What "Harry Potter" "Argo" and "The King's Speech" have in common

Composer Alexandre Desplat may not have the same name recognition to mainstream audiences as Hans Zimmer, but his body of work speaks for itself. The French born Desplat, a five-time Oscar nominee, has contributed scores to dozens of movies over the last decade, including "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," "The Twilight Saga: New Moon," "The King's Speech," "The Queen," "Zero Dark Thirty," "Moonrise Kingdom," "Fantastic Mr. Fox," "Argo," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The Tree of Life," "Julie & Julia" and many more.

His latest composition is "Philomena," Stephen Frears' true-life drama about an elderly woman (Dame Judi Dench) who, along with a disgraced journalist (film co-writer Steve Coogan), searches for the son who was taken from her and put up for adoption by a group of Catholic nuns in 1952. Desplat's score, a mix of haunting waltzes and carnival melodies, is as understated as Frears' film, and never forces emotions onto the audience. "We tried to keep it restrained and elegant," Desplat explained.

With "Philomena" out in limited release now, HuffPost Entertainment spoke to Desplat about his contribution to Frears' film, as well as his other famous scores.

Desplat's first Oscar nomination came for "The Queen," which was also the first film he made with Stephen Frears.

Desplat: To be nominated is always unexpected. Nominations come or they don't come, you just try to write the best music you can. If it's not recognized, that doesn't mean you're a bad composer. Of course, though, the first nomination was huge for me. Being nominated for an Oscar is a big deal. Suddenly, you're in the gang. You belong to the family. More important, people see those films, so they hear your music. Some movies, you might think you did a great job, but the movie isn't seen. That's where people can hear your work.

Desplat scored his second Oscar nomination for 2008's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," but it was "Twilight" that brought his work to an even bigger audience. The second film in the blockbuster franchise earned $709 million worldwide.

Desplat: I had worked with director Chris Weitz before, and he's a great friend. The nature of the previous "Twilight" score was so different from what Chris wanted. There was no danger there: I could create something completely different, but it was not attached to any theme or orchestral ensemble. I wrote "New Moon" very fast -- in maybe just a few weeks.

The following year brought Desplat his fourth Oscar nomination, this time for "The King's Speech." It also provided him with his biggest film ever: "Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 1."

Desplat: Each movie has its own DNA that you have to understand and analyze. There was nothing for Geoffrey Rush in "The King's Speech"; he didn't have a theme. It was all about the king and his situation. The way the music evolves throughout the film is similar to the way the character evolves. When there's a lead character, I try to follow the trajectory of their psychological moves. I try to have something that goes from the beginning of the film to the end of the film. The music can evolve with him. Sometimes, it's the other way around. Sometimes, the music has to show right away the hidden emotions of the character. In "The King's Speech," the music starts getting a shape as the character starts getting a shape himself.

"Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Parts 1 & 2 (2010, 2011)

Combined, the final "Harry Potter" films earned over $2.2 billion worldwide.

Desplat: The first challenge was to not be overwhelmed by John Williams' presence. I have worshipped him since I was 15. He's one of the most influential composers in my life, so the first thing for me to do upon starting "Harry Potter" was to get rid of that huge shadow over me. I was lucky enough that, in the first "Deathly Hallows," director David Yates didn't want to use "Hedwig's Theme," the famous John Williams cue, because the kids were grown ups now and they were not in Hogwarts during the first episode. Funny enough, though, before I started working on the film, I didn't know that. I had played around with John Williams' theme, making different versions of it. I didn't use any of them, though, because the theme only comes two or three times in very little portions. I was enjoying the arrangements I was doing, but there was no use for them. We couldn't use it. We did, however, use the theme in the last film.

"Harry Potter" was the first time I was working on a franchise that was an object. It's a movie that has been seen everywhere in the world. That was a new challenge for me: to write music that can be understood from Alaska to Australia.

The first time Desplat worked with Anderson, on 2009's "Fantastic Mr. Fox," he received an Oscar nomination. He returned to collaborate with the director for 2012's "Moonrise Kingdom."

Desplat: There's an aesthetic to Wes Anderson movies that one can describe, so I just tried to stay within that. I worked very closely with Wes. We really sat down together at the piano in my studio and we would play around with things, just experiment together. It's a lot of fun. It's a very different process from any other director who I have worked with. Wes and I really try to play within a type of orchestral combination. He's so genuine when we're working together. He's so excited and so inventive. It's a great honor to work with Wes.

(The pair worked together again for the 2014 release "The Grand Budapest Hotel," which Desplat noted had more score than either of his previous collaborations with Anderson.)

Desplat's fifth Oscar nomination came for Ben Affleck's "Argo," one of his two 2012 CIA movies (the other being Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty").

Desplat: The great thing about these movies is that they're classic in the writing, but with very modern directing. I always try to grab the deepest core of the film and the dramaturge. That is what drives me, even more than the images. By figuring that out, I was able to find two different voices. That's what I did.

This was my first film with Ben, and my first time with Kathryn. The first time was always difficult. You have to build bridges and try to reassure the directors that you are not there to have your music playing loud, where it overwhelms the film. There's always this fear from directors that the composer wants to be the director. You learn through the years to approach that from a different angle. In a few months apart, I was able to work with two directors who had actually not used a lot of scores in their previous films, and where the scores were also not really predominant. These two films, though, it was necessary that the music was present, and I guess that's why it turned out so well.

"Philomena" marks the fifth time Desplat and Frears have partnered for a film. Their relationship continues to flourish as a sixth feature, Frears' untitled Lance Armstrong biography, is in the offing as well. "He's been one of my idols since I started composing, so I cherish the moments with him," Desplat said.

Desplat: On "Philomena," as I just said, it's called "Philomena." It's about her and what she suffered through for 50 years. She's over 70 years old, a simple woman, and the music had to reflect that in the most delicate way. That's something my European sensitivity most likely takes me toward. I could have almost said that we don't need any music. The characters and the directing is so beautiful already. You can't overwhelm a story with a loud score or a melody that could be too romantic or pushy. The emotions are so strong already that you just have to push a little bit and it goes as far as you can go. If you push more, it becomes cheesy.

'Philomena' Composer Alexandre Desplat Probably Wrote One Of Your Favorite Film Scores

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Animal trackers make rare unexpected discovery

On the trail of the pig-like creatures in Brazil, researchers made an unexpected and rare discovery: cave drawings showing armadillos, birds and reptiles, etched into stone thousands of years ago.

Researchers surveying pig-like animals called peccaries in Brazil inadvertently discovered ancient drawings of animals, like the reptile shown here.

Archaeologists who examined the rock art say hunter-gatherers likely created the drawings between 4,000 and 10,000 years ago. [Photos of Amazing Cave Art]

Researchers with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) made the find while surveying white-lipped peccaries in Brazil's Cerrado plateau, a vast savanna region, in 2009. The animals, which travel long distances, are considered environmental indicators of healthy forests.

"Since we often work in remote locations, we sometimes make surprising discoveries, in this case, one that appears to be important for our understanding of human cultural history in the region," Alexine Keuroghlian, a researcher with WCS's Brazil program, said in a statement.

The researchers encountered a series of sandstone formations with caves containing the artwork while tracking the peccaries near the remote city of Corguinho, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

Archaeologists say the style of the drawings is more diverse than expected. While some resemble ancient art from the central Brazilian plateau, others, surprisingly, seem etched in the artistic tradition of northeastern Brazil, the researchers said. In addition to human figures and geometric shapes, many different kinds of animals were represented, from big cats and armadillos to birds and reptiles, but alas, no peccaries.

The cave art is described (in Portuguese) in the journal Revista Clio Arqueológica.

"These discoveries of cave drawings emphasize the importance of protecting the Cerrado and Pantanal ecosystems, both for their cultural and natural heritage," Julie Kunen, director of WCS's Latin America and the Caribbean program, said in a statement. "We hope to partner with local landowners to protect these cave sites, as well as the forests that surround them, so that the cultural heritage and wildlife depicted in the drawings are preserved for future generations."

A wide array of animals were depicted in the cave drawings found in Brazil's Cerrado plateau.

The white-lipped peccary, whose scientific name is Tayassu pecari, is listed as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world's main authority for the conservation status of wildlife. The animal's range extends from southern Mexico to northern Argentina. It faces threats in the wild, including deforestation and hunting.

Ancient Cave Drawings Found In Brazil Depict Armadillos, Other Animals (PHOTOS)

White-lipped peccaries may not be glamorous-looking, but like their truffle-sniffing cousins, they sometimes turn up treasure.  On the trail o...

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Ancient cave drawings of animals; in Brazil


So THAT'S Why There's A Tiny Pocket In Your Jeans

Ever wonder why there's a teeny-tiny pocket above the regular ones in the front of your jeans? Or, more likely, have you ever gotten your thumb stuck in there due to its teeny-tiny smallness? Well, wonder no longer.

It's a watch pocket, originally for men who wore pocket watches and needed a protective place to store them. Though, as Levi's points out, the pocket has also served many other purposes over time, from condom storage to coin hoarding.

The burning question arose this week after curious minds re-discovered a Quora thread in which users have discussed this mysterious fifth pocket for years.

The Levi Strauss blog confirms their conclusion: "The first blue jeans had four pockets—only one in back and, in the front, two plus the small, watch pocket. This extra pouch has served many functions... condom pocket, coin pocket, match pocket and ticket pocket, to name a few."

The pocket appears on the oldest pair of jeans in the Levi's archives, which date to about 1879, Levi's historian Tracey Panek told HuffPost.

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It originated as a watch pocket, for men who carried pocket watches. Now it's used for other small items, such as coins or condoms. #StopClickBait


Police chief of violent city says more residents should have guns

Gun violence isn't particular to any one city. But in Detroit, frequent shootings, lawlessness and distrust in the police department's ability to stop crimes (or even show up to them) have bred mistrust and fear. The city's already been unfavorably compared to the Wild West.

Under a new police chief, the bankrupt city's beleaguered cops are finally driving down crime, including a 7 percent drop in violent crime in 2013, the police department said. But Detroit Police Chief James Craig said Detroit would be even more safe if it had -- wait for it -- more guns.

Crime rates in the Motor City are still staggeringly high. Detroit recorded 333 criminal homicides last year, along with 1,161 non-fatal shootings and 14,252 violent offenses. The Motor City logged the same number of murders as New York, despite having less than a tenth of the population.

It could seem like what Detroit actually needs is fewer guns and fewer people using them, but Detroit's police chief disagrees. During a recent interview on Detroit radio station WJR's "The Paul W. Smith Show," host Paul Smith asked Craig whether he knew of any instances of the "Knockout Game," a reported violent game of sucker-punching strangers, in Detroit.

"I think folks, the people who would engage in that foolishness, probably know that there's a number of CPL (Concealed Pistol License) holders running round the streets of in Detroit," Craig said. "Probably not a real good idea."

The police chief, who formerly served as the head of the Portland, Maine police department, said he believes that legal gun owners actually stop violent crime.

"I think it's a deterrent," he added. "Good Americans with CPLs translates into crime reduction, too. I learned that very quickly in the state of Maine. A lot of CPL holders."

Host Paul W. Smith laughed and replied, "At the bitter end, the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," echoing an argument made by the National Rifle Association.

At a press conference Thursday, the Detroit News reported, Craig reiterated his belief that arming more Detroiters would make the city safer.

"Maine is one of the safest places in America,' he said. "Clearly, suspects knew that good Americans were armed."

Proponents of stricter gun control measures have refuted the idea that more guns can result in less crime. A peer-reviewed study published in November that studied gun ownership in all 50 states over 29 years found that higher rates of gun ownership had disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides.

Although Craig supports having more legal gun owners, he has also emphasized confiscating illegal weapons. On Thursday, he said that in Detroit, each time they take an illegal gun off the street, they've likely prevented a robbery or shooting down the line. He also supports banning assault weapons, regulating magazines and ammunition and enforcing tighter background checks at gun shows, according to the Detroit News.

Wayne County, where the city of Detroit is located, had approved nearly 80,000 total concealed carry permits as of last month.

Police Chief James Craig Says What Detroit Needs Is More Guns

Gun violence isn't particular to any one city. But in Detroit, frequent shootings, lawlessness and distrust in the police department's ability to stop cr...

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One thing that five recent mass shootings have in common

Not only were four of these shootings carried out using AR-15-style assault rifles (the Umpqua shooter brought an AR-15 variation to campus but fired handguns )—the rifles legally .* It is extremely easy to obtain, no hoop-jumping required, a machine designed to kill many living things in a short amount of time. In Florida, it’s easier to buy an assault rifle than a handgun. Unless that changes, there’s no reason to think the frequency of shootings involving these deadly weapons will continue in any direction other than up

The Orlando shooting involved yet another AR-15-style assault rifle.

Many details about mass shootings, like Sunday morning's in Orlando, Florida, remain mysterious. But one known fact has shown up again and again: Not o ...

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The shooters had legally-purchased AR-15 assault rifles (though one didn't use his)


And the top-rated restaurant in America according to Yelp is...

If you ask the professionals, the best restaurants in America are fancy-pants establishments like Alinea in Chicago, the French Laundry in Napa Valley, and Le Bernardin in New York, where a meal will set you back hundreds of dollars per person. But if you ask the foodies on the customer-reviews site Yelp.com, you’ll get a very different answer—and, in many ways, a better one.

Will Oremus Will Oremus is Slate’s senior technology writer. Email him at will.oremus@slate.com or follow him on Twitter.

For the first time, Yelp has released its own list of the 100 best places to eat in America, based on reviews from millions of diners who use the site. To arrive at the rankings, Yelp’s data mining engineers looked at both the average star rating for each restaurant and the total number of reviews it received. The resulting list is a delightfully unsnooty antidote to the Michelin Guide.

Yelpers are suitably impressed by haute cuisine, and the site’s top 100 does in fact include Alinea (No.7), the French Laundry (No. 34), and Le Bernardin (No. 45). But they care just as much about traits like charm, authenticity, and value for the money—traits that tend to fall by the wayside when the pros draw up their best-of lists. And so those white-tablecloth critical darlings must elbow for room at the table alongside Yelpers’ favorite barbecue joints, taco stands, and pho spots, many of which are beloved as much for their cheap prices and homey service as their delicious fare.

But the top restaurant of all on Yelp’s list is one that probably flies even further below the average food critic’s radar. It’s a tiny seafood haunt wedged into a condominium complex in Kona, on Hawaii’s Big Island. It’s called Da Poke Shack, and in Yelpers’ eyes it’s pretty much perfect: an average of five stars on 612 customer reviews.

Aficionados swoon for its poke bowls—salads that combine Japanese-inflected spices and greens like seaweed or kimchi with generous chunks of still-floppingly fresh, raw Ahi tuna. (This picture should give you a pretty good idea of the place’s primary ingredient.) They run about $8 a bowl, depending on market prices, and you can round out your meal with some garlic edamame and a can of Hawaiian beer and be out the door for about $15. A few caveats: Da Poke Shack is "wildly popular," reviewers note, so if you come at peak lunch hour you should expect to wait in line for a bit. And there’s hardly any seating, so you might be best off grabbing your food to go—one Yelper suggests taking it out to the sea wall and watching the waves crash as you dine. Oh, and don’t go expecting dinner, because it closes at 6 p.m.

It’s safe to say that even Da Poke Shack is surprised to find itself atop a national best-restaurants list. When I called the restaurant to ask if they’d heard that they had garnered Yelp.com’s top overall rating, the on-duty manager replied, "Oh, cool. You mean best on our island, right?" No, I said. Best in the country. The line went silent for a few moments. "Oh," he said again. "Wow."

Are Yelp’s rankings definitive? Of course not. They’re shaped by the demographics of the site’s users, who skew young, middle-class, and tech-savvy. And while the sample size is large, there’s some selection bias at work. Da Poke Shack, for instance, seems more likely to be visited and reviewed by someone who already knows she loves poke than, say, a steak-lover with an aversion to raw seafood. Yelpers, by and large, tend to evaluate establishments on their own terms, which means that their top picks won’t necessarily appeal to the least common denominator.

That said, every restaurant-rating system worth its salt is highly subjective. And I’d argue that, in comparison to its buttoned-down brethren, Yelp’s list makes for a far better reflection of the glorious smorgasbord of cuisines and dining styles that you can find in America today. We live in a golden age of food, from $200 prix fixe feasts to divine $1.75 adobada tacos, and this list proves it. See below for Yelp’s top 20 picks, or click here for the full list.

You’ll Never Guess the Top-Rated Restaurant in America on Yelp. Don’t Even Try.

If you ask the professionals, the best restaurants in America are fancy-pants establishments like Alinea in Chicago, the French Laundry in Napa Valley, ...

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YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT THIS BEER PONG TABLE CAN DO

YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT THIS BEER PONG TABLE CAN DO

Man college kids get all the cool stuff. What am I talking about i’m not in college and I still want one of these tables. The future is here, well at least the beer pong future. Jeff Nybo is the mastermind behind these interactive beer pong tables that will take your party to the next level. After some years of failed designs Nybo was able to create the BPT X5 beer pong table kit. The table can detect when a cup is removed, display the score, color changing cup detection, and it wouldn’t be complete without a automatic air bath for your balls. See more of the features in the video below and you can also donate HERE.

Cup movement detection with colour change, score keeping and an automatic ball cleaner. #StopClickBait


The Simple Reason Why Lorna Jane Won't Stock Plus Size Women's Exercise Clothing

SHE’S the queen of activewear, and the face of Australia’s $2 billion fitness fashion movement.

there’s a good reason why she doesn’t stock a plus size range in her 200 stores across the globe. But Lorna Jane Clarkson says there’s a good reason why she doesn’t stock a plus size range in her 200 stores across the globe.

"We make the sizes that sell in our stores," Clarkson told news.com.au.

"Right now we have XS — XL and that’s because that’s what our customers want. If we were going to try a larger size we would sell them in a store that demanded larger sizes, but that hasn’t resulted in sales for us."

Lorna Jane said while there’s not a demand for plus size active wear, and until there is she won’t deliver. Picture: Anthony Weate

stores around the world bearing her name, reportedly worth an estimated $500 million, is a fitness force to be reckoned with. Clarkson, who has 200 stores around the world bearing her name, reportedly worth an estimated $500 million, is a fitness force to be reckoned with.

While some critics believe the designer and business owner should be catering for all shapes and sizes, she listens to her customers — and when they ask for larger sizes, that’s when they’ll deliver.

"Any criticism that we get are people who don’t support our brand anyway. If they did they would be walking into our store and trying on the clothes, and if they didn’t fit we would say ‘OK, we need to start making those clothes in a bigger size’.

"Our brand is totally customer focused, and we haven’t felt the demand for bigger sizes. If my customer wanted bigger sizes, I would absolutely accommodate. But we have tried it and not sold it."

Lorna Jane would stock bigger sizes if there was a demand for it.

With millions of followers on the Lorna Jane social media channel, IBISWorld analytics suggest one piece of the brand’s athletic apparel is sold every 19 seconds in Australia.

Her customer base, which she labels "the LJ women", started back in 1989 when the then dental therapist and aerobics instructor made clothing patterns out of newspaper while living in Cairns.

"I had no formal training. I just made patterns out of newspaper and sewed on my Janome," she said in an interview with The Courier Mail . "I had no formal training. I just made patterns out of newspaper and sewed on my Janome," she said in an interview with

"Then women in my classes started asking me to make similar pieces, and overnight it turned into a fulltime job."

Gymwear queen Lorna Jane’s brand is reportedly worth $500 million.

Heading back to Brisbane from the tropical north, Clarkson and her husband Bill decided to give the market a shot by opening their first store in 1990.

"I always thought we were a really healthy nation but in fact we are not," she declared.

"We may have been in the past, but our statistics are declining. Obesity is rising, heart disease is rising and the amount of people doing formal exercise is decreasing.

"I felt this overwhelming passion to do something about it, which I’ve coped a lot of criticism for, because people don’t want to hear about it and instead they like to stick their head in the sand.

"Make health fitness and positivity part of your life, and you will see the difference over and over."

Lorna Jane Clarkson is an active spokeswoman about health and wellbeing.

, after the she was criticised for running a job ad for a combined "Receptionist/Fit Model" position, which included physical measurement requirements for potential applicants. Clarkson and her brand copped criticism in July last year , after the she was criticised for running a job ad for a combined "Receptionist/Fit Model" position, which included physical measurement requirements for potential applicants.

And several months later, she came under fire for allegedly encouraging staff members to skip lunch, live on coffee and go to the gym in order to fit the "move, nourish, believe" philosophy.

At the time, a former store manager Amy Robinson said she was bullied by senior staff regularly about her weight and forced to work in unsafe conditions during her six months with Lorna Jane in 2012. The 39-year-old made a claim for more than $500,000 from the company At the time, a former store manager Amy Robinson said she was bullied by senior staff regularly about her weight and forced to work in unsafe conditions during her six months with Lorna Jane in 2012. The 39-year-old made a claim for more than $500,000 from the company for pain and suffering sustained during her employment.

Lorna Jane broke down during her 60 Minutes interview in

In a subsequent 60 minutes interview, Clarkson said the whole year was actually a "blessing in disguise" and made her "stronger".

"Going through that was awful ... feeling so misunderstood on a public level when it’s so far away from who you are — it was emotionally draining," she said.

"I was really fragile and the public saw the worst of it, but what I’ve learned is that it’s good to be human and let people see that side of you. I definitely got stronger. I’m not unhappy that it happened — that’s how you grow and learn."

A model wearing some of Lorna Jane’s activewear.

Clarkson, who is currently in Sydney to promote Clarkson, who is currently in Sydney to promote Active Nation Day on Sunday, hopes her journey will encourage others around the world to get out and moving.

"We need a day that stops us and take note of where we are at as a nation and as individuals," she said.

Lorna Jane stretching during the Lorna Jane Active Nation Day last year. Picture: Liam Kidston.

"We are time poor ... You don’t have to go out and make these huge massive changes, just small changes every day."

Active Nation Day falls on the last Sunday of every September, and has been running for the past five years. The day is to recognise, celebrate and encourage women to mark their commitment to Active Living by taking on some exercise.

Lorna Jane on not stocking plus sizes: ‘We make the sizes that sell i...

SHES the queen of activewear, and the face of Australias 2 billion fitness fashion movement.

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How does your life change after you film a funny video for your friends and it notches up some 164 million - yes, million - views?

This is what happened to Candace Payne, a 37-year-old from Texas who one day in May bought a silly mask and live-streamed herself chatting about her purchase.

The video, filmed in a shop car park, broke the record as the most-watched Facebook Live video ever.

You may remember this because it is pretty much four minutes of complete joy as the mother of two dons the Chewbacca mask, then laughs her head off as the toy mimics the sounds of the famous Star Wars character. Here it is again, should you have missed this moment of sheer delight in 2016.

"Things are wonderful at the moment," Candace says.

Since Candace has shot to internet stardom she has appeared on a Late Late Show sketch with Star Wars director JJ Abrams, one of her heroes, released a cover of Michael Jackson's Heal the World and keeps being recognised in the street.

"People come up and ask if they can take a selfie with me," Candace says. "Most are pretty kind and many people want to say thanks for my video."

Candace says she recorded the video for her friends and family and made it publicly visible without really thinking about it.

Because it was public, people could share it and they did - over and over and over again.

"I remember seeing that I got 50,000 views within an hour - and thinking 'I don't know 50,000 people. What's going on?'"

By the time Candace went to bed - seven hours after she posted it - the video had one million views and she wanted to know what makes a video viral.

One reference said you needed five million views in 24 hours and she said: "I thought I might actually go viral."

By the time she woke up the next day, Candace had 24 million video views and 20 messages on her phone.

Her Chewbacca antics had shattered the previous Facebook Live record set by Buzzfeed's exploding watermelon - a video in which two people gradually add rubber bands to a watermelon until the inevitable happens.

Facebook had only rolled out live streaming video capability to all users a month before, in April.

"Within three days I had 78 million views and climbing. I refreshed my Facebook page and saw the number of views jump by 100,000."

Candace says she clearly remembers a moment being in the kitchen "on the floor, in tears".

She says she knew a "door had opened up" for something different in her life.

"I knew that being a stay-at-home mom was just a season.

"Once both my kids started at school and kindergarten, I was looking to go back to work again. But the right option never came up.

"And I always had dreams of doing something grand."

She also appeared on Good Morning America, where she remembers chatting off set about her new-found fame.

"Someone said to me: 'Not many people are ready for this. But you are'.

"I really took those words to my heart. It gave fire to my bones."

Candace now has some 800,000 followers on Facebook and another 50,000 on Instagram and she is looking forward to starting life as a video blogger for American network TLC.

Candace also has a small group of people looking after press inquiries and her engagements, while she delivers speeches on the theme of finding "joy in the everyday".

"We forget that joy calls us to play," says Candace. "That's what happened in the car that day. I didn't care who walked by and saw what I was doing."

Candace says she has landed the dream job for which she did not apply "which is being myself and going out there and meeting people, and sharing the joy".

Candace says she has not changed, but some things have changed in her life. Some people who are close to her think she might be too busy to see them and that space is filled with more strangers who want to meet her.

It is also difficult to teach her children to be careful with strangers, she says, when there are random people coming up and asking for a photo with their mother.

"But I haven't met someone I don't like yet. In general, I love people."

Candace has received negative messages on social media. But she says hateful things just "roll off" her back if they are from people she doesn't know.

Surely though, what we all want to know is why was the video so successful? Why did so many people love it and share it?

How did it become the top global live video of the year, beating others from major publishers covering stories such as the US election?

"I don't get it either," says Candace. "But laughter is a universal language. My video was just joyful and had nothing to do with any agenda."

'Chewbacca Mom' on winning Facebook in 2016

What happened to the woman behind the viral Chewbacca mask video?


The Batman Solo Movie Just Hired The Best Possible Director

Batman has enjoyed more success on the big screen than any other superhero, so it came as no surprise that even when he debuted in the DCEU in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , Warner Bros wanted to give the hero another solo adventure. For over a year, we've gotten various rumors and reports about this project's supposed progress, with confirmation on its development coming only a few months ago. Now Warner Bros has finally revealed that the current Batman himself, Ben Affleck, will direct the Caped Crusader's upcoming movie.

Our own Eric Eisenberg was in Hall H at Comic-Con in San Diego when Affleck appeared alongside the other DC movies directors to briefly talk about how great it is to be be directing the latest Batman movie. He said:

It's really inspiring taking on something like this character and this story - the only thing analogous is like a great play that's been done so many times before. There's a tremendous amount of pressure and work that's already gone into it.

While it's good to finally hear that Ben Affleck is directing the Batman movie, along with starring in it and co-writing the story with Geoff Johns, it's not exactly a surprising. Over the last decade, Affleck has developed a solid reputation as a director with the award-winning movies Gone Baby Gone, The Town and Argo. He's already proven how competent he is behind the scenes, so it only makes sense that he gets to helm the story of the hero he's currently playing. No doubt he discussed with with the Warner Bros brass when he first signed on for the role several years back. Given his track record so far, maybe Affleck's Batman movie will follow in the footsteps of The Dark Knight and become an awards contender in the months after its release.

No plot details have been officially released about the new Batman movie yet, including whether it will take place before Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice or after Justice League, though my guess is the latter. Ben Affleck's Batman debuted earlier this year as a Caped Crusader who's been fighting crime for over two decades. He will return next month in Suicide Squad , and then reappear late next year in Justice League gathering together various metahumans and other powered figures to protect the Earth. Ideally the Batman movie will introduce some important players from his supporting cast, like Robin, Batgirl, Nightwing, etc. At minimum, we can also expect Jeremy Irons and J.K. Simmons to reprise Alfred Pennyworth and Commissioner James Gordon, respectively.

The Batman Solo Movie Just Officially Announced Its Director - CINEMA...

Now Warner Bros has finally revealed who will direct the upcoming Batman movie. Get the details!

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Without a doubt, this is the dumbest mistake investors keep making

This year, the S&P 500 index swooned nearly 5% in January, remained flat in February, and surged more than 6.5% for the month of March. That’s after erasing last year’s August-September 8% drop with an 8.4% October gain.

Moreover, smaller-company stocks, represented by the Russell 2000 index, were down more than 20% from their late-summer peaks in February, before storming back more than 10% since then.

Moves like this drive investors crazy, often causing them to trade their holdings in damaging ways.

Here’s how investors hurt themselves, and what they can do to stop it.

Fund-research firm Morningstar Inc. has the data to prove investors’ self-defeating behavior, in the form of a metric called "investor returns."

An investor return differs from a fund’s total return in that the total return assumes a buy-and-hold approach. The total return doesn’t reflect money moving into and out of the fund, and, therefore, judges the manager’s performance accurately.

But an investor return, sometimes called a dollar-weighted return, accounts for cash flows into and out of a fund, and evaluates how much of the fund’s return the average dollar invested in the fund has extracted. In other words, it shows how well or poorly investors trade their funds.

For example, if a fund’s investor return is less than the total return, fewer dollars participated in the fund’s upswing and more participated in the downswing.

This can happen because investors have sold a fund near its lows, leaving fewer dollars in the fund to take advantage of the upside, and bought it near its highs, pushing more dollars into the fund to inadvertently capture its downside.

Sadly, this kind of negative "return gap"—lower investor return than total return—is the norm. Morningstar’s data shows investors in diversified U.S.-stock funds (those not limited to a particular sector of the market) have missed nearly 1.8 percentage points of the funds’ annualized total returns over the past decade because of bad trading. The gap over the past 15 years is negative 1.6 percentage points, implying investors are getting worse at timing their trades.

If 1.8 or 1.6 percentage points doesn’t sound like a lot to give up, consider how much just 1 percentage point a year can cost you over a lifetime of saving. Investing $5,000 a year for 40 years and earning a 6.5% annualized return results in nearly $880,000. Investing the same amount over the same period but earning a 5.5% annualized return results in about $680,000. So in this case, losing 1 percentage point of annualized return due to bad trading would cost you 23% of your potential final sum.

© Provided by MarketWatch The big mistake investors still make

One way to prevent yourself from buying high and selling low is to set up allocations that don’t scare you when the market drops.

When the market is going up, people tend to feel confident and fool themselves into thinking they can handle any risk. Then, when the downturn arrives, they find they didn’t plan well enough for how they would feel with losses mounting in their portfolios.

Try to anticipate how a large stock-market decline will feel before it’s upon you. Behavioral-finance experts call this approach minding the "empathy gap."

A good way to mind the gap is to think about how you felt during the last big decline, in 2008-09. If you sold stocks into the downturn, you didn’t have a good equity allocation. If you have the same allocation now, you need to change it.

Minding the empathy gap well can help you set up a portfolio that makes you want to buy stocks in a downturn, not sell them. And now is an excellent time to anticipate how a downturn will feel, because, although the market has been choppy lately, we haven’t experienced a serious decline since the last one ended in early 2009.

Besides anticipating how a downturn will make you feel, try to remember how social a creature you are. There’s little doubt most of us are wired to be with each other, but this characteristic can hurt us in some ways, including as investors.

For example, psychological studies have shown that people answer easy questions incorrectly when they’ve heard people give an incorrect answer immediately before it’s their turn to answer. In other words, people seem to stop thinking when they’re around each other. Peer pressure prevails.

Other studies show that the part of our brains that registers physical pain shows heightened activity when we feel ostracized.

When it comes to investing, that means it’s painful to trim your stock exposure after a seven-year bull market when you see friends, family and neighbors invested and hear them talking about their gains. Our social interactions may make us want to be more exposed to stocks at precisely the time we should be rebalancing away from them.

Be mindful of how much you may be influenced by social pressure, and try to stick to a prearranged investment plan.

John Coumarianos, a former Morningstar analyst, is a writer in Laguna Hills, Calif. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com . John Coumarianos, a former Morningstar analyst, is a writer in Laguna Hills, Calif. He can be reached at

Volatility has taken hold of the financial markets, and it’s likely to bring out the worst in investors.


The Captain Marvel Movie Is Coming And This Oscar Winner Is In The Running For The Lead Role

Fans of this female superhero have been waiting decades to see her on the big screen. No, we aren’t talking about Wonder Woman, even though she too is finally getting her cinematic due. In this particular case, we are discussing a feisty female hero which shares only the phonetic version of the name creators Stan Lee and Gene Colan gave an alien visitor way back in 1967. Eventually, Monica Rambeau took over the title. This police lieutenant from New Orleans could manipulate and transform energy, and she eventually joined the Avengers, ultimately becoming their leader for a time. She now is represented by Carol Danvers, a being with a combination of Kree and human genes which gives her special powers.

Now, with the MCU going full tile boogie and fans eager to find out when their favorite character will be making an appearance, we are finally getting a Captain Marvel movie – that is, if the right actress can be found for the role. Both Kevin Feige and the Russo Brothers have made it clear that she will be part of the Infinity Wars, setting her up for one of the many Phase 3/Phase 4 standalone out there. This would be an amazing step for the studio since it has been roundly criticized for keeping their leading ladies on the sidelines – all except for Black Widow and Scarlett Witch, that is.

Now, Oscar winner Brie Larson (Room) is being eyed as our Major Danvers, a brilliant choice when you consider the brand’s desire to put actors, not just bodies and faces, into their important roles. Think Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man or Mark Ruffalo as Dr. Bruce Banner/Hulk as examples of how successful this practice has been. The Captain Marvel movie will be a gender-specific affair, with Guardians of the Galaxy co-writer Nicole Perlman and Inside Out co-writer Meg LeFauve working on the script. Now a director has been named, but Feige claims will know who is behind the lens by the end of the Summer. We should see the results when the movie premieres March 8, 2019.

'Blade' Actor Wesley Snipes recently made it known he would love to retake the proverbial mantle of the comic book character Blade. Would you be excited for a 'Blade' reboot or sequel starring Snipes?

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How much protein do you REALLY need? Less than you think!

Andrew Taylor has eaten only potatoes for a whole year. Well, almost.

He made his diet more nutritious by including sweet potatoes, and adding nut or soya milk to mashed potatoes. He also avoided vitamin B12 deficiency by taking supplements.

His cardiovascular health appears to have improved over the year, largely due to massive weight loss (50kg).

He has cured his anxiety and depression, sleeps better and says he is fitter and healthier than he has ever been in his adult life.

However, at the beginning of the year-long challenge, there was much debate among dietitians and nutritionists about whether he would get enough protein from his potato diet.

In the UK, healthy adults are advised to eat 0.75g of protein per kilogram of body weight each day.

However, this 'reference nutrient intake' is set at a high level to meet the needs of just about everyone in the population.

Most people need less than this, and the average requirement is about 0.6g per kilogram of body weight (that is, 60g for Andrew's current weight of about 100kg).

Andrew ate about 3.5 to 4kg of potatoes per day, and together with the soya and nut milks used to mash the potato, it looks as though he managed to meet his protein requirements.

Although combating global warming may not have been the primary reason for his challenge, Andrew has done his bit for planetary health.

Agriculture's greenhouse gas emissions are on the rise, with the largest source being methane produced by livestock.

The agricultural sector is the world's second largest emitter (after the energy sector) and the biggest thing that we can do to reduce these agricultural emissions is to eat less meat.

Becoming vegetarian or vegan would not be an acceptable or achievable option for many people, but even aiming for a plant-based diet, and limiting meat consumption, would make a substantial difference.

Scientific models have suggested that if average diets in the UK conformed to WHO healthy diet guidelines, it would reduce greenhouse emissions associated with food by 17 percent.

Further cuts in emissions could be made by adopting a 'flexitarian' eating pattern with fewer animal products and more plant foods.

This pattern is not unlike that suggested in the current Eatwell guide and the World Cancer Research Fund cancer prevention recommendations, and would have substantial health benefits as well as being good for the planet.

But one barrier to reducing meat consumption is the belief that we need it to meet protein requirements.

A low-protein, high-carbohydrate, plant-based diet contrasts with the dietary regimen currently promoted by the food and fitness industries.

The public are encouraged to believe that their own diets are in some way lacking in protein, and that they need to focus on their protein intake to make up for some sort of deficit.

This is perhaps reinforced by the way that untrained nutrition 'experts' translate protein requirements into food guidance.

For example, they might quite correctly say that a healthy young man needs about 55g of protein per day.

They then translate this into protein-containing foods, such as 100g steaks and 100g grilled chicken breasts, which each contain 30g of protein.

What this doesn't pick up on is the hidden protein in all the other foods eaten throughout the day.

For example, the following diet provides 2,500kcal of energy, enough for an average man. It also contains 136g of protein, more than twice the recommended amount.

It is not hard to meet protein requirements.

A few groups of people may need proportionately more; for example, children, older people, anyone recovering from major surgery, pregnant women and some athletes.

But even these groups would rarely need more than 1.5 to 2g of protein per kilogram of bodyweight per day.

Even without the meat and chicken, this sample diet would provide adequate protein and, since the protein is coming from a variety of sources, it would contain a good mix of amino acids.

National diet and nutrition surveys in the UK indicate that we eat more than enough protein.

If you're looking to cut down on your meat consumption, maybe you could become flexitarian or do meat-free Mondays.

You will still manage to meet your protein needs.

And if you have already made the move away from meat, there are other things you can do with your diet to reduce your environmental impact without taking the radical step of eating only potatoes.

How much protein do you REALLY need? Less than you think, a dietitian explains

The public are encouraged to believe that their own diets are in some way lacking in protein, and that they need to focus on their protein intake to make up for some sort of deficit, a dietitian warns.


Thousands of In-N-Out fans are calling on the burger chain to add this one item to its menu

Almost 20,000 people have signed a petition calling on the iconic West Coast fast-food joint In-N-Out to add a veggie burger to its menu.

The Change.org petition, started earlier in September, says that the chain is letting its fans down by failing to serve a hearty and healthy meat-free option.

"Burger chains nationwide have been getting huge returns from meat alternatives, and In-N-Out could do the same. Chipotle has vegan sofritas, White Castle has veggie sliders — even fast-food kingpin Burger King has the BK Veggie!" reads the petition.

Currently, the best vegetarians can hope for at In-N-Out is fries or a bunch of cheese and veggies between two burger buns.

As of Tuesday at 5:30 pm, the petition was about 5,000 signatures away from its goal of 25,000 supporters. However, the creators are also facing some backlash.

I think I'm more ticked off about this petition about a vegetarian menu at in n out. 🍔🍟 — jess guerrero (@fox__confessor) September 20, 2016

"As a vegetarian myself, this is a stupid petition," reads one comment on the petition. "Why, as a vegan, would you want to support a company that slaughters cows by the thousands?"

The petition for a sustainable In-N-Out that only serves vegetarian options is ridiculous hahahahahahahaha — Ryan (@ryanpineda) September 20, 2016

"This is absolutely the most incredibly stupid thing I have heard in a while, and there is a LOT of stupid going around," reads another comment. "In-N-Out, please do not change anything for these morons. If you do not want a burger, do not go to a burger stand."

While only about 3% of Americans identify as vegetarian or vegan, an increasing number of people are cutting meat from their diets — something the petition highlights. According to a 2015 study, 26% to 41% of Americans report that they cut down on the amount of meat they ate in the past year.

Almost 20,000 people have signed a petition calling for West Coast fast-food icon In-N-Out to add a veggie burger to the menu.


This high-class sushi bar has a secret weapon

In the battle among New York’s high end sushi places, the weapons of choice tend to be which can score the hardest-to-get uni, the very top of the top-of-the-line tuna.

New midtown Manhattan restaurant Suzuki is bringing something more to the game: beloved sushi chef Toshio Suzuki of the shuttered Sushi Zen. He’s coming out of retirement to open the spot with his son, Yuta. Fittingly, for someone who has been in the sushi business for 50 years, his weapon of choice is old school.

You won’t be able to book a seat via Satsuki's website or app, unlike almost every other restaurant industry in the universe. You’ll have to pick up the phone. After you’ve made a reservation, you’ll be informed, broadly, of the selection of fish that will be available that night.

If you’ve always secretly hated eel, or uni, but don’t want to confess it publicly, let them know and it won’t be served to you. Want something additional or special? Let that be known, too.

Yuta sees this service as good business: "We wanted to give guests as authentic an experience as possible, and that entails giving them the opportunity to express their likes and dislikes in private. In Japan, someone would never want to admit that they did not like a particular fish in front of one of their invited guests. This gives them the opportunity to tell us in advance."

His father has a different explanation for it: "Back in the early days of Sushi Zen, it was harder to get fish from the Tsukiji market daily. Now I have the opportunity to get the same fish they are serving in Japan. I want to let my customers know ahead of time that we have the most seasonal fish available."

Chef Suzuki, who taught the craft to Masaharu Morimoto, is the most genial sushi master you could ever meet. A meal with him behind the bar starts with a series of sakizuke, or pre-sushi dishes, such as little bowls of scallops bathed in vinegar miso and sweet sesame tofu, served in a handsome bamboo box. Suzuki also makes exceptional ankimo, or monkfish liver, infused with the delicate flavor of bamboo shoots. (He learned the preparation from the former Union Square chef, Michael Romano, who used to prepare a dish of foie gras and bamboo).

From there, look for exceptional sushi such as silky Okinawa squid, baked in sea salt and seasoned with sesame; glistening kinmedai (snapper) brushed with two different kinds of soy sauce; and lush toro, fatty bluefin plumped on top of rice. (The rice is terrific, as well; flavored with a plum vinegar, the smell of it perfumes the bar when the bar's other sushi chef, Kentaro Sawada, prepares it before service.) Chef Suzuki will be sourcing the best cuts from each fish—what he considers the top 30 percent. In the spirit of no waste, the remaining fish will be served at the kaiseki restaurant next door.

Sazuki’s 10-seat sushi bar (officially called Satsuki) is one of three restaurant-within-a-restaurant concepts in the space; there’s also that larger kaiseki restaurant and a small bar called Three Pillars, from noted mixologist Alex Ott. In space-starved Tokyo, where the saying is, 'The best sushi spots are the ones you can't find,' the places would be stacked on top of each other in a high-rise building. Here, they're below an office building, spread out over 6,500 square feet.

Suzuki's sushi bar opens on March 15, with seatings at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. for the $250 omakase. There's also a pre-theater-styled sushi-only menu for $150 at 5:30 p.m. Call 212-278-0047 for reservations.

The High-Class Sushi Bar Has a New Secret Weapon

Sushi master Toshio Suzuki is back in Midtown Manhattan with a surprisingly old-school innovation.


Niantic's response to a Pokémon Go player's help ticket after 35 days isn't what he expected

Niantic’s response to a Pokémon Go player’s help ticket after 35 days isn’t what he expected

With Pokemon Go, Niantic has proved that developers can make a Pokemon game accessible, relevant, and fresh, all while capitalizing on a massive financial opportunity. Well it seems that a post on Reddit has shown they’re capable of at least one more thing. Trolling.

A post on the Pokemon Go subreddit has blown to epic proportions after it seemed Niantic had done a little trolling of their own. The post was submitted by a user who waited 35 days for an email from Niantic regarding the loss of an item purchased with Pokecoins.

The user’s original message to the company read:

At 12.30pm today I purchased 25 incense worth 1250 Pokecoins. During the process it took the Pokecoins but I did not receive the 25 incense because of a server error. May I please receive the 25 incense please

So, okay. You must be thinking: well if that was me, I’d expect a prompt email from the customer service guys at Niantic explaining what a terrible mistake it was and that I’d be compensated immediately.

Well, that’s not quite how it went down. The company’s response after all that time? "r." Niantic didn’t even give the player the courtesy of a upper-case character. Check out the hilarious email below:

So, as the comments on the Reddit post have suggested, Niantic either:

A) gave up on replying very early into writing the email

B) accidentally sat on the keyboard and pressed sent

C) or, well, became a pirate for the day. rrrrrrr.

It’s essentially another way for Niantic to say "k" or "cool story bro." The meme-worthy trolling mystery continues.

The response of the OP when he received the delightful little email from Niantic was likely along the lines of something like this:

Niantic’s response to a Pokémon Go player’s help ticket after 35 days isn’t what he expected

Niantic isn't only good at making multi-million dollar videogames it seems. They also master the art of trolling.


Yep. This is probably how the end of the world begins.

When it finally happens, the end of the world will likely begin like this: with wailing sirens tearing through the night sky sending chills down your spine as you contemplate if you've lived a good and meaningful life.

Thankfully, we're not there yet, but if you live in Dallas, Texas, you got a preview of that terrifying moment on Friday night.

Beginning around 11:44 p.m., all 156 of the outdoor warning sirens meant to alert the residents of Dallas (population 1.3 million) of impending disaster bellowed across the city.

There was no immediate explanation, and the sirens didn't stop.

Many people, naturally, found the sirens unsettling and some took to Twitter to post video of the incident while the city collectively wondered what impending doom the sirens might be warning of.

Ever wonder what the end of the world feels like? #dallas #sirens

Dallas's fire dispatch and its office of emergency management pulled the plug on the sirens, after more than an hour and a half of blaring, at about 1:20 a.m.

But the sirens weren't signaling the end of the world (or end of Dallas), and they were not malfunctioning, as early reports indicated. The panic was the result of a hacking attack on the city's emergency alert system.

"It does appear at this time that it was a hack, and we do believe that this came from the Dallas area," officials from the City of Dallas Office of Emergency Management office confirmed to the media via Facebook on Saturday. "We can't talk a whole lot about the hack itself, because obviously we don’t want this to happen again."

In order to get the sirens to stop, the city had to disconnect the system, which had been triggered to activate the sirens over 60 times. The system is still down and the city is relying on other mass notification systems including reverse 911 and social media for emergencies.

Dallas is located in a part of the U.S. often referred to as "tornado alley" due to the high frequency of tornadoes, and those sirens are often used to warn residents of an impending tornado event. So while most of the jokes and concerns on social media didn’t mention much about weather, because of their traditional use, locals take those sirens very seriously.

The city hopes to have the alert system back up and running by Sunday night or Monday afternoon.

The Purge is cancelled: Hackers unleash sirens of doom on Dallas

Nope. No Purge for you. Just your friendly neighborhood hacker attack.

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When you can see "Gone Girl" in theaters

If you're someone who has to read the book before seeing the movie, now might be a good time to pick up "Gone Girl." Twentieth Century Fox announced on Tuesday that Gillian Flynn's best-selling thriller is due out in theaters Oct. 3, 2014.

Flynn signed on to do the adaptation with David Fincher ("The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo") earlier this year.

Ben Affleck stars in the film as Nick Dunne, a man who finds himself at the center of a murder investigation after his wife, Amy, suddenly goes missing in small-town Missouri. Rosamund Pike, who recently co-starred in "The World's End" is set to play Amy Dunne, Nick's charismatic but manipulative wife. Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Patrick Fugit and "Blurred Lines" model Emily Ratajkowski are among the film's co-stars.

'Gone Girl' Movie Set For Release On Oct. 3, 2014

If you're someone who has to read the book before seeing the movie, now might be a good time to pick up "Gone Girl." Twentieth Century Fox announced on T...

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Foods that prevent death, disease, and cancer

By now we know that eating more fruits and vegetables is good for our health, but a new study suggests that eating even more produce can prevent millions of deaths each year. In the report, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, researchers from Imperial College London conducted a meta-analysis of 95 studies looking at fruit and vegetable intake. They estimated that 7.8 million premature global deaths could be avoided yearly if people ate 10 portions of fruits and vegetables a day. The researchers characterize 10 portions as 800 grams of fruits and vegetables a day. For context, one medium apple is around 182 grams.

Already eating plenty of fruits and vegetables cut people’s risk of early death from heart disease and cancer. But the researchers estimated that if people ate up to 10 portions a day, there would be a 24% lower risk of heart disease, 33% lower risk of stroke, 28% lower risk of cardiovascular disease, 13% lower risk of cancer, and a 31% lower risk of dying early when compared to not eating any fruit or vegetables.

The fruits and vegetables that were linked to lower risk of heart problems included the usual suspects like apples, citrus, and leafy veggies like spinach. Other cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and Brussels sprouts as well as peppers and green beans were linked to potentially lower cancer risk.

The researchers didn’t show why higher portions of fruits and vegetables can led to fewer deaths, but some of the basic nutrients in the produce can improve health. "Fruit and vegetables have been shown to reduce cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and to boost the health of our blood vessels and immune system," said study author Dagfinn Aune of the Imperial College London School of Public Health in a statement. "This may be due to the complex network of nutrients they hold. For instance they contain many antioxidants, which may reduce DNA damage, and lead to a reduction in cancer risk."

Eating More of This Will Make You Live Longer

A new study shows people that eat 10 helpings of fruits and vegetables lived longer


Netflix's Full House update Fuller House was a huge success, with season two already in production. But one face (or two?) was noticeably missing from season one "" Michelle Tanner (Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen).

The Olsens were asked to return, so when they turned down the opportunity, "how rude" were they being? Probably not very rude at all, according to Dave Coulier.

"I think they have a different perspective," Coulier told People. "When we get together and we reminisce, they were babies. So they don't share those same memories. I can't really speak for them but I would understand why they don't have the same sentiments that we all do."

John Stamos said he also understands that the twins are busy with their current careers in the fashion world. "Lori (Loughlin) was talking to me about the twins and said, 'They just won a CFDA award.' And I'm like, 'Yeah, that's like winning an Oscar,'" Stamos said. "I get where they're at."

According to show producer Bob Boyett, Ashley had a more specific reason for not wanting to do the show. "Ashley said, 'I have not been in front of a camera since I was 17, and I don't feel comfortable acting.'" Boyett added that Mary-Kate wouldn't want to do it without Ashley, and the timing was wrong for both of them.

Mary-Kate and Ashley are indeed very busy. They started the fashion line The Row in 2006, and in 2007 started another collection, Elizabeth and James. In July, they opened Elizabeth and James' first brick-and-morter store in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, production of season two has already begun. Jodie Sweetin even shared this photo from a recent table read. While no premiere date has been revealed, we do know the season will introduce Uncle Joey's wife Ginger and feature a guest appearance by Alan Thicke.

Will Michelle end up making a surprise appearance? Unfortunately, that's something we cannot predict at this moment. Whatever happened to predictability?

The Olsen Twins Revealed The REAL Reason They Didn't Appear on 'Fuller House'

http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-z0zMG4nCgXzzj.gif?labels=Mary-Kate Reveals The REAL Reason Why The Olsens Were Not On 'Fuller House'

Ashley is camera shy, and timing was bad for Mary-Kate.  #StopClickBait


Physicists discover apparent departure from the laws of thermodynamics

A microscopic sample of barium ions, shown in teal, immersed in a cloud of calcium atoms whose temperature is 1/1,000th of a degree above absolute zero. Credit: University of California, Los Angeles According to the basic laws of thermodynamics, if you leave a warm apple pie in a winter window eventually the pie would cool down to the same temperature as the surrounding air.

For chemists and physicists, cooling samples of charged particles, also called ions, makes them easier to control and study. So they use a similar approach—called buffer gas cooling—to lower the temperature of ions by trapping them and then immersing them in clouds of cold atoms. Collisions with the atoms cool the originally hot ions by transferring energy from the ions to the atoms—much the same way a warm pie is cooled next to the cold window, said Eric Hudson, associate professor of physics at UCLA.

But new research by Hudson and his team, published in the journal Nature Communications, demonstrates that ions never truly cool to the temperature of the surrounding gas. Also, very surprisingly, they discovered that under certain conditions, two final temperatures exist, and the temperature that the ions choose depends on their starting temperature.

"This apparent departure from the familiar laws of thermodynamics is akin to our warm apple pie either cooling as expected or spontaneously bursting into flames, depending on the pie's exact temperature when it is placed in the window," said Hudson, the senior author of the study.

The UCLA researchers have, for the first time, placed fundamental limits on the use of buffer gas cooling in "ion traps." To perform their experiment, the researchers prepared a microscopic sample of laser cooled ions of the chemical element barium and immersed them in clouds of roughly 3 million laser-cooled calcium atoms. The researchers make molecules extremely cold under highly controlled conditions to reveal the quantum mechanical properties that are normally hidden.

The ions were trapped in an apparatus that levitates charged particles by using electric fields that oscillate millions of times per second, confining the ions to a region smaller than the width of a human hair. Both the atomic and ionic samples were brought to ultra-cold temperatures —just one-thousandth of a degree above absolute zero—via a technique in which the momentum of light in a laser is used to slow particle motion.

After allowing collisions between the atoms and ions to occur and the system to reach its final temperature, the physicists removed the calcium atoms and measured the temperature of the barium ions. The results, which show the existence of multiple final temperatures based on ion number and initial temperature, suggest that subtle non-equilibrium physics is at play.

The researchers trace these strange features to the heating and cooling rates which exist in the system—the peculiar temperature dependence of the interaction among multiple ions in an ion trap. Both simulation and theory support their experimental findings, and paint the buffer-gas cooling process as a fundamentally nuanced, non-equilibrium process rather than the straightforward equilibrium process it was originally understood to be.

Lead author Steven Schowalter, a graduate student researcher in Hudson's laboratory and now a staff scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said, "Our results demonstrate that you can't just throw any buffer gas into your device—no matter how cold it is—and expect it to work as an effective coolant."

Buffer gas cooling is crucial in fields ranging from forensics to the production of antimatter. Hudson's research group has discovered important nuances that revise the current understanding of the cooling process, explain the difficulties encountered in previous cooling experiments and show a new path forward for creating ultra-cold ion samples. With this framework the researchers showed how troublesome effects can be overcome and even exploited to study the mechanisms at play in molecular motors and single-atom heat engines in a precisely controlled manner.

"Of course, this work does not violate the laws of thermodynamics, but it does demonstrate there are still some interesting, potentially useful things to learn about buffer gas cooling," said John Gillaspy, a physics division program director at the National Science Foundation, which funds the research. "This is the sort of fundamental research that can really guide a wide range of more applied research efforts, helping other scientists and engineers to avoid going down dead-end paths and illuminating more fruitful directions they might take instead."

Explore further: New methods for ion cooling

More information: Steven J. Schowalter et al. Blue-sky bifurcation of ion energies and the limits of neutral-gas sympathetic cooling of trapped ions, Nature Communications (2016). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12448

Physicists discover 'apparent departure from the laws of thermodynamics'

Does not violate the laws of thermodynamics


Suicide Squad Director Answers Jared Leto Joker Is Jason Todd Rumor

Suicide Squad has become a pretty pivotal film for Warner Bros. and the DC Extended Universe, but the hype for this supervillain team-up film has been relatively strong, as its release date approaches. In addition to a big-name cast, and the inclusion of some pretty iconic DC Comics characters (from Viola Davis as Amanda Waller to Jared Leto and Margot Robbie as Joker and Harley Quinn), Suicide Squad seems to be weaving together a whole lot of DC Comics mythos in order to tell its story and introduce its respective characters.

To that end, fans have been invested a great deal of speculation in the surprise reveals and long-term ramifications for the DCEU that may come out of Suicide Squad's storyline. And one of the biggest rumors surrounding the film has been that Jared Leto's Joker could actually have a secret identity that's connected to Batman. However, as you can see above, Suicide Squad director David Ayer is shooting down that possibility, in no uncertain terms.

As you heard Ayer say: Jared Leto's Joker is not actually Jason Todd, aka the second boy to take on the mantle of Robin the Boy Wonder. In comic book lore, Jason was actually killed by Joker in the famous 1988-89 story "Death in the Family," after the fanbase of the time elected to have Jason killed off (they didn't like him much). However, Jason Todd would return to the DC Comics universe, having been resurrected in the 2005-2006 storyline, "Under the Red Hood." He remains a prominent character in the DC "Rebirth" continuity, now serving as an anti-hero focal point of the "Dark Trinity," alongside the fallen Amazon Artemis and Superman's clone, Bizarro.

After "Under the Red Hood" was adapted into a successful animated film, rumor have swirled that Ben Affleck's upcoming Batman solo film could in fact adapt the storyline into a live-action movie. Needless to say, that rumor was largely hinging on the other rumor about the identity of Leto's Joker; if Joker was Jason Todd, it would make a faithful "Under the Red Hood" Batman movie hard to pull off. At the risk of speaking out of turn: I think many DC fans would prefer a Ben Affleck-directed Batman: Under the Red Hood adaptation to a Joker reveal lifted from the Batman Beyond cartoon show of the 2000s. But that's just me.

Suicide Squad will be in theaters on August 5th. Wonder Woman will follow on June 2, 2017; Justice League on November 17, 2017; Aquaman on July 27, 2018; Shazam on April 5, 2019; Justice League 2 on June 14, 2019; Cyborg on April 3, 2020; and Green Lantern Corps on July 24, 2020. The Flash movie release date is TBD.

Suicide Squad has become a pretty pivotal film for Warner Bros. and the DC Extended Universe, but the hype for this supervillain team-up film has been relatively strong, as its release date approaches. In addition to a big-name cast, and the inclusion of some pretty iconic DC Comics characters [...]


The infographic that shows just how close the Austrian election was

Alexander Van der Bellen, a former Green party member, ran as an independent candidate and won by a minute margin – some 30,000 votes out of the 4.6 million ballots cast– against rival and leader of the far-right wing Freedom Party, Norbert Hofer.

Since the exit polls came out, the final result figures have changed slightly, but what remains the same is Van der Bellen's knife-edge victory:

Hofer stirred up controversy when he was reported to have worn a blue cornflower, which is an old Nazi symbol.

While the EU may have dodged a bullet, the fact that the results were so close indicates a definite political shift to the right, which analysts say is due to a backlash over immigration fears.

More: 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe

More: This interactive map traces how fences have gone up across Europe during the refugee crisis

Despite the permeation of nationalistic, right-wing sentiment in Europe, the victory over Austria's far-right candidate in its presidential elections this weekend show there is hope yet. However, the results were worryingly close. The following Statista graph, based on the exit polls as of 1000 GMT on Monday, shows just how close the race got:

Van der Bellen (Green), beats Norbert Hofer (Freedom Party) by 50.35% to 49.65%


The Letters On A Keyboard Aren’t Alphabetical For One Obvious Reason.

It's the same thing for many of us from Monday to Friday: We get to work, turn our computers on, take a few big swigs of coffee, and begin to type. Emails, reports, articles, memos, and more: So much of our work involves typing, and thankfully, we have efficient keyboards with which to do so. But it hasn't always been this easy: Not so long ago, keyboards were totally different, and people had to use them in much different ways.

Take a look at your keyboards now. You've probably noticed that they aren't in alphabetical order (or any kind of order that makes sense, really). Surprisingly, keyboards used to be in alphabetical order -- but it turned out that alphabetizing the keys was not the best way to increase typing efficiency. So, even before there were computers, typewriter keyboards got a major overhaul. Through trial and error, designers figured out how to create the fast-typing, intuitive keyboards that we use today. Learn more about the evolution of the keyboard below.

Here's one of the very first QWERTY keyboards. Initially, the QWERTY keyboard was put on typewriters. The model of the keyboard was introduced by a man named Christopher Latham Sholes.

Typing on a typewriter keyboard was somewhat problematic. The trouble was that too many of the keys were close together. That means that often, two or three keys would stick together on one push, especially the most used letter combinations, "s-h, t-h, e-a, e-io-u."

That's what caused designers like Sholes to rethink the positioning of the letters on a keyboard. With designs like the QWERTY layout, typing could be more effortless.

But before the QWERTY design, keyboards looked like this. It was in alphabetical order, which makes sense but somehow looks weirdly unnatural.


‘General Hospital’ Spoilers: Michael Easton Reveals Air Date Of His Return–Teases Fans With Details About His Mysterious New Character?

General Hospital (GH) spoilers tease that Michael Easton will soon grace the TV screens once again. According to Soap Opera Digest, Michael Easton began taping on Friday, February 26, with an initial airdate planned for Friday, March 18. Michael Easton revealed that the new role was a beginning and fresh start for his acting career, and feels very inspired by the new material he was given.

Not many soap opera stars are as loved by the fans as Michael Easton. When he was fired by the former head scribe, Ron Carlivati, and was written out of the storyline, the audience came unglued. They didn’t want to say goodbye to Dr. Silas Clay (Michael Easton) and demanded ABC do something about it and rehire the actor.

Easton taped his first scenes yesterday. Very exciting stuff. #GH — Frank Valentini (@valentinifrank) February 27, 2016

Michael Easton revealed in an interview with ABC Soaps In Depth that he was disappointed when he learned he would no longer be on General Hospital. Easton felt his character deserved a better exit than to be murdered by Madeline Reeves (Donna Mills) in a ploy to take control of Nina Clay’s (Michelle Stafford) assets. Easton also felt his character hadn’t run its course, and there was no reason to kill him off in that manner. Even so, Carlivati murdered Dr. Silas and Port Charles (and General Hospital fans) was left reeling after his shocking murder.

Right after his exit from the General Hospital, his fans launched an online petition calling for the ABC executives to consider bringing Michael back on the soap opera. The petition fetched an astonishing 14,000 signatures–which was enough to grab the attention of the powers that be at ABC. The creator of the petition, Laura Gentili, stated that the audience wanted Michael Easton back on the soap opera as Dr. Silas Clay. Dr. Clay was an oncologist that was a major character, and his loss was hard for the fans to accept.

Wishing #MichaelEaston a very Happy Birthday today! And a reminder #GH is all new on this holiday Monday! pic.twitter.com/4kzZw7KEGd — Nathan Varni (@nathanvarni) February 15, 2016

Right before February Sweeps began, ABC executive Nathan Varni revealed that Michael Easton would return in the coming months; however, he would not reprise the role of Dr. Clay. Varni explained that Silas Clay was dead–stabbed and murdered–and there was no feasible way to bring him back. (Come on, GH writers, when has a soap opera let a silly thing like death stop them from bringing a character back?)

Frank Valentini, executive producer of General Hospital, stated that Easton would return to the soap opera, but there was a catch. Apparently, they couldn’t bring him back as Dr. Silas Clay, so they’d create a brand new character. It was enough to appease his fans as they anticipated his return to the show.

Here's a #GHFanFeb surprise! Michael Easton is coming back to #GH! A video posted by General Hospital (@generalhospitalabc) on Feb 2, 2016 at 11:15am PST

Michael posted to his Facebook account revealing that his first day of filming was February, 26 with an air date of March 18. Easton captioned the image of the new script, "And so it begins.."

General Hospital has not released much about his character, only that it will be a new character and that Michael is inspired by the complexity of the character. There have been rumors the past couple weeks that he could be a "nice" Cassadine (do they exist?) and could show up just in time for Helena’s will reading. That appears to be false at the moment, considering that Helena’s will should be read later this week.

General Hospital fans, are you excited about Michael Easton’s return to the ABC soap opera? Who do you think Easton will portray? Don’t forget to come back later to The Inquistr for more General Hospital spoilers, news, and updates. Let us know what you think about Michael Easton return in the comments, below.

[Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Playboy]

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Professional golfers can have careers that are highly lucrative.

Their careers can last well into their 40s and 50s and there are events nearly year-round with tours all over the world. That means lots of opportunities to take home a paycheck.

Below, we take a look at the 30 highest-paid golfers of all time. The list is skewed towards recent players, but there is a mix of both current and previous generations, as well as both PGA Tour and European Tour greats.

Both PGA Tour and European Tour earnings include winnings from majors and WGC events. However, those events are only counted once in each golfer's total earnings.

16. Bubba Watson — $45.2 million (€40.1 million)

Major championships: 2 (2012 and 2014 Masters)

15. Jason Day — $45.2 million (€40.1 million)

Major championships: 1 (2015 PGA Championship)

14. Lee Westwood — $48.1 million (€42.7 million)

13. Luke Donald — $49.2 million (€43.7 million)

12. Matt Kuchar — $49.3 million (€43.8 million)

11. Henrik Stenson — $50.1 million (€44.4 million)

Major championships: 1 (2016 Open Championship)

10. Adam Scott — $57.8 million (€51.3 million)

9. Dustin Johnson — $62.8 million (€55.7 million)

8. Sergio Garcia — $65.3 million (€57.9 million)

7. Rory McIlroy — $66.1 million (€58.7 million)

Major championships: 4 (2011 U.S. Open, 2012 and 2014 PGA Championship, 2014 Open Championship)

6. Ernie Els — $66.8 million (€59.3 million)

Major championships: 4 (1994 and 1997 U.S. Open, 2002 and 2012 Open Championship)

5. Justin Rose — $68.6 million (€60.9 million)

4. Jim Furyk — $70.7 million (€61.6 million)

3. Vijay Singh — $75.9 million (€67.4 million)

Major championships: 3 (1998 and 2004 PGA Championship, 2000 Masters)

2. Phil Mickelson — $94.6 million (€83.9 million)

Major championships: 5 (2004, 2006, and 2010 Masters, 2005 PGA Championship, 2013 Open Championship)

1. Tiger Woods — $122.5 million (€108.7 million)

Professional golfers can ;have careers that...

1. Tiger Woods — $122.5 million
2. Phil Mickelson — $94.6 million
3. Vijay Singh — $75.9 million
4. Jim Furyk — $70.7 million
5. Justin Rose — $68.6 million


The stress and strain of constantly being connected can sometimes take your life -- and your well-being -- off course. GPS For The Soul can help you find your way back to balance.

GPS Guides are our way of showing you what has relieved others' stress in the hopes that you will be able to identify solutions that work for you. We all have de-stressing "secret weapons" that we pull out in times of tension or anxiety, whether they be photos that relax us or make us smile, songs that bring us back to our heart, quotes or poems that create a feeling of harmony, or meditative exercises that help us find a sense of silence and calm. We encourage you to look at the GPS Guide below, visit our other GPS Guides here, and share with us your own personal tips for finding peace, balance and tranquility.

Color affects our moods in fascinating ways. Just looking at one particular shade can have an immediate calming effect -- and no other hue promotes those zen-like emotions like the color blue. This shade invites feelings of peace and relaxation instantly, and has been scientifically proven to help stave off stress. If you're feeling a little bit on the edge, take a look at the soothing blue scenes below and feel your worries wash away.

Calming Blue Scenes To Help You De-Stress

The stress and strain of constantly being connected can sometimes take your life -- and your well-being -- off course. GPS For The Soul can he...

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A sex therapist explains why you're not having fantastic sex

Why do people with fetish preferences feel stigmatised despite the success of Fifty Shades of Grey?

We now live in a society which is more open and positive about sex than ever before, but one expert says we're not as sexually free and liberated as our post-1960s society would have us believe.

In his new book, Modern Sexuality: The Truth about Sex and Relationships, Dr Michael Aaron suggests that there is still widespread stigma surrounding sexuality in the modern age. People who have unconventional sexual fantasies are forced into the shadows, and often do not reveal them even to their partners.

He adds that the dialogue around sex in society is often one layered with shame, regulation and restriction.

"I think that laws and attitudes towards sexuality are one of the clearest reflections of the level of freedom afforded in a society. That's because sexuality is so core to our identities, that censoring it also inevitably has the effect of censoring individual expression," Dr Aaron told The Independent.

The doctor, who lives in New York City, actually singles out UK laws as one of the most prominent examples of ways in which our sexuality is supposedly restricted. He hones in on the Digital Economy Bill which is currently going through the House of Lords.

The bill proposes to ban a large number of "non-conventional sexual acts" in pornography which is believed to include female ejaculation, sexual acts involving menstruation and urination, and spanking, whipping or canning which leave marks.

He says the inclusion of female ejaculation, menstruation and fisting on the ban-list is "nonsense" and says "it is no coincidence that these laws are introduced at a time when British politics is veering more hard right".

Dr Aaron also points to laws which regulate, and in some cases criminalise, sex work as examples of infringes upon sexual freedoms.

"Perhaps nowhere else is the government regulation of sex more apparent than in the area of sex work," he writes arguing that government crackdowns on any kind of sexual behaviour "prevent for the possibility for an honest and open discussion on what sex work means for its participants and how society can provide appropriate resources for those who do choose sex work".

Laws surrounding pornography and sex work are extreme examples of where sexuality is marginalised in society. However, Dr Aaron says in his therapy sessions he encounters lots of patients who feel shamed over their sexual preferences even when it is no longer considered taboo in society.

"I still have a number of clients who have difficulty coming out and are conflicted about their orientation even though same-sex marriage was approved by the US Supreme Court almost two years ago and issues around homosexuality have been brought into public awareness. Similarly, I see a number of individuals ashamed of their fetishistic interests even though Fifty Shades of Grey just came out with a sequel and the trilogy has sold over 100 million copies.

"There is a big difference between externally accepting something and truly believing it and feeling internally congruent. As a result, even though society has made tremendous progress, I believe most individuals, even the most liberated by all appearances, still carry internal remnants of sexual shame and stigma."

So how do we liberate ourselves and challenge both internal and external restrictions on our sexuality? Dr Aaron says education is key.

"Right now, a number of young adults and teenagers get all of their sex education from porn, which is like trying to learn about geopolitics by watching the latest Bond movie. In many ways, trying to protect individuals from sex only hurts them further."

He argues education will also ensure those with less mainstream sexual desires experience less shame and stigma and feel part of the conversation.

"Transparency around sex leads to a more humanistic, supportive, and nurturing society, that is accepting of individuality and unique consensual behaviours, rather one that is authoritarian, patriarchal, and punitive. I think our challenge as a society is to evolve past basic group needs that may be anachronistic and no longer necessary."

How our culture of kink-shaming is making us much less sexually liberated than we think


This is officially the biggest party school in the USA now

Founded when Wisconsin achieved statehood in 1848 and remaining the official state university up to this day, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has more going for it than just a coveted public Ivy education and being really, really old.

University of Wisconsin-Madison is now, officially, the biggest party school in the United States, according to the Princeton Review

Beating out last year’s reigning champ, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, this is the first time the University of Wisconsin-Madison has achieved this honor in a decade.

Let’s all pour one out for all of the hungover students in Madison who sacrificed their Sundays and their livers to make this dream a reality.

Many other schools achieved similar, if lesser, honors. To make it easier for you to pick out where you want to go to college, or where you want to transfer to, below is the Princeton Review’s top 20 party schools as provided by Seventeen. (Or, if your parents ask, we’re making it easier for you to pick out where you don’t want to go...)

This is officially the biggest party school the USA now

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University of Wisconsin-Madison. #StopClickBait


You’ll Never Guess Which Two Celebs Are *Seriously* Twinning at the Oscars

The Oscars red carpet is fully underway, and it’s been filled with some of the most stunning award show looks we ever did see — and the event itself hasn’t even started yet! From middle parts having a major moment to neutral-hued makeup totally taking over, we can’t wait to see what the rest of the night has in store. While we’re expecting to see more epic looks, one thing we definitely didn’t expect was to see two polar opposite celebs show up totally twinning on the red carpet.

Reese Witherspoon and Tina Fey both stepped out wearing strapless, sheeny, floor-length purple dresses in identical shades and silhouettes. Say whaaaa? That’s right: The queen of timeless looks and classy frocks is matching with a beloved funny lady who might be better known for her super on-point wits than her red carpet styles.

Both dresses were solid in color and featured unique details at the waistline. Tina’s had a flattering gathering that kept her waist looking tiny, while Reese’s dress had corset-like elements that highlighted her hourglass figure. Both of these talented women looked stunning in this color and shape — we can’t wait to see what the rest of the night has in store for both of them!

We NEVER thought we'd see these two celebs dress alike.


This tiny device might be every iPhone owner’s new best friend

The iPhone’s lack of expandable storage has created an entirely new breed of services and accessories aimed specifically at iPhone users. $650-$750 is a huge amount of money to pay for a smartphone with just 16GB of storage, and that 16GB of space always seems to vanish in a matter of weeks considering how big games and video files are these days. Even users with 64GB or 128GB iPhones often end up filling their handsets with data, and then the dreaded errors like "cannot capture video" begin to appear.

Several solutions exist for this problem. You can use a service like Google Photos to back up your images and videos, or you can use a device like the Lyve Home Photo and Video Manager . Personally, I like the simplicity and efficiency of a simple iPhone-compatible flash drive, and I may have just found my new favorite one.

First, the hardware — SanDisk has completely revamped its design with the latest iXpand flash drives. Here’s what the old one looked like:

The new model features a Lightning connector on one end for your iPhone or iPad, and a standard USB 3.0 port on the other end to connect to your Windows or Mac PC. That’s basically it — this new design is about as compact as it gets, which makes carrying the device in a purse or laptop bag a no-brainer. That way anytime you need to move files off of your phone or tablet, your flash drive is ready to go. On the flip side, you also always have your photos and videos on hand to share with people, even though they’re not taking up space on your phone.

SanDisk’s new iXpand models also ship alongside an updated companion app with a sleek design and a simple interface. Navigation is easy and the app can be used to move files off of your device or to view files stored on the drive. You can even store music on the iXpand drive and use the app as a player if you want to. And finally, my favorite setting lets the app automatically transfer any new photos and videos to the drive as soon as it’s connected to the phone.

iPhone Flash Drive: SanDisk iXpand gets major update

The iPhone's lack of expandable storage has created an entirely new breed of services and accessories aimed specifically at iPhone users. $650-$750 is a huge amount of money to pay for a smartphone with just 16GB of storage, and that 16GB of space always seems to vanish in a matter of weeks conside...

A flash drive with a lightning connector.