Scarlett Johansson, the highest-paid actress in Hollywood, knows a thing or two about unwanted nudes making their way onto the internet. In 2012, a hacker was sentenced to 10 years in prison after leaking nude photos of her and other celebrities, setting an example to warn future thieves. But there may be nobody to arrest, nobody even to sue, when it comes to deepfakes: AI-generated videos that seamlessly stitch Johansson and other celebs’ faces onto the bodies of porn stars having sex. Now, Johansson has spoken out against deepfakes in an interview with The Washington Post, They’ve published her comments verbatim, so I’d suggest clicking to read the whole thing — you can practically hear her throw up her arms in exasperation. Effectively, she says there’s nothing she and her team can do about fake sex vids. “I think it’s a useless pursuit, legally, mostly because the internet is a vast wormhole of darkness that eats itself,” she tells the Post. Here’s more:
ScarJo suggests the internet is now depraved enough that it’s “only a matter of time” before any given individual is targeted the same way, and so she’s warning anyone who’s vulnerable to protect themselves. Whether or not you agree that the internet is a single, monolithic entity, that seems like decent advice to follow. Because even though a number of internet giants like Reddit have taken steps to police fake AI porn and even porn in general, it’s sometimes in their best interests not to. That’s probably why I had no trouble tracking down fake porn videos of Scarlett Johansson on Pornhub just now — a site that had supposedly “banned” deepfakes ten months ago. And let’s not even get started on the Scarlett Johansson robot.
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Beyoncé might have had an amazing year in 2017, but in true Queen Bey fashion, she stepped things up even more in 2018. She owned the Grammys without even hitting the stage, graced us with some of the year's best jams, and dominated at Coachella — and that's not even half of it. Read on to see some of best moments and accomplishments from Beyoncé's incredible year of growth.
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Tesla is keeping 44 U.S. stores open until midnight in year-end Model 3 sales push TechCrunch12/31/2018 Some Tesla employees will ring in the New Year on a sales floor this year as the automaker tries to liquidate its inventory of Model 3 sedans — and even its more expensive Model S and Model X vehicles — before the federal tax credit for EVs is cut in half. In a list of updated hours, 44 of the stores, including locations in California, Minnesota, Nevada, New York and Ohio, are open until midnight Monday. Tesla has more than 100 stores and galleries in the United States. Calls made to several of these stores indicate these locations have a mix of Model 3 sedans available for pickup today. Sales associates didn’t provide specific numbers. After midnight Monday, the $7,500 federal electric vehicle tax credit will drop to $3,750 for anyone buying a Tesla vehicle. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been using Twitter to warn of the expiring tax credit for months now. Recently, the pace of promotion has escalated as Tesla’s inventory of Model 3 vehicles in the U.S. has persisted. The company reportedly had more than 3,300 Model 3 vehicles in inventory in the U.S. as of Sunday, according a blog post by Electrek. Now with just hours left before the federal tax credit drops, Tesla and Musk are making a special effort to reduce the Model 3 inventory in a final sales push. Earlier this year, Tesla hit a milestone when it delivered its 200,000th electric vehicle. The achievement was a noteworthy occasion for an automaker that didn’t exist 15 years ago. However, it also activated a countdown for the $7,500 federal tax credit offered to consumers who buy new electric vehicles. The tax credit begins to phase out once a manufacturer has sold 200,000 qualifying vehicles in the U.S. Under these rules, Tesla customers have to take delivery of their new Model S, Model X or Model 3 by December 31. After December 31, the federal tax credit is cut in half to $3,750 for new Tesla customers. The tax credit is reduced again after June 30 to $1,875 before disappearing altogether at the end of next year. Given the simple structure of A Series of Unfortunate Events’ plots, it must have been tempting for Netflix to try to extend the series as long as it could. Sure, author Daniel Handler only penned 13 books in the Unfortunate Events series, but the setup of his plot could inspire any number of additional schemes where the scheming Count Olaf (Neil Patrick Harris) dons some ridiculous costume to try to steal the inheritance of the Baudelaire orphans. But series developers Mark Hudis and Barry Sonnenfeld took a disciplined approach to their adaptation, hewing closely to the novels’ plots, spirit, and timeline. The show’s third and final season, which premieres on January 1st, 2019, is a masterclass in how to build a faithful adaptation, and how to see it to the end gracefully. Season 3 picks up in the immediate aftermath of season 2’s cliffhanger ending, with the bitey baby Sunny Baudelaire (Presley Smith) in Olaf’s clutches, while her older siblings — scholarly Klaus (Louis Hynes) and brilliant inventor Violet (Malina Weissman) — are sent tumbling down a cliff in a circus train car. Using their talents to escape from Olaf’s evil plots is second nature for the Baudelaires, but season 3 quickly changes the nature of the conflict by introducing Olaf’s menacing mentors The Woman with Hair but No Beard (Beth Grant) and the Man with a Beard but No Hair (Richard E. Grant), who are unimpressed with Olaf’s long streak of failure. It’s a testament to Harris’ charm and emotive skills that he can so quickly elicit audience sympathy by being undermined by his parental figures and desperately trying to find ways to show he’s worthy of their love and respect. A villain who constantly fails, especially against plucky but not particularly powerful opponents, always has the potential to become pathetic. Having other characters effectively attack Olaf and the premise of the show acknowledges the problem, and starts a season-long arc for the villain, with a spectacular emotional payoff. The whole season is spent alternately ripping through the status quo by banishing components of the formula like Olaf’s costumes and the cast of recurring but nameless henchmen, while also making constant callbacks to previous episodes. The story is taken straight from the novels, but the ridiculous reunion involving nearly every living person the Baudelaires have met (in the episode “The Penultimate Peril”) is especially evocative in television form, because it also showcases the series’ outstanding cameos by actors including Tony Hale, Joan Cusack, and Patrick Breen. Harris dominates every scene he’s in, and the show’s young actors are charming in their ability to earnestly deliver lines about impossible inventions and obscure but somehow relevant facts. The supporting cast is excellent as well, with Allison Williams joining the series this season as the fierce adventurer Kit Snicket, sister of series narrator Lemony Snicket (Patrick Warburton), who’s still urging viewers to turn off the show and find happier fare. Olaf’s girlfriend Esme Squalor (Lucy Punch) continues to shine both in her menacing delivery and as the model for costume designer Cynthia Ann Summers’ spectacular outfits, like a skiing costume that makes her look like a phoenix flying down the slope. Olaf’s longsuffering henchman Hook-Handed Man (Usman Ally) gets his own powerful arc that builds on the plot and lets the show pivot away from its sometimes black-and-white divides between good intellectuals and the evil of ignorance. The series’ already high levels of zaniness and meta-humor are also ramped up this season with episodes that feel like extended tributes to writer-director Wes Anderson. When the Baudelaires are reunited with evil Shirley Temple Carmelita Spats (Kitana Turnbull), she’s leading a troop of Snow Scouts that could be at home in Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. A submarine adventure, involving the heroes dodging the perils of the Great Unknown, which manifests as a sea monster, hints at The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Most acutely, there’s the appropriately named Hotel Denouement, which has the pastel palette of The Grand Budapest Hotel and is staffed by twin managers who are identical in every way except their morality. Everything is punctuated with gags like Carmelita showing just how terrible she is by murmuring that she only watches network TV, or Sunny responding to a discussion about the judges of Olaf’s trial interpreting things literally by murmuring “Scalia.” The goofiness makes a strong counterpoint to the grimmer points of the story. The addition of Olaf’s eviler mentors ups the stakes and the body count as the writers hammer home the series’ moral that no one should trust authority to solve their problems, and that the best intentions can be all too easily corrupted. While the final episode brings the characters emotional catharsis, and explains the last mysteries, Netflix’s version of A Series of Unfortunate Events is never better than the final scenes of “The Penultimate Peril,” where the Baudelaires repeatedly urge groups of blindfolded adults to flee a fire, and get rebuffed for absurd though law-abiding reasons. As the Baudelaire’s saga draws to a close, the writers also further develop Snickets’ story, digging into the secret society that collapsed, setting the series’ events in motion. The show doesn’t bring all its subplots to a fully satisfying conclusion, but there are enough clever reveals to show Handler’s vision and memory, and the advantage the show’s writers gained by hewing so closely to it. Handler went on to pen a prequel series to A Series of Unfortunate Events, so it’s possible Netflix isn’t done with his stories yet. That seems even more plausible, given that the show never wore out its welcome by attempting to stretch the material past its natural end point. Netflix’s adaptation succeeded by staying true to the characters, concepts and tone, bringing the tragic story of the Baudelaire children to life with visual whimsy and genuinely heartfelt performances. It’s worth watching all the way to the final episode, which is appropriately called “The End.” Is it hot in here or is it just Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban's steamy PDA? While the rest of us were using our holiday break to stay inside and watch Hallmark movies on repeat, Nicole and Keith were using their time off to relax on the beach. On Dec. 26, the couple showed off their sweet love as they shared a few laughs and soaked up the sun at Palm Beach in Sydney, Australia. The country singer dressed casual in black swim trunks and a white baseball cap, while the Big Little Lies actress looked stunning in a strapless polka dot bikini. At one point, Nicole even crawled on top of Keith to give him a kiss. Seriously, we can't tell which is hotter: the couple's PDA or Nicole's insane figure. As anyone from the Gizmondo to the Virtual Boy can tell you, it’s tough to launch a console. Of course, it’s helps when your device apparently comes pre-loaded with thousands of games from big name companies like Nintendo, Sony, Square and Bandai. It was clear the moment they were launched that Soulja Boy’s SouljaGame console and handhelds were too good to be true, in spite of his insistence that he’d struck deals with game publishers. Now, around three weeks after launch, both have been pulled from his online store (which also stocks a…familiar looking wearable and headphones).
What caused the systems to be pulled from his site isn’t clear, though the rapper appears to have acknowledged as much in a tweet, stating, “I had to boss up, I didn’t have a choice.” Of course, given Nintendo’s history, it seems unlikely that a deal was struck to license titles to what appears to amount to a rebranded emulator. As Variety notes, titles like Tekken and Tomb Raider were also features in ads for the systems, which is practically crying out for publishers to intervene. Meantime, he’s promised “big plans” soon, including his already stated intention to launch an eSports team at some point next year. For now, however, the rapper appears to be doing just fine, thank you very much: Headphones did not have the most auspicious start to 2018. Back in January, it seemed like a diversity of competing voice assistants, wireless audio protocols, and idiosyncratic control schemes would lead to a fragmented mess of a market. Everyone wanted wireless headphones, and the providers of those devices were keen to establish some sort of a walled-garden effect around their particular product. The demand for more technologically advanced headphones has only increased over the course of the year, however the threat of user-hostile competition among headphone makers has not materialized. In large part thanks to integrated wireless chips that bundle Bluetooth radios with the necessary voice assistant compatibility for both iOS and Android, practically every manufacturer was able to issue a new pair of wireless headphones in 2018 that played nice with both Siri and Google Assistant. So the fragmentation crisis has been mostly averted, though the rapid pace of improvement is also leaving a lot of people stupefied at how quickly their new headphones are being superseded. Sony’s third-generation 1000X M3 cans emerged as the new wireless noise-canceling champions. Sennheiser’s Momentum True Wireless raised the bar for sound quality from truly wireless earphones, albeit with a number of usability flaws. Audio-Technica’s M50xBT and OnePlus’ Bullets Wireless elevated the quality we can expect from more affordable Bluetooth headphones and earphones. Even old-school brands like Grado and Koss released their own wireless editions this year. The choice and quality of wireless audio gear have never been better, and the disappearance of the 3.5mm audio jack from smartphones is no longer the awful nightmare it used to be. OnePlus and Google both introduced terrific USB-C earbuds this year — the Type-C Bullets and Pixel USB-C earbuds, respectively — with super low prices that matched the old 3.5mm analog earphones we’d carry everywhere with us. 2017’s legitimate complaint that USB-C earphones are too expensive and wireless headphones are too much of a compromise is no longer true. With companies like Apple and Lenovo starting to remove the headphone jack from their tablets as well as phones, the trend toward wireless and USB-C varieties of headphones is only accelerating. It’s time for the majority of us to finally make the transition away from the old analog connection. Audiophiles will of course continue on with their exotic XLR and quarter-inch connectors, and their segment of the market was well served in 2018 by two boutique US companies: Audeze and MrSpeakers. Audeze launched the LCD2-Classic at the tail end of 2017, and it followed up with the LCD2 Closed-Back in 2018, both of which set new highs for the quality and pleasure of sound you can get for under $1,000. In fact, those two sets of LCD2 models make a compelling case for never having to spend four figures on headphones again: both offer sonic clarity, detail, and precision on a par with headphones that cost multiple times more. Then again, MrSpeakers launched the $2,000 Ether 2 at the end of the year, and the design and performance of those headphones offers up a super compelling argument for why you should splash out on exotically priced headphones. The Ether 2s have an uncommonly wide and natural soundstage, which combines with a beautifully incisive and organic sound with few rivals. Which is to say that the audiophile segment is thriving too. There are a couple of aspects of the headphone business that can be critiqued, of course. Firstly, even while battery life and wireless performance have been on a steady path of improvement, the process of pairing and connecting Bluetooth headphones to other devices remains dicey and unpleasant for most users. Apple’s AirPods and their seamless pairing stand head and shoulders ahead of any rival on Android. The other issue is one of price: headphone manufacturers seem more willing to add features and capabilities to existing products at existing prices than to erode their profit margins. It’s no accident that the companies with the most aggressive pricing in 2018, OnePlus and Google, don’t have headphones as their main line of business. Overall, the headphones market has been the most dynamic and intriguing section of consumer tech this year. While smartphone makers were busy fiddling around the edges of display notches, headphone manufacturers really improved the substance as well as the style of their products. Microsoft, Dolby, Anker, and the countless gaming gear brands also expanded the bewildering plethora of headphone choices this year, and the trend for 2019 is for everyone to continue transitioning to USB-C, for charging at least, while the entire headphones category continues improving faster than anything else in tech. Final Grade: A A The Verge 2018 report card: HeadphonesGold Stars
Needs Improvement
It's been well over a year since Jordan Peele made his directorial debut with the critically acclaimed horror flick Get Out, and fans of the Oscar-winning director are hungry for more of his work. Peele has been committed to giving them exactly that — the filmmaker has multiple projects in progress, including a reboot of The Twilight Zone, producing a new HBO series, and a role in Toy Story 4. The one project we've been on our toes waiting for is Peele's first feature since Get Out, "a new nightmare" simply titled Us. Peele announced the project in May 2018 by dropping the movie poster and release date on Twitter, with the star-studded cast confirmations — Lupita Nyong'o, Elisabeth Moss — following soon after. While details surrounding the plot of the film have been scarce since Peele's announcement, /Film revealed a synopsis sent out with recent test screening invites that gives more information beyond our knowledge that the story focuses on two couples, one white and one black. The story reportedly follows a couple (Nyong'o and Winston Duke) who take their kids to their beach house to unwind with friends (which include Moss and possibly her onscreen husband, Tim Heidecker). Their night "turns to chaos when some shocking visitors arrive uninvited." Though the synopsis is still pretty vague, it also manages to be hella ominous. In an interview with Insider, Peele said that much like how Get Out examines race and racism, Us will center around "these innately human monsters that are woven into the fabric of how we think and how we interact." While he says the movie will follow the same tone as Get Out, it will be a completely different film and not focus on addressing race. Which leaves us wondering which monsters will Us be focusing on specifically, and how dark will it get? However the story takes shape, we have no doubt we'll be poring over ever detail — just like we did with Get Out — when Us hits theaters on March 15, 2019. It’s a new year and there are A LOT of click-baity articles out there on what it takes to get healthy and lose weight. And that’s exactly why we want to share our best pieces of weight-loss advice with you now. We pretty much guarantee you haven’t heard them 1,000 times before … 25 Pieces of Weight-Loss Advice and Truths You’ve Never Heard Before Don’t diet. Don’t restrict. Love yourself unconditionally. Make peace with your body. Remember that you’re more than the number on the scale. Keep in mind that weight-loss doesn’t equal happiness. Know that size doesn’t equal health. Size… The post 25 Pieces of Weight-Loss Advice You’ve Never Heard Before appeared first on Fit Bottomed Girls. |
AuthorAt the moment I'm exporting jigsaw puzzles in Prescott, AZ. Once had a dream of getting my feet wet with crayon art in Orlando, FL. Spent a year training wooden trains in Salisbury, MD. Spent childhood selling salsa for the underprivileged. Had moderate success building Virgin Mary figurines on the black market. Archives
April 2019
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