James Dolan was accused of sexually assaulting and pressuring a woman into unwanted sex while on tour with his band more than a decade ago.
September 2024
Is star rookie Caitlin Clark ‘dominating’ the WNBA? Sheryl Swoopes doesn’t think so
WNBA legend Sheryl Swoopes, who has drawn scorn from some for her criticism of Caitlin Clark, said this week that the Indiana Fever rookie isn’t ‘dominating’ the WNBA.
AI Junk Is Coming for Your YouTube Feed
AI junk has taken over Facebook, and it’s coming to YouTube next. And, like a homeowner who doesn’t seem to mind that the stranger at their door lacks a reflection, Google is letting it in.
At the company’s Made on YouTube event in New York today, Google announced AI-powered features for creators, including AI-generated video titles, ideas, comment replies, and even full shorts. There are some non-AI additions, too, like a “hype” system that works similarly to a “super like” and is intended to help small creators grow, but the bulk of the updates focus on ways to help creators shunt some of their burden onto robots.
Most notable is Veo, a new video generation model coming to Google’s existing Dream Screen feature. While Dream Screen previously just used AI to generate backgrounds for YouTube Shorts, Veo updates the feature to the point where it can make full videos. In addition to being able to generate whole videos now, Google also promises Dream Screen will make “more realistic backgrounds.”
The catch is that these Veo-generated Shorts can only be six seconds long (for now, at least), so it’ll be a while until AI starts making multi-hour essays. Still, it’s worth being vigilant about what might and might not be real as the platform starts to officially embrace these features. Luckily, YouTube says Veo shorts will be watermarked.
Those hoping AI won’t affect their more long-form viewing can’t breathe easy just yet, though. Through a new “Inspiration” tab in the YouTube Studio app, creators will now be able to view AI-generated video concepts, complete with suggested titles, AI-generated thumbnails, a script outline and a few example lines. It can be hard to keep up with changes to the site’s algorithm, especially when you’re pushed to upload longer videos more frequently—the Inspiration tab could be a way for Google to help creators know what is likely to rank highly, although it doesn’t seem like video made with its help will be watermarked in any way.
AI will also help YouTubers once a video is out, integrating with another new feature—Communities—to help them chat directly with their audiences. While Communities as a whole operates more like a forum and creators will be able to reply manually, AI will also offer creators spotlights that will quickly catch them up on what’s going on in their hub, plus give them suggested replies that YouTube says will be a “starting point” when discussing with viewers. Again, AI-generated replies don’t seem to have any markers on them.
Both of these features, while time-saving, present potential risks to the “You” in the “Tube,” especially when it comes to the authenticity that so many YouTubers sell themselves on. Beyond being worried that replies from your favorite creator might have just been drafted by a robot, there’s also the possibility that as the algorithm uses AI to suggest video concepts to creators, it will end up simply training itself once those videos do well, creating a sort of feedback loop of robots teaching robots, and limiting what types of videos creators can make while still getting enough views to stay afloat.
There are accessibility benefits to YouTube’s new AI integrations. The company also showed off a new auto dubbing feature, which creators can turn on to have AI translate and dub their videos in a foreign language. This will help them reach a wider audience, although it’s unclear what the quality of the translation and voice work will be like. If it’s anything like YouTube’s automatic captions, it might not work for every topic. Still, Google’s Gemini Live voices do a decent job of sounding natural.
While more people are reporting that they’ve gotten access to some user-side YouTube AI, today’s announcements were all about creators. That means it’s going to be up to viewers to be more discerning about how much human involvement is in their content. The days of laughing at grandma for getting fooled by obvious AI art are in the past—zoomers and gen alpha need to be ready for it to come to their platforms of choice, and more subtly. While not everyone is against AI content as a rule, because of the speed with which it can be created, there’s still a risk in inviting it to any social media site, in that it can quickly overwhelm all other types of posts. Ignoring it could quickly lead to a useless home feed.
YouTube, of course, isn’t unaware of the risks of letting AI enter its feeds, and parent company Google is developing tools to make it more transparent when AI has been used. These new AI features will roll out slowly starting later this year or early next year, presumably after a lot of testing, and perhaps after the site has hung up a few garlic wreaths, just to be safe.
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How to Keep Your Gym Gear From Stinking
Does your gym bag reek? You’re not alone, but it also doesn’t have to be this way. With proper care, you can keep your workout gear stink-free. Just do yourself a favor and start taking care of everything before it starts to smell. (But even if you’ve already let things get bad, we have tips for you.)
I’ll get into specifics below, but it helps to understand some general principles. Gym clothes reek for a reason. It’s not the sweat by itself, but the bacteria that feed on your sweat. So you’ll need to either get rid of the sweat before the bacteria can grow, or handle your clothes and gear in a way that the bacteria won’t be able to grow. (It’s the same deal with shaker bottles, except substitute food residue for sweat.) If you take nothing else away from this article, just remember this: for the love of God, air your shit out.
Rinse your gym clothes as soon as you take them off
A lot of gym clothes these days are made of synthetic fabrics because they provide stretch or sweat-wicking features to keep us comfortable. The downside is that bacteria can cling to synthetic fibers in a way that makes them nearly impossible to wash off. So it’s important that we don’t let those germ colonies grow in the first place.
The bacteria I’m talking about are the ones that digest your sweat and skin oils. I know, gross. But that means it’s not the sweat itself that causes stinking, but rather the bacteria that multiply while your sweaty shirt is sitting in the laundry basket.
Nip this problem in the bud by rinsing the sweat out of synthetics as soon as you take them off. I do this in the shower, squeezing out each garment and hanging it to dry. A set of extra shower curtain hooks will give you a place to hang them, especially if you install a second rod just for hang-drying clothes. If you shower at the gym, squeeze those garments out and roll them up in your towel until you get home.
Cotton clothes don’t have this problem, by the way. If you wear cotton socks or t-shirts, they can be chucked into the laundry whenever and however you like.
What to do if your clothes already smell bad
You may not be able to completely remove the stink, but you’ll have the best luck with detergents that contain enzymes or that bill themselves as being good for “sport” or “performance” fabrics. I’ve had good experiences with both Hex (a detergent) and Lysol laundry sanitizer (which you add to the rinse, like a fabric softener).
Either of these can also be used for a soak. Soak your gross clothes in a bucket with the Hex or Lysol laundry sanitizer, and then wash as usual.
And for a finishing touch, if you really want to be sure you’ve gotten the stink out, hang the clothes outdoors (or lay them on a surface, like your deck) on a sunny day. Fresh air helps, and sunlight really does kill those stench-producing bacteria.
What not to do
Look, you can try baking soda or vinegar (hopefully not together), but I haven’t found those to help. If you want a chemical answer to your problems, just get a bottle of Hex.
Air out shoes, knee sleeves, and other items that can’t be easily washed
What about things that can’t be quickly rinsed and dried, like your shoes and the gym bag itself? Or, worse, your neoprene knee sleeves?
These items stink up most easily when they stay damp and warm. If you wanted to make a gym bag smell as much as possible, I would tell you to lock it in the trunk of your car and forget about it until the next gym day. So if that’s your habit already, stop it. You need to air those suckers out.
If your bag has a mesh compartment for sweaty gear, make use of it. And if you can tie objects to the outsides of the bag—hanging your shoes by their laces, for example—that will help, too. But ultimately what you really want to do is open up the bag as soon as you get home. I always make sure that if my knee sleeves are deep inside the bag, I bring them up to the top to make sure they can get some air. And my shoes are in a mesh compartment, but if I have an extra minute, I’ll open up that compartment and loosen up the shoes so they get as much air flow as possible.
What to do if it’s already gotten bad
Most of the things in your gym bag can be washed, but check manufacturer’s instructions for the best methods. For example, SBD says to hand wash knee sleeves with soap or a wetsuit detergent, but not to put them in the washing machine or dry them with heat.
Just as with clothes, another good option is to hang or lay out your items in the sunshine and fresh air for a few hours. Sunlight will kill some bacteria, and a good airing-out never hurts.
What not to do
Avoid spraying things down with vinegar (I’ve never found this to be effective), rubbing alcohol (degrades some materials, so check with the manufacturer), or vodka (unnecessarily expensive, just buy rubbing alcohol and then see above about why you might not want to use rubbing alcohol).
Rinse your shaker cup as soon as you finish your shake
Finally, we come to the bane of many a gym bro’s existence, the stinky shaker cup. If you leave residue from your shake in there—especially a milk-based one, like a shake made with whey powder—it can go rancid, and the smells can seep into the plastic where they may never really go away.
To prevent this, rinse your shaker cup immediately after you drink the shake. Don’t tell yourself you’ll do it when you get home, because we all know you won’t. You don’t have to fully wash it at this point, just rinse it out in the bathroom sink. Or do what I do, and chug your shake at home, over the sink, and wash the cup while it’s still in your hand.
What to do if it’s already gotten bad
Your hail-Mary hope is to wash it really well. Use soap and hot water. Soak it for a bit if you like. Scrub all the little nooks and crannies (like where the spout meets its cap) to make sure no residue is left. Air it out to dry for a few days; you can even try the sunlight trick above. But if that doesn’t work, buy a new shaker cup, and treat this one right.
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My Favorite Amazon Deal of the Day: Apple Watch Ultra 2
The Apple Watch Ultra 2, which came out last September, is Apple’s latest and most expensive smartwatch. After Apple’s latest event and the release of the new Apple Watch 10, it was expected the Ultra 2 would drop in price. As is the case with most Apple flagship products, the discounts aren’t massive, but at this price point, anything helps. The GPS + Cellular Apple Watch Ultra 2 is currently $689 (originally $799), the lowest price it has been since its release, according to price-checking tools. The only one available is the one-size-fits-all for wrists measuring 130mm to 210mm.
![Apple Watch Ultra 2 [GPS + Cellular 49mm] Smartwatch with Rugged Titanium Case & Blue Ocean Band One Size. Fitness Tracker, Precision GPS, Action Button, Extra-Long Battery Life, Bright Retina Display](https://i0.wp.com/courriernewstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/hero-image.fill_.size_autoxauto.v1726511251.jpg?w=700&ssl=1)
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is different than the first-generation Apple Watch Ultra and the Apple Watch Series 9. It’s the most premium Apple watch, with the biggest case size (screen), brightest screen (3,000 nits), deepest water resistance of 100 meters, and longest battery life of up to 36 hours.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is packed with fitness-focused features, but even if you aren’t a health nut, it still has a lot of great features for casual users as well. People who want a reliable sleep tracker can learn a lot about their sleep habits with the Ultra 2 as long as they keep it well-charged. There are other features not highlighted on the event like nap detection, a translation app, and a feature for Ultra users only that helps you keep track of your current progress in the gym.
The model currently available for $689 is the cellular version, meaning you have an independent cellular signal on your smartwatch and can leave your phone behind on runs and still listen to music or make calls.