Chris Schodt | The Verge The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts. 2014-08-09T08:43:02+00:00 https://www.theverge.com/authors/chris-schodt/rss https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/verge-rss-large_80b47e.png?w=150&h=150&crop=1 Chris Schodt <![CDATA[The creator of the hated Neil deGrasse Tyson creepshot is defending his work]]> https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/9/5984473/creator-of-the-hated-neil-degrasse-tyson-creepshot-is-defending 2014-08-09T04:43:02-04:00 2014-08-09T04:43:02-04:00

The internet is not known for its ability to take a joke. A week ago, Michael Hale, a Twitter user with the charming handle @dogboner found himself riding in the subway across from astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. He surreptitiously snapped a photo and posted it with this sarcastic caption:

The photo quickly gained momentum, being retweeted thousands of times and published by dozens of blogs. Yesterday it hit the big-time: Facebook page I Fucking Love Science posted the picture with the simple comment “oops,” where it has received more than 50,000 shares and 30,000 comments. George Takei posted the tweet soon after, calling it a “facepalm of ‘cosmic’ proportions,” to another flood of comments.

“They were falling over each other to tell me that I am the reason the world is a bad place.”

Overwhelmingly, they are not positive.

Perceiving an attack on its most favored son, the patron saint of astrophysics, the internet convulsed with rage. Hale has been flooded with infuriated comments calling him an idiot, questioning his worth as a human being, encouraging him to contract a range of diseases, and discouraging him from attempting to reproduce.

The kicker is that Michael Hale styles himself a Twitter comedian, and he claims the picture was a joke from the beginning. As he wrote on Gawker, somewhere along the way any sense of irony was lost, and instead he’s become the target of an incessant stream of internet abuse.

Further baffling the outraged masses, Hale, who appears to be an adult man with a job and child, sometime recently changed his twitter name from “YOLO Swag Douchebag” to “I’m literally 12.” To his credit, he’s been taking the attacks in stride.

]]> Chris Schodt <![CDATA[How Disney World is keeping tabs on visitors with rubbery wristbands]]> https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/2014/7/31/5957491/how-disneyworld-is-keeping-tabs-on-visitors-with-rubbery-wristbands 2014-07-31T21:16:45-04:00 2014-07-31T21:16:45-04:00

Beginning last year, Disney World started issuing “MagicBands,” rubberized RFID wristbands that can do everything from unlock your hotel room to act as a fast pass to get you slotted to skip the long lines on rides. It also tracks your every move and lets you buy things. With tens of thousands of visitors to the park every day, Disney is amassing a wealth of personal information on its customers. “MagicBands offer a kind of data tourism, an uncanny experience of a future in which we don’t just tolerate surveillance but openly embrace it as fashion,” Ian Bogost says in his article on the technology. Read the full piece, and see what the inside of a MagicBand looks like, on Medium.

]]> Chris Schodt <![CDATA[This is what Instagram for Android would look like with Google’s Material Design]]> https://www.theverge.com/2014/7/31/5957343/this-is-what-instagram-for-android-would-look-like-with-googles-material-design 2014-07-31T19:45:02-04:00 2014-07-31T19:45:02-04:00

Google’s “Material” redesign isn’t expected until later this year, but it’s already getting people excited. The new user interface style is supposed to be based around how physical objects move and is “grounded in tactile reality, inspired by our study of paper and ink.” Google is already encouraging third-party developers to redesign their apps to fit with the new style, but some people just can’t wait for that to happen. Designer Emmanuel Pacamalan has created a concept video showing Instagram rebuilt using Material Design principles, and the results are gorgeous.

Instagram has traditionally been very slow to add visual features, but did a big redesign for iOS 7, so it would make sense that we could see a new look for the upcoming Android update. We’ve yet to hear from most developers whether they are planning to adopt the new user interface, but this concept makes a strong case for living in the material world.

]]> Chris Schodt <![CDATA[Watch Deadmau5 and Toronto mayor Rob Ford get coffee in a Nyan Cat Ferrari]]> https://www.theverge.com/2014/7/31/5957281/watch-this-edm-deadmaus-and-rob-ford-get-coffee 2014-07-31T19:09:57-04:00 2014-07-31T19:09:57-04:00

Electronic dance music artist Deadmau5 created an internet stir with his meme-tastic Nyan Cat Ferrari at the Gumball 3000 earlier this summer, but after the race is done, what do you do with a souped-up cat-powered hyper-car? Why, take Toronto mayor Rob Ford on a coffee run, of course. It’s hard to know what to expect when you get a rock star DJ and a disgraced mayor together, but the result is oddly sedate. They mostly talk about traffic, coffee, and being in the Ferrari itself. Still, the video is worth watching to see Rob Ford, recently out of rehab for an addiction to crack cocaine, order a quintuple espresso.

]]> Chris Schodt <![CDATA[Why chefs love to hate Yelp]]> https://www.theverge.com/culture/2014/7/31/5957043/the-toxic-relationship-between-chefs-and-yelp 2014-07-31T17:39:32-04:00 2014-07-31T17:39:32-04:00

Having your livelihood dependent on the goodwill of a group of anonymous strangers is enough to give anyone a complex. In this piece for San Francisco Magazine, a group of chefs explain their broken relationship to Yelp and the legions of reviewers who control whether their businesses live or die. While Yelp can help people find new restaurants (or can help a city track food poisoning), chefs obsess over reviews and many wish the service didn’t exist at all. “If two or three days go by and business sucks, I’ll go, ‘Shit, I got a bad review on Yelp.'” says Jeff Mason, the owner of a sandwich shop in San Francisco. The anonymous system, the lack of control on fake reviews, and the difficulty engaging with reviewer has put restaurateurs in a codependent relationship with a service they both loathe and need. Read the full piece here.

‘You’re in it whether you want to be or not, and that’s what’s so frustrating.’

]]> Chris Schodt <![CDATA[From Ursula to Jon Snow: our favorite cosplay of Comic-Con 2014]]> https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/2014/7/28/5945263/favorite-cosplay-sdcc-2014 2014-07-28T16:03:34-04:00 2014-07-28T16:03:34-04:00

Tens of thousands of people descend on San Diego for Comic-Con each year, making it the perfect place for cosplayers to show off some of their best outfits. It’s hard not to be almost-constantly wowed by the costume work while walking around the convention floor, but some outfits stood well above the rest in terms of accuracy, attention to detail, or just sheer awesomeness.

Want to know our favorite cosplayers of this year’s con? We asked a number of them to pose for us, and you can take a look at their outfits below.

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]]> Chris Schodt <![CDATA[Cosplay at Comic-Con 2014]]> https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/2014/7/28/5944579/cosplay-at-comic-con-2014 2014-07-28T16:02:42-04:00 2014-07-28T16:02:42-04:00 Chris Schodt <![CDATA[For Asgard! Women cosplaying as the new Thor]]> https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/2014/7/27/5942451/for-asgard-women-cosplaying-as-the-new-thor 2014-07-27T19:27:34-04:00 2014-07-27T19:27:34-04:00

It has only been two weeks since Marvel announced that that a woman would take up Thor’s hammer in the comics, but attendees of Comic-Con 2014 have eagerly embraced the news. This year, Marvel is the top choice for cosplayers looking for inspiration, and mixed in with all the Deadpools, Captain Americas, and Winter Soldiers, we found a number of women wielding Mjolnir and excited about the direction Marvel is taking its comics.

Women cosplaying as Thor Women cosplaying as Thor Women cosplaying as Thor Women cosplaying as Thor Women cosplaying as Thor Women cosplaying as Thor Women cosplaying as Thor


]]> Chris Schodt <![CDATA[Women cosplaying as Thor]]> https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/2014/7/27/5942525/women-cosplaying-as-thor 2014-07-27T19:20:39-04:00 2014-07-27T19:20:39-04:00 Chris Schodt <![CDATA[Custom Batman cape and cowl designs]]> https://www.theverge.com/culture/2014/7/26/5937811/custom-batman-cape-and-cowl-designs 2014-07-26T09:30:02-04:00 2014-07-26T09:30:02-04:00