Category Archives: Blog

Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk couldn’t contain himself — he had to tweet about his electric car company.

The problem? After he reached a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last year over his now infamous “funding secured” tweet, he isn’t supposed to tweet about things that could impact markets and his publicly traded company without approval from Tesla. 

Now Bloomberg reports that the SEC is asking a judge to hold Musk in contempt for tweeting Tesla would make “around 500K” cars in 2019.  Read more…

More about Tesla, Elon Musk, Sec, Tech, and Transportation

An inaccurate — and extremely irritating — TV and film stereotype is doing a disservice to the women of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. 

Often, in TV and films, female characters from the island of Ireland are portrayed as victims. But, Derry Girls — which returns to screens on March 5 — is turning that tired-out trope on its head. 

The TV show — the most-watched series in Northern Ireland since records began — tells the stories of Erin, Orla, Clare, and Michelle — four teenage girls at a convent school in Derry, Northern Ireland. It’s set in the ’90s during the Troubles — the three-decade sectarian conflict between nationalists and unionists.  Read more…

More about Uk, Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Conflict, Entertainment, and Movies Tv Shows

If you search for “Golden Gate Bridge” in your navigation app, you might end up in the dead center of the bridge. With what3words, which just teamed up with Ford, you can just say “Lance.String.Crate” to get directions to the visitor parking center instead.

Confused? Here’s how what3words works: The system breaks the world down into 57 trillion square spaces instead of numbered addresses on roads. Each square is labeled with three simple words. This works well for rural places, unmarked areas, landmarks, and shopping malls. Even your work or home address can become a three-word location. 

Here’s what came up when I searched for the Statue of Liberty on the what3words website:  Read more…

More about Ford, Infotainment, Navigation Apps, What3words, and Tech

Read more…More about 23andme, Ancestry Test, Dna Testing, Dna Kits, and Tech

In a car crash, things can get fiery quickly — it doesn’t matter if you’re driving a Tesla Model X electric car or a traditional gas-fueled Honda Civic. 

That’s what happened in a fatal crash in Florida over the weekend. A man speeding in a Tesla Model S lost control and drove into the median and some trees. His car burst into flames, and he died. 

In an email statement, a Tesla spokesperson said, “We are deeply saddened by this accident and our thoughts are with everyone affected by this tragedy. We have reached out to the local authorities to offer our cooperation. We understand that speed is being investigated as a factor in this crash, and know that high speed collisions can result in a fire in any type of car, not just electric vehicles.” Read more…

More about Tesla, Electric Vehicles, Tech, and Transportation

Are you ready to meet the Bob Ross of ASMR? 

ASMR artist and generally kind man, Thomas Clery, is making a splash. In six months, the “grandpa” of ASMR has amassed just shy of 500,000 subscribers. Posting under the username Morpheus ASMR, the influx of attention is in part due to his frequently uploaded videos and his charming content. He even has one video in which he just counts loose change while eating biscuits.

ASMR, which stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, is a tingling sensation in the body caused by audio and visual triggers like tapping or whispering. According to scientists, the phenomenon can inspire a state of relaxation. Even though it doesn’t work on everyone, ASMR’s popularity and prevalence is at an all-time high, thanks to the large and passionate community on YouTube. Read more…

More about Youtube, Asmr, Culture, and Web Culture

Facebook’s army of content moderators — contract workers paid as little as $28,000 a year — spend their days sifting through some of the social network’s most extreme content, work that can have a lasting impact on their mental health and wellbeing. But the companies employing these workers are often ill-equipped to deal with the needs of their employees.

That’s the conclusion of a devastating new report in The Verge that details the sometimes harrowing working conditions at an Arizona facility that employs hundreds of Facebook moderators. Among the unsettling details:

• Initial training that’s so intense some “fail out of the program before they can start”

• Employees who “cope with the stress of the job… with sex, drugs, and offensive jokes”

• Insufficient onsite counseling services

• One employee, who feared retribution from disgruntled coworkers, who secretly took a gun to work “to protect himself”

• Employees who begin to believe the conspiracy theories they’re supposed to be moderating

• A constant fear of being fired “for making just a few errors a week” Read more…

More about Tech, Facebook, Social Media Companies, Tech, and Social Media Companies

Period. End Of Sentence., a Netflix documentary on the menstruation taboo in rural India, just won a well-deserved Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. 

The story is set in the Kathikhera village in India, where a local group of women is using a newly-installed machine to make and sell sanitary pads, raising awareness and fighting the stigma that surrounds menstruation in the local community. Read more…

More about Mashable Video, India, Oscars, Academy Awards, and Periods

Our mental health often feels like a mystery. A cheerful mood can inexplicably give way to sad or scary thoughts. Even though we might try to manage our emotional well-being through things like talk therapy, self-care apps, meditation, and medication, it’s easy to feel like contentment remains just beyond our grasp. 

Yet scientific research suggests that we’re overlooking one critical factor for optimum mental health: nature.

You might grumble skeptically at the notion that parks and plants make a real difference in our happiness, but the research is convincing. A pile of studies on the subject consistently points to a strong connection between green space and mental health. In general, scientists believe that experiences in “green space” can boost mental health by improving the immune system, encouraging physical activity and social interaction, limiting air pollution and noise that interferes with thinking, and restoring a frenzied mind to a state of calm.  Read more…

More about Nature, Mental Health, Research, Green Space, and Social Good

Have you ever wanted to flaunt the super rare Pokémon you have caught on your phone? Us too! Well, Niantic is now making that possible with Go Snapshot. It lets you call your Pokémon out into the real world (through AR) and line them up for the perfect photo. You can then save them on your phone for a humble brag, or flex on the entire world through social media.  Read more…

More about Photography, Mashable Video, Pokemon Go, Ar Gaming, and Go Snapshot