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Elizabeth Banks's WhoHaha brings the funny ladies to you

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There’s a lot of funny content on the Internet, but you have to know where to look. Is Twitter your short zinger jam? Is it video you’re looking for? You might just want to go right to WhoHaha, a new site launched by actress/producer/director Elizabeth Banks. Its clever title refers to the “who” behind the “haha,” which is obviously women. 

“I thought WhoHaha.com could provide a place where young women could go to see some role models and get inspired,” Banks explained during a recent interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “I felt like there was not a community online that really showcased funny women.”

The videos on WhoHaha are all short, sharable, and well-produced, covering TV tropes, corporate commercials, apps, social media, and casual sexism and racism, as well as humorous takes on sexuality, dating, friendships, and relationships. Among the homegrown content produced by up-and-coming female-identified comedians, there are also SNL clips, previews of Inside Amy Schumer, trailers for Netflix shows like The Characters, and links to Broad City previews.

The concept for the site came from a place of love rather than defensiveness or fear of not being seen. It’s also just practical. Consider sites like Funny or Die, which necessitate one to wade through content just to find women. 

“It’s difficult to pull off the ‘ladies-only site’ without being hokey,” said comedian Laura Sanders, whose work is featured on WhoHaha. Her collaborative video Dongher, made with sketch comedy writing partner Lisa Berry, presents a solution to the Tinderization of feeling

“Sites like Jezebel have humor but they’re not focused on that,” she said. “If you want to go for humor, you probably don’t also want to see a news piece that’s about terror.” 

Vana Dabney and Deirdre Devlin’s video “Unboxing a Boyfriend”—which spoofs the “how to wrap or unwrap something” YouTube videos coupled with the seeming “convenience” inherent in the millennial’s search for a love/romance/sex/adventure/lust—pokes fun at how convenient it would be to have a perfect partner delivered to one’s doorstep without any of the work required to have real intimacy with another human being. It also explores the pleasure of objectifying men. Dabney and Devlin see WhoHaha as a type of incubator, a place where emerging female comedic talent can be seen.

“Having an A-list celebrity like Elizabeth Banks say, ‘Hey, I am going to gather these funny women from the Internet, different comedians, and put them all here’ is awesome,” said Devlin. “It’s great to be a part of that group. Most of the women on the site are our friends or our peers.”

“It will be interesting to see what they do longterm—if this becomes a place to launch female comedians’ careers, or just a curated womens’ site,” added Dabney.

Others featured on the site didn’t even know that they’d been selected until someone tweeted them a link. Such was the case with L.A. comedian Petey Gibson, whose webseries Meals with Mary is a satire of TV cooking shows that features her alter ego, Mary Dolan, a very old, hopelessly heterosexual woman who is rather aggressive toward basically everyone she encounters. In real life, Gibson is none of those things, which makes Mary even stranger.

“It’s a great, interactive, funny site full of funny women, and it’s not coming from a defensive place, or like an ‘Oh, let me just show you what you can do,’” said Gibson. “It puts women front and center rather than [having to] wade through flaccid dick jokes or rape jokes.”

Another comedian featured on the site, Mo Welch, happened to be in the midst of shooting her new series Rebrand while WhoHaha was launching. The webseries focuses on a fallen YouTube star named Lee who is trying to get her Internet game back. In the series, she goes on a journey to “rebrand” and reclaim her Internet self. This makes sense thematically for Welch, who admits that she loves stories about hitting rock bottom and gaining more awareness as a result. 

Now’s as good a time as any for a site dedicated exclusively to emerging female voices in comedy. Just check out the latest 2015 Forbes article about the top-earning comedians, and notice that there are no women listed.

“I’m a believer in women helping women,” said Welch. “I think WhoHaha.com is just more proof of all of the funny women out there.”


New app MightyTV is like Tinder, for movies

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The new app MightyTV emerges in attempts to overcome the struggle of finding something to watch—whether it be via Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, or whatever premium streaming service you use.

MightyTV can be equated to the Tinder of shows and movies. Unlike Tinder, which simply brings up other users profiles on a proximity basis, MightyTV aims to analyze your swipes, tailoring its suggestions the more you interact. "The problem I wanted to solve was discovery," founder Brian Adams said in an interview with Wired. "I felt it was getting a lot more difficult," he said. 

Plagued are we by the disappointing feeling of curling up on the couch to watch TV, only to scroll endlessly and find nothing.

To combat this, the app presents a single movie poster to the user at a time instead of giving a multitude of options. If you want to know more about the title, you can simply tap the screen and it flips over with a short summary, ratings, awards, and a trailer (if available). Another tap brings you back to the poster, and in similar Tinder fashion, you can swipe right, left, or up. Swiping right indicates the title is something you've seen before and enjoyed, swiping left means you disliked it or are uninterested, swiping up allows you to defer making a decision; and to "Love" something, you can hold the screen with your thumb after swiping right.

The app advertises its potential to guide haphazard watchers through an adorable pink cupcake at the top of the screen. The tiny treat encourages the user to keep swiping as the app learns from the user's choices, using a special algorithm to theoretically determine titles the user would potentially like.

MightyTV's concept sounded promising, so I decided to try it out.

One thing I also appreciated (as a student, especially) is the option to include—or in my case, exclude—content that will cost extra cash. If you decide you're willing to throw down a few dollars for movie night though, the app will let you specify your price range once you get further in.

Now that we're all settled, let the swiping begin. Our cupcake friend introduces The Wolf of Wall Street, a popular film no doubt, as the first suggestion. More and more titles are presented with each swipe of the finger, but before indulging too much, I thought I'd peruse through the app to see what else it has to offer.

Aside from customizable search options, there is a collection of media you've favorited or added to your watch list, as well as some basic analytics from you and other users of the app. 

Let it be known how addicting and fun swiping can be. Initially I only had seven swipes to my name. Since the app boasts its ability to read your tastes, I took an extra few minutes to keep swiping—suddenly my count was 147.


Even for someone like me, who doesn't binge on TV often, MightyTV still proved helpful. 

As far as the algorithm goes, it's still rough around the edges. In order to get a sense of what you like, the app does have to go through virtually every genre—and present it multiple times—to understand your opinion on each. So if you're not patient, it's potentially frustrating. Also if you haven't watched too many movies or TV shows, you'll find yourself wondering if you should swipe right or left based on whether or not you think you'd like a suggestion. Otherwise you're just swiping up a lot, which can't really speak to your likes. 

Maybe the developers will implement a "Hate" option to complement the "Love." For example, every time a horror title appeared, I swiped left faster than you can say "nope!" Perhaps being able to express an opinion on both sides of the spectrum would help the app in choosing what to suggest next.

One other feature worth mentioning is MightyTV's Mashup ability. It pulls your preferences and your friends' preferences and, well, mashes them up. The app analyzes everyone's tastes, loves, and watch lists and tries to suggest things that seem to match with each. It tailors its search power toward groups instead of an individual. Gone are the days of asking "What do you wanna watch?" disappointingly met with "I don't know, whatever." (Each person has to have the app for it to work though.)

For now MightyTV is an iOS app, but an Android version is reportedly in the works. The algorithm's nascent kinks notwithstanding, it's a mighty tool for navigating forests of streaming content. 

Screengrab via TechCrunch/YouTube

Half of U.K. vinyl owners don't actually listen to their LPs

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Big vinyl may have raked in more money last year than music streaming, but the people apparently aren't listening to what they're buying. Maybe audiophiles just like tasteful home decor, instead? 

That's an apparent conclusion following a U.K. survey, which shows that 48 percent of people who buy vinyl albums don't even own a turntable in the first place. It's kind of like how I own a football autographed by Dallas Cowboys legend Jason Witten but never toss it. Or really any sort of cherished memorabilia—except that, you know, vinyl is intended as an interactive acquisition. 

Saturday marks National Record Store Day. If you've ever walked into a shop like End of an Ear in Austin, Texas, and had that intangible, sinking feeling that people are here to buy cheeky wall art, you were right all along.

According to the ICM Unlimited survey, half of vinyl users are self-described "collectors." As a Manchester college student told BBC News this week: "I have vinyls in my room but it's more for decor. I don't actually play them. ... It gives me the old-school vibe. That's what vinyl's all about."

This is a sobering reality for the long player. One that leaves a major dent in the long-running notion that the vinyl fetishist demands a more authentic, warm, crisp listening experience and thus stands distinguished as a more learned fan. ("There's just nothing like the needle drop, like the crackling before 'Black Dog' revs into gear," said an absurd millennial.)

That's an obscene amount of stacked wax collecting dust that's not getting the rock star treatment it deserves. Notes Pitchfork: "In the U.K., as in the U.S., vinyl sales have been surging. U.K. LP sales last year totaled 2.1 million units, a 21-year high, according to the trade group BPI. The BPI has also tallied sales of nearly 640,000 LPs in the first three months of 2016, up more than 60% from the same period last year." 

For a medium introduced in 1948 juxtaposed against the backdrop of an industry jostling for ways to serve you on-demand listening, it's an organic final stage. 

The lead singer of the Meat Puppets once scoffed when I asked him about his band's use of digital recording software. All that matters is the music, he asserted. There are certainly appreciators with better ears than this reporter's, but vinyl puritanism has emerged as the ultimate emperor's-new-clothes ruse. 

Those under 40 not obsessively tinkering on Spotify, SoundCloud, or Bandcamp—choosing instead to dig in crates for artifacts—are starting to look awfully suspicious.

H/T Pitchfork

How to watch Metallica's Record Store Day show online

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Record Store Day ambassadors Metallica are bringing music to the people. 

The band announced an intimate show at Rasputin Music in Berkeley on Saturday, April 16. Rasputin certainly harkens back to Metallica's early days, as the iconic metal outfit cut their teeth in the Bay Area and even relocated from Los Angeles in the '80s—not that far from where they'll be playing, in fact. 

Those familiar to the East Bay music scene know that, despite Rasputin's warehouse location, it's pretty limited when it comes to capacity. Metallica smartly turned crowd management into a ticket contest that allows lucky fans to catch the band live without being uncomfortably packed into the Berkeley record store. The RSD ambassadors have also gotten quite savvy when it comes to social media, choosing to stream their Saturday performance live on their Facebook page, starting at 4pm PT. 

The band is expected to play classic hits as they celebrate both Record Store Day and the remastered deluxe release of debut LP Kill 'Em All and sophomore hit Ride the Lightning, released the day prior. Even if it seems like fewer and fewer audiophiles are actually enjoying the sweet sounds of their LPs, they can at least easily tune in and rock out to Metallica.

Kanye West crashes A$AP Rocky's Coachella set, gets his mic cut off

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Oh, hey. It's Coachella this weekend. That means literally nothing anymore because you can watch the entire festival online and because even the New York Times thinks these homogenous events have gotten stale. Somehow, nobody told Kanye West that Coachella is super basic because he crashed the hell out of it Friday night just the same. 

'Ye turned up for A$AP Rocky's tardy set, attempting to rap while his mic shorted out like a syncopated trap beat. The guest verse effectively set in motion the end of A$AP's performance, as promoter Goldenvoice is not fucking around with their festival schedule. A$AP Rocky blamed high winds and being forced to move a video wall slightly lower as the reason why he hit the stage 15 minutes late. Who knows what Kanye can blame for this botched mic work.

West tried once more to make his mark on a forgettable festival headlined by new guard dad-rock outfit LCD Soundsystem. He ended up in EDM land, surreptitiously showing up and showing love for DJ duo Jack U. The rapper awkwardly stood onstage doing literally nothing for about half a minute. 
Adding to his list of Friday night failures, West also lost a foot race with reprehensible human Tyler, The Creator.
Yeezy's shortcomings are expected to be eclipsed by an inevitable Guns 'N Roses meltdown if Axl Rose ever decides to take the stage on Saturday night. Stay based, festival world.

Elaine Benes had a few questions for Bernie Sanders on 'SNL'

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Worlds collided on SNL last night. 

Larry David once again reprised his role as Bernie Sanders for a cold open sketch spoofing the recent Brooklyn Democratic debate with Hillary Clinton. Then Elaine Benes showed up.

Host Julia Louis-Dreyfus reprised her Seinfeld role and tossed a hard question to Sanders about bank regulation, who waved it away with a Costanzaian yadda yadda

Dreyfus, who recently reflected on the "sexist environment" at SNL during her time as a cast member during the '80s, also had a meta question for Clinton: "Doesn't it suck to be the only girl in a group of guys?" 


John Legend and Chrissy Teigen announce the birth of their first child

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Power couple/social media superstars John Legend and Chrissy Teigen welcomed their first child to the world on Thursday. The couple didn't announce it until Sunday, with Legend tweeting the exciting news first.

Teigen's announcement followed shortly after on Instagram. Though there have so far been no shots of Luna Simone Stephens, the model did reveal how much her daughter weighed when she was born.


YouTube is cultivating musicians with its new Foundry initiative

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YouTube is already the place where most artists share their music videos. Now, the Google-owned video site wants it to also be the place where musicians come to grow with its newly launched Foundry initiative, according to a report from Billboard

The program is the latest in YouTube's efforts to help further cultivate the talent that uses its platform, allowing a considerable amount of resources to become readily available for creators so they can make the most of all YouTube has to offer. Content from Foundry will be hosted on YouTube itself as well as in the YouTube Music app.

One of the primary focuses of the lessons Foundry is offering musicians will be on live video production. YouTube regularly streams major concerts and music festivals around the world and aims to equip artists with the tools to show off their live shows as well. For YouTube, it has the added benefit of making streaming on its platform more competitive with Facebook—the social network has gone all in on streaming video since launching Live last year.

To promote the Foundry, YouTube has been hosting two-day sessions with big name artists headlining each bill. The first took place in Los Angeles in September 2015, followed by one in London in December. The next session is slated to take place in New York on April 25, and will feature BJ the Chicago Kid, Gemaine, The Range, Built by Titan, and Miracles of Modern Science. 

Billboard also confirmed a Bloomberg report that YouTube has been attempting to make inroads with the music industry in order to collaborate. YouTube hopes to help promote artists and encourage exclusive content on its platform.

The outreach from Google and YouTube appears to be an effort to play nice with the music business, as the parties are in the process of renegotiating licensing agreements. Major players on the industry side have expressed dismay at the ad-supported model and low payouts on YouTube compared to other services. Foundry may very well cause the industry to change its tune.

H/T Billboard


Take a trip with Radiooooo and discover a century worth of music

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What were people listening to in Turkey in the '60s? Or Zambia in the '80s? Radiooooo is your new musical time machine.  

The interactive website lets you discover what might have been playing on the radio or in clubs in different countries across different decades, from 1900 to present. You can tailor your searches by mood (slow, fast, weird), and tracks are often user-sourced, adding a community feel to the act of discovery, free of algorithms and genre associations. The global map also has a few islands: Discovery Island for newly added tracks, and Lazy Island, which functions more like a shuffle mode for those who want a passive listening experience. You can also jump in a "taxi" and plan a musical trip across countries. 

An Indiegogo campaign was launched for the site back in 2013 as a way to test the waters, according to CEO Anne-Claire Troubat. 

"The Indiegogo campaign was launched at the very, very beginning of Radiooooo when the website did not exist yet, in order to test our idea," she told the Daily Dot. "People’s reaction convinced us we had to go further and create our musical space-time machine for real." 

Radioooo's president and cofounder, Benjamin Moreau, explained the genesis of the idea on the campaign's page, and the goal: 

The heart of this project resides thus in radically changing the way of searching for good music on the internet for a user who does not have the time to look for it, making this musical and cultural experience accessible to all.

Listening to music is always a journey, a teleportation, a trip. Including a map of the world was therefore obvious. It would allow you to wander through the globe and let yourself get carried away to new and different horizons by the music.

Each track lets you know who it was "discovered" by. Troubat says that two-thirds of the site is user-sourced, "which is a lot considering we keep only 8 to 10 percent of everything that is sent to us in order to keep a coherent editorial line." 

What was playing on radios in Thailand in the '70s? "Ding Ding Dong," of course. 

And Mexico was apparently jamming to the obscure electronic pop of Anne Cessna in the '80s. She's an artist I'd never heard of but I was instantly compelled to find all her other songs after a listen.  

Radiooooo's more than just a vehicle for musical discovery. Troubat says she hopes it can become its own social network, "where music lovers from across the globe can share their passion," and that it affects people on a more human level. 

"We deeply hope that users, after visiting Radiooooo.com and discovering the beauty of foreign cultures and sometimes of their own, are loving a bit more of their neighbors and that it generates more respect." 

What's Trending and iHeartMedia partner for Tubeathon benefit

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BY GEOFF WEISS 

The day before the American Red Cross’ Giving Day on April 21—a one-day fundraising effort to increase public emergency preparedness about disasters like home fires—media companies What’s Trending and iHeartMedia will host a star-studded Tubeathon.

The digital telethon and musical variety show will feature a mix of traditional stars and social influencers, including American Idol runner-up La’Porscha Renae, Dancing With the Stars’ Mark Ballas, Christina Grimmie, Sam Tsui, and Alex Boye.

The show will be livestreamed Wednesday at 4pm EST on the What’s Trending Twitch channel, with a gaming pre-show starting at 2pm. Hosts Shira Lazar, Bart Baker, Quddus, and Taryn Southern will preside over performances, variety segments, and a ‘Tweet Bank’—the modern-day equivalent of a phone bank, whereby Craigslist founder Craig Newmark has pledged to donate $1 to the Red Cross for every tweet containing the hashtag #Help1Family.

This hasthag refers to the fact that the Red Cross responds to 66,000 disasters nationwide (such as home fires) in which a family has lost everything. In these cases, it costs less than $90 to support a family of three for one day, according to the Red Cross, including urgent relief, food, blankets, and other essentials. Additional donations can be made at redcross.org/givingday, and a $10 donation can be made by texting REDCROSS to 90999.

Leading up to Tubeathon, What’s Trending and iHeartMedia banded together for a home fire awareness PSA starring GloZell Green, Frankie Grande, and Brittany Furlan. What’s Trending last hosted a Tubeathon in December 2014, during which it raised $53,000 for Covenant House, which provides services to homeless and runaway youth.

Amazon targets Netflix with standalone Prime Video streaming service

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Seeking to go combat streaming sites like Netflix more directly, Amazon has launched its own standalone streaming service.

Amazon began offering the service, which it’s calling Prime Video, on Sunday, and it will cost subscribers $8.99 a month, according to the Wall Street Journal. That's $1 more than the cheapest Netflix option but $1 cheaper than Netflix’s standard option.

While Hulu is also producing original shows and channels like HBO and Showtime have their own streaming services without a cable subscription, Netflix has become a force of nature in the streaming landscape. The site is releasing more original content each month, including critically acclaimed and award-winning shows like House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, and Master of None.

Amazon, which is already becoming a critical darling in its own right thanks to shows like Transparent and Mozart in the Jungle, wants to take on Netflix on its home turf.

Streaming video and access to all of Amazon’s original programming is already available through Amazon Prime, which also offers other perks like free two-day shipping, streaming music, and photo storage. That service costs $99 a year, but for the first time Amazon will also offer a monthly Amazon Prime option that will cost subscribers $10.99 a month. Both Prime Video and the monthly Prime options will allow you to cancel at anytime.

It will ultimately cost potential Prime Video and Amazon Prime customers more money per year if they decide to stick with the monthly plans ($107.88 and $131.88 per year before taxes), so, for the cheapest yearly option, the Prime subscription is still ideal. But for potential customers who want to use the services during certain times of the year—such as holidays—without dropping $99 right off the bat, or for people who may not be able to spend $99 all at once, the perks of Amazon Prime and Prime Video may now be a viable option.

H/T Mashable

Google adds podcasts to its Google Play entertainment library

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Google Play Music is finally getting into podcasting

Starting today, Android owners can visit the Google Play Store and find a variety of podcasts, like Marc Maron's WTF, Radiolab, and the Internet-centric Reply All. The podcast section, like the rest of the store, is also available on the Web, and it's currently accessible in the U.S. and Canada. 

"Similar to our contextual playlists for music, you can now listen to podcasts based on what you’re doing, how you’re feeling or what you’re interested in," Ilia Malkovitch, Google Play Music's product manager, wrote on Google's Android blog.

 The new platform offers comedy podcasts under the "Laugh Out Loud" banner along with sections urging you to "Learn Something New" and  "Get Lost in a Story." There's also a way for creators to upload their podcasts to the platform. 

This rollout has been a long time coming.

Last October, Google said that podcasts were "coming soon." In February, podcast star Bill Simmons tweeted that his podcast would be available on the platform when it launched later that month, but he quickly deleted that tweet and the late February launch did not happen.

Last week, NPR reportedly sent out an email to members alerting them of the impending rollout, writing that "NPR has worked with Google to ensure that public radio is represented in the Google Play environment." 

Kanye West and Tidal sued because 'Life of Pablo' wasn't exclusive

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About that whole "Tidal exclusive" thing...

In mid-February, millions of Kanye West fans reportedly flocked to Jay Z-backed streaming music service Tidal to cue up the rapper's new music. This app, West said, was the only streaming outlet that would harbor his seventh solo album, The Life of Pablo

On March 31, Pablo landed on Spotify and Apple Music. Now West and Tidal have been sued for alleged deceptive advertising, with a proposed class action case that claims fans were bamboozled into springing for the service under false pretenses. A Tidal subscription will run you $9.99 a month, but the album was later released on ad-supported, free services.

Justin Baker-Rhett filed the suit Monday in San Francisco's U.S. District Court. The plaintiff is also asking a judge to order Tidal to delete the data it collected on "millions" of new users. States the lawsuit: "Mr. West's promise of exclusivity also had a grave impact on consumer privacy."

As Bloomberg reported, the suit "contends the value of new subscribers and their personal information could be as much as $84 million for Tidal." Tidal claims Pablo was streamed more than 250 million times during its first 10 days on the service. The streaming success of Pablo was enough to carry it to a No. 1 Billboard debut. 

West is likewise one of several rock-star owners with a stake in Tidal. According to Bloomberg, Jay Z is also listed as a defendant in Baker-Rhett's suit.

H/T Bloomberg

K-pop star celebrates birthday by performing Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift covers

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For her 27th birthday, former K-pop idol Jessica Jung of Girls' Generation held a birthday party with fans, where she covered songs from Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift.

Approximately 500 fans attended the event, according to Korean news outlet Mwave. In similar fan-meet fashion, Jung addressed supporters directly with short speeches and read a personal letter she wrote. She also prepared videos and covers, which included Bieber's "Love Yourself" and Swift's "Love Story." And of course there was cake, as no birthday party is complete without it.

Jung's new company, Coridel Entertainment, also confirmed her solo album release for May—the first since leaving Girls' Generation in September 2014 and SM Entertainment altogether in August. A statement in February said Jung would be releasing a solo album this year, but did not specify when.

The star left the then nine-member group as a result of constant scheduling conflicts between Girls' Generation appearances and Jung's personal business ventures. Although the details of Jung's departure are still cloudy with controversial finger-pointing, she has seen considerable success as both an artist and businesswoman.

Jung has grown her fashion label Blanc & Eclare since launching in August 2014. Additionally she has made several appearances in both Korea and China on variety shows, once meeting up with former labelmate and Exo member, Wu Yifan. In December, Jung also recorded a cover of Sara Bareilles's "Gravity."

Screengrab via Tangooss/YouTube

BioShock designer to reboot 'The Twilight Zone' for CBS in 'interactive' format

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Great news for Twilight Zonefans: an interactive reboot is coming to CBS, and BioShock designer Ken Levine has signed on to write and direct the pilot. 

The Wrap revealed Monday that digital video company Interlude had paired with the television network to update the series with a very special twist. Instead of presenting viewers with regular linear plotlines, the new series will let the audience choose how episodes play out by interacting with the story at home.

Both companies have said that they plan to honor the original show, albeit with the added element of a viewer “change[ing] and adapt[ing] the story based on what he or she feels.” 

One added bonus: "As with all other Interlude videos, viewers can return repeatedly and have a different viewing experience each time.”

We don't know anything else about the production right now, but if Interlude's work with Bob Dylan is any indicator, this reboot could be really promising. 

H/T i09

How to download music from YouTube

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Converting your favorite YouTube video into an audio or video file is easy if you have the right tools.

Have you ever heard wondered what the numbers at the end of a YouTube URL are for exactly? They’re the key to finding a video on YouTube’s system, and that’s how a conversion tool can find where the video is stored and download it. Once it’s located, it can be downloaded as a Flash video and converted to any format you want.

However, if you don’t have the technical skills to extract the files yourself, there are countless sites that will do the conversion for you. All you need to do is copy and paste the video URL in the text box on your chosen site, select the format you wish to convert the video into, and in moments the site does all the work. You’ll get a download of your file to play as you please.

Most sites follow the same format of a text box for inputing the link, and various options for finished format types. Sites that will do the trick include Convert2Mp3, VidToMp3, and even browsers add-ons like the Firefox option that makes the conversion as simple as clicking one button while watching a video. There’s a seemingly endless supply of these programs out there, some of which live on the Web and allow one-off use, like ClipConverter and VideoGrabby. Others exist as downloadable programs on your computer, like YouTube dl and Video Downloader Pro. These programs can also go beyond YouTube, ripping content from other sites like Vimeo, Daily Motion, and more. 

Just be wary of what you’re downloading and for what purpose. It’s illegal to rip copyrighted material from YouTube and use it for commercial purposes. Legal uses are those that fall into the domain of “fair use,” which can include providing educational context and producing transformative works of original content for criticism or commentary. You can also download anything that is public domain video or audio and save your own uploaded videos as audio or video content for personal use. These are all bound by the same copyright law that applies to all forms of copying technology, from writing by hand to using a scanner.

The ability to convert YouTube clips to standard video, along with the legal ins and out of video copying, come together to create some of the most iconic YouTube moments, like Double Rainbow Guy. But even if you’re not out there to become the next Gregory Brothers, with the right tools you can now download video and audio from YouTube, and keep your favorite clips safe on your own computer.

Hillary Clinton and Stephen Colbert talk about eating on the 2016 campaign trail

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Hillary Clinton sat down with Stephen Colbert at the famed Carnegie Deli to talk politics and the political art of eating on the campaign trail on the eve of the New York primary.

Any policy talk is mostly left off the table as they sit in the empty deli and chat about her likely Republican opponent, Donald Trump; working with Congress; becoming a grandmother again; and the kinds of foods she has and hasn’t eaten on the campaign.

As John Kasich can tell you, political eating is a vital part to the campaign and what you do and don’t eat (and how you eat it) can easily make headlines.

But of course it comes back to the piece of cheesecake Clinton wanted but didn’t partake in because of the possible headlines to come out of it—although reports and memes about her not eating it happened anyway. Colbert’s advice? Have your cake and then offer the press a tiny piece—because chances are they might want it just as much.

Facebook removes page for popular celebrity gossip site, citing copyright infringement

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The Facebook page for the Shade Room, a photo-heavy celebrity website that spills gossip and has been termed "Instagram's TMZ," has been taken down. 

While Angie Nwandu, the site's founder, said she didn't know why the page had been removed, a Facebook spokesperson told the Daily Dot on Tuesday that it had been taken down for copyright infringement. 

“I monitor the page frequently and nothing was posted that violated any rules to my knowledge,” Nwandu told Nieman Lab on Monday. “We have been targeted on Facebook and have been receiving numerous reports over things that don’t violate the terms. The amount of reports have been excessive.”

But a Facebook spokesperson said Tuesday that the Shade Room's page had violated the social media website's community standards.

The Shade Room, which can appeal Facebook's decision, did not respond when asked for comment on Monday night.

In 2014, the Shade Room began gaining popularity on Instagram, where it has 4.3 million followers. Eventually, it expanded to Facebook (where it has more than 4.4 million likes), Twitter (where it has more than 82,000 followers), and its own website.

Instagram briefly shuttered the Shade Room's page 11 months ago, though the social-media site later called that a mistake. As BuzzFeed later reported, it appeared to be the work of an upset reality-TV star who had been photographed with someone who wasn't her husband.

After its Facebook page was shuttered Monday, the Shade Room briefly made its Instagram page private.

Nwandu's site isn't always popular with the celebrities it covers. As she wrote on her website:

"At first, the purpose was purely entertainment. I came up with the name ‘The Shade Room’ because I wanted to share my honest opinion on Celebrity news. All too often, when people share their brutally honest opinions, it can be misconstrued as 'shade.' As a result, I wanted to embrace the word and redefine it. The Shade Room is really the 'truth' room where myself and the readers can express our honest opinions on certain topics. However, after we became more and more popular, the readers that we affectionately labeled 'roommates,' demanded more than just gossip. They wanted a little bit of community news, trending news, etc. They wanted more positivity and substance as well, and we found that it was important to provide more than just gossip, even though that is our primary focus!"

Chrissy Teigen, John Legend post first photo of their baby

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First comes love, then comes marriage, then come the adorable Instagram shots of your newborn.

Chrissy Teigen shared the first images of her baby Luna with her 6.2 million fans Tuesday evening. The snap featured her daughter cuddled against her, puppy in the foreground. "Hi my lulu," reads the caption.

Teigen and husband John Legend announced the arrival of Luna Simone Stephens on Sunday, although she was born on Thursday.

Legend and Teigen stirred controversy with their use of in vitro fertilization, specifically her choice of the baby's gender. Not one to keep mum on social media, Teigen fired back at critical fans with a series of tweets defending her family choices.

A mother exacts her violent revenge in new webseries 'Red Bird'

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­­­­There isn’t exactly a glut of Western-inspired webseries. Which is a shame but understandable; period accuracy is hardly cheap, nor is it as easy as shooting a few webisodes of your friends trying to “make it” in Brooklyn. 

And if there is one thing that can be said about Red Bird—a revenge tale following Kitty Mae (Alexandra Goodman) as she seeks those who killed her son—it is that you can feel the effort. From costumes to locations to an original soundtrack that has presence and bite, it looks and sounds just as you’d imagine the creators—husband and wife Jeremy Osbern and Misti Boland—desired it.

That includes the bloodiness of the thing. Harboring an impressive body count, there is little by way of restraint when it comes to handing an actor their pink slip; they’re shot, stabbed, and clubbed as Kitty Mae continues on her path. Allegations as to gratuitousness don’t even come into it. The enjoyment watching a baddie being pushed off a cliff or taking a knife in the eye is reason enough. 

But if the act of killing is treated in a casual manner, the structure of the series itself is profoundly disciplined. Which sounds like a good thing, but in the case of Red Bird is actually a drawback. Episodes are centered around single set pieces or scenes that although well-scripted and shot, are short, mostly coming in at around three minutes. You can well understand the thinking for this, and I certainly appreciate anything and everything that knows to not outstay its welcome. But in the case of a series that is beholden to a linear narrative, the choppiness that this editing causes to the flow is distracting.

It is a case where we don’t get to see a good series in its best light. But the problem is unfortunate rather than terminal. There is certainly still fun to be had, as Kitty Mae cuts a swath through her adversaries aided by veteran character actor Michael McShane. And with the possibility of future episodes, there is good reason to believe that will continue.  


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