Silicon Valley is often credited for defining and redefining many things, and it seems it is set to redefine what a “car” is. One that can fly in air, float on water, but not drive on land. That might be the impression you’ll get from seeing this flying car prototype from Kitty Hawk, until you realize what it really is: … Continue reading
Comedian Vir Das killed it on “Conan” Tuesday night, summing up America’s relationship with Donald Trump in the most perfectly funny way.
Das, from Mumbai, India, pointed out that most Americans didn’t vote for the president in November, yet they’re stuck living with him.
“To you Americans, that’s a president,” said Das, who is also a Bollywood actor. “To most Indians, that’s a marriage.”
“That’s what Donald Trump is ― he’s your arranged marriage,” Das added.
The comic’s marriage bit begins at 1:15 above, but his observations on race, religion and breakfast cereal are worth a full listen too.
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Owners of some recent audio products from Onkyo and Pioneer don’t need a dongle for Chromecast support anymore. At CES in 2016 Google announced a push for Chromecast support in more audio products, but it’s taken until now for updates adding the feat…
Under Apple Care if you were to send in your device and it were to be replaced, sometimes what you end up with is a refurbished unit. What this means is that this device has been used before, but it has been cleaned up and has had certain parts replaced to make it feel brand new, even though technically it’s not.
For the most part Apple customers seem to be OK with it, except over in the Netherlands where a Dutch court has ruled that Apple cannot replace new units for refurbished one. The case started from a woman who purchased an iPad and due to problems, was entitled for a new device in which Apple gave her a refurbished unit in which she refused to accept it.
According to the judge’s ruling, “A replacement iPad is, despite everything that Apple has argued about it, not a new iPad, but a replacement. Apple is not selling ‘replacements’ as new in the market.” It also seems that not only will Apple have to deal with this in the Netherlands, but a civil suit has been filed on similar grounds in California.
There is a bit of debate surrounding refurbished devices and as to their status of whether it is new or used. However refurbished products tend to be considerably cheaper than brand new, and for the most part work like new, but we guess not everyone sees it that way.
Dutch Court Bars Apple From Replacing iPads With Refurbished Units , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
To celebrate the launch of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the Nintendo Switch, which is taking place on the 28th of April which is this Friday, it seems that Nintendo wants to tie in that celebration with its other games, like Super Mario Run. As you can see in the screenshot to the right, Nintendo will be introducing what they’re calling a “mega event” to the game.
Basically to celebrate the release of the game, players will be able to get their hands on certain deluxe buildings and decorations for their Mario kingdom in Super Mario Run. However it also seems that this is contingent on how many players around the world are playing Toad Rally, which we guess is also Nintendo’s way of trying to entice players back into the game.
We haven’t really heard much about Super Mario Run in recent times. While the game has gotten a couple of updates here and there, for the most part it is still largely the same with nothing major being introduced, save for now. The game is currently available on both iOS and Android devices where it will be free to play, but gamers who want to unlock all of the levels will have to fork out $10.
Super Mario Run To Get A Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Event This Friday , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
So far we’ve seen quite a few of the characters that gamers will be able to play as and face off against in the upcoming Injustice 2 game. However if there is one character that appears to be missing, it would be the Joker which is odd given that the character was previously available in the first Injustice game.
However the good news is that the character might be announced for the game soon. This is thanks to the achievements for the game in which two achievements were spotted that referenced the Joker. One is titled “I Love You, I Hate You,” in which players must defeat the Joker while playing as Harley Quinn with the final hit coming from Go Night Night.
The next achievement is “Why Aren’t You Laughing,” which will have players defeat Batman while playing as the Joker, with the final hit coming from Not So Funny Is It? NetherRealm has yet to officially confirm the character, but as GameSpot notes, the developer is expected to reveal a new character on the 28th of April so it is possible that maybe the Joker will be the one revealed then.
Injustice 2 has been set for a release on the 16th of May where it will find its way onto consoles like the PS4 and Xbox One. Still no mention of PC availability even though the previous title did find its way onto the PC.
Injustice 2 Achievements Hints At Possible New Character , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Although often used as source for comic relief, forgetting where one parked one’s car is enough of a problem that Google designed a feature for it. Yet not big enough to warrant its own “Dude, where’s my car?” app, of course. Sighted just last month, Google has finally formally announced the availability of parking notes and reminders on Google Maps, … Continue reading
PARIS (Reuters) – Samples obtained by French intelligence show that forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “undoubtedly” used sarin nerve gas in an April 4 attack in northern Syria, France’s foreign minister said on Wednesday, citing a declassified report.
The attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun killed scores of people and prompted the United States to launch a cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base in response, its first direct assault on the Assad government in the conflict.
“We know, from a certain source, that the process of fabrication of the samples taken is typical of the method developed in Syrian laboratories,” Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters.
“This method is the signature of the regime and it is what enables us to establish the responsibility of the attack. We know because we kept samples from previous attacks that we were able to use for comparison.”
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“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert’s spoof Alex Jones-esque character got himself into quite the mess on Tuesday.
In his parody segment “Brain Fight,” Colbert’s ranting host Tuck Buckford grabbed a big tub of Chobani yogurt ― in an apparent reference to the yogurt company that’s suing conspiracy theorist Jones and his site, InfoWars, for allegedly posting vicious fake news stories.
“Buckford” then smeared the yogurt all over his head for the most bizarre reason, before dealing with his unconventional shampoo in an equally strange way.
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Leo Bridgewater is a 42-year-old father of two, a veteran who served three tours of duty in the Army and a former Defense Department contractor who worked as a specialist in microwave and satellite communications in Afghanistan and Iraq. He’s also a medical marijuana patient who uses the plant to manage the trauma he sustained as a result of his service.
“I have an uncle who was special forces in Vietnam ― he was into the medicinal value of cannabis, and he is also someone who I counsel with on a regular basis. It was through his guidance that I started looking at cannabis as a way of treating my knee pains and then also, my overall health, my overall emotional health,” Bridgewater told HuffPost. “That’s the one thing that we don’t really pay too much attention to, because it’s the thing that you can’t see.”
Thousands of veterans and active-duty military personnel face personal battles with pain or psychological trauma. To treat those symptoms, doctors often turn to an ever-expanding list of prescription painkillers or anti-psychotics, which have helped countless veterans upon returning to civilian life.
But many of the most popular medications for veterans also come with risky side effects. Prescription drugs designed to address the most serious post-traumatic stress symptoms ― anxiety, depression, flashbacks and insomnia ― have been associated with an increase in suicidal thinking, for example. And these side effects can be worse when medications are combined with one another.
The continued reliance on prescription painkillers also comes as the nation is being consumed by one of the deadliest recorded drug overdose crises in its history. In 2015, there were more than 50,000 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. More than half of these deaths were caused by legal prescription drugs, which often serve as a pathway to heroin or fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that has increasingly appeared in street drugs.
Bridgewater was concerned about the risks that come with traditional pharmaceutical drugs, and decided to decline the pills as treatment for his conditions. Like many military service members, he also feared the stigma surrounding mental illness. He didn’t tell military officials he was suffering from PTSD because he worried it would negatively impact his career.
Instead, Bridgewater turned to marijuana. He began using it to help ease pain resulting from knee surgery in 2002 to repair injuries linked to paratrooper training. Bridgewater said it improved his pain “by leaps and bounds.”
“When you get into bed at night, you’ve got to decompress and stuff, but cannabis takes all of that away. It does. It literally does,” Bridgewater said. “You’re moving better, and you’re feeling better, before you even realize you do.”
Then in 2011, after returning home from his lengthy military career to Trenton, New Jersey, Bridgewater started having regular nightmares, a common symptom of PTSD.
His oldest son and his wife at the time would “bleed into” his dreams, he said. “And I would wake up more tired than when I went to sleep. I came to find out it’s because in my sleep I was really fighting. To me that was the first indicator of PTSD. I’m not a violent man, but it’s that feeling.”
Already a legal medical marijuana patient in New Jersey, Bridgewater began using it for his PTSD, even though the state hadn’t yet added that as a qualifying condition. And as with his knee pain, Bridgewater says, marijuana significantly alleviated his PTSD symptoms.
“I knew I was getting better, when I started using cannabis and CBD oil,” Bridgewater said. CBD, or cannabidiol, is a non-psychoactive compound in the cannabis plant that doesn’t produce the “high” sensation commonly associated with pot. The nightmares stopped and his agitated feelings associated with the disorder begin to melt away, with instances becoming fewer and farther between.
“Whenever my rage button has been pushed and I can feel the PTSD coming up, one of the things that I’ll do is, I’ll definitely pull out my vape pen,” he added. “I can remove myself, pull out my vape pen and bring it down.”
Roughly 20 percent of military veterans who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars suffer from PTSD and depression, according to a 2012 VA report. And a recent study found that the suicide rate among those veterans suffering from PTSD is 50 percent higher than the national average.
Bridgewater made the leap from medical marijuana patient to advocate in 2015. He’d already lost some friends to suicide at the time, and when a fellow veteran posted a suicide note on Facebook, he jumped into action. Bridgewater called the police, his friend’s family, and eventually his friend. Officers were ultimately able to intervene before it was too late. But Bridgewater decided New Jersey’s marijuana laws needed to change. In 2016, he testified alongside other veterans before a state Senate committee to urge lawmakers to adopt PTSD as a qualifying medical condition for medical marijuana.
“It eats away at me, the idea that if they would have had access to this, like I have access to it, it just eats away at me that they didn’t have access ― maybe they could still be here,” Bridgewater said.
Three months after he testified, Gov. Chris Christie (R) signed a bill covering PTSD under the state’s medical marijuana law.
Preliminary research suggests that marijuana may help alleviate some of the primary symptoms of PTSD, including anxiety, flashbacks and depression. Doctors are currently conducting a groundbreaking clinical trial to test whether smoked marijuana can help reduce PTSD symptoms in veterans with chronic, treatment-resistant PTSD.
Still, the federal government continues to prohibit marijuana, classifying it as a Schedule I drug with no medical value. It also explicitly prohibits any VA doctor from recommending marijuana to patients, even in states with medical marijuana laws. Last year, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) introduced a provision to make it easier for qualified veterans to access state-legal medical marijuana. Although both the Senate and the House passed the measure, Republican leadership ultimately stripped it from the final VA funding bill that passed Congress. Blumenauer reintroduced the bill last month.
These restrictions have further complicated the issue of treatment for veterans as the marijuana reform movement progresses across the country. Legal recreational marijuana has been approved in eight states and Washington, D.C., which continues to ban sales, unlike the state programs. A total of 29 states have legalized marijuana for medical purposes, with 23 of those explicitly allowing for patients to use medical marijuana for PTSD.
Veterans may also see an unclear path forward on marijuana under President Donald Trump, who has continued to pledge he’ll be “taking care of our veterans.” President Barack Obama’s Justice Department allowed states to forge their own way on marijuana policy by issuing guidance in 2013 that outlined how states can avoid running afoul of federal marijuana enforcement priorities. But this guidance, known as the Cole memo, is not law and could be reversed by the Trump administration. As a candidate, Trump appeared to be in favor of medical marijuana, saying he would respect states’ rights on the issue. But his selection of anti-marijuana hardliner Jeff Sessions as attorney general was deeply troubling to those who favor progressive drug laws.
Despite Sessions’ continued anti-marijuana rhetoric, he has said that the Obama-era guidance on marijuana enforcement has some points of value and is “valid.” That, along with the fact that there has yet to be a dramatic shift in federal marijuana directives three months into Trump’s presidency, has some advocates hoping no news is good news. Some also doubt whether the Department of Justice has the available resources for an aggressive nationwide crackdown. Still, if Trump does pursue a federal crackdown and renege on his campaign support of states rights on marijuana, it could come at a considerable political cost.
Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit substance in the United States, and the trend of states bucking prohibition in favor of taxing and regulating the plant reflects a broad cultural shift toward greater acceptance of marijuana. A recent survey from Quinnipiac University found a strong majority of American voters ― 71 percent ― want the federal government to respect state marijuana laws. In that survey, majorities of Republicans, Democrats, independents and every age group polled agreed the feds should not enforce prohibitionist laws on states that have legalized marijuana. National support for marijuana legalization has risen dramatically in recent years, reaching historic highs in multiple polls. Medical marijuana in particular enjoys extraordinarily high support. A Quinnipiacpoll found that 94 percent of Americans support allowing adults to use marijuana for medical purposes if their doctor prescribes it.
“Right now, if the White House is worried about cannabis, or thinking about cannabis, that right there shows you they’re not built for this world ― you’ve got much bigger problems,” Bridgewater said.
Bridgewater is continuing his fight for access to medical marijuana and hopes to see New Jersey move toward full legalization. That fight, Bridgewater says, comes from a veteran’s perspective, and for the brotherhood he feels for his fellow service members.
“We hold each other down like that,” Bridgewater said. “This is real and the one thing that I will not tolerate at all is disrespect of a veteran.”
One form of disrespect would be to continue denying veterans access to medical marijuana, forcing them to seek treatment in the shadows for fear of retribution from the government, Bridgewater says.
“It doesn’t match the rhetoric in terms of patriotism,” Bridgewater said. “Patriotism is not relegated to just while we’re at war. Patriotism is indicative of how you treat the men and women who fought for you.”
Video produced by Alex Berg.
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