The man behind the George Zimmerman-DMX fight announced that he has cancelled the bout. Earlier today, Damon Feldman revealed on Twitter that he made the decision to forego "a lot of money" because people's feelings mean more to him than money.

The George Zimmerman fight is canceled I'm sorry for anyone I hurt with this but this was a very big opportunity thank you

— Damon Feldman (@hollywoodbox11) February 8, 2014

I want to thank everyone for the good n bad comments I've made the choice to cancel the fight w George Zimmermann more to life then money

— Damon Feldman (@hollywoodbox11) February 8, 2014

It was my decision to cancel the george zimmerman fight it was worth a lot of money to me but people's feelings meant more to me

— Damon Feldman (@hollywoodbox11) February 8, 2014

I walked away from av million dollar payday with this fight but to be honest I'd rather be happy and make people happy thank you

— Damon Feldman (@hollywoodbox11) February 8, 2014

Feldman, you'll recall, is an enormous charlatan, even by boxing standards. He puts on "celebrity" fights and voluntarily likens his work to "the WWE of boxing." The chances of this fight happening were only slightly better than it being on the level if it ever did happen.

Which leaves us here, likely the plan all along. Feldman isn't the promoter who put on the interpretive dance version of a George Zimmerman's public execution, he's the guy who didn't do that.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Barring a particularly memorable Winter Games, the Olympics in Sochi are destined to be remembered as "The One Where Everything Was Shitty." To the pile of Sochi horror stories we can add this tale from snowboard and ski course builder Johnnie Balfour.

Balfour originally posted this on his personal blog before deleting it, but naturally the text soon showed up on Reddit. His story of coming to Sochi in mid-January to help prep for the Games has more than its fair share of whining, but it also highlights the total lack of regard for the comfort of not just those covering the Olympics, but those making them happen, too.

His "hotel" was seemingly as bad as any we've seen in Sochi so far, and that is a very crowded field.

We pull into a driveway of a block of buildings that look like a council housing estate in England. It looks like it was built 50 years ago, not 2. The road is half built and there is mud and water pouring down the street off the mountain. This place is a dump and looks like it could fall down at any moment. I am pulled from the car and shoved in front of a pimply kid seated behind a plastic table. He is surrounded by boxes of building supplies and broken tiles, the place smells of concrete dust. Pimple kid hands me a key and points at the next building, "Top floor, room 10". I turn to leave, "No, you come". He drags me to another room full of folded laundry, he hands me a two sheets, a pillow case and a roll of toilet paper.

The amenties, like many in Sochi have experienced, consisted mostly of yellowish-brown water. Appetizing!

The toilet flushes muddy water, there is no hot water, the shower floor is covered in dirt and mud, there was piss all over the toilet, the water is undrinkable (it's brown) it's even sketchy to brush your teeth with it and the idea of having internet in this place is a joke.

Of course, it could have been worse. Balfour, unlike his friend, had reliable transportation from Sochi's airport to the site of the Games.

Before I get a chance to explore, Nick Roma turns up, soaking wet with a "Fuck this" look in his face. Turns out he got onto a bus from Sochi airport and was told to get off in the middle of nowhere. He stood in the pouring rain for almost an hour before another bus showed up. The second bus dumped him at a bus depot.

Balfour also says that Russian Olympic officials ordered that he and his partners open bank accounts in the country, and when they refused, accounts were open in their names anyway. He also doubts that he will ever be paid for his services.

The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi: an amazing shitshow, as long as you're not there. Or a dog.

[image via Getty]

[Japan's Aiko Uemura flies in the air during the Ladies' Moguls Final in Sochi on Saturday. We think this is how it's supposed to look. Image via Getty]

The fashion brand Valentino has apologized this weekend after sending out a promotional email that leveraged the occasion of Philip Seymour Hoffman's funeral to flog their wares, celebrity funerals being universally regarded in the business as the Super Bowl of death branding synergy.

The email, sent on Friday, included two photos of Hoffman's The Master co-star Amy Adams sporting one of their bags, presumably because they weren't able to secure a shot of the actor's still-fresh corpse draped in flowing Italian silk.

"We are pleased to announce Amy Adams carrying the Valentino Garavany [sic] Rockstud Duble [sic] bag from the Spring/Summer 2014 collection on Feb. 6 in New York," Valentino rep Upasna Khosla wrote, according to Page Six. When misspelling the name of the product is only the second biggest offense in your press release, you know you're having a bad day.

The bag retails for over $3,000. One thing you can't pin a dollar amount to, however, is tact. Tact is sold in Euros, because it's fancy.

Naturally this was not very well received.

Mona Swanson, the vice-president of communications for Valentino USA, released a follow up yesterday, writing "We sincerely regret releasing a photo to the media … of Amy Adams with a Valentino Bag. We were not aware the photograph was taken while she was attending the wake of Philip Seymour Hoffman. It was an innocent mistake and we apologise to Ms Adams who was not aware, or a part of, our PR efforts."

"Amy Adams is not a paid spokesperson for Valentino, and the suggestion she would use this moment to participate in a promotion is truly appalling," Adams' rep said in a disavowal of the stunt.

Meanwhile, as the New York Post also points out, UGG Australia took the occasion to send Hoffman's celebrity friends gift bags filled with gear to help them navigate the icy streets of New York City and also the frozen labyrinths of the great beyond, where it is cold this time of year and also all times of year via the absence of God's light.

Outrageous stuff, to be sure. But it's not really all that surprising that a company would try to turn Charon's ferry into a logo-festooned stock car is it? This is how things work now. Every time the anniversary of some national tragedy or other rolls around we're confronted with hapless flacks piggy-backing on death and suffering, like AT&T on 9/11 this year, or SpaghettiOs on Pearl Harbor Day, and then we run them through the social media shame gauntlet, whereupon the apology puts the brand's name back into the news cycle yet again. This is nothing new, and it's not going away any time soon. Why? Because it works. Here we are talking about Valentino. Let's all definitely go buy some Valentino bags and other things they probably make. Hats? And then, for the third go round, we ascertain which brands won and lost the big event, be it the Super Bowl, the Grammys, the Very Serious and Meaningful Celebrity Death, and the mentions keep on rolling in.

The truth is, things like these aren't faux pas anymore, they're calculated marketing moves pulled off by savvy brands who don't care what the context of any given sentence is, as long as their name shows up in it. You know who else liked Valentino? Hitler and your shitty ex-girlfriend and Mackelmore. Probably they did. The point is, Valentino still got their brand mentioned in there didn't they? Now we're thinking about it.

Everything is an advertisement. The first rights to birth photos of celebrities' children are sold as a product now. Why? So publications can sell ads next to them. A birth certificate is a press release. We all relinquish our own identities to social media companies so that they may sell ads next to them. Why is it any different to brand death, then? A funeral is the biggest branding opportunity known to man. It's both a plug for the retrospective greatest hits box set of a person's life, but also an advertisement for the rest of the people who are living. Every funeral we attend, every celebrity death we tweet about, is an announcement to the rest of the world that our brand still exists. We're alive! Consume us.

This is an ad too.

UPDATE: Kristen Scaravaglione, Sr. PR Manager of UGG Australia has written to Gawker to dispute the Post's account.

As we clearly told the NY Post reporter before she filed the story, UGG did not send boots to the friends of Philip Seymour Hoffman or his family in hopes they'd wear them to his funeral. We also have no knowledge or confirmation to whom she spoke to for the story, called out as an UGG Associate.

When it snows in New York, we get a lot of requests for boots from stylists for their clients. When it's Fashion Week in New York, we get a lot of requests. When it snows during Fashion Week in New York, we got a lot more requests. To the extent that we can, we provide product for stylists' clients. We don't ask stylists for what purpose their clients need the product, and would not know if anyone who attended a funeral did so in our product. It's not our business to know. And we certainly wouldn't then promote a sighting of a celebrity in our product when he or she is attending a funeral. It's just not done. At least not by UGG.

After resounding backlash, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong has decided to reverse changes to the company's 401(k) plan. The company will again match contributions every pay period, instead of once at the end of the year.

As George Zimmerman gobbles up headlines over his desire to stay solvent by getting beaten up by any famous black person that will punch him, another trial is underway in Florida in which a white man is accused of murdering an unarmed black teenager.

On the night of November 23, 2012, a black 17-year-old named Jordan Davis and three of his friends stopped at a gas station in Jacksonville to buy cigarettes and gum. The four were allegedly playing music loudly from a Dodge Durango when they were confronted by a 47-year-old white man named Michael Dunn, who was in the car parked next to them. An argument ensued, and Dunn fired six shots into the Durango, killing Davis.

Yesterday, Dunn's girlfriend Rhonda Rouer testified that Dunn told her "I hate that thug music" before she exited the vehicle to buy potato chips and wine. While Rouer was out of the car, Dunn and Davis began arguing over the volume of the music. One of Davis' friends, 18-year-old Tevin Thompson, said that he never heard Davis threaten Dunn. He also said that the cars were so close together that neither would have been able to exit their vehicles.

Soon, Dunn fired three shots into the rear passenger door, piercing Davis' liver and aorta. The next three bullets hit the front passenger door where Thompson was sitting, but deflected off the handle and hinge. The driver of the Durango then fled to an adjacent strip mall, where it became apparent that Davis was dying.

Dunn, meanwhile, returned to his hotel with Rouer, where they made rum and cokes and ordered a pizza. Dunn's attorney is arguing for his innocence based on Florida's insane "Stand Your Ground" law, which was written by America's gun lobby.

Dunn's attorney says that Dunn thought he saw a gun or lead pipe in the teenagers' vehicle, though a search of the Durango turned up no weapons. The lawyer's response to that was to argue that Davis and his friends had enough time to dispose of a weapon, because in Florida it's always the black teenagers that are looking to kill.

Despite considerable protests, a Danish zoo has killed a two-year-old "surplus" giraffe called Marius, whose only crime was being in the wrong place (Copenhagen) at the wrong time (ever).

Warning, graphic image below.

News of Marius's impending execution by bolt gun prompted thousands to sign a petition in opposition, and members of the zoological community from around the world to offer to take him in, but the Danish zookeepers could not be dissuaded.

It's all part of the circle of life, they said. The completely natural circle of life in which giraffes live inside cages. Bengt Holst, the scientific director at the zoo said disposing of Marius was necessary because his genes were shit, and it wouldn't benefit the greater giraffe community to have him procreate.

"Giraffes today breed very well, and when they do you have to choose and make sure the ones you keep are the ones with the best genes," he told the BBC. They rejected offers to take Marius in from other zoos because the space should be used for "a genetically more important giraffe."

[Photo by Pedersen Rasmus Flindt/AP]

Ireen Wüst of Netherlands became the first out gay Olympian to medal in Sochi, taking home gold in women's 3,000-meter speedskating. It is Wüst's third career gold.

The 2014 Winter Olympics are about to be overtaken by Johnny Weir, the ex-Olympic figure skater now working for NBC during this year's Games. Absorb his above look, because it's more fun than anything that has happened in Sochi so far.

Weir has appeared on television in at least two different outfits so far this weekend, and both have been incredible. Above we see a white blazer over a white sheer v-neck shirt with a dramatic gold necklace pulled straight from your grandmother's closet. (Or Lil B's. One of the two.)

And below we see a a black blazer over a white oxford with black lines scribbled on it and a massive gold-and-pearl ring, which actually seems understated by his standards.

Weir is arguably the most outspoken gay figure skater in the history of a sport that has gone to great lengths to keep its gay members in the closet. By going to Sochi as an openly gay man, Weir is trying to balance wanting to be a part of the Olympics with making a statement about Russia's LGBT oppression.

This — being his vibrant self, essentially — is his statement, which will be enough for some people but not enough for others. As skating inches to the forefront of the Olympics, Weir and his personal style are going to get attention, but we won't really be talking about the clothes.

Churlish performance art major and bar-fighting Shakespearean Antonio Shia LaBeouf has once again dazzled the world with his ability to feel things more deeply than the rest of us. During a press conference for Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac, (inexplicably still not out in theaters yet), a film in which he was forced to act against his wishes, in a career he did not choose of his own volition, the actor answered one question, then walked off the stage. Where? Into a volcano maybe.

What was it like acting in a film with so many sex scenes, he was asked, which is, in fairness, a pretty uninspired, hacky question.

"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea," he answered, before exiting abruptly. "Thank you very much."

No, sir. Thank you in fact. LaBeouf, who is physically incapable of opening his trap without someone else's words coming out, (acting!) was making a reference to an infamously cryptic press conference given by French footballer and former Manchester United player Eric Cantona, who was suspended after a physical altercation with a fan in the 90s. Cantona was himself a sort of pugnacious, two-fisted LaBeoufian archetype philosopher, as prone to sudden violence as a slowly delivered, ponderous pontification. The trawler, you see, is the great man beset upon by seagulls, or the media, starving for tossed-off scraps to gorge ourselves upon.

Actors are dumb.

It's safe to say American figure skater Ashley Wagner was expecting a better score than that. Her face—along with all pretense—dropped after seeing the judges' thoughts on her short program in ladies team competition.

For the record, Wagner received a score of 63.10, putting her in fourth place at the time behind Mao Asada, a Japanese skater who fell during her routine. Wagner assumed she'd get a much better result. And now, she's internet-famous for her disappointment.

Photo: Darren Cummings/Pool/Getty

It seems like every other day some dumb Starbucks or other is opening up on every block, but slightly rarer is an actual Dumb Starbucks. That's the name behind a new coffee shop in the Los Feliz neighborhood of L.A. that opened this weekend.

The store, as Southern California Public Radio reported, is nearly identical to a normal Starbucks, from its appearance, to its menu options, to its store design, but with one distinguishing characteristic: it's specifically "Dumb," rather than implicitly so. On the menu are Dumb Espresso, Dumb Iced Coffee, and Dumb Frappuccinos.

Enjoy our full menu of coffees and cold drinks pic.twitter.com/wPacrEEH9k

— Dumb Starbucks (@dumbstarbucks) February 8, 2014

The odds are that this is some sort of dumb viral marketing stunt or other, and the fact that Dan Harmon of Community, and Rainn Wilson were among some of the first to post about it on social media suggests a dumb TV show angle. Further casting suspicion are the dumb store's dumb disclaimers on their dumb FAQ, where they qualify themselves as a work of parody art in order to circumvent the very, very likely trademark infringement suit they could be subject to.

Actually it's not the same law Weird Al uses, technically. That falls under copyright. Brand logos are trademarked. While there are protections for fair use and parody under both copyright and trademark law, and courts have allowed for a widely varying degree of leeway depending on the circumstances, the central issue in most infringement cases revolves around the potential for confusion in the market, and the similarity to the original product in question. As an overview from the Harvard Law School explains regarding trademark parody:

Finally, certain parodies of trademarks may be permissible if they are not too directly tied to commercial use. The basic idea here is that artistic and editorial parodies of trademarks serve a valuable critical function, and that this critical function is entitled to some degree of First Amendment protection. The courts have adopted different ways of incorporating such First Amendment interests into the analysis. For example, some courts have applied the general "likelihood of confusion" analysis, using the First Amendment as a factor in the analysis. Other courts have expressly balanced First Amendment considerations against the degree of likely confusion. Still other courts have held that the First Amendment effectively trumps trademark law, under certain circumstances. In general, however, the courts appear to be more sympathetic to the extent that parodies are less commercial, and less sympathetic to the extent that parodies involve commercial use of the mark.

It's that commercial use that may prove pivotal here; as of yesterday Dumb Starbucks were giving away their coffee for free. That may be the most un-Starbucks like thing ever. An actually successful company like them would never do something that dumb.

[Image via Rainn Wilson on Instagram]

That is Shia LaBeouf at the German permiere of Lars von Trier's new film Nymphomaniac wearing a brown bag over his head that says "I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE," a slogan he debuted on Twitter about a month ago. There is also a bar code at the top right corner of the bag, because being a multimillionaire actor makes you feel like a product or whatever.

It's been a day for Shia.

The hottest new looks from New York Fashion Week this season are felt crowns, thongs, trench coats, and a shit-eating grins, as seen when a streaker sprinted across the stage at Prabal Gurung's runway show on Saturday.

The man in question, a "Ukrainian reporter" named Vitalii Sediuk, is known for pulling off such goofy stunts. He affixed himself to Leonardo DiCaprio's crotch at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival recently, and was infamously slapped by Will Smith for trying to kiss the actor on the lips at the Russian premiere of MIB3. He also, apparently, skips leg day.

"What can you do? Would I have liked it to be seamless? Yes." Gurung told WWD. "I hope he got his 15 seconds and I hope he got some pleasure out of it, I really do. And that's all I can ask for."

[Photo by Richard Drew/AP]

When AOL CEO Tim Armstrong explained to his employers this week why he was undercutting their 401(k) plans, he used the example of two "distressed babies" whose care he says cost the company millions. Today, a mother of one of those babies has spoken out.

Deanna Fei — an acclaimed author, by the way — has published an published an essay at Slate where she reveals herself as one of those scapegoats. Her husband works at AOL, and in October of 2012 she went into labor four months early.

I was home alone with our 1-year-old son and barely able to comprehend that I could be in labor. By the time I arrived at the hospital, my husband a few minutes behind, I was fully dilated and my baby's heartbeat was slowing. Within 20 minutes, my daughter was delivered via emergency cesarean, resuscitated, and placed in the neonatal intensive care unit.

She weighed 1 pound, 9 ounces. Her skin was reddish-purple, bloody and bruised all over. One doctor, visibly shaken, described it as "gelatinous." I couldn't hold my daughter or nurse her or hear her cries, which were silenced by the ventilator. Without it, she couldn't breathe.

That's the child that AOL — whose CEO is paid $12 million annually to routinely make an ass of himself on conference calls — was paying to keep alive. It was a trying struggle from that point on, so much so that Fei admits to wishing at times that her daughter would pass away peacefully before her and her husband became attached.

For longer than I can bear to remember, we were too terrified to name her, to know her, to love her. In my lowest moments—when she suffered a brain hemorrhage, when her right lung collapsed, when she stopped breathing altogether one morning—I found myself wishing that I could simply mourn her loss and go home to take care of my strapping, exuberant, fat-cheeked son.

The girl is now healthy, but Fei says that Armstrong's "distressed babies" claim brought her back to the time when she thought her daughter was going to die.

At home with our daughter, I found myself again unable to look at her without recalling her clinging to life support. Since her arrival, I've rarely been free from some form of torment over her premature birth. The months of pumping breast milk for a baby who might not live to drink it. The anxieties about every milestone: Will she smile? Will she lift her head? Will she crawl, talk, sing? The torturous thoughts of what I might have done wrong during my brief pregnancy, how I might have failed her as her mother.

...

All of which made the implication from Armstrong that the saving of her life was an extravagant option, an oversize burden on the company bottom line, feel like a cruel violation, no less brutal for the ludicrousness of his contention.

Having Tim Armstrong in your life is awful, unless, of course, you're a shareholder.

Yesterday, we brought you the unbelievable story of a runner falling in the snow immediately after giving an interview about the joys of running in the snow. It was 67 seconds of pure gold. We've since been in touch with Chelsea and she has graciously agreed to answer some questions.

She's a former writer/editor for Flavorpill and The A.V. Club and lives in New York City. She was visiting her longtime boyfriend, Michael (the guy in the video), who lives in Portland.

First order of business: are you OK, physically? It looked bad and I was feeling torn on whether to post the video until I heard the reporter say you were smiling and laughing. Did you go to the hospital or doctor or anything?

My neck was a little sore but the ridiculous, awesome irony of the situation cushioned the blow pretty well.

What happened to you is, like, my worst nightmare when I think about running in any kind of weather—though, I have to admit I never imagined it would happen on live TV; thanks for the new worst nightmare—so I generally try to avoid running outside unless it's San Diego out. Is there any weather you won't run in?

I actually live in New York (sorry to shatter the otherwise perfectly sculpted Portlandia stereotype, guys), so I'll run whenever it's still actually fun to run. Gently falling snowflakes on a powdery sidewalk? Sure. Freezing rain? Fuck no. Pretty sure anyone who sees it as trying to prove something is seriously over-thinking things.

What were you guys even doing out there in the first place?

We were running just to check out the neighborhood all covered in snow. We had no purpose or destination in mind other than it was really crazy looking outside and we thought it'd be fun to explore.

Also, it was dark. Do you run at night a lot? I think I'm scared of running at night.

You couldn't pay me to wake up early just to go out for a run. I love running but I love not getting out of bed way more. So, yes, I usually run at night because I'm already awake and semi-functional by then.

It's funny watching the clip because as soon as you guys take off, you can see the exact spot where you are going to fall. Did you see it yourself and think you'd better be careful or was it just a total rug-pulled-out-from-under-you moment?

Oh, I had no idea. The ground was really uneven on the hill where they had us standing and my eyes were still splotchy from the light on the camera. We were actually trying to get back to where it was all powdery and soft (the "perfect texture" I'd so over-eagerly described) when I bit it on that patch of ice.

Were you conscious of the cameras trained on you? What were your thoughts immediately after it happened?

I was actually mid-sentence commenting on how awkward the whole thing was when I went down. The whole sequence was just too perfect.

Obviously, you run a lot. Casual runners don't just decide to go for an evening jaunt in a snowstorm. What does your average week look like running-wise? What's your standard run? Do you do races?

I've run some long-distance races but I usually just go out in search of local news crews and ask them to film me waxing poetic about running, then fall on my ass in front of them. That's my favorite kind of run.

What is the bare minimum length or distance that you will consider "a run"?

I consider a slow, hungover shuffle to get a fried egg sandwich from the nearest bodega a run. Small triumphs, man.

My wife was telling me about these psychopaths who stick tacks in their shoes so they can run in the snow. Will you consider such a strategy in the future?

That sounds like way too much work for something that can already feel like too much work.

You've expressed some regret as to how you came off in the interview which, if we're being fair, is part of the reason the video is so great. You seemed almost...enraptured with the idea of running in the snow. You attribute it to the awkwardness of the whole situation, so how did this all happen?

We ran by this reporter and cameraman who looked like they'd been stuck waiting for something to happen for a while. Given that there were actual cross country skiers in the streets and even a few hardcore cyclists, a pair of runners was probably pretty lame. But maybe we were just the only people who stopped when they called after us.

As for the interview part, I think we both got so serious in front of the camera because we didn't know what to say beyond the obvious fact that it's just fun to play in snow. Apparently that came across as unbearably smug to a lot of people though. We probably should've just yelled WHEEEEE!!! and then somersaulted down the hill.

Let's get to the other half of "we," who has been conspicuously quiet about the whole thing.

Michael is actually one of the kindest, sincerest, and most charmingly earnest people I know so he doesn't get why I'm being so self-deprecating about the whole interview part. I, on the other hand, tend to be a judgmental asshole who would probably make fun of me if I saw this and didn't know me, so my reaction has been mostly an overly self-conscious response to that. He thinks the whole thing is funny and awesome, and keeps reassuring me that we don't sound like tools (but let's be real, we totally do).

Has this gone viral to the point where people—family, friends etc.—have contacted you about it?

Dude, people are coming out of the woodwork. When I called my parents last night, my mom and dad were apparently watching it on repeat and laughing hysterically to themselves.

Aw, man. Even her parents. So cold.

Well, that'll wrap it up. Thank you, Chelsea, for falling so spectacularly and for being such a great sport about it. We're all winners here (us slightly more than you because we didn't fall on TV).

According to a study last year by the National Marriage Project and others, the average age at at which we get married is now at an all-time high. The study, "Knot Yet", whose titular pun is how you know it's good, says women are waiting until 27, and men 29, before promising to fart next to each other on the couch for eternity.

There are some benefits to this, they point out, including a decrease in the divorce rate, and improved educational and economic prospects for women. On the other hand, we're also seeing more children born to parents before they're married, which you don't need a fancy study to tell you turns them gay.

That's not even the biggest problem, as Andrew Reiner, a teacher at the Towson University writes this weekend in the The New York Times. What we're seeing now, he says, are teens and also twenty-something teens not only postponing marriage, but also losing their very ability to connect to one another as human beings. The culprit? Hook-up culture, he says, the brand new trend of young people conducting pants experiments with study partners outside of the lab if you get what I mean. (Sex boning).

As a one-time sexy young college teen having lots of sexy college sex on college campuses with other sexy young college teens, and also a person with the barest minimum understanding of the concepts of human behavior, the suggestion that sex among young people is a troubling new concept seems flimsy to me.

The problem is, he writes, that all of our crippling social media addictions, and our blithe attitudes about marriage have not only hampered our desire to settle down the day after commencement like all of our parents definitely did, they've also eroded our ability to know what love even is. "What even is love?" thousands of college are asking themselves right now, reading that word here for the first time.

Yet for all of their future designs on marriage, many of them may not get there. Their romance operandi — hooking up and hanging out — flouts the golden rule of what makes marriages and love work: emotional vulnerability.

Further, empathy has declined, and narcissism and competitiveness have skyrocketed, he writes.

In "The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture Is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy," Donna Freitas chronicles the ways in which this trend is creating the first generation in history that has no idea how to court a potential partner, let alone find the language to do so.

You know who knew how to "court partners" instinctively? Teens in the 80s and 70s and 60s and 50s and 1730s. They just knew it right off the bat, and they went up to a potential partner and courted them with grace and élan. Next thing, marriage is what.

We further desensitize ourselves to love when we stifle the bonding feelings that spring forth from oxytocin. This "love" hormone is released during orgasm, but it also floods the body and brain after hugging or affectionate touching. Yet we deny such molecular reactions at great peril, according to Dr. Dean Ornish, founder of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute and author of "Love and Survival: The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy."

"I am not aware of any other factor in medicine that has a greater impact on our survival than the healing power of love and intimacy," Dr. Ornish writes. "Not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery."

What about the healing power of laughter?

There's just one glaring problem with the entire premise of the piece, and that's that hook-up culture doesn't even really seem to exist in the first place.

Undaunted, the solution, Reiner suggests, like a mad scientist tinkering with a wind-up cyborg doll, is teaching it how to love. No, literally. That's his idea. Classes on how to love.

For this résumé-driven generation, schools would do well to add a grade-based seminar about love. The course could cross many academic disciplines: the biology of intimacy; the multicultural history of courtship; the psychology and sociology of vulnerability.

OK, but what happens when you get an F in cuddling? Then what?

At the very least this idea of keeping sex within the boundaries of a somewhat stable, regular relationship does have its potential upsides: women actually experiencing orgasms. That's something you just can't teach.

Did you miss out on copping a pair of Kanye West's $245 Air Yeezy II Red October sneakers today? If so, don't worry: they're now being hawked on eBay for around $5,000.

At 1 p.m. ET on Sunday, Nike.com announced on Twitter that that the new colorway of West's signature shoe — which have held sneaker people in rapture since May of last year — would finally go up for sale. At 1:11 p.m. ET on Sunday, Nike.com announced on Twitter that they had sold out of the shoe.

So, how about the secondary market? If you have five grand lying around, you could be the proud owner of Red Octobers in size 8.5, 13 or uh... 13. Good news if you're a size 10.5: you only have to spend $3,750! Bad news if you're a size 12: you're in it for $7,500.

If this makes you weep for the future of America or whatever, please take solace in knowing there are men whose entire Sunday nights have been ruined because they weren't able to purchase a sneaker.

Sometimes you just gotta find a release, man. Like when your lady is going into labor and you're stuck in the hospital and everything's so crazy and just a couple hits could calm you down. Next time, though, spring for a better vaporizer.

A nurse in the infant delivery unit at Stuart, Florida's Martin Medical Center called cops after getting a "whiff of spliff," according to local weird-news blogger Will Greenlee. That's when they found reeky Jupiter resident David Bastin, chillin', after his girlfriend had been admitted to the ward. According to the police report:

Officer Cernuto asked the defendant to make this simple and hand me the cannabis. The defendant reached in his right pocket and handed Officer Cernuto a black oblong device that the defendant called a vaporizer. Officer Cernuto opened the device and there was a green leafy substance that I know from my training and experience to be raw cannabis.

Let's not dwell on the strangeness of a law enforcement officer treating "vaporizer" like a weird new term while recognizing pot "from my training and experience." (Also, "leafy" pot? Are you sure this guy wasn't smoking chard?)

Bastin got booked in the Martin County lockup on $1500 bond and charged with possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. No word on whether his girlfriend had a boy or a girl.

[Photo credits: Martin County Jail/Shutterstock]

Silicon Valley must now be trying to make you hate it. There's no other explanation for the "Startup and Tech Mixer," an assemblage of 2,500 San Francisco techies who sipped cocktails, networked, rode a mechanical bull, and produced some of the most nightmarishly obnoxious quotes I've ever read.

Recode's Nellie Bowles was on the scene at the W Hotel, and what she heard seems impossible and so over the top, it's hard to believe—why would these people say these things to a reporter? But then you think about the people we're dealing with here, and it sadly makes sense. Startup people love nothing more than treating themselves like children, and the #stmixer, as it was tagged online, is like a rich man-child geek's 20-something Bar Mitzvah:

"We don't use the word 'party.' We're bringing consciously designed spaces and innovative thinkers together to inspire," said Vecchio, who is 26 and formerly worked at Apple and J.P. Morgan. "This is our fifth mixer. People are like, 'Andrew, what could be next?' And it's like, 'Oh. Done.' We have a mechanical bull. Game-changer. Innovate."

The game has changed. No irony in the building, and self-awareness departed the scene years ago. It's not enough to have a obscenely embarrassing party: you need to stick in poor man's TED Talk seminars to fill it out. And it's not enough to throw a poor man's TED Talk—you need to bring in arcade machines, DJs, and an open bar to distract guests from the inanity.

Who had fun with THIS last night? #twister #bouncy #afterhours #stmixer pic.twitter.com/l5CmsgRuAD

— Startup & Tech Mixer (@stmixer) February 8, 2014

The entire article is worth reading, if only for lines like these, proof that some techies can't just do something, but need to do it in the most obnoxious, tacky manner available:

Guests wore name tags with their Twitter handles, and stood elbow to elbow, while a DJ spun pop and electronic music. Every hour, a guru led a meditation session in a room called the Serenity Space.

"Most startup mixers are like, "Let's go to a bar and get f—ed up." Here, there's a mechanical bull. There's an arcade. This is actually how people make deeper connections.

"Actually, I am. I'm in wine tech," said 33-year-old Tony Nguyen. "I honestly didn't have a specific plan coming here, but, hey, I am having fun."

Wine tech.

Wine tech.

These are the real words of real people at the forefront of our sort-of-fake economy. All that was missing here, it seems, were plate-spinners and a set by Flo Rida—a seminar on "The Kindness Economy" had to do, instead.

The kiddos loved it, of course:

#stmixer bull rides too? Yes - BPM is here to catch you! pic.twitter.com/LgEedIGmny

— Burr Pilger Mayer (@BPMCPA) February 8, 2014

#stmixer what a turnaround ... And SF has a great crowd of startups THANK YOU #stmixer

— Vinod Palan (@palanvinod) February 8, 2014

@mostoutmire No bull for me, but boy was it fun watching. Did you? ;) What a night! #stmixer @stmixer

— Ash (@Ashinsf) February 8, 2014

Had a great time volunteering at Startup & Tech Mixer San Francisco! @stmixer thanks for the opportunity and for the inspiration! #stmixer

— Michaela Brown (@michaela_brown) February 9, 2014

But what does it mean when our cadets of industry are impossible to tell apart from parody?