Time lapse view of Manhattan
Placing more of our gadgets on the web provides many conveniences. Unfortunately they also make it easier for hackers to invade our privacy. This ranges from taking control of devices ranging from smart cars to baby monitors. Cassidy Wolf, Miss Teen USA, was the target of a sextortion plot in which hackers took nude photos of her over the webcam on her laptop computer and threatened to post them on line. Rather than giving into this extortion, Wolf has been going on television publicizing this problem, hopefully protecting others from the same invasions of their privacy:
Recently crowned Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf has been making the rounds on news programs talking not only about her beauty pageant win but something far more insidious. It seems that before being crowned, a hacker took control of the 19-year old’s webcam and attempted to blackmail her.
Wolf told TODAY.com that she first became aware of the intrusion four months ago, when Facebook warned her of an attempted login in a different state. This was quickly followed by an email from the hacker, claiming to have nude photos of Wolf taken with her webcam. Wolf was in high school at the time.
In interviews, Wolf said that she had no idea that she was being watched and that the light on her webcam was never lit.
Going on television should help publicize a problem which so far has obtained attention primarily on tech sites which most people do not read. The FBI is investigating this case.
Update: The person responsible for this extortion has been apprehended by the FBI.
The Republican National Committee has voted to ban CNN and NBC from covering their debates if they go ahead with planned shows about Hillary Clinton. Obviously the Republicans feel more comfortable on Fox, with talk that the debates might be moderated by Mark Levin, Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh in place of journalists.
This sounds like a good idea to me. Let the Republicans stay in their bubble. There really isn’t much difference between the pseudo-journalists at Fox and the conservative talking heads. Put them in a room together and who knows what sort of bat-shit crazy things they will all start talking about. Just picture it: “Any of you believe in evolution, raise your hand (snickers). Believe in global warming? What do you plan to do to keep minorities out of the country (and keep women and blacks in their place)?”
Last week white smoke emerged from the BBC and soon afterwards Peter Capaldi was introduced as the 12th Doctor on a show simulcast in the U.K., the United States, Canada, and Australia (video above). BBC America has a run down on the news coverage. The Guardian introduces Capaldi to non-Brits.
Every time there is a regeneration, there is speculation that the next Doctor might not someone other than a white male. Neil Gaiman claims that a black actor has turned down the role. Steven Moffat, Matt Smith, and Jenna Coleman discussed the transition in this interview. An excerpt:
Is writing that final story for Matt Smith’s Doctor the biggest pressure you’ve faced, in doing this show?
MOFFAT: The biggest pressure will always be introducing a new Doctor. And I can’t imagine it will ever be tougher than with “The Eleventh Hour” because everything changed. It’s not an ideal way to run television. It really isn’t. That was mad. All the execs left, the producer left, and all the stars left. You think, “Christ, how do you get away with that?!” We’re not in that situation this time, and it’s good that we’re not. People say, “It must have been great and exciting and marvelous that you had all that new stuff,” but not really. But, we got away with it. I just remember thinking, “Are people going to buy that this is the same show, when it clearly is not?”
Do you wish that you could just introduce the new Doctor via the show, when he finally shows up?
MOFFAT: I’d love to, but that’s physically impossible. It was Russell’s plan not to tell anyone that Chris [Eccleston] was going to change in the last episode, but it leaked after one week. I wish it were possible. The fact is that those actors’ agents have to say that they’re available. They have to take jobs. It’s going to leak, so you have to take command of that story. It’s annoying. I’d far rather not tell anybody anything, seriously. If you’re telling a joke, you don’t want anybody telling the punchline before you get to the end. Sadly, I don’t think it’s possible now. Everybody wanders around with cameras now. A few years ago, no one had a camera on them. Now, every little human being goes around with a camera on their phone. How am I going to keep secrets with that?! It’s tough. It can be irritating, but what can you do?
Moffat started with a new cast with both Matt Smith and Karen Gillan. With Jenna Coleman still being relatively new to the series, the show with Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman will have a different feel than during most of Moffat’s tenure with Matt Smith and the Ponds.
Now that we know who will play the next Doctor, the next major succession is who will play Batman when he appears in the next Superman movie. Rumor has it that Orlando Bloom is the leading contender.
Joss Whedon discussed synergy between Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the universe of The Avengers:
Speaking at the recent TCAs, Whedon said fans will spot some synergy in the run-up to Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Thor: The Dark World. “There will be as much as we can allow,” he said. “We’re still working that out. It’s a fun opportunity, but it’s not the reason for the show. It’s not an Easter egg farm, we want people to come back.”
The pilot kicks off with Angel alumnus J August Richards as an “unregistered gifted” that the SHIELD agents must track down. Don’t expect a superhero-of-the-week show, though, “There could be a device, a mystery,” Whedon continued.
“There’s so many aspects as to what’s happened since everybody in the world found out there’s a superhero team and aliens invaded New York. We want to be able to change it up every week: spy stuff, hero stuff, heartfelt stuff. We want to make sure the humor is there, but every week, you get something that feels a little bit different.”
Disney has also released a full synopsis for Captain America: The Winter Soldier
After the cataclysmic events in New York with The Avengers, Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier finds Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, living quietly in Washington, D.C. and trying to adjust to the modern world. But when a S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague comes under attack, Steve becomes embroiled in a web of intrigue that threatens to put the world at risk.
Joining forces with the Black Widow, Captain America struggles to expose the ever-widening conspiracy while fighting off professional assassins sent to silence him at every turn. When the full scope of the villainous plot is revealed, Captain America and the Black Widow enlist the help of a new ally, the Falcon. However, they soon find themselves up against an unexpected and formidable enemy—the Winter Soldier.
These Avengers-themed sex toys will definitely never be sold at the many stores around the Disney theme parks, even should the Avengers characters be moved from Universal to WDW in the future.
ABC is in talks to bring another genre show to television–a live action Star Wars show. I really hope this happens, not because I care whether there is a weekly Star Wars show but because maybe this would lead CBS (who appears to own the rights, but it is somewhat murky) to counter by returning Star Trek to television. Star Trek worked far better as a weekly series than intermittent movies which are forced by market demands to be big action movies.
After Disney purchased the rights to Star Wars, there was talk of expanding the Star Wars presence at the Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park. I expressed skepticism over speculation that they would get rid of Muppet Vision 3D and the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Playground for this expansion. Earlier in the week I was looking at the refurbishment schedule at Walt Disney World and noticed that Muppet Vision 3D is closed August 6 through September 2 for refurbishment. In addition, the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Playground will be closed September 3 through November 19 for refurbishment. They might not be around forever, but it doesn’t appear likely that they plan to remove them in the near future. As is usually the case at WDW, other areas will also be closed during these times. The most significant is that Spaceship Earth will be closed August 18-24.
On Orange is the New Black, Kate Mulgrew ran the prison kitchen instead of the Starship Voyager. She was interviewed by Vulture, and told about one Star Trek reference thrown into the show:
At one point Natasha Lyonne has a line, “I thought I was your Spock.”
Yes, they threw that in. I’m sure they’ll do some more of that. I think that was intentional and very clever!
Speaking of Star Trek, Blastr describes how the show was saved by Lucille Ball.
In 1965, Roddenberry got a pilot order from NBC and produced the original Star Trek pilot “The Cage.” It was rejected by the network, reportedly because it was “too cerebral,” and for most shows that’s where the story would have ended. Luckily for Roddenberry, he had Ball on his side. The story goes that she still thought the Star Trek idea had legs, and used her considerable influence in television to push for NBC to give Roddenberry a second chance. The network made the exceedingly rare move of ordering a second pilot from Roddenberry, who overhauled almost the entire cast of characters from “The Cage” and eventually produced “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” That pilot was accepted, the show was given a series order, and the rest is history.
Damian Louis interviewed about his role on Homeland in the video above.
Anna Torv returns to television following Fringe in a show expected to air on HBO next year. Torv will play a lesbian yoga instructor.
We don’t know yet how Dexter will end but executive producer Sara Colleton realizes that she can’t make everyone happy.
“This has been the ending that we have talked about for years,” she said. “So to us, it feels right for our show and how we feel about it. I hope fans will think it’s right [too].”
The exec conceded that there is no way to make “everybody happy” with the conclusion of the Michael C Hall series.
“At the end of the day, we know that you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t,” she said. “There will be people who hate it, but we can’t try to anticipate that or put it through the lens of any other show’s finale – because that was another show.
“This is our show. This is Dexter.”
It is hard to believe that things will end well for Dexter Morgan. Multiple routes to doom have arisen this season. So far this has included Dr. Vogel and Deb when she is in a crazy mood. Last week episode showed two additional threats. He has decided he wants to be a mentor to Zach Hamilton, but Zach appears unhinged enough to turn on Dexter. Then there was the return of Hannah McKay.
Having a hard time waiting until Game of Thrones returns? The White Queen on Starz might help.
Ever since Howard Dean had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling for elimination of the Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board, conservative sites have been using this to claim, as Investors Business Daily has, that Sarah Palin was right about death panels. The problem with their argument is that Howard Dean got some of the facts wrong, and Palin’s argument remains a stretch. However, liberal bloggers also continued to make mistakes in discussing the IPAB in rebuttals to Dean. While Dean was wrong in calling for its abolition, there were problems in the originator Senate version of the Affordable Care Act which should be fixed.
Howard Dean is wrong in claiming that the IPAB will not cut costs. There is no question that a board with the power to change how Medicare operates is capable of cutting costs. Dean is misleading in writing, “The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has indicated that the IPAB, in its current form, won’t save a single dime before 2021.” The reason for this is not that it cannot cut costs, but that the cost cutting regulations do not become effective until Medicare costs raise above a certain point, which the CBO does not project will happen until 2022. While the IPAB’s rulings only directly affect Medicare, it is common for private plans to mirror changes in Medicare, but paying at a higher rate.
The idea behind the IPAB is to have medical experts make proposals for cost cutting in Medicare to take this out of the political process. On paper the board is not allowed to ration care, but by itself this argument in its defense is bogus. Howard Dean does have a point here. Rationing is not well defined in the legislation. Any changes in how Medicare reimburses physicians, either in terms of dollar amounts or, as is most likely to occur, the nature of the payment system, will lead to reduced spending in some areas and could be considered rationing. The important point here is that it is not necessarily the IPAB which might ration care. If you consider this to be rationing, the same could be said about any Congressional changes in Medicare reimbursement. The question then becomes whether it is better for Congress or for a panel of experts to decide where spending cuts should occur.
From this perspective, the IPAB is a good idea and should not be abolished. However, there are two structural problems which should be revised.
The first is trying to legislate Medicare cuts in the future. With an aging population and unknown new technology, we cannot predict today how much we should spend on Medicare after 2021. There obviously needs to be some limit on costs, but this is a decision which should be made by Congress at the time. We already have seen the problems with attempts to legislate automatic decreases in Medicare payment with the Sustainable Growth Rate. Using this flawed plan, we run into the situation where the automatic formula would reduce Medicare payments to a level where physicians simply would not be able to afford to treat Medicare patients. Now pretty much every year, and sometimes more often, Congress has to intervene and overrule the cuts called for with the Sustainable Growth Rate. The current legislation creates similar problems.
The second problem is that the IPAB has insufficient accountability. It makes sense to have decisions made outside of the current legislative process, analogous to an independent panel making recommendations for military base closings. Many liberal bloggers defending the IPAB have used this analogy, but many incorrect believe that, like the military base recommendations, the decisions of the IPAB will be subject to an up or down vote by Congress. The portions of the Affordable Care Act which create the IPAB make it virtually impossible that Congress will be able to override their rulings. On the other hand, I have read speculation that Congress might be able to pass supplemental spending bills to replace things cut by the IPAB, comparable to how they currently override the cuts which would come from the Sustainable Growth Rate. However, this would not solve the problem should the IPAB make structural changes in Medicare which lead to physicians not being willing to accept Medicare patients.
The IPAB as was passed in the Senate version of health care reform legislation should be maintained but reformed so that an up or down vote by Congress is required to accept their recommendations, and so that cuts are not automatically required. While many Democrats now feel compelled to defend this aspect of the law as passed (largely in response to the ridiculous hyperbole coming from the right in opposition), we must keep in mind that the Senate version was passed only because of the Democrats losing a super majority in the Senate, preventing the normal process of the Senate passing a final bill following reconciliation with the superior House bill. Changes should be made, but not repeal of this or the entire bill as Republicans are calling for. Unfortunately, the Republican refusal to engage in the normal legislative process will probably make fixing the problems in the Affordable Care Act unlikely to occur in Congress.
This story about drones being used to deliver beer in South Africa provides a good example about the dangers of generalization, such as believing all drones are bad:
Revellers at a South African outdoor rock festival no longer need to queue to slake their thirst — a flying robot will drop them beer by parachute.
After clients place an order using a smartphone app, a drone zooms 15 metres (50 feet) above the heads of the festival-goers to make the delivery.
Carel Hoffmann, director of the Oppikoppi festival held on a dusty farm in the country’s northern Limpopo province, said the app registers the position of users using the GPS satellite chips on their phones.
“The delivery guys have a calibrated delivery drone. They send it to the GPS position and drops it with a parachute,” he explained.
Even Rand Paul has tweeted that he’s not against all drones in response to this story. Alcohol appears to be the common denominator when Paul considers the use of drones, such as with his previous statement in support of using drones against someone robbing a liquor store: “If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and $50 in cash, I don’t care if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him.” Paul is also having difficulty in using numbers and coherently discussing economic issues.