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If you're looking for a high-quality 4K streaming stick, look no further. Amazon's best model, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max, is on sale for Prime Day at an all-time low of $25, a full 55 percent off the regular price. And if even that is slightly too expensive, Amazon has also discounted the regular Fire TV Stick 4K by 54 percent to $23 (also an all-time low). Finally, if you want the most streaming power possible, the Fire TV Cube is on sale for $110 ($30) off — once again the cheapest price we've ever seen.
The best deal by a long shot is the Fire TV Stick 4K Max, though, with a steep $30 discount that makes it just $2 more than the Fire TV Stick 4K. It's Amazon’s most powerful streaming stick, thanks to a faster processor that delivers 40 percent more power than the one in the Fire TV Stick 4K. That translates to faster app start times and more fluid menu navigation, for a better overall experience. The Fire TV Sitck 4K Max also comes with WiFi 6 connectivity, as well as support for Dolby Vision, HDR, HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos audio, along with Alexa commands via the Alexa Voice Remote.
While not quite as zippy, the Fire TV Stick 4K is also on sale for $23, or 54 percent off. It's a great option if you want a low-profile streaming device that can handle 4K content. It also supports Dolby Vision and HDR, and comes with the Alexa Voice Remote, which lets you search for and launch content with voice commands. Frankly though, for the extra $2, I'd grab the Fire TV Stick 4K Max.
The Fire TV Cube (which is rarely discounted much) is on sale at an all-time low price of $110 (21 percent off). It's Amazon's most powerful streaming device with a hexa-core processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. It supports 4K, HDR content with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, and it has picture-in-picture live view as well. You're also getting hands-free Alexa controls, too, which means the Cube's built-in speaker will hear and recognize your commands to turn off your lights or check the weather, even with your TV off.
Finally, if you want to upgrade your remote on any Fire TV device, the Alexa Remote Pro is on sale for $28, or 20 percent off the regular price. It features a backlight and programmable buttons, but the most useful feature is the Remote Finder, which lets you ask Alexa to trigger a noise if decides to play hide and seek. And if you want to save a few more bucks on top of these all-time low prices, don't forget that Amazon is offering a $5 credit with the purchase of a $50 eGift Card.
Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for the best Amazon Prime Day tech deals. Learn about Prime Day trends on In the Know. Hear from Autoblog’s car experts on must-shop auto-related Prime Day deals and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazons-fire-tv-stick-4k-max-falls-to-25-in-early-prime-day-streaming-sale-103554549.html?src=rssAmazon's Fire TV Stick 4K Max falls to $25 in early Prime Day streaming sale
Amazon's Fire TV Stick 4K Max falls to $25 in early Prime Day streaming sale
Google's Pixel 8 Pro may have been revealed in new photos on Reddit by someone affiliated with Google, DroidLife has reported. The back shows a very Pixel-like camera array along with the rumored body temperature sensor, along with a sticker that reads "for test/evaluation only." Another reads "Zuma - B1," a possible code name for Google's incoming Tensor G3 chip. The front screen, meanwhile, shows a Fastboot Mode indicating 12GB of Samsung LPDDR5 DRAM, 128GB of storage and "husky," a previously revealed codename for the Pixel 8 Pro.
The Pixel 8 Pro is supposed to have a more capable camera array, with a 50-megapixel (MP) Samsung main camera that allows 50 percent more light, and a 64MP ultrawide Sony camera. It also looks to have a flat display, as rumored, rather than a curved one like the Pixel 6 Pro and Pixel 7 Pro models. According to yet another leak, it will have a 5,000 mAh battery (roughly the same as the Pixel 7 Pro) and a modest bump from a 23W to a 27W max charging speed.
In a series of posts on Reddit, the poster "annoyingtoread", said that he received it "from the device team in Google for testing." The person then mused that they should perhaps use a throwaway account, and someone replied "you really should, considering that in this account you've even posed pictures of yourself." The original poster subsequently deleted his account.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/googles-pixel-8-pro-prototype-revealed-in-leak-091118014.html?src=rssGoogle's Pixel 8 Pro prototype revealed in leak
Google's Pixel 8 Pro prototype revealed in leak
It’s a strange and wonderful time to buy a digital camera. Since smartphones have gutted the casual photography market, manufacturers are focusing on building technological marvels designed for very specific uses. Mirrorless cameras continue to improve in terms of autofocus, video and more. Action cams provide sharp, fluid video, compact cameras are targeted to both tourists and vloggers, and DSLRs are available at some of the best prices we’ve seen. With so many different types of digital cameras, though, you may need some guidance to find just the right one – and that’s where we come in. Whether you’re a creator looking for just the right vlogging camera, an aspiring wildlife photographer or a sports enthusiast, we’ll help you find the perfect model to match your budget and needs.
Best mirrorless cameras under $2,000
Best mirrorless cameras over $2,000
There are a lot of reasons to choose a camera over a smartphone. The larger image sensors in mirrorless cameras let more light in, and you have a wide choice of lenses, from wide-angle to telephoto lenses, with far superior optics. Where smartphones have one f/stop, cameras have many, which gives you more exposure control. You also get natural and not AI-generated bokeh, quicker shooting, a physical shutter, more professional video results and so on.
With that extra quality comes a lot of extra factors to consider, however. The first thing is sensor size. In general, the larger the sensor size, the better (and usually more expensive) the camera.
Full frame is available on models like Sony's new ZV-E1, the Canon EOS R6 II and Panasonic S5 II. At a size equivalent to 35mm film (36 x 24mm), it offers the best performance in terms of image quality, low-light capability and depth of field. It's also the most expensive and finicky. While bokeh looks incredible at f/1.4, the depth of field is so razor thin that your subject's nose might be in focus but not their eyes. This can also make video shooting difficult.
The next size category is APS-C (around 23.5 x 15.6mm for most models and 22.2 x 14.8mm for Canon), offered on Fujifilm's X Series lineup, Canon’s R10 and R50 and the Nikon Z50. It's cheaper than full frame, both for the camera body and lenses, but still brings most of the advantages like decent bokeh, high ISOs for low-light shooting and relatively high resolution. With a sensor size the same as movie cameras, it's ideal for shooting video, and it’s easier to hold focus than with full-frame cameras.
Micro Four Thirds (17.3 x 13mm), a format shared by Panasonic and Olympus, is the next step down in sensor size. It offers less bokeh and light-gathering capability than APS-C and full frame, but allows for smaller and lighter cameras and lenses. For video, you can still get reasonably tight depth of field with good prime lenses, but focus is easier to control.
The other common sensor size is Type 1 (1 inch), which is actually smaller than one inch at 12.7 x 9.5mm. That's used mostly by compact models like Sony’s ZV-1 vlogging camera. Finally, action cameras like the GoPro Hero 11 and DJI’s Osmo 3 have even smaller sensors (1/1.9 and 1/1.7 size, respectively).
For photographers, another key factor is autofocus (AF) speed and accuracy. Most modern mirrorless cameras have hybrid phase-detect AF systems that allow for rapid focus and fast burst speeds. The majority also feature AI smarts like eye-detect AF for people and animals. However, some models are just a bit faster and more reactive than others.
The electronic viewfinder (EVF) and rear display are also key. The best models have the sharpest and brightest EVFs that let you best judge a shot before taking it. For things like street photography, it’s best to have as bright and sharp a rear display as possible. You may also want a screen that flips out rather than just tilting.
DSLRs and mirrorless cameras let you change lenses, but you're stuck with what's built into a compact camera. While that's great for portability, a single lens means you're going to sacrifice something. Fujifilm's X100V, for instance, has a fast but fixed 35mm-equivalent f/2.0 lens and no zoom. Sony's RX100 V has a 24-70mm zoom, but it's slower at the telephoto end (f/2.8) and less sharp than a prime lens.
When it comes to video, there are other factors to consider. Does your camera do “pixel-binning” for video recording or read out the entire sensor? Better cameras tend to do the latter. Another key factor is sensor speed, as slower sensors tend to have more rolling shutter that can create a “jello” effect that skews video.
In addition, how’s the battery life? How do you like the handling and feel? How long can you shoot video before the camera heats up or stops? Does it support 10-bit HDR video? Is there a microphone and/or a headphone jack? (if you do a lot of interviews, it's preferable to have both.) How's the video autofocus? All of these things play a part in your decision – so now let’s take a look at the best models.
Mirrorless is far and away the biggest category of cameras for these days, so it’s the best way to go if you want the best camera for photography with the most advanced features. Both Canon and Nikon recently announced they’re discontinuing development of new DSLRs, simply because most of the advantages of that category are gone, as I detailed in a recent video. The biggest selling feature of a mirrorless camera is the ability to change lenses depending on the type of shooting you want to do.
The key features are sensor size, resolution, autofocus, shooting speeds and video specs. If you’re primarily focused on sports photography or outdoor photography, you’ll likely want fast shooting speeds and accurate autofocus. Portrait and landscape shooters will likely favor large sensors and high resolution to maximize image quality. And content creators will want to look for things like flip-out displays, high-end video specifications and good in-body stabilization. Price point is, of course, a major factor as well.
My top budget camera pick is Canon’s brand new 24.2-megapixel R50, which is one of the best cameras for photography, and content creators will love it. It can shoot bursts at up to 15 fps in electronic shutter mode, and offers 4K 10-bit at up to 30p with supersampling and no crop. It has a fully articulating display, and unlike other cameras in this price range, an electronic viewfinder. It uses Canon’s Dual Pixel AF with subject recognition mode, and even has a popup flash. The only drawback is the lack of decent quality lens that’s as affordable as the camera itself, and a lack of in-body stabilization.
Autofocus: Dual Pixel CMOS AF II with 651 points
Max shutter speed: 15 fps
WiFi: Yes
Bluetooth: Yes
Full-frame cameras generally used to start at $2,000 and up, but Canon’s brand new EOS R8 is priced at just $1,500. It offers Canon’s excellent Dual Pixel AF with subject recognition AI, and can shoot bursts at up to 40 fps. It's equally strong with video, supporting oversampled 10-bit 4K at up to 60 fps. The R8 also offers a flip-out display, making it great for vloggers. The main drawback is a lack of in-body stabilization.
Content creators should take a hard look at Panasonic’s full-frame S5 II. It’s the company’s first camera with hybrid phase-detect AF designed to make focus "wobble" and other issues a thing of the past. You can shoot sharp 4K 30p video downsampled from the full sensor width, or 4K 60p from an APS-C cropped size, all in 10-bit color. It even offers 5.9K 30p capture, along with RAW 5.9K external output to an Atomos recorder. You also get a flip-out screen for vlogging and updated five-axis in-body stabilization that’s the best in the industry. Photo quality is also good thanks to the dual-gain 24-megapixel sensor. The main drawback is the slowish burst speeds.
Read our full review of the Panasonic Lumix S5 II
Equipped with the same backside-illuminated (BSI) 12-megapixel sensor as the A7S III, Sony’s ZV-E1 offers excellent low-light performance, 4K at up to 120p and a host of new AI features like auto framing, making it one of the best cameras for photography and videography. It also comes with an updated in-body image stabilization system aimed at vloggers that can smooth out even jolting movements like footsteps. The $2,200 price tag makes it enticing for vloggers as it offers features found on the $3,500 A7S III for considerably less money.
Autofocus: 759 points
Max shutter speed: 10 fps
WiFi: No
Bluetooth: Yes
If you’re OK with a smaller APS-C sensor, check out the Fujifilm X-H2S. It has an incredibly fast stacked, backside-illuminated 26.1-megapixel sensor that allows for rapid burst shooting speeds of 40 fps, along with 4K 120p video with minimal rolling shutter. It can capture ProRes 10-bit video internally, has 7 stops of in-body stabilization and a class-leading EVF. Yes, it’s expensive for an APS-C camera, but on the other hand, it’s the cheapest stacked sensor camera overall. The other downside is AF that’s not quite up to Canon and Sony’s level.
Read our full review of the Fujifilm X-H2S
For the ultimate high-resolution camera, check out Sony’s A7R V. With a 61-megapixel sensor, it shoots sharp and beautiful images at a very respectable speed for such a high-resolution model (10 fps). It has an equally fast and reliable autofocus system, the sharpest viewfinder on the market and in-body stabilization that’s much improved over the A7R IV. Video has even improved, with 8K and 10-bit options now on tap, albeit with significant rolling shutter. If you don’t need the video features, however, Sony’s A7R IVa does mostly the same job, photo-wise, and costs a few hundred dollars less.
Read our full review of the Sony A7R V
The most important features to look for in an action cam are image quality, stabilization and battery life. GoPro has easily been beating all rivals over the last few years in all those areas, but DJI made some strides last year with the Osmo Action 3. At the same time, GoPro’s latest models are more expensive than rivals.
GoPro didn’t change the design on its latest model, but it has a larger sensor that enables a couple of cool features – Horizon Lock stabilization and Full Frame mode that makes it easier to shoot for, say, TikTok and YouTube at the same time. It also offers a new wider, though slightly distorted Hyperview field of view.
Otherwise, the Hero 11 Black offers better video quality than ever (up to 5.3K 60p), Hypersmooth stabilization that’s still the best in the business (by far), battery life that’s improved by 40 percent over the last model, and more. It’s easily the best action camera on the market, but you pay for that: it’s $400 with a one year subscription ($500 without it), compared to $329 for the DJI Osmo Action 3 and $300 for the Insta360 RS 4K bundle. If you’re serious about filming extreme sports, though, it’s worth it.
WiFi: Yes
Bluetooth: Yes
Read our full review of the GoPro Hero 11
After experimenting with an oddball modular design on the Action 2, design has gone back to a more classic action cam design on the Osmo Action 3. It also comes with a slick new magnetic quick-release mount that lets you connect the camera directly to a GoPro-style mount with or without the case. Video quality and stabilization are quite good, but fall short of the Hero 11 Black (the Action 3 tops out at 4K 120p resolution compared to 5.3K 60p on the GoPro). While it’s not quite as good as the Hero 11, it’s considerably cheaper.
Read our full review of the DJI Osmo Action 3
This category has fewer cameras than it did even a few years ago and many models are older, as manufacturers focus instead on mirrorless models. However, I’m still a big believer in compact cameras. This type of camera is a big step up from smartphones quality-wise, and a lot of people will take a compact traveling or to events when they’d never bother with the hassle of a DSLR or mirrorless camera.
Compacts largely have type 1-inch sensors, but a few offer larger options, particularly Fujifilm’s XF-100V. Another popular model, Sony’s XV-1, is primarily aimed at content creators looking to step up. In any case, desirable qualities include image quality, a fast lens, relatively long zoom, flip-out display, good battery life, a high quality EVF, decent video and good pocketability.
The X100V is the latest in Fujifilm's famous fixed-lens X100 camera series. Like other models in the lineup, it has an APS-C sensor and a 23mm f/2.0 lens, equivalent to 35mm on a full-frame sensor. You also get the same hybrid optical/electronic viewfinder, mechanical dials, film simulations and good looks as before. But the X100V is the most significant advancement in the series' history. It has Fujifilm's latest 26.1-megapixel X-Trans 4 CMOS sensor compared to 24.2-megapixels on the last model and a new, sharper lens to handle that extra resolution.
A new tilting rear display makes "shooting from the hip" street photography much easier, as does the fast 11 fps/20 fps shooting speeds in mechanical/silent shutter modes. You also get a better hybrid phase- and contrast-detect autofocus (AF) system with more AF points along with face and eye detection. Finally, it now has the same 4K video-shooting features as the X-T30. It doesn't come cheap, but the X100V is the ultimate camera if you're into street photography – assuming you can find one.
Max shutter speed: 20 fps
WiFi: Yes
Bluetooth: Yes
Read our full review of the Fujifilm X100V
The ZV-1 is Sony’s first RX100-series camera designed specifically for vlogging. It does that job well thanks to a lightweight body, built-in high-quality microphone, flip-out display, best-in-class autofocus and excellent image quality. The 24-70mm lens is sharp, but it needs to be wider because of the 25 percent crop when using electronic stabilization. It also lacks a true touch display and a headphone port. That nitpicking aside, if you’re looking to step up from a smartphone or just want something simple, it does the job nearly perfectly.
Read our full review of the Sony ZV-1
For a value compact camera, the best option is Panasonic’s 20-megapixel ZS-200. It offers a lot of features for the price, like a 1-inch, 20.1 megapixel sensor, 5-axis stabilization, 4K, 30 fps video and more. Its main claim to fame, though, is the 24-360x lens that offers incredible reach for travel and more. Though it dates back to 2018, it’s actually one of the more recent compact models.
With mirrorless cameras taking over the interchangeable lens market, DSLRs still give you the ability to change lenses at relatively cheap prices. The defining feature is the reflex mirror that lets you look directly through the lens at your subject with no electronics in between. Most also have very fast autofocus thanks to a dedicated phase-detect sensor, and very fast battery life. However, many lack features you’d expect on modern mirrorless cameras like subject tracking, eye-detection and more.
Nikon's full-frame (FX) D850 is the best deal on a high-end camera and arguably the best camera for photography. With a 45.7-megapixel sensor and max 102,400 ISO, it gives you the best quality for the money, whether mirrorless or DSLR. It can also shoot fast, at up to 7fps, which is very good for such a high-res camera. In addition, the battery life (1840 shots on a charge) puts any mirrorless option to shame, and there’s a massive number of FX Nikkor lens options to choose from. Nikon has upped its video game as well with the D850 by introducing 4K internal recording. If you’d still rather have a live optical rather than an electronic view, the D850 is the best option available.
Autofocus: 153 points
Max shutter speed: 7 fps
WiFi: Yes
Bluetooth: Yes
Another one of the best cameras for photography is Canon’s 24-megapixel APS-C EOS Rebel SL3, which has a great blend of features, build quality and value. It offers features like a vari-angle touchscreen, 4K video (albeit with a crop) and Dual Pixel autofocus technology in live mode. You get shooting speeds of up to 5 fps, 1600 shots on a charge and an ISO range up to 51,200 (expanded). It also offers guided screen options for beginners. Best of all, it offers excellent picture quality for the price thanks to Canon’s skin-friendly color science.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-cameras-151524327.html?src=rssPanasonic S5 II full-frame mirrorless camera review
Panasonic S5 II full-frame mirrorless camera review
Over the last few days, Twitter not only stopped showing tweets unless you're logged in, but also started capping the number of tweets users can read each day ("rate limiting") — ostensibly due to "data scraping," according to Elon Musk. Those actions are starting to have an impact elsewhere across Twitter's ecosystem, with many users reporting that Tweetdeck (a power-user version of Twitter) no longer works. In addition, Google Search is reportedly showing up to 50 percent fewer Twitter URLs due to the logged-in requirement, Search Engine Roundtable reported.
For a lot of users (including Engadget), Tweetdeck effectively stopped functioning, just showing a spinning wheel above most columns. That may be because a bug in Twitter's web app is sending requests in an infinite loop, effectively creating a "self-DDOS" (distributed denial of service), Waxy reported. As researcher Molly White tweeted, that effect is multiplied in Tweetdeck for anything other than the "Home" column, as it keeps "repeatedly retrying 404s," she wrote.
twitter's self-DDoS is worse with tweetdeck 💀 pic.twitter.com/krcLhjnsA2
— Molly White (@molly0xFFF) July 2, 2023
It's possible to at least get your columns to show up by using a new beta version of Tweetdeck, as Engadget's Matt Brian tweeted. However, those columns are still subject to the rate limits (800 tweets for non-Twitter Blue subscribers), and so most users will stop seeing new tweets shortly after Tweetdeck loads.
On top of that, Google Search may be showing up to 50 percent fewer Twitter URLs following Musk's move to block unregistered users. Using the site command, Search Engine Roundtable's Barry Schwartz found that Google now has about 52 percent fewer Twitter URLs in its index than it did on Friday. It's still showing recent tweets in the Search carousel, but normal indexing seems to be broken at the moment. "Not that a site command is the best measure, but... Twitter is down [around] 162 million indexed pages so far since this change," Schwartz tweeted.
There's no confirmation that the "self-DDOS" theory is accurate, but a post from developer Sheldon Chang (on Mastodon) indicated that shutting off anonymous access to Twitter may be playing a role in the issues. Twitter has promised that the login requirement and rate limiting are "temporary," but has yet to give a date for eliminating those restrictions.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/twitters-apps-are-breaking-following-elon-musks-decision-to-cap-tweet-rates-125028807.html?src=rssFRANCE-TWITTER
The twitter's logo is pictured on screen reflected by mirrors in Mulhouse, eastern France on May 30, 2023. (Photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP) (Photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP via Getty Images)
Amazon's Prime Day starts on July 11th, and based on the early access deals we've seen so far, you can expect some exceptional savings. Now, the retailer is adding a small additional Prime Day bonus with a $5 promo credit if you purchase a $50 Amazon eGift Card for someone special (yourself included).
You'll want to check the lengthy terms & conditions, but the basic idea is this: If you purchase a $50 (or higher) eGift card between today and July 10th at 11:59 PST, you'll get a $5 promotional code that must be cashed in by August 25th, 2023. The main things to note are that it can only be applied to products sold by Amazon.com (not third parties) or any e-books, and that you won't be refunded the $5 promo credit if you return or cancel that order.
If you're good with all that, there are already a number of options to use it. For example, Amazon's Fire HD tablet is $75 or half off the regular price, and other Amazon products like its all new Echo Buds and Eero Pro mesh WiFi router carry significant savings. Other stellar deals include the 2023 Motorola Razr+ flip phone at $850 ($150) off and the Apple AirPods Pro (2nd generation) at $199 ($50 off). If you really want to max out that $5 promo in terms of percentage, you can get Samsung's Pro Plus 128GB microSD memory card for $9 ($14 - $5), making it exactly half off.
Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for the best Amazon Prime Day tech deals. Learn about Prime Day trends on In the Know. Hear from Autoblog’s car experts on must-shop auto-related Prime Day deals and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-is-offering-a-5-credit-when-you-buy-a-50-egift-card-for-prime-day-094827231.html?src=rssAmazon Lawsuit
FILE - An Amazon Prime delivery vehicle is seen in downtown Pittsburgh on March 18, 2020. The Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon on Wednesday for what it called a years-long effort to enroll consumers without consent into its Prime program and making it difficult for them to cancel their subscriptions. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
Most Thursday mornings you’ll find me in a co-working session with members of the Productive Flourishing Academy.
Part of the routine in our coworking sessions is to start off with a word pulled from a deck of motivational cards. My friend, the group leader, pulls the card, and the idea is to use the word that emerges to create alignment or a point of focus throughout your day.
When my turn came, she pulled the word “Relaxation”.
Ummm… no.
“I have a mountain of tasks ahead of me and I don’t have time to relax today,” was my instant reaction.
Luckily, I have my own set of this particular card deck, so before diving into the task I had planned (which ended up turning into this piece of writing) I decided to pull a new card. Take that, universe!
So what card did I pull?
“Risk.”
Well-played, universe. Well-played.
What am I supposed to do with these mixed messages? These two words — that are now at the forefront of my mind — seem to be at odds with one another.
As I moved into the work I had planned to do during this co-working session (namely a speech I had to give the following week for Toastmasters, a public speaking and leadership club I’m a part of in NYC), I couldn’t get these two words out of my head.
These ideas, risk and relaxation, don’t seem to fit together. More than that, they seem to be on opposite sides of the spectrum.
When I heard the word relaxation, what came to mind was an extreme state of rest, inaction, becoming sloth-like.
To enter a relaxed state is something too often we feel we need to earn. I’m allowed to just relax? Without doing anything or accomplishing anything first?
So when my friend pulled that card for me, I rebelled. Because I have a too-long list of things that need to get done (yep, violating the 5 Projects Rule) before I can even think about allowing myself to relax. Calm will have to wait.
I recognize this mentality runs counter to a lot of what has been written about here at PF, including pieces I myself have written. It just goes to show, we’re all in a constant state of learning and unlearning.
Still, relaxation is a self-care practice — and a necessity — we can all get behind. But risk? Risk seems to imply anything but rest and relaxation, and seems, well, downright dangerous.
Risk implies action, making a change, getting uncomfortable, and putting yourself in a position to fail (the horror!).
It’s inevitably scary to take a step in a new direction. Our minds and bodies perceive this newness as danger and set off all sorts of alarms to try to get us to do anything but this risky behavior — fight, flight, or freeze.
Taking action, no matter how big or small, is inherently risky.
But what happens if I put these two words together? What if relaxation didn’t need to mean a full and complete stop to any activity, but instead it could mean an easing in?
And what if risk didn’t require actual danger but simply meant trying something new? What if it was just about easing into the discomfort of putting myself in a slightly different position than yesterday?
And as I was thinking all these thinks, and most definitely not writing my Toastmasters speech, it dawned on me that the exact combination of these themes — getting more comfortable (relaxation) with being uncomfortable (risk) — is one that continues to show up in my life.
A recent example: I’ve been starting to get back into writing. More specifically, I’m starting to share my writing more frequently. Risk.
I’m leaning more and more into my instinct, and how it relates to both writing and sharing; this article is an example. Relaxation.
Ease can be about letting go. Letting go of expectations, of perfectionism, of the outcome. And that is inherently risky. Where are you holding on too tight? What small action can you take today to move yourself closer to where you want to be?
The post Relaxing Into Risk appeared first on Productive Flourishing.
Is a 15-week limit on abortion an acceptable compromise?
A recent opinion piece by George F. Will, “Ambivalent about abortion, the American middle begins to find its voice” in the Washington Post made the startling claim that the overturning of Roe v. Wade (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 2022) has resulted in “a partial healing of the nation’s civic culture.” One might think exactly the reverse. The Dobbs decision energized voters, especially women and young people, resulting in numerous Republican electoral defeats across the country. However, Will argues that the return of abortion policy to the states gives voters the opportunity of choosing moderate restrictions on abortion. Since most Americans support early abortion while opposing late-gestation abortion, Will thinks that a 15-week ban on abortion would be an acceptable compromise.
Why 15 weeks? Two reasons can be given. Almost all abortions in the US—93%—occur within the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. For this reason, making abortion illegal after 15 weeks would not, it would seem, impose serious burdens on most people seeking abortions.
Another reason is that several European countries limit abortion on request to the first trimester, leading some US lawmakers to suggest that a 15-week ban would bring our abortion law in line with theirs. This is disingenuous, to say the least. While elective abortion is limited in some European countries, it is not banned afterwards, but is allowed on other grounds, including economic or social reasons, or a threat to the woman’s physical or mental health. Moreover, in most European countries, patients do not have to pay for abortion; it is covered under universal health coverage. The fact is that the trend in Europe has not been to limit abortion, but to expand access to it. Countries in Europe “… have removed bans, increased abortion’s legality and taken steps to ensure laws and policies on abortion are guided by public health evidence and clinical best practices.”
Were states to guarantee access to abortion prior to 15 weeks, a 15-week ban might be acceptable. However, even before Dobbs, many women in the US lacked access to abortion, due to a dearth of providers, especially in rural areas. They often had to travel many miles to find an abortion clinic, which meant that they had to arrange childcare if they have other children or take time off work. Delay is also caused by the need to raise money for an abortion, which is not paid for by Medicaid in most states, except in cases of rape, incest, or a life-threatening condition. To be sure, even if there were none of these roadblocks, some women would still not be able to have early abortions because they do not know that they are pregnant, due to youth, being menopausal, chronic obesity, or a lack of pregnancy symptoms. Any time limits will pose hardships for some people. But if access to early abortions were guaranteed, a compromise on a 15-week limit might be worth it.
I suspect that time-limit advocates are not particularly interested in making sure that women who have abortions get them early in pregnancy. They want to place roadblocks in the way of getting abortions, full stop. That these roadblocks increase the numbers of late abortions is of little concern to them, however much they wring their hands over late abortions. Abortion can be reduced by reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies, something that has been shown to be achieved by access to contraceptives and science-based sex education in the schools. Remember when pro-lifers emphasized those methods? Me neither.
“Some US lawmakers suggest that a 15-week ban would bring our abortion law in line with European countries. This is disingenuous, to say the least.”
My second concern is with abortions sought after 15 weeks. The reason for a late abortion may be that the woman has a medical condition that has not developed, or has not been detected, until later in pregnancy. In such cases, the pregnancy is almost always a wanted pregnancy, and the decision to terminate imposes a tragic choice.
It may be responded that all states allow abortions to be performed when this is necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life, and many allow for abortions to protect her from a serious health risk. The problem is that these exceptions conflict with standard medical care, especially in the case of miscarriage. Once the woman has begun to miscarry, the failure to remove the fetus is likely to cause her sepsis, which can be life-threatening. However, in states with restrictive abortion laws, doctors cannot perform an immediate abortion, which is the standard of care in such situations. They have to wait until her death is imminent and, in some states, they cannot remove the fetus until its heart stops.
Ireland’s restrictive abortion law was repealed after a woman who was denied an abortion during a miscarriage died from septicemia. To the best of my knowledge, no woman in the US has died as a result of restrictive abortion laws, but some have come close. An OB-GYN in San Antonio had to wait until the fetal heartbeat stopped to treat a miscarrying patient who developed a dangerous womb infection. The delay caused complications which required her to have surgery, lose multiple liters of blood, and be put on a breathing machine. Texas law essentially requires doctors to commit malpractice.
Conservatives often portray those in the pro-choice camp as advocating abortion until the day of delivery, for trivial reasons. This is deeply unfair. If they want us to compromise on time limits, they should be willing to guarantee access to abortion before 15 weeks. They should be willing to compromise on pregnancy prevention through contraception and sex education. And they should agree to drop all restrictions on late-term abortions that make legislators, rather than doctors, in charge of deciding what is appropriate medical care for their patients.
Featured image: Gayatri Malhotra via Unsplash (public domain)
This post is about philosophy, memes, and taking action. It’s a reflection on an experience I had this week which caused me to reflect on the paucity of ‘awareness raising’ as a tactic.
I studied Philosophy at university a couple of decades ago. One of the courses was on ethics and involved the trolley problem.
The trolley problem is a series of thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas of whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number. The series usually begins with a scenario in which a runaway tram or trolley is on course to collide with and kill a number of people (traditionally five) down the track, but a driver or bystander can intervene and divert the vehicle to kill just one person on a different track. Then other variations of the runaway vehicle, and analogous life-and-death dilemmas (medical, judicial etc.) are posed, each containing the option to either do nothing, in which case several people will be killed, or intervene and sacrifice one initially “safe” person to save the others.
It’s a powerful tool to generate insights into your own ethical position on certain topics. These days, it’s rolled out to warn about outsourcing decision-making to the systems underpinning self-driving cars. And, of course, it’s now a recognisable meme.
In my experience, most of the trolley problem thought experiments lead towards an understanding of supererogation.
In ethics, an act is supererogatory if it is good but not morally required to be done. It refers to an act that is more than is necessary, when another course of action—involving less—would still be an acceptable action. It differs from a duty, which is an act wrong not to do, and from acts morally neutral. Supererogation may be considered as performing above and beyond a normative course of duty to further benefits and functionality.
Interestingly, in a recent episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast, Theron Pummer suggested a twist on this. Pummer, who is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews and Director of the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, has published a book entitled The Rules of Rescue. I haven’t read it yet, but to quote the summary on his own web page about the book:
Pummer argues that we are often morally required to engage in effective altruism, directing altruistic efforts in ways that help the most. Even when the personal sacrifice involved makes it morally permissible not to help at all, he contends, it often remains wrong to provide less help rather than more.
I have issues with Effective Altruism, which I’ll not go into here, but I find Pummer’s framing fascinating. Basically, you don’t have to help others in certain situations; no-one would think it was immoral or illegal to go about your business. However, if you do decide to help, then there’s a minimum amount of help that could reasonably be required.
This week, I was at MozFest House. I had a good time. As with all MozFests I’ve been to, there are exhibits with which you can interact. One of them asked you to use a touch screen to fill in details of the kinds of services you use. It then printed out a long receipt on the type of data that is gathered on you when using them. I asked the PhD students who had come up with the machine what I was supposed to do with this data. They intimated that they were merely raising awareness and didn’t suggest a single thing I could do.
I was left in a worse position than I began. One could say that’s the point of awareness-raising, that it’s about making people feel discomfort so that they take action. But if you’re going to make an intervention I would agree with Theron Pummer’s stance that there’s a certain minimum level of guidance to give. A first step, at least.
Contrast this with another interactive exhibit in which you received tokens for free coffee if you answered a series of questions about yourself. I managed to get three by lying and not providing personal data. Which, of course, could be said to be the point of the exercise: be careful about the data you put out there, especially for scant reward.
Once you see people putting in the minimum effort of ‘awareness raising’ you start seeing it everywhere. It’s particularly prevalent on social media, where it takes a single tap to reshare news and make others aware of something you’ve just seen. As humans, though, we tend to have a bias towards avoiding harm so social media timelines become full of doom.
I’m on a bit of a mission to get some more positivity into my life. Not in a mindless way. Not in an avoiding-reality kind of way. But rather following people who have noticed a problem and are doing something about it. Seeking out those who can take a step back and look at the wider picture. And, of course, those who share some of the wonder of the world around us.
The post On the paucity of ‘raising awareness’ first appeared on Open Thinkering.
An unlucky cohort of undergraduates has been plagued by Covid restrictions, education strikes and finally a marking boycott
Emily Smith, a final-year geography student at Durham University, never imagined her already heavily disrupted university experience could end like this. She won’t be graduating this summer because half her work remains unmarked owing to a national marking boycott by lecturers.
She refuses to attend the “completion ceremony” Durham has offered her instead. Without an actual degree classification it seems like a “farce”. Like so many in this deeply unlucky cohort of students, she feels this is the last straw.
Continue reading...
We’ve asked Rumpus editors to share the titles forthcoming between now and the year’s end that they are most eagerly anticipating. These books transport us to different worlds, give us glimpses into lives we might never otherwise know, share new perspectives to consider, and offer us respite from reality.
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Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. So when she decides she wants a living wake–a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she’s led–her sisters are surprised. Has Flor foreseen her own death, or someone else’s? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila. But Flor isn’t the only person with secrets: her sisters are hiding things, too. And the next generation, cousins Ona and Yadi, face tumult of their own. Spanning the three days prior to the wake, Family Lore traces the lives of each of the Marte women, weaving together past and present, Santo Domingo and New York City. Told with Elizabeth Acevedo’s inimitable and incandescent voice, this is an indelible portrait of sisters and cousins, aunts and nieces–one family’s journey through their history, helping them better navigate all that is to come.
Forgive Me Not by Jennifer Baker
All it took was one night and one bad decision for fifteen-year-old Violetta Chen-Samuels’ life to go off the rails. After driving drunk and causing the accident that kills her little sister, Violetta is incarcerated. Under the juvenile justice system, her fate lies in the hands of those she’s wronged–her family. Denied their forgiveness, Violetta is now left with two options, neither good–remain in juvenile detention for an uncertain sentence or participate in the Trials. The Trials are no easy feat, but if she succeeds, she could regain both her freedom and what she wants most of all: her family’s love. In her quest to prove her remorse, Violetta is forced to confront not only her family’s grief, but her own–and the question of whether their forgiveness is more important than forgiving herself.
The New Naturals by Gabriel Bump
Drive by the abandoned restaurant on a hill off the highway in Western Massachusetts, and it doesn’t look like much. Definitely not a destination. But that’s exactly what it becomes, after a young Black Boston woman sees the country–in fact, the whole world–as an increasingly dangerous place. After losing their child and looking hard for a safe place, she and her husband begin to construct a separate society: somewhere nurturing, where everyone can feel loved and wanted, where all the Spike Lee movies play, where the children learn actual history–and somewhere underground, where they won’t need anything or anyone from the world above ground to make it work. She locates a Benefactor and soon it all begins to take shape. Two homeless men are told about the place and begin their journey by bus to get there. A young and disillusioned journalist stumbles upon it and wants in. And a former soccer player, having lost his footing in society, is persuaded to check out this place too. But it doesn’t take long for problems to develop, for conflicts to surface, for food to become scarce, for the children to crave life beyond this place.
I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times by Taylor Byas
a Rumpus Poetry Book Club Selection (subscribe by July 15!)
I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times takes its inspiration and concept from the cult classic film The Wiz to explore a Black woman’s journey out of the South Side of Chicago and into adulthood. The narrative arc of The Wiz–a tumultuous departure from home, trials designed to reveal new things about the self, and the eventual return home–serves as a loose trajectory for this collection, pulling readers through an abandoned barn, a Wendy’s drive-thru, a Beyoncé video, Grandma’s house, Sunday service, and the corner store. At every stop, the speaker is made to confront her womanhood, her sexuality, the visibility of her body, alcoholism in her family, and various ways in which narratives are imposed on her. Subverting monolithic ideas about the South Side of Chicago, and re-casting the city as a living, breathing entity, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times spans sestinas, sonnets, free-verse, and erasures, all to reimagine the concept of home. Chicago isn’t just a city, but a teacher, a lingering shadow, a way of seeing the world.
Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter
A year into her dream job at a cutthroat Silicon Valley start-up, Cassie finds herself trapped in a corporate nightmare. Between the long hours, toxic bosses, and unethical projects, she also struggles to reconcile the glittering promise of a city where obscene wealth lives alongside abject poverty and suffering. Ivy League grads complain about the snack selection from a conference room with a view of houseless people bathing in the bay. Start-up burnouts leap into the paths of commuter trains, and men literally set themselves on fire in the streets. Though isolated, Cassie is never alone. From her earliest memory, a miniature black hole has been her constant companion. It feeds on her depression and anxiety, growing or shrinking in relation to her distress. The black hole watches, but it also waits. Its relentless pull draws Cassie ever closer as the world around her unravels. When her CEO’s demands cross an illegal threshold and she ends up unexpectedly pregnant, Cassie must decide whether the tempting fruits of Silicon Valley are really worth it.
Every Drop is a Man’s Nightmare by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto
Megan Kamalei Kakimoto’s wrenching and sensational debut story collection follows a cast of mixed native Hawaiian and Japanese women through a contemporary landscape thick with inherited wisdom and the ghosts of colonization. This is a Hawai’i where unruly sexuality and generational memory overflow the postcard image of paradise and the boundaries of the real, where the superstitions born of the islands take on the weight of truth. A childhood encounter with a wild pua’a (pig) on the haunted Pali highway portends one young woman’s fraught relationship with her pregnant body. An elderly widow begins seeing her deceased lover in a giant flower. A kanaka writer, mid-manuscript, feels her raw pages quaking and knocking in the briefcase.
Son has lived his entire life inside the mansion. He is a good child. He reads, practices piano, studies, and watches ghosts tend the farmland through a window in the attic. When Father decides it is time for Son to venture outside, Son’s desire to please Father overpowers his fear, and he must contend with questions he never wanted to face. What are the relentlessly grinning ghosts hiding? Has a ghost taken control of Father? What answers or horrors lie in the forest? And who will stop the mysterious encroaching shadows? Nghiem Tran’s debut inverts the haunted house tale, shaping it into a moving exploration of loss, coming of age in a collapsing world, and the battle between isolation and assimilation.
Blackouts by Justin Torres
Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly, but who has haunted the edges of his life. Juan Gay–playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized–has a project to pass along to this new narrator. It is inspired by a true artifact of a book, Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns, which contains stories collected in the early twentieth century from queer subjects by a queer researcher, Jan Gay, whose groundbreaking work was then co-opted by a committee, her name buried. As Juan waits for his end, he and the narrator trade stories–moments of joy and oblivion–and resurrect lost loves, lives, mothers, fathers, minor heroes. The past is with us, beside us, ahead of us; what are we to create from its gaps and erasures?
Hush Harbor by Anise Vance
After the murder of an unarmed Black teenager by the hands of the police, protests spread like wildfire in Bliss City, New Jersey. A full-scale resistance group takes control of an abandoned housing project and decide to call it Hush Harbor, in homage to the secret spaces their enslaved ancestors would gather to pray. Jeremiah Prince, alongside his sister Nova, are leaders of the revolution, but have ideological differences regarding how the movement should proceed. When a new mayor with ties to white supremacists threatens the group’s pseudo-sanctuary and locks the city down, the collective must come to a decision for their very survival.
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Can industrial policy be disentangled from rhetoric about a new Cold War? A discussion featuring Yakov Feygin, Daniela Gabor, Ho-fung Hung, Thea Riofrancos, and Quinn Slobodian.
On the evening of Friday 9 June, Prof. Heather Widdows presented the inaugural Michael Lockwood Memorial Lecture, as part of a weekend of events to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and the fifth of the MSt. in Practical Ethics, based in the Centre. The title of Prof. Widdows’ fascinating and suggestive lecture was ‘Naming and Shaming: Responding to Lookism’.
Prof. Widdows began with a definition of lookism as ‘unjust discrimination on the basis of looks or appearance’. If an appointment committee, for example, knowingly or unknowingly offers a job to someone because of their appearance, when that appearance is itself irrelevant to the job in question, this is lookist, as analogous decisions based on race or sex would be, respectively, racist or sexist.
Prof. Widdows then provided evidence of lookism in employment and other domains, including the justice system and in the attitudes of young children. She suggested that lookism is less recognized than other forms of discrimination in part because its victims feel shame, and are hence unmotivated to call out that discrimination. Given that, she argued, we should seek to change that shame to anger or rage, as has happened in the case of sexism. This would increase the visibility of lookism, and make appearance at least a more plausible candidate for inclusion as a ’protected characteristic’ in equality legislation.
Philosophy can play, and is to some extent playing, its part, and here Prof. Widdows referred to the arguments in her Perfect Me: Beauty as an Ethical Ideal (Princeton, 2018) to the conclusion that our culture is now over-valuing, and mistakenly valuing, beauty to the extent that many are harmed through seeing their identity as dependent on their appearance. Prof. Widdows provided moving examples from stories posted on the website of the #everydaylookism campaign that emerged from her book, noting again the salience of shame in many of them.
A lively discussion followed the lectures, covering among many other issues whether choosing a partner on the basis of looks must count as an injustice, and whether calmly and clearly calling out discrimination might sometimes be a more appropriate or effective response than anger.
If wonder springs from the quality of attention we pay to things and joy springs from our capacity for presence with wonder, then the quality of our attention shapes the quality of our lives. It is a dangerous falsehood that to find wonder in reality is to relinquish our realism — rather, this attentive gladness, this fluency in the native poetry of the universe, may be the truest realism we have.
That is what Robert Louis Stevenson (November 13, 1850–December 3, 1894) explores in some breathtaking passages from his long essay “The Lantern-Bearers,” found in his 1892 collection of personal writings Across the Plains (public library | free ebook).
Stevenson writes:
There is one fable that touches very near the quick of life, — the fable of the monk who passed into the woods, heard a bird break into song, hearkened for a trill or two, and found himself at his return a stranger at his convent gates; for he had been absent fifty years, and of all his comrades there survived but one to recognize him. It is not only in the woods that this enchanter carols, though perhaps he is native there. He sings in the most doleful places. The miser hears him and chuckles, and his days are moments. With no more apparatus than an evil-smelling lantern, I have evoked him on the naked links. All life that is not merely mechanical is spun out of two strands, — seeking for that bird and hearing him. And it is just this that makes life so hard to value, and the delight of each so incommunicable. And it is just a knowledge of this, and a remembrance of those fortunate hours in which the bird has sung to us, that fills us with such wonder when we turn to the pages of the realist. There, to be sure, we find a picture of life in so far as it consists of mud and of old iron, cheap desires and cheap fears, that which we are ashamed to remember and that which we are careless whether we forget; but of the note of that time-devouring nightingale we hear no news.
Half a century before Anaïs Nin contemplated the elusive nature of joy, he adds:
The ground of a man’s joy is often hard to hit. It may hinge at times upon a mere accessory, like the lantern; it may reside… in the mysterious inwards of psychology… It has so little bond with externals… that it may even touch them not, and the man’s true life, for which he consents to live, lie together in the field of fancy…. In such a case the poetry runs underground. The observer (poor soul, with his documents!) is all abroad. For to look at the man is but to court deception. We shall see the trunk from which he draws his nourishment; but he himself is above and abroad in the green dome of foliage, hummed through by winds and nested in by nightingales. And the true realism were that of the poets, to climb after him like a squirrel, and catch some glimpse of the heaven in which he lives. And the true realism, always and everywhere, is that of the poets: to find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing.
For to miss the joy is to miss all. In the joy of the actors lies the sense of any action. That is the explanation, that the excuse… for no man lives in the external truth among salts and acids, but in the warm, phantasmagoric chamber of his brain, with the painted windows and the storied wall.
Complement with poet Ross Gay on the discipline of delight and René Magritte on the courage of joy, then revisit Hermann Hesse on the life-magnifying value of the little joys.
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This morning, I realized how much of my current suffering is grieving the lost time from when Dad passed about a year ago. I had already incurred enough distraction and time debt before that, but Dad’s passing pushed me over the edge. This was also about the time Cory exited the team. We’d brought him on to help with Momentum growth, and with his departure, it left me with two big growth projects to juggle — and I couldn’t push the book forward and grow Momentum at the same time.
The residue of those losses lingered on everything. I hadn’t seen the residue because it’s not about the losses themselves, it’s about the time debt and tough choices they created in the midst of those two major projects.
In a beautiful irony, it was reading Michelle Varghoose’s reflection about how Start Finishing helped her that helped me see what was going on with my own journey. She wrote that letting go of projects as part of the life projects exercise freed her to focus on the projects that really mattered. In a LinkedIn comment on Isabeau Iqbal’s post, I mentioned that the underrated gift of getting to good enough is the freedom it brings.
Both threads were about the freedom and peace that comes from letting projects go.
This morning, I realized that it wasn’t the projects that I needed to let go of, but my story that I could do anything about being behind and recovering the lost time since Dad’s passing. I’ve been doing the best I can every day to do the essentials, reduce the scope of the business, and slowly reabsorb the rest of the work that’s come back to me. Most importantly, I feel like I’m doing all this in an integrous way and asking for help and grace from teammates in ways I never would have before.
Lost time can’t be found; our best is all we can do. Sometimes, our best is not enough to catch everything that’s coming our way with the time, energy, and attention we have in the moment.
Those are the breaks and are the occasional pains of being human. We can’t change those breaks and pains, but we can change the suffering we add to the pain.
And, by ‘we’, I mean ‘I’. And, if this is hitting you in the feels, I mean ‘you’.
I wrote in Start Finishing that to trade up, you have to let go. In that context, I meant trading up to better projects. In this post, I’m taking a broader perspective on trading up.
Trading up to freedom and peace is even better than trading up to better projects. It’s easier for most people to entertain trading up projects because projects = doing = contributing = being valuable = deserving (love, respect, pleasure, etc.). Choosing freedom and peace is harder because it makes you center yourself and your needs. (Reminder: you and your needs matter, regardless of the doing you’re doing.)
I’ll leave you with three questions:
Life presents us with enough to carry all on its own. Careful that you don’t add more to it than needed. There’s an important person who has to carry that additional, needless burden.
The post What Do You Need To Let Go Of? appeared first on Productive Flourishing.
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