Between their acquisition of Whole Foods, Jeff Bezos’ (hours-long) takeover as the world’s richest corporate overlord, the uninhibited growth of Prime day, and our biggest pop stars maybe or maybe not sizing themselves up for next day shipping, Amazon’s appetite as the planet’s biggest retail behemoth is somehow…
Source: LifeHacker – Score a Job at Amazon Before They Employ Us All
Enlarge / “Thirteen, Houston—you are go for fun.”
HOUSTON—“Ah, Thirteen, Houston,” I said into the mic as the alarms blared and the screens on the wall showed an image of a badly damaged Apollo spacecraft floating slowly away into the void.
“Go ahead, Houston,” came the scratchy voice from the doomed command module.
“Ah, Thirteen, we’ve got some bad news and some good news,” I drawled, playing up my East Texas accent and trying to imitate the pure laconic coolness that I’d been hearing in tapes of air-to-space communication all my life.
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Source: Ars Technica – Apollo 13 escape room at Houston Escape Hunt is absolutely delightful
These are several shots and a short video of a massive huntsman spider in Queensland, Australia that ‘terrorized’ Lauren Ansell and her boyfriend when they were cooking dinner one night. Who knows, maybe it just likes spaghetti. I know I do.
Though not extremely dangerous to humans, huntsman spiders will bite if aggravated – and you better believe the bad boy holding this couple hostage was unhappy when they tried to move him.
After the bitter stand-off culminated in Ansell’s partner attempting to crush the eight-legged aggressor using the glass door, the enemy retreated with minor wounds. “We nicknamed the spider ‘Aragog’ from Harry Potter, and feel the spider has run into the forbidden forest,” Ansell told local media in conclusion.
Wait — you tried to crush it with the door? That is not how you get on a spider’s good side. The key to staying on a spider’s good side is secretly providing it with prey. Like telling your girlfriend you left a surprise for her outside, then locking the door behind her, diving out a window, and setting the whole neighborhood on fire. Spiders are like roaches: for every one you see, there are a hundred more hiding. Probably in your hair right now. Can you feel that? It’s in your hair!
Keep going for a couple more shots and one of those robot narrated news stories.
Source: Geekologie – Massive Huntsman Spider ‘Traps’ Australian Couple In Home
Stephen King is the undisputed master of horror. He’s an incredibly prolific writer, penning over 56 books under his own name alone, and is one of the most adapted authors alive, with over 120 adaptations of his books, scripts, and short stories on film and television. In those thousands of pages, there have been more…
Source: Gizmodo – The 28 Worst Stephen King Deaths, Ranked
It’s no secret that there are oodles of shady VPN services that promise to protect your privacy as you surf the internet, but may, in fact, actually be worthless. After all, internet privacy is one part moving target and two parts shell game with you…
Source: Engadget – Is your VPN lying to you?
My hope is that keys will someday be a relic of the past, but until that day comes, Orbitkey does a great job of keeping them organized and quiet in your pocket.
Source: Gizmodo – Orbitkey Is the Cure For the Common Key Ring
Enlarge / OkCupid put blinders on a longtime site feature on Friday. (credit: OkCupid)
On Friday, online dating service OkCupid introduced its biggest change since its 2009 paid “A-List” add-on package. Starting today, the site’s users no longer see a major data point that has been standard for nearly a decade: the “visitors” tab.
“What’s the value of a visitor?” the company wrote in an e-mail to users. “Short answer: zero.” However, that valuation is shaken up by a follow-up sentence, and it may explain why the Match.com-owned company made the change. “A person who visits your profile and chooses not to follow up with a ‘like’ or a message probably (read: definitely) isn’t worth your time.”
To understand this “visitor” tab’s potential value, here’s a brief explainer. OkCupid works differently than GPS-fueled dating apps like Tinder, since it’s a product of an older dating-service generation. Its users can sort through potential matches with a variety of metrics, particularly a “match percentage” determined by the site’s questionnaires. The service’s reliance on questions, data, and match metrics (broken down into categories like sex, ethics, and religion) differentiated the service from its ’00s peers (and gives it less of a “hook-up” reputation than the photo- and location-focused Tinder).
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Source: Ars Technica – Dating site OkCupid removes decade-old workaround for its paid version
In an effort to reduce tobacco-related disease and death, the US Food and Drug Administration says it’s considering a plan to reduce nicotine levels in cigarettes—a major regulatory shift that’s already causing turmoil for conventional cigarettes companies at the stock market.
Source: Gizmodo – FDA Considering Reducing Nicotine in Cigarettes to Non-Addictive Levels
Janko Roettgers, writing for Variety: Google has hired a former lead Pebble and webOS designer Liron Damir as the new head of user experience of its Google Home group, which works on products such as Google Home, Chromecast and Google Wifi. Damir announced that he joined Google on LinkedIn this week, writing that he was “super excited and proud to be joining Google… to lead the design of Google Home products.” A Google spokesperson confirmed the hire Thursday, but declined to comment further. Most recently, Damir worked as head of UX for Essential, the new startup from Android founder Andy Rubin. Before that, he was VP of design at Pebble, the pioneering smart watch maker that got acquired by Fitbit in late 2016. Before joining Pebble, Damir led the webOS design efforts at HP, and then at LG. webOS was initially developed as a mobile operating system to take on Android and iOS, but HP scrapped these efforts when it realized that it couldn’t compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung. The company sold webOS to LG in early 2013, which ended up using the operating system for its smart TVs.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Former webOS, Pebble Design Lead, Who Just Left Andy Rubin’s Essential, Heads To Google
An existing storage shed in the forest is transformed into a small modern home with a striking form.
Source: TreeHugger – Forest cabin enlarged into small birdhouse-like wilderness retreat
A day after Twitter revealed that its user base is stagnating like never before, the company began inviting users to test a subscription service that automatically promotes tweets to a wider audience for a monthly fee.
Source: Gizmodo – Twitter’s First Subscription Service Turns Your Tweets Into Ads for a Month
A photo shot by “BeetleCam” shows the beauty and intelligence of these unsung underdogs.
Source: TreeHugger – Spotted hyenas are smart, social and ruled by females
Microsoft revealed its Modern Keyboard and Mouse last month. Both are styled like the company’s Surface devices and the keyboard has Apple-style “chiclet” keys and a sturdy aluminum frame. It also has a fingerprint sensor tucked in between the Alt an…
Source: Engadget – Microsoft’s minimal Modern mouse and keyboard are now available
An anonymous reader shares a CNN report:Smart guns are supposed to be safer than traditional weapons. They’re designed to only fire when paired with a second piece of technology that identifies the shooter, like an electronic chip or a fingerprint. Supporters say they could stop accidental shootings or misfires. And they’ve been lauded by law enforcement to prevent criminals from using stolen or misplaced guns. However, like any technology, they’re not unhackable. A hacker known by the pseudonym Plore doesn’t want to put a stop to smart guns, but he wants the firearm industry that’s increasingly manufacturing these devices to know that they can be hacked. The model Plore hacked is called the Armatix IPI. It pairs electronically with a smart watch so that only the person wearing the watch can fire it. The devices authenticate users via radio signals, electronically talking to each other within a small range. Plore broke the security features in three different ways, including jamming radio signals in the weapon and watch so the gun couldn’t be fired, and shooting the gun with no watch nearby by placing strong magnets next to the weapon.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Hacker Cracks Smart Gun Security To Shoot It Without Approval
We have app doctors that can help diagnose you from your phone and in the future, we very well might have AI physicians, but the UK is now offering another option — medical kiosks. A company called MedicSpot has set up tiny clinics in pharmacies acr…
Source: Engadget – Visit a kiosk in the UK to diagnose your cold
This is a short video of Riley the bug-eyed Boston Terrier, who’s decided he’s no longer a dog anymore, but a carpet shark. Man, that would be scary to see lurking around the living room floor on my way to the kitchen for a midnight snack. Or an 11PM snack. Or 1AM snack. Or a 2:30AM snack. *shrug* I’ve always been a late-night snacker. Usually spoonfuls of peanut butter or a couple pickle spears. Or four chocolate pudding packs. “Are you pregnant?” If I am I have been for half my life.
Keep going for two versions of the whole video in case one doesn’t work.
Source: Geekologie – Who Are You And What Have You Done With Riley?: A Dog That Thinks It’s A Carpet Shark
The latest Star Wars story is already here, and it’s free on YouTube. It’s a series of shorts called Forces of Destiny, and each one delivers action, humor, and a genuinely heartfelt moment of heroism. The best part about the series, authored by Marvel alum Jennifer Muro, is that it fills in backstory on characters that you always wondered about. (So yeah, it’s canon.)
Forces of Destiny is a 16-episode series, and the first eight were released this month. Eight more will come in October. The series is episodic, jumping around in time from Episodes 1 through 7 of the films. We see a lot of Rey (Daisy Ridley) and BB-8, though we also stop in to see Ahsoka (Ashley Eckstein) kicking butt, Leia doing spycraft, and Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) being her usual chaotic good rogue. All the actors from the movies and TV series voice their characters, except Leia (RIP Carrie Fisher), who is voiced by Shelby Young.
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Source: Ars Technica – An action-packed new Star Wars animated series is on YouTube now
Happy weekend, and welcome back to 3-Ingredient Happy Hour, the weekly drink column featuring super simple yet delicious libations. This weekend we’re going to be sipping on a classic cocktail that is, at its core, just a glass of clear, cold, alcohol: the Vesper martini.
Source: LifeHacker – 3-Ingredient Happy Hour: The Classic, Boozy Vesper
In April, scientists achieved a major breakthrough that could one day drastically improve the fate of babies born extremely prematurely. Eight prematurely born baby lambs spent their last month of development in an external womb that resembled a high-tech ziplock bag. At the time of publication, the oldest lamb was…
Source: Gizmodo – How New Technology Could Threaten a Woman’s Right to Abortion
You could live your whole life cooking boxed Barilla pasta, and never once realize how fun and rewarding it can be to make your own. This Philips pasta maker isn’t cheap, but it lets you create your own noodles with multiple shapes in just 15 minutes. $200 is within $10 of the best price Amazon’s ever listed, so I’d…
Source: LifeHacker – Here’s a Great Chance to Discover the Joys of Pasta Making
