Elon Musk Meeting With Advertisers, Begging Them Not to Leave Twitter

Advertisers are fleeing Twitter in droves now that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken over control. Now, he's trying to pick up the pieces and begging them to return.

Advertisers are fleeing Twitter in droves now that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has taken over control.

Ever since officially closing the $44 billion deal, Musk has been busy gutting the company's executive suite and dissolving its board. Senior executives, as well as Twitter's advertising chief Sarah Personette, have departed as well.

After all, Musk has been very clear about his disdain for advertising for years now.

The resulting uncertainty has advertisers spooked — major advertising holding company IPG has already advised clients to pull out temporarily — and the billionaire CEO is in serious damage mode.

Now, Reuters reports, Musk is spending most of this week meeting with advertisers in New York, trying to reassure them that Twitter won't turn into a "free-for-all hellscape."

According to one of Reuters' sources, the meetings have been "very productive" — but plenty of other marketers are far from satisfied.

Advertisers are reportedly grilling Musk over his plans to address the rampant misinformation being spread on the platform, a trend that Musk himself has been actively contributing to since the acquisition.

And if he's succeeding in ameliorating advertisers in private, he's antagonizing them publicly. On Wednesday, Musk posted a poll asking users whether advertisers should support either "freedom of speech," or "political 'correctness'" — a type of false dichotomy that echoes the rhetoric of far-right conspiracy theorists and conservative pundits.

"Those type of provocations are not helping to calm the waters," an unnamed media buyer told Reuters.

Some are going public with the same sentiment.

"Unless Elon hires new leaders committed to keeping this 'free' platform safe from hate speech, it's not a platform brands can/should advertise on," Allie Wassum, global media director for the Nike-owned shoe brand Jordan, wrote in a LinkedIn post.

So far, Musk's plans for the social media platform remain strikingly muddy. In addition to the behind-the-scenes advertising plays, he's also announced that users will have to pay to retain their verification badge, though he's engaged in a comically public negotiation as to what the cost might be.

He's also hinted that previously banned users — former US president Donald Trump chief among them — might eventually get a chance to return, but only once "we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks."

The move was seen by many as a way to wait out the impending midterm elections. After all, Twitter has played a huge role in disseminating misinformation and swaying elections in the past.

While advertisers are running for the hills, to Musk advertising is clearly only a small part of the picture — even though historically, social giants like Twitter have struggled to diversify their revenue sources much beyond display ads.

Musk nodded to that reality in a vague open letter posted last week.

"Low relevancy ads are spam, but highly relevant ads are actually content!" he wrote in the note, addressed to "Twitter advertisers."

Big picture, Twitter's operations are in free fall right now and Musk has yet to provide advertisers with a cohesive plan to pick up the pieces.

While he's hinted at the creation of a new content moderation council made up of both "people from all viewpoints" and "wildly divergent views," advertisers are clearly going to be thinking twice about continuing their business with Twitter.

With or without advertising, Twitter's finances are reportedly in a very deep hole. The billions of dollars Musk had to borrow to finance his mega acquisition will cost Twitter around $1 billion a year in interest alone.

The company also wasn't anywhere near profitable before Musk took over, losing hundreds of millions of dollars in a single quarter.

Whether that picture will change any time soon is as unclear as ever, especially in the face of a wintry economy.

But, of course, Musk has proved his critics wrong before. So anything's possible.

READ MORE: Advertisers begin to grill Elon Musk over Twitter 'free-for-all' [Reuters]

More on the saga: Elon Musk Pulling Engineers From Tesla Autopilot to Work on Twitter

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NASA Sets Launch Date for Mission to $10 Quintillion Asteroid

After disappointing setbacks and delays, NASA has finally got its mission to an invaluable asteroid made of precious metals back on track.

Rock of Riches

After disappointing setbacks and a delay over the summer, NASA says it's finally reviving its mission to explore a tantalizing and giant space rock lurking deep in the Asteroid Belt.

Known as 16 Psyche, the NASA-targeted asteroid comprises a full one percent of the mass of the Asteroid Bet, and is speculated to be the core of an ancient planet. But Psyche's size isn't what intrigues scientists so much as its metal-rich composition, believed to be harboring a wealth of iron, nickel, and gold worth an estimated $10 quintillion — easily exceeding the worth of the Earth's entire economy. Although, to be clear, they're not interested in the metals' monetary value but rather its possibly planetary origins.

Back On Track

Initially slated to launch in August 2022, NASA's aptly named Psyche spacecraft became plagued with a persistent flight software issue that led the space agency to miss its launch window that closed on October 11.

But after surviving an independent review determining whether the mission should be scrapped or not, NASA has formally announced that its spacecraft's journey to Psyche will be going ahead, planned to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket as early as October 10, 2023.

"I'm extremely proud of the Psyche team," said Laurie Leshin, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a statement. "During this review, they have demonstrated significant progress already made toward the future launch date. I am confident in the plan moving forward and excited by the unique and important science this mission will return."

Although the new launch date is only a little over a year late, the expected arrival at the asteroid Psyche is set back by over three years — 2029 instead of 2026 — due to having to wait for another opportunity to slingshot off of Mars' gravity.

Peering Into a Planet

Once it arrives, the NASA spacecraft will orbit around the asteroid and probe it with an array of instruments, including a multispectral imager, gamma ray and neutron spectrometers, and a magnetometer, according to the agency.

In doing so, scientists hope to determine if the asteroid is indeed the core of a nascent planet known as a planetesimal. If it is, it could prove to be an invaluable opportunity to understand the interior of terrestrial planets like our own.

More on NASA: NASA Announces Plan to Fix Moon Rocket, and Maybe Launch It Eventually

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NASA Sets Launch Date for Mission to $10 Quintillion Asteroid

There’s Something Strange About How These Stars Are Moving, Scientists Say

Astronomers are puzzled by the strange behavior of a crooked cluster of stars, which appears to be following an alternative theory of gravity.

Astronomers are puzzled by the strange behavior of certain crooked clusters of stars, which appear to be violating our conventional understanding of gravity.

Massive clusters of stars usually are bound together in spirals at the center of galaxies. Some of these clusters fall under a category astrophysicists call open star clusters, which are created in a relatively short period of time as they ignite in a huge cloud of gas.

During this process, loose stars accumulate in a pair of "tidal tails," one of which is being pulled behind, while the other moves ahead.

"According to Newton’s laws of gravity, it’s a matter of chance in which of the tails a lost star ends up," Jan Pflamm-Altenburg of the University of Bonn in Germany, co-author of a new paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in a statement. "So both tails should contain about the same number of stars."

But some of their recent observations seemingly defy conventional physics.

"However, in our work we were able to prove for the first time that this is not true," Pflamm-Altenburg added. "In the clusters we studied, the front tail always contains significantly more stars nearby to the cluster than the rear tail."

In fact, their new findings are far more in line with a different theory called "Modified Newtonian Dynamics" (MOND).

"Put simply, according to MOND, stars can leave a cluster through two different doors," Pavel Kroupa, Pflamm-Altenburg's colleague at the University of Bonn and lead author, explained in the statement. "One leads to the rear tidal tail, the other to the front."

"However, the first is much narrower than the second — so it’s less likely that a star will leave the cluster through it," he added. "Newton’s theory of gravity, on the other hand, predicts that both doors should be the same width."

The researchers' simulations, taking MOND into consideration, could explain a lot. For one, they suggest that open star clusters survive a much shorter period of time than what is expected from Newton's laws of physics.

"This explains a mystery that has been known for a long time," Kroupa explained. "Namely, star clusters in nearby galaxies seem to be disappearing faster than they should."

But not everybody agrees that Newton's laws should be replaced with MOND, something that could shake the foundations of physics.

"It’s somewhat promising, but it does not provide completely definitive evidence for MOND," University of Saint Andrews research fellow Indranil Banik told New Scientist. "This asymmetry does make more sense in MOND, but in any individual cluster there could be other effects that are causing it — it’s a bit unlikely that would happen in all of them, though."

The researchers are now trying to hone in on an even more accurate picture by stepping up the accuracy of their simulations, which could either support their MOND theory — or conclude that Newton was, in fact, correct the first time around.

More on star clusters: Something Is Ripping Apart the Nearest Star Cluster to Earth

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There's Something Strange About How These Stars Are Moving, Scientists Say

Scientists Found a Way to Control How High Mice Got on Cocaine

A team of neuroscientists at the University of Wisconsin claim to have found a way to control how high mice can get on cocaine.

A team of neuroscientists at the University of Wisconsin claim to have found a way to control how high mice can get on a given amount of cocaine.

And don't worry — while that may sound like a particularly frivolous plot concocted by a team of evil scientists, the goal of the research is well-meaning.

The team, led by University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Santiago Cuesta, was investigating how the gut microbiome can influence how mice and humans react to ingesting the drug.

The research, detailed in a new paper published this week in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, sheds light on a vicious feedback loop that could explain cases of substance abuse disorders — and possibly lay the groundwork for future therapeutic treatments.

In a number of experiments on mice, the researchers found that cocaine was linked to the growth of common gut bacteria, which feed on glycine, a chemical that facilitates basic brain functions.

The lower the levels of glycine in the brain, the more the mice reacted to the cocaine, exhibiting abnormal behaviors.

To test the theory, the scientists injected the mice with a genetically modified amino acid which cannot break down glycine. As a result, the behavior of mice returned to normal levels.

In other words, the amino acid could curb cocaine addiction-like behaviors — at least in animal models.

"The gut bacteria are consuming all of the glycine and the levels are decreasing systemically and in the brain," said Vanessa Sperandio, senior author, and microbiologist from the University of Wisconsin, in a statement. "It seems changing glycine overall is impacting the glutamatergic synapses that make the animals more prone to develop addiction."

It's an unorthodox approach to treating addiction, but could be intriguing — if it works in people, that is.

"Usually, for neuroscience behaviors, people are not thinking about controlling the microbiota, and microbiota studies usually don't measure behaviors, but here we show they’re connected," Cuesta added. "Our microbiome can actually modulate psychiatric or brain-related behaviors."

In short, their research could lead to new ways of treating various psychiatric disorders such as substance use by adjusting the gut microbiome and not making changes to the brain chemistry.

"I think the bridging of these communities is what's going to move the field forward, advancing beyond correlations towards causations for the different types of psychiatric disorders," Sperandio argued.

READ MORE: How gut bacteria influence the effects of cocaine in mice [Cell Press]

More on addiction: Study: Magic Mushrooms Helped 83% of People Cut Excessive Drinking

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Greta Thunberg Says UN Climate Conference Is a Scam and She’s Not Attending

The UN's upcoming COP27 climate conference in Egypt is basically a

COP Out

Ever since she lambasted world leaders at a UN conference in 2018 when she was only 15 years old, Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg has had the ear of the international community.

Now, Thunberg says she's skipping out on next week's COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt. Why? Because it's rife with "greenwashing."

"I'm not going to COP27 for many reasons, but the space for civil society this year is extremely limited," Thunberg said at a press event for her book, "The Climate Book," as quoted by The Guardian. "The COPs are mainly used as an opportunity for leaders and people in power to get attention, using many different kinds of greenwashing."

Ultimately, in Thunberg's view, the COP conferences "are not really meant to change the whole system" and instead only promote incremental change. Bluntly put, they're feel-good events that don't accomplish much, so she's bowing out.

Wasted Breath

It's not an unfair assessment. For all the pledges made to drastically cut back emissions and achieve net carbon zero by 2050, very few nations have followed through in the short term. And in Europe, the energy crisis in the wake of the war in Ukraine has further sidelined those climate commitments.

So we can't blame her for not going. But it's a bit disheartening that even a tenacious young spokesperson like Thunberg has given up on convincing world leaders at the biggest climate summit in the world.

Maybe it's indicative of the frustrations of her generation at large. When Thunberg was asked what she thought about the recent wave of Just Stop Oil protests that included activists throwing soup on a Van Gogh painting, she said that she viewed what many detractors perceived as a dumb stunt to be symptomatic of the world's failure to effect meaningful environmental change.

"People are trying to find new methods because we realize that what we have been doing up until now has not done the trick," she replied, as quoted by Reuters. "It's only reasonable to expect these kinds of different actions."

Maybe the real question is: if even a UN climate conference isn't the place to get the message out and change hearts, where's the right place, and what's the right way? If the headlines are any indication, zoomers are struggling to figure that out.

More on Greta Thunberg: Greta Thunberg Thinks Germany Shutting Down Its Nuclear Plants Is a Bad Idea

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Greta Thunberg Says UN Climate Conference Is a Scam and She's Not Attending

Huge Drone Swarm to Form Giant Advertisement Over NYC Skyline

Someone apparently thought it was a great idea to fly 500 drones over NYC as part of an ad experiment without much warning.

Droning On

Someone thinks it's a great idea to fly 500 drones over New York City to create a huge ad in the sky on Thursday evening. Because New Yorkers certainly don't have any historical reason to mistrust unknown aircraft over their skyline, right?

As Gothamist reports, the drone swarm is part of a "surreal takeover of New York City’s skyline" on behalf of — we shit you not — the mobile game Candy Crush.

Fernanda Romano, Candy Crush's chief marketing officer, told Gothamist that the stunt will "turn the sky into the largest screen on the planet" using the small, light-up drones.

Though this is not the first time the Manhattan skyline has been used as ad space — that distinction goes to the National Basketball Association and State Farm, which did a similar stunt this summer during the NBA draft — local lawmakers are ticked off about it nonetheless.

"I think it’s outrageous to be spoiling our city’s skyline for private profit," Brad Hoylman, a state senator that represents Manhattan's West Side in the NY Legislature, told the local news site. "It’s offensive to New Yorkers, to our local laws, to public safety, and to wildlife."

Freak Out

Indeed, as the NYC Audubon Society noted in a tweet, the Candy Crush crapshoot "could disrupt the flight patterns of thousands of birds flying through NYC, leading to collisions with buildings" as they migrate.

Beyond the harm this will do to birds and the annoyance it will undoubtedly cause the famously-grumpy people of New York, this stunt is also going down with very little warning, considering that Gothamist is one of the only news outlets even reporting on it ahead of time.

While most viewers will hopefully be able to figure out what's going on pretty quickly, the concept of seeing unknown aircraft above the skyline is a little too reminiscent of 9/11 for comfort — and if Candy Crush took that into consideration, they haven't let on.

So here's hoping this event shocks and awes Thursday night city-goers in a good way, and not in the way that makes them panic.

More drone warfare: Russia Accused of Pelting Ukraine Capital With "Kamikaze" Drones

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Huge Drone Swarm to Form Giant Advertisement Over NYC Skyline

US Gov to Crack Down on "Bossware" That Spies On Employees’ Computers

In the era of remote work, employers have turned to invasive

Spying @ Home

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic drove a wave of working from home, companies have been relentless in their efforts to digitally police and spy on remote employees by using what's known as "bossware." That's the pejorative name for software that tracks the websites an employee visits, screenshots their computer screens, and even records their faces and voices.

And now, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an agency of the federal government, is looking to intervene.

"Close, constant surveillance and management through electronic means threaten employees' basic ability to exercise their rights," said NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, in a Monday memo. "I plan to urge the Board to apply the Act to protect employees, to the greatest extent possible, from intrusive or abusive electronic monitoring and automated management practices."

Undoing Unions

In particular, Abruzzo is worried about how bossware could infringe on workers' rights to unionize. It's not hard to imagine how such invasive surveillance could be used to bust unionization. Even if the technology isn't explicitly deployed to impede organization efforts, the ominous presence of the surveillance on its own can be a looming deterrent, which Abruzzo argues is illegal.

And now is the perfect moment for the NLRB to step in. The use and abuse of worker surveillance tech in general — not just bossware — has been "growing by the minute," Mark Gaston Pearce, executive director of the Workers' Rights Institute at Georgetown Law School, told CBS.

"Employers are embracing technology because technology helps them run a more efficient business," Gaston explained. "… What comes with that is monitoring a lot of things that employers have no business doing."

Overbearing Overlord

In some ways, surveillance tech like bossware can be worse than having a nosy, actual human boss. Generally speaking, in a physical workplace employees have an understanding of how much privacy they have (unless they work at a place like Amazon or Walmart, that is).

But when bossware spies on you, who knows how much information an employer could be gathering — or even when they're looking in. And if it surveils an employee's personal computer, which more often than not contains plenty of personal information that a boss has no business seeing, that's especially invasive.

Which is why Abruzzo is pushing to require employers to disclose exactly how much they're tracking.

It's a stern message from the NLRB, but at the end of the day, it's just a memo. We'll have to wait and see how enforcing it pans out.

More on surveillance: Casinos to Use Facial Recognition to Keep "Problem Gamblers" Away

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US Gov to Crack Down on "Bossware" That Spies On Employees' Computers

Scientists Spot "Stripped, Pulsating Core" of Star Caused By Horrific Accident

In a

Core Dump

Scientists studying a group of stars made an astonishing but "serendipitous" discovery when they realized that Gamma Columbae, a fairly average celestial body, might actually be the "stripped pulsating core of a massive star," according to a study published this week in Nature Astronomy.

If true, that means Gamma Columbae is missing the envelope, or vast shroud of gas, that hides a star's nuclear fusion powered core.

What caused the stripping of this atmospheric envelope is not definitively known, but the scientists posit that Gamma Columbae running out of hydrogen could've caused its envelope to expand and swallow up a nearby star, likely its binary partner. But in the middle of that relatively common process, something appears to have horrifically gone wrong and ejected the envelope — and possibly even led to the two stars merging.

Naked Core

Before the disaster, the scientists believe Gamma Columbae could have been up to 12 times the mass of our Sun. Now, it's a comparatively meager 5 stellar masses.

Although a naked stellar core missing its envelope has been theorized to exist, it's never been observed in a star this size.

"Having a naked stellar core of such a mass is unique so far," said study co-author Norbert Pryzbilla, head of the Institute for Astro- and Particle Physics at the University of Innsbruck, in an interview with Vice.

Astronomers had an idea of what the cores of massive and low mass stars looked like, Pryzbilla continued, but there wasn't "much evidence" for cores of masses in between.

Star Power

It's an exceedingly rare find because the star is in a "a short-lived post-stripping structural re-adjustment phase" that will only last 10,000 years, according to the study.

That's "long for us humans but in astronomical timescales, very, very short," Przybilla told Vice. "It will always stay as a peculiar object."

The opportunity to study such a rarely exposed stellar core could provide scientists an invaluable look into the evolution of binary star systems. And whatever astronomers learn from the star, it's a fascinating glimpse at stellar destruction at a nearly incomprehensible scale.

More on stars: Black Hole Spotted Burping Up Material Years After Eating a Star

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Scientists Spot "Stripped, Pulsating Core" of Star Caused By Horrific Accident

Cats May Be Tampering With Crime Scenes, Scientists Say

Cats, ever the mischievous and frisky pets, may be harboring a lot more human DNA than once thought, possibly tampering crime scenes, a new study says.

Cat Burglar

Cats are known for not really minding their own business, getting their furry paws on just about anything they can.

And it turns out, this makes them effective vectors for DNA evidence, according to a study published last month in the journal Forensic Science International: Genetic Supplement Series.

Researchers collaborating with the Victoria Police Forensic Services Department in Australia found detectable human DNA in 80 percent of the samples collected from 20 pet cats, with 70 percent of the samples strong enough that they could be linked to a person of interest in a crime scene investigation.

"Collection of human DNA needs to become very important in crime scene investigations, but there is a lack of data on companion animals such as cats and dogs in their relationship to human DNA transfer," said study lead author Heidi Monkman, a forensic scientist at Flinders University, in a statement.

"These companion animals can be highly relevant in assessing the presence and activities of the inhabitants of the household, or any recent visitors to the scene."

Here Kitty

One possible takeaway is that cats — and other companion pets like dogs — could be harboring DNA that could help solve a case.

The bigger issue, though, is that pets could introduce foreign DNA that muddles a crime scene, possibly leading to an innocent person being implicated. A pet could be carrying the DNA of a complete stranger, or it might bring the DNA of its owner into a crime scene that they had nothing to do with.

Monkman's colleague and co-author of the paper, Maria Goray, is an experienced crime scene investigator and an expert in DNA transfer. She believes their findings could help clear up how pets might tamper a crime scene by carrying outside DNA.

"Are these DNA findings a result of a criminal activity or could they have been transferred and deposited at the scene via a pet?" Goray asked.

It's a question worth asking — especially because innocent people have been jailed off botched DNA science far too often.

More on DNA evidence: Cops Upload Image of Suspect Generated From DNA, Then Delete After Mass Criticism

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Cats May Be Tampering With Crime Scenes, Scientists Say

Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos

According to an internal email obtained by The Washington Post, Musk wants to have Twitter charge users to view videos posted by content creators.

Now that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken over Twitter, the billionaire has been frantically shuffling through ambitious plans to turn the ailing social media platform into a revenue-driving business.

Case in point, according to internal email obtained by The Washington Post, Musk is plotting for Twitter to charge users to view videos posted by content creators and take a cut of the proceeds — a highly controversial idea that's already been met with internal skepticism.

The team of Twitter engineers has "identified the risk as high" in the email, citing "risks related to copyrighted content, creator/user trust issues, and legal compliance."

In short, Musk is blazing ahead with his infamously ambitious timelines — a "move fast and break things" approach that could signify a tidal change for Twitter's historically sluggish approach to launching new features.

Musk has already made some big structural changes to Twitter, having fired high-up positions at the company and dissolved its board of directors.

The company will also likely be facing mass layoffs, according to The Washington Post.

The new feature detailed in the new email, which is being referred to as "Paywalled Video," allows creators to "enable the paywall once a video has been added to the tweet" and chose from a preset list of prices, ranging from $1 to $10.

"This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators," Musk tweeted on Tuesday, adding that "creators need to make a living!"

But whether Twitter users will be willing to pay for stuff that was previously free remains anything but certain.

Musk has already announced that he is planning to charge $8 a month for Twitter users to stay verified, which has been met with derision.

The billionaire CEO is facing an uphill battle. Now that the company is private, he has to pay around $1 billion in annual interest payments, a result from his $44 buyout, according to the WaPo.

Compounding the trouble, Reuters reported last week that Twitter is bleeding some of its most active users.

Meanwhile, Musk's chaotic moves are likely to alienate advertisers, with the Interpublic Group, a massive inter-agency advertising group, recommending that its clients suspend all paid advertising for at least the week.

That doesn't bode well. It's not out of the question that a paywalled video feature may facilitate the monetization of pornographic content, which may end up scaring off advertisers even further — but Twitter's exact intentions for the feature are still unclear.

According to Reuters, around 13 percent of the site's content is currently marked not safe for work (NSFW).

It's part of Musk's attempt to shift revenue away from advertising on the platform. In a tweet last week, he promised advertisers that Twitter wouldn't become a "free-for-all hellscape."

But that hasn't stopped advertisers from already leaving in droves.

All in all, a paywalled video feature could mark a significant departure for Twitter, a platform still primarily known for short snippets of text.

For now, all we can do is watch.

READ MORE: Elon Musk’s Twitter is working on paid-video feature with ‘high’ risk [The Washington Post]

More on Twitter: Elon Musk Pleads With Stephen King to Pay for Blue Checkmark

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Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos

Jeff Bezos’ Housekeeper Says She Had to Climb Out the Window to Use the Bathroom

Jeff Bezos' ex- housekeeper is suing him for discrimination that led to her allegedly having to literally sneak out out of his house to use the bathroom.

Jeff Bezos' former housekeeper is suing the Amazon founder for workplace discrimination that she says forced her to literally climb out out the window of his house to use the bathroom.

In the suit, filed this week in a Washington state court, the former housekeeper claimed that she and Bezos' other household staff were not provided with legally-mandated eating or restroom breaks, and that because there was no "readily accessible bathroom" for them to use, they had to clamber out a laundry room window to get to one.

In the complaint, lawyers for the ex-housekeeper, who is described as having worked for wealthy families for nearly 20 years, wrote that household staff were initially allowed to use a small bathroom in the security room of Bezos' main house, but "this soon stopped... because it was decided that housekeepers using the bathroom was a breach of security protocol."

The suit also alleges that housekeepers in the billionaire's employ "frequently developed Urinary Tract Infections" that they believed was related to not being able to use the bathroom when they needed to at work.

"There was no breakroom for the housekeepers," the complaint adds. "Even though Plaintiff worked 10, 12, and sometimes 14 hours a day, there was no designated area for her to sit down and rest."

The housekeeper — who, like almost all of her coworkers, is Latino — was allegedly not aware that she was entitled to breaks for lunch or rest, and was only able to have a lunch break when Bezos or his family were not on the premises, the lawsuit alleges.

The Washington Post owner has denied his former housekeeper's claims of discrimination through an attorney.

"We have investigated the claims, and they lack merit," Harry Korrell, a Bezos attorney, told Insider of the suit. "[The former employee] made over six figures annually and was the lead housekeeper."

He added that the former housekeeper "was responsible for her own break and meal times, and there were several bathrooms and breakrooms available to her and other staff."

"The evidence will show that [the former housekeeper] was terminated for performance reasons," he continued. "She initially demanded over $9M, and when the company refused, she decided to file this suit."

As the suit was just filed and may well end in a settlement, it'll likely be a long time, if ever, before we find out what really happened at Bezos' house — but if we do, it'll be a fascinating peek behind the curtain at the home life of one of the world's most powerful and wealthy men.

More on billionaires: Tesla Morale Low As Workers Still Don't Have Desks, Face Increased Attendance Surveillance

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Jeff Bezos' Housekeeper Says She Had to Climb Out the Window to Use the Bathroom

AOC Says Her Twitter Account Broke After She Made Fun of Elon Musk

Another day, another Elon Musk feud on Twitter — except now, he's the owner of the social network, and he's beefing with AOC.

Latest Feud

Another day, another Elon Musk feud on Twitter — except now, he's the owner of the social network, and he's beefing with a sitting member of Congress.

The whole thing started innocently enough earlier this week, when firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY, and better known by her initials, "AOC") subtweeted the website's new owner.

"Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that 'free speech' is actually a $8/mo subscription plan," the New York Democratic Socialist tweeted in a post that, upon Futurism's perusal, appeared to load only half the time.

Sweat Equity

Not one to be shown up, Musk later posted a screenshot of an AOC-branded sweatshirt from the congressperson's website, with its $58 price tag circled and an emoji belying the billionaire's alleged affront at the price.

In response, Ocasio-Cortez said she was proud her sweatshirts were made by union labor, and that the proceeds from their sales were going to fund educational support for needy kids. She later dug in further, noting that her account was "conveniently" not working and joking that Musk couldn't buy his way "out of insecurity."

Yo @elonmusk while I have your attention, why should people pay $8 just for their app to get bricked when they say something you don’t like?

This is what my app has looked like ever since my tweet upset you yesterday. What’s good? Doesn’t seem very free speechy to me ? pic.twitter.com/e3hcZ7T9up

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 3, 2022

Bricked

To be clear, any suggestion that Musk personally had anything to do with any Twitter glitches on AOC's part would seem ludicrously petty. But then again, this is a guy who once hired a private detective to investigate a random critic.

Occam's razor, though, suggests that it was probably AOC's mega-viral tweet that broke the site's notoriously dodgy infrastructure. Of course, that's not a ringing endorsement of the site that Musk just acquired for the colossal sum of $44 billion.

More on Twitter: Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos

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AOC Says Her Twitter Account Broke After She Made Fun of Elon Musk

Hackers Just Took Down One of the World’s Most Advanced Telescopes

ALMA is one of the largest and most advanced radio telescopes in the world. And for reasons still unknown to the public, hackers decided to take it down.

Observatory Offline

The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) Observatory in Chile has been hit with a cyberattack that has taken its website offline and forced it to suspend all observations, authorities there said.

Even email services were limited in the aftermath, illustrating the broad impact of the hack.

Nested high up on a plateau in the Chilean Andes at over 16,000 feet above sea level, ALMA is one of the most powerful and advanced radio telescopes in the world. Notably, ALMA helped take the first image of a black hole in 2019, in a collaborative effort that linked radio observatories worldwide into forming the Event Horizon Telescope.

Thankfully, ALMA's impressive arsenal of 66 high-precision antennas, each nearly 40 feet in diameter, was not compromised, the observatory said, nor was any of the scientific data those instruments collected.

In High Places

What makes ALMA so invaluable is its specialty in observing the light of the cooler substances of the cosmos, namely gas and dust. That makes ALMA a prime candidate for documenting the fascinating formations of planets and stars when they first emerge amidst clouds of gas.

Since going fully operational in 2013, it's become the largest ground-based astronomical project in the world, according to the European Southern Observatory, ALMA's primary operators.

So ALMA going offline is a distressing development, especially to the thousands of astronomers worldwide that rely on its observations and the some 300 experts working onsite. Getting it up and running is obviously a top priority, but the observatory said in a followup tweet that "it is not yet possible to estimate a date for a return to regular activities."

As of now, there's no information available on who the hackers were, or exactly how they conducted the attack. Their motivations, too, remain a mystery.

More on ALMA: Astronomers Think They Found the Youngest Planet in the Galaxy

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Hackers Just Took Down One of the World's Most Advanced Telescopes

That "Research" About How Smartphones Are Causing Deformed Human Bodies Is SEO Spam, You Idiots

That

You know that "research" going around saying humans are going to evolve to have hunchbacks and claws because of the way we use our smartphones? Though our posture could certainly use some work, you'll be glad to know that it's just lazy spam intended to juice search engine results.

Let's back up. Today the Daily Mail published a viral story about "how humans may look in the year 3000." Among its predictions: hunched backs, clawed hands, a second eyelid, a thicker skull and a smaller brain.

Sure, that's fascinating! The only problem? The Mail's only source is a post published a year ago by the renowned scientists at... uh... TollFreeForwarding.com, a site that sells, as its name suggests, virtual phone numbers.

If the idea that phone salespeople are purporting to be making predictions about human evolution didn't tip you off, this "research" doesn't seem very scientific at all. Instead, it more closely resembles what it actually is — a blog post written by some poor grunt, intended to get backlinks from sites like the Mail that'll juice TollFreeForwarding's position in search engine results.

To get those delicious backlinks, the top minds at TollFreeForwarding leveraged renders of a "future human" by a 3D model artist. The result of these efforts is "Mindy," a creepy-looking hunchback in black skinny jeans (which is how you can tell she's from a different era).

Grotesque model reveals what humans could look like in the year 3000 due to our reliance on technology

Full story: https://t.co/vQzyMZPNBv pic.twitter.com/vqBuYOBrcg

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) November 3, 2022

"To fully realize the impact everyday tech has on us, we sourced scientific research and expert opinion on the subject," the TollFreeForwarding post reads, "before working with a 3D designer to create a future human whose body has physically changed due to consistent use of smartphones, laptops, and other tech."

Its sources, though, are dubious. Its authority on spinal development, for instance, is a "health and wellness expert" at a site that sells massage lotion. His highest academic achievement? A business degree.

We could go on and on about TollFreeForwarding's dismal sourcing — some of which looks suspiciously like even more SEO spam for entirely different clients — but you get the idea.

It's probably not surprising that the this gambit for clicks took off among dingbats on Twitter. What is somewhat disappointing is that it ended up on StudyFinds, a generally reliable blog about academic research. This time, though, for inscrutable reasons it treated this egregious SEO spam as a legitimate scientific study.

The site's readers, though, were quick to call it out, leading to a comically enormous editor's note appended to the story.

"Our content is intended to stir debate and conversation, and we always encourage our readers to discuss why or why not they agree with the findings," it reads in part. "If you heavily disagree with a report — please debunk to your delight in the comments below."

You heard them! Get debunking, people.

More conspiracy theories: If You Think Joe Rogan Is Credible, This Bizarre Clip of Him Yelling at a Scientist Will Probably Change Your Mind

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That "Research" About How Smartphones Are Causing Deformed Human Bodies Is SEO Spam, You Idiots

Chinese Spaceplane Releases Mystery Object Into Orbit

After launching into orbit three months ago, China's top-secret spaceplane has released a mysterious object, which is now circling the Earth behind it.

Spaceplane Buddy

After launching into orbit roughly three months ago, China's top-secret spaceplane has released a mysterious object, which is now circling the Earth behind it, SpaceNews reports.

There's very little we know about China's "reusable experimental spacecraft," except that it launched atop a Long March 2F rocket back in August. We don't know its purpose, what it looks like, or what cargo it was carrying during launch — but it's an intriguing development, nonetheless, for China's reusable launch platform.

Mysterious Object

The object was released between October 24 and October 31, according to tracking data being analyzed by the US Space Force's 18th pace Defense Squadron.

We can only hazard a guess as to what the mysterious object's purpose is. According to Harvard astronomer and space tracker Jonathan McDowell, it "may be a service module, possibly indicating an upcoming deorbit burn."

Based on the size and weight of payloads Long March rockets usually carry, China's mysterious spaceplane is likely similar to the Air Force's X-37B spaceplane, which is similarly shrouded in mystery and currently on its sixth mission.

We also don't know when the Chinese model will make its return back to Earth, but given recent activity at the Lop Nur base in Xinjiang suggests, it may land there in the near future, according to the report.

It's a puzzling new development for China's secretive spacecraft — but it does raise the possibility of a renewed interest in spaceplanes, a potentially affordable and reusable way to launch payloads into orbit.

More on the spaceplane: China Launches Mysterious "Reusable Test" Spacecraft

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5 Home Renovations With the Worst Payoff – Money Talks News

Andrey_Popov / Shutterstock.com

Home renovations can be a real chore not to mention expensive. If its a change that will improve a home you plan to stay in for a long time, go ahead and take on the challenge.

But sometimes, homeowners can be fooled into thinking an update will greatly improve their homes resale value. And thats not always the case.

Remodeling magazines 2022 Cost vs. Value Report looks at how well 22 remodeling projects retain their value at resale in 150 U.S. markets. In some cases, youll barely recoup half the renovation cost when it comes time to sell.

The following are the home renovations with the absolute worst payoff, starting with the project in the No. 5 spot.

National average cost: $175,473

Average cost recouped: 53.4%

The study doesnt just look at remodels, but at additions as well, meaning adding a completely new section to a house. The addition of a midrange master suite can cost more than $175,000 and recoups just over half that when the time comes to sell. But before you sell, youd be enjoying a pretty luxe new bedroom. The Remodeling magazine estimate assumes youve added a walk-in closet, dressing area and bathroom with double-bowl vanity, freestanding soaker tub and a separate ceramic tile shower.

National average cost: $158,015

Average cost recouped: 52.5%

If you love to cook or entertain in your kitchen, you may want to splurge on an upscale remodel but note that it will cost more than $158,000. While you might not be doing it for resale value, youll certainly enjoy the perks, which include high-end appliances, custom cabinets, stone countertops and new lighting.

National average cost: $63,986

Average cost recouped: 51.8%

One more bathroom may not recoup its costs entirely, but youll obviously find it helpful, especially if you have a large family or plenty of visitors. A midrange bathroom addition includes adding a 6-by-8-foot space much smaller than an upscale version, but more practical and less pricey.

National average cost: $114,773

Average cost recouped: 51.5%

If you can spend more than $100,000 adding a bathroom, youre certainly living well, and maybe you wont mind that youll only recoup about 50% of what you put into it. But you may never want to leave this new 100-square-foot bathroom, which includes a shower, soaker tub, two medicine cabinets, stone countertop with two sinks, heated floors and more.

National average cost: $356,945

Average cost recouped: 46.3%

Drum roll, please the home renovation with the absolute worst payoff, according to the report, is an upscale master suite addition. But to be fair, this is a monster project, including a large sleeping area, master bath, custom bookcases, high-end gas fireplace, walk-in closet, hospitality counter with bar sink, fridge and microwave, soundproofing and in-floor heating. Were betting those who have more than $350,000 to spend on a master suite like this arent going to need to recoup a lot when they go to sell.

Disclosure: The information you read here is always objective. However, we sometimes receive compensation when you click links within our stories.

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How Ron Howard And His Team Recreated The Dangerous Thai Caves For Thirteen Lives – /Film

Howard discussed how helpful NatGeo was in their efforts, as well as the real divers/rescuers Rick Stanton, John Volanthen, and Jason Mallinson, because there wasn't that much footage of the actual rescue part of things. He said:

"There were some schematics that we were able to get. Nat Geo loaned them to us, because Brian Grazer and I have done a lot of work with Nat Geo [laughs] and they were great. Schematics made of the cave when it was dry. The trick here in condensing this and making it a movie, making it something visceral, entertaining, suspenseful, is to find those key points. Find those breaking points where it really was do or die, either physically or emotionally. So we went through the caves, and honestly, the guys would just point it out and say, 'This is a particularly difficult [spot]. Here's where a mishap happened. Here's where there was a surprise. This is the way the current changed. This is the way the visibility shifted.' And we just kept taking notes and building sequences around that."

I cannot imagine the terror those kids must have felt, and as someone who has a fear of caves, I'm hoping this doesn't give me months of nightmares. That said,I want to watch, just to once again marvel at the good that sometimes people will do for each other. It's probably a story we all need right now.

"Thirteen Lives" will be released in select theaters on July 29, 2022, for a limited one-week engagement, and will launch globally on Prime Video on August 5, 2022.

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Legislative Republicans, political action committees, donated thousands to vulnerable incumbents – Salt Lake Tribune

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Lawmakers in the House Chamber during a special legislative session, at the State Capitol in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021.

| June 28, 2022, 1:12 p.m.

A handful of Republican legislators are facing tough primary elections on Tuesday. According to recent financial disclosure filings, several candidates received hefty campaign contributions from their colleagues in the Utah Legislature and prominent political action committees.

House and Senate Republicans have used their political action committees to make significant financial donations to fellow Republicans this year. Senate Republicans have donated $35,000 each to Sens. Evan Vickers, Jerry Stevenson, Keith Grover and Ann Millner, who are all on Tuesdays primary ballot. The PAC also donated $10,000 to Sens. Kirk Cullimore, Scott Sandall, Daniel Thatcher and Ron Winterton to help them fend off challengers for the GOP nomination at party conventions.

House Republicans donated $4,000 to eight incumbents with primary challengers on Tuesday. Reps. Melissa Garff Ballard, Jeff Stenquist, Ray Ward, Susan Pulsipher, Kera Birkeland, Kelly Miles, Mike Petersen and Christine Watkins received the $4,000 donations from House Republicans. Another nine House Republicans were given $2,000 donations ahead of party conventions.

House Speaker Brad Wilson also donated to Republican House incumbents through his leadership PAC. Birkeland and Ward received $3,000, while Ballard was given $2,000. Wilsons PAC made a $1,500 donation to Miles, Watkins and Pulsipher. He also kicked in $2,000 to Paul Cutler, who is running to fill the seat vacated by Rep. Tim Hawkes.

Senate President Stuart Adams is also in the incumbent protection business. His leadership PAC donated $5,000 to Grover for his primary matchup against Brandon Beckham.

Several outside political action committees have also jumped into the fray to shore up some Republican incumbents.

Mitt Romneys Believe in America PAC donated $10,000 to Reps. Stenquist, Ward, Pulsipher and Miles. They also gave $10,000 to Paul Cutlers campaign.

The Utah Association of Realtors PAC paid $3,100 to run digital ads on behalf of Sen. Millner and almost $2,500 for a mailer promoting Paul Cutler. They reported another $572 on get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operations for Cutlers campaign. The PAC also donated $10,000 to Speaker Wilsons leadership PAC.

The Count My Vote PAC donated $26,000 to several candidates to assist their efforts in gathering enough signatures to qualify for the primary ballot. Sens. Evan Vickers and Keith Grover each received $5,000. Sen. Jerry Stevenson was given $2,000, and Democrat Nate Blouin received $2,500 for his race against longtime incumbent Sen. Gene Davis. The CMV PAC recorded a $50,000 donation from Gail Miller.

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Westworld Season 4 Episode 1 Review: The Auguries – Den of Geek

Christina (Evan Rachel Wood) seems trapped. She gets up, zips up her bed, raises the blinds on her New York City apartment, then walks the High Line on her way to work, where she pitches plots for games at Olympiad Entertainment. Shes not great at her job; nobody wants romance and happy endings, people want melodrama, transgressions, and lots of downer endings. Not a natural choice for someone who seems to see the beauty in the world around her. She leaves work, goes back home, and repeats the whole process again the next day, with only sporadic interruptions by a deranged man calling her phone hundreds of times a day, begging her to change her stories, begging that his life has been destroyed by her game. Engaging him only escalates the behavior; its all a big mystery waiting to be unraveled.

While Caleb tries to forget his past and Christina tries to forge a future, Maeve (Thandiwe Newton) is hiding from the ambitious, dangerous man in charge of Delos, William (Ed Harris), who has emerged from hiding and resumed his mad quest to hunt down and exterminate the escaped Hosts, starting with Maeve, and supporters of hosts like Caleb. He also kills off a Mexican cartel and takes over a data storage facility built into the Hoover Dam in the cold opening, so William might have been laying low, but hes still thinking big and solving his problems with violence. His emergence spells trouble for both Maeve and Caleb. As it turns out, paranoia can be pretty useful when youre enemies with a vengeful billionaire with a taste for ten-gallon hats, revolvers, and killer robots like the repurposed Col. Brigham (Frederic Lehne) and Hector (Rodrigo Santoro).

Wont Maeve be thrilled if she sees him again after so long?

It seems as though time jumps are the biggest new trend on television, or at least the genre television I tend to watch. It makes sense, though; if you dont want to wade through the fallout of an epic season finale, just move forward until its settled down and you can work on telling whatever story youre really looking to tell. In this case, Maeve, William, and Caleb seem to be getting ready to finish what started last season and Christina (or perhaps Dolores?) may be on the cusp of finding a familiar partner to ride shotgun with her on the journey of life. Im not sure whats getting set up, but Lisa Joy and Will Soodiks script is solid work, with Christina being an interesting wrinkle on the traditional role of Dolores as a farmers daughter artist who dreams bright and big, and Caleb settling back into familiar roles as a co-conspirator battling against the wealth and power of a billionaire. Maeves tongue is sharper than ever after 8 long years of living in the wilderness. The seeds planted for Christina also seem like theyll be interested, especially considering just who stepped in to prevent her from being battered by her stalker.

Eight years gave humanity an opportnity to rebuild that apparently wasnt taken, aside from a more open job market. Roles were inevitably settled back into, and the performers on Westworld have no issues settling back into their roles. Aaron Pauls Caleb is happier, more settled, despite his lot in life not really changing all that much. Christina is a new character, but Evan Rachel Wood imbues her with the weight of Dolores old soul with ease. Thandiwe Newton still steals every scene shes in with a cutting glance; wry amusement drips off every word she utters in her scene with Caleb. Ed Harris may or may not be playing a host version of William, but hes still the no-nonsense, intimidating threat hes always been, whether hes staring at Caleb across a crowded plaza or shaking down a Mexican organized crime syndicate.

Director Richard J. Lewis does a very good job handling the table-setting sections of the story. We dont really know who Christina is, or why she looks like Dolores, but the scenes of her traveling through New New York are tense, especially once her stalker is actively after her, drawing mazes in dirt on her fire escape and watching her from afar. Calebs scenes are more grounded, but the character still seethes with internal struggle that reflects wonderfully in Aaron Pauls body language; hes trying to be normal, but hes not sure what that is after dedicating so much of his life to war. William is William; Ed Harris is the most dangerous pensioner to ever shrug on a suit jacket, and he knows it.

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Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity

apr 27, 2022 Wikipedia Bias Ten to fifteen years ago, Wikipedia, though not free of bias, seemed like a rather reliable place to find information about people, places, and events involved in modern politics. Someone desiring to research something related to current events could back then often be well served by starting with a look through a page at Wikipedia. read on...

apr 21, 2022 Trashing the Constitution to Seize Russians Property In his March 1State of the Union speech, President Joe Biden threatened, in a comment directed to people he termed Russian oligarchs, that we are joining with our European allies to find and seize your yachts your luxury apartments your private jets. We are coming for your ill-begotten gains. Since then, US government agents have been doing just that, seizing Russians property wherever it can be found. read on...

apr 21, 2022 Through The Fog Of War, With Guest Scott Ritter Former US Marine intelligence officer and former Chief UN Weapons Inspector for Iraq Scott Ritter joins today's program to discuss the Russia/Ukraine war and the massive US push to control and shape the narrative through mainstream and social media. Watch today's Liberty Report... read on...

apr 20, 2022 Travesty: UK Judge Green-Lights Assange Extradition To US In a blow to press freedom and decency, a UK judge has today approved Julian Assange's extradition to the US to face espionage charges for his role in exposing US war crimes in Iraq and elsewhere. Also today: Biden wants to send ANOTHER $800 million in weapons to Ukraine! Also: Pentagon admits there is no way to track weapons once delivered to Ukraine - is Europe about to face a major terrorist threat due to this negligence? Watch the Liberty Report... read on...

apr 19, 2022 Mask Off! Should We Applaud End Of Mask Tyranny? A US Federal Judge in Florida yesterday ruled the transportation mask mandate illegal, ending two years of mask tyranny in the US. While passengers cheered the news, we must pause to reflect on how the tyrants were able to force it. Also today: Florida rejects CRT-infested math textbooks and Treasury Secretary Yellen joins the war party. Watch today's Liberty Report... read on...

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Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity