Bewarethewumpus

Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer

“Kraaaxxx, a full report please.”

“This one will be easy sir. Take out their electronic web and they’ll be virtually blind. It’s still in its infancy and these bipeds are extremely dependant on it for everything from news to communication.”

“Excellent. So a couple of well placed hits into their major technological hubs then should do it.”

“Actually sir, if we are to topple their hierarchy quickly then we should really hit their major financial centres first.”

Captain Jjjoooorg rubbed his front pincers together with glee. “Well why didn’t you tell me they were monetarily dependant Kraaaxxx? This will be like taking sulphur nodes from a youngling!”

“So then, proceed in that direction sir?”

“Yes Kraaaxxx, hit their financial centres with a couple good photon blasts. That should disable their world leaders.”

“Right away sir,” answered the gunner as he focused on his targets. And as he keyed the triggers forward he added, “First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.”

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

“It’s not meat you know.”

He’d slipped up silently beside me at the meat counter and was pointing to the shrink-wrapped flat of striploin I was holding.

“They print those, from meat flavoured engineered inks, but they’re not meat.”

As I turned to look at him, he withdrew slightly and glanced furtively around, shrinking into the hooded sweater he was wearing.

“LeGrange and Baxter, those are real meat. Grown in a field, real. Not those ones though, they’re all printed.”

I put the steak down and looked further down the coolers at the LeGrange display.

“Your jeans too, not cotton. They sell them as cotton, but it’s not organically grown cotton, it’s engineered. Ever wonder why it itches? You should stick to Levi Strauss and Company, quality clothing for over one hundred and sixty years.”

It took a moment to process that the man was just talking about Levi’s. I stopped and took a look around. This was the strangest man I’d bumped into at the grocery store in recent memory.

“You’re a jean snob too?” I grinned despite myself at the man’s odd phrases.

“Quality never goes out of style.”

I noted that he was without a cart or basket. “Are you shopping, or just here to help me make better choices?”

Before he could answer, there was a shout from the end of the aisle.

“Hey, I told you buggers to stay out of my shop!” A heavy-set man in a green apron tied at the waist was hobbling up the aisle towards us, pointing.

The man beside me blurted “Pick Energizer, keeps going and going and going,” as he turned and ran, making it almost to the top of the aisle before another man in a white butcher coat rounded the corner weilding a large aluminum shovel. The strange man skidded, turned sharply and sprinted back past me, arms and legs pumping in a manner that suggested he wasn’t used to this level of exertion. He raced right at the green aproned grocer, then tried to dodge around him at the last instant. The shopkeeper raised one meaty arm, catching the strange man around the neck and clotheslined him, lifting him clear off his feat to drop like a stone on the floor unmoving.

I abandoned my steak shopping and my cart and rushed to kneel beside the man lying motionless on the floor.

“Jesus, that was a bit unnecessary don’t you think?” The storekeeper stared at me, seemingly just noticing I was there. Behind me I heard the butcher arrive with the shovel and grunt as he leaned on it. “He was just making conversation,” I continued “weird conversation granted, but he wasn’t doing any harm.”

The shopkeeper reached down and roughly unzipped the supine man’s sweater.

Where the still man’s hands extended from the cuffs, they were convincingly flesh toned, and his face was similarly real looking, but beneath the fabric he was merely a pale plastic shell, more like a carefully articulated mannequin than a man.

“Jesus.”

“You keep saying that. I assure you god had nothing to do with these things.” He stood back up and toed the thing none too gently where the ribs would be. “I get at least one of these a month in here. They’re paid advertisements, corporately sponsored. Mostly they’ll walk around the big box stores where there are no real sales staff to discover them, but occasionally they’ll wind up here in the independents.” He kicked the thing again. “I’ve got four in a bin out back. I’m pretty sure they’ll have them GPS tagged, but nobody’s come offering to buy them back.”

As I stood again, I couldn’t help noticing the shop keeper was wearing Levi’s.

I nodded and smiled, then backed away slowly to where my cart sat abandoned. Without a word the butcher folded the thing at the waist and carried it past me up the aisle to the back room.

I decided to have chicken instead. That’s probably what the steak was made out of anyways.

Author : Rick Tobin

“See, the smoke goes straight up. Nice day tomorrow, if we could go outside.”

“Meter still reads dangerous. Maybe the Van Allen will come back.”

“Out of our control. It’s the Sun. No wonder cultures worshiped it.”

The elder, Lester Simpson, rested on flat stones near the fire pit. He poked embers, making waterfalls of sparks spin above them in ascending gray clouds.

“You have sticks, Karen?”
“Yes, cleaned them before we left. Oh, here’s last of the marshmallows.”

“Like everything. Wished my boys had made it. We used to cook on the beach by the bathhouse in Frisco. Had to guard for itinerants at night, but campfires warmed us from summer fog and cold”

“Can’t imagine. Never made it to the ocean, but we did campfires in the Rockies—skies like a planetarium show. Best to leave all those memories back there.”

As they stuffed their giant white confectionery on the thin branches a rustling from the dying brush to their left made them turn. A tall stranger in a black jumpsuit moved toward the fire. His thin hands were up as he approached. His gate was hesitant. They could see his white hair and large, dark eyes, with a thin, expressionless mouth.

“May I join you,” he asked, stopping for permission.

“I guess,” Lester responded, holding his prize back from the fire momentarily.

“I don’t remember you from the caves,” Karen commented. Dim firelight cast harsh shadows across her teenage face as she shook her ponytail back over her shoulder.

“No, I’m not from this group. I’m a little lost, but I saw the light. Really cold tonight. I left my gear back there, in the brush, in case you were part of the gangs about.”

“We just finished cleaning them all out, “Lester interjected. “No need to fear. It’s safe for a hundred miles around. We’re preparing a little snack. C’mon. Sit.” Lester pointed at a nearby ledge.

The intruder turned his head slightly as he reeled back, but then moved to the designated seat.

“Remember, Karen, you let it get brown all the way around, and let it burn a little. You’ll see a blue flame. Then pull it out quickly.” Lester gave his instructions as he pushed a plump package deep into the waiting heat.

“I remember…but it has been a long time.”

In a few seconds the puffs expanded and bubbled. Karen’s were too close to the fire and began to drip off the stick. She yanked them away. She flicked some of the melting contents on the suit of the visitor. He rose quickly, squealing, running back into the darkness. They could hear a flurry in the bushes drawing away from their roasting.

“Gee, Les, I didn’t mean to mess up his clothes. Who acts like that?”

“Can’t say. Did you see how big his eyes got? That was weird. Definitely not part of the Carlsbad Caverns Tribe. Don’t worry about it. Let’s just get our crackers and chocolate bars ready. I remember how good these taste.”

Tashan Dustaro stood shaking before the telescreen, yelling to the command ship. “The stories are true. I met two. The adult taught his child to eat flesh from criminals they had just killed, after setting it on fire. Then they splashed it on me as if it were nothing. We can’t settle here. They crawl from caves at night like cannibal insects. Let’s move on to another planet that has the radiation we need. This is more than we bargained for when we disrupted their magnetic field. Don’t land. That is my report.”

In less than 30 seconds, it all came flooding back, as my flak cannon suddenly struck gold.

There's nothing like aiming the secondary fire of Unreal Tournament's flak cannon, sending a glob of shrapnel in the direction of your reticle, and watching someone gib into a million pieces.

In the waning months of 1999, you were either an Unreal Tournament person or a Quake III: Arena person. Me? I preferred the ridiculous flak cannons, bio riles, and translocators of Unreal Tournament, and why I'm so tremendously happy the new Unreal Tournament is more of that.

There hasn't been a new Unreal Tournament since Epic Games fumbled Unreal Tournament 3 back in 2007. In a post-Gears of War world, it wasn't clear Unreal Tournament had a place anymore. Of course, it didn't help Unreal Tournament wasn't very good, but the business realities were clear. The series took a break for several years, but it's coming back with a free version being built in real-time with the audience and community modding at center stage.

As part of announcing Unreal Engine 4 would now be free, Epic published an early version of Unreal Tournament for people to check out. As soon as it was up, I started downloading it.

Even though there's not much to Unreal Tournament just yet, it's absolutely worth your time. Why? Because it feels like Unreal Tournament and there's not much like Unreal Tournament.

(Yes, Quake III: Arena is around as Quake Live, but we established Quake vs. Unreal earlier!)

What's immediately striking is how damn fast Unreal Tournament is, underscoring how much the rise of console shooters and adoption of the game pad has slowed down the genre. It's hard to tell if this new Unreal Tournament's faster or slower than previous versions, but it doesn't matter, since it's like piloting a dang rocket ship compared to anything else I've played lately. It took a few matches before I could reliably aim my gun without spinning around in circles, and that's without making use of the game's useful dodge ability by double tapping in a direction.

Since I was my first time back, I wanted some comfort food. You know, a server list.

Matchmaking is fantastic, but it'll never replace being able to sift through everything available. How are there already people running dedicated servers in Chicago? I love you, PC shooter fans.

Side note: how much fun was it to slowly watch your old, slow modems attempt to download new maps, skins, and other stuff when you logged into a server chock-full of user modifications?

There are apparently people running servers capable of hosting 64 people at once, but the concept of playing with so many people at once seems unfathomable right now. The maps I was playing on became absolute chaos when you were nearing 32 players. I mean, look at this:

For a minute, I spawned into the same location over and over, being killed before I was capable of figuring out what was happening around me. Unreal Tournament seems like nonsense when you're first playing, but there's a method to the madness that becomes apparent with more time. This won't stop you from dying over and over again, but hey, I was in first place for a second!

If you'd like to witness my brief moment in the sun, here's a few matches I played:

For now, I'm patiently waiting for someone to develop a new take on the best multiplayer map ever created, Facing Worlds. You know what to do, Unreal Tournament modding community.

Tick tock...tick tock.

You can reach the author of this post at patrick.klepek@kotaku.com or on Twitter at @patrickklepek.

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David Petraeus, the former Army general and CIA director, admitted today that he gave highly-classified journals to his onetime lover and that he lied to the FBI about it. But he only has to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor that will not involve a jail sentence thanks to a deal with federal prosecutors. The deal is yet another example of a senior official treated leniently for the sorts of violations that lower-level officials are punished severely for.

According to the plea deal, Petraeus, while leading American forces in Afghanistan, maintained eight notebooks that he filled with highly-sensitive information about the identities of covert officers, military strategy, intelligence capabilities and his discussions with senior government officials, including President Obama. Rather than handing over these “Black Books,” as the plea agreement calls them, to the Department of Defense when he retired from the military in 2011 to head the CIA, Petraeus retained them at his home and lent them, for several days, to Paula Broadwell, his authorized biographer and girlfriend.

In October 2012, FBI agents interviewed Petraeus as part of an investigation into his affair with Broadwell — Petraeus would resign from the CIA the next month — and Petraeus told them he had not shared classified material with Broadwell. The plea deal notes that “these statements were false” and that Petraeus “then and there knew that he previously shared the Black Books with his biographer.” Lying to FBI agents is a federal crime for which people have received sentences of months or more than a year in jail.

Under his deal with prosecutors, Petraeus pleaded guilty to just one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified information, a misdemeanor that can be punishable by a year in jail, though the deal calls only for probation and a $40,000 fine. As The New York Times noted today, the deal “allows Mr. Petraeus to focus on his lucrative post-government career as a partner in a private equity firm and a worldwide speaker on national security issues.”

The deal has another effect: it all but confirms a two-tier justice system in which senior officials are slapped on the wrist for serious violations while lesser officials are harshly prosecuted for relatively minor infractions.

For instance, last year, after a five-year standoff with federal prosecutors, Stephen Kim, a former State Department official, pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act when he discussed a classified report about North Korea with Fox News reporter James Rosen in 2009. Kim did not hand over a copy of the report — he just discussed it, and nothing else — and the report was subsequently described in court documents as a “nothing burger” in terms of its sensitivity. Kim is currently in prison on a 13-month sentence.

“The issue is not whether General Petraeus was dealt with too leniently, because the pleadings indicate good reason for that result,” said Abbe Lowell, who is Kim’s lawyer. “The issue is whether others are dealt with far too severely for conduct that is no different. This underscores the random, disparate and often unfair application of the national security laws where higher-ups are treated better than lower-downs.”

In 2013, former CIA agent John Kiriakou pleaded guilty to violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act by disclosing the name of a covert CIA officer to a freelance reporter; he was sentenced to 30 months in jail. Kiriakou’s felony conviction and considerable jail sentence — for leaking one name that was not published — stands in contrast to Petraeus pleading guilty to a misdemeanor without jail time for leaking multiple names as well as a range of other highly-sensitive information.

Kiriakou, released from prison earlier this year, told The Intercept in an emailed statement, “I don’t think General Petraeus should have been prosecuted under the Espionage Act, just as I don’t think I should have been prosecuted under the Espionage Act. Yet only one of us was. Both Petraeus and I disclosed undercover identities (or confirmed one, in my case) that were never published. I spent two years in prison; he gets two years probation.”

The prosecution of Kiriakou, Kim and other leakers and whistleblowers has been particularly intense under the Obama Administration, which has filed more than twice as many leak cases under the Espionage Act as all previous administrations combined. In 2013, Army Private Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning, pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act by leaking thousands of documents to Wikileaks, and she was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Manning received a harsh sentence even though then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in 2010 that the leaks had only “modest” consequences.

“I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought,” Gates said. “Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.”

Senior officials tend to get far kinder treatment. As The Times noted today, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was “admonished but not charged” for keeping classified information at his house; John Deutch, the former CIA director, resigned and lost his security clearance but was not charged for storing classified documents on a home computer; and former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor after he surreptitiously removed classified documents from the National Archives.

Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty

The post Petraeus Plea Deal Reveals Two-Tier Justice System for Leaks appeared first on The Intercept.

This old, busted singing fish sounds like it is possessed by a demon.

Author : Bob Newbell

I’m gonna make it, I think to myself as my ship streaks past the Asteroid Belt. Only a few small colonies in the outer solar system. Soon I’ll be safely in the Oort Cloud. It’s a good place to lay low until the heat’s off. Probably need to hang out there for a couple of standard years.

I look back at my cargo. Quark matter. The sample I acquired is no larger in volume than a human cell yet it masses nearly 1,000 kilograms. In an era when everyone has a matter compiler, the theft of material objects is a rare and basically unnecessary crime. Quark matter is an exception. The microscopic quantity I obtained is worth half-a-trillion credits.

An alarm sounds. Proximity sensor. I am being pursued. Martian Republic police, most likely. I’ve planned for this eventually. I put a lot of money into outfitting my ship with a custom-built quantum impeller drive. I smile and tap a few controls. The pursuing ship recedes behind me. Thirty seconds later, the other ship is once again gaining on me. Not MR police, then. Their ships aren’t this fast. A Solar Alliance cruiser? I increase speed.

Another alarm. Time dilation alert. Quantum impulsion drive is kind of like the “warp drive” in ancient science fiction. Your ship is surrounded by a bubble of spacetime and it’s the bubble, not your ship per se, that moves through space. As a result, you don’t feel any acceleration. But QI drive can’t shield your ship — or you — from the relativistic effects of time dilation. I’m at 25 percent of the speed of light. At that speed, for every minute that passes for a relatively stationary observer, only 58 seconds pass for me. By virtue of my velocity, I’m moving more slowly through time.

The other ship starts closing in on me. Definitely Solar Alliance. He must have been in orbit around Mars to have caught up to me this quickly. The SA are famous for their unwavering persistence when chasing a suspect. I’m afraid this particular officer will have to remember me as the one that got away. I push my ship faster. As I pass 0.867c the time dilation readout moves to 2.00679. Time is passing twice as fast in the outside universe as it is in my quantum impulse field. Again, the police ship momentarily falls behind but quickly catches up and starts closing in again.

It’s time to put an end to this game of cat and mouse. I set my ship to continuous acceleration. At 0.999c my time dilation readout stands at 22.36627. For every minute that passes back at the research facility on Mars from which I stole my cargo, only 2.682 seconds pass within my ship. Impossibly, my pursuer is managing to keep up with me.

At 0.999999999935c, more than a day passes outside my ship for every tick of the second hand inside it. And still the cop is after me. My ship begins to shudder violently. I keep pushing the speed. The ship’s velocity maxes out at 0.999999999999999998c. After a subjective minute of travel at that speed, over 1,000 years have passed on the outside. Would my cargo be of any value to anyone now even if I managed to make a getaway? Does humanity as I knew it even still exist?

In the moments before my ship disintegrates around me, my sensor display shows the pursuing ship is also coming apart. What justice did he hope to achieve after this long? Did he leave behind a family? Why did he do it?

Forget the controversy over Frieza's new colors. That's not that important. What is important is that Dragon Ball Z's bad guy would be a good time at a club.

Here, you can see Frieza get down in an ad for Japanese beverage Mets (yes, an ad, blergh).

Turns out, Goku and co. can get down, too.

To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft.

Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

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IN WHICH Louis finally settles on the one superstition that will drive him crazy. Read the rest

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4chan explores the lexical similarity between German and English through one Nazi-era military weapon at a time.

I almost forgot about those pesky little frogs in Final Fantasy VII that transform party members into frogs, thanks videogamedunkey for the reminder.

Even without the frogs, dunkey's new clip must be the silliest take on the game and its story.

It's Final Fantasy VII so watch out for all the spoilers. Even a crazy trip like this will have some:

To contact the author of this post, write to: gergovas@kotaku.com

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Breathe, people. Relax. Valve isn't holding a press conference today. And despite all the speculation you might have seen on social media or other gaming websites, they don't have some big GDC announcement planned for 3'0'clock this afternoon—3pm on 3/3—so please, don't get your hopes up.

The speculation started in earnest yesterday with this BBC article, which incorrectly claimed: "Valve is expected to provide more details about the [VR headset] launch at its own presentation at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco on Tuesday."

From there, the rumors came hot and heavy, mostly thanks to Reddit and gaming people on Twitter:

I like Valve, I like HTC, and I like VR. Today is a good day. And Valve's announcement at 3pm on 3/3 is probably nothing to get hyped about.

— Markus Persson (@notch) March 1, 2015

Valve is announcing something at 3PM on the 3rd day of the third month? Saint Gaben is the lord of trolls.

— Richard Stanton (@RichStanton) March 1, 2015

Valve holding a press conference at 3pm on 3/3 can only mean one thing!

They're 100% in on the joke and are just trolling everyone now.

— Ozzie Mejia (@Ozz_Mejia) March 2, 2015

Speaking of Half Life 3. Anyone notice Valve's press conference at GDC is on March 3, at 3 PM. 3/3 at 3

— Ryan Benno (@BryanRenno) March 1, 2015

Valve's announcement is at 3PM on March 3rd? 3/3 at 3?! YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?!?! 33% off Half Life 2!!! *laughs and cries in corner*

— Philip DeFranco (@PhillyD) March 3, 2015

The running theory: Valve has something big to announce at their press conference today.

The problem with that theory: Valve isn't actually holding a press conference today.

The actual truth: Sergiy Migdalskiy, an engineer at Valve, is holding a GDC presentation on physics optimization strategies for game programmers today at 3pm. There is no press conference, nor are we expecting any surprise Half-Life 3 announcements there. To quote the presentation: "Topics include numerical integration, contact manifolds, destruction, solvers, networking, and optimization."

But you don't have to take my word for it. I asked Valve marketing boss Doug Lombardi this morning if there was some secret presser that Kotaku wasn't invited to. "Big mix up," he told me.

The takeaway, as always? Half-Life 3 is never coming out.

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

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There are many arguments for and against using marijuana legally in this country, whether for medical use or for fun, but one drug enforcement official’s reason for his stance against legalizing it in Utah is surely one nobody’s about to forget: He says wild bunnies will get high off the stuff.

The state is currently mulling a bill that would allow people with certain medical conditions to be treated with edible forms of marijuana, reports the Washington Post.

During a Utah Senate panel on the topic last week, an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration weighed in with his testimony, saying that if the bill passes, the state’s bunnies may “cultivate a taste” for the plant. Once they’re baked, they won’t be afraid of humans and will just sit around in their parents’ basements eating dandelion greens.

DEA Special Agent Matt Fairbanks spoke about the environmental costs associated with growing a bunch of pot on public land, mentioning all the pesticides, chemicals and possibilities for deforestation and erosion.

“The ramifications to the flora, the animal life, the contaminated water, are still unknown,” he said, adding that at some marijuana grow sites, he saw “rabbits that had cultivated a taste for the marijuana. … . One of them refused to leave us, and we took all the marijuana around him, but his natural instincts to run were somehow gone.”

On the one hand, points out the Post, illegally farming anything can hurt the environment. But on the other hand, if it was legal to grow marijuana, the state would be able to regulate how it’s cultivated on farms and in gardens instead of tucked away in the mountains.

The specter of stoned rabbits roaming lethargically through the mountain passes wasn’t enough to convince the panel against the bill, as it approved it and sent it to the full Senate. It’ll be debated this week.

Now while we all think about the stoned bunnies, let’s remember to never feed Fido or Mr. Furrykins McCatterson pot.

DEA warns of stoned rabbits if Utah passes medical marijuana [Washington Post]

In this follow-up demonstration of the world’s simplest magnet-powered electric train, the battery carriage can travel not only through the coil, but above the copper wire.

Twelve world wonders, strewn across a massive landmass, all overrun with monsters. And it's your job to clear them out, of course.

Wayward Wonders is a CTM or Complete The Monument map, meaning that the objective is to collect blocks—in this case, by defeating the monsters at each of the dozen world wonders, seen below:

The "main quest" involves collecting twelve blocks from the wonders and a thirteenth one from the final boss—all the while dealing with the usual Minecraft survival stuff, like crafting, finding food and building shelter—but there's also a crapton of collectibles and side quests, making this a bit of an open-world RPG experience. Check out the list of features:

• Two monuments to complete (28 blocks total; 15 optional)
• Customized bosses, minions, hostile mobs, tamable mobs, mob gangs, and villagers
• Customized dungeons, temples, villages, and loot
• Side quests, moral choices, and NPC tasks
• Customized and unique items, potions, and enchantments
• Spirit Stones (13 total) that give temporary buffs
• A Fast Travel system, Spawn settings, and optional random location teleports
• Legendary weapons, tools, and armor
• Dozens and dozens of armor sets
• Triggered events, XP gains, dialogues, and game rules
• Experience shops and customized villager trading
• Command block-powered fluidity (no mods needed!)
• Open world freedom and random encounters
• Customized terrain
• To-scale Ancient Wonders of the World!

Here's a sample of the included wonders:

And a short video where the creator explains what the map is all about:

If you're interested, visit Wayward Wonders' official thread on the Minecraft Forum for the download. It's relatively large at 665MB, and as a result, loading times are a bit long as well, so expect some waiting time when you first head in-game.

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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A son pranks his mother by editing a copy of the film Toy Story 3 with a more bleak, morbid ending.

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While browsing his local Ikea for functional furniture at reasonable prices, Redditor voodoocode snapped a shot of some of the company's upcoming lineup of fake placeholder video games. I would pay $100 for Grand-ma's Auto.

Ikea is famous for its meatballs. Also it tends to make fake video game consoles, video games, computers, books and more to fill out its lavish, gravy and ligonberry-stained displays. They should really consider selling these. Call Your Mutti (slang for mother): Say "Oops, I'm Sorry" is truly inspired.

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Listen, not everyone can throw arterial caution to the wind, so when someone does go above and beyond the usual bacon intake to prove themselves a hero in the pork-eating world, it must be noted. I salute you, guy who ate 182 slices of bacon in five minutes, because there is no way I will ever be you.

Of course, competitive eating is not for everyone, even those who really, really, really like eating delicious foods such as bacon.

But it was all in a day’s greasy work for competitive eating champion Matt “Megatoad” Stonie, who crammed a world record amount of bacon into his stomach in just five minutes during a contest sponsored by Smithfield Foods in Dayton, FL recently, reports WXIA.

The event kicked off the Smithfield Pig Out Chase, which is an amateur eating competition with various events leading up to an “ultimate eating showdown” that will take place in November at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

The previous bacon record was set in 2010 with just 54 pieces of bacon in five minutes.

“I’m a huge bacon fan, so I jumped at the chance to team up with Smithfield to set the bacon-eating world record,” our brave hero says. “As one of the youngest competitive eaters on the circuit, I’m always looking to push myself so I aimed to eat 150 slices, but when I passed that and got to 182 slices, I knew it must be because I’m fueled by bacon!”

His stomach has been tested before and won accolades for making room for other foods, as well. According to Major League Eating, Megatoad is ranked second overall and has the record for eating the most gyros, birthday cake, frozen yogurt and pumpkin pie.

Man eats 182 slices of bacon in one sitting [WXIA]

"Net neutrality" will be the law of the land following the Federal Communications Commission's vote to reclassify broadband Internet services as public utilities. Please take some time this week to thank the outspoken citizens who made this possible. These heroes of the open Internet are regular folk, just like you and me, with names like Microsoft, eBay, Facebook, Google and Amazon. Congrats to a major industry on its lobbying victory!

Because telecom and cable companies vociferously oppose regulation of their terrible, anti-consumer practices, it's easy to paint the net neutrality fight as pitting greedy and self-interested corporations against earnest and sincere activists. But that's reductive and wrong. The biggest hint that that isn't the correct lens through which to view this fight is that the earnest and sincere activists won the fight, and the corporations lost. That isn't just a Washington rarity, it is a Washington impossibility. No, net neutrality won (pending future court battles) because the earnest and sincere activists represented a different group of greedy and self-interested corporations.

The FCC received a record four million public comments on their net neutrality proposal. The overwhelming majority of those comments supported the basic tenets of net neutrality. The New York Times quotes one excited activist: "This shows that the Internet has changed the rules of what can be accomplished in Washington." It has, though not quite in the way he means. The net neutrality fight shows that the Internet industry can consider its political influence to be on par with that of older, more established industries. Those public comments would have meant nothing at all if they hadn't represented a policy priority also shared by Google, one of the largest and most influential corporations in the world. And even Google wouldn't have beaten Verizon and Comcast alone—it lost the last time it had this fight, in 2010. Google had to make like a real global megacorporation and form an alliance with its ostensible competitors in its own field in order to present a unified front to official Washington — just as energy, healthcare, finance and telecommunications companies have been doing for decades. The corporate Internet grew up, formed a cartel, and won a major policy battle.

Don't get me wrong. Regulating broadband as a utility is (in my opinion) the correct policy. This is as close as Washington gets to a victory for the forces of "good." I would just urge everyone to keep in mind that the forces of good in this instance won not because millions of people made their voices heard, but because the economic interests of a few giant corporations aligned with the position of those millions of people. And I say that not simply to be a killjoy (though I do love being a killjoy), but because if anything is to change, we musn't convince ourselves that actual victory for the masses is possible in this fundamentally broken system. Please don't begin to believe that the American political establishment is anything but a corrupt puppet of oligarchy.

American politicians are responsive almost solely to the interests and desires of their rich constituents and interest groups that primarily represent big business. Casual observation of American politics over the last quarter-century or so should make that clear, but if you want supporting evidence, look to the research of Vanderbilt political scientist Larry Bartels, and Princeton's Martin Gilens and Northwestern's Benjamin Page. Gilen and Page's conclusions are easily summed up: "economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."

Political battles are won when the rich favor them. America's rich have lately become rather progressive on certain social issues, and those issues have rather suddenly gone from political impossibilities to achievable dreams. This is why same-sex marriage is an inevitability and marijuana decriminalization seems more likely than ever, but we can't dismantle megabanks or raise the estate tax. This is why healthcare reform couldn't happen without the buy-in (and buying off) of the bloated, awful healthcare industry and the doctor cartel. (And speaking of the doctor cartel: One of the few major political issues where the ultra-rich seem to have trouble getting their way is immigration reform, but there are plenty of wealthy professionals who rely on protectionism to keep their incomes elevated.) This dynamic explains the entire "education reform" project, which is an attempt to dismantle and re-create the American public school system, dreamed up (and almost solely supported) by the wealthy elite, most of whom have no education expertise or experience in urban public schools.

We have net neutrality for the same reason that copyright terms will be extended indefinitely forever and the Defense Department will keep being forced to buy incredibly expensive planes that don't actually work: Because a large industry had a strong opinion on the subject.

Photo: Google's Eric Schmidt enjoys a beverage at the 2010 World Economic Forum in Davos.
Credit: AP Images

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In honor of Leonard Nimoy, the actor behind the beloved Star Trek character Spock who passed away today at the age of 83, revisit the ever-moving scene of Spock’s funeral from the 1982 feature-length film Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.

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