Abstract: We present new biases in RC4, break the Wi-Fi Protected Access Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (WPA-TKIP), and design a practical plaintext recovery attack against the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. To empirically find new biases in the RC4 keystream we use statistical hypothesis tests. This reveals many new biases in the initial keystream bytes, as well as several new long-term biases. Our fixed-plaintext recovery algorithms are capable of using multiple types of biases, and return a list of plaintext candidates in decreasing likelihood.
To break WPA-TKIP we introduce a method to generate a large number of identical packets. This packet is decrypted by generating its plaintext candidate list, and using redundant packet structure to prune bad candidates. From the decrypted packet we derive the TKIP MIC key, which can be used to inject and decrypt packets. In practice the attack can be executed within an hour. We also attack TLS as used by HTTPS, where we show how to decrypt a secure cookie with a success rate of 94% using 9*227 ciphertexts. This is done by injecting known data around the cookie, abusing this using Mantin's ABSAB bias, and brute-forcing the cookie by traversing the plaintext candidates. Using our traffic generation technique, we are able to execute the attack in merely 75 hours.
DHI Group—formerly known as Dice Holdings Incorporated prior to this April—announced plans this morning to sell the combination of Slashdot and SourceForge. The announcement was made as part ofDHI’s 2Q15 financial results, which were mostly positive, with DHI showing an increase in revenue over the same period last year (totaling $65.8 million) and a net income of $5.7 million.
The report also says that Slashdot Media (the aggregate of Slashdot and SourceForge) made $1.7 million in revenue for the second quarter and that it’s estimated Slashdot Media will pull somewhere between $15 million and $16 million in revenue for fiscal 2015.
Over the past few weeks, space headlines have been dominated by other worlds: Clear images of Pluto for the first time, the “closest cousin” to Earth ever discovered, the ongoing exploration of our planetary neighbor Mars. With all this excitement, it’s easy to forget that we live on a pretty amazing and mysterious planet of our own.
Thankfully, we have NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who’s currently about four months into his year aboard the International Space Station, to remind us of Earth’s beauty. Kelly has been extremely active on Twitter and Instagram, showing what space-living is like and snapping photos of Earth that no one else in the universe is capable of taking.
His latest round of photos are truly a sight to behold. Forget Pluto or “Kepler 452b”—Earth is the most beautiful planet there is. These photos, which NASA curated and posted to Facebook today (July 28), make our home look like a planet straight out of a science fiction movie.
Nike and Apple have agreed to a $2.4 million settlement over claims the Nike+ FuelBand failed to accurately track calories burned by the fitness tracker’s users.
Los Angeles resident Carolyn Levin sued the companies in California in 2013, claiming FuelBand users “experience wildly inaccurate calorie burn readings” and that people who purchased the fitness band were misled. She alleges that Nike and Apple knowingly engaged in false and misleading advertising for the fitness band, which the companies launched in 2012 to much fanfare.
Nike and Apple continue to deny the allegations. They said they wanted to settle the case in order to avoid future legal costs. Nike will give people who bought the gadget $15 in cash or a $25 Nike gift card in exchange for giving up rights to bring future legal action.
When the Evil Queen looks into the magic mirror and asks the fateful question, “Who’s the fairest of them all?” she really just wants confirmation of what she already believes. When the magic mirror tells her something she doesn’t want to hear, well, all hell breaks loose. In our daily lives I call this misguided need for affirmation and tuning out other perspectives the Mirror, Mirror Syndrome.
Interest in diversity, especially in the military, is a relatively new focus area. It is too easy and convenient for folks to view it as the continuation of affirmative action and quotas for minorities and the disadvantaged. Policies established to promote equal opportunity and equal employment were often viewed as forced inclusiveness rather than recognizing that prejudices and biases existed and we needed policy in order to move forward.
Organizations will never realize their full potential without leveraging the power of diversity. Historically, all organizations of every demographic—military, political, or corporate—have traditionally taken on the senior leaders’ characteristics. Once established, it’s a difficult paradigm to break. What I’d found in the Army—and I suspected that it wasn’t much different in corporate America—was that conservative, older, white males were making the primary decisions. That was just a fact. They were not evil people. Much of what I’m describing is a result of traditionally accepted roles for males and females. By force of habit they surround themselves with what they like to see: people to whom they can relate. They have the same education, the same mission focus, and the same experiences, and they look at problems through the same color lens. So it should be no surprise that they naturally have a tendency to agree. These leaders are often wildly successful. But in my view their organizations will never realize their full potential without leveraging the power of diversity.
I saw this firsthand in the corporate world when I met Ted Childs, the lead diversity officer at IBM, in the late 1990s. IBM is an organization that was at one time a clear reflection of the Mirror, Mirror syndrome: all white males, dark suits, white shirts, black shoes, and black ties. How does a white male know what a female likes or dislikes in personal computers? How does this guy know what a person from China likes in a personal computer? Or a Japanese or Hispanic consumer? They don’t. Childs, an African American, set out to demonstrate the power of diversity. He hired the best of the best—white males, females, Chinese, Japanese, African Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities—to help customize IBM’s products to best support the customer. Not surprisingly, revenues increased.
(Ann Dunwoody/Da Capo Press)
Although the power of diversity is sometimes hard to quantify, Childs definitely got my attention. His success revealed a few points: (1) diversity wasn’t about numbers or quotas—having one of these and one of those—it was about diversity of thought, and not just anyone’s thought but the best-of-the-best thoughts; and (2) these folks had to have a platform from which their ideas could be heard and implemented.
A new idea could easily be dismissed by a few heads shaking or simply by deft silence in the room. If I felt strongly about something, I would repeat it, and if I really felt strongly about something, I would have to raise my voice or throw out a four-letter word to get their attention: “You guys are coming up with the same old shit solutions that haven’t worked in the past!”
I remember specifically one heated discussion in the Pentagon concerning whether we needed to put a major logistics services contract supporting the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan back out for bid, known as recompeting. At the table was the senior leadership of the Army; the highest-ranking uniformed generals along with the political appointee civilians who are the inner circle for the Secretary of the Army. The generals knew how difficult a recompete would be for continuity in the war zone, but the political appointees were adamant that the Army must recompete the contract. One official stated emphatically that if we don’t, “The Army will get a black eye.” I couldn’t believe my ears! The General Accounting Office, Army Audit Agency, and our business case analysis all supported extending the in-place contract. Because it was my contract to manage, I had talked to the senior commander in Iraq and asked for his thoughts, and he said, “Ann, if we don’t get to keep the same contract, we’ll risk meeting the presidential mandate [timeline] for exiting Iraq.” I have experienced the horrible feeling of being the lone voice in all-male forums when it was very difficult to be heard. I also had a copy of the operational impact letter he had sent to the Chief and the Secretary outlining the risks associated with not extending the existing contract. So when the conversation continued toward directing a new contract initiative, I was mad. I straightened up in my chair and told the assembled group, “If you are going to demand we recompete this contract contrary to the analysis and against the advice of your senior commander in Iraq, then we better be prepared to tell the president that we may not make his deadlines to get our equipment out of Iraq.” They just stared at me, but in the end we extended the contract.
What I witnessed during my military career was a steady effort by leadership to better understand and appreciate the power of diversity. I watched the doors continue to open. When I joined the Army women weren’t even allowed to serve in the 82nd Airborne band, attend West Point, serve in units whose primary mission was direct combat, fly fighter planes, or serve on a tank.
While corporate America was discovering the value of diversity in winning over shareholders, the military was realizing the importance of diversity in waging and winning wars. In the midst of the longest period of sustained combat in American military history, General George Casey had the vision and courage to champion diversity. As troops continued to serve in Iraq following the capture and execution of Saddam Hussein, Casey unveiled a new task force charged with building on what should be the Army’s greatest strength.
Excerpted from A Higher Standard: Leadership Strategies from America’s First Female Four-Star General by General Ann Dunwoody (U.S. Army, Ret.) with Tomago Collins. Reprinted courtesy of Da Capo Press.
It's official, Oregon. Legal pot sales begin in October.
After weeks of caginess in which both she and her spokespeople declined to comment on the matter, Governor Kate Brown this morning signed Senate Bill 460. That means, come October 1, adults 21 and up will be able to purchase up to a quarter ounce of pot from the medical dispensaries that have been popping up all over town.
No edibles, no tinctures, no ointments. Just dried pot. But it's something.
Right now, of course, there's no purely legal way to purchase pot, even though recreational use has been legal since July 1.
The ability to buy from medical dispensaries is seen as a short-term solution until the Oregon Liquor Control Commission sets up a recreational dispensary system next year. But the early emergence of medical shops as part of that market will undoubtedly help shape how it looks, and may give medical operations a leg up as Oregon figures out legal weed.
Some had questioned whether or not Brown would sign SB 460, noting that the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program doesn't have robust "seed to sale" tracking the federal government has indicated it wants to see if it's going to allow recreational marijuana programs to continue.
In fact, Brown has raised fears about that very thing in the past. In a letter to lawmakers in May, the governor wrote that changes that were being mulled to the OMMP "have caused me some concern. I fear that a self-reporting system of tracking is not sufficiently reliable to enable state agencies to enforce the regulations...
"Anything short of a strong tracking system may result in too much leakage outside of the legal marijuana market, which will run our state afoul of federal guidelines for legalization and result in a less successful recreational market."
Lawmakers did enact tough new regulations on the state's medical market in the legislative session that just concluded, but they won't be in place by the time legal purchases begin in October.
Brown's office declined to comment on that situation, or whether the governor was concerned that early legal sales could upset the feds, or her signature of the bill in general.
In today’s episode of white people denying the realities of poc actresses - and even cutting them off in the process - queen of everything Viola Davis handles the situation perfectly. x
i cannot get over this white lady’s face. like she is disgusted that Viola would say that shes had a rough go in Hollywood.
She’s telling Viola, with such confidence!, that this doesn’t happen. Never enters her mind that it could be true. She automatically rejects it as Viola is telling her it is a thing that happens. White People
DES MOINES, IA—In an effort to accommodate the tremendous influx of presidential candidates pouring into the state, Iowa Republican Party officials announced Tuesday the construction of a massive town hall stadium to play host to the campaigning. “Our state’s current gymnasium and VFW hall infrastructure is simply insufficient to handle the sheer volume of stump speeches and Q&A sessions that we expect from this vast field of GOP candidates, but this 2.3-million-square-foot arena will help meet that demand,” said Iowa Republican Party chairman Jeff Kaufmann, adding that the immense town hall stadium will have enough space for 80,000 folding chairs and a large central stage capable of holding all 16 Republican candidates at once. “This state-of-the-art politicking facility will be outfitted with over 30,000 microphones and microphone stands, allowing the multitude of GOP presidential hopefuls to field pre-approved questions from the audience.” Kaufmann added that ...
by Mika McKinnon on Earth & Space, shared by Rob Bricken to io9
Pluto has been puzzling us with its weirdly smooth surface, but if it’s the first Kuiper Belt Object we’ve visited, how did we know how many craters to expect in the first place? Here’s everything we’ve figured out about collisions in this chaotic area of our Solar System.
Some people simply cannot stand by and watch the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue. They are very angry—though do not literally explode—when “literally” is used for emphasis. A preposition is something they hate to see a sentence ended with. Bad grammar makes them positively nauseated but certainly not nauseous. And they probably just flinched when I started this sentence with a conjunction.
But these language pedants aren’t the saviors of the English language: more often than not, they are the ones doing the murdering. One of the amazing things about languages is that once a critical mass of people start do things with them–to end sentences with prepositions, start them with conjunctions, and utter admittedly confusing phrases like “could care less”–with regularity, those things become a part of the language itself. And so a lot of language pedantry fails by the very standards that language pedants take themselves to be upholding.
Here are ninecommon examples of perfectly acceptable English statements the “correction” of which makes language pedants look silly.
Nauseated vs. nauseous
Have you ever said that you’re feeling a little nauseous, only to have a friend tell you that you are not feeling nauseous, you are feeling nauseated, since nauseated means afflicted with nausea while nauseous means to cause nausea? Clearly, that person is not a very good friend. But even more importantly, that person is wrong. The use of nauseous to mean “afflicted with nausea” has been used in this way since the mid-19th century. So feel free to correct them, or just be sick on their shoes. It’s your choice.
Comprised of …
In their traditional senses, ‘comprises’ and ‘composed of’ can be used interchangeably. For example, “the article comprises 1,500 words” and “the article is composed of 1,500 words” are both fine. This is because a whole comprises (is made up of) its parts, and the parts compose (make up) the whole. But some heads will explode if you use the phrase “comprised of …”
“It makes no sense!” they yell, before their heads explode. “Something can’t be ‘consists in of’ and so it can’t be ‘comprised of!’” And yet “comprised of” clearly does make sense to us. This is because “comprise” has come to mean both “is made up of” and “makes up”; the synonym of “composed.” Even if “comprised of” had started as a misuse of the term “comprised”, which seems questionable, language doesn’t have a harsh immigration policy. If enough people start to use a word or phrase in a given way then, no matter how humble its origin, it becomes a fully-fledged citizen of the language. We welcome you, comprised of.
Less vs. fewer
Many of us are taught that less should only be used for uncountables or things without a plural form, and fewer should be used for plurals. For example: “There are fewer words in this article, but that doesn’t mean it’ll take less time for you to read it.” But there are plenty of modern examples where fewer just sounds wrong when we’re talking about plurals.
“I can’t sell it for less than 100 dollars,” sounds much better than “I can’t sell it for fewer than 100 dollars.” And in many more cases both less and fewer strike us acceptable. This shouldn’t actually be surprising: according to Emily Brewster, an associate editor at Merriam-Webster, less has been used for plurals for over 1,000 years, and the “rule” of consistently using fewer for plurals and less for uncountables seems to have originated in the personal preference of a critic from the 1700s. So if less sounds good to you, it’s probably fine.
Farther vs. further
You will sometimes hear that farther should only be used for distances and further should only be used to mean something like “additional” or “more.” For example: the farther she traveled, the more that her plans required further consideration. But, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), both words share the same roots, and further can be used for physical distance too. Although farther is less commonly used in metaphorical contexts, when it comes to physical distance, both words are equally correct.
Literally
“Having your use of language corrected is literally the worst thing in the world,” says one person. The language pedant interjects: “Literally the worst thing in the world? I mean, you think it’s worse than famine or war or death?” Well, of course it isn’t as bad as that. But many people seem to think that the emphatic use of literally is literally an abomination. But using literally for emphasis has a pretty esteemed history: it has been used in this way for over two hundred years, and by writers like Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald, no less. In conclusion: using literally figuratively is literally the best thing ever.
Singular “they”
Many language pedants think that they should only be used as a plural pronoun: for example, “the team came up with a solution that they were proud of.” But it is often necessary to refer to individuals whose gender is not known. For example: “You said your friend is thinking about doing a PhD, [Pronoun X]should come and talk to me.” If you don’t know the gender or name of this person then we could use he or we could use he or she in this example. But the generic he is now seen as pretty sexist. And he or she doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue: “He or she is not going to catch his or her bus!” just sounds terrible.
Some people might not think that we can survive without a distinct plural and singular pronoun here, but most dialects of English seem to have done okay despite the fact that the second person plural pronoun you has also been doing the job of the second person singular pronoun thou for quite a while. (Although some dialects now contain new second person plural pronouns like y’all and yous, suggesting a possible future for new third person plural pronouns like th’all and theys). The singular they also has the advantage of providing English with a much-needed gender neutral pronoun for those who would prefer not to be identified as either he or she. Some people will no doubt continue to object to the singular they for some time, but they’re on the losing end of history.
Beginning a sentence with a conjunction
And so we’ve reached the part of the article where I get to address something I’ve been doing in this very article: beginning sentences with conjunctions like “and,” “but,” and “because.” Some of us were taught that this is not good English. But there’s nothing ungrammatical about starting a sentence with a conjunction. And, in our opinion, it makes your writing look great. If you don’t do it too often. But we don’t do it too often. So it’s fine.
Many English-speaking countries have a standard form of English: a particular dialect of English that is associated with a group of accents, and is elevated above other dialects and accents. Received Pronunciation accents are considered by many to be the standard in the UK, General American accents are considered to be standard in the US, and General Australian accents are considered to be standard in the Australian.
Standard forms of English are often promoted by schools and used in the media, and are typically appealed to as the “correct” way of speaking English by those in the country. But the selection of a given dialect and accent as ‘standard’ is essentially arbitrary: there is nothing “better” about these forms of English over other dialects and accents. The prestige associated with certain dialects and accents seems to be deeply connected with the social class of its speakers within the relevant country.
When people “correct” others for using terms or pronunciations that are perfectly acceptable within their own dialect, they are implicitly saying that speakers with a given dialect should adopt an entirely different dialect because the one that they are currently using is not prestigious enough. Sounds a bit pretentious when you put it like that, right?
Others that didn’t make the list
Before we conclude, let’s quickly correct some ‘corrections’ that didn’t make the list:
'There was always going to be a cis white woman on stage (me), which meant that if I didn’t pay attention, these “all women” panels might have reinforced other hierarchies. In the initial list of speakers I wanted to invite, I noticed that a significant number of them speak openly about their queerness, trans identity, or race. I never want to count and categorize people or tokenize. I don’t always know if someone is a person of color or not. I don’t know if people are trans unless they are out. But it seemed to be that about half of the speakers — again the best possible people to speak about these topics — are women of color, so I figured my list was solid and went with it. These speakers are all as busy as they are talented. I waited until I could get all of the speakers to confirm for the same date. It was not about filling slots but making sure the selected speakers could make it.
Still, I took it as a given that I was excluding someone or something relevant, and that these events were resilient enough to provide safety to more communities, the process of including people only made the events stronger. To give an example: before the first panel, someone called me out on Twitter for not doing anything about accessibility. For that I was grateful. Because I learned about providing captioning service and found a sponsor — Mailchimp — to cover the cost. I have no idea whether anyone from the deaf community showed up to some of the events or not. It’s not for me to know. The point is someone knew there was a space they were welcome and accommodated and they wouldn’t have to announce their deafness to be present at these events. Despite being vigilant, there were other issues with accessibility. The elevator at Eyebeam was broken at the time of the first two panels and the venue is on the 5th floor. On both occasions, we emailed all ticket holders to alert them. There seemed to be no easily resolution, no alternate venues that I could book at the last minute. If you were unable to attend any of these events because of the elevator, I am terribly sorry. I know just saying it doesn’t amount to much, but my embarrassment over the elevator has since made me prioritize accessibility and I will more forcefully advocate for it in any future events I organize.'
'Barbara Annis is the founder of the Gender Intelligence Group, a consultancy that works with executives at major firms (including Deloitte, American Express, BMO Financial Group, and eBay) to create strategies to transform their work cultures into ones that are friendly to both men and women.
I recently spoke with Annis about her work and the challenges to achieving gender parity. The following transcript of our conversation has been edited for clarity.'
Companies that overvalue alpha-male behavior need to change — both to retain female talent and for the bottom line.
“They’ve taken an area that was formerly a home for gay people, for queer people, for artists,” says John Criscitello while showing me around Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, “and they’ve turned it into a destination drinking spot.”
Criscitello, an artist who lives and works on Capitol Hill, is 48 years old but looks a decade younger. He’s tall and muscled, with tattoos covering most of his skin and blue eyes that stand out against the gloomy Seattle sky. He hasn’t been in the city long — he moved from New York just four years ago — but in that short time, he’s seen the neighborhood change immensely. His guerrilla posters, wheat-pasted to buildings and telephone poles, say things like “Welcome rich kids” and “We came here to get away from you.”
Gentrication is all good until the white population is affected. They always find the white artist that is beautiful yet struggling in his plight to now pay rent like there aren’t black artists or black queer artists.
^^^^^^fucking thank you. Yet white gentrification and the displacement of queer/trans folks of color isn’t on the mainstream queer agenda though.
Okay. And in the notes these ’ s white gays talking about that they move into “seedy” neighborhoods and make it better then the rich whites come and take over.
Like black people and other poc weren’t living there before y'all moved in and walked around with your nose in the air as indignant as you are afraid of us. Gtfoh
!! comments ^^^^
lmao. like they created the conditions for these bros to move in by pushing all of us out there so let’s talk about how rich white queers pretty much help out rich white guys and then getting mad that they get displaced by the same white people
This is literally the rest of the cycle of gentrification – straights moving in and mainstreaming neighborhoods after artsy queers have “elevated” them away from people of color enough for Becky and Kevin to not associate the address w brown skin anymore. This is when white gays are supposed to flip their houses and cash out this is literally how this shit is designed to work, why are they crying, did they lose the last page of the handbook??
Good luck finding cheap airfare from the United States in the summer, but there are still a few deals to be had if you know where to look.
The travel and tourism industries are inherently seasonal. Broadly speaking, travel is more expensive in summer and less expensive in winter. But choosing the cheapest time to fly to a specific locale is more nuanced, according to an analysis of airfare data by Hopper, a flight search engine.
For many US origins, it’s cheapest to fly to European destinations in winter, but Dallas-based flyers find the cheapest fares to London and Amsterdam in fall. Spring is the cheapest time for New Yorkers to make it out to Los Angeles or San Francisco, but a traveler from Chicago would save money by waiting until winter to travel to the west coast.
One thing is nearly constant, however: Summer is rarely the cheapest time to fly anywhere from anywhere. According to Hopper’s analysis only six routes of the 770 between the worlds most popular airports are cheapest in summer. The five routes with the largest winter to summer price swing all rise more than 50%.
Origin
Destination
Summer price vs winter price
Chicago (ORD)
Istanbul (IST)
+57.48%
Washington D.C. (DCA)
Istanbul (IST)
+53.50%
Los Angeles (LAX)
London (LGW)
+53.27%
Los Angeles (LAX)
Barcelona (BCN)
+51.88%
Washington D.C. (IAD)
Istanbul (IST)
+50.03%
As you can explore in the above graphic, Hopper analyzed airfares with origins at each of the 15 most popular airports in the US. It looked at point-to-point published fares, which were not necessarily direct flights, to the other 14 US airports as well as the 50 most popular airports globally.
Some airport pairs are not possible, such as a New York’s Kennedy to New York’s LaGuardia. Others in airports in the same city showed different seasonal low points, likely the result of only small amounts of variation season-to-season or a low point near the boundary of a season.
Teletubbies meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon this is not. The trailer you see here is for a film called Monster Hunt, directed Raman Hui, a main animator on the Shrek films. That film, which was released earlier this July in China, has very quickly become the highest grossing film in Chinese history.
This new development might call for a change in The College Football Drunk Spectrum. I don't see Washington State making Fireball-themed tickets. Side note: Wazzu, please make Fireball-themed tickets.
These rare moments provide us with joy and wonder, but we've never had a trophy to acknowledge the best of them.
We at SB Nation intend to change that by handing out the first-ever award to honor the greatest out-of-the-ordinary play by a lineman in the 2015 season: the Piesman Trophy.
Q: Is this real?
One hundred percent. We're having a very nice trophy made, organizing a committee of top-notch voters, and hosting a banquet (with pie, naturally) at the end of the year to present the Piesman to one deserving winner.
Q: What are the Piesman eligibility requirements?
The Piesman Trophy will be awarded for the best play in which a lineman throws, catches, or runs with the ball, because those are things linemen don't usually do. The play can come from any level of college football, from FBS to Division III.
Q: Who's on your voting committee?
We have 24 voters. Six are SB Nation representatives. In alphabetical order:
Jane Coaston
Spencer Hall
Jason Kirk
Rodger Sherman
Stephen White, who happens to be a former NFL defensive lineman
Luke Zimmermann
The other 18? Glad you asked.
Kay Adams, NBC Sports Network
Holly Anderson, Grantland
Joel Anderson, BuzzFeed
Nicole Auerbach, USA Today
Kerith Burke, SNY
Ty Hildenbrandt, The Solid Verbal
Amanda Kludt, Eater
Paul Myerberg, USA Today
Katie Nolan, FOX Sports 1
Chip Patterson, CBS Sports
Chris Plante, The Verge
Martin Rickman, Uproxx Sports
Ralph Russo, Associated Press
Geoff Schwartz, New York Giants
Andy Staples, Sports Illustrated
Andrew Steinthal, The Infatuation
Pablo Torre, ESPN
Lang Whitaker, NBA.com
Q: How are you finding these plays?
We'll watch for them, but we encourage you to send us outstanding lineman feats. Tag them with #PIESMAN on Twitter or Instagram, and we'll add them to the list.
Q. Is the NCAA going to be cool with this?
Sure!
Q: Don't awards usually have watch lists?
Watch lists are meaningless, but you're right, they do. And you can help us there. Just leave names you think we should be paying attention to in the comments below, or send them to our Twitter account, @PiesmanTrophy. We'll use those to compile a Very Official Piesman Watch List, so thank you in advance.
Q: When will the trophy be presented?
The ceremony will take place in New York City on Friday, Dec. 11, 2015. Purely by coincidence, this happens to be the day before the Heisman is given out. Our finalists will be announced on Monday, Nov. 30, 2015.
Q: And you said there will be pie?
It'd be rude to call this award the Piesman Trophy and not serve pie.
Last week, Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz revealed his top five favorite superheroes: Spider-Man, Wolverine, Batman, Iron Man, and … Rorschach. The online version of the interview doesn’t include this list, perhaps because Cruz has since faced some critique for including everyone’s favorite antisocial Watchmen character in his top five.
The interview does still include Cruz’s “psychoanalysis” (his word) for why he apparently prefers Kirk to Picard (I know — wrong again, Cruz). Given that, I’m going to feel free to “psychoanalyze” this man’s top five superheroes, even though his campaign team is clearly trying to bury his bad taste.
1. Spider-Man
Odd choice from Cruz, given the common interpretation of Spidey as a 99-percenter who grew up in Queens and currently works a probably-underpaid contract photography gig at a local newspaper, and whose powers came not from hard work but from luck and happenstance. What exactly does Cruz like about Spider-Man? It can’t be the politics.
2. Wolverine
I wonder if Ted Cruz knows Logan is Canadian? Or, like, anything else to do with the general politics of X-Men? No one tell him.
3. Batman
Batman tends to strike me as a libertarian-leaning vigilante who doesn’t realize that he’s cycling criminals into a broken mental health facility and expecting new results. Cruz does seem to like cops, so maybe that’s why he gets a kick out of Batman. I’d love to see political journalists grilling Cruz on Batman’s poor prison reform policies.
4. Iron Man
Tony Stark often feels like Marvel’s answer to Bruce Wayne, except Tony’s more self-aware about his own daddy issues. Given the wealth-as-superpower element, though, this is another point in the “maybe Ted Cruz does actually read comics” column.
5. Rorschach
So, I guess Ted Cruz read Watchmen and didn’t understand that you’re not actually supposed to like anybody in it? This is like saying your favorite economist is Jonathan Swift. I mean, come on, Rorschach is a notorious jerk-hole:
Ted Cruz may or may not read comics. But if he does, he definitely doesn’t realize that they’re political. That’s too bad. He’s missing out.
Marvel sure does seem to love moviemaking teams lately, and Sony’s falling right in line in their new partnership with two writers for the upcoming Spider-Man reboot: John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein, co-writer/directors of the Vacation reboot.
At least they’ve certainly got some experience rebooting well-trodden material.
The pair finally acknowledged the rumblings that they were in on the project in an interview with NPR, with Daly saying, “We can finally acknowledge that [we’re writing Spider-Man]. This is the first time that we can say that we are writing it.”
As far as any details they could manage to squeeze out without being taken down by Marvel’s secret S.P.O.I.L.E.R. task force, Daly mentioned what we can expect from the new Peter Parker’s personality, saying,
He’s a sharp kid and witty and kind of deals with the fact that he’s an outcast and a geek through humor. It is sort of the safety net for geeks like us, so I think we can totally relate to where he’s coming from—as well as the superpowers, which we also have.
At least if we’re going to get another version of Peter Parker—played by Tom Holland this time around—it sounds like someone may finally get his sense of humor right, which would be a nice change. Although I have to say, while geeks do all have superpowers, I’d trade the ability to fix my parents’ computer for super strength and agility any day. Or just spider-sense. Especially spider-sense.
WASHINGTON—Confirming the conventional wisdom regarding the importance of college attendance in obtaining a diploma, a study published Monday by the National Education Association found that individuals who go to college earn more degrees over their lifetime than those who do not. “Our data suggests, quite convincingly, that those who pursue higher education invariably obtain more baccalaureates,” NEA researcher Denise Hallinan said, adding that the study’s findings cut across all socioeconomic brackets and applied to state and private schools equally. “And the degree acquisition gap only widens further once people go on to graduate school, with individuals at the Ph.D. level typically earning a full three more degrees than persons who did not attend college at all.” The study comes on the heels of a recent Labor Department report that found the nation’s best-paying jobs were dominated entirely by people who applied for them.
St. Landry Parish Crime Stoppers is asking for help identifying the burglar who broke into Stelly’s Supermarket on July 8 and stole hundreds of dollars in cash.
Lt. Clay Higgins with the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office said the thief used a rock to smash open the front window, then kicked in the door to the office and stole the cash.
Anyone with information on the thief’s identity is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at (337) 948-8477.
Super Opinionated.
The Message — Medium:
