Benjamin Hall, Author at Cactus three

Switching to a Flip Phone Helped Me Cut Down on My Smartphone Addiction

06

Jan

Science and Technology

Switching to a Flip Phone Helped Me Cut Down on My Smartphone Addiction

This time of year, everyone asks what you like least about your life, but they phrase it as, “What’s your New Year’s resolution?”My biggest regret of 2023 was my relationship to my smartphone, or my “tech appendage” as I’ve named it in my iPhone settings. My Apple Screen Time reports regularly clocked in at more than five hours a day.That’s only an hour more than the average American, but I still found it staggering to think that I spent the equivalent of January, February and half of March looking at that tiny screen (April too, if we only count waking…

Alaska Airlines Plane Makes Emergency Landing After Losing Window

06

Jan

By Benjamin Hall

Investments and Business

Alaska Airlines Plane Makes Emergency Landing After Losing Window

Alaska Airlines grounded its fleet of Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft on Friday after a flight operated by the airline made an emergency landing at Portland International Airport in Oregon that evening because of a midair pressure problem that passengers said blew out a chunk of the fuselage.The airline said that Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 had made a safe emergency landing carrying 171 passengers and six crew members at the Portland airport shortly after takeoff for Ontario, Calif. Within hours, the company said that it was grounding all 65 of its Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft until it could inspect…

Indonesia Train Crash Kills at Least 3, Official Says

05

Jan

By Benjamin Hall

New miscellaneous

Indonesia Train Crash Kills at Least 3, Official Says

Nearly 500 passengers were evacuated on Friday morning after two trains collided on the edge of a rice field near the Indonesian city of Bandung, killing at least three people and injuring more than two dozen others, officials said.The accident occurred just after dawn in Rancaekek District, east of the city on the island of Java. Footage from the scene showed mangled train carriages, including at least two that had gone off the rails into a flooded rice field.One train was a local commuter line, and the other was heading west to Bandung from the city of Surabaya when the…

Paxlovid Cuts Covid Death Risk. But Those Who Need It Are Not Taking It.

05

Jan

By Benjamin Hall

Health

Paxlovid Cuts Covid Death Risk. But Those Who Need It Are Not Taking It.

As Covid rises again, killing about 1,500 Americans each week, medical researchers are trying to understand why so few people are taking Paxlovid, a medicine that is stunningly effective in preventing severe illness and death from the disease.A study of a million high-risk people with Covid found that only about 15 percent who were eligible for the drug took it. If instead half of the eligible patients in the United States had gotten Paxlovid during the time period of the research, 48,000 deaths could have been prevented, the authors of the study, conducted by the National Institutes of Health, concluded.It’s…

Six teams, one draft and loads of Ikea furniture: How the PWHL was made in six months

04

Jan

By Benjamin Hall

New miscellaneous

Six teams, one draft and loads of Ikea furniture: How the PWHL was made in six months

TORONTO — The line began at the gates of Mattamy Athletic Centre and stretched a full city block. Women’s hockey fans, after decades of waiting for a best-on-best league, were happy to wait a little longer for the doors to open for the first-ever Professional Women’s Hockey League game.The line was dotted with reminders of the past. There was a Natalie Spooner Toronto Furies jersey from her time in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League. Several Toronto Six jerseys representing the Premier Hockey Federation and some from the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association exhibition stops. The people wearing those jerseys from…

Happy Puppies and Silly Geese: Pushing the Limits of A.I. Absurdity

04

Jan

By Benjamin Hall

Science and Technology

Happy Puppies and Silly Geese: Pushing the Limits of A.I. Absurdity

What is the happiest dog you can imagine? Is it beaming with joy on a celestial plane or frolicking in a field of psychedelic flora?If those images are hard to conjure, have no fear, or perhaps a healthy dose of it: Artificial intelligence can vivify even the most absurd scenarios in vibrant color, and on social media, some are seeing how far it can be pushed.Though A.I.-generated images can often unsettle with their uncanny realism — think the pope in a Balenciaga puffer jacket — many are finding joy in a new form of low-stakes image tinkering. This fall, ChatGPT…