All posts tagged: means

‘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 …

“The sooner you start, the easier it is, but it’s never too late”—meet the 85-year-old redefining what it means to age well

“The sooner you start, the easier it is, but it’s never too late”—meet the 85-year-old redefining what it means to age well

Published by Jenni Sidey

Jim Owen, 85, is living, breathing, push-up repping proof that it’s never too late to get fit. Today he’s a 10-time gold medal winner at the San Diego Senior Games—an event that included a remarkable two-and-a-half minute dead hang. He’s also the filmmaker behind a three-part documentary series, “Virtuous Circle: A Geezer’s Guide to Successful Aging”, now streaming on PBS. Article continues below You may like But just 15 years earlier, a three-decade-long career on Wall Street and subsequent book tour had left his body broken. “When I turned 70 I was in god-awful shape,” he tells Fit&Well. “All the travel got to me—it damn near killed me. “Excruciating lower-back pain—I’m talking crawling-on-the-bathroom-floor kind of pain. My right rotator cuff was frozen. I had no energy at all. I said, ‘I’ve got to do something’.” Start your week with achievable workout ideas, health tips and wellbeing advice in your inbox. In that moment, Owen resolved to transform his life, spending the next decade reintroducing movement into his daily routine, building a foundation of strength and, …

Self-Silencing: What It Means And Why It’s A Problem For Mothers

Self-Silencing: What It Means And Why It’s A Problem For Mothers

Published by Sam Flores

This article features expert insight from psychologist Anjula Mutanda. When you’re caring for children, and perhaps ageing parents too, it can be easy to fall into a pattern of self-silencing. “Many of the women I speak to who are caring for ageing parents, a partner or children, or all at once, share a common pattern – they’ve slowly stopped advocating for themselves without noticing,” says Anjula Mutanda, a psychologist working with stairlift brand Stannah. “However, your wellbeing and presence in your relationships are what makes what you do possible.” If you find yourself in a pattern of ignoring your own needs, holding back on speaking up, or avoiding addressing something that’s bothering you (often for the sake of not being seen as a burden or appearing confrontational), you could be “self-silencing”. “This psychological behaviour is especially prevalent in women, particularly those in caregiving roles, where the balance is lost between meeting your own emotional needs and other people’s,” says Mutanda. Social conditioning and gender norms play a big part in this. Psychologist Maytal Eyal wrote …

“Let’s Get Ruthless”: Bulwark’s Bill Kristol Suggests Illiberal Means Are Needed To Save Liberal Democracy

“Let’s Get Ruthless”: Bulwark’s Bill Kristol Suggests Illiberal Means Are Needed To Save Liberal Democracy

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by Jonathan Turley, “Let’s get ruthless.” Those words are, unfortunately, nothing new in this age of rage. In just the last few weeks, various liberal pundits and politicians have been calling for radical and even violent action. Even comedian Margaret Cho publicly declared this week that “we need a feral, bloodthirsty, violent Democrat.” However, these words were reposted by Bill Kristol, the founder of the Weekly Standard and the current editor-in-chief of The Bulwark. Kristol was a leading conservative figure in the Republican Party. Kristol left the Republican Party and is now a vehemently anti-Trump writer. There are certainly good-faith reasons why some conservatives have broken with Trump on a variety of issues. However, the original column was endorsing the Democratic plan to pack the Supreme Court with an instant liberal majority to force through a slew of political changes in the country. Various Democrats have been pledging to not only impeach Trump (and a long list of other figures), but to pack the Supreme Court as soon as they regain power. James Carville declared, “If the Democrats win the presidency and …

Why a century-old naval disaster means Trump can’t take the Strait of Hormuz by force

Why a century-old naval disaster means Trump can’t take the Strait of Hormuz by force

Published by Sam Flores

Why has nothing been done to reopen the Strait of Hormuz? The answer is simple – as his advisers will have told Donald Trump before he attacked Iran, it is almost impossible to clear a passage through a minefield when the shoreline is held by the enemy, without being prepared to take significant casualties. And this, it seems, the US is not prepared to do. It is one thing to bomb a less technologically sophisticated enemy from the air, but quite another to get involved in a real fight at sea level with an opponent who has been planning this form of asymmetric warfare for a very long time. History gives a stark lesson on why America needs to tread warily – a page from the First World War. It was March 1915. The “straits” concerned were the Dardanelles – the narrow passage linking the Mediterranean to the Black Sea and giving access to Istanbul. The Turks were the defenders, the British and the French the attackers. They were in the middle of a shooting …

FCC’s router ban expands to portable hotspots – 4 things this means for you

FCC’s router ban expands to portable hotspots – 4 things this means for you

Published by skeptic

Cesar Cadenas/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET’s key takeaways The FCC has added mobile hotspots to its ban on foreign-made routers. You may pay more for your next device. New equipment probably won’t bring as many new features. Just a month after announcing a sweeping router ban that prohibits new foreign-made routers from hitting the US market, including popular brands like TP-Link, Linksys, and Asus, the FCC has expanded that ban to include mobile hotspots as well. The commission hasn’t made an official announcement about the expansion, but in a section that details what qualifies as a consumer-grade router (first spotted by PCMag), there’s new verbiage that includes “portable or mobile MiFi Wi-Fi or hotspot devices for residential use” as well as “LTE/5G CPE devices for residential use.”  Also: This Wi-Fi 7 router solved my big internet headache – and it’s accessibly priced Since the ban doesn’t include any existing devices, there will be no impact on your current setup in the short term. When you might see a difference, …

Anne Hathaway’s inshallah moment: What the Arabic phrase means and why it went viral

Anne Hathaway’s inshallah moment: What the Arabic phrase means and why it went viral

Published by Daniella Wilson

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Three days ago, People magazine posted a clip from an interview with actor Anne Hathaway, who is currently on a global press tour. One of the questions concerned Hathaway’s feelings about ageing. In her response she – a non-Muslim – casually threw the word “inshallah” in mid-sentence. The reaction was big. The clip quickly went viral, with the incident reported on Al Jazeera, Grazia, and HuffPost, among others. Why has this moment struck such a chord with Muslims and Arabs worldwide? So what does it mean? Inshallah (also transliterated as “insha’Allah” and “inshaallah”) is an Arabic term that means “if God wills” or “God willing”. The reaction to Anne Hathaway’s comment has been overwhelmingly positive (PA) The term is most commonly associated with Muslims, …

AI has crossed a threshold – what Claude Mythos means for the future of cybersecurity

AI has crossed a threshold – what Claude Mythos means for the future of cybersecurity

Published by skeptic

The limit of what artificial intelligence can achieve, known as frontier AI, has crossed another threshold. AI can now plan and execute sophisticated cyber operations with minimal guidance at speeds far beyond human capability. That, at least, is the evidence from an independent test of Claude Mythos Preview, the latest and most advanced model in the Claude family of AI systems, developed by US tech firm Anthropic. Similar to ChatGPT, these can understand and generate human-like text, analyse information, and solve complex problems. The finance sector is alarmed. It relies on highly interconnected digital systems that are especially attractive targets for sophisticated cyber-attacks. A successful breach could disrupt payments, freeze access to funds, and erode public trust in the banking system. Major UK and US banks are preparing controlled trials under strict safeguards. They will be granted secure, supervised access to the Mythos Preview model in isolated environments, to evaluate its ability to detect vulnerabilities in their systems while minimising any risk of misuse. It’s a bit like dangerous viruses being examined in high-security laboratories. …

Ticketmaster says it’s caught scalpers selling ‘thousands’ of Harry Styles tickets. Here’s what it means for fans

Ticketmaster says it’s caught scalpers selling ‘thousands’ of Harry Styles tickets. Here’s what it means for fans

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the inside track from Roisin O’Connor with our free weekly music newsletter Now Hear This Get our free music newsletter Now Hear This Get our free music newsletter Now Hear This Ticketmaster has said it caught scalpers selling “thousands of illegal” tickets to Harry Styles’s forthcoming New York City concerts, vowing to get them back to fans at the original price. Earlier this year, exorbitant ticket prices for the pop star’s Together, Together tour left fans outraged. At the time, the most expensive VIP package for his 30-show Madison Square Garden residency was priced at $1,667. In an effort to be more transparent with how “ticketing actually works,” Ticketmaster president Saumil Mehta said Wednesday in a letter on social media, “I want to walk you through what happened here, and how we’re working with Harry and his team to help real fans. “We caught scalpers using multiple accounts and fake identities to try to get around ticket limits and resell tickets for profit,” he continued. “We’ve canceled those tickets, none of which had been …

What the New Executive Order Means for Psychedelics

What the New Executive Order Means for Psychedelics

Published by Jenni Sidey

Psychedelic medicine has been building momentum for years, but the new executive order signed on April 18, 2026, has pushed the conversation into much more public territory. The order, titled Accelerating Medical Treatments for Serious Mental Illness, directs federal agencies to move more quickly on research, review, and access pathways for investigational psychedelic treatments. That kind of headline naturally creates excitement, but also should be approached with caution and likely some limitations on what it can and cannot do for treatment options. The first thing worth saying clearly is this: An executive order is not Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. It does not mean psychedelic medications are suddenly available in routine psychiatric care, and it does not mean the evidence questions have been settled. What it does mean is that the federal government is signaling unusual interest in helping parts of the development and regulatory process move faster. For patients and families, that distinction matters. In psychiatry, a treatment can be promising long before it is practical, scalable, or appropriate for widespread use. Many …