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Most women, at one point or another, have felt some wariness or fear over a strange man in public. Sometimes it’s overt, sometimes it’s subtle, but when your instincts tell you something isn’t right and you’re potentially in danger, you listen.

It’s an unfortunate reality, but reality nonetheless.

A Twitter thread starting with some advice on helping women out is highlighting how real this is for many of us. User @mxrixm_nk wrote: “If a girl suddenly acts as if she knows you in public and acts like you’re friends, go along w[ith] it. She could be in danger.”

Other women chimed in with their own personal stories of either being the girl approaching a stranger or being the stranger approached by a girl to fend off a situation with a creepy dude.

One wrote, “A girl did this FOR me one time when I was sitting alone at a bar because she could tell I was in a very uncomfortable situation and I’ll never forget her. It was bold of her to do that for a stranger but she literally saved me from some creep ass guy.”

Another added, “I had a waitress do this for me once when an ex was yelling at me. She didn’t leave me out of her sight and when he went to the bathroom she asked if I was ok and if I had roommates or if I was going to be alone with him after. An actual angel.”

Another shared how a woman joined her and her husband as if they were old friends until her friends arrived.

“A woman walked up to my husband and I saying ‘I haven’t seen you guys in so long!!’ then hugged us. We were ???, but went w/ it. She then pointed out a group of guys that followed her in, and the one that wouldn’t leave her alone. He kept getting drinks right near us. Which was odd because we were in the corner out of the way. She hung out w/ us until her other friends got there. Once we realized what had actually happened we were a little shocked.”

User “AmberLUVV” shared a story of being in a Dominican Republic port on a cruise when two girls pretended to belong to her family.

“When I went on a cruise with the fam, we ported in DR for a day. My dad and I decided to go the local shopping market. We had took a break on a bench cuz it was HOT! But all of sudden two girls walk up to us and addressed my dad as their own, and proceeded to say that they had And scared! We played it out for a minute longer until they told us what happened! Some men in a van were following them promising to take them to the beach and wouldn’t leave them alone! They pointed out one of the guys and I had seen him turn away when they addressed my dad!”

“Raeloe” shared how a girl approached her at a nightclub to get away from a creepy guy when she’d been separated from her friends.

“I had this happen in a nightclub once. My hubby and I were working PAX and this club let’s [sic] the enforcers in for free with their badges, I’ve never been before so he said c’mon let’s go. Bout 2 hours in this girl comes up and dances with me and asks if it’s okay to stay awhile. She lost her friends and this dude was creeping on her. I told her to take all the time she needs to find her friends. She came back with them later and gave me a big hug for making her feel safe. Would do it again without hesitation.”

Another person shared how they’d been the one who needed help.

“Been the person who needed this. Creepy dude wouldn’t leave me tf alone, so I walked over to a group of girls and acted very excited to see them again. They immediately caught on and we started talking about whatever. For over an hour. Bcuz he wouldn’t leave. They ended up giving me a ride around town bcuz the creeper was following. Made some friends and we made him run a red light, which had a cop chasing him. They got me home and we hung out regularly after that.”

And another explained how grateful she was to a woman on the bus who let her act like they were best friends.

One person even shared a video showing exactly what such a scenario looks like in real life.

Some people responded with various “what if” scenarios, like what if a woman is really trying to lure them into a dangerous situation, or what if they want them to accompany them somewhere that might not be safe? But those questions seemed to miss the point that no one was suggesting anyone go anywhere private with anyone, and also seemed to miss how often women actually do find themselves in situations where they need to turn to a stranger for help.

As one woman wrote, “All the people fighting this saying it’ll be a setup are underestimating how often women actually do this to get away from creepy men. I’ve had to do this at a bar and I’ve also gone up to a women I saw distressed and pretended to be her friend and she played along. It happens.

I’ve yelled back. I’ve thrown drinks in guys faces. I’ve pushed them away from myself and others. I’ve reached out for help and asked other guys or security to step in. Sometimes the path of least resistance for a good night is to blend in real quick.”

And others pointed out that women don’t generally approach men for help unless they feel like they really need to—usually because they end up in situations where men don’t respond to the word “no.”

Finally, someone suggested a tip for using your phone to ask a girl if she’s in danger while pretending to show her a picture, so you both can be clear on what’s really happening.

But the bottom line is, if a girl or woman walks up to you and pretends to know you, more often than not it’s because she’s trying to get away from someone. Play along and accompany her until she’s safe. Guaranteed she’ll be eternally grateful.

Whether we’re talking about Disney World or any one of the 50 states, when it comes to reopening during a global pandemic, nobody really knows what the hell they’re doing. Will Florida’s reopening of Disney World amidst a statewide surge in new cases prove disastrous, or have the mask orders and social distancing precautions made a difference? They certainly have in New York City, where daily deaths are down to single-digit numbers and hospitalizations are at an all-time low.

If there’s one constant in the COVID-world, it’s that definitive answers are hard to come by.

This uncertainty explains, in part, why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is currently weighing public opinion as to what the cruise ship industry looks like when it eventually reopens. Rather than blindly issuing their own guidelines, they’re reaching out to those who would potentially get sick or spend months drifting at sea if ships were locked down. Last week, the CDC extended its “no-sail” order for US cruise ships until September 30th and began formally asking for public input to help the organization craft future preventative measures relating to cruise ship travel.

Participants will have until September 21st to submit their comments through a virtual portal or via the embattled USPS. The 28 question survey is open to all members of the public or any organization so long as their submissions address one of the 28 questions — meaning that leaders and those with a vested financial interest in the cruise ship industry will surely let their voices be heard, in addition to potential cruisers.

Speaking to USA Today, Caitlin Shockey, a spokesperson for the CDC explained that the 28 question survey was “developed by the CDC subject matter experts to inform future public health guidance and preventative measures relating to travel on cruise ships,” and features a diverse set of questions such as “What mental health services should cruise ship operators provide to crew and passengers during quarantine or isolation?” and “What precautions should the cruise line industry take to safely disembark passengers and crew without transmitting COVID-19 into local seaport communities?” as well as questions relating to virus transmission prevention, testing frequency, passenger and crew well being, and boarding and disembarking precautions.

All answers submitted will eventually become part of the public record and are subject to public disclosure. The US-based cruise ship industry is currently scheduled to resume operation in October — however, the CDC’s “no-sail” order can be issued at any time. At this point, the public appetite for cruises remains high, though a recent 40-person outbreak in Norway seems to have left cruise lines wary of rushing to restart.

If nothing below suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

I May Destroy You (HBO, 9:00 p.m.) — It’s truly impossible to say enough good things about this HBO drama from Michaela Coel so we’ll just say this: Even if we weren’t lacking in terms of new shows to binge each week, we’d still have this at the top of our must-watch list. After a season’s worth of navigating the murky waters of sexual assault and its aftermath, Arabella’s finally being held accountable for some of her more questionable behavior post-trauma. A Halloween party turns bad when Kwame opens up to the girls about his recent sexual experiments and receives a less-than-supportive reaction from his best friend.

Immigration Nation (Netflix) — This timely, six-part docuseries arrives on Netflix to give audiences an inside look at the struggle faced by some of the country’s most vulnerable communities. Back in 2017, filmmakers Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz were granted access by Leaders of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to shoot footage for the doc, but apparently, they’ve been fighting with the government ever since to actually release what they captured on camera. The show follows the legal saga of a handful of detained immigrants as they fight for citizenship.

The Umbrella Academy: Season 2 (Netflix) — Netflix’s group of superpowered oddballs is back and ready to save the world again, or destroy it. It could go either way with these weirdos. Technically this premiered last week, but so much crazy sh*t goes down this season that you’ll probably need a second viewing to catch it all.

Get Even (Netflix) — A movie about a group of British school girls fed up with the callous cliquey behavior of their peers and determined to get revenge? Sign us up.

As the NBA restarted its season in Orlando one of the major on-court questions was: What would the actual basketball look like after four months off?

No one knew exactly what the rust levels would be on either end, and on top of that, there wasn’t really an understanding of how quickly teams would get into an aggressive, competitive mindset as the playoffs loomed. The resounding answer after the first weekend of games has been that the quality of play has been very good, particularly on offense, and, maybe most importantly, the games have been, with a few exceptions, wildly competitive and entertaining to watch.

In hindsight, the latter point might should’ve been expected, at least early on, as we’ve trimmed the fat, per se, off of the league by bringing the 22 best teams. Now, not all of them are at full strength and as such games involving the Nets and Wizards (and Kings, for less clear reasons) have been pretty rough when they aren’t playing each other. But otherwise, the games have been terrific, with some overtime action, a number of games decided on the final possession, and just generally tense, competitive hoops despite the layoff.

When the bubble was first being discussed, I floated the idea of using it to test out a potential format for the midseason tournament that the league seems insistent on trying to make happen. After a weekend of games, I’ve decided that the bubble has shown us a great format for how to bring more excitement to the end of the regular season, without needing to add more games and a tournament for prizes no one really cares about.

This concept was borne out of a brief Twitter discussion I had with Matt Moore of the Action Network, after he noted how the games were benefiting from being among the very best teams. Instead of bringing soccer’s in-season tournaments to basketball, I propose instead to bring in-season relegation, of sorts.

American sports fans have long been fascinated with the concept of relegation and promotion, but the way leagues are structured here makes it impossible, given the lack of a second division. My thought is, given that NBA teams would never go for creating two full on different divisions, why not do it in-season and effectively lock in the playoff races earlier in favor of a second half push for seeding, with the rest of the league scrapping for a few remaining playoff positions.

They could choose one of two options, the first being resetting the table like they did with the bubble and bringing the 20 or 22 best teams to the next round and playing for seeding and position. However, an idea Matt floated that I too am partial to is making the cut even higher and separating the best teams from the NBA, regardless of conference, and having them play each other on a balanced schedule close to the season to determine seeding, with the others battling for playoff position.

The general idea is this, the teams play a balanced, 58 game season, playing every other team in the league twice, before a two-week break that includes the All-Star Weekend festivities — typically, teams have played right around 54 or 55 games at the break, so it might push things back one week. The two weeks off allows players to get extra rest, but also for rescheduling to occur and teams to get ticket sales going for their closing schedule.

The 13 top teams by record, regardless of conference (because with a balanced schedule conference designations don’t need to exist), then play 24 games, a home and home against the other 11 teams, to determine playoff seeding. Meanwhile, the other 17 teams play a 24-game schedule, facing each team at least once, to determine the three teams that will take the final three playoff spots. (Note: This is the scenario that keeps things at 82 games, they could probably make scheduling easier with a different combination of teams but it would require more games or a non-balanced schedule for the best teams.)

It would keep the season at 82 games and create the sense of urgency among top teams to hopefully produce games like those we’ve seen thus far in the bubble, as they jockey for seeding rather than simply trying to make it through the second half of the season unscathed so they’re ready for the playoffs. We’ve seen that teams will approach these games with some playoff intensity, and at least until seeding was set (which would take longer without conference designations) we’d see some incredible, playoff-caliber hoops long before the postseason.

Meanwhile, the games in the second-tier would still be meaningful, with teams trying to play their way into the postseason and allowing or movement up and down the standings, while also likely being more competitive as we wouldn’t see the wild mismatches between top and bottom teams — an example being how the Nets and Wizards game on Sunday was actually quite fun, despite them both struggling against other bubble teams.

There are certainly major logistical hurdles to clear here from the perspective of scheduling, ticket sales, and travel, but for a league that struggles to keep fans engaged from the All-Star break to the playoffs throughout the league, when so often playoff positions are reasonably well in hand, this would seem to provide a fix. It encourages teams to play out the season a bit harder at the top, giving fans better games to watch, and still allows for the playoff hunt among teams on the fringe — while bringing more teams into the mix by excluding conference designations.

Bubble basketball has been a pleasant surprise, and while it’s something the league will hope to never have to do again, it does offer a potential model for how the league can balance their desire or an 82-game season with making the stakes higher and the product better towards the end of the season, rather than it being a slog to make it to the playoffs.

Those of you subscribed to our newsletter might have already heard the new track from Young Jesus, which we made available exclusively to subscribers earlier today. Back in 2018, we called Young Jesus “one of the best and most adventurous indie rock bands” of that year. Now, two years removed from the release of 2018’s The Whole Thing Is Just There, the Los Angeles quartet is back with Welcome To Conceptual Beach, an eight-track effort that invites listeners into vocalist/guitarist John Rossiter’s personal mental refuge, an idyllic spot where all of his needs are met, that exists only in his imagination

“Magicians” is the final track on Welcome To Conceptual Beach is a ten-minute epic that takes you on a journey through genre boundaries, blending post-rock and emo and math rock to create something vibrant and beautiful. It meanders with wandering riffs before locking into pristine build-ups that hammer home the strength of Young Jesus and declares the band’s newest as one of the best of the year so far.

Welcome To Conceptual Beach is out August 14 on Saddle Creek. Pre-order it here and don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly Indie Mixtape newsletter below to be the first in line for new music from bands you love, as well as recommendations of bands you don’t know and other special goodies.

For modern writers, the ability to use a search engine to research subjects is an incredible skill that would make researchers of old insanely jealous. Libraries are important, of course, but in a pinch you can use Google or YouTube to learn something your characters would already know. Unless you aren’t careful and accidentally put monster guts from a video game into your very serious book about dressmaking.

Over the weekend, writer Dana Schwartz noticed a thread on Reddit from user u/nonono_ohhoho about a novel by Irish author John Boyne called A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom. The thread included a photo of a passage about dressmaking, specifically dying material for it that included some very interesting items.

If you’ve hearing the unmistakable noises of cooking utensils clashing together here, it’s because that recipe is absolutely in Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the Nintendo Switch. One easy way to tell is the inclusion of things that only exist in that universe, like ‘Hylian shrooms’ and an ‘Oktorok eyeball,’ which is something that drops when you kill the monster in the game. Anyone who has played Breath of the Wild would immediately think item drops and cooking food and elixirs, which is why it’s jarring to see it in what’s a very serious book.

And it’s not some sort of viral marketing for the much-hyped but secretive sequel. As it turns out, it was a complete accident. Schwartz’s thread about the passage gained attention and she speculated that Boyne simply googled how to dye something and found instructions from Zelda. And Boyne, who is also on Twitter, confirmed that was likely the case.

As it turns out, the multitude of Polygon guides to doing things in Zelda: Breath of the Wild got incorporated into Google’s search results to the point that when you search for dying recipes on the search engine, you get things from Zelda. And if you’re not careful, well, you might think that’s really the way to make dyes in the real world.

Boyne later tweeted that he would keep it in the book, and he genuinely seems amused that he was duped by some strong SEO. It’s a good lesson for all of us to check their sources, and maybe Boyne will give Zelda a shot for himself. It’s quite a story in its own right.

If you’ve been holding off on buying a PlayStation 4 controller for your current system with the next-gen looming, Monday may have given you the answer about whether or not to pull the trigger. Sony revealed on Monday some more details about peripherals and which ones will work with its forthcoming PlayStation 5 console, and while we still don’t have a release date or pricing details for its pair of systems, we do know which controllers will work with what come Holiday 2020.

According to a blog post on the PlayStation website, PS4 controllers will work with the PS5, but there is a considerable catch: they won’t work with PS5-specific games. While Sony did say its DualShock 4 controller and officially licensed third-party controllers will work with PS4 games on the system, the paddles will not work with PS5-specific games.

Will DualShock 4 work with PS5 games?

No, we believe that PS5 games should take advantage of the new capabilities and features we’re bringing to the platform, including the features of DualSense wireless controller.

That’s certainly disappointing news for fans hoping to avoid buying new controllers, but it certainly makes sense given the new features PS5 controllers introduce and the advantages Sony wants to tout for its new console. The good news is it seems a wide swath of other peripherals from the PS4 will work on the new console, so your racing wheels, arcade sticks, and flight sticks should make the transition over to the new console. Once you start playing PS5 exclusives, though, it will be time to buy a new paddle or two if you plan to have friends over.

Dune is one of the most-anticipated movies of 2020, assuming it comes out in 2020. As for now, director Denis Villeneuve’s follow-up to Blade Runner 2049 starring Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Jason Momoa, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, Javier Bardem, and high school locker dreamboat Timothée Chalamet is set to come out on December 18, which should give you enough time to finish Frank Herbert’s book. Maybe.

If you do decide to read it, be sure to picture Chalamet, not Kyle MacLachlan, as protagonist Paul Atreides. Villeneuve knew that the Little Women star was the right choice to play the character for “several reasons,” the Arrival filmmaker said during a chat for the Shanghai International Film Festival. “He is a phenomenal actor. He is someone that has a lot of depth, someone that is very mature for his age because Paul Atreides is an old soul in a young body, and Timothée has that… Also, he has features that remind me of old school Hollywood stars. He’s a real movie star. He has that insane charisma. Insane charisma. You put Timothée in front of a camera and it’s an explosion.”

In other words, Chalamet’s acting is hella tight.

Villeneuve also compared Momoa to a “ballet dancer when he fights,” complimented Ferguson for being a “great artist,” and called Isaac “very hunky.” Oh wait, that was me. Villeneuve said he’s “one of the best actors working today.” Both can be true.

(Via Collider)

The music industry is always changing, but these changes have perhaps never come so rapidly as they have in 2020. The coronavirus pandemic has shut down, or at the very least radically changed, many areas of life, and that includes how musicians do what they do. A lot of artists rely on touring for a substantial portion of their income, so closed venues present a new challenge. How much money artists make (or don’t) from streaming their music on Spotify has long been a heated conversation, and now a new wrinkle has been added.

Spotify issued a quarterly letter to shareholders last week (as is a regular occurrence), and it notes, “Growth in the number of artists making up our top tier — those accounting for the top 90% of streams — is accelerating; that cohort now stands at over 43,000 artists, up 43% from 30,000 one year ago.”

As Music Business Worldwide Tim Ingham founder notes in a new Rolling Stone column, Spotify routinely writes in its annual results that it wants “to unlock the potential of human creativity by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art.” Based on that information, Ingham did some math, and it turns out Spotify’s goal is a lofty one. As Ingham notes, “if Spotify can sustain its current annual pace of ‘top tier’ growth (+13,000 per year) forever more, it would take the company nearly 74 years to transform the 43,000 Club into the 1,000,000 Club.”

There are some eye-opening takeaways between the thesis and conclusion as well. For example, Ingham says the data “suggests that those 2.96 million ‘bottom tier’ Spotify artists would have earned an average of approximately $47 each in Q2. Or just over $15 per month.”

Check out the full column here.

Taylor Swift didn’t give much warning before dropping her eighth studio record Folklore last week. Working with musicians like Bon Iver and The National’s Aaron Dessner, many are touting Folklore Swift’s most indie-leaning record yet and fans are clearly loving it.

Upon its release, the record was streamed so many times that it quickly soared to No. 1 on the Billboard album charts in almost no time at all. But Folklore’s impressive reception didn’t stop there. Her track “Cardigan” has also debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100 charts, making Swift the first musician to ever have an album and a single debut at No. 1 concurrently.

Folklore marks Swift’s seventh consecutive No. 1 album after it garnered 846,000 equivalent album units in its first week. While “Cardigan” reached the top of the charts, it wasn’t the only Folklore song to make the Top 10. Swift’s track “The 1” came in at No. 4, and her Bon Iver collaboration “Exile” debuted at No. 6. That makes “Exile” the first top-10 song for Bon Iver.

In total, this week’s Hot 100 chart featured every single one of the 16 Folklore tracks, meaning she has now charted 113 songs on the Hot 100 in her career history. The number puts her behind Drake, who has had 224 on the Hot 100, the Glee cast, which has had 207, and Lil Wayne, who has had 169 songs on the Hot 100.

Check out this week’s Hot 100 Top 10 charting songs above.

Folklore is out now via Republic. Get it here.