With Apple buying Beats and AT&T buying DirecTV, this seems to be the month of the blockbuster acquisition deal. And it looks like Google wants in on the action too—according to a report from Variety, the company is going to buy video game streaming site Twitch.tv for over $1 billion.
Google's YouTube division is heading up the acquisition, and that makes sense. Twitch is best thought of as a live streaming, gaming-focused version of YouTube. The streamer loads up his or her favorite game, and the audience watches and participates via an integrated chat room. Twitch recently made headlines as the host of Twitch Plays Pokémon, a social experiment where over 100,000 people simultaneously played a single instance of Pokémon. And the site is so popular that direct streaming has even been integrated into the PS4 and Xbox One.
While YouTube is indisputably the largest pre-recorded video site on the Internet, Twitch is undoubtedly among the Web's largest live-streaming video sites. Still, the scale between the two entities really isn't comparable: Twitch has 45 million monthly users, YouTube has one billion. A deal like this is sure to draw the ire of regulators, and the report says YouTube is gearing up to jump through the necessary approval hoops to get the deal done.
It occurred to me that as much as we talk about strong resumes here, I’ve never actually written up a basic guide for people creating a resume from scratch.
So over at AOL Jobs today, I’ve written a beginner’s guide to how to craft a resume that will catch a hiring manager’s eyes — what sections to use, what goes where, what goes in each section, basic guidance on length and design, etc. You can read it here.
Last week, Nintendo fans anticipating the release of the game Tomodachi Life took to social media to show their displeasure with the marriage feature within the game. Tomodachi Life is a life simulation game, in which relationships, marriages, and families play a key role, but marriage between two characters of the same gender is not allowed.
Because many players choose to marry their real life partners in the game, this alienated some users. Players started the #MiiQuality movement, led by Tomodachi fan Tye Marini, to ask the game to offer a same-sex marriage option. While Nintendo initially responded matter-of-factly, saying "the relationship options in the game represent a playful alternate world rather than a real-life simulation...The ability for same-sex relationships to occur in the game was not part of the original game that launched in Japan," they are now changing their tune.
In a statement released by Nintendo this weekend, they apologized for excluding same-sex relationships in Tomodachi:
"We apologize for disappointing many people by failing to include same-sex relationships in Tomodachi Life. Unfortunately, it is not possible for us to change this game's design, and such a significant development change can't be accomplished with a post-ship patch. We are committed to advancing our longtime company values of fun and entertainment for everyone. We pledge that if we create a next installment in the 'Tomodachi' series, we will strive to design a game-play experience from the ground up that is more inclusive, and better represents all players."
While it is too late to change this version of the game, Nintendo players supporting the #MiiQuality movement hope to make Tomodachi so popular in the States that the company will be encouraged to release an update quickly.
Marini, leader of the #MiiQuality campaign, said he is "very happy" with Nintendo's response. He explained, "I don't believe they are a homophobic company at all. I think that the exclusion of same-sex relationships was just an unfortunate oversight."
"For 130 years people have been using that canyon as a highway," Lyman told the Salt Lake Tribune, apparently not realizing that 130 years ago, motorized vehicles were only just being invented and were certainly not in mainstream use.
Reuters
If there's one thing that will get your point across and persuade the general public to support your cause, it's driving a bunch of ATVs through Native American ruins and burials.
That seems to be the logic used by anti-Bureau of Land Management, pro-Cliven Bundy protestors who drove ATVs through a Utah canyon trail where motorized vehicles are banned. The rally was organized by Phil Lyman who, believe it or not, is actually a commissioner of San Juan county, home of Recapture Canyon. Hundreds of years ago, it was also home to the Puebloans, as evidenced by the ruins of their homes dug into the canyon rock. It is currently on federal land.
In 2007, an illegal ATV trail was discovered, sections of which ran right through some of these archaeological sites. The BLM then ruled that motorized vehicles were illegal in the canyon, and ATV and anti-federal enthusiasts have protested ever since -- well before the Bundy Ranch debacle.
"For 130 years people have been using that canyon as a highway," Lyman told the Salt Lake Tribune, apparently not realizing that 130 years ago, motorized vehicles were only just being invented and were certainly not in mainstream use.
Ryan Bundy addresses the crowd (Reuters)
Bundy Ranch put squabbles with the BLM in the national spotlight, and so Lyman's rally for the right to potentially destroy Native American artifacts brought several Bundy supporters -- including Bundy's son, Ryan. Also people wearing camouflage and a guy with an assault rifle, according to the Tribune. There were also American flags, which makes no sense.
Both the BLM and the sheriff's department came to the rally, but whatever skirmishes the ATV riders were anticipating/hoping for didn't come to pass. The BLM simply recorded the proceedings to prosecute offenders later. The sheriff's deputies said they were only there to keep the peace, and any punishment would have to come from the BLM, since "they're the ones that closed the road." Thanks, deputies.
Lyman won't have to worry about any federal repercussions, as he ultimately did not drive on the trail. Bundy did ride on the illegal trail, but I guess he doesn't think there will be consequences for his actions for some reason.
A Navajo Warrior ceremony for returning veterans was scheduled for the area that weekend, but the rally forced organizers to reschedule it for October. So the rally was a slap in the face of Native Americans from the past and the present.
"Damage to archaeological sites is permanent and the information about our collective past is then lost forever," said Jerry Spangler, director of the Colorado Plateau Archaeological Alliance. "It is sad that irreplaceable treasures of importance to all Americans would be sacrificed on the altar of anti-government fervor. It is worse that protesters would be so blinded to their own insensitivity as to what others consider to be sacred treasures of their past."
In other Bundy news, the FBI recently opened an investigation into last month's showdown at the ranch.
Hmm. So B-99 goes to Sunday in the Animation block?
FOX
Television upfronts week continues this afternoon with a presentation from Fox. Read our live blog of the presentation below.
Fox is throwing new shows on basically every night and partially doing away with its "Animation Domination" slate on Sunday, instead using its best-rated animated shows to launch and support live-action comedies Brooklyn Nine-Nine (moving from the Tuesday comedy block) and the much-anticipated multi-cam Mulaney. Established hits are being paired with new shows of similar genre--we've got Batman prequel Gotham with last year's surprise hit Sleepy Hollow, murder mystery Gracepoint following reliable player Bones, and twice-a-week reality experiment Utopia gumming up the works. Fox also has a ton of shows waiting in the wings, all part of CEO Kevin Reilly's efforts to bypass the traditional pilot process and hand out straight-to-series orders before anything is even filmed.
Fall Schedule
8:00 p
8:30 p
9:00 p
9:30 p
Monday
Gotham
Sleepy Hollow
Tuesday
Utopia
New Girl
The Mindy Project
Wednesday
Hell's Kitchen
Red Band Society
Thursday
Bones
Gracepoint
Friday
Masterchef Junior
Utopia
Saturday
Fox Sports Saturday
Sunday
The Simpsons
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Family Guy
Mulaney
Live Blog
5:13 And we're off, and being played off by the first single from Empire.
5:09 In the Empire trailer, Terence Howard's mogul gets a diagnosis of three years to live and he starts grooming his sons as successors. Taraji P. Henson is his ex-wife, just out of jail, warring with him. It looks very soapy.
5:05 Introducing Empire, Reilly invokes Beyonce, Jay Z, and Dre. He is billing the pairing of Empire and the "streamlined" Idol as the "ultimate night of music and drama." Now the trailers for the Egypt-set drama Hieroglyph, with Lorde's cover of "Everybody Wants to Rule The World." Hieroglyph looks like one of those risks that either could turn out like Sleepy Hollow or end in disaster. Backstrom features Rainn Wilson as a quirky, alcoholic detective. But, obviously, he's brilliant.
5:03 "I don't think I need to oversell, Gotham is going to be big," Reilly says. There were cheers after the promo aired.
4:57 Sleepy Hollow stars Tom Mison and Nicole Beharie come out with a Headless Horseman. Mison says the Horseman, not talking, is "shy or drunk." And we're onto drama with Kevin Reilly. Reilly puts Red Band Society in line with the like of Glee, and says the cast "will end up on magazine covers and generate social media buzz." Red Band Society is about a kids hospital, and the trailer features a voice-over from a kid in a coma. The Gotham trailer, which has been online for a bit now, follows.
4:45 The Mulaney promo is funniest when John Mulaney is doing his standup. Reilly pegs the show as a "Seinfeld for a new generation," which is a pretty bold statement.
4:35 Reilly returns to talk comedy. After a Brooklyn Nine-Nine sizzle reel, Andy Samberg emerges. "Who's here to laugh?" he says. "Who's here to pretend we're not all forced here by the invisible hand of capitalism?" Samberg does some other-network bashing. His CBS bashing includes a run of fake CSI spinoffs, including "CSI: CSI Production Offices." He thanks the members of the audience that went to the NBC upfront for enduring their third "almost handsome white guy" after Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon. He then backtracks on a SHIELD joke after being fake-informed that Fox has Gotham.
4:27 We're into the Fox Sports section of the presentation.
4:25 Wayward Pines has a pretty surrealist vibe, and some creepy Melissa Leo. The tagline is: "Where Paradise Is Home."
4:20: Reilly turns to event series. "It's turned out to be something really special," Reilly says of Gracepoint, Fox's Broadchurch remake. He calls Wayward Pines "evocative of the classic hit Twin Peaks." The trailer for Gracepoint is very similar to Broadchurch. There is supposed to be a new ending, however.
4:16 Fox's Kevin Reilly starts things out by touting the network's events like, yes, Pitbull's New Year's Eve, Grease Live, motorcycle jump show Jump of the Century, and the Simpsons/Family Guy crossover. He then segues into Utopia, a reality series the network is seriously banking on. So much in fact that it's airing episodes twice in a week.
4:11 Pitbull is here because he's hosting a New Year's Eve show.
4:09 Pitbull is on his third song.
4:05 Ryan Seacrest kicks things off by intro-ing, Pitbull, who is singing for us. Some scantily clad girls are dancing.
4:03 Lights going down here. We're about to get going.
3:50: Ichabod Crane—a.k.a. Tom Mison of Sleepy Hollow—is asking us to take our seats. Our inner fan girl quivered.
3:32 p.m. We're reporting live from the balcony of The Beacon on the Upper West Side, where Fox is holding its 2014 upfront. Outside, Fox has installed food trucks on Broadway and is handing out sweets, mini-grilled cheese sandwiches, and fries to passersby. The Wire ate a tiny red velvet cupcake.
I begin to understand how completely frustrated pro photographers are by internet image-sharing behaviors.
Today's fun:
So, okay, I know I've said before that I don't care that much when people use my image. That's absolutely still true. But I do care about publicizing Creative Commons licenses. And I care considerably more that photographers who make a living from their work get credit for it, and that George Takei's very popular Facebook page is -TERRIBLE- about crediting image sources.
(Yes, yes, I'm also a massive fair use fan, and yes, this is arguably fair use. But 1) even when it is fair use, not crediting is douchey. (Though not usually a copyright violation.) But also 2) this is not remotely transformative, nor is it news reporting or commentary, and it's definitely commercial use. For all that Takei's FB page takes some of the form of a personal page, it very much isn't. (Dude's career rebound, which is awesome, has gotta be partially credited to this page.) I really do think personal noncommercial uses like J. Random Internet posting to Reddit or zir Tumblr or whatever are often fair use.)
You have the right to use my Dalek egg photo - IF
you comply with the terms of the Creative Commons license under which I
released it. Which you have not.
It would not be at all difficult
for you to do a two-second google search and find the source of the
image, since I'm a copyright lawyer, and have several times written
about the copyright and Creative Commons issues involved in the rampant
unauthorized reuse of my photo online (despite the fact that all it
takes for the use to be authorized is to provide the full credits
necessary under the Creative Commons license).
I know you're an incredibly popular image-sharing FB
page, and I know you don't usually bother to provide credit, so I'm not
feeling nearly as charitable as I was when I corresponded with ThinkGeek
about this last week.
I'm not requesting that you take the image down,
I'm requesting that you fix the post to comply with the terms of the
Creative Commons license. If you can't do that, then I'll report the
unauthorized use to Facebook, for them to take it down.
ETA (4/22, 8:09am Cntrl) - They fixed it, beautifully! Good on them!
Meanwhile, a lawyer friend, Mike Sadowitz, has figured out my long con here:
-Totally- how I planned it. (Except not. Happy Birthday again, Dalegg-owner!)
Second edit (4/22 am): last night, a very polite person on Twitter pushed me on my suggestion in the email that I would report their use to Facebook for takedown. I don't agree that this is obvious fair use (as I said, commercial, non-transformative), but I do agree that reporting this would ultimately harm actual individuals just sharing content with their friends, and that I -wouldn't- have exercised the takedown notice option for just that reason. So saying I would was kinda obnoxious, and I shouldn't have done so.
This is exciting to me. I really wanted to watch the whole Sopranos run and also The Wire.
It's not TV... It's HBO. On Amazon Prime. (AP PHOTO/PAUL SAKUMA)
HBO's older, legacy shows are coming to Amazon Prime Instant Video, the two companies announced in a deal on Wednesday, making Amazon Prime the first non-HBO site that can stream HBO's content online. No cable subscription or (borrowed) HBO Go password required.
Starting May 21, Amazon Prime will be able to stream HBO's greatest hits of the last two decades, including The Sopranos, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, The Wire, and more. Newer series, however, will only be released on Prime "approximately three years" after airing. To stream Girls and Game of Thrones, then, you'll still need an HBO account.
From HBO's side, the benefits of the deal are twofold. First, it gives young people, who are more prone to watch television online (or hadn't you heard?), access to its extensive catalog of shows, miniseries, and comedy specials. Millennials too young to watch The Sopranos when it aired, for example, can now binge-watch the show without acquiring an HBO cable subscription. For a network like HBO that places such importance on its reputation and legacy of quality programming, this feels like a vital step towards securing that legacy with the streaming set.
In addition, the deal with Amazon means that Netflix is on the outside looking in at HBO's shows. Netflix has attempted to position itself as a rival to HBO in recent years, which maybe explains why HBO wouldn't be so keen to hand over its catalog. After this deal, Netflix may want to consider Amazon more of a legitimate rival as well.
ST. LOUIS - FOX Sports Midwest, the TV home of St. Louis Blues hockey, is scheduled to televise Games 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7 of the Blues first-round Stanley Cup Playoff series against Chicago. Games 2 and 6 are scheduled for NBC.
The series starts ...
OMG YOU USE TWITTER LIKE EVERY DAY WE ARE DOOMED AHHHH! this is stupid
Today, the University of Missouri is promoting a study claiming that regular Twitter use is “linked to infidelity and divorce.” The study, led by University of Missouri School of Journalism doctoral student Russell Clayton and published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, found that Twitter can “be damaging to users’ romantic relationships.” To stick together, Clayton concluded, “users should cut back to moderate, healthy levels of Twitter use if they are experiencing Twitter or Facebook–related conflict.”
!['The world's greatest [whatever]' is subjective, but 'One of the world's greatest [whatever]s' is clearly objective. Anyway, that's why I got you this 'one of the world's greatest moms' mug!](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/one_of_the.png "'The world's greatest [whatever]' is subjective, but 'One of the world's greatest [whatever]s' is clearly objective. Anyway, that's why I got you this 'one of the world's greatest moms' mug!")
Nintendo 
Reuters 
FOX 
So, okay, I know I've said before that I don't care that much when people use my image. That's absolutely still true. But I do care about publicizing Creative Commons licenses. And I care considerably more that photographers who make a living from their work get credit for it, and that George Takei's very popular Facebook page is -TERRIBLE- about crediting image sources. 
-Totally- how I planned it. (Except not. Happy Birthday again, Dalegg-owner!)
