BEST PICTURE BATTLE : '' 1917 ''

Did '1917' just enter the best-picture battle? The war film could take the most trophies at the Academy Awards.

The best-picture race is currently dominated by Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese, two Oscar-friendly auteurs with big-budget , male-led ensemble movies.
It looks like they'll have to make room for one more.

One of the season's final films just crashed the race in a major way : The war spectacle : ''1917.'' directed by Sam Mendes [ ''American Beauty'' ], ws unveiled in preview screenings in the United States this past weekend and immediately announced itself a significant Oscar player.

The movie, which will be widely released in January, follows two British soldiers during World War I [George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman] as they're given a seemingly impossible mission :

Rush through dangerous territory to deliver a message that could save another battalion on the verge of annihilation.

Though ''1917'' recalls other Oscar winning war movies like ''Saving Private Ryan'' and ''Dunkirk.'' Mendes distinguishes his efforts by presenting the story as though ''1917'' were filmed all in one single take.

It isn't - Mendes and the cinematographer Roger Deakins employ all manner of clever methods to stitch together a great many different shots - but the average moviegoer won't be able to spot the tells, and the you-are-there verisimilitude is potent.

[Admittedly, your Carpetbagger proved a bot harder to deceive: Though much is made in -- ''1917'' about the futility of earning medals, I still kind of wanted one for notching each and every invisible cut in the movie.

Listen, I was raised on Alfred Hitchcock's ''Rope'' and Janet Jackson's ''When I Think Of You'' video. You can't put one over on me!]

The sheer audaciousness of that ''one-take'' technical achievement makes ''1917'' an immediate front-runner for several below -the-line Academy rewards, and the film seems almost certain to take home the most trophies on Oscar night.

But will that bounty include either of the top two awards for director and picture?

First, let's start with the slam-dunk races. After Deakens spent much of his storied career as an Oscar also-ran, the veteran cinematographer finally took his first Academy Award in 2018 for ''Blade Runner 2049.''

Well, consider the Deakins lid to be officially loosened : He seems destined to pick up his second Oscar for ''1917'', since the visual scope of the film is immense and, as in striking mid-movie interlude licked by fire and shadows quite artful.

The emphasis on the perilous landscape traversed by two soldiers should put production designer Dennis Gassner at the top of very competitive race, while war movies prove hard to beat in the sound categories, which gives ''1917'' an immediate advantage over the vroom-vroom suspense of ''Ford v Ferrari'' and the musical sound mixing of ''Rocketman'' and ''Cats''.

Speaking of music 14-time nominee Thomas Newman could finally notch a win for best score, given how omnipresent his compositions are during long stretches of ''1917'' that play out with no dialogue.

In a twist, one of his likely competitors in a close relative : Cousin Randy Newman's empathetic ''Marriage Story'' score is one of the year's best, and this race may be kept all in the family.

The World Students Society thanks author Kyle Buchanan.

Headline, December 22 2019/ '' ' INTERNET'S -IMPLODING- INTERTWINE ' ''

'' ' INTERNET'S -IMPLODING-

 INTERTWINE ' ''

THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY RISES IN SORROW : protests and appeals most respectfully  and urgently and with its heart and soul to ........

Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to treat its best sons and daughters, the brave students of India, with such utter brutality.

The World Students Society protests and appeals to the Leaders of Iraq, Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan, Morocco, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, not to use brutal force against the students.

The students have a legal and constitutional and human rights mandate to question, to debate, to protest for their rights, their concerns and a better world, of dignity, respect and love and mutual parleys.

WITH PROTESTS ON THE RISE, India tops the world in cutting off access to the Living Lifeline : The Internet.

As the government of India pushes increasingly provocative policies, it is using a tactic to stifle dissent that is associated with 'authoritarian regimes', not democracies : It is shutting down the Internet.

INDIA tops the world - by far - in the number of Internet shutdowns imposed by local, state and national governments. Last year, Internet Service was cut in India 134 times, and so far this year 93 shutdowns have occurred, according to the SFLC.in, a legal digital rights advocacy group in New Delhi that has tracked India's Internet shutdowns since 2012, using reports from journalists, other advocacy groups and citizens.

The country's closest competitor is Pakistan, which had 12 shutdowns last year. Syria and Turkey -countries not especially known for their democratic spirit - each shut down the Internet just once in 2018.

'Anywhere there is a sign of disturbance, that is the first tool in the toolbox,'' said Mishi Choudhary founder of SFL. C.in. 'When maintenance of law and order is your priority, you are just not thinking about free speech.

Last week, citing a threat of violence and false rumors, the authorities in the states of Assam, Maghalaya andd Tripura in northeast India and severed connectivity in response to protests against a new citizenship law that critics would marginalize India's 200 million Muslims.

Much of West Bengal and parts of Uttar Pradesh, two of India's most populous states, were also put under digital lockdown.

With the Kashmir region still languishing offline since August, at least 60 million people have been cut off, roughly the population of France.

There moves comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi tightens his grip on India. His administration and its allies have jailed hundreds and thousands of Kashmiris without charges, intimidated journalists, arrested intellectual and suppressed gloomy economic reports. His critics say he is undermining India's deeply rooted traditions of democracy and steadily stamping out dissent.

With half a billion Indians online, the authorities say they are simply trying to stop the spread of hateful and dangerous misinformation, which can move faster on Facebook, WhatsApp, and other services than their ability to control it.

''A lot of hate and provocative stuff starts appearing on messaging services, particularly WhatsApp ,'' said Harmeet Singh, a senior police official in Assam, which borders Bangladesh and has been and has been one of the hot spots of protests against the citizenship laws.

But as the Internet becomes more integral to all aspects of life, the shutdowns affect far more than protesters or those involved in politics. The shutdown can be devastating to people eking in poverty and just trying to make a living.

In Kashmir, Internet service was stopped on August 5, when Mr. Modi's government suddenly revoked the area's autonomy sent in thousands of  troops and disabled all communications, stifling public dissent. The Internet has now been off for 140 days. Some people even take a short flight to the next state just to check their email.

''There is no work,'' said Sheikh Ashiq Ahmed, the president of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce. He said thousands of entrepreneurs, especially those who make silk scarves and handicrafts, relied on social media to sell their products online.

''The dignity of these people have been taken away.''

While many of India's shutdowns have been intended to prevent the loss of life, some occurred for more mundane reasons, like to make it harder for students to cheat on exams.

The Honor and Serving and  Sadness of this publishing. continues. The World Students Society thanks authors, Jeffrey Gettleman, Vindu Gore and Maria Abu-Habib.

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Grandparents, Parents, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world.

See Ya ll prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011:

''' Human - Hourly '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless

BRITAIN'S CMA : GOOGLE -FACEBOOK- GOINGS

TOUGHER rules for Google and Facebook.

LONDON : Britain's competition regulator looked set to spare Google and Facebook an in-depth  investigation of their domination of online advertising on Wednesday, but flagged the need for tougher regulation to curb any negative consequences.

A government commitment to regulatory reform and the global challenge of controlling the tech giants made recommendations more appropriate, the Competition and Market Authority [CMA] said, adding that 'big' was not necessarily 'bad'.

The CMA said Google earned more than 90% of all revenue for search advertising in Britain in 2018, with revenue of about 6 billion pounds, and Facebook accounted for almost half of all display advertising last year.

While they brought innovative and valuable products and services to the market, it was concerned this may have negative consequences for users and that people did not feel in control of their data when using the platforms. [Reuters]

'SCIENCES GENDER DISPARITY'

MEN call their own research ''excellent''. WOMEN are underreprpresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics at the highest levels.

Only one out of four full professors at American research institutions is a woman, despite the fact that equal number of men and women earn doctoral degrees in science each year.

In the life sciences, women are less likely either to receive major grant funding or to be promoted to full professor - and they are paid less even when they produce the same amount of scholarly output as men.

We've identified another, much less discussed component of gender disparity in science : Men are much more likely than women to heap praise on their own research and emphasize its importance.

In a study published in The British Medical Journal, we analyzed the  titles and abstracts of more than than six million life science articles.

We suspected that scientific teams led by men might frame their research findings in more flattering light, by using terms like ''novel,'' ''excellent'' and ''unique'' to describe their results.

Indeed, they do. In the most highly cited scientific journals, male-led scientific teams were up to 21 percent more likely than women-led teams publishing comparable studies to use positive adjectives to frame their research findings.

That matters. Scientists use titles and abstracts to screen articles., to decide what to read. Positive presentation of research findings by male scientists may then draw more attention from others in the scientific community.

Sure enough, we found that the greater use of positive spin by Male-led teams was linked to more citations.

Since citations to scientific research often serve as a key metric in hiring, promotion, pay and funding decisions, these differences in self-promotion may also translate into gender disparities on many levels.

Our analysis accounted for several factors that might reasonably justify the positive framing of research findings by male scientists.

For example, if male scientists  disproportionately  did research in newer scientific areas, the greater use of positive terms to describe their research might make sense.

The honor of serving of the latest global operational research on sciences and gender disparity, continues. The World Students Society thanks authors : Anupam B. Jena, Marc Lerchenmueller and Olav Sorenson.

BOOK : 'DOG IS LOVE'

''Dog is Love'' is one of several new books on dogs out this year and one of a flood of such books over the last decade or so.

Brian Hare, an evolutionary anthropologist and researcher of dog behavior at Duke University, who founded the Duke Canine Cognition Center, recently wrote that there are 70,000 dog books listed on Amazon.

XEPHOS is not the author of ''Dog is Love : Why and How Your Dog Loves You,'' one of the latest books to plumb the nature of dogs, but she helped inspire it. And as I scratched behind her ears, it was easy to see why.

First, she fixed on me with imploring doggy eyes, asking for my attention. Then, every time I stopped scratching, she nudged her nose under my hand and flipped it up. I speak a little dog, but the message would have been clear even if I didn't : Don't stop.

We were in the home office of Clive Wynne, a psychologist at Arizona State University who specializes in dog behavior. He belongs to Xephos, a mixed breed that the Wynne found in shelter in 2012.

Dr. Wynne's book is an extended argument about what makes dogs special - not how smart they are, but how friendly they are. Xephos's shameless and undiscriminating affection affected both his heart and his thinking.

As Xephos nose-nudged me again, Dr. Wynne was describing genetic changes that occurred at some point in dog evolution that he says explains why dogs are so sociable with members of other species.

''Hey,'' Dr. Wynne said to her as she tilted her head to get the maximum payoff from my efforts, ''how long have you had these genes?''

No one disputes the sociability of dogs. But Dr. Wynne doesn't agree with with the scientific point of view that dogs have a unique ability to understand and communicate with humans. He thinks they have a unique capacity for for interspecies love, a word that he has decided to use, throwing side decades of immersion in scientific jargon.

Since 2000, around the time dog research had a resurgence, a small but significant number of those books have been written by scientists for a general audience. Like Dr. Hare's ''The Genius of Dogs,'' published in 2013, the books address what is going on in dog's heart and mind. Most emphasize the mind.

Dr. Wynne's book runs counter to Dr. Hare's when it comes to the importance of dog's thinking ability, which Dr. Hare sees as central to their bond with humans.

By using the L word Dr. Wynne may well appeal to the many besorted dog owners. But he may also disappoint. The reason dogs are such ''an amazing success story'' is their ability to bond with other species, he said. Not just humans.

The honor and serving of the latest research and writings On Dogs, continues. !WOW! thanks author James Gorman.

MUSEUM'S WORLD WIDENING

A leader shows that art shouldn't be seen solely through a Western lens:

When the curator Denise Murrell was looking for a museum a few years back to help her develop an exhibition about black models who influenced art history, she struck out at one institution after another. In New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she recalled, never even responded.

Dr. Murrell ultimately presented her show - ''Posing Modernity'' : The Black Model From Manet and Matisse to Today'' - at the Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University, where it opened to rave reviews last year and was hailed for its scholarship on African influences in modern art.

Recent week, the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that it was hiring Dr. Murrell, who is  African-American, for the newly create full-time position of associate curator for  19th and 20th century art.

Her appointment is noteworthy, and not only because the Met has been historically lacking in curators of color. She is also one of the first hires made by the Met's director, Max Hollein, who is now one year into his tenure - and emblematic of  the multi-discipline, multiethnic direction in which he is steering one of the world's largest, most entrenched museums.

''I's a new day at the Met,'' said Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, who championed Dr. Murrell.
''What it says about Max is is he is willing to do bold things, he is willing to disrupt the normative practices of the museum, he is going to innovate and transform.''

Mr. Hollein's efforts include his commission of two contemporary exhibitions by people of color that he has placed in prominent places.

Staring Dec 18, two monumental paintings by the Cree artist Kent Monkman, including one that reimagines the iconic 1851 oil painting ''Washington Crossing the Delaware'' with indigenous people steering the vessel - among them, the artist's gender-fluid alter ego - will go on view in the Great Hall.

In September, the Met opened its fifth Avenue facade niches for the first time with a series of bronze sculptures inspired by African women, by the Kenyan-born artist Wangechi Mutu.

The honor and serving of the latest global operational research on Museums and Arts and Artists, continues. !WOW! thanks author Robin Pogrebin.

VACATIONING : ' HOUSE-SITTING - STUDENTS- BEGINNERS '

HAVING free accommodations while vacationing clearly makes travel more affordable. But for travelers on any budget, house-sitting in exchange for lodging can provide a more intimate travel experience.

I started in my hometown Canada, taking care of homes and pets for friends. I have stayed in Greece, England and Scotland and Wales while house-sitting, and this winter, I have committed a three month cat-sitting job in Cyprus.

I've learned a few tips that may help you, too, decide to incorporate house-sitting into your travel itinerary.

CHOOSE A PLATFORM : Online house-sitting platforms arrange for an even exchange of sitting for free accommodations. Jacquie Harnett, 54, and her partner did house-sitting vacations for four-years.

She observed that TrustedHouse sitters focuses primarily on pet care, while the gigs on Nomador are typically tourist properties requiring off-season maintenance. Many platforms allow visitors to browse listings without an account.

Sites vary with respect to security and features, with annual membership fees ranging from zero to $150. Personally, I like TrustedHousesitters for its global scope and focus on pet care.

WHAT TO EXPECT : Sits can range from a day or two to several months, and housing may be luxury homes, apartments or even farmhouses. Many gigs require pet and plant care or other property maintenance; others may simply require that you occupy the property and take in the mail.

BUILD CREDIBILITY : the first feedback is the hardest to get. My first gig on TrustedHousesitters was for a omen who lived near me; I didn't need the accommodations, but the weekend sit got me my first positive review and led to three month series of sits in Britain.

To build trust as a new member, include a few testimonials from people you've sat for, even if they are not registered members. If you're looking for pet sitting gigs, stock your profile gallery with photos of yourself with animals, and offer to meet face to face.

MANAGE EXPECTATIONS : House-sitting is a matter of mutual fit. You're living in a strangers' homes for an extended period of time, so you want to be respectful of their expectations and your own.

I'd suggest thorough discussions of those expectations before the gig begins. To start, discuss with the owners your thoughts on how much time you intend to be away from the house. Also bring up your respective boundaries regarding visitors.

Other issues to consider : If you need to meet work deadlines, be sure that the property and pets don't require too much of your time; otherwise the ''free'' accommodations may end up costing you.

The World Students Society thanks author Lynette Adams.

Headline, December 21 2019/ '' ' WEB - WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY - WAR ' ''

'' ' WEB - WORLD STUDENTS 

SOCIETY - WAR ' ''

LISTEN UP ! : THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY is the only guarantee of virtues, in the life, inter-play and existence of the world.

IN A WORLD full of criminals, utter crooks, , snake  oil salesmen,  multi-faced creeps,   extremists- supremacists, pedophiles, predators, thieves, manipulators,  greedy scums, hoarders, and generally, in every way, a lower form of life, !WOW! shines through. 

''Fool us once, shame on you. Fool  us in  the future, shame on us.'' The World Students Society  -for every subject in the world, thanks author, Suzzane Nossel.

American democracy has a target on its back : Disinformation has become a firm fixture of political campaign in the digital age. A political crisis revolving around disinformation is very easy to imagine.

Tim Berners-Lee invented the world. Only    The   World   Students Society can fix  it.     And Tim   Berners-Lee, with all   the honors of !WOW!,  continues :

I'm introducing a new approach overcome that stalemate -the Contract for the Web.

The Contract for the Web is a global plan of action created over the past year by activists, academics,  companies, governments and citizens from across the world to make sure our online world is safe, empowering and genuinely for everyone.

The contract outlines steps to prevent the deliberate misuse of the web and our information. For example, it calls on   governments to publish   public data    registries, so that they are no longer able to conceal from their own citizens how their data is being used.

 If governments are sharing our data with private companies   -or buying data  broker lists from   them  -we have the right to know and take action.

The contract sets out ways to improve system design to eradicate incentives that reward clickbait or the spread of disinformation. Targeted political advertising is giving political parties the ability to subvert the debate.

We need platforms to open their black boxes and clearly explain how they're minimizing or eliminating risks their products pose to the society.

In my view, governments should impose an immediate ban on targeted political advertising to restore trust in our public discourse.

Crucially, the contract contains concrete actions to tackle the negative - even if unintended - consequences of platform design. For example, why on an exercise app should women have to worry that their precise jogging routes are shared by default with other users?

Perhaps because they were designed by people not thinking about the safety needs of women. We need a tremendously more diverse work force in our technology industries to make sure their products serve all groups.

And companies should release reports that meaningfully demonstrate their progress towards those diversity goals.

To make the online world a place worth being in, we must all use the Contract for the Web to fight now for the web we want.

Governments must support their citizens online and ensure that their rights are protected through effective regulation and enforcement.

Companies must look beyond next-quarter results and understand that long-term success means building products that are good for society and that people can trust them.

There's already a powerful coalition backing the contract. The governments of nations such as France, Germany and Ghana have signed up to the principles.

The tech giants Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Reddit sit alongside other specialists such as the search engine Duck Duck Go in committing to action.

Many civil society organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Reporters Without Borders and AccessNow, have joined the growing movement, as well as individuals such as Representative Ro Khanna of California.

In endorsing the contract, governments and companies commit to taking concrete action across several issues.

Some changes may take a long time : We are not expecting overnight transformation. But we will track their efforts, and if they fail to make progress, they will lose their status as backer of the contract.

The contract is already being used to inform policy decisions, as a best practice guide for government and company officials, and as a tool to help civil society advocate change, measure progress and hold government and companies accountable.

But that alone is not enough. Our World Wide Web Foundation, together with its global partners, will work to mobilize people around the world. As elections approach, raise these issues with your political representatives and candidates.

The best way to change the priorities and actions of those in power is to speak up. Join our foundations, our partners and people around the world in the fight for the web.

Join up on !WOW! : The World Students Society.

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Scientists, Inventors, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world.

See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com - for every subject in the world and Twitter - !E-WOW! - the Ecosystem 2011:

''' World Web *Wide '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless