Culture encompasses books, movies, television, music, video games, internet memes, and thousands of branches of art. And sure, culture includes the latest entertainment news too. At The Verge, we construct entry points both into the mainstream and the niche, the tentpoles and the hidden gems, to help make the most notable and discussed parts of the cultural conversation understandable and accessible to everyone.
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Kim Dotcom is being Megauploaded to the US for trial
New Zealand has finally signed an extradition order after the Megaupload founder’s 12-year legal battle with the US.
She played both Ash’s companion and Team Rocket’s female lead from 1997 to 2015 across TV, film, and commercials. She also voiced some Pokémon like Jigglypuff and Goldeen, including in the Smash Bros. games.
Her sister Laurie Orr and her “Ash” co-star Veronica Taylor both confirmed the news. Here’s her IMDB page with other roles, including Your Lie in April and Hunter x Hunter.
Correction: Lillis was 55, not 46.
A placard at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture used the internet-speak term “un-alive” to describe Cobain’s suicide, according to Billboard. The museum elsewhere reportedly said it used it as a “gesture of respect.”
People use terms like “un-alive” online to try to get around moderation algorithms that they believe may suppress or remove their content. MoPOP didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.
Internet Culture
TikTok’s “loyalty tests” are the latest peril of online life.
Kim Dotcom is being Megauploaded to the US for trial
“Kurt Cobain un-alived himself at 27.”
Reddit’s upgraded AMA posts are rolling out this week
One of the greatest debates of our time — is Hello Kitty a cat? — continues to rage on, with Sanrio once again affirming the negative. But we’ve been here before.
[New York Post]
The Enhanced Games, a Saturday Night Live skit come to life, is trying to raise before the first competition. I’m very curious to see who invests!
Though Kurzweil still can’t explain precisely how he’s going to “merge” with a machine, he’s out here telling The New York Times he expects it to happen before he dies.
For the realists out there, I recommend Seneca.
[The New York Times]
While old-school scams usually target retirees, the people getting catfished are young. So maybe one way to keep your friends from being vulnerable to bad actors is just to give them a call?
A look at the era of the non-disclosure agreement, subject of pop songs and nearly as common as water in Silicon Valley. Paradoxically, though, being as loud as possible makes it harder for the likes of Jeff Bezos to come after you.
Gaming
Valve just shipped a bunch of drivers for Windows on the OLED Steam Deck.
Meta’s VR version of GTA: San Andreas is ‘on hold indefinitely’
Can you guess which consoles inspired these custom ShoeBoys sneakers?
There’s a new Elder Scrolls game coming soon.
How about you remain competitive by fixing your shit? I’ve met a lead data scientist with access to hundreds of thousands of sensitive customer records who is allowed to keep their password in a text file on their desktop, and you’re worried that customers are best served by using AI to improve security through some mechanism that you haven’t even come up with yet?
[ludic.mataroa.blog]
Lewis, the Post’s publisher and a former Murdoch henchman, forced out Sally Buzbee, the executive editor. As a result, a longstanding UK scandal around journalistic ethics resurfaced, as Lewis has allegedly attempted to suppress stories about it.
There’s now enough blood in the water that Bezos, WaPo’s owner, is involved. He’s supporting his British import.
Following on the reporting earlier this year from The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal profiles a teen influencer — whose mom is aware the account’s biggest fans are adult men.
Illinois has passed a law to protect child influencers, and more legislation is almost certainly forthcoming.
A remarkable essay on how an AI-generated video on kung fu led one family to order actual, physical encyclopedias.
Knowledge is not a market commodity. Moreover, “justified true belief” does not result from an optimization function. Knowledge may be refined through questioning or falsification, but it does not improve from competition with purposeful nonknowledge. If anything, in the face of nonknowledge, knowledge loses.
Inaccurate AI-generated stories were an important part of the BNN business model — “churning out hundreds, even thousands, of stories a day.” Some of BNN’s stories were republished by MSN.com or linked by reputable outlets.
[The New York Times]
Film
Alien: Romulus is a solid franchise tribute plagued by weird optics
The BlackBerry is getting a documentary-style postmortem.
Kraven has got a taste for Rhino meat.
Rachael Lillis, the English voice of Pokémon’s Misty and Jessie, has died at 55.
What happens when remote villages get Starlink and all the good and bad that comes with unfettered internet access? The New York Times traveled deep into the Amazon rainforest to find out:
Modern society has dealt with these issues over decades as the internet continued its relentless march. The Marubo and other Indigenous tribes, who have resisted modernity for generations, are now confronting the internet’s potential and peril all at once, while debating what it will mean for their identity and culture.
The contrast and familiarity of the NYT’s photography is striking, seeing people hunched over their brightly lit rectangles hoping for just one more hit of dopamine.
It debuted on June 1st, 1999, and shut down two years later.
Its name lived on as a Best Buy brand, a re-named Rhapsody streaming service, and an attempt to cash in on NFT hype. But in my heart, it will always be a search engine for poorly-labeled, low-quality MP3s that take hours to download over AOL dial-up internet.
And yet, Matty Benedetto has amassed millions of subscribers with his Unnecessary Inventions. Tune into my new video series, Full Frame: Creators, where I spend a day with a creator to see how they have found success on the internet.
Despite Google’s AI expertise, it drastically overestimates how good its tech is — as anyone can see in its search results. And that’s with expertise. This doesn’t bode well for everyone else’s use of AI!
[Intelligencer]
FTX lieutenant Ryan Salame, sentenced to 7.5 years in jail earlier today, has logged on to yell at people online. That’s some real poster game, folks. You might not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like. (via Molly White)
Remember this? I’ve been waiting for a good reason to share it on The Verge, and all of Kingdom Hearts coming to Steam seems like a good enough one to me! Spoilers, obviously.
[Google Docs]
Actually, no! io9’s ever-reliable James Whitbrook found legit reasons to love the Star Wars movie we don’t talk about. A slideshow that delivers: