Variety is reporting that Joss Whedon is in talks to write and direct a Batgirl movie:
Whedon is nearing a deal to write, direct, and produce an untitled Batgirl pic for Warner Bros. as part of its DC Extended Universe.
No other producers are currently attached. Toby Emmerich, president and chief content officer of Warner Bros. Pictures Group, is overseeing with Jon Berg and Geoff Johns. The new project originated in the past month.
Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 sat down with USA Today to talk about the band performing at the Final Four this year:
Even as a songwriter, and a member of Blink, we’ll play a song and I’ll think about what was going on in my life when we wrote the song, some of the earlier albums and earlier stuff was kind of like when you see pictures of yourself in junior high and you’re like ‘wow I wish hadn’t worn that.’ Looking back at some of the lyrics I wrote, they were pretty sophomoric. But even still, that’s where I was then.
Speaking of the Final Four, I’m pretty much in “anyone but UNC” mode now.
The world’s cloud authority has classified a dozen new types of clouds:
The existing classifications have been reviewed and all have been retained. Several new, formal cloud classifications have been introduced. These include one new species (volutus), five new supplementary features (asperitas, cauda, cavum, fluctus and murus), and one new accessory cloud (flumen). The species floccus has been formally recognized as being able to occur in association with stratocumulus. The separate section on Special Clouds has been removed, and the cloud and meteor types previously discussed within this section have been integrated into the cloud classification scheme as cataractagenitus, flammagenitus, homogenitus, silvagenitus, and homomutatus.
This is the first time this has happened in thirty years, and I learned today there’s a cloud authority.
The House has now passed the resolution that will allow ISPs to sell your browsing history without your permission:
As most had expected, the House of Representatives today voted 215 to 205 to kill privacy rules protecting US broadband subscribers. If you’re interested in a little thing called public accountability, you can find a breakdown of which Representatives voted for the measure here.
Ars Technica has a good break down on what this all means:
The rules issued by the FCC last year would have required home Internet and mobile broadband providers to get consumers’ opt-in consent before selling or sharing Web browsing history, app usage history, and other private information with advertisers and other companies. But lawmakers used their authority under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to pass a joint resolution ensuring that the rules “shall have no force or effect” and that the FCC cannot issue similar regulations in the future.
Now’s probably a good time to recommend looking into a VPN and making sure the websites you use are all using HTTPS (this one is). The two dead simple VPNs I’ve used in the past and heard good things about are Cloak and TunnelBear. I personally use Private Internet Access, but it’s a little more fiddly to set up and use.
Maureen Dowd, writing for Vanity Fair:
You’d think that anytime Musk, Stephen Hawking, and Bill Gates are all raising the same warning about A.I.—as all of them are—it would be a 10-alarm fire. But, for a long time, the fog of fatalism over the Bay Area was thick. Musk’s crusade was viewed as Sisyphean at best and Luddite at worst. The paradox is this: Many tech oligarchs see everything they are doing to help us, and all their benevolent manifestos, as streetlamps on the road to a future where, as Steve Wozniak says, humans are the family pets.
But Musk is not going gently.
Jeremy Burge of Emojipedia has an in-depth look at the latest batch of emoji that have been approved:
These include smileys, people, food, drink, flags, and for the first time: new fantasy characters such as a mermaid, genie, and vampire.
We are today releasing the final version of our sample images for this update. These have been designed in the “Apple style” to picture how these emojis may look when hitting phones later in the year.
And Paul Hunt looks at the role of gender in emoji:
Filling out the middle of the spectrum, we have a set of three new people emoji with inclusive gender, characters that were conceived to represent all people regardless of gender.
These emoji are intended to depict a child, an adult, and an older person. I proposed the addition of the gender inclusive emoji characters in order to provide better representation for people who want to express themselves in emoji as exactly that: just people.
Not everyone identifies as male or female. Some of us identify as a bit of both, or neither, or something else altogether. Regardless of your gender identity, I hope we can all find adequate ways to express ourselves in emoji.
Jonathan Bautts says goodbye to Yellowcard over at Behind the Setlist:
It’S 2001. A young band called Yellowcard, fresh transplants to California by way of Jacksonville, Florida, is playing its first ever sold-out show. The city is Anaheim, California and the venue is Chain Reaction, a cramped but legendary punk rock club that has become a rite of passage for all up-and-comers.
The five members onstage aren’t the most polished live performers, but they have bounds of energy and display a promising potential. The drummer is a stickmaster with some of the quickest hands you’ve ever seen and the lead singer displays a surefire ear for melodies. But what stands out most is the presence of a violinist, which you think is an odd novelty for a rock band at first yet surprisingly fits in well.
I’ve loved reading all the Yellowcard retrospectives over the past few days and all of the memories shared by fans in our forums. This band was a staple for so many people and a true testament to the impact music can have on a listener.
Arrested Development, Buffy, X-Files, and more will be leaving Netflix in April. I guess it’s time to get your binge on.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Arrested Development, Firefly, Ally McBeal, The X-Files, Roswell and House are the bigger, more notable shows being tossed aside in April. Every single season from each show will no longer be available to stream, with the exception of Arrested Development’s fourth season, which will remain due to it being a Netflix exclusive.
I still watch random episodes of Arrested Development from time-to-time (I don’t visit that fourth season very often), and I realized today I haven’t cracked open my DVD collection in probably years. I guess it’s time to get this into Plex.
The director of the fantastic Moonlight, Barry Jenkins, will next adapt Colson Whitehead’s novel, The Underground Railroad, as an Amazon series.
“Preserving the sweep and grandeur of a story like this requires bold, innovative thinking,” Mr. Jenkins said in a statement. “In Amazon we’ve found a partner whose reverence for storytelling and freeness of form is wholly in line with our vision.”
Drake has the number one album in the country this week:
The Beauty and the Beast soundtrack is pushed down one spot to No. 4, despite a 74 percent gain in units. The set earned 99,000 units in the week (up from its debut of 57,000 units), as the album profits from publicity generated by its parent film’s blockbuster opening in theaters on March 17.
Hannah Karp, writing for The Wall Street Journal:
Young music fans today don’t buy many CDs or downloads, but the rise of virtual tip jars is evidence some fans are still willing to spend money on novel kinds of interactions with their favorite acts.
Zach Clayton, who is also 16 and a resident of Austin, Texas, said he earned more than $100,000 last year performing on a live-streaming app called YouNow. He is one of a growing number of performers who live on tips and gifts from online fans.
And:
Live-streaming for tips isn’t exactly glamorous work. Brent Morgan, a 29-year-old musician in Huntsville, Ala., broadcasts twice a day on YouNow for a total of three hours a day, playing guitar and other instruments while writing custom jingles on the spot for big tippers. He said he nets between $15,000 and $20,000 a month and plans to release his first album in the next few months.
Safer Scene interviewed Jamie Sivrais of the A Voice for the Innocent project:
That organization, A Voice for the Innocent (AVFTI), provides several paths that victims can take to help with the healing process. The primary tools are their anonymous, online platform where they can reach out to users throughout the country and a strong network within a DIY music scene rooted in positive social action.
Green Day sat down with Rolling Stone:
Yeah. If you look at our career, there’s almost like before American Idiot and after American Idiot. Yeah, we play new stuff. We play stuff off American Idiot. It’s hard to explain from my perspective because sometimes I’ll just start saying to myself, “Look how unique this is. You’re able to play in front of 14,000 people and everyone is singing along. Everyone’s hands are in the air.” We play a song like “Holiday” and its like a flock of birds or something.
Apple has released updates to watchOS and macOS. The addition of “theatre mode” for the Apple Watch is a welcome addition. Here’s MacStories with the details:
watchOS 3.2 adds Theater Mode. According to the beta release notes published on Apple’s developer site, Theater Mode lets users mute their Watch and disable raise-to-wake. Theater Mode is accessible by swiping up from the bottom of the Apple Watch’s screen. While the feature is engaged, notifications are silent, but you still receive haptic feedback when a notification is received and can view a notification by pressing the Digital Crown.
And macOS gets “night shift.”
Disney CEO, Bob Iger, revealed some Star Wars news today. Along with some information about the new Han Solo Movie he mentioned that the late Carrie Fisher will appear in the next movie and they will not be going with a digital version in the future. The Hollywood Reporter has the run down:
“When we bought Lucasfilm, we were going to make three films — Episodes VII, VIII and IX,” said Iger. “We had to deal with tragedy at the end of 2016. Carrie appears throughout VIII. We are not changing VIII to deal with her passing. Her performance remains as it is in VIII. In Rogue One, we had some digital character. We are not doing that with Carrie.”