Latest news with #Fulford
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Gibson, local natives set for annual Marshall golf outing at Grandview
Marshall sports fans in southern West Virginia will have the chance to greet the new football coach. The day will also serve as a homecoming for a few area natives who now call the university their home. The 35th annual Big Green Golf Outing at Grandview Country Club will be held on Monday. It is sponsored Marshall University Southern Coalfields Alumni and is part of the Big Green Coaches Tour. Advertisement Tony Gibson, who was introduced as the Thundering Herd's new head football coach in December, will be there. Gibson, a native of Van in Boone County, is back in his home state for his first stint as a head coach after a career that has taken him to Cumberland, Michigan, Pitt, Arizona and N.C. State. Of course, his career started at Glenville State under Rich Rodriguez, who he followed to West Virginia University. Gibson had a second stint with the Mountaineers from 2014-2018. The golf outing will also have a feel even closer to home with the presence of Gibson's defensive coordinator Shannon Morrison, head men's basketball coach Corny Jackson and his associate head coach Rob Fulford. Morrison and Jackson are both Oak Hill graduates, and Fulford is a Mullens native. Advertisement Morrison played at Marshall and was a member of the 1992 Division I-AA national championship team, as well as two national runners-up in 1991 and 1993. He is now in his fourth stint as an assistant coach with the Herd. He also has stops at Sam Houston State, Eastern Kentucky, Ball State, Cincinnati, Memphis, Bowling Green, Lehigh, Southeast Missouri and Hampden-Sydney. Jackson just completed his first season as the head men's basketball coach, guiding the Herd to a 20-13 record and a spot in the second round of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament. He had spent the previous six seasons as an assistant and later associate to head coach Dan D'Antoni. D'Antoni is a Mullens native, and that's where Jackson went for his associate head coach. Fulford, a graduate of storied Mullens High, joined Jackson for his first season after spending the previous seven as an assistant at Akron. Before that, Fulford was an assistant at Missouri for three seasons. Advertisement Fulford, a Marshall alumnus, had been an assistant coach at Mountain State University and the head coach at Mountain State University under Bob Bolen. He then went on to a successful career as the head coach at Huntington Prep, where he guided such players as No. 1 NBA Draft pick Andrew Wiggins, NBA Draft lottery pick Miles Bridges and first round pick Gorgui Dieng. Also on hand will be head women's golf coach Brooke Burkhammer, a Cabell Midland alumna, as well as John Sutherland, Marshall's Senior Associate Athletic Director for Development and the Executive Director of the Big Green Scholarship Foundation. On Wednesday, the university announced that Sutherland will be retiring effective June 3 after 24 years at Marshall. Opportunities to play in and/or advertise with the outing are available. A sponsorship package of $250 is good for signage, golf for one, drinks, lunch and dinner. Additional golfers cost $150 each. Cost for signs only is $125. Individual golf packages (golf, drinks, lunch and dinner) are $150. Advertisement There will be contests, pink tees and mulligan packages for $20 each. Registration will run from 10-11:30 a.m. and play will open with a shotgun start at noon. Lunch will be provided Subway/Little General. Dinner, provided by Pasquale's, will be served after golf is complete. Anyone wanting to attend dinner only can do so for $25. The annual Golf Ball Drop Fundraiser will also be held. Go to Facebook and like the Marshall University Southern Coalfields Alumni and Big Green Club page for details. For all this and any sponsorship questions, the following are available: Larry Foster (304-573-5336), Larry Canterbury (304-633-6474), Doug Leeber (304-266-8766), Miranda Elkins (304-894-2636) and Amanda Ashley (304-890-9215).
Techday NZ
14-05-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
OpenAI reveals how deep research transforms inquiry
OpenAI has introduced a new agentic AI system called 'deep research,' designed to handle complex, time-consuming research tasks by simulating the work of a human analyst. Presented by researchers Isa Fulford and Edward Sun during an OpenAI forum event, the new tool is powered by a fine-tuned version of OpenAI's upcoming O3 model and leverages advanced reasoning and browsing capabilities. "Deep research is an agent in ChatGPT that can do work for you independently," Fulford explained. "You give it a prompt, and it will find, analyse, and synthesise hundreds of online sources to create a comprehensive report at the level of a research analyst." The system is intended to help users across a range of sectors—from academia and medicine to business and software development. "Members are finding that deep research asks clarifying questions to refine research before it even starts," said Fulford. "We think that deep research can accomplish in tens of minutes what would take a human many hours." The model represents a major step forward in OpenAI's work with reasoning systems, building on reinforcement learning techniques introduced in its earlier models. Fulford explained how the company developed the tool: "We launched O1 in September of last year. This was the first model that we released in this new paradigm of training where models are trained to think before answering… and we called this text where the model is thinking, 'chain of thought'." This method of structured, internal reasoning proved effective not only in tasks such as maths and coding, but also in navigating complex real-world information environments. "Around a year ago internally, we were seeing really great success… and we wondered if we could apply these same methods but for tasks that are more similar to what a large number of users do in their daily lives and jobs," Fulford said. Sun detailed how the tool works by combining reasoning with specialised capabilities like web browsing and code execution. "The browser tool helps the model to aggregate or synthesise real-time data, and the Python tool is helping the model to process this data," he explained. The system dynamically alternates between reasoning and action, using reinforcement learning to improve over time. One striking example involved analysing medal data from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. "You can see how the model interleaved reasoning with actual tool calls to search for information, refine the data, and process it programmatically," Sun said. Unlike older approaches that rely on a single-pass search or instruction-following, deep research iteratively refines its answers. "We train the model with end-to-end reinforcement learning," Sun added. "We directly optimise the model to actively learn from the feedback, both positive and negative." OpenAI tested the model extensively against both public and internal benchmarks. According to Fulford, "the model pairing deep research scored a new high of 26.6%" on the Humanities Last Exam, an expert-level evaluation spanning over 100 subjects. On another benchmark, GAIA, the tool also achieved a state-of-the-art result for multi-step web browsing and reasoning. The model also underwent safety evaluations prior to release. "We did extensive red teaming with external testers, and then also went through preparedness and governance reviews that we always do at OpenAI," Fulford said. Despite strong results, the researchers acknowledged current limitations. "It still may hallucinate facts or infer things incorrectly," Fulford said. "Sometimes it struggles to distinguish between authoritative sources and rumours." Use cases continue to emerge in unexpected domains. "People might be using the model a lot for coding. And that's been a really big use case," Fulford observed. Other domains include scientific and medical research, where professionals have begun verifying the model's output against their own expertise. Users are also adapting their behaviour to suit the model. "We've seen interesting user behaviour where people put a lot of effort into refining their prompts using O1 or another model," Fulford said. "And then only after really refining that instruction, they'll send it to deep research… which makes sense if you're going to wait a long time for an output." Currently, deep research is available to users on the Plus, Pro, Teams, Enterprise and EDU plans. "We're very excited to release a smaller, cheaper model to the free tier," Fulford confirmed. The team also plans to improve personalisation and explore ways to let users incorporate subscription services or private data into the research process. "This showcases how the model can effectively break down a complex task, gather information from various sources, and structure the response coherently for the user," Sun said in closing. OpenAI's forum audience, composed of members across academia, government, and business, left the event with a clear sense that deep research marks a meaningful step toward AI systems capable of handling work currently done by skilled analysts.
Techday NZ
14-05-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
OpenAI forum reveals how deep research transforms inquiry
OpenAI has introduced a new agentic AI system called 'deep research,' designed to handle complex, time-consuming research tasks by simulating the work of a human analyst. Presented by researchers Isa Fulford and Edward Sun during an OpenAI forum event, the new tool is powered by a fine-tuned version of OpenAI's upcoming O3 model and leverages advanced reasoning and browsing capabilities. "Deep research is an agent in ChatGPT that can do work for you independently," Fulford explained. "You give it a prompt, and it will find, analyse, and synthesise hundreds of online sources to create a comprehensive report at the level of a research analyst." The system is intended to help users across a range of sectors—from academia and medicine to business and software development. "Members are finding that deep research asks clarifying questions to refine research before it even starts," said Fulford. "We think that deep research can accomplish in tens of minutes what would take a human many hours." The model represents a major step forward in OpenAI's work with reasoning systems, building on reinforcement learning techniques introduced in its earlier models. Fulford explained how the company developed the tool: "We launched O1 in September of last year. This was the first model that we released in this new paradigm of training where models are trained to think before answering… and we called this text where the model is thinking, 'chain of thought'." This method of structured, internal reasoning proved effective not only in tasks such as maths and coding, but also in navigating complex real-world information environments. "Around a year ago internally, we were seeing really great success… and we wondered if we could apply these same methods but for tasks that are more similar to what a large number of users do in their daily lives and jobs," Fulford said. Sun detailed how the tool works by combining reasoning with specialised capabilities like web browsing and code execution. "The browser tool helps the model to aggregate or synthesise real-time data, and the Python tool is helping the model to process this data," he explained. The system dynamically alternates between reasoning and action, using reinforcement learning to improve over time. One striking example involved analysing medal data from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. "You can see how the model interleaved reasoning with actual tool calls to search for information, refine the data, and process it programmatically," Sun said. Unlike older approaches that rely on a single-pass search or instruction-following, deep research iteratively refines its answers. "We train the model with end-to-end reinforcement learning," Sun added. "We directly optimise the model to actively learn from the feedback, both positive and negative." OpenAI tested the model extensively against both public and internal benchmarks. According to Fulford, "the model pairing deep research scored a new high of 26.6%" on the Humanities Last Exam, an expert-level evaluation spanning over 100 subjects. On another benchmark, GAIA, the tool also achieved a state-of-the-art result for multi-step web browsing and reasoning. The model also underwent safety evaluations prior to release. "We did extensive red teaming with external testers, and then also went through preparedness and governance reviews that we always do at OpenAI," Fulford said. Despite strong results, the researchers acknowledged current limitations. "It still may hallucinate facts or infer things incorrectly," Fulford said. "Sometimes it struggles to distinguish between authoritative sources and rumours." Use cases continue to emerge in unexpected domains. "People might be using the model a lot for coding. And that's been a really big use case," Fulford observed. Other domains include scientific and medical research, where professionals have begun verifying the model's output against their own expertise. Users are also adapting their behaviour to suit the model. "We've seen interesting user behaviour where people put a lot of effort into refining their prompts using O1 or another model," Fulford said. "And then only after really refining that instruction, they'll send it to deep research… which makes sense if you're going to wait a long time for an output." Currently, deep research is available to users on the Plus, Pro, Teams, Enterprise and EDU plans. "We're very excited to release a smaller, cheaper model to the free tier," Fulford confirmed. The team also plans to improve personalisation and explore ways to let users incorporate subscription services or private data into the research process. "This showcases how the model can effectively break down a complex task, gather information from various sources, and structure the response coherently for the user," Sun said in closing. OpenAI's forum audience, composed of members across academia, government, and business, left the event with a clear sense that deep research marks a meaningful step toward AI systems capable of handling work currently done by skilled analysts.
Daily Mail
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Bad Manors! The story of Britain's most foul-mouthed and poshest family… and what they're doing 20 years after they took our TVs by storm
'Yes, I mean it's pretty unarguable that my family peaked in the 1800s, it's all been a bit downhill from there.' Francis 'F*****' Fulford is standing on a large grand staircase in a chamber as cavernous as it is gloomy. Behind him, ornate wallpaper hangs down from the vintage fittings. Decades of dust cling to the chandelier. Mr Fulford, 72, is the 26th Fulford to call Great Fulford home - the imposing Devon manor house and 3000 acre estate having been bequeathed to his family by Richard the Lionheart in 1199 for a 'job well done' in the crusades. In 2004, he and his family lifted the curtain on their secretive and wildly ostentatious lives by inviting a Channel 4 camera crew in to film them as they battled to stay on top of their sprawling estate. The program, titled 'The F****** Fulfords' due to their fetish for swearing, exposed them as endearingly rude and crude, dirty and skint, with compellingly politically incorrect, biased, bigoted and archaic views on life. It made an instant star out of Francis, who says he was paid £40,000 for his work on the program, and he soon levied his new found fame to appear on several other naughties reality TV shows including How Clean Is Your House and Country House Rescue. All the money from these appearances, he says, went directly back into the upkeep of the house and helped them stay afloat. But of course one day, he admits, 'the phone stopped ringing.' Now, over twenty years since they were immortalised on our TV screens, MailOnline sat down with Mr 'F*****' to find out how he and his family are navigating their roles as wardens of the house amid rising costs and controversial new Labour land policies. Naturally, we also asked him whether he had decided which of his four children he would be giving the estate to, and perhaps predictably, we were told to 'f*** off.' In 2004, he and his family lifted the curtain on their secretive and wildly ostentatious lives by inviting a Channel 4 camera crew in to film them Like all great country houses of note, Great Fulford is all but hidden from view as we approach from Exeter, navigating the pot-holed farm lanes and dirt tracks owned and un-maintained by Francis. When we do finally see it, the house is already upon us, its enormous size looming over us and dominating the manicured green hill on which it squats. Francis is waiting for us outside with a walking stick in hand flanked by two pedigree dogs, one of which he insists is terminally lazy. 'Did you get here OK?', he asks genuinely, clearly not picking up on the fact we're still a bit stunned by the sheer salubriousness of his digs, 'tell you what, you really picked a bad time to get into journalism didn't you! Bet the days of the long lunches are all gone!' This we will soon learn is part and parcel of Francis' affable character. He speaks first and thinks later, a trait that has won him admirers and got him into trouble more times than he can count. Joining him today is his charming wife and Fulford matriarch Kishanda, 58, who busies herself in one of the house's imposing chambers while Francis tests the waters with us. To this day, Kishanda still has the impossible task of looking after the enormous house, while Francis devises ingenious and not-so-ingenious money-making schemes - but more of that later. 'I can't believe it was twenty years ago', Francis says, whilst reclining in an armchair overlooking his lake, 'of course everything and nothing has changed in that time. 'Of course we have a bunch of clowns in power at the moment who have rather wrecked my tax planning. But I suppose that's life. It's like one minute you're driving down a smooth tarmac road but i'll tell you, when you go around the corner there's always a great big f****** pothole. 'But generally, things have been good for us. The children have grown up and two of them are getting married in the house this year.' The Fulford children - twins Matilda and Arthur, 30, Humphrey, 28, and Edmund, 25 - also appeared with their parents on our screens featuring in the 2014 BBC documentary Life Is Toff. Oldest son, Francis Arthur Fulford, who TV fans came to know as Arthur, is technically the next in line to inherit the now crumbling 800-year-old home, however when asked 'F*****' himself was quick to shut us down. 'I don't know myself and obviously they're not going to find out through the Daily f****** Mail', he says. Arthur's youngest brother Edmund, a self-confessed 'thickie' who left school with no qualifications, said in 2014: 'Arthur knows nothing about running the estate, so if Dad dies it'll be a f***ing disaster. Just over a decade ago, the little Fulfords were portrayed as a brood of unruly brats, spending their days scrapping and hurling cricket balls across the floor of the Great Hall, smashing china or slumping in front of the TV for hours – until their mother became so frustrated she hauled it into the lake. When they returned in the 2014 series the boys were seen hitting golf balls across the lake, while Matilda roller skates around the Great Hall. Great larks certainly, but how are they today and is there any Succession style maneuvering to get their hands on the house? Francis continues: 'They're all doing great. Matilda is doing extremely well and is married to a DJ who does that BOOM BOOM music. We all spent Covid together and it was a great laugh. 'I felt sorry for those poor sods in the London sky rises though, still we need to listen to the f****** 'experts'. 'Edmond and Humphrey will be getting married this year to some really nice girls. They're both holding their weddings here of course, I mean, it would be stupid not to.' Naturally, the upkeep of the 50-room decaying Great Fulford stately home is a full time job for Francis and his wife, who have performed admirably ensuring it is fit for the next generation at least. They've still had their detractors though he says. 'It's funny thing. You look up at the ceiling and you see the cracking paint peeling off a bit and some of the wallpaper and you think "Wow, they've let it go to rack and ruin"', Francis explains from his study. 'But really, that doesn't matter. No, what matters is the wiring, what matters is the roof. And you could spend a fortune on the rewiring or on the roof and then people come around say you're sitting on your hands. 'But if you bought a paint brush out and a pot of paint they'd think you were doing fantastic. 'I'm horrified to hear that these modern windows are only guaranteed for 25 years! We've had these bloody windows for the last 200 and they'll be good for the next 200 as well hopefully!' The Fulfords have always freely admitted they are asset rich but cash poor living under a black cloud of maintenance obligations - with the estate alone costing £150,000 a year to run. Of course, failure for Francis is not an option. He is the 23rd Francis Fulford to own the hall, and he says he will not be known as the shameful ancestor who surrendered it to the heinous National Trust. 'F*****' Fulford on life in Britain in 2025 On Food Banks - 'What's the one thing you always notice when you see them on the news? Everyone who goes to them is f****** fat! On the monarchy - 'We were cavaliers in the civil war so King Charles I gave us that oil painting of him. It's a blood money gift really, but nice to have.' On Brexit - 'It was very similar to the 1640s. If they had tried to overturn the referendum I would have rode up to London with my fingers itching on my sword hilt.' On home invasions - 'I was once convinced we were being burgled but it turns out it was one of the ghosts. I was very annoyed as I really wanted to hit someone.' On the upper classes - 'Obviously we don't have a historic house trade union. But we do all meet up and swap ideas.' 'They're run by committees', he says disdainfully, 'they are incredibly extravagant, totally incompetent and wasteful. If it became a National Trust site I would have failed - I would have lost the battle, lost the war. No, I'll never surrender.' Francis was portrayed a laughing stock in 2004 after coming up with a string of harebrained schemes to try to secure the family fortune. These included wandering the grounds with a metal detector in the hope of unearthing buried treasure. He also famously provoked a storm as he guided a group of tourists and told them about one of his ancestors who commanded a fleet of ships against the French, killing 5,000 of them. He described this historic event as 'a satisfactory result all round'. These days, despite the camera's being gone, he's still devising ingenious and not-so-ingenious money-making schemes to get some funds in the kitty. He says: 'I haven't sold an acre for 40 years. I'm rather hoping I might keep that going, but you never know do you which is why I'm against planning. 'I've tried everything and will try bloody everything. Laser tag? Water assault courses? Tough mudders? I'll consider them all. 'Years ago, we had Playboy shooting glamour scenes in the house. The British girls were great fun but the Americans were a bit anal. 'Wellness is my new target, it is a vast boom area. 'My wife has set up in the barn behind the house studio to do handmade pottery. 'We converted the top of his barn into a studio where you can have up to eight students, and I think in the long run, something like residential courses. 'Some of my friends in London were telling me they hold events in their home where they charge £150 a ticket. You couldn't do that here of course as everyone who lives around Devon is poor. 'That being said, the tide of wealth has crept down from London as far as Bruton so we could be quids in soon!' The Fulfords have always freely admitted they are asset rich but cash poor living under a black cloud of maintenance obligations Francis' exploits on TV catapulted him to national fame. Memorable gaffs include trying to conjure up a house ghost to attract American tourists for haunted-house-themed dinner parties, and searching his grounds for telephone cables so he could invoice BT for using his land. Meanwhile, Kishanda, after cleaning bat droppings from the furniture, would dash off to place money on the 2.30 at Wincanton. Looking back on his TV career, does he have any regrets? 'It's all in the edit', he reveals, 'when we were doing that particular program (F****** Fulfords), they planned for it to go out before the watershed so were very relaxed about mine and my wife's language and the children's language as they were going to edit it out. They put it into something they 'the f*** box' and one of the producers thought it was great fun and hence the program was born. 'Of course, when you do TV, you got to remember, they want to make good TV. 'They're not interested in having a sanitized version of you shown. On the whole television, it doesn't lie, but it does caricature. 'But we made money from it and I don't regret most of my TV work except for Country House Rescue. The presenter was a complete arse.' So what next for the Fulford clan as 'F*****' himself contemplates handing over the keys to the next generation? Candidly, Francis reveals: 'The only way I look forward to growing old is by planting trees. When you plant a tree in twenty years time you'll see it become a tree. That's a great thing to look forward to when I'm in my nineties.' And what of the thorny issue of inheritance? Will he be drawn into revealing who the 'unlucky' heir will be? 'They're all lucky', he corrects, 'No, the key thing here will be, when they start having children, I will f*** off, because this is a place you need children in. They love that they were brought up here and they don't have any fear or worries about it.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Yahoo
Misconduct charges dropped against Coweta County teacher
Charges have been dropped against a Coweta County teacher accused of sexual misconduct. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Patricia Fulford, 55, faced two counts of cruelty to children, two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and maintaining a disorderly house. The Coweta County District Attorney's Office said it met with sheriff investigators about a probable cause hearing for Fulford. They agreed to drop the charges. 'The recalled warrants do not affect the other defendants charged in this case,' the sheriff's office said in a statement. The Coweta County School System confirmed that Fulford is an English teacher at East Coweta High School. According to the school's website, she teaches ninth and tenth grade. The district placed her on administrative leave after her arrest. Channel 2 Action News reached out Thursday to the district. A spokesman confirmed Fulford is still on leave. TRENDING STORIES: Griffin couple accused of trying to starve 10-year-old to death takes plea deal Atlanta HVAC technician among 19 arrested in 'child predator' operation GA man fights off rabid bobcat while camping [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
