Tag: Story

Categories
The Verge

Go read this Daily Beast story about a new online school Elon Musk helped start


Back in 2015, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said he had started a school to teach his five kids, eventually expanding it as a non-profit school for some children of SpaceX employees. He said at the time that his kids’ school wasn’t “doing things I thought should be done,” so he hired away his kids’ teacher to help found the Ad Astra School. It did away with formal grade structures and put a focus on problem solving, per Musk’s direction, and he paid for all the costs involved.

Now, he’s given an initial donation to a new online, for-profit school in Los Angeles, according to an investigation by The Daily Beast. According to business filings uncovered by The Daily Beast, the Astra Nova School, which plans to open in September was incorporated by Musk associate Jared Birchall. Read More

Categories
TechCrunch

The Story of Fire Saga’ is a goofy delight – TechCrunch


The new Netflix comedy “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga”  should win anyone over, even if you’re not a huge Will Ferrell fan and have no idea what Eurovision is.

The film stars Ferrell and Rachel McAdams as the titular Icelandic musical duo, who are pursuing a lifelong dream of winning at the enormous international musical competition. The film features cameo appearances from past Eurovision performers, and it feels less like a parody and more like a celebration — albeit one that fully embraces the insane costumes and over-the-top production numbers. Read More

Categories
Tech Radar

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is exactly the film we need right now

Let’s get one thing straight – Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is not a satire, and representing it as such is not only a misunderstanding of the film’s intention, but of the spirit of Eurovision in general.

It would be easy to assume that a comedy about Eurovision starring Will Ferrell would be a mockery in the vein of Talladega Nights or Blades of Glory, however, it’s clear that the filmmakers behind Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga genuinely love the event and what it represents. Read More

Categories
The Verge

Go read this story about how Telegram evaded its Russian ban


Earlier this month, the Russian authorities lifted their ban on the Telegram messaging app, citing the company’s willingness to help with its counterterrorism efforts. However, despite the official ban being in effect for over two years, Telegram has reportedly remained accessible in the country for much of that time. In a new feature, The Washington Post has written how Telegram’s founder Pavel Durov, “humiliated and outmaneuvered Russia’s state telecommunications regulator,” in preventing the app from being successfully banned. Unsurprisingly, it’s well worth a read in full. Read More

Categories
The Verge

Go read this ProPublica story about a scheme to relabel non-medical masks for emergency workers


As the coronavirus spread across the US this spring, authorities warned people not to purchase N95 respirator masks, lest they contribute to a shortage of the masks for medical personnel. The N95 respirators are considered the most effective masks to filter out droplets in the air that may transmit the virus. Sites like Amazon suspended sales of N95 masks to the general public and cracked down on sellers who tried to sell counterfeit versions.

But a ProPublica investigation uncovered an operation in Texas that was repackaging masks marked as “prohibited” for medical use into unlabeled bags. A man who answered an ad for a TaskRabbit gig told ProPublica what he witnessed: Read More

Categories
Engadget

‘Her Story’ creator teases his new, spooky game on Steam


The new game’s Steam page reveals little else. Its title is listed as Project A███████, though its Steam community page suggests its whole name is Project Ambrosio. The game’s Steam description reads, “██████████ new ███████ Sam Barlow ██ Half Mermaid █████████████ is ███████ ██████████ cinema ██ death.” In the “About This Game” section, the years 1968, 1971, 1999 and 2022 serve as headers to mostly blacked-out paragraphs, save for a few words. Even the game’s release year is partly obscured: 2███. Read More

Categories
The Verge

Go read this Daily Beast story about Sergey Brin’s secret disaster relief team


[extreme Stefon voice]: This story has everything: A high-speed super-yacht, a secret disaster strike force, a Google co-founder, and strawberry ice cream.

The Daily Beast’s Mark Harris has a wild story about Global Support and Development (GSD), a disaster charity founded by Sergey Brin that’s being run by his former bodyguards. The story opens detailing how GSD provided disaster relief in the form of medical care and road-clearing crews after Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas last year.

For the past five years, GSD has been quietly using high-tech systems to rapidly deliver humanitarian assistance during high-profile disasters, including the COVID-19 pandemic. These range from drones and super-yachts to a gigantic new airship that the outfit apparently hopes will make it easier to get aid supplies into disaster zones. Read More

Categories
VentureBeat

Xseed will bring Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town to PC, publish Potionomics


Xseed Games made a couple of announcements today during the PC Gaming Show. One of them is adding a platform to one of its important series, and another is for a new publishing agreement with an indie developer from Seattle. Both moves reinforce Xseed’s focus on bringing niche games from Japan to the U.S. but also finding indies in the West to publish worldwide.

Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town hits the Nintendo Switch on July 14, but Xseed said this blend of Japanese role-playing games and farming sim is also coming to PC for the first time in the franchise’s history (in the past, it went by the “Harvest Moon” moniker in the West). It’s a Steam exclusive, and it’ll have graphical options for 4K visuals. Read More