All posts tagged: decimate

Google Is Making Huge Changes That Are Poised to Decimate What’s Left of Journalism

Google Is Making Huge Changes That Are Poised to Decimate What’s Left of Journalism

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech It’s looking like time to sound two death knells. One for the demise of the simple Google search, and another for the entire journalism industry. On Tuesday, Google announced a massive change to its homepage that’ll transforms the old-school search box, and with it, the entire web ecosystem. Going forward, it’ll be an “intelligent” search box that expands into a more chatbot-like experience that weaves together the company’s existing AI features.  The layout encourages you to ask lengthy questions like you would with a chatbot, and comes with an AI-powered autocomplete feature to help flesh out your thoughts. Questions like these will prompt the search box to show AI Overviews, Google’s AI-generated — and notoriously unreliable — summaries that appear above the actual search results. Since the search box is “designed to anticipate your intent,” Google claims, it can also expand into AI Mode, Google’s fully AI-powered search feature, allowing you to upload pictures and documents. But the …

‘Decimate’ means much more today than it did in ancient Rome : NPR

‘Decimate’ means much more today than it did in ancient Rome : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

A depiction of a Roman decimation. William Hogarth/Wikipedia Commons hide caption toggle caption William Hogarth/Wikipedia Commons If you’ve been following the news lately, you might have noticed that a certain word has suddenly become a favorite of President Trump’s: “decimate.” He has used it a lot to describe U.S. military action against Iran. Take, for example, part of his April 1 address to the nation about Operation Epic Fury: “We’ve beaten and completely decimated Iran. They are decimated both militarily and economically.” Today, most people know the word as a synonym for “destroy.” But fewer realize its origins — or that it’s come to mean something strikingly different than it once did. Michiel de Vaan, an etymologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, says decimate traces back to the Latin decimatio, by way of decimus, meaning a tenth. In its original Latin form, decimatio “meant to take out and kill one-tenth of a group of soldiers,” he says. It meant something very specific — a brutal form of discipline, not a vague notion of …

Jeffries: ‘What Donald Trump has done is decimate the bank accounts of the American people’

Jeffries: ‘What Donald Trump has done is decimate the bank accounts of the American people’

Published by Sam Flores

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) blasted President Trump at a Democratic National Committee (DNC) briefing, saying his policies have hurt Americans’ wallets and livelihoods.  “Donald Trump has not managed to liberate the economy,” Jeffries said. “What Donald Trump has done is decimate the bank accounts of the American people.” Democratic lawmakers and DNC leaders… Source link

Storms decimate thousands of puffins on France’s Atlantic coast

Storms decimate thousands of puffins on France’s Atlantic coast

Published by Sam Flores

A dead puffin on the south beach of Mimizan, France, February 15, 2026. UGO AMEZ FOR LE MONDE On Mimizan beach, the wind seemed as if it would never stop sweeping across the waves, almost as if it was crashing them against the sand, which in places was itself carried off by gusts. Rain fell heavily on this stretch of the coastline in southwestern France, where only a few walkers braved the elements. Storm Nils had passed through, leaving damage everywhere. The eyes of those out in these conditions were inevitably drawn to odd little dark spots at regular intervals, which could have easily been mistaken from afar for clumps of seaweed. Only up close could one see that they were birds, more precisely, Atlantic puffins: Their black and white feathers, webbed feet and colorful beaks left no room for doubt. Along the three kilometers of this single Mimizan beach on Sunday, February 15, more than 100 puffins were found stranded, already dead or too weak to take flight again. “Now imagine that along the entire …