Emery Launch Indiegogo Campaign

Emery
Jason Tate

Emery have launched an Indiegogo campaign for their new album:

We’ve estimated our basic costs again at $50,000, the same goal we had for YWNA. Of course, you guys crushed this goal last time. We pressed tons of expensive vinyl, paid for recording, mixing, mastering, travel, art, manufacturing, packing and shipping of all the products. After doing it once, we’re better at it, and we think we can get an even a better record out faster with your help.

Lack of Oxford Comma Could Cost Maine Company Millions in Overtime Dispute

The New York Times
Jason Tate

Daniel Victor, reporting for The New York Times:

A class-action lawsuit about overtime pay for truck drivers hinged entirely on a debate that has bitterly divided friends, families and foes: The dreaded — or totally necessary — Oxford comma, perhaps the most polarizing of punctuation marks.

What ensued in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and in a 29-page court decision handed down on Monday, was an exercise in high-stakes grammar pedantry that could cost a dairy company in Portland, Me., an estimated $10 million.

Netflix to Change From Stars to Thumbs

Jason Tate

Netflix will be moving away from the star rating system to a thumbs up or thumbs down approach:

Netflix VP of Product Todd Yellin told journalists on Thursday during a press briefing at the company’s headquarters in Los Gatos, Calif., that the company had tested the new thumbs up and down ratings with hundred of thousands of members in 2016. “We are addicted to the methodology of A/B testing,” Yellin said. The result was that thumbs got 200% more ratings than the traditional star-rating feature.

Monopoly Switches Out Three Game Tokens

Monopoly
Jason Tate

Monopoly will be adding three new game pieces:

The next time you sit down with your family to a nice game of Monopoly — and to determine which of your siblings is secretly a cold-blooded sociopath who would shiv you in your sleep for Park Place — you will no longer have the option of dueling to the death over who gets to be the thimble, the wheelbarrow, or the boot.

Monopoly owner Hasbro have tossed them all aside like so many redundant employees in a gig economy, and are replacing them with the winners of an internet poll: a Tyrannosaurus rex, a penguin, and a rubber ducky.

Monopoly really is one of the worst board games.