The fossilized remains of an early reptile dating back some 250 million years have been uncovered in the unlikeliest of places: Antarctica. The discovery shows how wildlife recovered after the worst mass extinction in our planet’s history, and how Antarctica once hosted an ecosystem unlike any other.
Source: Gizmodo – Rare Fossil of Triassic Reptile Discovered in Antarctica
Sometimes the question is not ‘can we?’ but ‘should we?’, and whoever decided to make a deepfake video of Steve Buscemi’s mug on Jennifer Lawrence completely ignored the latter. The result is one of the most frightening things you’ll ever see. Granted, beauty is subjective and in the eye of the beholder. But let us explain.
Yes, Steve Buscemi
Source: Hot Hardware – AI Deepfake Of Jennifer Lawrence And Steve Buscemi’s Face Will Haunt Your Soul
Enlarge (credit: Jonathan Lee, Duke University)
The Canadian government announced Wednesday that it will halve the number of diplomats at its embassy in Cuba after a 14th Canadian has mysteriously fallen ill with brain injuries there.
The latest case from December suggests that the enigmatic incidents—which began in late 2016 and have been considered by the US government to be attacks—are still ongoing, straining relations between Cuba and the US, and now Cuba and Canada.
Josefina Vidal, Cuba’s ambassador to Canada, called the decision Wednesday “incomprehensible.”
Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – More mysterious brain injuries in Cuba; Canada halves staff after new case
This is a video of a slackline and heights enthusiast performing a side flip (kind of a perpendicular barrel roll) at an elevation of 500-meters (~1,640-feet). At least he was tethered, otherwise I’d call him a crazy person. As a matter of fact I still might call him a crazy person, just not to his face because the last thing you want to do is antagonize someone who’s nuts. Sadly, it appears somebody can’t produce enough adrenaline naturally. Me? I get so amped just leaving work every afternoon I feel like I can lift a car. I mean I can’t, and thankful that man is in stable condition now, but I felt like I could.
Keep going for the whole video.
Source: Geekologie – Tethered Slackliner Performers Side Flip At 500-Meters
There are a lot of amazing new movies coming in 2019, but there’s also a long list of classic, iconic films that will be celebrating significant anniversaries this year.
Source: io9 – These Are the Major Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie Milestones Coming in 2019
Piranha Plant has finally joined the fray in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Players are welcoming their new pot-bound friend.
Source: Kotaku – The Internet Reacts To Piranha Plant’s Smash Debut
Now we have another reason to feed kids less juice. Consumer Reports found concerning levels of lead, arsenic, and cadmium in many of the brands on supermarket shelves, according to a new report. Some of those were at levels high enough to cause harm to kids who drink just a half cup per day.
Source: LifeHacker – Lead and Arsenic May Be in Your Kid’s Juice
Release YouTube, you beast! (credit: 123pendejos)
The latest beleaguered Google product to get a death date is Google+. Google’s controversial Facebook clone is shutting down on April 2. Google has been backing away from the service for years, but it gave the site a death sentence in October, after revelations of a data leak were made public. Now we have a concrete shutdown date for the service.
Google’s support page details exactly how the G+ shutdown will go down, and it’s not just freezing posts on the site. The whole site will be taken down, and everything will be deleted. “On April 2nd, your Google+ account and any Google+ pages you created will be shut down and we will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts,” the page reads.
The whole deletion process sounds brutal. It won’t just be the entire Google+ site that will be scrubbed from the Internet—Google+-powered comments on Blogger and other third-party sites will all be deleted, too. Users of Google+ have until April to download and save everything themselves, which they can do via this page.
Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Google+ shuts down April 2, all data will be deleted
Mark Wilson writes: Facebook has been no stranger to controversy and scandal over the years, but things have been particularly bad over the last twelve months. The latest troubles find Mozilla complaining to the European Commission about the social network’s lack of transparency, particularly when it comes to political advertising. Mozilla’s Chief Operating Officer, Denelle Dixon, has penned a missive to Mariya Gabriel, the European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society. She bemoans the fact that Facebook makes it impossible to conduct analysis of ads, and this in turn prevents Mozilla from offering full transparency to European citizens — something it sees as important in light of the impending EU elections.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Mozilla Writes To European Commission About Facebook’s Lack of Ad Transparency
A northern California beach has been invaded by strange creatures. They awkwardly waddle with their long, slinky noses hung high. About 60 of them have been lounging on the sandy shores of the Point Reyes National Seashore near San Francisco with their mini-mes. These aren’t any ordinary beasts—they’re elephant seals.
Source: Gizmodo – These Elephant Seals Are the Only Winners of the Government Shutdown
If you, like me, enjoy the idea of taxing the rich and redistributing their wealth to workers, some Democrats are coming up with pretty damn good ideas these days.
Source: LifeHacker – Tax the Rich to Death and Then Tax Them Some More
In early January, Google systems reliability engineer Liz Fong-Jones announced she was leaving the company after 11 years, leaving behind, by her account, a half million dollars in stock, to work at the startup Honeycomb.io. An outspoken advocate for inclusion and diversity, Fong-Jones quit citing dissatisfaction with…
Source: Gizmodo – Harassment, Transphobia, and Racism: A Look Inside Blind’s Anonymous Chatting Forum for Google Employees
Citing “people familiar with the plans,” a recent report by Bloomberg claims that Apple plans to launch iPhones and iPads with a longer range, rear-facing 3D camera “as soon as next year.” This new camera would supposedly use a laser scanner to create a 3D representation of the environment instead of the dot-projection technology used in Apple’s front facing 3D cameras. Additionally, the insiders claim that the new devices will include a enhanced 3rd camera, and that this year’s iPhones will sport 3 cameras as well, seemingly corroborating the Wall Street Journal’s report from earlier this month. It also mentions that Apple is “testing” USB-C as a replacing to their proprietary lightning ports, while iOS 13 is said to include a dark mode and integration of an “original video content” service.
The 2020 iPhone camera may be a prelude to an AR headset that Apple has been preparing for as early as 2020… Apple previously aimed to put the new 3-D camera system on the back of this year’s high-end iPhones, but delayed that, the people familiar also said… For 2019, Apple plans successors to the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max — code-named D42 and D43 — and an update to the iPhone XR, said the people. The larger of the new high-end iPhones will have three cameras on the back, and other handsets could eventually come with the upgraded system, too, the people said.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Bloomberg Claims iDevices With Laser 3D Cameras are Coming
The UE Boom 2 is the waterproof sequel for one of the best Bluetooth speakers of all time, and Woot’s marked down the Limited Edition version to $60 today, the best price we’ve ever seen (though it was briefly down to $64 new around Black Friday last year).
Source: io9 – Woot’s Making a Splash With This UE Boom 2 Deal
Mr. Nancy is, without a doubt, one of the standout characters from Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Played by Orlando Jones in the Starz series, which is entering its second season, Mr. Nancy (better known as the West African trickster god Anansi) is a complex and dynamic god whose story simply begged for its own saga.…
Source: io9 – Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys Gets a Gorgeous New Collectors Edition
We all know you don’t have to be a fan of American football to watch the Super Bowl. The NFL’s Big Game, which this year will be played between the New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams, goes beyond the sport. Even if you don’t like who’s playing…
Source: Engadget – How to watch Super Bowl 53: A cord-cutter’s guide
If you plan on traveling with kids this year it might pay to fly Frontier.
Source: LifeHacker – How to Get Free Flights for Your Kid for a Year
When it comes to smartphones and tablets, Nintendo has a relatively small footprint in mobile, with only a few titles under its belt. That’s part of why it was so exciting when Nintendo announced a year ago that it would be releasing Mario Kart Tour to smartphones by March 2019. It’s been a long wait for fans who have been eagerly anticipating
Source: Hot Hardware – Nintendo’s Highly Anticipated Mario Kart Mobile Game Delayed
I do not live in the midwest or the mid-Atlantic, but if I did, I would be spending my entire day under one of these heated blankets, conveniently on sale today at Amazon.
Source: LifeHacker – Bet You Wish You Had a Heated Blanket Right About Now
Movie ticket subscription service Sinemia is cutting some of its prices and allowing users in the US, UK, Canada and Australia to roll one ticket from each month’s allocation into the next month. That flexibility should prove useful, particularly whe…
Source: Engadget – MoviePass rival Sinemia offers more flexibility with rollover tickets
