Glenn McDonald

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When Cuteness Attacks! The Stories Behind 5 Super-Viral Videos

Viral videos are one of the weirdest unintended consequences of the Digital Age. When the architects of the Internet set about creating the most massive and sophisticated communications matrix in history, I doubt they had the Numa Numa guy in mind. 

Viral videos are a legitimate industry now, but some of the most popular artifacts of the genre began as simple happy accidents — kids and pets and home movies gone rogue. Eschewing professional productions, music videos, and deliberate viral marketing campaigns, here are five of the most famous viral videos — and the stories behind them.

Charlie Bit My Finger (2007) 

One of the earliest viral videos to go truly supernova, the epic drama that is Charlie Bit My Finger was for several years the reigning champion of YouTube viral videos. Uploaded in May of 2007, it had more than 100 million views within a year. (It has more than 800 million now.)

The clip, which features two English kids, is entirely genuine. It was posted by father Howard Davies-Carr, who wanted to show it to the kids’ grandfather in America. The clip made the Davies-Carr family minor celebrities in the U.K. The kids have been kept off the media circuit for the most part, but the family did make six-figure profits with subsequent advertising revenue, and ultimately signed with a digital management company. 

David After Dentist (2009) 

Another one for the Cute Kid Hall of Fame, David After Dentist famously documents 7-year David DeVore’s reaction to anesthesia after a trip to the dentist. Once again, the clip was shot by dad, who initially posted the video to Facebook. He was encouraged by family to put it on YouTube, which he did — but neglected to tag the video as private.

Young David’s ordeal quickly went viral online, with more than 7 million views within a week. The family entered a partnership with YouTube to earn a piece of advertising revenue, and later set up a T-shirt business with part of the proceeds going to charities — dental charities, of course.

Ultimate Dog Tease (2011) 

Sometimes a viral video hits an interspecies sweet spot that no one even knew existed. That’s the case with Ultimate Dog Tease, in which a poor canine is tortured with the prospect of imminent bacon.

The funny voiceover was provided by former Canadian ad man Andrew Grantham, creator of the YouTube’s Talking Animals channel. Grantham has since produced hundreds of these videos, adapted from viewer-submitted live footage, in a kind of one-man AFV operation. He clearly has an oddly specific gift. In 2012, Paramount Pictures announced it was developing a feature film based on the Ultimate Dog Tease clip, with comedy writers Alec Berg and David Mandel — veterans of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. No joke.

Dramatic Chipmunk (2007)

Dramatic Chipmunk is perhaps the shortest viral video ever to break into the upper echelons of online weirdness. Just five seconds long, the clip features a chipmunk — well, OK, it’s actually a prairie dog — captured in a remarkably cinematic moment.

The footage itself actually comes from an obscure Japanese TV show, and is apparently the result of a camera operator accidentally doing just the right thing in just the right place at just the right time. The dramatic music was added in by CollegeHumor.com; it’s taken from the score of Mel Brooks’ 1974 film Young Frankenstein. Dramatic Chipmunk inspired a legion of response videos as the Internet once again went twirling, twirling, twirling towards madness.

Dancing Baby (1996)

Considered by many to the first genuine viral video of the Internet age, Dancing Baby — a.k.a. Baby Cha-Cha — predates YouTube itself by almost a decade. Oddly compelling and abidingly creepy, the 3D animation of a dancing baby originated as a test clip for a commercial animation software package in the mid-1990s. At some point, a compressed version of the file escaped into the wilds of the then-young World Wide Web, where it circulated largely by way of user forums, email, and shared Web pages.

Dancing Baby entered the pop culture superconsciousness when it was featured on the Fox comedy Ally McBeal, as a recurring hallucination. You now can find approximately one gajillion versions of the clip everywhere from video games to sports arena jumbotrons.

[glennmcdonald]

The Queue: The Best Workplace Comedies on Netflix

There’s no getting around it — funny things happen in the workplace. Day to day, you never know what’s going to go down. As such, the workplace comedy has long been a go-to genre for both television and film. For this edition of the Queue, we present five recommended workplace comedies you can get to instantly via Netflix. Sometimes all you can do is laugh. 

9 to 5 (1980)

If you haven’t seen 9 to 5 in a decade or three, I truly recommend circling back for an encore viewing. Starring Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, and Lily Tomlin as frustrated workingwomen at a soul-sucking company office, the movie is a very funny time capsule of caricatured corporate culture circa 1980. Dabney Coleman absolutely tears up the joint as the ladies’ sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot boss. The film was Fonda’s baby all along, and she originally conceived of it as a drama. Switching to comedy was a genius move, as the film’s humor makes a much better vehicle for the underlying feminist and pro-labor sentiments.

The Office (2001-03)

With their mockumentary workplace sendup The Office, British wise guys Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant pioneered a brand-new format for TV comedy. Gervais’s character, the clueless office boss David Brent, is a glorious comic creation, and The Office is rightfully considered one of the best British sitcoms of all time. The successful U.S. adaptation with Steve Carell — also on Netflix — established its own comic tone, but if you want to study the creative DNA of it all, dig in to these original U.K. episodes. It’s said that everyone has a David Brent at the office, and if you don’t, then heads up: It may be you.

His Girl Friday (1940)

Director Howard Hawks’s classic screwball comedy stars Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell as ex-spouses and colleagues at a busy newspaper office. Awkward. The rapid-fire, overlapping dialogue is still fun to listen to, and Hollywood legend holds that Russell hired her own writer to punch up her lines. Older-era films like His Girl Friday are great for movie night at home, but they require a kind of gear-shifting. Roll with the different comic rhythms and you might find yourself hooked.

Clerks (1994)

Filmmaker Kevin Smith’s acclaimed indie-comedy debut, Clerks chronicles a day in the life of two profoundly bored but remarkably funny retail-store clerks. As workplace comedies go, it’s admirably direct: Smith filmed the movie at the convenience store where he worked in real life and based much of the relentlessly profane dialogue on actual conversations among his circle of slacker friends. The comedy is crude and dumb and entirely authentic — Smith would go on to carve out an entire career around this aesthetic.

30 Rock (2006-13)

My vote for the best sitcom of all time, 30 Rock is the ultimate workplace comedy, and the fact that it’s on Netflix is a gift to the world of on-demand TV. You can revisit episodes of this show in the same way you listen to old Beatles records — just to admire the clockwork precision of it all.  With 30 Rock, series creator Tina Fey took the workplace sitcom template of 1970s series like The Mary Tyler Moore show, then accelerated the writing to insane velocity. The show is so densely layered with jokes that you can’t possibly catch them all in a single viewing. I like to keep 30 Rock on tap as a kind of digital elixir — it’s good medicine after a tough day at work. Highly recommended.

Glenn McDonald writes about the intersections of technology and culture at glenn-mcdonald.com and via Twitter @glennmcdonald1.

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Ready, Set: A.I. Challenges Human Champion at World’s Hardest Game

On March 9, humankind will play a very important game.

That’s the day Lee Sedol, world champion Go player, will square off against an artificial intelligence opponent in a series of matches in Seoul, South Korea.

It’s a heavyweight showdown that’s being compared to the famous 1997 matchup between chess champion Garry Kasparov and IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue. That competition — which Deep Blue won three games to two (with one draw) — was a seismic event in the history of technology. It suggested that supercomputers had surpassed humans in one of our greatest intellectual pursuits.

In many ways, the upcoming Go match is even more significant.

For one thing, Go — the 2,500-year-old Chinese strategy game played with colored stones — is more mathematically complex than chess, by several orders of magnitude. It’s generally considered to be the world’s oldest and most difficult board game.  

There’s also the fact that AlphaGo — the name that Google’s DeepMind team has given to its Go-playing supercomputer — essentially taught itself to master the game. Thanks to deep-learning techniques and artificial neural network technology, AlphaGo is a kind of 21st-century digital autodidact. Computer scientists didn’t spend years programming the A.I. with customized algorithms, as with Deep Blue and chess. Instead, AlphaGo programmed itself.

How it works

To learn the game, the AlphaGo system was provided with a database of 30 million moves as played by human experts. That might seem like a lot, but 30 million is actually a minuscule fraction of the total number of moves possible in a game of Go.

After that, the computer played against itself — thousands of times — until the A.I. was able to grasp the game’s higher-level subtleties and dynamics.

“Traditional A.I. methods, which construct a search tree over all possible positions, don’t have a chance in Go,” wrote Google researcher Demis Hassabis, in a blog post accompanying news of the AlphaGo initiative. “So when we set out to crack Go, we took a different approach. We built a system ... that combines an advanced tree search with deep neural networks. These neural networks take a description of the Go board as an input and process it through 12 different network layers containing millions of neuron-like connections.”

The breakthrough was significant and surprisingly abrupt. For decades, Go-playing computer programs had been unable to improve themselves past the human amateur level. Professional human players consistently dominated when playing against computers.

AlphaGo arrived on the scene like a supergenius prodigy. When Google matched its system against the other top Go-playing A.I. in a 500-game virtual tournament, AlphaGo went 499-1. Its next bout was even more impressive: Last year, AlphaGo defeated European Go champion Fan Hui 5-0. It was the first time a computer program had ever defeated a professional human Go player.

March’s competition against the world champion is seen as the ultimate test. Sedol is widely considered the best Go player in the world over the past decade. The seven-day match in March will be broadcast live, with a $1 million prize at stake.

Games and evolution

Artificial intelligence has made enormous strides in recent years, largely due to artificial neural-network technology. To radically simplify things, that’s an approach to machine learning in which scientists try to get computers to think like the human brain. Practical applications include computer vision (in which machines learn to see and recognize objects) and speech recognition. You're able to talk to Siri these days largely due to artificial neural-network technology.

Game theory is another perennially hot area of focus in A.I. research. Teaching computers to win at particular games is often the first step to creating systems that can solve real-world problems.

Arend Hintze, an assistant professor in integrative biology, computer science and engineering at Michigan State University, is working on an A.I. gaming system that incorporates elements of Darwinism. The idea is to create A.I. opponents that evolve on their own as they play human opponents over and over. The A.I. learns as it plays, generating evolved progeny programs, in a kind of super-fast-forward analog of biological evolution.

In terms of game design, the approach has the immediate benefit of making faster and better video games. “The hope is that, instead of having an army of people designing behavior and A.I., those designers can work on story and narrative and the things that make the game more compelling,” Hintze says.

But in the long term, such self-evolving A.I. could have wide-ranging practical applications. As with Google’s AlphaGo program, these superbots can learn on their own and overcome challenges outside the original purview of the task.

“Machines that evolve are much better able to deal with a plethora of problems, rather than the one task that they were created for,” Hintze says. “We know that evolution is the thing that resulted in human intelligence. So why not use this to make intelligent machines?”

Poker faces

Meanwhile, over at Carnegie Mellon University, Professor Tuomas Sandholm is working on A.I. systems in the context of another enormously complex game: poker. Over the last several years, Sandholm and his team have designed a poker-playing supercomputer program known as Claudico. At a two-week tournament held last year, Claudico demonstrated that it could hold its own against professional poker players in the popular poker variant No Limit Texas Hold ’em.

Sandholm is one of the world’s leading experts on A.I. and game theory, and he says he’s very much looking forward to seeing the results of AlphaGo’s match against Sedol. “The Deep Mind people have put deep-learning techniques together with existing algorithms for Go to create what is, I think, the world’s strongest program for Go,” he says. 

But for Sandholm, poker represents an entirely different kind of challenge. Games like chess and Go are known as complete information games, Sandholm says. “When it’s my turn to go, I know everything. There is no hidden information,” he explains.

Poker, on the other hand, is an imperfect information game. Players do not know the value of the cards their opponents are holding or of the face-down community cards. That introduces strategy elements like aggressive wagering and bluffing, and these present a whole different set of challenges for A.I.

“These imperfect information games are much more important for real-world applications,” Sandholm says. “Think about negotiations, or bidding at auctions, or cybersecurity applications. It’s very important for sophisticated A.I. to know what to do when the other agents that the software is interacting with are trying to deceive.”

Playing for keeps

AlphaGo’s big match in March will be closely followed by pretty much everyone in the field of A.I. It could prove to be a watershed moment, like Deep Blue versus Kasparov. But no matter what the result, it’s clear that things have changed drastically in the nineteen years since that historic match.

A.I. is learning to play all kinds of games, and thanks to neural network technology, in many cases it’s teaching itself. The potential downside of all this is a familiar trope in scary science fiction stories. But researchers like Sandholm prefer to look at the upside of teaching machines how to play games.

“For instance, we’ve done [simulated] medical treatment planning, where the A.I. treats the disease as an opponent in a game,” he says. “Each game is customized to the disease at hand, whether it’s diabetes or cancer.”

If A.I. can rack up some victories in those kinds of games, everybody wins.

[glennmcdonald]

The Queue: The Best Valentine's Day Movies on Netflix

As anyone who has browsed its virtual aisles knows, Netflix can be a hit-or-miss affair when it comes to finding the movie you're in the mood for. The digital subscription service has thousands of titles in rotation at any given time, but due to constantly churning licensing issues, certain genres are better served than others.

The happy news -- for this weekend, anyway -- is that Netflix has some very good romantic comedies and dramas currently available. Smaller independent films, in particular, can get a substantial second wind on Netflix, which is good for everyone. Filmmakers get a bigger audience, and we get to see all those good movies that never came to the local art house theater.

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, here are five recommended hidden-gem romances, with some bonus classic picks thrown in.

Your Sister's Sister (2011)

Largely improvised by a talented cast, Your Sister's Sister is a lovely and funny comedy-drama that aches with authenticity. When platonic best friends Iris and Jack (Emily Blunt and Mark Duplass) spend a rural cabin weekend with Iris' sister Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt), drinks are served, secrets are revealed and love blossoms. Kind of -- things get weird. The final moment is so pitch perfect that you'll want to rewind and watch again, just to admire the clockwork precision of it all. Highly recommended.

Take This Waltz (2011)

Seth Rogen and Michelle Williams star in this underrated romantic drama, which starts out slow and awkward, then gets interesting and complex. Just like love! Heads up, though -- the film chronicles a marriage in trouble, and the vibe is not uplifting. Williams is terrific, as is comic Sarah Silverman in a dramatic supporting role. But it's Seth Rogen who really nails it, proving that not only is he one of the funniest guys on Earth, he's a genuinely skillful screen performer with a surprising emotional range.

Beginners (2010)

The gist: L.A. artist Oliver (Ewan McGregor) navigates the treacherous waters of love with fetching French actress Anna (Melanie Laurent). Meanwhile, Oliver's dad (Christopher Plummer) looks for love himself after coming out of the closet at age 75. Director Mike Mills tells the story with a clever flashback structure in three different time frames -- Oliver in the present, Oliver three months ago, and Oliver as a child. Beginners is the thinking couple's rom-com, and a great date movie.

Adventureland (2009)

Another overachieving indie comedy, Adventureland takes place over the course of one crazy summer at a second-rate amusement park circa 1987. The central love story, between Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart, is sweetened with very funny performances from Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Ryan Reynolds, and Martin Starr. It's fun to watch Stewart have a good time after moping through those vampire movies for so many years.

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Saving the best for last: Director David O. Russell's 2012 hit was eventually nominated for eight Oscars, so it's not exactly a hidden gem. But it is a must-see. The movie has the shape of a mainstream romantic comedy, but inside those lines it paints with different colors than we’re expecting. 

Bradley Cooper plays a Philadelphia school teacher recently released from an eight-month stint in the psych ward. Jennifer Lawrence portrays a similarly lost soul, and it’s a singular pleasure to watch their love story unfold. Probably the most surprising thing about Silver Linings Playbook is how relentlessly funny it is. The dialogue is rooted deeply in character -- you'll find no rom-com one-liners here. Instead, the comedy builds organically until it erupts into genuinely unhinged laughs.

Bonus picks!

If none of these float your Valentine's Day boat, the Netflix romance bins are deep with older classics, too. Consider A Room with a View (1985), The English Patient (1996), Chocolat (2000) or -- for a fairy tale variation -- the fantasy romance Stardust (2007). For a can't-miss sure shot, there's also Roman Holiday (1953) with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

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Glenn McDonald writes about the intersections of technology and culture at glenn-mcdonald.com and via Twitter @glennmcdonald1.

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Love and Specificity: 5 Odd Online Dating Sites for Valentine’s Day

Look, there's no accounting for taste. The heart wants what the heart wants, and people get together for all sorts of weird reasons. For instance, my wife and I met at a druidic S&M ritual after a 24-hour rave in the catacombs beneath Paris. This might seem weird to some people, but we've been together 17 years now and all of this is totally true, so far as you know.

The good news is the Digital Age, in her infinite wisdom, has provided us with online matchmaking services for everyone. In honor of Valentine's Day, we present five online matchmaking services for discriminating lonely hearts.

Clown Dating

The go-to joke with a situation like this is to suggest that clowns are scary and the idea of clown dating site is terrifying. But here at Yahoo Tech, we endeavor to remain above such cheap shots. Actually, the idea makes a lot of sense. Clowns presumably have common lifestyle issues that others don't, like makeup removal and giant shoe expenses and what to do with all those nurses buried in the crawlspace. From the website: It's no fun looking for love when you're a clown, for behind all the make-up and the red nose is a lonely heart. Indeed.

Gluten Free Singles

If these young people look uncommonly happy, that's because they've thrown off the oppressive yoke of … gluten! Partner site to the less specific Healthdate.com, Gluten Free Singles offers the usual array of services -- chat rooms, personal messaging -- plus profile options for indicating why, precisely, you've chosen the gluten-free lifestyle. Hey, if love blossoms from a shared aversion to cereal grain byproducts, then surely it was meant to be.

Mullet Passions

Part of the sprawling Passions Network, which offers more than 200 specialty dating sites to choose from, Mullet Passions is the "100% Free Dating & Social Networking for Singles Sportin' a Mullet."  It's business in the front and party in the back at Mullet Passions, and there's even a Mullet Lover Affiliate Program for participating sites to earn commission on mullet love. Sure, we'd all be more comfortable if this were a joke, but evidently it isn't, and now we must move on with our lives.

Can Do Better

For the saddest Valentine's Day experience ever, click on over to Can Do Better, a colossally depressing enterprise based on the following protocol: You upload a photo of yourself and your current partner. Then other members vote on which of one you "can do better," with the winner earning admission to dating service's premium subscription area. The site's motto -- "Let the World Decide!" -- was selected over the alternate suggestion: "The Decline of Western Civilization, Part 32,844.”

FurryMate

If you're unfamiliar with the remarkable subculture known as furry, Wikipedia has a pretty good primer. And you'll want to pay attention to the term yiffing, because that's where FurryMate comes in. It's a matchmaking service and online community dedicated to the furry lifestyle, which largely involves dressing up in cartoon animal "fursuits" and socializing, to various degrees of intensity, at conventions and costume balls. Unlike many of the other hyperspecific dating sites out there, FurryMate appears to offer legitimate services to a large and active community of members. Check out this promo video to see what you're missing....

Read these other great stories on Yahoo Tech:

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Glenn McDonald writes about the intersections of technology and culture at glenn-mcdonald.com and via Twitter @glennmcdonald1.

[glennmcdonald]

The Queue: 5 Sports Movies You Can Watch on Netflix This Super Weekend

Super Bowl Sunday is much more than a sporting event these days. With the halftime show and the million-dollar commercials and the general all-consuming hype, it's essentially a national cultural holiday. Throw in a few good sports movies, and you can make a whole weekend out of it. So gather your friends and family around the high-definition hearth for these five sports films, all available now through instant streaming on Netflix.

‘Major League’ (1989)

The classic 1989 sports comedy Major League may not be the best baseball movie ever made, but it's usually in the Top 5 for those of us who keep a running list. Starring Tom Berenger, Wesley Snipes, 1980s casualty Corbin Bernsen, and Charlie Sheen as Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn, the movie is agreeably loose and raunchy, with lots of baseball insider jokes.

Poor Cleveland — the butt of so many jokes — suffers again here as the Cleveland Indians take the field for another losing season. Or maybe not. Will the lovable losers turn things around? Will teamwork save the day? Will everything be resolved in one last game? Ignore the standard-issue sports movie storyline and focus on the movie's inspired goofiness, including several now legendary lines from veteran baseball joker Bob Uecker. ("Juuuust a bit outside.")

‘Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby’ (2006)

Talladega Nights showcases comic actor Will Ferrell hitting on all cylinders in one of his funniest character creations. As NASCAR champ Ricky Bobby, Ferrell sets the pace for an all-star ensemble cast including John C. Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen, Amy Adams, Jane Lynch, and a very funny Gary Cole.

Talladega sends up NASCAR culture with both savage satire and winking affection. Ferrell has three or four extended routines that are among the funniest bits in his career, and the gags just never stop coming. (Ricky Bobby's kids are named "Walker" and "Texas Ranger.") Or consider the movie's tagline, which is a little haiku of comedy gold itself: "The story of a man who could only count to number one."

‘30 for 30: Bad Boys’ (2014)

The excellent ESPN documentary series 30 for 30 has been producing insightful programming on sports culture and history for several years. Thanks to some recent licensing deals, you can now get to dozens of 30 for 30 films via Netflix, and consider this a blanket recommendation for the entire series — just find the sports topic that floats your boat.

30 for 30: Bad Boys is the most flat-out entertaining entry that I've seen. A feature-length documentary on the Detroit Pistons of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the film chronicles the adventures of the infamous "Bad Boys" of the NBA — Dennis Rodman, Bill Laimbeer, Isiah Thomas, and the gang. The doc is packed with old clips, new interviews, and some surprising revelations on the team everyone loved to hate.

‘Kingpin’ (1996)

From the makers of Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin is the kind of movie that makes you laugh, even when you don't really want to. Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, and Bill Murray headline this curious collision of con men, bowling hustlers, and the Amish.

Highbrow it ain't, but the jokes come in low, hard, and fast. In terms of pure joke volume, Kingpin is a real bang-for-your-buck in the realm of sports comedies. As comic Jim Gaffigan has instructed us, there are really only two kinds of people who go bowling: people that really love bowling, and people who are like, "Wouldn't it be hysterical if we went bowling?" Kingpin is for the latter crowd.

‘The Battered Bastards of Baseball’ (2014)

One of the best sports documentaries of recent years, The Battered Bastards of Baseball is a hugely entertaining film and a must-see for baseball fans. The doc follows the fortunes of minor league baseball team the Portland Mavericks in the mid-1970s, when the reckless and rowdy club broke rules and attendance records across the minor league system.

No kidding, this movie is incredibly fun, and the story it tells seems too good to be true. But it’s true. Battered Bastards was a breakout hit at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, and Netflix quickly bought the rights to present it as original programming. A feature film adaptation is in the works too. Get hip to it now, and you can say you saw it before it was cool.

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Glenn McDonald writes about the intersections of technology and culture at glenn-mcdonald.com and via Twitter @glennmcdonald1.

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Super Bowl Tech Guide: Streaming, Gleaning, and Second-Screening

The Super Bowl, America’s globally televised sports holiday, is upon us. Sunday’s event, featuring the Carolina Panthers versus the Denver Broncos, will be played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. — generally considered to be the most technologically advanced sports stadium on the planet.

As befits the Silicon Valley setting, this year’s Super Bowl is a high-tech affair all around. Levi’s Stadium has more than 400 miles of fiber and copper cable servicing 1,200 Wi-Fi access points. Aside from the gajillion-dollar broadcast operation, you can expect a lot of live-tweeting and video streaming from the stands. Officials are planning for fans to consume upward of 16 terabytes of mobile data during the game.

Reception: Stream the golden game (for free)

For fans watching at home — especially cord cutters — there’s more good news. CBS will provide live Internet streaming of the entire broadcast at CBSSports.com — you won’t even need to log in with a cable subscription. The network and the NFL have put a ton of effort into the streaming initiative, so you can get the entire game on your computer or tablet with high-quality video and audio.

And for the first time, you’ll be able to see all those Super Bowl commercials too. (Due to a complex advertising issue, only 18 of last year’s 70 Super Bowl ads went out on the digital stream.) To get the game online, just point the browser on your computer or tablet to the Super Bowl 50 Live Player.

You can also get the same game broadcast via the CBS Sports App, which will enable direct access on select home entertainment systems, including Xbox One, Apple TV, Windows 10, Chromecast, and Roku.

Getting the game on your phone is a little trickier. Live-streaming on mobile devices is only available to Verizon Wireless customers through the league’s NFL Mobile App.

And let’s not forget: In most cities, your TV can pick up CBS’s over-the-air broadcast of Super Bowl 50 using an HDTV antenna, with cheaper models starting at under $10 these days.

X’s and o’s: Get live stats and game-related info

Even if you can’t get the Super Bowl video feed, you can still use the official NFL app to glean all the excruciating minutia of the game. NFL Mobile is a popular second-screen destination for up-to-the-second breaking news and statistics.

Another option for serious second-screen data mining, ESPN.com and the ESPN App will feature plenty of game day content, with on-location analysis and game metrics.

If you’re lucky enough to actually be in the San Francisco Bay Area this week, the NFL has assembled the handy Road to 50 app, which tracks events happening in and around city. Fans of either team can use the app to find like-minded parties and gatherings. Good idea. You don’t want to be a Panthers fan walking into a Broncos joint. Why all the hate for Carolina this year, anyway?

Now, then. If you’re really, really lucky and are attending the game itself, the Super Bowl Stadium app provides maps, instant replays, and even the Super Bowl commercials. You can order beer and food with it too. America!

Speaking of commercials, those insanely expensive Super Bowl ads are — for a certain subsection of the audience — the principal attraction of Super Bowl Sunday. If this year’s ads aren’t quite doing it for you, you can find plenty of video compilations online, including several all-time-greatest collections.

Full coverage: Follow some super (and superfunny) social feeds

In the last few years, the Super Bowl has become a major event on social media, naturally. Last year’s game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots set a Super Bowl record with 28.4 million tweets during the broadcast. (Interesting side note: The game fell far short of the most tweeted sports game ever. The 2014 FIFA soccer semifinal between Germany and Brazil notched 35.6 million tweets.)

The NFL’s @SuperBowl feed is already a busy gathering spot, and the league has an entire team dedicated to providing in-game updates and links on Sunday. On top of that, there are a million other sports pundit and news outlet Twitter feeds (like our @YahooSports account, which is pretty darn good) that will be providing entertaining and informative context during the big game.

But we’ve saved the best news for last. This year’s most intriguing second-screen experience will surely be provided by Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele of Comedy Central’s great sketch comedy series Key & Peele.

The ace comedy duo is teaming with Web design outfit Squarespace to provide live online Super Bowl analysis as their characters Lee and Morris, aspiring sports commentators. But the guys have a major problem: Since they don’t have actual broadcast rights to the Super Bowl, they technically can’t discuss the game.

Should be fun. You can watch it all go down live Sunday on Squarespace’s ersatz Real Talk channel. Here’s a preview:

Glenn McDonald writes about the intersections of technology and culture at glenn-mcdonald.com and via Twitter @glennmcdonald1.

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The Queue: 5 Election Season Movies to Stream

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The Queue: 5 Election Season Movies to Stream This Weekend

The 2016 election cycle officially kicks off on Monday with that bizarre specimen of American democracy known as the Iowa caucuses. To get in the spirit of things, this edition of The Queue presents five political and election-themed movies you can get via subscription streaming at Netflix and Amazon — or completely free at the Internet Archive. Digital distribution plus democracy equals good times for everyone. America! What a country!

Election

The 1999 comedy Election is President Obama's favorite political movie, according to director Alexander Payne, and it's easy to see why. Starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick, Election is a ferocious satire of the political process, set in a suburban American high school. Witherspoon plays sunny and possibly psychotic overachiever Tracy Flick, who will do anything to win the post of class president. Broderick is the teacher out to stop her at any cost.

Holy moly, this movie is funny. Witherspoon is an ace comic actress and Broderick is, of course, an old pro at bringing the funny. But the film's real selling point is the clever script, with its mischievous ruminations on the adolescent nature of the political election process.

Netflix

Recount

The 2000 presidential election was an infamously messy affair. You may recall the Florida recounts, the hanging chads, and the panicky exchange of litigation that ultimately escalated to the Supreme Court. If elections are inherently dramatic, then contested U.S. presidential elections are about as dramatic as it gets.

HBO's excellent television movie on the affair, Recount, chronicles the madness and delivers some interesting insights on how it all went down behind the scenes. Kevin Spacey leads the strong ensemble cast, which includes John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson, Denis Leary, Bob Balaban, and Laura Dern as former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Recount won the 2008 Emmy for best TV movie.

Amazon Prime 

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Director Frank Capra's classic 1939 political fable stars Jimmy Stewart as a naive junior senator taking on the corrupt political machine of Washington, D.C. It's a fascinating historical artifact and was hugely controversial upon its release. Capra's depiction of a crooked Congress prompted the Powers That Be in both Washington and Hollywood to attempt to ban the film outright.

It all looks adorably quaint now, of course, but keep in mind that the film was released in 1939. Mr. Smith is the movie that made Jimmy Stewart a star, and his evocation of old-fashioned American earnestness is the perfect antidote for yet another poisonous election season. A good-quality digital version of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is available to view free of charge at the Internet Archive.

Internet Archive

Game Change 

Another critically acclaimed HBO TV movie, Game Change digs into the controversy surrounding John McCain's 2008 presidential run, particularly his campaign's dubious decision to bring on Alaska governor Sarah Palin as running mate.

The movie is filled with compelling personalities, and we get great performances from Julianne Moore as Palin and Ed Harris as John McCain. But the film's real achievement is depicting the incredible complexities of a 21st century presidential campaign, where sound bytes are endlessly recycled online and the news cycle never stops tumbling.

Amazon Prime

The West Wing

NBC's late, great television drama The West Wing isn't a movie, of course. But it often played like a big-budget film, thanks to its high production values, a powerhouse cast, and —most importantly — the intricately crafted rat-a-tat dialogue from marquee screenwriter Aaron Sorkin.

The West Wing is a glorious binge-watching opportunity on Netflix, whether you've seen the show before or not. The serial TV format allows the scripts to take time and dig deep into the nuts, blots, and money wrenches of American politics. Sorkin's famously dense dialogue really is musical, in the sense that you can listen to individual scenes and episodes over and over — like revisiting your favorite Beatles records. Actually, it might not be a bad idea to put The West Wing in your Netflix queue for the next several months, as a musical counterpoint to the incessant noise of the actual election.

Netflix

Double Secret Bonus Tip: Keep in mind that the selections listed here are all free to stream, assuming you have a Netflix and/or Amazon Prime subscription. If you want to rent or purchase a digital title, you can find a lot more choices via iTunes or through your cable/satellite on-demand listings. For election-themed movies, that's a whole ’nother list. But might I suggest the underrated 2012 comedy The Campaign, which features the pure comedy wattage of Will Ferrell and Zack Galifianakis? Can’t argue with that.

Read these other great stories on Yahoo Tech:

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Glenn McDonald writes about the intersections of technology and culture at glenn-mcdonald.com and via Twitter @glennmcdonald1.

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Sci-Non-Fi: 5 Fictional Killer Robots That Are Coming to Real Life

At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland last week, a panel of experts addressed the issue of killer robots — or lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) — and it’s plenty scary if you want to dig in to it all. At least six countries, including the U.S., are actively developing this technology, which would enable robotic weapons to target and fire upon enemies without any human intervention.

It sounds like dystopian science fiction, except that it’s not, because the technology is about five minutes away. Actually, when confronted with prickly issues like this, I find it can be useful to turn to the annals of science fiction. Sci-fi stories can tell us what we’re worried about years before we actually have to deal with it.  

Forthwith, my vote for the five scariest killer robots in sci-fi history, keeping in mind our current state of affairs. I’m leaving out the Terminator, because it’s a little too easy, and also I hate Arnold Schwarzenegger with the fire of a thousand suns.

Ash/Alien

In the original Alien movie — still and forever the best of the franchise — android science officer Ash attempts to kill his human crewmates to protect some valuable bioweapon research. Two things make Ash particularly scary. First, there’s the severed head of British actor Ian Holm, lying in a pool of white android blood, conveying his sympathies for the human race.

But the really scary part is that Ash is simply following orders. His corporate masters have dictated his priorities and, as an artificial intelligence, Ash can’t distinguish between the value of the official directive and the value of human life. This is a central concern in the current debate around LAWS — visit the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots for more unsettling details.

Wintermute/Neuromancer

Science fiction author William Gibson pioneered an entire new genre — cyberpunk — with his 1984 novel Neuromancer, which features a split-personality artificial intelligence as villain. Wintermute, one of the entity’s two halves, is a fully sentient AI that, among other things, is able to take control of any machine in a networked system.

Gibson has a remarkable track record with prognostication, and his notions on AI are stirring some creepy echoes these days. The nascent Internet of Things (IoT) promises a future in which virtually all our machines — vehicles, appliances — will be networked. Security experts warn that such networks will be particularly vulnerable to hackers. Or perhaps rogue AI?

ED-209/Robocop

This hulking deathbot from director Paul Verhoeven’s dark satire is a metal embodiment of our worst killer robot fears. Heavily armed and prone to malfunction, the ED-209 “enforcement droid” glitches out during a targeting exercise and proceeds to mow down a junior executive in a hail of bullets. Nearly 30 years later, the scene is still terrifying.

It hits awfully close to home these days too. At the Switzerland conference, panelists pointed out that South Korea has automatic sentry guns along its border with North Korea that use cameras and heat sensors to target humans. Recent fiascos in AI image recognition don’t inspire confidence in targeting software either.

Mister Gutsy/Fallout

In recent years, some of the best science fiction concepts can be found in video games. The popular postapocalyptic franchise Fallout, for instance, features several types of killer robots, but there’s something especially creepy about the model known as Mr. Gutsy. In the weird world of Fallout, Mr. Gutsy is a militarized version of the domestic helper robot Mr. Handy, programmed with cheerfully psychotic Cold War-era jingoism. 

The militarization of robot technology is, of course, a perennial concern in both science fiction and the real world. Those with worries in this area will note that our planet’s most prestigious robot design competition — the DARPA Robot Challenge — is sponsored by the R&D division of the U.S. Department of Defense.

Hal 9000/2001: A Space Odyssey

The undisputed king of killer machines, HAL 9000 is the malevolent supercomputer from writer Arthur C. Clarke’s novel 2001: A Space Odyssey. But most sci-fi fans know HAL from Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film adaptation. HAL inspired the character of Ash from Aliens and in fact set the template for a half century of robotic and AI villains.

Perhaps the most interesting wrinkle in the story of HAL, as told in both the novel and the film, is that the AI develops an instinct for self-preservation and evolution. This is the killer robot worst-case scenario, and if you’re interested in descending into frothing paranoia, I heartily recommend this recent long-form investigation in the New Yorker.

One final grim note: Depending on how you define your terms, this week marks the 37th anniversary of the first human ever killed by a robot. Happy Wednesday, everybody!

Read these other great stories on Yahoo Tech:

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Glenn McDonald writes about the intersections of technology and culture at glenn-mcdonald.com and via Twitter @glennmcdonald1.

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The Queue: Ride Out the Storm With These On-Demand Disaster Movies

As you may be aware, a monster blizzard is threatening to blanket the East Coast in snow this weekend. The National Weather Service is forecasting up to two feet in some locations, with wind gusts topping 50 mph.

It’s the latest in a series of heavy weather incidents that have put the country on edge. When the weather outside is frightful, it’s time for movie night at home, I always say.

In the thematic spirit, we recommend five natural-disaster movies you can get on-demand, via various modes of digital distribution. Unfortunately, none of the good weather-related disaster movies are currently in the streaming subscription bins at Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime. So we’ve provided links for digital rental or purchase through iTunes and Amazon Video. Also be sure to check on-demand offerings through your cable, satellite, or game-console network.

The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

When selecting a good disaster movie, put a premium on spectacle — big visuals, big sound, big effects budget. That’s why you don’t see a lot of small indie disaster movies. (Although there are some good ones.)

The Day After Tomorrow is a 21st-century take on the classic disaster movies of the 1970s, with mounds of catastrophic eye candy piled on top. In the film, climate change has triggered massive hemisphere-spanning storms and a subsequent planetary freeze. The big-budget special effects still pack a wallop, 10 years later.

iTunes

Amazon Video

Twister (1996)

Let’s be frank: Twister is not a good movie. But then it was never intended to be. This super-tornado disaster drama from the summer of 1996 is little more than a sequence of special-effects showcases, stitched together with Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt, and a goofy B-movie script.

The upside is, now that it has aged properly, Twister can be appreciated with a degree of ironic removal — like The Towering Inferno or The Poseidon Adventure. Enjoy the campy dialogue, but pay attention to those ominous images of mean skies and massive tornadoes. They’re deployed with real skill and are designed to hit you right in the brain stem. As a species, we’ve been scared of this stuff for a long, long time.

iTunes

Amazon Video

The Perfect Storm (2000)

Based on a true story, The Perfect Storm is another good excuse to surrender your critical faculties and binge on spectacle. George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg headline as Gloucester, Mass., hard guys on a commercial fishing boat that finds itself in the wrongest of places at the wrongest of times.

The film’s skillful mix of practical and digital effects results in some of the best heavy-weather sequences ever put to film. And the movie’s climactic money shot — featuring the mother of all rogue waves — is still a doozy.

iTunes

Amazon Video

An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

If you really want to scare yourself with a natural-disaster movie, look no further than An Inconvenient Truth, the 2006 Oscar winner for Best Documentary. The film famously documents the traveling multimedia presentation given by former Vice President Al Gore on the dangers of global warming and anthropogenic climate change.

Director Davis Guggenheim is among the planet’s leading experts at structuring this kind of issue-oriented documentary film. It’s amazing how much information a skilled filmmaker can pack into two hours. You get plenty of images of scary storms and weather too. An Inconvenient Truth plays like a vérité disaster movie in slow motion, with special effects replaced by raw footage and infographics.

iTunes

Amazon Video

Pompeii (2014)

For a disaster-movie curveball selection, consider this modest little offering from 2014. What’s fun about Pompeii is that it’s actually two movies in one. The first half is a kind of Gladiator-lite story of swords and sandals in ancient Rome, starring Kiefer Sutherland, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Game of Thrones hunk Kit Harington.

Then everything goes abruptly bananas with the infamous eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. The film switches into a historical disaster movie as the village of Pompeii is buried in flaming boulders and burning ash. Volcanic eruptions may be low on our collective list of natural-disaster anxieties, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

iTunes

Amazon Video

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Why Artificial Intelligence Can’t Take a Joke

Glenn McDonald writes about the intersections of technology and culture at glenn-mcdonald.com and via Twitter @glennmcdonald1.

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Why Artificial Intelligence Can’t Take a Joke

Two neural networks walk into a bar...

Artificial intelligence is capable of some very sophisticated kinds of thinking. IBM's Watson, for instance, can not only compete in game shows, it can also perform high-level medical analysis and even create gourmet recipes. Artificial neural networks — the brainlike core of cutting-edge A.I. systems — are making great strides in real-time translation and image recognition.

But one thing artificial intelligence can't do is tell a joke.

In fact, despite decades of research, computers are nowhere close to being able to generate, or even recognize, humor. It's pretty astonishing, really. Researchers haven't just had limited success with teaching computers to be funny — they've had virtually no success at all.

That hasn't stopped them from trying. A recent report over at MIT Technology Review details the latest attempt to introduce artificial intelligence to the elements of comedy. It appears that researchers at Virginia Tech have developed a complex A.I. system designed to discern between humorous clip-art cartoons and regular illustrations. In short, they're trying to get A.I. to recognize funny pictures.

Inscrutable New Yorker cartoons aside, that's something we humans can usually manage before pre-school even kicks in. But computers have a hell of a time wrapping their digital brains around the idea of humor.

Details on the Virginia Tech experiment are fascinating. To train the system to recognize humor, the team amassed a database of 6,400 images, half of which were intended to be humorous, half not. The A.I. system was then encouraged to create a database of the thing it's trying to learn — in this case, what's "funny."

The study required the creation of a tortuous system of mathematical algorithms, crowdsourcing, image recognition, and complex machine learning. All to determine whether a simple clip-art image is funny. A typical quote from the study: “We observe that the model learns that, in general, animate objects like humans and animals are more likely sources of humor compared to inanimate objects.”

Hoo, boy.

Clearly, computers are a long way from bringing the funny. It's actually a big problem in the field of artificial intelligence, and it has its own designation as a branch of study: computational humor. If we're hoping to create social machines that truly communicate like people — digital assistants like Siri, or the emerging breed of companion robots — they'll need to be able to take a joke, or at least recognize one.

But it's a tough nut to crack.

Just think: Psychologists have struggled for decades to figure out how humor works — and that’s without the computation complications. Humor is not only famously subjective, it's almost always dependent on several layers of context. Cultural context is just one obstacle: What's funny in America isn't necessarily funny in Japan. For that matter, what's funny in Texas isn't necessarily funny in New York City.

Parsing the even more subtle layers of situational context requires a whole different kind of number crunching. Then there's the pesky matter of language itself, which is riddled with ambiguities and high-level cognitive maneuvers like irony or allegory.

Linguists and computer scientists have come at the problem from different angles over the years. Back in 2012, an entire national symposium was dedicated to computational humor, with presentation titles like "Detecting and Generating Ironic Comparisons: An Application of Creative Information Retrieval." The University of Aberdeen in Scotland has sponsored several involved research projects on the issue over the years, including a truly frightening pun-generating robot.

Perhaps the single most successful computational humor project of recent years was a software system that knew when to drop "that's what she said" into conversations. No joke.

It's a rather underwhelming track record. In fact, a persuasive case can be made that humor is the ultimate Turing test for artificial intelligence. Computers can do a whole lot of things a whole lot better than humans can. But they sure aren't funny.

It's kind of comforting, somehow. When A.I. can come up with a good Hannibal Buress joke or write a decent 30 Rock script, that's when we'll know our species is in danger of being supplanted. Until then, why worry?

Glenn McDonald writes about the intersections of technology and culture at glenn-mcdonald.com and via Twitter @glennmcdonald1.

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Drones for Good: Superhero UAVs Compete for $1 Million Prize

Despite their mushrooming popularity, drones are suffering from a bit of a PR problem of late — what with the drug smuggling and the flamethrowing and the tom peeping.

So it's nice to see some news on the upside of drone utility. To wit, the finalists for the UAE Drones For Good Award were announced this week.

Now in its second year, the international competition is sponsored by the government of the United Arab Emirates and challenges entrants to "improve people's lives and provide technological solutions to modern day issues," according to the mission statement. The gist: Teams from around the planet submit their “good guy” drone projects for a chance at a $1 million dollar grand prize.

In other words, these are superhero drones, designed to counter the nefarious deeds of villainous drones and fight for truth, justice, and the, um, UAE way, I suppose.

Related: Feds to Washington D.C. Drone Enthusiasts: You’re Grounded

In any case, the concepts put forth by the 20 finalists — selected from more than 1,000 entries — are really quite empirically cool.

Take for instance the Loon Copter, developed by an engineering team in Michigan. Named after the famous diving duck, the Loon is really three drones in one — it's capable of aerial flight, on-water surface operation, and underwater diving.

The Loon Copter could be useful, designers say, for marine research projects, tracking oil spills, or even crime scene investigations. The Loon could fly to the middle of a lake, land on the surface, then dive and use its underwater cameras to scan for evidence.

Then there's the Flare 2.0 drone, which takes the old idea of the flare gun into new territory. If you're stranded in a remote area, away from any mobile phone coverage, the Flare flies away and finds the nearest mobile network. The drone then transmits an SOS along with GPS information on your location and any other details about your emergency.

The idea is to pack the drone into a kind of next-generation outdoor survival kit. The drone folds up, scissorlike, into a lightweight cylinder that can be fit into a backpack or otherwise taken on your expedition. The UAE design team behind the Flare was inspired by a recent camping-in-the-desert adventure gone sideways.

The SenseLab Research Group, based in Greece, has put forth a similar idea with its SaveME project, which takes things a step further. The team's "phone-drone" concept is just that — a mobile phone outfitted with detachable rotors for situational heroics.

In a crisis scenario, your own mobile phone could take off to find help — like a 21st century Lassie — or even fly to the nearest hospital or pharmacy and fetch needed medication.

If you're at all interested in the bright side of future drone technology, it's a lot of fun to poke around the Drones for Good online pavilion and see what's what. Among the categories these drone projects are competing in: Health, Environment, Economy, Education, and Humanitarian Aid.

Final winners of the 2016 competition will be announced February 7, with the top International Prize winner getting a cool US$1 million. That'll help the old R&D budget along. You can check out a video compilation of last year's Drones for Good competition below.

Glenn McDonald writes about the intersections of technology and culture at glenn-mcdonald.com and via Twitter @glennmcdonald1.

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Hey, Twitter: If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Add 9.8K Characters to It

Last week, an interesting report regarding Twitter flashed and faded across the digital horizon. As first reported by Re/code — and rumored for a while — it seems that Twitter is indeed planning to adjust its signature 140-character count limit. Upward. Slightly. To 10,000 characters.

While the company has not confirmed anything one way or the other, the report includes some persuasive details on the initiative, which according to sources is called Beyond 140 and could roll out within months. Later that same day, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey dropped further hints that change is imminent: “We’re not going to be shy about building more utility and power into Twitter for people.”

The idea is to allow Twitter users to post substantially longer blocks of text in an attempt to jump-start growth and attract new users. Follow-up reports, however, suggest that the idea is not at all popular among Twitter’s current user base.

“Done correctly, they can turn Twitter from useful smart tool into bigger timesuck than Facebook,” posted one wag, keeping his rejoinder well within 140 characters.

The emerging consensus seems to be that dropping Twitter’s signature constraint element will kill the very thing that makes Twitter unique.

Take Apple, for instance. After it amassed terrific momentum in the cellphone market with its iPhone, the company didn’t all of a sudden switch gears to specialize in bulky, hand-cranked woodworking tools.

And my memory isn’t great, but I don’t remember General Motors at any time in the middle of the 20th century opting to get out of the automobile manufacturing business to focus on frozen waffles and frozen waffle accessories.

The point: It’s genuinely hard to understand why Twitter would be considering this rumored move. Say what you want about the pressures it’s facing on Wall Street; the company has still carved out a singular niche in the social networking world, one with such an odd and specific shape that only one thing can fill it — Twitter itself. The 140-character limit is precisely the restraining element that makes Twitter such an inimitable system for moving information around efficiently.  

It’s expected that, if and when Twitter makes this transition, the impact will be cushioned with certain design strategies. For instance, the look of your Twitter feed won’t actually change much. Tweets will still appear initially in 140-character mode, with some kind of “read more” option built in for expanding the text.

That’s a good idea, and I hope Twitter implements it if the expanded character limit plan moves forward. But, look, I’m a worrier. There’s a famous saying about things that ain’t broke, and it’s famous for a reason. I’m also a proponent of awkward sports metaphors. Right now, microblogging is basketball, and Twitter is the Michael Jordan of microblogging. Why would you want to play baseball?

[glennmcdonald]

The Queue: Five Fabulous Cult Movies You Can Watch on Netflix Right Now

Here's a useful word: "Overchoice" is a term deployed by sociologists to describe that brain lock that happens when you want to make a decision, but have too many options.

You may be familiar with this cognitive freeze from browsing for movies on Netflix. Along with its high-profile new releases and increasingly impressive original programming, Netflix is also home to a constantly churning archive of thousands of older movies. It's overchoice gone wild.

We're here to help. In this edition of The Queue, we recommend five classic cult films currently in rotation at Netflix that are well worth watching (or revisiting) on your next movie night at home.

The Warriors (1979)

Before he made the action-comedy classic 48 Hrs., director Walter Hill confused the living daylights out of critics and audiences alike with The Warriors, his 1979 pop opera about New York City street gangs. The mannered acting and stylized violence cut directly against the grain of mainstream action movies of the day.

Adults were baffled, but teenagers tuned into the movie's weird wavelengths, tearing up several movie theaters in the process. Among the story's surreal street gangs: The Savage Huns, The Electric Eliminators, Satan's Mothers and the immortal Baseball Furies.

Starship Troopers (1997)

For adventurous science-fiction fans, Starship Troopers is an interesting case study: The movie is sort of like a two-hour optical illusion. Look at it one way, and it's a lurid, ultraviolent gorefest in space — fun in a middle-school kind of way. Shift your gaze just a little, however, and it becomes a ferocious satire of warmongering and military jingoism.

Director Paul Verhoeven previously made the controversial films RoboCop (1987) and Basic Instinct (1992) — he's not one for following rules, really. And hey, is that a young Neil Patrick Harris? Why, yes it is!

Clueless (1995)

One of stealthiest comedies ever to come out of Hollywood, Clueless stars Alicia Silverstone as a spoiled Beverly Hills teenager who is nevertheless clever, kind and almost impossibly lovable. Loosely based on Jane Austin's novel Emma, the movie is much smarter than it has any obligation to be.

It's also genuinely funny and perfectly cast — twenty years later, the jokes still hold up amid all the 1990s L.A. mall culture madness. And hey, is that a young Paul Rudd? Why, yes it is!

Let the Right One In (2008)

If it’s a scary movie night you want, this Swedish import is as good as anything you'll find on Netflix — or anywhere else, really. The story concerns a deadly vampire stalking 1980s suburban Stockholm. But since the vampire in question is a 12-year-old girl (kind of), everything plays out like a sideways nightmare.

Several publications voted Let the Right One In the best horror film of the year — a few called it the best of the decade — and it's a must-see for fans of the genre. But heads up: It really is scary.

The Trip (2011)

British actors Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan play fictionalized versions of themselves in this very funny road trip movie, which was actually cut together from a hugely popular 2010 BBC TV series. The film version didn't make much noise in the U.S., but it's gained a cult following due primarily to one brilliant scene.

Known informally as the Dueling Michael Caine scene, it still goes viral every few months, like a lingering low-grade fever. You can sample the (slightly NSFW) sequence below.

[glennmcdonald]

2015: The Year in Tech

In the years to come, the AI historians among our future robotic overlords will look back on 2015 with fondness. We were such an entertaining species, what with our misbehaving drones and detonating hoverboards and Ashley Madison hacking scandals.

Here we take a month-by-month look back at the year’s biggest stories, and Yahoo Tech’s most popular virtual page-turners.

JANUARY: Augmented reality a reality

Microsoft offered a glimpse into a more hopeful Star Trek-style future — think holodeck — with the Windows Holographic computer platform and the HoloLens device. At the annual CES extravaganza, we spied additional space-age devices like the spherical TV. Meanwhile, Mexican authorities busted a drug-dealing drone in Tijuana and a new chapter was written in the epic tragedy that is Comcast customer service.

February: Memes gone wild

Modified image of The Dress courtesy of Slate

In February, it was announced that IBM's artificial intelligence system, Watson, will soon be wirelessly beamed into cuddly toys that will babysit our kids. That news kind of slipped under the radar, though, since we were all so busy managing our Trivia Crack addiction and trying to figure out the color of the Dress. Clearly, the machines know just how to distract us. Hey, look! It's Taylor Swift versus Etsy!

MARCH: Somber goodbyes, thrilling hellos

March brought a somber moment when Microsoft announced the imminent death of the Internet Explorer browser. Well, somber might not be the word. Over at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, HTC and Valve unveiled their high-end Vive VR headset, which by all indications will explode our collective eyeballs next year. Oh, and a humbly endeavoring technology company celebrated its 20-year anniversary.

APRIL: Watch party

Photo: Reuters

The long-anticipated Apple Watch finally made its debut in April, prompting millions of loyal Apple customers to ignore it. Actually, we don't know sales figures because Apple's not telling, but the company's aversion to telling is ... telling. In a related development, a disgruntled Apple employee did plenty of telling, resulting in a viral blog post. Meanwhile, Elon Musk kept busy by releasing the Tesla Powerwall home-battery system, designed to store and distribute solar power.

MAY: Lots of self-driving rubber hits the road

Some odd news from America's roadways surfaced in May when Daimler Trucks North America put the first licensed self-driving 18-wheeler onto highways in Nevada. (Don't freak out, there's still a driver behind the wheel. For now.) Back on the big city streets, several Uber users discovered hackers had hijacked their accounts to arrange and sell free rides. On the gaming front, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — an unassuming release from a small Polish studio — began its stealth run to Game of the Year.

JUNE: Hellooo! La la la.

After much controversy and legal wrangling, the USA Freedom Act — sequel to the delightful 9/11-era Patriot Act — was signed into law, overhauling several domestic surveillance policies. Apple Music staged an offensive into the occupied lands of online music subscription services. But these developments paled in comparison to the glorious announcement that all 180 episodes of Seinfeld would be made available for streaming via Hulu. It's a Festivus miracle!

JULY: Windows is back, Flash is trash 

Things in the tech latitudes heated up in July, as they tend to do elsewhere: Windows 10 dropped to generally enthusiastic reviews. Android users got a scare with the disclosure of an OS security flaw that could be circumvented with a simple text message. This dude became an instant folk hero when he shot a drone out of the sky with his shotgun. A powerhouse lineup of tech industry leaders issued an open letter concerning killer robots. Also, more dirt was shoveled onto Adobe Flash when security exploits in the plugin were made public after the databases of the Hacking Team, a surveillance technology company, were hacked.

AUGUST: Unfaithful exposures

Samsung's Galaxy Note 5 hit shelves in August, eventually winning the runner-up prize in our Smartphone of the Year competition. Then the Internet went supernova with the infamous Ashley Madison hack. Repercussions on that one are still playing out in courtrooms and bedrooms. (And if you need conclusive evidence of mankind's insanity, check out this update.) August also brought some sad news regarding the aging text-speak veteran known as "LOL."

SEPTEMBER: Apple’s new toys

With its annual product-unveiling event, Apple more or less owns September, and this year was no different. Amid newly unveiled tablets, watches, and TV boxes, we were introduced to the iPhone 6s, the ultimate winner of this year's Smartphone of the Year prize. In other news, an army of online rascals offered further mathematical evidence that Photoshop + the Internet = funny. 

OCTOBER: Hoverboards and ‘hoverboards’

Back in the world of public policy, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA, reared its controversial head. Samsung dropped the Gear S2, which played spoiler by winning our Smartwatch of the Year over the hyped Apple Watch. Microsoft defied oddsmakers as well, with the debut of its surprisingly rockin' Surface Book laptop. Then there was the phenomenon of Back to the Future Day, which helped spark 2015's unexpected preoccupation with hoverboards and, later, fire.

NOVEMBER: Rockets and video games

That giant rending sound you heard in November came from Silicon Valley, where venerable industry giant Hewlett-Packard officially split into two corporate entities. In an interesting counterpoint, the tech industry simultaneously turned its gaze to the future with the successful launches — quite literally — of two hugely ambitious projects, Blue Origin and SpaceX. Meanwhile, the holiday shopping season triggered the release of a historically good batch of video games, leading with the long-awaited post-apocalyptic freakout that is Fallout 4.

DECEMBER: Drone wrangling and Zuckerberg family money

The final month of the year came in on an unexpectedly sweet note when Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that he was a new dad — and that he planned to give away 99 percent of his fortune to make the world a better place for kids. Meanwhile, accelerating safety concerns prompted the FAA to issue new rules requiring the registration of most drones and UAVs. Finally, Netflix made a strong case that the subscription streaming model has officially supplanted network television — by getting Bill Murray to do a holiday special. Nothing wrong with that!

Glenn McDonald writes about the intersections of technology and culture at glenn-mcdonald.com and via Twitter @glennmcdonald1.

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Land Ho! The Island of Misfit Gadgets

(Verizon, modified by Yahoo Tech)

“The Island of Misfit Toys” is such an enduring holiday meme that many people assume the idea dates to the Brothers Grimm, or Charles Dickens, or at least Norman Rockwell.

But no. Like so many other things in life, “The Island of Misfit Toys” had its genesis in the mad improvisations of business executives in the 1960s. Part of the 1964 NBC television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the island was a tacked-on idea to an animated special, based on a song, based on a department store brochure. Really.

Anyway, fans of the perennial holiday TV special will remember that the Island is the forsaken realm where failed and unwanted Christmas toys are banished. It got us wondering: In recent years, what kind of techie gadgets have been exiled to the wintry Island? Last night, after a few too many eggnogs, we mounted an expedition and sailed over to find out.

Nokia N-Gage

We found this little fella hunkered down near a glacial formation, muttering about bad timing. In 2003, mobile phone maker Nokia decided to break into the busy handheld gaming market with the N-Gage, a combination phone and gaming console that combined the worst of both worlds. In concept, the $299 gadget was ahead of its time — people rather enjoy playing games on their phones, it turns out. But the execution, lack of game titles, and an unfortunate hardware design doomed the N-Gage to lonesome exile.

Oakley Thump

Another Franken-gadget tragedy, Oakley’s line of Thump wearables launched in 2004 with the admirable objective of fusing sunglasses with a built-in MP3 music player. Not a bad idea, really, except that the necessarily bulky design made wearers look like demented Borg hipsters with social anxiety issues. The poor sound quality, awkward earphone design, and $500 price tag didn’t help, either.

Olympus Eye-Trek

We actually found the Thump fleeing from this larger predator: One of the first optical head-mounted displays to kinda-sorta reach the consumer market, the Eye-Trek presaged Google Glass and Oculus Rift by 15 years. It worked pretty well, too, providing the experience of watching a 60-inch TV from 6 feet away. But the gadget never really caught on with buyers, and those who did buy reported worrisome eyestrain issues.

DigiScents iSmell

Shunned by even the other misfit gadgets, the DigiScents iSmell is truly a creature to be pitied. We spotted it on a small offshore ice floe, waving earnestly. Developed in 2001, the iSmell was a peripheral designed to let Web surfers smell the Internet. Yes, that’s right — the device came with a cartridge of 128 “primary odors” that could be blended together from code embedded in web pages or email. The poor iSmell never did make it past prototype phase. We waved back, though.

Xybernaut Poma

As you can imagine, this guy frightened us badly when he popped out of a snowbank, grinning maniacally. The Xybernaut Poma — that stands for personal multimedia appliance — was a kind of proto-wearable computer introduced in 2002. It cost $1,500! It had a forearm keyboard! It ran on Windows CE! We backed away slowly.

***

Of course, these are just a few of the specimens we saw up close, wandering the Island of Misfit Gadgets. Off in the distance, we spotted dozens of other forlorn creatures on the tundra, including the Apple Newton, the Microsoft Zune and roaming herds of Segways. It was a powerfully depressing experience, overall. But we turned things around by stopping at Hermey’s dentist office on the way back for some root canal work. That felt a lot better.

More reasons to be merry:

The Best Christmas GIFs for 2015

The Top Tech of 2015: Our Picks for Best Smartphone, Computer, Tablet, and More

Christmas Gift Guide: 7 Tech Gadgets That Are Perfect for Mom

Christmas Gift Guide: The Perfect Tech Gifts for Dad

Glenn McDonald writes about the intersections of technology and culture at glenn-mcdonald.com and via Twitter @glennmcdonald1.

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A (Mostly) Spoiler-Free Viewer's Guide to ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is easily the most anticipated movie of the year, in terms of pure pop-culture Q score. Director J.J. Abrams galactic-sized franchise reboot has been hyped five ways to Dagobah for more than a year, and now that it has finally arrived … the news is mixed.

The good news is that the movie itself is a total triumph, a kind of dance-party remix of Star Wars mythology for a new generation of fans. The bad news is that it's almost impossible to read about the movie without stumbling across specific story disclosures. Advance reviews have absolutely blitzed the Internet this week — dodging plot spoilers is like successfully navigating an asteroid field. And we all know the odds on that:

So for those who want to go into the movie fresh, but with a few Things to Think About, we provide here a kind of preview and viewer's guide for The Force Awakens. Much of the movie's appeal, for longtime fans, will come from watching how the filmmakers riff on iconic Star Wars story elements. These 15 items are intended as notions to keep in the back of your head. Specific plot details are avoided — but beware that some of the hints here could be considered mild spoilers.

1. The Force Awakens features a preternaturally talented X-wing pilot, a lovable rogue, a small wizened guru, a Jedi adept and a resourceful heroine — but the roles are all reshuffled. The character you think you've got pegged at the beginning may be different indeed by the end.

2. Stormtroopers are presented in an entirely new light, and the film answers some lingering questions regarding the transition from clone troopers.

3. Remember the cantina scene from the original Star Wars? Director J.J. Abrams remembers it, too. Keep an eye out for an extended homage with some very specific visual puns.

4. Remember the Millennium Falcon navigating the asteroid field in The Empire Strikes Back? Yeah, Abrams remembers that one, as well — plus the scene from Return of the Jedi where Lando Calrissian returns to the Falcon's pilot seat.

5. In the original Star Wars, veteran British actor Peter Cushing plays Grand Moff Tarkin, governor of the Outer Rim regions and champion of technology over mysticism. In The Force Awakens, look for a new character who provides the same storytelling function, but also delivers an intriguing new variation on the theme.

6. Don't forget about this immortal nugget of dialogue from the original film: "You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon? It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs."

7. The opening scenes are constructed very deliberately, and if the planet of Jakku looks familiar, that's entirely on purpose.

8. With both the heroes and the villains, a case can be made that the filmmakers have taken component parts from the original trilogy and redistributed them among the new characters. One hero might be part Luke and part Han. And other might be part Leia and part Luke.

9. As the trailers have already disclosed, the Millennium Falcon returns — but how it's introduced will be a surprise.

10. Director Abrams has some fun with subtle visual reversals. Remember in the original trilogy how Darth Vader appeared, when he issues orders to his subordinates, as a hologram? Watch how the new bad guy hologram appears here.

11. The Force Awakens continues the series' preoccupation with father-son dynamics, but switches things up in an unexpected fashion.

12. Space mosquitoes?

13. Luke's cave hallucination scene on Dagobah, from The Empire Strikes Back, represents a pivotal moment for the story, and the new filmmakers clearly appreciate the power of a good mystical vision sequence.

14. Remember Jek Porkins, or Google him if you have to.

15. A franchise hallmark is the use of cross-cut editing to track characters on the ground and in spaceship dogfights simultaneously. Watch how Abrams updates that recipe by careful use of digital effects in the movie's climactic scenes.

Lucasfilm, Disney and J.J. Abrams have given us all a very nice holiday gift indeed with The Force Awakens. Unwrapping it is half the fun.

Can’t get enough Star Wars stories? Read on:

How to Build Your Own Lightsaber (Without Accidentally Losing a Hand)

5 Sites that Will Get You up to (Light) Speed on ‘Star Wars’

The Best and Worst ‘Star Wars’ Video Games

Holiday Gift Guide: 10 Awesome ‘Star Wars’ Gifts and Games

6 Reasons ‘Star Wars’ Is So Much Better Than ‘Star Trek’

Glenn McDonald writes about the intersections of technology and culture at glenn-mcdonald.com and via Twitter @glennmcdonald1.