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đ Australiaâs White Christmas
The New York Times sues OpenAI, t his video game helps cure depression? and after flying high, Bird plummets back to Earth.
Before writing the intro, we always check the holiday calendar. Usually the âholidaysâ it lists for a given day are super obscure and â as much as weâd like to be the first to wish you a âHappy Grape Uncrustables Dayâ â we ignore them. Sometimes, however, they take us down random history rabbit holes. Today, for example, is Pledge of Allegiance Day because Congress first recognized the Pledge of Allegiance on December 28, 1945. During our research, we learned a few interesting facts: 1) A socialist wrote the Pledge; 2) The âunder Godâ came in the 1950s during the Cold War; and 3) The original salute for the Pledge was called the âBellamy Saluteâ and was phased out in 1942 since it looked like the salute of a certain ruling party in GermanyâŚ
In today's edition:
The New York Times sues OpenAI
This video game helps cure depression?
After flying high, Bird plummets back to Earth
đ Key Stories
NYT Sues Open AI
The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement
Most generative AI programs, including ChatGPT, are trained with huge amounts of public data. AI companies often scrape that data off the internet, thereby picking up copyrighted material
The NYT entered talks with OpenAI to license its content, but those did not produce a copyright deal
On Wednesday, the NYT sued OpenAI and Microsoft. It accused them of training their chatbots with âmillions ofâŚcopyrighted news articlesâ and is seeking billions in compensation
Michiganâs Trump Ruling
Michiganâs Supreme Court declined to hear a case that sought to disqualify Donald Trump from the 2024 primary election
The court did not comment on the lawsuitâs core claim â that Trump incited an insurrection and should be disqualified from office â but rather declined to consider it at all. In doing so, it confirmed a lower courtâs ruling that the issue is a political one, not a legal one
Trump praised the ruling; the group that brought the suit claimed the ruling does not stop it from disputing Trumpâs eligibility for the general election
Parasite Actor Dead
Parasite actor Lee Sun-kyun was found dead on Wednesday in an apparent suicide
Lee, 48, was a well-known South Korean actor. His international break came in the 2019 thriller Parasite, in which he played Park Dong-ik, the patriarch of the wealthy Park family
Since October, Lee had been under investigation for illegal drug use â a serious crime in South Korea, where those convicted can face years in jail
Lee maintained his innocence and claimed he was being blackmailed. On Wednesday, police found Lee dead of an apparent suicide in Seoul
Drugs Wash Ashore
260+ pounds of cocaine washed ashore in eastern Australia over the Christmas weekend
On December 22, members of the public found a âsuspicious packageâ at a beach 50 miles north of Sydney. The package contained 39 smaller packets each containing 2.2 pounds of suspected cocaine
Over the following days, similar packages were found by the public in the vicinity of Sydney
Local police seized all of the packages and are conducting forensic analyses on them. Detectives are reportedly investigating the incident and have not yet indicated who may be responsible for it
đż Popcorn
ICYMI
Statues donât lie: Shakiraâs hometown, Barranquilla, Colombia, unveiled a 21-foot bronze statue of the singer, depicting her iconic hip-swivel from the âHips Donât Lieâ video
More anal beads?! Organizers stripped a Chinese chess champion of his title and banned him for a year due to inappropriate behavior. Online rumors suggest he cheated using anal beads
Lucasfilm strikes back: âStar Warsâ creator Lucasfilm is suing a Chilean car wash, Star Wash, for brand plagiarism. Star Wash features characters like Chewbacca washing vehicles
Wildcard
O, battery! O, battery! Florida police arrested 20-year-old Miracle Rivera for allegedly beating her boyfriend with a Christmas tree during a âverbal altercationâ over infidelity
Itâs a-me, depression cure!: A new study published in Frontiers of Psychology reveals that playing the popular Nintendo Switch game âSuper Mario Odysseyâ can reduce depression symptoms
Hoosier miracle: A 27-year-old Indiana man survived six days on rainwater after his truck crashed and trapped him beneath a highway bridge. Two fishermen discovered him
đ What do you think?
Today's Poll:Have you ever ridden an e-scooter? |
Today's Question:
Todayâs question is under the Roca Votes Wrap!
See yesterday's results below the Wrap!
đŻ Roca Wrap
We founded RocaNews because we wanted news companies to give us just the facts â not tell us what to think. That inspires us to create the âRoca Votesâ Wrap, in which we summarize a controversial topic and see how you feel about it.
On December 15, Elon Musk posted a screenshot of a suggested edit on Microsoft Word.
The screenshot showed the word âinsaneâ underlined with a message that read, âThis term implies mental health bias.â Musk captioned the post, âMicrosoft Word now scolds you if you use words that arenât âinclusiveâ!â
For years, Microsoft has made inclusive language suggestions for words or phrases it deems offensive, archaic, or biased. It will automatically change words like âchairmanâ and âmankindâ to âchairpersonâ and âhumankind.â For other words, it will make inclusivity suggestions.
Since 2016, Microsoft has been expanding an âInclusivenessâ checklist in its Microsoft 365 settings. In the âGrammar & Refinementsâ section, a dropdown now shows âCultural Bias,â âEthnic Slurs,â âGender Bias,â âGender-Neutral Pronouns,â âGender-Specific Language,â âRacial Bias,â âSexual Orientation Bias,â and âSocioeconomic Statusâ boxes you can manually check to monitor non-inclusive words or phrases. These boxes arenât checked by default; you must manually turn them on.
Although these settings arenât new, Elon Muskâs tweet raised awareness and ignited a debate.
Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy commented, âThe best way to control the mind of a society is to control its language first.â Entrepreneur and podcaster David Sacks commented, âThatâs insane. Oops!â Elonâs original tweet had 40M views as of writing.
Microsoftâs style guide outlines its rationale for inclusivity language standards and highlights examples of language it will flag.
âMicrosoft technology reaches every part of the globe, so it's critical that all our communications are inclusive and diverse,â one article begins.
It says to lowercase âwhiteâ and capitalize âBlackâ and discourages stereotypes. In one section, it says, âDon't use slang, especially if it could be considered cultural appropriation, such as âspirit animal.ââ
In another section, it says, âBe inclusive of job roles, family structure, and leisure activities. If you show various family groupings, consider showing nontraditional and extended families.â
That brings us to the question(s) of the day:
Do people make too big of a deal out of these issues? Have you encountered inclusive language suggestions? Do they annoy you? Whatâs a bigger problem, censorship or non-inclusive language?
If you have thoughts, let us know at [email protected]!
đ Roca Clubhouse
Yesterday's Poll:
Have you or your family ever adopted an animal from a shelter?
Yes: 70%
No: 30%
Yesterday's Question:
If you were to create a new holiday, what would it celebrate and how would people observe it?
Connie: âMind your own business day. How itâs celebrated: Keep your mouth shut no matter your political, gender, health situation. Either way, pro con. No shaming others for how they think, either way. When tempted to say or write your opinion, donât. Smile at everyone even if itâs for a millisecondSay please and thank you. Generally, mind your own businessâ
Joe from Athens, Alabama: âYou don't need any more holidays. My wife and I are happy not celebrating holidays. We are very happy together. Gather with family whenever we can. We are thankful for what we have and each other. I do take my wife out for a fancy dinner on her birthday. Commercialization has ruined holidays and misled the American people.â
Desmond from Charlestown, Massachusetts: âAmerica should do what the UK and Ireland did last century: Move all holidays (except Christmas and New Years) to be Monday holidays AND spread them out evenly across the year. In the process, youâd need to combine some days and rename them. (The UK and Ireland simply call them âBank Holidaysâ; they dropped all the old names (like âMemorial Dayâ or âVeterans Dayâ.â
đ§ Intermission
We are very curious to read your thoughts about todayâs Wrap. Reply to this email with them, and weâll feature a set tomorrow.
For Roca Premium: Our deep-dive today is on the collapse of Bird, a record-breaking startup that has now declared bankruptcy. Enjoy!
âMax and Max
đ Roca Reports
Todayâs premium Wrap covers the rise and fall of the e-scooter company Bird. A new Roca Reports series in Serbia begins next week.
In December 2020, Roca wrote a story about Bird: âIt was the fastest-ever startup to reach a $1B valuation,â it said, âbut with the pandemic projected to endâŚwe may see a reset.â
That reset came harder than anyone could have expected.