With all the talk of his possible new project with Jerry Seinfeld
Thankfully, there's this supercut of all his best (and most awkward) moments from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Side note: As Uproxx noted, it's been 28 months since the last season of Curb. And while there's no guarantee of a ninth season, HBO says they're "cautiously optimistic" the show will return.
[h/t Uproxx]
Sheryl Sandberg's international best-seller, an odyssey of corporate-approved quasi
Before you get all excited about who might potentially play Sandberg (Kerry Washington, fingers crossed!) or her nanny and housekeeper (rendered via CGI), the Sony Pictures production sadly won't be a biopic:
The studio has set Nell Scovell, the veteran TV writer/director, to write the script. Scovell helped Sandberg write the book. The film is not a biography of Sandberg; rather, Scovell will hatch a narrative film from the themes contained within the book.
Aw man, I wanted to see the pivotal scene where Sandberg tells Mark Zuckerberg he needs to start trimming his nails. So, we'll get a thematic film based on the sacred teachings of Sheryl Sandberg, made by the woman who created Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. Given that the themes of the book are "careerism," "efficiency," and "being a terrific asset to your company," this should be a real thrill ride.
Photo: Getty
Some states are important. Some states are not. Some states are memorable, and some are easily forgotten. Which states are the least memorable states of all? In order of forgettableness:
50. California
49. New York
48. Florida
47. Alaska
46. Hawaii
45. Texas
44. North Dakota
43. South Dakota
42. Virginia
41. Kansas
40. Maine
39. Arizona
38. Mississippi
37. New Jersey
36. North Carolina
35. South Carolina
34. Illinois
33. Washington
32. Georgia
31. Oklahoma
30. New Mexico
29. Colorado
28. Nevada
27. Nebraska
26. Alabama
25. Indiana
24. Montana
23. Idaho
22. Oregon
21. Tennessee
20. Louisiana
19. Vermont
18. New Hampshire
17. Maryland
16. Michigan
15. Ohio
14. Iowa
13. Pennsylvania
12. Kentucky
11. Wisconsin
10. Rhode Island
9. Minnesota
8. Massachusetts
7. Connecticut
6. Utah
5. West Virginia
4. Missouri
3. Arkansas
2. Delaware
1. ?
[Image by Jim Cooke. Rankings determined by science. There is no appeals process.]
Dennis "Slick" Lilly put on a prison guard's uniform and walked out of jail in December 1986, and that's the last the cops ever saw him alive. Despite being on the FBI's list of Most Wanted Criminals, Lilly was so slick that he disappeared into the life of a law-abiding small businessman in a woodsy town near Seattle.
He took his secret to his backyard grave.
Dennis Lilly died of cancer at the age of 64, more than a quarter century after he walked out of a Missouri state prison dressed as a jail guard. Fearing an official burial would give away the secret, his wife of many decades simply buried him behind their house in Gold Bar, Washington.
They took new names—David and Amanda Murray—and they did honest work in their adopted hometown, running a mail shop in the nearby town of Monroe, across from the Jack in the Box on Highway 2.
"We're open later than the U.S. Post Office in Monroe," their small business website says. And unlike the post office, the Lillys' mail shop didn't have to display those Most Wanted Fugitives posters from the FBI.
Dennis Lilly's mugshot was regularly featured on those FBI posters, as well as on the television series America's Most Wanted.
Their lives were quiet, according to the Sky Valley Chronicle, and their business was hardly hidden from view. Dennis volunteered as a community Santa Claus at Christmastime. A daughter was born and is now an adult.
The Lillys, who married when Dennis was still in prison for burglary and assault, eventually had the same mundane domestic problems so many people have. He left for California, his wife's home state, but he came back to Gold Bar when he was sick with pancreatic cancer. That's where he died, with his family, in 2012.
Had his wife not tried to set up a retirement brokerage account, she might've taken the secret to her grave, too. But the Social Security number she had used for decades didn't match up with the birthdate she gave, and some office worker at a financial services conglomerate decided to call the FBI.
When the Feds showed up at Amanda Murray's house and told her they knew she was really Mary Lilly, wife of an infamous fugitive, she reportedly confessed that she buried her husband out back.
Ken Layne writes Gawker's American Journal. Images via Google Maps and America's Most Wanted.
Rick Wilson, the AP photographer whose work was bogarted by George Zimmerman
In an interview set to air Sunday on CBS' 60 Minutes, Jay Leno finally opens up about his first Tonight Show ouster in 2009: "I was blindsided," admits the twice-removed NBC host.
In the interview with Steve Kroft, Leno compares himself to a clueless boyfriend when hearing of his initial NBC breakup. "I was blindsided … [NBC executives said] 'You're out…' and I went 'OK.' " The jilted Leno never asked NBC what prompted the decision. "You know, you have a girl [who] says, 'I don't want to see you anymore.' Why? You know, she doesn't want to see you anymore, OK?"
Leno was willing to give the
relationship a second
chance
Also not his way? Keeping silent on his second departure. Of his upcoming February goodbye, Leno adds, "It's not my decision."
He then masks his clearly hurt feelings with praise for Jimmy Fallon, "I think I probably would have stayed if we didn't have an extremely qualified, young guy ready to jump in. [Jimmy Fallon] is probably more like a young Johnny [Carson] than almost anybody since. And he's really good," Leno said. "So you go with the new guy. Makes perfect sense to me."
Leno's last episode of The Tonight Show will air on Thursday, Feb. 6.
One student was wounded in a shooting this afternoon at South Carolina State University. The campus is currently under lockdown as police hunt for the suspect.
The U.S. military is easing restrictions on facial hair, turbans, and other religious accoutrements. And man, are chauvinist super-patriots pissed!
The Pentagon announced earlier this week that its service branches "will accommodate individual expressions of sincerely held beliefs (conscience, moral principles, or religious beliefs) of service members," as long as doing so doesn't affect "unit cohesion." That means beards are cool for the first time in decades:
The policy was mainly expected to affect Sikhs, Muslims, Jews and members of other groups that wear beards or articles of clothing as part of their religion. It also could affect Wiccans and others who may obtain tattoos or piercings for religious reasons.
Cue outrage machine! Anonymous online commenters, of course, are proof of nothing in the aggregate; but in this case the less frothy among them actually represent the variety of objections to religious garb in the military, and as such they're worth a look.
Here are the top commenters on ABC's story:
Yes! The military demands uniformity. Beards ruin that. Like women and ethnic people and the gays. We've lost some really critical battles in the past year or two because of this social-experiment military, say people who don't serve in the military, but are sure that it's a conscious effort by the commander in chief of our military "to destroy." Destroy what, though—the military, the country, or rrebelll's TV when he shoots it out of rage over the news?
I'm sure a paper of record in our nation's capital has some more elevated thoughts. Like this one from a "colonel":
Ha ha I know. Crazy religions with their crazy rules on clothing are crazy.
Ha ha hey, burka joke. Nice! Nothing's more "PC" than a Muslim woman in the U.S. military wearing a burka. But by God, he's right about servicemembers having to "defend the Constitution from ALL enemies, foreign and domestic." (Or, more precisely, "against all enemies.") But I didn't realize that a religious objection about shaving one's beard is also a reservation about defending the Constitution. So hipsters are treasonous dirtbags... That checks out.
These readers of the Huntsville Times seem nice:
We're at war with Muslim's? Is that a department store? Maybe they sell nice skirts. You know, for cross-dressing.
Okay, this might be a little unfair, but let's throw a satire site in with these hard news outlets. Here's the top thread on Breitbart News' story:
Poor Mann. If he'd ever deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, he would have stopped at Ali al Salem Airbase in Kuwait, where mobilized military personnel run a gauntlet of five-and-dime trinkets between flights and can't yawn without some chaplain's assistant shoving six Bibles, seven dogtag-size crosses, and a Tanakh down their throats. And the only thing that ever attacked me from within in Iraq was the shepherd's pie in the dining hall.
To be fair, though, Obama hadn't been president for long before I came back. The U.S. military might be much more Socialist Kenyan Islamicized now.
Here's one of NBC's highest ranked comments:
Jesus, Jerry, you're dark. We're going to murder the old and infirm now, because Captain Kalsi gets a special turban with his PBR-meister mustache?
You're right about one thing, though, Jerry: The end shall come... right about now. Happy weekend, all.
[Photo credit: U.S. Army]
It didn't take long after his DUI arrest for Justin Bieber to return to Instagram. On Friday, the delusional teenager posted a disturbing side-by-side photo comparison: one side shows Bieber leaving police custody on top of a car in Miami and the other side shows Michael Jackson in a similar pose leaving a Santa Monica courthouse after pleading not guilty to child-molestation charges.
Bieber added Jay Z lyrics to the poignant photograph: "What more can they say." Jay Z must be thrilled he's the voice of an idiot's non-apology.
But it seems like Bieber will be just fine as his highly responsible parents are taking good care of their victimized son. This morning, Bieber's dad addressed the haters in a public statement:
I can protect my kids, but I can't protect them from you and your lies. Believe in the truth not in the lies of the enemy. #reallife
— Jeremy Bieber (@JeremyBieber) January 24, 2014
The original Hot or Not, which launched in 2000, was the precursor to today's ratings apps—a website that let strangers judge pulchritude by profile pic alone. It's so old, Mark Zuckerberg ripped off the idea to get Facebook rolling. So how did the newly relaunched version get to no. 13 in Apple's App Store? With the help of good old fashioned email spam.
According to its website and iTunes page, the new Hot or Not was released by Or Not Limited. The company boasts a perks-packed London office in the heart of Soho and has been offering iOS developers £1,000 as a bonus with their job offer, even if they turn down the job. But the corporate trail actually ends with Badoo, the enigmatic, spammy dating company owned by Russian entrepreneur Andrey Andreev, who was once called "one of the most mysterious businessmen in the West."
In April 2012, Badoo brokered a "white-label deal" to "effectively powering Hot or Not's service on its behalf," which would help get Badoo into the U.S. market.
But let's get back to the ranking for a minute. Hot or Not's sudden iOS success puts it ahead of Facebook (no. 15), Candy Crush (no. 17), and not that far behind Snapchat (no. 6). Tinder is all the way down at no. 108. That's problematic because when you look at their interfaces side-by-side they're pretty much alike. There are the "heart" and "X" icons to indicate interest, the way photos are framed to look like polaroids, as well as a messaging function. Both apps also take advantage of Facebook to log-in and automatically populate your profile with photos.
On tinder the X is on the left. On hot or not the X is on the right. Makin me X all kinds of cuties and heart the whales.
— Mikey Friday (@MikeyFriday) January 23, 2014
Tinder itself is updated version of the dotcom-era Hot or Not, so it's no surprise someone has tried to resurrect it under the original brand name. What's stranger is that it's working so quickly—and the shadowy company behind it.
“hot or not” vs tinder. no comment [ reminds path/pinterest app icon] pic.twitter.com/bREa4At3xu
— Ouriel Ohayon (@OurielOhayon) January 4, 2014
A screenshot of this App Annie chart, taken today, shows how high Hot or Not has climbed since November. Although there have been spikes before, it's been clinging tight to the top since before December. The app is ranked fairly high in the "Overall" category in other countries as well.
We have one theory as to how they did it: spam. Since at least September, our tips@valleywag.com email address has been getting unsolicited emails telling us girls have been rating our photos—photos we never posted.
If you open the email and click on the "Find out your rating!" link, it takes you straight to the Hot or Not website. The most interesting part, however, is in the fine print. Right below the Badoo logo, familiar from all those subway ads, is a grayed out message saying you've received this email "from Badoo Trading Limited."
This might explain why we haven't seen any press on Techmeme for an app that cracked the top 10 slot. Because Badoo has been repeatedly accused of pulling this kind of outmoded spamming tactic in the past. It's the same beast as that "Someone has a crush on you!"as a crush on you!" spam from a decade back.
Of course, there's no mention of Badoo on the "About" section of Hot or Not's website. No, that fresh new company smell is a commodity in the current startup economy. So instead, if you visit the recruiting link for developers to win £1,000, Hot or Not boasts about its cool office space, nevermind the copycat features or sketchy spam.
Sam Yagan, the CEO of Match.com, which owns Tinder and recently spun out of IAC said he wasn't interested in commenting. I've reached out to Or Not Limited to ask about the similarities between the apps and Hot or Not's sudden growth and will update the post if I hear back.
To contact the author of this post, please email nitasha@gawker.com.
[Chart via App Annie]
Magnus Carlsen is the world's best chess player. Still, you think it would take him longer than 79 seconds to beat the world's second richest man.
The 23-year-0ld Carlsen—described as the (pre-arrest) "Justin Bieber of chess"—became a chess grandmaster when he was just 13-years-old, which is probably why Gates said the challenge had "a predetermined outcome."
"Wow, that was fast," Gates said after Carlsen beat him in just nine moves, adding that the only time he feels intellectually inadequate is "when I play chess with him (Carlsen)."
Yesterday's transit meltdown at Grand Central
One of the sad byproducts of the media conspiracy to ignore this week's pro-life conference in Washington was that we almost missed this new iPhone app for baby-savin'. If only we'd seen it on Wednesday, we could've told you how much it sucked sooner:
Anti-abortion activists gathered at the Family Research Council's headquarters in DC Wednesday for a tech-focused gathering called, unfortunately and un-ironically, "Pro Life Con." The rockstar wasn't FRC president Tony Perkins or Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus, who both spoke to the gaggle; it was Brian Fisher, creator of the Online for Life phone app.
All of us at #prolifecon are downloading @OnlineForLife's app. It's phenomenal!
— Libby Barnes (@LibbyMBarnes) January 22, 2014
I'll admit, the peer pressure was killing me. What does it do, you ask? What doesn't it do!:
Download the Online for Life App to receive real-time alerts on women seeking abortions in your area. Invite your friends to join you in prayer and share the good news when a woman chooses life.
Sounds Big Brother creepy, no? Actually, as my wife and I learned, it doesn't do a lot. First, you have to log in:
Apologies to anyone who actually uses that email.
So what happens next? You pray. And... yeah, that's pretty much about it.
You get a screen (shown below and in the top photo at the left) that piles up messages telling you how an anonymous woman "considering an abortion" just got in touch with a "PRC"—a pregnancy resource center, one of the faux-clinics run by Online for Life's partners, where they distribute misinformation to pregnant women in order to convince them not to terminate their pregnancies.
That app doesn't tell you whether the women who are "considering abortion" think they're contacting a health clinic that performs abortions. It doesn't tell you if the women know they're calling an anti-abortion counseling center. It doesn't tell you much, really, and it's not clear if anything it tells you is true. What's it to you?
Your job here—and it feels more like a job than a game, which is death for a phone app—is to pray for these folks. You do that by swiping across a pregnant woman's message, leaving an awesome red-baby message in its wake:
It feels bizarrely like deleting an email... or terminating something. Not sure that's what they were going for there.
So far, so boring. But wait! There's not much more. Only a screen where you, the pilgrim, can gauge your progress:
This screen purports to tell you how many prayers you logged; how many of the people you prayed for made an appointment to visit a PRC; how many actually showed up; and how many decided, Madonna-style, that they're keepin' their babies. Is it for real? Who knows. Now, shut up and do some more prayer-swipin'!
Fisher, the brains behind the app and the organization that created it, is a fairly opaque "author, speaker, and business leader" who also self-published a book called "ABORTION: THE ULTIMATE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN," a denim-covered copy of which can be yours for $25. I'm getting my copy now; based on the ponderous prose of the introduction, reading the book is bound to give me a greater sense of accomplishment than playing with this phone app.
One quarter of the world's shark and ray species are in danger of going extinct in the next two decades. Mega congrats to humans for helping to defeat these killers!
Imagine working for an enormous global oil conglomerate. Now imagine you were trapped in a reply-all chain thousands of your coworkers—stretching across continents and timezones.
This morning, we got a tip from a BP employee about just such a globe-trotting, time zone-spanning reply-allpocalypse. The reply-all "OMS Navigators Users" distribution list—consisting of many hundreds of people—consumed the company for most of the day on Friday, sustained by new workers awaking hourly to the flood of emails
Anyway, we got our hands on the emails from BP's first international incident of the year.
It all began with a simple request to remove a transferred employee from an email list:
Hi Shahid,
We have removed Anant Prakash from the OMS Navigator Users distribution list. Let us know if you have any concerns.
Of course, the initial sender had accidentally sent his message to the email list for, well, pretty much everyone at BP. As so often is the case, the authorities tried, uselessly, to stop the madness before it started:
Dear All,
Kindly ignore last email from navigator team. By mistake ,we sent it to all users.
But it was too late. The storm had already begun.
Please stop copying everyone please
Do we all really need to be cc'd in on this??
Some recipients, not realizing that they were on a listserv with everyone else one of the largest multinational oil corporations in the solar system, thought that perhaps someone with a similar name should have received the email. Others were under the simplistic delusion that an emailed request to be removed from the list would actually do anything.
And Im afraid you may have the wrong David Burns sorry
Similarly I think I was added to the distribution in error
I have no idea who this is and can you remove me from this email
Please remove me also.
And so on, and so forth. Soon, a backlash started:
Ok we have all been added in error and the guy who sent the original email has already recognised his mistake!
Can we all stop sending the same message!
No one heeded the request to ignore the mass email, because humans are stupid.
OK it is ignored
PLEASE TAKE ME OFF ALL THESE REDICULOUS REPLIES!
I don't need to be copied – I not of this forum!
Recipients tried to take the matter into their own hands. But, as those of you who have been caught in a reply-all maelstrom know, that will only end in failure and tears.
Guys,
I think someone should break the chain of email and start the subject over again with the people who really should be involved.
Regards
Soon, the discussion became self-aware.
How long is this thread going to get?
I everybody who has been added by mistake obliged to CC EVERYBODY ???
CAN YOU ALL STOP SELECTING 'REPLY ALL' ...... just reply to Patsy.
Keep me in the loop please, I love this madness! :)
Things got heated.
CAN PEOPLE STOP REPLYING THIS E MAIL IF YOU ARE NOT RELATED . IF YOU ARE RELATED PLEASE
REPLY TO THE CONCERNED PERSON.
CAN YOU STOP ASKING TO BE REMOVED FOR CHRIST SAKE
Who on earth are all you people and why are you bombarding my inbox?
One enterprising recipient even tried to accomplish several goals at once. But as we all know, trying to get humans to listen to reason is silly.
Dear all!
Sorry for copying everyone beforehands.
.. but could everyone together just simply ignore this correspondence once and for all without requesting to delete them.
P.S. oh btw please remove me from this correspondence as well… :)))
Have great Friday everyone!!!
And so, accordingly, things got silly.
Just out of curiosity; do you have a distribution list that reads "Everyone in the world"? If so, please remove me from that list.
Thank you
Stop asking removal of your email from distribution list! It irritates people more than removal of Anant!
It IS FUN indeed!!!
Keep calm and
Keep replying All!!!
But perhaps they got too silly. Amid the continuing influx of people asking to be removed, some BP employees seemed to demonstrate a form of email Stockholm syndrome.
I missed the original email. Can you please resend it again………. THANKS………..!!!!!!!!!
Don't stop , please, keep moving
All,
Please add Aqshin Babayev as he is missing all the email.
This is so much fun
Truly, all of BP was suffering last Friday. But soon, a beacon of hope (or at least distraction) emerged. Anant Prakash, the man whose transfer had set off the chain, had been found:
STOP INCUDING
EVERYONE FROM
YOUR REPLIES
This is the Hero :
Please do not write so fast, otherwise I cannot read all of these.
:)
To the whole BP family who have taken the time to email me today Have a wonderful weekend - I'm off to the pub.
One enterprising employee got to thinking how the group could make the whole fiasco worthwhile. And soon they had not only a rallying figure but also a goal.
As the Carpenters once sang ' Its only just begun '…….
Have just put the phone down from the Guinness people, they say another 64 replies and we have the new world record !!!
We can do this !
I think it would be a lot let hassle to re-employ Anant Prakash after all!!!!
As with every revolution, there were tinfoil-hatted conspiracy theorists.
All,
I spoke to one of the recipients of this email and I was told that there has been reply from me (David Siagian) while I have not replied the email earlier.
I suspect it is a virus that has been replying on our behalf. I think we need IT people to work fast on this issue otherwise we will spend weekend deleting these replies.
But the masses would not be swayed. They would not stop until they had heard from their messiah: Anant Prakash.
I have spoken with him!!!!!!!! Anant PRAKASH
And still, the band played on.
I should not receive any of this email. I believe I received the first one by error
[image via AP]
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Yesterday evening on highway I-94 in Michigan City, a 46-car pileup began after an unpredictable wave of lake-effect snow came onto the road, startling drivers and causing them to swerve into each other. The gust of precipitation, which is brother to the terrifying menace "thundersnow" and has been known to white out areas of the Midwest, fell onto the highway that connects Michigan to Montana. Three people have been pronounced dead.
The scene of the accident, which is still being cleaned up despite I-94's reopening this morning, was particularly horrorshow. Michigan County Coroner John Sullivan explained yesterday afternoon that firemen "are still making sure that there aren't any cars under the semis."
After the crash, it was tabulated that 46 vehicles in total were prey to the unpredictable weather conditions, 18 of which were 80,000-pound 18-wheelers. As firemen and rescue workers cleared the scene yesterday evening, the effort was punctuated by the desperate screams of victims within their cars.
Coolspring Township Fire Chief Mick Pawlik enlisted an Old Testament metaphor to describe what he witnessed: "There were people in cars that you couldn't even see. But when people are stuck in their cars, they look at you like we're Moses. 'Part the water. Save us.'" Given the frigid—and dropping—temperatures that day, reaching no higher than 21° F, the priority was in finding victims and keeping them warm. Chicago's Jerry Dalrymple and his dog Sparky, as well as Michigan couple Thomas and Marilyn Wolma of Grand Rapids, were pronounced dead at the scene.
Justin Bieber was all smiles leaving a rented Miami mansion last night, and who wouldn't love being swarmed by strangers every time you step out in public?
Ah, the joys of being a parent in New York City, a place essentially unaffordable but all but the rich. Those that do throw money away to live there at least have access to some of the best private schools in the world, provided your kid gets admitted after other parents go all CIA on you.
The New York Post has a story this morning about the, uh, application process at elite NYC prep schools like Columbia Grammar, Mandell, and Collegiate. These schools allegedly plant parents on tours to observe how prospective families interact with each other. No smacking little Sophia at Mandell!
These spies then report back to school administrators with all the dirt they've accumulated. Further, the turncoats relish their spying because it allows them to get ingratiated to the school's power players, so they can then put in a good word for their own friends.
The Post quotes a woman named Terri Decker telling parents to be on their best behavior: "You're being watched by everybody," Decker says. Decker runs a firm called Smart City Kids, which coaches parents on this process. For kindergarten.
"The main thing to remember is that your kid isn't going to mess up the process," she continues. "You're going to mess up the process by being a jerk."
Enjoy your anxiety-free lives, New York parents.
