Sam Kassé defends the selfie, blight of social networks: "I know most people hate selfies. They groan and complain about them, from the duck lips to the filters. Why, just the word “selfie” can induce legendary amounts of eyerolling. What people seem to miss, is that selfies are actually great. No, scratch that, selfies are brilliant! One of my favourite pastimes at work is to (discreetly) scroll through my Instagram feed and see pictures of my friends feeling good about themselves."
Robocop director Paul Verhoeven, noted for his films' ultraviolence and politically-tinged black humor, wishes to direct Arnold Schwarzenegger as an older, grayer Conan. 65-year-old Schwarzenegger starred under Verhoeven in the original version of Total Recall; no director has officially been selected for the new project, provisionally titled Conan The Legend.
Here are the top 5 movies that should have been directed by Paul Verhoeven, but were not.
1. Dredd (2012)
2. Hunger Games (2012)
3. Machete (2010)
4. Avatar (2009)
5. Hollow Man (2000)
Just think how awesome those movies would have been if Paul Verhoeven had directed them.
The first step, unfortunately, is that you have to have Sony's remarkable but rather expensive RX100, whose larger sensor makes much of the difference. Fortunately, the rest is all menu settings to get a flat image profile and 25fps. Guides from Run, Gun and Shoot and from EOSHD have the technical goods, but you'll need to cough up your own mise en scène.— Rob
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TechCrunch's Leena Rao reports on Hacker News, the code demo that quickly became a major aggregator. Now enjoying 1.6m page views a day, its success was due in part to minimalism ("he wanted Hacker News to look like your list of processes in a terminal window"), well-made moderation features, and the arrival of technically-minded Redditors overwhelmed by that site's explosion of trivial and trollish subject matter. With growth, however, HN is beginning to observe similar patterns within itself: "I wish the community would behave the way they did when it was a little village," says creator Paul Graham. — Rob
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Make Games! published a huge list of indie titles, many of them free or trivially inexpensive, made using the wildly popular game-making software Unity—I know what I'll be doing next weekend! If you're feeling inspired, Make Games!' getting started page links to essential articles and Unity alternatives for developers of any skill level. — Rob
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Yahoo announced today that it is buying blogging site Tumblr for $1.1bn, mostly in cash. In the posting, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer made clear that the cooler, younger company would not be smothered by her firm's notorious corporate culture, under which many other purchases have withered and died.
I’m delighted to announce that we’ve reached an agreement to acquire Tumblr! We promise not to screw it up. Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going. We will operate Tumblr independently. David Karp will remain CEO. The product roadmap, their team, their wit and irreverence will all remain the same as will their mission to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve. Yahoo! will help Tumblr get even better, faster.
The battle of the bands, featuring acts from Ireland to Israel, is underway as we speak. Embedded above is Cezar Ouatu's particularly excellent It's my life, this year's Transylvanian entry. Our Europe Correspondent Leigh Alexander will be filing a report, but not until she's had a bit of a lie down.
A teacher shows a preserved dolphin to students during a class about mammals at Ancol Smart House in Jakarta May 16, 2013. Ancol Smart House has about 20 animals preserved as means to "educate visitors about their life in the wild." 15m visited the park in 2012, according to PR Officer Aldhita Prayudi Ancol. [Photo: Reuters/Beawiharta]
Chinese inventor Tao Xiangli tinkers with a hand-made robot at his house in Beijing, May 15, 2013. Tao, 37, spent ¥150,000 ($24,400) to build it out of recycled scrap metal and electric wires found at second-hand markets. The robot, which took a year to complete, is 7ft tall and weighs about a quarter of a ton. [Photo: REUTERS/Suzie Wong]
Sissyfight, the groundbreaking 1990s online game of playground politics, is to receive an open-source, crowdsourced remake: "We've gotten some “interesting” press about how the game delves into uncomfortable territory around bullying and sexist stereotypes, but we've always meant Sissyfight to be an intervention into the male-dominated culture of games," writes co-author Eric Zimmerman. It'll be a launch title on Venus Patrol's Indie Arcade; Sophie Prell at Penny Arcade and Leigh Alexander at Gamasutra take a look at how the game fits in a decade on.
Richard Swanson, 42, set off from Seattle on May 1 hoping to dribble a soccer ball all the way to Brazil. A truck hit him in Lincoln City, Oregon, less than two weeks into his trip. [BBC] — Rob
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He started down the rough wooden steps. He ducked his head and then flicked the lighter and swung the flame out over the darkness like an offering. Coldness and damp. An ungodly stench. He could see part of a stone wall. Clay floor. An old mattress darkly stained. He crouched and stepped down again and held out the light. Huddled against the back wall were naked people, male and female, all trying to hide, shielding their faces with their hands. On the mattress lay a man with his legs gone to the hip and the stumps of them blackened and burnt. The smell was hideous.
Jesus, he whispered.
Then one by one they turned and blinked in the pitiful light. Help us, they whispered. Please help us.
The key, he adds: "What is revealed is even more terrifying that what I could have imagined."
Sam Kassé defends the selfie, blight of social networks: "I know most people hate selfies. They groan and complain about them, from the duck lips to the filters. Why, just the word “selfie” can induce legendary amounts of eyerolling. What people seem to miss, is that selfies are actually great. No, scratch that, selfies are brilliant! One of my favourite pastimes at work is to (discreetly) scroll through my Instagram feed and see pictures of my friends feeling good about themselves." 
Robocop director Paul Verhoeven, noted for his films' ultraviolence and politically-tinged black humor, 
I’m delighted to announce that we’ve reached an agreement to acquire Tumblr! We promise not to screw it up. Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going. We will operate Tumblr independently. David Karp will remain CEO. The product roadmap, their team, their wit and irreverence will all remain the same as will their mission to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve. Yahoo! will help Tumblr get even better, faster.
A teacher shows a preserved dolphin to students during a class about mammals at Ancol Smart House in Jakarta May 16, 2013. Ancol Smart House has about 20 animals preserved as means to "educate visitors about their life in the wild." 15m visited the park in 2012, according to PR Officer Aldhita Prayudi Ancol. [Photo: Reuters/Beawiharta] 
Chinese inventor Tao Xiangli tinkers with a hand-made robot at his house in Beijing, May 15, 2013. Tao, 37, spent ¥150,000 ($24,400) to build it out of recycled scrap metal and electric wires found at second-hand markets. The robot, which took a year to complete, is 7ft tall and weighs about a quarter of a ton. [Photo: REUTERS/Suzie Wong] 