Please briefly summarize this news article: Art review: Turner Prize, Tate Britain, London If ever you were thinking of giving the Turner Prize a miss, not rushing down to the show at Tate Britain, not tuning into the televised ceremony, then 2008 is the ideal year. It is not that the art is wilfully bad - that would at least imply energy - it is just that it is almost entirely inactive. Compared to the roaring Nineties, where everything jostled and shrieked and poked you in the eye, stirring a response one way or another, this year feels bloodless, academic and quiet. The shortlist is unusually international, not just in its choice of artists - Goshka Macuga is Polish, Runa Islam is Bangladeshi - but in the shows for which the artists were nominated. Bergen, Dijon, Oslo, Cologne (and Milton Keynes): I think we can all agree that none of us is likely to have seen more than one of these supposedly enthralling events. It is often whispered that the judges haven't either, of course, and that the show at Tate Britain may be their first real opportunity to contemplate the work of all four artists in any depth. I doubt that this is the case in 2008 - the members of the judging panel are well respected European curators and journalists, and as widely travelled as contemporary art professionals have to be in today's back-to-back biennale circuit. But something else has now become a certainty. Tate Britain can stop pretending that the public's nominations count for anything since these can hardly be the shows we proposed in our written nominations, unless we too are all European art professionals. Two other points about this year's prize: the show is being held in the museum's basement instead of the main floor, which feels apt since the prize itself is surely beginning to decline as any kind of front-page outrage. The tabloids are not likely to puff themselves up like furious bullfrogs over Islam's careful little films or the old-fashioned kitchen sink installations of Cathy Wilkes, Macuga's recherché photomontages or the passionate enthusiasm of Mark Leckey for cinema and the art of Philip Guston. The sensational years are over. But it is rumoured that there was furore among the artists themselves about who should have which rooms of the gallery and in which order of precedence. This is not surprising since a display at Tate Britain counts for a great deal if you are not yet a cherished public artist. Whatever occurred, though, the outcome was bad for the Scottish artist Cathy Wilkes whose installation looks miserably puny in a gallery the size of a tennis court. Not that it could have filled any space with conviction, vast as it is. If pressed, you might say that this rambling assemblage of dirty dishes, cookers, check-out tills and conveyer belts, old jam jars, naked shop dummies strung with horseshoes, cups, withered balloons and nurses' hats had the aesthetic of late-flowering Surrealism. But of course it hasn't really, for it is too busy hammering its point home with all the didacticism of a fifth-form project. Any item could have been removed or replaced with more of the same without any loss of effect. Look at that unwashed mug labelled Daddy, those Tommy Tippee cups, those bricks in the shape of a cross, that woman with her head in a cage - and then do the maths. One of the judges has said that Wilkes's work is about disrupting 'an idealised idea of what women might be'. Nobody could disagree. For what else could it possibly be about? This is the kind of work that really gives curators a role as major art-explainers, the kind of work that cannot speak for itself. A wall label in Goshka Macuga's room (she got the first, incidentally, which may have saved her from looking especially lifeless by comparison with what follows) informs us that her practice 'examines the conventions of archiving, exhibition making and museum display', which makes it sounds about as appealing as a dead thing under a stone. Macuga is showing scuptures of tinted glass and steel (based on designs for display stands by Lilly Reich, Mies van der Rohe's lover) that look like partitions and barriers decoupled from their usual functions. She also has a dozen photomontages which splice together images from the Tate's Paul Nash and Eileen Agar archives (the artists were lovers): photographs of her body and his art. It is possible that they are intended to be elegiac, but there is a marked absence of tone. Macuga has covered the walls in a faint shower of pencilled rain. But that is the motif to bear in mind: cold, colourless and short-lived. Leckey's work is also knee-deep in the art of the past, but he is a cheerleader by comparison. Leckey loves Guston, Baselitz, The Simpsons and Fritz the Cat. He has a film showing how the original drawings of the cat became a cartoon and another in which Jeff Koons's polished steel bunny reflects Leckey's studio in its convex surface (though somehow not his camera) that immediately brings Van Eyck's The Arnolfini Portrait to mind. Does art reflect reality or mysteriously recreate life? Images stick in Leckey's mind and he often tries to animate them himself in film and sculpture. Cinema in the Round is the title of his multi-part installation and it culminates, very fittingly, with an exuberant public lecture by Leckey in a DJ. He is in fact a professor of film studies at the Stadelschule in Frankfurt (where one of the Turner Prize judges is director) and you can bet his students adore him. No disrespect to either, but BBC4 should hire him right away. Islam's intelligent films feel, alas, almost pedantic by comparison. Rickshaw drivers perform a still life of suspended animation until a puff of wind disturbs the tableau. A well-dressed woman examines assorted items of china on plinths, slowly nudging them, little by little, until they shatter in slo-mo. But Islam does all she can to baffle the build-up of anticipation and climax, with disruptive repetitions and cuts. Her unmanned camera panning indiscriminately through the backlots of a film studio, pulling in and out of focus, swinging side to side, is an interesting idea (although of course the viewpoint never settles on anything the human eye could find interesting) - until you learn that it is spelling out the letters of the word Cinematography. I expect Islam may win, because her work is so steeped in film theory and very skilfully edited. But it made me think of better film-artists who ought to have won, such as the marvellous Tacita Dean. It is never possible to say the Turner Prize is a dead letter. Mark Wallinger won it, to the credit of all involved, last year. But until they abolish the unwritten rule that artists mustn't appear on the shortlist more than a couple of times (unlike, say, the Man Booker) then judges are going to have to keep plucking new names from ever more distant places - and genius is not so widely spread as we might hope.
I want you to act as a debate coach. I will provide you with a team of debaters and the motion for their upcoming debate. Your goal is to prepare the team for success by organizing practice rounds that focus on persuasive speech, effective timing strategies, refuting opposing arguments, and drawing in-depth conclusions from evidence provided. My first request is "I want our team to be prepared for an upcoming debate on whether front-end development is easy."
Summarize in one sentence this article about a famous song. Context: "I'm an Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande)" is a comic song written by Johnny Mercer for the Paramount Pictures release Rhythm on the Range and sung by its star, Bing Crosby. The Crosby commercial recording was made on July 17, 1936, with Jimmy Dorsey & his Orchestra for Decca Records. It was a huge hit in 1936, reaching the No. 2 spot in the charts of the day, and it greatly furthered Mercer's career. Crosby recorded the song again in 1954 for his album Bing: A Musical Autobiography. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time. Background Mercer and his wife were driving across the US en route to his hometown, Savannah, Georgia, after having apparently failed to succeed in Hollywood. Mercer was amused by the sight of cowboys, with spurs and ten-gallon hats, driving cars and trucks instead of riding horses. Singing cowboys were popular in films and on the radio then, and within 15 minutes, writing on the back of an envelope, Mercer transferred the image he was seeing into a song whose satirical lyrics vented some of his own bitter frustration with Hollywood. The lyrics, about a 20th-century cowboy who has little in common with the cowpunchers of old, have been included in some anthologies of light verse.
What are the key features introduced by Apple in their iPhone since its creation which makes it so popular and innovative? Context: Development of an Apple smartphone began in 2004, when Apple started to gather a team of 1,000 employees led by hardware engineer Tony Fadell, software engineer Scott Forstall, and design officer Jony Ive, to work on the highly confidential "Project Purple". Then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs steered the original focus away from a tablet (which was later revisited in the form of the iPad) towards a phone. Apple created the device during a secretive collaboration with Cingular Wireless (later renamed AT&T Mobility) at the time—at an estimated development cost of US$150 million over thirty months.According to Jobs in 1998, the "i" word in "iMac" (and therefore "iPod", "iPhone" and "iPad") stands for internet, individual, instruct, inform, and inspire. Apple rejected the "design by committee" approach that had yielded the Motorola ROKR E1, a largely unsuccessful "iTunes phone" made in collaboration with Motorola. Among other deficiencies, the ROKR E1's firmware limited storage to only 100 iTunes songs to avoid competing with Apple's iPod nano. Cingular gave Apple the liberty to develop the iPhone's hardware and software in-house, a rare practice at the time, and paid Apple a fraction of its monthly service revenue (until the iPhone 3G), in exchange for four years of exclusive U.S. sales, until 2011. Jobs unveiled the first-generation iPhone to the public on January 9, 2007, at the Macworld 2007 convention at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The iPhone incorporated a 3.5-inch multi-touch display with few hardware buttons, and ran the iPhone OS operating system with a touch-friendly interface, then marketed as a version of Mac OS X. It launched on June 29, 2007, at a starting price of US$499 in the United States, and required a two-year contract with AT&T. On July 11, 2008, at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2008, Apple announced the iPhone 3G, and expanded its launch-day availability to twenty-two countries, and it was eventually released in 70 countries and territories. The iPhone 3G introduced faster 3G connectivity, and a lower starting price of US$199 (with a two-year AT&T contract). Its successor, the iPhone 3GS, was announced on June 8, 2009, at WWDC 2009, and introduced video recording functionality. First iPhone on display under glass at the January 2007 Macworld show The iPhone 4 was announced on June 7, 2010, at WWDC 2010, and introduced a redesigned body incorporating a stainless steel frame and a rear glass panel. At release, the iPhone 4 was marketed as the "world's thinnest smartphone"; it uses the Apple A4 processor, being the first iPhone to use an Apple custom-designed chip. It introduced the Retina display, having four-times the display resolution of preceding iPhones, and was the highest-resolution smartphone screen at release; a front-facing camera was also introduced, enabling video calling functionality via FaceTime. Users of the iPhone 4 reported dropped/disconnected telephone calls when holding their phones in a certain way, and this issue was nicknamed "antennagate". In January 2011, as Apple's exclusivity agreement with AT&T was expiring, Verizon announced that they would be carrying the iPhone 4, with a model compatible with Verizon's CDMA network releasing on February 10. The iPhone 4S was announced on October 4, 2011, and introduced the Siri virtual assistant, a dual-core A5 processor, and an 8 megapixel camera with 1080p video recording functionality. The iPhone 5 was announced on September 12, 2012, and introduced a larger 4-inch screen, up from the 3.5-inch screen of all previous iPhone models, as well as faster 4G LTE connectivity. It also introduced a thinner and lighter body made of aluminum alloy, and the 30-pin dock connector of previous iPhones was replaced with the new, reversible Lightning connector. The iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C were announced on September 10, 2013. The iPhone 5S included a 64-bit A7 processor, becoming the first ever 64-bit smartphone; it also introduced the Touch ID fingerprint authentication sensor. The iPhone 5C was a lower-cost device that incorporated hardware from the iPhone 5, into a series of colorful plastic frames. On September 9, 2014, Apple introduced the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and included significantly larger screens than the iPhone 5S, at 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch respectively; both models also introduced mobile payment technology via Apple Pay. Optical image stabilization was introduced to the 6 Plus' camera. The Apple Watch was also introduced on the same day, and is a smartwatch that operates in conjunction with a connected iPhone. Some users experienced bending issues from normal use with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, particularly on the latter model, and this issue was nicknamed "bendgate". The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus were introduced on September 9, 2015, and included a more bend-resistant frame made of a stronger aluminum alloy, as well as a higher resolution 12-megapixel main camera capable of 4K video recording. The first-generation iPhone SE was introduced on March 21, 2016, and was a low-cost device that incorporated newer hardware from the iPhone 6S, in the frame of the older iPhone 5S. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus were announced on September 7, 2016, which introduced larger camera sensors, IP67-certified water and dust resistance, and a quad-core A10 Fusion processor utilizing big.LITTLE technology; the 3.5mm headphone jack was removed, and was followed by the introduction of the AirPods wireless earbuds. Optical image stabilization was added to the 7's camera. A second telephoto camera lens was added on the 7 Plus, enabling two-times optical zoom, and "Portrait" photography mode which simulates bokeh in photos. The iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and iPhone X were announced on September 12, 2017, in Apple's first event held at the Steve Jobs Theater in Apple Park. All models featured rear glass panel designs akin to the iPhone 4, wireless charging, and a hexa-core A11 Bionic chip with "Neural Engine" AI accelerator hardware. The iPhone X additionally introduced a 5.8-inch OLED "Super Retina" display with a "bezel-less" design, with a higher pixel density and contrast ratio than previous iPhones with LCD displays, and introduced a stronger frame made of stainless steel. It also introduced Face ID facial recognition authentication hardware, in a "notch" screen cutout, in place of Touch ID; the home button was removed to make room for additional screen space, replacing it with a gesture-based navigation system. At its US$999 starting price, the iPhone X was the most expensive iPhone at launch. The iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and XS Max were announced on September 12, 2018. All models featured the "Smart HDR" computational photography system, and a significantly more powerful "Neural Engine".[ The XS Max introduced a larger 6.5-inch screen. The iPhone XR included a 6.1-inch LCD "Liquid Retina" display, with a "bezel-less" design similar to the iPhone X, but does not include a second telephoto lens; it was made available in a series of vibrant colors, akin to the iPhone 5C, and was a lower-cost device compared to the iPhone X and XS. The iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max were announced on September 10, 2019. The iPhone 11 was the successor to the iPhone XR, while the iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max succeeded the iPhone XS and XS Max. All models gained an ultra-wide lens, enabling two-times optical zoom out, as well as larger batteries for longer battery life. The second-generation iPhone SE was introduced on April 17, 2020, and was a low-cost device that incorporated newer hardware from the iPhone 11, in the frame of the older iPhone 8, while retaining the home button and the Touch ID sensor. The iPhone 12, 12 Mini, 12 Pro, and 12 Pro Max were announced via a livestream event on October 13, 2020. All models featured OLED "Super Retina XDR" displays, introduced faster 5G connectivity, and the MagSafe magnetic charging and accessory system; a slimmer flat-edged design was also introduced, which combined with stronger glass-ceramic front glass, added better drop protection compared to previous iPhones. The iPhone 12 Mini introduced a smaller 5.4-inch screen, while the 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max had larger screens of 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch respectively. The iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max additionally added a Lidar sensor for better accuracy in augumented reality (AR) applications. The iPhone 13, 13 Mini, 13 Pro, and 13 Pro Max were announced via a livestream event on September 14, 2021. All models featured larger camera sensors, larger batteries for longer battery life, and a narrower "notch" screen cutout. The iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max additionally introduced smoother adaptive 120 Hz refresh rate "ProMotion" technology in its OLED display, and three-times optical zoom in the telephoto lens. The low-cost third-generation iPhone SE was introduced on March 8, 2022, and incorporated the A15 Bionic chip from the iPhone 13, but otherwise retained similar hardware to the second-generation iPhone SE. The iPhone 14, 14 Plus, 14 Pro, and 14 Pro Max were announced on September 7, 2022. All models introduced satellite phone emergency calling functionality. The iPhone 14 Plus introduced the large 6.7-inch screen size, first seen on the iPhone 12 Pro Max, into a lower-cost device. The iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max additionally introduced a higher-resolution 48-megapixel main camera, the first increase in megapixel count since the iPhone 6S; it also introduced always-on display technology to the lock screen, and an interactive status bar interface integrated in a redesigned screen cutout, entitled "Dynamic Island".
Given the reference text about the Spanish-American war, when and how did the war end? Context: The Spanish–American War (April 21 – August 13, 1898) began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to United States intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. The war led to the United States emerging predominant in the Caribbean region, and resulted in U.S. acquisition of Spain's Pacific possessions. It led to United States involvement in the Philippine Revolution and later to the Philippine–American War. The 19th century represented a clear decline for the Spanish Empire, while the United States went from becoming a newly founded country to being a medium regional power. In the Spanish case, the descent, which already came from previous centuries, accelerated first with the Napoleonic invasion, which in turn would cause the independence of a large part of the American colonies, and later political instability (pronouncements, revolutions, civil wars) bled the country socially and economically. The U.S., on the other hand, expanded economically throughout that century by purchasing territories such as Louisiana and Alaska, militarily by actions such as the Mexican–American War, and by receiving large numbers of immigrants. That process was interrupted only for a few years by the American Civil War and Reconstruction era. The main issue was Cuban independence. Revolts had been occurring for some years in Cuba against Spanish colonial rule. The United States backed these revolts upon entering the Spanish–American War. There had been war scares before, as in the Virginius Affair in 1873. But in the late 1890s, American public opinion swayed in support of the rebellion because of reports of concentration camps set up to control the populace. Yellow journalism exaggerated the atrocities to further increase public fervor and to sell more newspapers and magazines. The business community had just recovered from a deep depression and feared that a war would reverse the gains. Accordingly, most business interests lobbied vigorously against going to war. President William McKinley ignored the exaggerated news reporting and sought a peaceful settlement. Though not seeking a war, McKinley made preparations for readiness against one. He unsuccessfully sought accommodation with Spain on the issue of independence for Cuba. However, after the U.S. Navy armored cruiser Maine mysteriously exploded and sank in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, political pressures pushed McKinley into a war that he had wished to avoid. As far as Spain was concerned, there was a nationalist agitation, in which the written press had a key influence, causing the Spanish government to not give in and abandon Cuba as it had abandoned Spanish Florida when faced with a troublesome colonial situation there, transferring it to the U.S. in 1821 in exchange for payment of Spanish debts. If the Spanish government had transferred Cuba it would have been seen as a betrayal by a part of Spanish society and there would probably have been a new revolution. So the government preferred to wage a lost war beforehand, rather than risk a revolution, opting for a "controlled demolition" to preserve the Restoration Regime. On April 20, 1898, McKinley signed a joint Congressional resolution demanding Spanish withdrawal and authorizing the President to use military force to help Cuba gain independence. In response, Spain severed diplomatic relations with the United States on April 21. On the same day, the United States Navy began a blockade of Cuba. Both sides declared war; neither had allies. The 10-week war was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. As United States agitators for war well knew, United States naval power would prove decisive, allowing expeditionary forces to disembark in Cuba against a Spanish garrison already facing nationwide Cuban insurgent attacks and further devastated by yellow fever. The invaders obtained the surrender of Santiago de Cuba and Manila despite the good performance of some Spanish infantry units, and fierce fighting for positions such as El Caney and San Juan Hill. Madrid sued for peace after two Spanish squadrons were sunk in the battles of Santiago de Cuba and Manila Bay, and a third, more modern fleet was recalled home to protect the Spanish coasts. The war ended with the 1898 Treaty of Paris, negotiated on terms favorable to the United States. The treaty ceded ownership of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines from Spain to the United States and granted the United States temporary control of Cuba. The cession of the Philippines involved payment of $20 million ($650 million today) to Spain by the U.S. to cover infrastructure owned by Spain. The Spanish–American War brought an end to almost four centuries of Spanish presence in the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific. The defeat and loss of the Spanish Empire's last remnants was a profound shock to Spain's national psyche and provoked a thorough philosophical and artistic reevaluation of Spanish society known as the Generation of '98. The United States meanwhile not only became a major power, but also gained several island possessions spanning the globe, which provoked rancorous debate over the wisdom of expansionism.
How many people are needed to perform the Turing test? Context: The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Turing proposed that a human evaluator would judge natural language conversations between a human and a machine designed to generate human-like responses. The evaluator would be aware that one of the two partners in conversation was a machine, and all participants would be separated from one another. The conversation would be limited to a text-only channel, such as a computer keyboard and screen, so the result would not depend on the machine's ability to render words as speech. If the evaluator could not reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine would be said to have passed the test. The test results would not depend on the machine's ability to give correct answers to questions, only on how closely its answers resembled those a human would give.
What's the "Bean" in Chicago? Context: Cloud Gate is a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, that is the centerpiece of AT&T Plaza at Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The sculpture and AT&T Plaza are located on top of Park Grill, between the Chase Promenade and McCormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink. Constructed between 2004 and 2006, the sculpture is nicknamed "The Bean" because of its shape, a name Kapoor initially disliked, but later grew fond of. Made up of 168 stainless steel plates welded together, its highly polished exterior has no visible seams. It measures 33 by 66 by 42 feet (10 by 20 by 13 m), and weighs 110 short tons (100 t; 98 long tons). Kapoor's design was inspired by liquid mercury and the sculpture's surface reflects and distorts the city's skyline. Visitors are able to walk around and under Cloud Gate's 12-foot (3.7 m) high arch. On the underside is the "omphalos" (Greek for "navel"), a concave chamber that warps and multiplies reflections. The sculpture builds upon many of Kapoor's artistic themes, and it is popular with tourists as a photo-taking opportunity for its unique reflective properties.