Category Archives: Blog

The first time I read A Wrinkle In Time as a kid, I remember being utterly terrified.

Beginning with the iconic opening line “It was a dark and stormy night,” Madeleine L’Engle’s classic children’s sci-fi tale takes us on a harrowing journey with iron-willed Meg Wallace, precocious Charles Wallace, and charming Calvin as they they bend time and space to find Meg and Charles’s missing father.

It wasn’t until I re-read the book as an adult that I figured out why: As a kid, I was used to stories about kids persevering and fighting the challenges to discover the moral of being themselves. I wasn’t used to reading stories where the youthful protagonists face such grave mortal and existential peril.  Read more…

More about Mashreads, Mashreads Podcast, A Wrinkle In Time, Culture, and Books

Jim Carrey, actor, comedian and Renaissance painter, just submitted his first masterpiece.

Or, uh, so the people of the internet think. On Thursday, Jim Carrey submitted his “official portrait” of Donald Trump to the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery via Twitter. The portrait features Trump sitting in his bathrobe eating an ice cream cone which is highly accurate, so he obviously has my vote.

“Dear Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery,” Carrey wrote on Twitter. “I know it’s early but I’d like to submit this as the official portrait of our 45th President, Donald J. Trump. It’s called, ‘You Scream. I Scream. Will We Ever Stop Screaming?” Read more…

More about Watercooler, Smithsonian, Trump, Jim Carrey, and Jim Carrey Painting

It ain’t an iPhone, but a new Android Go device will get you online for $80.

The ZTE Tempo Go phone just launched in the United States, delivering a pared down version of Google’s mobile operating system at a low price. It has a 5-inch screen, some pretty weak cameras, and — yes! — a headphone jack.

Let’s also reiterate: It costs $80.

Of course, the phone isn’t meant to be powerful. It runs Oreo Go, a version of Android for “entry-level” phones. And Google does mean entry-level. Inexpensive Android Go devices are intended to help the absurdly powerful tech corporation make inroads in growing markets like India, where just over 22 percent of the population used smartphones last year compared to 69 percent in the United States, according to one analysis. (Note that surveys from Pew indicate that 77 percent of Americans now own smartphones; there’s a bit of wiggle room to these statistics.)  Read more…

More about Google, Android, Zte, Tech, and Smartphones

It’s been a pretty strange year for politics. It’s even stranger now that major political figures are crowdfunding their legal fees. 

A GoFundMe stetup by “Friends of Andrew McCabe” launched Thursday to pay for the former FBI deputy director’s legal defense fund. 

McCabe’s GoFundMe is not only trending, it’s also raised a tremendous amount of money in the past few hours. As of the time of writing, it had raised $252,892 in just six short hours. People have been donating so quickly that the campaign increased its goal to $250,000 after it met its original $150,000 goal in less than four hours.  Read more…

More about Politics, Culture, and Web Culture

In the 11 days since a woman walking her bike across a major thoroughfare in Tempe, Arizona, was struck and killed by a self-driving Uber, the San Francisco-based ride-hailing company has generated a relentless flow of news.

The crash occurred at 10 p.m. on March 18 on a four-lane road in the city just outside of Phoenix where Uber’s self-driving program has been testing on public roads. A few days after the crash, Tempe police released a video showing the operator and roadway seconds before the Volvo XC90 SUV fatally hit the woman. 

More about Uber, Self Driving Cars, Tech, and Transportation

Elon Musk’s SpaceX just got permission to operate 4,425 satellites that could one day provide internet service from space. 

That would vastly increase access to the internet — especially in rural areas — and possibly create a ton of space junk. 

Not that SpaceX is anywhere near ready to flip the switch on a new internet service. So far, it’s only launched two demo satellites. But this is a big step forward. 

In a statement released Thursday, the FCC said it was the first approval of “a U.S.-licensed satellite constellation to provide broadband services using a new generation of low-Earth orbit satellite technologies.” Read more…

More about Science, Elon Musk, Spacex, Satellites, and Satellite Broadband

When you’re a high-level Facebook executive and something you said in the past comes back to haunt you, your best hope for salvation is frantically taking to Twitter.

Or so it would seem for Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, the Facebook Vice President who is trying to distance himself from an internal 2016 company memo he wrote that was published Thursday by BuzzFeed News. 

The memo argues that the purpose of Facebook is to connect people, and that even if that connection means people literally die as a result, the company will not slow down in its attempts at growth.  Read more…

More about Facebook, Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Bosworth, and Tech

Tesla announced Thursday a recall to all its Model S battery-powered vehicles built before April 2016 — that’s 123,000 vehicles globally.

The electric sedan has an issue in the power steering component, but the company assures no accidents or injuries have been reported because of the issue. 

Only an estimated .02 percent of vehicles in the U.S. have had an issue with the steering that apparently presents itself in cold winter climates where roads are salted. 

An email going out Thursday to affected customers assures the cars can still be driven, but the cars need to be taken in eventually to have parts replaced. A Tesla representative will be in touch with owners to schedule an appointment. The retrofit is expected to take about an hour.  Read more…

More about Tesla, Recall, Model S, Tech, and Transportation

Sit down, Pop Culture Twitter. We need to have a talk. Specifically, about this recent rash of pop culture brackets. 

Look, I get it. They look fun and simple and there’s nothing more deviously pleasurable than watching your friends squirm as you make them pick sides between two things they love.

But most of the ones in circulation are very, very bad, and mostly all for the same reason: They’re seeded incorrectly. Or, more likely, not seeded at all.

If you’re not super familiar with the concept of sports brackets (and I understand there are huge swaths of sports fandom and pop culture fandom that don’t overlap at all), you might dismiss seeding as an unnecessary step that complicates the easy elegance of the bracket.  Read more…

More about Screening, March Madness Brackets, Entertainment, Sports, and Movies Tv Shows

The all-electric Jaguar I-Pace made its first North American appearance at the New York Auto Show on Wednesday. Among those on display was a future member of Waymo’s autonomous fleet. 

The company, formerly the Google self-driving car project, has partnered with Jaguar to develop the world’s first electric, autonomous luxury vehicle. Waymo will add 20,000 of such SUVs to its “Waymo Service.” 

This means that, at some point, you’ll be able to request a ride in one of these bad boys through a Waymo ride-sharing app.  Read more…

More about Alphabet, Self Driving Cars, Jaguar, Waymo, and Tech