Month: March 2019

It was hard to envision its enormity. At the Web’s inception, few outside the tech world realized it would be seen as one of the signal events in computer science. Or that it would ignite an information revolution. Or that it would make it possible for an individual or a group or a government to…

If it’s summer, California must be on fire. And if that’s not enough dystopia for you, there’s always the fact that DNA-testing service 23AndMe is selling clients’ information to drug manufacturers, or the emergence of mutated HIV strains that cause illness quicker than others, not to mention the president apparently threatening war with Iran for…

Look, we weren’t going to do this. As much as we like to put up a good fight for controversial, or even bad, bits of pop culture, getting into the fray over mother! seemed needlessly messy. Darren Aronofsky’s latest head-scratcher lit up Film Twitter over the weekend, starting one of those nerd-offs where everyone had…

In the seven years since you first played Angry Birds, Finnish mobile game studio Rovio Entertainment has released 14 follow-ups. Yes, 14, only one of which you can call a sequel. The others included spinoffs, expansions, racing games, match-three games, shoot-em-ups, a Transformers tie-in, and two very angry Star Wars games. This isn't a franchise;…

Two summers ago ago, when Netflix announced it was backing Brad Pitt’s pricey combat comedy War Machine, the reaction in Hollywood was perhaps best summed up by the shocked-and-awed headlines of the press: “Game changer”! “Whoa”! “What does this mean for theaters?”! Their stunned surprise was understandable, given that Netflix's only notable foray into original…

First off, let's start with a simple message that is particularly meaningful this week. And really, all weeks. Click here, then come right back. Now please take a moment to consider that Jimmy Kimmel is in a Twitter war with Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore, because that’s something that happens in the real world now.…

Nintendo has always had a knack for the uncanny. Look closely at most any popular Nintendo series—past the colors and the music and the charming aesthetic—and you'll find something strange. Kirby is a game series about an insatiable, omnivorous, amorphous pink blob with lungs strong enough to suck in trees. In the Metroid franchise, the…

If you’ve been online at all over the past week or so, amidst the revenge porn and the doxing you’ve probably noticed some ongoing drama surrounding Lena Dunham and something called a "Lamby." And being a well-adjusted person who doesn't immediately dive down every internet rabbit hole you see thanks to a mixture of curiosity…

This past summer, a Facebook account called Blacktivist posted a horrifying video. It depicted a black man handcuffed, his face planted to the concrete as a canine bit into his arm. “We live under a system of racism,” the post read, “and police are letting us know how they feel and where we stand.” We…

Houston’s music, like the city itself, has always been a sprawl of possibility and community—but of tenacity and resistance as well. Through artists like Scarface and Mike Jones, its evolution came from upheaval, from a response to quotidian injustices and much larger tragedies. With a disaster like Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath, things are quickly…