PJ Vogt

Happy Halloween! It’s the best holiday we’ve got. Zero familial or religious obligations, free candy, and the nighttime air is filled with spooky menace. The only downside is that unlike, say, Christmas, there are less holiday-specific Halloween songs than there ought to be.

This week, Fast Company writer Jason Feifer started a tumblr called Selfies at Funerals. Feifer’s reposting selfies posted by teens on Twitter or Instagram. It’s probably worth pointing out that, in fact, most of the pictures are actually taken before a funeral or after one. With a couple exceptions, these are pictures of kids in suits or dresses, taking a self portrait, usually in their homes.

I’ve been playing a lot of Grand Theft Auto V online lately. My handle is TheSilverWoman, which is a reference to my co-worker Alex Goldman’s last name. In real life, I’m a boringly normal straight dude. But in GTA, I’m a forty-year old woman. Dark bangs, dark eyes. I don’t wear makeup and I’m not particularly fit. I own one set of clothes plus a monkey mask I wear when I rob convenience stores.

Late last night, when most reasonable people were sleeping, NBC News published a story about how, despite Obama’s promises to the contrary, many people weren’t able to keep their existing health care under Obamacare. Then, NBC News did something unusual. They unpublished the story. About a half an hour later, they published it again, but with a seemingly innocuous paragraph deleted.

There’s an old joke - I don’t even know if it qualifies as a joke - about the idea that people claim to read Playboy for the articles. A new Pew study finds that we’re using Facebook for news, but we don’t admit it to ourselves.

On Sunday night, Glenn Greenwald published another revelation about the US spying on an allied European country - Spain, this time. But what you might’ve missed was an explanation of how this is even possible.

It's very nearly Halloween. Very spooky. In honor of that dark holiday, we're sharing a classic OTM piece. It's a look at the most famous scream in Hollywood, the Willhelm. (Transcripts are over here, but what kind of monster would listen to a transcript of a piece about screams?) 

Happy Friday! Here are some thrilling links to help you ride out these last hours of workweek banality. 

Former NSA head Michael Hayden took the train today. He spent his time on the phone, giving interviews to reporters in which he asked to be identified only as an anonymous former senior administration official. 

This is a little weird. 

On Monday morning, I wrote that allegations the NSA had intercepted French phone calls weren't actually very important. My logic was that allies spy on each other routinely. When they get caught, there’s a lot of ceremonial outrage and apology that amounts to very little.

Wait, what? Facebook has once again updated its policy on beheading videos: they’re not allowed.

The popular comedy news site Splitsider just announced that they will ban comments on most of their articles. They join PopSci, who received opprobrium for killing comments in late September.

The BBC reports Facebook has lifted a blanket ban on beheading videos the company introduced back in May. 

Can't something be seen as a little sad and still be pretty popular?

In LeMonde today, Glenn Greenwald has a new NSA powerpoint story, this time about the NSA intercepting 70 million French phone calls over a 30-day period.

Here’s a trend you maybe wouldn't have expected to take off: apps that tell you how soon you you and your loved ones will likely die.

New York Airbnb hosts are caught in an uncomfortable situation right now.

Buzzfeed is getting mocked this week, which is not a new phenomenon. What is new is a Tumblr called Buzzfeed Articles Without The GIFs ,which points out that Buzzfeed listicles, sans pictures, are just paragraphs of silly, vapid sentences.