firehose

• theguardian.com, Monday 27 October 2014 08.56 EDT

1. 1. Is this Malala?

   1. Yes
   2. No, that’s Mindy Kaling

2. 2. Is this Malala?

   1. Yes
   2. No, that’s Mindy Kaling

3. 3. Is this Malala?

   1. Yes
   2. No, that’s Mindy Kaling

4. 4. Is this Malala?

   1. Yes
   2. No, that’s Good Wife star Archie Panjabi

5. 5. Is this Malala?

   1. Yes
   2. No, that’s former ER star Parminder Nagra

6. 6. Is this Malala?

   1. Yes
   2. No, that’s British novelist Hanif Kureishi

7. 7. Is this Malala?

   1. Yes
   2. No, that’s a beech tree

8. 8. Is this Malala?

   1. Yes
   2. No, that’s a 17th-century Portuguese sailing ship

9. 9. Is this Malala?

   1. Yes
   2. No, that’s France

10. 10. Is this Malala?

    1. Yes
    2. No, I’m drunk

The Marvellous Miss Take, trailer, Turbulenz Games, Wonderstruck Games.

Both Aphex Twin and Taylor Swift are back with new albums this year, and how better to celebrate that than an entire album mashing up some of the two artists' biggest hits. Cartoonist David Rees, known for his long-running series Get Your War On, has put together an eight-track album that he's calling Aphex Swift, combing songs like "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" with "Girl/Boy" and "I Knew You Were Trouble" with "4." The two artists' may not have the biggest overlap in their fan bases, but this might just be enough to bring them together.

In a blog post introducing the album, Rees says that he actually sees the two artists as quite similar. He explains that his thesis was twofold: "Aphex Twin is as big a romantic cornball as Taylor Swift" and "Taylor Swift is as scary as Aphex Twin." Rees writes that Aphex Twin's beats often feel like someone protecting their "bleeding heart." Swift, on the other hand, "is what happens when Skynet becomes self-aware." All of which is to say this may not be the most obvious pairing, but it's kind of amazing.

If you're looking for more of either artist after this, well, you're probably already set on Swift, but here's the playlist you should go to for Aphex Twin.

As Glenn Greenwald's The Intercept continues to publish secret government documents, some of which go beyond the initial NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden, speculation has grown concerning a second leaker smuggling classified documents to the publication. After a recent law enforcement raid, that speculation seems to be confirmed. Yahoo's Michael Isikoff reports that the FBI has identified a contractor who may be responsible for leaking documents about abuses in the government's terrorist tracking system, as detailed in this Intercept report. According to Isikoff, the suspect's home has been searched and federal prosecutors in northern Virginia have opened a criminal investigation into the matter.

The initial leaks revealed that more than half of the people identified in the FBI's terrorist tracking database had no clear affiliation with a terrorist group, suggesting real problems for the database as a law enforcement tool. As a result, many have viewed the source as whistleblower acting in the public interest. The Obama administration has been notoriously eager to prosecute whistleblowers in the name of national security, but Isikoff's report suggests the administration has grown less eager to prosecute the cases. Still, with Snowden still facing espionage charges, it remains to be seen what will happen to other officials who have made the leap to reveal government misconduct.

Much as our own modern, polite society has been forced to deal with the intrusion of ISIS with grim determination and a stiff upper lip, so too must the family of Downton Abbey deal with its own Isis threat—specifically, that viewers may confuse the terrorist group, ISIS, with its beloved dog, Isis.

As reported by The Independent, the show, currently airing its fifth season in the U.K., began hinting that the Labrador’s days may be numbered in a recent episode, where [spoiler alert regarding an occasionally glimpsed dog] Lord and Lady Grantham note that Isis is looking “terribly listless” and not at all interested in normal dog things, such as sniffing out scandalous disregard for propriety or sending telegrams. And, as every seemingly innocuous conversation on Downton Abbey must immediately be read as a looming portent of disaster, it stands to reason that Isis may soon die ...

James Franco has directed his share of bizarre, art-damaged vanity projects: a pseudo-documentary about a reimagining of the deleted scenes from Cruising; a hicksploitation take on an early Cormac McCarthy novel; a split-screen, video-installation-like adaptation of As I Lay Dying. However, none of these is as intriguing as Franco’s ongoing project to adapt The Disaster Artist, Greg Sestero’s memoir about the making of The Room and his friendship with its writer-director-star, Tommy Wiseau.

In the 1990s, Sestero, a male model and struggling actor, met and befriended Wiseau––a vampire-like self-styled auteur and discount fashions entrepreneur of unknown, probably Polish origins––and ended up playing one of the lead roles in his magnum opus, a bizarre San Francisco-set melodrama whose aggressively vague plotting, overlong sex scenes, and out-of-nowhere Rebel Without A Cause references have spawned the modern era’s definitive bad-movie cult.

Now The Wrap is reporting that Franco ...

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