Astronomers using the RATAN-600 radio telescope in the Russian Republic of Karachay-Cherkessia have detected an unusual signal emanating from a star located about 94 light-years from Earth. It’s not clear if the signal is being transmitted by aliens, but the researchers say we should keep a close watch on this intriguing new extraterrestrial candidate.
People from all walks of life are searching for Pokémon right now, but believe it or not, there are still some people out there who actually don’t know a thing about Pokémon. And they aren’t in remote jungles in the Amazon either. So what happens when an artist who knows nothing about Pokémon draws them based on name alone? Lots of LOLs, that’s what.
Redditor netwoodle posted on r/ICanDrawThat, “I know next to nothing about Pokémon, but that won’t stop me from doodling one for you.” Naturally his fellow Redditors wanted to see what he could do, listing off a bunch of monsters for him to draw based solely on their names.
It is pretty cool to see a fresh take on all of these pocket monsters. Some of them are even better than the original designs in some cases.
Be sure to read through the entire Reddit thread for more of netwoodle’s hilarious designs.
[via The Mary Sue via Neatorama]
Time is a flat circle, especially in the automotive industry, where if you drive long enough you’re likely to meet yourself coming back around again. This was exactly how I felt when Cadillac debuted the ATS-V sedan just last year: here was a four-door sports sedan aimed at entry-level buyers who might have previously considered a BMW – specifically, one … Continue reading
The release of BioShock: The Collection is just around the corner, and 2K Games has released a group of gameplay videos to show us what we can expect. Confirmed last month, BioShock: The Collection takes the three games in the BioShock series and remasters them for current generation console, giving them support for 1080p and “up to” 60 frames per … Continue reading
If you ask Russia, modern rockets are hindered by not just their engines, but their fuel — the chemicals just aren’t powerful enough to carry increasingly heavier loads and keep costs in check. To that end, the country’s Advanced Research Foundation…
Some states’ electronic voting machines are antiquated, insecure and vulnerable to potential attacks from hostile attackers. But despite this, states like Georgia and Pennsylvania would prefer to take the risk than allow the Department of Home Securi…
Perhaps the mark of true royalty is the ability to upstage a 16-minute Beyoncé performance with a peck on the cheek.
America’s living rooms found love in a hopeless place on Sunday night when Drake presented the Video Vanguard Award to Rihanna at the end of this year’s messy MTV Video Music Awards. We’d endured a rambling Kanye speech, Ariana Grande at SoulCycle and far too many DJ Khaled appearances by the time Rihanna banged out a stunning medley featuring the ballads “Stay,” “Diamonds” and “Love on the Brain.”
But it was what came next that lit up the Twittersphere: Drake, who was “stuck in traffic” during his win for Best Male Video, gave an impassioned speech during which he confessed he’d been in love with Rihanna since he was 22. (He’s now 29.) Drake seemed like he wanted a full-on make-out session when he handed her the Moonman, but Rihanna wasn’t about to smear her lipstick, so she gave him her cheek instead, and then proceeded to thank Barbados a lot and Drake not much at all. So what’s the status of their relationship? We don’t really know, but Twitter’s got jokes anyway. Here are some of the best.
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We’ve seen some strange and wonderful fashion accessories in our day, but nothing tells a tale quite like this one.
ASOS is now stocking adult strap-on animal tails of all kinds, and they’re selling out fast.
The brand has a reputation for stocking the weird and the wonderful (see this body bow lingerie or side boob enhancer), and this seems no exception.
Listed under festival accessories, Tell Tails offer a selection of different tails (including a fox tail and wolf tail) complete with waist strap to make sure they are positioned correctly, obvs.
It might seem a bit bonkers, but when it comes to festival fashion ― covering your face in glitter or wearing head-to-toe sequins ― anything goes.
The tails cost between about $24 and $40, but hurry, as the black dinosaur tail is already sold out.
While we’re all for them, it seems many are a little perplexed by the tails, especially since ASOS started to recommend the item to its fans on Facebook.
Thoughts?
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For a year, over the course of at least a dozen articles, I’ve been arguing that Donald Trump has provided Democrats – and indeed the nation — the opportunity to bring down the whole Republican Party– a party that has become in our times an almost wholly destructive force in American politics.
Trump, I’ve argued, is expressing but a more blatant form of what the GOP has been injecting into the body politic for a generation. The main reason the GOP establishment objects to him, I’ve said, is not that Trump is a wolf, but that he exposes the whole party by not bothering to wear the Republicans’ usual sheep’s clothing. Moreover, the fact that Trump was able to ride his ugly and dishonest act to the Republican nomination reveals the toxicity that the Republican Party and the right-wing media have cultivated in the minds of a significant part of the Republican base.
This dense network of interconnections, I’ve suggested, provides a potential means of tying Trump like a millstone to the GOP and sending the whole edifice down to the bottom of the political sea.
All of that I continue to believe.
And yet: I also approve — at least tentatively — of the entirely different approach that Hillary Clinton is taking. Most recently and powerfully, in her “alt-right” speech in Nevada on Thursday, Hillary used Trump as a wedge, condemning Trump while differentiating him from “normal” Republicanism.
Trump as millstone or Trump as wedge?
I believe there’s room for both.
The politics of how to deal with Trump and the Republican Party are rather complicated, in part because there are so many goals that should be pursued simultaneously:
• The goal of Hillary Clinton defeating Donald Trump in the election in November.
• The goal of the Democrats taking back control of the Congress.
• The goal of President Hillary Clinton being able to get things accomplished even if the Republicans do manage to maintain control of one or both houses in Congress.
And a strategy for success in the elections also rests on a variety of variables:
• How well the Democrats are able to persuade Republicans to vote Democratic.
• How well the Democratic strategy leads Republicans to stay home and not vote at all.
• How well the Democratic strategy moves Independents to reject both the Republican nominee and the Party as a whole.
• How well the Democratic strategy activates its own base to work for victory and to vote.
I’m inclined to believe that it would be wise to focus attention on the middle two variables because:
• It seems doubtful that many rank-and-file Republicans – after a generation of right-wing demonization of “librels” – will pull the lever for Democrats.
• The rise of Trump, I expect, has already got the Democratic base plenty activated.
With all that in mind, the question then is (in the words of Matthew Yglesias writing on Vox.com): “Is it better to make the case against Trump or to attack the party that produced him?”
Yglesias highlights a difference between the desire of many liberals for the latter approach, while “Clinton’s presidential campaign, of course, is trying to lean much more on the former.” What liberals fear, he says, is “that Clinton’s effort to underscore how weird Trump is undermines the party down ballot. Shouldn’t she be arguing that they’re all as bad as Trump?”
The situation is complicated not only because of all the variables, which by themselves would make for a highly complex set of algebraic equations. But also there are so many uncertainties that it is difficult to know even which goals the Democratic strategy should focus on. For example, how realistic is the goal of having a Democratic president and Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress?
With Hillary’s victory already judged very highly probable by FiveThirtyEight (82.7%) and by the New York Times (90%), the question for the elections has begun to rest most heavily on the down-ballot results. A Democratic takeover of the Senate now looks probable (60% chance according to the New York Times, a 71% chance according to the future’s markets.
As for the House, whose control by the Republicans threatens to perpetuate the GOP pattern of unprincipled obstructionism, the question arises: in composing their election strategy, how much weight should the Democrats give the goal of taking over the House given the probability of success (17% according to the futures markets)?
William Saletan seems to assume that Republican power will still confront President Hillary. Saletan, in an article titled “Hillary’s Lifeboat to the GOP” appearing on Slate.com, describes Hillary’s excellent “Alt-right” speech as “the first gesture of her presidency.” He writes:
She’s not using Trump to try to take down the whole Republican Party. She’s not going to tie him around the necks of House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the rest of the congressional GOP. She plans to work with these men. (Emphasis added.)
Which sounds like saying that Hillary expects the Republicans to maintain control over at least part of Congress, and is trying to lay the foundation for bipartisan cooperation. Saletan approves.
I’ve long had the highest respect for Saletan, but I really hope he is mistaken in his suggestion that this is what Hillary Clinton is thinking. Is there any reason at all – in view of how the Republicans have dealt with President Obama for the past seven years -to believe that Hillary’s generous gift of this “lifeboat” will move the likes of Ryan and McConnell to work with her rather than obstruct her?
It would be far wiser strategy, I would say, to work hard to deprive these men of their majorities, thus making them (more or less) irrelevant, rather than to plan on working with them.
Yglesias proposes a much better rationale for Clinton’s going after Trump in a way that takes the GOP off the hook. The best strategy for Democratic success in the down-ballot elections, Yglesias says, is “demoralization” of the Republican electorate. His idea is that the more disgusted that Republican voters are with their presidential nominee, the more the Republican turnout this November will resemble the much lower rate of voting seen in off-year elections. He writes:
Convincing longtime Republicans that they don’t like Trump by emphasizing his oddball personality and handful of idiosyncratic policy stances seems a lot easier than convincing longtime Republicans to abandon the faith entirely. And widespread demoralization of base GOP voters could make dozens of currently unwinnable House seats competitive while guaranteeing Democrats a Senate win.
If this demoralization strategy would indeed significantly dampen Republican turn-out, then Hillary’s use of Trump as a wedge could be a winning strategy for taking back the Congress. But that’s a big “If.”
If messages like Hillary’s alt-right speech will have that effect, well and good: as a way of helping the down-ballot Democratic candidates, it is friendly-looking pitch to the Republican voters. But if it just lets the GOP off the hook, it could well squander the opportunity to drain this truly rogue political party of its power.
So that’s another one of the uncertainties.
Regardless of the effectiveness of this “demoralization” strategy, I believe it is possible the answer to the overall question here – whether to use Trump as a wedge or as a millstone -might be “Both.”
It could well make good sense for Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine to present average Republican voters the friendly face of the Democratic Party– friendly in telling the Republican electorate, “The problem isn’t you or your party, it is this terrible candidate who somehow ended up being your nominee.”
Come January, Clinton and Kaine will likely be the president and vice president of all Americans. The more positively the Republican electorate views the new Democratic administration, the better.
If President Hillary plays her cards right – in ways that President Obama failed to do when he came into office with higher approval ratings than the long-demonized Hillary is likely to manage — she might be able ultimately to drive a wedge between those voters and the Republicans in Congress persisting in paralyzing the government. In that way, she might gain the leverage to move the GOP away from its destructive obstructionist path.
But the Democratic ticket is not the entire voice of the Democratic Party. Other voices among the Democrats – like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders – can be making the more aggressive case. They can not only castigate Republicans – like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell – for their still-unrepudiated endorsement of Trump, but they can also be exposing how the Republicans’ across-the-board obstructionism has been damaging the nation.
While this case may not move Republican voters – with their culture of blind loyalty – to switch sides, it may help to move those Americans without any set party affiliation to repudiate the Republican Party, and to swing the down-ballot elections toward the Democrats.
So perhaps the best strategy would be this: Let the Democratic candidates for President and Vice-President use Trump as a wedge, differentiating Trump from the Republican Party whose face he’s become. And let other Democrats use him as a millstone, to sink the Republican Party in its current form.
And perhaps together, these two approaches can loosen the stranglehold that today’s Republican Party has had over America’s ability to make progress as a nation.
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By Arash Asli
We are all busy — life, work — it never ends. But, it seems like some people have it together and can get stuff done in less time. How do they manage everything, while others just get by in an endless cycle of work?
It’s quite easy. Entrepreneurs who are efficient have a system, and they stick to it. At the end of the day, you are in control of your to-do list, not the other way around. You can also become super productive by following the four simple, yet powerful hacks below that can transform your schedule.
1. Establish an Email Checking and Replying Protocol
It can be second nature to check your email first thing when you wake up, and even before you go to bed. But when it comes to efficiency, this is not the way to go.
I get hundreds of emails throughout each day, whether I’m in a meeting, driving or talking on the phone. I realized: Why should I let these interruptions take me away from what I’m doing?
To get your time back, check your email only when you can reply to them. This means that unless you have the time to actually respond to the messages you receive, don’t bother checking them, because then all you’re doing is compounding the amount of time it takes to deal with those messages. This way, you’re batching up your email tasks in a way that prevents you from being pulled away from tasks every time a notification comes.
2. Outsource Smaller Non-Essential Tasks
Not all to-do lists are the same. And not all tasks are either. The thing about being productive is not just about getting things done; it is more about getting the right stuff done.
Take a good hard look at your tasks and don’t just prioritize them. Give them a value of importance. My favorite tool for this is Asana. It’s an amazing project management software that allows me to not only keep track of my tasks but offload work or parts of a task to others, while at the same time not having to worry about someone dropping the ball.
If it’s not urgent, offload the task to someone else on your team, or work with an outsourcer to get them done.
3. Do One Task at a Time
Multitasking has been engrained in us to give ourselves a sense of accomplishment and status. The problem is, though, that people who multitask don’t end up far ahead, and instead feel more stress and anxiety. That’s because, by multitasking, you diminish your ability to focus on one thing for an extended period of time. As a result, all you are doing is prolonging the amount of time some tasks are going to take to complete.
I am guilty of doing this myself. For years I would try to take on 50 things at once thinking I could do it all — that this was my work ethic and I didn’t think it could be any other way. However, I’ve forced myself over the years to stay focused and wrap up one task at a time before I moved onto the next task. Since then, the quality of my work has improved, as well as the time it takes to do things.
4. Get the Worm by Being an Early Bird
By doing a bit of exercise, having a hearty breakfast, taking a shower and reading a book, you could have done more by 7:00 a.m. than most people who have not even gotten out of bed yet.
The thing I do is cycle — I absolutely love it. It gives me that boost of energy for the day. And, early mornings are perfect to focus on things I need to get done because my family is still asleep, which allows me to be as productive as possible.
Mornings give you the opportunity to start fresh and energized to tackle anything on your plate. To add, before you go to bed the night before, have your next day planned out. That way, as soon as you wake up, you already have an action plan laid out, so you are not up wondering what to do next.
Being an entrepreneur isn’t easy. But if you manage your time, energy and priorities, there is nothing you can’t accomplish, and your business growth will be just around the corner.
Arash Asli is the CEO of Yocale.com.
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This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
