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02 Nov 20:34

This gorgeous-looking game lets you control a colony of photorealistic ants

by Lawrence Bonk

The world of ants is a mysterious one, as we’re still learning new stuff about the most populous insect on Earth. Soon we’ll be able to get a more hands-on approach with everyone’s favorite picnic-ruiners, thanks to the forthcoming insect sim Empire of the Ants. The game’s based on the hit sci-fi book series and has you controlling a heroic ant to protect your massive colony.

Publisher Microids and developer Tower Five just dropped a trailer and these are perhaps the most photorealistic ants ever seen in a video game. As a matter of fact, the whole trailer’s teeming with eye candy, which makes sense given the title was built using Epic Games’ powerful Unreal Engine 5. Plus it’s not just one or two ants on screen, as in-game footage shows hundreds of the little buggers doing their thing, complete with a photorealistic forest down to the pebbles and dirt on the floor.

As for gameplay, the devs liken it to a real-time strategy title, with some 3rd-person adventuring peppered throughout. The makers say that “strategy planning, exploration, combat skills, but most of all, setting up local wildlife alliances will be necessary to survive the many challenges awaiting.”

The developers tout scalable difficulty levels to suit players of varying skill, a day-night cycle and gameplay that changes depending on the season. Each season will present players with different attributes, adding some light RPG elements, impacting “speed, resistance, buffs and more,” according to an email sent to Engadget.

There’s no release date yet, other than sometime in 2024, but the game’s coming to both PC and unnamed consoles (likely PS5 and Xbox S/X.) Publisher Microids previously released a smaller-scale adaptation of Empire of the Ants, back in 2000. Developers Tower Five previously worked on the strategy game Lornsword Winter Chronicles and the ill-fated 2020 remake of XIII.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/this-gorgeous-looking-game-lets-you-control-a-colony-of-photorealistic-ants-191034408.html?src=rss
19 Jan 15:57

Fellow's Opus is a coffee grinder you'll want to show off

by Billy Steele

Fellow is well-known among coffee geeks for its well-designed range of brewing accessories. The company makes everything from kettles and mugs to brewers and grinders. And while Fellow's first grinder, the Ode, is mostly designed for pour overs, the company will debut a more versatile model next month. The Opus is a conical burr grinder than can sort everything from fine espresso to coarse cold brew. 

Inside, a six-blade 40mm burr set offers consistent grinds across 41 different settings. So whether you're brewing AeroPress or French press, the Opus will cover a lot more styles than the flat burr Ode. Fellow did bring its anti-static tech back for the new model, which the company says will help keep the mess to a minimum. Plus, there's an automatic timed stop, single dose loading, 110-gram capacity hopper and no-tool calibration. The Opus will be available on February 21st for $195, significantly cheaper than the second-gen Ode. 

07 Oct 19:03

Summoning Demons Is Not the Behavior of a Polite Guest

by John Farrier

Marianne Jetté, a professional theatre costume designer in Ontario, describes herself as “Baba Yaga but with may more glitter.” She weaves supernatural and folkloric themes through her cosplays and crafts. This funny cross-stitch sampler illustrates the dark side of this “cosplay witch”.

Jetté takes the classic “Don’t Do Cocaine in the Bathroom” cross-stitch meme and suggests that summoning demons may be an even worse choice when taking a sanitary break while visiting her home. But turn off the lights and glow-in-the-dark thread indicates that she’s totally chill with your lifestyle choices.

If you like her design, you can buy the pattern on Etsy.

-via Rebeccca Baumann

15 Sep 15:53

ACE Shuts Down More Illegal Streaming Sites – These Sites May Be Next

by Andy Maxwell

new ace seize bannerThere are just three certainties in life – death, taxes, and regular announcements by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment that more pirate sites have been shut down.

The latest to fall to ACE are all part of an Argentina-based streaming ring, variously branded as Pelismart and Pelispop. ACE says that seven domains, all belonging to the same operator, were taken down in August following enforcement action in July.

27 Million Visits Per Month

ACE says that the four most popular domains – pelismart.com, pelispop.me, pelispoptv.com and pelispophd.com – had combined monthly traffic of over 27 million visits, offering movies and TV shows for streaming and download.

After tracking down their operator, ACE says that an agreement was reached to transfer the domains to ACE and enter into a settlement, the terms of which haven’t been disclosed.

“This is a huge win for the ACE team based in Latin America as we work to protect the legitimate digital ecosystem throughout the region,” said Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection for the Motion Picture Association.

“While there are larger services that continue to operate in the region, it is only a matter of time before we will shut them down and the operators will undoubtedly have criminal charges filed against them in the countries where they currently reside.”

Sites Identified as Targets Many Months Ago

As part of ACE/MPA investigations, the groups often obtain DMCA subpoenas in the United States that compel intermediaries such as Cloudflare to hand over information on pirate sites.

In November 2020, one such subpoena listed a Pelismart-branded domain as a target. In May 2021, another DMCA subpoena targeting Cloudflare mentioned Pelismart once again. This April, another subpoena citing a Pelispop-branded domain showed that ACE was still on the trail.

Other Pirate Sites Under Investiagtion

DMCA subpoena applications in the United States often provide an early signal that sites are under investigation or face other action, such as site-blocking processes in various jurisdictions.

These are the domains listed in numerous ACE/MPA subpoena applications filed in the last couple of weeks, which require Cloudflare and Tonic Domains to hand over whatever details they hold on their customers:

– cardsharingkaufen.to (IPTV)
– scws.xyz (IPTV)
– watchseries.pics (streaming)
– tamilblasters.cloud (streaming)
– 1tamilMV.team (streaming)
– moviehdfree.net (streaming)
– tvshows88.com (streaming)
– baixarseriesmp4.top (streaming)
– comando.to (streaming)
– 0123movie.net (streaming)
– Imaple.co (streaming)
– momovod.tv (streaming)
– movieffm.cc (streaming)
– streamblasters.live (streaming)
– streamingcommunity.agency (streaming)
– streamingcommunity.best (streaming)
– cb01.kaufen (streaming)
– cb01.rodeo (streaming)
– ilcorsaronero.link (streaming)
– eurostreaming.party (streaming)
– eurekaddl.pics (streaming)
– globsalstore.uk (streaming)
– moviestars.to (streaming)
– netcine.to (streaming)
– ondebaixa.com (streaming)
– supertela.org (streaming)
– warezcdn.com (streaming)
– joymovies.123streamcms.bid (streaming)
– sapphirebilling.net (IPTV)
– televisiongratisenvivo.com (IPTV)
– sltube.com (streaming) – Part of the StreamLare operation and a key enforcement target

The DMCA subpoena documents can be found here (1,2,3,4,5,6,7, pdf)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

12 Jun 18:31

Mission: Impossible 7 Teaser Finds Tom Cruise Risking His Life Wherever & Whenever He Can

by Jonathan Fuge

Everything is on the line for Tom Cruise as he reprises the role of the unstoppable action hero Ethan Hunt in the latest teaser trailer for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. Released courtesy of the official Mission: Impossible Twitter account, the new footage finds Hunt and his team running from, well, everybody as he once again risks his life in car chases, fist fights, and, of course, driving off a cliff. Check out the new teaser for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One below.

31 Jan 19:30

The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part I: Bargaining for Goods at Helm’s Gate

25 Jan 03:07

2nd Chance Review: The Wild True Story Of The Inventor Of The Bulletproof Vest [Sundance 2022]

by Chris Evangelista

This is the story of Richard Davis. After not one but two different pizza shops owned by Davis burned to the ground in 1969, Davis moved on to something different: Inventing the modern-day bulletproof vest. To prove it worked when he was just getting started out, Davis staged demonstrations in which he would slap on the vest and then shoot himself point-blank in the chest. Over the years, he did this a total of 192 times, which is obviously a record, and one that the documentary "2nd Chance" leads with. 

Ramin Bahrani's doc follows Davis' strange path to success, with Davis himself front and center (sitting in a comically large armchair) to offer colorful anecdotes about his life and career. At first blush, Davis seems like a lovable goofball. Sure, he's clearly obsessed with guns, but he's also fast with a joke and fond of making his own low-budget action movies to promote his products. But there's more to the Richard Davis story. As "2nd Chance" unfolds, Bahrani slowly but methodically reveals the many questionable, problematic events in the life of the man who invented the bulletproof vest. Whenever Bahrani presents these finds to Davis, Davis himself is quick to deny them. He laughs them off, downplays them, or claims they didn't happen at all. 

In the eyes of Richard Davis, Richard Davis is a hero. His bulletproof vests saved lives, and he went so far as to start a running list of names of all the people who were shot but lived thanks to one of Richard's vests. One such person was Aaron Westrick, a police officer who was shot and lived -- and then came to work for Richard's company, Second Chance. If Davis is the ultimate villain of the piece, Westrick ends up being something akin to a hero. Perhaps that's too extreme. But Bahrani takes pains to illustrate that Westrick has a good heart, and the film gives him something of a mini-arc involving his shooting and the aftermath. I won't say any more because it's best experienced fresh, but "2nd Chance" makes a point of illustrating that Westrick is not some bloodthirsty gun nut. 

The same can't be said for Richard Davis, who gives us an elaborate story about how he gunned down three criminals while delivering a pizza back in the '60s. Bahrani does some digging and is unable to find anything that confirms Richard's story. But that doesn't matter to Richard. The pizza shooting is part of his lore. It's his origin story. 

An Interesting Story That's Missing Something

Throughout the course of "2nd Chance," Davis himself remains a bit of an enigma. It's difficult to figure out what makes this guy tick -- other than guns, guns, and more guns. Perhaps that's it. Perhaps all Richard Davis enjoys is firing large weapons in open fields, because there's certainly a lot of footage of that. Davis has seemingly countless hours of himself spraying machine guns or blasting cars with artillery shells until they burst into flames. He's also directed a slew of cheap action flicks based on the true stories of the people who wear his vests -- although Aaron Westrick points out that Richard got a lot of the facts wrong when he staged a recreation of Aaron's shooting. 

No matter. The truth is inconsequential. All that matters is whether or not Richard has a story that's good for business. Throughout his career, we're told he would travel to various police stations and show them his sensationalized films, all in the name of scaring the cops into buying his products. There's an absurdity to all of this, and we can laugh despite the implications of it all. And, sure, it could be argued that for all his flaws, Richard has done good things. His vests have indeed saved lives.

At least for a while. But then we learn that Richard introduced a new material for his vests -- Zylon. The benefit: Zylon was ultra-light. But here's the thing: It was perhaps too light, because it failed to actually stop bullets. Worse, Richard was apparently aware of this, as internal memos from his company sure suggest so. And yet, he still allowed the vests to be sold and not just to law enforcement, but to the military in the wake of 9/11 and the so-called War on Terror. But again, Ricard Davis doesn't seem very broken up about any of this. It's just business.  

Bahrani's doc moves at a steady pace, but it also runs through bullet points rather than taking a deeper dive into Richard and his life. There's one particularly memorable, haunting moment where we see footage of Richard donning one of his vests and allowing his father to shoot him. Rather than just shoot him once, Richard's dad keeps shooting his son, again and again. It's the type of moment worthy of a Greek tragedy, crying out for analysis, but it comes and goes rather quickly, accompanied with the information that Richard always tried to please his father. And then the film moves on from this topic almost as quickly as it introduced it. 

Ditto an earlier moment when one of Richard's ex-wives states that Richard "desperately needs to be loved by other people." It's a loaded statement, but there's no time to swell on it. Ultimately the entire film feels like this -- too quick, unconcerned with lingering. There has to be more to the Richard Davis story. Someone else should give it a try. Of course, after being exposed so much here, Richard probably won't want to sit down in that comically huge armchair for another tell-all interview. Then again, seeing as he clearly loves being in the spotlight, he just might. 

/Film Rating: 6 out of 10

Read this next: 14 Remakes That Are Better Than The Original

The post 2nd Chance Review: The Wild True Story Of the Inventor of the Bulletproof Vest [Sundance 2022] appeared first on /Film.

18 Dec 19:15

Everything Everywhere All At Once Trailer: Michelle Yeoh Enters The Multiverse In The Latest From The Directors Of Swiss Army Man

by Chris Evangelista

Daniels, the filmmaking team of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, are back with what looks like another strange, wonderful movie. The latest from "Swiss Army Man" directors is called "Everything Everywhere All At Once," and it sends Michelle Yeoh on a wild journey through several alternate dimensions, or multiverses, if you will. The first "Everything Everywhere All at Once" trailer just dropped, and folks, it looks all kinds of fantastic. This is a wonderful trailer – it's full of strange, eye-catching moments, but it never gives too much away. Plus, Jamie Lee Curtis shows up wearing a questionable wig. Watch the "Everything Everywhere All At Once" trailer below. 

Everything Everywhere All At Once Trailer

"Swiss Army Man," aka the movie about a farting corpse played by Harry Potter, was a wonderful, weird surprise. And now the filmmakers behind that flick are back with something that looks just as wonderful and weird. The film, "Everything Everywhere All At Once," has a cast that includes Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Jenny Slate. And, like "Spider-Man: Far From Home," it involves the multiverseThere's clearly a lot more going on here, but the wonderfully vague synopsis only offers us this info: 

Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as Daniels, the film is a hilarious and big-hearted sci-fi action adventure about an exhausted Chinese American woman (Michelle Yeoh) who can't seem to finish her taxes.

There's so much to enjoy here. The multiverse angle opens the film up to all sorts of possibilities, and having Michelle Yeoh front and center of it all makes this all the more exciting. Also, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I spotted a direct callback to Yeoh's role in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" in this trailer, and that's neat! "Everything Everywhere All At Once" will have its world premiere as the opening night film at the 2022 SXSW festival. It will then arrive in theaters on March 25, 2022. I can't wait, and only wish I could see it sooner. 

Read this next: The Best Movies Of 2021 So Far

The post Everything Everywhere All At Once Trailer: Michelle Yeoh Enters the Multiverse in the Latest From the Directors of Swiss Army Man appeared first on /Film.

30 Oct 18:13

DNA confirms living descendant of Native American warrior chief Sitting Bull - CNET

by Monisha Ravisetti
After 14 grueling years of analysis, a lock of the valiant leader's hair reveals the identity of his great grandson.
29 Jun 12:55

RIP Pepper the Robot (2014-2020)

by Matt Novak

Japanese telecom giant SoftBank halted production of Pepper the robot in August of 2020, according to a new report from Reuters. And it seems unlikely that new ones will ever roll off the manufacturing line.

Read more...

25 Apr 18:30

Don't forget, Resident Evil Village is opening up the castle demo on Saturday

by Jordan Devore

After last weekend's first of two demo slices for Resident Evil Village, I feel like we're a bit better equipped to handle Capcom's ridiculous constraints. Tomorrow evening, the castle portion will be playable — but only for a limited time in-game and a limited time in real life. Let's do another rundown.

Plenty of people pre-loaded the PS4 or PS5 early access demo for Resident Evil Village only to realize that it wasn't playable by the time they showed up and settled in. As it turns out, you have to be online to play, and if you fall outside Capcom's strict access window, the demo won't let you do anything.

As you can see in this demo schedule, there's an eight-hour window in which PS4 and PS5 players can fully launch the castle demo, and it starts on Saturday, April 24 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific. The double-whammy caveat is that within this window, you only get 30 minutes of playtime with the castle.

A schedule for the PS4/PS5 castle demo.

As we learned with the earlier demo slice, which was a cutscene-filled trip through the village with one tense but short lycan encounter, the 30-minute timer does not stop once you're in the game proper. That means you should figure out your preferred settings — like whether or not you want ray-tracing on PS5 — while you're still on the main menu. Once you're in, the race is on, even during cutscenes.

Capcom reiterated that there's one demo for Resident Evil Village, so if you played the village experience last week, you won't need to download a new client to access the castle section this weekend.

On the PlayStation Blog, producer Tsuyoshi Kanda says we'll see the "beautiful inner workings of the castle, the stronghold of the illustrious Alcina Dimitrescu and her bloodthirsty daughters."

"One of the major motifs of this area, and the game in general, was creating environments filled with beauty. When players aren’t running for their lives, we wanted to create a setting that they could enjoy by venturing through and slowly taking in all the sights and scenes. Of course, every picture of beauty hides a face of terror. Players may also find themselves beneath the splendor in an underground prison, tiptoeing past cold cellar bars that offer a sharp juxtaposition to the warmth found up above."

The article also includes what I'll just refer to as a "claw gif." You can peek if you want.

Remember hearing Mr. X thud around and trying to pinpoint precisely where he was in the police station only to have him still get the jump on you? I'm ready for those same vibes in Village. (I think.)

If you're unavailable on April 24 or you don't have a PlayStation console, there will be another chance to try Resident Evil Village on Saturday, May 1. All platforms and both of the demo areas will be included.

Don't forget, Resident Evil Village is opening up the castle demo on Saturday screenshot

18 Dec 02:38

Things People Only Understood After Getting Older

When we're young, everything seems so cut and dried, but getting a little bit older makes us ask questions we didn't even know we had. It's eye opening, and it makes you realize that with greater responsibilities comes having to understand a lot of the things your parents complained about. Here are some total downsides to being an adult as well as some funny and embarrassingly basic stuff adults didn't know.

1.

Text - _doggystyle_ 29.7k points · 3 days ago 926 & 24 More Sleep is no punishment it's a gift

2.

Text - Slowjams 55.8k points · 3 days ago 28 & 73 More Friendships fading away I remember my dad telling me all kinds of cool stories about things him and his friends did in the past. I even asked him "why aren't you still friends with these people?" He really did basically say "it's complicated, you'll understand when you're older." Even back then I remember thinking "that's crazy, me and my friends will always be friends." Sitting here now in my early 30's and it really hits home.

3.

Text - xXnova16poguex 40.4k points · 3 days ago ,6 8 39 E 3 Not everybody is going to like you, even if you're a good person. 12

4.

Text - plotthick 31.4k points · 3 days ago 5 0 11 e4 & 14 More The quiet, boring, simple, times are the best. Everyone's fed, happy, healthy, chill, napping... these are the good times.

5.

Text - laundryandblowjobs 28.0k points · 3 days ago 3 2 3 3 If the door is closed, you should always knock.

6.

Text - AWhistlingWoman 6.2k points · 3 days ago That EVERYTHING has shades of grey/is a sliding scale. It is so easy to understand the world as absolutes when young. Suddenly realising in my late teens/early twenties that basically nothing is an absolute was a total revelation that really steers my understanding of everything and undoubtedly makes me a better person.

7.

Text - diegojones4 27.3k points · 3 days ago 2 3 2 Money. There was a reason that you didn't get those shoes, the PS5, a new shiny car, etc. Maintaining a home and keeping the family fed is fucking expensive.

8.

Text - foundingflounders 25.6k points · 3 days ago · edited 3 days ago 2 King Triton, Arieľ's dad was right. She was just a child and she was not “in love" with the random prince she saw for all of 30 seconds.

9.

Text - call-me-mama-t 25.4k points · 3 days ago 2 2 e2 33 8 Time...wasting time, and how time flies. It's mid Dec & I'm saying to myself 'what the heck-it's been 9 months of Covid & I can't believe this year is almost over'! As you age it seems to go faster & faster. When I was younger I felt like time just dragged on some days.

10.

Text - Tru27 25.1k points · 3 days ago 4 3 e3 & 4 More Literally getting older. Never thought much about when adults would say "You're still young, just enjoy it". I always wanted to be older because I was tired of HS, wanted to be out of college, etc. Now I want aging to slow down a bit.

11.

Text - steviebergwijn 21.9k points - 3 days ago 2 3 2 3 2 O Why it's so annoying when you forget to take the chicken out of the freezer

12.

Text - -eDgAR- 20.2k points · 3 days ago · edited 3 days ago 14 9 & 60 More When I was a kid my dad and I had a tradition every week of going to the video store and renting a movie or two to watch together. It was one of my favorite things to do, but I remember I used to get really upset at him because every single time we'd actually start to watch the movie he would fall asleep. It wasn't until I was older that I realized that the reason he would fall asleep was because he was exhausted from wo

13.

Text - ninten-dont 19.9k points · 3 days ago 2 2 & 6 More Can we get McDonald's? No we have food at home.

14.

Text - distrucktocon 18.2k points · 3 days ago ,5 9 3 3 8 8 4 It is possible to do everything right and still fail. Dont let it consume you. Pick up the pieces and move on. I had to learn this after a project that I was on for 3 years was sabotaged and shitcanned. I did some amazing work, and poured my life into that project.. in the end I had nothing to show for it. It put me in a real slump for a few years. Im still trying to pull myself out of it without becoming a cynical and jaded asshole.

15.

Text - Wyndsock 16.8k points · 3 days ago 2 e2 3 2 E 2 The sound of your joints exploding every time you get up.

16.

Text - justcurious247_ 15.6k points · 3 days ago Why my parents would look disgusted eating/ drinking anything that was sweet. • I never understood why they watered down juice until now

17.

Text - FoxtailZerda 15.5k points · 3 days ago 2@3 2 Something a little more lighthearted, but about half the jokes on cartoons like SpongeBob take on a whole new light once you've got more experience under your belt. ikindalold 10.4k points · 3 days ago 2 3 34 & 7 More You either die a Spongebob or live long enough to become a Squidward.

18.

Text - RedsInABox 14.2k points · 3 days ago · edited 2 days ago Time off. Working crazy hours in my early 20s was nice because I had a lot of money 3 6 e & 7 More but as I became older and more involved with my now fiancé and my friends I realized that there's a balance. This drove me to look for a job with a little less pay but far better hours and now I'm happy. Don't work like a slave, you'll miss a lot of good things in life.

19.

Text - bibbidibobbidi-bacon 14.2k points · 3 days ago · 55 & 16 More edited 3 days ago Good people aren't always nice people, and vice versa.

20.

Text - allsfairinwar 13.7k points · 3 days ago 2 4 5 3 2 8 3 What parents sacrifice just so you can do something fun. Last night my husband and I sat in a line of cars for an hour and a half so our kids could see this cheesy drive thru light display in my town with Santa and other characters. 0/10 not worth it for us but the kids loved it and it was worth it to see them be able to do a fun Christmas activity during a pandemic. It made me think of how much my parents had to endure taking my broth

21.

Text - pilatesse 13.2k points · 3 days ago 2 3 e S 3 & 3 More Socks are a very nice gift.

22.

Text - curiousboopnoodle 10.8k points · 3 days ago 2 3 24 Teenagers are just kids. It's something I quite literally was not capable of understanding until I wasn't a teenager anymore. When I was a teenager I felt so000 grown up.

23.

Text - QuarantineTitans 9.7k points · 3 days ago · edited 3 days ago In my teens and 20's, I just couldn't understand how my parents were so oblivious to celebrities. They were all over TV, their names and faces blasted on everything, it seemed everybody had some strong emotionally charged opinion about every major actor, musician, director, or tabloid magnet. What are they, living under a rock? Didn't take long to find out why. Growing up, I didn't have a pre- existing list of "these are famous

24.

Text - pinetreeroad 8.5k points · 3 days ago 25 e6 3 E 5 That the quality rather than quantity of friends matters.

25.

Text - eeyoremarie 7.7k points · 3 days ago Hand me downs. I absolutely hated them, e 8 2 even though my grandma was a genius with them. Dyeing, artistic patches, new buttons... They just didn't last compared to the new clothes my older sister had. Then I had 3 boys in 6 years.. I'm seriously grateful that my grandma tried so hard to make my hand me downs look good. I get it now.

26.

Text - BigBadKYDO 6.5k points · 3 days ago Why the pet hamster changed color

Submitted by:

17 Nov 14:25

GoodRx, Walgreens, CVS shares all down on Amazon’s Pharmacy news

by Jonathan Shieber

Consumer healthcare stocks are plummeting this morning on news that Amazon has finally launched its integrated pharmacy service.

The news, which could dramatically reshape the healthcare landscape by offering deep discounts on prescription medication and two-day delivery services for Amazon Prime customers, has already taken a toll on the share price of companies like GoodRx, Walgreens, and CVS.

GoodRx was hit the hardest, with its shares slumping 19% in pre-market trading. Walgreens Boots Alliance was down nearly 10% before market open and CVS Health slid 7%.

Amazon has been steadily encroaching on pharmacy businesses in the same way the company has moved into grocery delivery and everyday consumer staples.

The convergence of food and pharmacy has been a decades-long evolution for mega-retailers on both sides of the divide — with grocers building out pharmacy services and pharmacies adding food to their shelves.

Since its acquisition of Pillpack in 2018, Amazon has been adding additional pharmaceutical and healthcare services. It launched its own over-the-counter drugs in 2019, and rolled out a healthcare network for its employees — Amazon Care for its workers in Seattle.

In August, Amazon launched its fitness tracker, Halo. The personal health and wellness monitoring and advice service includes a $64.99 wrist tracker and an application suite for monitoring health.

As TechCrunch noted, the service includes more than the standard health tracking gadget/app combo, by taking a comprehensive look at various measures of health, including body fat percentage, as measured at home with just your smartphone’s own camera and the Amazon Halo app.

Taken together, Amazon’s array of hardware, software, pharmacy services and healthcare network represents the most complete package of health services across industries.

It’s a powerful pitch to consumers, and one that could ultimately significantly drive down healthcare costs. And drive down the revenue of other pharmacies, which investors are not stoked to imagine.

23 Aug 20:01

Goodness, This Is A Horrible Map

by sodiumnami

Maps are helpful tools that let us navigate to unknown places, or get information about other areas that we aren’t that familiar with. They exist in different forms, and some are more difficult to understand than others. This one however, is just horrible. The map is well-constructed, and the information is easy to understand, but it's just very scary. Anthony Fauci, the head of  the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases released a map that shows emerging diseases that pose a threat to our health, as Gizmodo details: 

The paper, released over the weekend as a preprint in the journal Cell (meaning it may be revised before its final publication), is intended to lay out the environmental and human factors that led to covid-19 erupting on the world stage in late 2019. Fauci’s co-author is David Morens, senior scientific advisor at Office of the Director at NIAID. It’s an educational read, delving into how newly emerging diseases like covid-19 and familiar enemies like influenza can become so dangerous to humankind.

Image via Gizmodo

04 May 21:23

Lock Overkill

by Jonco

via

01 Dec 04:15

Jimmy Wales' New Social Network Skyrockets To 345,000 Members, Will Hire Journalists

by EditorDavid
Jimmy Wales' new social network WT.Social started November with just 1,500 members. Four weeks later, it's skyrocketed up to 345,680 members -- and that's just the beginning. Next year Wales plans to hire journalists, with the site's users acting as their "editors-in-chief," fulfilling the dreams Wales had for the site's earlier incarnation as a crowd-sourced news platform Wikitribune, reports the journalism magazine Press Gazette: Wikitribune originally employed about ten to 12 journalists who created content and hit publish on stories for the site. But the whole editorial team was laid off in October last year after Wales told them costs were unsustainable with not enough money coming in from crowdfunding and no major investors. [On WT.Social] he instead enabled thousands of users to publish articles, a right that had previously been limited to Wikitribune's staff journalists.... "[T]here was a real feeling that this site was a journalists' website and you as a member are allowed to help them as a junior mini-journalist on the side. And that just didn't really work. Whereas to really foster that sense of community engagement and moral ownership of what they're doing, you kind of want to reverse that and say actually the journalists are here to serve whatever you're interested in so send them out, get them busy, you be the editor-in-chief and direct their work.... "We'll say: 'Here are some of the most active communities, you work for them -- what do they need you to do? What are the things that they want you to look into? Who do they want you to go and hunt down and interview?' So it's really putting journalists at the disposal of people who are in a certain area." Wales tell the Press Gazette that his original WikiTribune site had had a design that was "too intimidating" for non-journalists. "People felt like 'okay I have to go and write a whole big piece, edit it, publish it, all of that' rather than just sharing, interacting in a much more casual way..." "So far [on WT Social] that's proven to be overwhelmingly true," Wales added. On his new site users are signed up for four "subwikis" by default -- Internet News, Long Reads, Fighting Misinformation, and Upcoming Newsworthy Events -- and this has started some good conversations. "People come on the platform and they're discussing things, sharing things, writing things in a much more fluid way." WT.Social is currently looking for volunteer laravel or vue developers, as well as admins, and there's even a paid position as a community assistant.

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26 Nov 19:53

Apple renews Shyamalan's 'Servant' before it premieres

by Jon Fingas
Add another Apple TV+ show to the list of those already slated to get second seasons. M. Night Shyamalan and the Tonight Show's Jimmy Fallon have confirmed that Apple has renewed Servant for a second season ahead of its November 28th premiere. That...
03 Aug 21:30

The ‘Black Widow’ Fight Scenes Won’t Be Your Typical Superhero Movie Fight Scenes

by Hoai-Tran Bui

black widow fight scenes

Black Widow has always stood apart from the rest of the Avengers, not just by virtue of being the only woman on the team. She was unafraid to get her hands dirty — which made her the perfect foil for Chris Evans’ noble Steve Rogers. And her solo movie, starring Scarlett Johansson as the titular superspy, will stand apart from other Marvel films for that same reason. Black Widow writer Jac Schaeffer has teased that the fight scenes in the film will be the “polar opposite” of the typical superhero film.

In an interview with InverseBlack Widow writer Schaeffer, who is co-writing the film with Ned Benson, described the fighting in the film as “a lot of close contact, hand-to-hand combat.”

“It’s very visceral. There’s a lot of aggression and power in a very human way that I find really satisfying and really exciting to watch, but it’s the polar opposite to writing for super-powered characters.”

That tracks with the footage we saw at San Diego Comic-Con, which showed a brutal hand-to-hand fight between Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff and Florence Pugh‘s fellow spy Yelena in a dirty apartment in Budapest. The fight choreography lies somewhere between balletic and bruising, as the two super-spies are matched punch-for-punch, and eventually resort to fighting dirty with broken dishes and curtain chokeholds. “The grimy, tactile fight is reminiscent of the Bourne films, especially in its low light and intense close-ups,” I described in my write-up of the footage.

But even as the action gets more violent than that of what we usually see in Marvel movies — apart from perhaps the fantastic fight scenes of Captain America: The Winter Soldier — Schaeffer admitted that she would like to see “alternatives to violence in superhero movies.” She added, “Maybe I would qualify that by saying, alternatives to glamorizing guns and weaponry. That’s one of the reasons that I love Captain Marvel: it’s all about inner power. And the destruction is not at the expense of human life.”

Though Schaeffer’s description matches what we’ve seen so far of Black Widow, details are still scarce. The film will also star David Harbour as Alexei aka The Red Guardian, O-T Fagbenle as Mason, and Rachel Weisz as Melina.

Cate Shortland directs Black Widow which is set to arrive in theaters on May 1, 2020.

The post The ‘Black Widow’ Fight Scenes Won’t Be Your Typical Superhero Movie Fight Scenes appeared first on /Film.

06 Jul 04:21

Enormous 5,500-Mile-Long Patch of Atlantic Seaweed Might Be the ‘New Normal’

by George Dvorsky

Scientists in Florida have detected the largest seaweed bloom in the world. Extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the African coast, the unusually large bloom is threatening marine life and coastal regions, with the researchers warning it’s likely a sign of things to come.

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30 Jun 14:26

Arby's Creates An Actual "Meat Carrot"

No, this is not a drill. Arby's has gone to great lengths to potentially troll the ever living shit out of vegans everywhere. They've created a damn "Marrot." A meat carrot. What a strange time to be alive. Apparently the process that went into creating this, in the test kitchen for now, was to roll up a bunch of turkey in the shape of a carrot and then sous-vide it before covering it in "carrot marinate." You can't find these in Arby's yet, but who's to say whether or not this might be hitting an Arby's menu near you soon! Just imagine the reactions from outraged vegans on Twitter. We'll wait patiently for now. 

Submitted by: (via Arby's)

12 Jun 01:55

The mini console craze continues with TurboGrafx-16 Mini

by CJ Andriessen

Running out of room on your TV stand for all these mini consoles? Well, throw that PlayStation Mini into the closest, because just revealed on Twitch, the TurboGrafx-16 Mini is coming your way. Originally released in 1987, the TurboGrafx-16 was overshadowed in its prime by the powerhouses at Nintendo and Sega. Now, it's getting a chance to show what a wonderful little console it was in a form littler than ever before.

The mini console craze continues with TurboGrafx-16 Mini screenshot

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21 May 02:57

Slack Changed Its Stock Ticker From ‘SK’ to ‘WORK’ Weeks Before IPO

by John Gruber

Becky Peterson, writing for Business Insider:

Slack is not a public company yet, but it’s already gotten tired of its stock ticker.

In an updated version of its IPO paperwork filed on Monday, Slack revealed that it has dumped the proposed “SK” stock ticker it had settled upon a few weeks ago. Instead, in a dramatic pivot, the workplace collaboration company will makes its public market debut with the more descriptive ticker symbol “WORK.”

It’s no big deal, but “SK” was a bad-ass ticker. “WORK” is just corny. I think you ought to be able to look at a ticker and make a good guess what company it belongs to.

(I’ve always wondered why Apple’s ticker is “AAPL”, with two A’s. Searching for an answer, I found this old MacRumors forum thread from 2003. Someone there thought they should change it to “IPOD”.)

09 May 03:05

Denver Becomes First US City To Decriminalize Psychedelic Mushrooms

by BeauHD
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reason: In a surprise turn of events, a Denver ballot initiative to effectively decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms, previously thought to have failed, now appears to have narrowly passed after all. This would make the Mile High City the first in the U.S. to decriminalize psilocybin. If the unofficial final tally holds, Denver law enforcement will be directed to treat psychedelic mushrooms owned for personal possession as the lowest enforcement priority. The initiative will not legalize commercial sales. "After trailing in results postings Tuesday night and early Wednesday, final unofficial results just posted show a reversal of fortune -- with Initiative 301 set to pass with nearly 50.6 percent of the vote," The Denver Post reports. "The total stands at 89,320 votes in favor and 87,341 against -- a margin of 1,979 votes. Denver Elections expects to continue accepting military and overseas ballots, but typically those numbers are small." Reason's Jacob Sullem points out that this decriminalization will have only a modest real-world impact, as Denver has only prosecuted a handful of psilocybin cases over the past few years.

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07 May 16:24

Watch These Two Playful Baby Bears Wrestling In The Road

While Jeff Molyneaux was driving back from a hike in Hetch Hetchy with his family, they were suddenly stumbled on two bear cubs and their mother. Watch these two playful creatures. 

Submitted by: (via Jeff Molyneaux)

Tagged: bears , cute , wrestling , Video
05 May 17:59

Windows Solitaire Inducted Into the World Video Game Hall of Fame

by msmash
The classic Windows game Solitaire has joined such landmarks as Doom, Tetris, and World of Warcraft in being inducted into the Strong Museum of Play's World Video Game Hall of Fame. The award recognizes Solitaire's role as a significant part of gaming's history. From a report: Solitaire was first bundled with Windows 3.0. Much like the other notable bundled game, Minesweeper, Solitaire was there to serve as a secret tutorial: in a time when the mouse was still regarded as a new and exotic piece of computer hardware, Solitaire honed clicking, double clicking, and drag-and-drop skills. As a computerized version of a familiar card game, it was instantly recognizable. It was bundled with every subsequent Windows version, up to Windows 7. Windows 8 replaced it with a much more varied set of card games. The combination of approachability and bundling means that the game has been installed on more than a billion PCs, and it has likely been played by many billions of people.

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23 Feb 16:49

Crowd Loses Their Minds Over Man Drinking Tea Through His Beard Cage

Nobody could've been ready for the King of Beards to make his appearance. Mere mortals were possessed with nervous excitement, and the crowd was caught up in an uproar, at the sight of a man drinking tea through his beard. 

Submitted by: (via iksnyrk)

30 Dec 13:30

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman, Known as the 'Mother of Hubble,' Dies at 93

by Catie Keck

Nancy Grace Roman, a former NASA executive who is often described as the “mother” of the Hubble Space Telescope, has died at 93.

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05 Dec 15:30

Reigns: Game of Thrones' Storylines Are So Good, HBO Should Copy Them

by Charles Pulliam-Moore on io9, shared by Tom McKay to Gizmodo

Strong writing is almost always what ultimately makes or breaks a video game, but it’s especially important in a game that’s as narratively-driven as Reigns: Game of Thrones.

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04 Dec 18:18

The Most Overwhelmingly Professional Marbles Race We've Ever Seen

This is way more entertaining and addictive than you'd expect. 

Submitted by: (via Jelle's Marble Runs)

Tagged: marbles , race , interesting , Video
02 Dec 03:32

Know the difference…

by Jonco

via

Thanks, DJ