Amy and I are big supporters of the Media Archaeology Lab (MAL). I love the idea of a computer museum and believe Boulder deserves to have a large one.

We’ve donated our computer collection to it, which includes my original Apple ][, my first portable computer (a Compaq luggable), an Apple III, an Apple Lisa, my original Mac 128K, a MITS Altair 8800b, a NeXTstation, and a bunch of other random stuff. Recently, my dad pitched in and contributed his entire cell phone and PDA collection, which included every cell phone he ever had.

MAL is located on the edge of the CU Boulder campus in a small building that they have outgrown. They have new space coming online in 2022, but until then they are looking for some additional space for both display and assembly purposes.

The display space needs to be near downtown Boulder or walking distance to the CU Boulder campus. This will be an extension of the existing public MAL space and, in the best case scenario, could actually be publicly accessible space. Worst case, it would be reservation-only space. Ideally, this would be anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 square feet.

The assembly space can be further from downtown and can be warehouse style space. MAL currently has over 50% of its existing space consumed with physical equipment that needs to be cleaned, staged, and assembled. One of the magical things about MAL is that all the computers on display are fully functioning, which means there are a lot of mice, keyboards, and disk drives as backup parts for when things inevitably go bad.

While MAL doesn’t have any money to pay for the space, I expect we can arrange things so that the space is a charitable donation.

If you have some extra space, ideas for space, or old computer stuff you’d like to donate, drop me an email.

And, if you want to contribute financially to support MAL, we’ve set up the Anchor Point Fund for MAL (Media Archaeology Lab) at CU Boulder.

A test of the emergency escape system for SpaceX's new spacecraft designed to carry NASA astronauts into orbit went awry on Saturday, and an unverified video making the rounds on Twitter claims to show just how bad the anomaly was.

On Saturday afternoon, SpaceX attempted a static-fire test of the emergency abort system on its new Crew Dragon space capsule, which is intended for use by NASA's Commercial Crew program to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

Saturday's test, however, did not go as planned. According to a statement from SpaceX:

"Earlier today, SpaceX conducted a series of engine tests on a Crew Dragon test vehicle on our test stand at Landing Zone 1 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The initial tests completed successfully but the final test resulted in an anomaly on the test stand.

Ensuring that our systems meet rigorous safety standards and detecting anomalies like this prior to flight are the main reasons why we test. Our teams are investigating and working closely with our NASA partners."

According to Spaceflight Now, the test "sent a reddish-orange plume into the sky visible for miles around," suggesting a fairly serious malfunction of the engine systems.

On Sunday, an unverified video circulated on Twitter claiming to show the results of that test. The video appears to show a large explosion in the capsule several seconds in:

When asked about the video, SpaceX simply pointed to the statement about Saturday's test.

Eric Berger, a senior space editor at Ars Technica, said on Twitter that he understood that the video was legitimate.

When asked if any additional information about the video had been released, he said: "No there has not. But I understand the video is legitimate and it's consistent with accounts I've heard."

Saturday's test followed a successful test flight of an uncrewed Crew Dragon capsule in early March. The vehicle, carrying a human-sized dummy nicknamed "Ripley" and a plush globe-shaped toy that quickly sold out back on Earth, successfully docked with the International Space Station, and safely splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean after its six-day mission, marking a significant milestone in the development of new American human-rated spacecraft.

This post will be updated with any further information on the test from SpaceX.

Being on your phone at work, once the sign of a bad employee, is now the norm.

Text messages are "making deep inroads" in workplaces across America, says Wall Street Journal reporter Te-Ping Chen. Yet messaging your boss can lead to accidental texts like "Love you" or "pumpkinbear."

"While email helps silo work communications, the text inbox is a more blended affair, where notes from friends and family jostle with communiqués from bosses and co-workers," Chen writes.

Besides awkward text exchanges, there are other miscues many employees can make as smartphones become more commonplace at work. For instance, overusing your phone or constantly getting bombarded with notifications can lead to decreased productivity.

"Productivity is often at its apex during a flow state," when a person is fully immersed in an activity, NYC-based psychotherapist Jordana Jacobs told Business Insider.

According to Jacobs, while phones are great for the technology they provide, they also feed into our natural distracted state. Cell phones take us out of the flow state, "which is so fundamental to productivity," she said. "Essentially, we are consistently interrupting our own thought process," she said. To put it simply, our phones "take us away from 'the now,'" she added.

Read more: 15 ways to be more productive and manage your time better, according to career experts

It's probably not plausible for you to get rid of your phone at work completely, but you can still take steps to keep it from getting in the way of your goals.

The first step to being more productive is identifying all the ways our phones keep us from staying focused. Jacobs and Jonathan Alpert, psychotherapist and author of "Be Fearless: Change Your Life in 28 Days," broke down the phone habits that are ruining our productivity:

This article was originally written by Audrey Noble.

The cast of "Mortal Kombat 11" has mostly been revealed; there are only a few characters left unannounced. Confirmed characters include Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, Liu Kang, Jax, Shao Khan, Kano, Erron Black, Cassie Cage, Baraka, Jade, Geras, Kabal, Raiden, Skarlet, Kung Lao, Noob Saibot, and Kotal Khan.

NetherRealm Studios will continue to add to the roster with six downloadable characters during the year. Players can pre-order the season pass to access all six, or purchase them individually.

The first downloadable character will be Shang Tsung, the soul-stealing boss of the original "Mortal Kombat."

Sam Morrison likes to create thought-provoking art.

In high school, he made silk-screen shirts and decks of cards with secret compartments inside. But over the past several years, most of his projects were digital — that is, until he had the idea last year to make physical flip-flops out of President Donald Trump's tweets.

"Take a scroll through Donald Trump's 40,000 tweets, and you're sure to catch some contradicting opinions," Morrison told Business Insider over email. "I wanted to highlight this hypocrisy."

Morrison had a full-time job in the advertising industry at the time, but he got to work on producing his flip-flops. He sourced his own materials and printed and packaged every flip-flop by hand.

After a series of bombings at churches and hotels early Easter Sunday left over 200 dead across Sri Lanka, the country's government has blocked access to social media sites including Facebook and Instagram, according to Sri Lanka's government news site.

According to that report, Sri Lanka's Presidential Secretariat made the decision "as false news reports were spreading through social media."

A tweet from Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe condemning the attacks cautioned residents of the country to "avoid propagating unverified reports and speculation," and a tweet from Sri Lanka's Red Cross debunked social media rumors that their building had been attacked.

Read more: World leaders including Pope Francis, Donald Trump, and Barack Obama offered their support after Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka claimed hundreds of lives

The New York Times reports that, although there is no known specific connection between Sunday's bombings and social media, there have been several incidents in recent years of ethnic violence and social unrest in Sri Lanka stirred up in part by viral misinformation spread on social media and messaging networks like Facebook and WhatsApp.

In March 2018, Sri Lanka temporarily banned access to social media across much of the country amid a wave of violence between the Buddhist and Muslim communities. In that instance, Mano Ganesan, Minister of National Coexistence Dialogue and Official Languages, said that the government was trying to halt "all communal hate speech posts via social media."

An in-depth article at The New York Times explores the ways social media can fan the flames of ethnic and religious tension, sometimes leading to violence. The article describes how a video of a misunderstanding in a Muslim-owned restuarant in which the owner was falsely accused of putting sterilization-causing medication in a customer's food went viral on Facebook, setting off a wave of anti-Muslim violence across the country.

So many awesome movies and TV shows have premiered recently — "Game of Thrones," "Avengers," "Us" — and with everybody and their dog wanting to talk all about them, it's become harder than ever to avoid spoilers.

Sometimes, it seems like all you can do is shun Twitter altogether, until you get the chance to watch what everyone's chatting about.

Luckily, Twitter gives us a solution: muting.

On Twitter, you can choose specific keywords and phrases that you don't want to see in a tweet. Say, for instance, you're worried about being spoiled on "Game of Thrones" — just hop into your settings, mute a few phrases like "Game of Thrones," "#GameOfThrones," or even names like "Daenerys," and "Bran."

In the blink of an eye, any tweet containing those words will disappear from your timeline and notifications. You can still access the tweets if someone gives you the direct link, but they won't show up otherwise.

Ready to block some spoilers? Here's how to mute keywords and phrases on both desktop and the Twitter mobile app.

How to mute keywords on Twitter via desktop

1. While logged into Twitter, click your icon in the top right corner to open a menu. It should be in between the search bar and the "Tweet" button.

Click on your icon. William Antonelli/Business Insider

2. In this menu, click "Settings and privacy."

Click the "Settings and privacy" tab. William Antonelli/Business Insider

3. This will bring you to your account settings page. In the list on the left side of the page, click "Muted words."

The tab for muted words will be in the side menu. William Antonelli/Business Insider

4. The first time you open this page, a small pop-up will appear explaining that "When you mute words, you won't see them in your notifications or timeline." You can click the "Learn more" link to read more about muting, or click "Got It" to start muting keywords on your own.

5. Click "Add."

Click "Add." William Antonelli/Business Insider

6. In the menu that pops up, type the words or phrases you want to mute in the text box offered. You'll also be asked to choose where you want the words to be muted, and for how long. By default, Twitter sets it so you'll never see tweets containing the words on your timeline, and you'll never receive notifications containing the words from people you don't follow.

You can type anything into the box to mute it. William Antonelli/Business Insider

7. Once you've typed in the phrase you want to mute, click "Add," and it will be immediately muted. Repeat this process for every word or phrase you'd like to mute. You'll see a list on the page of all the words you've muted — click the pencil icon to edit them, or the red speaker with a line through it to stop muting them.

You can edit or delete your mutes at any time. William Antonelli/Business Insider

Tweets containing the words or phrases you've blocked won't appear where you've muted them, for as long as you've muted them.

How to mute keywords on the Twitter mobile app

Muting keywords on the Twitter app is a similar process, but involves tapping through a few more screens.

1. Tap your icon in the top left corner of the screen.

Tap your icon. William Antonelli/Business Insider

2. In the side menu that opens, tap "Settings and privacy."

Go into your "Settings and privacy" menu. William Antonelli/Business Insider

3. This is the first of a few menus we'll have to get through. Tap "Content preferences."

There are a few more menus on the Twitter app. William Antonelli/Business Insider

4. Tap "Muted."

5. Tap "Muted words."

6. This will bring you to a page similar to the one on desktop that lists all your currently muted words and phrases. Tap "Add" at the bottom of the screen to mute another word or phrase.

This page will show everything you have muted. William Antonelli/Business Insider

7. Type the word or phrase you'd like to mute into the box at the top of the screen. The rest of the page is filled with options for changing how long you want the mute to last, and where it should apply.

Tap "Learn More" to be taken to a page with info on muting. William Antonelli/Business Insider

8. Tap "Save," and your new mute will take effect.

Tap on the muted words to edit their mute settings. William Antonelli/Business Insider

Average demand expressions: 30,111,573

Description: "DOOM PATROL reimagines one of DC's most beloved groups of Super Heroes: Robotman aka Cliff Steele (BRENDAN FRASER), Negative Man aka Larry Trainor (MATT BOMER), Elasti-Woman aka Rita Farr (APRIL BOWLBY) and Crazy Jane (DIANE GUERRERO), led by modern-day mad scientist Niles Caulder aka The Chief (TIMOTHY DALTON). Each member of the Doom Patrol suffered a horrible accident that gave them superhuman abilities, but also left them scarred and disfigured. Traumatized and downtrodden, the team found their purpose through The Chief, coming together to investigate the weirdest phenomena in existence. Following the mysterious disappearance of The Chief these reluctant heroes will find themselves in a place they never expected to be, called to action by none other than Cyborg (JOIVAN WADE), who comes to them with a mission hard to refuse. Part support group, part Super Hero team, the Doom Patrol is a band of superpowered freaks who fight for a world that wants nothing to do with them."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (Season 1): 94%

What critics said: "With a super strange team like the Doom Patrol, it's different to retell any extent of a character's rise to their superhero occupation, and the risk paid off within the first episode." — Chelsea Jackson, Culturess

Season 2 premiered on DC Universe February 15.

With $15.7 billion in equity funding in its pocket, the San Francisco, California-based ride-hailing company Uber has raised more money than any other tech startup in the country. But California isn't the only state in the union harboring highly-funded tech startups.

Upserve CEO Sheryl Hoskins runs the most highly-funded startup in Rhode Island. Upserve

In this graphic, research firm CB Insights identified the most highly-funded companies in each of the 50 states, plus Washington, D.C. Some of those companies include Florida's Magic Leap, an augmented reality company that's disclosed $2.4 billion in funding, Illinois' Avant, a financial technology company that's raised $655 million, and Georgia's Kabbage, an online lending platform that has raised $490 million.

The list also includes ten different unicorns — companies valued over $1 billion — from Washington, D.C.'s Vox Media to Utah's InsideSales.com.

While hge amounts of equity funding can be found across the country, three of the states didn't have any companies that fit CB Insight's full criteria, which required that companies have raised at least $1 million in equity funding since January 2014. Those states are Alaska, Mississippi, and Wyoming.

Alaska's Resource Data, for instance, has raised $1.59 million in equity funding, but it's raised the sum through multiple small angel rounds.

Read more: These are the most valuable startups in each state

Hello!

The cloud computing wars are heating up.

Thomas Kurian, the new CEO of Google Cloud who came from rival Oracle, already seems to be having an impact, with Googlers and startup execs telling Rosalie Chan that he's making headway three months in to the job.

"Until now, they were losing the war," Solo.io CEO and founder Idit Levine told Chan. "The way Google is playing, they're saying, this is the community company. They're branding themselves better and going multi-cloud."

He's pushing hard to make Kubernetes, one of Google's most popular cloud technologies, even more important to developers. Aparna Sinha, group product manager of Kubernetes and Cloud Services Platform, told Chan that Kubernetes needs to become "ubiquitous."

And the company just made a big hire, bringing in a former SAP executive to try and win bigger customers.

Meanwhile, over at Amazon Web Services, the Aurora database product continues to grow at a rapid rate. Julie Bort talked to Debanjan Saha, the general manager who built and manages Aurora, who said it "feels great" to be taking on Oracle head-to-head in the database market.

Elsewhere, Microsoft just took an important step to take on Amazon for a crucial winner-take-all $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract with the Pentagon. Amazon was once considered a shoo-in to win the JEDI contract but after a lot of protests by the tech industry, Microsoft now has a real shot.

Meanwhile, IBM is preparing to close its $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat, but Wall Street has "real question marks" after its "mediocre" quarter.

Lastly, Business Insider just week published a list of the 100 people transforming business. You'll find interviews with many of those on the list — including NYSE president Stacey Cunningham, Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block, and Burger King CMO Fernando Machado — below.

What would you like this email to include? What have we missed? You can reach me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

—Matt

Quote of the week

"I think this is going to untap the market." — Jonathan Sherman, a partner at the law firm Cassels Brock who worked on Canopy Growth's $3.4 billion purchase of the US marijuana cultivator Acreage Holdings, on the potential for more deals in the marijuana space.

In conversation

Samsung is surely feeling the heat for the issues that some reviewers were having with their Galaxy Fold review units, but I'm not surprised at all that the Galaxy Fold is facing issues — it's a first-generation product from a company that's at the bleeding edge of smartphone design, and I'd argue expectations are a little too high.

It would have been great if the device was flawless. But it shouldn't be surprising that there are issues with the very first smartphone that people can buy that comes with a completely new, unproven design with many more moving parts than a traditional smartphone.

Read more: Samsung's Galaxy Fold is an ambitious but flawed first attempt at what could be the future of smartphones

It's easy to understand why expectations are high. Samsung is marketing the Galaxy Fold the same way its other proven phones are being marketed. And the Galaxy Fold costs just under $2,000, so anyone would expect reliability at that price.

Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

But the Galaxy Fold is nothing like Samsung's long-proven Galaxy S line of smartphones. It's the first generation of something new, which means anyone who buys it now can be classified as an "early adopter."

It's too easy to forget the unwritten rules of early adoption, or that a first-generation device comes with a ton of risks. By nature, early adopters should hope for the best and expect the worst. After all, Samsung isn't going to plaster warnings all over the Galaxy Fold's packaging saying, "For early adopters who accept the risk of early adopting only. Buy at your own risk."

The best way to sell a first-generation device is to ensure that it's reliable. As far as we know, Samsung believed the Galaxy Fold was ready to go. The company said it tested the Galaxy Fold's display durability enough to claim that it'll last up to 200,000 folds and unfolds. There's even a great video showing Galaxy Folds undergoing stress testing:

I don't predict reviewers to recommend anyone buy the Galaxy Fold, not because of the display issues, but because it's a first-generation device.

Popular tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee has already declared that he wouldn't recommend it to most people, even though he thinks the concept is great. The Galaxy Fold costs $2,000 — $1,000 more than most premium smartphones — and I'd be extremely surprised if Samsung "got it right" the first time.

Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

Even if the Galaxy Fold was flawless and received rave reviews, there is no doubt in my mind that early adopters who accept the risks are the only people who should even think about buying the Galaxy Fold.

There's just so much more to come in following generations of foldable smartphones, like better designs, more durable displays, more reasonable price tags, and perhaps an entirely different take on how foldable smartphones should actually fold. No smartphone maker has figured that out yet — Huawei and Motorola, for example, are working on their own foldable smartphones with totally different designs.

Critics are right to point out the flaws in the Galaxy Fold. But we should also be rooting for smartphone makers who are endeavoring into foldable smartphones, and not judging those companies or foldable smartphones based on the very first model that people can buy.

New research from Georgetown University has codified what many Uber drivers have felt for years: it's hard to get ahead when your boss is an algorithm.

Researchers published their study on Thursday, after more than two-years of interviewing 40 drivers in the Washington D.C. area. The results aren't meant to be representative of the thousands of "partners," as Uber calls them, working on the platform worldwide.

Rather, "the data collected and reviewed here is evidence of the structures of work that Uber drivers navigate and the kinds of worker challenges that many face in one of the most visible platform workplaces," the authors said. The anecdotes also corroborate stories told to Business Insider from multiple drivers across the country in recent months.

Among the litany of frustrations with Uber — both with the company and app — expressed by drivers in interviews was one glaring problem: half of the drivers interviewed take home so little per month, less than $2,000 per month, that they fall below the government's definition of poverty.

"Since it has been operating in Washington, D.C., Uber has reduced its base rate for drivers several times, added a rider safety fee (and then increased it, calling it a booking fee), and raised the commission it takes from new drivers," the study said. "These changes, which are built into the heart of the Uber platform, seem to have a point: to keep Uber drivers on the road and in the dark. "

To its credit, Uber does have options available for drivers when the unexpected, like a flat tire or car crash happens, but even those can sometimes cause more harm than good. The researchers compared the practices to coal mining company's "company towns" of centuries past. Here's one anecdote, emphasis ours:

One 48-year old driver, Joan, got caught up in Uber's debt trap after she hit a pothole and damaged her car's suspension system. She spent nearly all the money she had to get the car fixed. Then, when efforts to repair the vehicle failed, she spent more to lease a car from Uber.While the Uber Xchange program offered lower credit barriers than traditional lenders, the payments which Uber automatically deducted from drivers' paychecks, were high. It resembled a company town. Joan paid $138, more than the national lease average of $100 per week. Before she worked for Uber, Joan would collect giveaway items from Craigslist and re-sell them on eBay or at flea markets. Her regular income of roughly $35,000 as a school bus driver covered her mortgage but not groceries for herself and her son. Joan started driving for Uber a couple nights after work, making for 16-hour days. But within a year Joan quit Uber and returned the car. Even after driving six to seven days per week, she found herself behind on bills.

Uber took issue with many of the studies findings, pointing to the company's "180 days of change" program, which it launched in June 2017 to combat its damaged reputation in the wake of sexism allegations and the departure of founder Travis Kalanick.

"Uber has changed a lot since this research was started. Driver-partners are the heart of our service - and Uber would not be what it is today without them," a company spokesperson said in an email. " Building on what we've already introduced, like in-app tipping, a redesigned driver app, Instant Pay, and new rewards programs like Uber Pro, we'll continue to improve the experience for and with drivers, every day."

There's also a distinct lack of community felt by Uber drivers, the study found.

"75% of the drivers in this study said that they had never had a drink or meal with anyone else who had ever driven for Uber," the study said. "The lack of physical space in which workers met or congregated creates a material barrier to collective identities and deeply shapes the geography of labor and possibilities for collective bargaining in the platform workplace."

That's driven many drivers to online forums like uberpeople.net, where drivers discuss everything from pay, to best practices and more. Often, online forums are the only place drivers can interface with others to compare their interactions with the company.

Uber has fought hard to keep drivers classified as independent contractors rather than full-fledged employees, which it would be required to provide with benefits. The company warned in its IPO filing this month that it could seriously damage its business if drivers were considered employees instead of contractors.

"Our conclusion is straightforward," the researchers said. "The patterns identified in this study raise questions about the extent to which working conditions in the ride-hailing industry conform to contemporary labor standards."

You can read the full study here.

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