Category: Internet

IMDb Is Getting Rid of Its (Awful) Discussion Boards

If you’re a repulsive internet troll who enjoys debating the attractiveness of celebrities way out of your league, we’ve got some bad news. In the name of taste and decency, IMDb has decided to delete its discussion boards.

As Variety reports, the industry-leading film site has opted to ditch its boards after determining that they’re “no longer providing a positive, useful experience.”

The company released a statement about the decision, saying, “As part of our ongoing effort to continually evaluate and enhance the customer experience on IMDb, we have decided to disable IMDb’s message boards on February 20, 2017. We regret any disappointment or frustration IMDb message board users may experience as a result of this decision.”

Of course, anyone who has viewed the IMDb message boards knows that they were often safe-havens for repugnant comments that were misogynistic, racist and generally distasteful. This is certainly a move in the right direction.

IMDb also said they plan to introduce new features this year, though they haven’t shared any details just yet.

Highway Hotline on Twitter

As a way to increase awareness of road conditions this winter, the Highway Hotline launched its Twitter feed on Wednesday.

“We’re harnessing the power of social media tools as another means to quickly get important information to motorists to help plan their journeys,” said Highways and Infrastructure Minister Jim Reiter in a news release.

The Twitter account, @SKGOVHwyhotline, can be accessed at https://twitter.com/#!/skgovhwyhotline. It will provide its followers with four types of road condition Tweets: Highway closed, highway reopened, travel not recommended and travel not recommended status removed.

“We took the approach of providing only these priority of highway alerts for motorists who want to follow us via Twitter,” said Reiter in the release.

The Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure reminds drivers of tips and more detailed road information that can be found on the Highway Hotline Facebook page at www.facebook.com/saskatchewanhighwayhotline.

Access points for information, such as interactive maps, phone numbers, social media and text reports for web browsers and handheld devices can be found at www. highways.gov.sk.ca/road-conditions.

Effects company denies leaking ‘Wolverine’ online
LOS ANGELES ñ An Australian visual effects company that worked on “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” said Thursday it was not responsible for leaking a full-length work print online.
The company’s name ó Rising Sun Pictures ó appears in a caption dated March 2 a few minutes into the high-quality leaked copy of the 20th Century Fox superhero movie.
“As we worked on individual sequences within the film, neither Rising Sun Pictures or its staff members have ever been in possession of a full-length version, so it would have been impossible for the movie to have been leaked from here,” Rising Sun Pictures chairman and co-founder Tony Clark said in a statement posted on the company’s Web site Thursday.
The “prequel, which focuses on the beginnings of Hugh Jackman’s clawed Marvel superhero Wolverine, is not scheduled for release until May 1, but the leaked version began appearing online Tuesday evening. Fox said in a statement Wednesday that it had the original file removed, but copies quickly propagated and continue to appear on several file-sharing Web sites.
According to Rising Sun Pictures’ Web site, the visual effects company had been tasked with producing “a number of key effects sequences” in “Wolverine.” Rising Sun Pictures is also working on the upcoming “Terminator Salvation” film and had previously created effects for “Watchmen,” “Australia,” “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” and “Get Smart.”
Fox vowed Wednesday that the source of the “stolen, incomplete and early version” of the movie would be prosecuted and said the FBI and MPAA are investigating the leak. The studio also insisted that the version of “Wolverine” posted online had been forensically marked and “was without many effects, had missing and unedited scenes and temporary sound and music.”

‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ leaks to the Web
This is not an April Fool’s Day joke: A full print of the upcoming superhero flick “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” has appeared online.
Worse, we’re not talking the sort of blurry, cellphone-quality bootleg normally associated with leaked movies. Drew McWeeny over at HitFix describes it as “a near-finished DVD quality rip, marred only by a few unfinished FX shots.” Other commenters who viewed the leaked movie said the CGI was either unfinished or totally absent.
That’s bad news for 20th Century Fox, which is hoping “Wolverine” can resurrect its “X-Men” franchise after a relatively disappointing showing by “X-Men: The Last Stand.” No matter how unfinished, leaked films hurt box office both directly (obviously, someone who’s seen the movie for free may not pay ten bucks for a ticket at the theater) and indirectly (those who see it aren’t seeing a theatrical cut, so their word of mouth may prevent others from buying tickets).
Don’t expect Fox’s lawyers to win this round, either. It’s one thing to ask a site to take down leaked clips; it’s another to try and fight against the evolving slipperiness of the torrent communities. Just ask all those video-game developers whose pirated products have been played free for years.
Before you go rushing off to HitFix (or Ain’t It Cool News or CinemaBlend or the movie news site of your choice), be warned: While the sites themselves are taking a strong stance against leaking details, commenters in several places aren’t being nearly as restrained. Spoilers do abound.

Some Facebook users aren’t fond of website’s new face
SAN FRANCISCO ó Facebook’s new face is drawing frowns from some of its users.
They’re grousing about a spanking new redesign intended to unclutter their profiles on the social network. Several groups requesting a return to the old design have surfaced, including one with 1 million members.
Facebook has shifted millions of users to its new design in a bid to draw more members and advertisers to a cleaner interface. Facebook’s torrid growth ó it has added 90 million members the past two years ó has put it in a prime position to vie for an estimated $2 billion market for social-networking ads this year.
But the new look has rankled some. “It’s really difficult to read, and I don’t like the tabs that you have to go through to see the whole profile. I hate it,” says Jenny Smelyanets, 22, a public relations specialist in Palo Alto, Calif.
The facelift includes partitioning members’ personal profiles into different areas of the site and offering more tools to make it easier to share information and photos. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said the changes, although for the better, might alienate some of the more than 100 million active users.
Facebook made the changes over several months and has left it up to individuals to decide when they want to switch over. So far, more than 80 million people have the new Facebook.
The process started in February, when Facebook launched a preview page to solicit user feedback. By late July, users had the ability to opt into the new design, says Mark Slee, a product manager at Facebook. The company began migrating everyone on Sept. 10 and will finish the task by the end of the month.
Despite some dissatisfaction, few users are expected to defect.
“Change is good, and change makes us angry,” says Ben Parr, a blogger who started a protest group about the site’s “news feed” feature two years ago but is fine with the new Facebook look.
Redesigns of tech hangouts typically elicit hand-wringing from loyal users. When Facebook introduced news feeds, critics called them an invasion of privacy. The feature ó which outlines profile changes, upcoming events and birthdays, for instance ó is now one of the most popular.
“There is backlash to change, simple as that,” says Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst at Forrester Research. “There was to news feeds and Beacon (Facebook’s advertising system that sparked privacy concerns). This time, Facebook gave users an opt-out option. They handled it as well as they could have.”
A redesign at social network MySpace met with minimal criticism when it was unveiled in June. It enhanced functions of its home page, a video player and Profile Editor, which lets users customize their profiles. Since then, its number of unique users and the amount of time spent on the site are up. The site has 122 million members, up 2.7 million.
“Everything we did was shown to users six months to a year before they were finalized, and we were very sensitive to their input,” says Steve Pearman, MySpace’s senior vice president of product strategy.

Movie critics’ Web site to post reviews
CHICAGO – Thanks to the Web, the balcony will never close. Clips of movie reviews from the TV show that made the thumb the most prestigious of digits are being posted online.
More than 20 years of televised reviews by newspaper film critics Roger Ebert and the late Gene Siskel and columnist Richard Roeper will be available beginning Thursday at the Web site www.AtTheMoviesTV.com.
The site is touted as the largest collection of video-based movie reviews online. Searchable by movie title, director or actor, it features about 5,000 lively ó sometimes very lively ó discussions of movies that always end with the reviewers’ “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” evaluation.
“For years, this was a dream,” Ebert said in a statement. “Now I am exhilarated that it is a reality, thanks to the enormous effort of digitizing something like 1,000 programs.”
Visitors to the Web site can see just how often Siskel, the Chicago Tribune’s film critic, and Ebert, his counterpart at the Chicago Sun-Times, disagreed and how passionately they did so on “Siskel & Ebert at the Movies.” They also can watch “Ebert & Roeper,” the show Ebert and the Sun-Times columnist have taped since 2000, the year after Siskel’s death.
The site includes recent shows featuring Roeper and guest reviewers, such as Jay Leno and New York Times film critic A.O. Scott, who have appeared while Ebert recovers from serious health problems.
“It is always fascinating to go back and see what was being said about a film before it opened,” Ebert said.
The 65-year-old Ebert has had a series of surgeries in recent years, including a tracheostomy, which left him unable to speak. He has written that he is waiting for another operation that he hopes will restore his speech.
Since last summer, Ebert has not appeared on “Ebert & Roeper.” But he has written some reviews in the Sun-Times, where he has been the film critic since 1967 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975.

‘Office’ fans flock to edit Wikipedia
NEW YORK (AP) – In last week’s episode of the NBC series “The Office,” the boss Michael Scott turned to Wikipedia for tips on fending off an employee’s request for a pay raise. Viewers quickly flocked to the online encyclopedia and added their take to its entry on negotiations.
Administrators at Wikipedia had to limit editing of the entry, most recently late Tuesday, placing it in “semi-protection” mode. That meant users couldn’t make changes anonymously or from accounts fewer than four days old – to discourage those drawn to the site specifically because of the broadcast.
The site imposed similar restrictions on the entry twice before, only to see vandalism continue after they were lifted.
Wikipedia is a collaborative reference site where anyone can add, change or even delete entries, regardless of expertise. The thinking is that the collective wisdom results in a better product overall, and members of the community can watch for any vandalism and reverse it.
In the case of the “negotiation” entry, viewers quickly added phoney tips in response to clueless advice from Scott, played by Steve Carell, in last week’s episode.
One edit simply replaced the entry with a statement praising the television program. That was followed by the insertion of Scott’s tips for getting the upper hand, including “suddenly changing the location” and “refusing to talk first.”
Users made more than 100 changes, including those to reverse the vandalism, before the site imposed the latest restrictions on revisions.
Wikipedia does face vandalism from time to time as a result of high-profile mentions.
Fans of Stephen Colbert’s Comedy Central show “The Colbert Report” flocked to Wikipedia to alter articles on elephants after he said on the program, “all we need to do is convince a majority of people that some factoid is true – for instance, that Africa has more elephants today than it did 10 years ago.”
Changes aren’t always noticed and fixed immediately.
In late 2005, prominent journalist John Seigenthaler, the former publisher of the Tennessean newspaper and founding editorial director of USA Today, revealed that a Wikipedia entry that ran for four months had incorrectly named him as a longtime suspect in the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert.

“SNL” skit puts YouTube on map
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – It took a “Saturday Night Live” skit featuring a rap about cupcakes and “The Chronicles of Narnia” to put YouTube on Hollywood’s radar.
Not long after “SNL” aired the segment December 17, the clever lyrics to what was known as “Lazy Sunday” made its way to the Internet. YouTube in particular saw its traffic shoot up, with 5 million streams over 45 days — making it the most-watched clip on the site for a time.
Nearly two months went by before NBC Universal’s legal department began reaching out to viral video sites including http://www.YouTube.com requesting that the clip be removed, along with hundreds of other clips culled from its airwaves. NBC had already posted “Sunday” on http://www.NBC.com at no charge; the skit also is available for $1.99 on Apple’s iTunes along with other NBC programs.
Since then, NBC has made a steady stream of “SNL” product available on new platforms, but YouTube hasn’t left the picture. A skit featuring Natalie Portman this month drew another demand of removal from NBC.
And what would an Internet phenomenon be without spawning countless parodies. “Sunday” has generated more than a few versions of “Lazy Monday,” picking up on the theme of hopelessly white kids trying to rap. Two standouts are “Lazy Muncie,” in which two denizens of the titular Indiana town give shout-outs to Midwest franchises like Bob Evans, and “Lazy Monday: Middle East Coast,” which runs subtitles under Al-Jazeera footage featuring Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri (“Let’s go down to the village/and mac on some goat milk”).

Definitions of easter on the Web:
– A Christian celebration of the Resurrection of Christ; celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn
– The festival that commemorates the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, the third day after he was crucified. It is called Easter Day in our prayer book, but has come to be called (redundantly) Easter Sunday by the media, most laity, and some clergy, all of whom ought to know better. Easter is a movable feast, which means it does not always fall on the same day each year. Easter is always the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox (first day of Spring). By this calculation, Easter could occur anytime from March 22, to April 25. The length of Epiphany and the Season after Pentecost, as well as the dates of Ash Wednesday, Holy Week, Ascension Day, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday are all determined by the date of Easter. Easter is also a Church season, spanning the 40 days (six Sundays) after Easter, to Ascension Day.
www.holycross.net/anonline.htm
– Kempe spent Easter in Rome probably in 1415. That she would mention that she waited “until Eastertime had come and gone” to begin her return to England reflects the enormous solemnity of the celebrations connected to Easter. Holy Week had its great moments, but Easter was the quintessential great feast of Christian practice. Whether for monastic establishment or parish church, Easter was the moment when the finest mass vestments and service for the altar (chalices, crosses, etc) were taken from church treasuries for the most elaborate ceremonies of the year. The folded altarpieces were open to reveal the most significant paintings. Specific songs were rehearsed by choirs and sung. In some churches, a boy’s choir would sing from the towers of the church at dawn, imitating the angel of the Resurrection. [Chapter 9] [Chapter 30] [Chapter 42] [Chapter 54] [Chapter 81] [II: Chapter 3]
www.holycross.edu/departments/visarts/projects/kempe/text/gloss2.html
– The oldest feast of the Christian church celebrating the resurrection of Christ; Easter Day falls on or between 21 March, and 25 April.
www.lichfield-cathedral.org/glossary.htm
– The feast day of the resurrection of Christ, known also as “the Feast of Feasts.” It is the greatest Orthodox festival, celebrated the Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring equinox. It is a movable feast and the dates of the other movable feasts of the Orthodox Church are calculated from it.
essenes.crosswinds.net/odict.htm
– April was called Ostermonath – the month of the Ost-end wind (wind from the east). Easter is therefore the April feast, which lasted eight days. Our Easter Sunday must be between March 21st and April 25th. It is regulated by the paschal moon, or first full moon between the vernal equinox and fourteen days afterwards. (Teutonic, ostara; Anglo-Saxon, eastre.) Easter. The Saxon goddess of the east, whose festival was held in the spring.
www.bootlegbooks.com/Reference/PhraseAndFable/data/401.html
– Falls on the Sunday first after the paschal full moon. The paschal full moon is the full moon which falls on or first after 21st March – the vernal equinox. The date of Easter is however calculated, and is therefore fixed by reference to a theoretical moon.
privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~kent/calisto/guide/glossary.htm
– The day of celebrating the Lord’s resurrection, and the weeks which followed until He went up to heaven to be with God. This season continues until Pentecost.
www.natpresch.org/Glossary.shtml
– The day of Jesus Christ’s resurrection after renunciation of His body on the cross.
www.sanatan.org/en/glossary/e.htm
– The celebration of Christ√≠s Resurrection (“rise to life again”) from the Dead after being crucified. (BCP pp. 170 √± 174, 222 √± 225)
www.eca-sj.org/text/terms_and_definitions.htm
– This is the most important Christian festival on the Church calendar. It is the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Easter eggs have become associated with the celebration, symbolising the bursting forth of new, resurrection life from the tomb.The name Easter comes from the pagan, Saxon goddess Eostre whose sacred animal was the rabbit.
www.fitzwimarc.org.uk/glossary/e.htm
– The feast day of the resurrection of Christ, known also as “the Feast of Feasts.” It is the greatest Orthodox festival, celebrated the Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring equinox. It is a movable feast and the dates of the other movable feasts of the Orthodox Church are calculated from it.
www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/misc/litsas_dictionary_orthodox_terminology.htm
– The feast of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ; the major feast of the calendar; a movable feast falling on the Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox
www.anu.edu.au/history/medieval/resources/churchglossary/glossarye.htm
– The major festival in the Christian church which celebrates the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
www.geocities.com/brentwoodursuline/dictionary.htm
Happy Easter to one and all!!

Definitions of easter on the Web:
– A Christian celebration of the Resurrection of Christ; celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn
– The festival that commemorates the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, the third day after he was crucified. It is called Easter Day in our prayer book, but has come to be called (redundantly) Easter Sunday by the media, most laity, and some clergy, all of whom ought to know better. Easter is a movable feast, which means it does not always fall on the same day each year. Easter is always the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox (first day of Spring). By this calculation, Easter could occur anytime from March 22, to April 25. The length of Epiphany and the Season after Pentecost, as well as the dates of Ash Wednesday, Holy Week, Ascension Day, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday are all determined by the date of Easter. Easter is also a Church season, spanning the 40 days (six Sundays) after Easter, to Ascension Day.
www.holycross.net/anonline.htm
– Kempe spent Easter in Rome probably in 1415. That she would mention that she waited “until Eastertime had come and gone” to begin her return to England reflects the enormous solemnity of the celebrations connected to Easter. Holy Week had its great moments, but Easter was the quintessential great feast of Christian practice. Whether for monastic establishment or parish church, Easter was the moment when the finest mass vestments and service for the altar (chalices, crosses, etc) were taken from church treasuries for the most elaborate ceremonies of the year. The folded altarpieces were open to reveal the most significant paintings. Specific songs were rehearsed by choirs and sung. In some churches, a boy’s choir would sing from the towers of the church at dawn, imitating the angel of the Resurrection. [Chapter 9] [Chapter 30] [Chapter 42] [Chapter 54] [Chapter 81] [II: Chapter 3]
www.holycross.edu/departments/visarts/projects/kempe/text/gloss2.html
– The oldest feast of the Christian church celebrating the resurrection of Christ; Easter Day falls on or between 21 March, and 25 April.
www.lichfield-cathedral.org/glossary.htm
– The feast day of the resurrection of Christ, known also as “the Feast of Feasts.” It is the greatest Orthodox festival, celebrated the Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring equinox. It is a movable feast and the dates of the other movable feasts of the Orthodox Church are calculated from it.
essenes.crosswinds.net/odict.htm
– April was called Ostermonath – the month of the Ost-end wind (wind from the east). Easter is therefore the April feast, which lasted eight days. Our Easter Sunday must be between March 21st and April 25th. It is regulated by the paschal moon, or first full moon between the vernal equinox and fourteen days afterwards. (Teutonic, ostara; Anglo-Saxon, eastre.) Easter. The Saxon goddess of the east, whose festival was held in the spring.
www.bootlegbooks.com/Reference/PhraseAndFable/data/401.html
– Falls on the Sunday first after the paschal full moon. The paschal full moon is the full moon which falls on or first after 21st March – the vernal equinox. The date of Easter is however calculated, and is therefore fixed by reference to a theoretical moon.
privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~kent/calisto/guide/glossary.htm
– The day of celebrating the Lord’s resurrection, and the weeks which followed until He went up to heaven to be with God. This season continues until Pentecost.
www.natpresch.org/Glossary.shtml
– The day of Jesus Christ’s resurrection after renunciation of His body on the cross.
www.sanatan.org/en/glossary/e.htm
– The celebration of Christ√≠s Resurrection (“rise to life again”) from the Dead after being crucified. (BCP pp. 170 √± 174, 222 √± 225)
www.eca-sj.org/text/terms_and_definitions.htm
– This is the most important Christian festival on the Church calendar. It is the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Easter eggs have become associated with the celebration, symbolising the bursting forth of new, resurrection life from the tomb.The name Easter comes from the pagan, Saxon goddess Eostre whose sacred animal was the rabbit.
www.fitzwimarc.org.uk/glossary/e.htm
– The feast day of the resurrection of Christ, known also as “the Feast of Feasts.” It is the greatest Orthodox festival, celebrated the Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring equinox. It is a movable feast and the dates of the other movable feasts of the Orthodox Church are calculated from it.
www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/misc/litsas_dictionary_orthodox_terminology.htm
– The feast of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ; the major feast of the calendar; a movable feast falling on the Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox
www.anu.edu.au/history/medieval/resources/churchglossary/glossarye.htm
– The major festival in the Christian church which celebrates the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
www.geocities.com/brentwoodursuline/dictionary.htm
Happy Easter to one and all!!