Tech has made it effortless to order takeout or get a limo, but social climbing is the same as it ever was: if you give a bunch of historically unglamorous, uncool startup people a bunch of money, they're going to try to make friends with people like this unbearable Manhattan DJ.

This is one of those economic slices of life that's almost engineered to piss you off, and so the New York Times, as it introduces us to Sean Glass, Silicon Alley's new best friend, posts a disclaimer:

Mr. Glass has one of those biographies you want to hate: Raised on Park Avenue, educated at the Dalton School, he is the son of Daniel Glass, the owner of Glassnote Records, whose artists include Mumford & Sons and Phoenix, and is the grandson of Sam Weiss, an early pioneer of disco music.

We do, and we will. Glass is one of those lucky ducks with a vaguely sexy, sexily vague pseudo-job as music promoter, whose existence is conducive to an absurdly obnoxious mise-en-scene like this:

This year, Mr. Glass attended the Summit Series conference, a regular retreat for young entrepreneurs at a former ski resort in Utah. There, he was introduced to Adam Tichauer, the president of Playbutton, a company that manufactures digital-music stickpins designed to be worn like an iPod on your shirt.

Live to network, network to live, and the cogs of our startup economy will keep inviting you to DJ their launch parties and to tell them what to check out on Rdio. Everyone needs a retinue, and it's hard to imagine better entourage material than this guy, halfway between worlds, the perfect proxy for posturing in New York:

Mr. Glass...at 29, has turned himself into the"musical director" for the New York tech community, and stands among a group of insiders who, having seen the Internet's disruptive abilities gut the music business, feel that the moment has arrived to aggressively embrace high-tech in order to create the industry anew.

That's not a "real thing," and it's hard to discern what his "company"—Win Music—exactly does either. Like so many figures on the bicoastal tech scene, Sean Glass seems to be a professional nothing—a party guest, a DJ, a slideshow filler, a friend:

[Alan] Chan, who had just sold Bre.ad to Yahoo, had arranged, in the extravagant manner of the New York City tech world, for the Sugarhill Gang, an '80s-era hip-hop group, to perform [at his birthday]. Equally in keeping with local start-up fashion, he had also arranged for his gathering to be managed musically by the D.J. and independent-record-label owner Sean Glass.

"Sean's been a homey for years," Mr. Chan said as Mr. Glass, in pigtails and gold Nikes, coaxed the crowd toward the dance floor with a remixed Drake track. "Most music people have no real relationship with tech. But Sean's different. He gets tech. He likes it. He really understands our world."

Think Rachel Sklar, but with turntables. The Times has a hard time explaining how Glass fills his hours—"working as a D.J. at hackathons and tech events, he has established a network of relationships in the New York City tech world and its sister sector in Northern California, human hyperlinks that he hopes will lead to downloads and club dates and branding deals with major corporations." But in a way, it couldn't be more right. Who's better to play a party filled with people whose apps have no good reason to exist than a poseur with a fake company and a famous dad?

Earlier this week, authorities discovered the remains of Joseph and Summer McStay buried in a shallow grave in the Mojave desert. The couple, along with their two young sons, Gianni and Joseph Jr., have been missing since 2010, when they disappeared from their suburban California home. Police are treating their deaths as homicides.

"It's too early to tell if its [drug] cartel-related or any other suspects," San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon told the Los Angeles Times. "But, again, the investigation is early and we have not had an opportunity to read all their reports."

Four sets of bones were found on Monday by an off-road motorcyclist about 60 miles outside of Los Angeles. Two sets were positively identified as the McStay's on Friday, and the other two are believed to be their sons, though they have not yet been identified.

The McStay family vanished without a trace on February 4, 2010. Several days later, friends and family reported them missing. Some reports indicate the McStay's left their home in a hurry: Rotten eggs were found on their kitchen table as were two bowls of popcorn, and the family's dogs were left out in the back yard.

The family's car was towed from a San Diego shopping mall near the Mexican border several days after their disappearance; that day's surveillance video of a nearby pedestrian crossing into Mexico shows two young boys being escorted across the border, though neither was confirmed as one of the McStay's children. There were also rumors that the McStays had fled into Mexico.

"The bottom line," the lead investigator in the case, Troy Dugal, told the Los Angeles Times in 2011, "was that life was normal for the McStays up to Feb. 4, and on that day they just vanished."

Charli XCX killed it last night at the Out100 party. Total rock star.

Math is hard.

A Michigan man has reportedly gone to Internet-ready lengths in order to troll his ex-wife with a daily reminder of his feelings towards her.

According to a person claiming to be the ex-wife's daughter, the crazy-wealthy Bloomfield Hills man, identified only as "Alan," allegedly purchased the house next door to his ex, and proceeded to move in with his daughter Tiffany.

He then went a step further and purchased an expensive bronze statue of a middle finger, which he placed on the back porch and aimed at his ex-wife's house.

As if that weren't quite enough passive aggression, Alan ensured the statue was visible 24/7 by shining a spotlight on it after dark.

"Alan and Tiffany are the best neighbors," tweeted Lenka Tuohy, "but ew who does that lololol."

Apparently the statue has had the unintended effect of pissing Tuohy off as well.

"[I]ts hard for me to enjoy my baths now because my fav tub is in my moms bathroom which faces out towards tif and alans house," she wrote, adding a frowny-face emoticon.

When a friend pointed out that Alan's gesture was making him "look like an idiot," Tuohy concurred: "Like lol someone's not over my momma!"

Alan and Tiffany are the best neighbors ❤❤❤ but ew who does that lololol #psycho pic.twitter.com/ffE7rjYRfD

— Lenka (@LenkaTuohy) November 11, 2013

Update 6:45 p.m.: Detroit sports writer Jeff Moss has identified the owner of the house above as Alan Markovitz, a local legend who owns three Detroit strip clubs and authored a book entitled Topless Prophet: The True Story of America's Most Successful Gentleman's Club Entrepreneur (which is in the process of being turned into a TV series for Cinemax).

A previous version of this article referred to the person identified as Tiffany as Markovitz's "girlfriend," but according to Deadline Detroit, she is his daughter from a previous relationship.

Here is the relevant paragraph:

Markovitz has a 17-year-old daughter from a previous relationship who lives with him. He was married for two years to a woman he met at a friend's birthday party at an Auburn Hills restaurant. But they recently divorced. He said his wife, a native of Slovakia, was cheating on him with someone he knew. She moved in with the guy two days after moving out of the house.

"He broke the Man Code. He’s a total freakin’ asshole,” Markovitz says. “Real men don’t do that to another guy."

[H/T: Reddit, photos via @LenkaTuohy]

Next week, People Magazine will announce 2013's Sexiest Man Alive and — if rumor proves true — the title will go to Adam Levine, a.k.a the human equivalent of testing positive for chlamydia.

We can mostly agree that Sexiest Man Alive is a meaningless title. Past winners include safe choices like Channing Tatum, Bradley Cooper and Ryan Reynolds — all perfectly pleasant-seeming guys with personalities about as exciting and inoffensive as a Pillsbury Crescent roll. But say you took that Pillsbury Crescent roll, sprinkled it with broken glass and turned it into an outspoken yoga enthusiast who won't stop trying to talk you into anal — then you have Adam Levine. People has officially taken "Sexiest Man Alive" from enjoyably generic to Maroon 5 song-level repellent.

To be fair, sexiness is an entirely subjective concept! Apart from Alan Alda and Beyoncé, there's probably not a single person on this planet who we can all agree is sexy. Some people — specifically those of us who are actively turned-off by charisma, charm and talent — are attracted to Adam Levine and that's fine! It's wrong/grody to the max, but still fine! You weirdos deserve a safe place to express your sexual perversion just like the rest of us, even if yours happens to be sicker and more puzzling than most. That said, come on, People. It's "Sexiest Man Alive," not "Person Who Most Reminds You of an Infection You Got from a Hot Tub" (though, weirdly, that's a magazine I would definitely read).

It's hard to nail down what it is exactly that makes Levine such a piss-poor choice for Sexiest Man Alive. It's definitely not because of his looks — he has a human shape and face where his face should be, which are both handsome qualities. He is symmetrical in the way that People's Sexiest Men Alive tend to be symmetrical. So that leaves us with his terribly smug personality and terribly terrible music.

'But that's mean,' you might be thinking. 'How can we say he has a terrible personality if none of us actually know him?'

That's a fair question! How can we judge what he's like if we've never actually interacted with him? By using quotes directly from Adam Levine, of course!

Take it away, Leather Wrist Cuff: The Man!

From Women's Health in 2010:

"Let's face it, I only practice yoga because the classes are always packed with beautiful women."

From MTV in 2004:

"I want our shows to have masses of sexuality and crying."

From OK! Magazine/Howard Stern in 2012:

In a TMI conversation, Adam revealed he uses "a fool-proof birth-control system," the pull-out method.

"I didn't start a band to get girls," Adam said with a laugh. "I stayed in the band to get girls."

When asked by Cosmo whether he'd rather be smart or funny, Levine replied

"If I were too smart, I would realize all the ills of the world."

He is literally the worst.

Now, if I could I would paste this entire article from the June 2012 issue of Details, but I can't so here's the unsexy best of the unsexy worst:

"There are two kinds of men. There are men who are fucking misogynist pigs and then there are men who really love women, who think they're the most amazing people in the world. And that's me. Maybe the reason I was promiscuous and wanted to sleep with a lot of them, is that I love them so much."

And:

"Nothing wrong with making money," Levine says. 'I'm always quoting the part in Jerry Maguire when Cuba Gooding talks about the 'kwan': 'love, respect, community, and the dollars, too.' I love that shit. Nobody has it all, but for me to even come close is amazing."

'kwan.

"You know what yoga's good for?" Adam Levine asks, pausing in mid-thought as he discusses his healthful lifestyle. He draws to his feet, balances in the private jet's narrow aisle, points at his crotch, and thrusts his pelvis like a porn star. "I'll tell you what yoga is good for: Fuuuu-k-ing," he chimes, in a singsong falsetto, then laughs."

I would rather have sex with Norm from Cheers.

"I hate flying," Levine says. "Know why? Because no one really understands how planes actually work.'"

Google "how planes work" and you get 263,000,000 results. Jesus Christ, at least Bradley Cooper speaks French.

(If your vagina is clamped down tighter than a bear trap right now, don't worry. That's an entirely normal reaction to everything you just read and it should ease up within a few hours.)

If those quotes weren't enough to dissuade you from blindly accepting People's decision to name him "Sexiest Man Alive" (by the way, this controversy would be easily cleared up if the magazine just changed the feature to "Man, Alive," a point that none of us can really argue with), consider the following:

4. That cringe-worthy photo shoot that he did for Cosmo UK with the model's hands hiding his dong.
5. ALL OF THE OTHER OPTIONS. Look, we can even be helpful and suggest a few:

On the bright side, imagine how exciting and unexpected future choices will be if the Adam Levine route is the direction that People continues to go in. Scott Caan as People's Sexiest Man Alive 2014! Brett Ratner for 2015!

Also (probably) on this year's list: Guy Fieri's sunglasses and a stale bag of chips.

Images via Instagram and Getty.

Deadspin Teacher Slugs Middle Schooler Who Mocked His Favorite Football Team | Gizmodo PS4 Teardown: Beautiful Outside, Tidy Inside | io9 The creepy Sleeping Beauty experiment changes the odds of a coin flip | Kotaku Inside Japan's Squirrel Gardens. Yes, Squirrel Gardens!

Dozens were killed and hundreds more wounded in a gun battle between Libyan militia members and armed residents in Tripoli today. "Prime Minister Ali Zeidan is struggling to control rival militias, Islamist militants and other former fighters" who are still fighting two years after overthrowing Gaddafi, reports Reuters.

Alec Baldwin's MSNBC talk show, which debuted in October, is already being suspended for two weeks following an incident yesterday in which Baldwin was heard to call a paparazzo a "cocksucking fag." Baldwin denies using the word "fag," but he apologized nonetheless for his outburst in a statement posted to the MSNBC website:

I would like to address the comments I made this past week.

I did not intend to hurt or offend anyone with my choice of words, but clearly I have – and for that I am deeply sorry. Words are important. I understand that, and will choose mine with great care going forward. What I said and did this week, as I was trying to protect my family, was offensive and unacceptable. Behavior like this undermines hard-fought rights that I vigorously support. I understand “Up Late” will be taken off the schedule for tonight and next week.

I want to apologize to my loyal fans and to my colleagues at msnbc – both for my actions and for distracting from their good work. Again, please accept my apology.

What do you do when you're two of the hottest show creators working in television and your banner show is drawing to a close? Panic that you'll never create anything nearly as brilliant and beloved again? Sit back and rest in your jacuzzi filled not with tepid frothy water, but piles of sweet syndication money? Make another hit show about PhD-chasing nerds and their hot neighbor? All great options! Or you could just go the Carter Bays-Craig Thomas route, and just make the same show all over again.

Bays and Thomas are in the midst of currently wrapping up the ninth and final season of their CBS comedy How I Met Your Mother, arguably (at one point, at least) one of the most innovative network comedies in recent history. Despite reaching the uppermost echelon of the comedy writing ranks and having a carte blanche to make almost anything they want, the pair have inexplicably decided that their next show will be How I Met Your Dad. Apparently in almost a decade, Bays and Thomas couldn't find a single fresh idea to justify the millions they're paid by their studio to come up with new show ideas.

The pilot has already been written by the writing partners, along with writer Emily Spivey, who created Up All Night for NBC. Per a press release that served as the announcement this afternoon, CBS just gave the 20th Century Fox-produced script a pilot production commitment. While production commitments can sometimes be abandoned by networks for other pilot scripts that are stronger come January, its unlikely that CBS will walk away from the pittance needed to shoot a pilot from their homegrown duo.

According to the network, the premise of the show will be a "kindred spirit of How I Met Your Mother, telling the story from a female point of view." Rather than give Cristin Milioti her own new series, along with the story of how she ended up stuck with sad sack Ted Mosby, the show will focus on a new group of friends, but rely on the same premise as the old show.

You know the bored looks on the faces of the two teenagers at the start of each episode of How I Met Your Mother? Get ready to plaster those on to your face immediately—especially when this idiotic show ostensibly ends up paired with Chuck Lorre's next pandering to the common denominator piece of crap on CBS.

TSA Officer Gerardo Hernandez waited 33 minutes before receiving medical attention after being shot earlier this month at LAX, a delay that might have cost Hernandez his life.

After being shot by alleged gunman Paul Anthony Ciancia on November 1st, Hernandez lay wounded on the floor, only 20 feet from an exit, as paramedics waited for clearance to enter the terminal. They were kept 150 yards away for more than 25 minutes after the gunman was shot and taken into custody. Eventually, Hernandez was put in a wheelchair by police to a waiting ambulance, at which time it was already too late.

"I am appalled that Officer Hernandez was left unattended for 33 minutes after the brutal attack he suffered," said J. David Cox Sr., the president of the union that represents TSA officers. "If someone had gotten to him earlier, this could have been a survival story. Instead a wife is left without a husband, children without a father, and coworkers without one of their beloved comrades."

No officer attempted any first aid on Hernandez during the 33 minutes after he was shot, and there were miscommunications between the paramedics and law enforcement officers in the terminal.

"Obviously it's in the back of our minds whether Officer Hernandez could have made it through," Victor Payes, a TSA officer, told reporters. "We're all a little frustrated."

It's unclear whether Hernandez would have survived his injuries had he received speedier care.

An upstate New York man with an affinity for lawsuits was arrested this week after he fired an unloaded Civil War cannon replica at his neighbors for eight days straight.

Police say 52-year-old Brian Malta fired his replica cannon — loaded with charges but no cannonballs — at his neighbor over a "civil dispute."

Instead of artillery, the charges were apparently held in place by wadded paper or foil. Police say the blasts could be heard miles away.

The cannon aspect has helped the story to go viral, but Malta isn't exactly a stranger to making headlines. In 2005, he and his wife won a federal lawsuit alleging that officials had violated their constitutional rights at a Village Board meeting by telling them they were "out of order" and preventing them from videotaping proceedings.

Malta was released on a $2,500 bail. His attorney, Parker MacKay said Friday that Malta is upstanding citizen and that "the truth will come out in court."

[image via Shutterstock]

'Tis the season for bacon-flavored candy canes.

In 1993, Ronald Phillips raped and killed his girlfriend's 3-year-old daughter. On Thursday, he was scheduled to be executed, until Ohio governor John Kasich delayed his execution so he could come to a decision whether Philips' request for his organs to be donated should be fulfilled.

Calling it "uncharted territory," Kasich explained that the state would have to reach out to medical ethicists before coming to a decision about whether the organs should be harvested.

"Organ donation is the stuff of heroes and altruists and generous people. It doesn't mix with death row inmates," Art Caplan, a medical ethicist at the NYU Langone Medical Center told ABC News.

Among the many issues raised by Phillips request (which is rare for a death-row inmate) are whether the state would be exploiting a person it is killing. This would get especially ugly if the inmate were to be taken from transplant hospital to transplant hospital, having non-vital organs removed from them. Transplants after death by lethal injection would be nearly impossible, as the injection causes organ failure.

In 2011, a death-row inmate in Oregon asked for his organs to be donated, explaining in a New York Times op-ed, "I am 37 years old and healthy; throwing my organs away after I am executed is nothing but a waste." His request was denied.

Phillips would like to give a kidney to his ailing mother, and a heart transplant to his sister. He is also open to other organ donations if they are needed.

"What we're principally looking at now is him donating organs he can donate while alive and then safely return [him] to the prison to wait for the execution date," his attorney said.

Ohio expects to have a decision prepared within eight months.

It was exactly two weeks ago today that I first heard of Renisha McBride. I read half the story—the 19-year-old African American girl, shot in the face by a 54-year-old white man, after she'd been in a car accident, walked down the road, and knocked on his door seeking help—and dutifully posted it to the hate crimes blog I manage.

The white man, Theodore Wafer, went unnamed at first, leaving Renisha the focus of the news, as her family waited and waited for criminal charges. "Half of her face is gone," Renisha's aunt Bernita Spinks said, a few days after the killing. "You know, we have to go and bury her and they're not even knowing if she's going to be able to have an open casket."

As a mother to a black child and a sister to three young black women, I was terrified by news of the death. Honestly, I initially couldn't read it all. I needed to take a brief break to focus on petitioning the court for full custody of my son and filing a permanent restraining order against a man who'd said that if I ever left him, he would come after me with a shotgun and shoot me in my face.

It took 13 days after the murder—only after grassroots protests, vigils, and social-media outrage—for the prosecution to agree to charge Theodore Wafer with second-degree murder, manslaughter, and possession of a firearm during a commission of a felony.

Even as I tried to distract myself, I kept thinking about Jonathan Farrell, Marissa Alexander, Aiyana Jones, Jordan Davis, and Trayvon Martin. It was Martin's murder that had inspired me to found my African American hate crimes blog. The names and faces had kept coming.

The fact that Renisha McBride’s murder gained enough national attention to shame a conviction and arrest out of Detroit was due in large part to the efforts of committed activists like Yusef Shakur and the Detroit writer/filmmaker/activist dream hampton. “It’s kind of unfathomable that we [had] to show up at the Dearborn Police Department ourselves, a hundred of us, and demand transparency, demand an arrest,"dream hampton said. "We’re responsible for the discharge of our weapons, just as we’re responsible for our vehicles.”

Renisha McBride was only 19. She was bright, gifted, loving and loved. She could have been me. She could have been any one of my sisters. We have all been stranded, cell phone battery dead or dying, in need of strangers for help.

Most of the black women I know have assumed we'd be more likely to receive help in those situations than our black brothers would, even if that help came with tons of sexual harassment. We know far too well the depth of those bruises that never heal from sexual assault, sexual abuse, menacing, and rape by men close to us. But most of us had not conceived that for white men like Ted Wafer, blackness is inherently criminal and violent, even when written on the body of a black woman.

In the aftermath of Renisha McBride's death, I have heard people say it is reverse racist to draw attention to white on black crime when there is black on black crime and black on white crime. These people claim that Theodore Wafer had a right to shoot Renisha McBride because she knocked on his door an hour after her car accident. I'd love for these inquisitive souls to ask themselves why black perpetrators, regardless of the crime, regardless of gender, are disproportionately arrested and tried more that their white counterparts.

This coming Wednesday, I go to court to try to convince a judge to make my temporary restraining order permanent against a man who said that if I left him, he would hunt me down and shoot me in the face with guns that are his Constitutional right to own. I do not expect to succeed. California family law states that men who have abused their wives, girlfriends, or children still have rights to the child—including custody and visitation—and rarely allows restraining orders to prevent this.

Domestic violence law, like in many other things, protects the man and not the best interests of the woman or child. And I wonder, if this man eventually succeeds in carrying out his threats, will the discussion be, like it is with Renisha McBride’s death, like it was with Trayvon Martin, what did Hope Wabuke do to deserve being shot dead? In the chest? In the back? In the face?

Will the police also decline to arrest the man who shoots me? Or, if I manage to defend myself with a warning shot, like Marissa Alexander, will I be arrested for doing so—separated from my 11-month-old baby who is so anxious when apart from me he cries uncontrollably for “My mom mom,” until he's back in my arms?

Really, though, I wonder what I as a black woman can do, in America in 2013, to be seen not as the target of raced and gendered violence, but as a black woman worthy of respect, decency, and protection because of my race and gender, not in spite of my race and gender. What will it take for black women like me, like Marissa Alexander, and like Renisha McBride, to ever be treated and defended by the citizens of our country as innocent?

Hope Wabuke is a mom and writer who runs a communications company called The WriteSmiths. She writes for Ms. Magazine online, and is Director of Media & Communications for the Kimbilio Center for African American Fiction. She is currently at work on a novel and a poetry collection about her family’s escape from Idi Amin’s Ugandan genocide. She blogs at hopeafteryoga.com and drivingwhenblack.com. You can follow her on Twitter@HopeWabuke.

[Image by Jim Cooke, photos via AP]

You can change your profile photo to whatever you want, but all that Facebook sees are sweet, sweet dollar signs — and they want you to know that.

The social networking site launched new privacy policies on Friday (and by new, they mean you still have no privacy on Facebook) that explicitly state that whatever you do on Facebook can and probably will be used as ad fodder.

The new policy also walks back language that said parents were implicitly consenting to the release of their children's information by allowing them to use Facebook. Instead, they now admit that the information becomes theirs the moment the child initially signs up for Facebook.

The changes are due in part to a class action suit that Facebook settled this August. As part of the settlement, the company must also give parents the ability to prevent their children's information from being used and allow users to see if their activity has been used in advertisements. Neither tool has been implemented.

Facebook spokesperson Jodi Seth told the New York Times that the "innovative controls we agreed to in connection with the settlement" will take time to build. But, according to the Times, she "offered no timetable for introducing them."

[image via Shutterstock]

This tornado is interrupting some beautiful interspecies love along a lonely stretch of highway.

Humanity, we've done it. Sick of killing thousand-year-old trees and poisoning ancient reefs, we've gone ahead and found the oldest creature we could find and killed it. For science.

A deep sea clam known as a quahog was taken alive from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean by researchers in 2006. They put it in a freezer and waited a while to do some tests on it. In the interim, it died. When they finally did get around to some tests, they found out it was 400 years old.

The scientists named it "Ming the Mollusc" after the Chinese ruler who reigned at the time the mollusc was birthed. Turns out however, it was actually even older. When we killed it, Ming was 500 years old.

"We got it wrong the first time and maybe we were a bit hasty publishing our findings back then. But we are absolutely certain that we've got the right age now," Dr. Paul Butler, a scientist at Bangor University told The Telegraph.

Their new finding puts the birth of the mollusc less than a decade after Columbus sailed to America. Think of all the history it witnessed from the ocean floor! First wooden ships, then ocean liners, then submarines and transatlantic cables, and finally a grubby robotic hand hauling it into a freezer where it died.

Oh Ming the Mollusc, you really did see it all. But we killed you. For science.