A Gchat Recap of This Week’s Controversial Newsroom


Newsroom-Don

HBO



Your faithful correspondents Kehe and Crucchiola (that’s “Kay” and “Crew-shee-ola,” BTW) are back for The Newsroom’s penultimate episode, and it’s a good thing too, because we’re going to need a support group after this one. Creator/philosophical overlord/chief ideologue Aaron Sorkin took his Newsies (Newsroom superfans) on a dark and twisted journey this week, and we openly wept for a variety of reasons. But thankfully, in our darkest and waning hours, Sloan Sabbith (Olivia Munn) is here to light the way to our eternity. There’s only one episode left before ACN’s lights go out for good, so let’s treasure these last moments together.


Jason Kehe: OK, since we’re integrating pre-show promos into our recaps now, “Just fake it. Do you see this smile? I’m dead inside,” is already one of the best line readings of the year-to-be.

Jordan Crucchiola: That show [Togetherness] is going to have a LOT to live up to after that one line.

Kehe: Dev Patel’s name is still in the credits. Is Neal Sampat still in this episode/series?

Crucchiola: Only in theory.

Jason, this is the second-to-last time.

I’m realizing I’m in complete denial.

Kehe: The coffee that spills in the credits? It’s now half empty, like my pessimistic heart.

Crucchiola: Episode 5: “Oh Shenandoah.”

Kehe: “Written by Aaron Sorkin”

Sometimes it’s “Teleplay by…”

Why?

Nvm, who cares. Point is, Aaron solo wrote this one.

Crucchiola: He’s going out solo.

Will (Jeff Daniels) is being remanded to his cell.

Kehe: By a very kind prison guard who will bring him … toothpaste and a brush?

Crucchiola: Do people bring their own toiletries to prison?

Is that allowed?

Kehe: That was my next question.

Uh…52 days later?!

Crucchiola: WHOA!

Kehe: Well OK!

Now Will has a cellmate.

Crucchiola: And it’s Devil from Justified (Kevin Rankin).

Kehe: Will is annoyed.

Crucchiola: I’m annoyed.

“Those are some of the people I work with. We work close together,” Will says about a photo of his coworkers!

His FAMILY.

Kehe: FAMILY.

Crucchiola: Correct.

Kehe: [those were typed simultaneously]

Devil is a wife-beater.

He’s complaining that the jury, judge, and prosecutor were all women.

Crucchiola: His third offense.

Sick.

Kehe: Maybe our justice system should just be run by women.

Crucchiola: I’m not arguing.

Will to Devil: “I’m not your wife. … Raise your hands above your hips and I’ll knock you the fuck into next week.”

Oh YES, WILL!

Kehe: And somehow, from that, the cellmate picked up on the fact that Will’s dad was a drunk? Because righteous threats are a sure sign of a drunk parent.


[Inside Charlie’s office.]


Crucchiola: Cut to Charlie’s (Sam Waterston) office.

Kehe: He’s showing Mac (Emily Mortimer) and Don (Thomas Sadoski) the new ACN promo.

Crucchiola: Don and Mac are watching.

Hating.

Kehe: Mac: “It’s exactly as offensive as I thought it would be.”

Don: “It looks like urine.”

Emily Mortimer chuckles—which is so satisfying. A moment that doesn’t feel scripted, for once.

Crucchiola: It promotes #uracn [webspeak for “You Are ACN”].

Kehe: I don’t REALLY see “urine.”

Crucchiola: Me neither.

Charlie is so visibly deflated.

Mac is MacShouting!

“TWOOO minutes away from BANKruptcy!”

Her cadence is essential.

I hate seeing Mac lecture Charlie.

Kehe: Charlie’s spirit is dead.

Can it be revived with spirits?

Crucchiola: Charlie: “Can you do me a favor and not worry that the world’s most benign promo is not a threat to democracy?”

I’m worried Charlie isn’t drinking enough.

Kehe: He’s too depressed to drink: the saddest form.

Crucchiola: OK. Now they’re talking about a campus rape story. Pruit (B.J. Novak) wants Don to get the victim AND her attacker in the studio for an interviewer at the same time.

UMMMMM…

Kehe: Yes, Pruit, and now Charlie, by extension.

Crucchiola: Charlie just threatened to fire Don if he doesn’t try to make the interview happen.

I feel sick.

Kehe: Charlie’s delivery and demands are almost sinister. This is not our Charlie.


[In the newsroom.]


Kehe: Back in the newsroom, Gary (Chris Chalk) is telling Mac that a woman shot herself on the steps of the Department of Justice.

Mac: “What was her name?”

Crucchiola: LILLY HART

Kehe: Which we somehow instinctually know is…

Crucchiola: The Source!

Kehe: Has to be: MAC’S FACE

Crucchiola: She runs to Becca (Marcia Gay Harden).

Kehe: Whom she hires on the spot on a $20 retainer.

Crucchiola: LOLOL!

Kehe: So she has attorney-client privilege.

Crucchiola: That would buy like six Becca minutes!

Kehe: Which is all this will take.

Crucchiola: She has $4 billion, after all.

Kehe: Actually, we can do that calculation, since didn’t she say last season her rate is $300/hour? [Fact-checking note: She makes $1,500/hour.]

Am I making that up?

Anyway.

Crucchiola: Becca: “You know what? Your husband is getting out of jail. Today.”

She’s so amazing.


[Meanwhile, in Don’s office.]


Kehe: Cut to Sloan and Don, squabbling.

Crucchiola: Perfectly.

Kehe: About ACN’s new “creepy stalker app.”

Crucchiola: It gives people access to real-time updates about celeb whereabouts.

Kehe: There’s a new temp staffer, Bree (Bree?!), whose app it is.

Crucchiola: Yeah. Bree??

Kehe: I love a gender-bending name, but—no.

Don and Sloan confront Bree—who’s apparently Neal’s replacement.

Crucchiola: Sloan admits “I wanna badly be insulting” after Don says “We don’t want to be insulting.”

Kehe: App is called…”ACNgage”?

Crucchiola: Sounds phenomenally similar (in concept, not name) to the now-defunct creeper map Gawker Stalker from 2006.

OK whoever this Bree guy is is terrible, but whoever is playing him (Jon Bass) is doing it just right.

Kehe: They cast a slimy annoying guy as the digital editor. Because the Internet is those things in the Sorkinverse.

Crucchiola: “That app is driving a lot of traffic.”

Pruit is Bree’s direct boss.

Kehe: Nobody has a direct line to Pruit except this slimeball.

Crucchiola: He tells them if they want the app down, they can take it up with Pruit, who loves it.

Why is Sloan about-facing?!

Kehe: Clearly it’s a ploy.

Crucchiola: Sloan to Bree: “Come on the show and tell people about your app.”

Kehe: He’s buying it.

Because she’s Sloan.

Master manipulator.

Future leader of humankind.

(Though I’m having trouble hearing all her words this episode.)

Crucchiola: Haaaaaa Sloan tells gross Bree he can do better than ERIN ANDREWS!

Kehe: He eats it up.

Crucchiola: She’s going to eat him up.

And mulch her garden with his bones.

Now Don is explaining the rape interview ultimatum to Sloan.

She says don’t, obviously, because it’s disgusting.


[In an airport with Maggie and Jim.]


Crucchiola: They’re on the Edward Snowden beat!

Kehe: Maggie speaks a bit of Russian!

Crucchiola: Clearly.

Kehe: Jim makes a Star Wars/Star Trek reference. Next time, don’t.

Crucchiola: Maggie to woman at the desk: “Margaret Jordan and James…Humdrum.”

Kehe: They don’t have a reservation. (Is that intern Jenna’s fault?)

Jim demands the woman check again.

Crucchiola: Jim is being patronizing.

The airport is stacked with journalists waiting for Snowden.

Kehe: And Jim is now trying to buy tickets from them.

Crucchiola: See the thing is, Jim and Maggie are trying to get on Snowden’s plane to Havana with him. And since this is history we know that Snowden never made it to Havana.

So, Jim and Maggie will eventually be left holding the bag.

Kehe: And each other. They’ll be left holding each other, Jordan. MARK MY WORDS.

Crucchiola: PLEASE don’t be right.

If it happens, though, you called it like 5 episodes ago.

Which I applaud.

Kehe: I did, and we’re close now.


[Back at Will’s prison.]


Crucchiola: We’re in prison with Azog (Brian Howe), Becca, and Will.

(Azog got a haircut.)

Kehe: Azog: Did his heart grow three times this day? He seems … somehow kinder. Or at least less hostile.

Crucchiola: He got a makeover.

He’s feeling empowered.

Kehe: Azog: “Will you confirm Lilly Hart was your source?”

Crucchiola: “No, sir.”

Kehe: [DRINK]

Crucchiola: Azog says Will can be home by dinner if he admits Lilly was the source!

And Neal comes home from Venezuela.

“We’ll give him an ice cream cone.”

Will: “Neal would pummel me if I got him back by giving up the name of the source. Did you think I would take a deal like this?!”

Will also just established he can kick a grown man’s ass in prison.

Kehe: Becca knew Will would “No, sir” Azog.

She even went so far as to write it down in an envelope.

Crucchiola: Masterful.

Kehe: So … why did she promise Mac he’d get out of jail today if she knew he’d “no sir”?

Crucchiola: I think she was counting on the DoJ breaking down.

Or … she’s long-gaming.

Of course she is. She’s Becca.

Kehe: They’ll have to—the source killed herself. Who’s Will protecting?

… Journalistic integrity?

Crucchiola: Yes.

In all forms.

Lilly didn’t give him permission to disclose his name!

Kehe: Her name?

Crucchiola: We also don’t know if Will even does know the source!

Kehe: Yeah, that was never CLEARLY established, but I think we’re supposed to believe it by now.


[Back at ACN.]


Crucchiola: But in real time, Sloan is asking for five minutes to interview Bree.

Kehe: Mac and Charlie are arguing.

I don’t like this.

I don’t even want to recap it.

Crucchiola: It’s so sad.

Charlie hates himself.

His big eyebrows aren’t animated at all.

That’s the meter of his liveliness.

Kehe: He’s Pruit’s lapdog.

What about being sworn enemies?!

Crucchiola: He’s given up.

DON’T GIVE UP CHARLIE!

NEVER LET GO!

Charlie says Pruit loves that Sloan is going to interview Bree. So he wants in on the broadcast. Oh man, Pruit doesn’t even KNOW.


[Don on a college campus.]


Kehe: Now Don is … meeting with the rape victim?

Crucchiola: Who is Catherine from Veep (Sarah Sutherland).

“Don. I was raped.”

Kehe: Catherine, who once had giardia. [Trusty editor Angela: What if Jordan and I returned to recap Veep? Think about it.]

Crucchiola: Wow.

This is STRAIGHT out of the headlines!

Kehe: Which is … kinda startling.

Crucchiola: Like, so weirdly on point with the Rolling Stone UVA story happening right now.

So spooky!

Kehe: Aaron Sorkin manages to be both infuriating and prescient.

Crucchiola: “It’s not a kind of rape.”

Kehe: “It’s not a KIND of rape.” Yes, let’s isolate that line.

Crucchiola: You are correct, young lady.

Kehe: Don is being very careful.

But in doing so comes off as … what’s the word?

Crucchiola: With that steely Dan unreadable stare.

He comes off as a bit smug.

It’s not the BEST posture to adopt with a woman who says she was just raped by multiple men.

But he is at once making her very comfortable.

Which I appreciate.

And now he’s telling her they want her in the studio with her attacker.

Don: “I’m here to beg you not to do it.”

Kehe: He was visibly nervous to be in a room alone with her because … she could cry rape?!

Crucchiola: Yeah she totally put him on blast.

Rightly so.

He righted the ship, though.


[Back in Russia.]


Crucchiola: Maggie is lecturing Jim on Hallie—AGAIN.

Kehe: C’mon, girl. You don’t have to sublimate your desires into this desperate posturing.

Crucchiola: Apparently Tess at work says Jim and Maggie are each other’s “destiny.”

Nooooooooo.

Why is this happening Jason?

WHY do they need to be destined?

Do you want this romance, as someone with a more level head about it?

Kehe: MEANINGFUL PAUSES/GLANCES/MUSIC

Love is IN THE AIR.

I do want this romance.

I have to say it.

Is Maggie better than Jim? Yes. But she loves him, and he needs her.

Crucchiola: Jim closed his phone while looking at Hallie’s contact info!

Kehe: Because Maggie’s on the mind.


[Back on the college campus.]


Crucchiola: We are back in the dorm with Don and Mary (the rape survivor).

“There’s not gonna be a trial. There’s not gonna be an arrest. And there’s not gonna be an investigation.”

Kehe: I reallllly don’t think the world needed Aaron Sorkin’s Sorkinization of the campus rape issue.

Crucchiola: It’s interesting that he incorporated this.

I do wonder why this was a thread he brought in in the penultimate episode.

Kehe: She’s explaining that her website is NOT revenge, it’s a warning.

(Her website, BTW, is a place where rape survivors can discuss their experiences/name attackers.)

Crucchiola: The fact that it’s a huge IRL headline right now is nuts.

Kehe: Don thinks women could use it to ruin men’s lives.

Crucchiola: He agrees with Mary, but is playing devil’s advocate.

Kehe: It’s an uncomfortable stance.

Crucchiola: Mary: “What am I wrong about?”

Don can’t answer.


[Will’s cell.]


Crucchiola: We’ve rejoined Will. With his super-annoying cellmate.

I’m starting to think Azog hired this guy to irritate Will into giving up the name.

So he can LEAVE.

It’s like talk torture.

Kehe: A debate about working class vs. elite media.

Crucchiola: And the finer points of anti-Semitism.


[Moscow airport with Maggie and Jim.]


Kehe: Back at the airport, Maggie and Jordan spot a couple on their honeymoon.

Crucchiola: Maggie and Jordan.

In my dreams.

Kehe: Ha! Maggie and JIM.

Point is, this is classic doubling/foreshadowing.

Crucchiola: They’re trying to scalp tickets from these honeymooners.

Kehe: Because the honeymooners symbolize their own destiny.

Crucchiola: Jim is even patronizing to people he’s trying to bargain with!

At least they’re hustling him for his watch and cash.

Maggie: “They took my News Night baseball cap.”

Thank GOD.

Kehe: HAHA.

Was that the point all along?!

Crucchiola: It was a long-game joke!

Jim is in full Sochi 2014 PJs: “I look like I just really, REALLY like the Olympics.”

Kehe: Two episodes of wearing that ridiculous hat so a Russian couple would end up with it?!

I love it.

Crucchiola: Hahahaha

Outstanding move!


[Back in the college dorm.]


Crucchiola: Don with Mary again.

Says he’s “obligated” to believe her alleged rapist, even if he believes Mary. Because he’s morally obligated.

Don: “It is a huge, dangerous, scary as shit mistake to convene your own trial in front of a television audience.”

Which is SO true.

“The law can acquit. The Internet never will. The Internet is used for vigilantism every day.”

Kehe: But is it true that he’s “morally obligated” to believe the guys’ denial?

Crucchiola: Mary on advice she’s given for how to avoid sexual assault: “I’m supposed to protect myself from a man, by pretending I’m the property of another man.”

I mean, that is REAL. And it’s true that is actual advice.

Kehe: Mary: “I’m scared of getting raped. I’m scared all the time.”

Crucchiola: “You know what my site does? It scares YOU.”

Don doesn’t want Mary to be slut-shamed and publicly attacked by going on the news.

“It’s sports, Mary. It’ll be covered like sports.”

Don is leaving Mary now.

God damn.

I mean, I don’t know why Sork brought that into the loop.

But considering how important the topic is, I’m honestly glad to have it talked about in any smart media outlet.

Kehe: Yeah, even if the treatment was questionable, people will be talking about it. Bring on the thinkpieces.


[Back in Will’s cell.]


Crucchiola: Will is having ANOTHER conversation with his annoying and weirdly omniscient cellmate.

I feel like this whole prison dialogue is the series catharsis. Main St. vs. Wall St.; Sorkin vs. Detractors. But Sorkin is, like, NOT apologizing at all.

Inmate says Will looks down on people. Will responds: “Down is where some people live.”

Kehe: Shall we pause for a brief catch up?

Crucchiola: Indeed.

What’s happening in this cell??

Kehe: I don’t know.

Crucchiola: I feel like I’m looking at Aaron Sorkin in prison khakis talking to Joe the Plumber.

Kehe: Who’s winning the argument?

Because with Sorkin, there’s always a winner.

Crucchiola: Sorkin is winning.

Because he’s dictating the conversation.

Is my best thought.

Kehe: As he did with the rape issue.

Which makes me uncomfortable.

Crucchiola: How so?

Uncomfortable in a productive, barrier-pushing way?

Kehe: Who won THAT debate, the student or Don?

Crucchiola: Oh yeah. It’s weird.

I want to say the student.

But … I can’t say.

I emotionally side with Mary and intellectually sympathize with Don.

Kehe: It didn’t admit much nuance.

Crucchiola: I feel like in the dorm room and in the prison cell we have two opposing forces who are arguing under a common thread but have different definitions of victory.

Kehe: Yeah, I’m struggling to figure out the cross-cutting.

Do these conversations speak to each other in any meaningful way?

Crucchiola: Good question.

And I feel like we are about to have another fight to the death back at ACN with Sloan and Bree.

Kehe: Anyway, back to the show?

Crucchiola: Yes. Let’s see if answers come out of the woodwork.

Will: “He took on a world that was bleak and morally corrupt.”

Inmate: “How’d he do?”

Will: “He got his ass kicked.”

Oh, Aaron. We’re sorry you got your ass kicked.

You too, Dan Rather.

We’re sorry to you both.


[On the plane Snowden never boarded.]


Kehe: Annnnd Snowden never got on the plane.

Crucchiola: Hahahaha!

I’m glad Sorkin didn’t rewrite history and give them Snowden.

Kehe: Who would’ve played him?!

Crucchiola: The back of some average man’s head.

JIM!

Kehe: AWW. Jim: “I like you, and I don’t really know why you don’t know that.”

Superior UNTIL THE END!

Crucchiola: Till the goddamn END.

Maggie: “If you wanted to be with me, you’d be with me.”

Kehe: We’re being reminded of events that feel so distant.

Her relationship with Don.

New Hampshire.

Crucchiola: Him with Lisa!

LISA!

Kehe: Lisa!

Crucchiola: Poor Lisa.

I miss her.

Jim telling Maggie he likes her is maybe the most right thing he’s done in three seasons.

Kehe: Jim: still in his PJs, because the Russians stripped him of his clothes/dignity/ego.

Crucchiola: Hahahaha!

Kehe: He’s naked.

Finally.

Emotionally, at least.

Not physically.

Crucchiola: Thank God.


[Random hallway at Will’s prison (presumably).]


Kehe: Becca is chewing out Azog.

Whose heart DID grow!

Crucchiola: YES.

Kehe: Azog: “I won’t be contesting your motion, I’ll be joining it.”

“He’ll sleep at home tonight.”

Crucchiola: This is because Will is stoic.

But also because Becca is a legal genius.

I’m going to say.


[One Jim and Maggie’s plane.]


Kehe: Maggie to Jim: “Follow me.”

To where?!

THE MILE HIGH CLUB?!?!

Crucchiola: Maggie says they’re going exactly where he thinks they are.

But I think the audience doesn’t agree.

Kehe: Nope.

Crucchiola: Because I definitely thought bathroom sex.

Kehe: Same. Obviously.

Crucchiola: And they’re just … sitting back down together.

Kehe: But there’s turbulence.

Get it?! EMOTIONAL TURBULENCE.

Crucchiola: Hahahaha!!!

No.

No!

Kehe: Oh. OHHHH.

Crucchiola: Noooooo!!!!!!!!

Kehe: YESSSSSS.

Crucchiola: Oh that was an awful kiss!

They’re not sexual beings!

Kehe: It … wasn’t great!

Crucchiola: They’re NEWS BEINGS!

Kehe: The way Jim looked at her?!

Crucchiola: It was gross.

Kehe: Kinda … “ohhh you.”

Crucchiola: Exactly.

Kehe: But I’ll take it.


[Live on the ACN set.]


Kehe: Sloan is now interviewing the digital editor about the stalker app.

Crucchiola: It’s Bree v. Sloan finally!

Kehe: And by interviewing, I mean grilling, because we knew this was coming.

Crucchiola: Grilling alive.

Kehe: Bree: “ACNgage is citizen journalism.”

Crucchiola: Here it is!

The MAJOR new media takedown!

Kehe: You know, Sorkin isn’t any one person.

Crucchiola: You’re right.

Kehe: He’s ACN/The Newsroom.

Crucchiola: He’s like an ideology in man form.

MAC! “Leave her on as long as she wants.”

This is ripped STRAIGHT from an interview done with [former Gawker editor] Emily Gould and Jimmy Kimmel several years ago.

Like, direct dialogue.

Sloan is reaching PEAK SLOAN!



Obama Becomes First President to Write a Computer Program


Adrianna Mitchell, a middle-school student from Newark, NJ, explains a coding learning program to President Barack Obama during an “Hour of Code” event in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex in Washington, DC, on Monday, Dec. 8, 2014.

Adrianna Mitchell, a middle-school student from Newark, NJ, explains a coding learning program to President Barack Obama during an “Hour of Code” event in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex in Washington, DC, on Monday, Dec. 8, 2014. Jacquelyn Martin/AP



President Barack Obama told the world that everyone should learn how to code. And now he’s putting his money where his mouth is.


Earlier today, to help kick-off the annual Computer Science Education Week, Obama became the first president ever to write a computer program. It was a very simple program—all it does is draw a square on a screen—but that’s the point, says Hadi Partovi, co-founder Code.org, an organization that promotes computer science education. “All programming starts simple,” he says. “No one starts by creating a complicated game.”


Last year, Obama delivered a YouTube speech last year to promote Computer Science Education Week, but didn’t write any code himself. “Learning these skills isn’t just important for your future. It’s important for our country’s future,” the president said in the video. “If we want America to stay on the cutting edge, we need young Americans like you to master the tools and technology that will change the way we do just about everything.”


Obama was echoing the sentiment of the growing code literacy movement, which seeks to expand computer science and programming education throughout the world. Code literacy advocates argue that with information technology embedding itself ever deeper into our lives, everyone should learn a bit more about how computers operate. A whole industry has sprung-up around the idea, with companies offering everything from children’s games that teach the fundamentals of programming to intensive three month full-time “bootcamps” dedicated to teaching people how to code well enough to land a job.


Code.org introduced the “Hour of Code” campaign last year with the aim of convincing all students to try just one hour of programming and showing them that anyone can learn the basics. As part of the campaign, the organization created a website that compiles many different hour long tutorials, most of which were created specifically for the campaign.


Obama wrote his code part of event today organized by Code.org, which brought brought 20 middle school students from the South Seventeenth Street School in Newark, New Jersey, to the White House, where they met the president and worked on Hour of Code tutorials. Partovi says the president himself didn’t complete the tutorial from start to finish, but instead went from station to station watching the students work. He did, however, complete some of the exercises, which involved both using Google’s Blockly tool, and writing a line of code using the programming language JavaScript.


Obama joins New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who tweeted in 2012 that his New Year’s resolution was to learn to code, among major U.S. politicians who have taken the first steps towards code literacy.



Watch Paleontologists Discover ‘Sue,’ the Best T. Rex Skeleton Ever


If you’ve ever been to the Field Museum in Chicago, you’ve met “Sue.” She’s 42 feet long, weighs nearly 4,000 pounds, and is the largest, most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever found. She was also the subject of one of the craziest legal battles over a dinosaur ever.


That legal struggle is chronicled in meticulous (and heartbreaking) detail in the documentary Dinosaur 13, which will air on CNN this week. But before the battle, there were just the bones, which were found by Peter Larson and his team at the Black Hills Institute in South Dakota in 1990.


“He took me over to this cliff, and he said, ‘Take a look,'” paleontologist Neal Larson, who worked with his brother on the excavation, says in the documentary. “I looked at it and I looked at him and I said, ‘Is that T. rex?’ He said, ‘Yes! And I think it’s all here.'”


After their mind-blowing discovery, Larson and his colleagues at the Black Hills Institute found themselves in a legal nightmare, fighting with Native American communities claiming Sue was excavated from their land as well as the US government, which asserted that the fossil was part of federal land and couldn’t be removed. (Black Hills eventually lost Sue and the fossil was auctioned for more than $8 million before going to the Field Museum.)


Check out a clip of the early moments of Sue’s discovery above. Dinosaur 13 will air on CNN at 9 p.m. Pacific/Eastern on Thursday.



Nintendo: Yes, We’re Discontinuing Some Amiibo Figures


The Amiibo figurines for Nintendo characters Marth, Villager and Wii Fit Trainer have largely disappeared from store shelves since the product line's November 21 launch.

The Amiibo figurines for Nintendo characters Marth, Villager and Wii Fit Trainer have largely disappeared from store shelves since the product line’s November 21 launch. Nintendo



Say goodbye to your little friends.


After the November 21 launch of Amiibo, Nintendo’s line of Skylanders-style interactive figurines that connect to Wii U games including Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart 8, would-be buyers started to notice that supply of some of the figurines dried up fast at retail outlets and online, and didn’t seem to reappear.


Today, Nintendo confirmed to WIRED that this was deliberate, and the company does not plan to ship any more of several of the Amiibo figurines after the “initial shipment.”


“We will aim for certain amiibo to always be available. These will be for our most popular characters like Mario and Link. Due to shelf space constraints, other figures likely will not return to the market once they have sold through their initial shipment,” read the full statement.


A Nintendo representative told WIRED that the company was not adding any further details about which Amiibo figures would be always available, and which would be phased out.


Aftermarket prices on certain Amiibo figures have soared since launch; some of the $12.99 figurines are selling for up to $70. and will likely only go higher following this announcement. Of the 12 Amiibo figurines that Nintendo shipped, three—the characters Marth, Villager and Wii Fit Trainer—have been notoriously difficult to track down. Chief among these is Marth, who is certainly not a popular Nintendo mascot on the order of Super Mario, but is a popular character among Smash Bros. players. Individual Amiibo figurines are required to access certain gameplay features of Super Smash Bros.


Amiibos aren’t the only product for which Nintendo seems to have drastically underestimated demand. Super Smash Bros. on Wii U also allows players to use GameCube controllers via a special adapter, which sold out in many retail locations minutes after the game launched, and has been extremely difficult to find ever since. The $20 adapter now fetches over $100 on eBay. (Nintendo said it had no comment on this issue.)


Earlier this fall, Nintendo only produced a reported 300-500 units of the “limited edition” version of the Legend of Zelda game Hyrule Warriors, and only sold them on a single day at its Nintendo World retail location in New York City. Meanwhile, in Europe and Japan, similar limited-edition prints were produced in abundance, satisfying the demand.


But at least in the case of the Hyrule Warriors, the “limited edition” was flagged as being such. Would-be Amiibo buyers had no such heads-up, and now it seems as if they have no choice but to buy a second-hand figure for an inflated price if they want to get one.



A Gchat Recap of This Week’s Controversial Newsroom


Newsroom-Don

HBO



Your faithful correspondents Kehe and Crucchiola (that’s “Kay” and “Crew-shee-ola,” BTW) are back for The Newsroom’s penultimate episode, and it’s a good thing too, because we’re going to need a support group after this one. Creator/philosophical overlord/chief ideologue Aaron Sorkin took his Newsies (Newsroom superfans) on a dark and twisted journey this week, and we openly wept for a variety of reasons. But thankfully, in our darkest and waning hours, Sloan Sabbith (Olivia Munn) is here to light the way to our eternity. There’s only one episode left before ACN’s lights go out for good, so let’s treasure these last moments together.


Jason Kehe: OK, since we’re integrating pre-show promos into our recaps now, “Just fake it. Do you see this smile? I’m dead inside,” is already one of the best line readings of the year-to-be.

Jordan Crucchiola: That show [Togetherness] is going to have a LOT to live up to after that one line.

Kehe: Dev Patel’s name is still in the credits. Is Neal Sampat still in this episode/series?

Crucchiola: Only in theory.

Jason, this is the second-to-last time.

I’m realizing I’m in complete denial.

Kehe: The coffee that spills in the credits? It’s now half empty, like my pessimistic heart.

Crucchiola: Episode 5: “Oh Shenandoah.”

Kehe: “Written by Aaron Sorkin”

Sometimes it’s “Teleplay by…”

Why?

Nvm, who cares. Point is, Aaron solo wrote this one.

Crucchiola: He’s going out solo.

Will (Jeff Daniels) is being remanded to his cell.

Kehe: By a very kind prison guard who will bring him … toothpaste and a brush?

Crucchiola: Do people bring their own toiletries to prison?

Is that allowed?

Kehe: That was my next question.

Uh…52 days later?!

Crucchiola: WHOA!

Kehe: Well OK!

Now Will has a cellmate.

Crucchiola: And it’s Devil from Justified (Kevin Rankin).

Kehe: Will is annoyed.

Crucchiola: I’m annoyed.

“Those are some of the people I work with. We work close together,” Will says about a photo of his coworkers!

His FAMILY.

Kehe: FAMILY.

Crucchiola: Correct.

Kehe: [those were typed simultaneously]

Devil is a wife-beater.

He’s complaining that the jury, judge, and prosecutor were all women.

Crucchiola: His third offense.

Sick.

Kehe: Maybe our justice system should just be run by women.

Crucchiola: I’m not arguing.

Will to Devil: “I’m not your wife. … Raise your hands above your hips and I’ll knock you the fuck into next week.”

Oh YES, WILL!

Kehe: And somehow, from that, the cellmate picked up on the fact that Will’s dad was a drunk? Because righteous threats are a sure sign of a drunk parent.


[Inside Charlie’s office.]


Crucchiola: Cut to Charlie’s (Sam Waterston) office.

Kehe: He’s showing Mac (Emily Mortimer) and Don (Thomas Sadoski) the new ACN promo.

Crucchiola: Don and Mac are watching.

Hating.

Kehe: Mac: “It’s exactly as offensive as I thought it would be.”

Don: “It looks like urine.”

Emily Mortimer chuckles—which is so satisfying. A moment that doesn’t feel scripted, for once.

Crucchiola: It promotes #uracn [webspeak for “You Are ACN”].

Kehe: I don’t REALLY see “urine.”

Crucchiola: Me neither.

Charlie is so visibly deflated.

Mac is MacShouting!

“TWOOO minutes away from BANKruptcy!”

Her cadence is essential.

I hate seeing Mac lecture Charlie.

Kehe: Charlie’s spirit is dead.

Can it be revived with spirits?

Crucchiola: Charlie: “Can you do me a favor and not worry that the world’s most benign promo is not a threat to democracy?”

I’m worried Charlie isn’t drinking enough.

Kehe: He’s too depressed to drink: the saddest form.

Crucchiola: OK. Now they’re talking about a campus rape story. Pruit (B.J. Novak) wants Don to get the victim AND her attacker in the studio for an interviewer at the same time.

UMMMMM…

Kehe: Yes, Pruit, and now Charlie, by extension.

Crucchiola: Charlie just threatened to fire Don if he doesn’t try to make the interview happen.

I feel sick.

Kehe: Charlie’s delivery and demands are almost sinister. This is not our Charlie.


[In the newsroom.]


Kehe: Back in the newsroom, Gary (Chris Chalk) is telling Mac that a woman shot herself on the steps of the Department of Justice.

Mac: “What was her name?”

Crucchiola: LILLY HART

Kehe: Which we somehow instinctually know is…

Crucchiola: The Source!

Kehe: Has to be: MAC’S FACE

Crucchiola: She runs to Becca (Marcia Gay Harden).

Kehe: Whom she hires on the spot on a $20 retainer.

Crucchiola: LOLOL!

Kehe: So she has attorney-client privilege.

Crucchiola: That would buy like six Becca minutes!

Kehe: Which is all this will take.

Crucchiola: She has $4 billion, after all.

Kehe: Actually, we can do that calculation, since didn’t she say last season her rate is $300/hour? [Fact-checking note: She makes $1,500/hour.]

Am I making that up?

Anyway.

Crucchiola: Becca: “You know what? Your husband is getting out of jail. Today.”

She’s so amazing.


[Meanwhile, in Don’s office.]


Kehe: Cut to Sloan and Don, squabbling.

Crucchiola: Perfectly.

Kehe: About ACN’s new “creepy stalker app.”

Crucchiola: It gives people access to real-time updates about celeb whereabouts.

Kehe: There’s a new temp staffer, Bree (Bree?!), whose app it is.

Crucchiola: Yeah. Bree??

Kehe: I love a gender-bending name, but—no.

Don and Sloan confront Bree—who’s apparently Neal’s replacement.

Crucchiola: Sloan admits “I wanna badly be insulting” after Don says “We don’t want to be insulting.”

Kehe: App is called…”ACNgage”?

Crucchiola: Sounds phenomenally similar (in concept, not name) to the now-defunct creeper map Gawker Stalker from 2006.

OK whoever this Bree guy is is terrible, but whoever is playing him (Jon Bass) is doing it just right.

Kehe: They cast a slimy annoying guy as the digital editor. Because the Internet is those things in the Sorkinverse.

Crucchiola: “That app is driving a lot of traffic.”

Pruit is Bree’s direct boss.

Kehe: Nobody has a direct line to Pruit except this slimeball.

Crucchiola: He tells them if they want the app down, they can take it up with Pruit, who loves it.

Why is Sloan about-facing?!

Kehe: Clearly it’s a ploy.

Crucchiola: Sloan to Bree: “Come on the show and tell people about your app.”

Kehe: He’s buying it.

Because she’s Sloan.

Master manipulator.

Future leader of humankind.

(Though I’m having trouble hearing all her words this episode.)

Crucchiola: Haaaaaa Sloan tells gross Bree he can do better than ERIN ANDREWS!

Kehe: He eats it up.

Crucchiola: She’s going to eat him up.

And mulch her garden with his bones.

Now Don is explaining the rape interview ultimatum to Sloan.

She says don’t, obviously, because it’s disgusting.


[In an airport with Maggie and Jim.]


Crucchiola: They’re on the Edward Snowden beat!

Kehe: Maggie speaks a bit of Russian!

Crucchiola: Clearly.

Kehe: Jim makes a Star Wars/Star Trek reference. Next time, don’t.

Crucchiola: Maggie to woman at the desk: “Margaret Jordan and James…Humdrum.”

Kehe: They don’t have a reservation. (Is that intern Jenna’s fault?)

Jim demands the woman check again.

Crucchiola: Jim is being patronizing.

The airport is stacked with journalists waiting for Snowden.

Kehe: And Jim is now trying to buy tickets from them.

Crucchiola: See the thing is, Jim and Maggie are trying to get on Snowden’s plane to Havana with him. And since this is history we know that Snowden never made it to Havana.

So, Jim and Maggie will eventually be left holding the bag.

Kehe: And each other. They’ll be left holding each other, Jordan. MARK MY WORDS.

Crucchiola: PLEASE don’t be right.

If it happens, though, you called it like 5 episodes ago.

Which I applaud.

Kehe: I did, and we’re close now.


[Back at Will’s prison.]


Crucchiola: We’re in prison with Azog (Brian Howe), Becca, and Will.

(Azog got a haircut.)

Kehe: Azog: Did his heart grow three times this day? He seems … somehow kinder. Or at least less hostile.

Crucchiola: He got a makeover.

He’s feeling empowered.

Kehe: Azog: “Will you confirm Lilly Hart was your source?”

Crucchiola: “No, sir.”

Kehe: [DRINK]

Crucchiola: Azog says Will can be home by dinner if he admits Lilly was the source!

And Neal comes home from Venezuela.

“We’ll give him an ice cream cone.”

Will: “Neal would pummel me if I got him back by giving up the name of the source. Did you think I would take a deal like this?!”

Will also just established he can kick a grown man’s ass in prison.

Kehe: Becca knew Will would “No, sir” Azog.

She even went so far as to write it down in an envelope.

Crucchiola: Masterful.

Kehe: So … why did she promise Mac he’d get out of jail today if she knew he’d “no sir”?

Crucchiola: I think she was counting on the DoJ breaking down.

Or … she’s long-gaming.

Of course she is. She’s Becca.

Kehe: They’ll have to—the source killed herself. Who’s Will protecting?

… Journalistic integrity?

Crucchiola: Yes.

In all forms.

Lilly didn’t give him permission to disclose his name!

Kehe: Her name?

Crucchiola: We also don’t know if Will even does know the source!

Kehe: Yeah, that was never CLEARLY established, but I think we’re supposed to believe it by now.


[Back at ACN.]


Crucchiola: But in real time, Sloan is asking for five minutes to interview Bree.

Kehe: Mac and Charlie are arguing.

I don’t like this.

I don’t even want to recap it.

Crucchiola: It’s so sad.

Charlie hates himself.

His big eyebrows aren’t animated at all.

That’s the meter of his liveliness.

Kehe: He’s Pruit’s lapdog.

What about being sworn enemies?!

Crucchiola: He’s given up.

DON’T GIVE UP CHARLIE!

NEVER LET GO!

Charlie says Pruit loves that Sloan is going to interview Bree. So he wants in on the broadcast. Oh man, Pruit doesn’t even KNOW.


[Don on a college campus.]


Kehe: Now Don is … meeting with the rape victim?

Crucchiola: Who is Catherine from Veep (Sarah Sutherland).

“Don. I was raped.”

Kehe: Catherine, who once had giardia. [Trusty editor Angela: What if Jordan and I returned to recap Veep? Think about it.]

Crucchiola: Wow.

This is STRAIGHT out of the headlines!

Kehe: Which is … kinda startling.

Crucchiola: Like, so weirdly on point with the Rolling Stone UVA story happening right now.

So spooky!

Kehe: Aaron Sorkin manages to be both infuriating and prescient.

Crucchiola: “It’s not a kind of rape.”

Kehe: “It’s not a KIND of rape.” Yes, let’s isolate that line.

Crucchiola: You are correct, young lady.

Kehe: Don is being very careful.

But in doing so comes off as … what’s the word?

Crucchiola: With that steely Dan unreadable stare.

He comes off as a bit smug.

It’s not the BEST posture to adopt with a woman who says she was just raped by multiple men.

But he is at once making her very comfortable.

Which I appreciate.

And now he’s telling her they want her in the studio with her attacker.

Don: “I’m here to beg you not to do it.”

Kehe: He was visibly nervous to be in a room alone with her because … she could cry rape?!

Crucchiola: Yeah she totally put him on blast.

Rightly so.

He righted the ship, though.


[Back in Russia.]


Crucchiola: Maggie is lecturing Jim on Hallie—AGAIN.

Kehe: C’mon, girl. You don’t have to sublimate your desires into this desperate posturing.

Crucchiola: Apparently Tess at work says Jim and Maggie are each other’s “destiny.”

Nooooooooo.

Why is this happening Jason?

WHY do they need to be destined?

Do you want this romance, as someone with a more level head about it?

Kehe: MEANINGFUL PAUSES/GLANCES/MUSIC

Love is IN THE AIR.

I do want this romance.

I have to say it.

Is Maggie better than Jim? Yes. But she loves him, and he needs her.

Crucchiola: Jim closed his phone while looking at Hallie’s contact info!

Kehe: Because Maggie’s on the mind.


[Back on the college campus.]


Crucchiola: We are back in the dorm with Don and Mary (the rape survivor).

“There’s not gonna be a trial. There’s not gonna be an arrest. And there’s not gonna be an investigation.”

Kehe: I reallllly don’t think the world needed Aaron Sorkin’s Sorkinization of the campus rape issue.

Crucchiola: It’s interesting that he incorporated this.

I do wonder why this was a thread he brought in in the penultimate episode.

Kehe: She’s explaining that her website is NOT revenge, it’s a warning.

(Her website, BTW, is a place where rape survivors can discuss their experiences/name attackers.)

Crucchiola: The fact that it’s a huge IRL headline right now is nuts.

Kehe: Don thinks women could use it to ruin men’s lives.

Crucchiola: He agrees with Mary, but is playing devil’s advocate.

Kehe: It’s an uncomfortable stance.

Crucchiola: Mary: “What am I wrong about?”

Don can’t answer.


[Will’s cell.]


Crucchiola: We’ve rejoined Will. With his super-annoying cellmate.

I’m starting to think Azog hired this guy to irritate Will into giving up the name.

So he can LEAVE.

It’s like talk torture.

Kehe: A debate about working class vs. elite media.

Crucchiola: And the finer points of anti-Semitism.


[Moscow airport with Maggie and Jim.]


Kehe: Back at the airport, Maggie and Jordan spot a couple on their honeymoon.

Crucchiola: Maggie and Jordan.

In my dreams.

Kehe: Ha! Maggie and JIM.

Point is, this is classic doubling/foreshadowing.

Crucchiola: They’re trying to scalp tickets from these honeymooners.

Kehe: Because the honeymooners symbolize their own destiny.

Crucchiola: Jim is even patronizing to people he’s trying to bargain with!

At least they’re hustling him for his watch and cash.

Maggie: “They took my News Night baseball cap.”

Thank GOD.

Kehe: HAHA.

Was that the point all along?!

Crucchiola: It was a long-game joke!

Jim is in full Sochi 2014 PJs: “I look like I just really, REALLY like the Olympics.”

Kehe: Two episodes of wearing that ridiculous hat so a Russian couple would end up with it?!

I love it.

Crucchiola: Hahahaha

Outstanding move!


[Back in the college dorm.]


Crucchiola: Don with Mary again.

Says he’s “obligated” to believe her alleged rapist, even if he believes Mary. Because he’s morally obligated.

Don: “It is a huge, dangerous, scary as shit mistake to convene your own trial in front of a television audience.”

Which is SO true.

“The law can acquit. The Internet never will. The Internet is used for vigilantism every day.”

Kehe: But is it true that he’s “morally obligated” to believe the guys’ denial?

Crucchiola: Mary on advice she’s given for how to avoid sexual assault: “I’m supposed to protect myself from a man, by pretending I’m the property of another man.”

I mean, that is REAL. And it’s true that is actual advice.

Kehe: Mary: “I’m scared of getting raped. I’m scared all the time.”

Crucchiola: “You know what my site does? It scares YOU.”

Don doesn’t want Mary to be slut-shamed and publicly attacked by going on the news.

“It’s sports, Mary. It’ll be covered like sports.”

Don is leaving Mary now.

God damn.

I mean, I don’t know why Sork brought that into the loop.

But considering how important the topic is, I’m honestly glad to have it talked about in any smart media outlet.

Kehe: Yeah, even if the treatment was questionable, people will be talking about it. Bring on the thinkpieces.


[Back in Will’s cell.]


Crucchiola: Will is having ANOTHER conversation with his annoying and weirdly omniscient cellmate.

I feel like this whole prison dialogue is the series catharsis. Main St. vs. Wall St.; Sorkin vs. Detractors. But Sorkin is, like, NOT apologizing at all.

Inmate says Will looks down on people. Will responds: “Down is where some people live.”

Kehe: Shall we pause for a brief catch up?

Crucchiola: Indeed.

What’s happening in this cell??

Kehe: I don’t know.

Crucchiola: I feel like I’m looking at Aaron Sorkin in prison khakis talking to Joe the Plumber.

Kehe: Who’s winning the argument?

Because with Sorkin, there’s always a winner.

Crucchiola: Sorkin is winning.

Because he’s dictating the conversation.

Is my best thought.

Kehe: As he did with the rape issue.

Which makes me uncomfortable.

Crucchiola: How so?

Uncomfortable in a productive, barrier-pushing way?

Kehe: Who won THAT debate, the student or Don?

Crucchiola: Oh yeah. It’s weird.

I want to say the student.

But … I can’t say.

I emotionally side with Mary and intellectually sympathize with Don.

Kehe: It didn’t admit much nuance.

Crucchiola: I feel like in the dorm room and in the prison cell we have two opposing forces who are arguing under a common thread but have different definitions of victory.

Kehe: Yeah, I’m struggling to figure out the cross-cutting.

Do these conversations speak to each other in any meaningful way?

Crucchiola: Good question.

And I feel like we are about to have another fight to the death back at ACN with Sloan and Bree.

Kehe: Anyway, back to the show?

Crucchiola: Yes. Let’s see if answers come out of the woodwork.

Will: “He took on a world that was bleak and morally corrupt.”

Inmate: “How’d he do?”

Will: “He got his ass kicked.”

Oh, Aaron. We’re sorry you got your ass kicked.

You too, Dan Rather.

We’re sorry to you both.


[On the plane Snowden never boarded.]


Kehe: Annnnd Snowden never got on the plane.

Crucchiola: Hahahaha!

I’m glad Sorkin didn’t rewrite history and give them Snowden.

Kehe: Who would’ve played him?!

Crucchiola: The back of some average man’s head.

JIM!

Kehe: AWW. Jim: “I like you, and I don’t really know why you don’t know that.”

Superior UNTIL THE END!

Crucchiola: Till the goddamn END.

Maggie: “If you wanted to be with me, you’d be with me.”

Kehe: We’re being reminded of events that feel so distant.

Her relationship with Don.

New Hampshire.

Crucchiola: Him with Lisa!

LISA!

Kehe: Lisa!

Crucchiola: Poor Lisa.

I miss her.

Jim telling Maggie he likes her is maybe the most right thing he’s done in three seasons.

Kehe: Jim: still in his PJs, because the Russians stripped him of his clothes/dignity/ego.

Crucchiola: Hahahaha!

Kehe: He’s naked.

Finally.

Emotionally, at least.

Not physically.

Crucchiola: Thank God.


[Random hallway at Will’s prison (presumably).]


Kehe: Becca is chewing out Azog.

Whose heart DID grow!

Crucchiola: YES.

Kehe: Azog: “I won’t be contesting your motion, I’ll be joining it.”

“He’ll sleep at home tonight.”

Crucchiola: This is because Will is stoic.

But also because Becca is a legal genius.

I’m going to say.


[One Jim and Maggie’s plane.]


Kehe: Maggie to Jim: “Follow me.”

To where?!

THE MILE HIGH CLUB?!?!

Crucchiola: Maggie says they’re going exactly where he thinks they are.

But I think the audience doesn’t agree.

Kehe: Nope.

Crucchiola: Because I definitely thought bathroom sex.

Kehe: Same. Obviously.

Crucchiola: And they’re just … sitting back down together.

Kehe: But there’s turbulence.

Get it?! EMOTIONAL TURBULENCE.

Crucchiola: Hahahaha!!!

No.

No!

Kehe: Oh. OHHHH.

Crucchiola: Noooooo!!!!!!!!

Kehe: YESSSSSS.

Crucchiola: Oh that was an awful kiss!

They’re not sexual beings!

Kehe: It … wasn’t great!

Crucchiola: They’re NEWS BEINGS!

Kehe: The way Jim looked at her?!

Crucchiola: It was gross.

Kehe: Kinda … “ohhh you.”

Crucchiola: Exactly.

Kehe: But I’ll take it.


[Live on the ACN set.]


Kehe: Sloan is now interviewing the digital editor about the stalker app.

Crucchiola: It’s Bree v. Sloan finally!

Kehe: And by interviewing, I mean grilling, because we knew this was coming.

Crucchiola: Grilling alive.

Kehe: Bree: “ACNgage is citizen journalism.”

Crucchiola: Here it is!

The MAJOR new media takedown!

Kehe: You know, Sorkin isn’t any one person.

Crucchiola: You’re right.

Kehe: He’s ACN/The Newsroom.

Crucchiola: He’s like an ideology in man form.

MAC! “Leave her on as long as she wants.”

This is ripped STRAIGHT from an interview done with [former Gawker editor] Emily Gould and Jimmy Kimmel several years ago.

Like, direct dialogue.

Sloan is reaching PEAK SLOAN!



Obama Becomes First President to Write a Computer Program


Adrianna Mitchell, a middle-school student from Newark, NJ, explains a coding learning program to President Barack Obama during an “Hour of Code” event in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex in Washington, DC, on Monday, Dec. 8, 2014.

Adrianna Mitchell, a middle-school student from Newark, NJ, explains a coding learning program to President Barack Obama during an “Hour of Code” event in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex in Washington, DC, on Monday, Dec. 8, 2014. Jacquelyn Martin/AP



President Barack Obama told the world that everyone should learn how to code. And now he’s putting his money where his mouth is.


Earlier today, to help kick-off the annual Computer Science Education Week, Obama became the first president ever to write a computer program. It was a very simple program—all it does is draw a square on a screen—but that’s the point, says Hadi Partovi, co-founder Code.org, an organization that promotes computer science education. “All programming starts simple,” he says. “No one starts by creating a complicated game.”


Last year, Obama delivered a YouTube speech last year to promote Computer Science Education Week, but didn’t write any code himself. “Learning these skills isn’t just important for your future. It’s important for our country’s future,” the president said in the video. “If we want America to stay on the cutting edge, we need young Americans like you to master the tools and technology that will change the way we do just about everything.”


Obama was echoing the sentiment of the growing code literacy movement, which seeks to expand computer science and programming education throughout the world. Code literacy advocates argue that with information technology embedding itself ever deeper into our lives, everyone should learn a bit more about how computers operate. A whole industry has sprung-up around the idea, with companies offering everything from children’s games that teach the fundamentals of programming to intensive three month full-time “bootcamps” dedicated to teaching people how to code well enough to land a job.


Code.org introduced the “Hour of Code” campaign last year with the aim of convincing all students to try just one hour of programming and showing them that anyone can learn the basics. As part of the campaign, the organization created a website that compiles many different hour long tutorials, most of which were created specifically for the campaign.


Obama wrote his code part of event today organized by Code.org, which brought brought 20 middle school students from the South Seventeenth Street School in Newark, New Jersey, to the White House, where they met the president and worked on Hour of Code tutorials. Partovi says the president himself didn’t complete the tutorial from start to finish, but instead went from station to station watching the students work. He did, however, complete some of the exercises, which involved both using Google’s Blockly tool, and writing a line of code using the programming language JavaScript.


Obama joins New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who tweeted in 2012 that his New Year’s resolution was to learn to code, among major U.S. politicians who have taken the first steps towards code literacy.



Watch Paleontologists Discover ‘Sue,’ the Best T. Rex Skeleton Ever


If you’ve ever been to the Field Museum in Chicago, you’ve met “Sue.” She’s 42 feet long, weighs nearly 4,000 pounds, and is the largest, most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever found. She was also the subject of one of the craziest legal battles over a dinosaur ever.


That legal struggle is chronicled in meticulous (and heartbreaking) detail in the documentary Dinosaur 13, which will air on CNN this week. But before the battle, there were just the bones, which were found by Peter Larson and his team at the Black Hills Institute in South Dakota in 1990.


“He took me over to this cliff, and he said, ‘Take a look,'” paleontologist Neal Larson, who worked with his brother on the excavation, says in the documentary. “I looked at it and I looked at him and I said, ‘Is that T. rex?’ He said, ‘Yes! And I think it’s all here.'”


After their mind-blowing discovery, Larson and his colleagues at the Black Hills Institute found themselves in a legal nightmare, fighting with Native American communities claiming Sue was excavated from their land as well as the US government, which asserted that the fossil was part of federal land and couldn’t be removed. (Black Hills eventually lost Sue and the fossil was auctioned for more than $8 million before going to the Field Museum.)


Check out a clip of the early moments of Sue’s discovery above. Dinosaur 13 will air on CNN at 9 p.m. Pacific/Eastern on Thursday.



Nintendo: Yes, We’re Discontinuing Some Amiibo Figures


The Amiibo figurines for Nintendo characters Marth, Villager and Wii Fit Trainer have largely disappeared from store shelves since the product line's November 21 launch.

The Amiibo figurines for Nintendo characters Marth, Villager and Wii Fit Trainer have largely disappeared from store shelves since the product line’s November 21 launch. Nintendo



Say goodbye to your little friends.


After the November 21 launch of Amiibo, Nintendo’s line of Skylanders-style interactive figurines that connect to Wii U games including Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart 8, would-be buyers started to notice that supply of some of the figurines dried up fast at retail outlets and online, and didn’t seem to reappear.


Today, Nintendo confirmed to WIRED that this was deliberate, and the company does not plan to ship any more of several of the Amiibo figurines after the “initial shipment.”


“We will aim for certain amiibo to always be available. These will be for our most popular characters like Mario and Link. Due to shelf space constraints, other figures likely will not return to the market once they have sold through their initial shipment,” read the full statement.


A Nintendo representative told WIRED that the company was not adding any further details about which Amiibo figures would be always available, and which would be phased out.


Aftermarket prices on certain Amiibo figures have soared since launch; some of the $12.99 figurines are selling for up to $70. and will likely only go higher following this announcement. Of the 12 Amiibo figurines that Nintendo shipped, three—the characters Marth, Villager and Wii Fit Trainer—have been notoriously difficult to track down. Chief among these is Marth, who is certainly not a popular Nintendo mascot on the order of Super Mario, but is a popular character among Smash Bros. players. Individual Amiibo figurines are required to access certain gameplay features of Super Smash Bros.


Amiibos aren’t the only product for which Nintendo seems to have drastically underestimated demand. Super Smash Bros. on Wii U also allows players to use GameCube controllers via a special adapter, which sold out in many retail locations minutes after the game launched, and has been extremely difficult to find ever since. The $20 adapter now fetches over $100 on eBay. (Nintendo said it had no comment on this issue.)


Earlier this fall, Nintendo only produced a reported 300-500 units of the “limited edition” version of the Legend of Zelda game Hyrule Warriors, and only sold them on a single day at its Nintendo World retail location in New York City. Meanwhile, in Europe and Japan, similar limited-edition prints were produced in abundance, satisfying the demand.


But at least in the case of the Hyrule Warriors, the “limited edition” was flagged as being such. Would-be Amiibo buyers had no such heads-up, and now it seems as if they have no choice but to buy a second-hand figure for an inflated price if they want to get one.



Uber Promises Changes Abroad After Rape Allegations in India


Indian opposition Congress party activists protest after the alleged rape of an Uber passenger by a her driver in New Delhi, on Dec. 8, 2014.

Indian opposition Congress party activists protest after the alleged rape of an Uber passenger by a her driver in New Delhi, on Dec. 8, 2014. Tsering Topgyal/AP



India’s Delhi region has banned the car-hailing service Uber in the wake of allegations that an Uber driver raped a female passenger over the weekend.


Uber has not yet commented on the ban, which affects the country’s capital, New Delhi. But on Sunday, in response to the allegations, which resulted in the arrest of the driver, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick called the situation “horrific” and laid out how the San Francisco-based startup intends to stem similar crimes in the future. “Our entire team’s hearts go out to the victim of this despicable crime,” Kalanick said in a post to Uber’s website. “We will do everything, I repeat, everything to help bring this perpetrator to justice and to support the victim and her family in her recovery.”


He added that Uber will work with the government to establish new background checks for drivers and work with local organizations to “invest in technology advances to help make New Delhi a safer city for women.”


This isn’t the first time Uber has been banned by local governments, but typically, those bans have to do with regulatory spats with local taxi commissions. But while the company has been able to muscle its way through other battles with regulators, the Delhi ban reflects a far deeper weakness in Uber’s—and indeed, the entire sharing economy’s—system. As a recent WIRED cover story pointed out, services like Uber are founded on trust in total strangers—trust that can sometimes be misplaced.


The Delhi allegations follow similar incidents that have threatened to undermine this trust. There have been stories of homophobic and racist rants, kidnapping, and one particularly gruesome incident in which a passenger was brutally beaten by the driver with a hammer. There have been other rape allegations, as well.


So, earlier this year, Uber finally amended its background check policies in the U.S. Originally, drivers in the UberX program, who Uber considers to be contractors, not full-time employees, only had to go through a screening of multi-state criminal records. And because those records can be incomplete, Uber now submits those drivers to county and federal background checks, as well.


As Uber has aggressively expanded abroad, however, it has taken a more hands-off approach, leaving it to local governments to conduct background checks on drivers. It’s a risky—and arguably highly irresponsible—move on Uber’s part, particularly in places like Delhi with shockingly high rates of rape. In fact, this weekend’s news comes almost exactly two years after the well-publicized and tragic gang rape that occurred on a public bus in Delhi.


While it’s encouraging that Uber plans to change its policies in Delhi now, what the company really needs to do is develop more proactive ways to protect its passengers, no matter where they are in the world. Airbnb had to do the same back in 2013 after a slew of reports in which renters trashed their hosts’ homes. Airbnb knew it could only have a vibrant marketplace if people felt safe renting their homes to strangers, and so it hired an investigations team, which includes ex-military intelligence officers, to exercise crowd control.n


Uber is at a similar tipping point. For too long, Uber’s leaders have put growth first and made excuses about why the company’s not to blame for the violent crimes that come later. But Uber’s pockets are now fat with billions of dollars in funding. It’s time for the company to spend some of that cash on keeping its customers safe. Their lives—and Uber’s life—depends on it.


Update: This story originally said the Uber ban affected New Delhi. It affects the entire Delhi region.



This Insurance Company Pays People to Stay Fit


Oscar will offer Misfit bands to members for free.

Oscar will offer Misfit bands to members for free. Oscar Insurance



Oscar Insurance bills itself as a “new kind of health insurance company,” one that uses a combination of technology and transparency to bring the stodgy insurance industry out of the Dark Ages. And now, it’s giving the industry a particularly firm kick towards the future.


On Monday, Oscar unveiled a new initiative that will provide every Oscar member with a free Misfit fitness band. But in an industry that’s infamous for nickel-and-diming its customers, what’s even more progressive is that Oscar is going to pay its members to actually use them. “If I stay accident free, my car insurer will lower my rates,” says Mario Schlosser, co-founder of Oscar. “Why don’t we give these rewards to people when they stay healthy?”


Counting steps with a fitness tracker like Misfit, he says, is a good place to start. In recent years, fitness trackers have grown beyond the cottage industry of quantified selfers, so much so that even Apple is ready to seize on the opportunity. But having an insurance company—albeit a small one—recognize these devices as an actual health intervention lends the entire fitness tracking industry a new level of legitimacy.


Oscar members can order their new Misfit on the Oscar iOS or Android app. It syncs to the app automatically, so users only need to strap it on and get to walking. Users who already have a fitness tracker can also connect it to the Oscar app using Apple HealthKit, but that takes a bit more set up. Oscar’s algorithms determine how many steps each member should aim for in a day, based on that person’s health data. Each day a member surpasses that goal, he gets $1. When he accrues $20, he can cash out in the form of an Amazon gift card.


The Oscar app tracks steps by the day.

The Oscar app tracks steps by the day. Oscar Insurance



This is not the first time Oscar has offered its members cash incentives to stay healthy. Earlier this year, it offered certain members $20 to get a flu shot within the month. At the end of the trial, the Oscar team found that the group that was offered the incentive was 2.5 times more likely to get a flu shot. “This was absolutely astounding,” Schlosser says. “I’ve been building internet businesses for many, many years, and I know how hard it is to get people to click on a button. Here, we had people walk into a pharmacy and roll up their sleeves and get a needle stuck in their arms to get a $20 gift card.”


Behavioral economists have found strong evidence that cash incentives can motivate people to be more proactive about their health. But according to Kevin Volpp, director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, the success of these programs depends largely on how they’re designed and who, exactly, is receiving the benefit. For instance, if most of Oscar’s members are already young, fit, and healthy, then all an incentive like this would do is reward those people for existing behavior. It’s changing behavior among less active members that Volpp says is both the goal and the challenge.


“If I’m the kind of person who walks 8,000 steps a day, $1 a day might get me to walk 10,000 steps a day, but if I’m the kind of person who walks 2,000 steps a day, for $1, it’s unlikely I’m going to become the person who walks 10,000 steps a day,” he explains. “The people with the biggest potential health benefit are less likely to change their behavior, because its too hard to win the incentive.”


Schlosser admits that this is “very much the beginning,” and that one of Oscar’s main goals is to collect more health data on its members to make sure doctors have the most information available on them. Down the line, that could include nutrition data, sleep data, and as tracking technology becomes more sophisticated, perhaps even blood pressure data.


“We aren’t the people who deliver your healthcare, but our job is to facilitate the delivery of your healthcare,” Schlosser says. “To do that, we can get more information to your doctor.”



Intestinal immune system controls body weight, study shows

A group of UCL researchers (Louvain Drug Research Institute) identified an unsuspected mechanism impacting the development of obesity and diabetes type 2 after following a diet with a high dose of fat nutrition. The team of Professor Patrice D. Cani -- in direct collaboration with two French teams, a Swedish expert as well as other UCL-researchers (LDRI and Ludwig Institute) -- made an important discovery related to the essential role of the intestinal immune system regarding the control of the energy metabolism.



Today, the work of Doctor Amandine Everard (in charge of FNRS-research) and of Professor Patrice D. Cani (qualified FNRS-researcher and WELBIO-researcher) highlights a new therapeutic target for treatment of obesity and diabetes type 2. Indeed, they were able to demonstrate for the very first time that as a result of fat nutrition, the inactivation of a part of the intestine immune system (a protein called MyD88) allows these persons to lose weight and to reduce the diabetes type 2, linked to the obesity.


More specifically, the team shows that when modifying the response of the immune system by disabling this protein MyD88 only in those cells covering the intestine, this allows to slow down de development of diabetes induced by a diet of fat nutrition, to limit the development of adipose tissue, to reduce the harmful inflammation present because of the obesity and to strengthen the barrier function assured by our intestine and limiting as such the inappropriate transit of bacterial elements of our intestines in our body.


Even more important, the researchers managed to demonstrate that because of this modification within the immunity system, it is experimentally demonstrated possible to lose weight and thus to have a therapeutic effect, even when the animals used for the experiments are already obese and diabetic.


Among the various revealed mechanisms, the UCL-team identified that in addition to the partial protection against inflammation and diabetes type 2, the mice that do not have this protein MyD88 in their intestines, are as well protected against obesity because they consume more energy than other obese mice. In addition, they have different intestinal macrobiotics. Surprisingly, the teams have shown that it is possible to provide a partial protection against obesity and diabetes by transferring (grafting) the intestinal bacteria of these mice to other mice that are axenic (without flora).


All the research work put together leads thus to the recommendation that during consumption of fat nutrition, the intestine immunity system plays an important role in the fat storage regulation in the body and is literally capable to modify the composition of intestinal bacteria (including some which are still unidentified).


The discovery of the UCL-researchers, published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, confirms the involvement of intestinal bacteria in the development of obesity, but even more important, it provides new therapeutic possibilities, being a protein of the intestine immunity system for treatment of obesity and diabetes type 2.




Story Source:


The above story is based on materials provided by Université catholique de Louvain . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.



In Wake of New Delhi Ban and Rape Allegations, Uber to Make Changes Abroad


Uber. What's up with that?

WIRED



The city of New Delhi has banned the car-hailing service Uber in the wake of allegations that an Uber driver raped a female passenger over the weekend.


Uber has not yet commented on the ban, but on Sunday, in response to the allegations, which resulted in the arrest of the driver, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick called the situation “horrific” and laid out how the San Francisco-based startup intends to stem similar crimes in the future. “Our entire team’s hearts go out to the victim of this despicable crime,” Kalanick said in a post to Uber’s website. “We will do everything, I repeat, everything to help bring this perpetrator to justice and to support the victim and her family in her recovery.”


He added that Uber will work with the government to establish new background checks for drivers and work with local organizations to “invest in technology advances to help make New Delhi a safer city for women.”


This isn’t the first time Uber has been banned by local governments, but typically, those bans have to do with regulatory spats with local taxi commissions. But while the company has been able to muscle its way through other battles with regulators, the New Delhi ban reflects a far deeper weakness in Uber’s—and indeed, the entire sharing economy’s—system. As a recent WIRED cover story pointed out, services like Uber are founded on trust in total strangers—trust that can sometimes be misplaced.


The New Delhi allegations follow similar incidents that have threatened to undermine this trust. There have been stories of homophobic and racist rants, kidnapping, and one particularly gruesome incident in which a passenger was brutally beaten by the driver with a hammer. There have been other rape allegations, as well.


So, earlier this year, Uber finally amended its background check policies in the U.S. Originally, drivers in the UberX program, who Uber considers to be contractors, not full-time employees, only had to go through a screening of multi-state criminal records. And because those records can be incomplete, Uber now submits those drivers to county and federal background checks, as well.


As Uber has aggressively expanded abroad, however, it has taken a more hands-off approach, leaving it to local governments to conduct background checks on drivers. It’s a risky—and arguably highly irresponsible—move on Uber’s part, particularly in places like Delhi with shockingly high rates of rape. In fact, this weekend’s news comes almost exactly two years after the well-publicized and tragic gang rape that occurred on a public bus in Delhi.


While it’s encouraging that Uber plans to change its policies in New Delhi now, what the company really needs to do is develop more proactive ways to protect its passengers, no matter where they are in the world. Airbnb had to do the same back in 2013 after a slew of reports in which renters trashed their hosts’ homes. Airbnb knew it could only have a vibrant marketplace if people felt safe renting their homes to strangers, and so it hired an investigations team, which includes ex-military intelligence officers, to exercise crowd control.


Uber is at a similar tipping point. For too long, Uber’s leaders have put growth first and made excuses about why the company’s not to blame for the violent crimes that come later. But Uber’s pockets are now fat with billions of dollars in funding. It’s time for the company to spend some of that cash on keeping its customers safe. Their lives—and Uber’s life—depends on it.



This Insurance Company Pays People to Stay Fit


Oscar will offer Misfit bands to members for free.

Oscar will offer Misfit bands to members for free. Oscar Insurance



Oscar Insurance bills itself as a “new kind of health insurance company,” one that uses a combination of technology and transparency to bring the stodgy insurance industry out of the Dark Ages. And now, it’s giving the industry a particularly firm kick towards the future.


On Monday, Oscar unveiled a new initiative that will provide every Oscar member with a free Misfit fitness band. But in an industry that’s infamous for nickel-and-diming its customers, what’s even more progressive is that Oscar is going to pay its members to actually use them. “If I stay accident free, my car insurer will lower my rates,” says Mario Schlosser, co-founder of Oscar. “Why don’t we give these rewards to people when they stay healthy?”


Counting steps with a fitness tracker like Misfit, he says, is a good place to start. In recent years, fitness trackers have grown beyond the cottage industry of quantified selfers, so much so that even Apple is ready to seize on the opportunity. But having an insurance company—albeit a small one—recognize these devices as an actual health intervention lends the entire fitness tracking industry a new level of legitimacy.


Oscar members can order their new Misfit on the Oscar iOS or Android app. It syncs to the app automatically, so users only need to strap it on and get to walking. Users who already have a fitness tracker can also connect it to the Oscar app using Apple HealthKit, but that takes a bit more set up. Oscar’s algorithms determine how many steps each member should aim for in a day, based on that person’s health data. Each day a member surpasses that goal, he gets $1. When he accrues $20, he can cash out in the form of an Amazon gift card.


The Oscar app tracks steps by the day.

The Oscar app tracks steps by the day. Oscar Insurance



This is not the first time Oscar has offered its members cash incentives to stay healthy. Earlier this year, it offered certain members $20 to get a flu shot within the month. At the end of the trial, the Oscar team found that the group that was offered the incentive was 2.5 times more likely to get a flu shot. “This was absolutely astounding,” Schlosser says. “I’ve been building internet businesses for many, many years, and I know how hard it is to get people to click on a button. Here, we had people walk into a pharmacy and roll up their sleeves and get a needle stuck in their arms to get a $20 gift card.”


Behavioral economists have found strong evidence that cash incentives can motivate people to be more proactive about their health. But according to Kevin Volpp, director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, the success of these programs depends largely on how they’re designed and who, exactly, is receiving the benefit. For instance, if most of Oscar’s members are already young, fit, and healthy, then all an incentive like this would do is reward those people for existing behavior. It’s changing behavior among less active members that Volpp says is both the goal and the challenge.


“If I’m the kind of person who walks 8,000 steps a day, $1 a day might get me to walk 10,000 steps a day, but if I’m the kind of person who walks 2,000 steps a day, for $1, it’s unlikely I’m going to become the person who walks 10,000 steps a day,” he explains. “The people with the biggest potential health benefit are less likely to change their behavior, because its too hard to win the incentive.”


Schlosser admits that this is “very much the beginning,” and that one of Oscar’s main goals is to collect more health data on its members to make sure doctors have the most information available on them. Down the line, that could include nutrition data, sleep data, and as tracking technology becomes more sophisticated, perhaps even blood pressure data.


“We aren’t the people who deliver your healthcare, but our job is to facilitate the delivery of your healthcare,” Schlosser says. “To do that, we can get more information to your doctor.”