Ryan Mustard

And that’s just a tiny fraction of the total number of stars in the galaxy.

This is what happens when you shoot an incredibly high-resolution, 1 billion-pixel camera into space and instruct it to take a photo of every single star it can see.

The image above (and an easier-to-scan version below) was produced by Gaia, the European Space Agency craft, whose mission is to produce a detailed three-dimensional map of the stars our galaxy. And it is truly the largest 3D star atlas ever assembled.

Gaia’s latest map (click to find a very cool interactive version), released Wednesday, includes 1.7 billion stars. That’s around 700 million more than its last update in 2016. When you look at those stars, you’re looking at untold numbers of planets, moons, asteroids, and comets clutched within their orbits.

This database is not just for making pretty images. It also contains information on the distance, motion, and color (useful in determining temperature and age) of about 1.3 billion of the stars. It’s a 3D, moving atlas of the Milky Way.

Building such a tool is more difficult than you might imagine. Since the Earth is constantly moving around the sun, the apparent location of stars also changes throughout the year and needs to be controlled for. For some stars, “the level of precision equates to Earth-bound observers being able to spot a Euro coin lying on the surface of the Moon,” the ESA says in a press release.

ESA

Gaia uses a super-powerful camera and two telescopes to pinpoint the exact location of every star in the sky (by making around dozens of observations of each star). It then tracks information about each star’s brightness, size, and temperature.

The Gaia database also includes information on asteroids, nearby galaxies, and the surface temperatures of 100 million stars. And astronomers can use it to study how the cosmos moves, make observations about how the galaxy formed, and potentially even find new planets.

But the map is still not complete. There are likely more than 100 billion stars in our galaxy. The ESA is hoping to collect data on 2 billion stars by 2022.

You can access the entire database here. And here, find an interactive map of all the stars.

And if you have one of those VR attachments for your smartphone, you can immerse yourself in a 360-degree window into the cosmos, built from the Gaia data set.

Gaia is not the only project to map the cosmos in absurd detail

There are several such projects that are all producing dazzling results.

Here’s one to really make you feel small: the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III, a digitized atlas of the known universe. The full survey, which was released in 2016, charts a total of 1.2 million galaxies in three dimensions. That means it shows not just their locations in the sky but their distance from Earth as well.

Below is one image distilled from the survey. Each of these 48,741 dots represents a galaxy. Each galaxy is a collection of billions of stars. The stars themselves trap untold planets, asteroids, and possibly even life in their gravitational clutches. This image is just one-twentieth of the night sky, a mere pinprick of a window into the universe.

Daniel Eisenstein and the SDSS-III collaboration. Here’s a huge, high-resolution version.

Want to feel even smaller? Further reading.

• This small slice of the night sky contains 48,741 galaxies.
• Most images of black holes are illustrations. Here’s what our telescopes actually capture.
• NASA has found 16,000 asteroids near Earth. Don’t panic.
• There may be 2 trillion(!!!!) galaxies out there
• A stunningly beautiful close-up of the Orion Nebula, in one GIF

Nestled amongst hundreds of stunning shots of the aurora borealis taken by Finnish photographer Jani Ylinampa is a series of four photos of Kotisaari, showing the island from a drone’s point of view for each of the four seasons (clockwise from upper left): spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

But seriously, go check out Ylinampa’s Instagram account…it’s packed with aurora borealis photos. What a magical place to live, where the sky lights up like that all the time.

Tags: Jani Ylinampa   photography

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Speaking of video games, Brent Simmons reminded me that Maelstrom — the excellent Asteroids clone originally created for the classic Mac OS by Ambrosia Software — still runs natively on Mac OS X. I just played for the first time in probably at least 10 years and scored over 47,000. Not bad. Can’t say much for the graphics when running full-screen on a 27-inch display, but it’s still damn fun.

An HDTV antenna is an important piece of equipment when you’re cutting the cord, but if you just plug it straight into your TV, you’ll be missing out on a lot of features that you’d come to expect from your cable box. Luckily, for an all-time low $65 today, you can replace a bunch of them with the SiliconDust…

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The brilliant entrepreneurship has drawn some controversy.

When a Californian Girl Scout had to sell some cookies, she saw a golden opportunity in her state’s new law fully legalizing marijuana.

The Girl Scout in San Diego, who’s not been identified, parked outside of a legal marijuana shop to sell cookies — and she managed to sell more than 300 boxes in six hours. According to the New York Times, that’s likely more than $1,500 raised.

This is simply good business sense, given that the munchies can be a big motivator for buying Girl Scout cookies and other junk food. And it will fund a good cause — much of the money will ultimately go back to the local Girl Scouts organization.

It was also good for Urbn Leaf, the pot shop where the girl sold hundreds of boxes of cookies. The store put out an Instagram photo with the girl, essentially advertising her services — and encouraging people to come along with friends to buy some cannabis. The post drew more than 1,400 likes as of Friday afternoon.

This almost certainly won’t be the last time we see a story like this. After all, 2018 is only the first year of fully legal pot sales in California.

But as Daniel Victor reported for the Times, this presents a problem for some: “While some have praised the plucky scout for figuring out where the demand would probably be, the Girl Scouts organization has been wrestling with how to handle marijuana-adjacent sales as more states have legalized the drug.”

As the responses to the Instagram post show, not everyone was happy with it. Some called it “child endangerment,” while others raised concerns about the girl potentially not knowing the difference between a normal gummy candy and a marijuana-laced one. Supporters of the post pointed out that Girl Scouts are allowed to set up booths near grocery stores, which sell legal (and deadlier) alcohol and tobacco. Will Senn, the founder of Urbn Leaf, told the Times that the post was just meant to support the girl’s fundraising effort.

The Girl Scouts, according to the Times, don’t have a national policy for this kind of situation. Scouts are generally given free rein to sell cookies where they want, but there can be some restrictions and local approval processes for setting up booths. Mike Lopes, a spokesperson for the Girl Scouts of the USA, told the Times that selling in front of a legal pot shop is “not any different than selling in front of any other kind of shop. It just happens to be a marijuana dispensary.”

It’s a different response than what the Girl Scouts of Colorado put out after a Californian Girl Scout in 2014 sold 117 boxes in two hours near a San Francisco medical marijuana dispensary. This was during Colorado’s first year of legal marijuana sales, so the San Francisco entrepreneur drew attention across the country as an example of what might be to come. In response, the Girl Scouts of Colorado tweeted, “If you are wondering, we don’t allow our Girl Scouts to sell cookies in front of marijuana shops or liquor stores/bars.”

The Colorado organization has since relaxed its stance, dealing with such instances on a case-by-case basis rather than a blanket ban.

As more and more states legalize, these kinds of problems are only going to grow: Are people okay with a young girl selling cookies near a business with mind-altering substances? Is it slick business sense, or sending the wrong message to kids? And should the adjacent business be using the girl’s entrepreneurship in its own marketing?

It goes to show that legalization is more than a change in the law; it’s also a dramatic cultural shift. After a century of a drug being demonized through movies like Reefer Madness, criminalization, and public officials (like US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who said that “good people don’t smoke marijuana”), much of the country is suddenly changing to thinking of pot not as an illicit substance but as a consumer product similar to beer or wine.

The jury is still out on what the effects of that will be. Will it lead to increased marijuana use, including overuse and addiction? Will it hurt public health and academic achievement? Will it cause more car crashes? Experts say we need more time to get answers, because this is a policy that simply has not been tried before at this scale.

But legalization is a move that a big majority of Americans — 64 percent, according to Gallup — support, and a majority of voters in California, Colorado, and six other states have backed. Girls like this Scout are simply taking advantage of the changing times.

For more on marijuana legalization, read Vox’s explainer.

The top running back in the state will arrive in Austin as arguably the most complete back on the roster.

Tom Herman’s first full recruiting cycle in Austin netted the Texas Longhorns just one running back prospect, but he’s the very best the state has to offer and officially a member of the burnt orange nation, as Carthage product Keaontay Ingram signed with the ‘Horns on Wednesday.

A four-star talent out of East Texas, a remarkable junior campaign placed Ingram among the nation’s most prized running back prospects and when it was all said and done, he had 30 offers to choose from. Florida State, Georgia, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Oklahoma were among the many, and Auburn, LSU, USC and Michigan each continued to push down the stretch as Ingram left the door slightly open.

The biggest scare came when Ingram took a quiet official visit to Texas A&M in January and then hosted new Aggies head coach Jimbo Fisher on an in-home visit. However, Ingram claimed that he never wavered in an interview with the Austin American-Statesman.

In the end, it was all about signing with his teammates.

“We all want to celebrate it together,” Ingram said. “I don’t know. I might not get to see them again, especially some of the people I grew up with. From what I hear, college is nothing like the people you grew up with. I mean, you’re going to meet new friends in college, but it won’t be like the people you grew up with. We were thinking why not all sign together, make it one big special deal? That’s what we agreed upon, and that’s what we did.”

Fortunately for the 'Horns, Texas is home and in Austin, Ingram will suit up for a running backs coach in Stan Drayton, whom Ingram has raved of his relationship with on numerous occasions.

Although he won’t arrive until the summer, when Ingram does step foot on the Forty Acres, he’ll do so as quite arguably the most complete back on the roster. After essentially being required to transition from running back to tight end, Chris Warren III has elected to transfer from Texas, and after an underwhelming 2017 effort, Kyle Porter will almost surely enter spring football behind the strength and speed combination that is Daniel Young and Toneil Carter.

In Ingram, Texas gets a bit of the best of both backs.

At 6’1 and 187 pounds, Ingram presents fairly solid size for this stage in his physical progression and the fact that he’ll have eight months to add muscle that that frame between now and the season opener will allow Ingram to do what he does best — remain on the field. A true every-down back, Ingram was an absolute workhorse for Carthage throughout the past two seasons, leading the Tigers to back-to-back state championships courtesy of back-to-back 2,000-yard seasons.

To reach such a feat, Carthage has relied upon Ingram to the tune of 555 carries for a total of 4,569 yards and 69 touchdowns in 2016 and 2017. Considering the play-making ability Ingram provides each time he touches the ball, though, such a workload shouldn’t come as a surprise.

What first jumps out on film is how impressively Ingram explodes through the hole, but that’s just the beginning of what makes him such a premier ball-carrier.

To create space, Ingram utilizes elite lateral quickness, excellent vision and a quick first step and once in space, he has plenty of shiftiness to make defenders miss and the ability to quickly climb back to full speed. Furthermore, Ingram does so in such a smooth, effortless fashion that his top-end speed may be a bit overlooked, as he’s more than capable of running away from a defense than often given credit for.

He’s much more than simply a ball-carrier, too.

One of the top pass-catching running backs in the nation, Ingram is a legitimate weapon through the air and when he’s not being accounted for as an option out of the backfield, he’s stout in providing pass protection.

247Sports provided another analysis of what Ingram brings to the table:

“Keaontay Ingram is a well-rounded, long-framed back who can stay on the field all three downs. He's a unique combination of high frame potential with good close-quarters evasiveness. Ingram is a high-volume, high-production back with great cutback instincts and big-play ability. He's also an outstanding pass-catcher out of the backfield who can line up as a true receiver if needed. Ingram will be one of the top 2018 running back prospects in Texas.”

Considering his do-it-all skillset and the Longhorns lack of a true feature back, Ingram should have no problem finding reps as a true freshman. Although Carter and Young have flashed promise, the two toted the ball just 122 total times in 2017 and because it took Texas quite a while to realize they were the ‘Horns top two options, neither was able to cement himself as the starter.

With Ingram soon joining the mix, that task just got a bit taller, but that’s good news for Texas, as Drayton should have a trio of high-level running backs to distribute carriers to throughout 2018.

A consensus four-star prospect, Ingram is ranked as the No. 163 player nationally, the No. 6 running back, and the No. 15 player in Texas, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings.

The state’s top defensive tackle caused some concern down the stretch, but followed through on his commitment.

If there were only one defensive tackle prospect the Texas Longhorns had to assure they landed this cycle, it was Houston Westfield’s Keondre Coburn. On National Signing Day, the Longhorns did exactly that when Coburn signed with Texas.

On August 7, Texas took a significant step towards that goal, earning Coburn’s commitment over options such as Alabama, TCU, Texas A&M and Florida State, but his recruitment was far from over. After late pushes from Texas A&M and Miami, which included in-home visits from each program and Coburn officially visiting the Hurricanes on January 19, Texas won out.

Coburn’s recruitment wasn’t without suspense down to the wire, though.

On the final weekend before National Signing Day, Coburn was originally scheduled to officially visit Oregon, but the trip never came to fruition. There was also chatter that a trip to Texas A&M or TCU could be in the cards, but those visits didn’t place place either. In similar fashion, after bypassing on the opportunity to visit the Ducks, Aggies and Horned Frogs, Coburn also didn’t show for an unofficial visit to Texas over the weekend and removed his commitment to the ‘Horns from his Twitter bio, sparking some additional intrigue down the stretch.

When the smoke cleared and the dust settled, though, Coburn remained firm to his pledge to Texas, providing the Longhorns with a potential year-one impact contributor in the trenches.

A 6’1, 329-pound prospect, Coburn is nothing short of a brute force in the trenches. Explosive and physical at the point of attack, Coburn was able to simply bully his way to the ball more times than not at the high school level, but also displayed a solid ability to utilize his hands well to shed blocks. When you pair Coburn’s innate ability to physically overwhelm interior linemen with his surprising quickness for his size, you get an Under Armour All-American with a No. 123 national ranking.

247Sports detailed what makes Coburn such an elite talent:

“Coburn plays for a team that has been known to produce high level college players at defensive tackle and he is next in that string of recruits. He is powerful at the point of attack, plays with good pad level, and is explosive with his first step. He uses his hands well to handle offensive linemen and play off of blocks. He is a gap-plugger, but he is able to also get pressure and make plays behind the line of scrimmage. He closes well and arrives at ball carriers with bad intentions.”

For a Longhorns defensive line in dire need of talented depth at the position, Coburn could prove to be one of Texas’ most important targets this cycle in short order with reigning Big 12 Defensive Linemen of the Year, Poona Ford, now off to the NFL.

Senior Chris Nelson is seemingly a lock to secure the starting role in the middle, but Coburn certainly boasts the physical ability to compete for reserve reps as a true freshman against talents such as Jamari Chrisholm, Gerald Wilbon and D’Andre Christmas, who combined for just 10 tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, and 0.5 sacks in 2017.

Bearing in mind that depth, or the lack thereof, it’s quite possible, if not likely that Coburn becomes one of the Texas’ first 2018 signees to see the field next season.

Red Dead Redemption 2 will be out October 26, Rockstar said today, the second major delay for what might be the most anticipated game of 2018.

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Warren Buffett’s net worth is right around $84 billion. Each morning before he drives himself to work, he tells his wife how much his McDonald’s breakfast is going to cost — $2.61, $2.95, or $3.17 — and she puts the exact change in the cup holder for him to pay with. No, really:

That’s a clip from the HBO documentary, Becoming Warren Buffett. The full documentary is here.

On Medium, Daniel Bourke shared some things he learned from watching Becoming Warren Buffett.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are two of the richest men in the world.

One time Warren was at Bill’s house for dinner and Bills dad asked them to write down on a piece of paper what was one word to describe their success.

Focus.

They both wrote down the exact same word.

(via gruber)

Tags: Becoming Warren Buffett   business   Daniel Bourke   food   McDonald’s   restaurants   video   Warren Buffett

We’ve been conditioned to think of exercise as a key ingredient — perhaps the most important ingredient — of any weight loss effort.

You know the drill: Join the gym on January 1 if you want to reach your New Year’s weight loss goal.

But in truth, the evidence has been accumulating for years that exercise, while great for health, isn’t actually all that important for weight loss.

To learn more about why, I read through more than 60 studies (including high-quality, systematic reviews of all the best-available research) on exercise and weight loss for a recent installment of Show Me the Evidence. Here’s a quick summary of what I learned.

Exercise accounts for a small portion of daily calorie burn

One very underappreciated fact about exercise is that even when you work out, the extra calories you burn only account for a small part of your total energy expenditure.
There are three main components to energy expenditure, obesity researcher Alexxai Kravitz explained: 1) basal metabolic rate, or the energy used for basic functioning when the body is at rest; 2) the energy used to break down food; and 3) the energy used in physical activity.

What’s important to absorb is the fact that we have very little control over our basal metabolic rate, but it's actually our biggest energy hog. "It's generally accepted that for most people, the basal metabolic rate accounts for 60 to 80 percent of total energy expenditure," said Kravitz. Digesting food accounts for about 10 percent.

That leaves only 10 to 30 percent for physical activity, of which exercise is only a subset. (Remember, physical activity includes all movement, including walking around, fidgeting, et cetera.)

The implication here is that while your food intake accounts for 100 percent of the energy that goes into your body, exercise only burns off less than 10 to 30 percent of it. That’s a pretty big discrepancy, and definitely means that erasing all your dietary transgressions at the gym is a lot harder than the peddlers of gym memberships make it seem.

It's hard to create a significant calorie deficit through exercise

Using the National Institutes of Health's Body Weight Planner — which gives a more realistic estimation for weight loss than the old 3,500 calorie rule — mathematician and obesity researcher Kevin Hall created this model to show why adding a regular exercise program is unlikely to lead to significant weight loss.

If a hypothetical 200-pound man added 60 minutes of medium-intensity running four days per week while keeping his calorie intake the same, and he did this for 30 days, he'd lose five pounds. "If this person decided to increase food intake or relax more to recover from the added exercise, then even less weight would be lost," Hall added. (More on these "compensatory mechanisms" later.)

So if one is overweight or obese, and presumably trying to lose dozens of pounds, it would take an incredible amount of time, will, and effort to make a real impact through exercise alone.

Exercise can undermine weight loss in other, subtle ways

How much we eat is connected to how much we move. When we move more, we sometimes eat more too, or eat less when we’re not exercising.

One 2009 study shows that people seemed to increase their food intake after exercise — either because they thought they burned off a lot of calories or because they were hungrier. Another review of studies from 2012 found that people generally overestimated how much energy exercise burned and ate more when they worked out.

"You work hard on that machine for an hour, and that work can be erased with five minutes of eating afterward," Hall says. A single slice of pizza, for example, could undo the benefit of an hour's workout. So could a cafe mocha or an ice cream cone.

There's also evidence to suggest that some people simply slow down after a workout, using less energy on their non-gym activities. They might decide to lie down for a rest, fidget less because they're tired, or take the elevator instead of the stairs.

These changes are usually called "compensatory behaviors" — and they simply refer to adjustments we may unconsciously make after working out to offset the calories burned.

We need to reframe how we think about exercise

Obesity doctor Yoni Freedhoff has called for a rebranding of how we think of exercise. Exercise has staggering benefits — it just may not help much in the quest for weight loss:

By preventing cancers, improving blood pressure, cholesterol and sugar, bolstering sleep, attention, energy and mood, and doing so much more, exercise has indisputably proven itself to be the world’s best drug – better than any pharmaceutical product any physician could ever prescribe. Sadly though, exercise is not a weight loss drug, and so long as we continue to push exercise primarily (and sadly sometimes exclusively) in the name of preventing or treating adult or childhood obesity, we’ll also continue to short-change the public about the genuinely incredible health benefits of exercise, and simultaneously misinform them about the realities of long term weight management.

The evidence is now clear: Exercise is excellent for health; it’s just not that important for weight loss. So don't expect to lose a lot of weight by ramping up physical activity alone.

As a society, we also need to stop treating a lack of exercise and diet as equally responsible for the obesity problem in this country. Public-health obesity policies should prioritize fighting the over-consumption of low-quality food and improving the food environment.

Go deeper:

• Most of us misunderstand metabolism. Here are 9 facts to clear that up.
• Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight, explained with 60+ studies

Arguably the strongest arm in the nation put pen to paper on Wednesday and officially joined the burnt orange nation.

After struggling to find quality quarterback depth for nearly a decade now, Tom Herman’s 2018 class will bring aboard two talented field generals as part of a crop headlined by Newbury Park (Calif.) gunslinger Cameron Rising, who signed his National Letter of Intent with the Texas Longhorns on Wednesday.

A pure passer out of The Golden State, the word most often associated with Rising is upside, and understandably so.

Rising became one of the nation’s names to know as a sophomore after passing for 3,213 yards and 40 touchdowns with only one interception, while adding another 756 yards and 11 scores with his legs. Following a junior campaign that saw Rising appear in only five games before a shoulder injury and a senior slate that was cut short due to a knee injury nine games in, an injury-plagued final two seasons allowed Rising to add only 3,038 yards and 29 touchdowns through the air and 886 yards and 13 scores on the ground.

Nevertheless, the aforementioned upside and the rocket for an arm Rising owns led to 25 total offers, including Alabama, LSU, Cal, Michigan, Oklahoma State, Penn State, Miaimi, Oregon, UCLA and Oklahoma. Of course, the Sooners initially earned Rising's pledge, but after visiting Austin for the Orange-White scrimmage, Rising crossed the Red River and flipped to Texas on April 22.

A four-star talent, Rising is set to enroll early and will bring with him one of the strongest arms in the nation, as evident by his 42.5-foot power throw, which tested as the best among all 2018 quarterbacks. When the arm strength is put into play in pads, the ball comes out of his hands like a missile, which allows Rising to make nearly every throw on the field with a simple flick of the wrist. Along with the zip he can provide, Rising also displays a soft touch when necessary, in which he can drop the ball into a striding receivers hands just over the coverage.

Furthermore, although the impressive arm and ability to read coverages at a fairly advanced level is often what generates the praise surrounding Rising, he’s an above average athlete thats more than capable of making defenses respect his ability to make plays outside of the pocket. On film, he comes off as a more physically capable Shane Buechele in that regard. He’s unlikely to consistently torch a defense for 50-yard runs, but he’ll make plays and has the frame to handle what comes with running the ball.

Ian Boyd of Inside Texas provided another analysis of what Rising brings to the table:

“Rising has demonstrated that he can read safety rotations and defender leverage before throwing a strike and he can do so when throwing to windows down the field, which is harder than doing so on short routes so his upside is ultimately pretty high.

In Herman’s offense his cannon arm presents some interesting possibilities once he masters the quick game/spread-option concepts and mechanics.”

Rising will arrive in Austin as the nation’s No. 208 player and No. 8 pro-style quarterback, per the 247Sports Composite rankings, but it may be a while before he sees the field. He, along with fellow early enrollee Casey Thompson, will join a quarterback room that features the aforementioned Buechele entering his third season on the Forty Acres, and sophomore-to-be Sam Ehlinger. Much like Rising, Buechele and Ehlinger have spent the past two seasons dealing with various injuries, which is largely why Texas is still in pursuit of a full-time starting quarterback entering the Texas Bowl.

Whether he’s able to take control of a quarterback battle yet to be decided remains to be seen, but at the very least, Rising’s elite arm should add to the competition level inside Tim Beck’s quarterback room.

Microsoft this week announced that the beta for its main Xbox iOS app will soon allow testers to enable party chat and speak with friends who are in a party on Xbox One, with a wide launch expected to follow. Those interested can sign up for the Xbox app beta, run through Apple's TestFlight program, on Microsoft's website. The party chat mode is already available on the Android beta of the Xbox app, as spotted on Reddit (via Engadget).

Xbox party chat beta is now available in the Xbox beta app for Android (available in app store) and iOS (sign up for the iOS beta here https://t.co/4jXxF2CQs2)

— Larry Hryb (@majornelson) December 14, 2017

Details on the party chat feature are scarce, but it appears that it will work similarly to Nintendo's Switch Online mobile app, although likely won't be as game-specific. Nintendo's app was created due to the fact that the Switch console itself lacks a voice chat feature, so players in online games like Splatoon 2 are required to use the Switch Online app if they want to talk with friends. As of today, Splatoon 2 is still the only game supported in the app, despite numerous other online games being available for Switch, like Mario Kart 8.

For the Xbox app, players will be able to chat with their friends who are playing on Xbox -- or on the mobile app themselves -- even when not at home near their console. Otherwise, the app allows users to view their friend list, send messages, post updates and game clips, purchase games on the store, and more. The Xbox app is available to download for free on the iOS App Store [Direct Link].


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Warning: this is the best thing you’re going to see today, even if you already saw it yesterday.

In this clip, The Roots’ MC dishes out an album’s worth of rhymes from memory, while hardly stopping to breathe.

For once in his life, Sean Combs may not be exaggerating:

THIS IS THE GREATEST FREESTYLE IN ALL OF HIP HOP HISTORY!!!! @BlackThought https://t.co/IffabCoZcV

— Diddy (@Diddy) December 15, 2017

But as his bandmate Questlove pointed out, Black Thought has been doing this for years:

A Black Thought Freestyle Thread. https://t.co/Cu6kvYcV3p

— Questlove Gomez (@questlove) December 15, 2017

And Genius fulfilled its one true purpose, with fans getting the freestyle transcribed and available the same day.

Update: Aaaaand Genius took the post down, without explanation. So the quoted lyrics you’re about to get are as close to definitive as we have.

What I love about Black Thought’s freestyle is that it does everything hip-hop at its best does. He has the technical virtuosity and improvisation, both of which are first-rate. He toasts, boasts, and roasts. He plays with words, and the words play right back.

But he also tells stories, including this striking one about his mother:

My mother was a working class very lovin’ woman
Who struggled, every dinner could’ve been the last summer
I come home, chasing good-for-nothing half-cousins
And then walk in the crib to the smell of crack cookin’
She was introduced to that substance abuse
On some of the strongest drugs that the government produced

He gets philosophical and abstract. Like, real abstract.

I made the 21-pound for some a new found religion
When money’s put down, it’s only one sound to make
OGs and young lions equally proud to listen
The secret amalgam is an algorithm
Coming from where only kings and crowns permitted
The darkness where archaeologists found
My image in parchment rolled into a scroll
Holding a message for you, it says
“The only thing for sure is taxes, death, and trouble”
The anomaly swore solemnly, high snobiety
Freakonomics of war policy, dichotomy
That’s Heaven and Hades
Tigris and Euphrates
His highness
The apple of the iris to you ladies
As babies, we went from Similac and Enfamil
To the internet and fentanyl
Where all consent was still against the will

He pays homage to rap history:

Maybe I’m the new Rakim
Maybe I’m fat Pharaohe
Undergarments of armor be my intimate apparel
Pre-Kardashian Kanye
My rhyme-play immaculate
Same cadence as D.O.C Pre-accident
Maybe my acumen on par with Kool G Rap and them

And to his own discography:

I hate to say I told y’all, but I told y’all
Things fall apart when the center too weak to hold y’all
I’m just collecting what you owed to my old jawn
You ‘bout to get swooped down on and stoled on

He charms and disarms:

You in the residency of the one they call
King Dada
Ali Baba
The Talented Mr. Trotter
Inside of my right palm, the mark of the stigmata
Big Poppa wig chopper
Emperor Joffrey Joffer
Motherfucka, I’m stronger than the coffee out in Kaffa
All y’all niggas vagina-hop
Remind me of Icona Pop
I step in the booth, I’m a bull inside a China Shop
Mollywopper
Watch another cotton-pickin’ body drop
Every time we rock
Yo they actin’ like it’s Mardi Gras
‘Til the party stop
Skirt off like she that Ferrari drop
So psyched he pumpin’ that Earth, Wind and Fire body I
Cool a product doc
A la Marina, hard-body yacht
You seen another rapper cleaner? Mami, probably not

And sometimes, he just kills it:

How it feel to be the best that did it, I admit it
I’m visiting from planet bring these niggas death in minutes
And y’all know I’m exquisite
Wicked as Wilson Pickett
The sickness I exhibit
I’m too legit to quit it
I don’t fake it ‘till I make it
I take it to the limit, and break it
Never timid, what I’m about, I represent it
Infinite just like Chace is
Been a million places
Conversation is how beautiful my face is
People hating on how sophisticated my taste is
Then I pulled up on these motherfuckers in a spaceship

Even reading this, it’s just too good.

I am a walking affirmation
That imagination
And focus and patience
Get you closer to your aspiration
And just cuz they give you shit
Don’t mean you have to take it
My words capture greatness
Sworn affidavits

Meanwhile, the talented Tariq Trotter himself kept it humble:

That verse was just what I had to say at the moment lol.

— Black Thought (@blackthought) December 14, 2017

Tags: Black Thought   hip-hop   music   The Roots

The NFL kickoff is the stupidest play in sports. It's boring, bad, dangerous, and pointless, and we've got to get rid of it.

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I barely know how to describe this so maybe you should just watch it. Animator Ismael Sanz-Pena took a single image of a medieval cathedral and used the facade’s repeating elements to find the movement within, kind of like a zoetrope. (Ok, I guess that’s a pretty good description. I still think you should just watch it though.) See also Sanz-Pena’s earlier attempts of the same effect. (via colossal)

Tags: Ismael Sanz-Pena   mesmerizing   video

The Giant Magellan Telescope, currently under construction at the University of Arizona’s Mirror Lab, will be one of the first of a new class of telescopes called Extremely Large Telescopes. The process involved in fashioning the telescope’s seven massive mirrors is fascinating. This is one of those articles littered with mind-boggling statements at every turn. Such as:

“We want the telescope to be limited by fundamental physics — the wavelength of light and the diameter of the mirror — not the irregularities on the mirror’s surface,” says optical scientist Buddy Martin, who oversees the lab’s grinding and polishing operations. By “irregularities,” he’s talking about defects bigger than 20 nanometers — about the size of a small virus. But when the mirror comes out of the mold, its imperfections can measure a millimeter or more.

Precision of 20 nanometers on something more than 27 feet in diameter and weighing 17 tons? That’s almost unbelievable. In this video, Dr. Wendy Freedman, former chair of the board of directors for the GMT project, puts it this way:

The surface of this mirror is so smooth that if we took this 27-foot mirror and then spread it out, from coast-to-coast in the United States, east to west coast, the height of the tallest mountain on that mirror would be about 1/2 an inch. That’s how smooth this mirror is.

You need that level of smoothness if you’re going to achieve better vision than the Hubble:

With a resolving power 10 times that of the Hubble Space Telescope, the GMT is designed to capture and focus photons emanating from galaxies and black holes at the fringes of the universe, study the formation of stars and the worlds that orbit them, and search for traces of life in the atmospheres of habitable-zone planets.

The telescope has a price tag of $1 billion and should be operational within the the next five years in Chile.

Tags: physics   science   space   The Giant Magellan Telescope   video

The local four-star forward has officially signed with the Longhorns!

The first member of Shaka Smart’s 2018 class capitalized on the Early Signing Period and signed his National Letter of Intent with the Texas Longhorns on Wednesday.

A local four-star prospect out of Austin Westlake, Cunningham committed to Texas on Aug. 4 after a breakout Adidas Gauntlet circuit, in which he averaged 22.1 points and 10.4 rebounds. Such an effort served as another step forward in the production department after Cunningham earned District MVP honors last season after averaging 14.7 points, 11.3 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 1.9 blocks for Austin Westlake.

As Cunningham’s productivity levels rose, so too did the activity in his recruitment.

By the time Cunningham committed to Texas in the fall, he held offers from Oklahoma, Gonzaga, Missouri, Oklahoma State and Houston, among others.

Ranked as the nation’s No. 121 prospect, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings, Cunningham is an under-the-radar prospect that should provide Texas with a wide-ranging skill set as multi-year addition.

247Sports Director of Basketball Scouting Jerry Meyer. provided some insight on what Cunningham brings to the table.

“Brock Cunningham is a talented player who also plays with a lot of toughness and grit,” Meyer said. “He is a solid athlete with a solid and broad skill base. In other words, he is good basketball player who plays with an edge.”

A 6’7, 205-pound prospect, Cunningham is ranked as the nation’s No. 32 small forward and the No. 9 player in Texas, per the 247Sports Composite rankings.

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This is a really keen observation by Evan Puschak about the camera movement in David Fincher’s films: it mimics your eyes in paying attention to the behavior in a scene. The effect is sometimes subtle. When a character shifts even slightly, the camera keeps that person’s eyes and face in the same place in the frame, just as you would if you were in the room with them.

Tags: David Fincher   Evan Puschak   film school   movies   video

The Texas Longhorns hosted their annual open scrimmage for fans at Gregory Gym tonight, having fun competitions (dunk - Kerwin Roach II won, 3-point - Eric Davis Jr won, dance...yes, dance - a fan beat Andrew Jones in the finals) before playing a 24-minute scrimmage. If you’re like most Longhorns fans, you didn’t go; Gregory Gym was maybe ²⁄₃ full, for a free event, on a Wednesday night. Malik Jefferson showed up, but he could’ve brought the rest of the football team and they would’ve had plenty of room in the upper deck to spread out. This shouldn’t surprise or annoy me at this point, but the fact that you could fill up Gregory with students for Taco Tuesday and not Texas basketball makes my eyes narrow and eyebrows furrow at the professed Burnt Orange faithful. Ah well, I’m sure they’ll sell out The Drum for Northwestern State, right? I watched the scrimmage on my DVR thanks to spending the night trying to resurrect my Nexus 5x after it shit itself this morning, but here are some of the things I saw.

Mo Bamba put up 17 & 11 and didn’t really look like he was working; this was in a 24-minute scrimmage against dudes who have been guarding him for months. What’s impressive about him — other than him blocking shots most humans are incapable of reaching — is that they didn’t have to run a ton of plays for him to generate offense. He made a three, threw down some dunks, and grabbed rebounds no matter who was guarding him. Bamba is going to be fun to watch.

Eric Davis looks like he’s ready to take on his role as a 6th man. He stroked the ball with a confidence he lacked last season, and if he can produce instant offense from the perimeter this year he’ll be a valuable piece for Shaka Smart and company. His non-shooting decisions with the ball in his hands were questionable, but that won’t likely be a big part of his role if the squad remains healthy.

Andrew Jones’ shot looks quicker than last year, which is good if he can make threes at a reasonable rate.

Matt Coleman pushes the ball down the court well. This doesn’t sound like a big deal, at least until the PTSD flashbacks from last season kick in again.

Jericho Sims has a ton of athleticism but is still suuuuuuper raw. He gets burned on defense regularly and will likely struggle against teams with a decent scouting report. He has a lot of potential, but he may not effectively tap into it until next year or the year after.

Dylan Osetkowski was good despite dealing with a right wrist injury. Maybe my favorite moment of the night was seeing the look on his face when Bamba blocked his shot, pinning it against the backboard, you could see Dylan just sort of accept his fate even before he landed back on the ground. I’m going to guess that is not the first time this has happened to him playing against Mo.

Eli Long made his only Texas appearance of the season this year as he’s redshirting this season. He’s definitely confident with the ball in his hands, and should at the very least be a good secondary ball-handler next year.

Roach dunked over his mom and it made Sportscenter.

Overall there were some positive developments, and some things we didn’t see tonight that we are likely to see more of in the regular season (hello, trapping press!). If you want to learn more about what this team is likely to do this year, Smart Texas Basketball 2017 comes out on Amazon & iTunes on Monday. The list price is $4.99, but for our loyal Barking Carnival readers we have a special one-time price of $4.99.

A band called The Academic cleverly took advantage of the slight broadcast delay in Facebook Live to construct a loop sampler out of video, so that at any given moment, each member of the band is performing with their past and future selves and bandmates.

We rearranged each instrument on “Bear Claws” to fit Facebook Live’s delay, with each loop getting more complex, adding instruments, rhythms, and melodies. Additionally, by projecting the video live from a soundstage we created an infinite tunnel consisting of all the previously recorded loops.

OK Go is probably kicking themselves for not thinking of this first. See also Piano/Video Phase, David Cossin’s performance of Steve Reich’s Piano Phase with himself. (via clive thompson)

Tags: audio   music   The Academic   video

Sonos today introduced the Sonos One, an all-new smart speaker with six far-field microphones that allow it to work with digital assistants.


Sonos One can be controlled entirely with voice. At launch, it will support Amazon Alexa in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, including full voice support for Prime Music, iHeartRadio, Pandora, SiriusXM, and TuneIn. Alexa voice control for Spotify will be coming soon after launch.

Google Assistant support will be added in 2018, making the Sonos One the first smart speaker with support for multiple major assistants.

Sonos One can play music from more than 80 streaming services, including popular ones like Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play Music, Tidal, and Pandora. In addition, it supports other traditional Alexa capabilities related to the weather, timers, news and traffic reports, the latest sports scores, and more.


Sonos is releasing a free software update today that will enable many of its existing speakers to be controlled with Alexa as well. In the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, Sonos owners can use any Alexa-enabled device like the Echo or Echo Dot to control the speaker with voice commands.

Sonos also announced that it will begin supporting Apple's AirPlay 2 in 2018, making it possible to play any sound from an iOS device on Sonos speakers. Apple users will also be able to control music on Sonos speakers with any Siri-enabled device, such as an iPhone, iPad, and the HomePod once it launches.

Sonos One comes in black or white, weighs four pounds, and has an illuminated LED indicator light to ensure you are always aware when the speaker's microphone is active. The speaker connects to a home's Wi-Fi network, and it also has one 10/100 Mbps Ethernet port for those who prefer a wired connection.

The speaker features premium audio quality, with two Class-D digital amplifiers tuned to match the speaker drivers and acoustic architecture, one tweeter, one mid-woofer, adjustable bass and treble controls, and a six far-field microphone array used for advanced beamforming and echo cancellation.

Sonos One will be available starting Tuesday, October 24 for $199 in the United States. Pre-orders start today.


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You can get Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain with your PlayStation Plus membership in October. There’s also the Amnesia collection, which has both The Dark Descent and A Machine for Pigs, two games I’m too scared to play.

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Heat Signature’s clock is ticking. Ten seconds until I get detected in an enemy spaceship, and I haven’t even assassinated my target. Finally, I find them. It’s over in one cruel slice of my long blade, but the timer is still counting down, and the ship is a labyrinthine hulk. I run. I see a hull or a space window or …

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According to Google Trends, search traffic about the upcoming solar eclipse mirrors the path of totality. And according to XKCD, pre-eclipse search traffic for “eclipse” is outpacing pre-election search traffic for “election”.

Tags: 2017 solar eclipse   Google   maps   search   USA