The Master Screenwriter Who Transforms Your Favorite Comics Into Movies

JAMES DAY. HAIR AND MAKEUP BY CAMILLA HEWITT

You’re a fan of Kick-Ass . You’re a fan of X-Men (First Class, not X3 or the Wolverine dreck). You might not know it, but that means you’re a fan of Jane Goldman. She’s the screenwriter behind every comic book turned Matthew Vaughn-directed movie. The pair first teamed up in 2007 on an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s book Stardust, and in February the partnership continues with Kingsman: The Secret Service, about a London street kid thrown into a world of jet-setting superspies. Think Harry Potter by way of James Bond. Like with those other flicks, don’t expect a movie that’s overly faithful to the source material. “There are always going to be changes between the page and the screen,” says Mark Millar, who wrote the Kick-Ass and Secret Service comics. “But with Jane and Matthew, they’re only in the service of the story.”

Jane Goldman’s adaptation of The Secret Service stars Colin Firth as a spy UNIVERSAL PICTURES / GLUEKIT

So what kinds of changes make a solid comic adaptation? “It’s about keeping the source material alive whilst making something movie-shaped,” Goldman says. “I like it when characters respond to things that are outrageous and movielike in an authentic way.” Her scripts revel in those juxtapositions, like superheroes discussing breakfast cereal (Kick-Ass) or a shape-shifting character struggling with body image issues (Mystique in X-Men). Kingsman‘s clueless protagonist loves his spy gadgets but is gobsmacked by the world of British gentlemen. “It’s reversing expectations,” Goldman says.

One of her next movies won’t be quite so pulpy—it’s an adaptation of Rebecca. Daphne du Maurier’s Gothic novel helped Goldman realize that women could write, she says—and not just Austen-like love stories but genres like horror and mystery. Add kick-ass comic adaptations to the list.

Watch the trailer for Kingsman: The Secret Service.

Why I Can’t Stop Watching Horrifying ISIS Decapitation Videos

A screen in Tokyo shows reports about Japanese hostage Kenji Goto, January 28, 2015. Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty

Even though every caution label and trigger warning screamed at me not to, and even though I knew what would happen to my head and my stomach if I did, I watched the video of the Jordanian pilot being burned alive by ISIS militants. (The video is not linked there, by the way.)

In another iteration of my existence, I’d like to join the well-intentioned ranks of Twitter users who advocate for ignoring the ISIS videos, but I haven’t. I’d like to say it’s not my fault, that a sickness inside me made me watch. That as a writer and editor, knowing about violence and death is, you could say, part of my job. It’s my duty to find and face the details.

Except my beat is not international terrorism. And it wasn’t until I’d seen the screenshots—and the warnings about how graphic the video was—that I started to think about it, what it might look like. About what this pilot’s life had been like. What his death had been like.

Brianna Snyder

Brianna Snyder is an editor and writer for the Times Union in Albany, New York. She’s also an editor for the news site Kicker. Follow her on Twitter @briannaLsnyder.

Whether or not a person should have access to this kind of footage is well-trodden territory for many arguments related to freedom of speech. Media want clicks and shocking, provocative content gets clicks. Protectors of hearts and heads think such content is harmful and shouldn’t be available. Proponents of The Truth say if you’re censoring, you’re not telling the whole story. Last week, Piers Morgan wrote in the Daily Mail that everybody should see the videos, saying that for him, watching them “allows me to feel such uncontrollable rage that no amount of reasonable argument will ever temper it.” The Internet is the perfect place for all these positions, because all of them can exist in one huge, confusing space. You have access to anything you want, but you get to decide what to look at, and here’s where all of it is, so stick to your position. Or don’t.

Of course, it’s possible to know of what’s going on without exposing yourself to explicit violence. Traditional news outlets like the New York Times offer a sanitized, mostly safe description using vaguery and euphemism. But that’s a tease, too. And just how much teasing of a bad thing can you do before your audience wants all of the bad thing and more? Images can be stark and terrifying, but they also naturally provide a kind of curiosity gap, especially when video is available. And I’m deeply, disturbingly stuck in that curiosity gap.

It happened a little while ago: I’d never even heard of BestGore.com until that story about the Cannibal Cop. You remember that story from last year? The guy had a fetish for cooking and eating women, and he sought out realizations of that fantasy online, reportedly at sites like BestGore.com. Which made me go, “Oh, what’s at BestGore.com?”

Which is not really the question I was asking. The question was: What does it look like when a woman is cooked and eaten? And then the question becomes: What does it feel like to be cooked? And if you knew, after you were dead, that you had been eaten, what kind of humiliation and devastation would you feel?

Those are the questions I assume I’m looking for answers to when I dig my way through search results into the disgusting depths of BestGore and LiveLeak to watch James Foley’s decapitation and Muath al-Kaseasbeh’s immolation. I turn my laptop away from my husband, mute the volume, and let the horror make my head go dizzy and my stomach turn upside-down. Sometimes he catches me.

Last night he said, “What is wrong with your face? Why do you look like that?”

I guess that’s what I look like when I watch a man beaten brutally with a tire iron, then moved on to his side to be stabbed dozens of times around his spinal cord, which will not immediately kill him (the snarky commentary explains in the video description) but will leave him conscious for more torture before he eventually succumbs to his bludgeoning.

Why do I do this to myself?

Here’s the thing. I am not a fan of horror movies. I hate violence on TV. I refuse to watch “Game of Thrones” because of what people tell me is unprecedented levels of brutality. For a while, I wondered why a “Game of Thrones” decapitation makes me turn my head, but then I dedicate minutes to searching and finding a video of Nick Berg having his head sawed off.

I am not alone.

Studies have explored these inclinations. Some suggest that we want to be prepared for the worst, so the implausibility of horror movies moves us to consider abstract environments from which we might someday be able to escape, if we’re prepared.

Thing is, when it is fiction it is escapism. Kenji Goto’s decapitation is not. It is the very opposite of escapism. It’s hyper-reality and it is devastating.

Here’s what I think when I choose to face this hyper-reality from the comfort of my home: How are Foley and Goto and Daniel Pearl so calm before they’re gored? Are they on drugs? Could their murderers be humane enough to sedate them before cutting into their necks? Or are they so psychologically battered from captivity that they’re paralyzed?

I guess I’m just so scared of death that I’ve become obsessed with looking at it and trying to understand it. How much it will hurt. How sad and scared and furious I’ll be when I die. I’ve watched maybe a hundred of the worst kinds of deaths and I still can’t find peace with the knowledge that I will die—and maybe horribly. Car crash. Plane crash. Home invasion. Homefire. Cancer. Mass shooting. And maybe I shouldn’t be at peace with that. These people certainly didn’t get to be.

I like to think I’m not like the commenters on BestGore—who call murdered women “bitches who deserved it” and LOL at “incompetent” Mexican drug lords who have to switch knives partway through a decapitation because theirs aren’t sharp enough to cut through the neck tendons of their victims. But I am like them. I am clicking. I am driving traffic. I am letting the creators of these videos know their headlines are SEO-engineered effectively. I’m part of the problem. Am I “informed”? Am I, like Piers Morgan, enraged beyond reasonable argument? Am I going to enlist in the military?

I think not. I’m just scared.

There’s a part in the Muath al-Kaseasbeh video, just before the fire reaches the cage, when al-Kaseasbeh puts his hands together in what I assume was prayer. If it was prayer, did it help him through the agony and the terror of his death? I hope it helped. And for the people who loved him who also watched the video—and God I hope they didn’t—I hope it brought them some small comfort.

I know I am contributing to the humiliation and dehumanization of the victims whose deaths are caught on video. Knowing that millions of people— including your family and your friends and your enemies—will watch what should be your private, natural death must be an added psychological torment. And I can’t apologize enough to them for contributing to it. My guilt doesn’t absolve me of my voyeurism. It only makes me more a part of these victims’ abuse and pain. I’m doing what the bad guys want us all to do, which is: watch.

How Snow Can Cripple Boston’s Subway Cars

A snow-covered third rail caused an MBTA train in Quincy, Mass. to get stuck between the Quincy Adams and Quincy Center stations. Passengers had to be rescued by the Quincy Fire Department. David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

Earlier this week, 48 people were stranded for hours before being rescued from a subway train that suffered a power failure in the midst of a blizzard. Firefighters were forced to clear a path through the snow so passengers could make their way to shuttle buses and continue their journey. Part of the problem? A significant portion of Boston’s subway cars aren’t made for running in heavy snow.

The train failure was reportedly related to older direct current-powered (DC) traction motors, which can suck snow into the air intake, where it melts and causes electrical problems. Newer induction motors powered by AC current are simpler and more reliable thanks to better electrical controls, fewer moving parts, and a design that is better at keeping out the elements. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), which runs the region’s public transit system, is slowly transitioning to the newer technology, but still runs more than a hundred subway cars with motors that date back to the Nixon administration. The first one.

Most of the time, the older DC-powered trains aren’t a nuisance. The rate of failure is low enough that the MBTA’s maintenance staff can keep up. But in extreme weather—Boston has been hammered in the past few weeks with back-to-back-to-back snowstorms—broken trains begin to stack up and the system collapses from of a lack of working cars. The result is a closed subway system. The MBTA was largely shut down on Tuesday, with limited service resuming Wednesday. More snow is expected later in the week, and the Authority’s general manager, Beverly Scott, lost her job this week.

Despite major budget problems, the MBTA is slowly upgrading, dropping $550 million for 342 new cars from CNR-MA, a Chinese subway car manufacturer. Unfortunately for Boston commuters, those trains won’t arrive for at least three years. In the meantime, expect snow to continue to cause problems for those aging motors.

Review: Fuz Designs Noke

No key required. You open this lock by pairing it with your mobile device, using Bluetooth. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

A pacifier that tells you the temperature of your baby. A lamp that knows when you are home and turns on by itself. A thermostat that lowers the heat to save you money.

In the brave new world of smart devices, just about every electronic gadget in your home will connect up. It’s no surprise then that the simple combo lock you used in high school is now getting the Internet of Things treatment.

A Utah company called Fūz Designs (as in, “fuse”) has taken on the challenge of making a smart padlock that unlocks via an app on any iPhone, Android phone, or Windows phone with Bluetooth 4.0. While seemingly simple, it’s a daunting ask for one big reason: Unlike your Bluetooth headset or your Jambox, which can exhibit a few pairing or signal hiccups with no great consequences, a lock has to work all the time, every time, without fail. Lock up your bike with a keyless Bluetooth lock and suddenly it refuses to operate properly? You’re stranded—or worse, bikeless.

I’m happy to report that it does work, locking and unlocking on command without problems. The device is rather expensive at $60, but it should appeal to anyone seeking a keyless lifestyle—either by proactive choice, or simply because they’re the type of person who’s always losing their keys anyway.

Fūz Designs calls its padlock the Noke (as in, “no key”). The design is simple, which is important. It looks innocuous, with a silver or black shell and no obvious markings. Look closer and you’ll see the Fūz logo on one side with a small LED over the “u,” and two small dimples on the other.

You don’t have to fish out your phone or type in a combination—as soon as you press the shackle to open the lock, the Noke looks for a known (paired) phone with the proper permissions in the vicinity.

To use the Noke, I first had to sync it to my iPhone 6. You can use any iPhone, Android, or Windows phone that supports Bluetooth 4.0. I installed the Noke app, searched for the lock, and synced up. Done. Now you can put your phone away in your pocket or purse. To unlock the Noke, just press down on the shackle (the ringed part of the actual lock) until the little LED on the face lights up green, then pull it open. To lock, you push down on the shackle until the light glows red.

You don’t have to fish out your phone or type in a combination—as soon as you press the shackle to open the lock, the Noke looks for a known (paired) phone with the proper permissions in the vicinity. In my tests, I was able to lock and unlock the Noke as long as my phone was within a range of about 15 feet.

As a backup (like if your phone is kaput), you’re asked to program a combination when you first set up the lock. The combination consists of a sequence of short and long presses on the shackle. You configure this in the app and change it whenever you need to. The code has to have between six and 16 presses. For example, I used a short-short-short-long-long-long sequence as a way to unlock the Noke. You can even create a code that follows the rhythm of a song.

The Noke itself is powered a standard 2032 watch battery you can grab at any drugstore, and should last about a year. But what if the battery on the Noke dies? You can’t replace the battery unless you open the lock. Fūz Designs created an ingenious workaround: below the lock, there’s a terminal you can use with the new battery for temporary power. Much nicer than a bolt cutter, right?

In the app, I could see a list of Noke locks with unique names–that’s handy, because you could have a dozen of them and keep track of which padlocks are unlocked. Also, you can “share” the lock with others. So, if your neighbor needs to access your tool shed on occasion, you can share the lock. He or she just downloads the app and registers, then has access to lock and unlock either all the time, just once, or as often as they’d like until you revoke access. When folks use your locks, you get a notification and can even go into the app and see the GPS location of that lock.

I tested mine by locking my laptop bag to a desk using a cable. Every time I walked up and pushed the shackle, it unlocked. Simple. Later, when I worked at a coffee shop and left the lock at home, I shared the lock with my friend inside the app. She used her iPhone 6 to unlock the Noke.

The lock I tested was very close to final, but made of aluminum. The final version, which will ship in June, is made of hardened steel and boron and weighs 9 ounces. A company rep from Fūz Designs says major lock manufacturers rate their locks on a scale of one to ten, and the Noke rates a 7, which should be enough to protect a bike, a gate, or a storage unit, and that you’d need a large bolt cutter to snap off the shackle. It’s even water resistant.

The lock comes in gray or black. You can get a two-pack for $55 each, or just one for $60. Yes, that’s very expensive for a lock, but the keyless entry is more than just a gimmick. Honestly, the Noke is worth it for me because I forget keys and combinations so easily. I’d buy one just for the Bluetooth feature alone. But sharing locks with friends opens up a world of opportunity, and I especially liked looking up the lock and seeing it on a map, which is another way to keep track of my stuff (and my sanity).

If the lock had built-in Wi-Fi, it might be easier to send unlock codes over the Internet, but you can always use the sequence code. Plus, if it had Wi-Fi, the battery would not last nearly as long. In all, I can’t gripe about a product this smart that does something so useful.

Scientists take first X-ray portraits of living bacteria

Researchers working at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have captured the first X-ray portraits of living bacteria.

This milestone, reported in the Feb. 11 issue of Nature Communications, is a first step toward possible X-ray explorations of the molecular machinery at work in viral infections, cell division, photosynthesis and other processes that are important to biology, human health and our environment. The experiment took place at SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser, a DOE Office of Science User Facility.

"We have developed a unique way to rapidly explore, sort and analyze samples, with the possibility of reaching higher resolutions than other study methods," said Janos Hajdu, a professor of biophysics at Uppsala University in Sweden, which led the research. "This could eventually be a complete game-changer."

Photo Albums on the Fly

The experiment focused on cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, an abundant form of bacteria that transformed Earth's atmosphere 2.5 billion years ago by releasing breathable oxygen, making possible new forms of life that are dominant today. Cyanobacteria play a key role in the planet's oxygen, carbon and nitrogen cycles.

Researchers sprayed living cyanobacteria in a thin stream of humid gas through a gun-like device. The cyanobacteria were alive and intact when they flew into the ultrabright, rapid-fire LCLS X-ray pulses, producing diffraction patterns recorded by detectors.

The diffraction patterns preserved details of the living cyanobacteria that were compiled to reconstruct 2-D images. Researchers said it should be possible to produce 3-D images of some samples using the same technique.

The technique works with live bacteria and requires no special treatment of the samples before imaging. Other high-resolution imaging methods may require special dyes to increase the contrast in images, or work only on dead or frozen samples.

Biology Meets Big Data

The technique can capture about 100 images per second, amassing many millions of high-resolution X-ray images in a single day. This speed allows sorting and analysis of the inner structure and activity of biological particles on a massive scale, which could be arranged to show the chronological steps of a range of cellular activities.

In this way, the technique merges biology and big data, said Tomas Ekeberg, a biophysicist at Uppsala University. "You can study the full cycle of cellular processes, with each X-ray pulse providing a snapshot of the process you want to study," he said.

Hajdu added, "One can start to analyze differences and similarities between groups of cellular structures and show how these structures interact: What is in the cell? How is it organized? Who is talking to whom?"

While optical microscopes and X-ray tomography can also produce high-resolution 3-D images of living cells, LCLS, researchers say, could eventually achieve much better resolution -- down to fractions of a nanometer, or billionths of a meter, where molecules and perhaps even atoms can be resolved.

LCLS is working with researchers to improve the technique and upgrade some instruments and the focus of its X-rays as part of the LCLS Single-Particle Imaging initiative, formally launched at SLAC in October in cooperation with the international scientific community. The initiative is working toward atomic-scale imaging for many types of biological samples, including living cells, by identifying and addressing technical challenges at LCLS.

In addition to researchers from Uppsala University and SLAC's LCLS, other contributors were from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; DESY, the European XFEL, PNSensor, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and University of Hamburg, in Germany; University of Rome Tor Vergata; University of Melbourne in Australia; Kansas State University; and National University of Singapore. The work was supported by the Swedish Research Council, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the European Research Council, the Röntgen-Ångström Cluster, and the Olle Engkvist Byggmästare Foundation. The experiment was also made possible by the Max Planck Society, which supported the development and operation of the CAMP instrument at LCLS.

Unwanted impact of antibiotics broader, more complex than previously known

Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered that antibiotics have an impact on the microorganisms that live in an animal's gut that's more broad and complex than previously known.

The findings help to better explain some of the damage these medications can do, and set the stage for new ways to study and offset those impacts.

The work was published online in the journal Gut, in research supported by Oregon State University, the Medical Research Foundation of Oregon and the National Institutes of Health.

Researchers have known for some time that antibiotics can have unwanted side effects, especially in disrupting the natural and beneficial microbiota of the gastrointestinal system. But the new study helps explain in much more detail why that is happening, and also suggests that powerful, long-term antibiotic use can have even more far-reaching effects.

Scientists now suspect that antibiotic use, and especially overuse, can have unwanted effects on everything from the immune system to glucose metabolism, food absorption, obesity, stress and behavior.

The issues are rising in importance, since 40 percent of all adults and 70 percent of all children take one or more antibiotics every year, not to mention their use in billions of food animals. Although when used properly antibiotics can help treat life-threatening bacterial infections, more than 10 percent of people who receive the medications can suffer from adverse side effects.

"Just in the past decade a whole new universe has opened up about the far-reaching effects of antibiotic use, and now we're exploring it," said Andrey Morgun, an assistant professor in the OSU College of Pharmacy. "The study of microbiota is just exploding. Nothing we find would surprise me at this point."

This research used a "cocktail" of four antibiotics frequently given to laboratory animals, and studied the impacts.

"Prior to this most people thought antibiotics only depleted microbiota and diminished several important immune functions that take place in the gut," Morgun said. "Actually that's only about one-third of the picture. They also kill intestinal epithelium. Destruction of the intestinal epithelium is important because this is the site of nutrient absorption, part of our immune system and it has other biological functions that play a role in human health."

The research also found that antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant microbes caused significant changes in mitochondrial function, which in turn can lead to more epithelial cell death. That antibiotics have special impacts on the mitochondria of cells is both important and interesting, said Morgun, who was a co-leader of this study with Dr. Natalia Shulzhenko, a researcher in the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine who has an M.D. from Kharkiv Medical University.

Mitochondria plays a major role in cell signaling, growth and energy production, and for good health they need to function properly.

But the relationship of antibiotics to mitochondria may go back a long way. In evolution, mitochondria descended from bacteria, which were some of the earliest life forms, and different bacteria competed with each other for survival. That an antibiotic would still selectively attack the portion of a cell that most closely resembles bacteria may be a throwback to that ingrained sense of competition and the very evolution of life.

Morgun and Shulzhenko's research group also found that one of the genes affected by antibiotic treatment is critical to the communication between the host and microbe.

"When the host microbe communication system gets out of balance it can lead to a chain of seemingly unrelated problems," Morgun said.

Digestive dysfunction is near the top of the list, with antibiotic use linked to such issues as diarrhea and ulcerative colitis. But new research is also finding links to obesity, food absorption, depression, immune function, sepsis, allergies and asthma.

This research also developed a new bioinformatics approach named "transkingdom network interrogation" to studying microbiota, which could help further speed the study of any alterations of host microbiota interactions and antibiotic impact. This could aid the search for new probiotics to help offset antibiotic effects, and conceivably lead to systems that would diagnose a person's microbiome, identify deficiencies and then address them in a precise and individual way.

Healthy microbiota may also be another way to address growing problems with antibiotic resistance, Morgun said. Instead of trying to kill the "bad" bacteria causing an illness, a healthy and functioning microbiota may be able to outcompete the unwanted microbes and improve immune function.

Collaborators on this research were from the OSU College of Pharmacy; OSU College of Veterinary Medicine; OSU College of Science; the National Cancer Institute; University of British Columbia; University of Maryland School of Medicine; and the National Institutes of Health.

The Master Screenwriter Who Transforms Your Favorite Comics Into Movies

JAMES DAY. HAIR AND MAKEUP BY CAMILLA HEWITT

You’re a fan of Kick-Ass . You’re a fan of X-Men (First Class, not X3 or the Wolverine dreck). You might not know it, but that means you’re a fan of Jane Goldman. She’s the screenwriter behind every comic book turned Matthew Vaughn-directed movie. The pair first teamed up in 2007 on an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s book Stardust, and in February the partnership continues with Kingsman: The Secret Service, about a London street kid thrown into a world of jet-setting superspies. Think Harry Potter by way of James Bond. Like with those other flicks, don’t expect a movie that’s overly faithful to the source material. “There are always going to be changes between the page and the screen,” says Mark Millar, who wrote the Kick-Ass and Secret Service comics. “But with Jane and Matthew, they’re only in the service of the story.”

Jane Goldman’s adaptation of The Secret Service stars Colin Firth as a spy UNIVERSAL PICTURES / GLUEKIT

So what kinds of changes make a solid comic adaptation? “It’s about keeping the source material alive whilst making something movie-shaped,” Goldman says. “I like it when characters respond to things that are outrageous and movielike in an authentic way.” Her scripts revel in those juxtapositions, like superheroes discussing breakfast cereal (Kick-Ass) or a shape-shifting character struggling with body image issues (Mystique in X-Men). Kingsman‘s clueless protagonist loves his spy gadgets but is gobsmacked by the world of British gentlemen. “It’s reversing expectations,” Goldman says.

One of her next movies won’t be quite so pulpy—it’s an adaptation of Rebecca. Daphne du Maurier’s Gothic novel helped Goldman realize that women could write, she says—and not just Austen-like love stories but genres like horror and mystery. Add kick-ass comic adaptations to the list.

Watch the trailer for Kingsman: The Secret Service.

Why I Can’t Stop Watching Horrifying ISIS Decapitation Videos

A screen in Tokyo shows reports about Japanese hostage Kenji Goto, January 28, 2015. Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty

Even though every caution label and trigger warning screamed at me not to, and even though I knew what would happen to my head and my stomach if I did, I watched the video of the Jordanian pilot being burned alive by ISIS militants. (The video is not linked there, by the way.)

In another iteration of my existence, I’d like to join the well-intentioned ranks of Twitter users who advocate for ignoring the ISIS videos, but I haven’t. I’d like to say it’s not my fault, that a sickness inside me made me watch. That as a writer and editor, knowing about violence and death is, you could say, part of my job. It’s my duty to find and face the details.

Except my beat is not international terrorism. And it wasn’t until I’d seen the screenshots—and the warnings about how graphic the video was—that I started to think about it, what it might look like. About what this pilot’s life had been like. What his death had been like.

Brianna Snyder

Brianna Snyder is an editor and writer for the Times Union in Albany, New York. She’s also an editor for the news site Kicker. Follow her on Twitter @briannaLsnyder.

Whether or not a person should have access to this kind of footage is well-trodden territory for many arguments related to freedom of speech. Media want clicks and shocking, provocative content gets clicks. Protectors of hearts and heads think such content is harmful and shouldn’t be available. Proponents of The Truth say if you’re censoring, you’re not telling the whole story. Last week, Piers Morgan wrote in the Daily Mail that everybody should see the videos, saying that for him, watching them “allows me to feel such uncontrollable rage that no amount of reasonable argument will ever temper it.” The Internet is the perfect place for all these positions, because all of them can exist in one huge, confusing space. You have access to anything you want, but you get to decide what to look at, and here’s where all of it is, so stick to your position. Or don’t.

Of course, it’s possible to know of what’s going on without exposing yourself to explicit violence. Traditional news outlets like the New York Times offer a sanitized, mostly safe description using vaguery and euphemism. But that’s a tease, too. And just how much teasing of a bad thing can you do before your audience wants all of the bad thing and more? Images can be stark and terrifying, but they also naturally provide a kind of curiosity gap, especially when video is available. And I’m deeply, disturbingly stuck in that curiosity gap.

It happened a little while ago: I’d never even heard of BestGore.com until that story about the Cannibal Cop. You remember that story from last year? The guy had a fetish for cooking and eating women, and he sought out realizations of that fantasy online, reportedly at sites like BestGore.com. Which made me go, “Oh, what’s at BestGore.com?”

Which is not really the question I was asking. The question was: What does it look like when a woman is cooked and eaten? And then the question becomes: What does it feel like to be cooked? And if you knew, after you were dead, that you had been eaten, what kind of humiliation and devastation would you feel?

Those are the questions I assume I’m looking for answers to when I dig my way through search results into the disgusting depths of BestGore and LiveLeak to watch James Foley’s decapitation and Muath al-Kaseasbeh’s immolation. I turn my laptop away from my husband, mute the volume, and let the horror make my head go dizzy and my stomach turn upside-down. Sometimes he catches me.

Last night he said, “What is wrong with your face? Why do you look like that?”

I guess that’s what I look like when I watch a man beaten brutally with a tire iron, then moved on to his side to be stabbed dozens of times around his spinal cord, which will not immediately kill him (the snarky commentary explains in the video description) but will leave him conscious for more torture before he eventually succumbs to his bludgeoning.

Why do I do this to myself?

Here’s the thing. I am not a fan of horror movies. I hate violence on TV. I refuse to watch “Game of Thrones” because of what people tell me is unprecedented levels of brutality. For a while, I wondered why a “Game of Thrones” decapitation makes me turn my head, but then I dedicate minutes to searching and finding a video of Nick Berg having his head sawed off.

I am not alone.

Studies have explored these inclinations. Some suggest that we want to be prepared for the worst, so the implausibility of horror movies moves us to consider abstract environments from which we might someday be able to escape, if we’re prepared.

Thing is, when it is fiction it is escapism. Kenji Goto’s decapitation is not. It is the very opposite of escapism. It’s hyper-reality and it is devastating.

Here’s what I think when I choose to face this hyper-reality from the comfort of my home: How are Foley and Goto and Daniel Pearl so calm before they’re gored? Are they on drugs? Could their murderers be humane enough to sedate them before cutting into their necks? Or are they so psychologically battered from captivity that they’re paralyzed?

I guess I’m just so scared of death that I’ve become obsessed with looking at it and trying to understand it. How much it will hurt. How sad and scared and furious I’ll be when I die. I’ve watched maybe a hundred of the worst kinds of deaths and I still can’t find peace with the knowledge that I will die—and maybe horribly. Car crash. Plane crash. Home invasion. Homefire. Cancer. Mass shooting. And maybe I shouldn’t be at peace with that. These people certainly didn’t get to be.

I like to think I’m not like the commenters on BestGore—who call murdered women “bitches who deserved it” and LOL at “incompetent” Mexican drug lords who have to switch knives partway through a decapitation because theirs aren’t sharp enough to cut through the neck tendons of their victims. But I am like them. I am clicking. I am driving traffic. I am letting the creators of these videos know their headlines are SEO-engineered effectively. I’m part of the problem. Am I “informed”? Am I, like Piers Morgan, enraged beyond reasonable argument? Am I going to enlist in the military?

I think not. I’m just scared.

There’s a part in the Muath al-Kaseasbeh video, just before the fire reaches the cage, when al-Kaseasbeh puts his hands together in what I assume was prayer. If it was prayer, did it help him through the agony and the terror of his death? I hope it helped. And for the people who loved him who also watched the video—and God I hope they didn’t—I hope it brought them some small comfort.

I know I am contributing to the humiliation and dehumanization of the victims whose deaths are caught on video. Knowing that millions of people— including your family and your friends and your enemies—will watch what should be your private, natural death must be an added psychological torment. And I can’t apologize enough to them for contributing to it. My guilt doesn’t absolve me of my voyeurism. It only makes me more a part of these victims’ abuse and pain. I’m doing what the bad guys want us all to do, which is: watch.

How Snow Can Cripple Boston’s Subway Cars

A snow-covered third rail caused an MBTA train in Quincy, Mass. to get stuck between the Quincy Adams and Quincy Center stations. Passengers had to be rescued by the Quincy Fire Department. David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

Earlier this week, 48 people were stranded for hours before being rescued from a subway train that suffered a power failure in the midst of a blizzard. Firefighters were forced to clear a path through the snow so passengers could make their way to shuttle buses and continue their journey. Part of the problem? A significant portion of Boston’s subway cars aren’t made for running in heavy snow.

The train failure was reportedly related to older direct current-powered (DC) traction motors, which can suck snow into the air intake, where it melts and causes electrical problems. Newer induction motors powered by AC current are simpler and more reliable thanks to better electrical controls, fewer moving parts, and a design that is better at keeping out the elements. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), which runs the region’s public transit system, is slowly transitioning to the newer technology, but still runs more than a hundred subway cars with motors that date back to the Nixon administration. The first one.

Most of the time, the older DC-powered trains aren’t a nuisance. The rate of failure is low enough that the MBTA’s maintenance staff can keep up. But in extreme weather—Boston has been hammered in the past few weeks with back-to-back-to-back snowstorms—broken trains begin to stack up and the system collapses from of a lack of working cars. The result is a closed subway system. The MBTA was largely shut down on Tuesday, with limited service resuming Wednesday. More snow is expected later in the week, and the Authority’s general manager, Beverly Scott, lost her job this week.

Despite major budget problems, the MBTA is slowly upgrading, dropping $550 million for 342 new cars from CNR-MA, a Chinese subway car manufacturer. Unfortunately for Boston commuters, those trains won’t arrive for at least three years. In the meantime, expect snow to continue to cause problems for those aging motors.

Review: Fuz Designs Noke

No key required. You open this lock by pairing it with your mobile device, using Bluetooth. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

A pacifier that tells you the temperature of your baby. A lamp that knows when you are home and turns on by itself. A thermostat that lowers the heat to save you money.

In the brave new world of smart devices, just about every electronic gadget in your home will connect up. It’s no surprise then that the simple combo lock you used in high school is now getting the Internet of Things treatment.

A Utah company called Fūz Designs (as in, “fuse”) has taken on the challenge of making a smart padlock that unlocks via an app on any iPhone, Android phone, or Windows phone with Bluetooth 4.0. While seemingly simple, it’s a daunting ask for one big reason: Unlike your Bluetooth headset or your Jambox, which can exhibit a few pairing or signal hiccups with no great consequences, a lock has to work all the time, every time, without fail. Lock up your bike with a keyless Bluetooth lock and suddenly it refuses to operate properly? You’re stranded—or worse, bikeless.

I’m happy to report that it does work, locking and unlocking on command without problems. The device is rather expensive at $60, but it should appeal to anyone seeking a keyless lifestyle—either by proactive choice, or simply because they’re the type of person who’s always losing their keys anyway.

Fūz Designs calls its padlock the Noke (as in, “no key”). The design is simple, which is important. It looks innocuous, with a silver or black shell and no obvious markings. Look closer and you’ll see the Fūz logo on one side with a small LED over the “u,” and two small dimples on the other.

You don’t have to fish out your phone or type in a combination—as soon as you press the shackle to open the lock, the Noke looks for a known (paired) phone with the proper permissions in the vicinity.

To use the Noke, I first had to sync it to my iPhone 6. You can use any iPhone, Android, or Windows phone that supports Bluetooth 4.0. I installed the Noke app, searched for the lock, and synced up. Done. Now you can put your phone away in your pocket or purse. To unlock the Noke, just press down on the shackle (the ringed part of the actual lock) until the little LED on the face lights up green, then pull it open. To lock, you push down on the shackle until the light glows red.

You don’t have to fish out your phone or type in a combination—as soon as you press the shackle to open the lock, the Noke looks for a known (paired) phone with the proper permissions in the vicinity. In my tests, I was able to lock and unlock the Noke as long as my phone was within a range of about 15 feet.

As a backup (like if your phone is kaput), you’re asked to program a combination when you first set up the lock. The combination consists of a sequence of short and long presses on the shackle. You configure this in the app and change it whenever you need to. The code has to have between six and 16 presses. For example, I used a short-short-short-long-long-long sequence as a way to unlock the Noke. You can even create a code that follows the rhythm of a song.

The Noke itself is powered a standard 2032 watch battery you can grab at any drugstore, and should last about a year. But what if the battery on the Noke dies? You can’t replace the battery unless you open the lock. Fūz Designs created an ingenious workaround: below the lock, there’s a terminal you can use with the new battery for temporary power. Much nicer than a bolt cutter, right?

In the app, I could see a list of Noke locks with unique names–that’s handy, because you could have a dozen of them and keep track of which padlocks are unlocked. Also, you can “share” the lock with others. So, if your neighbor needs to access your tool shed on occasion, you can share the lock. He or she just downloads the app and registers, then has access to lock and unlock either all the time, just once, or as often as they’d like until you revoke access. When folks use your locks, you get a notification and can even go into the app and see the GPS location of that lock.

I tested mine by locking my laptop bag to a desk using a cable. Every time I walked up and pushed the shackle, it unlocked. Simple. Later, when I worked at a coffee shop and left the lock at home, I shared the lock with my friend inside the app. She used her iPhone 6 to unlock the Noke.

The lock I tested was very close to final, but made of aluminum. The final version, which will ship in June, is made of hardened steel and boron and weighs 9 ounces. A company rep from Fūz Designs says major lock manufacturers rate their locks on a scale of one to ten, and the Noke rates a 7, which should be enough to protect a bike, a gate, or a storage unit, and that you’d need a large bolt cutter to snap off the shackle. It’s even water resistant.

The lock comes in gray or black. You can get a two-pack for $55 each, or just one for $60. Yes, that’s very expensive for a lock, but the keyless entry is more than just a gimmick. Honestly, the Noke is worth it for me because I forget keys and combinations so easily. I’d buy one just for the Bluetooth feature alone. But sharing locks with friends opens up a world of opportunity, and I especially liked looking up the lock and seeing it on a map, which is another way to keep track of my stuff (and my sanity).

If the lock had built-in Wi-Fi, it might be easier to send unlock codes over the Internet, but you can always use the sequence code. Plus, if it had Wi-Fi, the battery would not last nearly as long. In all, I can’t gripe about a product this smart that does something so useful.

Twitter Acquires Social Media Talent Agency Niche

Twitter has agreed to acquire Niche, a startup that facilitates advertising deals for social media stars.

The social networking company announced the news today, with a blog post, but did not disclose terms.

Launched in 2013, Niche bills itself as a social media talent agency. It scours services like YouTube and Vine (another Twitter property) for breakout stars and signs them to mainstream media deals. According to a report from last year, Niche’s works with advertisers such as Gap, American Eagle, the NFL, Proctor & Gamble, and Warner Bros. Plus, it provides tools that helps stars use popular social services—and track their fanbase.

For Twitter, the deal provides a way of feeding the use of its online services, but it can also directly boost revenues. The kinds of deals facilitated by Niche can be lucrative. According to a recent story in New York Magazine , when Vine star Nash Grier made branded videos for Virgin Mobile and MTV, he pulled in $4,166 a second—compared to the $5,827 per second pulled in by Robert Downey Jr., the highest paid actor in the world, on The Avengers.

After going public in November, the company is under pressure to find new revenues streams. Recently, the company announced it would start selling ads on other apps and sites.

BitTorrent Will Soon Produce Its Own TV Shows

Getty Images

BitTorrent says it will soon produce its own television shows.

Today, the San Francisco-based company, which offers tools for downloading and sharing movies, music, and other content via the peer-to-peer BitTorrent protocol, announced a partnership with Rapid Eye Studios to launch what it calls BitTorrent Originals. Together, the pair will create original video content and distribute it via BitTorrent Bundle, the company’s publishing platform.

With these originals, the company is following in the footsteps of other online companies, including Netflix, Amazon, and Yahoo. Original internet series are not only prevalent, they’re, well, pretty good. Amazon’s Transparent and Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black recently went head to head at the Golden Globes.

BitTorrent Bundle will have the exclusive on these series, but only for a while. After about 30 to 60 days, creators will be free to distribute their series any other way they like. Each series will receive marketing support across the BitTorrent ecosystem, and the creators will take a 90 percent cut of the profits, which will come from both ads and paid downloads.

“Expanding into the world of original content is a move that makes us a serious player in the media business, and takes us another step closer toward our goal: creating a sustainable digital future for creators of all kinds,” BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker, said in a statement.

BitTorrent says its Originals are aimed at 14- to 25-year-olds, or the audience that makes up most of its 170 million monthly active users. The first project to be produced on the platform, Children of the Machine, is set to launch in late 2015. The company will offer a free version of the series—alongside ads—as well as a $9.95 ad-free version.

For A Hot Second Today, You Could’ve Watched Season 3 of House of Cards

Screengrab: WIRED

Frank Underwood, you sneaky little prick.

It’s unclear what happened, but for a brief moment this afternoon House of Cards‘ third season became available on Netflix—more than two weeks before its scheduled Feb. 27 release date. It was, sadly, quickly removed. We only got to watch a few minutes before the stream dropped out—just enough to feel fully teased—but it looks as though the Underwood presidency is off to a rocky start. Oh, and you won’t believe this but it looks like Frank is about to …

Well, crap. Never mind.

(Seriously, we reached out to Netflix to see what happened, and will update this if we find out anything.)

EDIT: Just heard back from Netflix: “Due to a technical glitch some Frank Underwood fans got a sneak peak [sic]. He’ll be back on Netflix on Feb 27. #nospoilers” Someone’s mouse slipped, we guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Who Should Be the Next Daily Show Host?

Jon Stewart, Nov. 7, 2014. Victoria Will/Invision/AP

After news broke last night that Jon Stewart would retire from The Daily Show this year, two things happened in rapid succession: First Twitter burst into flames, and then speculation began in earnest over who Comedy Central would anoint to take over at Stewart’s desk. What began as a zany, satirical spin on nightly news programs under Craig Kilborn morphed into an essential counterbalance to the mainstream political media. Whoever takes over TDS likely won’t get the same freedom to experiment that Stewart did; instead they’ll just need to stay on-brand at the helm of late night’s newest institution, displaying fearlessness and wit in the face of an exhausting political and social quagmire.

But who will that be?

To answer that, consider who Stewart was when he got the job. He was 36 when took over The Daily Show, and though his non-standup career up to that point included supporting roles in Adam Sandler movies and an MTV hosting gig, his standup was already politically charged and he’d performed at the White House Correspondents Dinner (albeit after Rosie O’Donnell and Denis Miller turned down the opportunity). Using those age and material parameters, here are our leading candidates to take over Stewart’s hosting gig—in order of likelihood.

John Oliver, Oct. 14, 2014. Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

The No-Brainer: John Oliver

If you’re searching for the quickest replacement for Stewart’s ethos, look no further than Oliver, the newest successful former correspondent—and, at age 37, right at about the same point in his career. His stint as guest host while Stewart directed Rosewater was a rousing success, and his jump to HBO with Last Week Tonight has proven that he has the chops to produce analytical and uproarious material at least on par with Stewart’s most incisive comedy (if not better because of the in-depth segments).

The barriers to a reunion are plentiful: there was often speculation that Stewart would leave the grind of a daily program for a weekly show at a premium cable network that affords the creative freedom Oliver already enjoys. But the HBO deal Oliver signed is for two years, which is timed almost too perfectly to the window available now for Comedy Central to drive a dump truck full of money up to his house to convince him to return.

Aisha Tyler, Nov. 11, 2014. Casey Curry/Invision/AP

The Veteran: Aisha Tyler

The elephant in the room during every late-night transition is that female and nonwhite comedians never get a real shot. But Larry Wilmore just got The Nightly Show, so perhaps Comedy Central is the place for progress instead of handing The Daily Show from one white guy named Jon to another white guy named John with a British accent.

But Aisha Tyler doesn’t even need that kind of slant to make her a competitive candidate. She’s been constantly in conversation for late-night hosting gigs, and she deserves to be in this one too. She’s hosted Talk Soup for years, guest-hosted At The Movies With Ebert & Roeper, and holds down Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and though her current gig on The Talk has been successful—so much so that a special “after dark” edition has aired during the transition to James Corden hosting The Late Late Show on CBS—she’s extraordinarily overqualified to be marooned on a daytime panel show.

Wyatt Cenac, Sept. 21, 2008. Shea Walsh/AP

The Returning Champ: Wyatt Cenac

He may have left the show just a hair too early, since it meant missing out on the competition for the guest hosting stint that went to John Oliver, but Cenac has all the credentials necessary to host The Daily Show. He was talented in the field, an incredible foil to Stewart during studio bits across the desk (and he the hilarious voice of the former RNC Chairman Michael Steele puppet), and a ruthlessly satirical standup. Like many correspondents before him, he outgrew his supporting role on the show; unlike many of the others, who were better suited to film acting (Steve Carrell, Ed Helms), variety performance (Colbert), or a show of their own (Rob Corddry), Cenac has earned a shot at the big chair.

Cecily Strong, Jan. 5, 2015. Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

The Competition: Cecily Strong

The painfully awkward struggles of Colin Jost and former TDS contributor Michael Che on SNL‘s Weekend Update desk have only solidified this point: Cecily Strong is anchor material. She’s hosting this year’s Correspondents Dinner, following in the footsteps of late-night veterans like Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, and Craig Ferguson. If Lorne Michaels can’t see that she deserves a satirical news desk to herself, perhaps Comedy Central could take the talented sketch performer off NBC’s hands.

Samantha Bee and Jason Jones, February 4, 2015. Casey Rodgers/Invision for Butterfinger/AP

The Protégés: Samantha Bee & Jason Jones

Once Jon Stewart got rolling on The Daily Show, he seldom took a night off. In the past 10 years, he’s taken exactly three shows off. Stephen Colbert hosted in 2004 when Stewart’s daughter was born, Rob Corddry hosted an episode in 2006, and the husband/wife team of Jason Jones and Samantha Bee took over on short notice when Stewart came down with the flu last year. Bee is the longest-running correspondent both currently and all-time, surpassing Stephen Colbert back in 2012, with Jones as the next most senior correspondent. We kinda love the idea of married co-hosts, but this one’s a long shot: they’re both much older than Stewart was when he took over, and the fact that they were passed over when Oliver got a three-month guest hosting stint speaks volumes.

Jessica Williams, Jan. 26, 2015. Victoria Will/Invision/AP

The Prodigy: Jessica Williams

We know, we know: at 25, Williams is way too young to nab the hosting gig. But she was also frighteningly poised when she made her first appearance on the show three years ago at only 22. She may be young, but she’s gotten where she is on talent and damn funny work. Of the current correspondent crop, she’s the most comically agile and has the best chance to grow into a skilled host with her already seemingly boundless charisma. The Daily Show has slowly turned into a comedy news show about television networks its young audience no longer watches, at the cost of leaving out the online journalism environment that’s ripe for parody and criticism. Williams is the best shot Comedy Central has at finding someone who will figure out how to skewer a newer generation as well.

Hari Kondabolu, July 11, 2014. Al Pereira/Getty

The Dark Horse: Hari Kondabolu

Of all the young but established standups working today, Kondabolu has the most distinctive voice on political and social issues. Plus he’s got late night writing experience: He was on W. Kamau Bell’s phenomenal writing staff during the short-lived FX show Totally Biased. If Comedy Central doesn’t want to take a chance on a firebrand Indian-American with the ambition to take on any and every cultural injustice in his path with fierce sarcasm and incisive wit, then the new host should offer him a correspondent gig immediately.