(Getty Images/Ringer illustration) The third-to-last song on Vince Staples’s Big Fish Theory, released Friday, is called “Party People.” At first blush, the song is strange — which here is not anywhere close to meaning “bad”; it is very, very good in fact — for a few reasons. Vince Staples doesn’t…

(AP Images/Ringer illustration) All week, The Ringer will be celebrating Good Bad Movies , those films that are so terrible they’re endlessly amusing and — dare we say it? — actually good. Please join us as we give the over-the-top action movies, low-budget romance thrillers, and peak ’80s…

Last month Benedict Evans observed that The Best is the Last : A technology often produces its best results just when it’s ready to be replaced — it’s the best it’s ever been, but it’s also the best it could ever be. There’s no room for more optimisation — the technology has run its course and it’s…

A Bay Area food-technology startup says it has created the world’s first chicken strips grown from self-reproducing cells without so much as ruffling a feather. And the product pretty much tastes like chicken, according to people who were offered samples Tuesday in San Francisco, before Memphis…

Courtesy of Photofest From left: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elpidia Carrillo, Carl Weathers and Bill Duke in 'Predator.' In June 1987, 20th Century Fox released Predator . The story, by first-time screenwriters Jim and John Thomas, centered on Maj. Dutch Schaefer (Arnold Schwarzenegger, then still not…

Ten years ago yesterday Amazon evangelist Jeff Barr posted a 222-word post on the Amazon Web Services Blog 1 that opened: Earlier today we rolled out Amazon S3, our reliable, highly scalable, low-latency data storage service. Until then Amazon Web Services had primarily been about providing…

The Vince Staples saga continues. Since signing to Def Jam, the Long Beach artist has released a new record every year, with his debut LP, the critically celebrated Summertime ‘06 (2015), bracketed by two superb EPs, Hell Can Wait (2014) and Prima Donna (2016), the latter the subject last summer of…

Back in 2006, when the iPhone was a mere rumor, Palm CEO Ed Colligan was asked if he was worried: “We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” What if Steve…

Tag yourself; I'm Spark No. 2943. Bumblebee fights off a Sentinel. Paramount Pictures In the opening scene of Transformers: The Last Knight , we are presented with the spectacle of King Arthur and his knights locked in an existential battle for the survival of human civilization, even though we’re…

Job seekers at an employment fair in San Marcos, Calif. Sandy Huffaker/Corbis, via Getty Images Days have passed since your job interview, and no one’s called or emailed. Later, you learn someone else was hired for the position. You were sure you aced the interview and would advance to the next…

Weird in a World That’s Not | Harper Business | June 2017 | 10 minutes (2,475 words) Long before author Jennifer Romolini’s name appeared high up on the mastheads of publications such as Time Out NY , Tina Brown’s Talk Magazine , and Lucky , and websites like Yahoo Shine , Hello Giggles and…

BuzzFeed News reviewed more than 50 reports of school bullying since the election and found that kids nationwide are using Trump’s words to taunt their classmates. If the president can say those things, why can’t they? Donald Trump’s campaign and election have added an alarming twist to school…

About Last Knight … Forgive me. I was thinking of a more innocent time, 30 years ago, when the most frightening image that mainstream cinema could conjure up was Demi Moore and Rob Lowe getting it on in the shower . Since those days, Hollywood has come up with so many more novel ways in which to…

Parents with small children often have strange little rules that reflect the crushing anxiety of love. Some couples, for example, refuse to take the same flight, lest they both perish, leaving their children as orphans. In our house, we have just one such rule, as promulgated by Mrs. Lewis: NO,…

WASHINGTON — President Trump has managed to turn America First into America Isolated. In pulling out of the Paris climate accord, Mr. Trump has created a vacuum of global leadership that presents ripe opportunities to allies and adversaries alike to reorder the world’s power structure. His decision…

In Sarah Silverman’s new standup special, “A Speck of Dust,” the comedian deploys vulgarity in the service of a sharp moralism. PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL ROWE / NETFLIX “You know who has a tiny vagina?” Sarah Silverman asked, out of the blue, in her 2005 comedy special, “Jesus Is Magic.” “Barbie,” she…

Everyone has that one friend. They're the person in your friendship group, probably picked up sometime between primary school and the your late teens, who doesn't love music but still finds themselves listening to it. Recorded music in particular is an entirely passive experience for them, where…

One liner’s aside, Sen. Al Franken, listens to testimony in 2011. Philip Scott Andrews/The New York Times AL FRANKEN, GIANT OF THE SENATE By Al Franken Illustrated. 406 pp. Twelve. $28. Once upon a time, Al Franken was funny. But then he became a senator. Now, in a new memoir, he is ready to tell…

When Donald Glover closes his eyes and falls in a crumpled heap to the Honda Stage floor at the end of the psychedelic "Riot," are we supposed to think that he's actually dead? Later, when the house camera catches him staring up at his drummer, his back to the audience, flashing an awed grin,…

The swiftness of President Trump’s transformation of America’s global image from a proud and valued leader to something more nearly resembling a whiny bully has heads spinning at home and abroad. Mr. Trump was elected on a slogan of “America First” and a promise that the country would never again be…

After a terrorist attack, there are two steps nearly every leader takes: first, condemn the violence; second, appeal for calm. London Mayor Sadiq Khan followed that familiar playbook in the wake of Saturday night’s attacks. Speaking to the BBC, Khan said : There aren’t words to describe the grief…

Paris is beautiful, but when it comes to riding the metro, the city of Love does not seem so charming anymore. No more of this? The situation The experience of using the machine, or waiting for people to finish their order so that you can do yours, is not satisfying — not to say frustrating. I had…

At the University of Washington, students are learning to navigate the hazards of our information-addled age. PHOTOGRAPH BY BERTHOLD STEINHILBER / LAIF / REDUX “Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you,” the Oxford philosophy professor…

I sat across from him and listened. He was trim, tall, bearded (as they all seem to be), a recent transplant, having only lived in Seattle for a year or so and worked at a start-up, after burning out at Amazon (as they all seem to have). He rode his bike around town; he had good taste in food and…

Wonder Woman is a pretty big deal, and it’s something many of us doubted we’d see in our lifetime: a good DC Comics movie. But there’s a lot going on here, and it’s something I think we should talk about, because I don’t want you to hear about Wonder Woman from the streets. I’m kind of joking, but…

Perhaps the aphorism should be changed to “In Google, veritas.” Where do people go with their most intimate worries, thoughts, and fears? Not the nearest water cooler or humblebrag app. More likely, they’ll seek comfort in the relative privacy of a search box. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, a former data…

When I broke my electric kettle, Amazon had a new one to me in less than six hours. Do More! What Amazon Teaches Us About AI and the “Jobless Future” We hear again and again that AI and robots are going to take away human jobs. My broken kettle says otherwise. Yesterday, I set my electric kettle…

Sarajevo 1914, Doha 2017? We could be at a historic moment akin to the assassination of the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which resulted in what became known as the Great War. This time, though, the possible clash is between a Saudi-United Arab Emirates force and Iran. Washington…

Getty The Justice Department’s lawyers are getting the founding fathers all wrong. Did George Washington, Thomas Jefferson or James Madison sell agricultural products to a foreign government “instrumentality?” It’s hard to say, since their surviving plantation records don’t speak to the question.…

Shadow Government Believe it or not, the president has a grand strategy. But it's a nightmarish mess. By , Hal Brands January 31, 2017 Believe it or not, President Donald Trump has a grand strategy. According to some analysts , Trump’s endless streams of erratic and apparently improvisational ideas…

“I want to punch them and make them take off their damn sunglasses,” the bartender said. I’d said something uncharitable about the guys at the far end of the room, but the bartender heard me — and shared my disdain. He went on a tirade about how “those tech bros are rude, entitled, and synonymous…

Photo: H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images On Friday, Bill Maher said the N-word on live television. By Saturday, as the public apology cycle dictates , he’d said he was sorry. “Friday nights are always my worst night of sleep because I’m up reflecting on the things I should or shouldn’t…

That’s right: this chicken was produced by growing animal cells, as was our juicy Duck à l'Orange . This is the first time in the world that poultry was produced in this method. So what’s the point? Well, poultry products are great. They’re delicious, they have nutritional benefits and they play a…

Rotterdam, a port city whose economy relies on fossil fuels, is leading the charge on climate change adaptation. Josh Haner/The New York Times In the waterlogged Netherlands, climate change is considered neither a hypothetical nor a drag on the economy. Instead, it’s an opportunity. ROTTERDAM, the…

Asia contains the world’s two most populous nations, the country with the largest Muslim population, the two largest economies after America, and the next superpower and peer competitor to the United States. But when U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited the continent recently, small,…

The Oscar-winning filmmaker opens up about his delightful new film ‘The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography,’ the chaotic presidential administration, and more. Larry Busacca/Getty Telluride Film Festival Few documentarians are in the same league as Errol Morris , the legendary filmmaker…

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a very hot topic these days. Even people who are not technologically savvy can’t wait to get their hands on the next smart door lock, thermostat, sensor, security system, etc… Or, better said, get a hold of new products designed to replace the ‘boring’ physical…

Prodigy, the rapper from Queens who helped define the sound of New York hip-hop as one-half of Mobb Deep, has died at 42. Chad Batka for The New York Times Prodigy, the hard-nosed Queens rapper who kiln-fired New York hip-hop into a thing of unhurried attitude and stoic elegance as half of the duo…

Travis Kalanick stepped down Tuesday as chief executive of Uber, the ride-hailing service that he helped found in 2009 and built into a transportation colossus, after a shareholder revolt made it untenable for him to stay on at the company. Mr. Kalanick’s exit came under pressure after hours of…

WASHINGTON — Nearly 200 Democratic members of Congress filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday accusing President Trump of violating the Constitution by profiting from business dealings with foreign governments. The plaintiffs — believed to be the most members of Congress to ever sue a sitting…