Robert Reich is getting TikTok famous. Closing in on half a million followers, the 75-year-old Clinton-era Labor secretary and current Berkeley professor is an unlikely figure on the short-attention-span video platform, which is designed for younger users and thrives on trends, memes, inside jokes, and dance moves du jour. And that’s part of the reason it works for Reich. He embraces the platform and all its quirks. He dances. He clowns. He duets with other TikTok-ers. The effect is
On Sept. 1 and 2, 1859, telegraph systems around the world failed catastrophically. The operators of the telegraphs reported receiving electrical shocks, telegraph paper catching fire, and being able to operate equipment with batteries disconnected. During the evenings, the aurora borealis, more commonly known as the northern lights, could be seen as far south as Colombia. Typically, these lights are only visible at higher latitudes, in northern Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia. What the wor
In my never-ending search for efficiency, I realized that if I could stop constantly checking my phone all morning, I could save quite a bit of time. More important: I could stop getting distracted by all the other stuff on my phone. And there sat the Amazon Echo Dot in my kitchen. Until then, it had been a timer-setting, music-playing, two-trick pony. But I had a sneaking suspicion it could pull more weight around the Aamoth household. So as I thought about all the stuff I check—my calen
A Lviv-based team of Ukrainian software engineers have developed an online game called “Play for Ukraine” that crowdsources and gamifies participation in Dedicated Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks against selected Russian government and media websites. The game, which is based on the popular numerical puzzle game “2048,” is designed such that each move a player makes helps in a DDOS attack on a targeted web server. The game launched on February 28, according to the de
In the last decade, Russia has built up an effective strategy for controlling information about the Kremlin within the country’s own borders and for sowing dissent in democracies around the world. As Vladimir Putin’s devastation of Ukraine wears on, Russia’s credibility has been severely diminished, forcing the country to rethink how it disseminates propaganda—a shift that could make Russian disinformation harder to combat. “The top line is, while Russia
In January, dressed in a crisp white shirt and slacks, with a tidy, consciously androgynous hairstyle, Christina Ku, a director at NTT Docomo Ventures, the Silicon Valley investment arm of the Japanese telecom conglomerate Docomo, gestured to the whiteboard behind her as she took her team through a breakdown of her investments and exits. Ku spoke confidently and authoritatively, unfazed when one colleague flickered out of existence, and two more arrived outfitted in Colonel Sanders-esque suits.
The last five years or so have not been cinematically kind to conservatives. So many movies were either direct or indirect rebukes of Trumpism. Red-pilled performers like James Woods, Kevin Sorbo, and Antonio Sabato Jr. pronounced themselves blacklisted from Hollywood, for no reason other than political and/or Christian beliefs—definitely not for being difficult to work with or be around. Adding insult to injury, Clint Eastwood only made five movies. Because Hollywood isn’t serving
With the recent passage of the omnibus spending bill, which, in part, addresses telehealth, Congress is expected to kick the can down the road by extending pandemic-era telehealth provisions (e.g., audio-only, in-home telehealth coverage) for an additional five months. Did the COVID-19 pandemic accelerate the adoption of telehealth? Yes, but that growth is largely attributable to the law of small numbers, and utilization has already begun to taper. Did more individuals experience telehealth? Yes
Since launching three years ago, Pangaia has created ink out of air pollution, vegan leather out of grapes, down jackets stuffed with wildflowers, and fabric made from food waste. Along the way, the clothing brand has become an influencer favorite, with its signature oversized tracksuit sets seen across Instagram. Now, it’s expanding its lineup to include products you can actually eat, with the launch of Pangaia Health. [Photo: courtesy Pangaia] The first product is a superfood bar t
Don’t be surprised if TV sale prices become stingier in the months ahead, or if the specific model of laptop or tablet that you’re looking for becomes harder to find. Experts say those are two potential outcomes of the current lockdown in Shenzhen, the city in China that serves as a mega-hub for tech manufacturing. China ordered the lockdown on Sunday in response to a surge in COVID-19 cases, potentially tied to an omicron sub-variant, and the mandate will run through at least Marc