Past Lives: a luxurious and lingering portrayal of lost love and identity in the Korean diaspora

Senior Teaching Fellow in Centre for Korean Studies, SOAS, University of London Past Lives is Celine Song’s debut film about Nora and Hae Sung who were deeply connected in childhood. The film focuses on them reuniting as adults after a long separation.

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Why are those lost to COVID not formally memorialised? How politics shapes what we remember

Every Friday, volunteers gather on the Albert Embankment at the River Thames in London to lovingly retouch thousands of red hearts inscribed on a Portland stone wall directly opposite the Houses of Parliament. Each heart is dedicated to a British victim of COVID. It is a deeply social space – a place where the COVID bereaved come together to honour their dead and share memories.The so-called National Covid Memorial Wall is not, however, officially sanctioned. In fact, ever since activists from COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice (CBFFJ) daubed the first hearts on the wall in March 2021 it has been a thorn in the side of the authorities.

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How to Increase Your Ship Storage and Carrying Capacity in 'Starfield'

Starfield has dozens upon dozens of weapons, items, and resources you’ll need to collect on your lengthy adventure through the galaxy. Because Bethesda’s new game has a focus on crafting and building outposts, on top of all your unusual items, it’s extremely easy to become over-encumbered preventing you from fast travel. One of the first things you’ll want to do is increase your personal storage and carrying capacity, as well as the amount of storage you have available. Here’s everything you need to know about increasing your storage in Starfield. The simplest way of increasing your storage is to invest in the Weight Lifting skill. You’ll need four skill points to upgrade the skill completely, and the first level only grants 10kg of extra carrying capacity. Once you unlock the skill you’ll need to spend a certain amount of time running with at least 70 percent of your carrying capacity full, in order to unlock the next tier. Once you have every tier unlocked, you’ll be able to carry a total of 100kg extra, which will absolutely help.

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Anemia afflicts nearly 1 in 4 people worldwide, but there are practical strategies for reducing it

Anemia is a major health problem, with nearly 2 billion people affected globally. It afflicts more people worldwide than low back pain or diabetes – or even anxiety and depression combined. Despite this, investments in reducing anemia have failed to substantially reduce the massive burden of anemia globally over the last few decades.

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'Ahsoka' Episode 4 Easter Egg Reveals a Tragic Star Wars Romance

Given that Ahsoka is a direct continuation of Rebels, it’s safe to expect the latest series to reference the animated show whenever possible. And it’s not like all these nods to Rebels aren’t warranted: while Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) only played a minor role in the animated show, her supporting cast in live-action were the heroes of that story. Sabine Wren’s (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) tenure as a Mandalorian warrior will eventually come into play, and references to Hera Syndulla’s (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) lover, Kanan Jarrus, are all but inevitable, especially now that their son Jacen (Evan Whitten) is old enough to participate in Hera’s adventures.Episode 4 of Ahsoka sees Hera taking Jacen along for what could be a particularly risky mission. She and a handful of New Republic pilots are headed to the planet Seatos, which has become a temporary base of operations for Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) and the Eye of Sion, the massive hyperspace ring that will allow her to rescue Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) from a distant galaxy. The hunt for the Imperial Grand Admiral is driving the first half of Ahsoka, and “Fallen Jedi” brings Hera, Ahsoka, and Sabine closer to their goal.

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2023's Most Potent Religious Thriller Reveals the Flaws of the MCU Franchise Model

The Conjuring Universe is a pretty strange one in terms of consistency. For each series high, you get an equally passionate low, and 2018’s The Nun was one of those lows. There are a few different reasons why this is, but perhaps its biggest sin is that it was just dull. Mostly reliant on jump scares to keep viewers invested, it was certainly a movie that came out, and that’s all one could really say about it.You can call its sequel, The Nun II, many things, but dull won’t be one of them. The Michael Chaves-directed sequel is a messy but entertaining one that finally seems to justify this sub-franchise’s existence.

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5 Things We Just Learned About Tesla's Upcoming $25,000 EV

We already know about the Cybertruck and the Roadster but everyone is eager to hear more about an actually affordable EV from Tesla that would sell for around $25,000. Now we have a better idea, thanks to an Axios report and Elon Musk’s biographer, Walter Isaacson.The report reveals a lot about the messy inner workings of Tesla but also confirms that Tesla is making a $25,000 EV that features a futuristic design like the Cybertruck. Along with the affordable EV, we’ll also see a fully autonomous EV that will be built on the same platform as the $25,000 option.

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3 Years Ago, an Impeccably Stylish Mystery Reinvented the Detective Genre

For how often games cast you as a detective or focus on solving mysteries, it’s strange how banal the process usually feels. In recent years, games like Return of the Obra Dinn and The Case of the Golden Idol have put a far more satisfying spin on detective work by requiring thought and investigation rather than just following onscreen prompts. One game celebrating its third anniversary this September did the same — and added sex, demonic cults, an incredible soundtrack, and style to spare.In Paradise Killer, the first and so far only game from Kaizen Game Works, you play as Lady Love Dies, a detective who’s called out of retirement to investigate a particularly grisly murder. Pretty typical detective stuff, except that “retirement” was an eternal exile of which Lady Love Dies has served 3 million days (or 8,213 years) and the victims are a group of misanthropic immortals who rule over a paradise resort in an alternate dimension that reconfigures itself every few thousand years.

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Zimbabwe elections 2023: a textbook case of how the ruling party has clung to power for 43 years

University of Johannesburg provides support as an endorsing partner of The Conversation AFRICA.Few were surprised as, near midnight on 26 August, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission announced incumbent president Emmerson Mnangagwa’s reelection in yet another of Zimbabwe’s tendentious contests. His inauguration on 4 September sanctified his return to power.

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Smaller Companies Must Embrace Risk Management

SMEs do not have the same regulatory pressures that can lead larger companies to measure and mitigate their risks, but they also have fewer buffer resources to resist unexpected shocks. They are one large potential incident away from bankruptcy. That’s why SMEs can benefit from taking three actions: designing controls proportionate to the risks at stake, analyzing the lessons from success (not only from failures), and using risk management to boost and protect business performance.

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The UK has joined the EU's Horizon science funding scheme - but if we want the UK to lead, the hard work has just begun

It’s been a tortuous journey to associate membership. There was a collective sigh of relief in December 2020 when the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), which established arrangements for EU-UK cooperation post-Brexit, included a commitment on UK association. However, its implementation was delayed because of tensions between the UK and EU over the Northern Ireland Protocol. With these largely resolved following the Windsor Framework agreement in February 2023, the path was theoretically cleared for joining Horizon.

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50 Weird Things That Are So Freaking Cool on Amazon

A silicone fish that helps you separate eggs, a pair of pizza scissors, and a stone bath mat that absorbs water in seconds all sound like a joke but anything is possible on Amazon. There are plenty of other tools and accessories that seem a bit strange at first but become an absolute necessity after just one use. This list contains ways to keep your bedroom organized, your kitchen clean, and everything in between thanks to highly rated products that are as functional as they are affordable.This dishwasher-safe salad spinner can be used as a colander and by shifting the handle, it can be used right in your sink to spin out excess water in lettuce, pasta, and more. The silicone foot keeps it firmly in place, and unlike salad spinners with a two-part lid, it’s easy to clean.

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3 Questions Sales Teams Should Ask After Losing (or Winning) a Deal

When salespeople lose a deal, most prefer to move on rather than linger over the specifics of the loss. Similarly, when they win a deal, most are quick to celebrate. But very few take the time to assess why they won the business. In the authors’ experience leading and coaching sales teams, they see evidence that a brief, well-pointed sales retrospective, where you unpack the reasons behind a win or a loss, can significantly improve a team’s future win rate. Beyond the obvious benefits for the sales team — for whom the process can help identify the best messaging and behaviors to use going forward — unpacking wins and losses also provides valuable insights for product, marketing, and finance teams. Teams should ask three questions: 1) How would the customer articulate the value of their choice? 2) Who was the most influential voice in and out of the room? 3) Beyond price, what were the key deciding factors in the client’s decision?

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The fear of a nuclear fire that would consume Earth

A scene in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer hinges around the worry some Manhattan Project scientists felt that the first atomic bomb test would ignite Earth's atmosphere.Edward Teller, so the story goes, first raised the possibility in 1942. It has been debated how seriously this was taken, but it animated the scientists enough to crunch the numbers, concluding planetary immolation was "unlikely".

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Hurricane Fiona's legacy: How studying storm impacts can help us better prepare for future events

PhD student, Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University Hurricane Lee became the busy 2023 hurricane season’s first Category 5 storm and one of the most intense hurricanes on record in the Atlantic Ocean. As hurricane Lee’s uncertain storm track could potentially take it towards the Canadian Maritimes, it provides a timely opportunity to reflect on hurricane Fiona, one year after.

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'Robo-Taxi Takeover' Hits Speed Bumps

Self-driving cars are expanding their ranges in a handful of U.S. cities, but the reality doesn’t yet match the hypeSelf-driving cars are hitting city streets like never before. In August the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) granted two companies, Cruise and Waymo, permits to run fleets of driverless robo taxis 24/7 in San Francisco and to charge passengers fares for those rides. This was just the latest in a series of green lights that have allowed progressively more leeway for autonomous vehicles (AVs) in the city in recent years.

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50 Years Later, Star Trek Finally Addresses Its Laziest Alien Tradition

Throughout the history of Star Trek, most “new life and new civilizations” have had two arms, two legs, and a head. A variety of sculpted ears and bumpy foreheads differentiate the aliens that populate the Final Frontier, but it’s rare to see truly far-out Arrival-style aliens in Trek. But as Star Trek celebrates its 57th birthday, a special episode has poked some fun at the fact that all these aliens are basically human-ish. For Star Trek Day 2023, “Skin a Cat” elevates Trek’s silliest alien trope into an absurd hyperbole.

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Ukraine's push for NATO membership is rooted in its European past - and its future

Kateryna Shynkaruk is affiliated as a nonresident scholar with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.During a recent meeting with the nation’s diplomatic corps, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave Ukraine’s ambassadors their marching orders for the rest of the year: Work to help secure Ukraine’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union. Zelenskyy also told the ambassadors to focus on helping Ukraine secure bilateral agreements for security guarantees between Ukraine and individual G7 countries, including the United States.

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'Ahsoka' Theory Reveals A Shocking Alternate Star Wars Timeline

In Ahsoka Episode 4, “Fallen Jedi,” Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) is pushed from the Nightsister henge by Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson) into the turbulent Seatos sea below. She awakes in a familiar yet impossible place: the World Between Worlds. Even stranger is the appearance of her former Master, Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen). First off, The World Between Worlds is a puzzling location for her to be; it’s not the “heaven” of Star Wars, nor has it ever been accessible by near-death experience. So why has Ahsoka creator Dave Filoni placed her there? The inspiration for this could be found in America’s most iconic Christmas movie, the 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life.Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life is ingrained into the public consciousness of America. Iconic on a level few films have ever reached, the 1946 film follows a hopeless George Bailey (James Stewart), contemplating suicide on a bridge on Christmas Eve. Disillusioned with a life of constantly giving up on his own personal dreams to put others first, he mourns the life that he could have had, believing he never fulfilled his true purpose and potential.

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Look Up! A Newly Discovered Comet Could Be Visible to the Naked Eye This Week

Wake up, step outside in the predawn hours, and take your chance on seeing newly-discovered Comet Nishimura. You might witness something spectacularly fleeting.Nishimura is named after amateur astronomer Hideo Nishimura, who discovered it just last month while taking 30-second exposures of the night sky with a digital camera. Comet Nishimura is a visitor from the Oort Cloud, a distant and frigid region of the Solar System. If Comet Nishimura ever traveled towards the Sun in the past, that would have been hundreds of years ago. But what makes the vibrant comet’s arrival even more special is that there’s always the risk this could be its last. Its cradle far away from the Sun means it’s made of icy material that could easily break apart as it approaches the star.

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Will the Rains Extinguish Burning Man?

Last Thursday was a typically atypical day at Burning Man—the last before a series of atypically atypical days. It began, for me, with a bike ride with some friends to the Temple for an orchestral performance. Burning Man is named after a large effigy that burns in a raucous extravaganza on Saturday night; the next night, most of the same crowd sits in silence watching a wooden temple, of a different design each year, go up in flames. Beforehand, people fill the Temple with messages, writing on the walls and stapling photos and personal effects to the structure. I wandered inside and perused the community’s contributions. Many of them memorialized lost loved ones, but the ones that hit me hardest addressed the search for self-love. “To my past self,” one message read. “You are more amazing than you realize. We’ve made it.” The note ended with a hint at the future: “See you there. xoxo.”I was in a receptive mood, and tears streamed down my face. I spent an hour reading. Then I headed to Burning Man’s makeshift airport, where I needed to reschedule a volunteer shift. The airport is a somewhat contentious spot: earlier in the week, climate protesters had blocked off the road leading to Burning Man to protest, among other things, the increasing number of private planes flying into the temporary metropolis that we call Black Rock City. For years, the community has struggled with how to deal with the influx of money. Wealthy individuals contribute to some stunning art, mutant vehicles, and theme camps on the playa, but the cash also allows people to insulate themselves in R.V.s set up by hired hands. In an official newsletter, the Burning Man Project reported that they “took action” last year against seventy camps for selling accommodations, amenities, or services. “Convenience camping (formerly described as turnkey or plug-and-play camping) is not permitted in BRC, and runs totally counter to the values of our community,” its Web site reads. Burning Man is supposed to be hard.

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'Monarch: Legacy of Monsters' Trailer Reveals the Origins of the MonsterVerse

While the DC and Marvel Cinematic Universes have been churning out movie after movie, Legendary Pictures’ MonsterVerse has focused on quality over quantity. From Gareth Roberts’ Godzilla back in 2014, to the upcoming Godzilla x Kong: A New Empire in April 2024, the kaiju movie franchise with the flavor of modern Hollywood is doing its best to prove itself worthy of your time. Now, like all the best cinematic universes of the 2010s, the MonsterVerse is moving from theaters to streaming. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is an ambitious, star-studded series that will expand the MonsterVerse to somewhere it’s never been: the past. Check out the trailer for the upcoming Apple TV+ series, stomping into households everywhere starting November 17.

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How Black Police Officers Combat Systemic Racism at Work

If you’re a member of an historically marginalized group, enacting change in an organization can be challenging. This is likely even more difficult if your organization is known for bias and even violence against your own group. This is the position many Black police officers are in, and researchers wanted to better understand the strategies they use to advocate for anti-racism despite the numerous roadblocks. This article looks at why Black police officers choose the job, how they challenge racism, and how they sustain their efforts. It also offers suggestions for employees in other fields can continue to fight for change in their own companies.

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4 Skills the Next Generation of Data Scientists Needs to Develop

As reliance on data and analytics continues to expand across industries from agriculture to manufacturing, health care to financial services, it stands to reason that the next generation of data leaders will have far-reaching roles that impact strategy, decision-making, operations, and countless other functions.

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Greece's record rainfall and flash floods are part of a trend - across the Mediterranean, the weather is becoming more dangerous

Recent images of the devastating flash floods caused by Storm Daniel in Greece hit close to home literally and figuratively. As a Greek who has completed a PhD and worked for the past eight years on flash floods, the scenes unfolding across my homeland are painfully real: a stark reminder of the broader environmental challenges we face both on a local and a global scale.These unprecedented flash floods were triggered by rainfall from the arrival of Storm Daniel on Monday September 4 which also affected Turkey and Bulgaria. The following day, in the village of Zagora, a record-breaking 754mm of rain fell in just 18 hours, leaving parts of the region of Thessaly in crisis and unable to respond.

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You Need to Watch the Most Unfairly Forgotten Cult Thriller on Amazon ASAP

There are few things writers and directors love doing more than throwing a bunch of distrustful people in a room together and planting various seeds of doubt between them. Some of the most memorable thrillers of all time have followed that formula, including Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and John Carpenter’s The Thing. In some cases, those movies work in spite of their forgettable locations. In others, it’s the marriage between their central setting and their characters’ shared dilemma that makes them so interesting.That’s certainly the case for Bad Times at the El Royale. The 2018 film from Cabin in the Woods writer-director Drew Goddard is a 1960s-infused, single-location thriller that traps an assortment of intriguing, diametrically opposed people in a fictional hotel that is just as much of a character as any of them. When it was originally released, the film received mostly positive reviews, but it made little of a mark at the box office.

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