PJ Vogt

When Apple unveiled its new iPhone two weeks ago, one of the immediate questions concerned the phone's new fingerprint sensor. The sensor's supposed to automate security. Rather than typing in a password every time you unlock your phone, you just press your finger to the phone's home button. It's supposed to create a world wherein stolen iPhones are useless to thieves. But does it actually work? 

That most glorious day is once again upon us. Here's some of the cool, interesting, or weird stuff we could not find a home for on the blog this week. 

A while back, my colleague Alex Goldman and I got very into watching this one clip, of comedian Chris Thayer interviewing comedian Pete Holmes after they've both eaten habanero peppers. Watching two human beings writhe in pain is much more charming than you'd think. (The language is pretty salty, so if you don't like salty language, skip to videos two and three please.)

So here's two strange stories from opposite sides of the world.

Last week, Upworthy, the website built for viral progressive political content, secured $8 million in funding. I wrote a piece about how annoying I find it. I compared it to San Francisco, which is the deepest epithet in my epithet bullpen.

Earlier this week, government transparency site Muckrock published a story about how the NSA bought hacking exploits from Vupen, a French hacker company. Muckrock unearthed that information via FOIA, and in response, Vupen did something unusual. 

Yesterday, LinkedIn's general counsel published a letter to the site's users expressing frustration that the company's not allowed to disclose the number of national security-related data requests it receives each year. 

Grand Theft Auto Five is out today. It'll most certainly be another huge hit for Rockstar Games. And it's already the highest-rated game ever reviewed on Metacritic. It also, unfortunately, has the crappy gender politics of every blockbuster video game release since the beginning of time. 

Welcome to the inaugural episode of the TLDR podcast! Thanks for listening, and please check out the TLDR blog at tldr.onthemedia.org. In this episode - a YouTube channel dedicated to pronouncing words suddenly starts issuing ominous warnings, and a reporter tries to get to the bottom of it. 

We'll update this throughout the afternoon, please add any feeds you're finding useful in the comments. 

Upworthy announced they've received 8 million dollars in funding this morning, which means much more Upworthy for the foreseeable future. 

The week's over! The radio show'll be up on the site in a couple hours. Here're a bunch of things that I wanted to tell you about this week and didn't have time to: 

A great HitFix interview with the Parks & Recs guys that shows you how smart sitcom writers think about making TV.

The BBC is doing a reality show about a trio of American Evangelicals who go to London to perform exorcisms. It seems like it'll be interesting in a "This is what England thinks of the U.S." way.

Yelp's suing a law firm for posting fake reviews. Seems wonk-ish, but it's interesting because it's novel. A couple years ago, it seemed like Yelp was being sued every few months by angry businesses that didn't quite understand the internet. Which makes this kind of a man-bites-dog story, albeit instead of a man biting a dog it's a business that usually gets sued suing someone instead. 

If you watch Breaking Bad but aren't listening to the Breaking Bad Insider podcast, you should. It's Kelley Dixon, the show's editor, who is an over-the-top charming gruff genius, and usually Vince Gilligan, breaking down all the little choices that go into the show. It's sort of like the Parks & Rec interview - there's something endlessly satisfying about listening to creative geniuses think out loud. 

And lastly, for your weekend, here are two videos of young children wholesomely pursuing fame. 

This week we learned that Worst Twerk Fail EVER, the viral clip that had captured the hearts and minds of America was in fact a hoax. 

This week, Jimmy Kimmel revealed that he had faked a viral video that has racked up over 12 million views. Producers and hosts of TLDR, PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman have been arguing all week about whether this falsehood represents some kind of betrayal of its viewers. So they decided to hash the argument out on the air.

Los Lobos - La Iguana

Twitter announced its IPO this evening. Like Google or Facebook before it, the company spent a long time proving itself indispensable before it worried about proving itself profitable. Bob spoke to Twitter co-founder Evan Williams awhile back about how you make money off the world's favorite microblog. 

After thirty-six years, NASA's Voyager spacecraft has finally left our solar system. It's the furthest a man-made object has ever been from space. And it's sending us back the sound of interstellar space. So what's that sound like, anyway? 

Disney's re-releasing The Little Mermaid, with a twist: they're encouraging audiences to bring along their iPads for a second-screen experience. 

AT&T tweeted a 9/11 themed ad today designed to celebrate the majesty of a recovered New York while subtly reminding social media users about AT&T's elegant,affordable smartphones.