Russian President Vladimir Putin is officially a “loser.”

His failing, ongoing war in Ukraine, which has resulted in Russia being near-completely cut off from the international community, is solid proof enough.

But Loser.com has made the designation official, and you can see it for yourself. Type the domain in your web browser and visit the URL. You’ll be redirected to Putin’s Wikipedia page.

The Loser.com domain name has gained notoriety over the years for doing this very thing before. (It even has its own Wikipedia entry.) The URL often redirects visitors to whomever its owner, Brian Connelly, deems as the biggest “loser” of the moment. Connelly has previously shared that he registered Loser.com back in 1995. Unsure of what type of website to develop for the domain name, he has been using redirects in order to troll world-renowned losers ever since.

It’s unclear exactly when Loser.com first started pointing towards Putin’s Wikipedia entry. A generic “coming soon” landing page sat on the URL, according to a Feb. 22 archive saved by the Wayback Machine. Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine began just a couple of days later on Feb. 24.

The next Wayback Machine archive of Loser.com was the night of March 1, which shows the domain redirecting to Putin’s Wikipedia page then. The first tweet from a user noticing the change was posted to Twitter on the morning of March 2.

Loser.com’s most attention-grabbing redirect came in 2015 when the domain pointed to Kanye West’s Wikipedia entry. West had previously criticized musician and songwriter Beck after he beat out Beyonce for Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards that year. In comments he shared at the time, Loser.com owner Connelly admitted he was no fan of West. (Ironically, Beck is also likely known by most for his hit single, “Loser.”)

In 2016, Loser.com made headlines again when Connelly redirected his domain to then-U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump’s Wikipedia page during the Republican primaries. Connelly would, once again, point the URL towards Trump’s Wikipedia entry after the 2020 presidential elections, which Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden.

Kanye, Trump, and now Putin…who will Loser.com point to next?

Humble Bundle is releasing a new collection to help support relief efforts during the war in Ukraine. (Disclosure: Humble Bundle is owned by Mashable’s publisher, Ziff Davis.)

100% of its proceeds from the gaming company’s “Stand with Ukraine” bundle will go toward humanitarian aid for those affected by the Russian invasion. Charities that will receive the donations include Razom for Ukraine, International Rescue Committee, International Medical Corps, and Direct Relief.

The one-week bundle features over 120 pieces of content — from games to RPG books to game dev assets — and is valued at over $2,500. For a donation of $40, you’ll get the entire package.

Humble Bundle is a “pay what you want” storefront, so while $40 is the minimum you must donate to receive the full bundle, you can always give more if you’re able.

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Some highlights in the mix include Back 4 Blood, Metro Exodus, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Max Payne 3, Sunset Overdrive, Slay the Spire, This War of Mine, and more (all of which can be redeemed via Steam once purchased). Check out the full list here.

At the time of writing, Humble Bundle had raised more than $900,000, with more donations accruing by the minute. The offer runs until March 25.

UPDATE: Mar. 18, 2022, 3:08 p.m. EDT Google Maps is back up and running all over the world as of Friday afternoon. A spokesperson said in an email statement that the issue had been resolved, “We can confirm that the technical issue from earlier today is now fixed.”

The original story follows below.

Google Maps went down Friday, March 18, for some users, making it difficult to find directions for driving, walking, biking and modes of transportation.

A Google spokesperson confirmed the outage with an email statement that explained, “We’re seeing reports of difficulties accessing some Google Maps and Google Maps Platform services. Our team is investigating and working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.”

According to Downdetector (note the site is owned by Mashable’s parent company), the outage started late Friday morning and is widespread throughout the U.S. Users in Europe, India, Australia, and other countries also reported issues with the mapping service.

Definitely down.
Credit: Downdetector

It’s affecting both the desktop and app versions of the mapping platform. Other apps that use Google Maps are experiencing issues as well.

While Google figures out what’s causing the problem, people are turning to Apple Maps as an alternative. Or not. Twitter is filling up with comments about avoiding using what’s widely considered an inferior maps app.

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There’s always paper maps!

SAVE 11%: Make sure your phone never runs out of juice with Apple’s MagSafe Battery Pack. As of March 18, it’s on sale at Amazon for $87.95, 11% less than its regular price of $99.

We’ve all borne the consequences of thinking we plugged in our phones overnight when in fact we just fell into bed and passed out. The missed alarms, the dead phone when you really need to use Google Maps… it’s something of a crisis.

For those occasions, it’s probably a good idea to have a portable charger on hand, particularly if you’re out and about for big chunks of the day. Enter Apple’s MagSafe Battery Pack, which you can place on top of (or under) your phone for a quick boost.

Its magnets keep it aligned once it’s on, so you don’t have to worry about accidentally nudging it out of place and waiting an hour to find your phone hasn’t charged at all (definitely not speaking from experience here). And if you actually like cables, you can plug one in and charge that way too.

Explore related content:

• 7 wireless chargers that will juice up your phone crazy fast

• Best wireless charging mats to buy now that the AirPower is dead

• How to order the new Apple iPhone SE

Blinking back tears while you walk through the card aisle. Forcing a smile when your friend tells you she’s pregnant. Scrolling past endless Mother’s Day posts on Instagram and feeling the pain of each passing year. Quietly hitting the ‘opt-out’ button when asked if you’d prefer not to receive Mother’s Day emails.

These are the Mother’s Day stories we don’t share on social media.

A new campaign is breaking the stigma of unspoken Mother’s Day struggles in an effort to encourage solidarity and compassion around this time.

Women’s social network Peanut is behind the posters, which will appear across London, UK, from March 14 through to UK Mother’s Day on March 27.

The campaign was inspired by the real-life Mother’s Day experiences shared by Peanut’s community. Hundreds of women shared their stories of dealing with grief, loss, fertility issues, and the challenges of motherhood.

Credit: Peanut

Some of the posters are aimed at mums who are finding motherhood challenging, who are experiencing prenatal or postpartum depression, and who are carrying the invisible load of parenting.

Credit: Peanut

The posters are aimed at anyone who finds Mother’s Day triggering or upsetting — due to grief, or strained relationships with parents.

“I lost my mom a few years ago to cancer. Mother’s Day reminds me of all the times I missed her, especially when I had my own daughter and I was struggling with mental health and had no one to turn to. No one to talk to, no one to adore my little one. So it’s very hard, always,” Warda from London told Peanut.

Michelle Kennedy, Peanut’s founder and CEO, said in a statement that the campaign aims to shine a light on the struggles in women’s lives that carry a stigma and to help normalise conversations that can make people feel less alone.

“Absence of community during women’s life stages, such as fertility, pregnancy, motherhood and menopause, means that these topics have a social taboo leading to feelings of isolation, loneliness and depression,” said Kennedy.

Credit: Peanut

Some of the campaign posters speak to people who want children and are having difficulties conceiving or who have experienced baby loss.

Hollie from Plymouth, told Peanut: “When we were desperately trying to conceive I found it hard seeing pics of all the other mums with their babies celebrating the day, praying it would be me one day.”

Credit: Peanut

“Because I have lost seven children now through miscarriage, Mother’s Day reminds me how they aren’t here and something is missing. I have two living children and they are my world, but it doesn’t stop me thinking about the ones I have lost,” Anne-Marie from Tunbridge Wells told Peanut.

Credit: Peanut

The other campaign posters include the following lines:

• To the woman who’s had a long day being pregnant, you’re not alone.

• To the woman trying to embrace her pregnancy body, you’re not alone.

• To the woman struggling to love her post-baby body, you’re not alone.

• To the woman who feels like she doesn’t belong to herself, you’re not alone.

• To the woman fighting a battle that no one knows about, you’re not alone. 

As Peanut founder Kennedy said, “No one should have to suffer in silence, especially on Mother’s Day.”

Winamp is doing NFTs now, because you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Announced to widespread derision on Wednesday, Winamp will auction off the media player’s original skin as a one-of-one NFT on OpenSea, with bidding to start on May 16 and run until May 22. It then intends to sell 20 more artworks starting from May 23, all of them duplicated around 100 times to create 1997 NFTs in total (a nod to the year the program launched). Each will cost 0.08 ETH, which is approximately $225 at the current conversion rate, so if all 1997 NFTs are sold it would total almost $450,000. 

These 20 designs will be derived from the original Winamp skin, and chosen from public submissions. 

“Send over your derivatives to us,” reads Winamp’s website. “Our team of Winamp scientists will examine every cryptoArt that comes its way and 20 derivatives will be selected to be sold as Winamp’s NFTs.”

If a submission isn’t selected, the competition’s terms and conditions still grant Winamp “a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use, copy and display the Art.”

If it is selected, the artist waives all rights to their work and irrevocably hands over the copyright to Winamp. And while they will be allowed to post it on social media, it will be on the condition that they add a notice declaring the copyright and all rights belong to Winamp.

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To be fair, the endeavour is supposedly for a good cause. The Winamp NFT Initiative is in support of the Winamp Foundation, which funds charities such as Music Fund that help musicians. Still, it is possible to support charity without also turning to widely loathed blockchain technology.

It also feels as though the charity is actually coming from the artists, rather than Winamp itself. While 80 percent of the income from these NFTs’ initial sales will go to the Winamp Foundation, only 20 percent will be paid to the artists — around $45 per NFT. On resale, 80 percent goes to the reseller, 10 percent to Winamp, and 10 percent to the artist.

Mashable has reached out to Winamp for comment.

Launched in 1997, Winamp was the preferred media player for millions of millennials in the early days of the internet. The program was famous for its customisable skins, with users able to choose from thousands of community-created options to suit their desktop’s aesthetic.

Among those who hate Winamp’s latest move is Justin Frankel, one of the media player’s original creators.

“I have spent the last number of years giving the owners of Winamp benefit of doubt,” Frankel tweeted in response to the announcement. “No more. You are terrible.”

Elaborating on his website, Frankel expressed “[s]trong disapproval for multiple reasons.”

“Environmental impact is terrible, and also it is a negative-sum ecosystem so anything that encourages more people to buy into it so that the people who previously bought it (or mined-in) can cash out is a bad thing,” he wrote. “Just to be clear the skin itself isn’t being auctioned, a URL that points to the skin is. IIRC it was made by [Winamp co-creators] Tom [Pepper] and Dmitry [Boldyrev].”.

Up until this week, Winamp still inspired fond feelings of nostalgia in many. Unfortunately, general disdain for NFTs now seems to have soured the memory.

NASA just presented its new megarocket to the world.

To acknowledge the completion of the world’s most powerful rocket — and the first time the space agency hauled the 322-foot-tall behemoth to its Kennedy Space Center launchpad — NASA collaborated with Pearl Jam rocker Eddie Vedder to make a music video about the looming 2022 launch.

It’s a soaring rock tune set to an animated montage of the rocket, called the Space Launch System (SLS), blasting into space and orbiting the moon.

“The Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft – the only human-rated spacecraft in the world capable of deep-space travel – are planned to lift off from Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for the uncrewed Artemis I mission around the Moon,” NASA wrote. “Through the Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon, paving the way for a long-term lunar presence, and serving as a steppingstone on the way to Mars.”

• The star of NASA’s megarocket reveal isn’t the big rocket

• NASA’s monstrous moon rocket is an overpriced, political beast

If all goes as planned, the space agency will practice fueling the rocket and counting down for launch on April 3. Then, as early as May 2022, the rocket’s first uncrewed mission around the moon (called Artemis-1) will launch into space from the Kennedy Space Center.

Eventually, the Orion spacecraft, which sits atop the SLS rocket, may carry astronauts to the distant red planet, Mars.

They call it the crawler.

In a long-anticipated event, NASA will haul its new moon-bound megarocket to a Kennedy Space Center launchpad on March 17. It’s a dress rehearsal for the real, fiery show, perhaps this spring or summer when an uncrewed spacecraft blasts off and journeys around the moon. Out in the open Florida air for the first time, the space agency will eventually load the completed 322-foot-tall rocket with super-cold propellant and practice a nail-biting countdown.

But, crucially, the sun-drenched megarocket reveal — and all the subsequent launches to the moon and beyond — depend on a renovated relic from the historic Apollo missions. Nearly 60 years ago, NASA built two monstrous, tank-like vehicles to transport its legendary Saturn V rocket to the launch stage. One of them, the Crawler-transporter 2, will now ferry the most powerful rocket ever built, NASA’s Space Launch System, or SLS, to the pad.

“It’s the only way for an SLS launch to happen,” John Giles, the engineering operations manager for the crawler, told Mashable. “The only way to go is on our back.”

NASA will broadcast live coverage when the crawler’s rollout begins, between 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. ET on March 17. The space agency expects the rocket will arrive at the launchpad in the early hours of March 18. The actual fueling and countdown will occur later, on April 3.

UPDATE: Mar. 17, 2022, 7:30 p.m. EDT The crawler successfully began transporting the SLS rocket to its Kennedy Space Center launchpad on March 17, 2022.

“The only way to go is on our back.”

The renovated crawler can carry 18 million pounds, six million more than crawlers hauled during the Apollo years. The machine will bear the loads of both the rocket and the over 10-million-pound mobile launcher (a tower-like metallic structure) as it rumbles across a four-mile road of pebbles en route to the coast. The creeping journey from where the rocket is built, NASA’s iconic Vehicle Assembly Building, to the launchpad usually takes around eight hours.

The size of the machine is hard to fathom. It’s 131 feet long and 114 feet wide. Its flat surface is larger than a baseball infield. Next to the tank-like tracks, a person looks tiny.

“Unless you’ve been next to it, you have no idea how big it really is,” explained Giles.

• A spacecraft ‘touched’ the sun. Here’s how it survived.

• NASA waited 50 years to unseal these precious moon rocks

• NASA’s monstrous moon rocket is an overpriced, political beast

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The crawler certainly wasn’t built for speed. Its purpose is to safely get a giant, expensive rocket to its coastal launch pad. “The crawler is basically carrying a skyscraper,” said Tammy Long, a public affairs officer supporting NASA’s SLS launch.

Once the crawler moves under the mobile launching tower (which holds the rocket), it will soon start rolling at just 0.05 mph. With its weighty cargo, it will top out at 0.85 mph, never reaching 1 mph. Near the end of the journey, the crawler will climb a five-degree slope up to the pad.

“The crawler is basically carrying a skyscraper.”

NASA made considerable upgrades to the historic crawler, modifications intended to last some 20 years. To support such tremendous weight for NASA’s looming SLS missions, engineers added new brakes, generators, engine parts, structural support, and beyond. So if NASA blasts astronauts beyond the moon in the 2030s — specifically, in an ambitious endeavor to put a crew on Mars for a month — that deep space mission will start with the crawler.

The crawler moving the Mobile Launch Platform during a test.
Credit: NASA / KSP

In the 1960s, the crawler hauled the legendary Saturn V rocket to the launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center.
Credit: NASA

To prepare for the SLS’s grand rehearsal, and the looming Artemis 1 uncrewed launch in 2022 (no earlier than May), NASA’s engineers have practiced driving their retrofit crawler. For half a decade, they’ve lifted and moved heavy launch platforms, making sure all 70,000 parts work properly.

In total, the preparation for this moment, when the rocket will be truly revealed to the world, has taken 12 years. That’s when NASA decided an old Apollo-era crawler would be used to move its new megarocket.

One day soon, the crawler’s engineers will watch from Florida as the SLS speeds through Earth’s atmosphere at 17,500 mph, en route to extraterrestrial endeavors. But without the slow tank reliably inching toward the Florida coast, that rocket isn’t going anywhere.

“This is a huge mission itself,” said Giles.

NASA paraded its megarocket to the launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Thursday evening, and not just for a flashy photo-op a la the Oscars red carpet.

The U.S. space agency is readying the 5.75 million-pound behemoth for a mission to the moon, known as Artemis I. It’s the first in a series of deep space exploration voyages that could lift off as early as May. The upcoming launch won’t include astronauts, but the flight will prepare NASA to send a crew on the next, more complex mission, Artemis II.

At its Kennedy Space Center launchpad, the fully assembled rocket, known as the Space Launch System, with the Orion spacecraft on top, will undergo a so-called “wet dress rehearsal” because the crucial test involves filling the rocket with liquid fuel. Only after successfully completing this loading and countdown simulation will NASA set a date for the first lunar mission, agency leaders say.

• The star of NASA’s megarocket reveal isn’t the big rocket

• A little-known U.S. spaceport shoots into the big rocket scene

• China landed on the moon and found water in dirt and rocks

• NASA waited 50 years to unseal these precious moon rocks

The redeye rollout of the 322-foot rocket began at 5 p.m. ET and will continue through nightfall, expected to arrive at the launch site at about 4 a.m. ET Friday. Eventually, the wet dress rehearsal will begin on April 3 and occur over two days.

Wheeling out the rocket was a grander display than the last time NASA showcased its largest rocket. When the agency hauled the (now retired) Space Shuttle to the launch pad, the team transported it under the cover of darkness at midnight, Mike Bolger, exploration ground systems program manager, said during a call with reporters in February.

NASA’s moon rocket begins the 4-mile trek to the launchpad for a wet dress rehearsal.
Credit: NASA / Joel Kowsky

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Since then, the agency has perhaps learned a lesson in public relations, taking advantage of a spectacular Space Coast sunset for the road trip, which will creep at speeds less than 1 mph.

“This is a very different vehicle than what we normally see here in Florida,” said Tom Whitmeyer, associate administrator for exploration systems development, in a press briefing on Monday. “There hasn’t been something like this for quite some time.”

What makes this rocket stand out (pun intended) is its imposing, colossal height. The megarocket towers above the Statue of Liberty and London’s Big Ben, comparable in size to Saturn V, the rocket used for the Apollo missions.

“It just catches your breath.”

“It just catches your breath,” Whitmeyer said.

The journey from storage to launchpad is about four miles — some might say the longest four miles of NASA engineers’ lives. It will take around 11 hours for the megarocket to lumber down the path on a crawler transporter, a more than 50-year-old machine reminiscent of a Star Wars mobile desert fortress.

Once the rocket is docked at the launch pad, the team will connect the mobile launcher to utilities, such as water for fire suppression, power, and air. The next step is a meeting to assess the health and status of the rocket and Orion spacecraft. Lastly, the team will load the core and upper stages of the rocket with propellant, liquid hydrogen, and liquid oxygen.

The wet dress rehearsal allows the team to practice fueling and walking through a countdown. If you get fidgety at the gas station, consider this: Filling the tanks of the megarocket will take about eight hours. By comparison, the Space Shuttle only took 2.5 hours.

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NASA engineers will also practice a “scrub.” A so-called “scrub” is aeronautics-speak for a cancellation. In theory, the space agency can call off a launch right down to the wire for foul weather, temperature, mechanical failures, or a litany of other problems. Back in the Space Shuttle days, a launch was once delayed because a woodpecker poked over 200 holes in an external fuel tank.

After filling’er up, the NASA team will practice a launch countdown, stopping with just 10 seconds remaining. Then, they’ll rehearse resetting the countdown clock to 10 minutes before takeoff. The tests will conclude with draining the fuel from the rocket.

“The next time when we roll, when we actually roll out for launch, we’ll refer to that four-mile trip as the first four miles of NASA’s return to the moon,” Bolger said.

Maserati gave the ultimate teaser to its new line of electric vehicles: one tantalizing photo and not much more.

On Thursday the Italian carmaker announced it would be going all in on electric vehicles across its product line-up. Called the Folgore line, it includes six different Maseratis.

The first EV will be the GranTurismo Folgore, a race-car looking sports car that starts around $134,000 in its gas-powered form. The electric version is expected to be available by 2023. Maserati didn’t share anything about pricing or the battery. But it did give a sneak peak and mention a three-motor configuration that will give it quick acceleration and 186 mph top speed.

A GranCabrio, a four-seater sports car, will also be out in 2023 as an EV. Then there’s the Grecale, a mid-size SUV that will also debut then as an EV.

In 2025, brace for more expensive, electric Maseratis: the MC20 supercar, Levante full-size SUV, and Quattroporte sport sedan.

By 2030, Maserati says it will only sell electric rides. Sounds a lot like another luxury car brand (cough, Bentley, cough).