Bewarethewumpus

Author : Beck Dacus

September 17th, 2366 was the day that humanity used a massive particle accelerator to try and make another universe.

Arnold Fisby looked out at the small section of the accelerator he could see, granted that it had the diameter of the Solar System. The entire object was made of carbon nanotubes to hold it together, and was going to slam two five-kilogram masses together and, hopefully, create another universe.

A wormhole would then open, connecting the two, releasing all of that energy into our universe– most likely destroying the surrounding area. To avert this, a closed timelike curve (CTC) was created to send the damage back in time.

“But won’t that just kill something earlier? Or cause a paradox?”

“It doesn’t matter, kid,” Fisby told the intern Angelica. “We’re doin’ this. Deal with it.” Almost right on cue, the countdown to collision started. A CUP (compressed ultrafast photography) camera would watch the two masses collide, and a “gravity doughnut” would cycle the damage into the past. The countdown ended, and the CUP caught the stunning footage. Fisby and the intern watched.

“Wow!” Fisby couldn’t help saying. “Can you believe that?”

“I don’t know,” the intern pressed. “I really just don’t like the idea of shoving our problems to the past. It’s like inverse procrastination.”

“Too late now,” he replied. “It’s already pushed it back farther than the human race has existed.”

Another intern, Thomas, pondered this for a minute, and thought of something startling.

“We”re pushing the damage into the past, right? But how far?”

“Really far now,” a technician said. “If we deactivated the CTC now, it would come back one billion years in the past.”

“And how long before we can safely open the CTC?”

“About twenty minutes.”

Interesting. Almost exactly thirteen times the amount of time we’ve been here, Thomas thought.

“What are you getting at?” Fisby pressed.

“Well, if we’ve already been here for about a minute-and-a-half, and that equals a billion years, twenty minutes would put the damage from the new universe at 14 billion years ago.”

Fisby finally understood, but Thomas continued for everyone else’s benefit.

“Might we not be creating A universe, but THE universe?”

September 17th, 2366 was also the day humanity realized that it had created the universe.

Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer

They say that Vikings never actually had horns on their helmets. Odd how that piece of trivia rises to mind at this moment of peril. I know why it’s arisen: the being attempting to end my existence has horns on his helmet – or his head looks like a knight’s full-face helm with quadruple horns set at ninety-degrees to each other. These horns are either aligned to one central on the forehead – or to ones extending forward and outward from the temples – from the examples of his race that I’ve seen.

A girder interrupts my musings: I run straight into it.

I come to lying on the ground with the helmed space barbarian looming over me, making noises like a short-circuiting loudspeaker. As my eyes focus, his head explodes and I see that there is no helmet involved – his head had horns. The spattering of alien gore snaps me fully conscious and I scoot backwards while spitting out gobs of xenobrain. I start to retch as the taste registers.

Minutes later, I’m puking bile to the accompaniment of girly laughter. That’s not funny.

Using a crunch-and-spring move I come to my feet, ready to give the lady a piece of my mind. Spinning around, I stare her straight in the second nipple pair from the top and hastily reconsider my options. Tracking my gaze upwards, I encounter an angular face of surprising charm and the greenest eyes I have ever seen. I suffer a ‘lost moment’ only men will understand before I realise that her eyes are glowing from within and while her hands are on her hips, the tail – which I presume to be hers – is pointing a Kritoralian Eviscerator at me. No wonder my erstwhile attacker’s head exploded!

“You’d be what they call a Hooman?”
She’s got a voice that is almost ULF. I can feel her speak. Is she the source of that contralto laughter? I nod.
“Goodly. I’m Persim. That me name. I be a Fune. Always wanted t’meet a Hooman.”
Here goes nothing: “Why?”
She laughs and yes, she’s the owner of the laughter.
“It’s a big night with lots o’stars. Only you lot seem to want to go find what’s behind the next one.”
I smile: “You’d be looking for a berth?”
“Yup. Got to get me off this rock before next moonrise. Otherwise one o’him what I just headshot will be my new owner.”
“New owner? What happened to your old owner?”
She points at the headless corpse: “Was ’im. Better get me gone. Was thinkin’ you might ‘elp me after I ‘elp you?”
I’ve never heard of a Fune, but then again, humanity is still coming to terms with space being multi-dimensional and chock full of aliens. The only reason Earth got left alone for so long was that we were in what was considered an uninhabited sector of an obscure dimension.
My father got out of Australia as soon as he could. Said the stars were calling him to come walk among them. I guess I inherited that wanderlust. Like Persim said: ‘go find out what’s behind the next one’.
That thought settles my answer: “I’m Doobrie. You’re welcome to a berth. Let’s go see what’s behind that one.” I point to a star low on the horizon. She looks, laughs and I get a feeling we’re going to see the back of many stars before we part ways.

Author : Thomas Desrochers

Mao found it very curious, this third planet from the sun. Blisteringly hot and unbearably humid, shaken hourly by violent storms like a wind-up toy wound too tight. The only living residents left were clustered at the southern pole, hidden in the crags of the antarctic mountains and keeping an eye on the weather. Mao spent long days watching after them, cleaning and fixing their tools and labs, listening in on their conversations.

The weathermen were a superstituous lot, so naturally when a signal came stumbling in through from the old America del Sur the investigation fell to their stoic guardian and janitor: Mao.

A week into the journey to the old continent Mao found the third planet equal parts curious and frustrating. A dozen times his surface craft had rerouted itself around massive ferrous objects it believed were drifting across the ocean surface. Floating crypts, the weathermen had called them, but even with the enhanced optical suite Mao couldn’t see anything in the hazy orange mists. The pounding of the waves against the sides of the vessel never ceased.

By the end of the second week Mao had made landfall and, trailed by a pair of steel mules, began the trek inland. The soggy coastal swamps gave way quickly to mountains pitted and scarred by centuries of torrential rain. Waterfalls came and went in the haze – visibility never reached past 50 meters. Mechanically and pharmaceutically aided by a hefty exosuit, Mao’s progress was quick. He made his way up through a dozen upredictable canyons and across along a handful of flooded valleys, each step as steady as the splintered rock beneath it. The haze turned dark, then orange again as the hours passed. The mules always followed, gathering data, watching. At times Mao thought he saw them jump in surprise, but wrote it off as an artifact of the treacherous conditions.

On the 20th day, at the height of the daily thermocycle, Mao descended into a long dead caldera: the signal’s source.

He came out of the haze into a scene he remembered from a storybook from when he was growing up on Titan. A grotto. A clear pool of water too deep to fathom and surrounded, impossibly, by dwarf trees bearing golden fruit. Two fish, white and orange, circled eachother lazily, distorted by the ripples of flies on the water’s surface.

Mao turned to see if the mules were there to see what he was seeing, but he was alone. He turned back to find dust swirling lazily at the bottom of the caldera. The grotto – and the signal – were gone.

There are ghosts in the old world, the weathermen had said as they huddled together and smoked spindly hand-rolled cigarettes. They would spend long nights in the community space, smoke blurring the sky-lights and mist beyond, and would whisper about the dead machines: Hawthorne hidden away in the Paris Underground; Melville tucked beneath the ruins of MIT; Thoreau chiselled into the Appalacians. Old places still haunted by an implaccable anger at the intrusion of the garden into the domain of the machine.

Mao found it, half buried in the dust. A metal skull polished by the weather, eyes filled with grit. An arm lay nearby, half buried, joints corroded and bundles of synthetic muscle frayed and useless. A single crystal egg was clutched in its hand, ancestor to the data storage devices the researchers used. Mao picked up the egg, cradling it in his hands.

He had spent decades listening to the weathermen whisper about ghosts, never wondering if the ghosts might whisper back.

Author : Suzanne Borchers

Xoman yearned for the vast world outside the gates of her private hell. Her life was: follow the regulations or face the consequences, eyes in the back of your head, and sour-faced guards. She rubbed her temples where each day electrons purred positive messages into her brain and shocked negative waves of disobedience.

She had stolen, on a dare, a pair of antique pink panties from the museum that she never got to model before she was placed in the Reclamation Redemption Center.

Purr. Zap!

The day she was finally released, she was shown her image in a mirror. She was no longer herself. The long, straight fiery red hair was buzz cut and white, the athletic figure was rolls of fat, and her skin lay in folds. Xoman turned to the force field and waited for the scowling guard to cut the juice, allowing her to exit. She hesitated until the sullen guard pushed her out the door.

Xoman looked around.

The world outside had changed. Where were the blue skies, songbirds, trees, grass? Hell, there wasn’t even a gray ugly pigeon waddling on the sidewalk. Where were her friends waiting to greet her? She had sent the messages. Where was her world?

Xoman shivered in the dry heat that rose up from the concrete. She stuffed her hand in the plastic pocket of her out-of-prison suit, to feel the hardness of plastic tokens. A plastic map showed her new rooming house, new life.

Xoman trudged the 12 blocks full of gray buildings and vacant lots of concrete to her new home. She stopped in front of the graystone. She climbed the broken steps, knocked on the metal door, and was shown her space.

She recognized the dull colorless bed. The covers, pillow, and sagging mattress had been hers for years. Faded floral patterns peeled in strips from the bare walls. One dangling light glowed faintly in the windowless room. A mouse or rat skittered across the floor and out the door.

“Don’t blame you,” muttered Xoman. Purr.

She sat on the bed to bend over, propping her head in her hands. “I can’t live here,” she murmured. “I can’t.” Purr.

She thought about leaving the city. Sure, she could trade a ride for favors. She looked at herself and sighed. “I wonder if I can make it out of this town,” she muttered before she felt the zap. “Ow!”

Xoman looked at the map showing a plastic factory. “I don’t want to work an assembly line.” Purr.

“Damn it, I’ll use these tokens to buy a rope and hang myself.” Zap! The headache made her lie down moaning. She slept.

Early the next morning she reached a decision. She had pictured each sullen, scowling, sour-faced guard. “No wonder,” she sighed. “Of course.” Purr.

Xoman marched the 12 blocks to the Reclamation Redemption Center. Before she could ring the bell a frowning guard opened the gate. “You’ll find your uniform in Room 714, Seventh Floor South. You are responsible for watching the inmates’ chow lines. Be tough and don’t let them see you smile.”

And then a smile tickled the guard’s mouth. “Welcome home.”

One of the most commonly-used pesticides in the world was recently declared a probable cause of cancer—but that doesn't mean what you think, and here are some stick figures to explain it to you.

This video by Andrew Maynard of the University of Michigan's Risk Science Center explains what exactly the word "probably" means in that context (it has a specific definition). It doesn't mean that the substance is a carcinogen and it will probably give you cancer; it means that it's probably a carcinogen that may or may not ever give anyone cancer. If that's confusing, don't worry; the stick figures will make it all clear.

Once you've watched that video, consider checking out the others from Risk Bites, including whether BPA is harmful, whether cell phones are frying your brain, and whether or not it's dangerous to eat green potato chips.

What Does "Probably Cause Cancer" Actually Mean? | Risk Bites

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Vitals is a new blog from Lifehacker all about health and fitness. Follow us on Twitter here.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Author : Gray Blix

“At that point, the technology was reliable, but human factors still caused failures. To continue manned missions, they had to modify us. News headlines screamed ‘Astronauts Mutilated.’ The public hated NASA, but we willingly submitted. All of us, in perfect health, had our natural teeth extracted and replaced with implants and our joints swapped out for motorized prosthetics. Appendixes, gallbladders, and other ‘non-essential’ organs were removed. Females underwent hysterectomies. Our gastrointestinal, vision, and cardiovascular systems were ‘enhanced.’ And physiomaintenance, computational, and communication modules were surgically attached.”

“You and that one were the Bionic Man and Bionic Woman.”

“Yeah. Wait, where’d you get that term?”

“We acquired every bit of accessible memory on your ship and carefully reviewed it.”

“You watched all those old TV shows? Did you like them?”

“We reviewed them. We do not understand your second question. Please rephrase it.”

“Never mind. Sometimes I forget what I’m talking to.”

“Please continue with your history.”

“What’s the point if you’ve already ‘reviewed’ all the memory on board?”

“We are not permitted to acquire your biological memory.”

“You mean what’s in my brain?”

“Correct. To do so would damage the containment structures irreparably. Will you permit us to acquire that memory?”

“NO! How could you even ask me that? Are you out of your mind?”

“We do not understand your questions. Please…”

“Rephrase? OK. Will you permit me to destroy YOUR ‘memory containment structures’?”

“No.”

Of course not, you’d be out of your mind — your programming, your decision-making algorithms, would be faulty — if you permitted me to do so. See?”

“To be analogous, it is you who would be out of his mind for even asking us.”

“Uh, right. But you understand what ‘out of your mind’ means.”

“Yes. Please continue your history.”

“Well, you won’t understand a lot of what comes next, because you’re not sentient.”

“Based on our review of the definition and usage of ‘sentient,’ you are correct, but please continue so that we can better appreciate that concept.”

“‘Appreciate’? Not likely. Is there anyone on your ship of fools who appreciates beauty, who experiences happiness or sadness, who feels pain, who has been overcome with love for another, who has empathy…”

“No. We have already conveyed to you through the ambassadorial robot that we do not meet your definition of ‘sentient.’ Please continue your history.”

“In your long journey of exploration, have you ever discovered biologicals, or robots for that matter, who were sentient?”

“No. Please continue…”

“Were the beings who created you sentient?”

“No. Please…”

“Were the beings who created the beings — if you go back to the beginning of your history, were there sentient beings?”

“No.”

“There must have been.”

“Why?”

“Because robots don’t just spring up out of primordial pond scum!”

“There have always been robots.”

“No! First biologicals, THEN robots. Then hybrids, like me. They tried to make sentient robots, but couldn’t achieve it through artificial intelligence or uploading digital copies of minds. So they kept modifying us until they had replaced everything but about a third of our brains — a pound of neocortex, a crucial ten billion neurons — with robotics. They went further with some of the other astronauts and ended up with zombies. You know what zombies are?”

“Is that one a zombie?”

“Yeah, she is. Several of our years ago, a power surge took out her brain.”

“You keep her for parts?”

“I keep her for love. See, SENTIENT.”

Robots that do useless tasks compete, Battlebots-style, in Japan’s annual Hebocon.

[HuffPo] In an unprecedented move, the Boy Scouts of America’s New York chapter has hired an openly gay Eagle Scout as a summer camp leader.

The decision to hire Pascal Tessier, an 18-year-old Eagle Scout from Maryland, is a direct challenge to the Boy Scouts’ existing ban on openly gay adult participants,

Board member Richard G. Mason praised Tessier, who has been an outspoken advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues, as an “exemplary candidate” for the counselor role, and said members “did not want our policy of non-discrimination to be affected by the national policy”.

"New York City and New York State law clearly prohibit employers from excluding qualified men and women from employment based on sexual orientation," he noted, and said he and other board members welcomed Tessier and "look forward to his participation in our camp program."

i truly hope that this does lead to a change for BSA at the national level and a reversal on a discriminatory, ignorant, and hurtful ban.

and bravo to pascal tessier for his courage and general awesomeness.

In the wake of the FCC’s vote to adopt the new net neutrality rule, Americans of every stripe have bombarded their lawmakers with feedback. Some applaud the rule; others condemn the action. And that is all well and good: it’s the American system of democracy at work, exactly as designed.

Except there’s one big problem: a number of messages against the open internet rule seem to be coming from people who say they never sent them, or in fact from unverifiable “people” who don’t seem to be real constituents at all.

Politico reported this week on a flood of suspect letters reaching certain lawmakers’ offices. The messages all use the same form text, penned by anti-regulation group American Commitment.

American Commitment boasted this week that it has sent 1.6 million messages to lawmakers, from over half a million Americans (each of whom is a constituent of two senators and one representative).

And that’s fine. The issue isn’t that the message is a form letter. Plenty of people have trouble with words, and using a template or a form provided by an organization is, overall, probably more common than sending in an original letter. Organizations of every political leaning, representing every possible permutation of concerns, use the same approach.

The problem is that it doesn’t seem that real, verifiable people living in the actual districts they purport to be from sent the letters.

Politico points to Rep. Jackie Speier of California, who received a significant number of the anti-net-neutrality messages. Spier’s staff noticed the trend of nearly-identical form letters, and discovered that 98% of them came from constituents who had never communicated with her office before, on any issue.

So, the Congresswoman’s office did what representatives’ staffs do, and went to reply or reach back out to some of the senders. And that’s when some replied that, no, they’d never sent messages criticizing net neutrality.

Politico continues:

[Speier’s] aides pointed to a memo sent to members’ staff last week by Lockheed Martin, which manages the technology behind some lawmakers’ “contact me” Web pages. Lockheed initially said it had “some concerns regarding the messages,” including the fact that “a vast majority of the emails do not appear to have a valid in-district address.” In some cases, Lockheed also questioned the “legitimacy of the email address contact associated with the incoming message[s].”

Lockheed Martin also noted that the source of the messages was not clearly or currently identified.

In plain, everyday English, the upshot seems to be: some entity has basically been working a scam on congressional contact forms, to make it look like many more people are pissed off about net neutrality than actually are.

Phil Kerpen, the head of American Commitment, denied to Politico that his organization had anything to do with sending the fraudulent communications — but did note that several other organizations could have borrowed American Commitment’s language.

As for messages said to be coming from people who never sent them, lists of contact information, including name, address, and e-mail address, are incredibly easy to come by. They are frequently bought, sold, rented, and traded in the world of politics and nonprofits. American Commitment has rented access to such e-mail lists in the past, but, Kerpen told Politico, did not do so as part of this particular 1.6m comment campaign.

No matter what the root issue, though, Rep. Speier, is not a fan of any of it.

“The idea that an outside group could use consumer data to impersonate constituents suggests an attempt to hijack the important feedback members of Congress need to truly represent their districts,” Speier said in a statement. “This is identity theft, but instead of impersonating for financial gain, the originators of this theft are striking at the heart of our representative democracy.”

Net neutrality emails raise suspicions [Politico]

Episode 3: When Knowledge Conquered Fear, Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey

Rumor: Netflix has released a series of videos urging their subscribers to "binge responsibly."

“You merely adopted the memes. Don was born in it. Molded by it. Fear him.” – George Washington, c. 1729

Included are friendly Creepers who are, arguably, a lot more creepy now. That smile.

Mojang just released a brand new development snapshot for the upcoming “1.10 Minecraft update” (they’re skipping 1.9, you see), and it’s absolutely filled to the brim with the kinds of things Minecraft players crave... like hearts, love and hugs.

Here’s a changelog, straight from Mojang’s devblog:

Gameplay

• We have removed the ability to directly harm other creatures. You should be rewarded for helping, not hurting.
• Removed Health and Hunger. We feel that these are not appropriate gameplay mechanics for a game about love, sharing and peacefulness.
• Added a new “Love” meter. This fills up the more you help others, and others help you.
• “Survival” mode has been renamed to “Existence”.

Animals

• Bats are now 20% cuter. Squeek.
• Chickens can now be ridden by any player less than two blocks tall.
• Cows will now alert you to important events that you may have missed by means of an audible notification.
• Pigs can no longer fly, but can now climb on walls.
• Rabbits are fluffy.
• Sheep will, if asked nicely, share their wool to keep you warm.
• Squid changed, but we’re still trying to figure out how or why.

Monsters Inhabitants

• “Monsters” are no longer named as such. The preferred term is “Inhabitants”, as they live in this world just like you or me.
• Steve and Alex have realized that the inhabitants are not evil, and just want to hug and get along.
• Creepers no longer explode. They have gotten over their nervous disposition and are much more friendly once you get to know them.
• Skeletons have revealed themselves to be very efficient farmers, having a permanent source of bone meal on them at all times.
• Blazes are actually pretty cool guys and will defend you from harm.
• Guardians have put aside the initial misunderstanding, and now welcome you into their home with arms… erm… eyes… wide open.
• Ghasts are no longer frightened so easily, and will offer you rides throughout the nether.
• Slimes are now pretty fun to hang around with, sharing their secret jumping abilities to those that will listen.
• Witches are super friendly and surprisingly knowledgable. They will help you by sharing their potions.
• Zombies are extremely cuddly and love to hug.
• The Wither has been replaced with his lovable pink counterpart, promoting vitality and nourishment to the environment around him.

Weather & Environment

• Removed rain as it upset a lot of players.
• Falling snow has a chance to make exposed chests mysteriously full of goodies at midnight.

Villagers & Villages

• Trading has been rebalanced. We felt that the previous incarnation wasn’t very fair, and believe the new system is a step towards helping fix this.
• Villagers will offer you help in picking up items or blocks, in exchange for a small fee for their services.
• Iron Golems can appear as a manifestation of the village’s love for you.

Blocks

• Lava has been replaced with liquid cheese. It’s delicious and much safer!
• TNT has been replaced with a much friendlier block: A love bomb.

Items

• As we no longer have a hunger system, food items now give Happiness instead of Saturation.
• Carrot on a Stick has been removed. It was just cruel to pigs and we are very sorry for this.

Combat

• Bows no longer require arrows.
• Shooting things makes them fall in love with the first thing they see.
• Removed combat.

World generation & terrain

• Dungeons have been replaced with homes, offering a much more inviting and comfortable experience for everybody.
• All caves have been checked by the Minecraft Safety Committee to ensure a safer experience for players.
• Desert temples no longer contain TNT traps, and come with a nice, safe way to access the bottom floor.
• Some cliff edges may be lined with fences to avoid accidents by the unwary traveller.
• Jungle temples are no longer trapped, containing instead a new rare Golden Creeper to reward exploration.

Potions

• Some potions such as Strength or Harming have been removed, as we no longer have a place for them in the game.
• Added four (4) new potions:
  • Love Potion
  • Happiness Potion
  • Potion of Sharing
  • Potion of Caring
  • Fun Potion

Transportation

• Horses can no longer be ridden as this was deemed unfair to the horses.
  • In compensation to the horses, they can now ride on your shoulders.
• Minecarts now have a fluffy pink interior.
• Added obsidian boats which are impossible to break.
• Improved regular wooden boats.
• Added dirt bikes.
• Ender pearls no longer transport you to the target, but instead the target to you.

Weather & Environment

• Added rain back as it soothed a lot of players.
• Falling snow has a chance to make exposed chests mysteriously full of goodies at midnight.

Game Settings

• Not everybody had the same experience playing Minecraft under different configurations, so we decided to remove all the graphical settings.
• You may now only have one world, in order to reduce fragmentation and to treat all worlds as equals.
• Some resource packs were prettier than others, giving some players an unfair advantage in the amount of fun they were having. This has been fixed.

And a few screenshots illustrating the new features:

The main menu is now greatly simplified, since there’s only one world available.

Graphics settings? What graphics settings?

World generation—well, “generation.”

Swords are Hearts now, to help facilitate the Happiness-based gameplay.

Squids float gracefully through the air.

Nether portals are much more inviting.

The Nether itself didn’t change much, but Zombie Pigmen are a lot less threatening with their little heart wands.

There’s a lot to see here—to check out the April Fools update for yourself, open up the Minecraft launcher, click Edit Profile, enable experimental versions, and choose snapshot 15w14a from the drop-down menu, like so:

Dayshot is an image-based feature that runs every morning, showcasing some of the prettiest, funniest game-related screenshots and art we can find. Send us suggestions if you’ve got them.

Questions? Comments? Contact the author of this post at andras-AT-kotaku-DOT-com.

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Smosh Games takes on the most anticipated game in history in this satirical edition of Honest Trailers.

Remember when extreme toy car drifting was a thing?

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There’s nothing like that first day at the amusement park, when it feels like spring is maybe, possibly, finally on its way, when you get to climb into that roller coaster for its very first ride of the season… and then you’re stuck high up in the air, wondering how it all went wrong. That’s the tale of yesterday’s Coney Island visitors who scored a free ride on opening day yesterday.

The Cyclone roller coaster is 88 years old, and as such, beloved by visitors to Luna Park in Brooklyn’s Coney Island area. The first 100 people to enter the park yesterday were offered the first ride of the season for free, reports CBS New York, in what was supposed to be a gloriously happy event.

Instead, riders were forced to climb down from the coaster when it got stuck near the summit during its opening cruise, about 10 feet from the highest point. About two dozen riders were helped down and along a walkway next to the tracks by staff members, after 15 minutes of being stranded on the train.

Though officials say a safety mechanism keeps the train from rolling backwards on an upward climb, riders say it wasn’t fun.

“We could feel that there was something wrong,” one woman told CBS New York. “It started slowing down.”

It’s unclear what caused the train to get stuck, but a spokeswoman said it was likely a small mechanical glitch. The ride will remain closed until an inspection finds that it’s safe to reopen.

Coney Island Cyclone Gets Stuck On First Public Ride Of Season [CBS New York]

These two George Washington University Students figured out a new way to fight fires: by pumping up the bass.

The net neutrality rule hasn’t yet taken effect, but it’s been under heavy political fire for the past few weeks. Lawmakers hauled FCC chairman Tom Wheeler and other FCC commissioners in before a series of Congressional committees to justify (or, for dissenting commissioners, to vilify) the open internet rule. Those hearings, in large part, were heated and adversarial. But in a speech at Ohio State’s law school today, Wheeler took the chance to say everything that committee members cut him off from.

Why is net neutrality so important? Because otherwise, Wheeler said, “private gatekeepers,” like Comcast and Verizon, “will have unfettered power to control commerce and free expression.”

He reiterated his support for the new rule that the FCC voted to adopt late last month, saying, “I believe that the result will be overwhelmingly positive for consumers and innovators,” before delving into the “avalanche of arguments” that have been brandished against it.

“We have been told that our rules are too clear and too uncertain; that we are too much fixated on the past and too much focused on the future; that we will protect the profits of incumbent broadband providers and that we will threaten them,” Wheeler said. “What should we make of these contradictions, this fog of advocacy?”

Wheeler answered his own question: “We should conclude that the biggest broadband providers in the land have one objective: to operate free from control by their customers and free from oversight from government.”

Major ISPs have basically said as much, in their various filings, comments, and public statements through the last year.

“The true choice is between protecting the gatekeepers, or protecting consumers and insurgents,” Wheeler continued. “To understand the problem, it is necessary to understand the power of the biggest ISPs. Consider this simple fact: About three-fourths of American households have zero or one choice for highspeed, wired broadband to their homes. No choice or one choice,” he said, “does not make an attractive marketplace from a consumer’s perspective.”

After this understatement, Wheeler went on to remind the audience that the large incumbent ISPs, monopolies that they are, have both the ability and the incentive — the tools to act and the financially rewarding outcomes — to disadvantage both companies and consumers when it comes to transmitting content. And that, of course, is where a strong net neutrality rule comes in. If screwing with content and connections is made illegal, they probably won’t do it.

As for those lawsuits against the new rule (and the others likely to follow), Wheeler was confident.

“One final prediction,” he concluded: “the FCC’s new rules will be upheld by the courts. The DC Circuit sent the previous Open Internet Order back to us and basically said, ‘You’re trying to impose common carrier-like regulation without stepping up and saying, ‘these are common carriers.” We have addressed that issue, which is the underlying issue in all of the debates we’ve had so far. That gives me great confidence going forward that we will prevail. When that happens, the big winners will be America’s consumers and innovators and our economy as a whole.”

“We will,” finished Wheeler, “finally have strong, enforceable rules that assure that Internet remains open now, and into the future. That is, I am confident, the right choice.”

The full text of chairman Wheeler’s remarks is available on the FCC’s website.

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A vulgar neighbor-to-neighbor experience. Audio NSFW

Reddit’s modification of the popular Bitstrips format places Bert, Ernie, and your other Sesame Street favorites in “adult” situations. SFW!

This video by Joe Bereta covers how to become Batman — or someone like Batman. Shockingly, it's full of a lot of real-world information and not just movie magic. Although, Bereta does repeat a lot that breaking the law is a bad idea.

The real takeaway from all the things mentioned in this video: The batcave is the most expensive part. Geez.

Not mentioned, however, is the awesome and actually protective batsuit made by Philadelphia University student Jackson Gordon. If you really want to be Batman and not just like Batman, that's the way to go.

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Contact the author at katharine@io9.com.

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Dragon Ball Z is finally on Steam—and fans of the anime are pretty excited about that. They're also pumped about the opportunity to, um, beat up Krillin.

You can find potshots galore on the Steam reviews page for Xenoverse—but, most of these jabs are clearly made by fans that know the franchise very well. Let's face it: our favorite DBZ characters are pretty goofy, and there's no better way to express our love than by making fun of them.

Here's what people are saying about Dragon Ball Xenoverse on Steam:

You can check out more Steam reviews for Xenoverse here, or check our our ongoing "As Told By Steam Reviews" feature here.

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Hey, remember Portal on the DS? Well, Portal (or at least a demo of it) is now also on the 3DS. It's not an official Valve product, of course—as if Valve would ever make another video game!—but it still does the job.

The clip you're seeing here is from the demo for a homebrew project that has a few levels and shows off most of the game's famous mechanics. Considering the hardware it's running on, it looks great!

The demo's creator, Smea, is the same guy who made Portal on DS. He says that while he's "not yet sure what my future plans for this are for this game", he'd also "love to make it into the full game it deserves to be by implementing more gameplay elements, improving performance and getting some higher res assets in there".

In case someone else wants to work on it too, or take up where he leaves off if he has to stop working on it, he's posted the source code online.

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Being unable to get a seat at a busy restaurant where you don’t have a reservation is probably not a justifiable reason to give the place a one-star writeup on Yelp. But if you are going to put that negative stamp on a restaurant, at least tell the truth.

A man in California recently posted a one-star takedown of a Chinese food eatery in Millbrae, CA, saying that he’d been refused seating — possibly because he was wearing a baseball cap and untucked shirt — that a server had treated him rudely and that he finally left after waiting a minute.

Again, that doesn’t seem like much of a reason to give a restaurant the lowest possible rating, but this is why you have to actually read Yelp reviews rather than just look at the star ratings.

But, as Ratter.com reports, this particular complaint caught the attention of the restaurant owner’s son, who scrubbed through security camera footage to see if he could identify the incident described in the review.

He first posted a 45-minute clip of waiting area footage on the restaurant’s website, writing to Yelper Dan, “If at any time you see yourself walk in and talk to the server, let me know, and I will gladly post a large banner that says ‘I’m sorry Dan for calling you a liar’. Otherwise, you must be hearing voices, because I sure don’t see you talking to anyone in the restaurant.”

The son then posted shorter clips, including one from another angle, showing just the few seconds that Dan was actually in the restaurant. You can see in these videos that the man enters, looks around, talks to no one — not even the others waiting for a table — and then exits without writing his name on the waiting list.

“You spent a total of 22 seconds in the establishment,” writes the owner’s son. “This video also clearly shows that there were other patrons waiting. We are sincerely sorry that we forgot to recognise your very, very ‘VIP’ status… a status so special that you don’t have to sign the waiting list like everyone else… I’ve never been to a restaurant where to refuse to seat people because they’re wearing what you were wearing… You’re dreaming if you think that’s why you didn’t get service.”

Dan later updated his Yelp review to simultaneously and paradoxically claim that (A) the video is not of him, and (B) that he didn’t give permission for his image to be used. He also accused the eatery of bullying him for not giving a positive review.

But the owner of the restaurant tells Ratter that he has no hard feelings about the incident, saying that “If (Dan) comes here I will shake his hand and I will take care of his meal. What can I do to make this person happy? That is my philosophy.”

[via Eater]