Does anybody have the Dashboard Confessional song “Vindicated” on hand?

A report from the Wall Street Journal says that Amazon has leased new offices in Manhattan for 1,500 employees. 

The news comes 10 months after Amazon abandoned its plans to build its second headquarters (“HQ2”) in Long Island City, Queens. The company reversed course thanks to protests from residents and local officials who objected to the $3 billion it would receive in tax credits, and the gentrification, raised rents, and commuting mayhem it promised to bring. 

Among those critics was Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who objected to what she saw as a government handout. Some people in turn criticized AOC for denying people jobs, and ostensibly scaring off the tech industry.  Read more…

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A hairbrush is just a hairbrush, except when it represents the person to whom it once belonged.

That realization is the impact of a new collection of photographs now being shown at the Skirball Cultural Center museum in Los Angeles. And while it’s rare to mention Border Patrol in 2019 without also referencing Donald Trump’s regressive immigration policies, this show covers a stretch of time that actually predates the current president’s time in office.

The photos depict everyday objects — toothbrushes, medication, love notes — that U.S. Border Patrol confiscated from migrants and asylum seekers as they attempted to cross into the U.S. from Mexico. They were all photographed by a former janitor who rescued them from the trash. Read more…

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Put it on a postcard.

We can’t guarantee a perfect photo opp from our fixed vantage point of the floating space rock called Earth. Space is vast, and three-dimensional. Things don’t always line up as well as NGC 5468 does in this image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.

The spiral galaxy that NASA highlighted in a Friday post is situated over 130 million light-years away from the point in space we call home. Our face-on look at NGC 5468 makes it easier to spot the massive explosion created collapsing stars, or supernovae. Read more…

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We all walk and text, but maybe we shouldn’t.

At least, one could reasonably come to that conclusion after checking out a new study from Rutgers University. The study found that head and neck injuries as a result of cell phone use, whether it came from being hit by a phone or distracted walking or driving, steadily rose between 1998 and 2017.

The full study was published in the journal AMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery. Author Boris Paskhover said he was inspired to examine this phenomenon after, among other things, treating a woman who broke her nose by dropping a phone on her face. The most commonly reported injury types in the study were lacerations, contusions, and internal organ injury in the head and neck areas. Read more…

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One of the first high-profile wearables is finally about to kick the bucket, several years after a short rollercoaster ride atop the tech news cycle.

Google recently updated the support page for Google Glass Explorer Edition with information about the product’s final update. The patch will essentially divorce Google Glass from any of Google’s backend services after Feb. 25. Once it’s installed and that date rolls by, Glass users won’t be able to log in at all with their Google accounts on the device.

After that, the old version of Glass will still work as a sort of husk of its former self. It’ll still connect to phones via Bluetooth, support sideloaded apps, and allow photos and videos to be taken with the camera. But mirror apps such as Hangouts, YouTube, and Gmail won’t work anymore, per Google’s support page. Read more…

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Greta is getting impatient. 

On Friday, a reported 500,000-person climate change action protest swelled in the streets of Madrid. The protesters – many of them skipping school as part of the “School Strike for Climate” movement – were there to pressure world leaders attending the COP25 conference to take meaningful action on climate change. 

This wasn’t a kumbaya protest. Thunberg and her fellow youth activists seem frustrated by sluggish and ineffectual efforts of adults, and are not willing to hand out self-congratulation for a renewed wave of protests, either.

More about Youth Activism, Greta Thunberg, School Strike, Tech, and Activism

What if one of the random non-playable characters in the big, open Grand Theft Auto-style video game du jour suddenly attained sentience?

That’s the question posed in Free Guy, a Ryan Reynolds action-comedy hitting theaters on July 3, 2020. Reynolds stars as a milquetoast bank teller who realizes one day that his life is an artificial construct and he’s a random background player in some massive online game.

This first trailer highlights some clever humor built around familiar video game tropes. It also seemingly confirms that Taiki Waititi is the movie’s villain. So if you need any further encouragement to check it out, there you go. Read more…

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Documents at the heart of an important debate in the upcoming UK general election may have leaked from Russia, according to Reddit.

The online message board said on Friday that the leaked details of a possible trade agreement between the UK and U.S. governments may have come from a Russian campaign dubbed “Secondary Infektion.” Reddit noted that the leaks, which originated in October, bore several similarities to what Secondary Infektion had done on Facebook previously.

Reuters originally reported the link between Secondary Infektion and the Reddit leaks. It’s not confirmed that there is a connection between the leaks and the Russian government, nor have either the UK or U.S. governments disputed or confirmed the legitimacy of the documents.  Read more…

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Fortnite is going to make the long wait for the next Star Wars just a little bit easier.

Fans have noticed that posters appearing inside the game’s Battle Royale map are now hyping a Dec. 14 event that will treat players to an “exclusive scene premiere” from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. It will even feature an appearance (presumably an introduction) from director J.J. Abrams.

According to the posters, the event is set to kick off on Dec. 14 at 1:30 p.m. ET, with the “show” starting at 2:00 p.m. ET. It’ll be happening at Risky Reels, a decrepit drive-in movie theater situated just to the west of Frenzy Farm. You can spot the poster in various locations around the map. Read more…

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Try explaining any of this to your grandkids in 50 years.

In recent days, the internet started working off all that Thanksgiving food by hollering about a deeply unsettling TV ad for Peloton’s luxury exercise bikes. A new ad featuring the same actress emerged on Friday and went viral, thanks to Ryan Reynolds of all people.

In the ad for Aviation Gin, actress Monica Ruiz gives a dead-eyed stare at a bar for several seconds before declaring that the gin she’s drinking is “very smooth.” Her two friends try to console her by telling her she’s “safe now,” before they all toast to “new beginnings” and down some martinis.  Read more…

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