It’s almost time. This week the third season of House of Cards will come to Netflix streaming, and based on the early peek we got courtesy of a glitch, it’s pretty good. As usual you can expect it at about 3AM ET on Friday morning, along with a new s…
Valve — the company behind Portal, Team Fortress 2 and the widely-used game distribution hub Steam — will show off its own virtual reality hardware, “SteamVR,” at next week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. This comes despite Valve’s p…
If you’re still using an AOL email to log-in, we’re not sure if that’s impressive or sad. Though you may have been around since the early days of the Internet, times have definitely changed for the better. If you were using that email to log-in to iTunes, you’re going to have to change your ways. Apple has announced they’re pulling … Continue reading
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Wesleyan University’s president on Monday urged students to come forward with knowledge of anybody distributing drugs on campus following a rash of hospitalizations among people who took a party drug known as Molly.
A total of 12 people – 10 Wesleyan students and two visitors – received medical attention over the weekend, including some who attended a rave music show Saturday night.
“If you are aware of people distributing these substances, please let someone know before more people are hurt,” President Michael Roth wrote in a letter to campus.
The school became aware of the problem early Sunday after several students showed up seeking treatment at a Middlesex Hospital near campus, university spokeswoman Lauren Rubenstein said. Two students listed in critical condition Sunday were airlifted for treatment in Hartford, 20 miles north of the campus in Middletown. Two others were taken by ambulance to Hartford Hospital in serious condition.
Four others were expected to be released from Middlesex on Monday, Roth said.
Molly is a term used to describe a refined form of Ecstasy, a synthetic drug also known as MDMA. It can drive up body temperature and cause liver, kidney or cardiovascular failure.
Dr. Mark Neavyn, chief of toxicology at Hartford Hospital, said users who believe they are taking Molly are often receiving different kinds of designer drugs, with ranges of purity and potency making the health risks unpredictable. He said testing is underway to confirm what drugs the Wesleyan patients took.
“When we see these people in the emergency department and they claim to have taken Molly, we don’t pay attention to that word anymore. It’s so commonly not MDMA, we just start from square one and say it’s some sort of drug abuse,” Neavyn said.
It was not the first such episode this year at the private school of nearly 3,000 students.
Wesleyan health officials said in a campus-wide email on Sept. 16 that students had been hospitalized the previous two weekends after taking Molly. Students were urged to visit the school’s health center if they had questions or concerns.
In his Monday letter to campus, Roth included a telephone number students can call to make a confidential report.
“These drugs can be altered in ways that make them all the more toxic. Take a stand to protect your fellow students,” he wrote.
Some of the students who required medical attention attended a rave at the school’s Eclectic Society social house on campus, Rubenstein said. The show featured disc jockeys from New York who go by the name Swim Team. They did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
“Some of the students were there but not all of them, and there is not necessarily a connection there,” Rubenstein said. “They are really looking all over campus.”
The hospitals and the school declined to provide updated patient conditions Monday, citing privacy concerns.
Middletown police Chief William McKenna said his department was pursing information about a “bad batch” of the drug.
“Our first and foremost goal is to obtain information on the batch of Molly that was distributed to the students on the campus,” McKenna said. “This information is critical in ensuring the recovery of those students affected.”
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Associated Press writer Michael Melia contributed to this report.
First Look Media is going through yet another messy break up with one of its journalists.
Investigative reporter Ken Silverstein announced over this weekend that he was leaving the company after only 14 months on the job. In a series of private Facebook posts published by Jim Romenesko, Silverstein blasted First Look’s managerial “incompetence,” calling the company a “pathetic joke” for squandering millions of dollars on long-time Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi’s never-launched satirical site, Racket.
“I am one of a many employees who was hired under what were essentially false pretenses,” Silverstein wrote. “We were told we would be given all the financial and other support we needed to do independent, important journalism, but instead found ourselves blocked at every step of the way by management’s incompetence and bad faith …”
Funded by billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omiydar, First Look was supposed to be home to a number of high-profile, stand-alone publications helmed by some of journalism’s biggest names. But the only publication First Look has succeeded in launching is The Intercept, which focuses on national security and features the work of Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Jeremy Scahill. Silverstein originally worked for Racket when he joined First Look, but when the project was shuttered, he transferred to The Intercept, where he lasted two months.
“You know what’s cool about being a former employee of First Look/The Intercept?” Silverstein wrote on Facebook. “That Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Betsy Reed and Pierre Omidyar all believe in Free Speech and the First Amendment so they won’t mind my writing about my time working for and with them.”
“Tentative title: “Welcome to the Slaughterhouse,” he continued.
Silverstein aimed much of his ire directly at Omiydar, whom he claimed cares little for the personal well-being of the Racket staff despite promising to treat his employees with “dignity.”
“[W]hen the company pulled the plug some months back, it fired the remaining staff and told them to clear out of the office immediately, that very day, to take their things and get out and FL would generously give them one month severance,” wrote Silverstein. “I am pretty sure the Koch Brothers treat fired workers with greater respect.” (Silverstein later clarified that the company had given employees three months of severance pay.)
In a statement to The Huffington Post, The Intercept said Silverstein clashed with various members of the staff before his departure.
“Ken Silverstein joined the staff of The Intercept this past December, roughly two months ago,” the statement read. “Last week, in the wake of repeated conflicts with Intercept editors, researchers and fact checkers, he resigned. We wish him the best of luck in the future.”
Silverstein and Taibbi are among several several First Look employees who have critiqued their former employer on their way out the door. Natasha Vargas-Cooper — who along with Silverstein conducted a two-part interview with “Serial” prosecutor Kevin Urick — resigned from First Look in January and began working at Jezebel. Vargas-Cooper criticized the company on her blog for failing to print an email correspondence between Urick and “Serial” host Sarah Koenig.
Though Silverstein appears to have deleted his Twitter account, Taibbi tweeted his former colleague words of encouragement early Monday morning:
Good luck to Ken Silverstein, a terrific reporter who (to an absurd degree) had the worst experience of all of us at FLM and deserves better
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) February 23, 2015
Silverstein declined to comment further on his departure.
Short and sweet. Boyhood should have won.
Oh, it won lots of awards. But not the big one. The Oscar. The award which for better or worse is still the one that truly matters.
We can say the Academy Award doesn’t matter to truly independent filmmakers and their fans. We can use this as the ultimate — or most recent — proof that the Academy just doesn’t “get it.”
But everyone does that. People who love the more popular fare that doesn’t even get nominated say the same thing. So do the people who wouldn’t be caught dead watching a big box office hit. The Academy can’t win for losing.
But this time, they really got it wrong.
Birdman is a tour de force, there’s no getting around it. Alejandro Inarritu has given us a startling and ingenious new way of seeing a story.
But Boyhood gave us a whole new way of thinking about what a story is. What life is, for that matter.
We know about “high concept” stories, the Batman/Fast and Furious/50 Shades stuff that you can sum up in a sentence. We understand conventional plots that arc just as they should. Even a child can tell you exactly what should and does happen in all of them.
Boyhood isn’t like any of them. In fact, it is as bewildering to some as the songs my Hopi in laws sing. No “hook,” no chorus, no bridge. Just a stream of beautiful images and ideas that pass by…and then stop.
Linklater chose to hold up tiny moments from our own little lives to the light and say, “Look at that. And that. And that, too…” And dared to believe that those little day-to-day miracles that sometimes happen ‘way too fast in real life were also “plot points” worthy of capturing on film.
I was that weeping mother watching her last child leave for college and suddenly realizing the daily details and dramas of single parenting were officially over. And wondering what on earth to do next and how on earth it had happened so fast.
Which scene was yours? Which scenes reminded you of people, places, crises, triumphs that slipped past you before you could savor them?
And wasn’t it wonderful to realize that someone had saved them on film for you?
There was a lot of grumbling about how little the top contenders for best picture had earned. And as the entertainment business reels from all the changes the digital revolution hath wrought, it may be difficult for the Academy to decide where it stands.
I still hoped that this year, despite it all, the Academy would stand, firmly, on the side of the dreamers who make little ripples that eventually become huge waves.
They missed so many other opportunities. In fact, Neil Patrick Harris hit the biggest one dead on, right at the beginning of the show.
“Welcome to the 87th Oscars. Tonight, we honor Hollywood’s best and whitest. Sorry, brightest,” he said. And the applause surprised and moved me.
But they shut out a story made of all the little gems from our own little lives. A story that took a devoted director, cast and crew 12 years to cut and place and polish those little gems until they made our eyes shine, as we watched.
I’m not saying exactly what I want to say because Boyhood’s effect — and importance — is almost indescribable. And I’m still fuming. But…try this.
At the end of Boyhood, you don’t want to fist pump or go out and conquer the world. You just want to live more consciously in that world. To reach out and touch and embrace everything you love. And to take nothing for granted, ever again. Not even the sad and scary stuff.
So Boyhood is more than just a film.
And it will take its place in film history, Oscar or no.
Photo credit: Promotional still
The #AskHerMore twitter campaign highlighted at last night’s 87th Academy Awards by Reese Witherspoon and others, points out the disparity in the types of questions asked of the 44 women nominees compared with those asked of their male counterparts. Ask her more than who she’s wearing, in particular, what causes she supports. “We’re more than just our dresses,” Witherspoon says.
Asking is great. Doing is even better. So, let’s take this #AskHerMore one step further. Ask her if she’ll run for office to make these causes happen and to make equal rights happen for women. We need more women in the House and Senate. Ask her to get out of the house and into the House — and Senate.
Boyhood Best Actress winner, Chicago-born Patricia Arquette in closing out her thank yous at the Oscars, pushed for pay equality for women now with Meryl Streep standing up to second the motion from the floor. See these actresses already have Robert’s Rules of Parliamentary Procedure down pat. Why wouldn’t they?
Meryl Streep took acting classes at Vassar with Jean Arthur, as did I, though not at the same time. She was a senior when I was a freshman. What a tribute to the late Jean Arthur who starred with Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, if Ms. Streep goes to Washington, elected to the House or Senate. It was a popular movie on campus during our Vassar years, don’t need a remake of the film, a first response, no doubt from Ms. Streep. Instead, we need her to run in real life. She can get her fourth Oscar later after she leaves office. She needs to literally live the role first.
Ask her more. If I were to interview Reese Witherspoon, my first question would be why haven’t you run for office with your Stanford education? Julianne Moore of Boston University, what’s your excuse? Catholic University of America’s Susan Sarandon, how about it? Sarah Lawrence alumnae Joanne Woodward and Yoko Ono who share their alma mater with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Barbara Walters, what’s stopping you?
To the hesitant, don’t be. I remember interviewing Mayor Emanuel in the West Wing as he was exiting the Clinton White House in 1998. In response to my question, he said he had no interest in running for office himself. Then he changed his mind. Look where he is now.
Jessica Lange, Faye Dunaway, why not run? Annette Bening danced with the president. Okay, it was a movie president, Michael Douglas in The American President (1995). But with Warren Beatty as her campaign manager, how could Senator Bening lose?
These actresses have name recognition, poise, speaking ability, a base already, okay it’s a fan base but could easily become a political base, have studied at some of the globe’s top schools.
Television and radio call-in shows already clamor to give actresses free air time to express their views, cutting down greatly on the amount of money they will need to raise and spend for political commercials to get their messages out.
In fact, actresses might not have to spend any money at all for paid commercials. Just be articulate and well-informed on the talk shows. There will be no lack of invitations to appear and discuss your political views.
And the best thing about these actresses, is they are not lawyers. Too many lawyers are representing us in Washington. Our country desperately needs a diversity of occupations in the House and Senate. Those bodies are just too lawyered up.
Clearly, Warren Beatty, when he finishes managing Annette’s campaign, should run, as should The West Wing’s Martin Sheen and Bradley Whitford, Robert Redford and Clint Eastwood, who has already held office, should run again and may be willing to share some pointers with the other actors and actresses running even though they may be on opposite sides of the aisle.
When will Illinois’ own Oprah Winfrey, talk queen/actress, fill the shoes of former Senator Carol Moseley Braun, the only African-American woman to be in that mostly all-boys club? Or kick off those shoes and fill her own? The Land of Lincoln is awaiting.
I mean it’s not as if we’ve never had an actor in the White House. President Ronald Reagan was quite popular even with those who didn’t agree with most of his policies. And he did get the Berlin Wall torn down.
So when you ask her more, don’t stop with what causes she supports or whether she prefers to be referred to as an actor or actress. Act as if President John F. Kennedy is still around. Ask her not what her country can do for her, but what she can do for her country!
Lonna Saunders may be reached at lonna2@msn.com.
Y Combinator’s Female Founder Conference couldn’t have come at a better time. Silicon Valley has been inundated with negative stories about the role women play in the region. Female Founders Conference gave us the other side of the story.
The event featured Black Girls CODE founder Kimberly Bryant. After a successful career at Genentech, Merck, and Pfizer, Kimberly took Black Girls CODE from an idea to an international organization with seven chapters across the U.S. and one in Johannesburg, South Africa, reaching over 3,000 students.
I met Kimberly Bryant when she first launched Black Girls Code. I’ve been consistently impressed with her ability to make a significant dent in a pervasive problem – very few African American girls are exposed to technology leading to fewer women entering the field of engineering. I expect to see these numbers change in the near future.
Kimberly shared her advice on beating the odds as a founder:
We heard from Adora Cheung, CEO and co-founder of Homejoy. After a successful career in product management, Adora spent time cleaning homes, which lead to the founding of Homejoy.
Adora was relentless in acquiring her company’s first customers. In the early days, she attended outdoor street fairs to hand out water bottles with her company’s logo. It’s no surprise that today she reads all customer feedback to help her fine tune the Homejoy experience.
Show Me the Money
No event would be complete without a fundraising panel. Several successful entrepreneurs provided insight into the fundraising process.
Nancy Hua, CEO and co-founder of Apptimize, provided the audience with great advice on timing. She described the difference between raising a seed round and a Series A round as the difference between consumer sales and enterprise sales. Getting an angel investor to write a small check based on your vision and limited traction is easy. Getting a large investment from a VC fund requires time, substantial traction, and due diligence.
Make sure you don’t let this sneak up on you. Plan early for your Series A.
Mathilde Collin, CEO and co-founder of Front, an innovative method of sharing inboxes stated her fund raising was aided by targeting an anchor investor who had deep domain expertise, lending credibility to her company. She targeted Paul Buchheit, the creator of Gmail who eventually came on as an investor.
Find an investor who has credibility in your space. Like attracts like.
The Next Generation
Last but not least, the attendees were equally impressive. The event attracted women from all over the country. Jennifer Aldoretta from Austin, Texas wrote about her experience here.
I hope you will take the time to view the conference and share the link with women you know. We can complain about the negative portrayal of women or we can create our own story.
Videos of Female Founders Conference can be viewed here.
This post previously appeared on www.financeforentrepreneurs.co
Grace Helbig is the perfect example of how being Huge on the Tube (#HOTT) can make you just plain HUGE (figuratively). The vlogger turned bestselling author is well known for her video The Girlfriend Tag, where she put her friendship with fellow Youtube personality Hannah Hart to the test. Grace talks about her viewers’ peculiar fan fiction and more on today’s “Huge on the Tube,” a VH1-What’s Trending production.
“It’s really fun to see how much we do and do not know about each other,” Helbig said about the experience with Hart. “There is all of this mystery, I guess, in the community that follows both Hannah and I as to whether or not we’re dating. I’ve never really understood the idea of shipping people.”
Special thanks to our awesome YouTube commentators, Lisa Schwartz, Shanna Malcolm and Jimmy Wong!
This past week saw record-breaking weather conditions in Nashville. The snow, ice and frigid temps caused Tennessee’s governor to declare a State of Emergency, and our Mayor urged drivers to exercise extreme caution, or, better yet, stay home. As would be expected, these severe conditions had a disproportionate impact on Nashville’s most vulnerable populations: the chronically homeless, the food-insecure households, our elderly residents and those who’ve recently returned to our community from incarceration and seek jobs and housing.
In the face of this crisis, there have been inspiring stories of compassion, goodwill and smart choices. Nashville nonprofits had volunteers on the street all week canvassing for homeless people. Shelters and some faith communities stretched their capacities in order to make more beds available to more people for more nights. Project Return defied the City’s behest to stay home, simply because our clients kept coming to our office, determined to move forward with their new beginnings regardless of temporary weather conditions. Administrators and staff of Nashville’s public school system came in on snow days to figure out how to rush food to their tens of thousands of food-insecure households, whose children would normally get most of their nutrition through school.
Goodwill, and compassionate and smart choices, such as we experienced in the past week, characterizes Nashville in a crisis. Certainly it alleviated an undeniably dire situation for some marginalized folks in Nashville. Now, though, the snow is melting, temps are rising and roads are clearing. And our schools will still have a student body that predominantly lives in poverty. Nashville will still be wrestling with chronic homelessness that is exacerbated by “It City” status. Formerly incarcerated men and women will still be turned away from housing and jobs, shut out over and over again from opportunity, because of their past. For many Nashville residents, every day is a State of Emergency. Out of the ice and into the thaw, we look for compassionate solutions and the smart, hard work of 24/7 goodwill across our community.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.