Quentin Tarantino is mad......and suing Gawker

Gawker’s being sued by Quentin Tarantino for leaking a copy of his script for The Hateful Eight. Ain’t no legal complaint like a Tarantino legal complaint because a Tarantino legal complaint has BITE:

Gawker Media has made a business of predatory journalism, violating people’s right to make a buck. This time they’ve gone too far. Rather than merely publishing a news story reporting that Plaintiff’s screenplay may have been circulating in Hollywood without his permission, Gawker Media crossed the journalistic line by promoting itself to the public as the first source to read the entire screenplay illegally. Their headline boasts, ‘Here is the leaked Quentin Tarantino Hateful Eight Script’ — here, not someplace else, but ‘here’ on the Gawker website. The article then contains multiple direct links for downloading the entire screenplay through a conveniently anonymous URL by simply clicking button-links on the Gawker page, and brazenly encourages Gawker visitors to read the screenplay illegally with an invitation to ‘enjoy’ it. There was nothing newsworthy or journalistic about Gawker Media facilitating and encouraging the public’s violation of Plaintiff’s copyright in the screenplay, and its conduct will not shield Gawker Media from liability for their unlawful activity.

The real victim in all of this, of course, is those of us who really love Tarantino movies and know that The Hateful Eight will never see the light of day now.

Via pajiba

How To See All The Companies That Are Tracking You On Facebook — And Block

Facebook is a great utility if you want to stay in touch with friends and family, share photos, and see what other people are up to in their lives.

It's free to use, of course, but that doesn't mean it comes without a price. If you're using Facebook, you're giving the company a ton of information about yourself which it is selling to advertisers in one form or another.

And most people forget that when they download or sign up for an app or website using their Facebook login, that they're giving those companies a direct look into their Facebook profiles and some of their personal data. That can often include your email address and phone number, but frequently also your current location.

If you're worried about your privacy, you can do two things: Opt out of ad tracking and — and this is sometimes rather alarming if you haven't done it in a while — look up the list of app companies that are logged in to your Facebook account.

We'll deal with the ads first, as that is easiest.

You can comfort yourself a little bit with the knowledge that the ads being targeted at you are coming anonymously and in bulk, at everyone who is in some way similar to you. They aren't literally being targeted at you personally, even if it feels that way. If you really don't like them, you can opt-out of most of them by following the instructions here and here.

If you want to go even further, by limiting the ad cookies that advertisers use to track Facebook users across the rest of the web, follow these instructions here and read this backgrounder here.

Now for the apps. That requires a bit more digging.

Here is the summary of where you need to go in Facebook's settings to see which apps are plugged in to your account: Settings > Apps > Apps you use > Show All Apps > Edit/delete. A more detailed set of instructions HERE and Photo follows:

Via Business Insider

Mark Khaisman: Creations w/Packing Tape

News/Exhibitions:

CONTEXT Art Miami

Pentimenti Gallery Booth, Miami, December 3 - 8, 2013

Three Artists Show

Pearlstein Gallery, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Jan 13 - March 14, 2014

Mark Khaisman website HERE

Do the Poor Have More Meaningful Lives?

Jonathan Safran Foer, in the first chapter of “Eating Animals,” recounts a conversation he once had with his grandmother, in which she described the combination of fear and hunger that haunted her in Eastern Europe as the Second World War drew to a close. When she became so hungry that she couldn’t imagine living through another day, a kind Russian farmer gave her a piece of meat:

“He saved your life.”
“I didn’t eat it.”
“You didn’t eat it?”
“It was pork. I wouldn’t eat pork.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why?”
“What, because it wasn’t kosher?”
“Of course.”
“But not even to save your life?”
“If nothing matters, there’s nothing to save.”

Shigehiro Oishi, a University of Virginia psychologist who studies well-being, pointed to this passage when I e-mailed him last week to discuss a paper he wrote, with Ed Diener, a University of Illinois psychologist, which will soon be published in the journal Psychological Science. In the paper, Oishi and Diener found that people from wealthy countries were generally happier than people from poor countries. No surprise there. But they also found that people from poor countries tended to view their lives as more meaningful. Even Foer’s grandmother, impoverished and desperate, seems to have favored a meaningful, life-enriching religious tradition over immediate gratification.

Oishi and Diener have spent much of their careers hunting for the ingredients of well-being. For some economists, well-being is seen as arising when benefits outweigh costs; for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it requires good living conditions and positive relationships; for spiritualists, it’s a pleasurable state that can’t be measured by economists or by the C.D.C. Oishi and Diener, like many psychologists, believe that well-being is the sum of the positive and negative thoughts and feelings that arise when we reflect on our lives.

That includes—but can’t be limited to—happiness. Happiness, after all, doesn’t explain the popularity of ultramarathons, mountaineering, and Tough Mudder events (which Lizzie Widdicombe describes in this week’s magazine)—or the sacrifices parents must make to raise children. Some of the most rewarding life experiences are popular because they favor meaningful hardship over simple pleasure.

More HERE Via  New Yorker

What a Pretty Face Can’t Tell You

Just what, exactly, can we learn from a pretty face? 

Because despite axiomatic warnings to the contrary, when we meet other people we spend an awful lot of time judging books by their covers.  Encounter someone attractive, and it’s hard for us to look away.  But it’s even more difficult for us to refrain from drawing bigger-picture conclusions about what type of person we think we're dealing with.

Indeed, in a recently published study, Israeli researchers set out to test two questions related to our tendency to make assumptions based on physical appearance: 1) What are the characteristics we typically associate with attractive others? 2) What are the characteristics actually predicted by physical attractiveness?

In their study, 118 female “targets” agreed to be filmed for 60 seconds while speaking in front of a camera.  Each of these videos was subsequently shown to 1 of 118 “judges” (both male and female) who evaluated the target’s physical attractiveness, and then rated her on a variety of personality traits and personal values.

What did the judges’ responses reveal?  Namely that they thought they learned a fair amount about the target’s personality just based on the brief snippet of video they had seen.  Specifically, the more physically attractive a target was rated, the more conscientious, open to experience, and extraverted the judges believed her to be.  And these conclusions related to target attractiveness were no different among female and male judges

More HERE Via Psychology Today

4 out of 10 bottles that say Italian olive oil are not actually Italian olive oil

Listen HERE NPR Report on Olive Oil

Extra-virgin olive oil is a ubiquitous ingredient in Italian recipes, religious rituals and beauty products. But many of the bottles labeled "extra-virgin olive oil" on supermarket shelves have been adulterated and shouldn't be classified as extra-virgin, says New Yorker contributor Tom Mueller.

Mueller's new book, Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, chronicles how resellers have added lower-priced, lower-grade oils and artificial coloring to extra-virgin olive oil, before passing the new adulterated substance along the supply chain. (One olive oil producer told Mueller that 50 percent of the olive oil sold in the United States is, in some ways, adulterated.)

The term "extra-virgin olive oil" means the olive oil has been made from crushed olives and is not refined in any way by chemical solvents or high heat.

"The legal definition simply says it has to pass certain chemical tests, and in a sensory way it has to taste and smell vaguely of fresh olives, because it's a fruit, and have no faults," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "But many of the extra-virgin olive oils on our shelves today in America don't clear [the legal definition]."

Extra-virgin olive oil wasn't created until stainless steel milling techniques were introduced in the 1960s and '70s. The technology allowed people to make much more refined olive oil.

"In the past, the technology that had been used had been used really by the Romans," says Mueller. "You grounded the olives with stone mills [and] you crushed them with presses."

The introduction of stainless steel milling techniques has allowed manufacturers to make more complex and flavorful extra-virgin olive oils, he says. But the process is also incredibly expensive — it costs a lot to properly store and mill extra-virgin olive oil. Mueller says that's why some people blend extra-virgin olive oil with lower-grade, lower-priced products.

"Naturally the honest people are getting terribly undercut," he says. "There's a huge unfair advantage in favor of the bad stuff. At the same time, consumers are being defrauded of the health and culinary benefits of great olive oil."

Bad or rancid olive oil loses the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of olive oil, says Mueller. "What [good olive oil] gets you from a health perspective is a cocktail of 200+ highly beneficial ingredients that explain why olive oil has been the heart of the Mediterranean diet," he says. "Bad olives have free radicals and impurities, and then you've lost that wonderful cocktail ... that you get from fresh fruit, from real extra-virgin olive oil."

On why 4 out of 10 bottles that say Italian olive oil are not actually Italian olive oil

"A lot of those oils have been packed in Italy or have been transited through Italy just long enough to get the Italian flag on them. That's not, strictly speaking, illegal — but I find it a legal fraud, if you will."

On extra light olive oil

"Extra light is just as caloric as any other oil — 120 calories per tablespoon, but the average person looking at it might say, 'Oh, well, I've heard olive oil is a fat, so I will try extra light olive oil.' ... It's highly, highly refined. It has almost no flavor and no color. And it is, in fact, extra-light in the technical sense of being clear."

Snoop Dogg Visited By Firefighters After He Sets Off Smoke Alarm In Australian Hotel

It seems that Snoop smokes so much, in fact, that when he lit up in his Australian hotel room on Thursday night, enough smoke was created that firefighters rushed to investigate.

According to TMZ, police say "smoke from an unidentified source" triggered a fire alarm around 10 a.m., and firefighters who happened to be at the hotel rushed up to the room to investigate. They quickly discovered there was smoke but no fire. (Officials did not confirm if it was weed was involved.)

After it was established that there was no fire in the room, the rapper snapped some photos with the firefighters, which he posted to his Instagram account, captioned, "Fire dept Shut it down !!"

And On The Next American Horror Story: Coven….....

The young witches of Miss Robichaux’s Academy better watch their asses, because the current reigning Supreme’s powers and beauty are quickly dying and she’s going to kill them all and reclaim the throne! This is everyone’s cue to run to the nearest church to grab a priest or give yourself a holy water enema, because I think some dark-sided shit butt fucked its way into our souls when we all looked at that picture. Everything’s UNGODLY!

While wearing her tricked out denturez (“Fixodent and forget it, yo!” – Madonna), Madge showed up to the Grammys tonight looking like a cross between one of Diane Keaton’s warts and a terrifying and more horrific version of the Preacher from Poltergeist. I was trolling through Twitter when Madge was on E! and I think the record for the most times “THIS BITCH” has been tweeted simultaneously was broken. Just a little over a week after, Madge tried to keep up with the kidz by hashtagging the n-word, she showed up to the Grammys with her son David. Subtle bitch is subtle. See, that blatant bitch isn’t racist at all. She brought her black son and he even let her dress him up in a matching outfit! I know David said on the red carpet that he picked out those outfits, but you totally know she did and he went along with it, because would you really fuck with a witch who can make your soul curl up just by making a face (see: above soul-killing face)?

And when Madge and David popped up on my TV, it took me a second to realize that was her son and not her new boyfriend.

Via Dlisted

Yuengling’s Ice Cream is BACK

Established in 1829, D.G. Yuengling & Son is the oldest brewing company still operating in the United States. During the prohibition, many brewers were forced to turn to other markets in order to stay in business. Looking to take on the ice cream industry, Yuengling’s survived by selling “near beers” with a 0.5% alcohol content, opening dance halls in Philadelphia and New York City, and (most deliciously) creating ice cream.

After the 18th Amendment was repealed in 1933, the beloved ice cream was later discontinued in 1985. Now, nearly three decades later, Yuengling’s ice cream is set to hit shelves in a few short weeks. The flavors will include Black &  Tan (sadly sans buzz), chocolate fudge, and root beer float, among several others. At the moment, the new frozen treats will be available in select locations on the East Coast.

Nothing like sticking it to the man with a pint full of creamy ice cream.

Read more at Food Beast

I blame hipsters......Growing beard popularity shaves P&G sales

New York (AFP) - Procter & Gamble Friday revealed its latest challenge to earnings glory. This time it's a facial issue.

The US consumer giant, fresh off a recent corner office shakeup and already facing a battle for market share in shampoo, said second-quarter earnings were marred by the growing preference of men for moustaches and beards, which hit sales in its "grooming" segment.

But the company said that increasingly popular body-shaving by men had the potential to offset the loss of the facial-hair business.

Flat sales in grooming and a two-percent decline in the beauty segment were drags on P&G's earnings, which fell 15.5 percent from the year-ago level.

Net income for the second quarter of fiscal 2014 came in at $3.4 billion on $22.28 billion in revenue, down from $4.1 billion on $22.18 billion in revenue in the year-ago period.

Still, investors smiled on the results, which equated to earnings per share of $1.21 excluding one-time items, a penny above analyst expectations. The company also confirmed full-year profit growth expectations of 5-7 percent, predicting a "strong" performance over the next six months.

The news helped push up P&G shares 1.9 percent to $79.73 in afternoon trade.

Analysts are keenly awaiting further sign of where Chief executive A.G. Lafley will take the 177-year-old company after he was unexpectedly reinstalled to the top spot in May. Lafley, who had served as chief executive from 2000-2009, replaced Bob McDonald, who resigned after his turnaround plans fell flat on Wall Street.

Chief financial officer Jon Moeller characterized the latest round of results as on par with expectations.

But he cited three areas in need of improvement: skin care, where P&G's Oil of Olay line has lagged hopes; shampoo, where several campaigns around the Pantene line have underperformed amid discounting by rival Unilever; and grooming.

"Grooming is really a story about the market," said Moeller, who alluded to the mainstreaming of the three-day stubble "hipster" look in the US and other developed markets.

More Via Yahoo

U.S. Olympic athletes warned against wearing Ugly Sweaters.... I mean, uniforms outside venues in Sochi

U.S. Olympic athletes are being warned not to wear their uniforms outside the games venues in Sochi because of fears of terrorist attacks in the southern Russian city, according to senior officials in the Obama administration.

The unusual caution comes as Russian security forces search for a so-called "black widow" who they fear may be plotting to carry out an attack at the upcoming Winter Olympics. Athletes participating in earlier games, including London and Beijing, did not face a similar warning.

The United States will have a large security contingent at the games – including FBI personal and diplomatic agents. Officials will be prepared for evacuations by air or sea if needed, the senior officials said, with ships being sent to the Black Sea. 

VIA CBS

That's What She Said: The Rise and Fall of the 2000s' Best Bad Joke

Groan-worthy innuendos in the style of Michael Scott came and went—that's what she said—but they taught important lessons about puns and parodies along the way.

It came out of nowhere, slipping into the conversation between dinner and dessert. “That's what she said!” your friend blurted out, before sitting back, satisfied.

At first you didn't get the joke, which he'd recently poached from NBC's sitcom The Office. (This was around 2006, or, if your friend was slow on the uptake, around 2010.) So he explained by example for the rest of the meal. When the waitress asked if you wanted sauce on that, he whispered seductively: “That's what she said,” as if her question was scandalous. Then he giggled like a 12-year-old.

That's what she said, hereafter referred to as TWSS, was the best bad joke of the late 2000s. It forced almost any sentence into unintentional sexual meanings, even when you were just “trying to get in” to the highway's fast lane, or “didn't think it would take so long” in the supermarket line. TWSS was like a bully who stole your lunch money to buy cigarettes. It seized your innocent words and contorted them into indecency.

TWSS actually deserves our thanks. It was a formulaic gag, but it showed us that the most mundane moments still have the potential to shock and surprise. And this is pretty much what sitcoms are for.

TWSS wasn't original, but rather intelligently unoriginal. When NBC adapted The Office from the BBC, it also took up the scepter of sexual wordplay, which happens to date back thousands of years. You can find sexual puns in the poetry of imperial Rome. They're sprinkled liberally in such canonical English texts as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Joyce. They could literally be called the oldest trick in the book, according to a British researcher of humor named Paul McDonald, who claims the first Anglo-Saxon joke comes from the 11th century Codex Exoniensis:

What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke a hole that it has often poked before?

Answer: A key.

This sort of wordplay is classic double entendre, which might not actually make you laugh, but nonetheless prompts a momentary double-take. The first line leads a reader toward an overtly sexual conclusion, but the innocuous answer subverts these expectations. Suddenly the words “poke,” “hole,” and “hangs at a man's thigh” seem to refer to two things at once, one sexual and one innocent.

More HERE Via The Atlantic

Crumbs, would you pay £2.40 for a slice of TOAST? New 'artisanal toast bars' spring up in San Francisco selling posh grilled bread

The rich of San Francisco have found a new way to flaunt their wealth – buying artisanal toast.

Bakeries and cafes in the city have been cashing in on the wealth of the resident Silicon Valley high flyers by selling gourmet toast made with ‘Josey Baker sourdough’, featuring toppings such as ‘smallbatch almond butter’ and ‘sour strawberry jam’.

One San Franciscan blogger for Venturebeat.com complained that he paid a whopping $4 (£2.40) for a single slice of toast coated with the preserve at a café called The Mill, which also offers the nutty butter option.

He said: ‘It was an experiment in upper-middle class lifestyle consumerism. In San Francisco, flaunting your wealth has been elevated to new lows, if you will. We overspend on the simplest facets of life.’

A writer for the Pacific Standard believes the gourmet toast fad in San Francisco can be traced back to a coffee shop called Trouble.

From there it spread across the city – but it’s reached Britain’s shores, too.

Food writer and self-confessed ‘toast junkie’ Tonia George, for example, sells artisan toast at her Ginger & White cafes in London.

Menu highlights include flour station sourdough toast - £3.50 for two slices - and Somerset salted butter, according to The Guardian.

Bakery chain Gail’s offers toast made from 30 varieties of bread, costing £2.50 for two slices – and E5 Bakehouse in Hackney charges £1 for a slice of sourdough toast.

It charges £2.95 for two slices of toast, with a whole variety of bread on offer, including rye, walnut or sourdough.

Further evidence of toast’s elevated status in Britain came last year when the Federation of Bakers produced Eau de Toast perfume for London Fashion Week.

It boasted ‘yeast top notes with a hint of caramel combined with complementary bitter-sweet and malty base notes to help give the overall impression of freshly toasted bread’.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2545832/The-new-artisanal-toast-bars-springing-San-Francisco-UK.html#ixzz2rYjCHq1u
 

Man uses first-class ticket to get free meals for almost a year

A man bought a first-class ticket and used it to have free meals and drinks at the airport's VIP lounge almost every day for nearly a year, Kwong Wah Yit Poh reported.

The itinerary for the ticket was found to have been changed more than 300 times within a year, and the owner of the ticket used it to enjoy the facilities at the airport's VIP lounge in Xi'an in Shaanxi, China.

The rare case was discovered by a China Eastern Airlines staff member, who then decided to investigate.

When the ticket's validity was almost up, the passenger cancelled it for a refund.

An airlines spokesman said there were no means to stop this act, even if it was done on purpose. However, many netizens lauded the passenger for being smart, rather than condemning him.

When the ticket's validity was almost up, the passenger cancelled it for a refund.

An airlines spokesman said there were no means to stop this act, even if it was done on purpose. However, many netizens lauded the passenger for being smart, rather than condemning him.

via relax.com

The 1920s Guide To NYC Tourist Etiquette

Back in the 1920s, they didn't need etiquette signs dissuading New Yorkers and tourists from doing horrifying, unspeakable things on the subway... but they did need to set a few guidelines. Yesterday we revisited Valentine’s City of New York: A Guide Book for its tips on visiting Brooklyn, and today we look at their simple rules regarding how to act while visiting New York City. They remind the tourist reading the guide, "New York is like your own hometown, only bigger and the vast majority of its people are decent, likeable citizens. But there are also others." Here are some of their rules, some of which still apply today...

Some Simple Don'ts

• Don't ask a pedestrian where a certain street is. He is usually too busy to stop... and won't know.
• Don't cross the street in the middle of the block. In Paris they arrest you for that, in New York they simply run you down.
• Don't buy the Woolworth Building, Brooklyn Bridge, the Metropolitan Tower, the City Hall or any prominent structure.
• Don't hand your baggage to a porter outside Grand Central unless he wears a red hat.
• Don't take the recommendation of strangers regarding hotels... Don't get too friendly with plausible strangers.
• Don't gape at women smoking cigarettes in restaurants. They are harmless and respectable. They are also "smart."
• Don't forget to tip. Tip early and tip often.
• Don't block the sidewalk. New Yorkers will gather in crowds to see a young lady demonstrate a new razor in a shop window or a safe going up the side of a building. Ignore such gatherings; show our ex-hicks that you come from a real town.
• Don't telephone if you are in a hurry. Walk. It's quicker, though it used to be the other way VIA gothamist 

This NYC Rat Map Will Show You How Many Rats Live On Your Street

Oh, rats: when they're not fleeing Canada on a mysterious ghost ship or plotting a subway train takeover, they're probably rummaging through your trash bins and judging you for all your empty Easy Mac packets. Now, the city's got a handy rat map to show you just how many little critters are hanging out in your area, so you can determine whether or not you should be investing in rodent-repelling latex pajamas.

The interactive map, beautifully dubbed the Rat Informational Portal (R.I.P.), allows you to search by borough, address, block number, and zip code to pull up inspection results and rat violations from the past few years. You can type in your own address to see how your block has fared, or check out your friends' places to prove that their sweet Lower East Side duplex is really a playground for the dreaded Rattus norvegicus. Endless fun for all!

Do note, though, that this lovely little tool only indicates rats and rat evidence uncovered during city inspections, and doesn't denote individual rat sightings—for those, you'll need to consult this map of 311 rat sighting reports. Though your apartment building may seem spotless when the Department of Health comes calling, there's still a chance all those clever rodents have learned to lie in wait at a neighboring abode, readying themselves for the moment the inspector bids the landlord farewell before scurrying back to their rent-stabilized home.

This is why we need David Lynch to be making more rat PSAs.

Kanye West Doesn't Like to Do Much of Anything, Huh?

Whatever you do, dont life a finger

Man, Kanye West is likely one of the most annoying, most self-indulgent celebrities on the face of the earth, and this video is going to make you roll your eyes so hard, they might just fall out of your head. Seriously, they might. And then when you're scrambling about, trying to pick them back up all quick-like -- 5 second rule! -- you're gonna roll them all over again when you actually take note that you sort of feel bad for the lack of chivalry that Kanye shows to baby mama Kim Kardashian basically the whole entire time. 

Read more: http://www.fishwrapper.com/post/2014/01/24/kanye-west-lazy-video-kim-kardashian-stroller-baby-nori-north-west-car-seat/#ixzz2rYYLY4Nk
Follow us: @fishwrapped on Twitter

Via FishWrapper

What happens when ice meets lava?

The Syracuse University Lava Project is a collaboration between sculptor Bob Wysocki (Assistant Professor, Department of Art) and geologist Jeff Karson (Professor, Department of Earth Sciences) at Syracuse University. The goals of the project include scientific experiments, artistic creations, education, and outreach to the Syracuse University and City communities. Basaltic lava, similar to that found on the seafloor and erupted from volcanoes in Hawaii and Iceland, is melted and poured to produce natural-scale lava flows. The project supports a wide variety of scientific experiments engaging faculty and students at SU and volcanologists from other institutions. The natural beauty and particular properties of the lava are the basis for sculpture projects. In addition, lava pours are staged at the SU Comstock Art Building for classes, student groups, and the public. The SU Lava Project brings the spectacle and excitement of a volcanic eruption to Central New York.