It's barely been three weeks since the trailer for the forthcoming Entourage movie premiered right before our thirsty eyes, but it's already raised many important questions: Will Vinny make the movie? Will Turtle get to fuck female MMA champion Ronda Rousey? Will Ari's heart finally explode from an anger-related spaz attack? But the most essential question of them all has thus far remained unanswered: Will the Entourage movie be epic, or dope? We've done a deep dive on the data to find out.

We first notice the divide in the Entourage-loving bro community on the day of the trailer's release. DJ Pauly D, a leading figure in the brommunity, took to Twitter to describe it as "So Dope !!!!" An important contribution for the promotion of the film, DJ Pauly D's tweet garnered 180 retweets.

Just Saw The Entourage Movie Trailer !!! So Dope !!!! @jerrycferrara #EntourageMovie

— DJ Pauly D (@DJPaulyD) December 23, 2014

Others seemed to disagree. New York Giants player Justin Pugh wrote that "Movie is going to be epic"; NFL Network reporter Albert Beer similarly claimed that the film looked "epic."

Entourage movie looks epic http://t.co/0Iob2EcLGm

— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) December 23, 2014

Even among Twitter users who are not vaguely famous, the divide was stark. "Entourage movie is here and my gooch is moist," Alex Mak of Manchester, England wrote. "Going to be epic[.]" Across the pond, Mat Ingham disagreed: "Shit this movie looks dope!"

So which is it? Will Entourage the Movie be epic as hell? Or will it be dope as fuck? We asked the social media analytics company Brandwatch to take a look at the Twitter data over the last month, and after looking at the data, we can definitively say that the Entourage movie will be...

DOPE!!!!!!!!!!!!

According to BrandWatch, the Entourage movie was described as "dope" 502 times versus "epic"s meager 354 (illustrative chart, for your handy consumption, can be found above).

Does this mean that the Entourage movie will not be epic? Of course not. Does it mean that the Entourage movie will have an excess of dopeness? Almost definitely. Will Vinny make the movie? Probably. Fingers crossed!

The truth is, neither "dope" nor "epic" might adequately capture the Entourage movie. We believe Piers Morgan said it best when describing the ride, which ain't over: "BOOM!"

BOOM! > RT @mrdougellin: http://t.co/T4rtHp3oMa #EntourageMovie TRAILER! Spread the word! http://t.co/5JEDWyq7GW pic.twitter.com/lq0595oSsD

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) December 23, 2014

Summer 2015.

[Top image by Jim Cooke, photos via HBO]

In a federal lawsuit filed today by the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, a member of the grand jury that chose not to indict former Ferguson, Mo. police officer Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown is suing to lift the lifetime gag order. "Grand Juror Doe" names St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch in the suit, and alleges he presented information to the grand jury in a "muddled" and "untimely" manner.http://gawker.com/ferguson-da-cl...

As first reported by St Louis Public Radio, "Grand Juror Doe" takes issue with how McCulloch has presented the grand jury's decision not to indict Wilson. "In [the grand juror]'s view, the current information available about the grand jurors' views is not entirely accurate—especially the implication that all grand jurors believed that there was no support for any charges," the lawsuit says. "Moreover, the public characterization of the grand jurors' view of witnesses and evidence does not accord with [Doe]'s own."

From St Louis Public Radio:

In this specific case, "any interests furthered by maintaining grand jury secrecy are outweighed by the interests secured by the First Amendment," the lawsuit says, adding that allowing the juror to speak would contribute to a discussion on race in America.

As the grand juror points out in the lawsuit, the Wilson case was handled in a very different manner than other grand juries. Instead of recommending a charge, McCulloch's office presented thousands of pages worth of evidence and testimony before the grand jury. At one point, McCulloch's spokesman characterized the grand jury as co-investigators.

"From [Doe]'s perspective, although the release of a large number of records provides an appearance of transparency, with heavy redactions and the absence of context, those records do not fully portray the proceedings before the grand jury," the lawsuit says.

"From [the grand juror]'s perspective," the lawsuit states, "the investigation of Wilson had a stronger focus on the victim than in other cases presented to the grand jury."http://gawker.com/ferguson-prose...

McCulloch was quickly vilified after his overlong, moronic announcement of the grand jury's decision appeared to drag on and on and on. And in the weeks following the grand jury decision, more details about alleged mishandling of the case leaked out, namely that McCulloch knowingly allowed lying witnesses to testify.

USA Today also notes that Missouri Governor Jay Nixon decided not to replace McCulloch as the prosecutor on the Wilson-Brown case knowing that McCulloch's father was a police officer killed on the job.

McCulloch has reportedly not yet been served with the suit.

[Image via St. Louis Public Radio]

Oh my god. Is your tuxedo pressed? You don't own one? Ugh, all right, that's an argument for another time—right now we have to hurry because Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden are getting married TONIGHT!

Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden, whose engagement was confirmed about two weeks ago, have been straight up fucking with us for months. Are they engaged?, Why?, Cameron?, What?, Girl—Benji?, Benji Madden?, and now you have two rings?, and more questions. But according to Us Magazine, a small portion of our questions will soon be put to rest.

The couple will pledge themselves to each other tonight, Us reports, after yesterday's intimate rehearsal dinner in Beverly Hills:

Upon arrival, guests were handed drinks as they awaited the meal, which started at around 7:30 p.m. According to the insider, the group stayed at the location for about three hours.

OK.

Congratulations to the happy couple!

[image via Splash]

The coldest air of the winter is draining into the United States, and holy crap it's cold. Temperatures in much of the north are struggling to climb into the single digits today, while Boston and the NYC suburbs will flirt with lows near zero on Thursday morning. Here's what you need to know to survive the deep freeze.

How cold will it get?

That depends on where you live. We have to break this down into two shots of cold air; the first is going on right now, with the second one swinging through on Wednesday and Thursday.

First Shot

The upper Midwest, Great Lakes, and interior sections of the Northeast are catching the brunt of today's cold snap, where temperatures are struggling to climb above zero even during the "heat" of the day. The temperature in Minneapolis as I wrote this sentence was -5°F. Tonight will be even colder, with lows of -15°F to -25°F possible, especially across the border states.

Second Shot

This is the one that will cause the most problems. It will arrive on Wednesday night and stick around through the day on Thursday. Low temperatures on Thursday morning will drop into the single digits as far south as Alabama, with teens likely as far south as the Gulf of Mexico. This is cold—almost as cold as the Great Polar Vortex Panic of 2014™—but surprisingly it won't break records in as many spots as you would think.

Here are forecast lows for Thursday morning compared to record lows for January 8. Only Chicago and Mobile come within one degree of breaking their record lows—every other city has at least a four-degree cushion between the forecast and record for the date.

• Chicago — Forecast: -11°F | Record: -10°F
• Minneapolis — Forecast: -10°F | Record: -23°F
• NYC (Central Park) — Forecast: 8°F | Record: 2°F
• Boston — Forecast 0°F | Record: -4°F
• Washington (DCA) — Forecast: 15°F | Record: 7°F
• Greensboro NC — Forecast: 10°F | Record: 6°F
• Mobile AL — Forecast: 18°F | Record: 19°F
• Huntsville AL — Forecast: 9°F | Record: 2°F
• Nashville TN — Forecast: 4°F | Record: -9°F
• Tallahassee FL — Forecast: 23°F | Record: 14°F
• Houston TX — Forecast: 28°F | Record: 21°F

This doesn't even take into account wind chills. Even a light wind is dangerous to exposed skin in areas that experience bitterly cold temperatures. Wind chills close to -50°F are possible in the coldest spots this week. Frostbite will develop in just a few minutes with this combination of cold and wind.

Duh. It's January. It's supposed to get cold. Thanks for the scoop.

God, statements like this are insufferable. There's a difference between cold and cold. Run-of-the-mill cold that hovers around average is normal (in every sense of the term), but when you start dipping 20 or more degrees below normal, it's extreme. This kind of cold weather is dangerous to people walking from the bus stop to their work, let alone homeless people and those who have to work outside.

Look at areas like Huntsville, Alabama, where it's going to dip into the single digits on Thursday morning. Huntsville's normal low on January 8 is 32°F. Their forecast is 9°F. It's not quite record cold, but it's still really freakin' cold. Such a deep freeze dipping into the southern United States isn't rare (just look at last year), but you have to remember that not everybody has access to heat or even the proper clothing to protect them from such bitterly cold temperatures.

And then there's Minneapolis. The city's average low at the beginning of January is below zero. Residents know how to deal with it. However, wind chills that are something like -40°F are extreme even for winter-hardy residents of Minnesota. There's a reason the National Weather Service keeps issuing wind chill warnings for areas of the Plains and upper Midwest—it's dangerously cold!

Going outside without the proper clothing will subject you to hypothermia and frostbite. Frostbite can develop in just a couple of minutes when the wind blows with temperatures at or below zero. Go to Google and look up pictures of frostbite and then tell me if that's supposed to happen, you awful weather snob.

Well then. Why is this happening? Is it the polar vortex?

Sort of! This extreme cold is thanks to a glancing blow from the polar vortex instead of a full attack like we saw last year. Here's what I said about the polar vortex on Friday:

The polar vortex is a persistent, large-scale counterclockwise circulation around the Arctic that acts like a moat keeping bitterly cold air confined to the far north. The vortex often looks like a smooth belt, but every once and a while the circulation will become wavy, allowing cold air to flow south out of the Arctic. Last year, the vortex broke into several upper-level lows, one of which rotated over Ontario and the Great Lakes, causing a prolonged period of extremely cold weather in the United States.

This time around, the main circulation will stay safely up by Greenland, but a trough extending off of the upper-level low will swing down through the Great Lakes and Northeastern United States, facilitating low temperatures at or below zero for a large portion of the Midwest and Northeast for a few days next week.

The forecasts didn't really change over the weekend, signaling that the models are extremely confident that it will get very cold. Here's a look at the 500 millibar forecast from the GFS model, showing the atmosphere between 16,000 and 18,000 above sea level. Colder colors show lower heights (roughly lower pressure), and warmer colors show higher heights.

Just as the models showed last week, the polar vortex is spinning above Quebec and Nunavut, nowhere near the United States like it was this time last year. A deep trough in the upper-level low will swing over southern Canada and the eastern half of the United States this week, allowing very cold Arctic air to spill south and freeze us to death in about 36 hours.

The great thing is that the trough is a fast mover, so the cold blast in most spots won't last very long. Outside of the frozen tundra that is the Midwest, temperatures will rebound to the 30s and 40s in most places after Friday, but the cold, wintry pattern will persist for at least another week or two.

What did The Weather Channel name this storm?

Hell if I know. Gargle? Ganglion? Skittlebip? It doesn't matter, because it's just a social media advertising campaign. http://thevane.gawker.com/the-weather-ch...

What else should I know?

• Bring your pets inside. If you leave your dog or cat outside during this cold, they will die and you are responsible for Fido's negligent homicide.
• Donate unused clothes like coats or sweatshirts. They're just sitting in your closet anyway. People who need them more than you will really need them this week.
• If you have frost or ice on your windshield, don't throw hot water on it unless you don't want a windshield anymore.
• Check on your elderly friends, relatives, and neighbors, even if they have heat. If not to see if they're doing okay, it's just a nice thing to do.
• For most places that experience single-digit (or colder) temperatures, it will only take about 30 minutes or less for frostbite to set in. The frostbite event horizon is closer to ten minutes if the wind chill is -35°F or colder.

Stay warm, and there are only 74 days until spring.

[Images: AP, NWS, WeatherBELL]

You can follow the author on Twitter or send him an email.

Tara Reid, who is, according to IMDB, a person from the 1990s who was in a movie about a young man who makes love to a pie (but played neither the young man nor the pie), is naked on Instagram. Go ahead and look, I guess.

Reid was not participating in the "Free the Nipple" campaign against Instagram censorship, led by celebrities Miley Cyrus and Chelsea Handler, instead choosing to keep her breasts covered. I can only conclude that Tara Reid, whoever that is, is quite traditional and prudish.

These nipples are not for tawdry public ogling. Never in a million years. Not even if she were famous.

[Photo: Tara Reid/Instagram]

Freedom Alliance is dedicated to freedom. Which means it's dedicated to our amazing combat veterans. Which means it invites those veterans, especially the ones spooked by "loud noises and crowds," to hunt doves, the universal symbol of peace and spirituality, and shoot dozens of the delicate winged creatures to death.

The nonprofit—founded by Oliver North in 1990 "to advance the American heritage of freedom by honoring and encouraging military service"—is a favorite of North's Fox News pal Sean Hannity, even though it's been criticized by charity trackers and some conservatives for making millions in donations disappear. (That may have something to do with the fact that much of its money is handled by a conservative bagman who once managed North's Iran-Contra legal defense fund.)

But Freedom Alliance has finally found a tangible way to give back to combat vets, some of whom may have been traumatized by their live-fire experiences. According to a post published today on the nonprofit's site, it worked with a retired Republican state senator to organize a dove massacre for some needy veterans on his "estate" late last summer (emphasis added):

Freedom Alliance historically participates in the U.S. Tennis Open in New York City, bringing along several veterans and their family members. As much fun as that is, many combat service members have an aversion to loud noises and crowds. This year, we decided to attach a couple of days in the country to the end of our New York trip, as a way to extend the recreation and decompress from the fast pace of city life.

Porter Hopkins, a Korean War veteran who served in the Maryland legislature, owns a beautiful property in Cambridge, Maryland. Mr. Hopkins was kind enough to invite Freedom Alliance to a dove hunt on his farm the weekend of our New York trip.

The troops included "Denny, a soldier who was wounded during a convoy in Iraq" and an attendee of previous Freedom Alliance dove shoots who "was keen to come again" to repeatedly shoot the one genus of gamefowl that signifies peace and love on earth.

Freedom Alliance declared Operation Dove Kill an unqualified success:

The troops very much enjoyed their late-afternoon trigger time, when the doves descended as the day's heat began to melt away. Their time in the outdoors was therapeutic and inspiriting.

No word on how many noble doves sacrificed themselves, but it doubtlessly helped this small handful of former soldiers, and was well worth whatever it cost out of the nonprofit's $24.5 million in assets.

[Photo credits: FreedomAlliance.org]

Everybody likes to troll Harvard, even the New York Times.

Two potential contenders for the U.S. ski team were killed in an avalanche in the Austrian alps on Monday. Ronnie Berlack, 20, and Bryce Astle, 19, reportedly died after skiing off course while training on a glacier.

Austrian officials told the Associated Press that there'd been an avalanche warning in the region, which had seen heavy snowfall and warm weather in recent days.

From the AP:

"Ronnie and Bryce were both outstanding ski racers who were passionate about their sport — both on the race course and skiing the mountain," U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association President and CEO Tiger Shaw said. "Our hearts go out to the Berlack and Astle families, as well as to their extended sport family. Both of them loved what they did and conveyed that to those around them."

Berlack grew up racing in New Hampshire and had been a student-athlete at Vermont's Burke Mountain Academy. He was named to the so-called development team for potential World Cup racers following two top-20 finishes at the 2013 U.S. national championships and a spring tryout camp.

"They all have the potential (to be on the World Cup)," Alpine director Patrick Riml told the AP. "These two boys were among the other eight boys who are our future. We believed in these guys, that's why we selected them."

"[I]t's a shock for everybody. Two great boys, great athletes, good skiers," he added."They were fun to have around. We are all in shock, still. It's very tragic."

[Image via AP]

It's 2015, and your friends are sharing that block of pseudo-legal gibberish that supposedly prevents Facebook from using their "copyrighted content." This copyright notice means exactly the same thing it did when they posted it in 2012, 2013, and 2014: jack shit.

Don't copy it. Don't paste it. Do read Facebook's Terms of Service, which lay out exactly what you've already agreed to let them do with your photos, wall posts, and other precious social media treasure.

What's hitting the big screen this year? Basically, everything. Luke Skywalker, James Bond, the Terminator, Velociraptors, all the superheroes. But there are also some great surprises, like a movie based on a beloved Nebula-winning novel. Here are the 67 science fiction and fantasy movies you need to know this year.

Top image: Mad Max: Fury Road, via Reddit

Note: The figure of 67 movies doesn't include a handful of edge cases, which are marked below with a *. We included these movies because they seem like they have a lot of science fiction or fantasy stuff going on in them.

Oh, and there are some movies that have no release date yet, like Absolutely Anything. You won't find them below.

JANUARY

[REC] 4: Apocalypse (Jan. 2)

This beloved Spanish zombie series has apparently rediscovered its chops with this fourth installment, according to the mostly upbeat reviews. After the detour into horror-comedy of the third movie, we're back to the main storyline, and once again we're in a tight confined space full of zombies — this time, a ship that's also a mysterious government research facility.

The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death (Jan. 2)

The other horror sequel that came out stateside last weekend wasn't quite as thrilling — we found the World War II-set continuation of this series about a bloodthirsty female ghost to be sadly lifeless.

Predestination (Jan. 9)

Ethan Hawke reunites with the Spierig Brothers (who directed him in Daybreakers) for this thriller based closely on Robert A. Heinlein's story "All You Zombies." Heinlein created the archetypal closed-loop time travel mindfuck, and this movie works hard to do his story justice, with a haunting performance by Sarah Snook as the Unmarried Mother. You can watch some clips here.

* Blackhat (Jan. 16)

This hacking movie is the first of the films we're including just because we suspect it'll veer into pretty science-fictional territory, given that hackers seem to have magical powers, judging from the trailer.

Paddington (Jan. 16)

The beloved British children's book (and cartoon) series gets a live-action movie, directed by Paul King (The Mighty Boosh). Can a bear with a suitcase and a love of marmalade sandwiches still find a family to look after him in this cold and cynical age? It's gotten near-unanimous raves in the U.K.

Strange Magic (Jan. 23)

Remember George Lucas? He's still around, and he came up with the story of this animated fantasy movie about goblins and elves, based loosely on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Even though this project is a holdover from the days before Disney bought Lucasfilm, it's still getting a theatrical release — and director Gary Rydstrom compares it to Labyrinth, which Lucas also produced back in the day. But the first trailer didn't blow us away.

Project Almanac (Jan. 30)

Here's the second time-travel movie coming out this month — it's a found-footage tale, in which a group of young people discover the plans to a time machine, and inevitably build it. They soon find that they can change the past... but should they? (Spoiler alert: No.) The trailer gave us a Chronicle vibe.

Alien Outpost (Jan 30)

This indie movie will be in a handful of theaters, plus VOD, at the end of the month — and it looks pretty fun. Basically, documentary film-makers follow a platoon of human soldiers mopping up after a failed alien invasion, and then it turns out that the aliens are about to mount their second assault. Formerly called Outpost 37, this movie stars Adrian Paul (Highlander: The Series).

FEBRUARY

Jupiter Ascending (Feb. 6)

After the super-ambitious Cloud Atlas, the Wachowskis seem to be aiming for "fun action-adventure fare" with this story of an ordinary woman (Mila Kunis) who turns out to be the heir to an alien throne. And unless she can claim her inheritance, the aliens who seeded Earth with life will "harvest" the planet. If this movie can deliver on the lizard-aliens-and-space-battles craziness of the trailer, it should be a blast.

Seventh Son (Feb. 6)

Jeff Bridges is a witch-hunter, who's training his replacement. But meanwhile, his old nemesis Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore) is planning a comeback and wants to take over the world. It was originally going to be released back in 2013, but has gotten delayed a few times. Early reviews have not been kind. But you can watch a trailer for yourself.

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge out of Water (Feb. 6)

In this sequel to 2004's SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, a pirate named BurgerBeard is looking for a magical book that makes any plan you write in it come true. To stop this fiend, SpongeBob and his friends have to visit the surface world... and turn themselves into superheroes.

Kingsmen: The Secret Service (Feb. 13)

Matthew Vaughn (Kick Ass, X-Men First Class) directs another comic-book movie — this time, about a superspy organization that recruits a rough street kid into its training program, just as a new threat emerges that could affect the whole world. We've already seen this movie, and it fully lives up to the Kick Ass legacy. See the trailer for yourself.

What We Do In The Shadows (Feb. 13)

This horror mockumentary follows three vampires... and the monstrous creature that lives in their basement. Written and directed by Flight of the Conchords' Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, who also star, this movie already came out in New Zealand to pretty unanimous acclaim. Here's the trailer.

Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (Feb. 20)

This time around, the gang (minus John Cusack, darn it) is going to the future, instead of the past. So basically, this is the Back to the Future 2 of hot tub time travel movies. Lou (Rob Corddry) gets shot, so his friends try to use their watery time machine to save him — but end up stranded 10 years in the future, instead of the past. Watch the trailer!

The Lazarus Effect (Feb. 27)

This movie basically sounds like Flatliners, only more bonkers. Medical students have figured out how to bring dead people back to life — starting with a dead student named Zoe (Olivia Wilde). But is that really Zoe, or have they actually brought back something... evil?

MARCH

Chappie (March 6)

Neill Blomkamp is getting a bit more satirical after the pious Elysium, and the result looks nuts. Chappie is a former military robot (played by Sharlto Copley) who gets freed from his former restrictions by an idealistic scientist (Dev Patel) — but then he's kidnapped by two gangsters (played by rap-rave group Die Antwoord) and taught to be a gangster robot. And Hugh Jackman is a robot-hating extremist who wants to destroy him. Watch a trailer!

Cinderella (March 13)

It's just what sounds like — a live-action Cinderella, with Cate Blanchett as the Wicked Stepmother and Game of Thrones' Richard Madden as Prince Charming. And Helena Bonham Carter as the Fairy Godmother. Directed by Kenneth Branagh. We're not sure our brains are built to handle this. Check out a trailer here.

Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (March 13)

After an oddly satisfying detour with The Marked Ones, this is the official Paranormal Activity 5. What is there left to reveal about this monstrous apparition? The producers promise this one will move the mythology forward and won't feel like quite as much of a time-waster as PA4.

The Divergent Series: Insurgent (March 20)

This dystopian series, in which aptitude testing goes horribly wrong, gets a continuation in which Tris and Four are on the run from Kate Winslet's evil mastermind. And they have to find out the secret at the heart of this terrible world, before it's too late. The first movie was pleasingly violent, and fast-paced enough to make us overlook the total lack of logic. Fingers crossed for this one.

Spring (March 20)

A horror romance directed by Ridley Scott's former interns, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, this movie is winning early buzz for defying genre classification. All we know is, it's about a man who falls in love with a woman who has a dark supernatural secret.

Home (March 27)

Here's the animated adaptation of the beloved kids' book The True Meaning of Smekday. Which is a billion times more memorable a title than "Home." A young girl named Tip befriends an alien named Oh... but he's not the only one of his kind coming to Earth. The first trailer looked pretty adorable.

It Follows (March 27)

Almost left this one out... this horror movie about a woman who has a strange sexual encounter and then finds herself having weird visions and being stalked by something supernatural has insane buzz.

* White God (March 27)

Mentioning this Hungarian movie because it sounds completely insane. A young girl is separated from her dog, who searches the city for his lost owner — but when that fails, the dog leads an army of other abandoned dogs, in a canine uprising to kill all the humans.

APRIL

Ex Machina (April 10)

This movie looks like another "A.I. that happens to look like a beautiful woman" film, along the lines of The Machine. But it's the directorial debut of Alex Garland, who wrote 28 Days Later and Dredd, and the result looks stylish and sophisticated. In Ex Machina, a programmer (Domnhall Gleeson) gets invited to visit the head of the world's leading search engine company, but is surprised to be asked to evaluate a new artificial intelligence, played by Alicia Vikander.

The Moon and the Sun (April 10)

Vonda McIntyre won the Nebula Award for best science fiction novel for her book that combines historical romance with first-contact SF. And now it's become a movie, starring Pierce Brosnan and William Hurt. Can they possibly do justice to this beguiling novel? We'll find out soon enough.

Unfriended (April 17)

The "found footage" horror subgenre gets taken to the next level — this movie is told entirely through webcam footage on a computer desktop. A year after a bullied girl killed herself, she starts Skyping her friends from beyond the grave, and revealing their darkest secrets. This movie originally had the much funnier title Cybernatural.

* The Water Diviner (April 24)

Russell Crowe's directorial debut is a strange movie about a man who has an uncanny ability to sense the location of water deep underground. And after all his sons die in World War I, he goes looking for closure. Other magical-realist touches include a woman who can tell the future in coffee grounds — and she's never wrong. By most accounts, this is a pretty powerful film.

The Age of Adaline (April 24)

Speaking of magical realism... in this film, Blake Lively plays a woman who stopped aging when she turned 29, and now it's 80 years later. She's kept herself hidden away, afraid to get close to people who will age and die, and also protecting her secret — until she falls for a man and takes a fateful decision.

MAY

Avengers: Age of Ultron (May 1)

The Avengers wasn't just one of the most successful movies ever made — it was also pure happiness for fans of superhero comics. The main questionmark hanging over this sequel is whether Joss Whedon can do it again, while introducing not only Ultron but also Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and the Vision. And presumably laying the groundwork for Civil War and a host of other upcoming Marvel films. It's a lot of water for one film to carry. But the trailers looked fantastic, and we have faith.

Mad Max: Fury Road (May 15)

George Miller returns to his most famous series (sorry, Babe) with this frankly insane looking action epic. This time, Tom Hardy is Max, and he's teaming up with Furiosa (Charlize Theron) to fight a warlord named Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Miller basically used incredibly detailed storyboards instead of a script for this film, resulting in what looks like a uniquely crazy ride. See a trailer!

Tomorrowland (May 22)

Brad Bird's second live-action film (after Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) remains pretty mysterious, even after the first teaser trailer. Tomorrowland is a magical place that you can visit by touching a special pin — and George Clooney has been evicted from there or something. And there's a futuristic city and a cool jetpack guy. Plus lots of mysteries, which isn't that surprising, given that the script was co-written by Lost's Damon Lindelof.

* Spy (May 22)

We're including this spy comedy, the latest team-up of director Paul Feig and star Melissa McCarthy, because the synopsis mentions that McCarthy's CIA analyst has to go into the field and stop a global disaster. So there's at least a reasonable likelihood of wacky spy-fi action.

* San Andreas (May 29)

Only mentioning this because it's a disaster movie, set in the near future. Basically, a devastating earthquake trashes all of California, and Dwayne Johnson has to travel to San Francisco to save his daughter. But the destruction may just be getting started.

JUNE

Insidious: Chapter 3 (June 5)

We really loved Insidious, the movie about a boy who's astral-projecting in his sleep into a nightmare realm. We really did not love the sequel, which made no sense and wasn't scary. This third movie, directed by the writer of the first two, is a prequel, which explains all the stuff that the first two movies already over-explained. The trailer is full of jump scares.

Jurassic World (June 12)

The fourth Jurassic movie is directed by Colin Trevorrow, who wowed us with the indie time-travel movie Safety Not Guaranteed. There's a brand new theme park on Isla Nubar, and everything is chill — until scientists go creating a hybrid super-dinosaur, which runs rampant.

Inside Out (June 19)

Pixar's return to the spotlight begins with this tale of a girl, whose emotions are represented by Amy Poehler, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling and Bill Hader. So it's sort of a fantasy about what it would be like if your emotions had their own separate consciousness. Or, basically, a film version of Herman's Head.

Ted 2 (June 26)

The sequel to the mega-successful movie about a guy (Mark Wahlberg) and his living teddy bear (voiced by director Seth MacFarlane). This time, Liam Neeson and Amanda Seyfried join the cast, and there's more Flash Gordon insanity.

JULY

Terminator: Genisys (July 1)

Arnold Schwarzenegger returns to his most successful series, playing an aging version of the killing machine from the future — thanks to James Cameron's explanation that the human flesh covering the endoskeleton can grow old just like regular human flesh. The non-stop time-travel shenanigans have resulted in a timeline where Sarah Connor basically calls the T-800 "Dad." It's directed by Alan Taylor (Game of Thrones, Thor: The Dark World) and the first trailer looked surprisingly fun.

Minions (July 10)

It's a spinoff to the ridiculously successful Despicable Me films, focusing on the twinkie-like creatures who work for Gru. As the first trailer shows, this movie follows three minions named Stuart, Kevin and Bob, who get recruited to work for a supervillain named Scarlet Overkill and her husband Herb.

The Gallows (July 10)

This is a low-budget supernatural horror movie from a couple of filmmakers who posted test footage from it on Youtube and won the attention of producers, including microbudget horror czar Jason Blum. All we know is, it's set in high school and involves students trying to restage a play that caused a tragic death 20 years earlier.

Ant-Man (July 17)

Marvel brings another one of its lesser-known heroes to the big screen, with the tale of a guy who can shrink and communicate with ants. This film is frequently described as a heist movie, in which a criminal named Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has to use his skills to help inventor Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) to save the day. Fingers crossed that director Peyton Reed can fill the huge shoes of Edgar Wright, who left the project.

Pan (July 24)

This is another bizarre reimagining of a fantasy classic — in this version of Peter Pan, Pan and Captain Hook are friends, and they're teaming up to fight Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman.) It sounds like a terrible idea, and the first trailer was honestly bizarre — but it's directed by Joe Wright (Hanna, Pride and Prejudice) who has never steered us wrong.

Pixels (July 24)

Speaking of bizarre... this movie, adapted from an online short film, is about aliens who think our human video games are a declaration of war. So they attack the Earth, using classic video games as their weapons. So only a couple of former video game champions from the 80s (Adam Sandler and Peter Dinklage) can save the Earth. Kevin James plays the President of the United States, who happens to be Sandler's childhood friend.

Poltergeist (July 24)

Yep, they're rebooting Poltergeist. Sam Raimi is producing, and even more encouragingly Sam Rockwell stars.

Selfless (July 31)

Ben Kingsley plays a rich guy who's dying of cancer — so he transplants his consciousness into a healthy young body (Ryan Reynolds). So far, so good. But it turns out that his new body has a dark past, and there's also more to the organization that made this procedure possible than he realized at first.

AUGUST

Fantastic Four (Aug. 7)

It's kind of amazing that Rocket Raccoon was fully realized on the big screen, and we still haven't had a decent movie starring the Fantastic Four. To remedy this oversight, Fox recruited Josh Trank, who created a thrilling superpowered action movie with Chronicle. How can Trank mesh the gritty realism of Chronicle with the bright, shiny fantasy of the FF? We'll find out ridiculously soon.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (Aug. 14)

If you can't wait until the fall for your next dose of James Bond, here's some methadone. Ian Fleming helped to create the original concepts of this classic 1960s spy-fi show, in which mad scientists and crazy gadgets turn up in every other episode. Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) must team up with Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) to track down a missing scientist, or the world could be doomed. And it's directed by Guy Ritchie!

Criminal (Aug. 21)

And here's another movie about body-jumping — a CIA operative is killed before he can stop a plot that could threaten the whole world. So they transplant the dead agent's memories and skills into the body of a death-row inmate, so the psycho killer can complete the agent's mission. What could possibly go wrong?

Sinister 2 (Aug. 21)

Another low-budget horror movie gets a sequel in which a new cast of characters gets introduced. This time around, a mom moves into a house in the middle of nowhere, only to find herself and her twin sons are marked for death.

Hitman: Agent 47 (Aug. 28)

In this adaptation of the hit video game, Agent 47 was genetically engineered to be the perfect killing machine — and his only name is the last two digits of the barcode that's tattooed on the back of his neck. Unfortunately, an evil corporation wants to use the cloning process to create a whole army of super-killers. Apparently this is a reboot and not a continuation of the disastrous 2007 Hitman movie.

Regression (Aug. 28)

Oscar-winning director Alejandro Amenabar first made his mark with the ghost movie The Others, and this movie is being billed as his return to dark genre material. The plot remains a bit of a mystery, but it involves a detective (Ethan Hawke) who investigates a father (David Dencik) who has no memory of molesting his daughter (Emma Watson) — until regression therapy uncovers what seems to be a "nationwide conspiracy." So there's some kind of crazy memory-erasure or mind-control going on, by the sound of it.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2: The Green Legend (Aug. 28)

Directed by Yuen Wo-Ping, this movie is causing a lot of controversy because of its simultaneous release in IMAX theaters and on Netflix. Four heroes go on a quest to keep the legendary sword Green Destiny from falling into the hands of the evil Hades Dai, in a world full of sorcerers, poets and "Shaolin renegades."

SEPTEMBER

Kitchen Sink (Sept. 4)

Vanessa Hudgens and Bob Odenkirk star in this comedy, set in a town where vampires, zombies and humans have always lived in peace... until now. Can a group of teenagers stop a war between humans and the undead? The supporting cast includes Joan Cusack, Patton Oswalt and Keegan-Michael Key, so fingers crossed.

The Visit (Sept. 11)

M. Night Shyamalan is back! He wrote and directed this low-budget thriller about a brother and sister who are sent to stay with their grandparents for a week — only to find out the grandparents are up to something scary. And probably supernatural, although nobody knows exactly what yet. This is supposed to be Shyamalan's bid to return to the feel of his early films, before he became a big studio director.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (Sept. 18)

Just like with Divergent, Twilight and Hunger Games, they're trying to make the Maze Runner films an annual event. Thomas and his friends have gotten out of the Maze, but they're still running around, looking for answers. They've teamed up with some resistance fighters to stop the evil organization WCKD — but they may not be as free as they thought.

Hotel Transylvania 2 (Sept. 25)

The first Hotel Transylvania was surprisingly fun, with its tale of Dracula's daughter falling for a regular human backpacker. This time around, Mel Brooks plays Dracula's father, Vlad. The good news is, original director Genndy Tartakovsky is back once again.

The Disappointments Room (Sept. 25)

Directed by D.J. Caruso (Disturbia), this is being billed as a Shining-esque supernatural thriller. A woman (Kate Beckinsale) moves into a house, where there's a mysterious locked room in the attic — and it contains unimaginable horrors. And somehow, that secret room is connected to a long-dead girl. It's co-written by Prison Break's Wentworth Miller, who also wrote Stoker.

OCTOBER

Victor Frankenstein (Oct. 2)

And here's another off-the-wall reimagining of a classic story — this time, it's the Frankenstein story, told from the point of view of Igor (Daniel Radcliffe) instead of Victor Frankenstein (James McAvoy). And it's sort of an origin story, showing how the idealistic young medical student turned into the unscrupulous experimenter we know and love.

* Olympus Has Fallen 2 (Oct. 2)

We didn't cover the first Olympus Has Fallen on io9, because it wasn't really science fiction despite its off-the-wall "White House invasion" storyline. But holy crap, this sequel sounds completely bonkers. The British Prime Minister dies under mysterious circumstances, and when all the world leaders come to his funeral, there turns out to be a conspiracy to destroy every single monument in London and "unleash a terrifying vision of the future." We are SO in.

The Jungle Book (Oct. 9)

There were two dueling movies based on Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book: a mocap-heavy one directed by Andy Serkis, and this one, directed by Iron Man's Jon Favreau. (The Serkis film has been delayed.) This one is live-action, and features the voices of Scarlett Johansson, Idris Elba, Ben Kingsley, Bill Murray, Christopher Walken and other great actors as the animals.

Crimson Peak (Oct. 16)

Guillermo del Toro returns to spooky horror in between Pacific Rim movies, and this looks like a wonderful passion project. Starring Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain, this looks like full-on gothic insanity — the long teaser we watched at Comic-Con was utterly gorgeous.

Jem and the Holograms (Oct. 23)

This toy line and cartoon is the latest 80s classic to get a live-action adaptation on the big screen. We're a little worried, because creator Christy Marx wasn't consulted, the whole thing felt rushed into production, and the early images look like a Disney original movie. But director Jon M. Chu worked wonders with the second G.I. Joe movie, so fingers crossed.

The Last Witch Hunter (Oct. 23)

Did Jeff Bridges' Seventh Son not satisfy your witch-hunter jones? Then there's this movie, in which Vin Diesel is an immortal witch-killer, who is still fighting them in present-day New York — and he has to stop the Witch Queen from taking over the world. This is directed by Breck Eisner, whose Crazies remake rocked.

Scouts Vs. Zombies (Oct. 30)

No word on when we're getting a release for Cooties, the horror-comedy where teachers are forced to kill their zombie kids. But meanwhile, there's this film, in which three Boy Scouts go camping together one last time, at the end of their Scout-hood, and then have to save their town from a zombie outbreak.

NOVEMBER

Spectre (Nov. 6)

Daniel Craig's quasi-reboot of the James Bond series has gone a few movies without leaning too heavily on the classic Bond mainstays — but now it's time to go nuts. This movie features the classic spy organization SPECTRE, and features Christoph Waltz, who's probably the perfect Bond villain. (Assuming he's playing a villain.)

Friday the 13th (Nov. 13)

Yes, this is the 13th Friday the 13th movie. Spooky. This time around, we're going back to the 1980s, and rumor has it that Jason Voorhees' mother has a big role this time around. So we can get lots of sick, psychosexual mommy-son stuff. Oh, and this one is rated R, which is probably for the best.

Image: New York Daily News

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (Nov. 20)

At last, the ending of the Hunger Games saga — and we're dying to see how the power struggle between Julianne Moore and Donald Sutherland plays out on screen. Mockingjay Part 1 ended just as we were hitting the darkest material from Suzanne Collins' book, and Jennifer Lawrence will have some really thorny stuff to deal with in this one. Basically, let's hope the movies continue their track record of mostly improving on the books.

The Martian (Nov. 25)

Andy Weir's blockbuster novel about a man stranded on Mars, who survives by his wits, gets a movie from Ridley Scott, starring Matt Damon and an all-star cast in general. Scott is at his best lately when he has strong source material to draw on, and this could be this year's Gravity.

The Good Dinosaur (Nov. 25)

And here's part two of Pixar's return to everyone's radar screens. This movie takes place in an alternate world where the dinosaurs were never wiped out. An Apatosaurus named Arlo has to go on a big journey, teaming up with a human boy named Spot.

Midnight Special (Nov. 25)

Jeff Nichols has won raves for his indie films Mud, Take Shelter and Shotgun Stories — now he's creating a science fiction chase movie that he says is inspired by John Carpenter's classic films. Michael Shannon plays a father who goes on the run because his son has special powers.

DECEMBER

Krampus (Dec. 4)

Why has it taken this long to get a big movie about the Christmas Devil? No clue, but this Christmas will be rocked by the Teutonic legend of a monster that punishes naughty children. Writer/director Michael Dougherty said, "Christmas has been invading Halloween for far too long. It's time to return the favor."

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (Dec. 18)

At long last, the Star Wars saga gets an official continuation, showing what happened after Return of the Jedi. All the original trilogy stars are back, plus there's a "next generation" of characters played by Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Domnhall Gleeson and others. Director J.J. Abrams is relying pretty heavily on practical effects rather than CG, which seems like a positive sign. It looks beautiful so far.

Mission Impossible 5 (Dec. 25)

This series got a huge shot in the arm from Ghost Protocol, and now let's hope it can maintain that momentum. This time around, it's directed by Chris McQuarrie, who wrote The Usual Suspects, with a script by Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3). The good thing is, the series has been getting more ensemble-oriented, so Jeremy Renner and Simon Pegg can carry more of the weight.

Sources: Studio press releases, Box Office Mojo, Movie Insider, First Showing.

Exactly ten years ago today, the internet finally gave a name to one of its favorite phenomenons, the Streisand Effect. Or: What happens when you try to censor something and the internet loses its collective shit, dumping even more attention on it. And what a glorious decade it's been.

The term was first used in 2005 in a Techdirt article commenting on the Toronto airport's attempt to invoke trademark law, which resulted in a whole slew of negative press. The term itself, however, refers to that time back in 2003 when photos of Barbra Streisand's home briefly became an internet sensation after she initially tried to suppress the photos. Of course, if Barbra hadn't made such a fuss, no one would have cared in the first place. Thus, the Streisand Effect is that special thing that happens when illegitimate attempts at censorship and good, old fashioned trolling join together to make magic.

Here are the most incredible instances of the phenomenon in action over the past 10 years. Think of any we missed? Let us know down below.

The Anshe Chung Interview

The incident: Back in 2006 and back when Second Life was still *a thing*, online entrepreneur Anshe Chung agreed to an interview with CNET in Second Life's virtual turf. Unfortunately for Chung and fortunately for absolutely everyone else, some trolls over on Something Awful decided to bombard her interview with giant, flying penises, as was the style at the time.

The aftermath: Chung was less than pleased with her surprise guest, and she and her husband contacted YouTube (among several other outlets) with a takedown notice. YouTube casually obliged, and the internet raged. A rage they channeled into ensuring that Chung's flying penis incident would live in even more iterations for as long as the internet survives.

Tom Cruise Scientology Video

The incident: In 2008, Scientology indoctrination videos featuring Tom Cruise being extra particularly insane started making their way around a few quieter corners of the internet. Then, the Scientology powers that be came down from their elevated Thetan levels to slap the drugged-up lemmings of the internet with copyright infringement; almost all the sites obeyed.

The aftermath: As soon as other sites started removing the ranting, dead-eyed Tom Cruise from their back catalogue, our sister site Gawker decided to host its own copy of the video. And that's when things really started taking off. In the video's own words, "That is why the story of Tom Cruise, Scientologist, has only just begun."

Did Glen Beck Rape and Murder a Young Girl?

The incident: As a way of calling attention to Glenn Beck's own sensational, over-the-top, and often accusatory style, a website subtly named Did Glenn Beck Rape And Murder A Young Girl In 1990 appeared at the similarly cryptic URL GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com. On September 1, 2009 the website reached the top of both Digg and Reddit, while "Glenn Beck murder" quickly became Google's number one suggestion for "Glenn Beck." Glenn Beck did not like what the internet was doing to Glenn Beck.

The aftermath: Almost immediately, Beck's lawyers contacted the site, threatening a defamation suit if it wasn't taken down immediately. It was not taken down immediately. Undeterred, Beck's team hit up World Intellectual Property Organization to complain about the use of Beck's name and were, once again, thoroughly denied; parody in a non-commercial use is perfectly legitimate. And this is when the YouTube videos started showing up.

God bless America.

Chubby Checker Penis App

The incident: Once upon a time, there was a webOS app named Chubby Checker that wanted nothing more than to measure the size of your erect penis. Unfortunately, a particular rock legend just so happened to have the very same, dick-inspector-esque name. Chubby Checker (the man) was not amused by the coincidence.

The aftermath: Chubby Checker's lawyer sued HP for defamation, claiming that they didn't manage to remove the offending trouser-snake-calculating app quite quick enough, resulting in it "adversely affecting Chubby Checker's brand and value." And once that happened, people started actually hearing about Chubby Checker (the app) for the very first time. And then they would continue to hear about it for the entire year Chubby Checker and HP were dealing with the resulting lawsuit. Whoops.

Beyonce's Unflattering Photos

The incident: After Beyonce's Super Bowl halftime appearance in 2013, Beyonce's publicist had an itty bitty request for Buzzfeed, saying "As discussed, there are some unflattering photos on your current feed that we are respectfully asking you to change. I am certain you will be able to find some better photos."

The aftermath: Instead of politely abiding and removing every last trace of the incredible and incredibly lucrative photos, Buzzfeed of course posted the email. And reposted those very same unflattering pics once more.The internet proceeded to lose its collective shit, turning the photos into a categorically fantastic meme.

Ultimately proving that, sometimes, if you're very good and truly do believe, the internet can be a force for good after all.

On New Year's Day, Kanye West released "Only One," a piano ballad written and performed in collaboration with Paul McCartney. Yeezus pairing up with the most genial Beatle was exciting if a little befuddling, and several people took to Twitter to make the same joke at Sir Paul's expense. Good Morning America didn't get it.

The joke:

Kanye has a great ear for talent. This Paul McCartney guy gonna be huge.

— Desus Nice (@desusnice) January 1, 2015

I don't know who Paul McCartney is, but Kanye is going to give this man a career w/ this new song!!

— OVOJosh (@OVOJosh) January 2, 2015

who tf is paul mccartney???!??! this is why i love kanye for shining light on unknown artists

— :/ (@CurvedDaily) January 2, 2015

The joke—and it is very obviously a joke—is that Kanye, a musician who regularly "shines a light on unknown artists," was collaborating with an artist whose star is even bigger than his own. Desus, one of the jokers in question, is celebrated across the internet for his excellent jokes. Of course everyone knows who Paul McCartney is.

GMA—along with a host of other outlets—wasn't having it.

Who is Paul McCartney? Some are wondering who this "upcoming" artist singing w/Kanye West is. http://t.co/rQLN6Q6NX9 pic.twitter.com/SC78258ZwO

— Good Morning America (@GMA) January 5, 2015

Not that ignorance of McCartney in favor of Kanye is some mortal sin anyway. If that guy were coming up today, he'd be playing to crowds of unsuspecting rap fans in Hamburg, covering "Love Lockdown."

[Image via AP]

Sharyl Attkisson is the investigative reporter who believes the Obama administration hacked her personal computers because she reported on the 2012 attacks in Benghazi. Today she announced her family’s $35 million lawsuit against the federal government for the alleged hacking.

According to the initial complaint, Attkisson believes “unknown named agents” of the Department of Justice, the United States Postal Service, and the U.S. government conducted “unauthorized and illegal surveillance” of her and her family’s “laptop computers and telephones” between 2011 and 2013.

There is zero evidence that federal agents placed Attkisson’s family under illegal and retaliatory surveillance, and Attkisson’s new complaint does not offer any actual proof that any state-sponsored surveillance took place. Here is a sampling:

On January 8, 2013, Ms. Attkisson made arrangements to deliver her Toshiba laptop to a contact with connections to a government forensics computer expert in the intelligence community.

On January 9, 2013, the forensics expert reported to Ms. Attkisson that the Toshiba laptop showed clear evidence of outside and unauthorized “intrusion,” and that the sources of the intrusion were state-supported due to the nature of the technology used.

On January 10, 2013, the computer was returned to Ms. Attkisson through an intermediary, along with a report. According to the report, the forensics computer expert found that so-called sophisticated software had been used to accomplish the intrusion, and the software fingerprint indicated the software was proprietary to the federal government.

Let’s break this down. Attkisson supplied her laptop to an unnamed “government forensics computer expert in the intelligence community”—via an unnamed “contact”—who later asserted “clear evidence” of an “intrusion” from “sources” that appeared to be “state-supported” because of the “the nature of the technology used.” Later, Attkisson received her laptop and the expert’s report through another unnamed “intermediary.”

Believing that any of this is true, or even slightly true, requires faith in the judgment and ability of three individuals that Attkisson refuses to name—one of whom she apparently has never met in person.

The rest of Attkisson’s $35 million lawsuit offers more of the same: Malfunctioning electronics; crappy Verizon FiOS service; and several nameless parties alleging outlandish conspiracies targeting Attkisson. It might be easier, in the end, to read her lawsuit not as a serious attempt to collect damages from lawless government goons, but as a work of experimental fiction.

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An Ole Miss football fan, apparently sorrowfully tired and perhaps a bit blotto after the team's loss to Texas Christian University in the Peach Bowl last week, decided to call Uber, the official car service of Capitalism™, for a ride home from the game. No big deal, except that the game was in Atlanta, and this Ole Miss fan lived in, as you might expect, Mississippi. He woke up to find he'd paid Uber $908 for the lift to his bed.

Cousin left NYE @CFAPeachBowl party, got in @uber, woke up in Mississippi with a $900 tab. Accidentally entered home address and passed out.

— Powder Blues (@ompowderblues) January 3, 2015

@CFAPeachBowl @Uber Just got PROOF pic.twitter.com/vBHpEtf2in

— Powder Blues (@ompowderblues) January 4, 2015

The story blew up after his cousin tweeted "PROOF," including an emailed receipt, but an Uber rep told CollegeSpun there's more to it than meets the eye. The unfortunate customer didn't "wake up in Mississippi," because Uber doesn't send drivers outside of the metro area. As the receipt indicates, he was dropped off at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Peachtree St. in Atlanta.

The $908 bill is allegedly legitimate, though: The customer racked it up due to the company's notorious surge pricing (which had triggered thanks to post-game crowds) and the fact that he'd "accidentally" put in a wrong address—presumably his home address in Mississippi.

"Uber claims it has worked with the user to reduce the overall price paid," Collegespun reports.

[h/t TFM, Photo: AP Images]

A few days ago, I got an e-mail from someone who said he was a customer service agent for PlayStation. He asked me—and, really, all of Kotaku's readers—to cut Sony a little slack in the wake of a DDoS attack that took the PlayStation Network down for several days. Have some sympathy for the people who work there, he begged.

"You would not believe the amount of abuse we have taken from old and young alike," he wrote.

Let's call him Dan. Dan, whose real name is not in fact Dan, asked not to be identified in this story. But he was willing to get on Skype and chat with me about what it was like to be a Sony customer service agent during one of the biggest PSN outages in recent history. He told me about the abuse they took. About how they tried to maintain civility while dealing with customers both new and old. About the threats from kids and parents and people of all ages. About how people like him—the ones who weren't getting paid six- and seven-figure salaries to run this monolithic corporation—were taking an unfair amount of abuse.

It started on Christmas morning. Dan was stoked to go to work—sure, it was a holiday, but he was getting triple pay, and he had volunteered thinking he'd be part of the giddiness of the day. "I had hopes of going in, being part of someone's Christmas, making people happy and just helping them out," he told me.

Dan says he was one of the first to get to his office, which handles customer service for various countries across Europe. For an hour or so, everything seemed fine. Then, at around 10am GMT, Dan says he started getting calls from people who wanted to know how to enable their PlayStation Network accounts. They had followed the instructions, they told him, but the website wouldn't verify their e-mail addresses. It wasn't loading for them.

Soon, it became clear that something was seriously off.

"I put them on hold and asked a couple of colleagues, 'Hey, have you guys had any issues like this?'" Dan told me. "Slowly but surely, everybody in the office was getting [the same thing]. I made jokes, like, 'Yeah, this would be the shittiest day for a DDoS-type thing.' And then it was reported to me that, yeah, we were having a DDoS attack."

As the PlayStation Network remained down, the calls just kept coming in. By the middle of the day, Dan says, they had a queue of 178 people, with wait times of 65 minutes per customer. During this flood of calls, the higher-ups didn't explain much to Dan and crew, other than the fact that it was "an attack." At this point, the job of Sony customer service was to A) keep people calm, and B) promise that the company was working on the problem. When customers pressed, they'd have to explain that, according to Sony's terms of service, the company had the right to bring down the network for maintenance at any time.

Still, the outage was brutal—PSN was pretty much entirely down for 48 hours, and connectivity remained intermittent for days after that. That meant that people couldn't get their PlayStation consoles online, couldn't download patches, and couldn't get software updates. Games that required online connections even if played solo—Destiny, for example—weren't playable at all. So it's understandable that PlayStation owners were upset. Less understandable: PlayStation owners getting abrasive toward Sony customer service representatives.

"One of my colleagues, she had a guy that was just yelling and wouldn't give her a chance to respond," Dan said. "Every time she tried saying the terms of service, he was saying she can take the TOS and, you know, sit on it pretty much. And she broke down. I watched one of my friends hang up the phone and just start crying."

And then there was the guy who threatened to use his media contacts against them. "I had a guy who was like, 'I have connections to The Sun,'" Dan said. "I was like, 'And?'"

There was the one who said he would find out where they were and track them down. "My response was, 'OK, great, then I'd be able to show you in person where the terms of service says that we can do this.'"

One person even threatened to kill himself if Sony didn't fix PSN, Dan says. "We had to escalate that to the [Sony Computer Entertainment] department. I don't know what they did with it. We do take things like that seriously."

Throughout the outage, Sony's customer service agents were in the dark as much as the rest of us, Dan says. They didn't know what Sony was doing, when the servers would be restored, or even how Sony planned to avoid this sort of situation in the future.

"We don't get memos or anything from system engineers," Dan said. "Our team leaders who are in touch with the [Sony Network Entertainment] and the [Sony Computer Entertainment] people tell us, [the] agents. Like when PS3 resources came back up, my team leader stood up with a notepad that said 'PS3 resources still back online, PS4 still being worked on.' That was on the fly. I was in the middle of a call when I look over and see my team leader stand up and show me the notepad. All I could do was give him a thumbs up then turn back to the customer."

Notepads! Imagine trying to deal with a deluge of angry customers under these sort of circumstances. People would ask Dan what was going on, and he just didn't have specific answers to any of their questions.

"There were people saying, 'I just got this for Christmas, and we can't get on the network, is there anything that's gonna be done?'" Dan said. "All I could say is, look, we do apologize."

Eventually, Sony did wind up offering a bit of compensation to PlayStation Plus subscribers who were affected by the outage. And today, PSN seems to be working just fine. (Dan says he's heard that Sony has just started an initiative to bolster their servers just in case this happens again.) But it's worth considering, every time we're ready to rail on a customer service agent, that he or she might have just been through hell.

"Just talk to us like we're normal people," Dan said. "We're not there to ruin your day; we're there to try and help you, and we will help you if we can."

Illustration by Tara Jacoby

You can reach the author of this post at jason@kotaku.com or on Twitter at @jasonschreier.

The 30-year-old man who allegedly shot and killed his hedge fund manager father Sunday afternoon reportedly did so after an argument over a small cut in his monthly allowance. The New York Post reports that Thomas Gilbert Jr. murdered his father Thomas Gillbert Sr. after learning that his allowance had been reduced by $200; the New York Daily News puts the number at $300.

From the New York Post:

"[Gilbert Sr.] was cutting his allowance. He had been giving him $2,400 a month for rent and $600 for spending money, and he was cutting that to $400 a month for spending money," a source said about Thomas Gilbert Sr., founder of the Wainscott Capital hedge fund.

"They had argued about it before."

Both the Post and the Daily News report that, shortly after arriving at his parents' multi-million dollar Manhattan apartment, Gilbert Jr. asked his mother to go buy a sandwich. Upon returning, she reportedly found her husband's body, which, the Daily News reports, was positioned with the gun on his chest—as though to frame it as a suicide.

"My husband's been shot by my son!" Shelly Gilbert told a 911 operator after finding Gilbert Sr.'s body, according to the Post.

Gilbert Jr., who'd fled the scene by the time his mother returned, surrendered to police late Sunday night, reportedly after police in riot gear chopped down the door to his Chelsea apartment.

Hmmm, what have we here? It seems that my enemy Blake Lively has given birth to her child—a human child, suggests the New York Post, though no supporting information such as name, sex, or explicit confirmation that is in fact a human child, was furnished alongside its exclusive scoop.

Proving for the umpteenth time that Blake Lively is no virgin, the Post reports that the child was born near Lively's home in Bedford, NY, shortly before the New Year. An unnamed source told the paper that both mother and child are "healthy and doing well."

Lively's representative "repeatedly declined to comment, claiming the actress and Reynolds could not be reached."

Seems like Blake Lively is hurting a lot of feelings and forgetting about old friends and representatives now that she has a new baby. Hmm.

[Image via Getty]

America's genetic dream child has been born, but neither its name nor gender have been revealed. Taking into consideration its parents' aesthetic, here are the Baby Name Critic's guesses as to what the tot might have been named. Please feel free to post your own guesses in the comments section below. Blessings to all.

Girl Baby

Gimlet Celestine Crepe Myrtle

Peach Ireland

Antebellum Rose

Angel Tulip

Amy

Boy Baby

Charleston Revere

Rhett Man

Masculine William

Robert E. Lee

Hamilton Nolan

Leah Finnegan is Gawker's Baby Name Critic.

[Photo via AP]

Teresa Giudice — A Bad Egg Before Prison #entertainment http://t.co/B6CeOFLCgA pic.twitter.com/qzulHfRxzc

— Entertainment Story (@_Entertain_S) January 5, 2015

In her last hour of freedom early this morning, Teresa Giudice enjoyed a "hot egg sandwich" at Elmer's Diner in Danbury, Connecticut, about a mile from the Federal Correctional Institution where she will spend the next 15 months. Though the above photos look monumentally depressing, Teresa's attorney James Leonard Jr. assured ABC News this morning that Tre was just "anxious to get in, get this thing started, get it behind her, and get back to her family."

TMZ reports that Teresa spent most of her last meal chatting to Leonard and calling friends on the phone to say goodbye. Her sandwich cost anywhere from $1.95 (fried egg sandwich) to $5.05 (turkey bacon egg sandwich), according to menu prices listed on the diner's website.

Teresa pled guilty to bankruptcy fraud, conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud, and failure to pay taxes back in March.