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Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Nov 4, 2015
November 4, 2015
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Going Geek-dot-com:
Twitter replaced its iconic "favorites" stars with heart-shaped "likes" yesterday. And the Twitterverse freaked out. (As Twitter is wont to do.) The backlash against the hearts is so great that Mashable.com says someone has already made a Google Chrome extension that will bring the stars back to Twitter. The "Fav Forever" extension rolled out on the Chrome Web Store just hours after Twitter made the big change.
Twitter only announced the change yesterday morning. The hearts will also appear on Vine's apps and website. The "Favorites" section on Twitter users' profiles have also been renamed to "Likes." A Twitter spokesperson said the change is meant to "make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use." Their logic: "You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favorite. The heart, in contrast, is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones. The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people. And in our tests, we found that people loved it." (Bartha)Black Friday shopping, etc:
A new report from FatWallet.com finds 44 percent of those in the Northeast region of the U.S. don't like the idea of stores being open for business on Thanksgiving Day. Nationwide, 42 percent of respondents give it the thumbs-down. (Kaye)
Pet Patrol:
A Louisiana veterinarian spent his retirement money on his dog.
Just over two years ago, Dr. PHILLIP DUPONT decided to celebrate his 70th birthday with his 10-year-old Doberman-Catahoula mix, MELVIN. Specifically, he forked out over $100-thousand dollars to have the dog cloned. Dupont hired the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in South Korea to create an exact copy of the pooch. He explains, "I don't have a lot of other hobbies like some of my friends do, but I loved that dog." The cloning worked so well, Dupont actually ended up with two copies of the beloved dog before Melvin eventually passed away from old age.
The same company has produced around 80 cloned dogs for Americans since they started the process back in 2007.
More recently, a Texas-based company named ViaGen has gotten in on the cloning game, charging $50-thousand dollars for dogs and $25-thousand for cats. (Still)Grace notes from Vinny Marino:
It's good to be JAY-Z, and it's also good to be KANYE WEST. TMZ.com got hold of the demands list for each rapper when they are away from home, staying in hotels. For Kanye:
--All the vases in his hotel suites can't be any other shape but cylindrical.
--He has to have mint-flavored dental floss.
--All bathrooms towels have to be black.
--There must be a Genelec 1031a speaker in the room. They stopped making them in 2005.
--o--
For Jay-Z:
--The thermostat has to be set at 71-degrees before he checks in.
--There must be three Mayan tuberose-scented candles lit and working. The candles cost $80-dollars each.
--He has to have his own Ace of Spades champagne in the room, but he can't be charged for the bottles... because he owns the company. (Marino)Losers in Lockup:
All sorts of contraband gets smuggled into prisons like drugs, knives, McMuffins. A British man tried to get all three in a plastic bag to someone on the inside using fishing line. He also included a Kinder surprise egg, a bottle of vodka and a cellphone. KARL JENSEN then strolled away from the drop like nothing ever happened, but didn't realize that he was caught on surveillance video. Now someone has to smuggle things into prison for Karl! (Myers)
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