Bridget

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An image from Huxley's "Evidence as to man's place in nature" (Image via)

Humans, if you hadn't already noticed, have stopped evolving. As David Attenborough recently reminded us, our species is the first—by our free will—to remove itself from the process of natural selection, therefore stunting evolution. That, accompanied by Steven Hawking and Elon Musk's theories that robots will supersede human intelligence and become our biggest existential threat, paints a pretty bleak vision of the future.

Neuroscientist Randal Koene has the answer. Instead of allowing robots to become our cold, lifeless overlords, why don't we just become partially robotic ourselves? Koene is currently working on whole brain emulation, the process of being able to upload our minds to a computer. By mapping the brain, figuring out its mechanisms and replicating this activity in code, humans could—theoretically—live on indefinitely.

I recently gave Randal a call to try and get my head around his ideas.

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Randal Koene

VICE: Hi, Randal. When did you first think: You know what? I'm going to try to upload my brain to a computer?
Randal Koene: When I was 13, I read Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars. Set in the far future, the citizens are immortal. There's a giant central computer that runs the city, which is able to construct and deconstruct people who are stored in memory banks. For me, this was a wonderful exploration of the idea that information is really what distinguishes us, our creations, and our thoughts from the gradual dissipation that is entropy in the universe.

The story was particularly relevant to me at the time because I was keenly interested in exploration and all manner of creative activity. The most frustrating thing was to run out of time. That was, of course, caused by my own limitations; the limited speed of thought and creation, and limited cognitive and physical abilities.

If we think of ourselves as processes interacting with information, this opens up the possibility to transcend those limitations. If you can improve yourself almost arbitrarily then you can push back all boundaries. It took quite a few years to work through those insights and desires enough times to lay bare the feasible approaches to achieving that goal. The thing that makes all of that possible is a "Substrate-Independent Mind."

What's that?
A SIM is not merely an artificial intelligence, but a re-instantiation of a specific human mind—a human mind downloaded to a computer. Neuroscientists are 99.9% percent convinced that the brain is a mechanism. It is something that computes, something that carries out functions. If you can figure out how it works, you can build a replacement for it. The idea that you can take a small piece of the brain and build a replica for it is very mainstream and well understood. Why not do that with the whole brain? And then why not upload that to a computer so that we can process more data and store it better, the way a computer does, organizing thoughts into folders that we can access whenever we choose?

So, in the future, if we're able to download our brains, will brainless bodies be genetically grown for us? Or will we inhabit a more computer-like environment; a robot, say, or an android?
It would be interesting to inhabit a more virtual world. Or perhaps bodies that aren't built to survive in this environment, but somewhere else, like space. Living on Earth, where we need to breath oxygen, will no longer be necessary. We might have an existence in an environment more like the Cloud.

It's not just a matter of the space we inhabit, but that the biological reasons for mortality vanish. So you could have art projects or science projects that would normally outstrip the lifespan of a normal person.

How do you map the essence of who we are? How do you translate identity to a series of codes?
All of this has something to do with the connectome; the way that neurons connect to other neurons. When you're trying to make a decision, the activity in your brain is being shunted from one place to another. The way these synaptic connections function and the fact that they're made in a specific place will give you a type of memory.

The popular conception of what a memory is differs to the engineering or scientific definition, which is "a previous action that affects a future action." That goes much further than having a memory of the face of your grandmother or what you said two minutes ago.

It goes into all the details of why a concert pianist plays in a certain way, or why an executive would make a particular business decision. The reason is because they have previous experiences alongside a basic layout that's there from their birth, due to their DNA. That does really affect everything about your personality—all the characteristics that make you, you.

Will an uploaded mind be self-aware? Will it have consciousness?
I believe that all of what we manifest—all of our brain activity, everything we experience—is due to the way the brain functions. This includes self-awareness. Being aware of what's going on around you and the way you are and what you are is an experience. An experience is a mechanism, a processing happening inside your brain. So if you make a copy of all of that processing, then I'm convinced that copy will include self-awareness.

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A Nao humanoid robot. Photo by Jiuguang Wang via

What about things like humor or empathy?
If you have an exact copy of the entire brain and you aren't leaving out the parts that are involved with emotions, then why wouldn't you have humor, why wouldn't you have empathy? You would have the same sense of humor in your substrate independent mind as you do in reality. Having a sense of humor is just a certain way of processing activity that goes through your brain, just like the concert pianist who plays Beethoven in a certain way.

If I uploaded my mind to my computer, would the real me and my computer be able to share thoughts?
It might be possible in the future. You'd need to have enough access to the brains in both instances to create a channel—something like a radio communication between individual sets of neurons—so you could get an image that someone is seeing to automatically appear as activity in the neurons of the other brain. You can do that sort of thing if you have enough access, which is what my project is all about: getting access.

What's your primary reason for wanting to upload your mind?
I think the main reason is because I believe that humans individually, as well as a species, can benefit enormously from greater adaptability. The way our information technology is developing means there are now vast amounts of data streaming through that we cannot comprehend; only, our machines can.

We'll have another life form that we compete with, be it AI or some alien life that we encounter in our explorations, or perhaps other animals that we uplift by increasing their intelligence. If there are other lifeforms that are thinking, that also have goals and that are changing their environment correspondingly, that changes our environment, too. Keeping up with that by adapting can only be positive.

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A humanoid TOSY ping pong-playing robot. Photo courtesy of Humanrobo via

How would this existence out of our organic bodies affect sex and reproduction?
I imagine that we'll still want to create offspring, to create new beings that are in some way related to or derived from ourselves, or from groups of us. Sometimes, sexual reproduction might be the way to go, but sometimes there may be other interesting ways to creatively work with others—or not—to develop a new mind, with new characteristics and new physical forms. I suppose there will be much exploration and discovery involved.

I also imagine that we'll still want to experience connections between humans; bonding or intimacy sensations; shared highs that take us out of our ordinary trajectories of thought and feeling—orgasm. Exploration will probably lead to many more ways to achieve that, and different paths that can be taken, so that biological sex is only one of many options. I think this is already happening to some degree.

I think it's highly unlikely that sex and reproduction, in the broader sense of their definitions, would disappear. It's more likely that a vibrant and adaptable species will discover many more variants of both.

How far away are we from uploading the first mind?
A worm's mind has already been uploaded, but their brains work in a very different way to mammals. But, in ten years, I think it'll be possible to upload the mind of a fruit fly. From thereon, the human brain is a little hard to predict, but I really hope it will be in my lifetime.

Thanks, Randal.

Follow Georgia on Twitter.

We're ambivalent about Los Angeles. When you talk about a place with so many obviously amazing things right next to so many obviously horrible things, how can you not be ambivalent? People who relentlessly trash LA, and people who can't stop talking about how great it is are equally boring.

So in a year when the conventional wisdom said " Go to Los Angeles right now!" and "Get the fuck out of Los Angeles right now!" we've been here, watching the place closely, keeping an eye on the environmental problems, the local politics, the culture, and just the vibe on the streets. As the mayor might say, this was a big fuckin' year. Here's what we learned:

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Some children who may or may not be vaccinated. Photo by Michelle Groskopf

LA's Rich, Unvaccinated Children Are a Bunch of Disease Time Bombs

Every city in America probably has anti-vaxxers, but rich children in Los Angeles might just be the people who are most vulnerable to disease anywhere in the country.

To make matters worse, the unvaccinated snowflakes of Los Angeles are a breeding ground for LA's whooping cough problem. It seems that to parents on the city's posh Westside, protecting your child's purity of essence (or something) is a higher priority than stopping a potentially fatal outbreak.

A big story about this by—of all publications— The Hollywood Reporter came out in September. Journalists took a look at the state's immunization records and discovered that rich kids attending hoity-toity, entertainment-industry-centric daycare centers, preschools, and kindergartens had rates of unvaccinated kids as high as 68 percent. WHO statistics put those micro-populations in Los Angeles alongside places like Chad and South Sudan in terms of protection from communicable disease.

The New Mayor Will Say "Fuck" on TV if He Feels Like It

LA's new mayor Eric Garcetti is like some kind of experiment to create the perfect politician for Los Angeles. He's always on, and he has just the right remark for every occasion in both English and Spanish. He also looks like what you would get if you told a cartoonist, "draw a picture of a mayor."

Anyway, when the LA Kings won the Stanley Cup this year, he went to a giant reception for the team, and gave the following speech:

...which included the line "This is a big fuckin' day." Whether it came from genuine enthusiasm for the game of hockey (which LA residents aren't known for) or just the desire to suddenly make the whole event about himself, the remark was fun for everyone, and it may have set a precedent that even in this puritanical country, you can talk like an adult in public and not have to go on NBC Nightly News afterward to pretend you're sorry.

There Were a Lot of Earthquakes for Some Reason

LA gets plenty of earthquakes. But the area had more substantial earthquakes in 2014 than any year since 1994, the year of the deadly Northridge quake. It was enough to be chalked up not just as randomly-occurring events clumping together, but a trend worth examining for a cause.

The Santa Monica Mountains (the area residents know as "around the 405 freeway") in particular showed a general increase in seismic activity that caused geologists to stand up and take notice. It was, in many ways, similar to the rise in earthquakes nationwide that the US Geological Survey has connected to fracking.

Whatever the cause, the most intense tremor of the year was the 5.1 magnitude La Habra quake, which caused a blackout that affected thousands, damaged a few homes, and injured a handful of people.

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Photo by Michelle Groskopf

Los Angeles Is Decent at Water Conservation

The entire city of Los Angeles might be the product of a water supply being hijacked from a fertile farm community and piped into what should be a desert, but it turns out the people of Los Angeles have pretty good water conservation habits. Water saving measures begun back in 2009 actually helped during California's historic, ongoing drought. Common practices like fake lawns, and drought-resistant plants make the area tougher to blame than the real water hogs like Rancho Santa Fe.

PR-wise, one smart water conservation measure was the cancellation of LA's Slide the City event over the summer. The Slide the City team desperately wanted to bring their giant faux Slip'N Slide to downtown LA, and in the grand scheme of things, a wet strip of vinyl in the middle of a park wouldn't have chugged nearly the amount of water an almond farm consumes. But letting all that water run into the gutters just so a few people can go "whee!" during a drought this bad would have been a very bad look. So the Powers That Be didn't award Slide the City the necessary permit.

Now if only the city would shut down that huge fucking pointless fountain in Los Feliz.

Photo by Jamie "Lee Curtis" Taete

Cops Aren't Always the Racist Assholes We Expect Them to Be

We're not too fond of our cops here in LA. They have such a strong track record of beating the shit out of black people that they should just quit the police thing and go pro. That's why when Danielle Watts, a black actress, accused the LAPD of harassing her and her boyfriend in Studio City, it was easy to believe her version of the events. She was just minding her own business with her white beau and the racist LAPD couldn't handle their forbidden jungle fever love so they decided to rough them up like they were Bud White from LA Confidential or something. Of course the LAPD was racially profiling her. That's what the LAPD does.

The well-meaning but less skeptical of us took her at her word. But then a tape of her confrontation with the cops came out and revealed her to be bordering on verbally abusive with the authorities, who said they matched the description of a couple who was seen fornicating in public. Whoops!

Watts is awaiting arraignment for misdemeanor lewd conduct. I don't trust the police, but I also don't trust anyone, just like my boy Stone Cold Steve Austin.

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Image via Wikimedia Commons

Our Most Delicious Food Is Illegal

Bacon-wrapped hot dogs—sometimes called " danger dogs," for the shoddy quality of their ingredients—are among LA's favorite street foods. They're sold out of pushcarts around the city with grilled onions and jalapeños and ketchup and mayonnaise. They're delicious, and, apparently, also illegal. This is something that most people realized when the City Council announced they were considering a proposal to legalize street vending.

There are about 50,000 street vendors in LA, so this is a sizable economy we're talking about. The City Council is still sorting out how to best legalize and regulate all these sidewalk sales, and they don't expect to make any changes until next year. The regulations will probably include some kind of stipulation about how long vendors can keep the hot dogs roasting out there in the sun, since that surely violates the city's health code. Will something be lost in the dogs when they're legal? Only time will tell.

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The Police Do Not Control Facebook

On August 1 this year, Facebook shut down for about half an hour. The appropriate response to this would have been, obviously, finding something else to do while waiting for the website to reload. The actual response, however, was the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department getting frantic calls from LA residents who wanted Facebook back. It got so bad that a sergeant from the Sheriff's Department sent out a tweet, kindly reminding everyone that Facebook isn't actually a law enforcement issue and to please stop calling 911 about it.

Photo by Michelle Groskopf

No One Can Understand Our Parking Signs

If you've ever been to Los Angeles or seen a movie or watched a stand-up comedian you'll know that finding a parking space in the city is its own version of hell. And once you finally manage to find a space, you have to decipher the cryptic warnings on parking signs: one-hour parking during the day, except for Sundays, and no standing between 1 PM and 4 PM, but only during school hours. Or something.

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Image courtesy of Nicole Sylianteng

Parking tickets ain't cheap, but getting them is an accepted part of living in this city. It's just too hard to figure out what is and isn't allowed. So earlier this year, a graphic designer decided there should be a simpler method for understanding when and where you can and can't park. The design she came up with clearly demarcated where you could park, at what time, and for how long. The City Council voted to pilot the new program in October, which means Angelenos no longer have an excuse to park where they aren't supposed to—but it doesn't mean that we still won't.

There Are, Apparently, Ways to Get Around LA Other Than Driving

People in Los Angeles have a love/hate relationship with driving. We like to complain about the terrible traffic, how expensive gas is, roads being closed because they're filming something, how annoying parking is, that nobody uses turn signals, that there are too many potholes, etc. etc. etc. Driving in LA is, in a word, atrocious. And yet, we're extremely defensive of our cars, to the point where most LA residents deny the existence of citywide public transportation at all.

This year, that started to change. Sort of. We're still obsessed with cars, but we're starting to let other people occasionally drive us around. Los Angeles is now Uber's third-largest market, and after they slashed their price-per-mile over the summer, some people suggested that the ridesharing app could actually replace the need to have a car at all. There was even a cringey New York Times article about it. Admittedly, we're not quite there yet—stats from this year say driving still makes up 75 percent of daily transportation—but we're learning that there are ways to get around Los Angeles other than behind the wheel. Besides Uber, the number of people in LA walking and biking has doubled in the past decade, and apparently there's a metro?

Donald Sterling Is the Worst Rich Guy in Town (and That's Saying Something)

Basketball is a primarily black sport. Charles Barkley said it, so it must be true. That's why it was so shocking that now-former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling had such a problem with black people showing up to his games.

Sterling was caught on tape condemning his mistress for bringing black men to Clipper games and posing with them in her Instagram photos (one of those black men happened to be Los Angeles legend Magic Johnson). Black guys are the ones that packed Staples Center and lined his pockets. They're kind of integral to the whole basketball-league-thing working.

To his credit, new NBA commissioner Adam Silver wasted very little time banning Sterling for his comments and forced him to sell the team to eccentric mega-billionaire/lunatic Steve Ballmer. Sterling is still in the midst of legal action involving his wife and the NBA. The Clippers have moved on to the business of winning games. Black people can still go to Staples Center. Talk about a fairy tale ending.

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Photo by Megan Koester

New York Is Stealing All of Our Talk Shows

Since the 1970s, NBC's The Tonight Show has broadcast from "Beautiful Downtown Burbank" or, for eight weird months in 2009 and 2010, Universal City.

From Carson to Leno to Conan and back to Leno, Tonight has been a decidedly LA program. The Tonight Show was a shiny reflection of our city: alternating between bland and bizarre; status-obsessed; cheesy, but comforting; consistently amusing at the end of the day.

When Jay Leno finally shuffled off the stage to fiddle with his collection of funny cars and construct a lifelike approximation of his mother's womb made entirely of denim, new host Jimmy Fallon packed up the show and moved it back to its ancestral home in New York. The show is still as weak as the coffee at Langer's Deli (regional zinger!) but now with more of New York's trademarked obnoxious, self-congratulatory swagger. New York didn't just take one of our pop cultural institutions, but it also took 164 jobs. According to the Hollywood Reporter, NBC laid off the entire staff of The Tonight Show in Burbank and "encouraged them to apply for jobs in New York."

That's not a ton of jobs, but it's part of an ongoing exodus of showbiz jobs from LA. Other cities and states offer better tax incentives for production than we can afford. Worse yet, we're living in a New York cultural moment where it seems like the center of gravity has shifted back east.

Mayor Eric Garcetti fell all over himself to praise CBS for keeping The new Late Late Show with James Corden in LA. James Corden isn't particularly well-known and the Craig Ferguson version of the show is barely watched, but it's better than nothing.

The Lakers Suck

Angelenos are proud of many things: our amazing weather, our proximity to the beach, our classic architecture, our commitment to the arts, our Mexican food, ourselves, and the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. We love the Lakers so much that we let Magic Johnson buy up half the town and begged him to keep going. The Lakers are one of the few things that can bring our sprawling, demographically divided city together.

We've been spoiled by Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Magic, Kareem, James Worthy, Shaq, Kobe, and Pau for decades. Eleven times, Los Angeles has been able to celebrate an NBA championship (the Lakers won another five when they played in Minneapolis). Eventually, it was all going to fall apart. We just weren't expecting it to happen so soon.

The Lakers are horrendous. So far this season, the most notable thing about them has been one of their players dating Iggy Azalea. They're poised to miss the playoffs for the second year in a row. The last time the Lakers missed the playoffs two years in a row was 1974-1976. It says something that the Los Angeles Clippers, a team that has historically been miserable and just had its former owner outed as a racist (see above), is more popular than the historically significant Lakers. The Lakers may never be the rallying point for the city again, joining the Dodgers as a team that coasts on the city's goodwill while violently eating shit. Some of us have a hard time admitting this truth, but the Lakers will likely keep reminding us all of their shittiness into 2015, too.

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Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Andy Dick Can Now (Allegedly) Add "Jewel Thief" to His Resume

There's a familiar local joke that for every LA resident, there's at least one Andy Dick story. Some of these stories are funny, some are utterly tragic, but all contain the magic of Dick. Andy gets in trouble with the law so much that he might as well have a wing of the County Courthouse named after him. His latest quagmire came after TMZ reported he swiped a $1,000 necklace off of a passerby on Hollywood Blvd in November. According to reports, Andy asked to see the necklace, the man agreed, and then Andy swiped it off his body.

Andy was picked up by the cops a few days later (while in possession of a single pill of unprescribed Adderall) since if someone says "Andy Dick stole my necklace," he's not terribly hard to find. The authorities declined to press charges because, according to TMZ, the amount of drugs he had was so minimal, and he even returned the stolen necklace. Better to refrain from speculating on what would happen if Andy Dick were black, and not famous. Instead, let's remember that Andy Dick is out there and he will offend again. Be ever vigilant, because Andy Dick could be anywhere—in your closet, under your bed, on your comedy podcast, or at your local dive bar. He's the One Who Knocks. He's a ghost that haunts our city. Andy Dick, you are LA.

Grand Theft Auto Online players hoping to celebrate the holidays in Los Santos can download the "Festive Surprise" update to add snowball fights, Christmas sweaters and more, Rockstar Games announced today.

A new homing missile launcher and proximity mines are available permanently, as are new vehicles Hot Rod Christmas Ratloader, Slam Van, and the Massacro and Jester sports cars. Players can now own a third garage to stash their cars, and weapons can be found at in-game store Ammu-Nation.

Other additions include seasonal clothing items such as scarves, masks and holiday pajamas for free. These items will be available until Jan. 5. Special holiday crate drops will also begin dropping "frequently" until that end date.

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there’s always a story

The Colbert Report airs its final show this evening. But thankfully, its studio will live on—in Google Maps' StreetView.

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Ahahahahahahahahaha. A sample:

“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”

An industrious young woman neglects to charge for her housekeeping services and is rightly exploited for her naïveté. She dies without ever having sought her own happiness as the highest moral aim. I did not finish watching this movie, finding it impossible to sympathize with the main character. —No stars.

Reviews of Bambi, Mary Poppins, and Beauty and the Beast here.

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When L.A. Weekly recently compiled our list of the 20 best songs ever written about Los Angeles, we discovered that the songs our city has inspired are almost as misunderstood as the city itself. Take, for ex ample, the fact that "I Love L.A.," which is blasted over the speakers after every win at Dodgers Stadium, is actually an ironic dig about how much L.A. sucks.…

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Really excited we made the Talkies stretch goal. Knowing that an actor is going to read lines you wrote is always exciting.

To answer some questions a few backers (or potential backers) have asked...

Yes, you will be able to turn the talkies off and just read the text.  Yes, you will be able to display the text on screen and listen to the talkies, or not display the text and just listen to the talkies.  And, yes, you will be able to skip each line if you like hearing the voice, but read really fast.  Back in the SCUMM days, the '.' key would end the current line and I plan on implementing that in Thimbleweed Park.  It will cut off the audio, but that's OK because the player is doing it.

Thanks so much for everyone's support and belief in this project. It's going to be a really fun year! Gary and I can't wait to start up the thimbleweedpark.com dev blog and start talking about the game.

One song

A mid-century fitness star named Debbie Drake made me realize that little has changed in over 50 years when it comes to the American pursuit of a better body and the desire for a quick fix to achieve it.

On her morning TV show, launched in 1960, the leggy, soft-spoken blonde would take viewers through "the wonderful world of exercise to the land of slim, trim beauty."

Like many exercise gurus who have come after her, she claimed to hold the secrets to a perfect physique. (Back then, this involved "looking great, feeling great and keeping your husband happy," in Drake's words.) You could erase your double chin, Drake said, by simply stretching out your neck. Through delicate twists and deep breathing, she promised, inches would melt away from your waist, buttocks, and thighs.

Workouts today are much less gentle than Drake’s. We run marathons in record numbers, subject ourselves to violent boot camps, contort our bodies in yoga classes, and pay $35 for less than an hour of SoulCycle or Solidcore — seemingly friendly workouts that I have seen grown men run from. At CrossFit circuit-training classes, the mascot is "Pukey" the clown, and lifting until you pee is a celebrated goal.

So while the forms of exercise have become more intense over time, the desire to unlock the secret to fitness hasn't changed since Drake. Nor have the promises by hucksters and gurus. Jack LaLanne, Richard Simmons, Jane Fonda, Suzanne Somers, Cindy Crawford, Gwyneth Paltrow — they have all purported to know the one true way to a better body.

Incredibly, with all the science that has been done on how to exercise, what we know about what works for fitness is almost embarrassingly simple — yet we have invented myriad ways to cloud, over-complicate, and obscure these basic, common-sense truths:

Read: Surprisingly simple tips from 20 experts on how to lose weight and keep it off

1) If you're not exercising regularly, doing any activity will help

(Prudkov/Shutterstock)

Don't think about jumping from the couch into an intense CrossFit class. Don't worry about interval training, or even fitting in the right mix of cardio and strength workouts. For people who don't work out regularly, finding physical activity you don't hate doing is the most important step.

Like the best diet for weight loss, the people who research exercise all told me that there is no single best way to go about exercising: just find a workout you can tolerate.

"A one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work," said Alex Hutchinson, author of the book Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights? "The best exercise for people is one they are going to adopt and do on a regular basis. If that means getting out for a walk with the dog every night and you can commit to that and stick to it, then do it."

Gardening, cleaning your floors, walking around a shopping mall, walking to the grocery store or work — all of this counts as physical activity. You don't need to sign up for a gym membership or go to expensive pilates classes.

According to sports nutritionist Matt Fitzgerald, author of the books Diet Cults and 80/20 Running, the single biggest predictor of whether someone will stick to a new routine is simply whether they like it or not. "Those who say they enjoyed their workout the most are more likely to keep exercising after a year," he said.

Many studies have shown that, even if you don't lose a pound or change your body after working out, exercise will improve a range of health outcomes, including lowering your cardiovascular disease risk and staving off Alzheimer's. So just find a way to sweat — and don't sweat the details.

2) Cardiovascular exercise will keep you on the earth for longer

(Brian A Jackson/Shutterstock)

Science has unequivocally demonstrated that cardiovascular workouts (walking, running, swimming) will help you live longer.

Starting the 1940s, Jerry Morris — a pioneering Scottish epidemiologist — began to study people who moved around a lot at work (conductors in double-decker buses, postmen who delivered mail on foot) and compare them to people who had more sedentary jobs (telephone operators, truck drivers). Morris was able to establish that there was an association between physical inactivity and chronic disease risk, with the risk incrementally decreasing as a person's level of physical activity increased.

Since then, few have quibbled with the fact that one's level of aerobic fitness is a key predictor for how long they'll live and what diseases they'll succumb to.

We now know that, globally, physical inactivity is responsible for 6 percent of the burden of disease from coronary heart disease, 7 percent of type-2 diabetes, 10 percent of breast cancer, and 10 percent of colon cancer.

Inactivity is also responsible for 9 percent of premature mortality, and a number of studies have shown that people who exercise are at a lower risk of developing cognitive impairment from Alzheimer's and dementia and also have higher cognitive ability scores.

3) If you are exercising regularly, mix it up

(Fort Worth Star-Telegram/McClatchy-Tribune)

For those who do exercise, research suggests that you need to vary your workouts for the best results: both the activities you do and the intensity with which you approach them.

"No matter what workouts you’re doing, no matter how great the workout is, if that’s the only workout you do, you’ll hit diminishing returns," said Hutchinson. You need to surprise your muscles and challenge them in new ways, he added.

As a rule of thumb, Fitzgerald suggests, "Make sure two or three of your workouts every week are strength workouts." The rest should be cardiovascular-based, such as running or swimming.

Interestingly, he has also found that a half hour of weight lifting each time is enough to get results, and that you don't necessarily need to do repetitions of every exercise. "People think you need to do three sets of exercises for each part of the body, but you’ll get 80 percent of the results from one set. So if you’re going from zero to some strength workouts, I would suggest doing only the one set."

Varying the intensity of your workouts is also important. There's a lot of good evidence now that interval training — short bursts of really challenging activity — can greatly improve a person's fitness, even in only a short amount of time every week.

Consider this PLoS One review, which pooled together the results of 37 studies on whether training programs that included periods of high intensity ameliorated aerobic fitness. They found that interval training improved the participants' health outcomes, even when the high-intensity bursts only lasted for three to five minutes.

Martin Gibala, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Ontario, is one of the world's top researchers on high-intensity interval training. He says that the balance of evidence now suggests that people derive more gains when they dedicate their workout time to an intervals approach compared to endurance exercise.

"There’s good evidence now that intervals can be a time-efficient way to improve your fitness and markers of health status," he said. "You can get away with less total time commitment by taking an intervals based approach."

One of his most recent studies showed that, in a small group of sedentary men and women, doing really intense interval training for just ten minutes, three times per week, improved subjects' endurance, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels.

But even he says switching your workouts up and finding one you like is the best way to get fit. "A varied approach to fitness is always going to be your best bet. Doing internal training, resistance training, endurance training — that’s going to be effective in the long run for lots of reasons. It can prevent boredom and make sure you’re engaged with your exercise routine."

Plus, many people outside of a study setting will not naturally push themselves into the levels of intensity needed to see a benefit in short-burst workouts, and it might not be a good idea to go from the couch to high-intensity intervals. Here, too, the old adage holds: do the exercise you like doing. "Whenever we start talking about what’s perfect," said Hutchinson, "it can become quite daunting. So what’s ideal shouldn't be viewed as a barrier."

4) Exercise probably won't help you lose a lot of weight — but you need it to keep weight off and stay healthy

(GaudiLab/Shutterstock)

This review of studies on exercise and weight found that people only lost a small fraction of the weight they expected to given how much they were burning off through their new exercise routines. Some overweight people even gain weight when they start exercising.

This is mostly due to the fact that people develop "compensatory behaviors" when they start to work out, thinking they can have those extra treats because of all the calories they burned, said Tim Caulfield, author of the Cure for Everything. "They go for a run and then eat a high-calorie muffin and completely neutralize that run. You're not going to lose weight."

But this isn't the full story about exercise and doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Exercise, as you will have noted by now, is hugely beneficial for health. It raises mood, protects against disease, boosts energy, and improves sleep quality, just to name a few well-documented benefits.

And physical activity is extremely important for weight maintenance. In one study, which looked at 20-year weight gain in over 3,500 men and women, those who were physically active gained less weight over time and had a smaller waist circumference compared to people who weren't active.

When a bunch of studies on the question of weight loss and exercise were taken together, researchers found that, overall, exercise led to only modest weight loss. But, when compared with no treatment, exercise helped people lose a small amount of weight, and when people started to exercise and cut their calories, they lost more weight than with a diet alone. Even when exercise was the only intervention for weight loss (so no diet) study participants saw a range of health benefits, reducing their blood pressure and triglycerides in their blood.

5) You shouldn't do extreme workouts all the time

(Tyler Olson/Shutterstock)

We have entered the age of the ultra-marathon, Tough Mudder mud runs, and the lift-until-you-puke CrossFit culture. While these higher-intensity workouts will surely push you to your fitness limits, they're also more likely to lead to injuries.

CrossFit workouts have been associated with rhabdomyolysis — a condition that's brought on when you work out so hard, your muscle fibers break down and release their cells into your bloodstream, leading to kidney failure and even death.

Other studies have revealed alarming trauma rates. This 2013 study, published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, was designed to look at the frequency of injury in CrossFit athletes during routine training. Of the 132 people who responded to the survey, 97 (or nearly three-quarters) reported getting hurt during CrossFit training, and most injuries involved the shoulders and spine. These respondents reported a total of 186 injuries; nine led to surgeries. Similarly, a study in Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine concluded that shoulder and low-back injuries were most common, followed by knee injuries.

So these studies revealed real CrossFit harms, but is the workout really more dangerous than any other? Scientists writing in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research put their findings in context: CrossFit injury rates were similar to Olympic weight-lifting, power-lifting and gymnastics, though CrossFit was safer than rugby.

That's probably about right, given that CrossFit routines involve dead-lifting, rope-skipping, burpees, and other exercises common to power-lifting or gymnastics. So any intense exercise comes with a higher risk of injury. Marathon runners, for example, commonly injure their knees, particularly when they continue to run on their already traumatized limbs.

Fitzgerald suggested taking extreme exercise by the "80/20 approach." "This comes from research showing that elite endurance athletes in all sports do 80 percent of their training at a low intensity and only 20 percent at high intensity," he said. In other words, high-intensity workouts only had a small part in athletes' training programs, and he said that studies on recreational exercisers found that this ratio conferred the most fitness benefits.

Hutchinson had this rule of thumb: "The harder you train, the more likely you are to get injured. The smart thing to do is to progress very gradually and never do way more this week than you did last week."

He added: "If you gradually progress over five years, you'll make huge strides."

This post is in partnership with Cadillac. It's part of a series on young founders and CEOs who are successfully revolutionizing industries.

Of a Kind is pretty much the opposite of fast fashion.

The company’s founders, Erica Cerulo and Claire Mazur, have spent years building a very different kind of business. They bring together clothes, jewelry, accessories and home goods from small, independent designers — produced in limited quantities — and make them available to anyone with an Internet connection. They also personalize every item by telling the story of the designer behind it. In a world of $7 sweaters that last for a few months, their vision for your wardrobe is refreshing.

The idea behind Of a Kind is that by highlighting unique items from up-and-coming designers and telling their stories, it helps to build a connection between buyer and producer. Read More

Dr. Dreidel by Hannah Rothstein. That flipped Beats logo is a nice touch.

via, coolmaterial

The post Novelty goods, forever. appeared first on The World's Best Ever: Design, Fashion, Art, Music, Photography, Lifestyle, Entertainment.

In the past several hours, this story has developed from pretty intriguing to weirdly interesting to downright fascinating. Variety is now reporting that “Sony Pictures has no further release plans for" Seth Rogen's film The Interview. No theatrical, no VOD, no DVD, no nothing.

The article stated that Sony might be able to sell the film to another distributor, but includes no speculation about any other companies that might be interested in acquiring it.

Expect even more back-and-forthing about the First Amendment, internet piracy, and the moral and ethical ramifications of Sony's decision in the days to come, but one thing is for sure: Whoever the hackers are—the US government says North Korea, Wired says almost certainly not—they have definitively won this battle.

The Variety story continues below:

The studio issued the statement a few hours after pulling the planned Christmas Day release of “The Interview” in response to the hackers who threatened movie theaters and moviegoers if the comedy were released.

The move could open the door for Sony to sell the rights to a rival distributor — though Hollywood is still reeling from Tuesday’s invocation of a possible 9/11-type terrorist attack on exhibitors who screened “The Interview.”

Prior to the decision to pull the film, a Sony Pictures insider had told Variety that the studio was weighing releasing the film on premium video-on-demand. Such a move would have allowed the studio to recoup some of the film’s $42 million budget and tens of millions in promotion and advertising expenditures.

Sony’s nightmare began on Nov. 24 when the “Guardians of Peace” hackers disabled the studio’s computer system and began disclosing internal documents, email messages, film budgets, executive salaries and the social security numbers of thousands of employees.

“The world will be full of fear,” Tuesday’s message said. “Remember the 11th of September 2001. We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time. (If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.)”

“The Interview” centers on an assassination attempt on North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. There has been speculation that the country may be involved in the hacking as retaliation for the film, though it has denied involvement.

On Wednesday, several published reports said that federal authorities had determined that hackers working on behalf of the North Korean government were behind the hack attack. CNN’s Evan Perez said that an announcement is expected on Thursday that would “assign attribution” to the country.

It’s also unclear if Sony’s declaration of “no further release plans” applies to international distribution. “The Interview” has been scheduled for release in foreign markets starting in late January.

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Even on days when it's not particularly busy, the 2,538 stars that constitute the Hollywood Walk of Fame are swarmed by street vendors, locals, tour guides, grown adults dressed as movie characters, and tourists eager to touch a small piece of the dream worlds they've spent their lives watching through screens.

Kerry Morrison of the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance sees wide-eyed visitors fix their gaze downward, toward the names embedded in the concrete, every day as a part of her job. "It's almost the sense, you feel, that they think that that person is buried there or something," she said. "There's like this symbolic significance to seeing that name in the sidewalk. That's kind of a universal language in a sense."

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Hollywood Boulevard is more than just a capitalistic land shark that swallows credit cards. It's a place that stands in, however inadequately, for over 100 years of movie history, a postcard version of all the things that Los Angeles represents to the world. LA is a 469-square-mile mega-city without a center, and for the 42.2 million visitors who came to the city in 2013, all they really know of this place I call home is the nebulous idea of "Hollywood."

Tourists aren't guaranteed to see George Clooney, a member of One Direction, or the rotting corpse of Marilyn Monroe, but you can certainly catch a glimpse of a reasonable wax facsimile for a nominal fee. The shows and films that make up the iconography of our popular culture are ephemeral, and mostly haven't left any physical trace, leaving their worshippers in a bind—where are they supposed to go to pay tribute to the things they love? If Hollywood didn't already exist, it would have to be invented in order to serve as the world's kitschiest pilgrimage destination. And here we are.

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Former Hollywood Chamber of Commerce president E.M. Stuart devised the concept behind the Walk of Fame in 1953 in an effort to "maintain the glory of a community whose name means glamour and excitement in the four corners of the world." The project cost $1.25 million, which was paid through taxes levied on neighboring property owners—who sued in protest. Due to legal challenges and construction delays, the Walk didn't officially open to the public until 1961. It ended up being an enormous hit, however: In 1978, the Walk of Fame was declared a Los Angeles Historical-Cultural Monument, and today, an estimated 10 million visitors come to Hollywood Boulevard every year for the privilege of staring at the sidewalk. New York tourists look up at impossibly tall buildings, but LA tourists look down. I like to think of Los Angeles as the most underrated city in the world for navel-gazing.

Despite its status as a landmark, the Walk of Fame is not some kind of altruistic government operation to honor artistic achievement. This part of Hollywood is operated and maintained by a variety of different agencies: the Chamber of Commerce, the Hollywood Business Improvement District, the Hollywood Property Owners' Alliance, the Hollywood Historic Trust, and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (which has two subway stops along the Walk) among others. Getting anything done in the area routinely becomes a nightmarish game of bureaucratic flag football.

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The process of receiving a star is even more complicated. A prospective applicant must be nominated by a third party—a fan, a friend, an agent, or a total stranger. That third party fills out a form, and assuming the star agrees to the nomination, the Chamber of Commerce votes on which applications they'll accept. (The Walk of Fame website says that around 20 to 24 people are chosen each year.)

Those that get picked then have to pay a whopping $30,000 for the ceremony and installation of their star. That's pocket change for the Channing Tatums of the world, but every so often, someone is picked who can't afford the cost of being honored. Star Trek's James Doohan, who played Scotty, had to solicit donations in order to afford his star, which according to his son, was a bargain at $15,000 back in 2003.

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Whatever the cost for celebrities, there's a cache to having a star on the Walk of Fame. It legitimizes a career. It says to a tourist, "This person, even if you've never heard of them, is important." The Walk of Fame is a kind of conduit to the magnificent, opulent existence that outsiders imagine defines LA. Tourists must come here expecting some coked-out Beverly Hills Cop fantasy where the natives wear Speedos to dinner and Vin Diesel greets you at the airport with a bag of unmarked bills. Maybe that's why they're so disappointed when they arrive .

A Reddit thread from last month titled " World travelers of reddit, where did you go that was a total disappointment?" showed that Los Angeles is one of the most biggest letdowns in the world. What makes these travelers so unimpressed by LA's charms? In a word, Hollywood:

"I don't dislike the city by any means, I just didn't expect the contrast of homeless people sleeping next to stars on the 'Walk of Fame.'"

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"LA kind of forces you to go into the crappy parts. Hell, Hollywood was the crappiest part of LA I visited."

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This sort of response would be comical, if it wasn't completely depressing .You can't expect every tourist to adapt to the grittiness of an American metropolis, but some of these commenters seem to think it's shocking that poverty exists in the shiny confines of movieland.

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This town isn't just a backdrop for films, of course. In a trend that was mirrored in most American cities during the 1960s and 1970s, LA's urban core fell out of favor with the well-heeled, who moved to more secluded areas like Malibu, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, and Westwood (or more conspicuously, futuristic utopian mega-developments like Century City). The industry left, too, with most of the studios (save for Paramount) abandoning Hollywood for the San Fernando Valley.

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The version of Hollywood that remained was both a rotten tooth of a neighborhood and an eerie reminder of a different time. The 1970s and 1980s were a troubled time for Hollywood Boulevard. It wasn't a hub for the film and TV industries anymore, but it had yet to begin its transformation into the cartoon wonderland it is today.

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Movie theaters closed and were turned into churches, and strip clubs and tattoo parlors popped up on street corners—not the end of the world for the adventurous sort, but a major turnoff for the kind of people who like to blow cash on "I Love LA" t-shirts and fake Oscars. Even with the redevelopment, many of these seedier storefronts remain. "Mid-BID (the middle of the business improvement district) is probably where the per-capita number of stripper stores, tattoo parlors, and bong shops exceeds anywhere else in LA," Morrison told me.

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In the midst of this economic and cultural shift, Hollywood stubbornly held onto its image, like a crazed Norma Desmond screaming about how the pictures got small. Stars continued to be added to the Walk of Fame, even though the streets around them were far grittier than the illusion being sold. Those stars were commemorated by the "Mayor of Hollywood," a fake civic leader for a made-up city.

The title " Mayor of Hollywood," like the Walk of Fame, was a Chamber of Commerce initiative to drum up business in the area. Community leaders, old-timey movie stars, D-list personalities, and newscasters traded the honor every few years. The job entailed slinging handshakes, raising money for neighborhood needs, and acting as a booster for an area of the city that was in dire need of attention. Most importantly, the mayor was master of ceremonies for the installation of new Walk of Fame stars.

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A contest organized by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce would periodically be held to choose who would get to slap "mayor" onto their business cards. Band leader and TV presenter Lawrence Welk held the office twice, in 1958 and 1972. Charlton Heston was mayor in 1962. (As far as I know, he didn't run around Sunset Boulevard with a shotgun screaming about apes, but if he did, maybe he would have been reelected.)

Game show host Monty Hall was replaced by former local disc jockey Johnny Grant in 1980, and Grant would serve in the role until his death in 2008. In the new, gentrified Hollywood, the idea of an honorary mayor strikes me as a bit antiquated, and it seems like the Chamber of Commerce agrees. Leron Gubler, the current president of the Chamber, told me that the "board made a decision that they didn't see that there was any real need to rush into having another honorary mayor."

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The disinterest in continuing the mayoral tradition didn't stop various local eccentrics from lobbying for the job not long after Grant's death—a list that included model/actress/singer/writer/pink enthusiast Angelyne and TV host Gary Owens. Gubler now hosts all Walk of Fame star ceremonies and functions as a de-facto "mayor" of sorts, which seems appropriate, as he's been here for over two decades and has seen the evolution of Hollywood Boulevard from a great place to get stabbed into an even better place to take a selfie.

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"We are very lucky, I tell people, that redevelopment failed in the 60s and 70s and 80s, because they would have probably torn down a lot of the historic buildings in that era," he said. "Because it failed, most of those buildings are still remaining." The new construction that's sprouted up around the Walk of Fame in the last decade has tried to preserve the area's history while also seeking to make it more palatable to the tourists who flock to places like New York's Times Square in numbers that dwarf even the Walk of Fame's.

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Kerry Morrison's job is to move the transformation of the neighborhood around the Walk of Fame forward, which means changing it to fit the times. "I've got a 30-year-old [kid] and a 23-year-old—they do not wanna live in the suburbs! They wanna live in the action," she said. "They wanna be able to walk to the grocery store and get food for the night. It's the whole New York experience. That's what we're trying to create." Officials are doing much to pacify the area and squash the complaints of random Redditors, but problems persist. A Walk of Fame street performer was shot by the police this month after witnesses said he was threatening visitors with a knife.

But just as LA isn't New York, Hollywood Boulevard isn't Times Square—a giant public gathering spot and transit hub that resembles a theme park more than an organic part of the city.

When I go to Times Square now, I can't help but think of the giant squid monster from the end of the Watchmen comic book. In the moment before it exploded and wiped me off the face of the planet, I wouldn't spend a nanosecond being surprised that a garish creature like that showed up in the middle of all the corporate neon, glowing screens, Guy Fieri-themed restaurants, and talking chocolates. The Hollywood Walk of Fame is more important to the city it calls home than Times Square. It's a blinkered, daft reflection of what LA is, and what it wishes it could be.

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Hollywood is just LA in miniature, a straight shot of economic disparity, delusion, perfect weather, and unflitered desperation—but it wants you to think of it as a place where America's dreams come true, or the place that gives America its dreams in the first place.

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Tourists don't come here for potholes, parking tickets, and poverty. That's what they're trying to escape when they board their plane to California. They're here for the dream of Hollywood—the gilded excess, the glamour, and the notorious lack of a moral compass. No star map will direct you to the places you've manufactured in your head. To all those innocent souls in search of a land where fake breasts grow on trees and all the dogs have modeling agents, I apologize. All you have is LA.

Follow Dave Schilling on Twitter.

When you hear the word “cute,” furry baby bunnies, lovely kitties and happy puppies probably come to mind. But cuteness can be a universal concept, and some other animals, especially reptiles and amphibians, can look just as adorable as any mammal.

Yes, they have scales and not fur. Yes, some of them are poisonous. And yes, they can make you go “awww.” Reptiles are one of the largest classes in the world, so you’re bound to find one or two that are irresistibly adorable!

If you’ve met a nice reptile like these, don’t forget to share it with us and upvote your favorites, too!

(via: BoredPanda.es)

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Illustration by Cei Willis

We know you're busy. You probably didn't have time to read every article we published on VICE.com this year. So we've compiled a list of some of our favorites and will be re-featuring them on the homepage until the end of 2014. This one originally published on December 17th.

Remember when the internet used to be fun? Ten years ago you could log on for some news, cat memes, and a bit of friendly sexting without World War III breaking out. In 2014, every tweet feels a bit like dropping food into boiling oil, your fingers recoiling from the keyboard lest you get splashed. Even wearing the wrong shirt can make you the target of a global campaign. It's made 2014 one of the most interesting years on the internet, and one of the scariest. Here's what we learned.

The Cold War Is Happening Again

Once upon a time the battle between East and West was fought through proxy wars, phallic arrays of nuclear warheads, and 1980s action movies. In 2014 it's all state-sponsored Russian kids leaving really fucking tedious comments on forums and articles under names like "Gay Turtle" and "Ass." They could be found on social media droning on about how unfair it was that Western media criticized the Motherland. "The Crimeans wanted to be invaded! They told us so in the referendum our soldiers ran!"

The weirdest thing about Russian propaganda is that it works pretty well, thanks to a certain breed of European cynic with an almost pathological skepticism of all things American. It doesn't hurt that the Fox News of the East has a fat wad of dollars to spend, though they should probably spend more of it on ESL classes if the comments are anything to go by.

[youtube src='//www.youtube.com/embed/Mj3uHftd5FQ' width='640' height='360']

For its part, the world's most insane nation got pissed off when the American capitalist pigs at Sony Pictures decided to release a movie whose plot centered on an attempt to murder their Dear Leader Kim Jong Un. The country promised "merciless countermeasures," and soon hackers from a group calling themselves Guardians of Peace had penetrated Sony's security and caused all kinds of mischief. North Korea has denied being behind the hack, but, I mean, come on. On Tuesday the anonymous hackers threatened attacks on theaters where The Interview will be playing.

Misogyny Is About Ethics in Video Game Journalism

The clash of cultures wasn't just between East and West this year. It turns out that there's one breed of man more annoying than post-Soviet trolls—whiny post-pubescent brats who can't get laid. "GamerGate," a hashtag coined by Adam Baldwin of all people, started when a woman named Zoe Quinn decided to release a game about depression on Steam.

The blue-balled gaming subculture responded by fabricating a story that Quinn had slept with journalists for good reviews, and launched a campaign to drive her off the internet. It was a tried and trusted method that had worked previously for Anita Sarkeesian, another person with a vagina who received death threats and other harassment for making a video examining gender in video games.

Then something amazing happened—people finally noticed that the majority of gamers are women. The bratty young men have found themselves in a minority, and the more they bite and scratch and squeal, the more they lose.

Don't get me wrong—the abuse is worse than ever, and looks likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. But the board seems to have tilted, and as each month passes the GamerGate brigade looks less like an oppressive minority and more like a dwindling band of losers.

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The winter 2014 cover of Paper Magazine

Kim Kardashian's Ass Is Frighteningly Powerful

When I was about 16, I had a friend who was into some fairly extreme porn. He showed me some photos on his computer which featured women cramming an assortment of increasingly oversized objects into their vaginas—fruit, a water bottle, even a tennis racket. To me it was the opposite of erotic. It was almost like the porn was making a self-satirizing statement about itself. It was extreme for the sake of being extreme, and watching it felt like someone climbing Everest just because it's there.

2014 was the year that Kim Kardashian finally "broke the internet" with her improbably proportioned ass. The image—calling it a photo would probably be unfair to the editing and software involved—makes me feel the same way that porn did all those years ago. It's self-consciously extreme to the point where it's way past erotic, and just kind of exists for its own sake. If an artist had sculpted it, it would be regarded as a work of genius—the ultimate parody of modern American culture's complete fixation on something people shit out of. We think we're looking at Kim Kardashian's butt, but we're really only seeing ourselves. We are the ass.

And perhaps this marks the end of an era—the logical conclusion of the path that Sir Mix-a-Lot took us on 20-odd years ago. He loved big butts and he could not lie, but it feels like there's nowhere left for the butt to go. We've reached the ass end of the ass, the final spasms of a 20-year American addiction. The only thing left is to find a new overly inflated body part to revere.

People Really Want to See Famous People Naked

My naked body looks like someone stuffed a used condom full of sausage meat and rolled it around on the floor of a barbershop. The downside is that I have to masturbate myself into a scotch-induced coma every night to get some sleep. But on the plus side, I never have to worry about hackers stealing all my nude pics from the iCloud.

Celebrities do have to worry, as The Fappening demonstrated, because people actually want to see them without clothes on. Since the public tends to believe that the rich and famous deserve whatever dehumanizing brutality is inflicted on them, stealing their photos from Apple's servers and reposting them all over the internet was seen by some as a victimless crime rather than the mass sexual violation of women that it actually was.

People were quick to blame Apple's technology, but the truth is security is a lot harder when people know more about you. As I wrote at the time: "Security questions your bank might ask you, like 'what was your first pet?' or 'what make of car do you drive' or 'what's your date of birth' are fine for the average Jane or John Doe because strangers aren't likely to know. For people who live their lives in public, that kind of personal information could be just a Google away."

The problem is, increasingly we're all living our lives in public. More and more information is going online, and more sophisticated algorithms are being built to analyze it. In the next decade or two, an algorithm could spot a dog in an old photo of you, match that dog to another photo on a family member's album, retrieve the name from that description, and render a security question like "Name of first pet" completely obsolete.

We're still a long way from that kind of privacy clusterfuck, but 2014 warned us that we're maybe not as far from it as we'd like to think.

Alicia Keys for # Bring Back Our Girls pic.twitter.com/0nJYSfdlAK
— Nnenna Agba (@NnennaA) October 14, 2014

We Still Need to Bring Back the Girls

The girls! The girls! Do you remember the girls? You wouldn't fucking shut up about them several months ago, but then some woman in a bikini tipped some ice over her head for MS or measles or something and man it's all just too much to keep track of. Wait, where were we again?

2012 used to hold the record for the shallowest, most pathetic instance of internet campaigning with another hashtag you're about to remember for the first time in months, #Kony2012. #BringBackOurGirls started more promisingly, in the sense that the aim of the campaign was actually real. Never mind that the great Twitter mob hadn't given two shits about all the previous abductions of school children in Nigeria. Ignore the celebs weaseling their way into the story. The public turned up, and they were counted.

For about a week.

After that, it turned out that Boko Haram, the extremist Islamic militants who abducted the children and have killed thousands in recent years, didn't actually give a crap about Change.org petitions or hashtags, leaving a generation of young clicktivists utterly bewildered about how to proceed.

Luckily, something easier came along—the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. All you had to do for that was tip some cold water over your head and not give any money for charity. Wet T-Shirts were donned, and "our girls" were forgotten.

The benefits to charity were debatable, but the challenge gave us a moment of vintage Patrick Stewart. Easily the Internet's Man of the Year 2014 after his skewering of David Cameron's "call to Obama" tweet, Jean-Luc Picard showed us how charity should really work.

So that was the internet in 2014. From charity to culture wars to gross acts of nudity, the human race is louder, angrier, shallower, and sometimes funnier than ever before. The stakes are getting higher every day.

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Clay Hunt died from survivor's guilt. When the handsome Houstonian with a sparse auburn beard and tattooed arms shipped out to Iraq, he was what his best friend described as "the all-American kid." But after two tours that included helplessly watching the tragic deaths of two of his fellow Marines, Hunt sunk into a downward spiral of PTSD, depression, and eventually suicide in March 2011, at the age of 28.

"He knew in his head there was nothing else he could have done, and he knew no one could have done anything more," his mom, Stacy Hunt, told 60 Minutes last year. "But in his heart it tore him apart."

In July, Minnesota Congressman Timothy Walz sponsored a bill in Hunt's honor. The Clay Hunt SAV Act would have required independent reviews of the Veterans Affairs Department's suicide prevention program, incentivized civilian psychiatrists to work with veterans, and created a program to help returning service members adjust to life after war. It would have cost just $22 million—a little more than 0.0001 percent of the total US budget. It seemed like a no-brainer and passed easily in the House of Representatives earlier this year.

But the bill didn't get past Tom Coburn, an outgoing Republican senator and infamous obstructionist who goes by the nickname Dr. No, because that's how he always votes. The 65-year-old Oklahoma physician is retiring due to health problems, but in one last act of defiance, he prevented the Clay Hunt bill from even getting a vote in the Senate.

"It's a shame that after two decades of service in Washington, Sen. Coburn will always be remembered for this final, misguided attack on veterans nationwide," Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the advocacy group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said in a statement. "While we recognize Senator Coburn's reputation as a budget hawk, clearly the minor cost of this bill would have a tremendous payoff to help save lives in our community."

Coburn's main beef with the bill was that it was redundant, and wouldn't be offset by any cuts in spending. That may be true, but it also conveniently overlooks the fact that military suicide continues to be a huge problem. In 2012, the VA estimated that 22 veterans take their lives every day. And as the recent scandal over waiting times at veterans' hospitals revealed, the agency has done a terrible job caring for soldiers seeking mental health treatment (and any other kind of medical treatment, for that matter).

There are signs that the military's suicide epidemic might even be getting worse, as more soldiers return home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Department of Defense's quarterly suicide report, released last week, found that there were 70 suicides 1among service members in the second quarter of 2014. That puts the total number of military suicides at 144 for the first six months of this year, and means were well on our way to outpacing last year's totals.

Notably Coburn, a doctor-turned-politician supports the Iraq War, which has cost $2 trillion to date. As Wonkette points out, the $22 million price tag for the suicide prevention bill is equal to the cost of about 210 minutes of fighting the Iraq war at its height.

"I'm going to be rejecting this bill because it just throws money and doesn't solve the real problem," Coburn said in a speech on the Senate floor Monday. " "Events, catastrophic events, depression, and situations lead people to suicide, not any one individual. They are searching for an answer we have failed to give."

As disheartening as Coburn's swan song was, though, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) said lawmakers plan to reintroduce the Clay Hunt SAV bill when Congress returns next year. And with Coburn out of the way, supporters are hopeful it will pass.

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In a recent interview with Elle, Fifty Shades star and Actor Hero Jamie Dornan revealed that he visited a real-life sex dungeon in preparation for his role as Christian Grey, where he was alternatively grossed-out and bored despite being nicely given some refreshments beforehand. NOT COOL, DUDE.

I went there, they offered me a beer, and they did… whatever they were into. I saw a dominant with one of his two submissives.

According to Elle, there “was plenty of kink… and plenty laughter” (so like the 50 Shades trailer, but with kink):

I was like: ‘Come on guys I know I’m not paying for this but I am expecting a show.’ It was an interesting evening. Then going back to my wife and newborn baby afterwards… I had a long shower before touching either of them.

Hahahah, how hilarious! Sexual preferences that deviate from the norm are repulsive, even when all parties involved are consenting! Unless, of course, you can exploit and chronically misrepresent those preferences in a highly problematic film, in which case deviancy is hot, hot, hot! Hotter than emotional unavailability! Hotter than hitting on an obviously uninterested woman while she’s just trying to do her job! Lava hot!

I know I’m being harsh on poor hapless Dornan (remember how all the sex scenes from 50 Shades had to be re-shot due to stultifying unsexiness? Bawahahahahaha), but the ease with which he dehumanizes BDSM participants is yet another indicator that the 50 Shades‘ creative team doesn’t understand or respect the very lifestyle it’s ostensibly showcasing. Considering the movie already promotes an essentially abusive relationship, further lack of nuance or appreciation is a genuinely scary prospect.

In conclusion: stop biting the sex-hand that feeds you, man.

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1. The Ohio legislature on Wednesday passed a bill that shields the names of companies providing lethal injection drugs to the state, the Associated Press reported. The bill now heads to Gov. John Kasich, who's expected to sign it into law.
2. The proposal comes 11 months after the state used an experimental combination of drugs to execute convicted murderer and rapist Dennis McGuire, who gasped and snorted for 26 minutes before dying.
3. Several states are now relying on experimental, sometimes secret drugs to execute inmates. Besides Ohio, the drugs were widely blamed for botched executions in Arizona and Oklahoma earlier this year.

Critics call Ohio's approach the most extreme yet

A group demonstrates against the death penalty in front of the US Supreme Court. (Alex Wong / Getty Images News)

The focus of Ohio's new bill is to provide anonymity to the sources of lethal injection drugs. Compounding pharmacies would have to opt in to hide their identities, which would be kept from the public for 20 years.

And while other states do have laws on the books, Ohio's legislation arguably goes further. It would block the state medical board from revoking or suspending the licenses of physicians who testify about Ohio's execution practices. It also keeps the identities of other participants in the execution process secret.

"We're not the first state that is considering secrecy legislation," said Mike Brickner, a senior policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. "But we are looking at ways to make this the most extreme secrecy legislation in the country."

The Ohio State Medical Association objected to this change, saying it statutorily voids parts of the medical ethics code.

Brickner argued that the bill may violate First Amendment rights by making it more difficult to discuss the death penalty with full knowledge of how it's carried out in the state. This is particularly pertinent to media, who will no longer be able to, under the bill, request information about the companies manufacturing and compounding lethal injection drugs.

Brickner said the bill may also violate death row inmates' due process rights. This could be especially true in Ohio, where the execution of convicted murderer and rapist Dennis McGuire with an experimental cocktail of drugs took 26 minutes — making it the longest in the state's history.

"There will be no shortage of lawsuits once this is passed," Brickner said. "We're certainly analyzing the bill and keeping all our options open."

Supporters say anonymity is necessary to protect drug suppliers

A death chamber in Ohio. (Mike Simons / Getty Images News)

John Murphy, executive director of the the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, which supports the bill, said the changes aren't about making executions more secretive but rather about protecting compounding pharmacies.

"This just protects the identity of the people involved so they don't get harassed, intimidated, or attacked," he said.

Supporters of the bill say the anonymity is necessary to get supplies of the drugs. Compounding pharmacies are reportedly worried, according to the Associated Press, about the harassment — and even death threats — they could face if their identities are made public.

Without fear of harassment, companies might be more willing to provide the combination of drugs Ohio says it prefers: compounded pentobarbital. That cocktail has been used successfully by Texas and Missouri, which shield the identity of their drug sources. But Ohio has been unable to obtain the drug.

But critics say these claims of harassment are unproven and unfounded.

"I think 20 years is too long," Dennis Hetzel, spokesman for the Ohio Newspaper Association, told the Toledo Blade. "I have yet to see any substantive effort to document the concerns we keep hearing about. We keep hearing anecdotally that they won't [supply the drug]. Where's the pharmacy industry saying that?"

Ohio and other states botched executions this year

A death chamber in Indiana. (Scott Olson / Hulton Archive via Getty Images)

Several states botched executions involving experimental drugs this year. Here is a list of some examples:

• Dennis McGuire: Ohio inmate McGuire, a convicted murderer and rapist, took 26 minutes to die after the state used a mixture of hydromorphone and midazolam, according to Cincinnati's CityBeat. McGuire gasped and snorted before he died.
• Clayton Lockett: Oklahoma inmate Lockett, a convicted murderer, struggled violently and groaned after the state injected a combination of midazolam, vecuronium bromide, and potassium chloride, the Guardian reported. State officials halted the execution, but Lockett died of a heart attack 43 minutes after the drugs were injected.
• Joseph Wood: Arizona inmate Wood, a convicted murderer, took nearly two hours to die after the state used a mixture of hydromorphone and midazolam, according to the Guardian. Wood, who gasped and gulped before he died, was injected 15 times the amounts called for in the state's execution protocol by the time he was pronounced dead.

Botched executions aren't new. About 7 percent of lethal injections and 3 percent of all executions between 1890 and 2010 were botched, according to Austin Sarat's Gruesome Spectacles. Many of these executions resulted in gruesome displays similar to the executions of McGuire, Lockett, and Wood.

Drug companies stopped supplying a key lethal injection chemical in 2011

An execution chamber in Thailand. (Gerhard Joren / LightRocket via Getty Images)

A series of events halted the supply of sodium thiopental, a key ingredient for lethal injections, to the states, leaving state governments without the supply necessary to carry out executions since 2011. That's when the last US supplier of sodium thiopental — a company called Hospira — stopped producing the chemical. Later that year, the European Union announced an export ban on sodium thiopental to pursue the "universal abolition" of the death penalty.

State governments that wanted to continue using the lethal chemicals were left with two options: they could mix legally available drugs themselves, or they could pay compounding pharmacies to do it for them. The latter brings less liability for state officials, making it a more attractive option.

Legal challenges are ongoing

People demonstrate against the death penalty in Spain. (Dani Pozo / AFP via Getty Images)

Critics of bills that keep drug sources secret have tried taking their challenges to court, although they haven't been successful so far. The US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from a Texas death row inmate asking the state to disclose the source of drugs intended to execute him, the Associated Press reported. Similar challenges failed in Georgia and Louisiana.

Another case in Pennsylvania is pending, although it's using similar arguments as the cases in Texas, Georgia, and Lousiana. Brickner said the ACLU could also mount a legal challenge against Ohio's executions if the state continues to hide its source of drugs.

Beyond the due process and First Amendment concerns, several inmates suffered after they were injected with experimental combinations of drugs. That could open the practice to a legal challenge that the executions are cruel and unusual punishment.

"At the heart of the problem, there's really no good way to kill a person," Brickner said. "Doing something humanely and ending a person's life oftentimes just don't mix."

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