Mary J. Blige, Cher, Foreigner, A Tribe Called Quest, Kool & The Gang and Ozzy Osbourne have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a class that also includes folk-rockers Dave Matthews Band and singer-guitarist Peter Frampton.

Alexis Korner, John Mayall and Big Mama Thornton earned the Musical Influence Award, while the late Jimmy Buffett, MC5, Dionne Warwick and Norman Whitfield will get the Musical Excellence Award. Pioneering music executive Suzanne de Passe won the Ahmet Ertegun Award.

“Rock ‘n’ roll is an ever-evolving amalgam of sounds that impacts culture and moves generations,” John Sykes, chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, said in a statement. “This diverse group of inductees each broke down musical barriers and influenced countless artists that followed in their footsteps.”




The induction ceremony will be held Oct. 19 at the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland, Ohio. It will stream live on Disney+ with an airing on ABC at a later date and available on Hulu the next day.

Those music acts nominated this year but didn’t make the cut included Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz, the late Sinéad O’Connor, soul-pop singer Sade, Britpoppers Oasis, hip-hop duo Eric B. & Rakim and alt-rockers Jane’s Addiction.

There had been a starry push to get Foreigner — with the hits “Urgent” and Hot Blooded” — into the hall, with Mark Ronson, Jack Black, Slash, Dave Grohl and Paul McCartney all publicly backing the move. Ronson’s stepfather is Mick Jones, Foreigner’s founding member, songwriter and lead guitarist.

Osbourne, who led many parents in the 1980s to clutch their pearls with his devil imagery and sludgy music, goes in as a solo artist, having already been inducted into the hall with metal masters Black Sabbath.


Four of the eight nominees — Cher, Foreigner, Frampton and Kool & the Gang — were on the ballot for the first time.

Cher — the only artist to have a No. 1 song in each of the past six decades — and Blige, with eight multi-platinum albums and nine Grammy Awards, will help boost the number of women in the hall, which critics say is too low.

Artists must have released their first commercial recording at least 25 years before they’re eligible for induction.

Nominees were voted on by more than 1,000 artists, historians and music industry professionals. Fans voted online or in person at the museum, with the top five artists picked by the public making up a “fans’ ballot” that was tallied with the other professional ballots.



Last year, Missy Elliott, Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, Chaka Khan, “Soul Train” creator Don Cornelius, Kate Bush and the late George Michael were some of the artists who got into the hall.

Iowa's Caitlin Clark first 2-time winner of Sullivan Award​

• Associated Press

Apr 23, 2024, 10:25 PM ET


NEW YORK -- Caitlin Clark is still picking up trophies.

The Iowa basketball star, who was recently the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft, won the James E. Sullivan Award for the second straight year Tuesday night.

Clark is the first two-time winner in the award's 94-year history. It goes to the nation's most outstanding athlete at the college or Olympic level. Her high school coach, Kristin Meyer, accepted the award on her behalf at the New York Athletic Club. Clark gave her acceptance speech via Zoom.

Voting by the public, the AAU Sullivan Award committee, AAU board of directors, sports media and previous winners decided the winner.

The other finalists were Olympic wrestler David Taylor, Olympic speed skater Emery Lehman, gymnast Frederick Richard, Texas volleyball player Madisen Skinner and Paralympic swimmer Noah Jaffe.

The award also honors leadership, citizenship, character and sportsmanship on and off the playing field.

"The AAU Sullivan Award is an incredible honor," Clark said via Zoom. "I have been inspired by so many athletes that came before me and I hope I can be that same inspiration for the next generation to follow their dreams."

Clark has been the main driver for the dramatic uptick in women's basketball interest with her mix of deep 3-point shots, flashy thread-the-needle passes and overall court presence. A women's basketball-record 18.9 million viewers watched Iowa's loss to South Carolina in the NCAA title game, and a WNBA-record 2.45 million watched the draft.

Most likely, another 16-14 at best next year. Another mammoth turd.

NW QB in the portal today. There is some smoke that he will end up in Iowa City. Could be a good get.

Lord have mercy...

Ars Technica reports:

The Thermonator, what Throwflame bills as “the first-ever flamethrower-wielding robot dog” is now available for purchase. The price? $9,420. It features a one-hour battery, a 30-foot flame-throwing range, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity for remote control through a smartphone. It also includes a LIDAR sensor for mapping and obstacle avoidance, laser sighting, and first-person view (FPV) navigation through an onboard camera.

Click to expand...

Read the full article. Per the report, the Thermonator is completely legal in 48 states. California limits flamethrowers to a 10-foot range. Only Maryland requires a federal firearms license to own one.

Login to view embedded media

It was an important week for Iowa baseball last week and they answered the bell, sweeping Rutgers to move up in the Big Ten standings. Iowa won the first two games of the season with dominating offense and then Brody Brecht turned in an absolute gem on Sunday, pitching 7.2 innings and striking out a dozen while allowing just a single hit and one unearned run. The Hawkeyes have another important series this week against Nebraska, who are currently 2nd in the conference standings.

Elsewhere, Hawkeye track and field got a big weekend from the Hawkeye throwers, Iowa rowing racked up a suite of wins, and Iowa tennis wrapped up their regular season.

You can follow along with all things Hawkeye Olympic sports here.

It’s Not You. Those ‘I Am Not a Robot’ Tests Are Getting Harder.​

Captchas that aim to distinguish humans from nefarious bots are demanding more brain power; ‘things are going to get even stranger’​

By Katie Deighton

April 22, 2024

Scott Nover was trying to log in to a website on his laptop when he found himself staring at a bizarre portrait of a woodland creature wearing a jacket and vest with flowers and watermelon slices floating about.

“Please click on the raccoon’s bow tie,” came the instruction.

Nover, a freelance journalist, wasn’t dreaming. He had entered the strange new world of Captchas—those annoying computer quizzes cooked up by web security experts to distinguish humans from nefarious bots.

For years, people trying to shop online or log into social-media accounts might be pressed to complete bothersome but largely simple tasks—deciphering words in distorted type, clicking on pictures of buses, adding up numbers. Now those tasks are getting odder and require a few notches more brain power.

“Select two objects that are the same shape.” “Match the number of rocks with the number on the left.” “Click on the one that can NOT live underwater.” “Please click on the red object in front of the object that appears once.”

“I was trying to log in and it gave me this insane-looking fruit, like a [bowl of] fruit that would be sitting on a table, but it’s growing off a tree,” said Mustafa Al-Hassani, 38, a Houston-based game developer. The Captcha asked him to “click each image containing an apple on a tree,” he said. “It looked realistic, but also so wrong—it was like, hurting my brain.”

Game developer Mustafa Al-Hassani was puzzled recently by a fruit-related Captcha. PHOTO: MUSTAFA AL-HASSANI

Captcha is the acronym of Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. It was developed at the turn of millennium as a way to prevent bots from disrupting websites and their databases by pretending to be well-intentioned human users. It places the burden of proof on people by posing challenges that only humans can solve.
Companies used them to protect against bot attacks that can crash their websites and compromise user security. Bots aim to mimic human behavior, but faster—meaning those Taylor Swift concert tickets you were waiting to purchase might get scooped up in less than a second by a tech-savvy scalper.
Early Captchas asked users to type out words rendered in distorted letters that automated programs couldn’t decipher. Before long, users got used to searching for fire hydrants and bridges, and getting irritated when they failed the simple tests.
Advertisement

Eventually they began sounding off in expletive-ridden Reddit posts, in a website called “The Museum of Annoying Experiences,” in rants on TikTok. In 2020, Bedposts, an emo band based in the Netherlands and the U.K., released an album called “songs to get it out of my system.” Track three: “I F—ing Hate Captchas!”
Such frustrations have caught the eye of comedians.

“Is it just me, or have those ‘I am not a robot’ tests started getting harder?” asked British comedian Jack Whitehall in his most recent Netflix special, before launching into an account of how they once tipped him into an existential crisis. “Has anyone had that moment recently where you have failed the I-am-not-a-robot test so many times that you have that moment where you stop and go…Maybe I am a robot?” he said. “I haven’t been able to spot 10 [stop]lights in a row. I’m either a robot or a cyclist!”
The companies and cybersecurity experts who design Captchas have been doing all they can to stay one step ahead of the bad actors figuring out how to crack them. A cottage industry of third-party Captcha-solving firms—essentially, humans hired to solve the puzzles all day—has emerged. More alarmingly, so has technology that can automatically solve the more rudimentary tests, such as identifying photos of motorcycles and reading distorted text.
A Captcha by Arkose Labs, which designs them. PHOTO: ARKOSE LABS
“Software has gotten really good at labeling photos,” said Kevin Gosschalk, the founder and CEO of Arkose Labs, which designs what it calls “fraud and abuse prevention solutions,” including Captchas. “So now enters a new era of Captcha—logic based.”
That shift explains why Captchas have started to both annoy and perplex. Users no longer have to simply identify things. They need to identify things and do something with that information—move a puzzle piece, rotate an object, find the specter of a number hidden in a roomscape.
Compounding this bewilderment is the addition to the mix of generative AI images, which creates new objects difficult for robots to identify but baffles humans who just want to log in.


“Things are going to get even stranger, to be honest, because now you have to do something that’s nonsensical,” Gosschalk said. “Otherwise, large multimodal models will be able to understand.”

Arkose Labs employs a staff of artists, former game designers and cybersecurity experts to craft some of the weirder tasks popping up during logins. Arkose says that even its hardest challenges—presented to users deemed, often erroneously, to present a “high threat”—have a first-time solve rate of 94.6%.
Arkose Labs concluded that this Captcha it developed was too tricky for human users. PHOTO: ARKOSE LABS

Not all of its ideas make the cut. The team once developed a Space Invaders-style game for users to get through, but it was too hard for humans to complete on their first try.
Every Captcha on the internet right now will one day be solvable by a bot, Gosschalk said.

“But the intention isn’t to design something that machines can’t do,” he said. “The intention is to design something that’s really expensive for developers to try and train software to do.”

As for the humans, some are charmed by the new style of Captchas floating around the internet. Alyssa DeHayes, a senior marketing manager, recently was asked to click on a cow’s nose. “It was pretty cute!” she said.

Nover considers the bizarre challenges a welcome change.

“I have such a long history of being frustrated by the traditional ones that I’m happy to see a different kind of prompt,” he said. “I’d rather do that than identify stoplights.”

I see more and more people in the office eating their breakfast right after they get to work

Is this a newer trend?

A number of tough, controversial views that are worth discussing.

Login to view embedded media

Lot of smoke on twitter saying he's taking same position at TAMU. Nothing from Nebraska yet. They just lost their President to OSU, who hired away TAMU's AD to OSU. Now TAMU taking NU's AD.

Login to view embedded media Login to view embedded media Login to view embedded media Login to view embedded media Login to view embedded media

Football: New OC but still the same head coach who has the same worn out playbook. Pre-season has Deacon Hill as No. 1 QB and little obvious upgrade to the offensive line. Little pass protection, fewer holes for running backs.

Men’s Basketball: Projections of bottom or near bottom of the expanded B1G are spot on. Beyond Sandfort there’s no there there. Fran needs to plug holes from the portal but seems incapable of doing so.

Women’s Basketball: The leading scorer and engineer of the offense will be gone. Who picks up the slack. Expect Iowa to compete but slide to the middle of the pack.

Wrestling: Meh.

Baseball: Don’t follow.

So what’s to get excited about, folks?

?

The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel on Friday officially approved the use of helmet communication and sideline tablets in the Football Bowl Subdivision, as well as a two-minute warning.

The changes were proposed by the NCAA’s football rules committee on March 1 and were expected to be approved. Friday’s decisions were the final rubber stamps, coming after a successful trial run by several teams using the technology in bowl games.

Advertisement

Teams will be allowed to have one player on the field with the helmet communication technology, which will be signified by a green dot on the helmet like the NFL, which first used helmet tech in 1994. According to the policy recommendation obtained by The Athletic, teams can bring up to 10 coach-to-player devices to a game, and teams must submit a list of device-eligible players to the conference office no later than the pregame meeting.


GO DEEPER
NCAA rules committee proposes helmet communication, 2-minute warning

A team can use the helmet tech even if the opponent chooses not to use it. Conferences will select their vendor of choice, according to the policy, keeping everyone in a conference with the same company. GSC (which supplies the NFL helmet tech) and CoachComm (which handles coach headsets for most teams) are expected to be the main vendors.

The communication will shut off with 15 seconds left on the play clock or when the ball is snapped, whichever is first. The cutoff operator will be hired, assigned and managed by the conference. If one team’s operations go down, both teams will cease using the communication.

This technology rule change was not a response to Michigan’s sign-stealing scandal, which was revealed after the Big Ten first proposed this rule last summer. This is also not expected to end sideline signals or sign-stealing, especially for up-tempo teams that need to feed a play into wide receivers quickly, but it is a step toward an easier process.

Some coaches have expressed a desire for more communication-eligible players on the field. There were no limits during the bowl trial run, and that in some cases did eliminate signaling. But the rules committee didn’t want to go further than the NFL at this point.

“The intent is to get a little closer to what the NFL has done to allow communication,” Georgia head coach and committee co-chair Kirby Smart said last month. “It’ll allow communication with a quarterback and someone on defense, and we’ll find out where it takes us.”

Advertisement

Sideline tablets​

The panel also approved the use of tablets to view in-game video only for all three football divisions. The video could include the broadcast feed and camera angles from the sideline or end zone, and teams could use up to 18 tablets total. This is slightly different from the NFL, which allows only images on tablets.

The tablets are not allowed to have data or other communication access. DVSport, which handles film for most teams, is expected to be the vendor of choice for most schools.

Several state high school associations have allowed tablets for years, meaning college football is only now catching up.

Two-minute warning​

The addition of a two-minute warning for the second and fourth quarters like the NFL will be the most noticeable change for fans. It will be a fixed point for a media timeout but not a new media timeout. The hope is it will prevent broadcasters from using back-to-back TV timeouts (touchdown, commercial, kickoff, commercial). It will also allow officials to switch to the rule changes that happen in the final two minutes, such as the running clock after first downs and out-of-bounds plays.

“This is not a new or additional timeout,” rules committee co-chair and Big Ten VP of football administration A.J. Edds said last month. “This is a known position that will hopefully alleviate the impression early in the quarters where media partners have taken breaks in consecutive opportunities. This will give them a larger runway over the second and fourth quarters.”

It will also change end-of-game scenarios, making it a little more difficult for a leading team to run out the clock, potentially creating more comeback opportunities.

In the portal today too.

After being introduced in Indianapolis and while an 8 figure deal with Nike is being negotiated and after a weekend in NYC on SNL and being anointed the savior of the WNBA at the draft, Clark returned to Des Moines to work on her degree.

And you thought your life was complicated.

Given the turbulent economy over the past five years, finding a car that lasts longer than 200,000 miles isn’t a matter of pride — it’s a near-necessity. Thankfully, cars last much longer today than they did years ago, but that doesn’t mean that some used cars don’t outperform new models.

As Forbes noted, cars from 1970 averaged about 5.7 years and were grounded near the 100,000 mile mark. Today, the average passenger car age is currently around 12.5 years in the U.S., and many vehicles can last between 200,000 and 300,000 miles. That is, if they’ve been regularly maintained throughout their lifespan.

According to Consumer Reports (CR), “Almost any car can make it to 200,000 miles and beyond if you spend enough money on it. The better strategy is to start with a model that has proven to be safe, scored high in our road tests, has a strong reliability track record, and has been properly maintained.”

If that’s true, then why do only 1% of cars built every year make it past the 200,000 mile mark, according to iSeeCars? Certainly, most vehicles die before they reach 200,000 miles because their owners don’t follow maintenance schedules, but some used models are simply built to last.

CR recently came out with a list of the 12 most problem-free new cars, minivans, pickup trucks and SUVs that are most likely to ride past 200,000 miles. With the exception of the Ford F-150, every entry was a Toyota or Honda.

Some brands are truly reliable, but when it comes to used cars, it’s better to take iSeeCars’ analysis of over two million cars produced for at least 10 of the last 20 model years into account. The 10 models that may outlast the average new vehicle are ranked by their highest mileage-achieving cars.

Toyota Sequoia​

• Potential Lifespan: 296,509 miles

Wherever you look, be it Consumer Reports or iSeeCars studies, you’re going to find Toyota dominating its reliability rankings. Surprisingly, the Sequoia ranks 1st in iSeeCars rankings and is a good bet to exceed 300,000 miles on the odometer.

Toyota Land Cruiser​

• Potential Lifespan: 280,236 miles

300,000 miles is a lot for any car, but the Land Cruiser is known for its durability, and getting a used model with 1000,000 to 200,000 miles on it shouldn’t discourage any potential buyer from buying one.

Chevrolet Suburban​

• Potential Lifespan: 265,732 miles

With the potential of lasting over 265,000 miles, the Suburban is one of the longest-lasting SUVs, more dependable than its rivals the Ford Expedition, Dodge Durango and Jeep Wagoneer.

Toyota Tundra​

• Potential Lifespan: 256,022 miles

Trucks subjected to heavy use are likely to have structural or mechanical problems when they reach high odometer readings, but this consistently good seller for Toyota enjoys a well-deserved reputation for reliability and durability and can rake upward of 250,000 miles easily.

GMC Yukon XL​

• Potential Lifespan: 252,360 miles

Ranking fifth overall in iSeeCars’ rankings of the top cars offering the greatest potential lifespan, the Yukon XL can easily last two decades. Per MotorBiscuit, owners of the the giant SUV have reported problems with in-car electronics, power equipment, and body integrity, but rarely with the engine, transmission and fuel system performance.

Toyota Prius​

• Potential Lifespan: 250,601 miles

When will people learn? Economical and reliable, the Prius is simply the best compact car on the market and their batteries are “almost invincible,” per MotorBiscuit. The far-future might be electric, but the near-future is hybrid. CR ranks the Prius No. 1 among all compact cars for reliability, price and customer satisfaction.

Chevrolet Tahoe​

• Potential Lifespan: 250,338 miles

RepairPal doesn’t rank the Tahoe particularly high in reliability and repair probability (21st out of 26 for midsize SUVs), but the Chevrolet Tahoe is a mileage eater that will outlast many of its competitors when it comes to lifetime miles.

Honda Ridgeline​

• Potential Lifespan: 248,669 miles

“For those who want the practicality of a truck and the performance of a car,” a Ridgeline should last up to 300,000 miles with cautious driving and regular maintenance, said HotCars.

Toyota Avalon​

• Potential Lifespan: 245,710 miles

A used Avalon owner can be assured of at least a decade or more of ownership, said MotorBiscuit. Discontinued in 2022, the durable Avalon consistently ranks as one of the highest-mileage vehicles on the used market.

Toyota Highlander Hybrid​

• Potential Lifespan: 244,994 miles

This three-row, midsize crossover SUV is notoriously dependable. Barring long-term weather damage, you can expect a Highlander Hybrid to last you at least 300,000 miles and cost you around $489 in annual repair cost per year, according to RepairPal.

All three of us did what we could to make sense of the scholarship distribution chart. Iowa has kept all that info super tight to the vest. Not entirely sure how COVID factors in, but as of now, this is what we've got.

TikTok and the idiot minds wandering around have ruined this world

Login to view embedded media

I imagine he was duped, but man... how broke do you have to be to not even look into who you're promoting? And, before you GQP apologists argue that he isn't "prominent", look up the definition.

Someone Paid Santos To Make Cameo Clip For NAMBLA​

April 23, 2024

“Hi NAMBLA, I just wanted to stop by to offer you my full support and that I am here for you if you need anything. I want to congratulate you on your success and on your anniversary this past December. I just wanted you to know that you’re doing a great job and you’re doing great things. The world is a better place because you. We all love you and I love you, NAMBLA. Mwah!” – Former Rep. George Santos in a Cameo video apparently paid for by a troll. Santos is currently suing Jimmy Kimmel for pranking him with far less sinister fake Cameo messages and then running them on his show.

Login to view embedded media