Category Archives: Blog

The Ohio State Marching band showed off its precision and knowledge of slightly nerdy viral dance moves on Saturday.

During the Ohio State band’s halftime show, the marching musicians got in formation to reenact the dance of …. The Backpack Kid.

You know, the Backpack Kid! Also known as The Floss, also known as the dance move every annoying kid now does at wedding receptions to become the center of attention.

Honestly, the marching band’s version is pretty uncanny, and instantly recognizable.

Teenager and now YouTube-famous dancer Russell Horning is credited with creating the move. The Floss got re-dubbed the Backpack Kid when Katy Perry brought him on stage during her Saturday Night Live performance in May, and he upstaged everyone while doing his rubber band-limbed moves, while — you guessed it — wearing a backpack. Read more…

More about Dance, Marching Band, Culture, and Web Culture

The GDPR is beginning to bare its teeth.

Irish authorities are investigating Twitter for not complying with a user request covered by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), according to Fortune.

A researcher asked Twitter to provide him with more information about the data it collects when users click an auto-shortened link in a tweet. But the social media company is refusing — which has prompted investigative action from European privacy authorities. 

Under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which went into effect in May 2018, European citizens have the right to know what data companies collect on them, and what they do with that date.  Read more…

More about Twitter, Privacy, Gdpr, Tech, and Social Media Companies

It’s time to pack it in, my fellow Star Wars fans. The atrocious(ly amazing) Holiday Special is officially canon.

Jon Favreau treated Instagram followers to a teasing visual nugget tied to his upcoming TV series, The Mandalorian. You might look at the photo and think, “So what? It’s just a funky Star Wars blaster, right?”

Right. And wrong. This image contains multitudes. Look upon it and weep, Star Wars faithful.

More about Entertainment, Tv, Star Wars, Jon Favreau, and The Mandalorian

Amid the news of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance and likely death in Turkey sits a technological mystery involving an Apple Watch.

Thursday, the Washington Post reported that Turkish authorities had audio recordings that confirmed Khashoggi’s death inside the Saudi Arabian embassy in Istanbul. The Saudi government maintains its innocence, but the audio reportedly indicates that a Saudi team tortured, killed, and dismembered Khashoggi inside the embassy.

But where did the recordings come from?

Saturday morning, a Turkish newspaper reported that the audio originated from Khashoggi’s Apple Watch, via a transmission to his iCloud or iPhone (there are conflicting reports about where Turkish officials accessed this audio file).  Read more…

More about Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Apple Watch, Tech, and Politics

Googly eyes are hilarious. Put some googly eyes on literally anything and people are going to have a good time.

Unless it’s the city government of Savannah, Georgia we’re talking about. To them, googly eyes are no laughing matter — at least not googly eyes placed on a historic statue.

The City of Savannah Government Facebook page posted photos on Thursday of a monument of American Revolutionary War figure Nathanael Greene with googly eyes plastered to his face. Accompanying the hilarious photos was a message decrying the act of vandalism and informing the public that this is in fact a crime. Read more…

More about Crime, Googly Eyes, Culture, and Other

Sometimes words deliver a punch to the gut. Not the kind of impact that knocks you down, but the kind that lifts you up.

Early Saturday morning, a descendant of the Confederate Civil War General Robert E. Lee, Reverend Robert Lee IV, posted a video message on Twitter taking exception to President Donald Trump’s Friday evening statements praising Lee. 

“Last night I was disheartened to hear Donald Trump, our president, make comments about Robert E. Lee as a great general, as an honorable man,” Lee said. “These were far from the truth.”

Trump was speaking at a rally in Cincinnati, and he peppered looking-glass Civil War history amongst calls for black Americans to “honor” Republicans with their votes. He called Gen. Lee “a true great fighter” and a “great general,” and claimed President Lincoln developed a “phobia” of Lee.  Read more…

More about Twitter, Racism, Trump, Civil War, and Confederate Statue

At her royal wedding, Princess Eugenie wore a dress with a low-cut back that revealed a long scar from an operation on her spine, inspiring others with back scars to share photos and feel more comfortable with their bodies.

Eugenie, who had surgery to correct her scoliosis at age 12 according to CNN, worked with designers Peter Pilotto and Christopher De Vos on her wedding dress. The low-cut back is deliberate, and meant to show her scar.

More about Royal Family, Scoliosis, Culture, Celebrities, and Activism

Love is in the air as penguin breeding season begins at the Sea Life Sydney Aquarium in Australia, and one adorable penguin couple is stealing the show.

Two male gentoo penguins, Sphen and Magic, became inseparable in the Macquarie Island exhibit, the aquarium explained in a blog post. They were so successful at building a nest together and taking care of a dummy egg that the love birds were given a real penguin egg to incubate.

Here’s a quick look at Sphen and Magic and their nest:

The duo has been spending a lot of time together, waddling around the exhibit and going for swims, but the clearest sign of their love was their nest. Gentoo penguins build nests with pebbles when they couple up, and Sphen and Magic gathered more pebbles than any other couple there, according to the aquarium. Read more…

More about Penguins, Culture, Identities, and Animals

Melania Trump would have you believe she can’t catch a break. But never forget: She’s still a Trump, and lies come with the territory. 

The First Lady exposed yet another Trump lie to the world on Friday night. In June, in the midst of significant public and political blowback over immigrant families being separated at the U.S. border, Melania wore a jacket bearing the spray-painted words: “I don’t really care, do u?”

Making matters worse, First Lady Trump was on her way to visit detained kids in Texas at the time. Read more…

More about Culture, Melania Trump, Culture, and Web Culture

If you own a smartphone, chances are you know Candy Crush and maybe even the game’s latest incarnation, Candy Crush Friends Saga. What you may not know is the story behind the franchise: How an Italian entrepreneur put all his cash on the line as a co-founder of King, the company that created the game, in the early 2000s, with a big idea: re-invent gaming for the online world.

That person is Riccardo Zacconi. He’s guided the company through the many phases online gaming (desktop, Facebook, mobile, and more), taking King public and eventually selling it to gaming giant Activision Blizzard in 2015. In this episode of MashTalk, Zacconi talks about that journey, his thoughts on Mark Zuckerberg, and what the future holds for gaming now that people are starting to question all the time they’re spending on their devices playing games like, well, Candy Crush. Read more…

More about King, Podcast, Mashtalk, Candy Crush, and Tech