Category Archives: Blog

Anyone who watches Succession knows that not only is the HBO drama a genuinely good show, but it also has the single best theme song on television right now.

The opening credits last around one minute and 30 seconds, and during that time viewers are treated to visual a montage of filtered flashbacks and present-day cityscapes, cut to a hauntingly catchy, adrenaline-pumping composition comprised of piano riffs, strings, and an unexpected but wildly complimentary background beat.

Depending on your mood, the intro song — which was composed by Nicholas Britell— will either make you want to dramatically gaze out a train window on a rainy day or get up and bust a move. It delights fans of the show every Sunday night, and is so damn good that it even won an Emmy for Original Main Title Theme Music. Read more…

More about Music, Television, Succession, Culture, and Movies Tv Shows

Uber’s autonomous cars are coming to Texas. 

On Tuesday, Uber’s Advantaged Technologies Group announced it would test its vehicles in Dallas. Don’t expect to see cars without drivers on the streets just yet, though. At first, they’ll only be allowed in manual mode, in which Uber collects data from vehicles with human drivers. 

After a self-driving car was involved in a crash that killed a woman in Tempe last year, Uber pulled its vehicles off the road in Arizona. (Meanwhile, Waymo’s self-driving car service is operating in the Phoenix area.) Uber is also testing autonomous cars in Pittsburgh and collecting data in its cars in San Francisco and Toronto.  Read more…

More about Uber, Autonomous Vehicles, Self Driving Cars, Dallas, and Tech

The insult, which Musk called a British cave diver on Twitter, means “creepy old man,” according to the Tesla CEO. However, Musk and his legal team claim the entrepreneur had reason to believe the more popular understanding of the insult. Read more…

More about Mashable Video, Lawsuit, Culture, Elon Musk, and Vernon Unsworth

Modeled after a 1902 luxury car of a similar name, the Vision Mercedes Simplex adds a few millennials touches to the nearly 102-year-old vehicle. Read more…

More about Tech, Transportation, Mashable Video, Mercedes, and Concept Car

“Oh my god, the fake news is coming from inside the house!”

In Monday night’s Closer Look, Seth Meyers traces the issues with the White House’s casual relationship with the truth all the way from Sharpiegate and Mike Pence’s assertion that a horse bit him, to Trump crying fake news on reports about a possible meeting with Iran literally just repeating what he himself said on camera. (He also connects the dots as to how all the Iran confusion has to do with appeasing Saudi Arabia.)

“If they’re willing to lie about something as dumb as a weather forecast or an interaction with a horse, what else are they lying about?” Read more…

More about Iran, Donald Trump, Late Night With Seth Meyers, Mike Pence, and Entertainment

Milo Yiannopoulos, far-right incendiary and professional complainer, has been banned from a furry convention. 

Yiannopoulos announced that he took on a “fursona” — alternate egos that furries adopt in the form of anthropomorphized animals — and bought tickets to the Midwest FurFest, a convention to “celebrate the furry fandom” just outside of Chicago in December. He posted it on the messaging app Telegram. According to Right Wing Watch, it’s one of the few social platforms that hasn’t kicked him off yet. 

He also suggested hosting a panel titled “The Politics of Fur,” according to the Telegram posts, and instructed his followers to contact him to set up “dinners, drinks, photos or anything else” if they were also in attendance.  Read more…

More about Furries, Milo Yiannopoulos, Alt Right, Culture, and Web Culture

You are nothing more than a collection of deeply embarrassing and problematic machine learning-determined classifiers.

That humbling truth is brought home by ImageNet Roulette, an online tool that gives anyone bold or foolish enough to upload a photo the opportunity to learn just exactly how artificial intelligence sees them. The project, described as “a provocation” by its creators, aims to shed light on how artificial intelligence systems view and classify humans. 

And, surprise(!), AI has some pretty racist and misogynistic ideas about people. Or, rather, the dataset ImageNet Roulette draws from, ImageNet, is filled with problematic categories that reflect the bias often inherent in the large datasets that make machine learning possible.   Read more…

More about Machine Learning, Tech, and Artificial Intelligence

There comes a time in every Hustlers showing when audiences must lose their shit, collectively, completely, and with no hope of return. 

Yes, I’m talking about the moment when “motherfucking Usher” shows up at the club. 

Appearing as a 2008 version of himself, the singer-songwriter cameos in this Robin Hood-esque tale of strippers besting their clients. A deadly combination of nostalgia, bravado, and sex appeal (with thematic resonance to boot), Usher’s brief Hustlers appearance is already being called the best celebrity cameo of the year — and with good reason. 

“It was our biggest day on set,” director and writer Lorene Scafaria recalls for Mashable. “Of course, we had 300 extras, we had a crane, and you have got to bring out the green lasers for Usher. We had all the girls on stage dancing. Honestly, I had tears in my eyes because it felt like a Renaissance painting. I just couldn’t believe how gorgeous it was to see them all up there together in front.”  Read more…

More about Jennifer Lopez, Usher, Cameo, Hustlers, and Lorene Scafaria

Elon Musk’s bizarre feud with a British cave diver, who he called a “pedo guy,” took a strange turn as the eccentric billionaire seeks to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought against him.

In court documents filed on Monday, Elon Musk’s defense team argues that the suit filed by diver Vernon Unsworth should be thrown out as Musk’s tweet calling the diver a “pedo guy” does not constitute defamation.

Among his team’s many arguments, Musk claims that he was not insinuating that Unsworth was a pedophile when he called him a “pedo guy” on Twitter.

“Mr. Musk testified that ‘pedo guy’ was a common insult used in South Africa during his youth,” says the filing. “It is synonymous with ‘creepy old man’ and aimed at mocking a person’s appearance and demeanor, not an accusation of pedophilia.” Read more…

More about Lawsuit, Elon Musk, Defamation, Defamation Lawsuit, and Vernon Unsworth

With many criticizing the e-cig companies marketing their products to children, along with the major health concerns its brings to kids and adults alike, the New York governor saw it fit to call for a ban. Read more…

More about Politics, Mashable Video, New York, Cigarettes, and Andrew Cuomo