The more you learn, the less you know. It was in late 2016 when I caught the coding bug. At first, it was a subtle twitch, then it took over my headspace and eventually it pushed me into unknown territory. One year later I have a new profession, a new workplace and (supposedly) a new compartment in…

Jake Kazdal, an American video game developer who lives in Kyoto, Japan, spent a night in early March refreshing the website of GameStop, the video game retail chain in the United States. He wanted to buy Nintendo’s just-released console, the Switch. But the device had already sold out in Japan,…

Every so often, a right-wing commentator who purports to abhor dishonesty among media elites admits that they’ve been guilty of dishonestly purveying propaganda. These figures are not marginal. In the final years of the Bush administration it was Rush Limbaugh, easily the most popular talk-radio…

Swatting is the practice of tricking police SWAT teams into storming your victim's home by phoning in fake hostage situations; it's especially prominent among cybercriminals, gamers and was a favored tactic of Gamergater trolls. Last night, Andrew Finch, a 28 year old man in Wichita, was shot dead…

Polygon is kicking off its best of entertainment series, which will run through the end of December and beginning of January, coming to a close just before the 2017 Golden Globes. These personal essays will examine the best, most important and weirdest moments that occurred in television, film,…

Netflix plans to release 80 original films in 2018 , and those films will not be given a theatrical release. If you want to watch what might be some of the most interesting movies of the year — if Netflix’s 2017 slate is anything to go by — by some of the biggest names in filmmaking, you’re going to…

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea on Tuesday responded to an overture from the North and proposed holding high-level talks between the countries on their border next week. North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, had suggested on Monday that the countries open dialogue on easing military tensions and on…

Photo by Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images Over the course of 2017, both in Congress and in the executive branch, we have watched the task of government devolve into the full-scale looting of America. Politicians are making decisions to enrich their donors — and at times themselves personally — with a…

Driven by outrage and a resolve to correct a power imbalance that seemed intractable just months ago, 300 prominent actresses and female agents, writers, directors, producers and entertainment executives have formed an ambitious, sprawling initiative to fight systemic sexual harassment in Hollywood…

The more popular a computer platform becomes, the more of a bind in which it inevitably finds itself. A platform is only “finished” when it is abandoned. It needs to evolve to remain relevant, but it’s difficult to change in unfamiliar ways without angering the base of active users. Adding new…

John Oliver. Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images Depending on whom you ask, John Oliver was either a hero or a quintessential British villain when he grilled Dustin Hoffman about his long-standing sexual-harassment allegations at a 20th anniversary screening of Wag the Dog earlier this month. “It’s…

IT HAPPENED is a series reflecting on our memories of 2017, one month at a time, as we head into the new year. I was raised in the Christian church, and Revelation was my favorite book of the Bible. As a kid, I’d read it for the imagery: hellish monsters rising from the ocean, angels sounding…

Did you hear that? For more than a week, students and staff in at least four campus buildings heard a five-second tune, but couldn’t pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. Some ignored it. Others questioned if they might be imagining things after one too many all-nighters. Many wondered where…

On December 14 director Morgan Spurlock, known for his comic documentaries Super Size Me and Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? , posted a lengthy statement to Twitter in which he admitted that he has played a role in the ongoing epidemic of sexual harassment in the workplace. “You see, I’ve…

When the ball finally dropped at the end of 2016, women knew the year ahead was going to be weird: Game of Thrones was becoming a summer show, wide-legged pants were back in fashion, and Donald Trump would soon be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. That last development, more than…

Amsterdam’s secret sights Here’s our selection of 10 lesser-known Amsterdam attractions well worth seeking out on your next visit to the city. An original Picasso in the Vondelpark It’s easy to walk right past this concrete sculpture at the southern end of the Vondelpark without realising that it…

Login Get the magazine and exclusive online content - Subscribe Today! Read Next: Bethesda's 'Rage' Rewind Reveals New 'Rage 2' Details Instagram Twitter YouTube Facebook Variety.com Film TV Music Tech Gaming Theater Real Estate Awards Video V500 Features When he was 11 years old, Demis Hassabis was…

Daily Tedium Iceland’s Latest And Greatest One of the greatest business stories in Iceland’s long history, along with the current craze that’s got Icelanders shopping like crazy. Featured 29 May 2017 iceland, icelandair, Loftleiðir, Icelandic Airlines, Alfred Eliasson, costco Iceland is one of my…

In a quiet corner of northern Europe there exists a geopolitical anomaly, where many buildings have an international border running right through them. It’s a place where a person might be in the same bed as his or her spouse, but sleep in different countries. A place where people move their front…

Daily Tedium Floating Fast Food The tale of the McBarge, the former McDonald’s location created for Expo ’86 in Vancouver. Shockingly, it wasn’t the only fast food joint designed to float. Featured 31 May 2017 fast food, mcdonald's, taco bell, vancouver, canada, expo 86, burger king, ships, barges

Photo: Getty The price of bitcoin plunged on Friday, continuing a steady downward spiral that’s lasted all week. True believers are shrugging it off, but with its newfound notoriety, a lot of latecomers are feeling some pain. All but two of the top 100 cryptocurrencies were significantly down this…

Just 15 miles separate Cardi B’s childhood home in the Bronx and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where she donned a floor-length pink feather coat to perform her №1 hit “Bodak Yellow” on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in October. To reach late-night-television levels of cultural ubiquity, though, “Bodak Yellow”…

Universal Pictures/Ringer illustration In a year when it felt like a lot of film criticism (good and bad) served to parse movies for their messaging — what they said about a particular subject and whether that argument was (politically or socially) correct, worth listening to, or worth making in the…

Getty Images/Ringer Illustration It’s been quite the year for breakups — Nick Viall and Vanessa Grimaldi, Carmelo and Lala (and the Knicks), America and the illusion of democracy — but some of 2017’s most concerning moments happened when two or more parties collaborated to make something so horrible…

I lived in Canada for eight years, long enough to learn that the one about Canadians constantly apologizing has some truth to it. On a winter road trip from Chicago to Toronto, I joked to my American carmates that our northern neighbors have a New Year’s tradition where they shout “Sorry!” at the…

Like many filmmakers with a new film in 2017, “ Blade Runner 2049 ” director Denis Villeneuve saw virtually none of his peers’ movie this year. Yet this summer, while neck deep trying to finish his “Blade Runner” sequel, there was one film Villeneuve made sure not to miss. “‘Dunkirk’ has been…

It's the kind of plot twist you can't help but give a shady nod to whether you agree with it or not. Mollie Shafer-Schweig/BuzzFeed “Question,” Khloé Kardashian says to her older sister Kim Kardashian West while the two are alone (excluding the filming crew and millions of Keeping Up With the…

Photo: Print Collector/Getty Images “Did you see Andrew*’s snap?” my friend Noah texted me. Apparently, he had sent it to me and Noah. I swiped it open, expecting it to be similar to Andrew’s previous snaps: a photo of one of his dogs, perhaps, or the comically overwrought title of a poetry volume…

How Instagram Keeps You Begging For Approval. “Many Feathers.” By Josh S. Rose. Los Angeles, 2015. Jase Salter is in his early forties, has a family in Los Angeles and a long-standing career in the music industry. He also, like a lot of people these days, has a side hustle that earns him a bit of…

Magic Leap After more than three years, Magic Leap has unveiled what it describes as a “creator edition” of its augmented reality system. The Magic Leap One consists of a pair of oversized cyberpunk-y goggles, a puck-shaped external computer called a Lightpack, and a handheld controller. It’s…

The Distracted Boyfriend meme was everywhere on the internet in 2017. Originally a Shutterstock image by Antonion Guillem, described as “Disloyal man with his girlfriend looking at another girl," the image became a popular template to describe our fickle nature and the incredible rate of new…

US Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) (2nd L) speaks as (L-R) Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) listen during a news conference in front of the Capitol December 6, 2017 in Washington, DC. Alex Wong/Getty Images On May 17, President Donald Trump’s close ally Newt…

My sim Miranda, a chef, came home from work at 1 am. Her husband Marvin went outside to greet her. “Please,” I whispered at my game of The Sims . “Please don’t have sex right here.” My prayers fell on deaf ears. (NSFW warning!) Wicked Whims is a mod for The Sims that greatly expands the game’s sex…

2017 might’ve been the worst year in modern history. You didn't need us to tell you that. But if you’re holding out hope that things will turn around next year, we have some bad news for you: they won’t. 2018 will be much, much worse. In fact, we’ve set ourselves up for one epically bad year after…

Social engineering scams involve a mix of technical skills and psychological manipulation. Chris Cardinal discovered someone running such a scam on Amazon using his account: the scammer contacted Amazon pretending to be Chris, supplying his billing address (this is often easy to guess by digging…

Back in the 90s, if you had mentioned the names Nintendo and Sega to a kid in America, Japan or Europe, their face would have likely lit up. They'd instantly know what these words represented; the colour and excitement of a game on the TV screen in their front room, and a sense of fun. But if you…

Getty Image The audience roars and claps their hands manically; the band plays; the host tells jokes. This is the recipe for the late-night show that has worked for decades now. When Jimmy Fallon took over The Tonight Show in 2014, he clung to the late-night show tradition — he’s white,…

The demands from Democrats that he step down were 'the most hypocritical thing I’ve ever seen done to a human being,' Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) says. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (left) said he hopes Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn) reverses his decision, but even more that the senators who led the…

Technology, eye implants and mobile devices. A world where people share their daily activities and rate their interactions with others from a “one-to-five-star” scale. A world where one’s current average rating can be seen by others and has significant impact on his or her social status. It seems…