All posts tagged: break

Female Directors at Cannes Can’t Break the Auteur Glass Ceiling

Female Directors at Cannes Can’t Break the Auteur Glass Ceiling

Published by Daniella Wilson

In 2018, Ava DuVernay, Cate Blanchett, Agnès Varda, Kristen Stewart and over 80 other female filmmakers stood on the steps of the Palais at the Cannes Film Festival to protest gender inequality in the global film industry. That year, only three films in the festival’s prestigious competition section were directed by women. Thierry Frémaux then signed a pledge from Le Collectif 50/50, the French association dedicated to promoting sexual and gender diversity in the film industry. The pledge outlined steps the festival would take to move toward greater inclusion of women in its lineup, including generating gendered statistics for its annual program, while working toward achieving gender equity in its governing bodies and programming committees.  Some eight years later, while gains have been made, this year’s competition section includes five female directors, down from last year’s seven (the record for the most women directors ever in the main competition section). At the 2026 festival’s opening press conference on May 12, Cannes boss Frémaux defensively offered: “Films are chosen for their quality, not the gender of their directors.”  When asked about its efforts …

Headspace’s New Apple Watch App Uses Your Heart Rate to Know When You Need a Break

Headspace’s New Apple Watch App Uses Your Heart Rate to Know When You Need a Break

Published by skeptic

Headspace is bringing its mental health tools right to your wrist. The company on Wednesday launched and updated the Apple Watch app that uses biometric data to figure out when you need to take a deep breath. With your permission, the app analyzes your heart rate variability data from Apple Health to identify moments when you may be more receptive to a mindful pause. It can send a nudge to your wrist and guide you through a 60-second breathing exercise. “Though a single breath can’t solve the unpredictability of what is happening in the world, it’s an important micro-intervention we often need to be reminded of,” said Fay Kallel, chief product and design officer at Headspace, in a statement. The idea, she added, is to help members build resilience through small, consistent practices that fit seamlessly into their lives. What’s new in the app The updated Headspace app experience has a few core features: Each morning, a personalized meditation session surfaces directly on your watch. An SOS mode for when you’re in a stressful moment …

When Cofounder Relationships Break, It’s Not the Market

When Cofounder Relationships Break, It’s Not the Market

Published by Jenni Sidey

There’s a moment most cofounders recognize in hindsight but rarely catch in real time. It’s not the blowup in the board meeting, or the equity dispute. It’s earlier—something so small and insignificant, it’s easily overlooked. A question answered with a little more edge than necessary. An eye roll that lasts half a second too long. A message replied to in three words when ten were warranted. By the time most cofounders seek cofounder coaching and describe their relationship as “broken,” the communication patterns behind it have been running for months. That pattern is usually what takes a company down, not the market or the product. What the Research Actually Shows The research started in the 1970s. John and Julie Gottman were trying to understand what separated relationships that lasted from ones that didn’t (Gottman & Silver, 1999). After studying thousands of couples, they landed on four patterns—criticism, defensiveness, contempt, stonewalling—that showed up consistently before relationships fell apart. They could identify which relationships were heading for collapse with striking accuracy, sometimes from a single observed conversation. …

The sunny Danish island that’s a poster child for the good life – and perfect for a spring break | Denmark holidays

The sunny Danish island that’s a poster child for the good life – and perfect for a spring break | Denmark holidays

Published by Sam Flores

‘We have lammerullepøllse – lamb rolled sausage – today,” says Daniel Hesseldal-Haines, chef at Det Lille Sommerhotel on the Danish island of Samsø. “It tastes better than the translation sounds. And,” he gestures towards a woman sitting by the window, “the lamb is from Camilla’s farm.” Camilla gives us a friendly wave, and my eyes fix upon her sweater, featuring row upon row of colourful motifs. Think Fair Isle but less orderly: each stripe holds a different design. “Oh, I made this,” she says. “It’s hønsestrik – chicken knitting. You can use it to tell your story – so this one is about hiking,” she adds, pointing to each section: “These are my footprints, this is my tent, my coffee flask …” Samsø, just 43 sq miles (112 sq km), lies off the coast of the Jutland peninsula, an hour’s ferry ride from Aarhus, and is something of a poster child for sustainability and the good life, being known as “Denmark’s vegetable garden” because of its fertile soil and beneficial climate. It’s been energy-positive since …

Can hackers break encrypted USB drives? I tried to find out

Can hackers break encrypted USB drives? I tried to find out

Published by skeptic

Kingston IronKey Locker+50 G2 pros and cons Pros Military-grade encryption Built-in brute-force protection Starts at only $50. Cons USB-A connector, so it needs a dock or converter for modern systems Cap is easily lost No lanyard. Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. Carrying data around on unencrypted drives is just asking for trouble. Lose the drive, and not only are you down the device, but also all its data is open to anyone who finds it. If you run a business, this loss can be a fast track to fines and regulatory headaches. I recommend that anyone who needs a flash storage device should use hardware-encrypted flash drives.  With this approach, if you lose the drive, you’re only down the drive. Also: A common charging habit was quietly killing my iPhone’s battery – here’s the fix For the past few weeks, I’ve been testing the Kingston IronKey Locker+50 G2 flash drive, and while it’s not perfect, it’s a great solution for most people. Hardware vs. software encryption OK, so the IronKey Locker+50 G2 …

11 Best Fanny Packs of 2026 Give Your Pockets a Break

11 Best Fanny Packs of 2026 Give Your Pockets a Break

Published by Jenni Sidey

Listen, we can dance around what to call the best fanny packs—a.k.a. sling bags, crossbody bags, bum bags, shoulder bags, etc. But let’s not kid ourselves about what they are. Even the best fanny packs are, simply, fanny packs—and they’re useful as hell. Once shorthand for a whole era of ill-advised style decisions, the fanny pack has re-emerged into our good graces, a product of menswear’s gorpy overhaul and the realization that there are many funkier, weirder, wilder ways to dress (or carry a bag) than a buckle-on pocket in 2025. Its selling point is fairly obvious: The fanny pack is functional and versatile. When a backpack is too sweaty and a shoulder bag of some sort cramps your [pharmaceutical ad voiceover] active lifestyle, the fanny pack steps in to store all your necessities: keys, ChapStick, sunglasses, hand sanitizer, AirPods, backup AirPods, and more. Wear one around your waist like a dad trying to puzzle out where the visitor’s center is on a large map, or sling it over your body in, like, 13 other …

A Chevron Texas Power Plant Seeks School District Tax Break

A Chevron Texas Power Plant Seeks School District Tax Break

Published by skeptic

A major oil company is seeking a state tax break in Texas worth hundreds of millions of dollars to build a massive power plant. The energy won’t be going to residential customers, though. Instead, the gas plant will be used to power a data center whose eventual tenant could be Microsoft. Chevron subsidiary Energy Forge One has filed an application with the State Comptroller’s board to obtain a tax abatement for a power plant it’s building in West Texas. In late January, the comptroller’s office made a recommendation to support the application’s approval—the first such approval under the program for a power plant intended solely for data center use. In March, following news reports that Microsoft was looking into purchasing power from the Energy Forge project, Chevron said that it had entered into an “exclusivity agreement” with Microsoft and Engine 1, an investment fund involved in the project. In January, Microsoft pledged to be a “good neighbor” in communities where it is building data centers, including promising to pay a “full and fair share of …

NASA Rover Gets Arm Stuck Inside Mars Rock, Struggles to Break Free

NASA Rover Gets Arm Stuck Inside Mars Rock, Struggles to Break Free

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech NASA’s Curiosity rover got stuck in a rock, and consequently found itself in a hard place. Last month, the Mars robot was drilling into a rock sample using its robotic arm, as is routine in its scientific investigations. But when it tried to move on, the persistent rock got stuck to the drill and wouldn’t shake off.  New images released by NASA depict Curiosity’s struggle to detach itself. Far from a momentary inconvenience, it took six days before the rover’s drill was liberated from the clingy rock. The images were captured in black and white by the rover’s hazard cameras, which the agency strung together into a rudimentary video. Got something weighing you down? Shake it off (like Curiosity)! The Martian explorer unintentionally picked up a rock while drilling a recent sample, but the team was able to dislodge it by having the rover move its robotic arm and vibrate the drill until the rock fell off. pic.twitter.com/LnLYjIBW2H …

Taking a break from social media does not improve mental health, mass data review finds

Taking a break from social media does not improve mental health, mass data review finds

Published by José Betancourt

Many people attempt to improve their mental health by taking a temporary break from social media apps like Facebook or Instagram. A new comprehensive review of existing data reveals that entirely giving up these platforms does not actually make people feel better or worse. The research was published in the journal Scientific Reports. In an increasingly connected world, digital platforms shape how individuals communicate and form relationships. Many users experience a mix of benefits and drawbacks from this constant connectivity. People often report feeling distracted, stressed, or envious of others online. Psychologists sometimes refer to this situation as the mobile connectivity paradox. Digital devices offer constant access to information and social support. At the very same moment, they can trap users in a cycle of endless obligations to reply to messages and stay updated. This tension leaves many people searching for ways to regain control over their attention. To manage these negative feelings, a popular strategy called a digital detox has emerged. This involves a person voluntarily stopping all use of social media for a …

EU floats making it easy for oil companies to break methane rules – POLITICO

EU floats making it easy for oil companies to break methane rules – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

But in response to fierce opposition from industry, member countries and the U.S. government, the Commission is now floating a more relaxed approach to enforcement of the rules. Under the draft recommendations, companies would be allowed exemptions under three crisis conditions outlined in the EU’s security of supply regulation — including the “early warning” level, which can be triggered before any real disruption occurs. The recommendations emphasize that authorities can suspend or reduce fines on a case-by-case basis, citing a wide range of mitigating factors, including the availability of cargoes, ship terminal capacity, the ability of countries to meet EU oil stockpiling requirements, and a range of others, left to the broad discretion of member countries.   The EU executive has repeatedly ruled out changing the rules themselves, and the recommendations — which are set to be presented to countries on Monday, and are subject to change — instead take advantage of broad wording in the original legislation to keep the rules intact while highlighting flexibilities. Source link