How Serena Williams Is Dealing With Peak Quarantine Boredom

She's pioneered vegan cooking with a southern twist.

Fat Belly Bella isn't here for the outrage.

Hello Internet! In This Episode: Erin and Weer’d discuss the increasing desperation of anti-gunners as they react to mass firearm purchases by Americans of all walks of life; Weer’d fisks a stand-up routine by Steve Hofstetter; David tells us how … Continue reading →

More than 155,000 people born in countries such as Somalia, Bhutan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, India, and Mexico now call Columbus home. Their struggles are many, from employment to language to education and mental health. All of that has been exacerbated by COVID-19.

Ohioans bought 1.36 million gallons of liquor in March, a nearly 25 percent increase over the same period last year. More of us are leaning on alcohol to beat quarantine doldrums and stress, but experts warn that extended overindulging could make it harder to put down the bottle when the lockdown is lifted.

The restaurant industry has lost $80 billion dollars during the pandemic. May 15 is the date restaurants in Ohio want to reopen , yet Gov. Mike Dewine has yet to say when that can happen.

A University at Buffalo-led research team is studying the details of how enzymes perform their job. The focus of the project is on understanding the molecular interactions that enable enzymes to accelerate chemical reactions.

This seems to be something of a thing. Our last "Tales From the Quarantine" post focused on how television celebrities had taken to offering people help on Twitter with their virtual home decor in the latest Animal Crossing game. This post also involves Animal Crossing, but in a much more direct way. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there are enormous numbers of people who have suddenly found themselves without jobs or regular income. And, so, they've turned to irregular sources of income instead.

Ars Technica has an interesting interview with one of many people who have taken to the internet to indirectly sell Animal Crossing's "bells", the currency of the game.

In the midst of COVID-19, some New Horizons players are turning to World of Warcraft-style gold farming methods to make ends meet. In early April, Lexy, a 23-year-old recent college grad, created a Twitter account offering up bells (Animal Crossing’s in-game currency) for real-world cash (she requested we refer to her by a nickname to avoid potential reprisal from Nintendo). “I got laid off due to COVID so I'm farming bells in ACNH,” she wrote. “I really need to make rent this month so I'm selling 2 mil bells per $5, please message me if interested, I'll give you a discount the more you buy.”

Before setting up this unorthodox income stream, Lexy had been working at a supermarket while developing her animation portfolio. She began exploring the idea of turning bells into cash after showing friends just how much in-game income she’d been making. “One of them asked to legitimately buy some for me,” she recalled in a Twitter interview. “I did some research and found some people selling bells on sites such as eBay, but for pretty ridiculous prices.” (Current prices on eBay seem more competitive, with some sellers offering rare gold tools and gold nuggets to sweeten the deal).

The threat from Nintendo is probably real. After all, unlike some other games where people do this sort of thing, Nintendo's game doesn't include any method for selling in-game resources for real currency. Nintendo is also notoriously prudish about things like this. And, finally, to make an effective go at this sort of thing, it takes some manipulation of the console in a way that is somewhat controversial with gamers generally.

Understandably, Lexy adjusts the clock on her Nintendo Switch to speed up the game’s slow, “natural” money-making cycle of harvesting daily fruit, digging up bells from the ground, and planting a daily “money tree” that can yield big profits. This kind of in-game “time traveling” is controversial practice among casual Animal Crossing players, but it's a practical necessity to maximize real-world bell-farming profits.

As for how much money people like Lexy are bringing in, it's in the four figures, but she wasn't any more specific than that. Payments are made through digital apps like PayPal, after which she visits the game islands of others and deposits the bells.

That all of this is going on during a global pandemic that has some folks farming bells to make ends meet and others with apparently enough disposable income to be buyers is all, of course, deeply strange. But it's also just yet another way technology is having an impact on our lives during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Interior decoration is a tremendously crucial element of any kind of dining establishment. If you are in the planning stages of opening up a dining establishment, if you already own one and also are thinking about making adjustments, you will… Continue Reading →

At Let Grow, a wise mom named Kate Sundquist admits that while her kids were already good at playing, they certainly weren’t good at filling hours and hours of free time, playing by themselves. (Read the piece here.) So she her and boys created a schedule. “While these routines might seem restrictive or even the […]

At least for some kids, yes, being flung from the stress of a super-structured, super-supervised existence is having a calming, life-expanding effect. I discuss this amazing phenom in this Big Think article, including six short essays by kids themselves, and also in this interview with Bored Panda,  the  pop culture site, where I note that […]

Platform: Flash — The battle was finally lost. You are the only knight who survived - you don't know why and feel deep sadness and maybe guilt. While brooding over misfortune you recall your king's last words: "You must go on! Rescue my... Tagged as: armorgames, browser, flash, fractalsunrise, free, game, mouseonly, platformer, playthis, pointandclick, puzzle, rating-g

The publisher is adding videos of their creators entertaining themselves while sheltering in place.

The post SHUT IN THEATER: What are Dynamite creators in quarantine up to? appeared first on The Beat.

IBM's Smarter Cities Challenge program (@CitiesChallenge) will be sending teams of company experts to 16 municipalities around the world through 2016 to help cities with critical issues ranging from jobs creation, transportation, and public safety, to healthcare, revenue, social services, and public works.

IBM today announced that it is extending the annual Smarter Cities Challenge, a worldwide, highly competitive grant program that provides pro bono consulting to help cities improve the critical services they provide to their citizens.

IBM has been recognized as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Solid-State Arrays (SSA) for the fourth year in a row.

IBM has been recognized as a storage software Leader in the 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Center Backup and Recovery Solutions1. In its Magic Quadrants’, Gartner analysts evaluate technology and solutions with an ‘Ability to Execute’ and a ‘Completeness of Vision’.

IBM Security today announced it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. as a Leader for the sixth consecutive year in the Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Mobility Management Suites1 for its ability to execute and completeness of vision.

IBM today announced that for the seventh consecutive year, Gartner, Inc. has named IBM as a leader in the April 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Campaign Management.

IBM fue reconocido como líder de software de almacenamiento en el Cuadrante Mágico de Gartner para Software de Recuperación y Respaldo en Centro de Datos1. En sus “cuadrantes mágicos”, los analistas de Gartner evalúan tecnología y soluciones con la “capacidad de ejecución” y una “visión completa”.

Papel San Francisco garantiza la continuidad de operaciones aprovechando Servicios de IBM

IBM a également annoncé avec le gouvernement américain la mise en place d’un consortium visant à employer le calcul intensif dans la lutte contre la pandémie de Covid-19. Mené par IBM, le « Covid-19 High Performance Computing Consortium » rassemble de nombreux acteurs tels que le Département américain de l’Energie, le MIT, trois laboratoires nationaux de recherche aux Etats-Unis ainsi que diverses entreprises technologiques.

lior Banque annonce aujourd’hui avoir choisi l’application IBM MobileFirst sur iOS pour apporter une transformation fondamentale à la façon dont les clients en Pologne interagissent avec leur banque. A l’aide d’un iPad, les professionnels des services bancaires pourront fournir une expérience plus dynamique et personnalisée aux clients en tirant avantage de la puissance de l’analyse prédictive, et ce de façon sécurisée, facile, rapide et disponible 24h/24.

ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, IBM Scentre Group and Westpac have jointly launched a live pilot for Lygon, a new digital platform using blockchain technology to transform the way businesses obtain and manage bank guarantees that are often required as part of a retail property lease.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that the Gold Coast has been selected as a recipient of an IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grant (#smartercities). The grant will give the Gold Coast City Council the opportunity to work with a team of IBM experts to analyse and recommend ways to improve the city’s public safety disaster response capabilities.

ANZ and Westpac have teamed with IBM (NYSE:IBM) and shopping centre operator Scentre Group and have now successfully digitised the bank guarantee process used for commercial property leasing.

IBM positioned as the Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Center Outsourcing and Hybrid Infrastructure Managed Services, Asia Pacific