Author Archives: Carol Edwards

Save $100: Building a new gaming PC setup on a budget? As of June 21, the Samsung CRG5 24-inch curved gaming monitor is $149.99 at Amazon, which matches its all-time lowest price.

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A high-performance gaming PC or gaming laptop can be a hefty investment. But even with a limited budget for peripherals, you can still find an affordable gaming monitor that can keep up with the most powerful devices.

Complete your gaming station with the Samsung 24-inch CRG5 curved gaming monitor, which is on sale for $149.99 at Amazon. That’s $100 off and the best price we’ve seen on this monitor.

While the 24-inch display of the Samsung CRG5 sounds small, the curved design helps your experience feel immersive. It has a refresh rate of up to 144Hz along with AMD FreeSync to eliminate screen tearing and stuttering. It also provides a 3000:1 contrast ratio to offer deeper blacks and bright whites for additional image clarity.

Another helpful feature for gamers is its “eye saver” mode, which minimizes blue light and reduces eye strain during longer gaming sessions. And its flicker-free technology removes annoying screen flicker to better relax your eyes if you stay up all night playing Elden Ring again.

Explore related content:

• 7 of the best pre-built gaming PCs: Why we love Corsair, Lenovo, Dell, and more

• Dipping your toes into PC gaming? Here are 3 laptop options for under $1,000.

• 5 of the best gaming chairs to maximize your gameplay experience

TL;DR: As of June 21, you can get a $5 Amazon Prime Day credit with any purchase of Lightyear merch or a ticket to see the movie in theaters. Buy both a ticket and merch and you’ll get a $10 credit.

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These days, plenty of people are heading back to theaters and remembering what it’s like to pay too much for popcorn in exchange for the ✨vibes✨.

To incentivize you to have such an outing, Amazon is offering a $5 Prime Day coupon to any Prime member who buys an Atom movie ticket to see Lightyear. Another $5 coupon is available for those who shop select Lightyear merch (ranging from themed UNO to action figures), so if you have kids who are a fan of the Space Ranger, you can buy them a toy and get $5 credit yourself.

Amazon’s offer is valid through Prime Day (July 12-13) and only available in limited quantities, so if you were planning on seeing Lightyear anyway, act fast and snag a coupon before they run out. The credit can only be used on Prime Day deals, but considering how many there typically are and the wide range (can anyone ever not find at least one thing they want on Amazon?), you’re probably going to be able to use your $5.

It’s summer. And they’re back.

After a long hibernation, the brown bears of Katmai National Park and Preserve have awoken. On Tuesday morning, the wildlife livestreamers explore.org turned on their cameras, located in the remote Alaskan woods. And folks, though the vigorous salmon run has yet to begin, we can already watch wild bears roaming the park’s Brooks River — though the majority of bears will start appearing in early July.

The bears spend much of their summer catching 4,500-calorie salmon, fattening up and transforming into rotund animals. To survive the long, brutal Alaskan winter — wherein the bears subsist entirely on their fat stores — putting on hundreds of pounds is essential.

A fat bear is a healthy bear. The park celebrates the bears’ perseverance and survival in the early fall with its annual Fat Bear Week contest.

The cameras already spotted a trio of well-known bears, one of which is building quite a legend at Katmai. It’s the female bear Grazer (bear 128) and her two grown-up cubs. Grazer is an extremely dominant bear who vies for the best fishing spots against some of the river’s biggest and boldest male bears, like the behemoth bear 747. She intimidates, and sometimes even attacks, bears that approach or threaten her cubs.

“This makes her one of the most dominant bears on the river,” Naomi Boak, the media ranger at Katmai National Park and Preserve, told Mashable in 2021.

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What to expect on the bear cams this year

Bear activity usually ramps up in July, when salmon begin migrating up the river. Here’s what to expect when tuning into the bear cams, which are beamed from a remote, mostly roadless part of Alaska, to people globally:

1. July: The salmon run up the Brooks River kicks off in early July, and the bears start to congregate at the river to devour fat, 4,500-calorie sockeye salmon. It’s an exciting, phenomenal scene.

2. August: Often the Brooks River and bear cams quiet down in August, as the bears leave to capitalize on other fishing opportunities (the Brooks River salmon run can dwindle by late July). Though during the big salmon run years of late, many bears still stick around, even in August.

3. September: The bears, now often filled-out and rotund, return to the Brooks River (and bear cams) in great numbers to feast on dead and dying salmon. The winter looms large.

4. October: The bears continue to eat and start to hibernate. The park holds its annual Fat Bear Week contest, which celebrates the wildness and success of the impressively fat bears.

5. November: The callous Alaskan winter sets in, and the bears hibernate until early spring. The solar-powered bear cams, running low on sunlight, stop transmitting.

Tune into the livestreamed bears on explore.org.

She’s an eight, but she keeps cages of pigeons on her Brooklyn rooftop and trains them to collect shiny things on the street. To me, that makes her a six at best — to my friend, that raises her ranking of attractiveness to a 10. A bird girl is a full dime to some of us.

You’ve likely seen this meme-d out trend online. Here’s how it works: Someone ranks an imaginary person on a scale of attractiveness from one to 10, and tosses in a trait that will either skyrocket their ranking (they bring you coffee in bed or know a lot about poetry and never talk about it) or dunks their ranking (they never change their sheets or know a lot about poetry and talk about it constantly). 

The joke started off on TikTok, where all good memes have gotten their wings over the past few months, before trending on Twitter where good memes are sent to die. On TikTok, the meme swiftly moved from “this is funny and nice” to “this is terrible,” a transition that can unilaterally be blamed on the folks who decide to participate. It goes like this: Women and gender nonconforming folks do it, and it’s fun and charming. Men do it, and it is scary and unappealing. One TikTok user, Raja Burrows or @thejollyraja, says this is because the way the meme originated was to “give the guy the highest score possible.” 

“And as a result, the most fun answers are the ones that unexpectedly increase the guy’s score,” Burrows said. “Because it’s fun when it’s like ‘he’s a 6 but he has a mustache,’ and one of the girls says ‘hmm, that’s kind of like a five for me,’ but the other girl says ‘oh my god that’s an easy eight or an eight and a half.'”

The original joke was objectively pretty nice! And then cis, straight men came along and started looking for reasons to hate women. As one user, @deannaculen, put it, the most accurate reenactment of the men recreating this meme is simple: “She’s a 10 but she’s a girl. Zero.”

It isn’t that men aren’t funny — that argument can be made but I, personally, would argue that most people are not funny regardless of gender. The real problem here is that misogyny is not funny; it’s sterile and transparent and, genuinely, a boring and cheap way to try to get laughs and engagement. There’s not enough self-depreciation in many of these takes. Dudes are taking these prompts as an opportunity to punch down, while women and gender nonconforming folks are either punching up, punching laterally, or not really punching at all. 

And when the trend made its way to Twitter, it took all of that weird, uncomfortable talk to another level. Partially, because joke formats work differently on different platforms. On TikTok, you can start with “they’re a five,” or “she’s a nine” or “he’s a three.”

But on Twitter, you need the same first few words to get picked up in a trending topic, which happened to be “She’s a 10” on Monday morning. That means every single tweet under the trend had to be a woman (she) who is very attractive (a 10) but who does something the poster doesn’t like (has a hello kitty obsession or something) that brings her down a few notches.

Not all of them are terrible, though. I’ve Done The Work to create a curated list of the She’s A 10 jokes that I don’t hate.

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Read-later apps are a convenient way to bookmark digital content that you want to return to. Such apps can save articles, Twitter threads, and even entire websites so that you can revisit them.

This can come in handy when you don’t immediately have spare time to browse, but you’ll have a moment later to catch up on current affairs — say during your commute.  As a bonus, they allow you to access content when you don’t have an internet connection. We’re highlighting five tried-and-tested read-later apps that we strongly recommend, presented in alphabetical order.

All these apps have a free tier, so you can find a read later solution that offers the right layout, and has the features you need before deciding to go premium. 

1. Instapaper

Instapaper is a very popular app that offers a highly rated way of saving and storing articles to read later. Instapaper’s formatting is one of its major strengths. The app saves the content of web pages into iOS-optimized formatting, making it easy to read, especially on a small screen.

Adding to that ease of reading is that you can customize how your content appears on screen, with various fonts to choose from, different color themes, and various spacing options. It’s simple to organize your Instapaper content too, with folders to sort your saved articles into categories, and the ability to sort articles by popularity, date, and article length.

Instapaper works offline, offers the ability to highlight text and add up to five notes a month, and gives you text-to-speech functionality so you can listen to your saved content, giving your eyes a break. 

Instapaper’s free offering is a robust option that will suit most average users. However, if you want to take things further you can opt into an Instapaper Premium subscription for $2.99 a month, or $29.99 a year. Premium gets you full-text search for articles you’ve saved, unlimited highlights and notes, a text-to-speech playlist to listen to multiple articles, and unlimited use of the speed reading feature.

Instapaper is available for iPhone on the Apple App Store.

2. Matter

Matter is an iOS and Mac “reader” app that its creators call a “powerful reading tool for active and demanding readers.” Matter allows you to save articles, Twitter threads, and PDFs into your Matter “Queue” to check out later even if you’re offline. You can also listen to your saved content with a human-sounding voice.

In Matter, you can also subscribe to individual writers wherever they publish. Matter currently says it offers “over 10,000 leading journalists, bloggers, and authors” that you can subscribe to, getting their fresh content in your feed.

Matter is also designed so that you can get all your newsletter subscriptions – free and paid – delivered straight to the app. To do this, you can either connect your Gmail account or, when you sign up for a new subscription, use your unique Matter email address to receive content directly into the app.

Matter offers friction-free highlighting by long-pressing and dragging your finger across your screen. The app can also generate what Matter calls “Quoteshots,” snippets of text that are optimized for sharing on Twitter. 

Matter also offers discovery options. The app has a tab that is dedicated to “Staff Picks.” Every day, Matter handpicks between five and 10 recommendations from across Twitter that you can choose to peruse. 

Matter is available for iPhone on the Apple App Store.

3. NewsPal

NewsPal is an absolutely fab “offline browser” tool that has a free tier but is well worth shelling out the $0.99 a month, or $7.99 annual fee, that the full-fat premium offering currently costs. Premium takes away the 200MB download limit, giving you more capacity for more content. 

NewsPal was created after the developer was “sick and tired” of being forced to play games when they were stuck on the subway. This offline reader will ensure you have something to read wherever you may be with its ability to download entire websites to your device, and then instantly load an ad-free version for you to browse. 

NewsPal provides the useful ability to set download schedulers. This means that you can set NewsPal to automatically download the latest version of your favorite websites overnight, then be able to browse fresh content on your morning commute — even without any cellular coverage. 

The app employs an AI-powered auto-update feature, which learns your NewsPal usage pattern, and will adjust your content refresh time respectively.

NewsPal is available for iPhone in the Apple App Store.

4. PaperSpan 

PaperSpan gives you the ability to save articles to read or listen to at any time that suits you, even when you have no internet connection. PaperSpan offers a clean, “no noise,” ad-free layout that is easy to read on both phones and tablets, with the option to choose a dark or light theme, change the font, and adjust brightness. 

PaperSpan’s organization functionality is strong — the app automatically auto-categorizes content so you can select your next read to match your mood. You can search content by only seeing unread articles, and you can also filter content by reading time, so if you only have five minutes to spare, you can tailor your next read or listen to suit that timeframe. You can also organize your articles into folders. 

The free tools within the PaperSpan app include the ability to highlight text, create notes, and send single articles to your Kindle device. PaperSpan offers some interesting analytics; how many articles you’ve read, how many you have to read, and a snapshot of your reading habits by creating a word cloud. 

If your reading statistics are something you’re interested in, you may want to consider PaperSpan Premium for $8.99 a year. This offers further insights into your reading routine showing you your read rate, daily peak reading time, categories you read, and your most popular sites. It also brings advanced search, playlist creation for audio, and the ability to send multiple articles to your Kindle. 

PaperSpan is available for iPhone in the Apple App Store and for Android in the Google Play Store.

5. Pocket

We’re fans of Pocket’s “Save. Read. Grow.” mantra. In the developers’ words, Pocket has been designed to capture the content that comes at you all day long, allowing you to curate your own space filled with only the topics you care about. You can use Pocket to save stories, articles, news, sports, and videos from anywhere online to access later, even if you’re offline. 

Pocket is another option that boasts a clutter-free, clean layout that can be customized to suit your preference. It offers a dark theme, as well as a sepia theme that’s specially designed to “reduce visual stimulation” before you sleep. Pocket has a “listen” feature that turns text into a hands-free, and eyes-free, audio experience. Pocket also provides estimated reading times.

Pocket’s discovery options are high-quality and a great way of finding new content. Pocket offers up “Best of the Web” content that’s been discovered by Pocket users and approved by Pocket curators.

As with all these read-later apps, Pocket, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, is free to download and use. If you want to go ad-free and premium, for $4.99 a month, or $49.99 a year, you can enjoy a permanent library of your saves, even if they disappear from the web, see suggested tags, carry out full-text searches, be able to make unlimited highlights (the free version limits you to three per article), and get access to premium fonts. 

Pocket is available for iPhone in the Apple App Store and for Android in the Google Play Store.

We’re only halfway through 2022, and there’s already been an overwhelming amount of great television this year. A must-watch show drops nearly every week, and with those must-watch shows come must-watch episodes.

Since there’s been so much TV this year, it makes sense that there’s also been a bumper crop of excellent episodes. We’ve picked our 18 favorites, from nail-biting finales to laugh-out-loud adventures to vomit-inducing farewells. Here, in no particular order, at the 18 best TV episodes of 2022 (so far).

1. Severance Season 1, episode 9, “The We We Are”

Apple TV+’s new mysterious workplace thriller, Severance, debuted one of the most compelling first seasons in TV history. But the ninth and final episode of Season 1, “The We We Are,” dialed the show’s suspense, intrigue, and meticulously crafted tension up to 11.

Fans finally got to see some of their favorite Innies in the outside world, and performances from the entire cast — especially Adam Scott (Mark), Britt Lower (Helly), John Turturro (Irving), and Patricia Arquette — were masterful. The episode featured stunning cinematography, a stressful score, and constantly shifting storylines that led to a major cliffhanger — and left fans with a slew of new questions. I can’t remember the last time I compulsively paused to check how much time was left in an episode or screamed at my screen, and I anxiously await Season 2. — Nicole Gallucci, Senior Editor

How to watch: Severance is now streaming on Apple TV+.

2. Euphoria Season 2, episode 5, “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird”

Season 2 of Euphoria was a cultural juggernaut. Despite its many, many flaws, it inspired new memes and even hooked people who had never seen a single episode. In a season full of uneven storylines and frustrating writing, one episode stands out as an all-time series high. That episode is “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird,” Rue’s (Zendaya) nightmarish odyssey through drug withdrawal.

This is Euphoria at its best: focused, tightly paced, and genuinely terrifying. Zendaya continues to prove why she won an Emmy, as Rue argues with her family, blows up Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) and Maddy’s (Alexa Demie) friendship, and hits rock bottom at a drug dealer’s house. If you’re going to watch any episode of Euphoria, make it this one. — Belen Edwards, Entertainment Reporter

How to watch: Euphoria is now streaming on HBO Max.

3. Our Flag Means Death Season 1, episode 5, “The Best Revenge is Dressing Well”

At first glance, David Jenkins and Taika Waititi’s Our Flag Means Death appears to be a tender and silly comedy about woefully unequipped pirate captain Stede Bonnet and his misfit crew — but first glances are often deceiving.

After a few episodes of seaworthy shenanigans, Stede crosses paths with the dread pirate Blackbeard and…takes him to a dinner party. A fancy dinner party. What follows is a compressed comedy of manners that contrasts the violent aggression of Blackbeard with the passive aggression of the upper crust. By the end of the episode, the envy and distant admiration that kept Stede and Blackbeard from viewing each other as real human beings have dissipated, leaving room for the two pirate captains to forge a new and beautiful relationship. — Alexis Nedd, Senior Entertainment Reporter

How to watch: Our Flag Means Death is now streaming on HBO Max.

4. This Is Us Season 6, episode 17, “The Train”

While the This Is Us series finale was a genuinely satisfying goodbye, Season 6’s penultimate episode was undoubtedly the standout. “The Train” bid farewell to the Pearson matriarch, Rebecca, played by Mandy Moore. And before the episode aired Moore revealed that she actually threw up after reading the script. After watching, we totally get why.

In addition to ushering in the end of an era and showing a merciless string of emotional scenes, “The Train” features one of the most uniquely beautiful, and deeply poignant on-screen depictions of transitioning from life to death. I almost threw up 26 times while watching. I’m fine! — N.G.

How to watch: This Is Us is now streaming on Hulu.

5. Stranger Things Season 4, episode 4, “Dear Billy”

Is “Dear Billy” the best Stranger Things episode ever? Quite possibly! It’s certainly the best episode of Stranger Things 4 so far, and it’s all thanks to a gut-wrenching storyline centering Max (Sadie Sink). Max’s grief over losing her brother Billy makes her the next target of Vecna, the Upside Down’s newest bad guy. So, we spend much of the episode worried that we’ll lose her for good.

“Dear Billy” intertwines the sadness of Max saying farewell to her friends and family with a chilling Silence of the Lambs homage that sees Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Robin (Maya Hawke) visit Victor Creel (Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund). What they learn leads us to Stranger Things‘ most moving (and most epic) sequence yet, involving Max’s memories of her friends, Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God),” and Sink giving it her all. I’m still emotional thinking about it! That’s the power of a good episode (and a good song). — B.E.

How to watch: Stranger Things 4 is now streaming on Netflix.

6. The Afterparty Season 1, episode 3, “Yasper”

It’s hard to pick just one stand-out episode of Apple TV+’s excellent and highly conceptual whodunit, The Afterparty. The finale is a winner because All Is Revealed, of course, but the unique format that ties the single-character focus in every episode to Hollywood genre conventions that reflect each star’s personality makes them all strong contenders in their own ways. Yet, “Yasper” still stands out.

The show’s third episode, devoted to Ben Schwartz’s fast-talking content creator is, fittingly, a musical. The Hamiltonian brilliance of “Two Shots” gets things off to a great start. But it’s Schwartz’s performance that stands out the most. His portrayal of the utterly self-obsessed Yasper is perfect, elevated even further by catchy melodies and a clue-ridden set design. The Afterparty‘s whodunit feels downright effortless by the time the season wraps up, but “Yasper” sells the premise better than any other episode that precedes or follows. — Adam Rosenberg, Senior Entertainment Reporter

How to watch: The Afterparty is now streaming on Apple TV+.

7. Moon Knight Season 1, episode 2, “Summon the Suit”

It’s always a big moment when the superhero costume makes its first appearance in any Marvel Cinematic Universe adventure. Moon Knight on Disney+ raises the stakes for those reveals with a shocking one-two punch of super-suits for Oscar Isaac’s Marc Spector and Steven Grant.

After a slow introduction to both sides of the character in the series premiere, “Summon the Suit” dives in hard with big answers to dangling questions and clearer looks at the story’s main players, including Ethan Hawke’s villainous Arthur Harrow and May Calamawy’s Layla El-Faouly. But it’s really the end we all remember best, right? A normal-looking Steven leaps out a window to escape Harrow. But when he lands, he’s a man transformed: Don’t call him Moon Knight; it’s Mr. Knight. — A.R.

How to watch: Moon Knight is now streaming on Disney+.

8. Barry Season 3, episode 6, “710N”

It’s hard to know if “710N” would even exist without the unforgettable second season “bottle” episode about a martial arts pro and his uncannily skilled kid daughter. But the two half-hour slices of story sure feel like they’re spiritually linked.

Forget about the subplots. Bill Hader’s Barry Berkman carries this one, along with a gang of gun-toting motocross pros who are out for revenge. There’s not a whole lot of talking in “710N,” just a lot of gorgeous cinematography and the kind of editing that pushes viewers right to the edge of their seats. There’s plenty of magic in Barry‘s characters, but it’s also one of the most thoughtfully and consciously cinematic shows on HBO’s roster. — A.R.

How to watch: Barry is now streaming on HBO Max.

9. The Legend of Vox Machina Season 1, episode 2, “The Terror of Tal’Dorei – Part 2”

When you watch The Legend of Vox Machina, you feel like you’re witnessing a killer Dungeons and Dragons campaign come to life — and you are! The adult fantasy cartoon is based on Critical Role’s first live-streamed Dungeons and Dragons campaign. While the show delves deep into the excellent Briarwood arc in its later episodes, I want to shout out Vox Machina‘s second installment for delivering half an hour of pure Dungeons and Dragons fun. There’s a mystery to solve, a betrayal to uncover, and a charismatic shopkeeper to befriend. Plus, it all ends with a totally radical, extra badass, hype-fulfilling dragon boss fight. This episode is where the show, and its band of ragtag mercenaries, really clicks, setting us up for more epic action down the road. — B.E.

How to watch: The Legend of Vox Machina is now streaming on Prime Video.

10. RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7, episode 2, “Snatch Game”

After the fiasco that was RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 14’s Snatch Game, the staple Drag Race challenge needed a RuDemption in a big way. Enter All Stars 7, the All Winners season, which delivered not one, but two, riotous Snatch Games. Highlights include the sheer brilliance of Jinkx Monsoon’s Judy Garland impression (which is hands-down the best Snatch Game performance of all time), the physicality of Trinity the Tuck’s take on Leslie Jordan, and Raja’s flawless transformations into the puppet Madame and Diana Vreeland.

Between legendary queens bringing their A-game, genuinely fun challenges, and a refreshing rule change, this episode helped cement All Stars 7 as one of Drag Race‘s best installments yet. — B.E.

How to watch: RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7 is now streaming on Paramount+.

11. Abbott Elementary Season 1, episode 11, “Desking”

There are so many great episodes of Quinta Brunson’s phenomenal Abbott Elementary that it’s hard to choose our favorite. That being said, we’re going to give the gold star to “Desking.” It’s a delightful whodunnit that sees the teachers of Abbott band together to find out who’s responsible for bringing the viral “desking” trend to school.

Between meeting Jacob’s (Chris Perfetti) boyfriend and Gregory (Tyler James Williams) getting some sound life advice, this is an episode that expands and deepens the characters we’ve grown to know and love. What takes it over the edge is Barbara’s (Sheryl Lee Ralph) glorious delivery of the line, “Sweet baby Jesus and the grown one too, my desks have been desked!” Emmys, take note! — B.E.

How to watch: Abbott Elementary is now streaming on Hulu.

12. Hacks Season 2, episode 4, “The Captain’s Wife”

Hacks Season 2 asks us: What do you get when you put Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) on a lesbian cruise? And the answer, unsurprisingly, is hilarity. Also chaos.

Deborah and Ava (Hannah Einbinder) have very different experiences while on the boat — sorry, ship. But they also have a pretty compelling conversation about queerness, male attention, and more. We also see Deborah’s narcissism rise to new heights… and then crash spectacularly in one of the show’s most uncomfortably funny scenes yet. — B.E.

How to watch: Hacks is now streaming on HBO Max.

13. Pachinko Season 1, episode 4, “Chapter Four”

Based on Min Jin Lee’s best-selling novel, Pachinko unfolds the entrancing multi-generational saga of a Korean family, who emigrated from their homeland to Japan, facing extreme poverty, overt racism, and political upheavals. The first season centers on matriarch Kim Sunja, following her through her youth, adulthood, and old age. Yet it is her grandson Solomon (Jin Ha) who steals focus in “Chapter Four,” in part because he seems to hit his climax at the halfway mark of Season 1.

Growing up in a very different world than his grandmother did, Solomon carries immense privilege and generational insensitivities behind his cocky grin. After trying to opportunistically use Sunja as a bargaining chip in a big real estate gambit, the hot-shot businessman is faced with a make-or-break moment in his career, and remarkably, he chooses break. This defining — and personally devastating moment — sends him running from his office building, shedding his tie and suit jacket, rushing into the rain and then the embrace of buskers covering a song from The Cure. Much like the enchanting opening title sequence that blends despair and defiant delight, this moment is soul-shakingly profound. And it’s just the beginning of Solomon’s story. — Kristy Puchko, Deputy Entertainment Editor

How to watch: Pachinko is now streaming on Apple TV+.

14. Shining Girls, Season 1, episode 8, “30”

Imagine the ghoulish love child of Sliding Doors and Zodiac, and you’ll get the gist of this mini-series adaptation of Lauren Beukes’s 2013 crime novel. Created by Silka Luisa, Shining Girls centers on Kirby Mazrachi (Elisabeth Moss), an archivist whose reality has been shifting without warning — ever since she was viciously attacked and left for dead in 1980s Chicago. One moment, she’s living with her mom, the next she’s married to a co-worker she barely knows. She doesn’t understand why this is happening but is certain it connects to a stalking serial killer (Jamie Bell), who’s been targeting fantastic women across decades.

Featuring graphic violence, time travel twists, and harrowing revelations, Shining Girls can be a tough watch. But its finale episode makes it all worthwhile. Luisa smartly buttons up the mysteries of these murders, their un-aging perpetrator, and what it means to become disentangled on a molecular level. More than answers, however, this finale gives poetic justice to its villain and hard-won empowerment to its harried heroine. Which, considering how Kirby’s quest to be believed plays like the most extreme version of a violence victim’s experience speaking out, is darkly and deeply satisfying. — K.P.

How to watch: Shining Girls is now streaming on Apple TV+.

15. Bridgerton Season 2, episode 7, “Harmony”

When Bridgerton Season 2 made it past the series midpoint without any on-screen sex or even kissing, people were ready to riot. “Where is the sex?” they asked, “the first one was hot because it had the sex!” Those people missed the point.

Season 1 followed the sexy tropes of a recognizable bodice-ripper, but Season 2 drew inspiration from Bollywood romance. The tension between Kate and Anthony is the sexy part of Bridgerton Season 2, which makes every near-miss kiss as charged as the one they finally get in episode 7. You know, the one where they finally bang and Kate goes into a sex coma (sort of). Without the withholding and longing between Kate and Anthony all season, their sex scene wouldn’t have meant as much — or been anywhere near as satisfying. Wink. — A.N.

How to watch: Bridgerton is now streaming on Netflix.

16. Atlanta Season 3, episode 1, “Three Slaps”

After four years, Atlanta is finally back in our lives, rolling up with a Season 3 premiere that felt like reconnecting with an old friend. A lot has changed in the real world since we last left Earn and Paper Boi, but creator Donald Glover immerses us back into the show’s world like no time has passed at all.

In a demonstration of fearlessness, the premiere, titled “Three Slaps,” doesn’t even involve any of the main characters. Instead, it takes viewers down a reality-bending journey, straddling fiction and non-fiction. From start to finish, the bottle episode leans into what critics are calling the new age of Black surrealism or renaissance of Afro-surrealism in entertainment.

The opening scene begins with a dream-like vignette that tells the ultimate American ghost story: how our souls are collectively haunted by a buried legacy of white supremacy. Then we meet the main protagonist, Loquareeous (Christopher Farrar), a young Black boy whose story is clearly inspired by the IRL true crime case of the Hart family.

We won’t say more to avoid spoilers, but suffice it to say that Atlanta‘s approach to true crime reclaims much of the genre’s worst blind spots. Namely, it provides much-needed counter-programming to its obsession with dead white ladies. By re-centering the Black kids victimized by two “progressive” white women’s savior complex (which also often fuels the true-crime craze), the show sheds light on how Karens can be some of the worst perpetrators of social violence. Like the best of Atlanta, it holds up a funhouse mirror to reflect American society, revealing the harsh but true reality of who we really are. — Jess Joho, Culture Reporter

How to watch: Atlanta is now streaming on Hulu.

17. Peacemaker Season 1, episode 4, “The Choad Less Traveled”

Two years ago no one would have expected a The Suicide Squad spinoff about John Cena’s Peacemaker would have been one of the better superhero(ish) shows on TV. But it’s 2022, and really, nothing should surprise us these days.

Episode 4 stands out for a humanizing misadventure that sends Peacemaker’s adoring sidekick Vigilante to prison, solely to exact punishment on Peacemaker’s white supremacist father for causing his best friend’s childhood trauma. The wiry, glassy-eyed Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) initially seems to be entirely unhinged. But the sheer devastation on his face when he realizes he’s made things worse puts the reckless killer’s hero-worship of Peacemaker into a new light — and officially brings him on to Peacemaker’s team for the rest of the season. — A.N.

How to watch: Peacemaker is now streaming on HBO Max.

18. Survivor Season 42, episode 8, “Game of Chicken”

The best Survivor episodes are defined by singular moments. In Season 33, it was Zeke Smith’s thoughtful response after another competitor outed him as transgender. And in Season 42’s ninth episode, “Game of Chicken,” it was Drea and Maryanne, who spoke eloquently about their Blackness in the context of systemic racism, while vocally refusing to weaponize their identities for gameplay purposes.

The sweeping social experiment we call Survivor shines brightest when the interpersonal relationships between players come to organically reflect our modern life. “Game of Chicken” is perhaps the best example of that to date in the show’s 22-year history. — A.R.

How to watch: Survivor is now streaming on Paramount+.

These ancient Red Planet rocks have taken on some strangely gripping shapes.

NASA’s Curiosity rover recently encountered finger-like rocks while rumbling over the desert landscape and snapped some postcard-worthy photos with the vehicle’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam.

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No, it’s not a decrepit hand clawing out of the ground, agency researchers said. (Sorry, folks. So far, there’s no evidence of life anywhere other than Earth.) The rocks likely formed as groundwater trickled through them long, long ago, according to a NASA post. That process could have deposited mineral cement over time.

Many years later — think billions, probably — the rocks became exposed to the air, and gusty winds eroded the softer material around the cemented parts, NASA explained, carving the harder pieces into odd shapes.

Curiosity discovered the rocks on Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall Martian mountain it has been climbing for about eight years. The rover, a car-size robot, is investigating a region that could hold evidence of “a major change from wetter to drier conditions” in the planet’s early history, according to NASA.

Launched from Earth in 2011, Curiosity is the largest rover ever sent to Mars, arriving on the desert planet in August 2012. For much of its journey, it has studied rocks from a period when Mars could have supported small, microbial life.

WhatsApp announced Wednesday that it’ll be rolling out new privacy features giving users more control over the kinds of information other people can see. With the new update, users can limit who can see their profile photo, last seen status, and more, according to Engadget.

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The change includes a new option that allows users to exclude specific people in your contacts from seeing your profile photo, about, and last seen status, as reported by Engadget. This appears to be a convenient feature for people to hide from businesses, banking accounts, or creepy people on WhatsApp.

Previously, WhatsApp only had three options: everyone, my contacts, and nobody. Engadget also says that if users do decide to hide their last seen status from others, you won’t be able to see theirs either.

Prior to the official launch, the new privacy setting was available to select users as part of a limited beta. The meta-owned messaging platform also announced new updates for its group calls. In a tweet from the head of WhatsApp at Meta Will Cathcart, participants in large group calls can now mute or message specific people.

According to Techcrunch, it’s been a feature-heavy week for WhatsApp concerning privacy and convenience. The company also announced earlier this week that it was adding the ability for users to transfer their conversation chat history, photos, videos, and voice messages from Android to iPhone via Apple’s Move to iOS app.

Users can enable the features on their WhatsApp accounts soon since it could be an incremental rollout.

If this NASA launch vehicle could talk — say at an international consortium of the world’s most elite, hobnobbing space rockets — this is how it would introduce itself after filling out its “Hello, my name is” sticker.

Space Launch System? Bleh, only my mother and technical manuals call me that.

SLS? Not since grade school.

Please, friends call me Moon Rocket. Mega Moon Rocket.

Technically, this gargantuan is the U.S. space agency’s Space Launch System or SLS for short. But somewhere along the line, the mission crew stopped calling it by its given name and started referring to it by its badder, Transformers-ish nickname. Even the news releases from the agency use it now.

When asked recently who was responsible for coining it, though, the agency wasn’t really sure.

Maybe the PR folks? Reporters?

“I don’t think it’s an official thing, so hopefully we haven’t gotten in trouble by using it,” said Tom Whitmeyer, deputy associate administrator for common exploration systems development, during a call with reporters in April. “I like it because it’s a good way to talk about the rocket. It is a really big rocket.”

NASA will try again on a crucial launchpad test of its mega moon rocket after a series of problems surfaced this spring involving bad valves, faulty fans, and leaks.

After making repairs, the agency is ready for take two and plans to begin the so-called wet dress rehearsal for the first lunar Artemis mission at about 5 p.m. ET Saturday. The demonstration is referred to as “wet” because it involves filling the tanks with hundreds of thousands of gallons of liquid fuel. The test is expected to take about two days, with video and commentary available to the public on Monday. (For coverage, watch the live video stream below.)

Some numbers to give a sense of just how mega Mega is:

• 5.75 million pounds

• 322-feet tall

• 8.8 million pounds of maximum rocket thrust

It’s been a long time since NASA had a rocket of this magnitude, capable of sending heavy loads of cargo and astronauts into deep space. Not only is it built to travel to the moon, it’s expected to one day send the first crewed flight to Mars. Robotic scientific journeys to Saturn and Jupiter also could be on tap.

NASA is readying Mega for Artemis I, a test in its own right and the first in a series of planned voyages. The aloft Orion spacecraft will fly around the moon, then splash down in the Pacific Ocean three weeks later. The purpose is to demonstrate its ability to safely reenter Earth’s atmosphere and drop into the correct spot for the Navy to recover.

Though the upcoming launch won’t include astronauts, the monthlong flight will allow the United States to send a crew on the next, more complex Artemis mission.

“We thought we’d just go and run with it.”

As for the problems NASA encountered during its first wet dress rehearsal, Whitmeyer said those come with Mega’s territory.

“That’s the kind of challenge you only see with something like a mega moon rocket,” Whitmeyer said. “I don’t think you kind of see those types of challenges with a rocket that’s not that size.”

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The rehearsal will run the Artemis I launch team through operations to load fuel in the rocket’s tanks, conduct a full countdown, demonstrate the ability to stop and restart the countdown clock and drain the tanks.

Regardless of who gave Moon Rocket — Mega Moon Rocket — its nickname, it appears to be around for the long haul.

“We thought we’d just go and run with it,” Whitmeyer said.

While a sentient AI is a thoroughly freaky concept, it’s not (yet) a reality. But a racist and sexist AI? Unfortunately, very much a reality.

In a recent interview with Wired, engineer and mystic Christian priest Blake Lemoine discussed why he believes that Google’s large language model named LaMDA has become sentient, complete with a soul. While that claim has been refuted by many in the artificial intelligence community and has resulted in Lemoine being placed on paid administrative leave by Google, Lemoine also explained how he began working on LaMDA.

His journey with the AI started with a much more real-world problem: examining the model for harmful biases in relation to sexual orientation, gender, identity, ethnicity, and religion.

“I do not believe there exists such a thing as an unbiased system,” said Lemoine to Wired. “The question was whether or not [LaMDA] had any of the harmful biases that we wanted to eliminate. The short answer is yes, I found plenty.”

Lemoine also explained that the Google team has done a good job repairing these biased “bugs,” as far as he could tell. When asked whether LaMDA showed racist or sexist tendencies, Lemoine answered carefully, stating that he “wouldn’t use that term.” Instead, he claims “the real question is whether or not the stereotypes it uses would be endorsed by the people that [LaMDA is] talking about.”

Lemoine’s hesitancy to label LaMDA’s “bugs” as outright racist or sexist highlights an ongoing battle within the AI community, where many have spoken out about the harmful stereotypes that AI systems often perpetuate. But when those who do speak out about these issues are largely Black women — and those women are subsequently fired from companies like Google — many feel that it falls on men in tech like Lemoine to continue to call attention to AI’s current bias problems, rather than confound researchers’ and the public’s attention span with claims of AI sentience.

“I don’t want to talk about sentient robots, because at all ends of the spectrum there are humans harming other humans, and that’s where I’d like the conversation to be focused,” said former Google Ethical AI team co-lead Timnit Gebru to Wired.

Artificial intelligence faces long history of harmful stereotypes, and Google is not new to or unaware of these issues.

In 2015, Jacky Alciné tweeted about Google Photos tagging 80 photos of a Black man to an album titled “gorillas.” Google Photos learned how to do so using a neural network, which analyzed enormous sets of data in order to categorize subjects like people and gorillas — clearly, incorrectly.

It was the responsibility of Google engineers to ensure that the data used to train its AI photosystem was correct and diverse. And when it failed, it was their responsibility to rectify the issue. According to the New York Times, Google’s response was to eliminate “gorilla” as a photo category, rather than retrain its neural network.

Companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Amazon also face the same biased AI issues. At each of these companies, the AI used to power facial recognition technology encounter significantly higher error rates when identifying the sex of women with darker skin tones than when compared to sex identification of lighter skin, as reported by the Times.

In 2020, Gebru published a paper with six other researchers, four of whom also worked at Google, criticizing large language models like LaMDA and their propensity to parrot words based on the datasets that they learn from. If those datasets contain biased language and/or racist or sexist stereotypes, then AIs like LaMDA would repeat those biases when generating language. Gebru also criticized training language models with increasingly larger datasets, allowing the AI to learn to mimic language even better and convincing audiences of progress and sentience, as Lemoine fell into.

After a dispute over this paper, Gebru says Google fired her in December 2020 (the company maintains she resigned). A few months later, Google also fired Dr. Margaret Mitchell, founder of the ethical AI team, a co-author of the paper, and defender of Gebru.

Despite a supposed commitment to “responsible AI,” Google still faces ethical AI problems, leaving no time for sentient AI claims

After the drama and admitted hit to its reputation, Google promised to double its responsible AI research staff to 200 people. And according to Recode, CEO Sundar Pichai pledged his support to fund more ethical AI projects. And yet, the small group of people still on Google’s ethical AI team feel that the company might no longer listen to the group’s ideas.

After Gebru and Mitchell’s departure in 2021, two more prominent ethical AI team members left a year later. Alex Hanna and Dylan Baker quit Google to work for Gebru’s research institute, DAIR, or Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research. The already small team grew even smaller and perhaps points to why Lemoine, who is not on the ethical AI team, was asked to step in and research LaMDA’s biases in the first place.

As more and more societal functions turn to AI systems in their advancement, it’s more important than ever to continue to examine how AI’s underpinnings affect its functions. In an already often racist and sexist society, we cannot afford to have our police systems, transportation methods, translation services, and more rely on technology that has racism and sexism built into its foundations. And, as Gebru points out, when (predominantly) white men in technology choose to focus on issues like AI sentience rather than these existing biases — especially when that was their original purpose, like Lemoine’s involvement with LaMDA — the biases will continue to proliferate, hidden away under the hullabaloo of robot sentience.

“Quite a large gap exists between the current narrative of AI and what it can actually do,” said Giada Pistilli, an ethicist at Hugging Face, to Wired. “This narrative provokes fear, amazement, and excitement simultaneously, but it is mainly based on lies to sell products and take advantage of the hype.”