Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2017 i WIRED

In 2018, WIRED will turn 25 (that’s 100 in internet years!). And the celebration starts now: In the issues leading up to the big anniversary, we’ll publish oral histories that tell the stories behind the most influential ideas, inventions, and events since 1993. We kick off the party this month with a look back at Funny or Die, the revolutionary comedy site that changed how laughs spread online. WIRED HAS A NEW EDITOR IN CHIEF, but he isn’t new to wired. Nick Thompson first joined the magazine as an editor in 2005. (The job offer arrived the day before he was set to start law school.) During his first term here, he edited stories about faking your own death, fake tech lobbyists, and even fake identities; the last piece turned…

OH, YOU’VE NEVER heard of smoshing? Shemurr. The originators of the term, Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla, are YouTube idols. Between merch, ads, and sponsorships, intertainers (that’s internet entertainers) have gone from bedroom vloggers to multimillionaires with digital empires. (Though as outcast PewDiePie shows, you’re just one offensive clip—or in his case nine—away from disgrace.) As a fresh stack of YouTuber-penned books hits shelves this year—IISuperwomanII’s How to Be a Bawse, Rachel Ballinger’s 101 Things That Piss Me Off, Ryan Higa’s untitled opus— the platform’s stars are converting cultlike fan followings into cash. Invaluable advice from Tubers’ books The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook, by Rosanna Pansino Tip: “Remember: Never trust an atom … They make up everything!” Binge, by Tyler Oakley Tip: “When life throws a wrench in your plans, catch…

IN SILICON VALLEY, love’s many splendors often take the form of, well, many lovers. For certain millennials in tech—as well as, rumor has it, a few middleaged CEOs—polyamory holds especial appeal. Perhaps that’s because making it work is as much an engineering challenge as an emotional one, requiring partners to navigate a complex web of negotiated arrangements. (There’s an app to keep track of that, obvs: The Poly Life.) Some enthusiasts even claim it’s the way of the future. “If life extension is possible, we might have to think about relationships differently,” says one Valley-based polyamorist. “It’s pretty hard to have an exclusive relationship with someone for 300 years.” True that—but balancing multiple LTRs takes just as much dedication and discipline (if not more).— Rules of Polyamory 1. Tap OkCupid…

Sony VPLVW675ES  BEST FOR: Flush 4K adopters Get the same picture quality you’d find at a great movie theater. Sony’s pricey 4K cannon fires 1,800 lumens of lifelike, high-dynamicrange video out of its motorized lens. It’s future-proof too—it handles the HLG video format, which will eventually be used for broadcasts with deepcolor effects. $15,000 Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 5040UB BEST FOR: Demanding Blu-ray buffs Can’t afford 15 grand? This 1080p hi-def projector does an elegant job of striving for 4K performance. Epson’s show box can accept 4K sources and play them back with HDR effects. It’s not the same level of eye dazzle as an 8-megapixel image, but with the Power- Lite’s pixel-shifting tricks and impressive 2,500-lumen output, your peepers certainly won’t protest. $2,999…

SWIMMING IN OIL MONEY Each election cycle, gushers of money flow to legislative lobbyists who fight for fossil fuels. Environmentalists can’t keep up. TOM STEYER ISN’T your average California tree hugger. The former hedge fund manager—number 1,121 on Forbes’ wealthiest people list, with $1.61 billion—was once best known for turning $15 million into $30 billion in about two decades. But then he went hiking. Steyer and environmental activist and author Bill McKibben spent a day trudging through the Adirondacks. Not long after, Steyer parted ways with the leadership of his company and his oil and gas investments, began to fight the Keystone XL pipeline, and then reinvented himself as a one-man superfund for climate causes. His organization, NextGen Climate, has spent $170 million over the past four years advocating for…

Donald Trump “20 Feet Tall,” by Erykah Badu; “What More Can I Say?” by Jay Z • Hillary Clinton “Mighty Healthy,” by Ghostface Killah • Michelle Obama “Please Don’t Go,” by Stevie Wonder • Barack Obama “Looking at the Front Door,” by Main Source • Marco Rubio “Ru-Ru-Rubio” (originally “Sussudio,” by Phil Collins) • Megyn Kelly “I Won’t Back Down,” by Tom Petty; “The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)” by Ylvis • Chris THE ART OF THE MUSICAL DIG The Roots—the house band of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon—are known for sneaking flyby jabs into 10-second snippets of walk-on music. We compiled the best of bandleader Questlove's cleverly subversive ditties for recent political guests. As politics becomes more like pop culture, comedy becomes more like social feeds. Unlike…

THE DAILY SHOW IS, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE 2004 EPISODE I APPEARED AND DID VERY WELL ON, A TOTAL DISASTER! Nation Throws Off Tyrannical Yoke of Moderate Respect for Wo Trump Insists That Now, More Than Ever, Americans Must Stand Strong in Face of Empathy” Journalist Wondering Where to Mention Getting Yelled at by US President in “Paul Ryan Grudgingly Impressed by Angry Protester Who’s Matched His Running Pace For 9 Miles” Trump Gives Intelligence Agencies Their Daily “‘Nothing Would Surprise Me at This Point,’ Says Man Who Will Be Shocked by Eight Separate News Items Today” “Area Liberal No Longer Recognizes Fanciful, Wildly Inaccurate Mental Picture of Country He Lives In” Reader of Lib-Slaves.info Sick of Mainstream Bias on Sites Like WideAwakePatriot.com” LIBERAL ONSERVATIVE…

There’s an unwritten rule in the world of comedy: If you are a person of color, if you have a disability, if your nose is too ethnic, you have to call yourself out when you walk on that stage. You have to be self-aware that you know, that they know, that your face is weird-looking. Explain your face! I often walk onstage and say, “I’m an Iranian American Muslim female, like all of you,” emphasis on American. It’s “funny” because there are never Iranian Americans in the audience. And chances are, the only Iranian Muslims the audience knows anything about are (a) violent terrorists on TV or (b) violent terrorists that many alt-right types, and some regular-right types, like to fantasize about. President Trump, painting with his own gorgeous brush,…

 @WIRED / MAIL@WIRED.COM In February we identified 49 trends—from cybersecurity reform to the Snapchat sensation—that will shape 2017 (“What Lies Ahead”). But frankly, our stories are always about what’s just around the corner. Take a profile of Enron trader turned philanthropist John Arnold. His bid to call out iffy research and make data more transparent could change how we do science (“Waging War on Bad Science”). And Minnesota’s risky attempt to reverse terrorism could alter how we do law enforcement. And the right approach to global warming could affect how we continue to exist on this planet. Looks like rapid change is one trend that won’t go away anytime soon. Re: “Waging War on Bad Science” “GREAT ARTICLE. THE ARNOLDS ARE MY NEW HEROES.” HenryT2 on WIRED.com Re: “WagingWar on…

MY 88-YEAR-OLD grandfather lives alone, can’t drive or do basic chores, and never learned to cook. Half his beachfront home in California sits empty while he runs out of retirement money. This isn’t a tragic tale. It’s a market opportunity—and big-name startups don’t get that. Let’s start with TaskRabbit. Why are its services not available by phone? Seniors would love to pay someone to, oh, pick up their dry cleaning and drop off their snail mail. Then there’s Blue Apron, which for some reason is not peppering my grandpa’s inbox with ads for senior-specific meal plans featuring large-type recipe cards. And you, Airbnb, you are really missing out: People over 60 are, according to your own data, the fastestgrowing host population. So start actively courting these folks! They answer their…

IF A ROBOT were to look at you with a twinkle in its eye, you wouldn’t be blamed for running away in terror. But that plunge into the uncanny valley doesn’t bother Max Aguilera-Hellweg, who’s been photographing anthropomorphic bots since 2010. “I’ve never found myself afraid of any of them,” he says. In fact, he’d love for his subjects to appear more lifelike. A student of anatomy—Aguilera-Hellweg graduated from med school at 48—he looks for “the right angle to find that bit of humanness.” But the point of his new book, Humanoid, isn’t to terrify you. It’s to remind you that robots aren’t human—we only make them so. Mapping the Creepy Machines NASA’s Valkyrie bot will likely get to Mars before people do—an idea that enthralled Aguilera-Hellweg. He shot her…

rovables n. pl. / 'r?-v -b lz / Tiny robots that live on your clothing. A swarm could pose as jewelry or hide in a pocket, then deploy to check your vitals, remove cat hair, or take a microphone up to your collar when you get a phone call. paperfuge n. / 'p?-p r-'fyüj / A handoperated centrifuge made of paper and string. Inspired by an ancient toy, the 20-cent device can spin blood samples fast enough to diagnose malaria in villages with no electricity. g-putty n. / 'j?-'pu-t? / Silly Putty spiked with graphene flakes. It’s conductive, and the electrical flow is so sensitive to deformation, it can be used to detect a spider’s footsteps. Or, more usefully, to make wearable, always-on blood pressure sensors that don’t require a…

ONE SURE WAY to give your favorite music some added weight: Pipe it through Master & Dynamic’s hefty new speaker. The maker of luxe headphones enlisted architect David Adjaye—the designer behind DC’s new National Museum of African American History & Culture— to give its first wireless speaker an elegant facade. The swooping modernist cabinet is molded from a concrete composite that has five times the dampening power of wood. Translation: When you crank the volume, the twin Kevlar drivers on the front won’t rattle or cause soundsmearing resonance. One 100-watt pyramid can fill a room with sound, but you can connect multiple units together using Google Cast. Portable, it is not—each one weighs 35 pounds. But hey, it’s not just a speaker, it’s a sculpture. $1,800…

Clear Some Space Virtual reality goggles make you completely blind to your surroundings. Put plenty of distance (at least 7 feet) between you and items you can break—or that can break you. Push the coffee table to the farthest wall, or better yet, banish it from the room. Remove anything made of glass. Find a new place in your home for anything shin height. Ditch the chandelier, so you can wave your hands in the air as you chop melons in Fruit Ninja. Get a Swivel Chair Watching VR—or experiencing it—isn’t a sit-down, bag-ofpopcorn, nestle-ina- slanket activity. You’re going to want to sit down, but it should be on a swivel chair so you can spin about and actively engage in the digital universe. Make sure you get one with…

Week” (originally “One Week,” by Barenaked Ladies) • Rahm Emanuel “Ugly,by Chief Keef and Soulja Boy • Ted Cruz “I Happen to Like New York,” by Cole Porter • Bill O’Reilly “Reagan’s Dead” (originally “Raise the Dead,” by Mac Lethal) • Bernie Sanders “Burn,” by Deep Purple • Jeb Bush “The Leader of the Band,” by Lewis Taylor • Rachel Maddow “Dead Presidents,” by Jay Z ? Samantha Bee and her producer and writing partner at Full Frontal, Jo Miller, know people often watch their show as news. Comedy gives them cover, though—and freedom. They do real reporting, but unlike straightfaced media, they’re not trapped by the creaky machinery of equal time, false equivalency, and sham neutrality. Bee and Miller do have two hard, fast rules:Mind your metaphors (don’t fear…

THE LANDLORD” WAS MORE than Funny or Die’s first video; it was a comedy revolution. When it went live on April 12, 2007, the short sketch—which pitted Will Ferrell against a swearing, rent-seeking toddler—made the site’s premise so simple even a 2-year-old could understand it: A user submitted a homemade comedy video, and the audience could vote to banish it or send it to the homepage. And while a handful of other comedy shorts would wind up on FunnyorDie.com that same day, it was “The Landlord” that best captured the site’s frills-free philosophy. ¶ “The spirit of it was ‘Let’s just screw around,’” recalls Adam McKay, the onetime SNL head writer who cofounded the site with Ferrell and writer-producer Chris Henchy (The Campaign). “Maybe it would be a little comedy…

Lithium Cobalt Oxide To store or release energy in a slim, efficient Li-ion power pack, lithium ions ping-pong between two electrodes: a sheet of lithium cobalt oxide and a sheet of graphite. When you charge your new drone (or smartphone or laptop or hoverboard), electrons flowing in from the outlet help lure lithium ions out of the LiCoO2, which then migrate to the graphite electrode and wait to be released—along with electrons (energy!)— later. Within the Li electrode, cobalt and oxygen form sturdy layers of octahedrons, which keep the molecule from collapsing as ions enter and exit. But at high temperatures that edifice can crumble, contributing to a very combustible situation. Graphite A mineral form of pure carbon, best known as the writey part in pencils. Graphite forms the second…

ARRANGING EMPLOYEES in an office is like creating a 13- dimensional matrix that triangulates human wants, corporate needs, and the cold hard laws of physics: Joe needs to be near Jane but Jane needs natural light, and Jim is sensitive to smells and can’t be near the kitchen but also needs to work with the product ideation and customer happiness team— oh, and Jane hates fans. Enter Autodesk’s Project Discover. Not only does the software apply the principles of generative design to a workspace, using algorithms to determine all possible paths to your #officegoals, but it was also the architect (so to speak) behind the firm’s newly opened space in Toronto. ¶ That project, overseen by design firm The Living, first surveyed the 300 employees who would be moving in.…

1 LG B6 OLED 4K HDR Smart TV A couple years ago, OLED televisions cost as much as a Hyundai. Now some of the best, like the B6, come in at two grand for a 55-incher. LG’s beguiling 4K panel has the impossibly deep blacks of any OLED screen. But it also supports the latest imageenhancing content formats, like HDR10 and Dolby Vision. Super fancy! $2,300 2 Sonos Playbase Put your TV on a pedestal— one that delivers great sound. Sonos’ newest speaker is a threechannel riser for your telly that works with your incumbent Sonos setup: Wirelessly stream songs to the Playbase, or pair it with the company’s other boxes for multiroom jams. $699 3 Blu Dot Clad Three-Door Credenza Don’t distract from your carefully engineered sound and vision by cheaping…

HOW COMEDY IS CHANGING POWER HOW POWER IS CHANGING COMEDY George Carlin. Lenny Bruce. That dog puppet. We’ve always had comedians zinging truth to power. (“Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself,” Mark Twain quipped in 1881.) But today it’s getting hard to tell where politics ends and comedy begins. The change started with Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, which made even sitting presidents want in on the joke. Now we have politicians yukking it up everywhere from The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live to Funny or Die’s absurd Between Two Ferns (page 76). Along the way we’ve had comedians become politicians (hi, Al Franken) and politicians throw stand-up into their stump speeches. (Have you heard the one…

At The Daily Show, we seek to hold those in power accountable for their hypocrisy, dishonesty, and, of late, their poor grasp of basic grammar. More important than any of that, of course, is the comedy. The sweet spot is when our jokes add context to a larger issue—as on January 23, when we explored the president’s pathological self-consciousness through the timeless magic of dick jokes. We asked our producer Allison MacDonald to see if anyone had blamed Trump’s shriveled crowd on the cold weather. Instead she was able to find Kellyanne Conway blaming it on the rain, which was even better. VT-SOT is videotapesound on tape—also known as a videoclip. OTS means “over the shoulder”—it’s the box with the pictures. Nobody knows what MOZ1 means. We debated correcting these…

WITH CHONDA PIERCE Political correctness has been quashed, thanks to Trump. Now politicians and comedians alike are facing the aftermath in the form of vocal, quick-to-call-bullshit voters and fans. Conservative Chonda Pierce—the profanity-free comic who performed at Trump’s inaugural ball—learned this firsthand: If you want to mock snowflake liberals, you have to be able to take it when a stranger tells you to (praise Jesus) f-off. How did you become the Queen of Clean? Some comics had to fight their way through open mic nights and smoky comedy clubs; I had to endure a couple of tallhaired, self-righteous Christians who told me I was going to hell. We all paid our dues—I just had to do it without alcohol. Is it tough to get conservatives laughing? If it’s a crowd…

As the rickety blue fishing boat started to take on water, the panic set in. Musaab Shabani was standing on the deck of the 50-foot vessel, squeezed in tight among hundreds of other desperate people. Most were Syrians, like him. Above them, the roof overflowed with passengers. Below them, the people crammed into the storage hold clamored to scoop up buckets of incoming water and pass them above deck to be dumped overboard. Earlier in the day, the engine of the trawler had given out while in the territorial waters off the coast of Libya. The smugglers responsible for the journey sent another boat with a crew, but instead of pulling the struggling vessel back to shore where the engine could be fixed, they tugged it into international waters. Fortunately,…