Category: Новини

Greece and U.S. tech giant Microsoft have teamed up to digitally revive one of the ancient world’s most sacrosanct sites: the birthplace of the Olympic Games. The ambitious project uses technology to immerse viewers in the world of ancient Olympia. 

The collaboration between Microsoft and the Greek Culture Ministry will allow millions of visitors to immerse themselves in an experience that organizers say brings history to life. 

At a recent news conference in Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games, Microsoft officials said they used artificial intelligence to map the site, augmenting reality to help restore the sacrosanct location as it might have looked some 2,000 years ago.  

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitostakis attended the launch and said the project would revive Greece’s greatest commodity — its history. 

“Technology is opening up a completely different way of experiencing what our culture is all about. And the project in Olympia is so important because it demonstrates the power of technology to not just look at the site, but also the lives of people, how societies were organized,” Mitostakis said.

Among the 27 monuments being featured are the original Olympic stadium, the temples of Zeus and Hera, and the workshop of the renowned sculptor Phidias. 

Through data provided by Greek archaeologists, the sites are as close as possible to their original forms. In-person visitors are provided with smart glasses at the site so they can get an idea of what the locations would have looked like in ancient times. Visitors also see timelines of how the sites have changed over time, as well as depictions of artifacts from various periods.  

Antigone Papanikolaou of Microsoft explained in a presentation.  

“It’s like passing the flame from the old generations to the next. The fact that we can now go and experience how our predecessors were creating and living and seeing that as it was in ancient Greece, It’s amazing,” Papanikolaou said.

Organizers say people who are not able to visit the site in southern Greece will be able to take a virtual tour using a computer or mobile app. Critics tell The Associated Press that the program will extend “the invasive power” of U.S. tech giants. 

Work on the ambitious project took 18 months, with drones and sensors being used to help map the sites. 

Officials in Greece, a treasure trove of antiquities, say the cultural implications for the country are now endless. 

Some information came from The Associated Press. 
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Zambia-born novelist Wilbur Smith chronicled dramatic adventures on the African continent, creating internationally acclaimed fiction that drew on his own action-packed life. 

Smith died in South Africa at age 88, his publisher announced Saturday. 

He gained recognition in 1964 with his debut novel “When the Lion Feeds,” the tale of a young man growing up on a South African cattle ranch that led to 15 sequels, tracing the ambitious family’s fortunes for more than 200 years.

“I wove into the story chunks of early African history. I wrote about Black people and white. I wrote about hunting and gold mining and carousing and women,” he said in a biography on his official website. 

He also leaned on meticulous historical research and his own extensive travels, establishing a method he would use over a career spanning five decades in which he wrote nearly 50 novels and sold about 130 million books. 

Another golden rule came from his publisher, Charles Pick.

“He said: ‘Write only about those things you know well.’ Since then I have written only about Africa,” Smith said. 

Born hunter 

Born on January 9, 1933, to a British family in what was then Northern Rhodesia, Smith encountered from an early age the forest, hills and savannah of Africa on his parents’ large ranch.

He credits his mother with teaching him to love nature and reading, while his father gave him a rifle at the age of 8, the start of what he acknowledged was a lifelong love affair with firearms and hunting. 

“There are more big-game hunters in Smith’s oeuvre than spies in the works of John le Carre, and yet it is possible that he has slaughtered even more animals in real life than on the page,” Britain’s Daily Telegraph wrote in 2014. 

Also a scuba diver and mountain climber in his time, Smith was not afraid to throw himself into his research, saying that for his 1970 novel “Gold Mine” he took a job in a South African gold mine for a few weeks. 

“I was a sort of privileged member of the team, I could ask questions and not be told to shut up,” he told the Daily Telegraph of his experience. 

‘Action-man author’ 

Smith studied at South Africa’s Rhodes University, intending to become a journalist until his father said, as he recounts on his website, “Don’t be a bloody fool. … Go and find yourself a real job.” 

There followed a “soul-destroying” stint as a chartered accountant, during which he turned to fiction. 

The success of “When the Lion Feeds” encouraged him to become a full-time writer and led to the Courtney series, which runs up to “The Tiger’s Prey” published in 2017, more than 50 years after the first book. 

The four-part Ballantyne series is themed on colonial wealth and the racial struggle in the former Rhodesia, today’s Zimbabwe. There is also a series on Egypt, while standalone novels include “The Sunbird” (1972) and “Those in Peril” (2011). 

His books have been translated into around 30 languages and some made into films, including “Shout at the Devil” with Lee Marvin and Roger Moore in 1976. 

Describing Smith as the “ultimate action-man author,” Britain’s Daily Mail in 2017 remarked that it was perhaps surprising his books still appeal considering their “politically incorrect whirl of sex, violence, casual misogyny, big-game hunters, mining, full-breasted women and slaughtered beasts.”

A life of adventure

Answering a question on his site about the secret of his success, he says it is about “embroidering” a bit on real life.

“I write about men who are more manly and beautiful women who are really more beautiful than any women you’d meet,” he said, confirming he sometimes worked with co-writers. 

Published in 2018, his autobiography “On Leopard Rock” chronicles his own adventures, including being attacked by lions, getting lost in the African bush and crawling through the precarious tunnels of gold mines. 

He was married four times, with his last wife, Mokhiniso Rakhimova from Tajikistan, his junior by 39 years. 

Smith spent most of his time in South Africa and had homes in Cape Town, London, Switzerland and Malta. 

 

 
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A judge has freed Britney Spears from the conservatorship that controlled her life and money for nearly 14 years.

Here’s a look at how conservatorships operate, what’s unusual about hers, and how calls from her and her fans to #FreeBritney eventually worked.

How do conservatorships work?

When a person is considered to have a severely diminished mental capacity, a court can step in and grant someone the power to make financial decisions and major life choices for them.

California law says a conservatorship, called a guardianship in some states, is justified for a “person who is unable to provide properly for his or her personal needs for physical health, food, clothing, or shelter,” or for someone who is “substantially unable to manage his or her own financial resources or resist fraud or undue influence.”

The conservator, as the appointee put in charge is called, may be a family member, a close friend or a court-appointed professional.

Several states have recently used the attention that Spears has brought to the issue to reform their conservatorship laws. 

How does Spears’ work?

With a fortune of nearly $60 million comes secrecy, and the court closely guarded the inner workings of Spears’ conservatorship.

Some aspects have been revealed in documents. The conservatorship had the power to restrict her visitors. It arranged and oversaw visits with her two teenage sons, whose father has full custody. It took out restraining orders in her name to keep away interlopers deemed shady. 

It had the power to make her medical decisions and her business deals. She said at a June hearing that she has been compelled to take medication against her will, has been kept from having an intrauterine device for birth control removed and has been required to undertake performances when she didn’t want to.

Spears also said she had been denied the right to get married or have another child, but she has since gotten engaged to longtime boyfriend Sam Asghari.

Who had power over Spears?

The ultimate power in the conservatorship fell to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny. She used it on Friday to end it.

Before his suspension in September, her father James Spears had the lion’s share of day-to-day power over his daughter’s choices for 13 years. In 2019, he gave up the role of conservator over her life decisions, maintaining control only over her finances. His replacement, John Zabel, now has a few minimal administrative powers to move Britney Spears’ money around as power over it transitions back to her.

Jodi Montgomery, a court-appointed professional, acted as conservator over her personal matters from 2019 until Friday. Her agreement was key when the termination finally came.

Why did so many called to #FreeBritney?

Some fans objected to the conservatorship soon after it began. But the movement, and the #FreeBritney hashtag, truly took hold early in 2019, when some believed she was being forced into a mental health hospital against her will. 

They pored over her social media posts to extract clues about her well-being and protested outside the courthouse at every hearing. 

They were long dismissed by Spears’ father and others as conspiracy theorists, but in the end their power was undeniable. 

They felt vindicated by two dramatic speeches she gave this summer, in which she confirmed many of their suspicions. They felt triumphant when her father was removed. And they felt truly jubilant when the conservatorship was terminated.

She was quick to give them credit, since first acknowledging in court filings in 2020 that they may have a point. “Good God I love my fans so much it’s crazy” she said on Twitter and Instagram after Friday’s ruling, along with video of the celebrations outside the courthouse and the new hashtag #FreedBritney. 

Why was it imposed in the first place?

In 2007 and 2008, shortly after she became a mother, she began to have very public mental struggles, with media outlets obsessed over each moment. Hordes of paparazzi aggressively followed her every time she left her house, and she no longer seemed able to handle it.

She attacked one cameraman’s car with an umbrella. She shaved her own head at a salon. She lost custody of her children. When she refused to turn over her boys after a visit, she was hospitalized and put on a psychiatric hold. The conservatorship was put in place within days.

Why did it go on so long?

A conservatorship can always be dissolved by the court. But it’s rare that a person achieves their own release from one, as Britney Spears essentially did.

They can last decades because the circumstances that lead to them, like traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s, or dementia, are not things people just bounce back from.

Spears’ father and his attorneys justified the continued conservatorship by arguing that she was especially susceptible to people who seek to take advantage of her money and fame.

Normally a series of mental evaluations would take place before a conservatorship ended, but on Friday Penny said that with no one asking for any examinations, none would be required.

How does Spears feel about all of this?

For years it was largely a mystery. But allowed to speak publicly in court in June, she called the conservatorship “abusive” and “stupid” and says it does her “way more harm than good.”

And in her social media posts on Friday, she declared, “Best day ever … praise the Lord.” 

What happens now?

Regaining her personal and financial powers after so many years will take some untangling. Montgomery, along with therapists and doctors, have created a care plan for the transition, and her attorney Mathew Rosengart says a financial safety net is in place too.

Rosengart has vowed to pursue an investigation of James’ Spears handling of the conservatorship even after it ends. He could take action in civil court, and has suggested he may even turn over his findings to law enforcement for consideration of criminal charges. James Spears has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. 

Britney Spears is likely to hire financial managers, assistants and attorneys to perform many of the same duties previously performed by the conservatorship. But their decisions will be subject to her approval, instead of vice-versa.
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