Category Archives: Blog

Janet Jackson is doing her best to move past the 2004 Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction” controversy that damaged her skyrocketing career. And she’d like all of us to do the same.

That’s what the pop icon said in her four-part Lifetime and A&E documentary, which began airing on Jan 28. In the third and most recent part of Janet, Jackson — a notoriously private person, especially on this particular topic — gave what should probably be the final word on what tabloids at the time crudely labeled “Nipplegate.”

“Honestly, this whole thing was blown way out of proportion,” Jackson said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “Of course, it was an accident. That should not have happened, but everyone is looking for someone to blame, and that’s got to stop. Justin and I are very good friends, and we will always be very good friends. We spoke just a few days ago, and he and I have moved on, and it’s time for everyone else to do the same.”

Jackson fans will likely struggle with her request to just let Justin Timberlake off the hook. But as we saw in Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson, a 2021 Hulu documentary about the whole Super Bowl affair, the one perspective on all of this that’s been sorely lacking is Jackson’s herself. Now we have that missing piece.

Many looks back on the incident have shined a spotlight on the sexism and racism embedded into the unequal consequences Jackson faced afterward, while Timberlake got off almost scot-free. Jackson states in Janet that she was indeed “disinvited” to the Grammys that same year. Timberlake not only attended but won two awards. Though she avoided confirming the rumor that powerful entertainment industry and NFL figures “blacklisted” Jackson’s music in the years following the Super Bowl scandal, informed speculation tells us that getting the brunt of the blame stagnated her previously thriving career.

In contrast, Timberlake, who’s now widely judged for having left Jackson out to dry by not publicly defending her more, only saw his stardom and support from the industry grow. Yet Jackson insisted that people’s interpretations and assumptions about what happened were unfounded. For one, she said he did reach out to her at the time to ask about publicly commenting on the Grammys controversy.

“We talked once, and he said, ‘I don’t know if I should come out and make a statement,'” she shared. “I said, ‘Listen, I don’t want any drama for you. They’re aiming all of this at me.’ So I just said if I were you, I wouldn’t say anything.”

Ever since Timberlake returned to perform at the 2018 Super Bowl halftime show, the injustice has proved just too much for Jackson fans. They made hashtags defending her trend worldwide, to the point of outshining his performance. The Super Bowl is now low-key considered a day for Timberlake’s yearly shaming, despite the fact that Jackson appeared to encourage a more compassionate response in 2021.

In yet another new revelation from the documentary, Jackson said that Timberlake’s team also did in fact ask if she would like to participate in his 2018 return to the Super Bowl halftime show. But she chose not to.

“When I think about it, would it be nice to be able to perform? Yes,” she said. “Our family, we love entertaining. But on the flip side of it, it’s stretching out the past, reliving something that happened over 10 years ago.”

Janet is the second recent documentary to relitigate the 2004 Super Bowl, after Malfunction. The New York Times-produced retrospective does important work to set the record straight on Jackson’s mistreatment (by the public, the NFL, the music industry, Timberlake, etc), but her absence from the proceedings is impossible to ignore.

In the first part of Janet, she seems to imply that this lack of consideration for her own perspective is part of what motivated this new biographical documentary from Lifetime and A&E.

“It’s just something that needs to be done. It’s never … You’ve had someone write this unauthorized biography or someone else do something. Or they’ll do a movie and it’s candy-coated,” Jackson said, according to a recap from Billboard.

Janet Jackson is, at the end of the day an iconic, multifaceted star. But too much recent discourse focuses on only this one flashpoint in her career, rather than focusing any other aspect of her as a person or an important cultural figure in entertainment. So while it might not be what fans want to do, if the goal is to support Janet Jackson, then listening to what she wants and needs in her own words would appear to be a good place to start.

That doesn’t mean everyone needs to forgive Justin Timberlake for all transgressions, though.

Tweet may have been deleted

Tweet may have been deleted

Tweet may have been deleted

Timberlake is often criticized for capitalizing on the appropriation of Black culture, which remains a valid critique that goes beyond the Jackson incident. After the third part of Janet debuted on Saturday, the phrase “Black Twitter” trended on Twitter, mostly from posts humorously rejecting her request that fans leave the Man of the Woods singer alone.

Then there’s the Brittany Spears of it all. Timberlake also stands accused of throwing her under to bus too — yet another more famous woman caught in the crosshairs of a PR nightmare with him in the early 2000s — by fanning the flames of their breakup to boost his career. Despite Timberlake issuing a public apology to both Jackson and Spears in Feb. 2021, Spears has yet to request anyone leave the man alone for crying his river back in 2003.

Regardless, Jackson fans can at the very least look forward to catching the fourth and final installment of Janet on Feb. 13.

Despite video game adaptations not having a great track record, Hollywood is still trying to make it happen with a new live-action Halo TV series.

Our first full trailer for the Paramount+ Halo series offers an extended look at not only Master Chief, but other beloved and iconic characters like Cortana from the video game franchise that launched in 2001. There are certainly enough explosions to go around, but no personality for the Master Chief to speak of just yet. So check it out for yourself to see if the hype is real for you or not.

The Halo series is set to premiere on Paramount+ on March 24, 2022.

Researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara have developed a new, cheaper method for possible home COVID-19 testing that involves a smartphone camera and app.

The new testing system, which is the subject of a research paper printed in the journal JAMA Network Open, uses some basic lab equipment and the app Bacticount to detect possible pathogens in a person’s saliva. To use it, you load your saliva sample into a test kit sitting on a hot plate. You then add in a specific reactive solution that amplifies viral RNA that might be in that spit, similar to the solution process that current at-home COVID tests use.

This specific process is called “Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification,” or LAMP for short.

The sample would go inside the box on the left, where an LED would shine.
Credit: University of California, Santa Barbara

Once any potential viral RNA is amplified, you place a cardboard box with an LED light over the top. Then, a smartphone’s camera can look into the LED-lit box, where it should be able to see any color reactions that indicate the presence of COVID-19. If a viral load is present, the solution should create a bright red light. If the viral load is larger, aka more contagious, the red light should appear quicker. The app will estimate your viral load based on how quickly that light appears and registers.

According to Gizmodo, the cost of using this new test setup would be “less than $100, plus the price of the smartphone you’d need to run the app.” For each subsequent test, which would presumably require a new test kit, you’d be out about $7 – a bargain compared to the hundreds that insurance companies have been charging for certain PCR and rapid tests.

The researchers say this testing method could have the same accuracy rate as a PCR test, and being able to conduct the test at home could potentially allow for much quicker results than a PCR test taken at a doctor’s office that handles hundreds of samples a day. However, it is important to note that this study did have a relatively small sample size of 50 people, so further research will be needed before it can be implemented widely.

The test kit was originally designed for “resource-limited settings,” but its head researcher told Gizmodo that it could be easily adapted for home testing as well. The only caveat is that the Bacticount app is currently only compatible with the Samsung Galaxy S9 due to its specific camera calibrations. This could change in the future as research continues, and allow for more smartphone cameras to tap into the testing technology.

Switching audio streaming services is a pain.

Whether you’re saving on subscription fees or taking a stand against platform policies, changing from one music app to another almost always means losing part of your library.

Yes, you can manually rebuild your current collection on your new app of choice. But not every track is available on every service. You’ll rarely be able to achieve a 100 percent recreation. What’s worse, you can waste hours, even days, trying to make the impossible possible if you’ve curated a lot of content.

So save yourself the time, heartache, and sore thumbs by taking advantage of a “playlist transfer tool.” Here’s how to use the third-party apps, including both desktop and mobile options, that save your favorite music and (sometimes) podcasts before you delete Spotify, Apple Music, or whatever audio streaming service it is that you’re planning to pause.

What are playlist transfer tools?

You can make your transition between two streaming services easier by turning to a third party for help. Playlist transfer tools are usually free services that facilitate the transfer of audio collections between streaming services. Here’s how they generally work.

Most of the options start you out by having you select and sign into both the service you want to transfer your library “from” and the service you want to transfer your library “to.” You’re then prompted to select the specific playlists you want to transfer. The app may also make some suggestions of its own automatically.

These apps are usually free services that facilitate the transfer of audio collections between streaming services.

Users’ “liked” or “loved” collections are typically treated like playlists and can be transferred, meaning most of your library will be brought over that way. Playlists you follow — as opposed to the ones you’ve authored — can also be transferred; this may even include playlists curated by the service you’re leaving (think Spotify’s various “Moods” playlists or Apple Music’s trending selections). Though it’s worth noting that these transfers merely copy the playlist at the moment the copying happens; so if you’re transferring a playlist that is updated with any regularity, you’ll need to manually add new tracks moving forward — or just re-transfer the whole thing.

Podcast feeds are harder to copy, but if they’re put in playlist form they can sometimes be brought over. Depending on how many podcasts you follow, however, it may be easier to just find the show on the new app. Broadly speaking, playlist transfer tools work better with music.

Once your “to” and “from” are connected, the playlist transfer tool will cross-check all of the tracks against what’s available on the new service and recreate as much of each transferred playlist as possible. This process can take minutes or a few hours, depending on the transfer service you go with, your connection, and the size of your library.

How do you choose the right app to transfer your library?

There are a lot of audio streaming services, and seemingly just as many playlist transfer tools. Reviews indicate they mainly vary in terms of accuracy and speed. But some are also better for certain services, phones, and content types.

Your best best for finding the right fit for your collection will be researching options available to you via your phone’s app store. SongShift, FreeYourMusic, Playlisty, Soundiiz, and Tune My Music are among some of the most popular options. There are plenty to choose from and they largely do the same thing.

Most playlist transfer tools are free or offer an upgraded version for a minimal subscription fee. Keep yourself subscribed if you switch services a lot, but more likely than not you can make it a one-time thing.

When Twitter banned Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 riots, many rejoiced at finally being rid of relentless misinformation at the hands of the former president. Then, when Twitter then actively enforced its civic integrity policy against further misinformation about the 2020 election, the platform felt a little safer — but apparently that only lasted until two months later, when the platform stopped enforcing the policy against 2020 election lies at all.

Twitter spokesperson Elizabeth Busby recently told CNN that the company has not been enforcing the civic integrity policy in relation to 2020 election lies “since March 2021.” Busby also maintained that this change in policy enforcement has been known since June 2021, as reported in a New York Times article. However, the referenced article only mentions that Twitter had “loosened its enforcement since March,” while Busby’s statement makes clear there has been no enforcement happening at all.

According to Twitter, the civic integrity policy exists to provide guidelines around “directly harmful types of content,” mainly targeting false claims on how to participate in civic processes, intimidation or suppression of civic processes, and false affiliation. In Sept. 2020, Twitter expanded this policy to allow labeling or removal of “false or misleading information intended to undermine public confidence in an election or other civic process.”

In the two months following the Jan. 6 riots, this policy allowed for any mention of election rigging, ballot tampering, or uncertified election results claims to be labeled with a content warning or taken down entirely. It also implemented a clear strike system, where repeat offenders could be punished with varying degrees of account suspension and, eventually, deactivation. By ending enforcement so soon after such calamitous events, Twitter undermined its so-called transparency and strike-based process, sending the message that misinformation only needs to wait patiently before it can be spread to the masses.

Twitter stands by this decision, telling CNN that the policy was only designed for use during an election, and that “the 2020 U.S. election is not only certified, but President Biden has been in office for more than a year.”

While that may now be true, President Biden had only taken office shortly before Twitter’s policy enforcement ended. Halting the policy allowed tweets mentioning a rigged election or fake results to run rampant at a time when the country had just been upended by an attempted insurrection. That’s one reason why Trump’s “Big Lie” about a stolen election in 2020 continues to reverberate around social media.

Tweet may have been deleted

Today, various high profile politicians continue to commandeer the same ideas that still proliferate on Twitter. Donald Trump, though he remains banned on Twitter, still perpetuates the idea that he unfairly lost the election and maintains that this will affect future elections. Billy Long, Jim Lamon, and Bernie Moreno, all running for Senate seats, mention a rigged 2020 election in political ads that ran just this past week.

While Twitter doesn’t allow such ads on its platform, the lack of enforcement regarding 2020 election results will let discussion of these ads’ messages or prominent political figures’ views run unchecked, further fanning the flames of misinformation ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. By not acknowledging the effects of 2020 election lies beyond the scope of President Biden’s election, Twitter is allowing for further potential harm – and effectively confusing its users on what is and isn’t allowed on the platform at the same time.

If the daily five letter word guess has gotten too easy for you, may we suggest a new challenge? Try starting your Wordle with the scientifically proven worst first word.

What is that word, you ask? Why, it’s the consonant-laden “xylyl,” of course!

TikTok user @crvlwanek, whose name is Chris, wrote and ran a computer script that helped determine the most terrible way to start a game of Wordle. Inspired by user @linguisticdiscovery – who recommends in his own video that the best starting word is “irate” – Chris actually wanted more concrete proof of the best first move.

“I copied over the entire [word] list into a JSON file,” said Chris in the video. “And then I made a quick script to load all the words, calculate the frequencies of each letter, score each word based on the frequencies of the letters in the word, and then calculate the most optimal starting word.”

Credit: Screenshot: TikTok/@crvlwanek

Credit: Screenshot: TikTok/@crvlwanek

The script found that the proven optimal first word is actually “later.” But in discovering the best word, Chris also found the worst word. While he doesn’t address “xylyl” in his first video, data fans quickly asked for the update, prompting him to scroll to the end of his calculated list for the big reveal.

A “xylyl,” in case you were wondering, is “any of several isomeric monovalent radicals C8H9 derived from the three xylenes by removal of a hydrogen atom,” according to Merriam-Webster.

Other data-minded viewers also called out Chris’s initial calculation method, noting the need to account for letter position as well as frequency. Chris amended his script, and has made several versions that use both the sum and the product of frequency and position in order to find the best and worst word.

In these scripts. the best word seems to be either “saree” or “sooey.” He also mentions “soare” to be a good candidate, as it appears highly in all versions. The other worst word candidates include “imshi” and “aflaj.”

Regardless of best word controversy, it seems pretty certain that “xylyl” will not lead you down a quick road of success. But hey, if you do choose to start with it, you’re gonna look pretty incredible the one day it’s actually the word.

Anyone with an overactive brain can tell you that the nighttime hours are the best time to spiral.

That’s the premise of a new Saturday Night Live musical number from Chris Redd. In “Now I’m Up,” Redd, along with fellow cast member Kenan Thompson, sings about life’s little annoyances and worries that loom too large in the quiet moments before we fall asleep. Existential dread, too-loud ads from free streaming services, mysterious lumps, even a partner’s overly long toenails — all of those things and more can pop up out of nowhere and turn a sleepy brain into a suddenly active one.

It’s a catchy tune, as most SNL musical numbers tend to be, but it’s also painfully relatable.

I’ve been thinking about the Saturday Night Live cast lately, and how the show has low-key assembled one of the strongest squads of performers it’s had in years. Sketches like this one prove it.

The latest episode, hosted by Willem Dafoe, delivered a sketch featuring New York City apartment tenant meeting where pretty much every member of the cast not named Colin Jost or Michael Che got a moment to show off their comedy chops. (No Cecily Strong either, sadly.) There’s no one highlight to pull out here because everyone brings a little something different to their moment.

Newcomer Sarah Sherman makes her saltiness over an unexpected bill hilariously and loudly clear. Veterans Kate McKinnon and Kenan Thompson get big laughs from subdued moments as an elderly cat-hoarder and a very sexually active ladies man. Pete Davidson and Aristotle Athari both put on funny accents and find the comedy in their unique brands of weirdness. Even Dafoe gets in on the fun as the building’s resident “pain in the ass” who longs for the days of a more dangerous and chaotic NYC.

As any career-minded person will tell you, if you work long enough and hard enough, you’ll inevitably forget about a few things along the way.

Lin-Manuel Miranda had exactly that experience during a Friday appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Fallon challenged the Hamilton creator to a Disney-themed game of “One Second Songs,” a late show game in which — you’ve probably figured this out already based on the title alone — competitors must guess the title of a particular song after hearing a one-second clip.

The Disney theme introduced a similarly obvious twist: The competition focused solely on musical numbers from Disney movies. Miranda had a solid showing right off the bat, correctly spotting a popular number from Moana for which he has a writing credit. He and Fallon both had no troubles breezing through an easy stretch of clues to start things off. But then Miranda faced his third clue.

The one-second clip has no words, just some jangly slice of melody that sounds like it’s coming from a vibraphone. Miranda is immediately stumped and asks to hear the clip again. Nothing. Then Fallon tries to figure it out, and quickly fails. So he accepts defeat and asks for the answer. As the familiar melody starts to play and the lyrics “I can always hear him sort of mumbling and mumbling” play, Miranda buries his face in his hands. Clearly this is “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” the chart-topping Encanto hit that Miranda wrote.

He’s understandably embarrassed, but that clip is ridiculously non-specific and difficult to decode compared to the ones that preceded it. The Tonight Show producers knew who their guest was, too, so you can bet this was intentionally built to be a stumper. The result is a very funny and relatable TV moment where Miranda’s impressive and ever-growing resume finally catches up with him.

I’m not really a huge chocolate person, but even I can admit it’s difficult for chocolate to be bad. To that end, MrBeast — the incredibly popular YouTuber — is channeling his inner Willy Wonka to launch a line of tasty, if not world-changing, treats: chocolate bars.

Real name Jimmy Donaldson, MrBeast has 89 million subscribers on YouTube, where he often launches stunts and massive giveaways. He’s the guy who created a real-life Squid Game.

Anyway, Donaldson’s latest venture is a food company called Feastables, touted in a press release as “a better-for-you snacking brand rooted in gamified experiences.” Basically, the company plans to hold sweepstakes for $1 million in giveaways, from Teslas to Beats headphones to electric bikes. But that’s not all: A few winners will get to experience a very surreal trip to MrBeast’s chocolate factory.

“Ten lucky Grand Prize winners will travel to compete in a MrBeast YouTube video for the chance to win MrBeast’s Chocolate Factory,” the press release reads. “Yes, this really exists.”

OK, so all the spectacle aside, how’s the actual product? Pretty good! The chocolate bars are marketed as a simpler alternative to the mass-produced stuff. They have just four ingredients, are gluten free, and come in three flavors: original chocolate, almond chocolate, and quinoa crunch chocolate. Donaldson has Crohn’s Disease, and the idea was to create a fun treat with a limited number of ingredients.

The packaging is bright and loud, which is kind of to be expected.
Credit: Mashable

I was sent a whole mess of chocolate bars, more than I’ll ever eat. But I gave each flavor a few bites out of dedication to my job.

Again, I’m not a huge chocolate person, but of the three flavors, I think the quinoa crunch was by far the best. It had great texture and tasted something like a thinner, snappier, darker Crunch Bar. My wife, a bigger chocolate fan than me, agreed the quinoa was best, but she also enjoyed all three flavors.

While the bars are marketed as better for you, from a purely caloric standpoint there’s not much difference between a MrBeast bar and a Hersey bar. The Feastables bars are definitely darker, richer, and snappier — it tastes fancier, more luxurious — but doesn’t have that whole melt-in-you-mouth addictiveness of its Hershey competitor.

I now have more MrBeast candy bars than I will ever need.
Credit: Mashable

The MrBeast bars are also clearly made to look more, well, appealing to kids who watch countless hours of YouTube. They’re brightly packaged and have zigzag patterns on the bar itself. They have a crease to break off a piece that reads “share,” while the unperforated end reads “devour.”

Chocolate? Pretty good
Credit: Mashable

So would I buy the chocolate bars from MrBeast? I mean, probably not, but that’s just because chocolate isn’t one of my vices. If chocolate is your vice, then I don’t see you being disappointed with the product.

The chocolate is now available for purchase through Feastables, Walmart, and GoPuff. A single bar will cost anywhere from $3 to $3.50, with options to buy packs of 10 or variety packs at around the same price per bar.