Absolutely no one knows the meaning of ‘Bird Box’ so just stop asking

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Warning: Light spoilers for Bird Box lie ahead.

Welcome to Bird Box analysis, where the metaphors are made up and the points don’t matter!

Look. I like a return-to-English-class breakdown of a horror movie as much as the next gal—but this is getting ridiculous. Since Sandra Bullock’s Netflix debut, Bird Box, started streaming last Friday, folks have gone absolutely batshit trying to explain whatever happens to her and her kids in this post-apocalyptic nightmare. 

What do the monsters represent? What do the blindfolds mean? How many grocery store parrots does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Etc., etc.  Read more…

More about Entertainment, Netflix, Fan Theories, Sandra Bullock, and Trevante Rhodes

The only good part about winter are these capybaras in a yuzu bath

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This is One Good Thing, a weekly column where we tell you about one of the few nice things that happened this week.


Baths are an extremely overrated form of self-care: they’re often too warm, incredibly filthy, and loaded with foul bacteria.

Meanwhile, baths for nature’s most underrated animal, the capybara, provide plenty of soothing both for the animal and for the sad human voyeur.

I’m a particular fan of this video of capybaras soaking in a yuzu bath which went viral this week, and for which we should all be grateful.

SEE ALSO: How to give kids good body image in the age of Snapchat

Every year for the winter solstice, zookeepers at multiple zoos across Japan soak capybaras in yuzu baths. The tradition started at Izu Shaboten Zoo in 1996 and has since taken off, though the practice has been used as a way to ward off illness for centuries. Read more…

More about Watercooler, Bath, Capybaras, One Good Thing, and Culture

10 movies we can’t wait for in 2019

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2018 was a whirlwind, but we still got some epic movies out of the madness. 

2019 promises the same, with pivotal sequels, live-action reboots, books adapted for the screen – and new, original movies that might just blow us away.

Here are the top 10 movies we’re looking forward to in 2019.

SEE ALSO: The 10 best films of 2018

1Us – March 15

Watch yourselfpic.twitter.com/6Wg859TK0r

— Jordan Peele (@JordanPeele) December 13, 2018

Starring Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke, Us is the story of a couple visiting a childhood home – but in true Peele fashion, it’s also a psychological thriller, a monster movie, and probably a welcome subversion of the horror genre. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Us, Movies, Jordan Peele, and The Lion King

These wireless earbuds obliterated their Indiegogo goal, and now they’re on sale

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Hear that? That’s the sound of 2018 drawing its last breaths — a noise that would be more than welcome if it wasn’t messing with the sound quality of the bop to which you’re currently listening.

Enter: AXUM Gear True Wireless Earbuds, on sale now in the Mashable Shop.

As a pair of headphones that can please both gym rats and audiophiles, these cordless earbuds are both durable — clinging to you with an adjustable hook that won’t falter during movement — and euphonious. Each pair includes an omnidirectional microphone that eliminates distracting background noises, as well as a portable charging case with enough juice to energize the buds six times.  Read more…

More about Earbuds, Mashable Shopping, Shopping Stackcommerce, Tech, and Consumer Tech

‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ doesn’t work on Apple TV and users are furious

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It may be a groundbreaking high-tech piece of TV entertainment, but the interactive Black Mirror movie Bandersnatch is off limits if you happen to be using the highest-rated high-tech TV setup.

That would be the Apple TV, the 4K model of which we recently rated not only the most essential set-top box but also the most ahead-of-the-pack product Apple currently makes. (Many users agreed.) 

SEE ALSO: ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ marks the dawn of a new era in television

Bandersnatch is also unavailable on Google’s Chromecast and Amazon’s Fire Stick. Try to watch it on these platforms and what you’ll get instead of the two-plus hour storyline is a 2-minute supercut of Black Mirror characters from other episodes saying “sorry.” And if you thought you could stream it from other devices to these set-top boxes: Sorry, that won’t work either.  Read more…

More about Netflix, Apple Tv, Google Chromecast, Apple Tv 4k, and Tech

Elon Musk’s Twitter in 2018: Lawsuits, dank memes, and ‘funding secured’

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What better way to really understand Elon Musk’s year as Tesla CEO than to look back at his Twitter. It’s been a bumpy and very busy year for the electric car executive. He went from the depths of despair to turning a profit for Tesla for the first time — with a few lawsuits and scathing news reports thrown in for good measure. He even took a few puffs of marijuana on a podcast.

His most famous tweet of 2018? 

Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2018

That led to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit and possible criminal investigation. In his settlement (which cost him $20 million and Tesla another $20 million), he was removed as chairman of the board and his tweeting is now under close watch. That didn’t stop him from taunting the SEC. He remains CEO of Tesla. Read more…

More about Twitter, Tesla, Elon Musk, Tesla Model 3, and Secretary

A game from ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ is playable now

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If Black Mirror: Bandersnatch wasn’t unsettling or meta enough for you, the show’s team snuck in another layer of gameplay: an actual Tuckersoft Games website. You can peruse the company’s history (which you’ll be familiar with if you watched Bandersnatch) and explore its game titles – all of which reference other Black Mirror episodes.

SEE ALSO: ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ is here and Twitter is flipping its shit

Perhaps the sneakiest goody on the site is that you can actually play Nohzdyve, the game Colin (Will Poulter) is working on. But there’s a significant catch. 

The .tap file containing the game can only be played by downloading a ZS Spectrum Emulator – a program that mimics the OS of a personal computer from the 1980s’ Bandersnatch eraFuse, Qaop, or Speccy are some potential emulators, but they only work on certain computers or operating systems (one of the only Mac-compatible downloads I found wouldn’t open because it was from an unidentified developer). Read more…

More about Entertainment, Television, Movies, Black Mirror, and Bandersnatch

Kid takes a bite out of a hot pickle and self-destructs

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Hot pickles should be eaten cautiously, with plenty of preparation in the event of extreme sourness and heat.

Not every little kid knows that. Twitter user @iamlaurans recently fed a hot pickle to her nephew who was begging to have a taste, only to have him collapse in agony.

Be careful what kind of pickle you wish for, folks.

SEE ALSO: Dog completely overjoyed after getting 24 tennis balls as a gift

@IamLaurans believes that her nephew’s reaction wasn’t all that exaggerated:

“He’s very dramatic, but the pickle was definitely hot!! Lol,” she told Mashable.

Remember, kids: pickles are just fancy cucumbers. Nibble cautiously. Read more…

More about Watercooler, Viral Videos, Cute Kids, Culture, and Web Culture

Netflix releases viewership numbers for ‘Bird Box’ and holy crap

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Netflix is notoriously cagey about audience statistics, but even the most secretive among us can’t help bragging sometimes.

Following the release of the sci-fi thriller Bird Box, the company claimed in a tweet that a staggering 45 million accounts watched the film over its debut week.

SEE ALSO: Despite lukewarm reviews, people are enamored with ‘Bird Box’

Took off my blindfold this morning to discover that 45,037,125 Netflix accounts have already watched Bird Box — best first 7 days ever for a Netflix film! pic.twitter.com/uorU3cSzHR

— Netflix Film (@NetflixFilm) December 28, 2018

According to Netflix, this is the best debut week for any of its films ever. It’s worth pointing out that the 45 million number refers to accounts, not views or streams. So the figure isn’t even taking into consideration how many of us share Netflix or watched it with one or more viewing companions. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Movies, Netflix, Bird Box, and Entertainment