Tag: buzz

Despite ban on several websites, India leads porn consumption on smartphones in 2019

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

As smartphone penetration increases by leaps and bounds in India, porn consumption has reached its zenith too. A new report has revealed that in India, 89 percent people watched porn via mobile devices in 2019 — up three percent from 2017 when the figure already touched 86 percent.

Overall, three in four people are watching porn on their mobiles globally — meaning the devices like desktops and laptops have become secondary choices for them to watch porn, according to adult entertainment site Pornhub.

The site witnessed its share of mobile traffic reached 77 percent globally in 2019 —10 percent rise from the prior year.

The US was second, with 81 percent and Brazil third, with 79 percent.

Seventy per cent people in Japan logged into Pornhub from their smartphones while the UK saw 74 percent people watching porn on mobiles.

In 2013, mobile traffic accounted for just 40 percent of Pornhub traffic, revealed its annual ‘Year in Review’ report. The porn watching on mobile trend was seen across major Pornhub markets.

The rising porn consumption on smartphones in India is owing to cheaper data plans along with a significant price drop in high-end smartphones that have made Internet surfing easy for over 450 million smartphone users in India.

India has the world’s highest data usage per smartphone at an average of 9.8GB per month that will double to 18GB by 2024, according to Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson.

The ongoing digital transformation in the country is expected to increase India’s total Internet user base to 829 million by 2021.

The adult entertainment site has also released data on how people access its portal from various Android operating systems.

In 2019, 48 percent of its Android traffic on its website came from Pie (last year’s major update from Google), 23 percent from Oreo (2017’s update), and 12 percent from Nougat (2016’s update).

Another noticeable statistic is that Android usage has decreased while iOS has increased, making iOS the most used mobile operating system for browsing Pornhub. The latest iOS 13 version is used 71 percent times.

Overall, the adult streaming service revealed that iOS accounted for 52.8 percent of all mobile traffic in 2019 while Android accounted for 46.6 percent of traffic this year.

Surprisingly, according to mobile analytics site App Annie, not one of the 100 most downloaded free or paid apps is for pornography as people are still using browsers to watch pornography.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Should you avoid meat for good health? How to slice off the facts from the fiction

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

More than half of Americans who make New Year’s resolutions resolve to “eat healthier.” If you’re one, you might be confused about the role meat should play in your health.

It’s no wonder you’re confused. One group of scientists says that reducing red and processed meat is a top priority for your health and the planet’s. Another says these foods pose no problems for health. Some of your friends may say it depends, and that grass-fed beef and “nitrite-free” processed meats are fine. At the same time, plant-based meat alternatives are surging in popularity, but with uncertain health effects.

As a cardiologist and professor of nutrition, I’d like to clear up some of the confusion with five myths and five facts about meat.

First, the myths.

Myth: Red meat is good for health

Long-term observational studies of heart disease, cancers or death and controlled trials of risk factors like blood cholesterol, glucose and inflammation suggest that modest intake of unprocessed red meat is relatively neutral for health. But, no major studies suggest that eating it provides benefits.

So, while an occasional serving of steak, lamb or pork may not worsen your health, it also won’t improve it. And, too much heme iron, which gives red meat its colour, may explain why red meat increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes. Eating red meat often, and eating processed meat even occasionally, is also strongly linked to colorectal cancer.

Myth: You should prioritize lean meats

For decades, dietary guidance has focused on lean meats because of their lower fat, saturated fat and cholesterol contents. But these nutrients don’t have strong associations with heart attacks, cancers or other major health outcomes.

Other factors appear more important. Processed meats, such as bacon, sausage, salami and cold cuts, contain high levels of preservatives. Sodium, for example, raises blood pressure and stroke risk, while the body converts nitrates to cancer-causing nitrosamines. Lean or not, these products aren’t healthy.

Myth: Focus on a ‘plant-based’ diet

“Plant-based” has quickly, but somewhat misleadingly, become a shorthand for “healthy.” First, not all animal-based foods are bad. Poultry and eggs appear relatively neutral. Dairy may have metabolic benefits, especially for reducing body fat and Type 2 diabetes. And, seafood is linked to several health benefits.

Conversely, many of the worst foods are plant-based. Consider white rice, white bread, fries, refined breakfast cereals, cookies and so on. These foods are high in refined starch and sugar, representing 42 percent of all calories in the US, compared to about 5 percent of US calories from unprocessed red meats, and 3 percent from processed meats.

Either a “plant-based” or omnivore diet is not healthy by default. It depends on what you choose to eat.

Myth: Grass-fed beef is better for your health

Conventional livestock eats a combination of forage (grass, other greens, legumes) plus hay with added corn, soy, barley or grain. “Grass-fed,” or “pasture-raised,” livestock eat primarily, but not exclusively, forage. “Grass-finished” livestock should, in theory, only eat forage. But no agency regulates industry’s use of these terms. And “free-range” describes where an animal lives, not what it eats.

“Grass-fed” may sound better, but no studies have compared the health effects of eating grass-fed versus conventional beef. Nutrient analyses show very modest differences between grass-fed and conventionally raised livestock. You might eat grass-fed beef for personal, environmental or philosophical reasons. But don’t expect health benefits.

Myth: Plant-based meat alternatives are healthier

Products like Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat are clearly better for the environment than conventionally raised beef, but their health effects remain uncertain. Most nutrients in plant-based alternatives are, by design, similar to meat. Using genetically engineered yeast, Impossible even adds heme iron. These products also pack a lot of salt. And, like many other ultra-processed foods, they may lead to higher calorie intake and weight gain.

So, what are the facts?

Fact: Processed meats are bad for health

Processed meats contain problematic preservatives. Even those labelled “no nitrates or nitrites added” contain nitrite-rich fermented celery powder. A current petition by the Center for Science in the Public Interest asks the FDA to ban the misleading labelling.

Besides the sodium, nitrites and heme, processed meats can contain other carcinogens, produced by charring, smoking or high-temperature frying or grilling. These compounds may not only harm the person who eats these products; they can also cross the placenta and harm a fetus.

Fact: A meatless diet is not, by itself, a healthy diet

Most diet-related diseases are caused by too few health-promoting foods like fruits, nuts, seeds, beans, vegetables, whole grains, plant oils, seafood and yoghurt. Additional health problems come from too much soda and ultra-processed foods high in salt, refined starch or added sugar. Compared to these major factors, avoiding or occasionally eating unprocessed red meat, by itself, has modest health implications.

Fact: Beef production is devastating the environment

In terms of land use, water use, water pollution and greenhouse gases, unprocessed red meat production causes about five times the environmental impact of fish, dairy or poultry. This impact is about 20 times higher than that of eggs, nuts or legumes, and 45 to 75 times higher than the impact of fruits, vegetables or whole grains. A 2013 UN report concluded that livestock production creates about 15 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions, with nearly half coming from beef alone.

Fact: Plant-based meats are better for the environment

Production of plant-based meat alternatives, compared to conventional beef, uses half the energy, one-tenth of the land and water, and produces 90 percent less greenhouse gas. But, no studies have yet compared plant-based meat alternatives to more natural, less processed options, such as mushrooms or tofu.

Fact: Many questions remain

Which preservatives or other toxins in processed meat cause the most harm? Can we eliminate them? In unprocessed red meats, what exactly increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes? What innovations, like feeding cows special strains of seaweed or using regenerative grazing, can reduce the large environmental impacts of meat, even grass-fed beef? What are the health implications of grass-fed beef and plant-based meat alternatives?

Like much in science, the truth about meat is nuanced. Current evidence suggests that people shouldn’t eat unprocessed red meat more than once or twice a week. Grass-fed beef may be modestly better for the environment than traditional production, but environmental harms are still large. Data don’t support major health differences between grass-fed and conventional beef.

Similarly, plant-based meat alternatives are better for the planet but not necessarily for our health. Fruits, nuts, beans, vegetables, plant oils and whole grains are still the best bet for both human and planetary health.

-by Dariush Mozaffarian

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Here is how your New Year’s resolutions can bring meaning and results

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

People worldwide make New Year’s resolutions every year in an attempt to improve their lives. Common resolutions are to exercise more, eat healthier, save money, lose weight and reduce stress.

Yet, 80 percent of people agree that most people won’t stick to their resolutions. This pessimism is somewhat justified. Only 4 percent of people report following through on all of the resolutions they personally set.

We have spent years studying motivation, emotion regulation and behaviour in family relationships, athletic performance and health information processing in the marketplace. Now at USC’s Performance Science Institute, we help people attain and sustain high performance in all aspects of their lives.

Based on our research, we propose a potential solution to the problem of New Year’s resolutions that people can’t keep: encouraging people to reframe their resolutions to emphasize purpose-based performance.

Why the failures?

What leads to so many abandoned New Year’s resolutions?

A large body of research on goal-setting and habits provides insight into the various reasons for failed resolutions.

Many people are not framing their resolutions in ways that will motivate them over time. For example, “exercise more” is a fairly clear directive, but it lacks depth and personal meaning that could help promote follow-through. Overly simplified resolutions, such as “exercise more” and “eat healthier” contribute to the ongoing problem that emerges as early as mid-January each year: unintentional neglect of important self-improvement goals.

Make it purposeful

Purpose has been defined simply as someone’s reason for doing something. However, scientists have recently developed a more comprehensive framework for the purpose.

Purpose is associated with positive outcomes for people of all ages. People with a sense of purpose make more money, cope with life hardships more effectively and are healthier across the lifespan. Organizations that foster or reinforce employees’ sense of purpose are now referred to as “high-performance workplaces”.

In the context of goal-setting for the new year, the concept of purpose-based performance becomes especially relevant. In our research, we have found that purpose-based performance is much healthier and more sustainable than outcome-driven performance.

Purpose-based performance has three critical, interrelated components: goal orientation, personal meaning and focus on something or someone beyond the self. We provide three questions that you can ask yourself when developing New Year’s resolutions to inspire purpose-based performance.

What are my longer-term goals?

The first thing to consider is your long-term goals, and how each resolution fits with those goals. Purpose-based performance includes goal orientation or an internal compass that directs people toward some long-term aim. This orientation helps people organize and prioritize more immediate actions to make progress toward that aim. People who are goal-oriented and remind themselves of their “end game” live consistently with their beliefs and values and perform better on the immediate goals they set.

When setting New Year’s resolutions, many people end up with a long list of simple resolutions without thinking deeply about their rationale for each resolution, or where each resolution will take them. Linking an immediate goal with a longer-term aim can sustain progress. Thinking about who you want to become can help you decide which resolution(s) to take on.

Why is this personally important?

The next step to consider is why each resolution is personally meaningful for you. When people pursue personally meaningful goals, they are not only more intrinsically motivated but also find more joy in the process of goal pursuit. They are able to reframe challenges as opportunities for personal growth. In one study with elite athletes, we found that personal meaning helped them regulate their emotions when things didn’t go their way and display more patience as they pursued their goals.

Someone who pursues a goal for external rewards that are contingent on a particular end result – for example, validation that comes from winning – is likely to experience shame when they fall short of their goal. Even when they win, they may feel disappointed because the end result does not bring meaning to their life. This is exemplified by the “post-Olympic blues,” when Olympians experience depression after such a significant accomplishment.

Spend time thinking about your motivation for each resolution. Ask yourself, are you focused on a particular outcome because it will give you self-esteem, status or something else? It can be helpful to think about the potential meaning found in the process of pursuing a goal, regardless of whether you attain the desired outcome.

Who will be positively affected by this?

The final step is to consider who or what, beyond yourself, will be positively affected by your resolution(s). Desire to be a part of something greater than the self, or transcendent motivation, is beneficial for performance for several reasons.

Linking a resolution to transcendent motivation can be a powerful source of inspiration. Someone may link exercise goals to a charitable cause they care about, or they may think about how improving their health will make them a better partner, friend or parent. Research shows transcendent motivation improves self-regulation when things get dull or repetitive during goal pursuit, and it strengthens character virtues like patience and generosity. When someone’s transcendent motivation is prosocial in nature, they are willing to accept feedback about performance and receive increased social support in the workplace.

Think about the bigger picture. Consider who you are helping with each goal. Potential impact beyond yourself is added fuel for your goal pursuit.

Reframing your resolutions

What might New Year’s resolutions that incorporate purpose-based performance look like? Using the three questions above, we have reworked three common resolutions to reflect purpose-based performance:

• “Exercise more” becomes “I commit to working out two times per week so I can be more present and energized with my children, so they feel more loved and inspired by me.”

• “Save money” becomes “I commit to saving $100 per paycheck so I feel more secure in my role as a husband and father, which will ultimately benefit my family.”

• “Lose weight” becomes “I commit to losing ten pounds so I feel more confident at work, and my coworkers will experience a more positive version of me.”

-by Benjamin Houltberg and Arianna Uhalde

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

“What kind of a joke is this?” ask PMC Bank customers after RBI imposes restrictions

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

Customers of the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank on Tuesday took to Twitter to express their dissatisfaction after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) barred the bank from carrying out a majority of its routine business transactions for a six-month period.

As per the apex bank’s directions, depositors cannot withdraw more than Rs 1,000 from their savings/current/other deposit accounts, which led to major chaos outside the PMC Bank branches in Mumbai and other parts of India.

“@RBIeverytime bank fraud happens people who are not involved in it i.e common people get punished for the only reason that they have trusted the bank n government #PMC @narendramodi, @Dev_Fadnavis y this punishment to us,” ” tweeted one user.

“What kind of a joke is this @RBI when you allow depositors to withdraw Rs 1000/- from #PMC bank after freezing the bank assets. Might as well seal the treasury,” wrote another user.

Read: Here’s everything you should know about PMC Bank

“@PMC_Bank says they are under 35A of BR by the @RBI and the thing is I have all my savings stuck in that bank and they say I cannot withdraw my money now.. What do I do.. People here have all their savings in the bank and the bank says they can’t help,” customer Avinash Sharma tweeted.

Some Twitter users even made memes to highlight the precarious situation of the customers.

In one of the memes, actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui is seen answering calls from customers of PMC Bank, with “Sacred Games” written on the still.

In his inimitable style that became popular in the web series, Siddiqui is shown as saying he was living on the Moon when customers of the bank asked about his whereabouts.

“Crisis at #PMC bank likely just tip of the iceberg. Why did @RBI wait till it got to crisis point before intervening? And how many other cooperative banks in similar dire straits waiting for the RBI to intervene? The poor are disproportionately affected by a crisis in this sector,” economist Rupa Subramanya said in a tweet.

Described as a multi-state cooperative banking entity founded in 1984 from a small room in Mumbai, the PMC Bank has grown to 137 branches – in Maharashtra (103), Delhi (6), Karnataka (15), Goa (6), Gujarat (5), and Madhya Pradesh (2).

As per the RBI sanctions, the PMC Bank is debarred for six months from granting, renewing any loans and advances, make any investments, incur any liability, including borrowal of funds or accept fresh deposits, among others, without the prior written approval from the RBI.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Snowden tells life story and why he leaked in new memoir

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has written a memoir, telling his life story in detail for the first time and explaining why he chose to risk his freedom to become perhaps the most famous whistleblower of all time.

Snowden, who now lives in Russia to avoid prosecution in the U.S., says his seven years working for the NSA and CIA led him to conclude the U.S. intelligence community “hacked the Constitution” and put everyone’s liberty at risk and that he had no choice but to turn to journalists to reveal it to the world.

“I realised that I was crazy to have imagined that the Supreme Court, or Congress, or President Obama, seeking to distance his administration from President George W. Bush’s, would ever hold the IC legally responsible — for anything,” he writes.

The book, “Permanent Record,” is scheduled to be released Tuesday. It offers by far the most expansive and personal account of how Snowden came to reveal secret details about the government’s mass collection of Americans’ emails, phone calls and Internet activity in the name of national security.

His decision to turn from obscure IC wonk to whistleblower in 2013 set off a national debate about the extent of government surveillance by intelligence agencies desperate to avoid a repeat of the September 11 attacks. Intelligence officials who conduct annual classified assessments of damage from Snowden’s disclosures say the documents will continue trickling out into the public domain for years to come.

Though the book comes six years after the disclosures, Snowden, who fled first to Hong Kong and then Russia, attempts in his memoir to place his concerns in a contemporary context. He sounds the alarm about what he sees as government efforts worldwide to delegitimise journalism, suppress human rights and support authoritarian movements.

“What is real is being purposely conflated with what is fake, through technologies that are capable of scaling that conflation into unprecedented global confusion,” he says.

The story traces Snowden’s evolution from childhood, from growing up in the 1980s in North Carolina and suburban Washington, where his mother worked as a clerk at the NSA and his father served in the Coast Guard.

He came of age as the Internet evolved from an obscure government computer network and describes how a youthful fascination with technology — as a child, he took apart and reassembled a Nintendo console and, as a teenager, hacked the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory network — eventually led him to a career as an NSA contractor, where he observed high-tech spy powers with increasing revulsion.

Analysts used the government’s collection powers to read the emails of current and former lovers and stalk them online, he writes.

One particular program the NSA called XKEYSCORE allowed the government to scour the recent Internet history of average Americans. He says he learned through that program that nearly everyone who’s been online having at least two things in common: They’ve all watched pornography at one time or another, and they’ve all stored videos and pictures of their family.

“This was true,” he writes, “for virtually everyone of every gender, ethnicity, race, and age — from the meanest terrorist to the nicest senior citizen, who might be the meanest terrorist’s grandparent, or parent, or cousin.”

He struggled to share his concerns with his girlfriend, who joined him in Russia and is now his wife.

“I couldn’t tell her that my former co-workers at the NSA could target her for surveillance and read the love poems she texted me. I couldn’t tell her that they could access all the photos she took — not just the public photos, but the intimate ones,” he writes. “I couldn’t tell her that her information was being collected, that everyone’s information was being collected, which was tantamount to a government threat: If you ever get out of line, we’ll use your private life against you.”

Before summoning a small group of journalists to Hong Kong to disclose classified secrets, knowing that a return to the U.S. was impossible, he says he prepared like a man about to die. He emptied his bank accounts, put cash into a steel ammo box for his girlfriend and erased and encrypted his old computers.

These days, the 36-year-old Snowden lives in Moscow, where he remains outside the reach of a U.S. Justice Department that brought Espionage Act charges just weeks after the disclosures. He spends many of his days behind a computer and participating in virtual meetings with fellow board members at the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “I beam myself onto stages around the world” to discuss civil liberties, he writes.

When he does go out, he tries to shake up his appearance, sometimes wearing different glasses. He keeps his head down when he walks past buildings equipped with closed-circuit television. Once, he says, he was recognised in a Moscow museum and consented to a selfie request from a teenage girl speaking German-accented English.

It’s unclear when or even if Snowden will return to a country where his family has deep roots. He traces his lineage back to the Mayflower and ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War.

He was shaken by the September 11 attacks but describes his “reflexive, unquestioning support” for the wars that followed as the greatest regret of his life.

“It was as if whatever institutional politics I’d developed had crashed — the anti-institutional hacker ethos instilled in me online, and the apolitical patriotism I’d inherited from my parents, both wiped from my system — and I’d been rebooted as a willing vehicle of vengeance.”

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

‘Game of Thrones’ final season to debut on April 14

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

“Game of Thrones” fans, get ready.

HBO announced Sunday night that the eighth and final season will begin on April 14. In a one minute and 44 second teaser released Sunday, Arya Stark (Maisie Williams), Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) and Jon Snow (Kit Harington) are seen in the crypts of Winterfell.

Fans have eagerly awaited the six-episode finale of the show since Season 7 of the popular HBO show ended in August 2017.

The fantasy series based on the George RR Martin novels has been one of HBO’s most successful shows.

HBO isn’t getting out of the “Game of Thrones” business. A prequel created by Martin and writer-producer Jane Goldman is underway, with Naomi Watts set to star, and other spinoffs are possible.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow