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Tech NewsAppleSamsung Catches a Break for Once
Back in 2011, Apple called Samsung a bunch of no-good, phone-stealing copycats (legally speaking,) demanding nearly $1 billion. Fast forward five years and the South Korean electronics giant that’s now best known for producing pocket-sized explosives got what appears to be a lucky break from the highest court in the nation. The Supreme Court ruled … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech News
Welcome to Nordstrom, Can I Interest You in This Fancy Rock?
The American home is replete with all manner of overpriced baubles and trinkets. But is your idlic suburban ranch house truly complete with an $85 rock in a bespoke leather pouch? Nordstrom thinks not. “Medium Leather Wrapped Stone,” as it’s referred to on the Nordstrom store, is made by artist Peter Maxwell out of “smooth … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech News
Pizzagaters Aren’t Giving This Shit Up
For months, 4chan and Reddit users have delved deep into the emails of John Podesta as they were released by Wikileaks and concluded that the emails contained coded language about a secret child-trafficking ring operating out of Comet Ping Pong, a Washington DC pizzeria—a ring ran by Podesta and former presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. The … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsReddit Is Tearing Itself Apart
For the past 11 years, an eternity in internet time, Reddit has touted itself—repeatedly, and loudly—as the place to have “authentic conversations” online. For a variety of reasons, that sentiment has always rang hollow. Now, Reddit, in its goal to be a laissez-faire haven of (relatively) free expression, has been overrun by nationalist trolls. Its … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech News
Reddit CEO Caught Secretly Editing User Comments, Chatlogs Leaked [Update]
Reddit’s CEO Steve Huffman has been caught editing comments of users of the infamous pro-Trump subreddit The_Donald. For a site which prides itself on “authentic” conversation, the ability of site administrators to secretly alter content has drastic implications. During its tumultuous year on the site, Reddit’s Donald Trump community (r/the_donald) has been a constant source … Continued
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Tech News
Donald Trump: ‘The Wind Is a Very Deceiving Thing’
Donald J. Trump, businessman and president-elect, finally had his meeting with the New York Times this week. In their lengthy chat, the ascendant leader of the free world shared what appeared to be words of wisdom passed down to him by a cartoon sea captain: “The wind is a very deceiving thing.” Context does little … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsWhen You Fly Over a Foreign Country, Your Airplane Owes Rent
Ever wonder how commercial flights are allowed to pass over and through many different sovereign nations without causing a fuss? You can thank the International Civil Aviation Organization. As Wendover Productions explains in his most recent video, the ICAO is recognized by almost every developed nation on Earth, and the organization’s five fundamental rights of … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsSploid
The Circle of Life Was Inside This Baby the Whole Time
As the new Planet Earth series has us remembering, nature is awe-inspiring, and unparalleled in its complexity, diversity, or cruelty. Observing the eternal arms race of species competing to claim a limited number of resources as it plays out through specialized biology over the course of millennia is humbling stuff. Not quite as humbling as … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsAppleYou Can Play Doom on Apple’s Touch Bar But It’s Not Pretty
When it first launched, Doom was the pinnacle of first-person shooters. Now the whole thing runs on Apple’s high-tech function key replacement. (Macbook Pro, baby!) The Touch Bar is just the most recent (and ridiculous) piece of hardware to run the classic game. Graphing calculators? Those run Doom. Inkjet printers? Yup— Doom. There’s even an … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech News
The Starbucks #TrumpCup Protest Makes No Damn Sense
Trump supporters are mad, generally. Social media suggests they’re fundamentally unhappy people. And today they’re directed their misplaced rage at overpriced coffee giant Starbucks in the stupidest way possible. The Trump army’s ire started brewing back on November 7th, after a video surfaced depicting a Starbucks patron demanding to have the name “Trump” written on … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech News
Trump Found a Way to Make Manhattan Even Worse
Midtown Manhattan—with its noise, traffic, slow-moving tourists, and overpriced everything—is the one place most New Yorkers avoid at all costs (if they can help it.) It’s also home to Trump Tower, a gargantuan gold-plated phallus jabbed straight into the city skyline where the President-elect is planning on spending weekends during his term in office. In … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech News
Authorities Just Shut Down What.CD, the Best Music Torrenting Community
Torrenting’s long goodbye just claimed another victim. What.CD, an invite-only music torrenting tracker and successor to Oink’s Pink Palace has been shut down after nearly a decade following a raid by French authorities. All twelve servers operated by What.CD were seized earlier today in a sweeping effort to shut down the service and its estimated … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsApple
Firefox’s Super-Private Browser Is Obvious, and That’s Why I Like It
Without the aid of specialized tools, everything you do online (and plenty of things you don’t realized you’re doing) is being tracked. Desktop browsers have the benefit of extensions and add-ons that block pages from tracking you, but mobile browsers tend to be a little less advanced. That’s what makes Focus, Firefox’s privacy-forward iOS browser, … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsSploidWatching Objects Getting Dipped in Paint Is Sublime
It’s been a hard couple of weeks. You deserve something nice, and today that something is a bunch of sculptures getting coated in tiny galaxies of paint. Paint-dipping is a process for covering an object in swirls and splotches of color that would be difficult to achieve by hand. Anything that looks sufficiently like a … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsGoogle
That Story About Taylor Swift Voting for Trump Is So Very False
If like a huge number of Americans you get your news from social media, you’re likely to have seen a story this week claiming that pop star Taylor Swift is a proud Trump supporter. The report is completely fabricated—as is the image of Swift wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. This type of misinformation—quickly … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech News
What Trump’s Boycotting Supporters Will Be Living Without [Updates]
In the wake of the election, Trump supporters have been calling for boycotts of companies and products whose ideals they feel do not align with the President-elect’s. The number and importance of those services grows more expansive with each passing day—and includes the vast majority of popular internet services. CEO Matt Maloney was the first … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsFacebookJohn Oliver: Facebook Is a ‘Cesspool of Nonsense’
In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory last week, we need a voice of reason like John Oliver’s more than ever right now, and John Oliver wasted no time in describing precisely how fucked we are in Trump’s America—a version of this country in which everything is made up and facts don’t matter. In particular, … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech News
Why Was This NYPD Officer Hiding His Face During Wednesday Night’s Anti-Trump Protest? [Update]
Since Donald Trump was declared the President-elect early Tuesday morning, cities across the United States have seen daily protests, including Boston, Washington DC, and Portland. But after last night’s New York City protest outside Trump Tower, an eerie but familiar image of an NYPD officer obscuring his identity emerged. The photograph, originally taken by Ellen … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech News
Did Clint Eastwood Get Banned From Twitter?
Late last night, Twitter made the decision to suspend @EastwoodUSA. The account’s final message—and presumed reason for being booted off the social network—read: Thank you America, I don’t have long left to live but now I know the last few years will be great, I can’t thank you enough #PresidentTrump Users reacted in outrage to … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech News
Trump’s Troll Army Sets Its Sights on Europe
At approximately 2:30am EST, Donald J. Trump—a man who shares in common all the traits of burgeoning fascists through history—was declared the 45th president of the United States of America. He will take the office with a Republican majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. And the internet army that believes it … Continued
By Avery Ellis
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