Latest news with #Wand
Calgary Herald
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
L.A. Witch, Wand, FREYA and Babe Haven electrifying Purple City year four Sept. 5-7
Article content Purple City Music Festival has announced its first wave, full of hot and heavy talent from across the continent on its way to downtown Dirt City Sept. 5-7. Article content Article content Holding the top spots (so far) are two delightfully sludgy indie KEXP-style legends, the surf-gothy L.A. Witch and L.A.'s psych-rock Wand. Article content Legendary punk pioneers D.O.A. will bring their familiar crusty antics to the Purple lineup. And, more from California, dreamy Nuggets-compilation-vibing The Mystery Lights counter the wolverine-in-sheep's clothing metalcore punk of Babe Haven out of North Carolina — curated by year-round all-ages promoter Project 23. Article content Article content Article content 'When I first heard Mystery Lights,' says executive director Ryan Rathjen, 'I thought, it's produced so retro it literally sounds like it was made in the '60s. And Babe Haven are dressed up Chappelle Roan or whatever, but they're one of the heaviest bands going.' Article content Article content 'She's a super amazing, boiler-room DJ. She kind of plays her show, sings, and then goes behind her decks and DJ and does all this crazy mixing stuff. Then she comes back out and plays — it's a really entertaining show.' Article content Also in the first wave — 70 more of the 90-plus bands being announced in July — are metal scorchers FREYA, Seattle garage band Acid Tongue, darkwave return act Kontravoid, eletro-punk UNIITY, L.A. shoegazer Taleen Kali, New York's NUXX and Texas post-punk act Night Ritualz. Article content Way more to come, but so far the locals include rare appearances by Faunts and the mighty James T. Kirks — both must-sees. Article content Article content Article content Over 530 bands submitted from all over North America, up 100 from last year, Rathjen notes. 'We're starting to get traction in Austin, definitely New York, Seattle, Toronto. Article content 'We could easily have two Purple Cities, and it's been quite the task for the juries to get through it all.' Article content This brings up the collective curatorial nature of the fest, now in its fourth year. Article content 'Purple City's ethos is collaborative in nature,' says Rathjen. 'We're trying to build community and just kind of signal boost what others are doing and trying to have more opinions to build something greater.'
Global News
12-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- Global News
Tackling outdoor cleaning jobs for spring is easier than you think!
Ah, spring. The birds are singing, the sun is (finally) out, and we Canadians are crawling out of hibernation to reclaim our patios, decks and backyards. But as you step outside, coffee in hand, and take a long look around… yikes. There's grime on the siding, dirt under the patio and your once-proud BBQ is looking more like a junkyard gem. Don't panic—you can easily turn that mess into a sparkling outdoor oasis. Let's break down the essential outdoor cleaning jobs to tackle this spring, along with the products, tools and techniques I personally swear by. BBQ Cleanup: Because Carbonized Grease Isn't a Seasoning Look, we all love a good grill session, whether you're tossing on burgers, tofu, or a foil pack of veggies. But nothing kills the vibe faster than uneven cooking, weird off-flavours, tons of smoke emerging from the q, or your guests wondering, 'Is that black crust part of the meal or…?' Story continues below advertisement Here's your plan: Vacmaster VBVB611PF 1101 6 Gallon 5 Peak HP Wet Dry Shop Vacuum Start by vacuuming out ash and debris from the grill base using your trusty shop vac (if you don't have one, may I gently suggest adding it to your arsenal?). Empty and replace the grease trap if needed, too. $119.99 on Amazon Next, crank your BBQ to high for about 10-15 minutes to burn off any caramelization from leftover food on the grill grates. Once done, turn off the bbq, open the lid and let the grill cool to about 300. Caron & Doucet BBQ Grill Cleaner Oil Spray on some BBQ grill cleaner oil–a food-safe cleaning spray on the grill and the exterior (bonus: this one's Canadian-made!). $19.99 on Amazon Story continues below advertisement Grill Brush and Scraper Spray, let it absorb, scrub grill grates with a grill brush, and bask in the glory of a grill that's ready for action. $29.95 on Amazon (was $34.95) This maintenance keeps your food looking and tasting great, cooking evenly, and your BBQ being party (or dinner for one) ready at all times. You may also like: Heavy Duty Food Tongs – $16.99 ALCAN Aluminum Foil Classic – $20.99 Wireless Meat Thermometer – $89.99 Dust Off the Pressure Washer: Lazy Person's Magic Wand If you've never used a pressure washer, you're missing out on one of life's most satisfying cleaning tools. Story continues below advertisement Kärcher K1800PS Max 2250 PSI Electric Pressure Washer You'll watch years of grime, stains and build up melt off your driveway, patio, siding, deck, car, or fence in seconds, and you'll feel a wave of satisfaction–it's visceral, trust me. $250 on Amazon (was $300) You can level up by pairing your pressure washer with targeted cleaners, like: There are even specialized solutions for vinyl siding, your car, your boat, or your RV—basically, if it's dirty and lives outside, there's a cleaner for it. You may also like: Gap Cleaning Brush – $8.99 Absorbent Microfiber Car Wash Drying Mitts – $14.39 Story continues below advertisement Cleaning Caddy with Handle – $35.44 Patio Furniture Refresh: Stop Apologizing for It We've all got that one friend who says, 'Oh, don't mind the patio set, we haven't gotten around to cleaning it yet.' Don't be that friend. After months (or years) of exposure, outdoor furniture can look rough. Mold and mildew stains, dirt, bird deposits, you name it. To bring it back to life: Dr. Bronner's Sal Suds Biodegradable Cleaner Mix up Sal Suds with warm water in a bucket (it's eco-friendly and effective). $18.82 on Amazon Story continues below advertisement Rubbermaid Commercial Utility Brush Scrub with a scrub brush and dry in the sun. $12.93 on Amazon The transformation will have you excited to invite people over—and sit anywhere they like! Story continues below advertisement You may also like: Large Picnic & Outdoor Blanket – $34.99 Black and Beige Outdoor Rug – $47.99 Landscape Lighting 6 Pack – $71.99 Sidewalk Chalk on Brick: That's Right, on Brick--not Sidewalk! Real talk: I love when my daughter gets creative with sidewalk chalk… except when she decides to decorate the brick walls. Brick is stubborn. It holds onto chalk like it's a family heirloom. Rain doesn't take care of this kind of chalk, no, you need to get physical for this job. Here's how I handle it: Dawn Platinum Dish Soap Wet the brick and spray with a dish soap and water mix. $10.99 on Amazon (was $12.99) Story continues below advertisement Scotch-Brite Household Scrubber Scrub with a stiff brush (or a cleaning toothbrush if it's a small area). $6.49 on Amazon Still there? Sprinkle baking soda on the stubborn spots and scrub again. Rinse thoroughly. You may also like: Microfiber Cleaning Cloth – $12.99 The Pink Stuff All Purpose Cleaning Paste – $12.73 Clorox Disinfecting Wipes – $12.97 You might need to hit this two or three times, but once it's done, it'll be back to normal and you can go back to 'reminding' the kids not to colour on the brick (good luck with that one). Story continues below advertisement Spring cleaning outside doesn't have to be a weekend-destroying chore—especially when you have the right tools and a little know-how. You don't need to buy everything, but the right brush, spray, or pressure washer can shave hours off your effort (and save your back). So go ahead: claim your patio, your deck, your grill. Let the neighbours wonder how you got it all done so fast.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
FDA approves first cervical cancer screening device that can be used at home, company says
To get screened for cervical cancer, patients in the United States may no longer need to put their feet in those awkward stirrups, brace for the uncomfortable speculum or even take the time off from work for an in-person doctor's appointment. Soon, they will have the option to collect their own vaginal samples for screening from home – instead of a health care provider doing it for them. The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the first at-home self-collection device for cervical cancer screening in the United States, called the Teal Wand, according to the women's health company Teal Health. Last year, the FDA gave the company's Teal Wand 'breakthrough device' status, allowing the agency to review it on a faster timeline. Teal Wand, which will be provided in Teal Health's at-home self-collection kit, will require a prescription. Self-collected samples using the Wand are then mailed to a lab to be tested for HPV, the company announced Friday. Most cervical cancers are caused by human papillomavirus or HPV, and screening for HPV can help identify women who may be at risk of developing cervical cancer. Typically, when screening for cervical cancer, gynecologists collect samples for HPV testing, cervical cytology or both. Cervical cytology, also known as a Pap test or Pap smear, involves examining cervical cells for changes to detect precancerous or cancerous cells. The HPV test checks cells for infection with the high-risk types of HPV that can cause cervical cancer. Last year, the FDA greenlit similar self-collection cervical cancer screening kits for use in a medical setting, such as at a doctor's office, an urgent care or even a mobile clinic. At the time, two health care businesses – biotechnology company Roche and medical technology firm Becton, Dickson and Company – said the FDA had approved the use of self-collected samples with their respective HPV tests. The Teal Health at-home kit allows a patient to collect their sample using the Teal Wand, which is then processed on Roche's HPV test, said Kara Egan, Teal Health's CEO. But a major difference is that the Teal Wand is approved to be used at home, so patients don't have to travel to or make time for in-person doctor appointments. To use Teal Health's new self-collection kit, 'you request a kit at the Teal website, meet with a provider who prescribes the kit, then comfortably and privately collect at home and mail to the lab to process on the Roche Cobas HPV test,' Egan said. 'The results are then reviewed by a clinician and shared back,' she said. 'If the results are positive, a provider will meet with you and refer you to any required follow-up.' Clinical trial data from Teal Health has found that self-collection with the Teal Wand has the same accuracy for cervical cancer screening as when a health care provider collects a sample, Egan said. 'It's the same test, same accuracy, but you can comfortably do it from home,' she said. 'It gives women more options, and with telehealth, we see more options to get access to care.' Teal Health plans to begin shipping its at-home self-collection kits in June, Egan said, starting in California before expanding nationwide. A waitlist is available at the company's website. Teal Health has been in talks with health insurance companies about having the self-collection kit covered, Egan added, and for people who don't have insurance, the cost of the kit will be announced within the next month. The American Cancer Society applauded the new FDA approval. 'Despite the benefits of cervical cancer screening, not all eligible are screened regularly,' Dr. William Dahut, the society's chief scientific officer, said in an email Friday. 'Most cervical cancers are found in people who have never had a cervical cancer screening test or who have not had one recently. That's why today's Food and Drug Administration's announcement approving the first at-home test to screen for cervical cancer as an additional cancer screening method for this potentially deadly disease will make a huge impact.' Some of the most important steps women can take to help reduce their risk for cervical cancer, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are to get vaccinated against HPV, avoid smoking, use condoms during sex, have regular screening tests and check with their doctor if their test results are not normal. It's estimated that about 1 in 4 adults are not up to date on cervical cancer screening recommendations, according to data from 2021. 'Some women are scared of a traditional pap smear or find the process uncomfortable, as a result they put off this vital test,' Dr. Ami Vaidya, co-chief of gynecologic oncology at Hackensack University Medical Center's John Theurer Cancer Center, said in a news release Friday. The newly approved at-home screening device 'could be an important tool in getting more women regularly screened, especially those that don't have access to a medical provider,' Vaidya said. 'Any type of test that helps detect cervical cancer is a win.' The US Preventive Services Task Force recommends screening for cervical cancer with cervical cytology – also known as a Pap test or Pap smear – every three years for women ages 21 to 29. For women 30 to 65, the USPSTF recommends screening every three years with cervical cytology alone, every five years with high-risk HPV testing alone, or every five years with high-risk HPV testing in combination with cytology. It's estimated that about 80% of people will get an HPV infection in their lifetime. HPV, a group of more than 150 viruses, is spread primarily through sexual contact and includes low-risk strains, which most often cause warts, and high-risk strains, which have been associated with an increased risk of certain cancers, such as cervical, anal, penile and oropharyngeal cancers. In most cases, HPV clears on its own within two years, but when the infection does not go away, health problems like cancer may occur. Screening for cervical cancer remains important because early cases often may not have signs or symptoms. Advanced cases may cause abnormal vaginal bleeding or unusual discharge. Cervical cancer is treated in many ways, including surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
The Guardian
15-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I sent AI to art school!' The postmodern master who taught a machine to beef up his old work
By the time you read this article, there's a good chance it will have already been scanned by an artificially intelligent machine. If asked about the artist David Salle, large language models such as ChatGPT or Gemini may repurpose some of the words below to come up with their answer. The bigger the data set, the more convincing the response – and Salle has been written about exhaustively since he first rose to art world stardom in the 1980s. The question is whether AI can ever say anything new about the artist and his work, or if it's for ever condemned to generate more of the same. A similar question lingers beneath the surface of the paintings that Salle has been making since 2023, a new series of which he has just unveiled at Thaddaeus Ropac in London. His New Pastorals were made with the aid of machine-learning software, though that's not immediately apparent from looking at them. Each monumental canvas bears broad, gestural strokes of oil paint seemingly applied by the artist's own hand. Close study however reveals large patches of flat, digitally printed underpainting. This is the mark of the AI model which Salle has been training to generate his work – or at least something uncannily close to it. This machinic collaboration began with a game. Salle has long been sceptical of digital painting tools, writing in 2015 that 'the web's frenetic sprawl is opposite to the type of focus required to make a painting, or, for that matter, to look at one'. Nonetheless, there is a sprawling quality to his own paintings, which layer images from such a wide range of pop and art historical references that the eye often doesn't know where to rest. In 2021, Salle got the idea to develop a virtual game that would allow players to rearrange those painted elements using drag-and-drop tools. Although the tech proved impractical, in the process Salle met Danika Laszuk, a software engineer at the tech startup EAT__Works, and Grant Davis, creator of the AI-powered sketchpad app Wand. Together they fed an AI image generator work by artists whose technique Salle considers foundational – Andy Warhol for colour, Edward Hopper for volume, Giorgio de Chirico for perspective, Arthur Dove for line – then asked it to produce images based on specific text prompts. 'What I did was send the machine to art school,' Salle says. At first the machine was not a model student. Eerie, cartoonish figures with unnatural sheen recalled the images produced by OpenAI's Dall-E Mini. 'What's so fundamentally unsatisfying about this kind of digital imagery?' Salle wondered. The answer, he felt, resided along the edges of its forms. 'Because it's only pixels, there's no real differentiation between the edge of something and the thing behind it,' he explains. 'There's no way to make the edge meaningful, and in representational painting, those edges carry such a large amount of information about an artist's style.' So he fed the machine scans of gouaches he had been making and watched the AI respond to their watery edges. 'It could read the physicality of the brush stroke,' he recalls. 'It fundamentally changed the machine's way of thinking about itself.' Salle has taught at various institutions over the years, and this process felt a bit like a feedback session at an art school. Except the AI model is a very fast learner, and within a few sessions it could generate images that Salle might have come up with himself, if he'd only had more time. 'The machine can synthesise things in a matter of seconds,' he says. 'This evolution in painterly terms might take years or even decades.' Born in Oklahoma but raised in Wichita, Kansas, Salle was the model of precocity when he burst on to the New York scene in 1980. By 1987, he was one of the most highly valued painters of his generation, and at age 34 became the youngest artist to ever have a mid-career survey at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Such a stratospheric rise meant Salle's market had further to fall once figurative painting was no longer in fashion, but the artist continued to labour on ever more ambitious series, including the troublesome suite of paintings at the heart of the New Pastorals. Now, figurative painting is back with a vengeance, and Salle has met the moment – or, perhaps, the moment has met him. To produce his latest works, Salle trained the AI on the dozen sweeping Pastorals he completed between 1999 and 2000. Landscape paintings through the looking glass, they feature a couple idling by a lake, copied from a 19th-century opera scrim, rendered in harlequin colours and overlaid with inset images and designs of wildly differing styles. These vistas almost look like they were edited in Photoshop, but Salle rendered them entirely analogue. 'The first thing they teach you in colour painting classes is how to establish your palette,' he recalls. 'I was really showing off. I thought, 'I can make a painting with three separate colour palettes work and you can't stop me.'' Initial reviews of the Pastorals were mixed. Some critics described them as cold and emotionless, a charge often levied at Salle, whose demeanour can be as remote and cerebral as his paintings. 'The result seems more a jumble of ingredients than a thoroughly cooked dish,' David Frankel wrote in Artforum. With the New Pastorals, however, something seems to have changed. The brushstrokes are looser, faster and thicker, more abstract expressionist than anything else Salle has ever done. Their subject matter, meanwhile, is totally helter skelter, as if Salle has pulsed his older paintings in a blender. Headless bodies zoom in and out of the frame. Objects no longer seem attached to solid ground. Unnervingly, these works look more hand-painted than their referents, at least until you draw closer to their surface, where the paint is so thin in some areas that it could only have been applied by a machine. Salle always felt he hadn't finished with the Pastorals, though he says there were other reasons why they were a good match for his AI experiment. 'I realised that those paintings would give the machine material that it would understand in its own way,' he explains. 'It took all these faceted shapes with different colour harmonies, and it just went to town with them – but kept the DNA of the transition, the horizon line, the mountains, the water, the couple and the figures, and then overlaid that with brushstroke edges.' Wand app creator Davis considers the introduction of the Pastorals a breakthrough moment for the model, as it required a new technique 'which basically takes an image and abstracts the content on a conceptual level in order to recreate different variations'. In other words, the machine began to digest Salle's paintings on a formal level. The Pastorals may also have been well suited to the task because the genre of landscape painting – and especially theatrical backdrops – resembles certain digital technologies in its production of illusionistic space. The New Pastorals reject the art historical imperative to create depth in a flat painting. Sign up to Art Weekly Your weekly art world round-up, sketching out all the biggest stories, scandals and exhibitions after newsletter promotion Salle can tell the AI model to produce something that resembles his own work to greater or lesser degrees. 'Fundamentally, it's a lever that runs along a continuum: one end is similar and the other end is dissimilar,' he explains. 'Depending on where you position the lever, the results will either be very close to what you have started with, or it'll be wildly distorted.' The trees, mountains and idling couple from his original Pastorals are still visible in the backdrop of Red Scarf, for instance, but are now painted semi-abstractly behind a woman wearing a neckerchief. A floating stack of teacups anchors the composition in an otherwise turbulent space, much like the nails that Picasso and Braque painted on to their Cubist still lifes. The many fragmented, colliding bodies in Stack, on the other hand, are much harder to decode. 'I'll select an image that's very eccentric precisely to provoke myself to do something that I probably would not have done otherwise,' Salle says. Nonetheless, the artist isn't worried that AI will ever outpace or replace him. He sees it as another tool, like a brush or an easel. 'I don't think the machine's taught me very much at all,' Salle declares. 'I haven't reconsidered how I think about pictorial space or composition. I'm simply taking what the machine offers after I've told it what I want.' In some sense, his postmodern paintings are perfectly suited to such an experiment: sampling omnivorously from so many subjects and styles, they seem less concerned with their original sources than gleefully unbothered by the concept of originality altogether. In 1985, when Salle was at the height of his fame, the art historian Rosalind Krauss dismissed originality as a 'modernist myth'; every work of art borrows from other sources, whether it acknowledges them or not. At least in their process, human artists may not differ so much from their robot kin. What AI might borrow from Salle is another question. The data collected by EAT__Works is proprietary, so his feedback won't fuel any other artist-machines in the near future, though photographs of his new paintings, uploaded to the gallery's public website, could conceivably be used as prompts for further AI-generated images. 'In theory our model could autonomously spawn images,' Davis admits, though 'the best images come from a technique that is very hands-on'. For now, AI still needs humans to train it – that is, until the student becomes the teacher. David Salle: Some Versions of Pastoral is at Thaddaeus Ropac London until 8 June
The Independent
05-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Racegoers arrive at Aintree for ‘great day out' at Grand National
Excited racegoers have arrived at Aintree ahead of the Grand National steeplechase. Thousands enjoyed the sunshine at the Merseyside racecourse for the last day of the Randox Grand National Festival, while millions are expected to tune in to watch the famous race live on TV at 4pm. Trevor Wand, 62, from Donington in Lincolnshire, was at Aintree for his 15th Grand National and wore a shirt and tie adorned with racehorses. He said: 'It's just a great day out. The atmosphere's fantastic and weather like this – can't beat it. 'I have a different shirt every year. This year I've done different because I've got a tie. 'I've told all my mates, because there's about 15 of us, I told all them 'shirt and tie this year' and they all think 'what's he going to wear?'.' Mr Wand said his day is not all about winning. 'Every year I save money and what I spend, I spend,' he said. 'If I come back with nothing I've had a good day out, that's all it's about.' Emily Pickles, 20, and Saoirse Duffin, 19, said they were 'so excited' after getting up at 6am to travel from Halifax in West Yorkshire with five friends for their first Grand National. Ms Duffin: 'I'm more here for the vibes and drinking with my friends but I will put a few bets on.' Asked for any racing tips, Ms Pickles 'Just have a bloody good time!' Jess Jones, 35, from Oxton, Wirral, said the atmosphere and the dresses make Aintree special. She added: 'Sunshine, prosecco, what more do you need?' Soprano Laura Wright, who is due to sing the national anthem ahead of the Grand National, said: 'It's magical at Aintree today. The weather is great, everyone is having such a great time and I love it.' 'Everyone is so friendly, and it gets me really excited. 'It's the people's festival, but it reaches around the world. It's iconic.' All three days of this year's meeting have seen warm weather, although some women had to cling on to their hats in gusts of wind on Saturday. More than 48,000 attended on Friday for Ladies Day, almost 6,000 more than last year. A spokesman for Merseyside Police said no arrests were made at the racecourse on the day. Two years ago, the Grand National was delayed by 15 minutes when animal rights protesters gained access to the course, leading to more than 100 arrests. Last year, safety changes were made to the race, including an earlier start time of 4pm, and the highest number of horses crossed the finish line since 1992. This year, the festival has seen one horse fatality on Thursday when Willy De Houelle, ridden by former Grand National winner Rachel Blackmore, fell in the second race of the day.
