Life online is measured in likes, retweets, comments, favs, follows, friends, and retweets. The more you have of these digital token of affirmation, the more important you are. And importance feels good, right? Why not try to get more and more of it (it’s not all that hard to get a like after all)? This [...]
Read More...Jon Hamm’s Magnum Dong Banned from Mad Men
Last week, a New York Daily News published some big news from an “insider” with AMC. Specifically, that Jon Hamm, the actor that plays Don Draper on the AMC series Mad Men, suffers from all-too-“impressive anatomy.” His member has reportedly been deemed so distracting large in certain shots that the AMC crew has airbrushed it [...]
Read More...Hyper-Masculinity, Family Values and the Modern Reality Show
It takes about half of a second on your first watch to get a pretty good impression of the feel that Duck Dynasty is going for. The A&E reality show is all beards, barrel chests, and burly men, appealing to a classic sense of untamed American spirit that the reality show producers assume lies deep [...]
Read More...Distractions: Guns and Chainsaws Make for ‘Ridiculous Fishing’
After catching a fish, the only appropriate thing to do is toss it into the air and shoot it with a gun. At least that’s what the iOS game Ridiculous Fishing has taught me. The game is essentially three in one. In the first you drop your line down into the ocean trying to avoid [...]
Read More...What’s the Catholic Church Worth?
As Jorge Bergoglio ascended to the role of Pope, he not only became the sole spiritual leader of one of the world’s largest religions, but also the head of what might be the wealthiest organization in the world. Ignoring proverbs about “camels” and “pin heads” and “it is as hard for a camel to get [...]
Read More...Immigrants Ditch Church, Marry on Skype
Proxy marriages, or marriages that take place over a video chat service, are a truly 21st century phenomenon. Now what was once a rare occurrence is quickly growing into a full fledged cultural renaissance as immigrants take advantage of the internet to marry distant loved ones, and the government is struggling to ascertain the legality [...]
Read More...Dad Hacks Donkey Kong for Daughter, Accidentally Sparks Gender Debate
Mike Mika has been designing games for years, applying his talents and love for the world of gaming to every console from the Atari 2600 all the way up to the Xbox 360. So its no surprise that this virtual media mastermind lives in a household where gaming is a way of life. Mika’s two [...]
Read More...Facebook, Google, & Amazon Design Cancer Research Game
In a new effort, tech giants are working together to design a mobile game in the hopes that it will accelerate the search for new cancer drugs. Led by Cancer Research UK, these tech gurus are aiming to develop a game where phone users can sort through data—except fun. The hardest part, of course, is [...]
Read More...At the Heart of Every Great Pixar Film there is Math
As Pixar’s Senior Scientist, Dr. Tony DeRose is the genius that makes telling Pixar stories possible. While most animation might be considered an artistic discipline, computer-based animation relies on strong principles of mathematics. At a lecture DeRose gave at New York’s Museum of Math, he describes his job as “translating principles of arithmetic, geometry, and [...]
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Marketers Read Minds Thanks To 22-Year-Old’s Invention
Jake Stauch was always somewhat of a wunderkind; in high school he earned local recognition for scoring a perfect 2400 on his SAT while fighting a mean case of bronchitis. When college came around Staunch chose to study neuroscience at Duke, and a particular experiment caught his attention. When test subjects were put through a [...]
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