October 2019

11Dec

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

AMPLIFYING DIVERSE VOICES

Tips for Black entrepreneurs from media mogul Byron Allen

This week, media mogul, Byron Allen, broke the internet with a viral interview on The Breakfast Club. The CEO of Entertainment Studios dropped numerous gems for success and told his incredible story of building an empire from his kitchen table. That hard work has paid off, as this Tuesday, Allen was inducted into the 2019 Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame. Allen doesn’t mince words: Black people may have been “blackballed” from the day they were born, but they can still succeed. He tells young entrepreneurs not to be afraid to speak out and dream big. “You cannot live in fear. You were born Blackballed. You know you’ve been positioned to fail and you have to recognize where you are.” These are five other gems from Allen’s interview that remind us to pursue our greatness and know our ...

Fortnite’s black hole teases the future of entertainment

10Dec

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

VIDEO GAMES

Fortnite’s black hole teases the future of entertainment

As audiences have embraced on-demand video services, algorithmic feeds, and an ever-growing number of digital “things to do,” our collective attentions have become hyper-fragmented. Yet we know that audiences actually love shared live experiences. Jeopardy is more fun watched with others. Movies are funnier in a packed theater. It’s hard to enjoy sporting events that happened hours earlier The durability of this appeal spans generations: Boomers watched the moon landing together, Generation X witnessed the end of M*A*S*H, and millennials recently collectively viewed (and complained about) the ending to Game of Thrones. Each generation might prefer different content, but we all love to watch it together and live. There’s no better proof of these two points than the recent #FortniteBlackout...

What you should know if your smart TV makes you feel dumb

3Apr

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TECH

What you should know if your smart TV makes you feel dumb

If it seems as though televisions have gotten very complicated very fast, it’s not just you. Sometimes smart technology can make us feel, well, dumb. You must contend with a number of abbreviations — LCD, OLED, HDR, HDMI and more — and widely varying price points. What does it all mean, and why can’t we just go buy a TV? To break it down, we talked to technology experts, a deals guru and an interior design expert — because you shouldn’t need a degree in TV to binge-watch “Stranger Things.” LCD vs. OLED Despite the letters that swim before your eyes at the big-box stores, there are basically only two options for TVs: LCD (liquid crystal display) and OLED (organic light-emitting diode). LCDs (sometimes called “QLED” or “LED LCD”), which illuminate pixels using a central lamp, are generall...

How to Be an Antiracist: A Conversation With Ibram X. Kendi

14Dec

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AMPLIFYING DIVERSE VOICES

How to Be an Antiracist: A Conversation With Ibram X. Kendi

In his new book, the professor challenges traditional definitions of racism, and who can be racist. A universal understanding, particularly in academia and among racial justice advocates and activists, has been that race and racism are based on a concept of whiteness as superior over other racial constructions (such as Black, Brown, or Indigenous). Whole bodies of scholarship under the Critical Race Theory framework have discussed this power dynamic inherent in racism, which also yields to classism, sexism, and most other forms of social injustice. In fact, the term is often substituted with a more specific descriptor: “white supremacy.” Gender scholar bell hooks eventually coined the term “imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy,” to capture the intersecting ...

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

TECH

Black Friday just came early for the smart Instant Pot with Wi-Fi and Alexa

Well what do we have here, bargain hunters!? If you’ve been toying with the idea of getting an Instant Pot or you have an old model in desperate need of an upgrade, today is definitely your lucky day. The Instant Pot Smart Wifi 6 Quart Multi-use Electric Pressure Cooker is pretty much the cream of the crop, offering all the cooking modes you love as well as Wi-Fi connectivity so you can control it with an app on your smartphone or even with Alexa. It’s worth every penny and more at its normal price of $150, but it just got the biggest discount we’ve ever seen! Here’s the key info from the product page: REPLACES UP TO 8 KITCHEN APPLIANCES: Combines 8 kitchen appliances in 1 with 13 smart programs to save you space, including: pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice/porridge cooker, yogurt ma...

10Dec

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

TECH

Xiaomi Black Shark 2 review: An affordable flagship gaming phone

Gaming phones are an ancient idea. Nokia released the N-Gage, which was like a phone built into a game controller, in 2003. And it didn’t do very well. But the concept has made a resurgence recently thanks to devices from Razer, Asus, and Xiaomi. Now, Xiaomi has launched its second-generation gaming phone called the Black Shark 2. The Black Shark 2 has a suite of features that make it a great way to play games on the go. It’s also affordable, starting at $420 for the version with 128GB of storage and 6GB of RAM. But I’m less convinced than ever that anyone really needs a gaming phone even if this a great example of the form. What you’ll like Nice design for smartphone gaming I used the Black Shark 2 to play a variety of games, and it was comfortable relative to other smartphones. And a...

The Kids Are All Right, But the Adults Are Struggling

9Dec

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PARENTING

The Kids Are All Right, But the Adults Are Struggling

While much attention on the rising suicide rate focuses on youth, data shows that it's actually working-age adults who are being hit hardest. The rise of suicide and other self-destructive behavior in the U.S. raises questions both tragic and curious. Suicide rates are up for every age group over the past few years, and they tend to get attention when someone—usually a young person—takes their own life. What’s causing this upswing? The truth is complicated. But the short version is this: It’s not youth who are creating the crisis. It’s their parents’ generation. Americans have the worst levels of addiction, suicide, and self-destruction in the Western world. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a record 120,000 Americans died from suicides and rela...