Hasta La Gadget!

Mercedes may not have a fully autonomous car in dealerships quite yet, but the automaker has announced an improvement in its driving-assist technologies that will debut on the 2018 S-Class Sedan. The new Mercedes-Benz Intelligent Drive promises smarter auto-navigation by relying on pre-existing mapping data, while new sensors should give the luxury four-door a better perspective on the world around … Continue reading

For Bon Appetit, by Alyse Whitney.

My best friend in college had a thing for frozen vegan bacon. The plasticky scent of it microwaving in our dorm’s communal kitchen and the cardboard texture still gives me nightmares from time to time. I don’t mind tofu or seitan versions of meat, but this fake bacon was more dog treat than breakfast-sandwich filling. So I was skeptical when senior food editor Rick Martinez mentioned a topping he puts on his cream of mushroom soup that tasted like bacon but was made of… mushrooms.

Then I tried this mushroom bacon. These crispy-chewy, smoky bits of ‘shrooms were nothing like the vegan bacon of my college days. I ate an entire bowlful with a spoon. They’re more addictive than movie-theater popcorn, and, I’ll say it, they totally taste like bacon.

Martinez loves baby shiitakes for the shape, but he appreciates pre-sliced button mushrooms for convenience. Just toss a pound of them with ½ cup olive oil, three cloves of garlic (grated on a microplane), and a few sprigs of thyme or rosemary. Rick also adds a few pinches of red pepper flakes for heat and sprinkles on a very liberal amount of salt and pepper.

Spread it all evenly on a sheet tray and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour. The timing is up to you. As Rick says, “How do you like your bacon?” The 45-minute mark will give you medium-crisp mushrooms, whereas an hour will get you closer to dark and almost burnt. Like bacon, the chips will harden as they cool, so pull one a little early, let it sit five minutes, and then taste it for texture. Once they’re to your liking, pull them out and finish with more salt.

Aside from eating mushroom bacon by the handful, these little guys are great on soups, baked potatoes, or pastas (like mushroom-leek orecchiette) or, Martinez’s favorite, an open-faced MLT (mushroom-lettuce-tomato) sandwich. If you manage to have leftovers, line an airtight container with a paper towel and re-crisp before serving. Or just send them my way.

Or you can make crispy mushrooms this way:

More from Bon Appetit:

When Life Hands You Lemons, Make These Lemon Desserts

No-Cook Pasta Sauces You Should Have Up Your Sleeve at All Times

35 Make-Ahead Breakfasts so You Can Sleep in and Eat Well All Week

Our 50 Favorite Weeknight Dinners

24 Recipes Everyone Should Know How to Cook

75 Fast & Easy Weeknight Dinner Ideas

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The music industry is facing a major threat. It’s not streaming or pirating; it’s something far more sinister:

Autocorrect.

From The Weeknd to 2 Chainz to every artist that wants to spell their name with a dollar sign (hang in there, A$AP Rocky), autocorrect is a problem. 

Thankfully, DNCE told The Huffington Post how they overcame it. The band recently partnered with M&M’s to perform a surprise show at Brooklyn Bowl in New York, and we caught up with them before the performance.

“We turned [autocorrect] off a long time ago,” said DNCE’s Cole Whittle. “Most of the things we say to each other are our own language, made up and nonsense, so it doesn’t work for us.”

That’s probably for the best. Before the band deemed themselves DNCE, they texted other proposed names, which weren’t so autocorrect-friendly, either.

Joe Jonas told HuffPost other possible names included Little Big Area, JinJoo Family Band and Swaay.

Actually, the band’s name was really close to being Swaay.

“We had merch made up, too,” said Jonas. “We were kind of down to the final straw. We had the music. We just didn’t have the band name.”

(Spoiler alert!) The band eventually decided on DNCE. It happened after writing a song about being so inebriated you can’t spell “dance.” 

“We were texting each other thinking of band names and so we were like, ‘This keeps happening to us. We should just stick with this idea … let’s pronounce it D.N.C.E,’ Jonas continued. “It took a while to catch on, but it’s kind of like our attitudes. It’s kind of like imperfect and beautiful all at once.”

Jonas, along with band members Whittle, JinJoo Lee and Jack Lawless, continued talking with HuffPost about their new single, why they’re so into sweets and whether the Jonas Brothers actually traveled to the “Year 3000.”

When’s the last time you ate an actual piece of cake by the ocean?

Jack: It happened a lot at first.

JinJoo: In Miami?

Joe: Probably in Miami. We did it recently for something, some event, and we were like, “Oh, wow. This is actually happening.” It was organically happening, not like a shtick where we’ve had radio stations meet us at the beach and give us a cake.

Other than cake, what’s the best food to eat by the ocean?

Joe: Anything that’s not going to get stuck to the sand because that’s just terrible. Chips. PB&J was always my go-to beach sandwich.

JinJoo: I had fried chicken one time. It was amazing.

Cole: I’m with her.

Fried chicken by the ocean?

Cole: That’s the next album.

For your new single, “Kissing Strangers,” Nicki Minaj said she roughed you up on set.

Joe: I think my reaction said it perfectly in the photo. I was very happy and thrilled and caught off guard, so I think it’s a genuine reaction that anybody would have in those kinds of moments.

Cole: You’ll live.

Van Halen supposedly had a famous request on their rider contract where they didn’t want brown M&M’s. 

Cole: I support them because I don’t like the color brown.

Jack: They actually had kind of a practical reason for that because they wanted to make sure they read the rider.

Right.

Joe: It’s sort of a one weird thing on a rider just to see what happens.

Do you all have any weird requests?

Joe: We do have an entire rotisserie chicken on the rider. It’s actually the best thing to have on the rider because when you’re hungry and it’s a little too early for dinner, you just grab some chicken.

You all are open with fans, what’s the weirdest fan story?

Cole: A fan broke into my tour bus one time, was sitting in the front lounge on the couch. I walked in and I was like, “Who is this person?” She stood up, she handed me a stack of photographs, probably about 30 studio quality prints of her pet skunk, riding — posing like glamour shots — in a custom “Pimp My Ride” skunk go-cart.

JinJoo: Some fan asked me to take my hair out. Like, “Can I have your hair? One hair.”

Cole: They’re trying to clone you.

Or it’s like Harry Potter Polyjuice Potion, and they’re trying to become you.

Cole: That’s it.

You have a song about cake, you’re teaming up with M&M’s ― what’s with all the sweets?

Joe: I think we’re big kids, and we are always constantly reminded of the way we grew up, and that Peter Pan mentality. So our whole lives are one big happy birthday party. We get to have cake and M&M’s all day. That’s good for us.

Do the live, talking red and yellow M&M’s actually exist?

Joe: I don’t want to excite people, but there is a secret VIP room back here, and they’re taking a catnap before the big reveal.

M&M’s or the rapper Eminem?

Cole: We’re a positive, bright bunch, so gotta go with the candy.

Joe, you talked about going to the year 3000 while with the Jonas Brothers. Have you been to the year 3000? If so, how’s my great, great, great granddaughter doing?

Joe: She’s great. She’s doing fantastic. She’s in school now. She just got [to her] second year of college.

Cole: Valedictorian!

Joe: Yeah, and we’re all living under water.

If this was the year 3000, how would you want DNCE to be remembered?

Cole: We want to be on the poster of everyone’s bedroom, on the wall, and we want to represent free love, fun, happiness, smiles and funky, funky music.

(We’re guessing by the year 3000, funky, funky music will be easily heard under water.)

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Burrowed into hard granite mountain faces and protected behind blast doors, 15,000 North Korean cannons and rocket launchers are aimed at the glass skyscrapers, traffic-choked highways and blocks of apartment buildings 35 miles away in Seoul ― and the U.S. military bases beyond.

In a matter of minutes, these heavy, low-tech weapons could begin the destruction of the South Korean capital with blizzards of glass shards, collapsed buildings and massive casualties that would decimate this vibrant U.S. ally and send shock waves through the global economy.

Unlike the undefended Syrian airfield struck by U.S. tomahawk missiles or the Afghan caves destroyed this month by the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used by the U.S. military, U.S. air attacks can’t quickly or easily destroy North Korean guns.

This is why North Korea has shrugged off U.S. threats to end the country’s nuclear weapons program, or answered them with oddly bellicose language from its supreme leader, Kim Jong-Un. The most immediate risk is not that North Korea might launch a nuclear-tipped missile. Instead, it’s a hostage situation: In effect, Kim is daring President Donald Trump to attack while holding a gun to the head of South Korea.

Even a short burst of artillery shells could set off a panic in Seoul, a metropolitan area populated with 25 million people. The city has barriers that would make evacuation a nightmare: It’s intersected by the Han River and bordered by mountains to the south and west.

That hard reality is why Trump is quietly turning aside from bluster and taunts ― “North Korea is a problem; the problem will be taken care of,” he vowed last week ― and posturing with an aircraft carrier strike group. (That strike group, however, actually initially set out in the opposite direction from North Korea.)

Instead, Trump is exploring diplomacy, just as presidents before him have done. That means backing down from criticizing China and asking for help. As national security adviser H.R. McMaster acknowledged Sunday, the U.S. will “have to rely on Chinese leadership” to deal with North Korea.

So far, at least, the embedded North Korean artillery has effectively blocked any overt military action to halt Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

“These perfectly positioned offensive artillery firing positions are virtually impenetrable, extremely difficult to take out by counterfire,” said retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales. “The terrain greatly favors the North, this arc of south-facing granite mountainsides just over the [Demilitarized Zone], in a position to pummel Seoul for weeks on end.” This leaves South Korea and the U.S. “with very little real capability to respond.”

Scales, decorated for combat valor during the Vietnam War, later served in Korea as a battalion commander and ultimately as an assistant commander of the 2nd Infantry Division. A frontal assault on the Korean guns by ground forces could be suicidal, he said. “You look at that terrain with a soldier’s eye, and … ‘holy shit!’” he told The Huffington Post. 

The North Koreans “pose a threat today, with their hundreds of thousands of rockets within rocket range of Seoul, to the 28,500 American troops that are posted there, their families, the hundreds of thousands of Americans who work in Korea, and our Korean ally and Japan,” Adm. Harold B. Harris, the senior U.S. military commander in the Pacific, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last year.

It’s not known whether any of those guns are fitted with shells containing chemical or biological agents. But Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, formerly the top U.S. commander in South Korea, told the committee last year that “they have probably one of the largest chemical and bio stockpiles ― chemical, in particular, but bio capability ― around the world.”

It is true, as critics point out, that many of these North Korean guns are old, obsolete and lack sophisticated fire control systems. But artillery, unlike jet fighters or tanks, can be kept operational with relatively little maintenance. And the relatively new 300-millimeter rocket launchers can simultaneously fire 12 rockets with high explosive, incendiary or chemical warheads to targets over 100 miles away.

“North Korea is powerless to prevent a U.S. strike on its nuclear program, but retaliation is well within its means,” according to a new report by Stratfor, a geopolitical strategic forecasting firm.

A single volley from the North Korean artillery, the report said, “could deliver more than 350 metric tons of explosives across the South Korean capital, roughly the same amount of ordnance dropped by 11 B-52 bombers.”

Vice President Mike Pence visited the DMZ on the border between North and South Korea this week, scowling in the direction of the mountains to the north and warning that American “strategic patience is over.” Pence agreed to hasten the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile defenses in South Korea, which are capable of intercepting ballistic missiles launched from the north. The anti-missile system, currently under construction, is due to be completed shortly anyway.

But the THAAD system is useless against the North Korean artillery, which fires shells difficult to intercept because of their smaller size and lower altitude than ballistic missiles. And even air attacks would be difficult. The North Korean artillery emplacements are concentrated in a narrow line roughly 45 miles wide. U.S. strike jets would have to operate inside this narrow “kill box” while dodging anti-aircraft and missile fire. The North Korean artillery positions are fitted with blast doors that open briefly for firing and then close while the weapon is reloaded, further narrowing the opportunity for an effective air strike.

That’s a demanding mission, far more difficult than the unopposed strike missions over Iraq and Afghanistan attacking undefended targets in open terrain.

North Korean anti-aircraft weapons “are not all that impressive,” Scales said, “but there’s lots of them.” Could the North Korea guns be taken down? “Sure, over time,” he said. “But by the time we do that, the damage they’d inflict on Seoul would just be staggering.”

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The NCAA is officially returning to North Carolina, seven months after yanking multiple championship events from the state over its passage of the anti-transgender law known as HB2.

The NCAA on Tuesday announced that it had awarded 10 Division I championship events ― including men’s and women’s NCAA Tournament basketball games ― to the state. The decision comes nearly three weeks after Republican and Democratic lawmakers reached a compromise to repeal HB2, which barred transgender people from using public restrooms that match their gender identity.

LGBTQ groups, which blasted the legislative compromise as a “fake repeal of HB2,” aren’t pleased, calling the return to North Carolina a broken promise from an organization that had ostensibly taken a stand against transphobia and discrimination just months ago.

“The NCAA has inexcusably gone back on its promise to ensure all championship games are held in locations that are safe, respectful, and free of discrimination,” JoDee Winterhof, a senior vice president at the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement. “By rewarding North Carolina with championship games, the NCAA has undermined its credibility and is sending a dangerous message to lawmakers across the country who are targeting LGBTQ people with discriminatory state legislation. In addition to protecting the broader LGBTQ community, the NCAA needs to clearly state how they will be protecting their student athletes, personnel and fans.”

The NCAA did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

The organization emerged as a major power broker in the push to repeal HB2, repeatedly telling lawmakers that failing to take the law off the books would result in North Carolina not hosting championship events through at least 2022. An NCAA-imposed deadline led to the final repeal effort, and after the compromise, the NCAA said its board of governors had “reluctantly voted to allow consideration of championship bids in North Carolina.”

But groups like HRC continued their calls for the NCAA to stay out of the state after the “repeal,” especially because the law that replaced HB2 retains some of its most discriminatory aspects. The new law, for instance, still prevents cities from passing nondiscrimination ordnances that would protect LGBTQ people through at least 2020. 

That the NCAA plans to return to the state under the new version of the law ― which LGBTQ groups had labeled “HB2.0” ― calls into question whether the organization ever truly cared about the impact of HB2, said James Esseks, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT programs.

“North Carolina’s new law does nothing to guarantee that LGBT people will be protected from discrimination,” Esseks said in a statement. “When the NCAA originally withdrew events from North Carolina, they did so because they claimed to care about ‘fairness and inclusion’ for college athletes and fans. It’s a shame to see that those concerns have already fallen by the wayside.”

The NCAA also awarded postseason events to Texas and Alabama, two states that are considering legislation similar to HB2. The NFL has already told Texas lawmakers that passing the law would prevent the state from hosting future Super Bowls, making the NCAA’s decision to continue holding events there all the more troubling, said Hudson Taylor, the executive director of Athlete Ally, a group that promotes LGBTQ equality through sports.

“The NCAA’s decision to award events to states like North Carolina, Texas and Alabama is deeply concerning,” Taylor said in a statement. “Until the NCAA clearly publishes what constitutes an inclusive and safe environment for LGBT players, coaches, fans, administrators and officials, they will continue threatening the safety of the LGBT community at their championship events.”

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