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Tech NewsPoliticsAxl Rose and Steven Mnuchin Are Fighting on Twitter About the Trump Regime’s Coronavirus Death Toll
Axl Rose, the lead singer of legendary 1980s rock band Guns N’ Roses, is currently squabbling with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Twitter about the coronavirus pandemic. Why? Because that’s our reality here in the year 2020. Just spin the giant wheel of pop culture references, political incompetence, and dystopian sci-fi scenarios to figure … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsNewsHong Kong to Give Free Masks to Every Family As It Prepares to Reopen Economy
Hong Kong’s government announced a plan to give every family at least 10 free face masks as it prepares to reopen large parts of society later this week. The region of 7 million people has experienced 14 full days without any community transmission of the new coronavirus, setting the stage for local politicians to roll … Continued
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Tech NewsThis 1959 Film About the Bed of the Future Tried So Hard to Be Secretly Horny
What was the bed of the future supposed to look like? If you went to a British movie theater in 1959, you may have seen this high-tech bed of tomorrow displayed in a short film. before the main feature. But this bed wasn’t just about getting a good night’s sleep. There were also some suggestive nods … Continued
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Tech NewsNewsL.A. Offers Free Coronavirus Tests to Everyone, Even People Without Symptoms
Los Angeles has become the first major city in the U.S. to offer free coronavirus testing to anyone who wants it, even if they don’t have symptoms of the disease. The announcement came on Wednesday from Mayor Eric Garcetti, who has so far adequately managed the covid-19 crisis, a rare thing to see in a … Continued
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Tech NewsPoliticsTed Cruz Wants to Stop the U.S. Military From Helping Produce Hollywood Movies Censored by China
Senator Ted Cruz plans to introduce legislation that would prohibit the U.S. Department of Defense from working on Hollywood movies where producers might censor scenes to appease the Chinese government. Hollywood producers have come under fire in recent years for changes to numerous films to ensure that they play in Chinese theaters, the second biggest … Continued
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Tech NewsElon Musk Tweets ‘FREE AMERICA NOW’ As His Coronavirus Predictions Prove Very Wrong
Billionaire Elon Musk, America’s dumbest smart guy, spent the night tweeting about how America needs to “reopen” its economy, despite Musk’s failed predictions about the trajectory of the coronavirus crisis. A month ago, Musk insisted that new coronavirus cases in the U.S. would be “close to zero” by the end of April. Well, it’s the … Continued
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Tech NewsNewsABC News Reporter Caught With His Pants Down During TV Segment From Home
ABC News reporter Will Reeve gave a report on the future of pharmacies from his home on Tuesday morning, as so many TV journalists are being forced to do during the coronavirus pandemic. And Reeve was truly living the dream, based on photos that are now going viral on Twitter. While some reporters joke that … Continued
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Tech NewsNewsJournalist Allegedly Spied on Zoom Meetings of Rivals in Hilariously Dumb Ways
Financial Times reporter Mark Di Stefano allegedly spied on Zoom meetings at rival newspapers the Independent and the Evening Standard to get scoops on staff cuts and furloughs due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report from the UK’s Independent. And he did a comically bad job of covering his tracks. Di Stefano reportedly … Continued
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Tech NewsThe Official White House Flickr Page Is Like a Trump Presidency From an Alternate Universe
The official White House Flickr page publishes new photos of President Donald Trump and his devious band of halfwits almost every day. And if you scroll through the photos, all taken by the official White House photographer, it starts to feel like an alternate universe. Why? When you strip away the context of what’s being … Continued
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Tech NewsThe Flying Pinto Was the Worst Idea in Flying Car History
What happens when you combine a car like the Ford Pinto with a plane like the Cessna 337? Nothing good, it turns out. People have been dreaming of flying cars for over a century now, with purely theoretical weird designs of the 1920s, and small-run novelties of the 1950s. But when two guys in California … Continued
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Tech NewsNewsLysol Warns Against Drinking Disinfectants After Trump’s Bizarre Coronavirus Rant
Reckitt Benckiser, the British company that makes cleaning products like Lysol and Dettol, issued a statement Friday morning warning consumers against ingesting or injecting disinfectants. The company said it needed to issue the advice after “recent speculation” about using disinfectants to treat the new coronavirus. And if you saw the news from the White House … Continued
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Tech NewsNewsPolice Deploy ‘Pandemic Drone’ to Detect Fevers and Enforce Social Distancing
Police in Westport, Connecticut, announced this week that they’re testing a so-called “pandemic drone” that can detect when people on the ground have fevers. The new drone platform will also be used to determine when people are closer than six feet to each other. Police will be able to deliver a verbal warning through the … Continued
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ScienceHealthCEO Defends Reopening Gyms by Falsely Claiming Coronavirus Can Be Cured ‘With a Few Hundred Dollars’ Worth of Drugs’
The CEO of Life Time gyms, Bahram Akradi, was on CNBC today defending his company’s decision to soon reopen its gyms in states that are lifting lockdowns, such as Georgia. It feels like the kind of clip that will be played in future documentaries about how poorly we handled the coronavirus crisis. At one point … Continued
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Tech NewsPoliticsMissouri Sues China Over Coronavirus Pandemic to Distract From Trump’s Failures
The state of Missouri filed a lawsuit against China in U.S. federal court on Tuesday, claiming the Chinese government caused the global coronavirus pandemic. The lawsuit is unlikely to succeed and is most likely a political stunt by Missouri’s Republican Attorney General to distract from the U.S. federal government’s abysmal response to the global health … Continued
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Tech NewsThe Real Story Behind That Viral Photo of President Johnson During the Vietnam War
There’s a photo of President Lyndon B. Johnson currently circulating on Twitter that purports to show LBJ overcome with emotion at the thought of so many deaths during the Vietnam War. It’s an iconic image, but the photo is being taken out of context. In reality, Johnson probably isn’t mourning the deaths of 40,000 U.S. … Continued
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Tech NewsNewsAustralia Plans to Make Google and Facebook Share Ad Revenue With Publishers
The Australian government aims to force Google and Facebook to share advertising revenue with newspaper publishers in Australia, according to the country’s top financial authority, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. The details of an ad sales sharing plan still need to be worked out, but if it’s successfully implemented, it would be the first time in the … Continued
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Tech NewsAmerica Needs New Names for the State Alliances Forming to Circumvent Trump
In the early 1980s, Washington Post editor Joel Garreau wrote about how he would redraw the map of North America as new countries, giving each region a new name. There was Dixie in the south, Ecotopia in the northwest, and the Breadbasket in the Midwest, among plenty of others. With the U.S. currently splintering into … Continued
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Tech NewsNews17 Corpses Found in Nursing Home As Elderly Care Facilities Are Devastated by Coronavirus
Police in New Jersey found 17 corpses at a nursing home in the town of Andover on Monday, according to a new report from the New York Times. The bleak news serves as a devastating reminder that the coronavirus pandemic is still wreaking havoc on the country’s most vulnerable people, despite calls from many Republicans … Continued
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Tech NewsNewsWhen Is Your Stimulus Check Coming? New IRS Tool Lets You Track Your $1,200
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has launched a new website that allows people to check the status of their coronavirus stimulus payment. How can you find out when your $1,200 is on the way? Just visit Get My Payment at the IRS website and fill out your information. The CARES Act dictates that Americans will … Continued
By Matt Novak
Matt Novak
Matt Novak is a reporter at Gizmodo covering news and opinion, with a little history thrown in for good measure. Novak started at Gizmodo in 2013 and has been writing about past visions of the future at Paleofuture.com since 2007. Novak is fascinated with the history of technology and got his start writing professionally for Smithsonian magazine. Emails telling him to "stick to tech" can be sent to [email protected].
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