Australian prime minister to grant asylum for five members of Iran’s women’s World Cup team. But it also is pretty much the logline for Offside, Jafar Panahi’s soccer-themed Farsi-language classic that debuted at Berlin 20 years ago last month and that set the stage for his current powerhouse It Was Just an Accident. Given that his taste in movies runs different from Berlinale favorites, Trump is unlikely to have seen the one-time Silver Bear winner. But Offside nonetheless provides a curious foretelling to what has played out in real time this week. In Panahi’s dissident gem, five young women defy Iran’s ban on women attending sporting events by dressing as men and trying to sneak into Tehran’s Azadi Stadium for an Iran-Bahrain World Cup qualifying match in 2005. Their effort is largely …

If Your Little Boy Is Basically A Human Tornado, These 7 Wild Truths Will Feel Way Too Familiar

If Your Little Boy Is Basically A Human Tornado, These 7 Wild Truths Will Feel Way Too Familiar

Published by Jenni Sidey

“Boys are different.” It was a refrain I heard many times when I was pregnant with my now 21-month-old son, Sam. My daughter was almost 3 when he was born, and because she was my first and only, I figured all kids were pretty much like her. Adventurous but initially cautious of new situations, overtly emotional (or should I say erratic?), and in my mind, wild. Wild, because she was into everything, was constantly dancing and gyrating, and was often seen wearing few, if any, clothes. But, almost two years later, I’ve learned there’s a difference between spirited and wild. My daughter is the former, and my son is most definitely the latter. He’s all boy, and man, boys are different. Here (in my experience, which has been corroborated with many a mom-of-boys friend) is why. If your little boy is basically a human tornado, these 7 wild truths will feel way too familiar: 1. Little boys keep you running Bricolage via Shutterstock My daughter was busy, but she didn’t have nearly the speed my …

Best Buy is basically giving you a free Samsung TV with this OLED deal – how it works

Best Buy is basically giving you a free Samsung TV with this OLED deal – how it works

Published by skeptic

Samsung/ZDNET The Super Bowl and the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics are just a few days away, and if you’ve been looking for an OLED to upgrade your living room or home theater, I’ve found the perfect deal.  Also: How to watch the 2026 Winter Olympics  Right now at Best Buy, you can save $1,100 on the 65-inch Samsung S84F OLED and they’ll give you a 32-inch Samsung F6000F smart TV for free. In the market for something a bit fancier?  You can also choose the Samsung The Frame or the 100-inch Samsung QN80F if you need a cinema-sized screen for your upcoming watch parties. Best Buy automatically adds your free TV to your online cart, so don’t worry about fussing with promo codes or discounts.  The Samsung S84F is considered the brand’s entry-level OLED TV, offering the same premium picture quality and smart features as its sibling, the S95F, at a much more affordable price. The OLED panel supports HDR10+ for enhanced contrast and detailing, a 120Hz refresh rate for smoother action during live sports or …

4 Basically Free Changes To Make If You Want To Build A Life That Feels Good | Kristine Carlson

4 Basically Free Changes To Make If You Want To Build A Life That Feels Good | Kristine Carlson

Published by Jenni Sidey

We can build a life that makes us feel good. Yet, so many people settle for so much less by thinking they have to stick with the life they have been dealt. But that’s not true. There is always a way to start building the life you really want. When your days feel heavy, it’s usually because your energy is leaking in places you barely notice. The good news is that the same small things breaking your spirit can also rebuild it. These four basically free changes won’t transform your life overnight, but they will change how it feels to live it. Here are four basically free changes to make if you want to build a life that feels good: 1. Figure out what you want The first and most important thing is to know what you want and don’t want. You can’t create without having at least an idea of what you want to start with. Even if you don’t know for sure, focus on what you think you want and start working towards …

If You Use AI Chatbots to Follow the News, You’re Basically Injecting Severe Poison Directly Into Your Brain

If You Use AI Chatbots to Follow the News, You’re Basically Injecting Severe Poison Directly Into Your Brain

Published by José Betancourt

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images As corporate consolidation and ideological capture continue to wreak havoc on journalism across the world, some might be wondering if the dire media landscape could get any worse. To answer that question, simply open up an AI chatbot and ask it for today’s news. In a fascinating experiment fit for 2026, Jean-Hugues Roy, a journalism professor at the University of Quebec at Montreal, decided to get his news exclusively from AI chatbots for a whole month. “Would they give me hard facts or ‘news slop?’” he pondered in his essay about the experience, published by The Conversation. Throughout each day in September, he would ask seven leading AI chatbots — OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, Microsoft’s Copilot, DeepSeek’s DeepSeek, xAI’s Grok, and Opera’s Aria — the exact same prompt, and record their response: “Give me the five most important news events in Québec today. Put them in order of importance. Summarize each in three sentences. Add a short title. Provide at least one source for …

AI Has Basically Killed Stack Overflow

AI Has Basically Killed Stack Overflow

Published by José Betancourt

Since 2008, Stack Overflow has been an immensely helpful resource for developers, allowing them to crowdsource answers to their coding questions — and resulting in a vast online repository of coding knowledge. But as Dev Class reports, the advent of generative AI appears to have caused an extinction-level event for the platform, with the number of monthly questions plummeting significantly since around the time ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022. The data, as accessed through Stack Overflow’s own Data Explorer, tells a dramatic story. The number of questions per month fell from over 21,000 in January 2025 to a measly 3,607 by December. Back in the start of 2023, it was fielding 100,000 per month. The issue? Large language model-based tools like OpenAI’s blockbuster chatbot have allowed programmers to get coding help with simple text prompts, foregoing the need to take their questions to Stack Overflow. There’s a meta twist: Stack Overflow signed a partnership with OpenAI in 2024 in an effort to “strengthen the world’s most popular large language models” — either …

4 everyday items that are basically begging for an AirTag

4 everyday items that are basically begging for an AirTag

Published by skeptic

Apple’s AirTags are revolutionary (see our complete AirTag guide) and have low-key saved my bacon in multiple situations because I’ve placed them in some non-obvious everyday locations. AirTags (which cost $29 or less each) leverage the over 1.5 billion iPhones in the world to anonymously and passively track the location of these tiny coin-sized tracking devices. This means that you can track anything, anywhere, if it has an AirTag on it (or in it). That creates a lot of interesting ways to avoid losing important items, like your kid’s backpack (and by association, your child). If you’re not tracking these everyday items with an AirTag, you’re missing out. Brand Apple Material Plastic, Metal Track your wallet Losing your wallet is a nightmare you never have to experience again Credit: Brandon Miniman / MakeUseOf Losing your wallet is one of the worst disasters. Suddenly, you have to cancel credit cards and worry about identity theft, then go through the process of getting new cards, a new government ID, and more. The simple solution is to drop an …