kate

“Big Fish & Begonia” animated feature film by B&T Studios and Studio Mir (Legend of Korra) will be released this summer in China.

“Ma Vie de Courgette” (My Life as a Zucchini) french/swiss animated feature film (stop motion) directed by Claude Barras (selected for Cannes 2016 festival).

The gig economy. Uber for X. The on-demand revolution. Crappy part-time work with no benefits or job security.

Call it what you will, but it's big. Very, very big. It's the future.

Or is it? It's important to define things correctly here. The "gig economy"—and I really want to know who came up with this idiotic name—has nothing to do with using software as some kind of consumer front end. Practically every company in the world does that in one way or another. Nor is Amazon "Uber for diapers." They're just a gigantic retailer that delivers stuff fast.

What we're really talking about here is being able to hire the services of random strangers (a) quickly and (b) for unpredictable amounts of time. The truth is that Uber could be run entirely via old-school phones and a call center. It would be less convenient, but still workable. So why is it that Uber has been phenomenally successful but few other on-demand services have come anywhere close? Matt Yglesias suggests that everyone misunderstood what Uber was really doing:

What optimistic investors missed about Uber clones is that hailing rides is a bit of a unique case. In that particular market, digital ordering isn't just a little better than the old analog alternative, it's dramatically better. But that's because of the ways rides for hire were regulated, not something that applied to food or laundry delivery.

The traditional taxi market before the rise of ride-hailing apps was regulated in a peculiar way....In the vast majority of cases, the agencies in question were essentially "captured" by industry lobbyists who set the rules so as to protect the incumbent holders of taxi licenses from competition.

....App-based ride hailing was a game changer in this context, not just because it offered a somewhat better way to get a ride, but because in Uber's earliest cities it exploited loopholes in the way taxi regulations were written to put vehicles for hire on the road that would not have been allowed to operate as cabs.

In other words, Uber wasn't primarily a technology hack, as everyone assumes. It was a regulatory hack. Try to do the same thing for groceries or babysitting and you have to compete with everyone who's already out there—most of whom have been competing in a competitive market forever and know a lot about how to do it. It just won't work as well as it does when you're taking on a long-coddled industry.

If this is true—and it certainly sounds plausible—it's important to take away the right lesson. It's not that new startups should all start looking for regulatory hacks. It's that you have to have some kind of hack. In its early days, Netflix hacked the postal service. Amazon hacked the clubby publishing clique. Uber hacked the taxi medallion system.

"On demand" is nothing new. Ask any freelancer or consultant or day laborer. App-based dispatching adds some convenience to on-demand services, but in most cases it's nothing to shout about. That's because the market economy is already an on-demand machine. That's the whole point of a market economy. If you make that machine a little better, you'll make a little bit of money. But if you find some kind of niche that you can make a lot better, you'll make a lot of money. You just have to find the niche.

In a distant age before the heat death of the First Universe, anime/manga blogger, podcaster, and Co-Reverse Thief Al Mendez graciously agreed to an interview. Soon after, Save vs. Me went on hiatus and Al’s interview drifted in the cold dark of Neverspace. Until now. Al loves Mage: The Ascension. If you want to know more about his impeccable taste, read on.

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Who are you? Introduce yourself!

I am Alain Mendez aka Hisui. If I am known for anything it is for my anime blog and podcast. But as a jack of all trades nerd I also play a decent amount of table top RPGs. Due to a combination of various people moving and sordid interpersonal drama I had not played for about 5 years. Then about two years ago I started a D&D game and I have been GMing ever since then.

How long have you gamed and how did you get into gaming?

I was aware of table top games as early as elementary school but I distinctly remember buying The Doctor Who Role Playing Game from a comic shop as the first time I owned an RPG. But I mostly bought that as a source book for the TV show than something I would play. The first game I actually played was Star Frontiers. I only GMed a few games for my brother before we both concluded that we needed more players but we never really got anyone to play with us.

After that point I would occasionally flip through other systems whenever I went to a comic shop but since I did not know anyone else who played I never really bought any other systems. When I got to college there was a good deal of people who played regularly with a variety of systems. That is when I really started playing for real. Therefore I would put the time that I formally entered the hobby for real was in 1995. That means that I have been playing for 20 years now. The first game I played was a Traveler game but I played everything from D&D and White Wolf to the Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game and a friend’s home brewed martial arts game in that time. Ever since then I was hooked. As a favor to me PLEASE don’t do more to make me realize how old I am.

What was your first game?

As I stated above my first game was technically The Doctor Who Role Playing Game or Star Frontiers but I would consider Traveler the first game I formally played with a real group.

Do you have a favorite game or favorite genre of game? If so, what about it appeals to you?

My favorite game will always be Mage: The Ascension. I think the magic system is unique and amazingly suited to innovative role playing. An inexperienced GM or problem players can easily make for a horrible session but when the game works it can be transcendent.

I love the philosophy behind the game. The idea that we all shape our own reality while having to deal with the fact that this is true for everyone we meet is a powerful idea in real life as well as in the game. Also I think the Technocracy is a fascinatingly sympathetic antagonist. They are clearly misguided and corrupt but you can see why they would exist if the game setting was real.

What games have you not tried, but would like to?

For a simple but boring answer I would like to try D&D 5^th edition but that is more just a matter of either buying the books or playing with someone who has them.

My more interesting answer would be I would love to play a Japanese RPG. The Sword World RPG or Gear Antique are on the top of my list. The main problem is no one (that I know of) translates those books so I have not been able to play one. But I am intensely curious how they are different from American table top games. Then again Seven Seas Games just started a Table Top RPG imprint so I might get my wish soon enough. It all depends on what titles they pick up.

What was your first character?

My first character was a young noble trying to prove himself to his family in Traveler. He was on a space station that was being invaded by some strange alien species. I only played the character in one session so I don’t remember much about him other than that.

What do you use for inspiration for your characters?

That really depends on the day and the system. Sometimes I will modify a character I liked in something read or watched recently. Other times I will let the setting spark my imagination. I think “what sort of person would be attracted to this profession or organization.” Other times I pick a class that seems fun and build a character concept around that. Also as a GM I do have a habit of taking NPCs I love from other games and remaking them as PCs in other people’s games.

Do you have a favorite kind of character to play? (Could be race, class, archetype, personality, etc.)

I tend to try to make characters who fill in a gap in the group. If everyone is playing damage dealers then I might play a healer in a hack and slash game. If the group needs a techie, scholar, or a person with contacts in a more social game then I will take that role. That tends to mean that I play support characters 9 times out of 10. In fact the only type of character I rarely play is the straight up combat monster. Even when I make such a character I tend towards a clever gimmick fighter as opposed to a straight power character.

Do you run/GM games?

I do. Everyone was encouraged to GM a little bit in college so I picked up the skill there. I will admit I sucked at first but I went to school with some amazing GMs. I would say that by watching and copying their styles I have slowly evolved my own style. I would never say that I have surpassed my old mentors, as some of them were exceptional, but I think I have forged my path.

Do you run pre-made adventures or create your own material as you go?
I have never used a pre-made adventure. It is more because I am cheap as opposed to me looking down on them. They are great for when you are starting or just want to run something elaborate with minimum preparation. I will admit I have swiped a good idea or two from pre-made adventures I have read over the years. I have just taken much more from setting supplements than anything else.

What do you use for inspiration for your campaigns?

It is more a question of what I don’t use. I have drawn inspiration from books, movies, plays, comics, and TV shows. A good history book can give you 101 game ideas. Folklore, the news, travel guides, and even your own life can have the seeds of a great game. The more you take in the more chances you have for a spark of inspiration. I once made a campaign around the label on the back of a bottle of Dr McGillicuddy’s Black Licorice Schnapps. (Oh Damn. – ed.)

What would you say to people who are curious about gaming but have never tried it?

The most important piece of advice would be pick your first group carefully. They will shape your experience more than anything else. A bad game master, sexist and racist players, or just an uninviting group can easily turn you off from the hobby. If an old hand runs into a bad group they are far more likely to brush themselves off and try again. A burnt new player has a far better chance of being scared off and never getting that taste of what makes RPGs so great.

Conversely my advice to older players is that they should do everything they can to nurture new players. Not all of us got that gentle hand to get us into the hobby but that is no excuse for not extending a welcoming experience to anyone getting into the fandom. Remember today’s newbie just might be the person who runs tomorrows amazing session. As for why they would want to play: I think that Table Top RPGs are one of the most creative hobbies you can participate in. They let the players and GM be part actor, writer, director, and audience of their own stories. If you have ever read a book and thought, “If I wrote the story I would …” or played a video game and which you could just go off the rails of the system then you know the appeal of an RPG without realizing it.

Anything else you’d like to say about gaming that we haven’t covered?

I would like to mention how much fun it is to play RPGs. If you have ever seen a group of players talk fondly about an amazing session, an epic campaign, or even a cool moment you understand what a great hobby this is. I have made some of my best friends over rolling dice and that in of itself has made it all worthwhile.

Promote yourself and/or your stuff! Tell us where we can find you online.

My blog is Reverse Thieves and the accompanying podcast is The Speakeasy. While we mainly talk about anime and manga we do touch upon comics, movies, and games as well.

Hugh Hancock muses today about the remarkable effectiveness of efforts to turn Microsoft's (now) infamous Tay chatbot into an asshole. It didn't take much. Mostly the people who did it were just having a laugh, and Tay took it from there. It turns out that being an asshole is a pretty easy thing to emulate.

So what does this mean for the future? Not the far future, mind you, but next year. Hancock has an unnerving answer:

Everyone Can Have Their Own Twitter Mob

Right now, if you want to have someone attacked by a horde of angry strangers, you need to be a celebrity. That's a real problem on Twitter and Facebook both, with a few users in particular becoming well-known for abusing their power to send their fans after people with whom they disagree.

But remember, the Internet's about democratising power, and this is the latest frontier. With a trollbot and some planning, this power will soon be accessible to anyone.

There's a further twist, too: the bots will get better. Attacking someone on the Internet is a task eminently suited to deep learning. Give the bots a large corpus of starter insults and a win condition, and let them do what trolls do — find the most effective, most unpleasant ways to attack someone online. No matter how impervious you think you are to abuse, a swarm of learning robots can probably find your weak spot.

There are some details to be worked out, of course, like setting up all the accounts your trollbot would need. Hancock addresses that. He figures the bots will be pretty good at this stuff too.

The unnerving part of this is that although Hancock is writing in a chatty tone, this is all very plausible. And for something like Twitter, where a bot doesn't need much intelligence to fit right in, it's a pretty serious near-term possibility.

So what happens? Behind Door 1, Twitter becomes an abattoir of filth and verbal war. Only the bravest dare enter. Behind Door 2, Twitter mobs become so frequent that no one cares about them anymore. Even the most sensitive among us just shrug them off. Behind Door 3, it all becomes a tedious war between semi-intelligent trollbots and semi-intelligent trollbot filters. It's just Act II of the online production that began with email spam.

On the bright side, this might put actual trolls out of commission. How can they compete? And what will they do with all their newfound free time?

Dice Tsutsumi and Robert Kondo's new short is based on a Japanese children's book.

The post ‘Dam Keeper’ Makers Return With New Film ‘Moom’ (Trailer) appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

the gods lie
By Kaori Ozaki
Vertical Comics, 216 pp
Rating: Not Rated

After an argument with his new soccer coach, 6th grader Natsuru skips out on Summer soccer camp and ends up spending time with his classmate Rio and her younger brother. The two quickly bond, but as the Summer draws to a close their bonds will be tested. Kaori Ozaki’s the gods lie is a single volume tale about Natsuru, Rio, friendship and the pains of growing up.

The story about Natsuru and Rio is one that, for the most part, should be familiar to just about anyone. Intense friendships are a regular part of growing up and Kaori Ozaki does an amazing job at making the friendship between the two feel natural and real and genuine. It’s not all sweetness and roses though. There’s a strong sense of loss and pain throughout the book, but it never becomes overwhelmingly grim or oppressive even when Ozaki throws in some surprisingly dark moments. She also does a really good job at developing Natsuru and Rio to the point were their pain, fears and emotions hit hard, making the ending very potent and emotionally resonant.

Osaka also does a fantastic job with the visuals. Her characters are wonderfully expressive and their emotional states and personalities come through nicely. Worry on a parents face, suspicion on that of another adult, heartbreak and more are all clear as day under her skilled hand. Her sense of pacing is pitch perfect as well. She knows which moments to let linger in the air for readers to absorb and take in. Much like her pacing, her use of backgrounds is dead on. She knows when to use them to enhance a scene or to ground it, and when to let them drop away to let readers linger and focus on the action or emotion in a panel.

I went into the gods lie cold, knowing almost nothing about it. By the time I put it down I was saddened that it had to end. Kari Ozaki’s crafted a moving tale that rings all too true in what it says about childhood friendships and the harsh realities of the world. It’s absolutely worth a read and left me wanting to see more of Kaori Osaka’s work.

the gods lie. will be available on April 19th from Vertical Comics. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Shigeru Miyamoto, Production I.G, Wit Studio make short teased in trailer

The internet has done it again, illustrating why you can never trust the online masses to take on a serious task. As was widely expected, Boaty McBoatface won the online poll to name the United Kingdom’s new royal research ship. And it wasn’t even close. Boaty McBoatface obtained 124,109 votes, four times more than the second-placed Poppy-Mai after a 16-month-old girl with incurable cancer.

The poll to name the $300 million vessel went viral last month after former BBC radio presenter James Hand put forward the suggestion. “This is actually nothing to do with me,” Hand said. “I made the suggestion but the storm that’s been created—it’s got legs of its own. I just feel it’s a very British thing, which a lot of people have pointed out.”

The head of Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council now faces the final decision about the name and it likely won’t be easy. “Duncan Wingham, with whom the final decision lies, now faces the dilemma of choosing between the credibility of his organization—and its £200m arctic explorer—and the overwhelming burden of public opinion,” notes the Guardian.

NERC has said a decision "will be announced in due course." There’s a bit of time. The Royal Research Ship is currently being built and is scheduled to become operational in 2019.

konradwerks:

Some sketch cards from ECCC. Forgot to take a snap of a Tifa I liked :(

li'l third sword in there!

Inspired by a love of medieval maps, Eleanor Lutz created this beautiful hand drawn map of Mars! We can’t stop looking at it, so head below the cut to ooh and ahh with us over the full version.

Lutz’s map is based on the Mercator projection of Mars prepared by the U.S. Geological Society’s topographic survey of the planet, itself based on images and data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. She’s also included major geographical features and landmarks, as well as the landing sites of several surface research robots.

Between the coloring and lettering, Lutz’s vision of Mars is reminiscent of maps from the 18th and 19th centuries that charted the exploration of Earth. We think it’s a nice visual reminder that we’re still in an age of exploration, and that space travel can be personally inspiring and meaningful, even if most of it is currently being done by robots millions of miles away.

Of course, the map’s old time-y appeal also put us in mind of some highly specific fan fiction. Like what if John Carter had been more interested in exploring the uncharted regions of Barsoom than in wooing its princess? His increased agility and strength would probably serve him well as the red planet’s official cartographer… Or what if the storm that stranded The Martian’s luckless potato farmer Mark Watney had unearthed an ancient atlas of Mars topography, left by some previously unknown H.G. Wells-style space travelers? The knowledge that others had survived this landscape before may have fortified him, and their notes could help him plan for the long journey across Mars’ harsh terrain…

Check out the map on Lutz’s blog, where you can also obtain a copy for your own space-faring needs!

I.G Port's Signal.MD animates 2017 film set in Okayama prefecture in 2020

Ryoko Fukuyama's manga about music, one-sided love launched in Hana to Yume in 2013

We have good news and sad news, and that good news is that Good Omens–and several other Terry Pratchett works–are going to be making their way to television screens.

While the BBC Radio 4 version of Good Omens was excellent, fans have longed to see this tale on screen. Which brings us to how our good news is also sad news; while Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett had an agreement to always work on Good Omens material together, it seems that Pratchett wrote Gaiman a letter, to be delivered following his death. Said letter asked Gaiman to write a Good Omens adaptation without him, with his blessing. At Pratchett’s memorial service in Barbican on Thrusday, Gaiman announced ““At that point, I think I said, ‘You bastard, yes.’”

Gaiman is currently in the process of writing a six-part Good Omens series. Other announcements that came during the memorial included Terry Rossio’s adaptation of Mort into a feature film, and Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna adapting Wee Free Men for film as well. Still underway are the fan funded adaptation of Troll Bridge, and TV procedural The Watch.

That’s a wonderful flood of Pratchett stories to film, allowing fans the world over to engage with his work in brand new forms for years to come.

News from The Guardian.

All things considered, Mega Man has been having a pretty good year. I mean, yes, the ongoing comic book series from Archie was canceled back in December, ending 2015 on a pretty down note, but with the release of the Legacy Collection --- which brought all seven Mega Man games from the NES era back to current-generation consoles - 2016 is looking up.

Now, there's another reason for Mega Fans (sorry) to celebrate: Sentinel Toys just announced the release of a new line of fully articulated 4" action figures, and they look awesome. And not only will the classic Mega Man be showing up, but his virus-busting counterpart from Mega Man Battle Network is along for the ride, too.

Continue reading…

Ever since Char Aznable became one of anime’s most memorable characters, many Gundam series have included similar rivals for their heroes. In general, they’re enemy pilots of roughly equal power who wear masks or something similar to hide their faces, and who often have their own ulterior, if noble, motives. Most recently joining the likes of Zechs Merquise, Harry Ord, and more is McGillis Fareed from Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, and his approach to being “a Char” is probably the most well-realized out of all of them.

Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans spoilers below.

Throughout the original Gundam, Char Aznable is willing to (and has!) back-stabbed even his closest friends because his true goal, to get vengeance for the death of his father, overrides any sort of sentiment he might possess. McGillis is incredibly similar. He’s willing to sacrificing childhood friends for the sake of accomplishing his motives, but in a way he might also be even more scheming and cut-throat than Char himself. While Char might sabotage some of his own side for personal reasons, he never actively leaked information to the enemy or tried to orchestrate both sides to fall in his favor.

McGillis has gone from being a fairly interesting character to being one of the reasons I’m looking forward to the next season of Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans. Given the overall quality of the show, I really, really hope the series doesn’t suffer from Sunrise “half-way point syndrome” like so many of their mecha anime, where in an attempt to become more successful a show loses what made it special in the first place.

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2015 Project Itoh science fiction film to play in theaters on May 17-18

One-shot series stars Diamond is Unbreakable character

She's 6 years old, has multi-colored hair, dons a hijab, sports a school uniform, and is the newest addition to Afghanistan's "Sesame Street."

Her name actually means "shimmering" and the fact we're most excited about? She's a feminist.

Meet Zari, our new friend from Afghanistan! She's here to teach young kids about girls' empowerment! #BaghcheSimsim pic.twitter.com/itS9kNZieV

— Sesame Street (@sesamestreet) April 7, 2016

We're excited about Zari and the important progress she can make for boys and girls in a nation with a poor record of advocating for women's rights. Zari will appear in every episode of the Afghan version of "Sesame Street" called "Baghch-e-Simsim," which translates to "Sesame Garden."

"It's a way of making sure we are not just teaching but we are modeling, which is very powerful," said Sherrie Westin, executive vice president of global impact and philanthropy for Sesame Workshop, in an interview.

She added that research has found positive role models for girls have also shaped the perceptions of boys. "We know children learn best when they can identify themselves with characters on the screen."

Zari is just the latest addition to a lineup of international muppets in Mexico, Germany, Bangladesh, Egypt, and many other nations.

We're thrilled to see Zari on screen and hope she continues to empower both girls and boys around the world.

NEXT: 5 Male Cartoon Characters You Didn't Know Were Voiced By Women »

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Photo Credit: NME/Twitter

Andrew Hussie’s Homestuck has been one of the most successful webcomics of the last decade, with thousands of ardent readers, cosplayers and fanatics, and, oh yeah, a $2.4 million Kickstarter for a companion game. The game, called Hivewarp, has been in development since then, however, and has yet to appear. The webcomic, which is highly […]

Usually, when someone takes a poll to find out someone's preferences for Pokémon, they tend to use adjectives along the lines of "favorite," or maybe even "cute." What you do not usually hear is someone asking which Pokémon is the most handsome, which I assume is largely because that's a very difficult standard to apply to, say, a chandelier with a face on it, or whatever Diglett is supposed to be. But that didn't stop someone from asking, and now, we have an answer that I don't think anyone was prepared for.

Continue reading…

He wishes NASA more success.

Astronauts these days get to enjoy delicious space lettuce and a morning espresso, perks that are definitely going to make Elon Musk's Martian colonists super jealous. So, to throw eventual Red Planet inhabitants a bone, NASA is undertaking a study to figure out how to grow potatoes à la Matt Damon's character in The Martian, though presumably without the exploding airlock and probably on a much tighter budget.

Researchers can't just blast potatoes 140 million miles over to our neighbor planet, so instead they tell The Wall Street Journal they've gathered up 65 varieties known for their hardiness on Earth. Money will be on the ones that can grow best in soil from a Peruvian desert that receives one millimeter of water per year; these winners (or survivors, more like) will enter round two, where they'll be put in a simulator that mimics the atmosphere. Mars has water, but the atmosphere there is between -84 and -284 degrees, contains high levels of radiation, and is 96 percent carbon dioxide. These conditions have led one researcher to predict, "I don't think they'll grow in the open air"; he says under some sort of biodome is more likely.

The team's theory is that maybe ten of the test-group potatoes will yield decent-size tubers in the end, but they also warn exposure to severe drought and temperature extremes "could change" their flavor. Specifically: It may make them "so bitter they are inedible." In other words, Martians are going to be expecting constant resupplies of ketchup.

[WSJ]

Read more posts by Clint Rainey

Filed Under: the future, mars, nasa, potatoes, space

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders met in Brooklyn Thursday night for the latest debate of the presidential season. The two Democrats have grown increasingly confrontational in recent weeks, as Sanders has run up a streak of electoral victories but has largely failed to shrink Clinton's pledged delegate lead. Sanders has questioned whether Clinton is "qualified" to be president. Clinton, meanwhile, has repeatedly mocked an interview Sanders gave to the New York Daily News, arguing that it showed a lack of understanding of key issues.

Here are some of the highlights from Thursday's debate.

Fireworks over who's qualified to be president. The debate immediately turned quarrelsome. CNN's Wolf Blitzer opened with a question about whether Sanders stands by his attacks on Clinton's qualifications. "Does Secretary Clinton have the experience and intelligence to be president? Of course she does," Sanders said. "But I do question her judgment. I question a judgment which voted for the war in Iraq, the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of this country." Sanders also said he was concerned about Clinton's judgment when it comes to her past support for controversial trade deals and the assistance she is receiving from super-PACs.

"Senator Sanders did call me unqualified," Clinton shot back. "I've been called a lot of things in my life. That was a first."

Clinton doesn't want to talk about her Wall Street speeches. During the debate, CNN moderator Dana Bash tried to pin down Clinton on why she has so far refused to release the transcripts of paid speeches she gave to Goldman Sachs. "If there's nothing in those speeches that you think would change voters' minds," Bash asked, "why not just release the transcripts and put this whole issue to bed?"

Clinton did everything she could to dance away from answering the question—even after repeated follow-up questions. "There are certain expectations when you run for president," Clinton said. "This is a new one. And I've said, if everybody agrees to do it—because there are speeches for money on the other side [from the Republican candidates]. I know that." Clinton then tried to change the topic, criticizing Sanders for not yet releasing his tax returns. (Sanders responded by promising to release them soon.)

Not a laughing matter. Throughout the campaign, Clinton has used Sanders' record of opposing gun control measures to attack him from the left. Thursday's debate was no different. When the moderators teed up a question for her about Sanders' stance on the issue, Clinton grew solemn—while Sanders nervously laughed at the question. "It's not a laughing matter," Clinton said, sternly rebuking her opponent. "Ninety people on average a day are killed or commit suicide or die in accidents from guns, 33,000 people a year. I take it really seriously because I have spent more time than I care to remember being with people who have lost their loved ones."

Clinton comes out for a $15 minimum wage, of sorts. While Sanders has been quite clear about his stance on the minimum wage—he wants it to be $15 per hour, nationwide—Clinton has offered a more nuanced take. She's recently praised places such as New York and California that have bumped up their minimum wage to $15. But last summer, she said she'd rather set the national floor at $12 while allowing individual states and cities to enact higher minimums.

On Thursday, Clinton said she'd be willing to sign a $15 per hour minimum wage bill if Congress passed one—but she also said she'd still initially push for $12. "If you look at it," she said, "we moved more quickly to $15 in New York City, more deliberately toward $12, $12.50 upstate, then to $15. That is exactly my position. It's a model for the nation and that's what I will do as president."

A tussle over the '94 crime bill. The 1994 crime bill—signed by Bill Clinton, advocated by Hillary Clinton, and voted for by Sanders—has become a major issue in the current campaign. Two decades after the law passed, critics have faulted it for helping expand the country's system of mass incarceration. When asked whether she wanted to apologize for the crime bill, Clinton said, "I'm sorry for the consequences that were unintended and that have had a very unfortunate impact on people's lives." She also noted that her first speech of the campaign focused on criminal justice reform. "I want white people to recognize that there is systemic racism," she said. "It's also in employment, it's in housing, but it is in the criminal justice system, as well."

That didn't seem good enough for Sanders. When the moderators turned to him and asked why he had recently criticized Clinton's use of the term "superpredator" when the crime bill was debated in the '90s, Sanders didn't mince words. "Because it was a racist term, and everybody knew it was a racist term," Sanders said.

Sanders says supporting Palestinian rights doesn't make him anti-Israel. Something surprising happened Thursday night: a thoughtful, nuanced discussion of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The moderators pushed Sanders on whether he stood by his statement that Israel's military strikes in Gaza in 2014 were "disproportionate." Sanders didn't back down, noting his personal relationship to the Jewish state but criticizing how it treats Palestinians. "I believe the United States and the rest of the world have got to work together to help the Palestinian people," Sanders said. "That does not make me anti-Israel."

The tyranny of President Obama's reign of terror knows no bounds. Now it extends to shaking down the creators of Game of Thrones:

During HBO’s Sunday red carpet for the premiere of Season 6’s first episode, the showrunners confirmed that the president will receive advance episodes of the show. “When the commander in chief says, ‘I want to see advanced episodes,’ what are you gonna do?” Benioff said.

Did he threaten them with an IRS audit? Drop hints that the FCC might want to look into HBO's business practices? "Suggest" that his union pals might be upset if he didn't get the screeners? Truly the man has no conscience.

Walter's Coffee Roastery serves its coffee in little beakers

A HazMat suit and beaker-filled "Breaking Bad"-themed coffee shop will be opening in Bushwick this summer, according to local blog Bushwick Daily. Owner Deniz Kosan, who operates a location of Walter's Coffee Roastery in Istanbul, has been scouting Brooklyn for a U.S. outpost of the roastery for years and originally planned to open in Greenpoint or Williamsburg. But with the impending L train shut down, he wanted to be closer to other train lines, he tells the blog. "I can't afford revenue losses," Kosan says. "Coffee roasteries are a big investment." He initially tried to fund the shop with a Kickstarter but did not reach the $55,000 goal.

Besides roasting its own coffee, Walter's Coffee Roasters makes its own pastries, including apple pie, pancakes, and chocolate cake. The shop has a chemistry theme to celebrate "Breaking Bad," a popular TV show about a chemistry teacher with cancer who starts making meth to financially support his family. The space in Instanbul is decorated with periodic table designs. Plus, some employees wear HazMat suits, coffee is served in little beakers, and the shop has posted pictures of pancakes with sugar dusted in the shape of Walter White, the show's main character. Walter's Coffee Roastery will be at 65 Irving Ave., near Starr Street, and is expected to soft open by the end of June.

During yesterday’s proceedings at the annual convention for movie exhibitors known as CinemaCon, Warner Bros. announced its intention to release a Scooby-Doo (ScreenCrush editor Matt Singer’s favorite TV show of all time) reboot that would give a newer, hipper edge to the beloved cartoon Great Dane and hopefully erase all memory of the recent live-action films with Linda Cardellini and Matthew Lillard.

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"Long Way North" will debut in the U.S. later this year.

The post ‘Long Way North’ Wins Feature Film Prize in Japan appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

By Concepcion de Leon

Pop quiz: In what year did the CEO of a major ad agency make headlines when he was sued for allegedly saying a female staffer should be "raped into submission?" 1986? Wrong. It was this year. 2016. Thirty years ago this might not have been all that unusual, or noticed at all. But today that story sparks headlines and outrage, and we have Anita Hill to thank for bringing on such a seismic shift.

A little history recap: In 1991 Anita Hill, a respected Oklahoma law professor, testified before the Senate that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had made inappropriate sexual advances toward her when he was her superior, first at the U.S. Department of Education and then at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (which ironically handles sexual harassment claims). I was only a year old when it all went down. I never watched Hill painfully give her testimony to an all-white, all-male committee of senators. Now a new generation of women will get to see the hearings through Kerry Washington, who plays Hill in HBO's "Confirmation" (April 16).

You’ll cringe at some of the details — like when then-Senator Joe Biden presses Hill about her charge that Thomas had complained to her about pubic hair on his Coke can; when a committee member tries to diagnose her with erotomania; or when the committee subpoenas another woman who’d allegedly been sexually harassed by Thomas to appear at the hearing but never call her to testify.

We've come a long way since then. After Hill's testimony at the hearing, more women started reporting harassment, and companies implemented sexual harassment training. But we're not done. In one of my first jobs, male coworkers asked me to go to strip clubs multiple times; one even proposed we have an affair — totally inappropriate advances I was uncomfortable with but handled with nervous laughter. I didn't report them to anyone — I couldn't afford to lose my job and didn't feel that my claims would be taken seriously.

Hill is an inspiration. She faced much higher stakes — she could have been a Supreme Court nominee in her own right, and speaking up may have cost her that chance — but she stood up for herself. And women rallied around Hill, filling her office with tens of thousands of letters and notes of support. Confirmation reminds us we need to lend power and credibility to women’s voices and experiences — before we get torn down on national TV. Hill's story isn't the end; it's just the beginning. 

More From Glamour:
• The Everyday Sexism Project
• Sexual Harassment on Social Media
• Erin Andrews Lawsuit
• How to Handle Street Harassment

Photo Credit: Getty Images

When I try to tell my friends about Orphan Black, I get excited and things come out garbled: "It's about clones, but it's also a mystery. The clones get sick, and there's this race for a cure, but also a quest to find out where they come from and why—and there are these crazy pop-science researchers who modify their own bodies. The military might be involved."

More calmly put, the BBC drama, whose fourth season kicks off tonight, is a complex futuristic thriller with themes ranging from self-identity and scientific ethics to religious extremism. But perhaps the show's greatest strength is the reproductive rights storyline that has won it acclaim as a feminist triumph—even though it was created by a couple of guys. I reached out to one of those guys, Graeme Manson, to talk about entertainment, science, and feminism. For a little catchup, here's the season 1 trailer.

Mother Jones: How did you and co-creator John Fawcett get to a series about cloned humans?

Graeme Manson: We were looking for a high-concept feature film idea, and that's where we came to clones. We'd been friends for 20 years. John's a horror and sci-fi person. I was into sci-fi, drama, and comedy. Our tastes intersected at black comedy. John pitched the opening scene for "Orphan Black," where a girl gets off a train, looks across the tracks, sees her double, and in that moment the double commits suicide. That was all we had! It was like a four-sentence pitch, and we took it from there. John got juiced by the technical aspects of shooting a single actor playing multiple roles, and I got juiced on looking at clones as a concept and as something that was beginning to happen in the zeitgeist in terms of Dolly the Sheep. I found the psychological implications really rich: What happens if we clone humans? How do you feel about your genetic identicals—after 50 years, do you not even care that you bump into them in the supermarket?

MJ: Where do you stand on the ethics of cloning?

GM: We're a sci-fi show, and a conspiracy mystery, so we naturally look at the scarier, more conspiratorial aspects of science, and that's not real science. There is a consistent civilian mistrust of science where 98 percent of the time, scientists have mankind's best interests in mind. But corporate science, big science, for-profits, military science—they're not necessarily creating science that's good for mankind. We like that question of what's going on beyond the lab door. We think about what's occurring right now that's sinister or could be misused or is complex ethically. CRISPR technology, gene editing, germ-line editing: These are sciences that could change the face of mankind. We're such irrepressible creatures. If you give us a technology; if you put a gun in a human being's hand, sooner or later they're gonna squeeze the trigger.

MJ: What kind of science are you guys eyeing for the upcoming seasons.

GM: Everything from genetic patents to "neolution"—self-directed evolution where humans are offered the technological choice of intervention in their bodies, be that biohack [DIY experimentation], gene editing, or whatever. We have one really strong science writer, Chris Roberts, and story consultant Cosima Herter is a science historian—we like a historical context. Eugenics runs through all of the science we're doing. From Victorian times to the early Cold River Institute genealogical studies, all these eugenical movements thought they had a good intention: "If only we had the right kinds of people, we would improve society." But what are the right kinds of people? You're talking about immigration, all these hot-button topics. If you're gay, straight, or bi. What's right? What's legal? What's defined? And then you get in there and start messing with the genome—it's like, "Ugh!"

That's a pretty juicy side of the show for us. We always find something there to be mulling and putting forward in the show as an interesting take on science or ethics that we don't have an answer for, but you put it on the table and because there's always these two sides to it—cutting-edge science is a good thing, but how could it manifest otherwise?

MJ: The show also has a strong reproductive rights theme: One clone's eggs are harvested without her consent. Another narrowly escapes having her ovaries forcibly removed. And the clones are monitored—usually by men. What are we to make of all this?

GM: Those are ethical things, and it certainly plays as a very strong feminist statement on our show, which is something [lead actress] Tatiana [Maslany] is passionate about. John and I always say that when we started with the concept of clones, we didn't realize what a feminist statement it would become in terms of body autonomy. These things became very apparent to us as we dug deeper, and the show as a whole is very committed to those kinds of issues portrayed in their complexity.

MJ: Tatiana has formidable task of playing all these different clones. Which one is the most challenging for her?

GM: I think Rachel, because she's stiff and formal and cold and powerful and corporate and all of that—the opposite of Tatiana. Certainly in the beginning Rachel was very foreign to her. I know that she loves playing Krystal, because it's not the kind of role she ever gets offered. They're all a challenge. We work really closely with her on who the characters are when they're coming. We come up with something we might need for story, and then we'll take it to Tat to talk character.

MJ: It sounds like you give your actors a lot of input.

GM: We do. Our core actors are real pros and they're all very good at finding things that we don't necessarily see in the script. We love to give a little bit of leeway for the actors to play at the end of scenes or to bring their own flair to the scenes. We give our actors and our directors a chance to do some of that. Certainly Tat has a lot of input. When we run into story problems in the writer's room, sometimes we'll jog down to set and see what Tat thinks one of her many characters might do in that situation. She's always very good at coming at it from a character point of view.

MJ: Where did you find Tatiana, anyway?

GM: Due to the vagaries of financing, we had to cast a Canadian lead. We saw everybody in that age range in Canada! The show wasn't going to happen unless we had buy-in from both Canadian and American networks. Luckily, it was unanimous that Tatiana could handle it. But it was only once we started to see those clone scenes put together that we were like, "Damn, she's good."

After the FBI’s brief legal standoff with Apple over access to one of the San Bernardino shooters’ iPhones, the FBI managed to finagle its way into the locked phone and get the data it needed without Apple's help. But how did it manage to do it? FBI Director James Comey has publicly hinted in the vaguest possible terms how the agency managed to get into Syed Farook’s phone. On Tuesday, the Washington Post filled in a number of the blanks, reporting the FBI hired professional hackers on a fee-for-service basis who exploited a previously unknown software flaw.

Here’s more from the Post:

The new information was then used to create a piece of hardware that helped the FBI to crack the iPhone’s four-digit personal identification number without triggering a security feature that would have erased all the data, the individuals said… Cracking the four-digit PIN, which the FBI had estimated would take 26 minutes, was not the hard part for the bureau. The challenge from the beginning was disabling a feature on the phone that wipes data stored on the device after 10 incorrect tries at guessing the code. A second feature also steadily increases the time allowed between attempts.

“The U.S. government now has to weigh whether to disclose the flaws to Apple, a decision that probably will be made by a White House-led group,” according to the Post. “Apple said last week that it would not sue the government to gain access to the solution.” Part of the reason for that, presumably, is that the vulnerability has restricted reach and increasingly diminishing returns; it can only be used on iPhone 5Cs running the iOS 9 operating system. Either way, it is slightly unsettling to know that the U.S. government would rather you get hacked than give up the secret sauce so it can reserve the right to hack you too, if need be. We're all digital piñatas really.