Kaila Hale-Stern

Reddit’s New Site Cuts Out Comments and the Heart of Reddit 

Reddit is a site built on the backs of user contributions and engagement, and their new publication Upvoted doesn’t allow comments. This is bullshit. Today Reddit launched Upvoted, a site with a dedicated editorial team that will cull and curate from Reddit’s top content. Popular stories are verified, rewritten, and repackaged for the ad market.…

What Should We Call The “@” Sign?

A New York Times article points out that many languages have creative names for the @ symbol. The Dutch refer to it as a monkey’s tail. For Italians, it’s a snail. But in boring old English, we just say “at.” Let’s get inventive. The Times piece discusses how many English Internet terms have become increasingly…

Has Nefertiti Been Buried in King Tut’s Tomb All This Time?

Egyptian antiquities authorities are convinced by a British Egyptologist’s claim that Neferititi’s tomb is concealed behind Tut’s and want to begin using radar and thermal imaging in the investigation. British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves caused a stir in August when he published a paper hypothesizing that Queen Nefertiti’s burial place was hidden within Tut’s tomb. Nefertiti…

Let’s Talk About Whatever You Want Right Now

Be careful out there this this weekend, folks. There’s a storm a comin’. My favorite meme of the week has been Joaquin Phoenix’s face plastered across weather maps, as well as other mashups of the actor with the hurricane that shares his name. (via fb) Where I am it’s looking like the storm is going…

What Was The First Website You Really Loved?

You never forget your first. There are so many specialty sites these days that it can be hard to remember when the web felt like a vast desert with a few choice oases of content. I was reminded of one of my first online “homes,” the recapping site Television Without Pity, when I sat down…

WTF, HBO? Leaked Westworld Consent Form Makes Game of Thrones Look Like The Brady Bunch

HBO has received a lot of criticism for the insane sexual violence in Game of Thrones, especially the latest season. But the network seems determined to keep pushing the porn-envelope further, judging by a casting call that makes its new series Westworld look like porn with human furniture. The network is backpedaling furiously, but still—WTF?…

Skype Translator is out of beta and headed to the Skype Windows desktop app. The tool supports six languages outloud as well as 50 messaging languages] We tried the service and found it promising, but not quite the Babel Fish of our hearts’ desire. No word on when the service rolls out to other platforms…

Do You Have The New iPhone in Your Hands? What Do You Think?

Gizmodo wrote about our first impressions, our thoughts on 3D Touch, and put the camera through its paces, but I’m curious about your experience. Are you holding an iPhone 6s right now? Is it rose gold? I’ve gotten used to my trusty Samsung Galaxy S6 and am unsure if I should make the swap back…

Lost for 70 Years, These Drawings Show Germany’s Sneakiest World War II Boobytraps

The chocolate bomb intended to kill Winston Churchill became the stuff of wartime legend. But depictions of the device and other cleverly concealed explosives were only recently rediscovered. During World War II, German sabotage experts invented an array of cleverly disguised bombs. At the time, Britain’s MI5 counter-sabotage and explosives unit, B1C, contained only three…

Vinyl Record Sales Generated More Money This Year Than Free Streaming Music

The vinyl resurgence is real, but artists are still getting screwed. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) reported that U.S. consumers bought $226 million worth of vinyl records in the first half of the year. Contrast this to $162.7 million in revenues from ad-supported streams from the likes of Pandora and Spotify, and it…

On Blindspot, You Can’t Hide From The Secret Murder Drones

Another week, another decrypted Jane Doe tattoo about a crazy pending crime. This time around, Jane and the FBI team—holy crap, is that a military-grade rogue drone overhead? RUN! RUN!!! Whew, that was close. Allow me to use my sublimated field medicine skills to stanch your bleeding. In case you knocked your head and forgot…

Edward Snowden Joins Twitter, Only Follows One Account: The NSA

Edward Snowden just joined Twitter. Everyone’s favorite whistleblower and data privacy advocate is gaining followers fast, but is only following one account at current: the NSA. Touché, Ed. Follow him @snowden. Snowden recently participated in the launch of the Snowden Treaty, an initiative named after him that would see countries swear to surveillance restrictions and…

NASA Mars Scientists Answer Burning Questions About Flowing Water Discovery

Over on reddit, an awesome AMA between readers and NASA Mars scientists plumbs deeper into today’s flowing water announcement. Here’re the highlights. The reddit AMA included participants from NASA’s Mars Reconnoissance Orbiter (MRO) as well as their Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL): Rich Zurek, Chief Scientist, NASA Mars Program Office; Project Scientist, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Leslie…

A Humongous 50-Foot Floatie Saves Refugees Stranded At Sea

The creators of a new, massive emergency flotation device called the Centifloat were inspired to action by the horrifying images of drowned Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi. Centifloat is a tube that measures 52 feet long, can be inflated in 3 minutes, and has enough grab handles to support 60 people. Inventor Ben Board and his…

Let’s Talk About Whatever You Want Right Now

Let’s do this, Gizmodo. This has felt like a long, weird week. I know many people who would say it’s because Mercury is in retrograde, and I know many people who laugh and point at the idea that planetary alignments can affect our moods/attributes/technology (tech is supposed to break at higher rates during retrograde, did…

The Dopest Pope Francis Memes On The Internet

Have you heard that the Pope is dope? Kim Kardashian set off a kerfluffle in Argentina after tweeting that very sentiment. Argentine media interpreted her tweet as “the Pope is drugs” and took offense, some even branding Kardashian his “enemy.” While I’m certain the Kardashians are signs of an approaching apocalypse, Kim likely picked up…

Live From Moscow, Edward Snowden Helped Launch a Proposed Treaty In His Name

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and the organizers behind the Snowden Treaty yesterday spoke to a gathering of tech journalists and activists in New York about the next step in the global fight for the right to data privacy. The Treaty on the Right to Privacy, Protection Against Improper Surveillance and Protection of Whistleblowers—or the “Snowden…

What Was Your First Screen Name, and Why?

It has to have been better than Kaila1996. In my initial forays into America Online, I was hardly brilliant, in the screen-name creativity department. The worst part is that I kept updating the name, until “Kaila1999” stuck, and saw me through college. When I first joined Gawker Media a million years ago, everyone still used…

Instagram Has 80 Million More Users Than Twitter, Yay 

Instagram announced huge growth numbers that show more than 100 million people have joined the app in the last nine months. Twitter? Not so much. In a post, the Facebook-owned Instagram celebrates the 400 million active user milestone and points out that 75% of their community live outside the U.S. It also highlights big names…

The Second Season of Serial Will Be About Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl

After the NPR podcast Serial became a massive breakout hit, everyone wondered what story it would tackle next. Now we have an answer. The Hollywood Reporter says it has confirmed previous reports that Serial season two will focus on Bowe Bergdahl, the American army sergeant accused of desertion in Afghanistan. Bergdahl was subsequently captured and…