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SAVE $110: As of Sept. 19, get a renewed Apple Watch Ultra at Amazon for just $449. That's 20% off its normal price of $559.

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$559.00 Save $110.00 Get Deal

Apple may have just introduced the Apple Watch Series 10, but that doesn't mean you have to pick it up right away. In fact, you may be better served grabbing an older model, especially since you can get the original Apple Watch Ultra for a great price right now. It comes with a slew of features on board, and it's still a feature-packed smartwatch that's well worth adding to your tech stack, especially since it's now heavily discounted.

As of Sept. 19, you can get a renewed premium original Apple Watch Ultra for just $449. That's $110 off its normal price of $559 and a discount of 20%. This renewed item has been inspected, tested, and refurbished according to Amazon's standards, and you can return it as you normally would in the event there are any issues with functionality.

SEE ALSO: The best smartwatch for every wrist

The Apple Watch Ultra may not be the new kid in town when it comes to premium smartwatches, but it's still rife with everything you need to track your health and fitness while keeping up with friends and family. This 2022 model lets you track your activity with a variety of sensors, though it does not include blood oxygen monitoring. It can let you track just about everything else, though, from sleep to your heart rate and more. In addition, you can use it just like you would a regular smartwatch with support for calls, texts, and even a compass to help you find your way if needed.

If you don't feel like shelling out for the newest Apple Watch, this is a great alternative. And you'll hardly miss the new bells and whistles with all that money saved.

SAVE UP TO 28%: Three months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate are on sale at Woot for just $33.49 with discount code ULTIMATE — that's $11.50 off the normal price of $44.99. Plus, one month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is on sale for $10.79 with the same code — that's $4.20 off the normal price of $14.99.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate 1-month membership 1-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate $10.79 at Woot! (save $4.20 with code ULTIMATE) Get Deal 3-month membership 3-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate $33.49 at Woot! (save $11.50 with code ULTIMATE) Get Deal

We're almost to October, which means it's time to consider what you'll do to keep busy through the darker winter months. If you happen to be a fan of gaming, Woot has a special deal in store for you today that'll give you access to hundreds of games.

As of Sept. 19, three months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate are just $33.49 at Woot with code ULTIMATE at checkout, a 26% discount off the list price of $44.99. You can use the same code to get one month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for just $10.79, which works out to a 28% discount off the usual price of $14.99.

SEE ALSO: I tested the best gaming keyboards, and there was a clear winner

The Xbox Game Pass Ultimate comes with tons of perks for gamers. For starters, you'll get access to new games on the day they're released, which means you'll be able to play brand-new games from powerhouses like Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda Softworks, and Activision Blizzard.

In addition to new releases, the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gives you access to hundreds of games on console, PC, and the cloud. The pass also includes a collection of EA Play games, so you'll be able to get in some solid hours with football, hockey, and soccer. Early trials of select new EA titles comes along with the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, giving you bragging rights of being one of the first to gain access.

Select Xbox titles are offered at a special price for Ultimate pass holders, and you can save when buying add-ons and consumables at the Minecraft Store.

If you're ready to game through the winter, kickstart your adventures with saving on a 1-month or 3-month subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. With today's deal at Woot, you'll save up to 28%.

Glacier’s AI-powered robots automate recycling, cutting emissions, and addressing labor shortages for a more sustainable future.

Sir Steve McQueen's "Blitz" sends audiences into one of the most terrifying and defining periods of modern British history. Watch the trailer.

A24 released the second trailer for "Heretic", starring Hugh Grant as a creep who traps two young missionaries to play a twisted game.

On the island of Númenor, Season 2 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has been one long test of the inhabitants' faith in the Elves and the divine Valar.

SEE ALSO: Kemen from 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' is the most punchable villain in Middle-earth

Some, like new King Ar-Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle) and his slimy son Kemen (Leon Wadham), are failing spectacularly, even going so far as to desecrate the oldest Valar shrine in Númenor. A small few, like former Queen Tar-Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) and former Sea Guard captain Elendil (Lloyd Owen), hold strong to their beliefs. That steadfastness has landed them in hot water, with Elendil in prison and poised to be executed. However, in episode 6, Pharazôn and his crony Lord Belzagar (Will Keen) decide that Elendil can undergo "trial by abyss," as is customary for the ways of the Valar.

The sea trial is still as good as a death sentence. After all, the process involves forcing the accused into the ocean to face off against a massive sea worm. There's likely no coming back from that, and Elendil knows it. If he dies, Pharazôn reaps not only the reward of wiping one of his detractors off the board, but also gets to further discredit the Valar by saying they abandon their followers in their time of need.

What Pharazôn couldn't predict was that Míriel would volunteer herself in Elendil's place. It's a massive moment for Míriel, an attempt to take back some control after being at her lowest point all season long. "There was definitely an excitement of getting to put her in a position where there was going to be that show of strength," Addai-Robinson told Mashable.

Cynthia Addai-Robinson in "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power." Credit: Courtesy of Prime Video SEE ALSO: Tom Bombadil's introduction in 'The Rings of Power' is right out of 'Fellowship of the Ring'

But getting Míriel to the point of making that choice takes quite a bit of soul-searching. The same goes for Elendil when he accepts the trial by abyss, so Addai-Robinson and Owen had lots of discussion about their characters' relation to faith. Should they blindly accept Pharazôn's rule as the way things are meant to be? Is there any way his rise to power could be the will of the Valar? Or should they listen to their hearts, which tell them that what Pharazôn is doing is fundamentally wrong? Both choose the latter and stand tall in the face of Pharazôn, even if it means their lives are on the line.

For Míriel, there's another layer to her choice: that of sacrificing herself for Elendil. The decision marks a new turning point in their relationship, which initially started as a perfunctory leader-and-subject dynamic before evolving into something greater. The two are bound by their shared faith and love of Númenor, but also by the trauma they experienced in The Rings of Power's first season, when they journeyed to Middle-earth to defend the Southlands from invading Orcs. In that battle and the subsequent explosion of Mount Doom, Míriel lost her vision, and Elendil believes he lost his son Isildur (Maxim Baldry). Now, the two are each other's greatest allies.

"There's obviously a deep love there," Addai-Robinson said. "There's a lovely moment during a conversation after the debacle of the coronation [in episode 3] where she puts her hand on Elendil's chest. It shifts the dynamic, because that's not a leader-subject gesture, but it transcends the romantic. It's really more about the respect and admiration and care and love between them that doesn't necessarily lend itself to a label."

Cynthia Addai-Robinson and Lloyd Owen in "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power." Credit: Ben Rothstein / Prime Video SEE ALSO: What does 'Sûza-t' mean in 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' Season 2, episode 4?

Addai-Robinson added, "I love that there is room for interpretation for the audience. If there's shipping, we're all about it."

That deep connection to Elendil is what pushes Míriel to take on the trial of the abyss. Of course there's some doubt in her mind as she enters the water. But Addai-Robinson believes the "serenity" of Míriel's decision outweighs the very human flicker of doubt.

"If it is a sacrifice for the greater good, if it is a sacrifice for her people, if it is a sacrifice for Elendil, then it is a sacrifice worth making," Addai-Robinson said.

The Rings of Power shot the lead-up to Míriel's trial on location in Tenerife. Months before, Addai-Robinson filmed the underwater portion of the scene in a tank at Pinewood Studios, under careful supervision from a dedicated water safety team. And while the elements of Tenerife posed their own challenges, with choppy water and big waves, the tank work held some fascinating parallels to Míriel's predicament. Just like a nervous Míriel had to believe that the Valar would see her through, Addai-Robinson tempered her own worries about the scene with her faith in the people overseeing her.

"I was absolutely terrified to be underwater. It's not my comfort zone," Addai-Robinson explained. "You spend a long day in the water and it's draining psychologically, as is the case with things that we have deep fear around. In a lot of ways, you're facing your own mortality. Every minute I was down there, I had the panic response of, 'I'm going to drown. I need to come up.' So settling my mind and trusting people was, to me, the real exercise."

In the end, both Addai-Robinson and Míriel made it through the trial by abyss. The resulting scene is one of The Rings of Power's most gripping, as Míriel faces down a massive sea monster that would leave any hero quaking in their boots. Thankfully, the sea worm spares Míriel's life — much to Pharazôn's disappointment — leading Elrond to dub her "Queen of the Sea."

"If people understood all of the people that have to come together to pull some of these things off, it really is an impressive feat," Addai-Robinson said. "So I'm proud that we all managed to have this particular sequence be not just a moment of triumph for Míriel, but a moment of triumph for all of us who put this sequence together."

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 is now streaming on Prime Video, with a new episode every Thursday.

In a move to scoop up audiences from platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Twitch, and YouTube, Substack is expanding its integrated video tools for creators, adding the ability to stream live.

Announced Wednesday in a blog post by Substack product manager Zach Taylor, the live streaming video tool will let writers either go live solo or with other writers on the newsletter platform. Substack added the ability for writers to send videos to subscribers in July, building on existing features like video podcasts and shareable clips.

The livestreaming feature is available for "bestsellers" (top-performing writers with paid subscribers) on iOS and Android, with Substack announcing "plans to expand to all Substackers in the coming months."

SEE ALSO: The ongoing content moderation issues behind Substack's meltdown

Substack has launched the livestreaming tool with some of its major players including Bill Maher, Hunter Harris, Michael Easter, Jeff Tweedy, Emily Schuman, Katie Sturino, Grace Atwood, Dan Harris, Jenn Lueke, Joanna Goddard, and more. Wake Up to Politics Substack author Gabe Fleisher livestreamed on Substack using the tool during the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 19.

"At the DNC, my readers didn’t need to wait for me to draft an email newsletter to hear what I thought about the convention: they were able to log on to a live video with me right as the balloons dropped, to hear instant commentary from an independent voice, instead of cable news pundits being the only in-the-moment options," Fleisher said in a statement in Substack's post.

To go live, creators and writers can press the orange + button on the Home screen within the Substack app, and hit "Live video." Subscribers will be notified as soon as the stream begins. Expanding on Substack's "Collaborations" tool, writers can also choose to go live with another writer by inviting them (this is only available to iOS users so far, but Android users can join a stream if an iOS user invites them). Writers can also customise access to the livestream, whether visible to everyone or all subscribers, or creators can paywall live videos, creating a perk for paid subscribers.

Going up against existing livestreaming platforms will be quite the battle for Substack, with sites like Twitch synonymous with the tool and boasting dedicated community audiences, not to mention the likes of Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube having had live options for years. Exactly how writers use the livestream function to communicate with their subscribers will be interesting to watch — along with whether people will pay to watch said streams.

Apple's new iOS developer beta is here, and it's not one of those boring updates that only bring bug fixes.

Instead, iOS 18.1 beta 4 brings several new, user-facing features, including support for Spatial Photos on iPhone 15 Pro devices.

It looks just like a regular photo on the iPhone, but it comes to life on the Vision Pro. Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable

The iPhone 15 Pro was able to take Spatial Videos for a while now, but the ability to take Spatial Photos is new. The feature is available in the phone's Camera app, in the bottom menu. Turn it on, and the app will warn you to turn your phone into landscape mode, as well as notify you if there's not enough light to take your Spatial Photo. If all the conditions are met, you can start taking Spatial Photos just as you would take standard photos.

SEE ALSO: iPhone 16 Pro Max moon pictures: Do they beat the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL?

Also new is the small toggle on the right that lets you switch between Spatial Photo and Spatial Video mode.

For Vision Pro owners or prospective buyers, this is cool news. Spatial Photos can be viewed in 3D on Vision Pro, with a depth effect that turns regular photos into tiny 3D experiences. For everyone else...well, it may still be worth taking them in some special moments, because you might get the Vision Pro or a similar device in the future.

Featured Video For You Apple Vision Pro: I tried it on a plane and it was chaotic

Note that you can also convert regular photos taken with the iPhone 15 Pro into Spatial Photos, but the quality is a little lower (check out 9to5Mac's excellent overview of how that looks).

All of this will be available on the iPhone 16 Pro models as well, but those aren't yet widely available (official launch date is Sept. 20).

Spatial Photos aren't the only new feature in iOS 18.1 beta 4, though some of the new features won't be available in every market. These include suggestions in the Type to Siri interface, the ability to wirelessly recover a bricked iPhone by using an iPhone 16 placed nearby, and a slightly reorganized connectivity page layout in the phone's Control Center.

The iOS 18.1 beta 4 is freely available for download, but you must be registered as a developer to do so. As always, running a beta version of iOS on your phone without backing it up first is unwise.

"The Daily Show" has broken down Trump's latest cryptocurrency scheme and mocked it with a parody ad.

Two galaxies are merging in the deep cosmos. And the James Webb Space Telescope just captured a vivid view of the scene.

The interacting galaxies, called Arp 107, collided hundreds of millions of years ago, and a bridge of stars has formed between them as they undergo the long, gradual process of merging into one. Our Milky Way, too, has merged before, and may, in the distant future, meld with an even larger galaxy.

SEE ALSO: NASA scientist viewed first Voyager images. What he saw gave him chills.

Here's what you're seeing in Webb's new image, which shows an event transpiring 450 million light-years way:

- Older stars and the bridge: The white areas are older stars, which you can see plenty of in both the galaxies. These stars also make up the "tenuous bridge of gas and stars that runs between [the galaxies]," the European Space Agency (ESA) explained.

- Vibrant star formation: When galaxies collide with one another, their gasses meet and condense. The resulting weighty clouds of gas can collapse, driving the formation of new stars. In this image, Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument reveals these expansive star-forming regions in orange and red.

- Deep space galaxies: Nearly all those objects in the background are distant galaxies — many spirals like ours — each teeming with their own stars, and likely planets.

The two colliding galaxies of the object Arp 107. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI Tweet may have been deleted

Space is indeed vast, but galaxies collide because they harbor unimaginable amounts of gravity, and are attracted to each other. "It's very likely that a galaxy will encounter a galaxy comparable or smaller over the course of its lifetime," Diego Muñoz, an astrophysicist at Northern Arizona University, recently told Mashable.

But just because these behemoth objects collide doesn't mean the planets they contain are doomed. There are huge distances between the stars, and stars are comparatively tiny. "In fact, if you were to shrink the sun to the size of a sand grain, the distance to the nearest star would be measured in miles. That makes close encounters with other stars extremely unlikely, even during a galaxy merger," Sally Dodson-Robinson, a planetary scientist at the University of Delaware, told Mashable.

The James Webb Space Telescope's sprawling mirror under construction. Credit: NASA / Chris Gunn The Webb telescope's powerful abilities

The Webb telescope — a scientific collaboration between NASA, ESA, and the Canadian Space Agency — is designed to peer into the deepest cosmos and reveal new insights about the early universe. But it's also examining intriguing planets in our galaxy, along with the planets and moons in our solar system.

Here's how Webb is achieving unparalleled feats, and likely will for decades to come:

- Giant mirror: Webb's mirror, which captures light, is over 21 feet across. That's over two-and-a-half times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope's mirror. Capturing more light allows Webb to see more distant, ancient objects. The telescope is peering at stars and galaxies that formed over 13 billion years ago, just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. "We're going to see the very first stars and galaxies that ever formed," Jean Creighton, an astronomer and the director of the Manfred Olson Planetarium at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, told Mashable in 2021.

- Infrared view: Unlike Hubble, which largely views light that's visible to us, Webb is primarily an infrared telescope, meaning it views light in the infrared spectrum. This allows us to see far more of the universe. Infrared has longer wavelengths than visible light, so the light waves more efficiently slip through cosmic clouds; the light doesn't as often collide with and get scattered by these densely packed particles. Ultimately, Webb's infrared eyesight can penetrate places Hubble can't.

"It lifts the veil," said Creighton.

- Peering into distant exoplanets: The Webb telescope carries specialized equipment called spectrographs that will revolutionize our understanding of these far-off worlds. The instruments can decipher what molecules (such as water, carbon dioxide, and methane) exist in the atmospheres of distant exoplanets, be they gas giants or smaller rocky worlds. Webb looks at exoplanets in the Milky Way galaxy. Who knows what we'll find?

"We might learn things we never thought about," Mercedes López-Morales, an exoplanet researcher and astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics-Harvard & Smithsonian, told Mashable in 2021.

Already, astronomers have successfully found intriguing chemical reactions on a planet 700 light-years away, and have started looking at one of the most anticipated places in the cosmos: the rocky, Earth-sized planets of the TRAPPIST solar system.

Today in news everyone saw coming, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are suing "Pokémon with guns" game Palworld. In less likely news, the lawsuit might have nothing to do with the creatures' designs.

Palworld made headlines when it launched in early access this January, with many describing the open world survival game as "Pokémon with guns." This comparison was prompted by Palworld's titular Pals, distinctly Pokémon-like creatures that players can battle, catch in Pokéball-like "Pal Spheres," and equip with firearms. The Pokémon Company stated its intention to investigate and "address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights" at the time, though it didn't refer to Palworld or its developer and publisher Pocketpair by name.

Now the company has directly called Pocketpair out, joining Nintendo in filing a lawsuit for patent infringement to the Tokyo District Court on Wednesday.

SEE ALSO: The controversy around 'Pokémon with guns' game 'Palworld,' explained

"This lawsuit seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed and released by the Defendant, infringes multiple patent rights," Nintendo wrote in a brief press release.

It isn't clear exactly what patents Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are accusing Pocketpair of infringing. Many players have previously noted startling similarities between Pokémon and Palworld's creature designs, with some 3D modellers even directly comparing both games' character models and speculating that they were too much alike for it to be a coincidence. Pocketpair has consistently denied all allegations of stealing assets.

However, the fact that Nintendo is bringing Pocketpair to court over patent infringement rather than copyright issues suggests that elements of Pokémon and Palworld's gameplay may come under scrutiny instead. While copyright covers creative design elements like Pikachu's appearance, patents apply to technical innovations such as gameplay mechanics.

It's unlikely Nintendo will argue that only they're allowed to catch fantasy creatures and make them fight, though. While Pokémon popularised the monster-catching genre in the West, it's far from the first game to use such mechanics. Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe previously claimed Palworld drew inspiration from Dragon Quest, a Japanese game series whose monster-catching mechanics predated Pokémon by several years. The introduction of creature recruitment in Dragon Quest V was further preceded by Atlus' Shin Megami Tensei series.

"Nintendo will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights including the Nintendo brand itself, to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years," Nintendo said.

Mashable has reached out to Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, and Pocketpair for comment.

Nintendo is an infamously litigious company, having a long history of taking action against people for creating fanworks, hosting console emulators, and even streaming their games. In 2017 the company filed a lawsuit against Tokyo go-kart business MariCar, successfully claiming that it infringed on Nintendo's copyright by leasing costumes of Mario Kart characters to customers.

MariCar has since rebranded to Street Kart, and displays a prominent disclaimer on its website that it "is in no way a reflection of Nintendo, [or] the game Mario Kart," and "[does] not provide rental of costumes of Mario Series."

Many of these Nintendo-disapproved activities seem relatively harmless, or even expressions of affection for the company's characters. Though considering Nintendo's reputation for child-friendly entertainment, it's unsurprising that the multi-billion dollar company is unenthusiastic about anything that could potentially tarnish it, whether that's go-kart crashes or guns.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max is a "star" as our new battery life champ, lasting more than 25 hours on a single charge. But how does it fare when it comes to a little astrophotography?

I grabbed Apple's most premium current-gen iPhone 16 and stacked it against the recently dropped Pixel 9 Pro XL (Google's best smartphone offering). The question is, which one is the most stellar at taking moon pictures? Let’s see if one truly outshines — or should I say, eclipses — the other in capturing one of the sky’s most breathtaking celestial bodies.

SEE ALSO: iPhone 16 and 16 Plus review: So sweet, you'll go 'cheap' iPhone 16 Pro Max vs. Google Pixel 9 Pro XL: moon capture

Mobile astrophotography experts recommend using a variety of gear to capture the moon at its best, including a tripod to stabilize the device, binocular lenses or a small telescope for a clearer view of the lunar surface, and even paid apps to fine-tune camera settings.

However, I decided to go minimalist and use both the iPhone 16 Pro Max and Google Pixel 9 Pro XL — sans the recommended equipment — to capture photos of the moon. I wanted to see what each can do with their own built-in capabilities, relying solely on their native camera systems and software.

iPhone 16 Pro Max

Let's start with Apple's device. It's got a triple-lens system on the rear, including the 48MP wide camera, 48MP ultrawide sensor, and the 12MP telephoto lens.

iPhone 16 Pro Max Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable

None of those hardware specs matter too much, though, because we'll be relying on the iPhone 16 Pro Max's digital zoom, which leverages the software for zoom capabilities beyond 5x.

And I definitely needed much more than 5x zoom to see the moon in all of its glory. In fact, I zoomed in to the max — 25x to be exact — to capture the waxing gibbous moon on the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

I also adjusted the exposure to tone down the excessive brightness, revealing more of the moon’s surface, craters, and texture for a clearer, more defined shot.

Here's the best shot:

Shot of waxing gibbous moon with iPhone 16 Pro Max Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable

Despite the limitations of smartphone photography, particularly when it comes to the astros, the iPhone 16 Pro Max did OK — I give it a 5.5 out of 10. The image captured some detail of the moon's craters and surface texture, showcasing its natural shadows and contrast.

Unsurprisingly, there's some softness around the moon's edges with the iPhone 16 Pro Max attempting to balance exposure in the darker areas, but overall, it's more defined than I thought it'd be.

There were worse captures, though. Check out some of my fails below.

Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable Google Pixel 9 Pro XL

I expected the Pixel 9 Pro XL — packed with a 50MP wide camera, a 48MP ultrawide lens, and a 48MP telephoto sensor — to excel during this test because it blew us away when we tested its improved Super Res Zoom, which maxes out at 30x.

However, no matter how much I finagled with the camera settings, I couldn't get much better than this shot:

Shot of the moon with Google Pixel 9 Pro XL Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable

Is this the moon or a fireball zipping through the sky? This is a 4.5 out of 10.

I even tried to use the Pixel 9 Pro XL's Night Sight feature, but that didn't do much to improve the photo.

Moon taken with the Pixel 9 Pro XL's Night Sight Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable

I experimented with the exposure levels and played around with the zoom adjustment to find a "sweet spot," but no dice.

Compared to the iPhone 16 Pro Max, there's a lack of contrast with the night sky appearing to be dark gray. There's a greater halo effect, too, further detracting from the image's sharpness and clarity. The light appears to be too intense, washing out the finer details of the moon.

Perhaps there is a specific setting requirement for moon capture on the Pixel 9 Pro XL to nail that perfect celestial shot — but I wasn't able to discover it during my time with the Google phone.

For "funsies," I also took a picture of the moon with my Galaxy S24 Ultra.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra moon shot Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable

But this shot may be controversial. Why? Samsung has been accused of using AI trickery to make moon shots look better than they truly are. The Korea-based company, however, denies these claims.

Which moon shot was your favorite? Let us know in the comments below.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max is available for pre-order now for $1,199.

The Life of Chuck is a perfect marriage of Mike Flanagan and Stephen King's talents, but not in the way you might expect. 

Both are living legends of horror, with the former creating a bevy of absolutely haunting miniseries for Netflix, including The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, and The Fall of the House of Usher, while the latter is a prolific, best-selling author whose horrific work has spawned such iconic scary movies as The Shining, It, and Carrie. This is Flanagan's third King adaptation, having tackled the kinky and nightmarish Gerald's Game for Netflix in 2017 and The Shining sequel, Doctor Sleep. Despite their shared taste for the scary stuff, their latest collaboration has much more in common with mainstream King adaptations like Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption than any of the above gems.

The star-studded cast includes Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tom Hiddleston, Matthew Lillard, and David Dastmalchian as well as previous Flanagan collaborators like Karen Gillan (Oculus), Mark Hamill (Fall of the House of Usher), Rahul Kohli (Midnight Mass), Samantha Sloyan (Fall of the House of Usher), Jacob Tremblay (Doctor Sleep), and Kate Siegel (Hush). This dazzling ensemble tells a profound yet joyous tale of life and death, but not to worry — there's a bit of spooky stuff in here too. 

What's The Life of Chuck about? 

For those who haven't read King's novella, this movie's story is a mystery for much of its runtime. That's a thrill so rare I won't be ruining the fun with spoilers. So, let's say this: The Life of Chuck begins in a world plagued by catastrophe. Earthquakes are sloshing off chunks of California into the Pacific. Rampant absenteeism has shattered the reliability of society. And the internet is down, even PornHub. 

Incredibly, Flanagan's adapted screenplay paints a world that feels both terrifyingly familiar to our own, yet also speckled with humor. For instance, Dastmalchian, a character actor who is a gift to the horror genre, pops up to deliver a heart-breaking monologue that's gently studded with a great, humane punchline. The witness to these waves of pain and resilient pleasure is Marty Anderson (Ejiofor), a grade-school teacher who is desperately trying to make sense of this new (lack of) order, but is distracted by the widespread advertisement that is the movie's central mystery. 

Charles "Chuck" Krantz (Hiddleston) stares out from billboards and TV commercials, a thin smile on his face. Next to him is a chipper message thanking this seeming pencil-pusher for 39 great years. It seems to be a retirement ad. But why, as the stars themselves begin to flicker out of existence, does Chuck's face appear in suburban windows in a terrible green glow? Flanagan won't answer this swiftly. Instead, he'll unfurl the life of this mysterious ad man in the two following acts. And in this, he and King explore grief with a defiant joy. 

The Life of Chuck is about life in the face of death. 

In the film's opening act, Ejiofor and a cast of characters, including Gillan as his ex-wife, seek meaning and solace in a world ravaged by loss. There's a grim but beautiful sense of community in this shared agony. The latter acts look to the moments before such loss — the day you had a fateful meeting with a stranger; a school dance that changed your heart forever; the childhood curiosity whose impact wouldn't fully hit 'til years later. 

It's a foolhardy endeavor to try to capture a whole life in one movie; look to so many dull and stodgy biopics as evidence. And yet Flanagan manages it by creating a throughline in these moments of meaning. What were the moments that made Chuck's 39 years great? A thread that leads, in one direction, to the end of the world is followed back to a beguiling dance number, in which Hiddleston wows with a buoyant showmanship. This follows back to a childhood tragedy that connects to a moment of grandmotherly bonding, to an after-school activity, and the kind of epic defining moment of hard-won self-assurance that glows bright even decades later. 

Where some films struggle to slip through time to gesture to a complete story (We Live in Time), The Life of Chuck is elegant in its dance from now to then and way back when. The story is rife with tragedy, including natural disasters, death, and even social anxiety. But it's balanced by the undeniable beauty of unexpected human connections through art and conversation. It's a story that weaves about in such an unconventional way that Flanagan demands the audience's trust and patience. But the payoff is wondrous, delivering the kind of soul-emboldening emotional catharsis of King's most heart-felt films, like Stand By Me, The Green Mile, and The Shawshank Redemption. Undoubtedly, The Life of Chuck is not just one of Flanagan's best films yet, but also one of the best adaptations of King's work as well. 

The cast of The Life of Chuck is beyond radiant. 

Ejiofor shoulders the first act with eyes alive with curiosity, hope, and fear. Gillan brings a self-assured grit that grounds this dying world. With a gruff voice and a haunted tone, Hamill plays a grandfather instantly familiar as he is both loving and lost. Dastmalchian, Lillard, and Siegel deliver brief but stirring monologues that hit to the core. Sloyan, who was chilly in Usher, is divinely warm here as a grade-school gym teacher. Hiddleston shines as a common man with an extraordinary life, while Cody Flanagan and Jacob Tremblay do a superb job of playing Chuck's younger selves, mimicking Hiddleston's physicality while carving out their own magical moments. 

SEE ALSO: Mark Hamill posts gleeful pic of himself sat next to Stephen King, gets a wholesome response

It's incredible. This is a movie that contains so much that it just shouldn't work. It's easy to imagine an iteration that fell too hard into the darkness, or depended too intensely on treacly sentimentality, or relied on its dashing star power to gloss over some underwritten turns. But The Life of Chuck is masterfully told. Like King's most moving adaptations, it doesn't play by standard rules of structure or audience expectations. It demands we follow the winding road through playful dialogue, painful lows, and rollicking highs, to an unknown beyond. It's surprising and upsetting, funny and profound. I laughed hard, cried 'til my eyes ached, and once gasped so loud that I heard it echo across a theater struck silent by a moment both shocking and tender. 

As I write this, The Life of Chuck has no distributor, meaning we don't know if or when it might come to a theater near you. But following a rousing world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, which I attended, this awesome adaptation won the People's Choice Award. While it seems certain it will be bought, here's hoping that acquisition will lead to a theatrical release. There are some movies that really deserve to be seen in a big theater, surrounded by people — a community – tied to each other in the heady experience of cinematic art, and The Life of Chuck is one of them. It is glorious. 

The Life of Chuck was reviewed out of the world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.

"Hinge, Tinder…and Feeld." That's the answer I've heard again and again from my single friends when I ask what dating apps they're on — and it's surprising. Has Feeld, the dating app where you can toggle between Shibari enthusiasts, a polycule looking to add a fourth or fifth, and a Burner well-versed in Tantric sex, become the new dating app du jour?  

I joined Feeld in 2017, when it was a far smaller and more self-selecting community. As someone seeking casual sex with people who were comfortable talking about it, the app was a godsend. I told all my friends about it, but most recoiled as soon as I said "kinky," so I'd accepted it as an "if you know you know" app; a place where, as Tinashe sings, I could find someone to match my freak. 

SEE ALSO: People are using AI to date you

In the past few years, the app's public profile has risen — from articles in The New Yorker and the New York Times to TikTokkers singing its praises. And since 2022, Feeld has seen an average user growth of 30 percent each year according to Fast Company, and confirmed by a spokesperson for the app. Today, in-between hearing my friends gush about Feeld and swiping past frat boy look-alikes claiming they're "on here to see what it's all about hahah," it seems that Feeld has gone from niche to mainstream. This may have less to do with more people exploring non-monogamy or kinks, and more to do with being fed up with traditional dating apps. With vanilla people infiltrating Feeld, there's a concern that new users are on there not for sexual exploration — but to find an easy hookup. 

Feeld was a breath of fresh air

Emily, 28, who asked to go by her first name for privacy reasons, joined in March 2023. She was interested in exploring kink, but mostly, she was getting tired of the "vanilla and boring" guys she met on Hinge, who were bad in bed and flaky communicators. Feeld was a breath of fresh air. The men on the app weren't just kinky — they were honest, communicative, and kind. 

"It was so refreshing to [talk] with people in a way that was sexual, but not transactional…it was based in understanding and respect and communication," Emily said. There was no expectation of sex when she went on dates with men from Feeld, but if they did decide to sleep together, the sex was great. 

The experience was transformative for Emily. After so many bad dates, she'd accepted that every man had internalized toxic masculinity that they couldn't shake. But Feeld actually healed her relationship with men. She said, "Feeld showed me that there are men out there who can exist in a way that is fully rooted in equity and respect."

Lena, 28, who asked to go by a pseudonym, found Feeld to be a welcome break from other dating apps, too. Lena's ex-boyfriend hadn't been comfortable discussing sex with her, and after they broke up, she was set on finding that quality in a partner. Everyone she spoke to on Feeld was "super straightforward and communicative…and I think them being super open made it easier for me to be open." She liked how her Feeld matches would ask what she was looking for within the first few messages. It cleared up expectations from the get-go. This was a shift from Hinge, where those conversations happened on the first or second date. Her Feeld matches were also way more responsive in messaging, whereas on Hinge, the conversation often stalled out. 

It's obvious from online discourse that dating is not going well right now: People, primarily women, are complaining that men are noncommittal, dates feel transactional, and sex is disappointing. So hearing about Lena and Emily's experiences, it makes sense why so many women are drawn to this app — a place where expectations are clear, people are honest, and sex is good. It's the same reason why I got on Feeld so long ago. I wanted sex — good sex, sex with people who were comfortable saying what they wanted, who were curious about what I was into, who understood consent, and valued comfort and communication above all else. 

There's nothing objectively kinky about that desire. People should be able to have those conversations on "vanilla" dating apps, but that's not the case. Sam Cat, a queer and polyamorous sex educator said, "I don't know if a mainstream audience is looking for that level of sexual openness by default." (Disclosure: Sam Cat created content for Feeld previously.) 

"I think everybody should do this work, but it is a lot of work," Cat said, referring to the work of dismantling the ideas around compulsory monogamy and sexual shame. "And for a lot of people, if you're not looking for an alternative form of relationship, there's not a huge incentive to do that work. I [understand] wanting to bring a sex positive kind of openness to a mainstream dating app, but it really comes from the users, not necessarily from the app itself."

And that's the issue hitting Feeld right now. 

Judgments and assumptions hit Feeld

A crop of new Feeld users are misinformed about the nature of the app, and are bringing their misogyny and sexual judgments with them. A few months ago, I matched with a guy who pestered me with questions about non-monogamy (my partner and I are open and our profiles are linked on the app). At first, they were sure my boyfriend would "beat them up" if we ever met. Then they decided my boyfriend had to be a cuck, right? I didn't want to engage with someone who was so ill-informed and closed off to ideas around non-monogamy, so I stopped responding. Then he called me a "pretentious c***." 

I'd expect this behavior from someone on Hinge, or Bumble, but not on Feeld. This app was designed for users like me. And it was now being infiltrated by the same judgments I'd sought to escape. Why was someone like that even on Feeld? 

A representative from Feeld told me that "55 to 60 percent of new Members share that they are into kink, enm [ethical non-monogamy], poly, threesomes, etc." According to Feeld's own research with Kinsey Institute fellow Dr. Justin Lehmiller, however, younger people are actually fantasizing about monogamy (81 percent of Gen Z have, while 44 percent do so often). Still, despite this romanticizing of traditional relationship styles, Gen Z seems to be pretty kinky, too: 56 percent of Gen Z reported having BDSM fantasies, while 55 percent of Gen Z Feeld users said they discovered a new kink since getting on the app.

Regardless of the fantasy, Feeld is a place where many people, like the women I spoke to, can be open and honest about sex. But somehow, in-between expressing how much they love the honesty and communication on the app, the message has been distorted. To some, the takeaway isn't that Feeld is a place for open-minded individuals curious about kink or polyamory — it's the spot to find a quick one-night stand. Emily told a male friend she was on the app, and he said, "That's the really easy hookup app for horny people, right?" 

This app was designed for users like me. And it was now being infiltrated by the same judgments I'd sought to escape.

Eli, 29, who also asked to go by a different name, is on the app to explore kinks and non-monogamy. But when he tells his friends about Feeld, he can see that they don't quite get the memo. "Their ears perk up…[and] I definitely think a few of them had the intention to [use the app to] easily sleep with people." 

It's not hard to spot users who think like this. They're mostly straight cis men who wouldn't look out of place in a frat house. They don't have any bio, and their only listed desires are: "fun" "casual" "fwb" (friends with benefits) and "ffm" (female-female-male threesome). (How kinky! A threesome with one straight guy and two women!) 

But perhaps most worrying is the sexual expectations they bring. Emily matched with a guy on Feeld who was more vanilla than her usual type, but she enjoyed chatting with him, so they set up a date. Immediately after making plans, he pressured her for nudes. She said no and he continued to press, and once she finally told him, "No means no," he replied, "Well, why are you even on this app?" Emily told me, with many of these users, "There's this expectation that, 'You better f*** me tonight because, the fact that we matched on this app, to me, is like a blanket consent agreement.'" 

SEE ALSO: Is sexting right away on a dating app a red flag?

The male entitlement that many women had tried to escape by downloading Feeld has now infiltrated the app. I've always valued my matches on Feeld more than those on any other app, and I was far more likely to talk to a Feeld match. Being on Feeld had been a sign that a person was open-minded, sexually comfortable, and respectful. I trusted that we had more aligned values. But with this influx of new users, being on the app isn't the same vote of confidence it once was.      

Keeping Feeld kinky and open

When asked to comment generally for this article, Feeld's global head of communications Ashley Dos Santos said, "We're very thoughtful about how we grow the platform to educate our Members about our Safety and Community guidelines, which we evolve regularly based on their feedback. This approach empowers our community to navigate their unique journeys of self discovery with a level of honesty and transparency that's hard to find elsewhere." 

I want Feeld to remain a place where people can discover more about themselves, sexually. I want it to be a space for people who are open-minded and communicative. But I also need new users to understand who the app is for, and to respect the ethos of it before downloading it. 

I asked Cat if they had any advice for new users entering this space. "I don't know that there's any way around the awkwardness of being a beginner, [but] as long as you have humility and willingness to learn alongside people who've been doing it, rather than bringing the entitlement and unpacked assumptions," it'll be okay. 

Cat has several books they recommend, including Polysecure and The Ethical Slut. They admitted, however, that even though "upfront education is helpful so you have a little bit of perspective into the world…unfortunately, some of it is going to be trial and error." 

Feeld still has the power to be a transformative place. Emily knows her life wouldn't be the same if she hadn't joined Feeld. It was through the app that she connected with a sex-positive offline community, and had her first experience with a woman. Since then, she's been dating women consistently. "Without Feeld, I'd still be saying I'm the straightest person alive." 

This column reflects the opinion of the author.

The internet loves cute animals. (Shocking, I know.) But more than a fact of life, it's practically a pillar supporting the weight of the online world's entire infrastructure.

Some of the earliest internet moments — Keyboard Cat, for instance — centered on critters. And that hasn't changed, even as the internet grew infinitely more complex and vast. The online world today is hardly what it was in 2020, let alone what it was in its infancy. Yet, all this time, cute animals have been a staple of killing time online.

Enter Moo Deng, the wildly cute baby hippo that has gone viral over the past week. She is a shiny, rotund, two-month-old female pygmy hippopotamus at Thailand's Khao Kheow Open Zoo. Everywhere you look, people post about her. Interestingly, it's not only the kind of cringe, doggo-core adoration you'd expect from millennials with a mortgage. You might catch some of the more jaded, chronically online posters in your life posting about Moo Deng.

SEE ALSO: The internet has fallen in love with baby hippo Moo Deng Tweet may have been deleted Tweet may have been deleted Tweet may have been deleted

So...why? Why is everyone posting about Moo Deng? First and foremost — and let this be imminently clear — because she is really freaking cute. That little rolly-polly face is wonderfully squishable. She is often seen screeching and bouncing around like a tusked Roomba. Moo Deng is, effectively, an exotic, somewhat slimy English bulldog. What is there not to love about that?

The Washington Post noted that studies have shown that particularly cute animals have the sort of "baby schema" — physical baby-like features — that trigger our evolutionary urge to provide care. Moo Deng's big eyes and skin rolls make us go into parent mode — even if she's a pygmy hippo.

"When we see these infantile features — those big eyes, large foreheads, small chins, and pudgy bodies — we interpret that as helplessness and as dependency, and it motivates us to care for them,” Daniel Kruger, a research scientist in evolutionary psychology at the University of Michigan and the State University of New York at Buffalo, told the Post.

But there's more than just that going on. We're not even seeing these animals in person, yet we constantly grant these creatures celebrity status. Think: Grumpy Cat, Doug the Pug, Marnie the Dog. Hell, there's even the previously mega-viral hippo Fiona at the Cincinnati Zoo. What drives us to make these animals so popular?

We see open-mouthed, blurry snaps of Moo Deng, and we get to make her a mischievous, cherubic little character.

For one, animals are not going to let you down like, well, most other internet celebrities. In the cycle of virality for people, there's typically the moment where they get Milkshake Ducked, which is a meme that's become shorthand for discovering the often offensive or unpleasant past of a newly viral celeb. It stems from a Twitter joke from @pixelatedboat where a viral duck that drinks milkshakes has its racist past uncovered. The joke works because a viral animal is the only viral star to which this cannot happen.

Tweet may have been deleted

It's OK to stan a silly little hippo because a silly little hippo is never going to make a hard rightwing turn or have its unsavory Reddit account uncovered. In some ways, a cute little creature is a blank slate. We get to anthropomorphize a personality unto them as a collective. We see open-mouthed, blurry snaps of Moo Deng, and we get to make her a mischievous, cherubic little character. In the absence of, you know, animals being able to express themselves, we do it for them. It's sort of what we do with our own pets. Together, we make an adorable creation.

That's part of the appeal as well. Everyone loves animals—Republicans, Democrats, Robert Kennedy voters (well, maybe not that last one). In a time when even the most popular recording artist alive sparks division, it's nice to have something we can all agree on online.

That's quite a lot to rest on Moo Deng's little shoulders. Though she doesn't seem to mind.

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There are funhouse mirrors in space.

Objects in the universe can be so massive — often clusters of galaxies — that they warp the cosmos, like a bowling ball sitting on a mattress. This creates a curved cosmic lens, bending and distorting light, while also magnifying and brightening the light. It's an invaluable natural telescope for astronomers, and researchers have recently discovered an extremely potent such lens (also called a "gravitational lens").

From our view on Earth, it's a rare alignment of galaxies. There's a foreground cluster of galaxies (the lens) located some 5 billion light-years away, and behind that, there's an impressive line of seven galaxies.

"This is an amazingly lucky ‘galactic line-up’ – a chance alignment of multiple galaxies across a line-of-sight spanning most of the observable universe," David Schlegel, an astrophysicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab who coauthored the research, said in a statement. "Finding one such alignment is a needle in the haystack. Finding all of these is like 8 needles precisely lined up inside that haystack."

SEE ALSO: NASA scientist viewed first Voyager images. What he saw gave him chills.

The research recently published in the peer-reviewed journal The Astrophysical Journal. This unusual, warped cluster makes impossible deep space observations a reality. "By virtue of its ability to drastically magnify background sources, strong lensing allows for significantly deeper and further observations than otherwise possible," the researchers wrote.

The cluster is labeled below. Here's what you're seeing:

- The cosmic lens: The most massive four galaxies in this weighty foreground cluster, 5 billion light-years away, are labeled "La, Lb, Lc, and Ld." For reference, a single light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles.

- Magnified galaxies: These distant galaxies, located between 7.6 to 12 billion light-years away (that's quite far; the oldest light in the galaxy is some 13.8 billion years old), are labeled 1 through 7. But they appear numerous times, as they're warped around the lens. Each repeated appearance is given a letter.

- Giant Einstein Cross: "Of particular interest is the discovery of an Einstein Cross – the largest known to date – shown in galaxy number 4’s multiple appearances (indicated by 4a, 4b, 4c, and 4d)," the lab wrote. "This rare configuration of multiple images around the center of the lens is an indication of the symmetrical distribution of the lens’ mass (dominated by invisible dark matter) and plays a key role in the lens-modeling process."

The labeled cosmic lens, showing the foreground galactic cluster and distorted seven galaxies. Credit: William Sheu (UCLA) / Hubble Space Telescope

It's been dubbed the "Carousel Lens," because the background galaxies form circular structures around the center, similar to a carousel. It wasn't easy to find. Observations from multiple telescopes and observatories, such as the NASA Hubble Space Telescope and The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), helped locate the lens and confirm its magnifying abilities.

"Clearly, there is much more to be learned from this system," the researchers wrote. "The coincidental alignment of seven galaxies and a foreground galaxy cluster can give us unprecedented insight into the Universe, whether it be high-redshift galaxies, cluster properties, or cosmology."