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╰☆☆ 𝒶𝒹𝒹 𝓂𝑒: 𝓂𝒶𝒸𝓎𝓂𝒾𝒸𝑜 ☆☆╮ | *photography* | Art, Conceptual photography, Photography

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End the stereotyping. | Love | Portrait Photography, Art, Portrait

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"slavery was a choice" - SWIPE to read @aliyahkorneagay thoughts➡➡➡ #iMissTheOldKanye | Art | Photography, Art, Conceptual photography

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"slavery was a choice" - SWIPE to read @aliyahkorneagay thoughts➡➡➡ #iMissTheOldKanye

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PJ DeVito (@peterdevito) * Instagram photos and videos | Revolution | People art, Art, Photography

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PJ DeVito (@peterdevito) * Instagram photos and videos

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Eğer üstüne güL kokLayacaksan, sevme Papatya'yı!..., #photography | Seyahat tutkusu | Black, white photography, White photography, Girl smoking

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A collection of beautiful images from the internet. I love to be visually inspired. So welcome to my little dot in the Universe! I am so pleased you stopped by. Pull up the chair and pour a glass of...

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Dozens Of LGBTQ People Have Reportedly Been Arrested & Beaten In Azerbaijan

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Those arrested were beaten and forced to go under medical examination, and transgender women had their heads shaved.

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Calvin Klein Spring Summer 2016 by Tyrone Lebon #CommercialModels | Идеи для фото | Kendall jenner calvin klein, Fashion Photography, Art

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Calvin Klein Spring Summer 2016 by Tyrone Lebon #CommercialModels

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If "action painting" is produced by the dynamics of dripping, smearing, and sweeping brushstrokes of paint to reveal the complex character of abstract art, then "action drawing" would be something like juxtaposing lines, planes, volumes, typographical elements, photographs, and paper cutouts on a drawing that aims to uncover the intricate universe of architectural ideas. Each of Perry Kulper's architectural drawings is a cosmos of information and possibilities that resist the banal and simplistic reductionism so typical of contemporary architectural representation. Series after series, his drawings display objects as background, and background as object in a constant visual journey of an architecture that doesn't settle and always evolves: an architecture of ideas. WAI Architecture Think Tank discussed with Perry Kulper the concept, intention, and potential of drawing architecture. WAI: There was a moment in our academic experience in which we became very interested in the potential of representation strategy. This was at the same time as one of us was researching about the potential of the representation tools of the avant-garde in the 20th century, starting with Le Corbusier and ending in the late 1960's with projects by Archizoom and Superstudio. Following our studies we discovered in Europe, in the midst of the debacle of Wall Street, that the architectural crisis had started a long time before the crash of Lehman Brothers. We felt that architectural representation and its dialectical relationship with architectural thinking was being overlooked, as representation was becoming a mere sales exercise in which renderings and cartoonesque diagrams served as smoke screens that tried to disguise a lack of intellectual depth. In order to continue our interests and answering a strong urge to challenge the situation we created WAI. We would like to know about the origins of your fascination for solving the puzzle of architectural representation? Could you share with us how your interest in this realm of architecture started?
Perry Kulper: While I had a latent interest in architectural drawings in my time in grad school at Columbia (Archigram, Graves, Stirling, Abraham, etc) and in the offices where I worked, my active interests in architectural representation evolved through: a self reflection on my own limitations as a designer through a realization that I lacked the formal, material and representational skills to work on a fruitful range of ideas; an interest in trying to find ways to visualize and materialize thought; trying to find a way into unexplored disciplinary conversations; exposure to a range of architecture and art practices in Los Angeles that opened questions about what architectural representation might discuss.

My interests in architectural representation were motivated specifically by my early years of teaching at SCI-Arc where I was around a number of provocative people who were thinking and working on the potential of the architectural drawing including Thom Mayne and Michael Rotondi of Morphosis, Mary-Ann Ray and Robert Mangurian of Studio Works, Andy Zago, Neil Denari, Coy Howard and so on. I was also beginning to think about the preferences of various kinds of architectural drawings and I was formulating thoughts about the 'crisis of reduction' and how the architectural representation might help avoid the reduction of things too quickly in the design of a project. I was also wondering how I might account for things that couldn't be metrically, or instrumentally visualized and was moving from my more dominant formal predilections in design to relational thinking and how to structure various interests in spatial settings. This suggested to me that alternative forms of visualization, imaging and drawing might be more effective in relation to an increased range of ideational and architectural possibilities.
During that period of time have you seen architectural representation in general undergo substantial changes or has the essence remained the same although with a different set of tools?
Digital culture has and will continue to have significant impact on the roles that visualizations have played for the architect over the last 15- 20 years. What can be worked on, who can work on it and the translation of what's being worked on have changed in contemporary life. Collaborative logics, forms of spatial generation, construction logics (linked to digital fabrication, in particular) have changed the roles, questions and operational positions for architectural representation. Arguably, the latent capacities and tacit knowledge gained through the making of a drawing have been changed through the instrumental techniques linked to various digital protocols. The changes are less dramatic in practice and perhaps more vivid with un-built projects and speculative research. Architectural representation has changed to include other forms of imaging and visualization 'outside' the conventions of drawing practices, opening alternative potential for what's in play and what's not in a project. In some influential discussions there has been a shift from what architecture looks like to how it behaves -a movement from the configuration and image dominance to parametric and performance logics. We've also witnessed an increase in the roles of the meditating visualizations, particularly the use of diagramming. There are certain questions that remain the same and others that will change. Key disciplinary discussions linked to a multitude of cultural shifts will be of increased importance as they become integrated in spatial production, particularly in relation to shifts in the augmented or changing roles of architectural representation.
Has your perception and understanding of architectural representation changed during your years of experience as a thinker, educator and practitioner? Have you seen an evolution or any dramatic change in your approach towards architectural representation?
Yes, my sense about the potential of architectural representation has both changed and been enlarged astronomically. Several key things come to mind including: an increasing interest on my part to augment the picturing of architecture (as the dominant mode of recognizing the potential of a project), to the generative roles of mediating drawings and their capacities to consider a wide range of ideas simultaneously, I have augmented imaging form or its abstraction through visualizations connected to relational thinking. In addition to what things look like I am particularly interested in: how they are structured; the roles that representation have played in expanding what I think is possible ideationally, conceptually and materially; a clearer understanding of the capacities of various approaches to architectural representation and when to deploy them relative to the different phases of a projects development; the value of moving between certainties explored in the space of representation and hunches, guesses and flat out shots in the dark; the latent potential of the drawing in relation to its explicit intent; an ability to work on and through temporally active conditions rather than static appearances; and an expanded sense of what might be considered as fodder for the architectural mill.
When you mention that the approximations, hunches, and shots in the darks have hugely increased, does that imply that the process has become more artistic in the sense of a programmatic freedom that allows you to explore representation "as" an end in itself, instead of representation as a possible building in the future?
Partially, as a result of allowing uncertainties to enter drawings I have enjoyed freedom of many kinds. A more relaxed and accommodating approach has allowed me to work 'creatively' (always a dangerous word) in broadened ways by supporting expanded relational capacities in the drawings to discuss things that might not otherwise be in play. I try to visualize and support ideas long enough to see if they might be relevant to a project in the long run. Increasingly, I am less judgmental about possible ideas for a project, especially in the early phases of a project -about whether everything in play is suitable for the piece of work. Depending on what I am working on I often make drawings, or parts of drawings that are not targeted at a synthetic building proposal, but are specific in their intent -studying erasure as a possible representational and spatial activity, for example.

With the liberations I've granted myself come different kinds of possibilities including an ability to make connections where I hadn't seen them, to open the range of ideas that might belong to a project and to work on things that might not initially, or ever, make sense. Eventually, I tend to look for a fitness between the situation in which I am working (the situation might include a site, or sites and their respective histories, physicality, futures, etc, the cultural and disciplinary questions at stake, considerations of like projects in the world, my ambitions for the work, etc) and whatever I might propose -a kind of measure of what is relevant, or appropriate to discuss in a project.

Explored through certain kinds of drawing techniques, the hunches and approximations allow me to see other possibilities- the drawings and my understanding of the work frequently gets richer and talks about an expanded set of constituencies, or possible participants, real, conceptualized and as yet unimaginable. To be honest, I also simply need to support some considerations through drawing in the only ways I can at the moment because in the early phases of a project, in particular, I often don't know how to resolve the geometric and material articulation for ideas. By allowing the co-existence of fairly certain ideas and hunches I relax a need to get it all right and enable conversations to emerge through the visualizations, discovering the project rather than attempting to prove it. If I had the skills to 'convert' the intellectual project into a geometric and material one immediately, I might not make mediating visualizations. On the other hand, the potential that emerges as a result of making drawings that try and move ideas to formations enables a multitude of unforeseen and sometimes profitable trajectories to enter a project. Ultimately, some of the drawing efforts have been testing grounds to examine the appropriateness of ideas and where ideas might come from.
On that same line, do you think that architectural representation can or should be appreciated as an art in itself, or should it always remain judged as a purely architectural exercise?
A great question- I've had a range of conversations with friends, colleagues and students over the years about your question. I think that architectural representation has a range of things it can discuss, both internal and external to the discipline. I think we should position and support a broad range of ways in which architectural representation works including its capacity to work as a design accomplice, to enabling musings without known outcomes, to speculating on alternative agendas for architecture (the roles of so-called paper architecture, for example) to, as you've suggested, being objects in the world with their own potential. I don't think architectural representation should always be judged solely as an architectural exercise, absolutely not. From my perspective it's useful to expose the roles architectural representations play, when and how they might be deployed, how they relate to other forms of architectural representation and how, if appropriate, they might find their spatial translation. For my work, I'm interested in finding appropriate modes of representation given the tasks at hand- the situational fitness of things again. I also value decisions I make in the drawings that are not linked to the situation in which I am working, but are linked to the agency of the drawing with its own potential.
Has any specific strategy or tool helped you to have a better understanding of the potential of architectural representation or of architecture as a discipline?
Amongst a range of things that have happened relative to your question a handful of key things occur to me. These include: the potential of composite architectural drawings, or visualizations- using multiple representation languages simultaneously in the same drawing; strategic plotting -plotting relations of agents, actions and settings, over and through time; analogical thinking -thinking and working through likenesses with things, events, conceptual structures, etc; and an expanded sense of the potential of architecture through the use of diverse design methods. I've indentified 14 of them and those means for producing work have allowed me to work on a highly varied range of ideas in different situations.
Referring to something you wrote in the piece "The Labor of Architectural Drawing" when discussing the risk of drawing as a confrontation with the "conceptual daylight of the blank drawing surface", we can't help but see an allegory with one of Jose Saramago's literary masterpieces about a city in which a mysterious outbreak makes people go blind. The blindness in the story is not portrayed as the typical visual blackout, but on the contrary, it is manifested as an incessant light that drowns the sight of those affected in an ocean of milk in which any discernible contrast between the sky and the water has become imperceptible. In the story, the hero is portrayed as somebody whose sense of duty and hope keeps her from going blind. In her struggle between her feeling of impotence in front of the overwhelming amount of problems of a blind society she has to carry the unbearable weight of responsibility and somehow guilt of being the only one able to see.
When you affirm that architectural drawing's "potential for creative engagement with diverse ideas in a project are on the wane," do you feel as if architecture has lost its sight, and that there are just a few architects able to see and understand the potential of architectural representation as a tool to think architecture?
The Saramago ('Blindness', if my thin memory serves) reference is interesting and useful, but I don't think I am in a parallel world to the hero. I think I'm looking for potential in architectural representation that maybe others aren't, but I also don't expect them to -the cultural and disciplinary questions and interests are just different. I do see the world of architectural representation as amazingly well poised to act as cultural and spatial agents, especially in the midst of significant change -as a generative realm, not simply a descriptive medium, or a technique motivated position.

I think there are multiple sights, or sites for the discipline to work on. I don't think architecture has lost its sight, it's just seeing other potentially interesting things at the moment. To be honest (this is pure conjecture) I'm not sure there's a broad interest in architectural representation, or more specifically the roles of the architectural drawing at the moment. In the early 21 Century architectural representation seems often to be used instrumentally, often bypassing the expansive potential of representation as a way to think through spatial problems and to enlarge what it is that architecture might discuss.
Parenthetically, related to my interests in situational thinking, in diversifying my skills as a designer and in trying to come to terms with what kinds of issues are relevant to work on in a project (its 'scope' towards a cultural and disciplinary 'fitness') and how to work on them (using particular design methods and representation techniques, strategically), I am often interested in sustaining multiple families of ideas, or interests in a project. Given my predilections the potential of architectural representation is huge on this front.
Do you see your architectural approach as a mode of intellectual resistance?
No. The approach, ethically, structurally and operationally that I champion might be entirely different from project to project, or from speculation to speculation. I think some people see what I do as a mode of resistance, but that's not my intent. I consider my interests more a form of augmentation and challenging default positions rather than a mode of resistance. If there is intellectual resistance it has more to do with challenging the mono-project, while avoiding the crisis of reduction and in not taking the means and techniques we deploy in architectural production for granted. I have a desire to develop spatial scenarios that participate at several levels with multiple constituencies in a spatial proposition- culturally, disciplinarily and situationally.
And finally, referring to what you call the crisis of reduction, do you think that the current architectural scenario (disciplinary, academic, professional) offers a fertile soil for the development of new representation strategies, or is a radical change needed?
From my point of view, and very generally, I think the use of representational strategies is sometimes deployed instrumentally and that anything outside that usage is seen as peripheral, or outside what the discussion might be. Because of my frequent interest in trying to support and develop multiple families of ideas in a project, single, or mono- drawing approaches tend to be inadequate to the questions I ask. Said differently, I don't always have the skills to figure out how to sustain ideas I'm working on in a project through conventional drawings like plan, section, perspective and so on. Given my predilections these drawing types, while historically extraordinary in their own right, implicate synthetic understandings of the ideas of a project at the time of their use. Sadly, my understanding and ability to make synthetic decisions is often not 'in sync' with the preferences or allowances of traditional drawing types.

And while I rely a lot on the conventions of architectural representation, in fact I grew up in architecture education and in practice through them; I have tried to understand their biases and preferences, so that I can deploy representation strategies more tactically, given what I'm working on. Again, I generally look for an appropriate set of relationships between what's being worked on and how those things are being worked on. Said differently, drawing types ask the 'lions to jump to the same platforms at the same time' and my design skills and interests simply don't work that way.

I think there is a reasonable range of representational strategies available disciplinarily, professionally and academically. I do think we might address the question about contextualizing the representational strategies available, what they've led to and when they are more effectively deployed as a way. I also think that it's possible to innovate within what's known, by shifting the relational assemblies, or relational contours within a representational approach. To be honest I do think that radical changes might be necessary.
Perry Kulper is an architect and associate professor of architecture at the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning. Prior to his arrival at the University of Michigan he was a SCI-Arc faculty member for 16 years as well as in visiting positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Arizona State University. Subsequent to his studies at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (BS Arch) and Columbia University (M Arch) he worked in the offices of Eisenman/ Robertson, Robert A.M. Stern and Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown before moving to Los Angeles. His interests include the roles of representation and design methods in the production of architecture and in broadening the conceptual range by which architecture contributes to our cultural imagination. WAI Architecture Think Tank
WAI Architecture Think Tank is a Workshop for Architecture Intelligentsia based in Beijing. Founded by Nathalie Frankowski and Cruz Garcia in 2008, WAI asks What About It?
This interview is part of What About It? Part 2, a graphic narrative in magazine format made available in limited edition printed copies, and as a free digital resource on the internet.

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Drawing Architecture - Conversation with Perry Kulper

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If "action painting" is produced by the dynamics of dripping, smearing, and sweeping brushstrokes of paint to reveal the complex character of abstract art, then "action drawing" would be something like juxtaposing lines, planes, volumes, typographical elements, photographs, and paper...

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Contemporary Domestic Confessional | Arik Levy Studio

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John E. Jaqua Academic Center for Student Athletes, University of Oregon

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Explore andika.murandi's photos on Flickr. andika.murandi has uploaded 1823 photos to Flickr.

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Office Tour: Google's New, Futuristic London Engineering Floor

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Just when you forgot about Google, that crazy search company, they desided to build another crazy office. We've seen them before - Stockholm and Zurich - but this one is...

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Discover inspiring programmes happening every day near you. Find out what's going on at Apple Birmingham with Today at Apple.

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Check out this awesome example of how the stairs are turned into an enormous advertisement through the use of custom #floorgraphics. | Floor Graphics | Floor graphics, Stair art, Elevator door

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Check out this awesome example of how the stairs are turned into an enormous advertisement through the use of custom #floorgraphics.

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University Wall Mural | Fitness Center Murals and Interior Branding in 2019 | Floor graphics, Window mural, Sports wall

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What do White and South-Asian children really think of one another?

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Even artificial Intelligence (AI) is being integrated into online sex ed. Planned Parenthood's sexual health chatbot for teens, Roo, allows young people to text any time of the day with questions about their sexual health, relationships and bodies, receiving answers within seconds. The gender-inclusive chatbot is designed for those aged 13 to 17 and will evolve to answer more questions as more people use it.

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Even artificial Intelligence (AI) is being integrated into online sex ed. Planned Parenthood's sexual health chatbot for teens, Roo, allows young people to text any time of the day with questions about their sexual health, relationships and bodies, receiving answers within seconds. The gender-inclusive chatbot is designed for those aged 13 to 17 and will evolve to answer more questions as more people use it.

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Technology in sexuality

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Dating apps can be terrible.

Despite the onslaught of niche dating apps, some still feel left out of the dating scene. Especially when dating has been a taboo topic for most of their lives.

For young, single Muslims in the West - whose "white friends" started going on dates as teenagers while they were barely allowed to utter the word "boyfriend" - it's hard to know where to start.

Enter Eshq ("love" in Persian): a new dating app aimed at young Muslim women looking to dabble in the world of dating without the stigma. By allowing the woman to "make the first move," the app, which is currently in beta, hopes to remove the obstacles and stigma of dating in the Muslim world.

Its founder, 29-year-old Mariam Bahawdory, launched the app while she was in graduate school. Bahawdory had virtually no dating experience growing up in Raleigh, N.C. When it came time for her to "settle down," per her Afghan family's tradition, the options were limited.

After a failed engagement at 25, she found online dating to be her only real prospect.

Progressive platforms for Muslims like Minder promise the ability to "Swipe. Match. Marry." But that wasn't enough for Bahawdory and her friends, who were looking for a deeper connection and potentially, marriage.

"I created Eshq as a solution to my own problem," she says.

She says Minder's reputation is too reminiscent of its inspiration, Tinder. For someone looking to get serious and introduce a dating prospect to her family, Minder wasn't the place to go.

On the other hand, clunky, traditional dating platforms didn't fare any better.

"I looked at Muslim dating websites that are archaic, geared more toward a matrimony," she said by phone. "I wanted to implement a faster format that's more mobile-friendly and for a younger crowd."

While Muslim-themed matchmaking platforms like Minder, Arab Lounge and Ishqr have been around for some time, none of these platforms offer services beyond placing Muslim women on a pseudo-meat market to be plucked from, Bahawdory explains. Eshq is looking to fill a void in the market craved by Muslim women.

For example, Ishqr doesn't show you potential matches' face, mimicking the ritual of old-school blind dating.

"I kept thinking, 'how can I make it different? How can I give women who aren't allowed to date the power to choose a partner?'" Bahawdory says. "Eshq is the first Muslim dating app created by a Muslim woman who is also its target market."

After years of researching dating patterns in the Muslim community - including speaking directly to Muslim women of both liberal and conservative backgrounds about what they want to see - the idea of Eshq was born.

"Being a Muslim woman with friends and family members at different ends of the progressive spectrum, I wanted to create an environment that invited individuals from across the Muslim community who are interested in a long-term connection."

To join Eshq, you must login through Facebook. From there, the app uses a matching algorithm that picks out similarities between profiles, Bahawdory explained. As the user fills out their bio information, the Eshq team picks out keywords to match with others' profile.

Its drawing feature is that it only allows the woman to start the conversation after a match. It was admittedly implemented by the mainstream Bumble around the same time Bahawdory says she came up with the concept. Still, she thinks that in the context of Muslim dating, the app's small-yet-curated pool makes the feature even stronger.

For 28-year-old Sahar M., who lives in Manhattan and works in marketing, Eshq's encouragement of comprehensive profiles, including Spotify, Instagram and embeddable videos is what drew her to it. You can even add an emoji to represent your heritage country's flag. Given that Muslim culture is far from monolithic, this comes in handy to help give context to your match.

"It lets you provide a fuller picture of who you actually are," she told me. "And the fact that it empowers women to make the first move helps avoid all the creepy guys."

Dating in the Muslim community is more nuanced than mainstream millennial dating culture. There is a wide spectrum of piety, culture and religion that factors into decisions around dating, Sahar explains. Depending on the community, there are a range of views of what dating looks like, or whether you even use the word "dating" or "boyfriend."

Having tried Tinder in the past, Sahar matched with and dated a Latino, Catholic man for some time.

"It was a great relationship, but there was a sense of 'this is doomed from the beginning,'" she says. "I realized I'd like to have someone who understood my culture and religion."

Saif Raja, 30, and Judy Jbara, 26, met on Eshq six months ago - shortly after the app's initial launch. They talked on the phone for four hours before meeting for coffee. Jbara, who is of Syrian origin, had never considered dating a Pakistani man, but was able to change her family's perspective on it once she met Raja on the app.

Living in the United States, Jbara wanted to find someone who understands both cultures she grew up with. Raja said finding a Muslim girl he actually sees a future with has not only made him, but his older parents happy.

Straddling two contrasting cultures is no easy feat, Raja explains.

"Growing up in America with older generation parents makes it hard to do things like date in the normal sense," he said. He hopes that tech platforms like Eshq will help make it a bit easier to find common ground.

Eshq's official launch is set for February.

Gabriela Barkho

Gabriela Barkho is a Lily contributor.

Since childhood, women have been told that this day should be 'perfect.' It's time to drop the charade.

An excerpt from Lori Gottlieb's 'Maybe You Should Talk to Someone'

Reuters reported that her spokesman said she began wearing the ring over Easter

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This dating app for Muslims is designed with women in mind - The Lily

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Dating apps can be terrible. Despite the onslaught of niche dating apps, some still feel left out of the dating scene. Especially when dating has been a taboo topic for most of their lives.

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Evolve 2018: AR, VR, & the Future of Work

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The "Our Kind Of People" series examines how clothing, ethnicity and gender affect our ideas about identity, personality and character. The subjects in this work are dressed in clothing from their own wardrobes.

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Watch 9:40

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Breaking down stereotypes using art and media | Bayete Ross Smith | TEDxMidAtlantic

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Involves boomboxes that everyone remembers or has seen but references urban communities and popular culture.

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Got The Power: Boomboxes - Bayeté Ross Smith

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www.gotthepower.tumblr.com Got the Power , uses ambient sound, music, and oral history to create portraits of American communities. As a project that began during a public artist residency at The Laundromat Project , Bayeté travels to different regions of the country and invites communit

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There are few places mothers can turn to for help in Gaza, a war-ravaged enclave stunted by a crippling 12-year Israeli-imposed blockade.

Without childcare or support, and with few parenting handbooks available, that frustration, anger and despair can be channelled towards the children.

One Gazan mother, Nour al-Khodary, wants to help change that with a new app, Momy Helper.

It is the first of its kind in Arabic: at the click of a button mothers can access how-to guides for parenting, be connected to trained specialists, and get support for gender-based violence and other issues faced by women.

The former film producer says it is a simple solution to one of the most unspoken taboos in the Middle East: being a mother who cannot cope.

"Everyone is stressed here in Gaza. We don't have peace inside ourselves. Each day we are following in the news: what will happen next, who will be killed, which building will be hit?" she tells The Independent from her offices at Gaza Sky Geeks, a tech hub in the 25-mile long militant-run strip.

"The kids pay for this: the mother, the father, the family are all under pressure," she adds.

She says she wants to connect mothers to professional consultants specialising in psychology and parenting.

"You can't simply can't go to a professional in our culture - your family and your husband will not support it.

"People call you crazy, they blame the women for not being able to cope. It's a taboo. You end up sunk in depression, which you take out on your kids. But with the app you can have discreet and confidential support," she explains.

The app, which is registered in Delaware, aims to break through blockades, barriers and borders and help women both within Gaza and across the Arabic-speaking world on how to look after and support their children.

Through the app, women can also discreetly book paid sessions from among their team of more than 100 professionals, who speak multiple Arabic dialects and have been carefully vetted.

Ms Khodary acknowledges that Momy Helper can only reach those who can afford mobile phones and so cannot fix all problems women face, but hopes it can help be part of a solution.

In a trial run last year, Momy Helper paired up with Oxfam to provide free support sessions for mothers who could not afford to pay or did not dare ask their husbands.

In Gaza, where few have bank accounts or credit cards, women can pay for the $15 hour-long sessions in person.

The app, which is available on Google Play, also provides basic questionnaires to help identify what issues the user is facing and then direct them to the correct free advice in Arabic.

Ms Khodary hopes in the future to use artificial intelligence to better improve the interaction.

For now, they have step-by-step guides of what to expect each month with their new child, and how best to improve the child's development at each key stage.

There are also sections on violence against women and how that can impact children. The app lays out what kind of abuse women are subjected to and what support they can get to tackle it.

After hearing some of the worst stories from women who have reached out to Momy Helper, Ms Khodary also wants to pair up with charities to improve the gender-based violence section of the app and blog.

Gender-based and domestic violence is increasing in Gaza, according to a rights group, which says it is driven by soaring unemployment and poverty rates among Gaza's trapped 1.8 million population.

According to the United Nations, more than half of women in Gaza have experienced violence at home, while nearly 80 per cent have reported being psychologically abused. Depression is also thought to be on the rise.

Ms Khodary hopes her app can, in some way, support some women across the Arab world going through this.

"Sometimes mothers just need someone to hear them. We can't provide professional therapy, but our consultants try to give them support on how they can better deal with their issues," she says.

"With severe cases we encourage them to seek professional therapy and we try to put them in touch with facilities to help with that," she adds.

Ms Khodary says she first came up with the idea in 2014 after having her son Bassem when she was briefly living in Chicago as her husband, who had secured a Fulbright scholarship, was finishing his Masters in Architectural Engineering.

A long way away from home, Ms Khodary turned to the wealth of childcare literature and support available in the US.

"When I was in Gaza I didn't pay much attention to how people brought up their kids but after I read the books, I realised [back home] mothers were hitting their kids and shouting at them. Children just had to follow orders without thinking," she says.

"This shocked me and I started posting on Facebook about what I had learned," she adds.

She initially received angry backlash from friends who thought she was judging them.

But that changed to a stream of questions when she put up videos showing examples of positive results from her little boy Bassem.

"Then I start thinking about connecting mothers with professional consultants, I realised there was nothing for mothers speaking Arabic," she says.

Through Gaza Sky Geeks, a Mercy Corps-supported initiative that runs a coding academy, she put together a 10-person team to build the app. In 2017 she came second in a region-wide competition in Istanbul for best start-up in the Middle East and North Africa.

But the problem now is funding. Ms Khodary secured a small injection of cash from angel investors at the start, who gave her around 10 per cent of what was needed.

But two years on she has had to drop her team and is now running the business entirely on her own.

She registered the app in Delaware and with a US bank, knowing foreign investors would be nervous about money going into Gaza. Right now, she is looking into crowdfunding options.

The working mother hopes to run the app as a business, so she can create work back in Gaza where youth unemployment has soared past 70 per cent and only 19 per cent of women of working age have jobs: the highest female jobless rate in the world

"My first dream is that I can reach every woman in the Arab world that needs the support that Momy Helper can offer," she says.

"But I have a bigger dream, to be the first female investor in Palestine, to grow my business and earn enough to be able to invest in other start-ups to help others achieve their goals."

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The Gazan woman building an app to help support fellow mothers

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There are few places mothers can turn to for help in Gaza, a war-ravaged enclave stunted by a crippling 12-year Israeli-imposed blockade. Without childcare or support, and with few parenting handbooks available, that frustration, anger and despair can be channelled towards the children.

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I always swore that I'd never be one of those oldsters (60 this summer!) who moans about young people. And I don't, generally. But more and more I find myself sneering at, jeering at and mocking them, or at least that section which is the loudest - the soft, spoon-fed sort who seem to believe that every last syllable which falls from their lips is of interest to strangers, whereas it's highly likely that even their loved ones struggle to stay awake when they're speaking.

I always imagined that the older generation pilloried the upcoming one out of envy, but this certainly isn't the case with me. I got my dream job when I was 17 (whereas it's very hard for a working-class kid to break into paid journalism now) and was single and keen to mingle for a brief but memorable year, long before AIDS raised its regrettable head. So it's not that I think the young are living some bed-hopping, pill-popping life that I was never privy to. On the contrary, one reason I find them annoying is that they're the only generation who want less from life than the generation who came before. Less sex, less booze, less travel (those carbon footprints!), all of which is entirely their own business.

But they also appear to want less free speech - which is when it becomes an issue concerning all of us. 'You're not going out dressed like that!', has become 'You can't say that!' - and it's all the more sinister coming from a younger generation rather than an older one, who could be excused for being cautious.

Paradoxically, redrawing the boundaries of what is 'acceptable' and 'appropriate' in order not to make anyone feel 'excluded' actually has the counter-productive effect of literally excluding many groups from both social media and public platforms: ex-Muslims espousing atheism, women querying the rights of the transgendered to play them at sport, and lesbians not attracted to a penis even if it has a frock over it. A whole page of last week's Sunday Times was entirely composed of items reflecting what I call the Perils Of Inclusivity: 'Tax expert fired for saying trans women aren't women' - 'Gallery covers up art after complaints by Muslim viewers' - 'Anonymous journal lets academics publish and not be damned'. All in aid of preventing hurty feelz!

And now sexual perverts (among whom, on occasion, I happily count myself) are the latest group to demand 'inclusion'. Please! When I was young, we thought nothing more desirable than being An Outsider - why are the young of today so obsessed with getting a tick on the register, rather than playing hooky? There is a happy place between believing that no one should be excluded on the basis of race, sex or social class, and believing that official validation of every life choice any person freely makes are the same. Someone who likes dressing up in a gimp mask is not Rosa Parks, and I find the increasing lack of ability to differentiate between the two in some quarters highly risible at best and downright insulting at worst.

The latest snowflake flutter is 'Don't kink-shame me!'. At a Vancouver university last year, a man insisting he was an 'adult baby' pestered a university nurse to change his dirty nappy and perved over his repulsed female classmates. A whistle-blowing workplace-safety director was sacked for standing up for the women. In Wolverhampton a few months back, a tattooist calling himself 'Dr Evil' was charged with grievous bodily harm after slicing ears and nipples from paying customers. He was reported as having support from 'the body-modification community' who set up a petition in his favour.

Perhaps the most gobsmacking illustration of how mainstream perversion has become is a photograph of a Pride march showing a gaggle of kiddies (whose parents obviously got the memo that Pride is family-friendly) staring in what looks like confused repulsion at a man in front of them who leads a group of men, crawling on all fours and dressed as dogs, on leashes. Personally, I don't think Pride needs to be family-friendly - it's about the very adult desire to connect your genitalia to the genitalia of the same sex, which is pretty specific. But neither is it about kinks. Considering its origins, lesbians have far more right to be there than men who pretend to be dogs at weekends. Lesbians are now routinely removed from Pride marches by police due to their insistence that lesbians don't have penises and the hurty feelz this causes in people who believe they can and do.

I'm a broad-minded broad, so I'm not offended by these people - but I do despise them for being so wimpy that they need their kink validated by straight society. When did perverts start being ashamed to be perverts and need to be a community? 'Community' used to be such a jolly word, redolent of cheery singing or a nice place to land on the Monopoly board. Now it just means a bunch of whiners whining about stuff.

So I would say this to the youth of today: grab your outsider status and wear it with pride. Don't demand that society alters to accommodate you, because that's the way of the wimp. And try to remember that narcissism is not rebellion next time you call yourself 'genderqueer' on the occasion of your heterosexual marriage, Miley Cyrus, when so many genuinely queer people are still being murdered for the 'crime' of homosexuality all across the world. Don't wear a crown that's been paid for with the blood of others.

Frankly, such is the emotional state of the woke - which appears to be akin to having PMT on a permanent basis - that even when the establishment tries to be inclusive, it invariably ends up offending. Last week Marks & Spencer (currently also flogging a hijab for tots - let's hear it for inclusivity, even if it means that girls of primary-school age never feel the sunshine on their blameless limbs) was the target of gay fuming after revealing its 'LGBT Sandwich' to celebrate Pride 2019. The cheeky addition of guacamole to a heteronormative BLT did not persuade the professional flouncers of social media that this was not exploitation of their precious predilection, though you'd think that part of the profit going to LGBT homeless and youth charities might have mattered. Still, who cares about practical assistance when there are temper tantrums to be had?

Though they bang on about polyamory, I can't help thinking that outrage is to this generation what sex was to mine. We used to sneer at Mrs Whitehouse when I was young and snigger that if she had more sex she wouldn't be so cross all the time. It was a childish response, I know. But I can't help thinking that if the young of today actually practised their kinks more and wailed for validation of them less, they might cheer up a bit.

Julie Burchill is a journalist and author based in Brighton.
Picture by: Getty

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I always swore that I'd never be one of those oldsters (60 this summer!) who moans about young people. And I don't, generally.

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Let's talk about sex in... the Arab world

Sex in the Arab world is the opposite of sport. This is what a gynaecologist in Egypt told me. Everyone talks about football but hardly anyone plays it; whereas everyone is having sex but no-one wants to talk about it.

I spent five years travelling across the Arab region talking about sex, including Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Lebanon. My problem was not getting people to talk about sex, but getting them to stop. People were very eager to ask questions and to speak openly about their experiences. I think that was because I come from a background of public health - I'm an immunologist - and also I'm half-Egyptian and a Muslim, but I look Western. Often women don't speak openly because they're afraid of being judged and they thought, with me coming from the West, they could speak with no judgement.

The problem in the Arab region is the gap between appearance and reality. It's not that people aren't doing what people are doing all over the world. It's that they feel reluctant to speak openly about it. Between 30 and 60 per cent of young men will say they've had sexual relations before marriage, but upwards of 80 per cent of young women say they haven't. Which begs the question: who are all these young men having sex with?

My biggest hope is that we can reclaim the spirit of our ancestors, for whom sex was not just a problem but a pleasure. And it was not just a pleasure for men, but also for women

The reality is there's recourse to sex workers - it's a booming business in the Arab region. But also people don't want to admit to sex before marriage because women are expected to be virgins on their wedding night. It's a double standard.

Virginity is defined as a piece of anatomy, an intact hymen, so many young people are engaging in alternative forms of sex: anal sex, oral sex or 'superficial relations'. I met a woman in Morocco who had had a one-night stand. They had superficial relations and the man had ejaculated on her legs. When she went to a doctor, she had absolutely no idea she was pregnant. The thing she kept saying to me, which was her point of pride, was: 'I am still a virgin.' Even though she was pregnant.

The problem is that virginity is defined in this quite superficial way. It leads young people into deeply unhealthy behaviours. An NGO in Morocco was trying to encourage HIV prevention by offering young female sex workers condoms, but they said, 'We don't need condoms. No way are we going to become pregnant. We only have oral or anal sex because we want to get married.' So, in the name of an intact hymen, they were opening themselves to HIV.

Many people are under the impression that there is no HIV in the Arab world, but it is one of only two regions where HIV infections are still on the rise. Taboos around sex are a huge obstacle to rising to the challenge of the epidemic.

There is also the issue of same-sex relations in the Arab world. Of course, these are alive and well. Roughly two to three per cent of the population engages in same-sex activity. That's on a par with global averages. But it's a question of being able to acknowledge it to yourself, to your family, let alone the wider community.

I talk about a scenic route to democracy - it's a long road, full of detours, emergency stops and bumps along the way. But you do see movement. In 2007, no woman would speak out about sexual harassment or being raped. Fast forward to 2014, and you find women in Egypt speaking out about their experiences.

We've gone through a dark period in the Arab region since the 1950s, a closing down on politics, economic thought, cultural thought. Sex is one part of that. A lot of arguments have been hijacked by Islamic conservatives. People have become incredibly conservative, not just Muslim but also Christian and Jewish conservatives. They wrap sex up in religion and use it as a tool of control. This creates a whole climate where everything is haram (forbidden), ayb (shameful).

We have a long history as Arabs of being very open on sexual matters within the context of Islam. My biggest hope is that we can reclaim the spirit of our ancestors, for whom sex was not just a problem but also a pleasure. And it was not just a pleasure for men, but also for women. If we can reclaim that spirit, a lot of the battle will have been won. That will set us on a good path to deal with many other issues in the generation to come.

Journalist, author and immunologist Shereen El Feki talked to Graeme Green.

This article is from the March 2014 issue of New Internationalist.
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Let's talk about sex in... the Arab world

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Let's talk about sex in... the Arab world Sex in the Arab world is the opposite of sport. This is what a gynaecologist in Egypt told me. Everyone talks about football but hardly anyone plays it; whereas everyone is having sex but no-one wants to talk about it.

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Lack of diversity in the artificial intelligence field has reached "a moment of reckoning", according to new findings published by a New York University research center. A "diversity disaster" has contributed to flawed systems that perpetuate gender and racial biases found the survey, published by the AI Now Institute, of more than 150 studies and reports.

The AI field, which is overwhelmingly white and male, is at risk of replicating or perpetuating historical biases and power imbalances, the report said. Examples cited include image recognition services making offensive classifications of minorities, chatbots adopting hate speech, and Amazon technology failing to recognize users with darker skin colors. The biases of systems built by the AI industry can be largely attributed to the lack of diversity within the field itself, the report said.

"The industry has to acknowledge the gravity of the situation and admit that its existing methods have failed to address these problems," Kate Crawford, an author on the report said. "The use of AI systems for the classification, detection, and prediction of race and gender is in urgent need of re-evaluation."

More than 80% of AI professors are men, and only 15% of AI researchers at Facebook and 10% of AI researchers at Google are women, the report said. The makeup of the AI field is reflective of "a larger problem across computer science, Stem fields, and even more broadly, society as a whole", said Danaë Metaxa, a PhD candidate and researcher at Stanford focused on issues of internet and democracy. Women comprised only 24% of the field of computer and information sciences in 2015, according to the National Science Board. Only 2.5% of Google's workforce is black, while Facebook and Microsoft are each at 4%, and little data exists on trans workers or other gender minorities in the AI field.

"The urgency behind this issue is increasing as AI becomes increasingly integrated into society," Metaxa said. "Essentially, the lack of diversity in AI is concentrating an increasingly large amount of power and capital in the hands of a select subset of people."

The use of AI systems for the classification, detection, and prediction of race and gender is in urgent need of re-evaluation

Kate Crawford, report author

Venture capital funding for AI startups reached record levels in 2018, increasing 72% compared to 2017 to $9.33bn in funding. Active AI startups in the US increased 113% from 2015 to 2018. As more money and resources are invested into AI, companies have the opportunity to address the crisis as it unfolds, said Tess Posner, the chief executive officer of AI4ALL, a not-for-profit that works to increase diversity in the AI field. This lack of diversity must be addressed before AI reaches a "tipping point", she said.

"Every day that goes by it gets more difficult to solve the problem," she said. "Right now we are in an exciting moment where we can make a difference before we see how much more complicated it can get later."

The report released on Tuesday cautioned against addressing diversity in the tech industry by fixing the "pipeline" problem, or the makeup of who is hired, alone. Men currently make up 71% of the applicant pool for AI jobs in the US, according to the 2018 AI Index, an independent report on the industry released annually. The AI institute suggested additional measures, including publishing compensation levels for workers publicly, sharing harassment and discrimination transparency reports, and changing hiring practices to increase the number of underrepresented groups at all levels.

Google disbanded an artificial intelligence ethics council meant to oversee such issues just one week after announcing it in March. The Advanced Technology External Advisory Council (ATEAC) was attracted backlash inside and outside the company after it appointed the anti-LGBT advocate Kay Coles James.

Posner noted that additional efforts to increase transparency around how algorithms are built and how they work may be necessary to fix the diversity problems in AI. This month, the US senators Cory Booker and Ron Wyden introduced the Algorithmic Accountability Act, a bill that would require algorithms used by companies that make more than $50m per year or hold information on at least 1 million users to be evaluated for biases.

"The core of the problem is whether market forces are going to be sufficient for this to be fixed," Posner said. "It's going to take effort at all stages of AI and take change at cultural and procedural levels to solve this."

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'Disastrous' lack of diversity in AI industry perpetuates bias, study finds

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Report says an overwhelmingly white and male field has reached 'a moment of reckoning' over discriminatory systems

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The internet has changed how kids learn about sex, but sex ed in the classroom still sucks. In , Mashable explores the state of sex ed and imagines a future where digital innovations are used to teach consent, sex positivity, respect, and responsibility.
Sex ed in the U.S. is often a hot mess. Teens regularly get medically inaccurate information, learn solely about abstinence, and hear only bad things about LGBTQ identity and sexuality.

Young people with disabilities can feel particularly invisible in classroom sex ed lessons, since the content typically doesn't reflect their experience. Meanwhile, some teens may assume their peers with disabilities have no interest in sex or sexuality at all.

This new video from AMAZE, a YouTube sex ed series for adolescents and teens, takes on and then shatters the stereotypes and misconceptions about disability and sexuality.

The clip features a young character who uses a wheelchair and the pronouns they/them. They share with an inquisitive friend that yes, they are interested in dating, and yes, their "parts work just fine." (It's important to note that while the direct questions help start an educational dialogue in the video, young people shouldn't similarly quiz their friends with disabilities.)

The candid conversation covers gender identity, sexual orientation, healthy relationships, and the specific challenges people with disabilities can face while trying to date. In just three short minutes, the video scores wins for representation, inclusion, and education.

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Sex ed video for teens shatters myths about sexuality and disability

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The internet has changed how kids learn about sex, but sex ed in the classroom still sucks. In , Mashable explores the state of sex ed and imagines a future where digital innovations are used to teach consent, sex positivity, respect, and responsibility. Sex ed in the U.S.

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Finding the best ways to do good. Made possible by The Rockefeller Foundation.

Human bias can seep into AI systems. Amazon abandoned a recruiting algorithm after it was shown to favor men's resumes over women's; researchers concluded an algorithm used in courtroom sentencing was more lenient to white people than to black people; a study found that mortgage algorithms discriminate against Latino and African American borrowers.

The tech industry knows this, and some companies, like IBM, are releasing "debiasing toolkits" to tackle the problem. These offer ways to scan for bias in AI systems - say, by examining the data they're trained on - and adjust them so that they're fairer.

But that technical debiasing is not enough, and can potentially result in even more harm, according to a new report from the AI Now Institute.

The three authors say we need to pay attention to how the AI systems are used in the real world even after they've been technically debiased. And we need to accept that some AI systems should not be designed at all.

The facial recognition systems that may be beyond "fixing"

Facial recognition technology is pretty good at identifying white people, but it's notoriously bad at recognizing black faces. That can produce very offensive consequences - like when Google's image-recognition system labeled African Americans as "gorillas" in 2015. But given that this tech is now used in police surveillance, which disproportionately targets people of color, maybe we don't exactly want it to get great at identifying black people. As Zoé Samudzi recently wrote in the Daily Beast:

In a country where crime prevention already associates blackness with inherent criminality, why would we fight to make our faces more legible to a system designed to police us? ... It is not social progress to make black people equally visible to software that will inevitably be further weaponized against us.

In other words, ensuring that an AI system works just as well on everyone does not mean it works just as well for everyone. Although the report doesn't explicitly say we should scrap the facial recognition systems used for police surveillance, it does emphasize that we can't assume diversifying their datasets will solve the problem - it might just exacerbate it.

Facial recognition tech has also caused problems for transgender people. For example, some trans Uber drivers have had their accounts suspended because the company uses a facial recognition system as a built-in security feature, and the system is bad at identifying the faces of people who are transitioning. Getting kicked off the app cost the trans drivers fares and effectively cost them a job.

Is the solution here to correct the bias in the AI system by ensuring that plenty of trans people are included in its training data? Again, debiasing might sound nice - until you realize that that would entail collecting tons of data on a community that has reason to feel extremely uncomfortable with data collection.

A few years ago, a computer science professor who wanted to train software to recognize people undergoing hormone replacement therapy collected videos from trans YouTubers without their consent. He got a lot of pushback, as The Verge reported:

Danielle, who is featured in the dataset and whose transition pictures appear in scientific papers because of it, says she was never contacted about her inclusion. "I by no means 'hide' my identity ... But this feels like a violation of privacy ... Someone who works in 'identity sciences' should understand the implications of identifying people, particularly those whose identity may make them a target (i.e., trans people in the military who may not be out)."

Rather than engage in invasive, nonconsensual mass data collection in the name of "fixing" an AI system, companies like Uber may do better to just allow a different means of account verification for trans drivers, the new report argues. Even if a company insists on using a facial ID login system for its workers, there's no reason that should be the sole option.

"Algorithmic gaydar" systems should not be built. Period.

There have also been repeated attempts to create facial recognition algorithms that can tell if someone is gay. In 2017, a Stanford University study claimed an algorithm could accurately distinguish between gay and straight men 81 percent of the time based on headshots. It claimed 74 percent accuracy for women. The study made use of people's online dating photos (the authors wouldn't say from which site) and only tested the algorithm on white users, claiming not enough people of color could be found.

This is problematic on so many levels: It assumes that sexuality is binary and that it's clearly legible in our facial features. And even if it were possible to detect queer sexuality this way, who would benefit from an "algorithmic gaydar" becoming widely available? Definitely not queer people, who could be outed against their will, including by governments in countries where sex with same-gender partners is criminalized. As Ashland Johnson, the Human Rights Campaign's director of public education and research, put it:

Imagine for a moment the potential consequences if this flawed research were used to support a brutal regime's efforts to identify and/or persecute people they believed to be gay. Stanford should distance itself from such junk science rather than lending its name and credibility to research that is dangerously flawed and leaves the world - and this case, millions of people's lives - worse and less safe than before.

One of the authors on the AI Now report, Sarah Myers West, said in a press call that such "algorithmic gaydar" systems should not be built, both because they're based on pseudoscience and because they put LGBTQ people at risk. "The researchers say, 'We're just doing this because we want to show how scary these systems can be,' but then they explain in explicit detail how you would create such a system," she said.

Co-author Kate Crawford listed other problematic examples, like attempts to predict "criminality" via facial features and to assess worker competence on the basis of "micro-expressions." Studying physical appearance as a proxy for character is reminiscent of the dark history of "race science," she said, in particular the debunked field of phrenology that sought to derive character traits from skull shape and was invoked by white supremacists in 19th century America.

"We see these systems replicating patterns of race and gender bias in ways that may deepen and actually justify injustice," Crawford warned, noting that facial recognition services have been shown to ascribe more negative emotions (like anger) to black people than to white people because human bias creeps into the training data.

For all these reasons, there's a growing recognition among scholars and advocates that some biased AI systems should not be "fixed," but abandoned. As co-author Meredith Whittaker said, "We need to look beyond technical fixes for social problems. We need to ask: Who has power? Who is harmed? Who benefits? And ultimately, who gets to decide how these tools are built and which purposes they serve?"
Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter. Twice a week, you'll get a roundup of ideas and solutions for tackling our biggest challenges: improving public health, decreasing human and animal suffering, easing catastrophic risks, and - to put it simply - getting better at doing good.

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Finding the best ways to do good. Made possible by The Rockefeller Foundation. Human bias can seep into AI systems. Amazon abandoned a recruiting algorithm after it was shown to favor men's resumes over women's; researchers concluded an algorithm used in courtroom sentencing was more lenient to white people than to black people; a study found that mortgage algorithms discriminate against Latino and African American borrowers.

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What are the human rights implications in the growing market for sex robots? Are these AI "gynoids" just harmless sex toys, or do they further marginalize women and put sex workers at risk of harm? Español.

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Watch This Documentary on Braids and Appropriation in America | ELLE

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Hi guys!!! This is the documentary I have been working on for the past 2 months I would say. Hope you all enjoy it. REMEMBER!!!! LIKE COMMENT AND SUBSCRIBE!!!!!!

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Long vudeo but first few mins worth listening too...:)

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Sam Vaknin: the TRUE toxicity of social media revealed

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Meet the neighbours: portraits of humanity - in pictures

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The 50 winners of the inaugural Portrait of Humanity photography prize have just been announced. Here are our favourites.

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My queer lioness: the artist unleashing a gender-bending cat on Venice

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Turner prize-winner Charlotte Prodger is representing Scotland at the Biennale - with gargling bagpipes and a butch lioness with a beard. She reveals all about her wild attraction

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Others think that our desire to explain AI is slightly irrational. After all, we're used to dealing with "black boxes" all the time. The human brain is a perfect example. We can't reverse engineer it to demonstrate which out of million hypothetical inputs tipped the balance and made you make a certain decision. You may be good at doing sums in your head. What you can't do is explain how you know that 7x7 is 49. You know why. But you don't know how you know why. And if you think you do, and can point to some epiphany at school, some single experience, you are probably post-rationalising. Our brains are good at this, making decisions which we rationalise afterwards. But that's not the same as explainability.

But a new paper in Nature suggests that, in fact, this similarity between AI black boxes and the human brain should actually provide a way to understand black boxes better. A blog post from researchers at MIT, lead authors on the paper, describes the problem:

"We interact numerous times each day with thinking machines. We may ask Siri to find the dry cleaner nearest to our home, tell Alexa to order dish soap, or get a medical diagnosis generated by an algorithm. Many such tools that make life easier are in fact "thinking" on their own, acquiring knowledge and building on it and even communicating with other thinking machines to make ever more complex judgments and decisions - and in ways that not even the programmers who wrote their code can fully explain."

Even when explainability is possible, they go on, it is not always practically possible, or stay practically possible.

"AI agents can acquire novel behaviors as they interact with the world around them and with other agents. The behaviors learned from such interactions are virtually impossible to predict, and even when solutions can be described mathematically, they can be so lengthy and complex as to be indecipherable."

But fear not, they say. Just because we aren't able to explain precisely why humans or other animals make certain certain decisions, that doesn't mean they are closed books. Far from it. Through empirical observation and experimentation we can understand a great deal about them and their impact and behaviour. The same goes for AI, the paper says. The solution is a new field of study called "machine behaviour" to study this new breed of "thinking" machines just as we have always studied thinking creatures.

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AI is changing the world from health to transport - here is why you should trust it like your own brain

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DeepMind, Google’s artificial intelligence division famous for jaw-dropping but arcane achievements, like designing an algorithm that can beat the world’s best player of Go, has shown off a prototype of a machine with an equally impressive but this time real-world application - scanning eyes for complex and sometimes fatal diseases.

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A popular children's social network is using facial recognition to assess the age of its users.

French company Yubo, dubbed "Tinder for teens", which says it has 20m users worldwide, has introduced software to analyse people's faces and estimate how old they are.

It is designed to weed out children who sign up for the site with false birth dates to circumvent the app's minimum age of 13, and can also detect adults who have misstated their ages.

The social media site said it had already checked 22m profile pictures, and removed a "few thousand" profiles belonging to under-13s as a result.

There is currently no disclosure when a user signs up for the app informing them that their images will be...

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Teen social media app uses facial recognition to check users' ages

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A popular children's social network is using facial recognition to assess the age of its users. French company Yubo, dubbed "Tinder for teens", which says it has 20m users worldwide, has introduced software to analyse people's faces and estimate how old they are.

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Brunch menus have been adapted to fuel their avocado addiction, estate agents have perfected their rental pitches,

Now technology is adapting to the whims and ways of the millennial generation. Google mobile phones have developed an app it expects to be a hit among phone-shy younger users who prefer screen conversations to having them in real life.

A top Google engineer has said that an artificial intelligence robo-caller that was created for deaf people will be a hit among younger people because they do not like making phone calls themselves.

Yossi Matias said that the new feature, which allows someone to type a response to someone on a phone and have a virtual voice talk to them on their behalf,...

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Google app that lets users avoid phone conversations set to be hit among call-shy millennials

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Brunch menus have been adapted to fuel their avocado addiction, estate agents have perfected their rental pitches, Now technology is adapting to the whims and ways of the millennial generation. Google mobile phones have developed an app it expects to be a hit among phone-shy younger users who prefer screen conversations to having them in real life.

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Existing techniques for both studying light and extracting 3D info are inherently limited by the size of wavelengths. This allows a considerably higher resolution that can even include holographic movies of fast-moving objects.

The approach is still very early and might not reach quantum computers for a long time. However, it does hint at a future where you could have secure yet small quantum processors. Existing quantum computers tend to be giant, room-sized affairs -- there's no guarantee EPFL's design will lead to something that fits on your desk or in your pocket, but it's a step in the right direction.

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Holographic tech could be key to future quantum computers

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Existing techniques for both studying light and extracting 3D info are inherently limited by the size of wavelengths. This allows a considerably higher resolution that can even include holographic movies of fast-moving objects. The approach is still very early and might not reach quantum computers for a long time.

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First is enforcement. The bill largely relies on the agency responsible for consumer protection, the Federal Trade Commission, to issue and enforce regulations about what should be in companies' impact assessments. The bill grants the F.T.C. new enforcement powers, including the power to require companies to "reasonably address in a timely manner the results of the impact assessments," but the agency even now too rarely enforces its settlements with repeat privacy violators. Significantly, the bill does not clearly prohibit algorithmic bias or unfairness. It relies instead on the F.T.C. to do so, or on penalties set by existing consumer protection and discrimination law, which may not cover all forms of algorithmic bias.

Second, the bill lacks an avenue for meaningful public input. Technology companies often lack diverse voices and fail to adequately consider social impact, resulting in numerous fiascos - from Google's image recognition algorithm that classified black people as gorillas, to Amazon's job-recruiting engine that discriminated against women. In the United States, the typical impact assessment process, based on environmental law, includes an opportunity for public comments, but this bill would not require them.

The proposal suggests that the impact assessments should be conducted with independent auditors and technology experts "if reasonably possible." But limiting external input to when it is "reasonably possible" may allow companies to evade public feedback. And discussions about discrimination require input not just from software engineers but from affected communities, legal experts and public interest representatives.

Third, the proposal needs to mandate at least some public transparency for the results of impact assessments. If the results of assessments aren't public, we can't learn anything from them. The bill is missing a way for insights to make their way back into broader policy discussions. For example, a common question about algorithmic bias is whether it is worse than human decision-making. Impact assessments can be a tool to help society figure this out - but not if they are kept secret.

There may be good reasons for some limited secrecy; full transparency might be off the table because of concerns about proprietary information or gaming the algorithm. One way to address this failing would be to require the F.T.C. to produce an annual report on the broader lessons it has learned from that year's impact assessments.

The proposed Algorithmic Accountability Act is a welcome and necessary first step toward governing the secret, often biased algorithms already widely in use across society. But without increased accountability, it may not be effective.

Margot E. Kaminski is an associate professor at the University of Colorado Law School. Andrew D. Selbst is a postdoctoral scholar at the Data and Society Research Institute and a visiting fellow at the Yale Information Society Project.

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Opinion | The Legislation That Targets the Racist Impacts of Tech

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First is enforcement. The bill largely relies on the agency responsible for consumer protection, the Federal Trade Commission, to issue and enforce regulations about what should be in companies' impact assessments. The bill grants the F.T.C.

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The controversy over the use of facial recognition technology - particularly by the police force - has been bolstered by the recent discovery that it has a rather pathetic four per cent success rate.

The Independent reports that the eight trials carried out in London over the course of 2016 to 2018, that have cost over £222,000, have had a 96 per cent "false positives" rate, which means that it's telling the fuzz that citizens are criminals when it's comparing their faces to the photos in its database. Glad to see our tax money being frittered away like it's a bag of chocolate coins.

During one of these trials, a man was fined £90 for obscuring his face from the cameras and telling police to "piss off" when he was pulled aside for doing so, and asked for his ID.

Worryingly, instances of police stopping individuals for having their faces covered have been reported more than than once.

"This is a turning point for civil liberties in the UK. If police push ahead with facial recognition surveillance, members of the public could be tracked across Britain's colossal CCTV networks," said Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch.

"For a nation that opposed ID cards and rejected the national DNA database, the notion of live facial recognition turning citizens into walking ID cards is chilling."

Last year, during a trial in Stratford that had a zero per cent success rate, a 14-year-old boy was misidentified and fingerprinted. This particular instance may or may not be related to the trouble that the technology has in correctly identifying people with darker skin that has civil rights advocates even more concerned about integrating it into society at large.

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Police Facial Recognition Tech is Branding Citizens as Criminals 96 Per Cent of the Time

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The controversy over the use of facial recognition technology - particularly by the police force - has been bolstered by the recent discovery that it has a rather pathetic four per cent success rate.

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Google is releasing its augmented reality walking directions today - but only for Pixel phones. At today's I/O conference, Google announced that it was launching a preview of AR walking directions in Google Maps, something it's only offered limited trials of so far. The feature offers real-time navigation through your phone's camera: you can hold it up to see arrows and directions overlaid on your surroundings. It's available for the Pixel 3A as well as older Pixel phones.

We first learned about this feature at last year's I/O, and we've seen limited demos of its capabilities. According to some press coverage, it's not meant to be your primary navigation method. But it could get you oriented in the right direction if you're getting off a bus or train, for instance.

Google had previously said that it would roll out AR walking directions when it was "satisfied" the feature was ready. We're still obviously not seeing a full rollout here - but the feature will finally be getting a public trial run.

View all 40 stories

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Google's AR walking directions come to Pixel phones today

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Google is releasing its augmented reality walking directions today - but only for Pixel phones. At today's I/O conference, Google announced that it was launching a preview of AR walking directions in Google Maps, something it's only offered limited trials of so far.

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Microsoft AI amplifies human ingenuity with intelligent technology. See how businesses are using machine learning to solve social issues, preserve history, improve food supply and create a better future.

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"Before I started this research, I could barely think of any historic or pop cultural trans masculine figures," admits artist and bookmaker Izzy Kroese, who initially started work on what would become @transmascstudies whilst studying Fine Art at Goldsmiths University. While individuals like spoken word poet Kai Isaiah Jamal, artist Chella Man, and upcoming model Krow are paving the way for greater visibility, the trans masculine experience and its history are still largely absent from the media.

After a process of self-educating on trans masc history through their artistic practice, Kroese felt a responsibility to share this information with a wider circle of people. "I was digging up all of these stories that I'd never heard before but I wanted a way to share the context and background of them too. Instagram felt like a good way to hold onto this research - a place for me to keep the information in one place, while allowing me to share it with other people."

In contrast to the pervasive silence on trans masc lives elsewhere, the account spotlights the group's profound cultural impact and rich past, with the account's mandate stretching as far back as Ancient Egypt to discuss historical figure Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt, who identified as "her majesty, the king".

More recent figures include trans rights activists like Victor Mukasa, the founder of Sexual Minorities Uganda, and Lou Sullivan, responsible for the removal of heterosexuality as a requirement for medical transition. In addition to these profiles, even a casual scroll yields up a wealth of content: a powerful portrait from artist Gabrielle Le Roux's "Proudly Transgender and African" series, political pin badges in a rainbow of colours, and a snapshot of Asia Kate Dillon's turn as Taylor on Billions, one of the few instances of non-binary representation in mainstream TV.

As Kroese explains, the visibility which the digital archive helps to create is intended to validate and affirm the trans masc experience in a world where their identity is routinely dismissed. "Knowing that you are not the first of your kind is so reassuring, and seeing people like you flourish and do different things readies you to do the same. While trans masculine identity can be (and is) written off in a new way every day - a phase, a fad, peer pressure, tomboyishness, internalised misogyny, internalised lesbophobia - it is so important to connect to our long and rich history and remind ourselves that we've been around a while. Despite its apparent invisibility, it is there if you know where to look!"

"What I've loved most about @transmascstudies is getting to know more people and starting this community. There's so few spaces that are for trans masc people to share themselves and I really cherish being part of that" - Izzy Kroese

But while LGBTQIA+ activism is growing online, even in queer digital spaces there are issues of trans masc erasure and @transmascstudies is intended to bridge that gap. "There are tonnes of LGBT history Instagram accounts, but so few posts are actually dedicated to trans men and masculine non binary people. The same goes for digital and physical archives. I have the time to research these things, trudge through all of the material to find ours, but lots of people don't. I wanted to find an easy way to connect trans masc people to their history."

Importantly, the account has been able to foster a sense of digital community in a safe space, all whilst encouraging trans masc followers to take pride in their experience. "What I've loved most about @transmascstudies is getting to know more people and starting this community. There's so few spaces that are for trans masc people to share themselves and I really cherish being part of that." However, they emphasise the fact that trans history is not just for the trans community, and cis people should also be able to see the value in educating themselves on trans issues and culture. "Trans history is such an important thing to learn about, whether you're trans or not. Scotland has made a great step forward by adding LGBT education to the syllabus, I'm hoping the rest of the UK catches up soon."

However, Kroese is not only engaged in a process of documenting the past, they also use the account to engage with more current events, for example posting in response to cis female actress Scarlett Johansson's (thankfully short-lived) decision to accept a role as trans man Dante "Tex" Gill in film Rub & Tug. Additionally, they schedule content to coincide with important dates for the wider community as a means of situating the trans masc experience in a broader context. "When I can I try to respond to current events I just did a few posts for Holocaust Remembrance Day, the anniversary of Leslie Feinberg 's death, World AIDs day... It's good to find our community's place in larger events."

So what are Kroese's recommendations of where to start with trans masc history and culture? Looking towards notable figures of yesteryear, they highlight the likes of: "Lou Sullivan, a brilliant activist who got heterosexuality removed as a requirement for medical transition, and Marie Høeg, a cross dressing Suffragette photographer". When it comes to more contemporary sources, the list is plentiful. "I'm an artist and curator so lots of my references are in contemporary art - Evan Ifekoya, Sadé Mica, Flo Brooks, Jesse Darling, and poet Kai Isaiah-Jamal are my favourites at the moment. For music, Mal Blum and Girlpool are brilliant."

It's clear that working on @transmascstudies has expanded Kroese's knowledge and awareness of their community, and it's a development which they will always take delight in sharing with others - even if the format changes to something a bit more analogue in future. "I'd love to turn all the research into a book - get the work off the screen and into people's hands. I'm a bookmaker at heart so all of this digital work is a bit foreign to me. I'm now waiting until I have the time and the funding! In the meantime, I just want it to reach as many people as possible. Learning all this history has been so transformative for me, I hope it does the same for other people."
@transmascstudies

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The Instagram shining a light on trans masc history and culture

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"Before I started this research, I could barely think of any historic or pop cultural trans masculine figures," admits artist and bookmaker Izzy Kroese, who initially started work on what would become @transmascstudies whilst studying Fine Art at Goldsmiths University.

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It's Not About the Burqa is the sort of straight-to-the-point book title Muslim women in Britain deserve. In one sense, feminist discourse is rapidly evolving - and so talking about a woman's right to wear what she wants, or choose who she wants to be, feels elementary. Yet, when it comes to feminism and Islam, so much of the mainstream conversation is coloured by assumptions. Many question how Muslim women choose to present themselves - even though we're fighting to establish that any woman can wear what she wants. Another common assumption is that the Muslim faith puts women at the bottom, as though patriarchal cultures in the West haven't also left us downtrodden.

Reducing Muslim women's input in feminist discourse to whether they should or shouldn't cover their hair means there's so much left unsaid. It's not just about the burqa. How often do we think about how to empower women in Islam to have enjoyable, halal sex? Salma Haidrani's chapter in this collection of essays gives a brief shout out to halal sex shops selling gelatine free lube and sex toys. Jamilla Hekmoun talks about how the community affected her struggles with mental health in an essay entitled: "There's no such thing as a depressed Muslim". Another chapter, by Raifa Rafiq, argues that on the Venn diagram of oppression, black Muslim women fare badly.

We caught up with Mariam Khan, who edited the book, to talk about how the different chapters came together, and why platforming all of these voices is vital.
How did this project come to fruition?
Mariam Khan: There was a collection of triggering points, my frustration at the lack of diverse representation of Muslim female identity being one of them. A few years ago, David Cameron said that Muslim women are traditionally submissive and that leads to the radicalisation of our sons. This view was really seeping into mainstream politics. There was this huge backlash online of Muslim women basically holding placards with the hashtag #TraditionallySubmissive. There were teachers, nurses, scientists, such diversity that was never represented outside of a single story: we're oppressed and we're letting terrorism happen. That is apparently the life of a Muslim woman. I was speaking to Nikesh Shukla who was the editor of The Good Immigrant and he really encouraged me. I wanted a book that let Muslim women speak on their own terms, without being spoken over, about whatever they wanted and for that not to have to go through a white filter.
Is there a fear with Islamophobia that having these conversations in the open, conceding any flaws, gives bigots carte blanche to criticise the entire religion or culture?
Mariam Khan: Definitely. I remember watching preachers online mocking feminism. They said, 'This is not what your faith teaches'. That is so indicative of their privilege as men to proclaim that feminism is somehow incompatible. They hadn't really backed that up by looking at Islam. But then there's this rock and a hard place (as Mona Eltahawy writes in her essay). Our community can't progress because we're never allowed to have conversations on our own terms. You know, before some racist jumps in who doesn't give a crap about anyone in that space or community but hijacks the narrative to paint all of Islam as backwards or regressive.
Growing up, what were your thoughts on what a Muslim woman had to be?
Mariam Khan: My experience of Islam came through the prism of what people were pushing on me. One day I was having a conversation with my mosque teacher and I bravely decided to tell her I hated Islam. She was like 'OK'. Her reaction was so unexpected because she asked me why I thought and it was the first time I felt like I was being invited into have like actual opinion, that I was allowed to have this discussion. I was saying 'I'm not allowed to do this thing my brothers do' and all of these things that are impressed on women. She said to me: 'That's culture, that's not religion'. Nobody has made that distinction, it was empowering.

"Our community can't progress because we're never allowed to have conversations on our own terms before some racist jumps in and hijacks the narrative to paint all of Islam as backwards or regressive" - Mariam Khan

When you're in feminist spaces do you feel like your viewpoint is narrowed or watered down?
Mariam Khan: Yeah. There's a perception of the view that I'm allowed to have, preconceived ideas about what I might like to talk about. We're often left out of the conversations about sex. I saw Salma El-Wardany talking about ( her romantic pre-marriage virginity experience with her white Yorkshire boyfriend) online and I thought - why are more of us not talking about sex? It's not a small thing it's a huge part of this world. If women are these vessels to create life, then we're having sex, so why aren't we also talking about their pleasure? This applies to so many communities where there is this shaming, so it's not just Muslim women who can relate but it's refreshing to hear it from our perspective and look at how our faith impacts this.
While you were putting this book together did you want to include voices you didn't actually agree with to widen the discussion?
Mariam Khan: The only thing I asked is: do you identify as a Muslim woman? We had to have a platform of all sorts of voices, and represent the vast experiences. I couldn't edit the book thinking, 'I don't agree with that'.
What are your feelings on International Women's Day?
Mariam Khan: We need days like this to pull each other up. I understand the argument of people saying, 'Why this day why not all the time. I think that there's an argument there, but we have today and so we should use those platforms. It's a chance to support the work of women that are not necessarily known. If we're pushing other women the next year they might be a little more known and covered more regularly.

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Why you need this vital anthology of writing by Muslim women

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It's Not About the Burqa is the sort of straight-to-the-point book title Muslim women in Britain deserve. In one sense, feminist discourse is rapidly evolving - and so talking about a woman's right to wear what she wants, or choose who she wants to be, feels elementary.

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As Pete Buttigieg addressed supporters off a back porch in Marshalltown, Iowa, the Devil was whispering his name. "Pete," the Devil hissed into a microphone. "You're sooo smart, Pete."

Buttigieg ignored the heckler, plowing forward with his stump speech about American decency as his husband Chasten looked on. "Pete," the Devil whispered. "I want the heartland, Pete."

The man in the devil costume was Randall Terry, an antiabortion activist. He had traveled to Iowa to torment the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Ind., the early breakout star of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. "There's never been a poster boy for homosexuals" before, Terry says. "There's never been a homosexual that you'd go, 'Wow, I'd be proud of him.' He's the guy. That's why he's such a threat."

Four years after the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed his right to marry, Buttigieg has become the first openly gay person to make a serious bid for the presidency. And Terry is hardly the only right-winger worried about the rise of "Mayor Pete." Buttigieg's saying that "God doesn't have a political party" prompted evangelical leader Franklin Graham to tweet that being gay is "something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised or politicized." Concerned by the campaign's rise, right-wing provocateur Jacob Wohl was recently caught trying to fabricate sexual-assault allegations against Buttigieg to slow him down.

But to some Americans, Buttigieg may just be the man to vanquish America's demons. In a field of more than 20 candidates-including six Senators, four Congressmen, two governors and a former Vice President-Buttigieg (pronounced Boot-edge-edge) has vaulted from near total obscurity toward the front of the Democratic pack, running ahead of or even with more established candidates and behind only Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.

Buttigieg is a gay Episcopalian veteran in a party torn between identity politics and heartland appeals. He's also a fresh face in a year when millennials are poised to become the largest eligible voting bloc. Many Democrats are hungry for generational change, and the two front runners are more than twice his age.

Watch: How Mayor Pete Buttigieg became a surprise contender in the 2020 Democratic primary

But Buttigieg's greatest political asset may be his ear for languages. He speaks eight, including Norwegian and Arabic, but he's particularly fluent in the dialect of the neglected industrial Midwest. Buttigieg is a master of redefinition, a translator for a party that has found it increasingly difficult to speak to the voters who elected President Donald Trump. The son of an English professor and a scholar of linguistics, he roots his campaign in an effort to reframe progressive ideas in conservative language. "If the substance of your ideas is progressive but there's mistrust about them among conservatives, you have three choices," Buttigieg tells TIME, sitting on his living-room couch in South Bend. "One is to just change your ideas and make them more conservative. The second is to sort of be sneaky and try to make it seem like your ideas are more conservative than they are. And the third, the approach that I favor, is to stick to your ideas, but explain why conservatives shouldn't be afraid of them."

His platform is "Freedom, Security and Democracy," which wouldn't sound out of place coming from a Bush-era Republican yet actually harks back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But in order to maintain his momentum, Buttigieg will have to do more to flesh out those ideas. Unlike many of his opponents, he hasn't posted any detailed policy proposals on his website. He'll also have to convince Democratic voters that his experience running South Bend (pop. 102,245) is adequate preparation for running the world's most powerful country. And he'll have to make inroads with black and Hispanic voters who have so far appeared unimpressed with his campaign.

Buttigieg likes to say he has more government experience than Trump, and more military experience than any President in 25 years. And Trump's victory in 2016 proved that many Americans were willing to elect a President without a traditional Washington résumé. But some voters long for stability after three years of chaos, and it's not clear whether the Trump presidency has made it easier or harder for outsiders.
The same assets that have propelled Buttigieg so far could ultimately thwart his rise. His youth is appealing to many voters, but it also means he's green. The idea of electing the first gay President thrills liberals, but it also rallies opponents. As a white man, Buttigieg may appeal to more traditional voters, yet women and voters of color are the heart of the Democratic coalition. He's running as a healer, not a fighter, at a moment when the party seems to be in a fighting mood. "As a woman of color, it's very difficult for me to hear 'We can unite across our differences,'" says Democratic operative Jess Morales Rocketto. "On one side you have people who want to live in a white-supremacist country, and on the other side you have people dying at the hands of white supremacists."

In many ways, Buttigieg is Trump's polar opposite: younger, dorkier, shorter, calmer and married to a man. His success may depend on whether Democrats want a fighter to match Trump, or whether Americans want to "change the channel," as Buttigieg puts it. "People already have a leader who screams and yells," he says. "How do you think that's working out for us?"

On a Sunny Monday morning, Buttigieg is musing about redeeming American credibility abroad, sipping from his coffee mug emblazoned with JFK 's face, when his husband plops onto the living-room couch, picks up the blanket next to him and throws it on the floor in mock disgust. "Do we have to have this hideous blanket?" he said. The blanket is full of dog hair. "Can we put our nice blanket there?"

The hair comes from Truman, their hound mix, and Buddy, their tubby rescue puppy. When I first met Buttigieg in 2017, he told me he named Truman after a famous saying often attributed to the 33rd President: "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog."

But you live in South Bend, I said. When are you planning on moving to Washington? He didn't reply.

The house looks like it's occupied by moderately tidy people who travel a lot. Coats are piled on the bannister, and old sneakers and a pair of Crocs are lined up next to the kitchen door. A tiny photo of Pete and Chasten with Cher peeks out from behind wedding save-the-dates posted on the fridge. The kitchen walls are a too-bright yellow. The mayor painted them himself, which he says was a mistake.

Buttigieg met Chasten Glezman, then a Chicago grad student, on the dating app Hinge in 2015. They talked over FaceTime for a few weeks before Chasten drove to South Bend for their first real date, at an Irish bar famous for its Scotch eggs. Less than three years later, Pete proposed in gate B5 of Chicago's O'Hare airport, the exact spot where Chasten had first noticed his dating profile.

Their marriage is at once banal and extraordinary, infused with the exuberant contentment of two people who once thought they would always be alone. Chasten handles the dogs, the shopping, the cooking. Pete does the dishes, laundry and garbage. Chasten hates taking the bin out to the curb. Pete hates the way Chasten folds T-shirts. Chasten gets grumpy when they go too long without food, and Pete doesn't get it. "You're like, 'Oh, here, I packed a bag of almonds and a thing of beef jerky,'" Chasten says. "I hate nuts, and he eats nuts all the time."

"High in protein, good for you," Pete counters.

"See!" Chasten says. "I want a meal, and he's like, 'We'll just have a handful of nuts.'" Also, he tells his husband, "You do chew really loudly."

Both men grew up closeted in conservative Midwestern communities. "Being gay was not culturally acceptable where I grew up, mostly for a lack of understanding," Chasten says. "And so my family and I were just at a crossroads, and we didn't really know how to talk to one another." When he came out after his senior year of high school, tensions at home forced him to spend months crashing on friends' couches and sleeping in his car. His parents ultimately changed their minds, welcomed him back home and now fully support their son and his marriage.

Pete took a lot longer to come to terms with himself. As a child, "he was an observer," recalls his mother Anne Montgomery. "Each time he went to a new school, he'd sit there and watch who was doing what and why." In high school, he was elected senior class president and played Theseus in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the voice of sanity and order in a world gone mad. He won the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library's Profiles in Courage contest for an admiring essay about Bernie Sanders -20 years before challenging the Vermont Senator for the Democratic nomination.

Alone with the knowledge that he was, as he put it, "really strongly attracted to other young men," he threw himself into his studies, teaching himself languages and musical instruments and reading James Joyce. One Harvard roommate recalled he had learned circular breathing in order to hold a note on the didgeridoo. He lived with a handful of guys in a suite nicknamed the Château because of its fancy moldings and exposed brick walls. He was the roommate who would sip whiskey instead of chugging beer, and insist on a real Christmas tree in the dorm room. He dated women occasionally but never joined his roommates' discussions of their sex lives.

After graduation, Buttigieg went to Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship, then did a brief stint at the consulting firm McKinsey, analyzing grocery-store pricing. He moved back to Indiana and joined the U.S. Navy Reserve in 2009, before the repeal of " Don't ask, don't tell." He remembers his fellow officers tossing the word gay around as an insult, the way middle schoolers once did.

In 2010, at the age of 28, he ran his first political campaign, for Indiana state treasurer, and got crushed, losing by 27 points. But the following year, Buttigieg ran for mayor of South Bend and won. He was professionally ascendant but personally adrift: friends were starting to meet serious girlfriends, get married, have kids, and Pete's personal life amounted to watching The Simpsons alone with a beer after work. He was deployed to Afghanistan in 2014, halfway through his first term as mayor. When he came back six months later, he says, he realized that if he had died overseas, he would have never known what it was like to be in love.

In 2015, just as Buttigieg was beginning to come out privately to friends and family members, Indiana's then Governor Mike Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which allowed local businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ people. Later that year, at the height of his re-election campaign, Buttigieg wrote an op-ed in the South Bend Tribune to announce he was gay. It was more of a personal calculation than a political one, he says: given his job, he couldn't openly date until his constituents knew the truth. He feared it would cost him re-election, but he won with 80% of the vote.

It was a sign of how rapidly public opinion on LGBTQ issues has changed. In 1996, only 27% of Americans supported same-sex marriage; today 67% do, including 44% of Republicans. Some of Buttigieg's fellow officers who had used gay as an epithet in his presence reached out to express their support. "I bet some of them still go back and tell gay jokes because that's their habit, you know?" he says. "Bad habits and bad instincts is not the same as people being bad people."

All this informs his belief that it's still possible to reach across America's political divide. "We've got to get away from this kill-switch mentality that we see on Twitter," he says. He has seen once disapproving parents dance at their gay son's wedding and homophobic military officers take back their words, and so he believes in the power of redemption and forgiveness. "This idea that we just sort people into baskets of good and evil ignores the central fact of human existence, which is that each of us is a basket of good and evil," he says. "The job of politics is to summon the good and beat back the evil."

For the mayor of a place like South Bend, politics gets a little more complicated. When Buttigieg was elected in 2011, his mandate was to turn around a dying city. South Bend had been in decline since 1963, when the Studebaker auto company left, taking thousands of jobs with it. Buttigieg got to work. He made downtown more walkable, improved infrastructure for filling potholes and plowing snow, and brought new companies to South Bend through partnerships with Notre Dame. "Mayors in the past had kind of a can't-do attitude," says veteran South Bend Tribune columnist Jack Colwell. "When people came to talk to Pete, he'd say, 'How can we help you get this done?'"

In interviews with local residents, nearly all said Buttigieg had done a generally good job as mayor, though some said he had blind spots on issues affecting black and Hispanic residents. Early in his tenure, Buttigieg fired a popular black police chief who was under FBI investigation for wiretapping white officers who had been suspected of using racist language. And while most residents say the city improved under his leadership, the gains have not been evenly distributed. South Bend still has a persistent racial wealth gap: black households earn roughly half of what white households make, and the black poverty rate is almost twice the national average, according to a 2017 Prosperity Now report commissioned by Buttigieg's office. Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, the researcher who compiled the report, said Buttigieg was the first mayor of any city to ask him to do this. "He didn't solve racial economic inequality," says Asante-Muhammad, "but what city has?"

One of Buttigieg's main goals was to improve the city's housing stock. South Bend had a glut of abandoned homes left over from the Studebaker heyday, and Buttigieg announced a plan to either tear down or fix up 1,000 in 1,000 days. Almost immediately, black residents expressed concern. Most of the vacant homes were in black and Hispanic neighborhoods on the town's West Side. While no families reported being evicted because of the policy, some locals had bought or inherited vacant homes intending to fix them up, then faced heavy code-enforcement fines or even lost the properties they had purchased. Regina Williams-Preston, a teacher whose family has lived on South Bend's West Side for years, had purchased several abandoned homes in order to renovate them later, but says she lost them to Buttigieg's policy after her husband got sick and they couldn't make the repairs.

In the wake of Buttigieg's campaign boom, Williams-Preston has been escorting national reporters around South Bend, pointing out the areas where his housing policy failed. "He was young and bright and had a lot of really good ideas," she says, driving through neighborhoods with rundown houses next to overgrown lots. "But he didn't have the lived experience, the ability to really connect with real people who have real issues and real problems that life hasn't dealt the best hand."

Other black leaders in South Bend say Buttigieg listened to the concerns of the community and adjusted when he was wrong. "I trust him," says Stacey Odom, founder of a local organization that helps families on the West Side repair their homes. "I asked him for five different things, and he gave them all to me." Buttigieg created an office of Engagement and Economic Empowerment to help address the wealth gap, and issued an executive order on diversity and inclusion in response to local demands, Williams-Preston said. When local leaders asked for $3.5 million to renovate the Charles Black community center, Buttigieg came up with $4.5 million, according to Cynthia Taylor, the center's director. "You're gonna have to invite him in, you're gonna have to sit him down, you're gonna have to show him the issue," she says. "Because he definitely will listen."

Williams-Preston, who's now running to replace Buttigieg as mayor, says he sometimes seemed insufficiently angry about the inequities in South Bend. She's looking for a President who has "a deep passion for justice, a deep drive for equality." She voted for Sanders in 2016 and describes herself as a "Berniecrat." But as she drives her minivan around the West Side, pointing out grassy areas where vacant houses once stood, she's wearing a Pete button on her jacket.

Buttigieg may be a loyal son of South Bend, but he keeps angling for a job transfer out of town. In 2017 he ran for chair of the Democratic National Committee. After he lost, he asked his old friend Mike Schmuhl to move back to South Bend to help him run his political-action committee. He never actually told him he was planning to run for President. "It was unspoken," Schmuhl says.

There are two main types of presidential candidates: those who run on policy and those who run on personality. Buttigieg says he's a "policy guy," but he's definitely a personality guy. His campaign is more about who he is (young, gay, Midwestern, technocratic) and what he represents (social progress, generational change, an olive branch to "flyover country") than what he'll do if he's President.

So far Buttigieg has embraced a few big ideas, such as abolishing the Electoral College and expanding the Supreme Court. (Both would require an improbable constitutional amendment.) But when it comes to the policy issues dominating the primary so far, he has staked out only general positions. On health care, he favors "Medicare for all who want it." He supports an "intergenerational alliance" to fight climate change and calls the Green New Deal "the right beginning." He said he wants to "do some math" around Senator Elizabeth Warren's plan to make college free and forgive student debt. Warren, for her part, has 11 policy proposals on her website. Buttigieg has zero.

"Every good policy that I've developed in my administration happened not because I cooked it up on the campaign, kept the promise intact and then delivered it," he says, "but because I stated a priority in one of my campaigns, interacted with my legislative body and my community, and developed something that really served people well."

Does this mean that he thinks policy is less important than narrative? "Maybe I'm saying the narrative is policy," he responds, in a typical attempt at reframing. "Narrative is how you get people to embrace the policies you're putting forward." His campaign plans to release more detailed policies this week.

"Running a campaign based on narrative has long been a privilege reserved for men. And Buttigieg's maleness and whiteness has undoubtedly benefited him, even as women and people of color become increasingly central to the Democrats' 2020 coalition. He knows this and acknowledges that "it's hard for me to even be able to see some of the ways in which whiteness or maleness may have made my life go differently," adding that it has likely affected the way he's been covered by the national media.

At the same time, Buttigieg's sexuality has imbued his campaign with a sense of historical promise. After the valedictorian at Brigham Young University, a conservative Mormon school, came out as gay in his commencement speech in April, he cited Buttigieg as his inspiration. ("I know that kid is going to make it easier for somebody else," Buttigieg told BuzzFeed News.) Buttigieg's campaign has also gotten a boost from a network of wealthy LGBT donors.

The millennial mayor's call for generational change could also prove to be a powerful one. Even as young voters stay enamored with Sanders, older voters seem attracted to Buttigieg's youth: according to an April 29 Morning Consult survey, his highest polling numbers come from baby boomers. "I like the idea of a millennial," says Alice Mayer, 62, who voted for Sanders in 2016, as she waited for Buttigieg's speech in South Bend. "He's looking at the future, while Bernie's been there, done that."

Buttigieg has spent years thinking about how Democrats can reclaim the language of patriotism from Republicans. "The real challenge for the Democratic Party, and its presidential candidates in particular," he wrote in a 2003 column in the Harvard Crimson, "is to figure out how to reverse the Right's stranglehold on our political vocabulary." Soon after, he wrote another column urging Democrats to reclaim words like compassion, strength and morality, arguing that "establishing a new vocabulary is not the point; we need to take the old vocabulary and make it make sense again." More than any health care plan or climate-change policy, Buttigieg wants to change how Democrats talk. "The landscape can be moved," he says. "But to move it, I don't think you just run in and beat people over the head with your way of talking about your ideas the way you always have."

When Buttigieg announced his exploratory committee in January, in a drab conference room at a Washington Hyatt, his staff was mostly just Schmuhl, his high school buddy turned campaign manager, and Lis Smith, a New York operative who helped Buttigieg run his long-shot campaign for DNC chair. Three months later, the staff has swelled to nearly 50 as Buttigieg bounces between rallies in Iowa and New Hampshire, fundraisers with bundlers and TV appearances everywhere.

Buttigieg has been ubiquitous by design. The campaign's goal is to "break down the wall that exists between presidential candidates and the media, and therefore the public," Smith says. The Buttigieg campaign has no digital department, according to Schmuhl, because it weaves digital media into everything it does. Instead, the campaign has an "experience team," which focuses on everything from events to content. The campaign shared its logos and designs in catchy Instagrammable images, complete with a color palette so that fans can spread the Buttigieg brand on social media. It's also rethinking the value of paid television advertisements, reasoning that most millennials watch TV through streaming services on their computers and phones.

Despite these new strategies, some of the old truths still hold. It remains almost impossible to win the Democratic nomination without significant support from black voters, and the Morning Consult poll found negligible black support for Buttigieg. The mayor is working on his outreach, eating lunch with the Rev. Al Sharpton at the famous Harlem soul-food joint Sylvia's and scheduling a swing through South Carolina for early May. But winning voters of color may be difficult for a white guy running against two black Senators, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, as well as Joe Biden, who served as Barack Obama's running mate and has long-standing relationships in black communities.

In a primary divided between candidates who want to fight Trump and candidates who talk about uniting the country, Buttigieg is in the latter camp. That puts him out of step with the party's activist base, who clearly want a fighter. Warren, for example, used the word fight 25 times in her announcement speech; Buttigieg didn't mention it once. His husband says he's never heard him raise his voice in anger. "We've almost fetishized fighting," Buttigieg explains, sitting in his living room between an antique British musket and an old Soviet spying device, both relics of old and painful wars. "There is a point where you become so absorbed in fighting that you begin to lose track of winning."

In the end, Buttigieg's biggest gamble is his bet that voters are sick of a divided America and hungry for reconciliation. He believes independents and moderate conservatives could get behind a happily married Christian veteran. And he may be right. "Pete has a way of rallying people and getting them to come along with him," says Jake Teshka, former executive director of the St. Joseph County GOP and the only Republican on the South Bend city council. "That's what makes him dangerous as a candidate for the rest of the Democratic field. I can't sit here and tell you that if he makes it through and he's on the ballot in 2020 that I would vote for Pete. But I also can't tell you that I won't."

Write to Charlotte Alter at charlotte.alter@time.com.

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Mayor Pete Buttigieg's Unprecedented Presidential Campaign

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As Pete Buttigieg addressed supporters off a back porch in Marshalltown, Iowa, the Devil was whispering his name. "Pete," the Devil hissed into a microphone. "You're sooo smart, Pete." Buttigieg ignored the heckler, plowing forward with his stump speech about American decency as his husband ­Chasten looked on. "Pete," the Devil whispered.

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"If we want a better future for the new generations we need to stop being indifferent to what's happening in our country," says Saint Petersburg-based creative director Roman Gunt. The young creative is a vocal member of the emerging LGBTQ+ creative scene in Russia, currently involved both in underground fashion collective, Generation Z, and one of the biggest Russian queer raves, ГРАНЬ ('Grahn'). This new generation of queer Russians know that fighting for one's rights can go beyond day-to-day life choices, and extend into their creative work too.

Coming of age in the era of 'gay propaganda law' - put in place in 2013 to eradicate the representation of LGBTQ+ people from the media, culture, and public space - this underrepresented group is no stranger to conservatism, but is intent on thriving regardless. Sticking a middle finger up at this antiquated system, Gunt has collaborated with photographer Nick Gavrilov on a photo series that debuts exclusively on Dazed - an ode to the new generation of Russians who believe in equality and love above the oppressive politics.

Together with Gavrilov, Roman scouted nine couples, both queer and straight, who kissed in front of state institutions, cultural landmarks, and more mundane typical Russian backdrops, like the metro carriage. Much like a guidebook of Russia, the photographs become subversive postcards of radical love. "This project is primarily a story of each couple, an invitation to their personal life. The LGBTQ+ community is now growing and becoming stronger in Russia, and the most important thing is to support them," says the photographer. "We wanted to channel positive energy that would affect the future generations."

"We decided to shoot this project after the news of prosecution and police torture of LGBTQ+ community in Chechnya. I was shocked by the cruelty and primitiveness of it all - it's a crime against humanity," adds Gunt. "No matter how cruel Russia may be at times, there's a limit on what we can take and we've reached it. My generation is no longer able to look at the impunity of officials and their inaction against the LGBTQ+ community in Russia. It's time to make our own history".

Bringing an expression of love which is persecuted by society to the public spaces was a significant part of the project for both creatives. "I chose the most popular tourist spots not only for the backdrop of the photographs, but also to look at the reaction of the public. It was difficult for same-sex couples because we have no tolerance for same-sex relationships in Russia. We were surrounded by unfriendly glances, but surprisingly, no one approached or said anything to us," Gunt says. He continues, sharing how shooting the series almost got them arrested. "We were shooting in front of the building of The State Duma, which in 2013 passed the gay propaganda law, and we almost got arrested. Two police cars suddenly drove up to us and a few policemen started enquiring about what we are doing here. They told us to stop what we were doing otherwise they'd arrest us."

"My generation is no longer able to look at the impunity of officials and their inaction against the LGBTQ+ community in Russia. It's time to make our own history" - Roman Gunt

For Gavrilov, the feeling of supporting those who are underrepresented was also important. "Making this project was a necessity, our community needed it - each portrait is about the struggle against inequality in Russia," he explains. "There are same-sex couples and heterosexual couples, our allies and friends who, like us, are not indifferent to the atrocities that are happening to the LGBTQ+ community in Chechnya."

Despite an ongoing crackdown on internet freedom and persecution of LGBTQ+ people in Chechnya, the queer underground scene is continuing to blossom, with a new wave of art and photography projects, the burgeoning queer rave scene, and self-funded initiatives like taking over in publishing. "I'm so proud to be part of this movement," Gunt concludes. "We need a revolution to show the Russian government that our generation is not going to put up with the abhorrent events that are happening in Chechnya with our sisters and brothers. Who is going to do anything about it if not us?"

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Photographing young Russian couples making out to protest anti-LGBTQ laws

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"If we want a better future for the new generations we need to stop being indifferent to what's happening in our country," says Saint Petersburg-based creative director Roman Gunt. The young creative is a vocal member of the emerging LGBTQ+ creative scene in Russia, currently involved both in underground fashion collective, Generation Z, and one of the biggest Russian queer raves, ГРАНЬ ('Grahn').

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Fatimah Asghar's debut poetry collection, If They Come For Us, excavates grief, queerness, her family, history, and how to confront all of these things in a white supremacist, post 9/11 world. Using partition as the building blocks for the book, Asghar grapples with questions that have plagued her life, while seeking to educate audiences on one of the most violent yet unspoken events in the last century: the separation of South Asia post-independence into India and Pakistan.

Asghar, who co-created and wrote Emmy award-winning series Brown Girls, is an exceptional talent. If They Come For Us further crystallises the notion that the Kashmiri-American has a specific ability to distill taboo topics into tangible, relatable discourse. Throughout the book, Asghar eschews conventional methods of poetry: crossword puzzles, madlibs, floor plans, bingo micro-aggressions are in place of stanzas. By defying what poetry should be and how it can be interpreted, Asghar has created a book that speaks volumes on partition, a long-silenced topic.

We sat down with Asghar before her reading in London, her first outside of the US, to discuss If They Come For Us, identity,and partition.

How long did it take to put If They Come For Us together? Do you think writing it was in some way interacting with your past, reconciling with your history?
Fatimah Asghar: The earliest poems are from 2015. I overwrite a lot, so I was like: "where are the themes? How do I compile it down?" It got picked up for publishing in the spring of 2017. It was already shaped and then I was like these are the gaps, these are the things I want to work on, so re-order, re-order. I finished it in 2018, in January.

It's kind of weird because it feels like it's not that long. I think a lot of early writings are attempts at a poem that you're trying to write which are about study and voice and craft elements. While it sounds like a really short timeline, I feel like I've been writing this book forever. I also feel like I've been writing it very quickly.
How much research did you have to do on partition to write this?
Fatimah Asghar: Yeah, I think history is really important to me and it's often done away with because people don't give history the space often that it needs, especially in America. It was important for me to say that this is something that happened. This is why, you know, these things don't go away. They're intergenerational. They don't just leave. People don't just experience trauma like this and just leave. I've been surprised because this is my first time doing a reading from the book that's not in the US. In many of my readings in the US, young, South Asian people will come up to me and say, 'I have never heard of partition'.

I feel that. Like, we're not taught that and if you are, in my family, for example, if you bring up stuff like this, they're like 'yeah, that's really painful, that's really ugly'.
Do you think about your audience much when you're writing?
Fatimah Asghar: A lot. Part of it was that I knew my family's story. It was also a thing that I was obsessed with forever. I've been reading about partition for a really long time and then I started to really see that it was the building blocks of the book. With something like partition, where there was a retributive genocide on so many sides, everyone is a victim and everyone is a perpetrator and it was a really hard thing to talk about.
In what sense?

"There's a responsibility to community, there's a responsibility to being an ethical person, there's also a responsibility to myself" - Fatimah Asghar

Fatimah Asghar: Absolutely.
Do you think that's where your responsibility lies: helping the younger version of yourself?
Fatimah Asghar: Because they're real. It's that thing where I exist in communities, I exist in spaces in which I go and read these poems and see up close the audiences' responses. I also think about the youth a lot in my work, especially the ones I mentor, the ones I work with. They're smart. They're not being into being talked down to, so I don't want to talk down to them.

When I'm writing a broader work, I often think about a younger version of myself who's lonely and needs someone to be like, 'Hey, you're not so alone'. That's kind of where when I'm thinking about that where that's coming from
I know you have a lot of projects on going right now. What does the rest of the year and the near future look like for you?
Fatimah Asghar: There's a lot of things: there's a responsibility to community, there's a responsibility to being an ethical person, there's also a responsibility to myself. Wanting it for queer people of colour, wanting it for Muslim people and South Asian people to feel like there was something that they could hold.

Sometimes, I think about the things that I'm scared to write about. Like, partition was a thing I'm scared to write about. But it was the thing that I felt was a responsibility to myself to try. You don't have to share everything, but you can? I think that you can. I think people can live so many lives. What you need is the freedom to live that kind of life or the ability to be like, 'I can fail or I can fuck up and that's okay because I'm a human'. It's just really looking at that internal well of the emotions that I have, and what are they showing me, and following that. When you're an artist, when you're creating work that's from vulnerable spaces, if you are transparently on the page you're still in control of it.

Fatimah Asghar: The thing I'm trying to do in 2019 is finding the ability to surrender. Just to be like, 'I don't know what's going to happen'. For the last few years, I was sprinting so hard that I couldn't take a break, and January felt like a break. I felt a lot of release in ways that were helpful to me so I feel good and renewed and restored in that way. But I'm lucky. I get to write for a living. It's really beautiful that I get to do that. It's really lovely that that's my life.

If They Come For Us is released on Corsair and available to purchase

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Fatimah Asghar's poetry captures a queer Pakistani Muslim woman in America

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Fatimah Asghar's debut poetry collection, If They Come For Us, excavates grief, queerness, her family, history, and how to confront all of these things in a white supremacist, post 9/11 world.

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Back in 2007 when it first burst onto our TV screens and into our lives, Skins captured a whole generation of teens - perfectly illustrating the messy and sometimes fucked-up experiences of growing up in the late 00s. Despite featuring characters of colour in all three of its generations, the focus of each of their storylines often focused solely on being a POC, rather than the gritty side of growing up their white counterparts were afforded.

Over a decade later, Chicago-based filmmaker Vincent Martell - the mastermind behind Drag Race's Shea Couleé's " Crème Brûlée" video - is debuting his own version of the successful show in the form of web series Damaged Goods. "I was first introduced to Skins when I was studying abroad in Barcelona and I fell in love," Martell tells us. "I thought: 'How cool would it be if there were people of colour that got the same kind of representation and we saw them just being free'."

The new six-episode series follows the story of four friends and flatmates - Sanazi, Ezra, Marlo, and Caleb (played by model Chufue Yang) - each dealing with their own problems of modern-day life: sexuality, racism, rising rent payments, drugs, social media, workplace harassment, and more. Without spoiling it, the episodes bounce from underground queer club nights to white-filled workplaces, interspersed with drug-taking and sex scenes, showing how each character navigates these obstacles.

Though these aren't new or groundbreaking topics, seeing a POC-led cast fronting them is strangely long overdue. As a queer person of colour, it was important for Martell to authentically represent both of his communities, giving audiences a chance to see themselves at the forefront of the narrative. Something he does via his production company - VAM Studio - that spotlights and finds work for underrepresented groups (POC, trans, and women) in the filmmaking industry.

Damaged Goods itself is written in collaboration with fellow men of colour - Zak Payne and KB Woodson. Elsewhere, the LGBTQ+ community was represented via the director of photography Hannah Welever and editor Jordan Phelps. "It was a beautiful experience to see all of these artists from marginalised communities to come together and make something dope," Martell says. "I really wanted to tap into communities I love and am a part of."

Here, we speak with Martell on what to expect from Damaged Goods.
How did the idea for Damaged Goods first come about?
Vincent Martell: The idea came about two years ago after a production I worked on called - a web series created by Fatimah Asghar and Sam Bailey. The production was really moving because it was created by an inclusive group of filmmakers. It highlighted to me the lack of representation we see and I wanted to tap into that community. In media, we don't see people of colour being messy, nuanced, and flawed whereas we see our white counterparts getting those opportunities time and time again. Skins is the perfect example of that.
How did you come up with the storyline for the series?
Vincent Martell: I co-wrote this series with two other gay men of colour - KB Woodson and Zak Payne. We all agreed that we wanted to touch on the rawness of the queer community which meant we had to tackle drugs. We also wanted to push what it looked like to be a person of colour in a white-dominated workplace, which is so important and something so many of us can relate to. We wanted to portray it in a way that highlights how awkward and uncomfortable it can be for us in those situations.
What did you want to portray with each of the four main characters?
Vincent Martell: Each individual character is really personal to me, I only want to create what I know and it's very difficult for me to create a character that I can't relate to in some way. With each of them, they've all got something they're dealing with and I wanted to show the spectrum of what marginalised communities deal with. It's not so much about the tragedy the characters experience, but how they learn and deal with them.

Some of the specific issues include racial microaggressions, something POC experience on a daily basis. There's also the difficulties or navigating social media as a person of colour and how consuming and draining it can be. It can often lead to isolation, which we see via Marlo's character. As a whole, there's a hustling and making ends meet mentality that we don't always see and I wanted to bring that to light. Especially within the Chicago creative community, there are so many people hustling and doing all the work behind-the-scenes. I wanted to show that as much as possible.

"I'm so tired of seeing people of colour portrayed in a negative or dim light, I want to celebrate us being free and alive" - Vincent Martell

Why do you think POCs are not often shown in this messy way you describe?
Vincent Martell: It has everything to do with plastic representation in Hollywood and not being given the reign to tell our own stories. What we've seen in the past, is our stories being told by white filmmakers which aren't authentic to what we actually go through. We're starting to see a small push for directors of colour telling their own stories but there's so much work to be done.

Although we, as POCs, deal with a lot of bullshit, there's a beautiful sense of celebration and just by living in this world we're revolutionary. I wanted to counter the tough moments with incredible scenes shot at gay parties or smoking a joint at a dinner party. These rituals are important for us and should be seen on a mainstream level. I'm so tired of seeing people of colour portrayed in a negative or dim light, I want to celebrate us being free and alive.
The series as a whole features a variety of different camera styles and oversaturated colours. What did you want to portray with that?
Vincent Martell: I didn't want this to feel like a dark and dreary series, I wanted it to be vibrant, saturated, and really in your face. With the colour palette, we pushed really bright tones to show how colourful and beautiful our world is. Even though we explore some dark issues, there's a massive explosion of colour in those scenes to counter that. The colour itself is telling a different story and I'm really proud of that.

With the different kinds of camera styles, we wanted to amplify the drug and sex scenes. It was important for me and the editor - who is also my partner and boyfriend - to experiment in a way that filmmakers of colour don't often get the opportunity to. The experimentation was a way of bringing the audience into the world of these characters, whether they're taking drugs, out at a gay nightclub, or having sex.
As well as the cast, the team behind Damaged Goods was also diverse. Why was that important?
Vincent Martell: It's important for white filmmakers to step aside and give the people who can actually tell POC-focused stories the room to tell them. For a lot of people of colour, all we need is access and resources and we prove that we can fucking kill it. It's just important for us to get into the room.

In addition to Damaged Goods, I run my own production company to support people of colour and LGBTQ+ filmmakers. With that, I want to do justice to the kind of people who brought me up over the years. That's important for me to be authentic to myself and then to support the communities who can relate to what I'm going through. I'm really speaking to that community first and then anything else is extra. I know I'm not going to please everyone.
What do you hope viewers take away from watching the show?
Vincent Martell: I want people to take away the fact that people of colour can be nuanced; we can create characters who have different levels. There's so much to tell within each of these stories in Damaged Goods and allowing us to be free and to express that is all I'm asking for. I'm excited for people just to experience what people of colour living freely looks like - this is the first step for me personally doing that.

Don't get me wrong though, this series is not for everyone and it's probably going to piss a lot of people off - I'm totally okay with that, I welcome it. What I hope it does, is spark a conversation about the lives and issues we face as people from marginalised communities.

Vincent Martell: For so long I was nervous about dreaming too big, but now it's important for me to visualise how monumental a series like this could be and I can totally see it ending up on a network or streaming service. Although the story is about marginalised people from Chicago, it's a story that can resonate worldwide. What we did was on such a small scale that if given opportunity and access, we could make something that would stand in culture for decades. People of colour are tired of waiting for that kind of representation. More recently, I'm seeing POCs not waiting for Hollywood or network executives to give them an opportunity, they're just doing it themselves. That's brilliant and so important.

Watch all six episodes of Damaged Goods here.

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Damaged Goods is the Skins-like web series centring people of colour

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Back in 2007 when it first burst onto our TV screens and into our lives, Skins captured a whole generation of teens - perfectly illustrating the messy and sometimes fucked-up experiences of growing up in the late 00s.

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Last week, in a landmark ruling - 538 votes for, only 21 against - the House of Commons voted in favour of bringing LGBTQ+ education into schools. Pending approval from the House of Lords, from September 2020, primary school students will be taught about different family models, while secondary students will learn about sexual orientation and gender identity.

Following on from Scotland - which was the first country to introduce LGBTQ+ specific sex ed at the end of last year - the importance of this passing is paramount. For the most part, we may see the UK as more accepting than elsewhere in the world - Brunei shockingly introduced stoning by death as a punishment for gay sex recently, while in Brazil, far right President Jair Bolsonaro has already erased LGBTQ+ history from the education system, after being elected at the end of last year. But the lack of specific sex education our schools provide for LGBTQ+ people and allies alike is nonsensical. Surely a natural step after passing the same-sex marriage law back five years ago would have been to educate the next generation on what this means?

Whether you're LGBTQ+ or not, going through puberty is a confusing time, likely exacerbated for queer youth without any proper education about sexuality. For myself, all of my sexual education came from watching porn which mainly featured muscly, white men - I am neither. It's unsurprising then that in the UK alone, LGBTQ+ people are four times more likely to self-harm and half of us experience depression.

While the ruling won't eradicate all of young LGBTQ+ people's problems, the long term damage that the lack of education creates could be avoided. Here, we speak with ten LGBTQ+ members of Dazed Media on their personal experiences of queer-focused school sex ed (or lack thereof), and how this law could have helped them when they were growing up.

EMMA HOPE ALLWOOD - HEAD OF FASHION, DAZED DIGITAL

"I vaguely remember some sex ed at secondary school, but certainly nothing inclusive. Visibility was non-existent - there was one rumoured gay teacher, a few obviously closeted guys, and that was it (until my last year of sixth form, when there was a lesbian couple in year nine, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever). Instead, there was an enormous amount of shaming around female sexuality of any kind, the word 'gay' was very much an insult, and girls getting off with each other was framed as something done exclusively for male titillation.

"It's a very emotional question - how might my life have unfolded if, as an 11-year-old finding myself extremely transfixed by Christina Aguilera or wanting to steal glances at Page 3 of my dad's copies of The Sun, I had known that those feelings weren't freakish or to be suppressed at all costs? If I had been told it was completely normal to be attracted to both boys and girls (and people who don't consider themselves a particular gender at all)? Had there been a more tolerant atmosphere at school - and, to be honest, better mainstream representations of bisexuality in the media - maybe I would have had a decade more of feeling free to understand myself. Maybe I would have worked it all out sooner. It's hard not to feel like I was robbed of that somehow. I just hope that young, queer people are growing up into a more accepting, tolerant world."

"Outside of school, on TV and in movies, and later the internet, I knew that open queer identity existed, but at school I faced total silence. Silence fosters shame, and teachers were complicit in that - they watched on as gay kids like myself were bullied by their peers daily, and said nothing"

JACK MOSS - DIGITAL FEATURES EDITOR, ANOTHER & ANOTHER MAN

"We touched on gay and lesbian identity very briefly within the context of sex education lessons (few and far between in themselves), but there was certainly no discussion of bisexual, queer or trans identity when I was at school. The only time I remember gay identity being discussed to any extent was in GCSE religious education, in the context of which religions accepted gay relationships and which didn't (spoiler: not many).

"I can barely quantify how much as a gay teenager, trying to hide yourself from those around you - like I did until I was 16 - was exhausting, mentally and physically. Outside of school, on TV and in movies, and later the internet, I knew that open queer identity existed, but at school I faced total silence. Silence fosters shame, and teachers were complicit in that - they watched on as gay kids like myself were bullied by their peers daily, and said nothing. I think that this silence continues to foster enormous amounts of shame within my contemporaries. So many gay people who went to school at the same time as myself suffer enormous problems with self-esteem, and still do not feel in a place to talk about it because admitting you were bullied is a sign of weakness in itself.

"I would imagine that nearly every LGBTQ+ teenager suffered at least some amount of bullying, yet it is only now - over ten years later - that myself and my friends have even begun talking about our experiences at school. How different it could have been if schools were a safe space, where children and teenagers felt they could speak out: or, at least, be armed with some of the information they need to survive in the world. It would have changed my own life immeasurably."

EVA NAZAROVA - DESIGNER, DAZED

"Having an LGBTQ+ focused education would have obviously been great. It could have prevented me from doubting myself and then hating myself as much. Society definitely needs to be ready for it and here in the UK, it probably is. Unfortunately, where I come from (Latvia) I can't imagine something like this passing anytime soon. If it did, young people in classes would just make a joke out of it."

TED STANSFIELD - DIGITAL EDITOR, ANOTHER & ANOTHER MAN

"I didn't have any LGBTQ+ education at school. None. Nothing about sex, nothing about relationships, nothing about the LGBTQ+ community's experience - or even our existence! I sometimes feel angry about it. Being at an all-boys public school, homophobia was really rife and I think some education would not only have helped LGBTQ+ people like me feel more accepted and for our experiences to be more normalised/less shamed, but it would also have helped the heterosexual students to be more accepting. I sometimes wonder what things are like in schools now and hope things have improved for the young queens coming of age there."

"I'm sure if today's children grew up in an environment where there was adequate representation for LGBTQ+ issues in the classroom, there would be more children who felt they could live a life true to themselves, confident that they have a place in the world"

MATTHEW JOHNSTON - CREATIVE PARTNERSHIPS & STRATEGY DIRECTOR, NOWNESS

"There was no LGBTQ+ education in either my primary or secondary schools in Ireland. Even on occasions where LGBTQ+ classmates were bullied so badly they had to leave school, the conversation was never addressed. This created an environment where to be LGBTQ+ was to be othered, which in those formative years meant the closet was preferable.

"I'm sure if today's children grew up in an environment where there was adequate representation for LGBTQ+ issues in the classroom, there would be more children who felt they could live a life true to themselves, confident that they have a place in the world. This is something that is increasingly needed - LGBTQ+ youth have higher levels of anxiety and depression and are four times more likely to self-harm than their heterosexual peers."

NICOLA NERI - FASHION ASSISTANT, ANOTHER

"I went to high school in a small city in the North of Italy and being just gay wasn't an option, I didn't have a real understanding of what it meant to be gay until I was 17. I definitely could have benefitted from it, it would have helped me to accept who I was earlier; growing up I thought liking boys was just a phase. I was so embarrassed and couldn't accept it, that I pushed myself to date girls until I was 18."

MIKEY WOMACK - FRONT OF HOUSE COORDINATOR

"The only thing we were taught was that homosexuality was considered a sin in the Bible. I assume being taught properly about LGBTQ+ culture would have helped my straight peers see being gay as normal. I would have felt safer and more accepted, for sure. Despite being seen as different to everybody else I wouldn't say I was bullied - I was lucky. If anything, the oppressed, toxic, Catholic teachers were my main issue!"

"If there was more education and conversations on this topic in schools, kids like me wouldn't feel ashamed or work so hard to hide who they are"

BENJAMIN HAMMOND - FRONT OF HOUSE COORDINATOR

"Growing up in coastal Devon, I think the first time I heard the term 'gay' was in the playground. Sex ed classes usually consisted of periods and how to apply condoms. We didn't learn anything about sexual health care services, the risks of contracting HIV and other STIs, or even about different gender identities. Everything was so black and white, male and female, and heterosexual."

"It's long overdue, but thank God we've finally arrived. Growing up queer in a seaside town, it was so easy to feel othered. LGBTQ+ education would have enabled me to have a new perspective growing up. To understand that it's normal to be different and that it really doesn't matter who you decide to bed after a night out."

AHMAD SWAID - HEAD OF SOCIAL, DAZED

" If I had (had LGBTQ+ education), I would have had an earlier understanding that would have saved me years of confusion, emotional pain and self-inflicted homophobia that has taken me years to get over.

"I didn't grow up knowing what being gay was. The first time I was aware of the term was being ridiculed by it in school, so I ended up growing up with a very negative association with the term. Had I had LGBTQ+ specific education at school, despite my cultural and religious background (Afro/Arab/Muslim) it would have given me a perspective I really would have needed and benefitted from as opposed to the negative connotation that has taken me years to unravel."

MARC MACDONALD - COMMUNICATION EXECUTIVE

"There was no LGBTQ+ specific education in my school. I don't know if that's just because it was a primary school consisted of 20 (yes, really!) students on the west coast of Scotland. I knew I was different all the way back then, but I didn't even know the name for the way I felt. I didn't even know if it was something; there was nobody connecting the dots for me. By the time I knew what it was - i.e. that I was 'gay' - it was something that would get you bullied for, so I hid it for as long as I could! I really believe this was down to having no education on the subject for both myself and those who tormented me. When I moved to the Highlands, my high school only had 350 students and classes were limited to the basics - there wasn't even drama. I can't think of a single class that spoke about LGBTQ+ topics - I got everything from TV and a book on puberty my mum got me.

"If there was more education and conversations on this topic in schools, kids like me wouldn't feel ashamed or work so hard to hide who they are. I would have been able to share this side of my life with my family sooner, rather than distancing myself from them. I would have felt more supported by the adults around me and there would have been more of a positive understanding of what being gay actually means by others around me if it came from a senior voice. Specifically, I'm thinking about the bullies who thought I was going to come onto them, backing themselves against the wall when I walked down the corridor, in fear I would 'bum' them. It was all very exhausting for me."

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Ten LGBTQ+ people on how queer sex ed could have helped them growing up

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Last week, in a landmark ruling - 538 votes for, only 21 against - the House of Commons voted in favour of bringing LGBTQ+ education into schools. Pending approval from the House of Lords, from September 2020, primary school students will be taught about different family models, while secondary students will learn about sexual orientation and gender identity.

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"One hour before leaving the house every day, I make TikToks," says Sarah Gill, a 23-year-old TikTok user in Pakistan. "Then I post them over the next few days." Gill is a medical student and transgender rights activist who works as a dancer, model, and sex worker. She enjoys TikTok - which she describes as "like another job" - and has 30,000 followers.

Chinese video-sharing app TikTok (previously Musical.ly) has become a craze among teenagers and young people around the world, with its lipsyncing videos spreading fast across social media and giving birth to millions of memes. Globally, 41 per cent of TikTok's so-called "musers" are between 16 and 24.

In South Asia, musers typically lip sync songs and dialogues from Bollywood and other film industries in the region. In India alone there are 20 million active users - perhaps unsurprising in the home of the world's largest film industry, which is forecasted to be worth around 229 billion Indian rupees (over three billion US dollars) by 2023. In South Asia, people's love of film verges on obsession. Popular songs and dialogues are known by heart, and actors are worshipped like gods. Many young people dream of a life of fame and fortune in the region's film industries, though in reality this is largely reserved for the elite few.

But TikTok is giving young people - particularly women - in South Asia a new avenue to showcase their talents. While for the majority of women using the app their fame is exclusive to TikTok, an increasing number are able to use it to get paid work. And for many, the platform represents a scarce opportunity for bodily autonomy, and a chance to carve out space as a performer in the face of film and fashion industries that shut them out. "It gives women an opportunity to be visible," says Gill, explaining that transgender women especially are excluded from the mainstream celebrity realm.

"Since my childhood, I watched TV stars, models... I wanted to be like them," says 27-year-old Pakistani muser Jiya Khan, also transgender. "Being on TV is a faraway thing, it's very difficult for transgender people to get work, but when I make TikToks I feel like a star."

Like Hollywood, Bollywood and other film industries in South Asia have restrictive beauty standards. In India, for example, class is a major factor: women who are dark-skinned (which can indicate a lower caste) and women who do not speak English are unlikely to be accepted into mainstream cinema. Yet on TikTok, these barriers don't exist.

"Being on TV is a faraway thing, it's very difficult for transgender people to get work, but when I make TikToks I feel like a star" - Jiya Khan

Rehana is a makeup artist and hairdresser in the Keralan film industry in southern India - and an avid muser of classic Bollywood songs. "The people who are using TikTok are very ordinary people, maybe they are dark-skinned, who in the privacy of their rooms create these videos" she says in Malayalam. "You really see people who otherwise don't get opportunities in cinema or to have a chance in public life."

"There is no doubt that it is a big opportunity to express our talent and taste, and what we are capable of. It is a very important thing as a route to get into acting - maybe - for people like me."

The app has given "quite a few people a chance in cinema, to become stars on television, and be invited for shows," Rehana added, explaining that because musers know others have become famous this way "people are building up their portfolios on TikTok... expecting to break into the film industry using this platform."

When Mirnalini Ravi, 23, graduated as an engineer in Bangalore, she did not expect to end up on screen. She says that at first TikTok was a hobby, but her videos - often lip syncing romantic comedy dialogues and songs - soon got noticed by directors and she landed her first acting role, in a big budget Tamil film released last month. She has three more films in the pipeline, playing lead roles.

"It's a huge deal for someone to go from nothing, to just make some videos, and get an opportunity in a huge film with hugely experienced actors," she says. Ravi adds that ordinarily women with no connections in film have to contend with nepotism and casting couch to get a foot in the door - but she says TikTok "offers a huge platform (for) normal people" to access a safer route into the industry.

Gill, too, gets approached for acting work as a result of her TikTok content, but as a transgender woman faces additional issues. "I get a lot of offers but the problem is that they offer very degrading roles to the transgender community, they always portray us as some kind of joke," she says. Gill has no interest in accepting such offers, but says that, conversely, on TikTok she can "present myself the way I like, when I want, where I want, and with whom - it's all in my hands." Gill's TikTok profile ranges from emotionally-charged monologues, to political messages, to a Fifty Shades of Grey-themed performance.

For some women, including Gill, TikTok is also a space for sexual expression. She sometimes makes erotic videos on the app, and finds the autonomy liberating, explaining: "Only what I consent to will be there." She says she - like other models, dancers and sex workers - uses TikTok to attract and vet potential clients, too. As your following grows, she says, "demand increases", and you can charge a higher fee for your work.

She says she uses the app for "feminist messages; I say, 'Why should I hide my body, or not eat this? We are women and we have rights.". She believes the app is also helping to reduce transphobia. Whilst society stereotypes transgender women, she says the varied content on TikTok by performers of many identities challenges people to "change their views".

Muslim women donning modest fashion are also expressing themselves and their talents on TikTok. In Pakistan, Ayesha, 24, publishes videos under the the username @niqabiqueen786. In her videos she wears a niqab and acts with her eyes and hands only, as well as sometimes doing hijab tying and eye makeup tutorials. "I like the concept that we have to act... a whole story in just a minute," she told Dazed, adding that she is interested in acting but believes the mainstream film industry isn't accessible to her. "I know it is very difficult to wear a niqab and perform something. I know no-one can have the opportunity to wear a niqab and act in movies."

"I know it is very difficult to wear a niqab and perform something. I know no-one can have the opportunity to wear a niqab and act in movies" - @niqabqueen786

But the popular app is facing government backlashes in the region. Earlier this month the Madras High Court in Tamil Nadu passed an order prohibiting its download and use, following privacy concerns and earlier claims the app is causing 'cultural degradation' of teenagers. And this week, India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology asked Google and Apple to remove TikTok from their app stores - preventing any new downloads. Just today, Google and Apple complied with the request.

Meanwhile in Bangladesh, the app has become the latest target of the country's 'war against pornography', and one muser - emerging actor Sanayee Mahbob - was told by police to remove 'provocative images' from her TikTok and other social media pages.

"We don't want content which goes against our social norms," a police official told AFP. In response, Mahbob called the videos "part of my modelling career and part of my freedom".

While many of TikTok's critics are motivated by patriarchal policing of women's bodies, there are also legitimate concerns around privacy and safety "For people like me... they have honour killings, and sometimes I get scared if my family or a dangerous ex can trace me," Gill told Dazed.

And in February 2019, TikTok was fined $5.7 million in Bangladesh for illegally collecting personal information from children, and exposure to 'sexual predators' is cited in Tamil Nadu's recent decision to ban the app.

While it's true to an extent that musers are free to post a version of themselves they are comfortable with on TikTok, they may also face backlash from other users and censorship from the app itself. As with other platforms, women wanting to share 'suggestive' or sexual content often face repercussions. "Initially they weren't blocking any videos" says Gill, "but now they block a lot, and also people report and post negative comments." One one occasion, Gill performed a Bollywood dialogue on TikTok, in which she flirts: "When people want to see heaven, they come to me." In response, a man launched a police complaint against her for blasphemy. "The guy filed the complaint as I didn't want to meet him," she says, "but it's my body, and I decide who I sleep with".

"Instagram is used by smart and educated people, but when TikTok came, everybody downloaded it: educated, uneducated, poor, village girls - if they have a smartphone, they have TikTok" - Kajol Suborno

One tragic case in Tamil Nadu saw a 23-year-old commit suicide following cyberbullying on TikTok and abuse from family members for wearing women's clothing in his videos. In the last video he posted he said: "I will do things which I prefer. Although I have uploaded many videos in a male role, why do the haters continue to hurt me when I am posing as a woman?"

But despite the potentially dangerous drawbacks, TikTok is "a very interesting space" of relative freedom for women otherwise restricted by the pressures of tradition and family, says Nighat Dad, founder of the Digital Rights Foundation in Pakistan. "They can showcase their talent, their sexuality... and also get work through it," she says.As more and more women gain smartphone and internet access, TikTok in South Asia has arisen as a defining space for many young aspirants who are otherwise excluded not only from the entertainment industry, but society at large. And whilst the app shares the many problems of other social media platforms - privacy, safety, abuse, censorship - the musers we spoke to were clear: TikTok is a unique space for self-expression and liberation.

"Instagram is used by smart and educated people," says Kajol Suborno, a 26-year old emerging actor in Bangladesh, "but when TikTok came, everybody downloaded it: educated, uneducated, poor, village girls - if they have a smartphone, they have TikTok."

"TikTok puts everything in my hands: I am the director, I am the make-up artist, I am the writer. I do what I want to do."
This story is part of Bolly Lolly Dhally, a collaborative European Journalism Centre project platforming stories of women and feminism in the film industries of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.

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Women in South Asia are lip syncing for their lives on TikTok

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"One hour before leaving the house every day, I make TikToks," says Sarah Gill, a 23-year-old TikTok user in Pakistan. "Then I post them over the next few days." Gill is a medical student and transgender rights activist who works as a dancer, model, and sex worker.

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Using snapchat filters in real life

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404 is a startling short film - opening with a full throttle nightlife scene, it cuts quickly to the crisp morning after, to show hedonistic young father Gregory, aka GR404 ( Théo Christine), being visited by his daughter Boo (Ella Ayeni), whose eyes are disproportionately wide, like those in a Snapchat filter. Over a weekend on a French social housing estate by the sea, Gregory and Boo probe their curious relationship.

The French film exists somewhere between The Florida Project and Black Mirror - a touching snapshot of life in a small but intense community, while also interrogating the porous border between the IRL and the filtered online lense.

"Those big eyes are my vision of a futuristic handicap and of the problem we have with the image we see and the one we want to reflect for others to see", says director Antoine Besse, who made the film with Bordeaux-based Rave Skateboards' new creative arm. "Those big eyes are my vision of a futuristic handicap and of the problem we have with the image we see and the one we want to reflect for others to see". 404 continues the urgent narrative of Besse's previous projects that navigate between fiction and reality, from the celebrated short Le Skate Moderne and web series Red Creek.

This new short is part of a hybrid project - the film, a music video, and an EP by producer roseboy666, who scores 404. The artist's 404 Augmented EP builds upon the soundtrack, revealing more about Gregory, Boo, and their fascinating life in this both unsettling and hopeful near-future with short interludes on the EP. The accompanying music video extends the story even further to explore, focusing on roseboy666 and fellow artist k$38.

404 is dedicated to the memory of actor Mabo Kouyaté. Watch the poignant, thought-provoking short above.

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Watch this moving short film imagining a future with Snapchat filters IRL

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404 is a startling short film - opening with a full throttle nightlife scene, it cuts quickly to the crisp morning after, to show hedonistic young father Gregory, aka GR404 ( Théo Christine), being visited by his daughter Boo (Ella Ayeni), whose eyes are disproportionately wide, like those in a Snapchat filter.

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Sexuality and Technology
An Inclusive Interdisciplinary Conference

Saturday 1st December 2018 - Sunday 2nd December 2018
Vienna, Austria

It has become evident that Technology is affecting our Sexuality. From how we form, maintain, and end relationships to how we seek and have sex, technology has a pervasive impact on every facet of our sexuality. As such, the lexicon of dating has evolved to include terms like swiping left, swiping right, ghosting, breadcrumbing, catfishing, and hatfishing among many others. Advances in sex toys include smart toys, wearables, artificially intelligent toys, remote controls, virtual reality (VR) pornography, customization with 3-D printing, toys with built in cameras, and advances in sex dolls as some examples.

This conference sets out to investigate the ways in which technology is changing sexuality, as it revolutionizes the ways in which we seek and select partners, shapes the types of encounters we engage in, and re-writes our scripts for erotic action. Spike Jonze's 2013 film Her pasks an important question in its examination of the unlikely relationship between Theodore and Samantha, the virtual assistant of his operating system. Samantha asks in the film: "Like are these feelings even real? Or are they just programming?"

Our first interdisciplinary Sexuality and Technology conference seeks to create a lasting network of professionals, practitioners and researchers in all fields related to this topic; to isolate, discuss, and explore the main issues, pressing matters, and recent developments in this field of activity; to identify areas to be subsequently explored in further depth; and to generate collaborative action that will lead to real, lasting change in the way sex and tech is perceived and approached globally. We welcome any relevant and insightful kinds of contribution from classic presentations to proposals for workshops; topics for debates, panels or round tables; brainstorming sessions for creating policy materials or research instruments; sharing of event-appropriate professional or personal experience or new apps, tools, toys, or technologies; or meaningful forms of artistic expression (film, poetry, photography exhibitions etc.)

Some of our suggested main issues to be approached include (but are not limited to):

~ Connection - Is the sex we are engaging in thanks to technology fundamentally different or is technology simply facilitating access to sex and relationships? Are we having more sex, better or worse sex thanks to technology? How is it creating and fostering relationships? What impact are advances in virtual reality creating? How will continued advances in technology impact our relationships?
~ Disconnection - What negative effects has technology had on our romantic relationships; The unplugging by plugging in phenomenon; The "alone together" phenomenon; Technology fails and its impact on relationships
~ Diversity, Inclusion, Exclusion - How has technology helped with diversity and inclusion? How has it amplified exclusion?
~ Managing Risk - Fake profiles, bad dates, the dangers of "proximity dating"; Revenge pornography; Safeguarding sexual history and anonymity on line; Risk management tactics; 'Catfishing'; Stalking; Creating false meaning; Trolling
~ Online Dating - Historical perspectives of dating in comparison to online dating; Advances in dating apps; Censorship in dating apps; Ghosting; Face to face (FtF) vs virtual communication; Intimacy enhancers or detractors?
~ Online Pornography - Changes in the pornography field due to technology; Advances; Ease of accessibility; Risks; Online sexual compulsivity; Financial Dangers; Desensitization to FtF relationships
~ Sexual Wellness and Health - Sex education and mobile apps; STI management Apps: The advantages and disadvantages of posting STI status on line
~ Sex Work and Technology: Is on-line sexual commerce booming? What impact does technology have on sex work? What policies are needed? What policies are hurting?
~ Sexuality and Affect - How did that hookup really feel? Empowerment/disempowerment narratives; Ghosting and its impact; Virtual versus FtF relationships; Intimacy and vulnerability; Avatars and multiple personas
~ Sexuality, Technology, and Education - How is technology influencing the way we learn about sex in schools, higher education, or in general? Online pornography as sex education.
~ Sexuality, Technology, and Gender - What are the gender and identity issues due to the rise of technology?
~ Sexuality, Technology, and Geography - What cultures seem more willing to experiment? What is it about these cultures which allows this to happen?
~ Sexuality, Technology, and Robots - What advances are being made? How will robots or similar technologies impact our relationships? Advances or problems in developing new apps, tools, toys, or technologies?
~ Sexuality, Technology, and The Generations - How does technology impact the young versus the old differently?
~ Social Media and Sexuality - What impact does social media have on how sexuality is perceived and viewed?
~ Technology and Sexual Violence: New media's role in the normalization or prevention of sexual and gendered violence: New forms of sexual and gendered violence via new media and technology; Survivors and media exposure/coverage; Media propaganda upholding state violence
~ Teens, Technology, and Sexuality - Sexting; The criminal distribution of the naked selfie as child pornography; Codes and neologisms ("Netflix and chill")

We also welcome additional proposal themes related to sexuality and technology.

What to Send
The aim of this interdisciplinary conference and collaborative networking event is to bring people together and encourage creative conversations in the context of a variety of formats: papers, seminars, workshops, performances, poster presentations, panels, q&a's, roundtables etc.

300 word proposals, presentations, abstracts and other forms of contribution and participation should be submitted by Friday 8th June 2018. Other forms of participation should be discussed in advance with the Organising Chair.

All submissions will be minimally double reviewed, under anonymous (blind) conditions, by a global panel drawn from members of the Project Development Team and the Advisory Board. In practice our procedures usually entail that by the time a proposal is accepted, it will have been triple and quadruple reviewed.

You will be notified of the panel's decision by Friday 22nd June 2018.

If your submission is accepted for the conference, a full draft of your contribution should be submitted by Friday 19th October 2018.

Abstracts and proposals may be in Word, PDF, RTF or Notepad formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in the programme, c) email address, d) title of proposal, e) body of proposal, f) up to 10 keywords.

E-mails should be entitled: Sexuality and Technology Submission

Where to Send
Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the Organising Chair and the Project Administrator:

Organising Chair: Kristine Seitz: kristine@kristineseitz.com

Project Administrator: viennatech@progressiveconnexions.net

What's so Special About Progressive Connexions Events?
A fresh, friendly, dynamic format - at Progressive Connexions we are dedicated to breaking away from the stuffy, old-fashion conference formats, where endless presentations are read aloud off PowerPoints. We work to bring you an interactive format, where exchange of experience and information is alternated with captivating workshops, engaging debates and round tables, time set aside for getting to know each other and for discussing common future projects and initiatives, all in a warm, relaxed, egalitarian atmosphere.

A chance to network with international professionals - the beauty of our interdisciplinary events is that they bring together professionals from all over the world and from various fields of activity, all joined together by a shared passion. Not only will the exchange of experience, knowledge and stories be extremely valuable in itself, but we seek to create lasting, ever-growing communities around our projects, which will become a valuable resource for those belonging to them.

A chance to be part of constructing change - There is only one thing we love as much as promoting knowledge: promoting real, lasting social change by encouraging our participants to take collective action, under whichever form is most suited to their needs and expertise (policy proposals, measuring instruments, research projects, educational materials, etc.) We will support all such actions in the aftermath of the event as well, providing a platform for further discussions, advice from the experts on our Project Advisory Team and various other tools and intellectual resources, as needed.

An opportunity to discuss things that matter to you - Our events are not only about discussing how things work in the respective field, but also about how people work in that field - what are the struggles, problems and solutions professionals have found in their line of work, what are the areas where better communication among specialists is needed and how the interdisciplinary approach can help bridge those gaps and help provide answers to questions from specific areas of activity.

An unforgettable experience - When participating in a Progressive Connexions event, there is a good chance you will make some long-time friends. Our group sizes are intimate, our venues are comfortable and relaxing and our event locations are suited to the history and culture of the event.

Ethos
Progressive Connexions believes it is a mark of personal courtesy and professional respect to your colleagues that all delegates should attend for the full duration of the meeting. If you are unable to make this commitment, please do not submit an abstract or proposal for presentation.

Please note: Progressive Connexions is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence, nor can we offer discounts off published rates and fees.

Please send all enquiries to: viennatech@progressiveconnexions.net

Further details and information can be found at the conference web page: http://www.progressiveconnexions.net/interdisciplinary-projects/gender-a...

Sponsored by: Progressive Connexions

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Sexuality and Technology An Inclusive Interdisciplinary Conference Saturday 1st December 2018 - Sunday 2nd December 2018 Vienna, Austria It has become evident that Technology is affecting our Sexuality. From how we form, maintain, and end relationships to how we seek and have sex, technology has a pervasive impact on every facet of our sexuality.

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The Future of Sex and Sexuality - The Medical Futurist

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At the dawn of a new sexual revolution, it's time to face where technology may take the most intimate area of our lives in the future.

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The M&S LGBT Sandwich Row | This Morning

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Stuart Hall - Race, Gender, Class in the Media

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Rabbit by Jeff Koons - a chance to own the controversy | Christie's

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Exuberant, celebratory, vacuous, disposable. There is little that has not been said about Jeff Koons's seminal 1986 sculpture, which is offered in New York on 15 May

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1,933 Likes, 10 Comments - freddie smithson (@freddiemade) on Instagram: "Bendi @fendi #freddiemade"

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I recently went to the armory and found myself starring at those regal paintings of only white men portrayed as if they where gods. I thought, FUCK THAT. Realized it is my duty to create imagery that represents what I believe true Regal Nature is, and that helps build a general understanding that those white men where everything but divine - We Are. And i feel full of purpose. - LGBT friends, i protect you and honor you ❤️ Please Vote if you can, we need you 💛💛 @iamjarijones and @corey_meets_world thank you for the example you set and your commitment to protect the trans community, deep respect to your love💛💛

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4,207 Likes, 59 Comments - Camila Falquez (@camilafalquez) on Instagram: "I recently went to the armory and found myself starring at those regal paintings of only white men..."

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💐This is @jeffhova being all the women of Pedro Almodovar 💐 @voguespain - Styling @jaimekaywaxman Hair @mustafayanaz MU @gracegraceahn Set Design @gerardsantos_

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2,823 Likes, 28 Comments - Camila Falquez (@camilafalquez) on Instagram: "💐This is @jeffhova being all the women of Pedro Almodovar 💐 @voguespain - Styling @jaimekaywaxman..."

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❤️Ibeyi ❤️ " No Man Is Big Enough for Their Arms" ❤️ We watched the snow fall and danced ❤️@naomidiazibeyi @oeil_l.k @ibeyi2

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2,964 Likes, 161 Comments - Camila Falquez (@camilafalquez) on Instagram: "❤️Ibeyi ❤️ " No Man Is Big Enough for Their Arms" ❤️ We watched the snow fall and danced..."

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"The Electric Age" Photography: David PD Hyde Stylist: Emily Evans Makeup and Prop: Bryanna-Angel Allen Hair: Jason Goh Model: Martyna O @ Wild London #opalus #magazine #art #photography #editorial #publication #model #digitalage #conceptual #beauty #makeup #eyes #face #portrait #electronic #creativedirection #creative #dream

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125 Likes, 1 Comments - David PD Hyde (@davidpdhyde) on Instagram: ""The Electric Age" Photography: David PD Hyde Stylist: Emily Evans Makeup and Prop: Bryanna-..."

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#CHINESEDOLLS shot by @ediechow620 on sickymag.com ❤️🔥🧡 Fashion #Yun #TracyLi -- Hair #BenSon @jinyujanetzhou -- Make-Up #Joanna @jinyujanetzhou | #editorial #fashion #woman #girl #model #beauty #art #love #online #sickymag #sickymagazine

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Building strength, awareness and harmony in both mind and body through yoga has long been the passion of a Hillsboro woman and her intention is to bring it to the rural countryside of Highland County.

For Kelly Sunny Rae, locating her Naturally by Nature studio north of Hillsboro on SR 73 was the perfect place for what she wanted to bring to women and men of the area, which was a not-for-profit yoga experience that welcomed everyone of any age and was sustained by donations.

"I've taken the basic approach to a yoga class and taken it outside," she said. "The idea is that this will allow everyone to connect with nature, and by stepping off of the yoga mat and onto the earth, it helps to really amplify what we call 'the grounding effect.'"

She said the idea of teaching free yoga classes supported by donations only came from a conversation with a friend who wanted to be a part of one of her classes at either her Hillsboro or Washington C.H. studio, but simply couldn't afford it.

The American Osteopathic Association refers to yoga as an approach to wellness that focuses on the body's natural tendency toward health and self-healing, and that if given the chance, the human body will repair, heal and maintain itself from the most chronic and brutal stresses encountered in every day life.

Rae echoed the AOA's claims, saying that from a medical standpoint there are many benefits to both young and old alike such as strengthening bone mass through holding the various yoga poses for at least 30 seconds, a reduction in the symptoms of stress which may bring about a reduction in blood pressure issues, and in general a tendency to reduce bouts of anxiety and depression.

Her knowledge and claims concerning the benefits of yoga are not the musings of a novice. She is a certified instructor in its teachings, having completed the required 200-hour course to extend the depth of her practice and to gain a fuller understanding of its dynamics.

She said that there are many misconceptions about yoga, stressing that it's deeper than what is portrayed on television or in magazines or movies.

"There are a lot of things that yoga has been turned into," Rae said. "But in essence, yoga means to unite or yoke the mind, body and spirit together, and in the physical practice of stretching the body, the mind relaxes through concentration and controlled breathing, and it just calms you down, brings you back into balance and soothes your soul."

There have been many criticisms of yoga in the evangelical and medical community, she said, with its detractors dismissing it as nothing more than eastern mysticism or an embracing of the teachings of Buddha.

While not wanting to get into a confrontation over people's beliefs or prejudices, Rae said a good starting point to teach about yoga would be breath awareness, because "everybody breathes and that's a universal thing that we all have in common."

"Breathing is the major anchor for the mind," she said. "A common ground exercise would be closing your eyes, slowly breathe in and open your fingers, and then when you exhale, close your fingers into a tight fist and link your breathing with that movement - that's yoga."

She said those interested in yoga can call her studio for information at 937-402-4908 or email her at naturally_by_nature@yahoo.com. Those interested should bring a yoga mat, beach towel, small pillow and water bottle.

Yoga in the Yard classes are scheduled to start at 6 p.m. Sunday, May 5 and run through Aug. 28, with classes expected to last approximately one hour at her studio on SR 73 across from the former Jeff Page greenhouses.

Reach Tim Colliver at 937-402-2571.

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Building strength, awareness and harmony in both mind and body through yoga has long been the passion of a Hillsboro woman and her intention is to bring it to the rural countryside of Highland County.

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The US government has begun auctioning off blocks of wireless radio frequencies to be used for the next-generation mobile communications network known as 5G. But some of these frequencies lie close to those that satellites use for crucial Earth observations - and meteorologists are worried that 5G transmissions from cellphones and other equipment could interfere with their data collection.

Unless regulators or telecommunications companies take steps to reduce the risk of interference, Earth-observing satellites flying over areas of the United States with 5G wireless coverage won't be able to detect concentrations of water vapour in the atmosphere accurately. Meteorologists in the United States and other countries rely on those data to feed into their models; without that information, weather forecasts worldwide are likely to suffer.

"This is a global problem," says Jordan Gerth, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA are currently locked in a high-stakes negotiation with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which oversees US wireless networks. NOAA and NASA have asked the FCC to work with them to protect frequencies used for Earth observations from interference as 5G rolls out. But the FCC auctioned off the first chunk of the 5G spectrum with minimal protection. The sale ended on 17 April and reaped nearly US$2 billion.

Sharing the sky

Because the United States is such a large communications market, the decisions the government makes about how to deploy 5G are likely to influence global discussions on how to regulate the technology. Regulators from around the world will gather starting on 28 October in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to hammer out international agreements for which frequencies companies will be able to use for 5G transmissions, and what level of interference with Earth-observation frequencies is acceptable.

Astronomers, meteorologists and other scientists have long worked to share the spectrum with other users, sometimes shifting to different frequencies to prevent conflicts. But "this is the first time we've seen a threat to what I'd call the crown jewels of our frequencies - the ones that we absolutely must defend come what may", says Stephen English, a meteorologist at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in Reading, UK.

They include the 23.8-gigahertz frequency, at which water vapour in the atmosphere emits a faint signal. Satellites, such as the European MetOp probes, monitor energy radiating from Earth at this frequency to assess humidity in the atmosphere below - measurements that can be taken during the day or at night, even if clouds are present. Forecasters feed these data into models to predict how storms and other weather systems will develop in the coming hours and days.

But a 5G station transmitting at nearly the same frequency will produce a signal that looks much like that of water vapour. "We wouldn't know that that signal is not completely natural," says Gerth. Forecasts would become less accurate if meteorologists incorporated those bad data into their models.

Noisy neighbours

The recent FCC auction involved 2 groups of frequencies: one between 24.25 and 24.45 gigahertz and the other between 24.75 and 25.25 gigahertz. Wireless equipment transmitting near the lower end of that range could interfere with the 23.8-gigahertz water-vapour measurement. The FCC did not respond to Nature's request for comment on the matter.

The situation is akin to having a noisy neighbour next door, Gerth says. If that person blasts music, a lot of the noise will probably bleed through the wall into your apartment. But if you can persuade the person to turn their music down, you'll be able to sleep more peacefully.

Radio-frequency engineers measure noise in units of decibel watts. Regulators set controls that limit the noise allowed; more-negative numbers indicate increasingly stringent controls. The FCC auction set a noise limit on the US 5G network of -20 decibel watts, which is much noisier than the thresholds under consideration by almost every other nation for their systems. The European Commission, for instance, has settled on -42 decibel watts for 5G base stations, and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is recommending -55 decibel watts.

Many hope that the WMO numbers will influence regulators to adopt strict global noise standards at the meeting in Egypt. Because of how the scale is devised, the US proposal would allow over 150 times more noise than the European proposal - and more than 3,000 times more than the WMO plan, says Eric Allaix, a meteorologist at Météo-France in Toulouse who heads a WMO steering group on radio-frequency coordination.

Future fears

There's relatively little research on exactly how bad weather forecasts could get as interference increases at 23.8 gigahertz and other frequencies crucial for Earth observations, says Gerth. "But the more we lose, the greater the impact will be," he says.

NOAA and NASA have reportedly finished a study on the effects of differing levels of noise interference, but it has not been made public, despite at least one formal request from Congress. A 2010 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine concluded that losing scientific access to the 23.8-gigahertz signal would eliminate 30% of all useful data in microwave frequencies, which contribute significantly to global weather forecasts.

And not having atmospheric data from the United States can dramatically hurt forecasts for Europe, whose weather patterns are often steered by conditions over the United States 3-4 days earlier, says English.

The Department of Commerce, which oversees NOAA, said that it "strongly supports the administration's policy to promote US leadership in secure 5G networks, while at the same time sustaining and improving critical government and scientific missions." NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine declined to comment, but spoke at length about his concerns over 5G at an agency meeting earlier this month. "This is a big deal," Bridenstine said.

The FCC plans to begin its next 5G auction, which will be the country's largest ever, in December. It will involve three more frequency bands - some of which are used for satellite observations of precipitation, sea ice and clouds.
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# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Global 5G wireless networks threaten weather forecasts

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The US government has begun auctioning off blocks of wireless radio frequencies to be used for the next-generation mobile communications network known as 5G. But some of these frequencies lie close to those that satellites use for crucial Earth observations - and meteorologists are worried that 5G transmissions from cellphones and other equipment could interfere with their data collection.

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On a freezing November morning, Ashraf Islam is 3,000 kilometres from his family in balmy Bangladesh, but the weather is far from his mind as he gushes about the science opportunities he has encountered in Beijing.

"We have good facilities at home, but the facilities here are nothing like what I've used before," says Islam, who is working towards a PhD in China researching techniques to remove organic matter from wastewater, an acute problem in Bangladesh.

Htet Aung Phyo, a PhD student from Myanmar, is using his Chinese-funded fellowship in Beijing to develop ways to use bacteria to extract copper from low-grade ore. If his project succeeds, it could help to extend the lives of copper mines in Myanmar, some of which are operated by a Chinese company. A breakthrough would also mean more jobs in his own country. "This is why I am here," he says proudly.

Phyo and Islam are two of 1,300 graduate students from dozens of countries who are spending up to four years in Beijing carrying out research to help solve scientific problems back home. Two hundred positions are funded each year by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in conjunction with The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in Trieste, Italy. But this is no ordinary fellowship scheme. Each of the 200 is a small part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the world's largest programme of loans and investments, including some grants, which China is brokering with 126 countries.

Across much of the world, China's government, companies and local business partners have been building motorways, designing high-speed rail, mining fossil-fuel reserves, switching on power plants, installing thousands of surveillance cameras and unveiling air and sea ports (see 'Making connections'). This is all part of a vast venture conceived by President Xi Jinping to transform global trade networks that both supply China and provide a market for its products.

Xi and other Chinese leaders see science as a central element in building bridges with other countries and Bai Chunli, president of CAS, emphasized that point last year in the Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences ( CAS Bulletin). "Science, technology and innovation are the core driving force for the BRI development," he wrote.

For the past six months, Nature has been travelling to countries participating in the BRI. From Beijing to Islamabad, Colombo to Nairobi to Lima, we are exploring in a series of five articles over the next two weeks how China is transforming the world of science. China's universities - along with a vast network of CAS institutes - are fanning out across the globe. They are offering scientific assistance and signing collaborative agreements on a scale not seen since the United States and the former Soviet Union vied with each other to fund researchers in allied nations during the cold war. On 19 April, Bai announced that CAS has invested more than 1.8 billion yuan (almost US$268 million) in science and technology projects as part of the BRI.

In Sri Lanka, China is co-funding a centre focused on safe drinking water and supporting investigations into a kidney-disease crisis in the country's rural population. In Pakistan, it is co-sponsoring a range of research centres that are studying topics from rice agriculture to artificial intelligence and railway engineering. In the heart of the European Union, a Chinese-Belgian science park provides homes for companies trying to expand trade in medical devices, solar power and other technologies. And in South America, China has partnered with Chile and Argentina on astronomical centres and has gained access to some of the best observatories in the world. In total, the scientific side of the BRI involves tens of thousands of researchers and students, and hundreds of universities. There are few regions of the developing world where China's scientific outreach does not have a footprint.

This marks a profound shift in where low- and middle-income countries are drawing scientific support - a sphere in which China is emerging as a competitor to the United States, Japan and the wealthier European nations. And as China rises as a science-development superpower, it brings a different perspective from those of other leading science nations.

First, there is the concept of win-win that pervades all BRI projects, says Theresa Fallon, director of the Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies in Brussels. Every major investment brings benefits not only to the host country but also to China, which is hoping to gain both scientifically and economically from the ventures. Another difference is that China sees itself as a more appropriate partner for poorer nations because it still recalls what it was like to be poor, says Li Yin, deputy director of CAS's international cooperation department in Beijing.

China's approach through the BRI has earned it many fans in countries where it has invested, including Sri Lanka's President Maithripala Sirisena and Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan. Khan said in his victory speech last year that he's keen to learn how China went from being a poor country to an emerging superpower.

But there's another view of China's scientific rise - the narrative that low- and middle-income countries are sleepwalking into the arms of an authoritarian and neocolonial state, and that everything else, including technology agreements and research alliances, are part of that trajectory. In this narrative, struggling nations are sagging under billions of dollars of debt to China and are giving away the keys to untold amounts of economically valuable and sensitive resources - from oceanic-current readings to biological samples to next-generation communication systems. Another concern is that China is only now beginning to acknowledge the environmental harm that BRI projects could cause as they pave routes through ecologically fragile habitats in Pakistan's northern mountains and other regions, and dam up rivers across southeast Asia and South America.

From a science perspective, the overall goal of the BRI is clear - to restore China's place as one of the world's great civilizations, and that includes being seen by all other nations as a source of scientific power, too. But Christopher Cullen, a historian of Chinese science at the Needham Institute in Cambridge, UK, says it is too early to say how China's dealings with other countries will evolve.

Many Paths

For well over 2,000 years, the silk roads linked the Far East to Europe, and Chinese leaders have been invoking the rhetoric of reviving these ancient trade routes since the early 2000s. But when Xi became China's president in 2013, he made this goal a priority as he launched the BRI with fanfare and ancient proverbs. "The sea is big because it admits all rivers," he said during launch events in Indonesia and Kazakhstan.

The sea is even bigger than Xi's plans originally indicated. Over the past six years, the BRI has grown to incorporate a complex, global network of ocean and overland routes, with China as the focal point (see 'Growing network'). The full scope of the BRI is impossible to judge, because China's government has never released a list of all the projects that are in the works or planned. But estimates of its size cover a wide range from $1 trillion to $8 trillion.

As one component of this massive initiative, China is creating what it calls a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, a giant oceanic loop that links the country's shipping to the nations bordering each of the great oceans, including some in Africa and South America. Then there's the Silk Road Economic Belt, a complicated network of six overland corridors that connect China to some of Asia and Europe's major cities through railways, roads and maritime paths.

The signs of a scientific BRI emerged soon after Xi visited central Asia in September 2013. The following year, CAS funded an upgrade to a 1-metre telescope at Uzbekistan's Ulugh Beg Astronomical Institute. The improvement paved the way for the Uzbekistan institute to survey the northern sky in collaboration with China's Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory. Uzbekistan has no experience in telescope making, observatory director Shuhrat Ehgamberdiev told the CAS Bulletin, so the most important technological part was done by China's engineers. This was the beginning of much grander plans by CAS.

The BRI's scientific component is being masterminded by Bai. Trained in China as an X-ray crystallographer, Bai worked with John Baldeschwieler at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena in the mid-1980s on scanning tunnelling microscopy.

Even early in Bai's career, it was clear he would go far, says Baldeschwieler, who remembers predicting that Bai would one day become president of CAS. During a visit to Beijing in 1995, Baldeschwieler was amazed to find that Bai had arranged a meeting with China's then-president Jiang Zemin. "We were picked up in a small bus and taken by police escort with flashing lights through Tiananmen Square to the Great Hall of the People." Young boys and girls were lining the stairs on a red carpet, he recalls.

Under Bai, the science BRI has been running on three parallel tracks. In China, CAS has established five centres of excellence at its institutes, and these host the 200 PhD students that the academy trains every year.

Outside China, it has opened nine research and training centres, in Africa, central Asia, South America and south and southeast Asia - often co-funded by their host countries. The China-Brazil Joint Laboratory for Space Weather in São José dos Campos, for example, is monitoring space weather changes and developing forecast models. In Bangkok, the CAS Innovation Cooperation Center helps Thailand's universities and technology companies to work with Chinese counterparts, and at the same time gives China a foothold in the region. And then there are hundreds of individual collaborations between CAS and universities in China and elsewhere.

The third track is what CAS is calling the Digital Belt and Road, a platform for participating countries to share the data obtained as part of their collaborative projects with each other and with China. These data include satellite images as well as quantitative data on natural hazards, water resources and cultural heritage sites.

To draw these and other activities together, CAS established a super committee of scientific research organizations in 2016. This network goes by the acronym ANSO, short for Alliance of International Science Organizations in the Belt and Road Region. Its 37 members span the globe, stretching from the Russian Academy of Sciences to the University of Chile. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in Paris is also a founding member. As part of its activities, ANSO plans to support and organize research in BRI countries on sustainable development, including improving food security and reducing water scarcity.

Trouble spots

As the infrastructure projects take off and China increases its scientific activities overseas, concerns are starting to emerge over how it is carrying out its work.

Much of the criticism comes from countries not currently involved in the BRI. India's government, for example, is angry that it has not been consulted about activities taking place in what it regards as its backyard, and more than once has warned Sri Lanka's policymakers to scale back the extent of their scientific cooperation with China.

Another potential flashpoint is how China is building the information-technology infrastructure for the Digital Belt and Road. The United States and some other countries have warned in particular about signing agreements with Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei to build the next generation 5G mobile communications network. They say that this potentially gives the Chinese government surveillance opportunities, because Huawei is also providing BRI countries with surveillance tools - including facial recognition technology. Huawei, however, strenuously denies that it has installed access routes in its equipment for unauthorized users, such as might be used by the Chinese government.

One of the strongest concerns in BRI countries is about the environmental impacts of the projects, which are transforming the landscape in dozens of nations. The conservation group WWF reports that the main BRI connections between Asia and Europe cross through 1,739 areas that have been identified as important for biodiversity conservation, affecting 265 threatened species, including 81 endangered species such as the saiga antelope ( Saiga tatarica), tigers ( Panthera tigris) and giant pandas ( Ailuropoda melanoleuca).

One project that has environmentalists worried is a planned 350-kilometre, $3.8-billion Hungary-to-Serbia railway. This has also attracted the attention of EU authorities and is still awaiting regulatory approval. In addition, China has not ratified the Espoo Convention, which requires member states to assess the environmental and health impacts of development projects at an early stage.

Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist at Forman Christian College in Lahore, Pakistan, says that few - if any - of China's scientific collaborations are evaluating the environmental impacts of BRI infrastructure projects. "There's a real lack of research on a regulatory framework for the BRI projects themselves and this leads to the rest of us having to make guesses as to what is happening and what the impacts might be," he says. "There needs to be research on these questions, too," says Hoodbhoy. "Without environmental safeguards in place, there are risks of exacerbating environmental problems, putting pressure on dwindling natural resources and displacing communities," agrees Aban Marker Kabraji, Asia director at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Bangkok.

One obstacle to environmental due diligence, says Qi Ye, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy in Beijing, is that institutions in both China and BRI countries are reluctant to do anything that could slow construction. Chinese companies, he says, are often "operating in an environment where the local government or contracting party needs or wants quick results". Strategic environmental impact assessments take time to do properly, and can result in changes to original specifications - all of which can lead to projects being delayed. "That is not a popular option," says Qi.

Another problem is that contracts can state that environmental impact assessments are the responsibility of the host country. But because poor countries often have little monitoring or evaluation capacity for such assessments, construction projects sometimes go ahead without proper scrutiny, environmental advocates say.

There are signs that China is starting to address such concerns. China's own conservation research organizations, such as the Dunhuang Academy, and environmental scientists including Ma Keping from CAS's Institute of Botany in Beijing, have been warning about the environmental impacts of its vast network of transcontinental routes for some years.

Wang Xudong, the director of the Dunhuang Academy, says his colleagues have mapped 130 World Heritage sites along the original silk routes, including parts of the BRI. "In China, development is forbidden near archaeological sites, or surrounding areas." Wang says. He adds that countries participating in the BRI should start to establish protected areas as China has done. "Foreign countries should also avoid building roads or rail near earthquake epicentres or near heritage sites," he says.

The environmental concerns about the BRI are beginning to catch the attention of China's top leaders, too. The IUCN, whose president is China's former vice-minister for education Zhang Xinsheng, has been commissioned to study the environmental impacts of BRI construction in two countries: Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Research teams including Chinese government officials were in these nations conducting fieldwork in February - around the same time that Nature was visiting them. The expectation is that this study will have traction in China because it is being done at the request of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development, a body of the world's top environment specialists that reports to China's government.

And last week, China's government convened a two-day forum - a first for the government - in Beijing to discussing environmental concerns surrounding the BRI. The conclusions of the meeting are expected to feed into a conference of heads of governments of BRI countries, called the Belt and Road Forum, which started on 25 April. The forum is being chaired by Xi, which means that environmental discussions have been propelled to the highest of high tables.

Arthur Hanson, chief international adviser to the China environment cooperation council, says that one ambition is to be able to persuade China's leadership to make environmental- and social-impact assessments essential elements in BRI projects, along with ensuring that there is public participation in decisions and open access to data.

Andrew Small, a China scholar with the German Marshall Fund, a think tank in Washington DC, says that, in his experience, China's policymakers are highly sensitive to criticisms and will be keen to work to resolve them. As the BRI takes shape, Small says, the Chinese government will look to work with more international organizations, including conservation groups and universities.

Looking east

As China increases its scientific investments in BRI countries, it is shifting how researchers around much of the planet look to the future. China has emerged as the scientific partner of choice for a large swathe of the developing world. Whereas previous generations of researchers in Africa, Asia and, to some extent, South America trained in Western countries and had their intellectual roots there, the same cannot be said for the current generation (see 'China's collaborations').

Several of the older scientists who spoke to Nature for this series of articles remarked that junior colleagues - particularly those returning from China after PhD training or postdoctoral work - are now often lacking in Western scientific contacts. "As more young people go to China instead of the US, the links they will have with Western countries will further weaken," says Kamini Mendis, a malariologist from Sri Lanka formerly with the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.

But there is another side to this story: the prospect that China's scientific encounters with other countries could, in a small way, start to change China, too. At a meeting in Beijing last November with PhD students who had come from BRI countries around the world, Nature asked whether any wished to extend their stay. Might they consider working and living in China on a more permanent basis - just as their predecessors at home had done in Europe and North America? The room fell momentarily silent, until an academy official pointed out that the students' contracts stipulate that they must return home once their PhDs are complete. "We do not want to cause brain drain," she emphasized.

But she didn't have the last word. One of the academy's principal investigators interjected. "Are you saying that if these students stay and work here, perhaps China will become a more multicultural society?" he asked. "That would not be such a bad thing."

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# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How China is redrawing the map of world science

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On a freezing November morning, Ashraf Islam is 3,000 kilometres from his family in balmy Bangladesh, but the weather is far from his mind as he gushes about the science opportunities he has encountered in Beijing.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Scientists have uncovered the most complete remains yet from the mysterious ancient-hominin group known as the Denisovans. The jawbone, discovered high on the Tibetan Plateau and dated to more than 160,000 years ago, is also the first Denisovan specimen found outside the Siberian cave in which the hominin was uncovered a decade ago - confirming suspicions that Denisovans were more widespread than the fossil record currently suggests.

The research marks the first time an ancient human has been identified solely through the analysis of proteins. With no usable DNA, scientists examined proteins in the specimen's teeth, raising hopes that more fossils could be identified even when DNA is not preserved.

"This is fantastic work," says Katerina Douka, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, who runs a separate project aiming to uncover Denisovan fossils in Asia. "It tells us that we are looking at the right area."

Hunting for Denisovans

Until now, everything scientists have learnt about Denisovans has come from a handful of teeth and bone fragments from Denisova Cave in Russia's Altai Mountains. DNA from these remains revealed that the Denisovans were a sister group to Neanderthals, both descending from a population that split away from modern humans about 550,00-765,000 years ago. And at Denisova Cave, the two groups seem to have met and interbred: a bone fragment described last year belonged an ancient-human hybrid individual who had a Denisovan father and Neanderthal mother.

But many expected that it was only a matter of time before researchers found evidence of Denisovans elsewhere. Some modern humans in Asia and Oceania carry traces of Denisovan DNA, raising the possibility that the hominin lived far away from Siberia. And some researchers think that unclassified hominin fossils from China could be Denisovan.

The latest specimen, described in Nature, consists of half a lower jaw, with two complete teeth. A monk found it in Baishiya Karst Cave in China in 1980, and passed on to Lanzhou University. But it wasn't until the 2010s that archaeologist Dongju Zhang and her colleagues began studying the bone.

The team faced a problem. The Denisova Cave remains had all been identified because they still contained some DNA, which could be compared with genetic sequences from other ancient humans. But there was no DNA left in the jawbone.

Instead, the scientists looked for ancient proteins, which tend to last longer than DNA. In dentine from the teeth, they found collagen proteins suitable for analysis. The team compared these with equivalent proteins in groupsincluding Denisovans and Neanderthals, and found that they lined up closest with sequences from Denisovans.

The team were also able to piece together other snippets of information about the individual. One of the teeth was still erupting, for example, leading the authors to speculate that the jawbone belonged to an adolescent.

Previous research identified Neanderthal remains using both proteins and DNA - but the success of the latest study could lead to a greater emphasis on getting ancient proteins out of fossils that haven't yielded DNA, says Chris Stringer, a palaeoanthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London. The method could prove particularly useful for older samples or those from southeast Asia and other warm climates, where DNA degrades quickest.

But the field is still in its early stages, Stringer adds, and ancient-protein analysis currently has a smaller sample of early hominins for comparison than does DNA analysis. "Although it's certainly very suggestive of a link with the Denisovans, I think I'd like to see bigger samples to really pin that down more," he says.

Douka agrees: for now, ancient DNA analysis remains the "gold standard" for this kind of work, she says. Although there is no genetic material in the jawbone, Douka wonders whether researchers could still find DNA in the Tibetan cave - perhaps in sediment.

The Roof of the World

The altitude of the new Denisovan's home - 3,280 metres above sea level - surprised researchers, and helps to solve a mystery about Denisovans' genetic contribution to modern Tibetans (see 'Denisovan hang-outs'). "It is astonishing that any ancient humans were at that altitude," says Stringer.

Some Tibetans have a variant of a gene called EPAS1 that reduces the amount of the oxygen-carrying protein haemoglobin in their blood, enabling them to live at high altitudes with low oxygen levels. Researchers had thought that this adaptation came from Denisovans, but this was difficult to reconcile with Denisova Cave's relatively low altitude of 700 metres. The latest study suggests that Denisovans evolved the adaptation on the Tibetan Plateau and passed it to Homo sapiens when the species arrived around 30,000-40,000 years ago, says co-author Frido Welker, a molecular anthropologist at the University of Copenhagen. If Denisovans in Asia were adapted to high altitudes, similar sites could harbour more of their remains.

He points to Sel'Ungur cave in Kyrgyzstan, about 2,000 metres above sea level, where a hominin child's arm bone was found but did not yield any DNA. "Now I ask myself - maybe that specimen is also a Denisovan and not a Neanderthal, like we usually assume," says Bence Viola, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of Toronto in Canada.

Re-evaluating fossils﻿

And the fossil is likely to prompt scientists to reconsider the classification of other remains. "We can kind of work ourselves through the fossil record, and link up more and more specimens with the Denisovans," says Viola.

One﻿ candidate is a jawbone known as Penghu 1, which was caught in a fishing net near Taiwan and has many similarities to the latest mandible. Welker and his colleagues hypothesize that this jaw could be Denisovan - but the ultimate proof will come from DNA or protein analysis, says Welker.

Sampling any remains for proteins or DNA is by its nature destructive, so there must good justification for doing so, he adds. "It's not a light-hearted decision to make."

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Biggest Denisovan fossil yet spills ancient human's secrets

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Scientists have uncovered the most complete remains yet from the mysterious ancient-hominin group known as the Denisovans. The jawbone, discovered high on the Tibetan Plateau and dated to more than 160,000 years ago, is also the first Denisovan specimen found outside the Siberian cave in which the hominin was uncovered a decade ago - confirming suspicions that Denisovans were more widespread than the fossil record currently suggests.

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May 1 at 6:00 AM
If you put a lot of stock in standardized test results, and if you think the U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress is a useful snapshot of student achievement, these results will interest you:

Newly released scores on NAEP's 2018 Technology and Engineering Literacy (TEL) exam, which is administered every four years, found that America's eighth-graders scored overall two points higher than they did in 2014 - and that girls outpaced boys.

NAEP is often referred to as "the nation's report card" or the "gold standard" in student assessment because it is seen as the most consistent, nationally representative measure of U.S. student achievement since the 1990s and because it is supposed to be able to assess what students " know and can do." Critics say that its benchmarks are not scientifically valid.

The one-hour TEL assessment was given to 15,400 eighth-graders from 600 schools on laptops between January and March 2018.

According to the new results, female eighth-graders in 2018 not only scored higher than their male peers overall but also scored higher than their male peers in more content areas and practices compared with 2014.

Girls did better than boys in 2014, too, by three percentage points, but in 2018, the difference widened to five percentage points.

The test asked students to answer questions aimed at assessing their knowledge and skills in technology principles, solving technology and engineering-related problems, and using technology to communicate and collaborate, according to the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for NAEP. The assessment included 15 scenario-based tasks and 77 discrete questions.

In 2014, the new results said, 52 percent of eighth-graders who took the exam reported taking at least one class related to technology or engineering. That was up to 57 percent in 2018.

NAEP is administered every two years to groups of U.S. students in the fourth and eighth grades, and less frequently to high school students. (The test-takers are said to be randomly chosen within selected schools.) Tests are given every two years in math and reading and less frequently in science, writing, the arts, civics, economics, geography, technology and engineering literacy, and U.S. history.

NAEP results are highly anticipated in the education world and often seen as a benchmark for progress in school systems - even though the results are often misinterpreted ( which you can read about here).

When students score at the "proficient" level on NAEP, many take that to mean they are "proficient" at their grade level, but that isn't the case. Some critics also say that the test's benchmarks of Basic, Advanced and Proficient lack scientific validity.

Students in 2018, the governing board said, "were able to select appropriate information to communicate an idea in accordance with fair use guidelines but were less able to accurately cite the source of copyrighted material":

60 percent of students correctly identified images that could be legally used on a website.

51 percent of students identified the proper reference style to use for writing a citation.

29 percent of students successfully wrote a citation that included all required copyright information.

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national assessment of educational program

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Girls outpace boys on national technology and engineering exam

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May 1 at 6:00 AM If you put a lot of stock in standardized test results, and if you think the U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress is a useful snapshot of student achievement, these results will interest you: Newly released scores on NAEP's 2018 Technology and Engineering Literacy (TEL) exam, which is administered every four years, found that America's eighth-graders scored overall two points higher than they did in 2014 - and that girls outpaced boys.

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As any keen gardener or nature lover will tell you, there's something inherently relaxing about wandering through a beautiful garden or taking a walk through a leafy wood.

"Exposure to natural environments is proven to be more relaxing than built environments," says Professor Richard Murphy, the director of the centre for environment and sustainability at the University of Surrey. "Natural environments are beneficial for wellbeing too, with research finding that natural elements evoke more positive moods than built environments."

Murphy's experience with environmental stimulus will be on show at this year's Chelsea Flower Show where he's collaborating with Silent Pool Gin on their "Anti-Stress...

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Which plants can help improve your mental health?

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As any keen gardener or nature lover will tell you, there's something inherently relaxing about wandering through a beautiful garden or taking a walk through a leafy wood. "Exposure to natural environments is proven to be more relaxing than built environments," says Professor Richard Murphy, the director of the centre for environment and sustainability at the University of Surrey.

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t isn't the tumbling, 360-degree views of San Andreas that command our undivided attention from the top of Mount Chiliad. Nor is it the whir of the cable cars. And it's not the blanket of mist that engulfs the valley below, nor the implacable sunrise that invades every inch of the towering cliffside's crevices and chasms.

At 2,619 feet above sea level, our group of five is hanging on every word of Craig (not his real name), an unassuming Grand Theft Auto V role-player, as he shares a personal tale about his mother's alcoholism, how she was knocked down and killed as she left her local pub one evening and how he has struggled with depression and anxiety ever since.

Contrasting with the themes of virtual violence and crime associated with Grand Theft Auto, Craig is part of a group that uses the game's long-established but still ever-growing PC role-playing scene as a safe space for discussing mental health.

"My mother chose alcohol over her own wellbeing, and her family's, too," says Craig. "She had taken the separation from my dad pretty bad, and starting drinking a lot. My sister and I put it down to her way of dealing with the breakup, and, because she didn't appear to be drinking in the house or at work, we failed to notice it becoming a serious problem."

'My mother chose alcohol over her own wellbeing' ... role-play in Grand Theft Auto V. Photograph: Rockstar Games

Grand Theft Auto V launched on consoles in late 2013 and arrived on PC in April 2015. Role-play servers on the latter platform, where players act out characters of their own invention in-game, followed shortly after. Today, despite its age, the crime simulator's role-play scene is thriving. My mountaintop encounter with Craig and his friends takes place in one of FiveM's servers - a bustling 32-person open source modification that lets users work, live and socialise by virtue of jobs, amenities and voice chat. Players are expected to live as they would in the real world and obey laws that are enforced by voluntary police and emergency service role-players in turn.

Here, on this server, players enter Rockstar North's satirical swipe at modern America to try to pursue an honest in-game living, reflective of reality, that eschews the exaggerated chaos that is the open-world game's default state.

This isn't to say virtual crimes don't occur within the Los Santos role-play experience - far from it - but voice chat combined with a less crime-centred world provides scope for more nuanced encounters, such as the pseudo self-help group I've happened upon.

"I'll never forget the night we received the call," says Craig. "Mum had staggered out of the pub and was knocked down by a bus. She was pronounced dead at the scene, and that really triggered my own depression and anxiety. It's been three years and I've been to counselling, had cognitive behavioural therapy and now I'm on a course of antidepressants. I'm not 100%, but I'm getting there."

When we reach the foot of the mountain, I thank the group for letting me tag along, and Craig specifically, for sharing something so personal and sensitive. The group's members part ways but not before informing me they gather every few weeks for similar meetings and that I'd be more than welcome to join in again.

'That really triggered my own depression' ... role-play in Grand Theft Auto V. Photograph: Rockstar Games

I take note of the group's individual player tags and agree to catch up soon. In a world designed to inspire theft, murder, drug dealing and general bad behaviour, there's something beautifully incongruous about what this group is doing in San Andreas, the game's imitative slant on Los Angeles, which serves to underscore the unconventional and idiosyncratic nature of the Grand Theft Auto V role-play scene.

Weeks pass before I spot Craig online again, this time with a few familiar and some less recognisable faces at Legion Square, the server's meeting hub. I'm welcomed warmly and we walk for a while with no obvious destination, eventually following the train tracks that run between the Port of Los Santos and Vespucci Beach. Along the way, a man named David openly discusses his real-life gambling problems.

It's all relayed within the guise of role-play, but David tells the group that at its worst, his addiction led him to money from his closest friends, and that his gambling spread to everything from football coupons to darts and horse racing, winnings from which he'd use to purchase Shark Cards - in-game money for Grand Theft Auto Online. As we circle back into town, the group commends David for having joined a Gamblers Anonymous group.

Later, a woman named Christine pulls up to Legion Square in a battered motorhome and suggests a camping trip to Vinewood Hills. Six of us set off, and with the sun setting over Blaine County and the stars now dancing over the Los Santos city skyline, Christine chats about drug use. Her brother-in-law committed suicide a number of years ago, she tells us, and she's since spent much time stifling feelings of grief, loss and subsequent family dysfunction with recreational, drug-fuelled binges that temporarily help, but ultimately accentuate her suicidal thoughts.

Christine doesn't consider herself a drug addict but recognises she's doing more harm than good to her mental state and self-esteem. Like the others, Christine's admissions are raw, heartfelt and relatable.

'Doing more harm than good to her own mental state' ... the Vinewood sign in Grand Theft Auto V. Photograph: Rockstar Games

Weeks later, I rejoin the group at a house party-style get-together in an area of South Los Santos named Strawberry. There are more new faces, and as I work the room introducing myself, they chat about sports, video games, family pets and other interests.

After a while, Craig asks whether I fancy sharing anything personal of my own, and I oblige. I'm suddenly very aware of the intimacy forged by the compact setting, as the party-goers fall silent and turn their attention to me. I tell the group about my uncle's suicide in 2008 and the impact this had on my family and my mental health. I speak of how I went to Australia for a couple of years with my girlfriend to escape how I was feeling at the time, but that my depression and anxiety was awaited me on my return.

I explain how it took me a year and a half to acknowledge the problem before visiting a doctor, and a further two years to pursue counselling and a course of medication.

While I believe that mental health issues should always be addressed by qualified professionals, I find the experience of relaying my innermost feelings to strangers helpful and in many ways, cathartic. As I speak, the group rallies around me with words of encouragement and gratitude, and I'm reminded that video games are uniquely placed to help people explore the kind of sensitive and interpersonal issues that can be hard to face up to in real life.
The stories in this article were shared with the consent of those involved. Names have been changed.

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Can Grand Theft Auto V help your mental health? Yes, say role-players

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t isn't the tumbling, 360-degree views of San Andreas that command our undivided attention from the top of Mount Chiliad. Nor is it the whir of the cable cars.

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AOC Representing the minorities/communities in the US

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AOC Representing the minorities/communities in the US

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It's January 2018 and Flats Fix taco and tequila bar in downtown Manhattan is preparing for business. As stock is wheeled through the front door and chefs sharpen their knives in the kitchen, down in the basement little-known local activist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is shoveling ice into a bucket for her cocktail waitressing shift. "If I was like, a normal, rational person," she laughs, "I would have dropped out of this race a long time ago".

She is, of course, referring to the race to represent New York 's 14th district in Congress, in which she is pitched against middle-aged white man and holder of the position for the past 18 years, Joe Crowley.

Crowley has the air of a man so firmly couched in the establishment and so detached from his constituents - he lives in Virginia, not New York - that he simply cannot comprehend the challenge to his tenure. There hasn't been one for over 14 years. "You got a caucasian man that's a Congressman for the Bronx, Queens, and Rikers Island that lives in Virginia? It just don't make no common sense to anybody," says a host of local radio station, , "if you popped him in the Bronx he would get lost," chimes in another. This is a common story across the United States - constituencies are often represented by individuals with little investment in the communities they're elected to represent.

Rachel Lears' Netflix documentary Knock Down the House, released worldwide today (May 1), follows the implacable women seeking to consign career congressmen like Crowley to history and replace them with engaged and committed working class voices. It focuses on the campaigns of four female challengers of well-established Congressional seats with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez front and centre. The grassroots, progressive campaigns of Amy Vilela of Nevada, Cori Bush from Missouri and Paula Jean Swearengin of West Virginia are also followed, with varying results.

"The original concept for the film was going to be outsider candidates," Lears tells Dazed, "but it became clear that there was a real historic wave of women running in 2018." Her film dives in and out of the narratives of four of these women, as they push against the great bureaucratic forces of a US political system that seems designed to keep democracy at bay.

"I think that's why a lot of people don't vote," says Lears, "it feels so huge and disconnected from the everyday life of most people." But by showing campaigns that are very connected to the everyday lives and the everyday struggles of working people, the director hopes her film can act as an entry point for people intimidated by the intricacies of US politics.

"The organisations that I reached out to were recruiting people to run for congress who came from the community that they sought to represent. It wasn't always people who wanted to run in the first place, so they were going to be the candidates that rejected corporate funds, that were running grassroots campaigns."

"I hope the film can help fight cynicism, and help people believe that they have a voice" - Rachel Lears

None of the campaigners embody this community spirit more than 45-year-old miner's daughter Paula Jean, who we see running for senate in West Virginia, "one of the poorest and sickest states" in the nation. "I want you guys to know one thing, West Virginians are strong, we are proud, and we won't give up," she says, "my name is Paula Jean, I'm running for the US Senate, and I am mad as hell."

Each of the women running for office is driven in part by their own personal tragedies. The coal industry in Paula's town caused multiple deaths in her family, Alexandria lost her father when she was in college, Cori Bush - running for congress in Missouri - witnessed the carnage of the 2014 Ferguson riots on her doorstep, and Amy Vilela - running in Nevada - watched as her daughter was left to die in hospital after failing to provide proof of medical insurance.

"I think every single one of these women has had very intense personal experiences of loss and hardship and adversity in their lives before they decided to run for office, and having the strength to get through those things is what gave them the strength to do this very difficult thing, to challenge a political establishment," Lears explains. "The film is about power. It's about what it takes to believe in yourself, what it takes to believe that you deserve to take power in the world and what it takes to build that power through collective action."

Despite the candidates being the film's primary focus, Knock Down the House manages to paint an interesting portrait of the wider US electorate, as the four women are filmed canvassing from door to door: "I really wanted to do something that was national in scope, to find story that involved people from different parts of the country," Lears says. Through it all, Alexandria Ocazio Cortez's astonishing success story shines through.

Looking forward to the 2020 US elections, "I feel cautiously optimistic," confesses Lears, "I'm excited about it, I think it's going to be interesting. I do think that our media has a tendency to focus on personality and less on policy and I'd love to see that change. But what we're trying to do with the film is go into personal stories and also nuances, and hopefully get people to think, by absorbing the story, even if it's only for 86 minutes, to think a little bit more about the political process and how they can be part of it".

"I hope the film can help fight cynicism, and help people believe, the people who have felt disenfranchised from the democratic process or maybe feel like there's no place for them, that they have a voice."
You can watch Rachel Lears' Knock Down the House now on Netflix

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The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez documentary gives us hope for the future

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It's January 2018 and Flats Fix taco and tequila bar in downtown Manhattan is preparing for business. As stock is wheeled through the front door and chefs sharpen their knives in the kitchen, down in the basement little-known local activist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is shoveling ice into a bucket for her cocktail waitressing shift.

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In one moment, all it took to challenge hate and discrimination was a simple kiss. Right now, Italy is a country where xenophobia, homophobia, and far-right sentiments have been resurrected by some of its most powerful political parties. In a peaceful, loving act, two women took a selfie as they kissed in front of one of Italy's most conservative politicians, deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini. Salvini is the leader of the anti-immigrant, xenophobic, anti-LGBTQ+ League party. The picture went viral in just a few hours. Gaia, one of the two girls, tells Dazed: "All we wanted was to make a statement against Salvini's discrimination of the LGBTQ+ community in Italy. And although we are not a couple, we are just friends, many people understood and shared our message of love."

It all took place in a small village in Sicily called Caltanissetta, where Gaia and her friend Matilde took part in a rally against Salvini. "We were there to protest because he came to promote a candidate for the local council elections." This took place on April 25, Italy's Liberation Day, a date to commemorate the end of the fascist regime and the Nazi occupation - a national holiday which Matteo Salvini does not celebrate. This is a stance that led many of his detractors, like writer Andrea Camilleri, to accuse him of having a 'fascist mentality'.

The 'fascist mentality' is on the rise in Italy - in the last week, neo-fascist demos have been taking place across the country, with heightened activity in Milan and Rome. "We feel like fascist ideology and discrimination are back in Italy," says Gaia. "Especially when we see that our deputy prime minister endorses events like the Congress of Families in Verona." The anti-abortion, conservative event is a controversial meeting organised by the far-right, religious, and anti-LGBTQ+ groups. Matteo Salvini was one of their guests, and he spoke in favour of the so-called 'traditional families' and against LGBTQ people adopting.

"Salvini legitimised their discriminative ideology just speaking as a member of the government. We wanted to reply with a message of love. So, when Salvini said at the rally that people could take selfies with him, we decided to take our chance and kiss in front of him," she adds. Gaia and Matilde queued along with his fans, and when the time came, Gaia took her phone out, made sure the deputy prime minister was in the frame, and then kissed Matilde right next to him. Salvini didn't realise what was happening at first, though an aide immediately tried to stop them.

"One of Salvini's security guards grabbed my face and separated us. You can actually see his hand on my face in the second picture. It was a horrible," says Gaia. A large hand can be seen squeezing Gaia's face and pulling her away from Matilde. "He was censoring us, he was censoring our kiss."

At that point, the politician realised what was going on and his face turned from smiling to confused. "He looked shocked at first, but then he just gave a pat on the head to Matilde and said 'I wish you all the best and male sons!'" remembers Gaia. "We ironically replied 'thank you!'."

"This is the most peaceful form of protest" - Gaia

Salvini strongly believes that LGBTQ couples shouldn't have children, and has been vocal about his support for 'traditional families'. Speaking at the day's rally in Verona, he said: "If a girl wants to make love with another girl, it doesn't bother me. But family means mum and dad, they can't delete that." He has since shared the picture of Gaia and Matilde with the caption: "Best wishes, peace and goods to you sisters." Salvin has 3 million followers on Instagram, and is well known for his sharp use of social media. "He did it to provoke us," says Gaia. "His followers attacked us on social media, because that's how his strategy works. But we don't care, because we know our message is stronger."

The duo have been calling on their supporters to participate in another peaceful protest. "We invite everyone to do the #lovechallenge. People should start taking selfies and kissing in front of conservative politicians like we did. To fight hate with love. This is the most peaceful form of protest there is and, as we have seen, it is the most effective."

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Women go viral for kissing in front of an Italian anti-LGBTQ+ politician

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In one moment, all it took to challenge hate and discrimination was a simple kiss. Right now, Italy is a country where xenophobia, homophobia, and far-right sentiments have been resurrected by some of its most powerful political parties.

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Exhibit of designers and artists work

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⠀ ⠀⠀Milan is hosting their annual design week, #Fuorisalone2019! ✨💥 You can see countless breathtaking installations at various Milan locations such as the palace of Cusani by Marc Ange, @Kartell_Official shows the seven switch collection at the Palazzo Reale, while the beautiful Villa Motzart provides a space for 19 designs, @LouisVuitton provides a look at their "Object Nomades" collection at the Villa Serbelloni, the courtyard of the San Simpliciano will be used by several designers, luxury brand @Hermes will be providing furniture for Pelota, the Palazzo Litta will have an exposition with 22 companies across the world and finally at the warehouses of the central station of Magazzini Raccordati will be an installations from 17 different companies! If you're currently in Milan, we highly recommend you check out this event! 🖤✨😍 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀#FTMNews / #MDW #MilanDesignWeek #LouisVuitton #Hermes #Milan #fashion #style #model / photo credit: @valentinprosto

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3,482 Likes, 47 Comments - FASHION TO MAX (@fashiontomax) on Instagram: "⠀ ⠀⠀Milan is hosting their annual design week, #Fuorisalone2019! ✨💥 You can see countless..."

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Visual representation of the beauty standards and how Middle Eastern women is so engaged and encouraged to participate in cosmetic procedures.

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#Repost @womensurgeonskwt ・・・ We are thrilled to inform you that OUR PHOTO was SOLD within minutes of the exhibit opening! The idea of this masterpiece is a result of a collaborative work between Fatima AlGharaballi, an architecture student, and Dr. Asmaa AlRashed, the Chair of Women Surgeons Committee in Kuwait Association of Surgeons. The Elements: The red-lipstick represents a woman stands confident, calm, under the spotlight & the pressure in the center of surgical tray in the operating room while preserving her feminism, identity & character. The green sheet & metallic surgical instruments complements the red-lipstick with its gold-base & the shadow adds dramatization of the situation. The Message: We hope this piece will empower all women to pursue their dreams in any field they want, and to inspire and support those who want to explore fields that are dominated by men as we show proof that women can excel, grow and inspire anywhere! The photo was taken on the 3rd of March 2019 & is displayed at the Dar Alathar Alislamyah Art Exhibit on Saturday the 27th of April 2019. It will be there for one week! In support of WOMEN in the #world, use hashtags & share this photo please! #BraveRed #TheSurgeoness #StandTall #Thatshowitsdone #ShesMagnificent #SheLeads #WomenSurgeonsofKuwait @womensurgeonskwt @womensurgeons @kuwaitassociationofsurgeons @kumsa_q8 @susieqp8 @womensurgeonskenya @womeninsurgeryitalia @womeninthoracicsurgery @womeninmedicine @womenpowersummit @gpupdates @womenlste @wrsc_kw @abolish153 @aalsharekh @fatima2t @bonafede_faksimile @f_algharaballi @drasmaalrashed @dr_salmanalsabah #ilooklikeasurgeon #EmpowerWomen #EmpowerGirls #GlobalSurgery #SoMe #Art #Kuwait #KWT #Q8 #KSA #Bahrain #Oman #UAE #Dubai #Gulf #MiddleEast #USA #Canada #Australia #Europe #community

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104 Likes, 7 Comments - Abolish Article 153 Campaign (@abolish153) on Instagram: "#Repost @womensurgeonskwt ・・・ We are thrilled to inform you that OUR PHOTO was SOLD within minutes..."

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Podcast- The Moth (Other People's Shoes)

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Podcast- The Moth (Other People's Shoes)

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Story told by Lincoln Bonner about his secret double life that he did not want to share with his mother who was an outright homophobe. One day, he was in his mother's room, trying on her wigs, dresses and heels.

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Media's contribution to Islamophobia and Radicalisation

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Media's contribution to Islamophobia and Radicalisation

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Why we need to talk about the media's role in far-right hate | Owen Jones

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Too often the political and media establishment contribute to an environment in which hatred can thrive, says Guardian columnist Owen Jones

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For Oct 26-28th event Street Superior, VeChain will be showcased with influential Singapore sneaker artist -  SBTG (Short for SABOTAGE) in an initial limited edition collection of sneakers integrating smart chips and blockchain technology. This technical implementation will enable consumers to verify the Authenticity and Proof of Origin of SBTG shoe lines.

As the only technology partner for the Street Superior brand showcasing, VeChain will be front and center for the entire crowd throughout the event. Upon entry, every event ongoer will walk through a time capsule showcasing SBTG's work over the past 15 years.

20 different pairs of shoes will be staggered and the final shoe will be "SBTG x VECHAIN" collection which is known as the shoe of the future.

This collaboration exhibits how the implemented solution can be applied to independently created authentic goods and collectibles.

Both parties see the need to create awareness for blockchain & VeChain's anti-counterfeit solutions within the sneaker community and other collectible industries across Singapore. By protecting a local artist's works and adding value to his Limited Edition collection this technology will allow implementing parties to take advantage of streamlined mobile applications, implementation standards, and easy to use hardware to verify the authenticity of their craft. By collaborating with SBTG, associated sneaker labels are also creating awareness of our solutions and seeking further means of implementation across their lines.

For this line of shoes, the consumer will scan the shoe and see photos of the shoes being sewn with the NFC chips and a video with a private message from SBTG all stored on the immutable VeChainThor Blockchain.

Moreover, VeChain will is supporting SBTG & Singapore Tourism Board on 10-11th November in Jakarta where SBTG will showcase 11 pairs of Adidas sneakers with VeChain's chips embedded inside to prove its origin - Singapore.
http://www.sbtgsurplus.com/
To see more information on SBTG's previous work: https://hypebeast.com/tags/sbtg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fljvt36enbpd8js/Vechain%203.mp4?dl=0
SBTG's official website :

Along with the verification information and pictures, the following video introduction is seen when scanning the shoe within the VeChain Pro App.

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Featuring SBTG, VeChain Meets Streetwear

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For Oct 26-28th event Street Superior, VeChain will be showcased with influential Singapore sneaker artist -  SBTG (Short for SABOTAGE) in an initial limited edition collection of sneakers integrating smart chips and blockchain technology. This technical implementation will enable consumers to verify the Authenticity and Proof of Origin of SBTG shoe lines.

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Enhancing retail experiences through Virtual ASMR

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Enhancing retail experiences through Virtual ASMR

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tactility and utilising senses