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Public interest in the deep ocean went into a frenzy this week as the search for the doomed Titan submarine played out – and Oscar-winning film director has made no secret of the fact that he is obsessed with the subject. Since it emerged on 22 June that the Titan was destroyed in what US authorities called a “catastrophic implosion”, Cameron has been telling media outlets that he knew what the five-man crew’s fate was since Monday, four days earlier. After calling up his “contacts in the deep submersible community” Cameron said he had already ascertained that the vessel had been destroyed in an implosion. “I felt in my bones what had happened.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter But why does Cameron know so much about the ocean depths? Titanic, Avatar and The Abyss First of all, Cameron has made a lot of films about the bottom of the sea. His 1997 film, Titanic, won 11 Oscars and was the first movie to earn more than $1bn worldwide, and Cameron went deep on his research – literally. The filmmaker has visited the real-life wreck of the Titanic 33 times, making his first trip in 1995 to shoot footage for the film. One of those dives even involved getting trapped with the wreck for 16 hours, with currents of water holding the director’s submarine at the bottom of the ocean. He has even written a book about his experiences, Exploring The Deep, which includes details of his dive journey, photos and maps from his own explorations of the wreck. He told ABC News: “I actually calculated [that] I've spent more time on the ship than the captain did back in the day.” Long before Titanic, Cameron directed The Abyss in 1989. The premise of the film is that an American submarine sinks in the Caribbean – sound familiar? That prompts a search and recovery team to race against Soviet vessels to recover the boat. Meanwhile, the last movie in Cameron’s famous Avatar franchise, The Way of Water, is set on the aquatic ecosystems of a world 25 trillion miles from Earth. "Some people think of me as a Hollywood guy … (but) I make 'Avatar' to make money to do explorations," Cameron told The Telegraph. Going even deeper In 2012, Cameron went a step further, plunging nearly 11km down to the deepest place in the ocean, the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific. The filmmaker made the solo descent in a submarine called the Deepsea Challenger, and it took more than two hours to reach the bottom. The submarine he used was years in the making, designed by Cameron himself with a team of engineers. The trip was only the second manned expedition to the Mariana Trench. The first was in 1960, when US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss scientist Jacques Piccard descended to the ocean floor. “It was absolutely the most remote, isolated place on the planet,” Cameron said in a later interview. “I really feel like in one day I've been to another planet and come back.” He was even underwater when 9/11 happened His obsession with the ocean goes back to age 17, he told the New York Times, when he learned to scuba dive, when he said he felt like he had discovered the "keys to another world”. And between making Titanic in 1997 and Avatar in 2009 Cameron didn’t make a feature film. But he did make documentaries about sea exploration. One of those, 2003’s Ghosts of the Abyss, showed Cameron's travels to the Titanic, while the other, 2005’s Aliens of the Deep, saw Cameron team up with NASA scientists to explore the sea creatures of mid-ocean ridges. Cameron’s fascination even meant he was inside a submersible vessel exploring the Titanic on 11 September 2001, when terrorists flew two passenger jets into the World Trade Centre. It was only after the now-68-year-old director and his crew finished their expedition and returned to the main ship that Cameron learned what had happened. “What is this thing that’s going on?” Cameron asked the late actor Bill Paxton, who played treasure hunter Brock Lovett in the film. “The worst terrorist attack in history, Jim,” Paxton said. Cameron realised he “was presumably the last man in the Western Hemisphere to learn about what had happened,” he told Spiegel in 2012. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Bethesda's 'Indian Jones' game will not be coming to the PS5.

Amazon Prime members: Meet your summer reading goals with three free months of Audible Premium

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 22, 2023--

Metallica has stepped in with a big compliment for a woman posting bagpipe covers of the band’s songs on Instagram, after she was criticised by fans online. New Yorker Ally Crowley-Duncan, known online as Piper Ally, has nearly 330,000 followers on the social media app, where she posts videos of her playing the instrument. On 20 June, Crowley-Duncan uploaded a video showcasing “Five Metallica songs you didn’t know you could bagpipe.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “Metallica and bagpipes is *chefs kiss*,” she wrote, with covers of some of the band’s biggest hits including Master of Puppets, Fade to Black, One, Enter Sandman, and Whiskey in the Jar. One Instagram user was unimpressed. “Bagpipes don’t belong in Metallica!!,” they wrote. “James [Hetfield, the lead singer] would not approve.” However, within minutes, Metallica intervened, saying: “@Ally the Piper. This guy doesn’t speak on our behalf. You’re awesome.” In a separate post, Crowley-Duncan shared the comment. She said: “When Metallica defends you in the comments of your own video.” Other users were quick to leap to her defence. One person said: “Could not have [a] bigger compliment.” Another said: “This is LEGENDARY.” Before long, the critic had deleted their comment, and later their own Instagram account. One commenter added: “This one goes out to that comment trying to talk for @metallica. Keep it up bad ass.” Another said: “Imagine getting owned so hard you up and quit Instagram. Metallica has spoken!” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Twitter CEO Elon Musk has apparently decided that "cis" and "cisgender" will now be considered a slur on the social media platform. "Cisgender" typically refers to individuals whose gender identity matches their birth sex. If an individual is born male and has a male gender identity then they would be considered "cisgender." The proclamation was made in the replies of James Esses, an Irish right-wing media figure, who was complaining that commenters on social media were calling him a "cissy." "Yesterday, after posting a Tweet saying that I reject the word ‘cis’ and don’t wish to be called it, I receive a slew of messages from trans activists calling me ‘cissy’ and telling me that I am ‘cis’ 'whether or not I like it,'" he wrote. "Just imagine if the roles were reversed." Mr Musk responded with an announcement that "repeated, targeted harassment against any account will cause the harassing accounts to receive, at minimum, temporary suspensions." Mr Musk then took it a step further. "The words 'cis' or 'cisgender' are considered slurs on this platform," he wrote, prompting backlash on the platform. NYT bestselling author Seth Abramson doubted that Mr Musk knows what the word means. “I’m 102.3% sure Elon has no idea what ‘cis’ or ‘cisgender’ mean, either connotatively or denotatively or etymologically,” he wrote. “Threatening to suspend users on your ‘free speech’ platform because they uttered a word you don’t understand but fear emasculates you is quite the fascist flex.” Joe Walsh, a conservative commentator, criticised Mr Musk from the right. “‘Cis’ & ‘cisgender’ will be considered slurs on this platform? Look, it’s his company, he can do whatever he wants, but the truth is that @elonmusk is fundamentally a dishonest person and a coward,” Mr Walsh wrote. “He says he believes in free speech, but he doesn’t really believe in free speech. He’s pushing an agenda, a right wing agenda, but he doesn’t have the balls to admit that. Elon is too afraid to be honest with his intentions. So he lies and says he’s for free speech. But you can’t say ‘cisgender.’ No, Elon is just like most everyone else. He’s pushing an agenda. He just lacks the honesty & the courage to admit it.” It’s not the first time Mr Musk has expressed his disdain for language relating to gender identity. Last July he tweeted that “pronouns suck” — suggesting he either dislikes gender identity or just the English language in general — and later that year insisted that he was not transpohobic. “I absolutely support trans, but all these pronouns are an aesthetic nightmare,” Mr Musk, creator of the Cybertruck, argued. However, in defending his dislike of “cis” and “cisgender,” Mr Musk leaned on a decades old bigoted ideas that LGBT communities and ideas are deeply infected with pedophilia. “The contemptible creep that manufactured the term ‘cis’ has serious problems. Ignore him,” Mr Musk wrote, referencing a right-wing conspiracy theory that the term “cisgender” was coined by a paedophile doctor in the 1990s. However, cis— with “cis” being the Latin opposite to “trans” — has been used as a dichotomic descriptor since at least the early 20th century. Read More Musk vows to bring Tesla to India ‘as soon as possible’ after meeting Modi Elon Musk stays mum on Titanic submarine disappearance despite Starlink connection Elon Musk and Joe Rogan challenge Covid vaccine scientist to ‘debate’ anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr Elon Musk stays mum on Titanic submarine disappearance despite Starlink connection India’s Modi to meet Elon Musk during US state visit Vaccine scientist hounded by conspiracists after Joe Rogan targeted him on Twitter

UTA was established in 1991 and serves as a representative agency for artists and professionals in the entertainment industry

Teams of well-known Twitch broadcasters and YouTube stars from different nations are expected to participate in the charity match

Facebook Marketplace is the most complained-about online retail platform for selling counterfeit, poor-quality and potentially unsafe goods, Trading Standards has reported. The online giant, which enables third-party sellers to trade goods on the platform via the marketplace, was criticised for being slow to take action against problem sellers and for enabling misleading product descriptions, counterfeit goods and potentially harmful products to reappear on its platform after being taken down. A national survey by the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) found the online giant causes its officers the most concern, as well as being unresponsive or unco-operative when contacted about problem sellers. More than half (53 per cent) of respondents representing about 50 local authorities across the UK identified Facebook as the most complained-about online marketplace – more than all of the others combined. If it wants to be seen as a proper online retailer where people can buy safe and legitimate goods, it needs to start acting like one CTSI chief executive John Herriman The CTSI’s survey, the first of its kind, also found that Trading Standards teams were unable to properly address problems with online marketplaces because of a “triple whammy” of recurring issues – unco-perative businesses, unsuitable legislation and limited resources. Just 10 per cent of Trading Standards officers said they had been able to take action against online marketplaces as a result of these three obstacles. The CTSI’s survey found that 45 per cent of officers cited a lack of co-operation from online marketplaces as a recurring problem, 63 per cent said the law as it stands is not fit for purpose and 57 per cent had received no response when attempting to contact sellers on online marketplaces. Some 59 per cent said they had been unable to locate details about where third-party sellers on online marketplaces were based and 29 per cent said they wee unable to deal with complaints about online marketplaces because of a lack of time and resources. CTSI chief executive John Herriman said: “Facebook Marketplace needs to up its game. At a time when more and more people are going online to buy things, there is a real urgency for online retailers to take their responsibilities to their customers more seriously. Currently, online marketplaces like eBay and Facebook Marketplace are operating with fewer safety regulations than traditional high street retailers, eroding fair competition and allowing the sale of unsafe goods to flood the market unabated Martyn Allen, Electrical Safety First “The fact that Facebook Marketplace is an offshoot of a social media platform rather than a service that was built as an online retailer from the ground up speaks volumes. If it wants to be seen as a proper online retailer where people can buy safe and legitimate goods, it needs to start acting like one. “Failing to take action against sellers who use their platform to mislead, rip off and potentially endanger consumers just isn’t good enough. “We are calling for all online marketplaces to take action against problem sellers, for the law to be tightened up so enforcers have more tools at their disposal to protect consumers, and for more resources that enable us to do that more effectively.” A Meta spokesman said: “We take these issues seriously and when we find listings that violate our rules, we remove them. “We also work closely with external partners and respond to valid legal requests from law enforcement and the Office for Product Safety and Standards, to prevent illegal activity on our platforms.” Phil Lewis, director general of the Anti-Counterfeiting Group (ACG), said: “Criminals rely on legal e-commerce platforms, social media, maritime freight companies, express couriers, airlines, postal services and internet hosting services to set up rogue shopping sites. “ACG is calling on government to recognise the growing international threats to our families, job-providing businesses and the economy. “Appropriate enforcement resources and a policy architecture are desperately needed to ensure the companies providing these services work alongside our enforcement authorities and businesses, to combat this intensifying threat.” Martyn Allen, technical director of the charity Electrical Safety First, said: “Sadly, the high number of complaints Trading Standards officers receive regarding online purchases comes as no surprise. Online retailers like Facebook Marketplace need to be held to account just like any other type of business, otherwise consumers and legitimate businesses lose out Yvonne Fovargue, APPG on Consumer Protection “Currently, online marketplaces like eBay and Facebook Marketplace are operating with fewer safety regulations than traditional high street retailers, eroding fair competition and allowing the sale of unsafe goods to flood the market unabated. This puts UK citizens at serious risk of injury and harm. “It’s been a year and a half since the UK Government promised publication of the Product Safety Review, which is expected to include proposals to protect British consumers when they shop online. “The time for waiting is over – the Government must prioritise publishing the Review without any further delay.” Yvonne Fovargue, chairwoman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Consumer Protection, said: “Since the pandemic and now, with the cost-of-living crisis, more people are buying products from online marketplaces. “These consumers deserve to be treated fairly and should be able to be confident that what they buy is safe and accurately described. “Online retailers like Facebook Marketplace need to be held to account just like any other type of business, otherwise consumers and legitimate businesses lose out.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live UKRI announces £50 million to develop trustworthy and secure AI ‘Last Beatles record’ was created using AI, says Paul McCartney Put ‘public good’ at heart of AI and new tech, Starmer to say

Voice actors around the globe are mobilizing against the unregulated use of artificial intelligence (AI) to generate and clone human voices that they fear poses...

'AGT' Season 18 performer Steve Goodtime will be seen balancing a liturgical candlesticks on balloon

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