House of Marley Stir It Up Lux Review (2023): Made for Beginners

I’ve NEver set up a turntable before. Sure, I’ve used some, but they were all-in-ones that had speakers and preamps built in, and I had friends who set up the arm balance. A fully fledged turntable setup has always sounded intimidating to me. A touch of fear didn’t stop me from trying, though. The House… Continue reading House of Marley Stir It Up Lux Review (2023): Made for Beginners

Lego Is a Company Haunted by Its Own Plastic

“In the future, they should not make these kinds of announcements until they actually do it,” says Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics. Global plastic production has been projected to double in the next 20 years, according to the World Economic Forum, and yet in the US, for example, advocates claim that the vast majority… Continue reading Lego Is a Company Haunted by Its Own Plastic

New York Needs to Get Spongier—or Get Used to More Floods

Two years after the remnants of Hurricane Ian dumped up to 10 inches of rain on New York City in just two hours, the metropolis is once again inundated today by extreme rainfall. It is one of the many cities worldwide grappling with a counterintuitive effect of climate change: Sometimes, it will get wetter, not… Continue reading New York Needs to Get Spongier—or Get Used to More Floods

New York City Is Drowning

New York and the surrounding areas are under a flash flood warning, and the city and state have issued emergency declarations. Parts of Brooklyn received more than 5 inches of rain this morning; Central Park and Midtown Manhattan had around 4 inches, according to the National Weather Service. Trains were stalled or suspended. Students were… Continue reading New York City Is Drowning

The Animated TV Show You Never See

Animated comedies told from a Black perspective have an uncomfortable relationship with TV. The Boondocks relied on sharp observational humor as proof of its genius. The PJs portrayed The Black Struggle as a clownish depiction of daily life in a housing project. A character like Tolkien Black on South Park (first introduced into the series… Continue reading The Animated TV Show You Never See

X Fires Its Election Team Before a Huge Election Year

X, the company formerly known as Twitter, has fired its head of threat intelligence, Aaron Rodericks, and four other members of the team responsible for combating disinformation and misinformation, just months before the US Republican primaries mark the beginning of the 2024 American election cycle—and a year in which more than 50 countries around the… Continue reading X Fires Its Election Team Before a Huge Election Year

An Epic Fight Over What Really Killed the Dinosaurs

Think back to any dinosaur illustration you saw as a kid. The background was almost certainly one of two things: an asteroid streaking across the sky or a volcano blowing its top. (If the illustrator was feeling extra dramatic, maybe both.)  A 6-mile-wide asteroid, which hit the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula 66 million years… Continue reading An Epic Fight Over What Really Killed the Dinosaurs

US Justice Department Urged to Investigate Gunshot Detector Purchases

The United States Justice Department (DOJ) is being asked to investigate whether a gunshot-detection system widely in use across the US is being selectively deployed to justify the over-policing of mainly Black neighborhoods, as critics of the technology claim. Attorneys for the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center—a leading US-based civil liberties group—argue that “substantial evidence”… Continue reading US Justice Department Urged to Investigate Gunshot Detector Purchases

Hollywood Writers Reached an AI Deal That Will Rewrite History

The deal is not without its quandaries. Enforcement is an overriding one, says Daniel Gervais, a professor of intellectual property and AI law at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Figuring that out will likely set another precedent. Gervais agrees that this deal gives writers some leverage with studios, but it might not be able to… Continue reading Hollywood Writers Reached an AI Deal That Will Rewrite History

Meta’s Quest 3 VR Headset and Ray-Ban Smart Glasses Now Serve Up a Bigger Dose of Reality

Ben Bajarin, chief executive and principal analyst at Creative Strategies, said that in a recent survey he conducted, most respondents said they were willing to spend between $250 and $499 on a headset, and the next-largest group were only willing to spend $100 to $249. Of the people he surveyed, 20 percent were open to… Continue reading Meta’s Quest 3 VR Headset and Ray-Ban Smart Glasses Now Serve Up a Bigger Dose of Reality