A Star Is Born premiered at the Venice film festival to great acclaim. The film, directed by Bradley Cooper and starring Lady Gaga, was bound to make some people talk, but no one expected it to get serious Oscar buzz. Maybe the initial hesitance was due to the fact that audience members tend to be more critical of actors-turned-directors, or maybe it’s because the movie is the third remake of a film that originally premiered in 1937. Whatever the reason, A Star Is Born has been at the forefront of people’s minds, including those that aren’t as involved with the film community.
A Star Is Born‘s presence on the internet is pervasive, with various social commentators turning it into one of the most anticipated movies of the year. The perfectly cut trailer, which has been viewed over 97,000 times, is also a contributing factor.
Showing the audience just the right amount of content to entice them, the clip features Bradley Cooper singing country music (??!!) and an under-dressed Lady Gaga that looks like a completely different person. When the trailer builds up to the part where she starts to sing, it’s hard not to get swept up by the grandiosity of it all — the beautiful sunsets, the romance, and all that screaming. Naturally, the memes started popping up in all forms.
me: can I request a song ?
DJ: sure what is it?
me:
Lingerie retailer Yandy has pulled a costume inspired by the Hulu series “The Handmaid’s Tale.” The show, based on the novel by Margaret Atwood, is set in a dystopian future where fertile women are forced into sexual slavery.
Since “The Handmaid’s Tale” is copyrighted, the costume was named the “Brave Red Maiden” but nobody was fooled. After some serious backlash, the company pulled the plug on the distasteful get up. The following message has been swapped for the offensive costume on their website:
It has become obvious that our “Yandy Brave Red Maiden Costume” is being seen as a symbol of women’s oppression, rather than an expression of women’s empowerment. This is unfortunate, as it was not our intention on any level. Our initial inspiration to create the piece was through witnessing its use in recent months as a powerful protest image.
Given the sincere, heartfelt response, supported by numerous personal stories we’ve received, we are removing the costume from our site.
The costume’s initial description didn’t sound anything like female empowerment. It read, “An upsetting dystopian future has emerged where women no longer have a say. However, we say be bold and speak your mind in this exclusive Brave Red Maiden costume featuring a red mini dress, a matching cloak with an attached hood, and a white bonnet headpiece.”
Social media was quick to point out that women can be empowered without flaunting sexual oppression.
How tone deaf does one have to be to think this makes any sense? Have you….watched/read Handmaids Tale? Did you miss the point of it? pic.twitter.com/GX6lQRjbEx
The Sisters of the Valley have dedicated their lives, not entirely to cannabis, but to the concept of true sisterhood. They are a women owned and operated business that raked in over $1.1 million dollars in sales last year alone via cannabis products. They do take vows, but poverty is not one of them.
Clothed in habits, yet not affiliated with any religious organization, they don’t believe that any sort of blasphemy is being practiced. “Religion made a mockery of itself,” Sister Kate, whose real name is Christine Meeusen, told ABC News, “We didn’t have to help them.”
Sister Sierra explained that this commune of women who live together, work together and pray together, “are truly sisters, truly nuns” in that manner. They don’t exclude all men, however. There are two “Brothers” who also live there. Meeusen said that they do indeed need men around, but that the business and affiliated town offices were to be continuously owned and operated by women.
As matriarch in chief of The Sisters of the Valley, Meeusen is a believer in taxes as well as the spiritual properties of the cannabis they grow, which is a strain high in CBD and without THC. Meeusen grew up in the Netherlands where 50 percent of income is paid out in taxes, which then goes toward universal health care, guaranteed retirement and a lack of homelessness.
The six vows the sisters take do include chastity, but not abstinence from sex, just a privatization of it. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, as the religious are wont to say. Other vows revolve around service and activism.
The farm they live and cultivate on produces medical grade cannabis which they in turn produce into a line of products that are used for depression, chronic pain, insomnia, achy joints and anxiety. CBD products have been projected to reach $2 billion in the cannabis marketplace by 2022.
According to their website, “The Sisters prepare all of their products during moon cycles, inspired by ancient wisdom.” The most popular of the products is the salve, which brings in around $3,000 a day.
Religious organizations are often big business machines and so goes The Sisters of the Valley. They just have a different higher power than most institutions.
It’s been almost a year since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced their engagement and now we’re finally hearing from their photographer, who reveals exactly how he got those dreamy pics of the couple.
In an interview with The Business of Fashion, Alexi Lubomirski, who also shot Harry and Meghan’s wedding photos, says he talked to the couple before deciding on his approach.
And one word that came out for the engagement pictures was ‘authentic.’ They wanted it to be authentic to them, which is why we kept it very loose. There was this thing between them. He’d be talking, and he’d suddenly look at her and she’d glance at him, and they’d lock eyes and they are smiling. It was a sparkle. And so, I said, ‘Listen, you know what? This, what you’re doing right now, is exactly what I want.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc94pLODFLd
About six months after the engagement photos, when Harry and Meghan exchanged vows inside Windsor Castle, Lubomirski said he wanted to break the mold of the traditional royal wedding day shoot. “We wanted it to look glamorous, as it is the royal family, and you know the setting and the people involved. But we wanted to break it,”
“Royal photography over the last century had this kind of symmetry to everything: the pillars are behind them over here, et cetera. And so we set it up and it was all looking great… and that silly little voice came into my head: why don’t you try shifting it, twisting it, by 45 degrees? And my team were like, ‘Really? We won’t have symmetry?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, we will just have to try it and I don’t know why,’” he says. “We wanted it to look glamorous, but we wanted to break it.”
If you look at one of the most famous photos of the day, with all the royals in attendance, you’ll notice it was shot at an angle.
New York may have no choice but to put a rush on marijuana legalization in the upcoming legislative session. If not, the state could miss out on substantial tax dollars while also exhausting law enforcement resources, according to a recent report from Bloomberg News.
Lawmakers in New Jersey recently revealed a proposal designed to bring a recreational marijuana market to the Garden State. Governor Phil Murphy has been pushing for this reform since taking office at the beginning the year. So it is inevitable that New York residents will soon have the ability to take a short train ride across the state line to get their hands on legal weed. And you better believe this is going to happen. Of course, this puts pressure on state lawmakers to put similar legislation in place. The severity of the situation is compounded by the fact that neighboring Massachusetts, Vermont and Canada have ended marijuana prohibition, as well.
The good news is New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who had voiced concerns in the past about weed being a gateway drug, is no longer opposed to legalizing marijuana for recreational consumption.
Over the summer, the state’s Health Department published a report, which was commissioned by Cuomo, saying, “The positive effects of a regulated marijuana market in New York outweigh the negative impacts.”
Since then, Cuomo seems to have developed a more progressive outlook when it comes to the issue. The state is expected to start discussing full legalization in the coming months.
History shows that conflicting adult use laws cause trouble in that part of the country. There was once a time when the legal drinking age was 18 and older in New York, while 21 and older in Jersey. This obviously sent more Jersey kids into New York for booze. A similar outcome is expected if the two states were to maintain differing pot laws.
But more importantly, New York doesn’t want to be in a position of missing out on the millions in annual tax dollars that is waiting to be claimed. Reports have shown that New York could see marijuana sales reaching $3.6 billion within the next few years by simply allowing adults 21 and older purchase weed in a manner similar to alcohol. This means the state would collect approximately $700 million per year in tax revenue. That’s not a bad haul considering the state would also save money by eliminating police resources for the bulk of pot-related crimes.
There are also federal implications associated with New York’s desire to end prohibition.
Some major players in the cannabis industry believe marijuana legalization in New York could be what leads to U.S. government legalizing nationwide. Daniel Yi, a spokesman for MedMen, says pot shops opening up in New York City would open up a more honest dialogue about the subject. This would eventually trickle down to Washington D.C. and inspire change.
“You cannot underestimate the impact that New York particularly is going to have on the legalization conversation,’’ Yi said. “It’s huge.’’
We can expect to get a better feel for New York’s response to marijuana legalization after the November election. By then, it is possible that a bill will have been submitted for review in the 2019 session.
The 31-year-old actress has been rocking a series of pantsuit looks to promote her new film, A Simple Favor, in which her character Emily does the same.
One fashion blogger posted a photo of one of Lively’s red carpet looks, writing, “It’s suit number 1,356 for Blake Lively’s promotion of ‘A Simple Favor.’”
Lively responded to the post, writing, “@fashion_critic_ Would you note a man wearing lots of suits during a promo tour? So why can’t a woman? Just sayinnnn. No double standards ladies.”
How Donald Glover claimed Chevy Chase said racist sh-t all the time: He doesn’t deny delivering the line — “I could have said it” — but he denies the interpretation. It was a joke. Chase had been a fan of Glover’s since they filmed the pilot in 2009. How could anybody think he was racist?
On the current incarnation of Saturday Night Live: “First of all, between you and me and a lamppost, jeez, I don’t want to put down Lorne or the cast, but I’ll just say, maybe off the record, I’m amazed that Lorne has gone so low. I had to watch a little of it, and I just couldn’t f—— believe it.”
How SNL is still immensely popular: “That means a whole generation of sh-theads laughs at the worst f—— humor in the world. You know what I mean? How could you dare give that generation worse sh-t than they already have in their lives? It just drives me nuts.”
When was SNL last funny? “I’d have to say, that after the first two years, it went downhill. Why am I saying that? Because I was in it? I guess. That’s a horrible thing to say. But certainly I never had more fun. I really loved it and enjoyed it. I didn’t see the same fun thing happening to the cast the next year.”
But what about Will Ferrell doing George W. Bush? “Just not funny. Makes $25 million a picture.”
Tina Fey? “I liked Tina. I didn’t see what all the folderol was about. She was good.”
How about Kristen Wiig? “I liked her a lot. She had two things going for her. She had clear-cut chops, and she was pretty, too. But what happened to her? Where did she go?”
Eddie Murphy? “I thought Eddie Murphy was funny. Gumby. I found that funny and people loved that. . . . Stevie Wonder, he did well. [Pause.] It’s not that hard, for Christ’s sake. Your skin’s the same color. You just put on some sunglasses and do this.”
Kanye West might be making the move to Chicago alone. West announced his plans make a permanent return to the Windy City earlier this week, but a source tells PEOPLE that his wife Kim Kardashian West doesn’t plan to go with him.
“Kim plans on spending more time in Chicago, but she isn’t moving there full-time,” the source says. Kardashian West wants to continue to raise their three children North, 5, Saint, 2½, and Chicago, 9 months in Calabasas, California.
“She thinks it’s best for the kids to continue their schedule in LA. North is in school and everything is working great,” the source adds. “Kim doesn’t think a permanent move to Chicago benefits the kids. Also, Kim wants to be around her family as much as possible too. She loves their new house and it finally feels like a home to her.”
Regardless of what the family decides to do about their future living arrangements, Kardashian West is doing her best to support her husband.
“She will be supportive of Kanye’s plans and they do have a house in Chicago too. Kanye has a tendency though to change his mind quickly, so she is just going along with his plans because it makes him happy,” the source says. “Next week, something else might make him happier.”
A second insider confirms, “He changes his mind like he changes his underwear.”
Amazon is expanding their AmazonGo cashierless stores by an amount you’d only expect from the retailer. Within the next three years, the company is planning to open 3,000 of these stores, which, according to Bloomberg, could mean a lot of trouble for convenience stores and fast food restaurants.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos believes that the best way to revolutionize the shopping experience is to reduce the lines that occur during meal times, especially in fast food places where people go on their lunch breaks. According to insiders, Amazon still doesn’t know which direction to take. One of the options would be to build cashierless convenience stores, while another would be to build healthy fast food oriented spots for people who are in a rush.
Amazon plans to target populated areas that skew younger, betting that they’d spend a little more money for healthy food served quickly. “The key to success will be convenient locations. If it’s a quarter mile from where people are walking and biking, the novelty of the technology won’t matter. It’s too far away,” says Jeff Lenard, vice president of industry group NACS. If Amazon were to follow through on their plan, chains like Subway, Pret-A-Manger, and Panera Bread would be facing a lot of competition.
There’s currently four AmazonGo stores in the U.S., each requiring the use of the Amazon app. Once users have scanned their phones, they can take whatever items and groceries they want and leave without wasting any time on a cash register. The stores feature salads, sandwiches, snacks and a small selection of groceries, with Amazon relying on convenience instead of variety.
The first step in conducting online propaganda efforts and misinformation campaigns is almost always a fake social media profile. Phony profiles for nonexistent people worm their way into the social networks of real people, where they can spread their falsehoods. But neither social media companies nor technological innovations offer reliable ways to identify and remove social media profiles that don’t represent actual authentic people.
Fake profiles aren’t just on Facebook and Twitter, and they’re not only targeting people in the U.S. In December 2017, German intelligence officials warned that Chinese agents using fake LinkedIn profiles were targeting more than 10,000 German government employees. And in mid-August, the Israeli military reported that Hamas was using fake profiles on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp to entrap Israeli soldiers into downloading malicious software.
Although social media companies have begun hiring more people and using artificial intelligence to detect fake profiles, that won’t be enough to review every profile in time to stop their misuse. As my research explores, the problem isn’t actually that people – and algorithms – create fake profiles online. What’s really wrong is that other people fall for them.
My research into why so many users have trouble spotting fake profiles has identified some ways people could get better at identifying phony accounts – and highlights some places technology companies could help.
People fall for fake profiles
To understand social media users’ thought processes, I created fake profiles on Facebook and sent out friend requests to 141 students in a large university. Each of the fake profiles varied in some way – such as having many or few fake friends, or whether there was a profile photo. The idea was to figure out whether one or another type of profile was most successful in getting accepted as a connection by real users – and then surveying the hoodwinked people to find out how it happened.
I found that only 30 percent of the targeted people rejected the request from a fake person. When surveyed two weeks later, 52 percent of users were still considering approving the request. Nearly one in five – 18 percent – had accepted the request right away. Of those who accepted it, 15 percent had responded to inquiries from the fake profile with personal information such as their home address, their student identification number, and their availability for a part-time internship. Another 40 percent of them were considering revealing private data.
But why?
When I interviewed the real people my fake profiles had targeted, the most important thing I found was that users fundamentally believe there is a person behind each profile. People told me they had thought the profile belonged to someone they knew, or possibly someone a friend knew. Not one person ever suspected the profile was a complete fabrication, expressly created to deceive them. Mistakenly thinking each friend request has come from a real person may cause people to accept friend requests simply to be polite and not hurt someone else’s feelings – even if they’re not sure they know the person.
In addition, almost all social media users decide whether to accept a connection based on a few key elements in the requester’s profile – chiefly how many friends the person has and how many mutual connections there are. I found that people who already have many connections are even less discerning, approving almost every request that comes in. So even a brand-new profile nets some victims. And with every new connection, the fake profile appears more realistic, and has more mutual friends with others. This cascade of victims is how fake profiles acquire legitimacy and become widespread.
The spread can be fast because most social media sites are designed to keep users coming back, habitually checking notifications and responding immediately to connection requests. That tendency is even more pronounced on smartphones – which may explain why users accessing social media on smartphones are significantly more likely to accept fake profile requests than desktop or laptop computer users.
Illusions of safety
And users may think they’re safer than they actually are, wrongly assuming that a platform’s privacy settings will protect them from fake profiles. For instance, many users told me they believe that Facebook’s controls for granting differing access to friends versus others also protect them from fakers. Likewise, many LinkedIn users also told me they believe that because they post only professional information, the potential consequences for accepting rogue connections on it are limited.
But that’s a flawed assumption: Hackers can use any information gleaned from any platform. For instance, simply knowing on LinkedIn that someone is working at some business helps them craft emails to the person or others at the company. Furthermore, users who carelessly accept requests assuming their privacy controls protect them imperil other connections who haven’t set their controls as high.
Seeking solutions
Using social media safely means learning how to spot fake profiles and use privacy settings properly. There are numerous online sources for advice – including platforms’ own help pages. But too often it’s left to users to inform themselves, usually after they’ve already become victims of a social media scam – which always begins with accepting a fake request.
Adults should learn – and teach children – how to examine connection requests carefully in order to protect their devices, profiles and posts from prying eyes, and themselves from being maliciously manipulated. That includes reviewing connection requests during distraction-free periods of the day and using a computer rather than a smartphone to check out potential connections. It also involves identifying which of their actual friends tend to accept almost every friend request from anyone, making them weak links in the social network.
These are places social media platform companies can help. They’re already creating mechanisms to track app usage and to pause notifications, helping people avoid being inundated or needing to constantly react. That’s a good start – but they could do more.
For instance, social media sites could show users indicators of how many of their connections are inactive for long periods, helping people purge their friend networks from time to time. They could also show which connections have suddenly acquired large numbers of friends, and which ones accept unusually high percentages of friend requests.
Social media companies need to do more to help users identify and report potentially fake profiles, augmenting their own staff and automated efforts. Social media sites also need to communicate with each other. Many fake profiles are reused across different social networks. But if Facebook blocks a faker, Twitter may not. When one site blocks a profile, it should send key information – such as the profile’s name and email address – to other platforms so they can investigate and potentially block the fraud there too.
Noah Cyrus, known for her song “Again” and for being Miley Cyrus’s little sister, is planning on releasing her latest EP. As often happens with these events, she’ll also take the opportunity to release some merchandise that’ll be available for only 48 hours.
Billboard reports that Cyrus will be partnering with Pizzaslime, a company that’ll design and sell the sweatshirts and t-shirts, some of which will read, “sry i’m trash,” because low caps are cool and the generation that follows millennials is also very edgy.
Other accessories will be available, including shirts with Billy Ray Cyrus’s face and, most notably, a $12,000 bottle filled with “Noah’s Tears.” The product description reads:
This is approximately 12 tears made by Noah Cyrus as a result of sadness. Human digestion of these tears is not suggested ’cause tears are generally pretty salty and that would just be super fucking weird if you drank someone else’s tears.
So each tear is worth a thousand dollars, thanks for the clarification.
Noah Cyrus’ merchandise joins a long list of strange products from singers that are meant to make consumers “think” while also getting them to, you know, buy the clothes and the album. Jared Leto’s band “30 Seconds To Mars” recently made the news, not for their music, but for their sweatshirts that list out the income of America’s top female models. They’re pink and worth $75.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn9Y_jqH4JO
What happened to selling sweatshirts and products that say the band’s name or feature a picture of their faces? Is that too much to ask?
The Marijuana Policy Project has been instrumental in leading successful legalization initiative efforts in Colorado, Alaska, Massachusetts, Maine, and Nevada. Now the nonprofit organization will be throwing its weight behind Legalize ND, the group responsible for getting Measure 3 on the ballot this November. The measure would legalize adult-use cannabis in North Dakota.
“The Marijuana Policy Project supports Measure 3 and strongly encourages North Dakotans to vote in favor of this important initiative,” MPP Deputy Director Matthew Schweich said in a release. “North Dakota’s current marijuana prohibition laws are ineffective and wasteful, causing more harm to consumers and to the community than marijuana itself.”
MPP will support Legalize ND by offering guidance around strategy and fundraising efforts in the lead up to the election. The organization will also mobilize its supporters throughout the state to help.
Legalize ND made waves earlier this year, due to its grassroots efforts and mobility. The group collected 17,695 signatures and submitted the ballot initiative to the state’s office to qualify for the November ballot. The group was also responsible for pushing medical marijuana legalization in the state two years ago.
“We’re thrilled to have MPP’s support, and we look forward to working with them in the weeks leading up to Election Day,” Legalize ND Chair David Owen said. “With their help, we’ll continue to educate voters about the benefits of legalization and the harms of prohibition.”
If passed, Measure 3 would potentially create the most radical recreational cannabis program in the country. The measure would set no limits on cultivation or possession of cannabis for consumers, and also includes framework that would immediately establish legal sales and commercial cultivation of cannabis. In addition it would institute a process for those with prior marijuana convictions to have their records sealed.
“MPP is proud to throw its support behind this local grassroots effort,” Schweich said. “There is clearly a strong desire for change in North Dakota, and since state officials have not taken on this issue, it is up to the people to get it done. Voters will have a chance to make their voices heard this November, and we hope they will use it to say ‘yes’ on Measure 3.”
