Apple News+ accused of violating App Store guidelines - "Apple has been accused of violating its own App Store guidelines within the new Apple News app.The Apple News+ signup page is missing a number of important elements that would lead the app to be rejected if it was made by a third-party developer. A former Apple developer says he is surprised the company hasn’t been hit with an “an extremely public lawsuit” for its double standards."
Maybe some people will claim private companies can censor and ban anything they like
What Happens If You Find Cameras in Your Airbnb - "Vest told me that when he tried to file a police report with the Miami Police Department, the officers questioned Vest in return, accusing him of theft, because he had taken Ralph’s keys and memory cards when he left the house that night.Vest explained to the police that no, he hadn’t just stumbled across cameras in someone’s home and stolen their property—he’d been the victim of a crime. The officers didn’t see it that way. Ralph may have violated Airbnb’s rules, but the police don’t enforce Airbnb’s terms of service. In their eyes, Ralph was a homeowner, with every right to have cameras in his own home. Vest, meanwhile, had admitted to taking Ralph’s property without his consent or knowledge"
Mizzou Official Claims Tall Men Asking Out Short Women Could Constitute Sexual Misconduct - "Today’s crazy comes from — unsurprisingly — the University of Missouri (Mizzou), best known for torpedoing its enrollment rates after campus protests led a professor to threaten a student journalist. An official at Mizzou indicated during a deposition that a male student who was physically larger than the female student he asked out may have violated the school’s Title IX policy because his physical size gave him “power over her.” For years, we have been told that one must receive “affirmative consent” before anything of a dating or sexual nature takes place. Critics of such policies, such as this reporter, have often wondered what would happen if the mere ask is unwanted, does that also constitute sexual harassment or assault?Now we appear to have our answer: Yes."
Med Students Craft Terrifying Diseases for 'Dungeons & Dragons' - "While Dungeons & Dragons often use powerful dragons or ruthless magic-wielding tyrants to threaten medieval-based fantasy worlds, the biggest danger to those living in real medieval times was disease. Luckily, The Malady Codex, written by medical students Jason Bakos and Themis Paraskevas, provides detailed breakdowns on 12 diseases specially crafted for use in any D&D campaign... Several of the diseases are also magic-resistant, which means that a paladin's "Lay on Hands" ability won't instantly cure the disease."
Experts call for the word 'cyclist' to be BANNED - "A new study, conducted by researchers at Queensland University of Technology and Monash University, found there was a link between the dehumanisation of cyclists and deliberate acts of aggression directed towards them on the road.QUT professor Narelle Haworth said the study, which questioned 442 people in Victoria, NSW and Queensland, found 55 per cent of non-cyclists rated cyclists as 'not completely human'.She is behind a push to scrap the word 'cyclist' and replace it with the term 'people who ride bikes'."
Or maybe, just maybe cyclists are badly behaved
Presumably pedestrian and motorist aren't dehumanising
Lonely woman Leanora Propes 'sleep with teen as boyfriend was in prison' - "Woman ‘had sex with boy, 14, to cope with loneliness as boyfriend was in jail’"
If the genders were reversed...
Gay sex punishable by stoning to death under 'vicious' new Sharia laws brought in by Brunei - "Brunei was the first East Asian country to introduce Islamic criminal law in 2014 when it announced the first of three stages of legal changes that included fines or jail for offences like pregnancy outside marriage or failing to pray on Friday.Previously, homosexuality was illegal in Brunei and punishable by up to ten years imprisonment. But the changes would allow whipping and stoning to death for Muslims found guilty of adultery, sodomy and rape, said human rights groups"
What would Reza Aslan say?
Maybe Snopes will 'fact check' this and say 'mixture' since it will only apply to Muslims
American Muslim scholar salutes Brunei for reinstating law on stoning gays - "Born in Houston, Texas, Daniel Haqiqatjou is a scholar of Islam. He attended Harvard University where he majored in Physics and minored in Philosophy... 'I think Muslims need to counteract any boycott by making Brunei their next vacation destination spot. Maybe some of these expensive spiritual tourism tours led by shuyukh [senior religious Muslim leaders] can make Brunei the next go-to site, maybe attend a caning or two so Western Muslims can experience first hand what implementing hudud [fixed punishments] actually means. Just a thought.By the way, how silly that these Western politicians and celebrities can’t stand it that a Muslim country implements the Sharia. They are frothing with anger. Isn’t it great?"
Prince Jefri of Brunei wants sex statues of himself barred from NY courtroom - "Prince Prince Jefri Bolkiah, 56, immortalized his bedroom antics with Micha Raines in life-sized bronze sculptures he had commissioned for his Long Island estate Sunninghill... In court filings lawyers for Jefri asked the judge to bar photos of the X-rated statues from the jury.'Jurors easily could be offended by [their] erotic nature' and 'express their anger as prejudice against Prince Jefri,' his lawyers claim in the filing.In addition to photos of the statues, the playboy prince wants details about his private life barred from the courtrom, including his many wives, estates, his harem and more"
Malaysian jailed for 10 years for insulting Islam on social media - "A Malaysian was sentenced to more than 10 years' jail and three others were charged over insults against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad on social media... The sentence is believed to be the harshest such penalty on record in the Muslim-majority country, where concerns over racial and religious tensions have grown in recent months... All four were charged under laws against causing racial disharmony, incitement, and misusing communications networks... minister in charge of religious affairs Mujahid Yusof Rawa said the Islamic Affairs Department had set up a unit to monitor writings and communications insulting Islam and Muhammad."
Which country is more "moderate" - Malaysia or Brunei?
NetherRealm Confirms Mortal Kombat 11 Females Won't Have Sexy Items, Were Purposefully De-Sexualized - "Some of you may have noticed that in our coverage of Mortal Kombat 11 all of the women were covered practically from head to toe. This included both newcomers like Jacqui and Cassie Cage who were introduced in Mortal Kombat X, but weren’t typically as sexualized as classic characters, and other mainstay characters like Kitana, Jade, and Skarlet.Many gamers pointed out that it seemed odd that the women were so covered up in Mortal Kombat 11, compared to the 25 year history of NetherRealm indulging in creating scantily-clad femme fatales... Keep in mind that all of the male fighters in Mortal Kombat 11 have shirtless or pantsless options, as demonstrated in the images below."
Moral Kombat!
AirPods are lost easily and, in some cases, miraculously found - "In 2017, Raajit Sharma, an app developer from Sydney, Australia, launched a $4 app in the App Store called Finder For AirPods. “There was a lot of talk about how easy it would be to lose the pods themselves,” Sharma said. In fact, he got the idea from the Conan O’Brien skit about lost AirPods. A representative called Sharma four days later to tell him it deleted the app from the online store. In March 2017, Apple updated the Find My iPhone app to include AirPods.But reviews of Apple’s own version has received mixed reviews. Jonathan Lieberman, a product designer at Uber who lives in San Francisco, recently tested out the AirPod finding feature of Find My iPhone only to discover that it would only locate his AirPods when the charging case was open"
Your AirPods Probably Have Terrible Battery Life - "Apple Insider tested a pair of AirPods purchased in 2016 against a pair from 2018, and found that the older pair died after two hours and 16 minutes. “That’s less than half the stated battery life for a new pair,” the writer William Gallagher concluded... A lot of barely chargeable AirPods and wireless mice and Bluetooth speakers are ending up in the trash as consumers go through products—even expensive ones—faster than ever... Nadim Maluf, the founder of the battery consultancy Qnovo, told me that a decade ago, he went to big tech companies telling them he could help them double the longevity of their products, by extending the life of the lithium-ion batteries they were beginning to use. “No one really cared,” he told me. “Extending product life wasn’t consistent with growth on the financial side.”... lithium-ion batteries are different from other waste. Tossing them in the trash can create fires at waste-management facilities. And unfettered consumption has big upstream costs: The more devices with lithium-ion batteries that aren’t recycled, the more companies have to mine the finite resources that go into those batteries. Most lithium-ion batteries contain cobalt, which is often mined in terrible conditions in the developing world... Apple has gained fans for its sleek design. But part of that design is soldering its batteries inside the unit, meaning consumers can’t easily replace them themselves. This was a feature that stumped reviewers when Apple unveiled the iPhone in 2007—Joe Nocera of The New York Times called it “an extreme act of consumer unfriendliness”—but has since become common in phones. It means the batteries in AirPods and many other Apple devices are essentially impossible to replace or recycle yourself. When the AirPods were released, Wiens took them apart to see how difficult it would be to strip the headphones of their lithium-ion batteries and other material. He found that because Apple glues AirPods together, the only way to separate the battery from the case would be to use a knife, which means risking an explosion.Wireless headphones don’t have to be difficult to repair; iFixit has found that Samsung’s Galaxy Buds, for example, are repairable, because they are held together with clips and not glue"
Ramen shop thief in Tokyo steals 130 boiled eggs, leaves cash untouched
Woman with ‘mutant’ gene who feels no pain and heals without scarring discovered by scientists - "A good-natured Scottish pensioner who experiences virtually no pain has superhuman healing and remains unflappable in life-threatening situations may sound like a Marvel spin-off but has just been reported in a leading scientific journal.UK researchers have discovered Jo Cameron's, now 71, remarkable abilities are apparently down to a previously unreported genetic mutation."