This is a great time to be a fan of science fiction and fantasy movies, and this fall is jam-packed with wonder and fascination. There are huge sequels, like Hunger Games and The Hobbit. But also some huge wild cards, like Christopher Nolan's Interstellar and Ridley Scott's Exodus. Here are 29 movies to look out for this fall.

Top image: Interstellar.

SEPTEMBER

Atlas Shrugged, Part III: Who is John Galt? (Sept. 12)

What it's about: At long last, the third installment of the Atlas Shrugged trilogy hits theaters. This time, we actually meet John Galt, and presumably hear some (but not all) of his speech that would take three hours to read aloud.

The Forecast: Regardless of your political views, these movies about a dystopian future where everybody travels by railway and the government passes insane lawes prohibiting competition are a campy treasure.

The Maze Runner (Sept. 19)

What it's about: The bestselling young-adult novel by James Dashner gets a big movie adaptation, featuring Stiles from Teen Wolf as one of the boys who are trapped in a huge maze with no memory of the outside world. Except for some dreams about a mysterious organization called W.C.K.D.

The Forecast: The trailers look really fun, and an early screening at Comic-Con completely won over fans of the book.

The Zero Theorem (Sept. 19)

What it's about: Supposedly this long-awaited Terry Gilliam weirdfest is finally getting a stateside release. It follows a mathematician named Qohen (Christoph Waltz) who's stuck working for the nightmarish ManCom organization, which assigns him to solve the elusive Zero Theorem that could reveal the meaning of everything.

The Forecast: We saw a ton of footage at Comic-Con 2013, and it blew us away. Early overseas reviews suggest it's basically Gilliam doing his greatest hits, and its both wonderful and kind of incoherent.

Tusk (Sept. 19)

What it's about: Kevin Smith returns to making movies, with this horror-comedy about a podcaster who gets captured by a mad scientist and torturously transformed into a walrus. I think.

The Forecast: It sounds totally nuts, and apparently is just the first in a planned trilogy of Canadian horror-exploitation films, including Moose Jaws, about a killer moose.

The Boxtrolls (Sept. 26)

What it's about: The latest stop-motion animation gem from Laika, the studio behind Coraline and ParaNorman. Based on the novel Here Be Monsters! by Alan Snow, this film follows Eggs (Isaac Hempstead-Wright), a human child who is raised by a group of trolls who nest inside discarded boxes and live underground, venturing topside to scavenge human garbage. But one jealous human (Ben Kingsley) wants to capture the Boxtrolls.

The Forecast: It will rule.

OCTOBER

Annabelle (Oct. 3)

What it's about: The creepy doll from The Conjuring gets her own spin-off. A young couple with a newborn baby get terrorized by a doll that's been possessed by a demon.

The Forecast: We loved The Conjuring, but we're not sure the doll needs her own movie. Plus, the usual problems with prequels apply — we know how it turns out, at least for the doll.

The Hero of Color City (Oct. 3)

What it's about: Toy Story for crayons, sort of. Or maybe LEGO Movie for crayons. Every night when Ben falls asleep, his crayons come to life and jump through a magical portal into the colorful land of Color City — but two unfinished drawings, King Scrawl and Gnat, get awakened by mistake and go on a rampage.

The Forecast: It looks like very young kids might get a real kick out of this. Which is good — we need more movies aimed at little kids.

The Book of Life (Oct. 17)

What it's about: This Guillermo del Toro-produced animated film captures the wonder of the Mexican Day of the Dead in what looks like a pretty unique way. A dreamer named Manolo goes on huge quest, through magical realms, to save his village and rescue his one true love.

The Forecast: It will rule.

Dracula Untold (Oct. 17)

What it's about: Basically, this is Batman Begins for Dracula. Follow Vlad Tepes on his quest for the power to save his people, which turns out to have a higher price than he bargained for.

The Forecast: The trailers look amazingly silly and over-the-top, and this is a strong contender for the fall's guiltiest pleasure. Could this be your new Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters? God I hope so.

Birdman (Oct. 17)

What it's about: This is worth mentioning because it's a wonderfully meta superhero spoof. Michael Keaton plays an actor who used to play a famous superhero named Birdman — but now he wants to be a serious actor again, except that his most iconic role is following him around.

The Forecast: The trailers look absolutely priceless. Fingers crossed!

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (Oct. 17)

What it's about: The latest Studio Ghibli movie, and the swan song for director Isao Takahata, this film adapts the classic fairy tale about an old man who makes a living cutting bamboo — until he finds a tiny princess inside a bamboo stalk. This film premiered at Cannes and garnered reviews with phrases like "tour de force" and "rich and astonishing."

The Forecast: It will rule.

The Young Ones (Oct. 17)

What it's about: No, it's not a movie adaptation of the classic 1980s British sitcom about slackers sharing an apartment. Rather, it's Jake Paltrow's directorial debut, a futuristic Western set in a world where water is scarce and new technology threatens to change everything. What do you do when your father's murderer moves in with your sister?

The Forecast: This film got severely mixed reviews at Sundance, with some people loving its desert visuals and others complaining of a slow pace and underdeveloped characters.

Ouija (Oct. 24)

What it's about: A movie based on the Hasbro board game, produced by Michael Bay among others. Basically, a group of friends meddles with an ancient spirit board, and awakens something... terrible.

The Forecast: It'll probably be better than the Battleship movie, at least. Right?

Horns (Oct. 31)

What it's about: Joe Hill's acclaimed novel gets a movie adaptation, starring Daniel Radcliffe. After Ig Perrish's girlfriend is raped and murdered, Ig is the leading suspect — and then, after Ig gets drunk and has the worst hangover of his life, he discovers he's growing horns on his head, which have the power to make people confess as well as acting out their darkest desires.

The Forecast: Based on early reviews from the Toronto Independent Film Festival, it has only a 45 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Fingers crossed the early reviews are just too harsh.

NOVEMBER

Interstellar (Nov. 7)

What it's about: Astronauts, led by Matthew McConaughey, travel through a newly discovered wormhole to try and find a new food source for a world that's facing starvation, in this ambitious space adventure directed by Christopher Nolan. (Nolan's brother Jonathan originally wrote the screenplay for Steven Spielberg, who bowed out of directing it a few years ago, and the film had tons of input from CalTech physicist Kip Thorne.) The trailers look insanely gorgeous, and the combination of environmental catastrophe and space venture is hard to beat.

The Forecast: It will rule.

Big Hero 6 (Nov. 7)

What it's about: A little-known Marvel comic gets a Disney animated adaptation. Young robotics genius Hiro Hamada discovers an evil plot to destroy his hometown of San Fransokyo. So he and his robot companion Baymax team up with a group of newbie crime-fighters to save the city. The two directors previously worked on movies like The Emperor's New Groove and Bolt. After Wreck-It Ralph and Frozen, anticipation is high for Disney's next big animated feature.

The Forecast: It will rule.

Jessabelle (Nov. 7)

What it's about: This was delayed from its original August release date, so we already covered it in our summer preview. Suffice to say, it's about a woman whose boyfriend dies in a car accident, and she retreats to her family home to recuperate. But a spirit is trying to kill her.

The Forecast: Can't help wondering why this is coming out a week after Halloween. It sure looks creepy, and let's hope it actually gets into the intensity of mourning a loved one.

The Theory of Everything (Nov. 7)

What it's about: The first of two unconventional biopics coming in November, this one follows the renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, and looks at the romance between Hawking and his first wife, based on her memoir.

The Forecast: The first trailer looked devastatingly good.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (Nov. 21)

What it's about: The third book in the Hunger Games trilogy has been split into two movies, and this first half deals with Katniss trying to get her ambiguous boyfriend Peeta back from the oppressive Capitol. But meanwhile, Katniss is also dealing with becoming a figurehead for the resistance, and deciding whether to embrace her role as freedom fighter. Director Francis Lawrence already scored a home run with Catching Fire.

The Forecast: It will rule.

The Imitation Game (Nov. 21)

What it's about: And here's the other geek biopic — the long-awaited movie about Alan Turing, the World War II code-breaker and father of artificial intelligence, who was persecuted for his homosexuality. This film mostly focuses on the war and the "race against time" to break the German cipher.

The Forecast: This movie will be hard-pressed to measure up to Breaking the Code, the utterly brilliant stage play (and made-for-television movie) starring Derek Jacobi as Turing. But it at least looks engaging, and the focus on the most heroic portion of Turing's life may help to win him some much-deserved new admirers.

VHS: Viral (Nov. 21)

What it's about: The latest installment of the horror anthology series, this one follows a group of teenagers who unwittingly become the next internet video sensation after a cop chase involving an out-of-control ice cream truck.

The Forecast: The segments are directed by Nacho Vigalondo (Timecrimes) among others, and chances are at least some of them will be great.

DECEMBER

The Pyramid (Dec. 5)

What it's about: A team of archeologists venture into a pyramid unlike any that the world has ever seen, and get trapped. And something horrifying is hunting them in the darkness.

The Forecast: You never know... it might actually be fun. Maybe there will be scary sarcophagi.

Exodus: Gods and Kings (Dec. 12)

What it's about: Ridley Scott gets Biblical on our asses, with the story of Moses (Christian Bale) and the Pharoah Ramses (Joel Edgerton) like we've never seen it before. The big selling point is the massive CG-animated versions of the Plagues of Egypt.

The Forecast: Should be at least some good eye candy. May be wonderfully insane.

James Wan Presents Demonic (Dec. 12)

What it's about: The director of Insidious and The Conjuring has pretty much retired from horror, but he's lending his name to this film, based on a story he came up with. This one follows investigators looking into the murders of five college students who went on a ghost-hunting expedition in a creepy house. This film was previously called House of Horror.

The Forecast: It sounds pretty by-the-numbers, but hopefully Wan wouldn't put his name in the title unless he felt pretty good about this one.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (Dec. 17)

What it's about: The massive, insane climax to Peter Jackson's second Tolkien trilogy, this one deals with what happens after the Company of Thorin reaches Smaug's lair. Expect huge battle scenes, major destruction and lots of sad brooding, judging from the first trailer.

The Forecast: Really depends on how you feel about the first two Hobbit installments, and Jackson's decision to break one book into three movies. If you liked the first two, then you'll probably love this one too.

Night at the Museum: The Secret of the Tomb (Dec. 19)

What it's about: The third Night at the Museum movie sees the gang heading to the British Museum in London after the magic that animates all of the museum exhibits starts to fail. Prepare for some high diorama. (That's a pun.) This is one of your last chances to see Robin Williams, who plays Teddy Roosevelt.

The Forecast: The trailer includes Crystal the Monkey A) covering her face in embarrassment, and B) peeing on tiny Owen Wilson to save him from molten lava.

Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (Dec. 25)

What it's about: Basically, this is the Back to the Future 2 of hot-tub movies — this time, instead of visiting the past, the intrepid spa-splorers visit the future.

The Forecast: Kind of weirded out that John Cusack wouldn't come back for this. What could possibly be more important than this movie?

Into The Woods (Dec. 25)

What it's about: The beloved Stephen Sondheim musical based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tales gets a lavish Disney adaptation starring Meryl Streep as a witch who has put a curse of childlessness on a baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt).

The Forecast: It looks pretty gorgeous, but there are some question marks hanging over this film. For one thing, the trailers released thus far don't feature any singing — and for another, there are reports that this film takes significant liberties with the source material. Fingers crossed.

Paddington (Dec. 25)

What it's about: The movie adaptation of the book (and TV) series that beguiled generations of British children, about a Peruvian bear in a duffel coat who gets found at Paddington station with a tag that says "please look after this bear."

The Forecast: It looks cute, although we're sad Colin Firth was replaced by Ben Whishaw as the voice of Paddington. Plus the synopses sound kind of plot-heavy, what with the evil taxidermist who wants to capture Paddington — part of the charm of the books is how breezy they are. But let's hope it captures the flavor of the Michael Bond books.

Sources: Box Office Mojo, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Studio Press Releases

Once upon a time the forebears of Kate Middleton's family were all coalminers, roadsweepers, and prisoners. Today, their descendants are princesses and marshmallow salesmen. The potential impact of a diet rich in Vitamin E on your family's fortunes cannot be overstated.

CNN Money reports that one James Middleton, the younger brother of the most important Middleton, and also of Pippa, is now earning a good honest living the old fashioned way: By selling $26 boxes of marshmallows custom-printed with Instagram photos. BOOMF.

Boomf is the name of the start-up. According to its website, "Boomf is the sound of the mallows landing on your doormat," probably because your sister—the withering one—has thrown them there with an audible sigh, right after you handed them to her. What was she going to do, walk around carrying nine mallows all day? Where was she going to put them, exactly? Under her arm? In her small clutch, which is already packed to capacity with credit cards, cash, and various emergency documents that would be vital for her to have on hand in a crisis situation?

No, you don't know, but, then, it's not so much that you don't know as that you never even stopped to consider the real world ramifications of your handing her this cumbersome package of decorative marshmallows, because you never quite get beyond the "great idea" phase of any of your childish schemes. Anyway, thanks for the sugar cubes with blurry pictures of her famous husband printed on them. Maybe consider that a more useful gift might be you growing up? You're 27.

"Boomf" is the sound of your heart falling into your stomach.

Also according to its website, the gelatin from which "Boomf" are forged is porcine, rendering the product unsuitable for consumption by vegetarians, vegans, and pigs. The website further states that "Standard Boomf are not halal," which, perhaps erroneously, implies that "Standard Boomf" are a real world concept.

According to CNN Money, James Middleton "won't say" whether his nephew, Prince George, has eaten the marshmallows.

That's a nope.

BOOMF.

[GIF via BOOMF]

If you thought yesterday's heavy rain was bad, wait until you see this: Islip, New York recorded more than 13 inches of rain this morning, 11 inches of which fell in just three hours. That breaks the all-time New York State record for the most rain recorded in a 24-hour period.

The Capital Weather Gang reported this afternoon that of the 13.26" of rain that fell in Islip, the city recorded more than 11 inches of rain in just three hours between 5:00 AM and 8:00 AM.

The unprecedented rainfall event occurred as a result of the confluence of two extreme weather events: thunderstorm training and extremely high precipitable water values. As I discussed last night after areas near Baltimore, Maryland received a foot of rain, thunderstorm training occurs when thunderstorms keep redeveloping and moving over the same areas over and over again, much like train cars move over train tracks, hence the name.

Precipitable water (or PWAT) values help show the moisture content in the atmosphere. A PWAT of 1.50" means that if you condensed all of the water vapor out of that column of the atmosphere, from top to bottom, and it all fell as rain, it would produce 1.50" of rain. Higher PWAT values indicate high levels of moisture in the atmosphere.

PWAT values over Long Island were pushing 2.00" or more this morning when the record-breaking heavy rainfall event occurred. According to model data compiled on WeatherBELL, PWAT values that high over the area were more than two standard deviations higher than normal.

When a constant stream of heavy thunderstorms developed over Long Island this morning and tapped into the ocean of moisture in the atmosphere, it created a perfect storm.

For good measure and to keep it in perspective, the world record for the most rainfall ever recorded in one day was on La Réunion, a small volcanic island east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. The island recorded 71.9" of rain in 24 hours back in January 1966 as a result of Tropical Cyclone Denise.

[Images via AP / Gibson Ridge / WeatherBELL]

A 46-year-old Los Angeles man whose "homosexual behavior" is listed on his medical records as a "chronic problem" is suing his doctor and a healthcare network, reports NBC Los Angeles.

Matthew Moore's doctor listed his sexuality as such during a routine physical in April 2013. Moore then confronted his doctor, Elaine Jones, in June 2013 and she explained the description by saying that doctors go "back and forth" regarding classifying homosexuality as a chronic condition.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders once listed homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disturbance. It was later removed from the manual, which sets the standard for the classification of mental disorders in the U.S., in 1974.

According to Moore, after he complained to Jones' healthcare network, Torrance Memorial Physician Network, that homosexuality had been listed as a "chronic condition" on his record, the network apologized and said it would be changed. Ten months later, homosexuality was still on his record, now listed as a "chronic problem." Now Jones and Torrance have a problem of their own: Moore's lawsuit.

Moore says his lawsuit is, in part, for the children: "If a young person went in and was told by a physician that their normal and healthy sexuality was a medical problem, a condition, or disease, that could be very devastating."

Torrance Health Association issued a statement that basically said, actually we don't think anything is wrong with you now that we're getting sued:

[h/t Towleroad]

Mixed martial arts fighter Jon "War Machine" Koppenhaver is wanted by Las Vegas police after his ex-girlfriend, porn star Christy Mack, accused him of beating her and posted photos of her severe injuries. Dog the Bounty Hunter, a television personality seemingly unrelated to the case, has threatened to hunt Koppenhaver down.

War Machine hasn't said anything in public since he disappeared this weekend, but he did address the Dog situation in this rather uncanny tweet from four years ago, claiming he could beat the bounty hunter's ass.

If Dog the Bounty Hunter came to get me I'd beat his ass!

— War Machine (@WarMachine170) March 11, 2010

Dog, whose real name is Duane Chapman, told MMA Mania he doesn't intend to let that happen:

We won't kill him, but at the same time, you won't see Dog Chapman versus the "War Machine" because I'm not stupid — he'd probably break my nose. But, you may see him eat Dog Chapman's taser.

Chapman also claims his investigation is already nearing completion, and he's closing in on Koppenhaver:

"Very soon you are going to see pleas for him to come in because we are going to catch him — we are very close to him right now. We just have to handle it right because we don't want anyone killed."

But what's Dog's stake in all this? He says some of his friends in the MMA world reached out for his help, and, of course, the cameras for his show are constantly rolling. Whether he gets his man or not, he assumes you'll eventually see this chase on TV.

Meanwhile, Mack's fans have started a fundraiser for her medical expenses, and a dentist has offered to fix her broken teeth.

[H/T Uproxx via BroBible, Photo: Instagram]

To mark the occasion of his 30th birthday, serial entrepreneur and occasional Harvard spammer Ryan Allis decided to give back to the world that had been so generous to him. So he made a PowerPoint.

A 1,284 slide PowerPoint titled "Lessons From My 20s."

It's what The Secret sounds like after you lock yourself in a conference room with a week's supply of Soylent and a whiteboard.

The fonts are real big.

In the past decade, Ryan Allis has sold an email and social media marketing startup for $170 million, served as a national co-chairperson of Technology for Obama (he has the photo ops to prove it), and he created a "global network of leaders and entrepreneurs under 40 who are creating a better world" by charging $850 "tuition." Oh, he completed one year of Harvard Business School, too.

But what's so special about Ryan Allis is that all the useless advice and nonsense business-speak spread out over 1,284 slides is delivered with the kind of evangelizing optimism that only a disciple of Singularity University and the culty Landmark Forum can provide.

Things I very highly recommend to my friends: Landmark Forum, Camp Grounded, Hive, Singularity University, Burning Man, Art of Living

— Ryan Allis (@ryanallis) August 3, 2014

This, my fellow students, is what they call good "learnings." Here are but a few:

Fact.

Choosing the contents to achieve said bulk is up to you. Ryan Allis cannot do everything.

Do the math.

You're welcome, @importantpeople.

Note to self: fact-check with @GeorgeLucas.

@GeorgeRRMartin?

Random friends be like "Doh, my arms hang down," but extraordinary friends be like, "Holy shit, I have a sword."

Sometimes that sword is a lightsaber.

NEVER. #LIMITLESS #BRADLEY COOPER

"More slides" is not an acceptable answer. Ryan Allis has already replenished the world's supply.

How does Nadia feel about ranking #6 on 1 Year Goals?

She feels great!

When you think about it, this is less a birthday present Ryan Allis gave himself and more like a party favor he gave to you.

Love life, learn "lots."

Yeah, why?

WHY???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BYOBulkyFedex.

Was creating this slidedeck on Ryan Allis' bucket list?

No, it was not.

Maybe you put them in the FedEx package.

Gross.

This is an orange.

Woof woof.

Well, this moment, and then the moments it takes to read 1,047 more slides.

Lessons From My 20s - By Ryan Allis by Ryan Allis

To contact the author of this post, please email nitasha@gawker.com.

[Image via Facebook]

A trapeze instructor catches a student during their first day of practice at the Flying Trapeze Philippines School in Makati. The school opened earlier this month, the first in the country. Photo by Aaron Favila via AP.

The Weinstein Company is one of the most powerful studios in Hollywood, and securing an internship there is coveted by thousands of young people looking to break into the film industry every year. Of course, there are only a few spots open per semester, but we have great news: A Weinstein Company internship is being auctioned off for just five figures.

The internship is being sold on a website called Charitybuzz, and the auction's open to any college-enrolled student who has insanely rich parents with an inability to leverage their wealth into organically grown Hollywood connections. The bidding currently stands at $13,000.

According to the company, the "estimated value" of the internship is $50,000, which might be true if whoever wins this bid immediately gets a full-time job with the Weinstein Company. (That won't happen.) Charitybuzz also says the following:

We expect all winning bidders and their guests to conduct themselves appropriately when attending an experience won at Charitybuzz. Polite manners and respect for the generous donor and adherence to any rules or parameters are a must.

Which, since the winning bidder's son or daughter will be working for the Weinsteins, means it will be within reason to physically assault and verbally abuse basically anyone. Sounds like fun!

[image via Getty]

In The Odyssey, Odysseus is condemned to a decade of wandering the Aegean by the implacable wrath of the sea god Poseidon. Even after his safe return to Ithaca and the reclamation of his home and throne, he must sojourn yet further inland until the oar he bears is mistook for a winnowing fan, and there will he make his sacrificial peace with the tempestuous deity of the depths. So, too, did nautical executor Nathan Fielder last night punish some goofball dickhead for his deceitful bullshit, as the high seas pounded on.

The dickhead in question is Jonathan, a liar and unrepentant line-cutter. He cried "doctor's appointment" to take advantage of Nathan's magnanimous system for sending hurried customers to the front of the line for Pink's famous pretty good hot dogs, only to skip out to a movie after his meal (probably Think Like A Man Too; this guy's garbage!!). Like the sea, Nathan's rage was boundless, salty, and capable of pranks. So Jonathan got a call informing him that he was Pink's 10 millionth customer, and inviting him to a marina to collect his lobster lunch for one at sea, and the trap was sprung.

Nathan Fielder's sporadic but hardline moralism goes hand in hand with his love of teaching (and learning) valuable lessons, and so he confronts Jonathan with those he wronged, including a just marvelous lady in a blue polo who puts her resting bitch face and emphatic hands to brutal use. For his part, Nathan, in his mercy infinite as there are fish to be caught, abstains from the swift oceanic execution he'd originally planned (see figure below).

Instead, he offers Jonathan a second chance to be a cool guy, alongside a totally normal stick of gum from a regular pack. See this face? This is the face of contrition, a sinner who's felt Hell's aquatic tongue lapping at his heel, a boy as he confronts his childishness that he may become at last a man.

While Jonathan may insist that Nathan is weird and conniving and manipulative (he's not, by the way, he's very normal and regular), his commitment to business excellence, boats, and the inherent goodness of all people stands as exemplar to us all, like some kind of small business aqua-Christ. Sail on, noble soul.

[Images and video via Comedy Central]

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Rush Limbaugh, in a damned fine effort to get your weird uncle Larry riled up on his way to work, claimed Robin Williams' suicide could be attributed to a "leftist worldview" on his radio show this week.

Limbaugh's monologue, which references a Fox News report, compares survivors' guilt (which Williams allegedly suffered) to the supposed guilt "leftists" feel when surveying America:

He had it all but he had nothing. Made everybody else laugh but was miserable inside. It fits a certain picture, or a certain image that the left has. I mean, talk about low expectations, general unhappiness, and so forth.

And right here, it says that one of the contributing factors to Robin Williams deciding to kill himself was survivors' guilt. And I read—It's in the headline. Survivors' guilt—what survivors' guilt? So I read it, and it turns out that three of his closest friends—the story says—three of his closest friends were Christopher Reeve, John Belushi, and Andy Kaufman.

And the source, unnamed in the story, said that Robin Williams felt guilty that he was still alive while his three friends had died young and much earlier than he had. He could never get over the guilt that they died and he didn't. Well, that is a constant measurement that is made by political leftists in judging the country.

Other problems attributable to leftist worldviews, probably: the violence in Gaza, police militarization, racism, the shitty weather, ISIS, the soggy sandwich Rush ate for lunch today, bedbugs on the subway, that sad gorilla, your love life, bad internet commenters, Shep Smith, depression, suicides (all of them), death (in general), and talk radio.

[Image via AP, h/t Digg]

Today, Kanye West's tour DJ Million Dollar Mano announced that he no longer works for the Chicago rapper. It's not yet known why the two split, but this hilarious video of Mano pissing West off by fucking up on his Yeezus Tour suggests that it miiiiiight not have been a mutual decision.

The video, put together by a user of the incredible and cultish Kanye To The message board, shows Mano queueing up the wrong songs or dropping songs out to get the crowd engaged but never bringing the beat back in, leaving West standing in front of thousands of people in awkward silence. In the most painful clip, West raps his remix of Chief Keef's "I Don't Like" when Mano switches off the song for nearly 30 seconds, leaving West to passive-aggressively implore him to stop fucking up: "Like... like... Mano... like... like..."

West has not commented on his split with Mano, and reps for the rapper did not return a request for comment on the exact nature of the situation. For his part, Mano is sort of losing his mind on Twitter.

gonna have a fun day blocking these kanye stans that are happy i don't dj 4 him anymore hahahahaha!

— ZERO COOL MANO™ 20/3 (@CallMeMano) August 13, 2014

I'm making a list and I'm collecting info. I'm gonna expose all the trolls

— ZERO COOL MANO™ 20/3 (@CallMeMano) August 13, 2014

guys with man crushes need 2 just accept their homosexuality

— ZERO COOL MANO™ 20/3 (@CallMeMano) August 13, 2014

a lot of u fans are low key gay and want more than a fan/relationship with the men they look up 2.

— ZERO COOL MANO™ 20/3 (@CallMeMano) August 13, 2014

But if you're feeling bad, don't worry too much. Mano has a very historic snapback legacy, according to this one guy he retweeted.

So what @CallMeMano moved on so what, he made #treatedhats one the rarest snap backs and had everyone doing that crazy dance to new slaves

— Lord Ish (@woodytraore) August 13, 2014

Tonight's television is a heavily weighted toward female characters, actresses and reality competitors, just as the oracles declared would eventually happen once women got the Vote. Luckily, there is also Quentin Tarantino so it's not a total loss for the rougher sex. (For only medium-rough sex, you'll have to wait until 9 at the earliest.)

At 8/7c. the Top 8 won't be for long on So You Think You Can Dance, and ABC Family reminds us that their sitcoms are not equal to their teen dramas with relentlessly more episodes of the execrable Young & Hungry and Mystery Girls. Of course, all you really need to know is Big Brother, where a fraught house will somehow find the will to fight for the Power of Veto even after the unending, face-tearing, exhausting mayhem of learning Ariana Grande has been hidden in the walls of the Big Brother house the entire time, judging them silently in her wig of gossamer lies.

At 9/8c. America's Talents they Got will be revealed, as will the results of the enduring Sphincian question, "Just Who The Hell Do You, Valerie Bertinelli, Think You Are?" The first episode of the El Rey Network (which is a network)'s El Rey Network Presents: The Director's Chair will focus on the first of two, maybe a thousand, hours of Quentin Tarantino talking in that voice he has—between licking the nihilist feet of various women who have given up on themselves—about directing films.

There's also Suits on USA and TNT's newest addition, Legends. (What's it about, with that vague title? Could be almost anything: And that's what it's about. Boom.) DA offers up two alliterative specials in a row, Mormon Manson and Mennonite Mob, while ID and Discovery provocatively counterprogram with Deadly Devotion: "Amish Serial Killer" and Zombie Sharks respectively. Criminy I hate Shark Week.

Oh right, and speaking of hatred it's also the one-hour finale of Duck Dynasty.

At 10/9c. there's the sixth Extant on CBS, which is doing an interesting thing: because September 24 is the 90-minute finale and premiere of Big Brother and Survivor, Extant is taking time now, at the halfway point, to double down on its ratings before that night. So we have next week and the week after, double episodes, and then 11-13 will play out normally, toward the finale on the 17th. This is exciting to me particularly because I still consider myself a huge fan of the show despite being like three episodes behind, so now just when I'll have burned through them and gotten feverish about the show, as we tend to do, CBS will (for once) be all like, "That thing you like? Here's more of it at a normal place and time you can plan toward."

(Rather than, say, Big Brother, which is like, sometimes it's on at 8, sometimes it's on at 3:41 in the morning. If you don't know, if you can't get there to see it, then maybe you don't fucking care as much as you think you do. Or my God, The Good Wife, which literally has no set programming time at all. On your TV Guide channel or DVR guide there's just a floating question mark next to the head of Julianna Margulies making the McKayla Maroney face. If you ask CBS they'll stub out a cigarette butt on the wall and be like, "Sometime on Sunday, is that not good enough for you? How about maybe just don't worry about it.")

Also at 10/9c. there's The Bridge, Teen Mom, and Graceland; the premieres of Wahlburgers and Franklin & Bash—two shows that people who love them seem to really, really love them, for reasons that mystify but do not bother me at all—a Science Channel special on a subject dear to my heart, "Mining the Moon," P!nk for some reason will show up at the Top Chef Duel between Shirley Chung (NOLA finalist) and Brooke Williamson (Seattle runner-up), and FX's double-episode finale of the four-season fever dream about beer and erections, Wilfrodo.

And finally at 10/9c., it's the premiere of ID's new show Heartbreakers, in which celebrities from the 1980s and 1990s reenact violent crimes. Everything I've seen suggests a winky, Sharknado approach (somebody tells Tracey Gold to "show me that smile again," for one tiny e.g.) but for some reason none of my bullshit detectors have yet gone off. Tonight's episode involves a 1983-set story of love and betrayal in East Texas, and also stars Antonio Sabato, Jr. and adult actor Christopher Knight, best known for playing opposite America's Next Top Model Adrianne Curry in the popular syndicated action soap The Scarecrow & The Ms. Curry.

At 11/10c. Linda Perry holds an intervention five years in the making for Courtney Love on her VH1 songwriting show, and there's a new Virgin Territory on MTV.

[Image via HoleVEVO]

Morning After is a new home for television discussion online, brought to you by Gawker. What are you watching tonight? What are we missing out on? Recommendations and discussions down below.

We landed on the moon. Yes? Like the overthrow of Mosaddeq, or the manufacture of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, it was a stunning example of Mid-century American ingenuity that can make one feel small/humbled just contemplating it. Here is a way to prove that it happened using non-fancy Newtonian physics.

Exhibit A in this proof is footage taken by Lunar Module Pilot Charlie Duke of his Apollo 16 mission commander John Young tooling around the Descartes highlands in their lunar dune buggy. As can be seen in the video, below, the dune buggy occasionally passes Duke very nearly perpendicular to the camera—allowing one to slap on a 2D-coordinate grid and do some basic, undergraduate-level physics on the dust particles kicked up in the dune buggy's wake.

Writing for the Journal of American Physics, two scientists at the University of Colorado's Atmospheric and Space Physics lab, Hsiang-Wen Hsu and Mihály Horányi, compared the movement of the dust particles in the film against equations for the particles' trajectory in both terrestrial Earth gravity and lunar gravity.

Hsu and Horányi fixed the origin point of their graph to the buggy's fender and charted the dust's motion from the top of the cloud it produced, to make sure that the dust studied did not "intermix with grains coming off the surface with lower initial speeds." (Intermixing and collisions between the various bits of dust kicked up would add forces unaccounted for by the equations used.) The initial velocity of the moon dust (or regolith, as it is technically known) was calculated from the angular motion of the spoke on the front wheel.

To better visualize all this:

Hsu and Horányi found what you would expect, if you believe that American astronauts landed on the moon, and did not fake the lunar landing on a sound stage under the direction of auteur genius Stanley Kubrick. The acceleration due to gravity conveyed by the particle's motion ranged somewhere between 1.48 meters-per-second-squared and the established value for acceleration due to lunar gravity, 1.60 meters-per-second-squared. In other words, a value very far away from the acceleartion due to Earth's gravity, 9.8 meters-per-second-squared, a constant you were given on the first page of the quiz, so you wouldn't have to memorize it.

Here is Hsu and Horányi's charting of their measured particles' trajectories versus the physical equations:

If you would like to dig deeper and argue their findings the paper can purchased here.

While the evidence is pretty concrete, absolute certainty is not actually the province of real scientific inquiry. Given how brilliant Stanley Kubrick was as a filmmaker, it is entirely possible that he had this dust added in post-production using top-shelf practical effects.

It's like every time I watch 2001, or The Shining, or Eyes Wide Shut, I get something new out of it. It's mind boggling how good that guy was at making movies.

[image screencapture via footage by NASA; graphs via the Journal of American Physics]

To contact the author, email matthew.phelan@gawker.com, pgp public key.

There's nothing quite as pathetic as swiping right on every profile you come across on Tinder. It's little more than the dating equivalent of throwing a giant bowl of questionably delicious spaghetti against a shit-covered wall. However, the lonely techies of Hacker News have optimized the catch-all process of seeing which poor souls come to them. And they're sharing their secrets.

In a post titled "Hacking Tinder for Fun and Profit," former Microsoft developer Yuri de Souza details how he reverse engineered Tinder to mass-like every girl on the network. The reason for doing so? Sitting there manually expressing your approval for everything that walks took far too much time:

I played around with Tinder one lazy Sunday afternoon and recalled my friend telling me how he would spend hours swiping right on Tinder just to accumulate as may matches as possible. This had me thinking, why can't I reverse engineer Tinder and automate the swipes? After all, I'm pretty darn good at taking things apart!

After de Souza's hacking, he was able to furnish a simple script that can be run "as many times as you like in a loop" while you, the internet neckbeard, "watch the matches pour in."

However, when de Souza unleashed his hack on Hacker News, he was not greeted as a liberator of loneliness. Instead, commenters began one-upping him, showing off their Tinder match hacks.

One engineer, Venkatesh Nandakumar, showed off his "Automating Tinder" hack, which he describes as a way to take back the "upper hand" women have on the service:

As far as social dynamics of Tinder goes, girls have an upper hand initially and the liberty to be choosy — to swipe left if you will. But once the match it done, it's upto the guy to initiate the conversation. Given the generally low hit-ratio for males and even more so for South Asian males ;), the best strategy for guys is to swipe-right-all. And when there is a match, decide if they want to initiate the conversation.

Then there's tinderbot, which one hacker uses to skip right past the pesky dating process and tell users to straight-up download his app:

tinderbot is a node module which allows you to develop 'bots' which interact on the Tinder dating app [...] which periodically 'likes' all matches nearby and tells them to play Castle Clash.

And there's loltinder:

I created this because I got tired of swiping — it's easier to sort out later who you like. My initial experiment exhausted me from 9 dates in a row.

I really just love meeting up with girls and reading bibles together. It's so peaceful and sweet. Sex? Ew.

And so on.

The Hacker News crowd is already seeing the possibilities beyond simply throwing a stick of dynamite in the pond of singles. Hacker "cheepin" suggests script kiddies can start using these tools to like-spam across different regions with various photos, as a way to determine which selfie gets the most likes:

You can combine with an Android emulator (to spoof GPS location), and a fake facebook to be literally anybody, anywhere, and see who likes you. While it's certainly not the intended use of the app, A/B testing your appearance to different regions is not out of the question.

Liking everyone certainly isn't the intended use of the app, either. But that doesn't matter if you're coding to erase womankind's supposed upper-hand. As one user noted, "This is the most useful dating advice I have ever seen on Hacker News."

To contact the author of this post, please email kevin@valleywag.com.

Screenshot: Tinder

A West Virginia doctor is being accused of unethically prescribing controlled substances and forcing an employee to motorboat her breasts at work, according to claims outlined in 31-page report by the West Virginia Board of Medicine.

Forty-four-year-old Dr. Tressie Montene Duffy, the CEO of West Virginia Weight and Wellness Inc., allegedly lifted her shirt after her breast augmentation surgery and exposed herself to the staff. The clinic specializes in weight management, according to its website.

Duffy also, according to the report, made one of her female employees, identified only as Complainant R, "motorboat" her breasts in 2012. The same employee accused Duffy of later forcefully kissing her on the lips. When the employee asked her to stop, Duffy allegedly told her she was being a "titty baby." That employee later quit.

In addition to being accused of unprofessional work behavior, Duffy also "ordered medication for 'office use' and utilized these medications for her own personal use." She's also being investigated for signing blank prescription pads and allowing non-physician staff to prescribe controlled substances like Oxycodone and Xanax to patients when she was away from the office.

The Charleston Daily Mail reported:

Lisa Lilly, Duffy's attorney, said Duffy was familiar with the complaint and "denies any and all wrongdoing." Lilly stressed this is "not the first time" the board has tried to revoke Duffy's license, but declined to elaborate further.

The West Virginia Board of Medicine will hold a three-day hearing beginning Nov. 17 to determine if Duffy is qualified to practice medicine and what, if any, disciplinary action will be taken.

(h/t Charleston Daily Mail)

The Republican party isn't the only right-wing fearmonger looking to make inroads in Silicon Valley. A tipster tells Valleywag that News Corp's chairman Rupert Murdoch has spent the last two days poking around startups in San Francisco.

Allegedly, one of the first offices he visited was Patreon's, a company with $17.1 million in funding to help artists receive recurring donations from their fans. Patreon's founder, Sam Yam, posted the above photo of his staff refusing to embrace Murdoch, commenting on Facebook, "Ruppie (Rupert Murdoch) chillin' at the Patreon offices today #nbd#bff4evar."

Unfortunately for Patreon, their new BFF soon headed to Stripe, where Ruppie was so dumbstruck by John and Patrick Collison's payment startup, he just had to tweet about the company:

In SF just looking many start ups, mixed successes ahead, but Stripe, by brilliant Collison brothers outstanding.

— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) August 13, 2014

We've reached out to Stripe and Patreon for comment and will update this post if we hear back. Know more about Murdoch's waddle around San Francisco? Contact the author of this post at kevin@valleywag.com.

Photo: Sam Yam

Two reporters working out of a McDonalds in Ferguson, Mo. say they were arrested and assaulted for no apparent reason while covering the increasingly violent clash between police and protestors on Wednesday night. Both were eventually released without being charged.

According to reports, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery and Huffington Post reporter Ryan J. Reilly were both arrested, handcuffed and booked. Once word of their arrests began circulating on social media, they were immediately released.

The already-tense situation in Ferguson escalated earlier today, when SWAT teams descended on the largely peaceful protests that have been taking place since an unarmed 18-year-old named Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer Saturday.

Lowery and Reilly were both apparently working from a Ferguson McDonalds when a SWAT team entered the restaurant. After posting initial tweets about the encounter, both reporters went offline just before 5 pm.

SWAT just invade McDonald's where I'm working/recharging. Asked for ID when I took photo. pic.twitter.com/FOIsMnBwHy

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) August 13, 2014

Around the same time, other reporters in the area began to tweet that two reporters were being arrested and handcuffed.

Just saw two reporters in ferguson cuffed and put in cop van

— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) August 13, 2014

Tried to get closer to confirm identities of reporters being arrested. Was marched at by cops in riot gear and threatened with arrest

— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) August 14, 2014

At that point, LA Times reporter Matt Pearce began investigating the arrests.

I just called Ferguson police chief to ask about @WesleyLowery and @ryanjreilly, told him what I knew. His response: "Oh, God."

— Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) August 14, 2014

To clarify: The "oh, God" was delivered in a tone of shock.

— Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) August 14, 2014

Pearce wrote on Twitter that the Ferguson police chief told him the arresting officers were "probably somebody who didn't know better." According to Pearce, the chief then instructed riot command to release them.

About 45 minutes after Lowery and Reilly's last tweets, they came back online.

Was arrested

— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014

Also Ryan Reilly of Huff Po. Assaulted and arrested

— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014

Officers decided we weren't leaving McDonalds quickly enough, shouldn't have been taping them.

— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014

Released without any charges, no paperwork whatsoever

— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014

Refusing to give us any names of the officers

— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014

Lowery, who says he was slammed into a fountain soda machine during his arrest, wrote on Twitter that he was "Detained, booked, given answers to no questions. Then just let out... Got no explaination at any point why in custody other than "trespassing" - at a mcdonalds where we were customers."

Update 10:30 pm:

The Washington Post has obtained video of the arrest:

Update 11:40 pm:

According to Lowery, police entered the McDonalds on Wednesday afternoon and demanded he and Pearce identify themselves. When Pearce questioned the directive, one officer apparently told him that if they called 911, no one would answer.

The officers later told Lowery and Pearce that they'd have to stop filming and leave the McDonalds. Lowery says he was given conflicting instructions and when he stopped to adjust his bag, they arrested him.

Multiple officers grabbed me. I tried to turn my back to them to assist them in arresting me. I dropped the things from my hands.

"My hands are behind my back," I said. "I'm not resisting. I'm not resisting." At which point one officer said: "You're resisting. Stop resisting."

That was when I was most afraid — more afraid than of the tear gas and rubber bullets.

As they took me into custody, the officers slammed me into a soda machine, at one point setting off the Coke dispenser. They put plastic cuffs on me, then they led me out the door.

Lowery and Pearce were then loaded into a police van, where Lowery says a large man with breathing problems pleaded for a medic to no avail.

The reporters were then transported to a local police station, processed, and jailed. When they asked for the cause of their arrest, a cop reportedly told them they were trespassing in the McDonalds.

[image via AP]

A pilot flying a Flybe plane with 47 passengers aboard learned an important lesson on a flight to Northern Ireland: always make sure your arm is attached before landing.

An unnamed 46-year-old pilot was landing a Dash 8 plane at Belfast City Airport in gusty weather conditions when his lower left arm prosethetic became detached from its yoke clamp and he lost control, according to recent report by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch.

The senior captain who was described in the report as one of Flybe's "most experienced and trusted pilots" was manually flying the plane when a flare maneuver caused his arm to detach, the BBC reports. There wasn't enough time, he determined, to have the co-pilot take control. Instead the captain used his right hand to grab the yoke and safely land the aircraft – albeit with a bounce after touchdown.

The incident occurred in February and no one was hurt.

(Image via AP)

Via KARG Argus Radio, this is a gripping, archived feed of what happened on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, tonight in the wake of the police shooting of unarmed teen Michael Brown. In a few short minutes, police fired tear gas directly into yards and demanded that cameras be shut down and protesters disperse.

They did not disperse.

More updates as they come.

A Kalamazoo, MI woman who all but guaranteed herself a traffic ticket when she ran a red light in front of a cop, managed to get out of it at the very last minute—simply by coming very close to death.

The woman—who was apparently eating a hot dog while driving—quickly realized she had made a mistake when she began choking on it.

By the time the officer approached her window, she could barely breath.

The officer pulled her out of the car and began performing the Heimlich maneuver. He was eventually able to dislodge both the 'dog and its bun, declaring "Holy shit," as the traumatized woman began hysterically crying.

The woman reportedly was not ticketed, and the officer is now being touted as a hero.

Nearly dying: sometimes it's a win/win.

[h/t Metro UK]