Author Archives: Carol Edwards

Hot pickles should be eaten cautiously, with plenty of preparation in the event of extreme sourness and heat.

Not every little kid knows that. Twitter user @iamlaurans recently fed a hot pickle to her nephew who was begging to have a taste, only to have him collapse in agony.

Be careful what kind of pickle you wish for, folks.

@IamLaurans believes that her nephew’s reaction wasn’t all that exaggerated:

“He’s very dramatic, but the pickle was definitely hot!! Lol,” she told Mashable.

Remember, kids: pickles are just fancy cucumbers. Nibble cautiously. Read more…

More about Watercooler, Viral Videos, Cute Kids, Culture, and Web Culture

Despite being “mildly frightened,” comedian Holden McNeely tackles the Bob Ross Challenge.

The Bob Ross Challenge is not affiliated with The Joy of Painting or its producers. Read more…

More about Funny, Art, Diy, Comedy, and Painting

Netflix is notoriously cagey about audience statistics, but even the most secretive among us can’t help bragging sometimes.

Following the release of the sci-fi thriller Bird Box, the company claimed in a tweet that a staggering 45 million accounts watched the film over its debut week.

According to Netflix, this is the best debut week for any of its films ever. It’s worth pointing out that the 45 million number refers to accounts, not views or streams. So the figure isn’t even taking into consideration how many of us share Netflix or watched it with one or more viewing companions. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Movies, Netflix, Bird Box, and Entertainment

A huge blue light flashed brightly over over the New York City skyline late Thursday night. New Yorkers filled social media with photos and videos of the phenomenon, which appeared to be centered over the borough of Queens. In short, people freaked out.

Con Edison quickly put everyone’s alien-conspiracy theories to bed. The utility company tweeted that what New Yorkers were seeing was the effect of a brief electrical fire that broke out at a substation in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens. 

More about Light, New York City, Skyline, Electrical Equipment, and Tech

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is reportedly moving full speed ahead when it comes to autonomous driving.  

Based on an email Electrek obtained this week, Musk is searching for Tesla employees to test out a new hardware update for the currently semi-autonomous driver assistance feature, Autopilot.

We reached out to Tesla to confirm the authenticity of the email, but haven’t heard back.

The new self-driving program has “over 1000% more capability than [previous hardware]!” Musk exclaimed in the email. Now he needs “a few hundred more internal participants” to test out new capabilities made possible by Tesla’s neural net, which the company has called the “world’s most advanced computer for autonomous driving.” Musk also revealed in an earnings call that Tesla is developing its own AI chip instead of working with a chipmaker. Read more…

More about Tesla, Elon Musk, Autopilot, Autonomous Vehicles, and Tech

The American is the first person in history to cross the frozen continent without any assistance. Read more…

More about Mashable Video, Antarctica, Culture, and Climate Environment

It’s the end of the year, and for many of us that means taking a moment to reflect on decisions past. For Mark Zuckerberg, however, it means taking a moment to bask in your manifold and unqualified successes. 

The Facebook CEO published a roughly 1,000-word post on Dec. 28 detailing his company’s various wins over the course of 2018 that, while admittedly helpfully informing the most oblivious of readers that there is still work to be done, seems completely at odds with how the rest of the world views Facebook’s 2018. Namely, that it was an unmitigated disaster. 

More about Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Social Media, Year In Review, and Tech

Fast food is just one of those things that doesn’t get many plaudits.

Filling the gap is Bill Oakley, writer and producer of shows like The Simpsons, Disenchantment, Portlandia, who since early 2018 has been reviewing food from chains like KFC, Taco Bell, and even non-meat options like Impossible Burger.

Anyway, Oakley has developed quite a following because of his reviews, and it’s culminated in the Steamie Awards, an awards show for fast-food.

There are ten celebrity-hosted categories, including bizarre food combination of the year, disappointment of the year, condiment of the year, and belated discovery of the year. You can view them on Oakley’s Instagram page, but we’ve posted a handful here. Read more…

More about Culture, Fast Food, Pizza, Burgers, and Culture

Australians will be cranking up the pedestal fans, as extreme heatwave conditions sear across most of the country.

Temperatures have soared above average across much of the continent, peaking at 49.1°C (120.38°F) in the town of Marble Bar in Western Australia, according to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM).

More about Australia, Global Warming, Extreme Weather, Climate Change, and Heatwave

You’d think Instagram would know by now that even the smallest changes can send users into a paranoid frenzy. That still didn’t stop the company from unintentionally pushing out a major update that screwed up users’ feeds this morning. 

Annoying and confusing as it may be, the “bug,” which made Instagram feed posts look and feel more like Story posts, underscores an important point: Facebook is preparing for a future where Stories are more important than feeds. 

That’s more evident then ever today, when Instagram abruptly began testing a new horizontally-scrolling UI in which users had to tap through feed posts instead of scrolling, with a much larger group of users than it had originally intended, according to Instagram chief Adam Mosseri. The update, which Instagram PR declared a “bug,” was swiftly rolled back, but not before igniting a massive backlash against the change. Read more…

More about Tech, Facebook, Instagram, Instagram Stories, and Tech