doomed

For months, Ernst & Young’s top leaders characterized their planned breakup of the firm as almost inevitable. All that was left were some adjustments around the edges and votes by partners in dozens of countries.They missed a brewing revolt at the firm’s biggest operation, where EY’s top leader and the architect of the breakup had deep ties. A handful of U.S. partners, prodded by a vocal group of EY retirees, scuttled the deal. EY on Tuesday abandoned its plan to break up the 390,000-person firm into separate…

via 20th Century Studios In a turn of events that was as predictable as it was inevitable, the arrival of James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water on digital and on-demand suspiciously coincided with a renewed belief that the sci-fi sequel was nowhere near as great as everyone compared it to be. While everyone is entitled to their own opinion, claiming that the third highest-grossing release in the history of cinema is a widely unpopular disappointment is roughly 2.3 billion miles wide of the mark, seeing as…

Image via 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios/ Remix by Apeksha Bagchi James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water was a monumental success when it hit the theaters in December 2022 and emerged as one of the biggest box-office earners in the history of Hollywood proving that all the skepticism against it couldn’t dismantle its decided success. But it is now on Disney Plus and many of the criticisms against it are back in full force — whether it is its rather long runtime or how its plot is just a rehash of the…

via Marvel Studios With the Marvel Cinematic Universe dropping a new personality into the canon every other month these days, it’s not just the story possibilities that continue to grow, but also the disheartening realization that not all of those stories will get to be told. Indeed, beyond What If…? and a myriad of fan fiction websites, the passage of time simply won’t allow for all the Marvel team-ups we may desire, which admittedly may happily lead fans to the comics in hopes of scratching that particular…

March has been brutal for TikTok. Last week, the UK joined the US, Canada, and Belgium in banning TikTok on government devices. And FBI director Christopher Wray warned lawmakers that misinformation spread through the app can “divide Americans.” At the start of the month, Senate intelligence chair Mark Warner unveiled a new measure, the Restrict Act, which would enable the US commerce secretary to ban TikTok and any other tech from six “hostile” nations that the US intelligence community deems a national security…

For radioastronomers, the far side of the Moon could be the last unspoilt refuge in the Solar System. Planet Earth — and all the human-made electromagnetic noise it spews out into space — stays permanently below the horizon, so that any radio observatories positioned there would be free to observe the cosmos without interference. But an upcoming boom in lunar exploration could put that at risk. In the next ten years or so, the Moon will be the target of hundreds of orbiters and landers, each of which could create radio…

Astronomers have been tracking a mysterious object near the center of the galaxy for decades, and now a new study has shed light on its identity – and its eventual fate in the coming years, when it will likely be slurped up by the supermassive black hole lurking there.The center of the Milky Way constitutes the most extreme environment in the galaxy. That’s because it’s home to Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), a supermassive black hole containing the mass of about four million Suns. That creates a huge gravitational influence on…

Image via Warner Bros. Discovery DC fans are arguing the merit of James Gunn‘s perilous plan to incorporate video games into the film and television aspects of the franchise. The announcement that the company will produce video game extensions of DCU films and tv series did not go over well with everyone. One fan took to the r/DC_Cinematic subreddit to lament the many ways they find the plan problematic. They reasoned that it’s best to separate video games from films and television narratives, as it allows…

The HomePod is back, but can it last this time? I’m not so sure. Earlier today, Apple announced the return of the HomePod, the large smart speaker that it originally launched in 2018 and eventually discontinued in March 2021. The return of HomePod brings a number of upgrades underneath the hood including changes to the engineering, the number of tweeters, the number of microphones, and a more modern WiFi chip. The new HomePod also comes packed with a temperature and humidity sensor, an accelerometer, an…

An artist’s impression of two black holes that are about to collide.New observations and analysis reveal two Goliath black holes just 750 light-years apart and closing, as they circle each other in the aftermath of a galaxy merger.Astronomers from Flatiron Institute and their colleagues have spotted two ghostly Goliaths en route to a cataclysmic meeting. The newfound pair of supermassive black holes are the closest to colliding ever seen, the astronomers announced on January 9 at an American Astronomical Society meeting…