T.C. is Executive Editor at The Verge, where he has obsessed over headlines and internet speeds since 2011. Prior to The Verge, he worked in the nation’s capital as an advocate for the National Park System, which continues to be America’s best idea. (The internet is a close second.) Ethics statement: T.C. is the creator of Quest, a tabletop roleplaying game. As such, he is not involved in any kind of coverage of tabletop games for The Verge. Additionally, he has a personal relationship with an employee of Squarespace; he therefore does not report or edit stories about Squarespace or its competitors.
We all probably know by now that online advertisers track us to some degree of detail. But a new report from The Markup dives deeply into the world of ad targeting, which includes categories so detailed that they can identify specific illnesses, psychological profiles, political beliefs, and even location data.
Back in 2012, the state of Maryland decided to commemorate the War of 1812 with a license plate that displayed a URL. (Once upon a time, I had one of these on my own car.)
Motherboard reports that Maryland no longer controls the URL, and all of those license plates are now linking to an online casino in the Philippines. Oops!
Whenever a new game is released, the race is on to complete it as quickly as possible. As Eurogamer spotted, despite being released less than three weeks ago, Tears of the Kingdom players are already completing the game in under an hour. You can watch the (current) record-setting run below:
If you’re in my neck of the woods, you’ve seen a remarkable uptick in car stickers bearing the words “Salt Life” in an outrageous typeface, propagating across the automotive populace like so many coastal weeds. I’ve been too afraid to ask what it all means, but thankfully the Times is on it.
[The New York Times]
Catholic News Agency reports — based on some prior Reddit sleuthing — that a bunch of Vatican City flags out in the world are wrong because they’re based on a bogus file from Wikimedia Commons.
According to the file history, the fateful edit was made in July, 2017 for purposes of “color correction.”
(The reverted file can be seen below.)
I won’t spoil who turned out to be the #1 boy in the Roy family, but I must credit the EIC of the baby-naming site nameberry.com for predicting it with flair. (Warning: the TikTok contains spoilers.)
When I first watched this clip before the finale I thought the argument and evidence were incredibly compelling — despite my skepticism of anyone predicting the outcome sucessfully. Nonetheless, she crushed it. Well done, Sophie.
As I read through the list of channels offered in Comcast’s new $20 per month “streaming” package I couldn’t help but think of this bit from The Big Short where Anthony Bourdain explains how he repackages stale fish to create a “new” seafood stew.
Soup’s on!
