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Ten Years Since ‘The Dark Knight’

Jason Tate

It’s been ten years since the release of The Dark Knight. Matt Patches writes about the film over at Polygon:

The Dark Knight is elegantly excessive, a confluence of Nolan’s film-tech obsessions, philosophical puzzles, and wealth of popcorn movie knowledge. Everything that can be explored — architecture, performance, film chemistry, noir tropes, screenwriting “rules,” practical special effects, Ethics 101, action geography, orchestral sound, the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale, pragmatic costuming, the spectrum of humor, truck mechanics — is explored.

The lead-up to this movie, my massive expectations, and then finally seeing it and it being as good as I wanted, was maybe the most fulfilling moviegoing experience of my life. It remains one of my favorite movies to this day.

Travis Barker Involved in Car Accident

Travis Barker
Jason Tate

Travis Barker of Blink-182 was involved in a car accident with a school bus on Friday, July 13th:

Law enforcement sources tell TMZ no children were on the bus and Travis was not at fault.

After the crash Travis was walking around and did not appear seriously injured, although he did seem dazed. There were passengers in Travis’ car, including his son. We do not know their condition, but the collision was serious enough for Barker’s air bags to deploy.

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Craig Manning’s Top 100 Albums of the 2000’s

Jason Tate

Contributor Craig Manning is a madman. He’s written up thoughts on his 100 favorite albums from the 2000’s. One-Fucking-Hundred. There’s some great stuff in here:

The resulting project took me the better part of six months. I chipped away at it every night before bed, taking just 10 or 15 minutes before I turned in for the night to sit down in front of the computer, choose an album, and cast myself back in time to when it captured my world. Slowly, the list took form. Eventually, I realized that the list wasn’t just a catalog of music, but also an autobiographical story, told through albums that I loved in the most formative years of my life. As it turned out, writing about the music I loved between the ages of nine and 18 meant writing a lot about my life. Some of the stories told below are things I’ve revealed before. Some are things I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone. All form the backbone for a collection of albums that is completely “me.” I didn’t write these records, but there’s at least a song from every single one of them that feels like it came directly from my heart.

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Twitter To Delete Fake Accounts

Twitter
Jason Tate

The New York Times:

Twitter will begin removing tens of millions of suspicious accounts from users’ followers on Thursday, signaling a major new effort to restore trust on the popular but embattled platform.

The reform takes aim at a pervasive form of social media fraud. Many users have inflated their followers on Twitter or other services with automated or fake accounts, buying the appearance of social influence to bolster their political activism, business endeavors or entertainment careers.

I wrote about this five months back and all I can say is: finally.

iOS 11.4.1 and Blocks Passcode Cracking Tools Used by Police

iPhone
Jason Tate

Chris Welch, writing for The Verge:

Apple today released iOS 11.4.1, and while most of us are already looking ahead to all the new stuff coming in iOS 12, this small update contains an important new security feature: USB Restricted Mode. Apple has added protections against the USB devices being used by law enforcement and private companies that connect over Lightning to crack an iPhone’s passcode and evade Apple’s usual encryption safeguards.

If you have an iPhone, you should install this when you get the chance.

Drake Tops the Charts

Drake
Jason Tate

Drake has the number one album in the country this week:

Scorpion, which was released on June 29 via Young Money/Cash Money/Republic Records, bows with 732,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending July 5 according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 160,000 were in traditional album sales.

Starbucks to Eliminate Plastic Straws

Jason Tate

Starbucks have announced they will be eliminating plastic straws globally by 2020:

Today, Starbucks Coffee Company announced it will eliminate single-use plastic straws from its more than 28,000 company operated and licensed stores by making a strawless lid or alternative-material straw options available, around the world. Starbucks, the largest food and beverage retailer to make such a global commitment, anticipates the move will eliminate more than one billion plastic straws per year from Starbucks stores.

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