Author Archives: Carol Edwards

Kanye West was the musical guest for the Season 44 premiere of Saturday Night Live. He brought his MAGA hat along.

It was originally supposed to be Ariana Grande, but she cancelled. So instead we got West, performing three songs (not SNL‘s usual two): A debut of “We Got Love,” featuring Teyana Taylor, along with “Ghost Town” (from West’s June 2018 album, Ye) and “I Love It,” featuring Lil Pump.

Those who attended the show’s live taping were also treated — maybe not the right word to use here, but just go with it — to another Kanye West trademark: An impassioned rant.

“They bullied me backstage. They said ‘Don’t go out there with that hat on.’ They bullied me.” Read more…

More about Entertainment, Tv, Kanye West, Saturday Night Live, and Entertainment

Scientists don’t expect to get their hands on Martian soil anytime soon, so they’re making their own.

Created by University of Central Florida astrophysicists, this red soil, called Mars “simulant,” is designed to give researchers a useful approximation of the actual, far-off extraterrestrial soil. This might be especially relevant for testing the growth of crops, or how exploration equipment might fare on the surface.

At $20 per kilogram (2.2 pounds), NASA’s Kennedy Space Center has already placed an order, according to the university. 

More about Space, Science, Mars, Mars Exploration, and Science

This is One Good Thing, a weekly column where we tell you about one of the few nice things that happened this week.

It’s been an exhausting few days, so let’s take a moment to appreciate Beautiful Illinois. 

I’m not talking about the state of Illinois, though I’m sure it’s great. I’m talking about @IllinoisViews, a Twitter account dedicated to posting the most breathtaking photos of their beloved Prairie State. Kind of. 

The account, which offers no information about its creators, tweets stunning photos of other places and insists they’re in Illinois.  Read more…

More about Twitter, Parody, One Good Thing, Culture, and Web Culture

In a media environment that thrives on leaks, tech companies do their best to keep the very latest and greatest iterations of their products away from prying eyes until the right moment. When they finally release them, it’s with press conferences and fanfare, ad campaigns and endorsements.

Or, you know, they just show up a month early at some completely random Best Buy. 

Google’s new Chromecast, which was presumably not to be announced until the coming Oct. 9 reveal event, was accidentally sold to a Reddit user with the handle GroveStreetHomie. So of course, the buyer posted an image of his new hardware on r/google. Read more…

More about Best Buy, Chromecast, New Chromecast, Google Hardware, and Google Fall Hardware Announcement

Elon Musk’s ill-advised weed humor is going to cost him $20 million dollars and his chairmanship of Tesla, in accordance with a settlement agreement Musk and Tesla made with the the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Musk accepted the settlement on Saturday, Sept. 29, after initially rejecting a similar but less harsh settlement put forth when the SEC first announced it was suing Musk for fraud (the initial settlement called for a two-year suspension from the chairmanship and a $10 million fine).

The fraud in this case is the initial content of Musk’s tweet, in which he announced that he would take Tesla private when the stock hit $420 and that he had “funding secured” to make that move.  Read more…

More about Tesla, Elon Musk, Elon Musk Sec, Elon Musk Lawsuit, and Elon Musk Settlement

“This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone.”

When Brett Kavanaugh pushed back against his third accuser, Julie Swetnick, in a Wednesday statement, the Twilight Zone quote is the one that made the rounds. Now, the daughter of series creator Rod Serling has made it clear that she doesn’t approve of the comparison.

In a Friday tweet, Anne Serling — an author herself — pointed out that her father wouldn’t have appreciated the present day face of the GOP, which has descended into mudslinging and a partisan gaming of the system. She added that if the Kavanaugh matter had been written as a Twilight Zone episode, it would have played out much differently. Read more…

More about Culture, The Twilight Zone, Brett Kavanaugh, Culture, and Web Culture

Today in “that sounds nice,” a group of biologists studying termite colonies in southern Japan have discovered all-female colonies that function perfectly without even a single male termite being involved. 

The lady termites, which reproduce asexually, appear to have been descended from mixed sex colonies but at some point decided that enough was enough and branched out to create new colonies where it’s girls’ night every night. And day. Forever. 

Besides the obvious advantage of everyone remembering to put the toilet seat down and a presumed 100 percent reduction in man termites making decisions about woman termites’ bodies, the scientists noted that the uniform head shape of lady termites is an advantage when it comes to defending the colony from intruders.  Read more…

More about All Female Termites, Termite Societies, Smash The Patriarchy, Science, and Animals

You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see one of your favorite childhood metal bands start peddling branded coffee.

Korn, the band whose angsty 1994 debut provided the soundtrack for my last two years of high school, has gotten into the coffee biz. This new development, a partnership with J Gursey Coffee, was announced on Friday in a tweet.

The weirdest thing about the announcement video is how normal and… ahem..grounded it is. Yes, pun definitely intended.

More about Entertainment, Music, Culture, Coffee, and Korn

There have been a lot of Sherlock Holmes adaptations, but none have looked as funny as Holmes & Watson, starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. The Step Brothers stars reunite to play the iconic duo in a wacky take on a Sherlock Holmes mystery, complete with the invention of the selfie, a bit part for WWE Superstar Braun Strowman, and a hopeless amount of killer bees.  Read more…

More about Sherlock Holmes, Will Ferrell, Holmes Watson, John C Reilly, and Sherlock Holmes Adaptations

Brett Kavanaugh’s seemingly tenuous relationship with the truth is still haunting those who watched him testify on Thursday.

At times, the prospective Supreme Court justice abandoned composure to shed tears and scream, but at his most jarring he straight-up refused to answer questions directly, was unwilling to request an FBI investigation, and, as further research revealed, apparently lied under oath.

In the days since the hearing, people have replayed his testimony in their minds and on their screens. They’ve turned Kavanaugh’s words around over and over again to really let them simmer. And it seems the more thought that’s given to his responses, the more discussions about his dishonesty rage on social media. Read more…

More about Politics, Social Media, Web Culture, Brett Kavanaugh, and Culture