Month: March 2020

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)

As of press time, there is a chance that if you share this very news article on Facebook, its headline will trigger an eventual takedown with a "spam" tag and no further explanation.

On Tuesday, social media users began sharing scattered reports with a confusing issue in common: links from reputable news outlets they'd shared—either publicly or in private, friends-only groups—were marked as violations of "community guidelines" and automatically taken down, and many—but not all—had "coronavirus" mentioned in either the headline or in the article's body. Other hot topics in the automatic-takedown spree include recent Democratic Party primaries in the United States.

This seemed to affect posts going back as far as five days, and it includes content from established newspapers and sites such as Politico, The Atlantic, USA Today, Vice, Business Insider, Axios, and The Seattle Times. Also caught in the net are the more open-ended blogging platform Medium (which runs a series of staffed and edited sub-sites) and the crowdfunding site GoFundMe. As of press time, compiling a complete list of affected sites and topics is admittedly difficult, thanks to the anecdotal nature of how these takedown notices are being reported and circulated.

A wealthy tech bro finds himself in a virtual afterlife in Upload, a new comedy science fiction series coming soon from Amazon Studios. Its creator is Greg Daniels, who also co-created King of the Hill and Parks and Recreation, as well as the American version of The Office. Per the official premise:

In the near future, people who are near death can be "uploaded" into virtual reality environments. Cash-strapped Nora works customer service for the luxurious "Lakeview" digital afterlife. When party-boy/coder Nathan's car crashes, his girlfriend uploads him into Nora's VR world.

The trailer opens with Nathan (Robbie Amell) on a hospital gurney, in critical condition, as his girlfriend Ingrid (Allegra Edwards) urges him to take the "upload" option over surgery. "We could be together forever!" she enthuses. Nathan is less keen: "Forever is just soooo long." But he ends up taking the upload anyway and wakes up in a virtual apartment as Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime" kicks in on the soundtrack. "This is the first day of the rest of your afterlife," Nora (Andy Allo) calmly assures him.

There are myriad advantages to a digital afterlife, Nathan discovers, like being able to change the weather and associated landscape outside one's window just by turning a knob. And he feels freer to make some daring virtual fashion choices, with Ingrid's input. Nora, ever the good customer-service rep, praises Lakeview's "uplifting views" and "timeless Americana."

Enlarge / Buzz Aldrin throws out the ceremonial first pitch prior to Game Three of the 2019 World Series between the Houston Astros and the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park on October 25, 2019. (credit: Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

Buzz Aldrin knows a thing or two about quarantines. After returning from the Moon in 1969, Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins spent 21 days in quarantine to prevent the spread of any contagions they might have brought back from the lunar surface.

Amidst the coronavirus outbreak, I spoke with Aldrin on Tuesday by telephone. He is at home, hunkering down, and doing fine health-wise. Aldrin turned 90 years old in January, and at this age, he is in the very highest of risk categories for COVID-19.

"Buzz, what are you doing to protect yourself from the coronavirus?" I asked.

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  LG frames (pun not intended) the gallery series as inspired by art, or as works of art themselves. So you can pretentiously stare at them in an otherwise blank room, it seems. [credit: LG ]

LG has announced both a shipping window and specific price points for its new 4K OLED TVs for 2020. All of these consumer TVs will begin shipping in April and May, except for the WX wallpaper model and the new 48-inch size from the CX line, which will both ship in June. Prices range from $1,600 all the way up to $6,000.

Here are LG's suggested price points for the lineup in the US:

Last year's models were labeled B9, C9, and so on, but LG hasn't specified the final model names for these new TVs. B10, C10, and so on seems likely, though.

Enlarge / WUHAN, Feb. 5, 2020—Patients infected with the novel coronavirus are seen at a makeshift hospital converted from an exhibition center in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province. Containment methods like this can help countries get the pandemic under control. (credit: Getty | Xinhua News Agency)

On Monday, the COVID-19 Response Team at Imperial College London released a report that describes its efforts to create a model of how various control efforts could alter the trajectory of the coronavirus pandemic in the US and UK. The report is being published by a World Health Organization publication, but it had been provided to the governments of these countries, where it is reportedly influencing their responses.

The report paints a grim picture of millions of deaths in the two countries if nothing is done, as infections greatly outstrip the capacity of their hospital systems to handle patients. But it does find that aggressive steps can hold off the virus until an effective vaccine can be developed, although those will mean shutting down many aspects of society for over a year.

Before this induces panic, however, it's important to emphasize that these outcomes are based on a model that, because of the incomplete information we currently possess, is imperfect and has to rely on a number of assumptions. We'll go over all of these limitations before going into detail on the conclusions the Imperial College team derived from the model.