Author Archives: Carol Edwards

If at first you don’t succeed, try filing a legal complaint against the conference where you were called out on your bullshit. 

So appears to be the thinking of Crown Sterling, a cryptocurrency company whose CEO was heckled at the annual Black Hat security conference and is now pursuing legal action against event organizers. The supposed grievance? Allowing talk attendees to challenge CEO Robert Grant as he tried to pitch them on so-called quasi-prime numbers and “Time AI™.”

Which, according to people who actually understand this stuff, is a joke — a possibly pernicious one at that. In a Twitter exchange with Grant, respected International Computer Science Institute researcher Nicholas Weaver implied the company was comprised of “snake-oil vendors.” Read more…

More about Black Hat, Tech, and Cybersecurity

Today is Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, which marks the occasion when black women finally earn as much as white men do in a single calendar year. Twitter recognized the occasion with the hashtags #BlackWomensEqualPay and #BlackWomenCantWait, which spread awareness of the pay gap. 

Research shows that black women who are employed in full-time, year-round positions make 61 cents for every dollar that white, non-Hispanic men earn. Since we are nearly nine months into 2019, that means it’s taken black women nearly 20 months to earn what white men make in 12 months. 

Black women are overrepresented in low-wage jobs and underrepresented in higher-wage jobs, but no matter which group they belong to, they still experience a wage gap. That’s partly because of discrimination, workplace harassment, and policies that don’t support family caregivers who are also employed, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families.  Read more…

More about Twitter, Gender Pay Gap, Equal Pay Day, Social Good, and Identities

A Fox News guest said that San Francisco should be focused on solving its homelessness crisis instead of trying to improve the language used in its justice system — specifically, they should focus on those on the streets who “just shot up marijuana.”  

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors adopted new “person first” guidelines to refer to people with criminal records. Instead of calling someone a convicted felon, for example, the city would refer to them as a “formerly incarcerated person” or a “justice-involved” person, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Repeat offenders would be called “returning residents.” Minors will be referred to as “young person with justice system involvement” or “young person impacted by the juvenile justice system” instead of juvenile delinquents, and drug addicts will be called people “with a history of substance use.”  Read more…

More about Marijuana, Fox News, Weed, Culture, and Web Culture

Time to pack in those You Need To Calm Down pool floats — it’s Christmastime in Taylor Nation.

Ahead of the Friday debut of Taylor Swift’s Lover, the pop singer has released the music video for the album’s title track. Starring Swift’s longtime friend and backup dancer Christian Owens, the romantic video imagines the magical life of a couple in love, living year-round in a sparkly snow globe. 

Per Swift’s pre-release livestream, the dreamy ballad was inspired by a lyric from “You Are In Love” off her album 1989 — “You two are dancing in a snow globe ’round and ’round” — as well as seeing two of her close friends fall in love. Read more…

More about Taylor Swift, Music Video, Lover, Entertainment, and Music

It’s a tale as old as time: Parents are dying to know what their kids are texting about.

When cellphones and instant messaging accounts became popular back in the day, texting acronyms and online abbreviations were invented to make communication easier and secretly curse and chat with friends in a way that parents wouldn’t be able to understand.

Eventually, helpful shorthand lists were created to teach clueless parents that “LOL” meant “laughing out loud” and “WTF” stood for “what the fuck.” Now those lists have inspired a delightfully evergreen meme.

The “Is your child texting about” meme presents a specific topic, such as Edgar Allan Poe, Elizabeth Warren, or Little Women, and imagines what the related text acronyms would be. Usually “NVM” means “never mind,”  but in the case of Poe, for example, it obviously means “nevermore.” Read more…

More about Twitter, Memes, Culture, and Web Culture

Vivianna and Peter Van Deerlin became something of Tesla evangelists after buying a Model S in 2012. 

They loved the car, its message, and the community around it so much they started volunteering at a “boot camp” for new and prospective Tesla owners near their home in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. 

Later when they bought Tesla’s newest Model 3, they decided to drive to Northern California to give the Tesla to their son. The couple, both 55 years old and physicians, would also be celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary. 

Their journey shows how electric vehicles are changing how we think about the “all-American road trip.” The Van Deerlins traveled 3,180 miles without filling up at a gas station once. And they didn’t worry about running out of juice. Read more…

More about Tesla, Road Trip, Electric Vehicles, Tech, and Transportation

The book was one of a few books that the author hadn’t had adapted to a film. But not anymore. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Movies, Books, Mashable Video, and Stephen King

Based on the description for two Samsung Galaxy Note 10 phones, it may have an impact on your phone’s 5G. Read more…

More about Tech, Mashable Video, Samsung Galaxy, 5g, and Note 10

Walmart is claiming the tech company’s solar panel is behind the millions of dollars in fire damage the store chain suffered. Read more…

More about Mashable Video, Tesla, Culture, Walmart, and Solar Panels

The actor, who’s been in the spotlight since the ’90s, recently hit the top of the rankings for the second time. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Movies, Mashable Video, Actor, and Dwayne Johnson