Latest news with #SteveJohnson
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Greater Owensboro Music Commission seeking partners for music census
The Greater Owensboro Music Commission is seeking community partners involved in music to help spread the word about the organization's upcoming 'music census.' The plan is to launch the census in July and gather information from anyone involved in music performance, production, education and other avenues. Steve Johnson, facilitator for the Music Commission, said the census results will help the community identify changes that would help promote music. When the results are released later this year, 'it will come with some recommendations' for improvement, Johnson said. 'I don't know what those are, because it will be unique to Owensboro and Daviess County.' The survey and its results will signal nationally 'that Owensboro-Daviess County is serious about music,' Johnson said. According to a press release, the census' findings 'will inform strategies for supporting live music, boosting music education, improving regulations and guiding future investments in the region's cultural economy.' People involved in music in Daviess, Hancock and McLean counties, and others involved with music in Owensboro and Daviess County will be included in the census, the press release says. Johnson said the work now is to get organizations involved in music, such as venues, churches, businesses and others, to spread the word about the census. 'If you look at other communities, they've done this,' Johnson said. The census data will be compiled into a report with findings by Sound Music Cities, an Austin, Texas firm. Johnson said the report is expected to be released in November. Musicians who come in to play at venues such as Friday After 5 can also participate, Johnson said. Some questions will be Owensboro-Daviess County specific, and will look at address any barriers people in music face in the community, Johnson said. 'We want to hear them (musicians): 'Why do they go to Nashville to do a gig?' or, 'What are the biggest barriers' to music performance and the music business in area, Johnson said. 'What are some of the gaps we can fill?' Johnson said later. The recommendations will be driven by the responses to the census. 'It's meant to be realistic ... otherwise, it doesn't get done,' Johnson said. 'We are going to try to find realistic opportunities that exist.' People interested in being a community partner should visit the commission's website,
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Celebrating 30 Years of Dictionary.com Through the Words That Defined the Times
Words grow up, too. From "stream" to "hallucination," our language—and world—has evolved since 1995. SAN MATEO, Calif., May 28, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- In 1995, the world met Toy Story, tuned into the O.J. Simpson verdict and embraced a new tech frontier known as the World Wide Web. That same year, opened its virtual doors, becoming one of the internet's first destinations for word lovers, curious minds and anyone needing to settle a spelling debate. Now, the world's leading online dictionary turns 30. And while it hasn't bought a house or started saving for retirement, it has redefined what it means to be the authority on language in a rapidly changing world. "Over the past three decades, so many words we use regularly have evolved to take on completely new definitions," said Steve Johnson, PhD, Director of Lexicography for the Dictionary Media Group at IXL Learning. "Words like cloud and stream no longer just refer to natural phenomena—they also reflect how we live and interact with technology. Through it all, one thing remains the same: language never stops evolving, and never stops paying attention." Taking on new meaningTo celebrate its 30th birthday, is looking back at how far words have come—in technology, pop culture and how we describe our world. Throughout the last three decades, has documented this evolution, growing alongside our language. Consider these examples: Technology:Stream (noun or verb) Then: A flowing body of water, or a verb meaning "to run or flow" Now: A verb in digital technology meaning "to send or play video, music, or other data over the internet in a steady flow without having to download it" The rise of high-speed internet in the 2000s turned streaming from a tech experiment into an everyday experience. Today, we can binge-watch an entire series or replay our favorite songs with a tap. (Kids today will never know the pain of waiting for Saturday morning cartoons.) Hallucination (noun) Then: A false notion, belief or impression; delusion Now: False information generated by a machine learning program, such as artificial intelligence, presented as if it were true Once confined to psychology textbooks, hallucination now sits at the heart of conversations about artificial intelligence—especially when AI chatbots "make things up." The term even earned the title of 2023 Word of the Year. Pop culture:Ghost (noun or verb) Then: The spirit or soul of a dead person Now: a verb meaning "to disappear from communication," especially in reference to dating People have been getting dumped forever, but ghosting adds a modern twist. With social media, dating apps and DMs, there are endless ways for someone to vanish without a trace. Mysterious, much like the original ghost. Lit (adjective) Then: bright, full of light Now: "intoxicated" or a term of approval meaning "amazing, cool" Even in the early 1900s, people described themselves as lit after a few too many drinks. Today, it's a go-to word for anything exciting or fun—whether you're at a party or just hyping up your group chat. These shifts reflect more than evolving definitions. They show how language mirrors the spirit of the times—from everyday lingo to coding breakthroughs. For more throwbacks and linguistic insights, check out the full anniversary editorial article here: Charting a new courseSince its founding, has grown from a useful tool into a cultural touchstone. It has tracked the rise of internet slang, unpacked buzzy headlines and spotlighted the words that help us make sense of everything from viral memes to major world events. Today, it continues to shape how we think, talk and connect through language, with features like Word of the Day and Word of the Year leading the conversation. That mission expanded in 2024, when IXL Learning acquired and formed Dictionary Media Group. The group encompasses inglé ABCya, and Together, these sites reach over 500 million people around the world each year. About define every aspect of our lives, from our ideas to our identities. aspires to empower people to express themselves, learn something new and find opportunities through the power and joy of language. With 96 million visitors each month, is the premier destination to learn, discover and have fun with the limitless world of words and meanings. helps you make sense of the ever-evolving English language so you can put your ideas into words—and your words into action. Press ContactJoslyn ChessonIXL Learningpress@ View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE IXL Learning Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
RNZ News
19-05-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Food insecurity in Porirua: 'There's real pressure on our whānau'
Te Roopu Āwhina social services manager Steve Johnson says he is "absolutely" seeing an increase in food insecurity in the region. Photo: Pokere Paewai There has been a big spike in the number of whānau reaching out for essential supplies, says a marae in Porirua offering foodbank services. Te Roopu Āwhina is run by Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira and works with whānau across Porirua to provide social service supports like counselling, budgeting services, emergency transitional housing and a pātaka kai or foodbank. Marae social services general manager Steve Johnson told RNZ food insecurity among its whānau is on the rise. "We support our people through a range of services designed to build resilience and Māori well-being, not just addressing immediate challenges, but helping whānau thrive in the long term. "We're seeing a big spike in the whānau that are reaching out for essentials, food, housing, access to mental health services, health services and all those support services that you see in places like Porirua. There's real pressure on our households, real pressure on our whānau and that in turn puts pressure on services such as ours." His kōrero comes on the eve of Budget 2025, due out on Thursday . Finance Minister Nicola Willis last week announced a $190m Social Investment Fund, which is part of a broader $275m commitment over four years to the government's social investment approach. The fund would be governed by the new Social Investment Agency and was expected to invest in at least 20 initiatives in its first year, including Te Tihi o Ruahine in Palmerston North, which offers similar services to Te Roopu Āwhina. Johnson said he was "absolutely" seeing an increase in food insecurity, with the rising cost of living. "We're hearing stories of tamariki missing meals just so Mum and Dad can pay the rent. Housing is a major issue as well, we have people living in overcrowded conditions that are that are mouldy, wet, damp. "Food insecurity creates stress and instability, we are trying to remove some of those pressures and we are trying to allow our whānau to focus on other areas that support their well-being." Johnson said. Johnson said he was grateful to their partners like New World Tawa, Foodstuffs, the Ministry of Social Development and the Wellington City Mission. He said there was a growing need for culturally sensitive and responsive services. "What whānau are asking for loud and clear is mana enhancing support. They don't want a quick fix here they want services that restore their dignity, their mana and help build long term well-being." Short-term contracts and fragmented funding made it hard to plan long-term or grow the capacity to meet the need, Johnson said. "Our kaimahi are doing amazing mahi, they are the ones that are at the bottom of a cliff face, you know, and are receiving our whānau. Often that have to go above and beyond, they're having to stretch constantly limited resourcing." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
News.com.au
10-05-2025
- Sport
- News.com.au
‘Unjustified': Legend urges Fifita to leave Titans as tensions boil over with feeder club in ugly saga
A rugby league legend has urged a David Fifita to depart the Titans while Gold Coast powerbrokers are reportedly infighting with their own feeder club the Ipswich Jets. That is according to Code Sports, who are reporting Titans powerbrokers contacted Jets powerbrokers to vent frustrations regarding their public support of the maligned backrower. Jets chief Steve Johnson also reportedly claimed Fifita was being played out of position by Gold Coast coach Des Hasler, adding fuel to the fire. Watch your team in the 2025 NRL Telstra Premiership. Stream every round LIVE in 4K, with no ad-breaks during play, on Kayo Sports. New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited-time offer. It comes after Fifita turned out for the Jets in Queensland Cup, having been dropped by Hasler and playing reserve grade while having a painkilling injection on his ankle. Fifita was criticised for his performance for Ipswich, but Johnson threw his support behind the $1 million edge forward. 'The criticism of David is unjustified,' Johnson said. 'Our starting front-rowers had four and five hit-ups, while Dave made 19 tackles with no misses. 'In fairness to Dave, if you watch the game, he was heavily marked and had three and four blokes gang-tackling him at every opportunity. 'We had our pants pulled down by a very good team that were bolstered by Cowboys NRL players. Dave committed totally to the team which says a lot about him as a person.' Fifita was reportedly sent to see a surgeon following his Jets appearance, with a clean-out surgery on his ankle looming and a month on the sidelines. As Fifita's situation at the Titans continues to bubble, league legend Scott Sattler urged the former Maroons star to leave the Gold Coast. Reports have surfaced the Titans have shopped the gun back rower to rival clubs, and Sattler, who played a role in building the Gold Coast's first roster, has urged him to leave the club. 'As much as it would pain me to see him leave the Gold Coast, at 25 he has so much upside in the rest of his career and I'd love to see him go to a club without a lot of comforts,' he said. 'I think he is at a point in his career where if he actually gets out of his comfort zone and goes to another club, outside of south east Queensland, he will flourish. Absolutely flourish. 'We will start to see the best of Dave Fifita. It's about taking a bit of ownership and not having those creature comforts around you.' Fifita has previously come desperately close to departing the Gold Coast, backflipping on a three-year deal with the Roosters in 2024.
The Star
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
Netflix overhauls its home screen for the first time in 12 years
LOS GATOS, California: The most powerful home page in entertainment is about to look a lot different. Beginning next week, Netflix will introduce a new home page design for television screens, the company's first serious makeover since 2013. The redesign, which features fewer titles but more video and animation, is intended to present a sleeker look and get 'people to press play, and stay', the company said. The last time Netflix debuted a major home page redesign, the streaming service had just over 30 million subscribers and was only starting to make its own original programmes. It now has more than 300 million subscribers, has released thousands of original TV shows and movies and has remade the entire entertainment industry in its streaming image. It's a moment that the company is marketing as 'the new Netflix'. The new home page will have a navigation bar across the top of the screen, instead of being tucked away on the left side, as it has been. It will also feature what executives are calling 'responsive recommendations', which will serve titles on the home page based on what the subscriber has been searching for in near-real time. (Looking for horror? Here come a lot more horror recommendations.) And the new TV home page will have the ability to more prominently feature its new content types, like live programming. 'The real goal of this is, how do we make it easier, how do we make it simpler, faster for you to make a great decision?' Greg Peters, a co-CEO of the company, said in an interview. The redesign will start rolling out for all subscribers in the coming weeks and months. It will be only for television screens, which is where viewers do most of their Netflix viewing (70%, the company said). The implications for the industry could be significant. Over the past decade, nearly all media companies copied Netflix's TV home page when designing their own streaming services, with rows upon rows of titles. Now the gap between Netflix and the traditional entertainment industry is so vast that HBO and Max executives say they would be happy to be considered as an 'add-on' in households that already subscribe to Netflix. But at the same time, Netflix is locked in a battle for streaming TV time supremacy in the United States with YouTube. The Google-owned company has a fairly comfortable lead against Netflix, according to Nielsen, the research firm. Company executives said they started dreaming up the new home page – the internal nickname is Eclipse – in late 2022. Although Netflix's home page has been revised and updated several times over the past decade, executives said the company was beginning to hit a wall with the old design. For starters, there was just the look itself, with seemingly endless rows of titles and tiles, one that Steve Johnson, Netflix's vice president of design, likened to a Blockbuster Video shelf. Eunice Kim, Netflix's chief product officer, said, 'The way that the old home page is built, you kind of see box art, box art, box art, box art.' 'It's kind of suboptimal, right?' she added. Subscribers firing up their Netflix app, she said, have traditionally been divided into two branches: about half who know exactly what they want to watch versus another half who have sort of an idea, or no idea at all. Kim said, however, that the not-knowing-what-they-want group had increased in recent years. 'That just means our product needs to work even harder to kind of introduce these titles to folks for the first time,' she said. Enter Eclipse. Though the Netflix catalogue remains as big as ever, the new home page will display fewer titles. When a subscriber hovers over a title, however, it will expand into a much bigger image on the screen. That image will be packed with information, including a brief description and badges that will say things like 'highly rewatched', 'spent 13 weeks in the Top 10' or 'Oscar nominee'. After a couple of seconds, a preview video from the show or movie will then begin to play. (The company has found that people are more likely to watch a show or movie after seeing a clip.) The goal, Kim said, is 'getting you to kind of slow down and notice a little bit more about the title versus scanning'. Eclipse will also begin to quickly offer subscribers recommendations based on their searches, 'something we've been pursuing really for a couple of years now,' Peters said. If a subscriber is searching for family movies, for example, more and more real estate lower on the home screen will start to populate with family-friendly programming. On the old home page, it could take up to a day for the algorithm to catch up. 'In the same way that people might talk about a TikTok as being like, 'Oh, gosh, it really seems to understand me,' we want our members to be able to feel that way about our service, right – like we get them,' Kim said. Executives believe Eclipse will also drive viewers more urgently to live events like an NFL game, or a big fight. 'You see the livestream, and it's not just a piece of artwork, but you see the animation, the motion, the energy of the fight going on, right when you turn on the TV,' Kim said. Competitors seem eager to change up their home pages, too. Disney's CEO, Bob Iger, expressed some frustration with his company's streaming home pages in an earnings call this year, saying they had 'to be more dynamic' and lamenting that they were 'fairly static in nature'. Peters said that, with time, he hopes subscribers start to notice just how much better the new Netflix is. And then, he imagined, when they click over to their streaming competitors from Netflix, 'those other experiences feel relatively static, maybe they feel a little bit old at some point in time, and stuck in the mud,' he said. 'You know,' he continued, 'I wouldn't be sad about that outcome.' – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
