Hasta La Gadget!

Tile, which raised over a million dollars on Kickstarter over three years ago, is a popular Bluetooth tracker that helps you find your missing stuff. Aside from Bluetooth, it also uses a crowd-finding feature where other Tile app users can ping you t…

After seeing leaked photos and hearing rumors, it looks like ASUS has officially taken the wraps off the ASUS ZenWatch 3. This is the company’s latest wearables effort and it is also the first time the company has released a smartwatch with a round face. Their previous efforts were smartwatches that were of the square-ish variety.

However if you prefer the round design, then the ZenWatch 3 might be what the doctor ordered. It features a 316L stainless steel body and has a rose gold ring around the face of the watch, which will be present on all the models regardless of which finish – gunmetal, rose gold, and silver – you choose from.

It will be IP67 certified so you don’t really want to worry about water or dust damaging it, unless you plan to go deep sea diving with it, but if you’re not, getting some water on it should not present with any issues. ASUS is also boasting 2 full days worth of battery life, whether or not they can achieve that remains to be seen but if they can, it is pretty impressive.

Other features include an activity tracker that can track the wearer’s steps throughout the day, although unfortunately it does not appear to have a heart rate tracker built into it. If this looks and sounds like a smartwatch you’d like to own, ASUS has priced it at 229 euros.

ASUS ZenWatch 3 Officially Unveiled , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Every woman working in comedy knows about them. They’re usually hidden from public view, but have hundreds of members. They’re most common in Los Angeles and New York, and sometimes are split between improv, stand up and sketch performers. And inside, the discussion can range from job postings and asking for advice about boyfriends, to outing men accused of sexually assaulting multiple women.

In the past few years, private Facebook groups for female comedians have sprouted up throughout the country, though typically focused in major cities with active comedy scenes. The groups, sometimes completely secret and unsearchable unless you’re invited in, often started as a refuge for women working the male-dominated comedy business.

“Female comics need an outlet to deal with things,” said Kelly Anneken, a comedian based in San Francisco, who’s an active member of a group called Mermaid Pants. “The secret groups are how we’ve chosen to deal with it because there’s no HR department in comedy.”

These groups largely go unnoticed by the broader public and rarely become the topic of conversation in the comedy community until something happens ― like earlier this month when a member of one group shared a message that comic Aaron Glaser of committing sexual assault. The word spread quickly outside of the group that Glaser was banned from the Upright Citizens Brigade theaters over complaints from women, though he denied the allegations.

After the claims came out against Glaser, The Huffington Post spoke with nearly three dozen women working in comedy. Many shared a similar sense of an uphill climb simply to exist in the comedy community as a woman. Every industry has problems with sexism and harassment, they said, but comedy is a tough business where everyone’s working off their personal reputation as a freelancer to find a gig in the next alcohol-serving establishment.

The secret groups are how we’ve chosen to deal with it because there’s no HR department in comedy.
Kelly Anneken, who works in comedy programming and performs in San Francisco

Women have long had to deal with arguments about whether it’s even possible for them to be funny. Now there are plenty of signs of success for women in the business, from Amy Schumer becoming the first female comedian to headline at Madison Square Garden, to the many talented women starring in Comedy Central series like “Broad City,” “Not Safe With Nikki Glaser” and “Another Period.”

But no women have their own late night talk shows, and in 2015’s season of “The Half Hour,” Comedy Central booked just three women compared to 11 men, and that was the highest ratio yet of women in five seasons of the stand-up special series.

“There’s progress, but it’s not the systemic change,” said Anneken, who was the former head of programming for Pandora comedy. “It feels like a Band-aid at this point.”

Aside from the fact that most comics booked at venues are men, several female comics said it’s far from unusual for a guy with clout in the local comedy scene to offer them “really nice spots” in lieu of “favors.”

“There’s always going to be bad apples in any profession or scene,” said Dean Masello, a comic based in New York, “but how many women I’ve heard who’ve been approached after the show or guys come to them during the show, or been implicitly offered stage time for sexual favors … I’m surprised how much misogyny is in the stand-up world in this day and age.”

Masello is a former lawyer from Ohio who spent several years representing victims of domestic violence. He’s witnessed some of the harassment his female colleagues endure at shows, only to have them turn around and tell him, “This is nothing, this is average.” Given that, Masello said, it makes sense that women would want to arrange private Facebook groups or all-female lineups for comedy shows.

Yet there are men who consistently push back against those. 

“When we started the group, some guys were taken aback ― they figured we’re talking about them all day,” explained Katie Compa, who co-moderated a private Facebook group, NYC Lady Comics, along with Selena Coppock. “That’s only occasionally true.”

Another common complaint from female comics is that male comics hit on them and then proceed to gaslight them about it. For example, in May, screenshots were posted online showing comedian Mike Faverman lashing out at a woman who gently declined his invitation to dinner, with him saying, “I know you’re not out of my league in the least, please stop acting as if I wouldn’t have a chance,” and advising her to not be “an angry c**t.” In other words, Faverman said he had just been joking and the woman was crazy for thinking he had actually been hitting on her.  

Faverman apologized after screenshots of his offensive messages circulated online, but days later went back to suggesting on Twitter that women sometimes deserved the harassment they received. 

HuffPost obtained additional screenshots of offensive messages Faverman sent to women, including him telling a woman there’s no way a man would date her unless she provided oral sex to him regularly, asking a woman when he could pick her up from the pound, and saying a woman was exposing her body because no one cares about what she has to say, then asking her to get coffee.

Several women characterized this attitude from male comedians as, “I want to have sex with you, unless you don’t want to, in which case I’m joking.”

“I think there’s a list in every women-only group of creepy guys to avoid,” Compa said.

Compa’s group for women in New York City started as an outgrowth of occasional get-togethers for female comics. But when they witnessed male comics express sexist comments on Facebook, the private group for women became solace. For example, Compa remembers when UCB started hosting an open mic just for women, called “Open Michelle,” some guys in the comedy scene voiced complaints like, “That’s not the real world,” or “Performing at an open mic that’s all women is not going to make you a better comic.”

When a lineup is made entirely of women, “it becomes a thing,” said Claire Armstrong, who books comedy shows. “If it’s all men on the bill, it’s just a comedy show. If it’s a lineup with all women on it, people start calling it a women’s show.”

I think there’s a list in every women-only group of creepy guys to avoid.”
Katie Compa, New York-based comedian

Kim Dinaro runs a regular all-women show in Brooklyn called Left Breast Comedy Hour. She’s heard a few men complain about how feminist the show is, like one who insisted “if he went up there and talked about how women were awful, it wouldn’t be tolerated.” It’s an argument akin to saying “all lives matter,” Dinaro said; it’s not helpful. What was helpful for Dinaro, she said, was a private group like NYC Lady Comics, where she could ask for advice on how to deal with that criticism and “navigate this difficult world of being the minority in comedy.”

These groups helped start to turn the tide in the past few years, Compa argued, because more women’s stories can be heard and validated. They became digital “safe spaces” for women in the industry to talk through how to deal with personal issues like assault or harassment, as well as ask basic questions like whether it’s worth joining the Screen Actors Guild. 

Yet nothing online is truly private. The same weekend the allegations against Glaser surfaced on Facebook, NYC Lady Comics shut down after someone shared a screenshot of comments made within the forum, seemingly in real time, with a comedian who has a large following online. It wasn’t the first time someone leaked screenshots in the five years that group was active, so the administrators decided to close it down entirely.

However, even if one group shuts down, Anneken insists that these private forums aren’t going away entirely.  

“They exist because women can’t depend on male allies to back them up,” Anneken said. “The reason there are leaks are so that women can curry favor with men who essentially don’t want these groups to exist. If men in the comedy community and the world at large aren’t willing to engage and hold each other accountable, we have no choice than to create and maintain these underground systems to keep ourselves safe.”

______

Tyler Kingkade is a national reporter who covers sexual violence. You can reach him at tyler.kingkade@huffingtonpost.com, or find him on Twitter: @tylerkingkade.

Related Coverage: 

Comedians Who Are Sexually Assaulted Must Decide: ‘Career Above My Dignity’?

Music Festivals Have A Glaring Woman Problem. Here’s Why.

Trying To Understand Consent? Ask The LGBTQ And Kink Communities

Secret Feminist Group Is Taking On The Judge In Brock Turner Case

And People Ask Why Rape Victims Don’t Report To Police 

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Those intensely flavorful and juicy pan-roasted tomatoes I described the other week? I continue to keep them around the house, and they came to the rescue the day after a dinner party: We served substantial slabs of swordfish set on a layer of those tomatoes and topped with a salad of raw cherry tomatoes quartered, salted and dressed with olive oil and fresh mint. Our guests somehow managed to finish their portions, but Jackie and I threw in the towel after a while, leaving four ounces (115 g) of delicious cooked fish, along with extra pan-roasted tomatoes and tomato salad.

With the right sort of pasta, I thought this would make an ample and delicious sort-of-Mediterranean dinner for two. It did, and the outcome was so good, so well integrated and so easily attained that it’s worth cooking with fish and tomatoes prepared expressly for the purpose rather than with leftovers.

I began by making a two-portion batch of what I call cavatelli and what people in Sardinia might call malloreddus or gnocchetti sardi, using about 110 grams of all purpose flour and 40 grams of finely ground semolina. I often make them with flour alone, so don’t fret if there’s no semolina in the pantry. In a bowl I mixed the two flours, then stirred in room-temperature water until a firm but supple dough had formed. On this day, half a cup (120 ml) water was needed; start with less and add additional water as required. Though I left the ingredient list at that, there wouldn’t be any harm in seasoning the dough with fine salt and/or steeping saffron in the water ten minutes beforehand. Knead the dough until smooth, then wrap it in plastic and let it rest for ten minutes (or longer if you like). Lots of on-line videos will show you how to form the cavatelli using a little ridged gnocchi board or the tines of a fork. Yes, you can use store-bought cavatelli or orecchiette; the flavor and texture will be different but no less convincing.

Once the cavatelli were formed and spread out on a paper-lined tray sprinkled with semolina to keep them from sticking, I put up a pot of salted water in which to cook them.

As it was heating, I warmed a big tomato’s worth of my pan-roasted sliced tomatoes in a pan large enough to eventually hold the cavatelli. There was some olive oil on the tomatoes, but I added a tablespoon more. I broke them up with a spoon, then added the remains of the raw cherry-tomato salad, including all juices: not much more than half a cup by volume. If you’re making this from scratch, prepare the raw-tomato element at least an hour ahead to enable the salt to draw moisture from the tomatoes and make them saucier. All it takes is cut-up tomatoes, delicious olive oil, salt and chopped mint; only if the tomatoes are sorely lacking in acidity will you need a teaspoonful of lemon juice or vinegar.

Put the cavatelli on to boil and consider your pan of tomatoes. Is there enough juice not just to coat the cavatelli but to bathe them in savory liquid? There might be, depending on the tomatoes. If there isn’t, add a few tablespoonsful of vegetable stock or even water.

Remove any skin from the cooked, but not overcooked, fish and break it up into small pieces by hand: cutting it neatly will mar the look of the dish and will feel wrong in the mouth, or so I claim. Add it to the simmering tomato sauce to warm through. By now, the cavatelli will be nearly done: fish one out and taste it to see if it is properly chewy but not raw-tasting. When they are ready, use a skimmer or big slotted spoon to transfer them to the sauce pan. Combine well and simmer for ten seconds or so, and stir in as much chopped (or hand-torn) fresh mint as you like. Lacking mint, use parsley. Lacking parsley, omit this step. A drizzle of your best olive oil will finish the dish.

The flavor of the fish (you could use something like pre-cooked bluefish too, or tuna) pervades the whole dish but without letting you forget for one second that this is about the two kinds of tomatoes. It also tastes authentic. Authentic what will depend on your experience. For Jackie and me, it shouted “Sicily.” For you, it might be some Greek island or an Italian restaurant around the corner from where you live.

As the farmers’ market tomatoes start to decline at summer’s end, remember that they can be improved by pan-roasting and that this dish is a worthy way to use them.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Where do you turn when your heart is set on adopting a shelter dog who’s stuck in a different state? To Pilots N Paws, a nonprofit that, with the help of more than 5,000 volunteer pilots, facilitates free passage to almost 15,000 animals each year. Three tail-wagging journeys:

Inca

After Inca, a Belgian Malanois, retired from service in Afghanistan, she came back to the U.S. to be adopted by her longtime handler, Joe Bane. But Inca had been dropped off in Florida, and Joe, who was living in Tennessee, couldn’t collect her. Two free flights later, Inca bounded off a plane to join her old buddy.

Jersey

In 2011, Jersey, a Labrador mix, was rescued from a kill shelter; flown to Pleasant Plain, Ohio; and adopted. Her new owner: a nurse at a convent in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, where Jersey became a big hit with the sisters. Today, both her owner and Jersey are retired—but she still makes time to visit her devout fans.

Maddy

When Maddy was found in Alabama, the abused bloodhound had kidney failure and had been shot in the hip. But after seeing her on a rescue site (she’d since been taken to Florida), Angela Fletcher, who works in a Tennessee sheriff’s office, knew she’d found the one. Now they’ve joined forces to locate missing people.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.