The car of the future may be born of a retrograde past.
An employee at Tesla’s Fremont factory is suing the company, alleging ongoing sexual harassment from a manager that went unchecked for months — even after she reported it. The details in the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in California’s Alameda County Superior Court and reported by Business Insider, are pretty screwed up and paint an awful picture of working conditions at the plant.
Specifically, Erica Cloud, an assembly line worker, claims that her manager would repeatedly propose marriage, “hug and massage” her, tell her about his supposedly large penis, and call her “‘blackenese.” According to the suit, Tesla’s HR department took months to do anything about her complaints, and when it did finally respond, it did so in all the wrong ways.
That’s right, Cloud says that HR essentially took it out on her — by sending her home randomly, and causing her to lose wages.
We reached out to Tesla for comment on the lawsuit and Cloud’s claims, but received no immediate response. Tesla disbanded its press team in 2020.
This, notably, is not the first sexual harassment lawsuit against Tesla. In 2017, Tesla made waves when it fired an engineer who alleged sexual harassment and pay discrimination.
“It is impossible to trust anyone after they have behaved in such a manner and therefore continued employment is also impossible,” a Tesla spokesperson said of the engineer, AJ Vandermeyden, at the time.
More recently, in Nov. 2021, Tesla’s Fremont factory was the subject of yet another lawsuit.
“Tesla’s factory floor more resembles a crude, archaic construction site or frat house than a cutting-edge company in the heart of the progressive San Francisco Bay Area,” reads the lawsuit, reported by Business Insider.
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And, of course, there’s Tesla CEO Elon Musk himself. As recently as October, Musk made a series of sexist statements to his approximately 66 million Twitter followers (he has since deleted some of the offending tweets).
It seems, if the lawsuits are to be believed, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
The latest Twitter meme “we used to be a proper country” pokes fun of conservative language and ideals while also fulfilling our need for nostalgia.
“We used to be a proper country” repurposes typical conservative language to reminisce about iconic pop culture moments and collective memories such asthe combination Pizza Hut Taco Belland the original Four Loko recipe.This type of rhetoric is often used in reference to more heteronormative and patriotic moments in American history by conservative media or politicians.
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Think President Trump’s “Make America Great Again.” The phrase sounds like something a right-wing commentator would say in response to Harry Styles wearing a dress or implementation of gender neutral bathrooms. By memeing the phrase, Twitter users are showing how ridiculous that type of argument is at its core. The phrase is also allowing Twitter to do one of the internet’s favorite pastimes: get nostalgic about all the best and wackiest moments from the past.
The meme is simple, the words “we used to be a proper country” followed by a photo or series of photos that encapsulates some memorable era.
So, what do you think of when you hear “we used to be a proper country?” Is it 2014 Tumblr or Disney Channel’s peak? Chances are it’s been memed.
Keanu Reeves knows an agent of oppression when he sees one.
The star of The Matrix trilogy and upcoming sequel, Resurrections, made that clear in a recent interview with The Verge, which touched on technology topics du jour like NFTs and the metaverse. And when it comes to the latter, Reeves has a very specific take: keep Facebook out of it.
“Can we just not have metaverse be like invented by Facebook,” he told interviewer Alex Heath.
Facebook, of course, is very much trying to do just that — recently rebranding itself as Meta and doubling down on its version of the metaverse.
Reeves, for his part, isn’t having it. “I’m just like, come on man,” he added.
Oh, and Reeves has some thoughts about NFTs as well. Discussing the $50 Matrix NFTs from Warner Bros., Heath asked Reeves what he thinks about digital scarcity and items that “can’t be copied.”
“That are easily reproduced,” Reeves interrupted, before bursting out laughing — perhaps in reference to the ability to right-click save the images associated with NFTs.
On the flip side, Reeve’s admitted to owning some unspecified cryptocurrency. “I have a little HODL,” he joked.
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Reeves, in other words, is not against decentralized technologies like crypto in general or the metaverse specifically — as long as Facebook stays out of it.
Amazon has announced that it will be shutting down Alexa.
No, Amazon isn’t shuttering the popular voice assistant found in its home technology products such Echo Dot. The ecommerce giant is closing down Alexa.com, an online service that the vast majority of Amazon customers are likely unaware even existed.
However, for old school internet users, Alexa.com has long been a staple of the world wide web.
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Alexa Internet, Inc. was originally founded in 1996 and later acquired by Amazon in 1999 for a quarter of a billion dollars in stock.
A screenshot of the top websites in April 2009. Credit: Screenshot/WayBackMachine
The company provided web traffic analysis services based on data it pulled from users who installed Alexa’s toolbar for their internet browser. Alexa later swapped out the toolbar for browser extensions and a combination of other methods to determine websites’ traffic stats.
However, Alexa’s most popular feature was its Global Rank, which listed the most popular websites around the world based on their traffic stats. Alexa’s Global Rank was commonly used by media outlets when citing how popular a website had become.
A screenshot of today’s top wesbites according to Alexa.com Credit: Screenshot/Amazon
“Twenty-five years ago, we founded Alexa Internet. After two decades of helping you find, reach, and convert your digital audience, we’ve made the difficult decision to retire Alexa.com on May 1, 2022,” reads Amazon’s end of service notice posted on the Alexa.com website. “Thank you for making us your go-to resource for content research, competitive analysis, keyword research, and so much more.”
While Amazon says it will shut down the service in May 2022, the website has already seemingly shuttered for non-subscribers. All of its free features, such as Global Rank, have mostly been removed from the website. Only a login page for paying users to access their data remains, along with the top 50 rank of websites.
It seemed a bit odd, especially in recent years, that Amazon had an extremely popular consumer product named Alexa, one that can be found in millions of households, and they owned the Alexa.com domain name. Yet, they continued to use the URL for its very niche web traffic product.
While Amazon hasn’t announced any plans for Alexa.com, it would not be surprising if they began using it for the virtual assistant.
New footage of the Jetson ONE shows the drone and its pilot ripping through the woods in what appears to be a nod to the chase scene in Return of the Jedi.
Forbes just discovered that not all recognition is welcome.
The publication behind the annual 30 Under 30 list, which Forbes calls “the definitive list of young people changing the world,” is itself receiving notoriety after one of its awardees discovered the site exposed a decade’s worth of private data. Jane Manchun Wong, a 2022 30 Under 30 honoree and security researcher recognized for (among other things) her ability to undercover hidden features in apps, said that the Forbes list exposed the emails and birthdates of all awardees — both past and present.
“I discovered a personal data exposure in Forbes 30 Under 30 Directory while looking for my entry, including ~4000 emails and ~7000 birthdates of the honorees over the past 10 years,” she wrote on Friday.
Tweet may have been deleted
Wong explained over Twitter DM that she discovered the exposure on Dec. 2, and notified Forbes immediately. She said Forbes never directly responded to her disclosure.
“I didn’t get any response from Forbes in regards to the write up of this data exposure,” she wrote. “Nor did I frequently check when it got solved. But as of today, when I checked on the directory webpage, the data exposure has been resolved.”
We reached out to Forbes to confirm Wong’s statements, both about the exposure itself and the fact that Forbes failed to respond to her disclosure of it.
“Forbes was alerted that there was some information rendered deep in the JavaScript,” replied a spokesperson. “When we were notified, we took immediate action and quickly corrected the problem. To the best of our knowledge, the data was not accessed by anyone else.”
That the Forbes list is, by definition, a collection of notable people — past honorees include Miley Cyrus and Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, for example— makes this type of incident even more problematic. Exposed personal emails, along with birthdays, opens people up to targeted phishing campaigns.
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“The personal data was publicly accessible before they fixed it,” Wong explained over DM. “So people other than myself could’ve accessed it. I hope no one with bad faith intent had accessed it though.”
If anyone less responsible than Wong did indeed access that data, then 30 Under 30 honorees may soon be on the receiving end of more than just accolades.
UPDATE: Dec. 10, 2021, 12:38 p.m. PST The story was updated to include comment from a Forbes spokesperson.
Welcome to Thanks, I Love It, our series highlighting something onscreen we’re obsessed with this week.
It’s been a big year for Lin-Manuel Miranda. He won an Emmy for the video-recording of his Broadway hit Hamilton. His other Broadway hit, In The Heights, was cheered by critics as a joyous movie musical. Then came his fantastic feature directorial debut with another Broadway musical adaptation, tick, tick…Boom!And he’s turned out not one, but two animated movie musicals. In Vivo, Miranda not only lent his voice to the eponymous kinkajou but also co-wrote its songs. Then, last but not least, came Encanto, a spectacular Disney musical in which he gets a story by credit and full credit for all its songs, silly, sweet, and sentimental. So, yeah. Big year. Yet in all of this, my absolute favorite Miranda creation of 2021 is hands down the crushing bop that is “Surface Pressure.”
Encanto centers on the magical family Madrigal, where everyone except plucky protagonist Mirabel possesses a superpower. But as the third generation comes of age, cracks begin to appear in the facade of their enchanted casita, pushing Mirabel into an investigation into what’s dwindling their magic. She turns to her older sister Luisa, who is muscle-bound and mighty. But Mirabel’s simple question of “what’s wrong” pushes the strong big sister into a meltdown musical number, where Luisa admits her fears and vulnerability.
Sung by Jessica Darrow, “Surface Pressure” begins with a series of affirmations.
“I’m the strong one
I’m not nervous
I’m as tough as the crust of the earth is
I move mountains
I move churches
And I glow ’cause I know what my worth is”
But as the song moves on, Luisa crumbles, confessing:
“Under the surface
I feel berserk as a tightrope walker in a three-ring circus
Under the surface
Was Hercules ever like ‘Yo, I don’t wanna fight Cerberus?’
Under the surface
I’m prеtty sure I’m worthless if I can’t be of sеrvice”
While enjoying the imaginative execution of this song, which illustrates the weight of the world that Luisa feels on her brawny shoulders, this last line hit me like a ton of bricks. She goes on to sing, deceptively coolly, of the “drip, drip, drip that’ll never stop.” (Woah.) She sings of the burden of responsibility in being the strong one, and in having to keep your shit together because it feels like everyone’s depending on you. So one little crack will bring the whole house down. And it made me break into tears.
It’s a sentiment that’s connecting to women on TikTok, who have been using an audio excerpt of “Surface Pressure” to show how they relate to Luisa’s internal struggle. Over the song, some users include captions of anecdotes about carrying the emotional weight of being an older sister. Others lipsync to express how this kid’s movie went abruptly for our necks. The overall mood of this collection of videos is aptly summarized by elkomixx, whose post has the song play as she lays face down on the floor as above this caption looms, “When you realize this song isn’t actually trending and your FYP is just calling you out as an older sister with gifted kid burnout.”
Yeah. That part.
Credit: Disney
Turns out, Miranda wasn’t speaking for his own experience in the song. Instead, Luisa’s number is intended as a tribute to his big sister.
He told Variety:
“I’m the baby of the family. I have a sister who’s six years older, and she got a raw deal. That song is my love letter and apology to my sister for having it easier. I watched my sister deal with the pressure of being the oldest and carrying burdens I never had to carry. I remember my parents woke my sister up to put together a He-Man playset for Christmas before I woke up. They wanted it to be fully assembled when I woke up on Christmas morning. I put all of that angst and all of those moments into Luisa.”
Bold, buff, beautiful, with a beguiling swagger, Luisa is tribute. She’s a dazzling vision of feminine strength, whether she’s swatting boulders with her hips or shouldering a drove of donkeys. But this song makes her messier, more complicated, more real, and thereby a terrific representation of what it means to be a big sister.
Of course, there are joys in being an older sister. You get to watch your sibling grow up and be their confidante and their guide in the weirder aspects of the world. You get to do stuff first (and let’s be honest feel pretty smug about it). But you also feel this weight of being the one who’s supposed to set the example, be strong, or mature, or smart, or together, or whatever. It’s a pressure that can drip, drip, drip, fueled by responsibility, expectation, and even compliments. Because — as Luisa expresses — the gifts that define us can begin to feel like a trap. Like if we aren’t always strong, we’ve failed everyone.
While there’s a lot of lovely songs in Encanto, there are none that hit harder than that.
So, cheers to Luisa, to her real-life inspiration, and to every big sister who felt the wind knocked out of them by this supreme sucker punch of a song. And thanks for that, Lin. Really.
Encanto is now playing in theaters; streaming on Disney+ Dec. 24.
Sealed Lips is Mashable’s series on pelvic pain, an experience rarely discussed but shockingly common.
Tumbling into bed after a rare date night out with my partner should feel like an antidote to the monotony of days spent lying on the sofa in near constant pain. Instead, it almost always ends in tears.
What’s valued as the epitome of pleasure, orgasms seem to trigger a flare up in my already sore body. As the clothes ripped off in haste lie scattered on the apartment floor, half drunk wine glasses sit stained by the sink, I lie awake for hours, writhing in pain, mourning the loss of another part of myself taken over by disease. Chronic illnesses, including endometriosis, rule my life. They dictate when I can enjoy myself and when I cannot. They’ve already taken away a lot from me — spontaneity, delicious meals, nights out, trips away, and yes, sex too.
Sex seems to be ubiquitous with pleasure. In the age of sex positivity, women and non binary folks are reasserting sexual desire as something they feel empowered about. So, where does that leave the people who want to have good sex but can’t? Those that have willing partners but still find pleasure physically hard to find?
I had undiagnosed pelvic pain for over 10 years before receiving an endometriosis diagnosis in January 2021. This was followed by invasive testing and abdominal surgery, with even more operations on the horizon. Two thirds of people who live with endo experience sexual dysfunction as a result, but there is a societal resistance to discussing sex when it intersects with chronic pain and an assumption those of us who are frequently unwell are not participating in acts of pleasure.
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Endometriosis is a chronic health condition affecting 1.5 million people in the UK, 6.5 million in the U.S. and WHO estimates 190 million women of ‘reproductive age’ are affected globally. Symptoms vary, and it occurs throughout the body, where cells similarto the lining of the uterus grow outside of it, often in the bowel, stomach, and pelvic areas. Despite how many people live with endometriosis, we do not know what causes it and doctors cannot find a cure. I have been cut open once already this year and less than six months later my pain is returning to pre-op levels. The only way to discover how many more lesions have grown is to be cut open again, and again, routinely, for the rest of my life.
For a disease that affects so many, it is chronically underdiagnosed and the average wait time for an official diagnosis after the onset of symptoms is eight years. Even with diagnosis, those living with the illness are often ignored, with some doctors still claiming pregnancy or birth control can be used as viable treatment options. The disease lacks research funding, like many other types of dyspareunia — the medical term for sexual pain — that affect people with vaginas, such as vaginismus and vulvodynia. Erectile dysfunction, affecting people with penises, has 1954 clinical trials currently published on PubMed, compared to 393 for dyspareunia. It is the historic disregard of female pain, under the assumption we will grin and bear it, that results in ongoing medical misogyny.
Tegan, a young non binary person who has lived with dyspareunia since they began having sex, says they feel frustrated with the lack of control they have, that their body won’t do what everyone else is doing. “You’re supposed to enjoy it. It hurts and I bleed every time,” they tell me. “I feel angry at my body, like something is wrong with me.” This idea of ‘normativity’ sees painful sex often not discussed. Instead, it is often a burden we carry alone, secrecy compounding feelings of shame. Journalist Lucia Osborne Crowley’s recent book, My Body Keeps Your Secrets, documents experiences of sexual violence that often have consequences in later intimate relationships, writing that “the most important gatekeeper of shame is our determination to not give people the words they need to speak freely about themselves.”
For Ellie, it was painful sex that alerted her to discovering her endo — a common experience for those with it. She’s been with her partner throughout the diagnostic process and subsequent medical intervention. “My sex life was the main thing that was disrupted,” she says. The symptoms of the disease are varied, affecting our digestive systems, bowel movements, and hormonal cycles, but because Ellie, like many others, had the mirena coil — a type of intrauterine device — fitted, she said she wasn’t experiencing painful periods, often a hallmark symptom of endometriosis.
Although I had severe pain prior to having a consistent sex life, it was my own bleeding during sex with a long term partner that finally convinced my GP to refer me to a specialist, uncovering my extensive endometriosis. It makes me wonder: Why was my pain not taken more seriously before I started bleeding during sex?
I questioned Ness Cooper, a sexologist, on my own intimate woe. It’s something I thought I was entirely alone in until connecting with other endo sufferers — is it really possible that orgasming is triggering my endo flares? She demystified the experience I had been afraid to ask my doctor about. “There is scar tissue from the uterus’ lining in the pelvis and even vagina, vaginal contractions from orgasm could be the painful cause,” Cooper explains. “If the individual is experiencing muscle spasm, they may find that orgasm can trigger the spasm to set back in after orgasm and struggle to continue with penetration for a while afterwards.”
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Ness also suggests a number of practical steps partners can try to make penetration enjoyable for all involved. She invites the use of foreplay in the form of massage: “a warm sensual massage with a body safe massage candle can help relax muscles that may be prone to spasms.” She also suggests laying on top of a heated pad or electric blanket, to provide some warmth and relief during sex.
The idea that penetrative (or penis in vagina) sex is the only legitimate way to have sex is rooted in heteronormativity. Megan, who has been in a long term relationship since her endometriosis diagnosis, praises her partner, saying, “Penetration was off the table for a while and my partner understood. We spent time trying to work on non-penetrative intimacy.” However, old habits die hard, and many people living with endo and struggling to enjoy penetrative sex are left feeling sexually deficient. Although there are plenty of other ways to find pleasure with a partner beyond penis in vagina sex, Tegan says, “Sometimes as someone with a vagina, I crave that intimacy of having someone inside me, which just isn’t possible at the moment.”
I asked the endo community what they’ve found useful through trial and error. Megan suggests a penetration bumper like the OhNut. The device works as a physical barrier that is worn on the penis, to prevent it inserting too deep into the vagina, which combats the deep pain associated with endo-related dyspareunia. It is made from a soft pliable polymer and comes as a stack of four rings that can be customised to suit the length you desire. Megan says it’s the best tool they found to make PV sex enjoyable, as it avoids hurting herself but allows her partner to enjoy a simulation of those deep sensations. Meanwhile, Tegan says getting comfortable using non-pentrative toys with new partner has helped them enjoy sex again, describing a clitoral stimulator toy as the best thing they’ve discovered.
If you’re reading this and have a pain free pleasurable sex life, I’m stoked for you. Those of you who thought you were alone, whether you have endometriosis or any other pain condition, I want you all to know there is a community of us trying to make sex fun and talking about it a lot more too. This isn’t the end of that conversation.
SAVE 22%: The all-new Apple AirPods 3 are on sale for just $139.99 at Amazon. That’s $39.01 off their usual retail price of $179, which is $10 cheaper than their Cyber Weekend price.
Congratulations to anyone who didn’t buy the Apple AirPods 3 when they went on sale for Black Friday: They just got even cheaper.
As of Dec. 10, the all-new wireless earbuds were listed for just $139.99 at Amazon. (The latter’s deal involves a sneaky extra savings coupon that’s applied at checkout — see below.) They typically retail for $179, so you’re saving $39.01; that’s $10 better than their Cyber Weekend price and the highest discount they’ve ever received since debuting in October.
Credit: Screenshot via Amazon / Mashable
For what it’s worth, we wouldn’t recommend these bad boys to someone who already owns a pair of AirPods Pro — while they look quite similar to those $250 ‘buds from 2019, they don’t offer any form of noise cancellation. Anyone who’s still clinging to a pair of 2019’s AirPods 2 can probably skip ’em, too, “unless you’ve worn out the old ones so much that the sound quality is shot or the battery doesn’t last very long,” says Mashable tech reporter Alex Perry. (You can read his full review here.)
It’s way easier to justify an upgrade from the OG AirPods from 2016: Aside from the more attractive design (which also boasts an IPX4 waterproof rating), the AirPods 3 feature more precise playback controls, an improved fit, and a boosted battery life of up to six hours per charge; that goes up to 30 hours if you factor in the included charging case.
Credit: Apple
Apple AirPods 3
$139.99 on Amazon (save $39.01) with extra savings coupon
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