Month: October 2020

A TikTok video is making the rounds because it continues to make people question their own senses. In the video, a voice can be heard saying either the word “brainstorm” or the words “green needle.”

What you hear depends on what you’re thinking about when you read the screen.

So, if you play it while thinking “green needle,” that’s what you’ll hear in the clip. The same goes for “brainstorm.” Then, go back and forth between the two. It’s a surreal experience.

Green Needle or Brainstorm?🤔 What Do You Hear?

www.youtube.com

The video is a great reminder of how subjective our senses really are. It’s a perfect example of how our minds have the power to interpret sensory data how it chooses, depending on our own internal biases.

It makes you wonder just how many things you see, smell, hear, taste, and feel that may not be what they seem. It also shows how two people can experience the same sensory data, interpret it completely differently, and not be wrong.

That’s why two people can witness the same car accident and tell conflicting stories in court, while both people swear they are telling the truth.

“Basically, you are priming your brain to expect acoustic patterns that match expected patterns for a particular word,” Valerie Hazan, a professor of speech sciences at University College London, said according to People.

“When faced with an acoustic signal which is somewhat ambiguous because it is low-quality or noise our brain attempts a ‘best fit’ between what is heard and the expected word,” she added.

This video first appeared in 2018 after a toy review by YouTube creator DosmRider. The toy is from the Children’s TV show “Ben 10 Alien Force” that features a character called Brainstorm.

Brainstorm is the Omnitrix’s DNA sample of a Cerebrocrustacean from the planet Encephalonus IV. Whatever that means.

The viral phenomenon is similar to the “Yanny” versus “Laurel” debate that had the whole internet talking back in 2018.

According to The New York Times, people hear Laurel or Yanny based on the “frequency range” they pay attention to. So if someone tends to hear in the higher range of things, then they’re going to hear “Yanny” rather than “Laurel.”

These videos are another example of how the human psyche has a real problem with ambiguity, even if that means incorrectly interpreting sensory data. “The brain is built to turn messy signals into meaning,” Dr. Kevin Franck, director of audiology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, told Time.

It “all comes down to the brain,” he added. “The fact that brains go in one way and some brains go in the other means that we’re all just wired a bit differently based on our experiences.”

The clip also another reminder that even if someone sees things differently than we do, it’s best to reserve some judgement or give them the benefit of the doubt. As research shows, two people can look at the same thing and get a totally different meaning.

As someone who has given birth to three children and who was raised by a labor-and-delivery nurse, you’d think I’d have a good handle on the physical mechanics of childbirth. But despite knowing all the terminology and experiencing all the details first hand—uterine contractions, cervical dilation, etc.—I’m a visual person, and most of the birth process happens internally. Feeling it and being told what’s happening isn’t the same as being able to visualize what’s actually happening.

Enter high school teacher Brooke Bernal, who teaches consumer sciences. She shared a video on TikTok demonstrating how she teaches her students about childbirth, which she says is her “all time favorite lesson,” using a balloon and a ping-pong ball. It’s a simple, but-oh-so-helpful demonstration that even helped me get a better grip on the miracle of childbirth. (Without the baby shooting across the room at the end, of course.)

Bernal explains that the big round part of the balloon is the uterus, the skinny tube part is the birth canal, and the opening is the cervix. Then she puts a ping-pong ball into the balloon and shows how the pressure of the contractions causes the ball baby to push on the cervix, causing it to thin out (efface) and open up (dilate).

There’s one little hiccup with this demonstration, which is that the “birth canal” isn’t actually above the cervix like shown in Bernal’s video. The cervix is immediately outside of the uterus, and then the birth canal is the vagina below that. So in a real birth, what you see happening with the cervix would happen before the baby goes through the birth canal (and is, in fact, what allows the baby to do so).

A video that may have served as the inspiration for this one (Bernal told Buzzfeed that she had seen the idea shared in a teacher group on social media but wasn’t sure where it came from) illustrates that a bit more clearly:

Use a balloon and ping pong ball to show how the cervix thins and dilates during labor

www.youtube.com

Aside from the birth canal bit, Bernal’s video is great. The first awesome part is how she illustrates the difference between Braxton-Hicks contractions and real contractions. For those who haven’t experienced the joy of thinking you were in labor half a dozen times before you actually were, Braxton-Hicks contractions are basically practice contractions. It’s your uterus running drills. Some people have them for weeks before real labor starts, and they can be pretty uncomfortable..

Real contractions come from the top of the uterus and actually move the baby down into the birth canal. This part of the video makes that difference so clear.

The other part that I found helpful was the effacement and dilation illustrations. Not being able to see your own cervix, it’s hard to imagine what a midwife or doctor means when they tell you you’re “90% effaced” or “7 cm dilated.” You can see it in drawn diagrams, but I don’t find those nearly as helpful as watching that balloon opening get thinner and wider as the ball was being pushed down.

“Normally, this demonstration does not faze my students at all,” Bernal told Buzzfeed. “They are really just surprised that a ping pong ball can fit into a balloon and that a balloon can stretch like it does without popping. It’s just a good visual aid for them.”

“And, yes, they know a baby will not actually yeet across the room!” she added. “I personally feel that they get more out of me showing it this way than they would watching birthing videos because it’s something that is hands on and they can’t just zone out.”

I will say, though, that as illustrative as it was to see the mechanics of contractions, effacement, and dilation goes, it’s definitely a limited demonstration. First of all, babies are nowhere near the size of a ping-pong ball, and that whole contraction > effacement > dilation > baby popping out process takes a heck of a lot longer and involves a crapton more work than that. It doesn’t even touch on the reality of what our bodies go through and what it’s really like to grow an entire human being and then push it out through an opening that does not look or feel nearly large enough to do so.

So yes, this demonstration (with the caveat about the birth canal) combined with some real-life footage would go a long way in helping people understand what’s happening during childbirth.

Well done, Ms. Bernal.

After debuting a handful of singles, like the Kanye West-featuring track “Ego Death” and “Expensive” with Nicki Minaj, Ty Dolla Sign announced his new record Featuring Ty Dolla Sign. The album dropped last week and saw a number of other big-name features from the likes of Jhené Aiko, Big Sean, Kid Cudi, and more. Now, Ty has pulled his solo track “Nothing Like Your Exes” to offer a priceless visual.

Directed by Eif Rivera, the visual is a parody on a drama-filled dating show. A handful of men gather in an opulent mansion to give their best shot at winning the heart of one woman, played by Nicole “Hoopz” Alexander. Several men vie for the bachelorette’s attention — and fail spectacularly. One contestant creepily appears in Alexander’s bathtub and another man tries to win her over by cooking up a nearly-inedible breakfast.

Flavor Flav, who makes a cameo in the visual, has actually had a previous relationship with Alexander. Flav and Alexander met when she competed for (and won) his heart on the first season of his 2006 dating show, Flavor Of Love.

Watch Ty Dolla Sign’s “Nothing Like Your Exes” video above.

Featuring Ty Dolla Sign is out now via Atlantic. Get it here.

Ty Dolla Sign is a Warner Media artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Griselda Records fans seem disappointed by the label’s treatment by its parent imprint Shady Records after Eminem posted a rare update to his social media to promote another artist’s project instead of Westside Gunn’s. While Gunn is three projects deep for 2020, his most recent release Who Made The Sunshine was his first to bear the Shady Records logo after the Buffalo artist and his cohorts signed to Eminem’s label in 2017. However, the project blew by without a peep from Eminem’s social channels, which were only sporadically active throughout the summer and early autumn.

In fact, the only two projects that Eminem did posts about were Big Sean’s Detroit II, which released in early September, and featured a verse from Eminem, and The Alchemist’s The Food Villain. Interestingly, neither is a Shady Records release, although Eminem is close with both Sean and Alchemist — the latter of whom is also Eminem’s tour DJ. One fan took note of the discrepancy and commented that it seemed strange (the fan’s exact words were “lol wtf”), prompting a response from Westside Gunn himself, who posted several laughing and shushing emoji.

While Griselda Records is already used to grinding it out for themselves as an independent label, they’d be within their rights to be disappointed by the lack of support from the larger label. Of course, they’re not the first to find themselves in this situation. Although Shady is associated with one of the biggest acts in hip-hop of the 12 acts that have been part of its roster, only four remain. Meanwhile, former Shady artists such as Bobby Creekwater and Stat Quo left the label without releasing any albums at all, while a number of signees including Slaughterhouse and Yelawolf departed after only one release apiece.

It’s probably not a huge deal in the long run if Gunn is laughing about it. Griselda’s established base stands firm in supporting just about everything the label puts out, while the notoriously social media averse Eminem could have simply slipped up — if he even runs his own account in the first place. The project seems to have done just fine without the additional promo, as Who Made The Sunshine debuted at No. 64 on the Billboard 200 and received plenty of positive reviews. Check out Uproxx’s own review here.

Jared Kushner sparked controversy on Monday when he appeared on Fox News and criticized Black Americans for voting for Democrats and not supporting Donald Trump. The quotes spread quickly on social media, forcing the White House to defend Trump’s son-in-law and advisor as he attempts to help the president’s reelection campaign.

Kushner appeared on Fox And Friends on Monday morning, speaking about how many Black voters identify as Democrats despite his claim that Donald Trump’s policies actually benefit them more. He claimed that many Black voters need to “want” to be successful in order for Trump to help them.

“One thing we’ve seen in the Black community, which is mostly Democrat, is that President Trump’s policies are the policies that can help people break out of the problems that they’re complaining about,” Kushner said. “But he can’t want them to be successful more than that they want to be successful.”

Kushner claimed there’s a “groundswell” of Black voters coming to Trump in the campaign’s final days because they are “realizing that all the different things bad things the media and Democrats have said about President Trump are not true.” But to many, the comments from Kushner — who grew up in a family with inherited wealth — were implying the economic disparity in some Black communities exists because people of color simply don’t want to fix their “problems” enough to do it.

A number of people were quick to criticize the comments, sharing the video on social media and providing commentary about Kushner’s choice of words.

The White House quickly responded to criticism of the comments as well, claiming Kushner’s statement about Black voters was taken out of context by “trolls.”

Still, it’s not a great look for Kushner and Trump in the final days of an election in which millions of people have already voted and Trump is behind in polls nationally. There aren’t many undecided voters left in America after an exhausting campaign and two head-to-head debates, but Kushner likely didn’t help his cause very much on Fox News on Monday.

We Are Who We Are (HBO, 10:00pm EST) — The gang’s beginning to fall apart amid their disagreements about Colonel Wilson, who’s tearing the base apart, which says a lot, considering that it’s a microcosm of the United States at large. As troubles mount, Caitlin freezes her self discovery, but Danny plows full steam ahead with hit. This show is Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino’s first stab at a TV series, and it will appeal to the Euphoria audience while they await Season 2.

Filthy Rich (FOX, 9:00pm EST) — Franklin heads to Mardi Gras, and it’s not only for fun but a worthy cause? Alright. In the meantime, Margaret’s annoyed by Reverend Paul and Eric, and Ginger gets pulled into that hot mess.

One Day At A Time (CBS, 10:00pm EST) — Alex and Penelope are at odds over practical matters while Schneider and Avery deal with an awkward Dr. Berkowitz situation. Then The Alvarezes get romantic with their significant others during the supermoon.

Late Night With Jimmy Fallon — Sterling K. Brown, Zoe Lister-Jones, Rina Sawayama

Late Night With Seth Meyers — Gwen Stefani, Giancarlo Esposito

In case you missed these picks from last week:

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Amazon Prime film) – Sacha Baron’s most beloved character is back and still funny, even if racism in America isn’t nearly as shocking in 2020. With this followup, formally titled Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, the “victims” become the performers, and Borat’s “daughter” is along for the ride. You’ve heard about the Rudy Giuliani scene, so watch it now, and then check out Borat’s response to Rudy’s explanation, as well as Cohen’s out-of-character remarks.

The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix series) – This chess-centered drama is a surprisingly interesting and tightly paced show. It’s also a meditation upon addiction and danger and what it means to be a champion, all wrapped up in a coming-of-age tale about a boozy grandmaster in the making. As fictional prodigy Beth Harmon, Anya Taylor-Joy’s piercing gaze is here to demonstrate how a board game can look like a battlefield in Scott Frank’s adaptation of the Walter Tevis novel. The supporting cast (including Marielle Heller as a tragic 1950s housewife, Moses Ingram as a kickass childhood friend, and Harry Melling and Thomas Brodie-Sangster as gameplay rivals) also crushes the game

How To With John Wilson (Friday, HBO 11:00 p.m.) — This comedy docuseries launches with John Wilson dissecting the careful balancing act of making small talk, with all its ups and downs. Wilson also spoke with us about capturing the intimacy and absurdity of life in New York with a “psychotic amount” of footage.

Unsolved Mysteries: Vol. 2 (Netflix series) – The next batch of cold-case deep dives is here to spook the hell out of you. We ranked the six episodes — which include a mysterious death in a luxury hotel, the disappearance and murder of a Washington insider, and a mass haunting following a tsunami — that invite citizen detectives to do their thing. This reinvigorated take on the classic series comes from the original creators, who teamed up with the Stranger Things production company, and hopefully, some justice and closure can be found for victims’ families.

Donald Trump has been down this road before, and it didn’t end well the other times, but the president decided to take another dig at the college credentials of New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And, guess what: it didn’t end well this time, either.

While aggressively campaigning in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Monday, Trump took a shot at AOC during his second rally of the day in Lititz. As he was stirring up the crowd with his usual rhetoric, and an unusual boast that he’s locking down the Amish vote even though the Amish are notoriously apolitical, the president questioned whether the congresswoman even went to college.

In a now-viral tweet, AOC responded, “I could say yes, but who cares? Plenty of people without college degrees could run this country better than Trump ever has.” She then added, “As much as GOP cry about ‘elites,’ they’re the ones who constantly mock food service workers, people w/o degrees, etc as dumb. It’s classist & disgusting.”

The president should have known how this spat would end after attacking AOC back in August when he stopped in the middle of a Fox News interview to call her a “poor student” and “not even a smart person.” Trump’s timing couldn’t have been worse, as his own niece had revealed how the president used his family connections to get into the University of Pennsylvania and paid others to take his SAT for him. That left an opening for AOC to directly challenge Trump’s own educational background, and she went right for it by daring him to release his college transcripts.

“Let’s make a deal, Mr. President: You release your college transcript, I’ll release mine, and we’ll see who was the better student,” AOC tweeted. “Loser has to fund the Post Office.”

Trump has yet to accept the congresswoman’s challenge.

(Via Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter)

March 11, 2020 will be a date few sports fans forget, as it was the day the NBA came to a screeching halt with word that Rudy Gobert had tested positive for COVID-19, which subsequently led to a complete shutdown of the sports world within the next week.

The Utah Jazz were in Oklahoma City to face the Thunder when the game was steadily delayed, and ultimately called off, as they awaited Gobert’s testing results. On the opposite bench from the Jazz was Chris Paul, who also serves as the president of the NBPA, and he recognized this was a moment that would thrust the NBA into a great unknown and was something that needed to be documented. As such, he contacted producer Brian Grazer about beginning to start filming a documentary, which will be directed by Antoine Fuqua and premiere on HBO in early 2021, titled The Day Sports Stood Still.

The documentary will feature Paul, who will talk about that fateful March night as well as the process of making the NBA Bubble in Orlando happen, along with other figures from around the sports world.

Featuring additional in-depth and emotional interviews largely conducted remotely, the documentary captures a broad swath of voices and experiences exploring how the pandemic pressed pause on their careers, but also changed their lives in dramatic and surprising ways. The film features everyone from an NFL Super Bowl champion who volunteers in the ER, to a defending WNBA champ who decides to sit out the 2020 season to focus on protesting racial injustice.

Paul will also serve as an executive producer on the project, as well as being an interview subject, and while there’s no firm release date it figures to arrive not too long after the calendar flips to 2021.

Before this current season started, in an interview with The New York Times, Lorne Michales said this about Jim Carrey’s then upcoming interpretation of Joe Biden: “First of all, Jim is brilliant, and he cares deeply about the country and what’s going on. He wants to have a voice in this. Every time he’s done [SNL], he’s always come through brilliantly, and I think what he will bring to this part will be stunning and possibly transcend comedy. Because we’re in a period where comedy is only part of it.” We are now four weeks into Jim Carrey’s tenure as Biden and I’m not sure what we are seeing “transcends comedy.” Not only is it painfully not working, it’s arguably SNL’s worst presidential impression in the last 30 years.

A couple of caveats first. First, over the years Jim Carrey has been one of the best hosts SNL has ever had. There’s no question about that. So this is certainly not any sort of referendum on his ability to perform on the show. He, without question, does that very well. Also, this has nothing to do with making a candidate look good or bad. In fact, that’s maybe even the problem here because Carrey’s Biden is so all over the place, it’s difficult to have an opinion one way or another if it makes the actual Biden look “good” or “bad.” In all honestly, it’s too bad it doesn’t do one or another. Instead, it’s just kind of its own thing, flailing away the last four Saturday nights at 11:30 p.m.

No matter what you might personally think of Carrey, his heart, here, seems to be in the right place (even though, yes, he’s had some pretty bad opinions about vaccines over the last few years). The answer to Carrey’s unfocused Biden might just be hidden up there in that answer from Michaels. We know from his Twitter feed that Carrey is no fan of Donald Trump. And Michaels says that Carrey (who was born in Canada but became an American citizen in 2004) wants to have a voice in this election. So it can be assumed that Carrey’s pitch to Michaels was something along the lines of, I have a lot I want to say.

And, boy, he sure does. Which is the problem. Carrey’s Biden focuses less on a character – which seems to mostly consist of finger guns and saying, “C’mon, man!” – and more on lecturing the audience about what a bad guy Donald Trump is. And look, no argument here! But I knew we were in some trouble when Carrey’s Biden pulled a Zack Morris-esque time freeze to tell us how he wanted Donald Trump to stop talking. Yes, that’s a nice sentiment, but it isn’t really great comedy. Maybe that was the part that was supposed to transcend comedy?

Also, Carrey has a bad habit of launching into other characters while doing Biden. Call me crazy, but I don’t remember the actual Joe Biden doing a Clint Eastwood impression at the last debate. Or at any point Jeff Goldblum. What made Jason Sudeikis’ Joe Biden so good is that it was a heightened version of Biden himself. Sudeikis played Biden as hilariously cocky, loud and aggressive – but always with a big smile on his face. It’s actually difficult to watch without laughing. Honestly, I’m not sure what Carrey’s Biden even is. Two episodes ago, during the competing town halls, Carrey’s Biden was portrayed as boring the audience so much they didn’t want to talk to him anymore. Which wasn’t a heightened version, instead it seemed to be the opposite of what happened that night since it appeared the audience stuck around late to listen to Biden, even after the cameras were off.

As mentioned before, Carrey’s Biden might just be the worst election season presidential candidate since Michaels returned to SNL in the mid-‘80s. And to be fair, that might be more a statement on just how good SNL has been over the years to have so many memorable portrayals. Of course, those were all cast members in the past instead of this new trend of recruiting talent. Even the most “boring” election, 1996, had Norm Macdonald’s terrific Bob Dole impression. The only year that might compare is 2008. Fred Armisen’s Obama was pretty uninspired. Darrell Hammond’s McCain was serviceable, in that he certainly sounded like McCain, but that portrayal was overshadowed by Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin. (That year’s presidential roles were so overshadowed I had to doublecheck to make sure it was Hammond who played McCain. I was pretty sure, but needed to make sure. Making it even more odd is the fact the real John McCain even showed up once to play himself.)

I do wonder why we didn’t get Sudeikis back as Biden (who came back late last season to take back his role). Imagine the applause he’d get if he came back now. It’s likely he was busy with Ted Lasso. But, I’ll be honest, if I had the chance I wouldn’t really want to ask him because (a) it doesn’t affect the reality that Carrey is what we have and (b) my experience with Sudeikis over the years is that he’s, maybe surprisingly, a sensitive fellow, and if he did want to come back, then it’s most likely a sore subject and he’s probably not going to answer me on the record anyway. (Though I am under the impression it’s the first reason.)

But the truth is, even though it’s not working, Jim Carrey’s Biden isn’t going away anytime soon. Lorne isn’t going to read this and go, “You know, Mike has a good point.” Our only hope is Carrey’s Biden becomes more focused. To be fair to Carrey, Dana Carvey’s Bush was pretty bad at first. Go look up some of those first sketches, it’s all about him not being “a wimp.” Will Ferrell’s Bush wasn’t great at first either, played more as a partying frat guy than the dimwitted yet kind of likable version we all know now. But both of those were early in the primaries. Carvey and Ferrell had over a year to fine-tune these impressions, so by the time we got to the debates, they were fully crafted machines. (Which, is kind of like what happens with the actual candidates.) Carrey has had to jump in on the fly, so what we are getting is what we’d have seen a year ago, instead of having time to cultivate his portrayal. Don’t underestimate the time cast members in the past had to get these things right. And, for me, that’s the strongest argument why these should remain within the cast.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Kid Cudi is turning his fan-favorite series of albums into a trilogy soon, announcing the third edition of Man On The Moon today with a nostalgic trailer that reveals few details but promises the album is “coming soon.” Footage from past Cudi videos and shows flashes across the screen before Cudi himself makes an appearance, standing in silhouette on a mountainside overlooking a dazzling view of the city under a red-lit moon. Then, the familiar strains of the “Man On The Moon” theme song play as the roman numeral three resolves over a black background.

Cudi’s been busy on a lot of projects lately but there’s a reason this one may be the most exciting to his fans, as it represents a return to his musical origins and the nostalgia of his groundbreaking debut album. In addition to Man On The Moon III, though, he’s also been busy collaborating with Eminem, Kanye West, and Travis Scott, expanding his musical portfolio into the second decade of his career. He and Scott have supposedly been working on “a lot” of songs for a potential collaborative album in the wake of their successful single, “The Scotts,” while his call for Eminem’s help led to “The Adventures Of Moon Man And Slim Shady.” And while Cudi doesn’t approve of Kanye’s political activities, that hasn’t stopped them from working on a Kids See Ghosts animated series.

Watch the trailer for Man On The Moon III above.