Is there a way to use ratings, scores, user input, and other analytics to define the single “best” film? It’s uncertain but at least one man set out to try just that by using MetaCritic, IMDB, and Rotten Tomatoes in order to figure out the best horror film of the 21st century. Mark Hofmeyer of Movies, Films, And Flix put in a great deal of time and energy in order to see if he could find some critical and audience consensus around the greatest scary movie released since 2000. The answers so far are interesting, and it’s an impressive amount of work using all of the analytical tools out there for judging such things. …
THIS DAY IN HISTORY: OCTOBER 14TH- THE AMITYVILLE HORROR
This Day In History: October 14, 1975
Nearly a year after the murder of his parents and four siblings, Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr.’s trial began on October 14, 1975. The family home reportedly became haunted after the tragedy and was the inspiration for the book The Amityville Horror and the movie of the same name.
It all began on the night of November 13, 1974, when six members of the DeFeo family were murdered in their beds at their home on 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. Those killed were 43 year-old Ronald DeFeo, Sr. and his wife, 42 year-old Louise, and four of their children: 18 year-old Dawn, 12 year-old Allison, and Marc and John, who were 12 and 9 respectively. Both parents were shot twice with a .35 caliber Marlin 336C rifle. The children were each shot once. …
Trump Goes to War
As the campaign descends into chaos, the Republican nominee lashes out in all directions, consequences be damned.
In Donald Trump’s war of all against all, none shall be spared.
“I’m so angry at the Republicans,” he says, eyes slitted in a mocking grimace. He’s riffing off the leaked email that shows that allies of Hillary Clinton gave her a question in advance of a town hall broadcast by CNN in March. “I want to be fed information like Hillary gets,” he complains, jabbing with his right forefinger. “The Republicans are not doing their job!”
The people are not sure how to react to this: Some laugh, others cheer, others boo. There are thousands of people here, sitting on bleachers and standing on the floor of a dirt-floored livestock arena, clad in a vast array of creative T-shirts. (“Deplorable Lives Matter,” “She Wants the D,” “Bomb the Shit out of ISIS,” “We’re Going to Need a Bigger Basket,” “9/11 Was an Inside Job.”)
“The leaders,” Trump complains, are “not putting their weight behind the people.” He had, in his view, won the last presidential debate, and yet the House speaker, Paul Ryan, had not called to congratulate him. “Wouldn’t you think maybe Paul Ryan would call and say, ‘Good going’?” Trump asks. “You’d think they would say, ‘Good going, Don! Let’s beat this crook! She’s a crook! Let’s beat her, we’ve got to stop it!’ No, he doesn’t do that.” …
Michelle Obama denounces Donald Trump’s rhetoric: ‘It has shaken me to my core’
The first lady spoke at a Clinton rally in New Hampshire on Thursday, calling past comments and alleged misconduct by the Republican nominee ‘frightening’
Michelle Obama on Thursday delivered a devastating rebuke to Donald Trump, calling past comments and alleged misconduct by the Republican nominee “cruel”, “frightening” and beyond the “basic standards of human decency”.
As Trump prepared to respond to a wave of women who had stepped forward in the previous 24 hours to accuse him of sexual misconduct, the first lady took the stage in Manchester, New Hampshire, at a campaign rally for Hillary Clinton.
“I can’t believe that I’m saying that a candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women,” Obama said, her voice trembling as she addressed a university gymnasium filled with several hundred people. “And I can’t stop thinking about this. It has shaken me to my core in a way that I couldn’t have predicted.”
In visceral terms and with a heightened sense of urgency, Obama painted the choice for president as a moral imperative. …
Top 10 Mysterious Viruses
Viruses challenge our definition of life. Neither dead nor alive, they are simply functional or not. Viruses do not possess the machinery to replicate themselves. Yet you can even argue that they are more evolved than us. With each discovery about viruses, we realize there is so much more to learn.
10. Black Widow Virus
Scientists have recently discovered a virus containing the gene for black widow poison.
The WO virus specifically targets Wolbachia bacteria in arthropods. Latrotoxin kills by poking holes in cell membranes. It is believed that the venom genes allow the WO virus to break through cells and evade the host’s immune system. This is the first time animal genes have been seen in bacteriophages—bacteria-targeting viruses. …
Will Republican voters flee Trump, post-video? Here’s what we found.
In the wake of the incredibly damaging video showing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump having an extremely lewd conversation about women, a sizable fraction of the Republican elite has deserted him. Fourteen of the 54 sitting Republican senators no longer support him. Will Republican voters flee from their candidate as well?
A Fox News poll released hours before the video showed 87 percent support from Republicans for their candidate in a two-way race (84 percent if you include the Libertarian and Green Party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein). In 2012 Mitt Romney captured 93 percent of the Republican vote, and in 2008 John McCain had 90 percent. In context, Trump’s support among Republican partisans was a little low, but before the video he had both time and momentum (with support for Johnson falling) to reach historically typical levels of partisan support. …
Hillary Clinton asks for landslide victory to rebuke Trump’s ‘bigotry and bullying’
As Trump went on the attack, a confident Clinton encouraged her backers to double down on their efforts during the final weeks of the 2016 campaign
Hillary Clinton hinted at a possible landslide in the 8 November election, exhorting several thousand supporters at a San Francisco fundraiser on Thursday to help her “have the kind of victory we need” to serve as a “rebuke” to Donald Trump.
On a day when Trump went on the attack – calling women who have accused him of inappropriate touching and kissing “horrible, horrible liars” – an increasingly confident Clinton encouraged her backers to double down on their efforts during the final weeks of the fractious 2016 campaign.
“Everything we care about is at risk,” she said. “If you can help me to have the kind of victory we need, that stands as a rebuke of all the bigotry and bullying we’ve seen, then together, together we will build the future that all of us, particularly the children of our country, deserve to have.” …
10 Insane Laws People Had To Live By In Ancient Rome
Rome was a beacon of civilization in a dark world. In the words of one of their own, Rome was “the seat of virtue, empire, and dignity,” ruled by laws so just that they could “surpass the libraries of all the philosophers.”
The Romans, though, had a different definition of “virtue” and “dignity” than we do today. Some of the laws the Romans were so proud of were a little bit strange, and some of them were outright insane.
10. Wearing Purple Was A Crime
Purple, in ancient Rome, was viewed as the most dignified and majestic of all colors. The emperors would dress themselves up each morning in the finest of purple togas, and they looked so good in it that they wouldn’t let anyone wear it.
The law against wearing purple was a “sumptuary law,” a Roman law designed to keep lower classes from making extravagant displays of wealth. Romans wanted to be able to take one look at somebody and know their social standing, to make sure they didn’t go around accidentally being polite to peasants. These laws were strict. If you weren’t a citizen, you weren’t allowed to put on a toga. …
Britain Panics Over Brexit-Sparked Marmite Shortage
Tesco pulled a range of products from its website following a pricing row with Unilever
News that a major British supermarket will no longer be stocking Marmite following Brexit has sparked outrage across the U.K., leading the hashtag #MarmiteGate to trend on Twitter.
Tesco pulled a range of products, including Marmite, PG Tips tea bags, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Persil washing powder and Lynx body spray, from its website after a row over pricing with the major food and household goods supplier Unilever.
According to The Guardian, Unilever is trying to charge Tesco an extra 10% for its goods due to the pound’s fall against the euro and the dollar following the vote for Brexit in June. Graeme Pitkethly, Unilever’s chief financial officer, described these price increases as a “normal” part of business. “We are taking price increases in the UK. That is a normal devaluation-led cycle,” he told analysts. …
‘Commercialization won out’: will legal marijuana be the next big tobacco?
As the legal pot movement steams ahead, opponents argue the cannabis industry may be little better than cigarette companies in their pursuit of profit
Candi CdeBaca voted to legalize the free sale of marijuana in Colorado four years ago because she thought it would be good for her Denver neighborhood.
The Mexican American youth worker wanted an end to the police targeting of Latino and African American working class communities over drugs. She said cannabis was a problem for her neighborhood of Swansea but illegal dealing also provided one of the few economic opportunities for many of its residents.
So CdeBaca hoped that when Colorado became the first state in the nation to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana in 2014 it would not only keep people out of court, but also open up a legitimate means of earning a living. If there had to be a drug trade, at least Swansea could benefit.
Today she would vote differently. …
THIS DAY IN HISTORY: OCTOBER 14TH- THE LAST COURSE
This Day In History: October 14, 1977
On the early evening of October 14, 1977, legendary entertainer Bing Crosby died of a massive heart attack after doing what he loved best – playing 18 holes of golf. Bing was in Madrid, Spain playing on the La Moraleja Golf course at the time of his death. He defeated two Spanish golf pros that day and remarked on the way back to the clubhouse, “that was a great game of golf, fellas.”
Bing suggested to his companion, resort manager Valentin Barrios, that they have a Coca-Cola, then he suddenly fell face-down on the brick path, making no attempt to soften his landing. When Barrios and several others who came running to help turned him over, he was extremely pale and had a huge red bruise on his forehead. Every effort was made to revive him at the scene and later at a local hospital, but to no avail. …
The AI disruption wave
nformation technology evolves through disruption waves. First the computer, then the web and eventually social networks and smartphones all had the power to revolutionize how people live and how businesses operate. They destroyed companies that weren’t able to adapt, while creating new winners in growing markets.
While the exact timing and form of such waves of disruption are hard to predict, the pattern they follow is easy to recognize. Take the web/digital disruption, for example: There was a technological breakthrough (e.g. Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s WWW), which built on/took advantage of existing technologies (e.g. TCP/IP protocols and installed computer base) and gave rise, seemingly slowly, yet in fact exponentially, to new applications and platforms that disrupted existing markets (e.g. Amazon) or created new ones (e.g. Google).
Today a new wave is emerging. Much like the web took advantage of existing technologies, this new wave builds on trends such as the decline in the cost of computing hardware, the emergence of the cloud, the fundamental consumerization of the enterprise and, of course, the mobile revolution. …
When the World Is an Arcade
The psychogeography of Pokémon Go
They started appearing outside our kitchen window during the summer, often at dusk, in wary twos and threes: shamblers, lopers, skulkers, wobblers, blipping and tweaking on some new and apparently enhanced neural network. They consulted their phones every few seconds, but they weren’t in full-on, street-oblivious phone mode. They pointed at things (what things?), they got excited, they made little rushes back and forth across the road. Earlier in the year, before all these people began showing up, I’d challenged a man who was standing in the darkness outside our building, motionless, staring at something, a figure of freaky fixity wearing a hat with pulled-down earflaps. When I asked him what he was doing, he turned slowly and—face bracketed by the earflaps—addressed me with icy ceremoniousness: “Do we have a connection?” His question haunted me for days. Had he been some kind of omen or advance guard?
They were, of course, PokéPeople. My 14-year-old son explained it to me. They were votaries of Pokémon Go, on the hunt for low-hanging Pokémon and drawn in shifty clusters to our street corner because (he further explained) it is not a mere PokéStop but a PokéGym: Old Cable Box Gym, to be precise. …
5 Time Bombs Our Grandparents Planted (Are About To Go Off)
All of human history has been one gigantic, ruinous circle jerk, with Mother Nature crouching awkwardly in the center. Previous generations accidentally ruined the entire planet, and it was up to us to fix their many environmental blunders. Now that we’ve learned from their mistakes and put them behind us, we can finally begin the long, slow process of healing. But the problem with putting something behind you is that it’s the perfect position for that thing to kick you in the ass when you’re not looking.
#5. We May Have To Deal With NUCLEAR Forest Fires
Nuclear power is a relatively clean alternative to fossil fuels. It’s more efficient, more sustainable, and doesn’t release a bunch of harmful chemicals into the air — only into glowing green barrels with cartoon skulls on them. Really, the only downside is that it causes a small-scale apocalypse whenever things go terribly wrong, like at Chernobyl. Thankfully, that particular incident didn’t destroy all of society — just some Russian parts — and the still-crumbling reactor serves as a reminder to us all to never forget the horrible destruction of our past.
It’s shaped like a giant dick to remind us of how fucked everything around it is.
It also conveniently serves as an omen of the horrible destruction of our future. Those Russian engineers were multitaskers! This time, the problem is with the trees. …
Thanks Lorax.
…
5 privacy settings to change in Windows 10
Taking back the operating system, one privacy setting at a time…
Windows 10 is running on over 400 million devices, but it still has all sorts of privacy issues — including mandatory diagnostic and usage data reporting to Microsoft, and a troubling amount of ads sprinkled throughout the platform.
Not all of Windows 10’s problems can be fixed, but there are some things you can do to reclaim your privacy. Here are five privacy-related settings you can change for a less invasive and more secure Windows 10 experience.
Stop Cortana from getting to know you
In order for Cortana to be the best virtual personal assistant ever, she’ll ask you early on if she can “get to know you” through the way you interact with your device — namely, your speech, handwriting and typing patterns. The “getting to know you” feature also allows Windows 10 to collect other information about you, including your calendar, contacts, location and browsing history, according to Microsoft’s privacy statement.
You can stop Cortana from “getting to know you.” If you do this, you will not be able to use voice dictation to speak to Cortana, and all personal information that Cortana has collected will be cleared. …
How to Turn Your Self-Driving Car Into a Time Machine
The vehicles of the future might be able to transport passengers to the distant past.
The time-travel display of a DeLorean DMC-12, which appeared on the red carpet at the Back to the Future 30th Anniversary screening in Manhattan, in 2015.
The self-driving car’s greatest promise is that it will buy its passengers that most precious and finite of resources: time.
First there is the promise of more time on this planet, given the overwhelmingly superior safety record of a driverless car compared with a human-driven one. Then there is all the time you get when you’re not the one driving—hands free from the wheel, eyes free from the road—and you are instead able to read a book, enjoy a beer, practice an instrument, knit a tea cozy, or, you know, just chill out. And finally there’s the actual transit time saved, countless human commutes made smoother in a world where robot cars communicate with one another constantly, establishing smooth and freely flowing traffic patterns.
But there’s another way that self-driving cars might change our relationship with time, and it starts with the maps that are needed to make driverless cars work in the first place.
It’s crucial for a self-driving vehicle to know, within centimeters, exactly where it is on the road at any given time. The need for this precision is non-negotiable. A few inches of inaccuracy in the wrong direction, and suddenly your car is veering into the neighboring traffic lane, or crunching its fender in a failed parallel-parking effort, or sideswiping a guardrail on I-95. The technology isn’t perfect yet, but it’s getting there: Driverless vehicles orient themselves based on a constant flow of super-detailed input data from both cameras and GPS. But the self-driving vehicles that eventually take over the roadways will require far more precision than even the best satellite imagery alone can offer. …
10 Shocking Things We Learned From The Ongoing Wikileaks Dump
The 2016 election has been one of the most bizarre in a long time, and with the Wikileaks dump of batches and batches of emails, it’s just gotten weirder. Here’s a breakdown of some of the things analysts have found buried in the pages and pages of text, because knowledge is power.
10. Media Collusion
In theory, the mainstream media is supposed to provide the public with the facts as they are, not as the subject of the news story would like them to be presented. Digging through the third data dump turned up some emails that seem to prove just which side the media is on.
Among the emails are several from CNBC’s John Harwood, where he refers to “the opposition party veering off the rails” at “our debate”. He also sent other emails warning Hillary Clinton that Ben Carson “could give you real trouble”, along with some links to his views, video clips, and just why they should consider him a problem.
The Boston Globe reached out asking about the status of an op-ed piece that they were waiting for, which is fine in itself. The Globe went a bit further, though, giving Podesta and the Clinton camp some guidance on just when they should have the piece in for the biggest impact based on where she was and what other stories they were going to be running that particular week in July of 2016. …
The Simpsons Also Used Psychic Abilities to Get Our Nobel Prize Winner Right
Six years ago on The Simpsons, Milhouse Van Houten predicted that Bengt Holmström of MIT would win the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2016. On Monday, that prediction came true.
Holström and Oliver Hart of Harvard were announced as joint winners of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Economics for their pioneering work on contract theory and government versus private ownership. It’s a fairly bookish topic for the beloved Fox series, but it made sense in the context of Krusty the Clown being scammed into thinking he won the Nobel Peace Prize, and Milhouse proving himself to be a clairvoyant with uncanny knowledge of Nobel Prize winners. He was so eerily accurate that he even bested Lisa Simpson in the contest. …
The Simpsons’ Matt Groening: ‘President Trump? It’s beyond satire’
The creator of The Simpsons talks to Guardian cartoonist First Dog on the Moon about his art, and tells how an episode 16 years ago showing Donald Trump in the White House was the most absurd joke he could think of – and still is
Earlier this year I was invited to be part of Graphic, an event at the Sydney Opera House that describes itself as “a festival of visual storytelling”. On discovering that Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons and the most successful cartoonist in history, would also be in attendance, I said yes straight away.
My acceptance came with a condition: that I would also be invited to the fancy party they would no doubt throw for Matt Groening, because I planned to hide in a corner and tweet about how I was at a party with Matt Groening.
Later, we received an email from the festival people:
“Mr Groening has agreed to do an interview for the Guardian, however he has only agreed to this interview if Mr Dog is to be the interviewer and write the piece … Matt told me what a huge fan he is of First Dog. They’ll have a great time.”
There are two challenges in doing an interview like this. Firstly, as a cartoonist, I’m not an interviewer. And secondly, how do I make this interview about Matt Groening when all I want to do is talk to him about how MY NEW BEST FRIEND MATT GROENING IS A BIG FAN OF MY WORK?! …
FIVE NOTEWORTHY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES TIME FORGOT
After months (well,really, years) of campaign stops, polling, rallies and stump speeches, we are finally at the cusp of the 57th presidential election in American history.
Even prior to their sprint to the White House, both major party candidates were very well-known people and personalities. One is a former first lady, US Senator and Secretary of State; the other is a prominent businessman and reality television star. It is safe to say that no matter how this turns out, both presidential candidates will continue to be known and remembered for many years to come.
This isn’t the case for all presidential candidates. Here are five noteworthy former presidential candidates that time forgot. …
…
Video Goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
Seth takes a closer look at the recently surfaced allegations of predatory behavior toward women by Donald Trump.
THANKS to NBC and Late Night with Seth Meyers for making this program available on YouTube.
THANKS to HBO and Real Time with Bill Maher for making this program available on YouTube.
“Jia Panpan and Jia Yueyue have been a delight to watch as they have grown from two very small and vulnerable cubs to healthy and thriving youngsters and Toronto Zoo staff have appreciated each and every milestone they have reached.”
FINALLY . . .
Gay man schools Texas church that kicked him out over same-sex relationship — and it’s awesome
Proving once again that plenty of Christians till don’t have a clue what Jesus was talking about, a Dallas-area church’s members have been publicly shamed by a gay man who was ejected from their community after revealing his sexuality to them, Pink News reported. On the one-year anniversary of his being cast out of the community, Jason Thomas posted his response to the Elders on Facebook.
In its original letter, Watermark Community Church told Thomas that it had exhausted its attempts to help him see the error of his ways. In a letter dated October 9, 2015, the Elders wrote: [I]n our attempt to shepherd you, we have recognised a destructive pattern that prohibits us in caring for you and playing the role you desire for us to have in your life (1 Peter 5:1-4; Acts 20:28). Specifically, your desire to actively participate in a same-sex relationship with another man, and your unwillingness to heed biblical counsel from your church to turn from that relationship, has made it exceedingly difficult to shepherd you during this time.” The verses selected to justify their actions argue that elders are responsible for guarding the community of believers. …
“Here we are a year later and you are still doing to others what you did to me. You are tarnishing the name of God to Christians and non-Christians alike; you should be ashamed of yourselves! Do not forget, Jesus was a angry with people just like you who said certain groups of people were not worthy to be followers of Him.”