‘Avengers: Endgame’ opening and trailer

Karen Gillan, left, and Don Cheadle in “Endgame.”CreditDisney/Marvel Studios, via Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — “Avengers: Endgame” had record-breaking ticket sales over the weekend.

The superhero movie — the 22nd in a series from Disney’s Marvel Studios — collected roughly $350 million in the United States and Canada. That easily beat “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” (2015), which had opening-weekend sales of $248 million, which translates to about $270 million in today’s dollars.

“Avengers: Endgame,” which received euphoric reviews from critics  took in an astounding $1.2 billion worldwide, arriving as the No. 1 movie in at least 54 countries. Disney said on Sunday morning that the movie set a record for the largest opening weekend in 44 overseas markets, with Imax theaters contributing an outsized portion of ticket sales, particularly in China.

“It shows the power of theaters — the ability, even in a hyper-fragmented culture, to deliver that wildly big communal experience,” Megan Colligan, president of Imax Filmed Entertainment, said in an interview.

To keep up with demand, AMC Theaters added 5,000 last-minute show times in the United States over the weekend, lifting its total number to more than 63,000. Nineteen AMC locations played “Avengers: Endgame” around the clock. On Saturday alone, 2.3 million people turned up at AMC cinemas.

“Young moviegoers will remember where they were when they saw ‘Endgame,’ who they saw it with, and what it felt like,” said John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners. “That will pay off for years to come in the same way that moviegoers who grew up in the ’70s and ’80s still talk about the impact that ‘Star Wars’ had on them.”

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Article from The New York Times

Brunei’s ultra-rich monarch

Part A –How about asking questions so as to get the underlined answers?

Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, one of the world’s richest men, rules 430,000 subjects of the tiny, oil-soaked island of Borneo as an absolute monarch, who also holds the titles of prime minister, defense minister, finance minister and foreign minister . He owns a gold-plated Rolls-Royce, and lives in a palace with air-conditioned stables for 200 polo ponies.

The sultan pushed for the adoption of a harsh Islamic code, which came into force last month. Among other brutal punishments, it calls for the amputation of a right hand on a first offence or left foot on a second offence as punishment for thieves, and death by stoning for for adultery or sex outside marriage. Sex between men and insulting the Prophet are also all punishable by stoning. Whipping is prescribed for all manner of crimes; children are not exempt.

Although the death penalty has long been on the books, there have been no executions since 1957. Yet there is no guarantee that Brunei’s courts will not implement the new laws.

Brunei gained full independence from Britain in 1984, but the Sultan still pays for about 2,000 British troops to be based in the country under a five-year agreement due to expire next year.

The sultan’s family has not always lived up to the standards he expects of his subjects.

The most famous person to have been accused of theft in Brunei is Prince Jefri Bolkiah, the brother of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah.

The Prince owns 600 properties, 2,000 cars, a private Boeing 747 and several works by Renoir, Manet and Degas. He allegedly embezzled almost $15bn from a sovereign-wealth fund during his tenure as finance minister in the 1990s.

He has a reputation as a womanizer, too. Several women have claimed that he kept them in sexual slavery in a crowded harem. (The prince named one of his yachts Tits and her two supply ships Nipple 1 and Nipple 2.)

  Part B –Let’s think of synonyms for the highlighted items

  Part C –Please fill in the blanks with suitable prepositions

The boycott against businesses owned by the Brunei state has grown ________ recent days, following an outcry ________ the introduction of the new rules.

With other celebrities including the actor George Clooney giving their support ________  the boycott campaign, a string of companies will no longer use The Dorchester five-star hotel’s facilities and are cancelling events.

Clooney said: “Every single time we stay ________  or dine ________  any of these nine The Dorchester hotels, we are putting money directly ________ the pockets of men who choose to stone and whip to death their own citizens ________  being gay or accused ________  adultery.”

The English National Ballet, Make-A-Wish Foundation will be reviewing their associations ________  The Dorchester.

Major companies, such as Deutsche Bank, are banning their staff ________  staying in Brunei-owned hotels.

“The new laws introduced________ Brunei breach the most basic human rights, and we believe it is our duty as a firm to take action ________  them,” the Deutsche Bank chief risk officer, Stuart Lewis, said ________  a statement.

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has agreed ________ pull advertisements promoting Brunei as a tourist destination ________  the city’s transport network.

From The Economist (edited) and The Irish Times (edited)

Rock climbing (captions)

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A bitter customer service

Three years ago, when travelling for work, I dropped into a café for a dose of morning caffeine. But when I asked for a bit of sugar, the barista flatly refused, telling me they didn’t offer it. Irritated, I had no choice but to drink it unsweetened.

Actually, it was pretty good. Turns out I had stumbled upon Oddly Correct Coffee Bar, a cafe in Kansas City, Missouri. A café which I later found out is one of the top coffee spots in the US.

Part of its charm is its enforcement of strict coffee culture rules. Oddly Correct is part of a new breed of high-end coffee shops that have zero tolerance policies on sugar, milk and cream to preserve what they feel is coffee quality. Others simply don’t sell smaller espresso-based drinks ‘to go’ because they feel the taste suffers if not enjoyed right away.

Often called Third Wave coffee shops, these aficionados use high-quality roasted beans that they feel should be consumed unadulterated by additional flavors (even ones their customers might wish to add). Many of these zero-tolerance coffee shops feel that they are simply re-educating consumers by implementing these rules.

The idea is to let customers taste the quality of beans from places such as Colombia and Ethiopia, and detect different notes similar to tasting a glass of wine.

But the number of zero-tolerance coffee shops remains a tiny fraction of the more than 32,150 coffee shops across the US.

So-called zero tolerance policies aren’t unique to coffee and are expanding throughout the food service sector. These days, more restaurants refuse to serve steak well done or even serve the condiments that some customers may request.

At Oddly Correct, where I first encountered this trend, the rules are relaxing slightly. Last month, the shop started stocking milk and cream behind the bar to be more inclusive, says Mike Schroeder, roaster and co-owner.

Sugar is still a no-no, but relaxing the policy around adding milk to brewed coffee has already led to an uptick in business, he says. Even though few people actually ask for the cream, knowing it’s available has helped change the shop’s image to be more accepting of different choices around coffee, he adds.

Oddly Correct has also added some sweeter drinks: a vanilla latte is sweetened with a locally made bourbon syrup, for instance. Baristas have softened the way they discuss the policies. “We’ve learned how to refine our language and our approach in ways that are still welcoming and accommodating, but not yielding to every single request,” he adds.

Some coffee drinkers say the shops have helped them learn about coffee – and they eventually change their preferences.

Black Black owner Josh McNeilly concedes that his policy isn’t always good for business and the shop sometimes struggles to turn a monthly profit. “It could easily be twice as profitable if I served cream and sugar and bigger lattes, but it’s my passion to try to educate people on what coffee could possibly taste like,” he says.

To mitigate negative comments, McNeilly trains his team in how to explain the shop’s philosophy to first-time customers. Baristas focus on helping customers understand why milk and sugar aren’t served rather than simply telling them it’s not available.

From BBC (edited)

India's elections (video)

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Braxton’s Graduation

Braxton Moral, who is 16 years old, is scheduled to receive a high school diploma from Ulysses High School and a bachelor's degree from Harvard by the end of next month. "It's not as hard as you think; it's just an efficient use of time," he says.

Moral was born in Kansas, the youngest of four children. In some ways, he is just like any other teenager. He loves video games and movies. He plays tennis and goes to church.

But when he was 3 years old, he could "entertain people" at volleyball games by calculating the score's difference in points. People also said he had a big vocabulary. Still, his mother, Julie Moral,  didn't notice that her son was gifted.

By second grade, he was getting bused to a different building with third- and fourth-graders for English and math, she said. Then he skipped the fourth grade.

As he got older, he started to become depressed. He was asking questions like, "Why do I exist?" and "What's my purpose?".

His parents took him to a community college for testing. "They thought the machine was broken," his father, Carlos Moral, told The Hutchinson News. "He was like off the scale"

The Duke University Talent Identification Program told the family that Braxton needed to be challenged. Around age 11, he began Harvard University's extension, which "ideally serves" working professionals who can attend classes both on campus and online.

Braxton completed fall and spring college courses online, and began taking summer classes at the Cambridge, Mass., campus for the first time as he rose into his junior year at high school. He spends a full, eight-hour day in high school but has permission to work on Harvard assignments during a computer lab course.

He likes being on Harvard's campus because "it feels like you're in history," with buildings that are older than the founding of the United States.

The university pays half of his tuition, his mother says. "Because of his age and the fact that he doesn't have a high school diploma, he couldn't get regular scholarships or federal aid. We got some private loans to help ease the financial burden."

Braxton is pursuing a bachelor of liberal arts in extension studies in government. He says he wants to attend Harvard Law School and, someday, become a politician.

For now, he most enjoys a Greek mythology course he is taking at Harvard — and weightlifting in high school. "It's physical activity," he says. "Any break you get from the classroom is a good one."

From NPR 

Ice age fossils underneath LA subway system (video)

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Leonardo da Vinci died 500 years ago (audio)

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Gen Z and social media

Malak Silmi was taking her first real journalism class last January when her professor said something that changed her life: Watch what you post on social media because it might just come back to bite you.

Silmi's Twitter account at the time was one she'd had since she was 14. It was a public profile with her content ranging from memes and status updates to opinions on foreign policy. But she decided something had to change if she wanted to be taken seriously as a journalist. So, she deactivated it.

"I understand the need to censor oneself, but sometimes I don't think it's fair," said the 19-year-old. "Even liking on Twitter is hard because people can see what you like."

Silmi and many of her peers say they worry about being unable to express any opinions on social media out of fear of self-sabotaging a potential career opportunity. 
The oldest members of Generation Z are around 22 years old— now entering the workforce and adjusting their social media accordingly. They are holding back from posting political opinions and personal information in favor of posting about professional accomplishments.

In fact, only about 1 in 10 teenagers say they share personal, religious or political beliefs on social media, says Pew Research Center.

Employers are watching — and asking job seekers to walk a careful line between sharing the wrong kind of information and staying away from social media altogether. These days, 70% of employers and recruiters say they check social media during the hiring process, according to  CareerBuilder, a company that connects employers and candidates. More than half of employers said they have not hired a candidate because of content they found on social media, but a similar number said if they can't find an applicant online, they are less likely to call that person in for an interview.

"Hiring is always kind of a judgment call," says Michelle Armer, the chief people officer at CareerBuilder. "Employers are eager to find more information that will support the decision that they're making."

Silmi realized the only way to beat those employers was not to leave social media completely, but to join their game.

From the ashes of her old account that detailed her youth, a new one arose: This account was public, too, but it depicted a professional persona that was lacking in the other account. She uses this new account to share credible news articles and the latest updates on her journalism career — with a few sports tweets scattered in between.

Silmi's generation grew up with social media. Generation Z, nicknamed "iGen," is the post-millennial generation responsible for "killing" Facebook and for the rise of Tik Tok.

Twitter went live in 2006, and Snapchat in 2011, when the older members of Gen Z were only 14. A lifetime of exposure, some experts say, actually makes them the most prepared generation for this kind of social media surveillance.

"In a sense, Gen Zers are actually in better positions than millennials," said Taylor Lorenz, an Internet culture reporter at The Atlantic. "because Gen Z are cognizant of their image from the time that they're getting on social media."

In fact, Lorenz notes, some children start thinking of their online presence in the third grade . According to Colby Zintl, the vice president of external affairs for Common Sense Media, this opens up a need to teach youth about social media.

"We teach people to drive, how to have safe sex, and how to eat well: the Internet is just another one of those things that need to come with some instructions," said Zintl. 
Some digital citizenship program are working to educate the younger generation on how to use social media, something the older generations were never taught.

Because of this extra education and hands-on learning, teenagers are often more savvy of these social platforms than the employers that are searching through them — it's just a matter of making social media work for them, rather than against them.

Some users are regularly cleaning up — "re-curating" — their online profiles. That can mean changing the people they follow and the things they post, or deleting old posts that no longer reflect a personal brand. Cleanup apps, like TweetDelete exist to help during this process.

Gen Zers also use social media in more ephemeral ways than older generations — Snapchat stories that disappear after 24 hours, or Instagram posts that they archive a couple of months later.

Where Facebook is usually tied directly to a user's real name and identity, the personas on the platforms Gen Zers use, like Twitter and Instagram, can be altered and controlled. Gen Zers already use a multitude of strategies to make sure their online presence is visible only to who they want: They set their account to private, change their profile name or even make completely separate "fake" accounts.

Armer of CareerBuilder still urges young people to post with caution rather than relying on ways to clean up those feeds.

"Don't put anything online that you don't want a hiring manager to see," said Armer. "If it's on the Internet, it's never really gone."

From NPR (edited)

Microplastic in Pyrenees air (audio)

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Helvetica, the iconic font, first redesign in 36 Years

It's been used by brands such as American Airlines, Panasonic and Toyota. It's all over the signage in the New York City subway system. Even Google, Apple and Netflix used it for a time.

Helvetica is ubiquitous around the world.

Now, after 36 years, the widely used — and widely controversial — font is getting a makeover.

The upgrade was designed by the the Massachusetts type giant Monotype, which controls licensing for Helvetica. The company has updated each of Helvetica's 40,000 characters for the digital age, offering three new sizes designed to work on everything from billboards to the tiny screens of a smart watch. The updated font even has a new name:  "Helvetica Now."

Like many changes, though, some people are skeptical.

"If I'm perfectly honest, my first reaction was, do we need another Helvetica?" says Charles Nix, type director at Monotype.

The altered typeface became a trending topic on Twitter.

"Half the people were like, 'Awesome. It's dead. Finally! I'm so glad it's gone. It's the worst,' " Mitch Goldstein, a design professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology,  says. "And the other half of the people were like, 'Helvetica is incredible. It will never die.' "

So why is Helvetica such a polarizing typeface?

"Helvetica is one of those typefaces that you love or hate," graphic designer Sarah Hyndman explains. "You either use it all the time, it's become a staple, or you feel like you've grown out of it, and it's a little bit too ubiquitous."

"There are lots of foibles in Helvetica like the way the letters space," she says. "The letter 'L'looks too much like the number '1'."

Helvetica was not the most versatile font in the toolbox, admits Nix. Now, he says, that's all changed.

"Helvetica was seldom used for captions and small text because it was a little cramped," he says. "Instead of being micro-challenged, we've made it like a micro-champion. So when you set captions in the new version of Helvetica, it really sings."

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From NPR

Why is Scandinavia so expensive (video)

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US College Admissions Scandal (audio)

Actresses Lori Loughlin, left, and Felicity Huffman are among 50 people charged in a $25-million plot to buy their children’s way into top colleges, including Yale, Stanford and Georgetown University.

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Robot-Powered Pizza, Anyone?

By Bernard Marr

At Zume Pizza, a Mountain View, California (Bay Area) enterprise founded in 2015, humans do all the prep work for the ingredients, but then the robots take over repetitive and potentially dangerous tasks. When a customer places an order from Zume’s app, Doughbot starts preparing their specific order by turning a dough ball into a pizza crust in a mere 9 seconds. Robots Giorgio and Pepe take over from there by applying the sauce to the crust and pass the pie on to Marta, a robot who spreads the sauce to the corners of the crust. Humans step back in to put the toppings on, a task that is challenging to automate due to the different textures and sizes toppings come in. Then robots Bruno and Vincenzo put the pies in and out of the oven respectively. Customers get to enjoy a freshly made 14-inch pizza that costs between $10 and $20 with no need to tip.

Zume is also changing pizza delivery with its “Baked on the Way” technology. Delivery trucks with six ovens allow the company to make 120 pizzas per hour—baking when en route to a customer's door. The company collects data and uses predictive analytics that helps determine what day and time people are most apt to order pizza. They are then able to stock the delivery trucks with the types of pizza that are expected to be ordered so they are in position to respond quickly when an order comes in. Zume plans to expand by scaling its proprietary technology platform that includes logistics, infrastructure, and operations to help others in the food industry introduce similar automation to their operations.

As restaurant robots take over tasks from chefs, bartenders, servers and delivery drivers, what’s in store for the humans they are replacing?

“Automation exists to improve the quality of human lives,” Zume CEO Alex Garden said.

As with other industries, the hope for automation is that people are freed up to do higher-value work while robots are there to do the repetitive and dangerous work. It is expected the jobs of restaurant workers will change with the introduction of automation, but so far there’s no robot that can replace human interaction—yet.

 From Forbes (edited)