“Women looking for a short-term fling are more likely to be drawn to men like Gerard Butler, Johnny Depp and David Beckham than Adam Levine or Jake Gyllenhaal, according to the findings of a recent study. After observing more than 150 men and women ages 18 to 32 over the course of several speed dating events, researchers found that men with wider faces were rated as more attractive and dominant among the female participants. On the flipside, because a wider face has also been linked to negative traits like aggression, the study hypothesizes that women are less likely to consider the same men suitable candidates for long-term relationships.”

Television loves conventions. That’s why we have a million police procedurals, law procedurals, medical procedurals, murder mysteries, spy shows. And yet there’s never been a successful, straightforward heist show. BUT THERE SHOULD BE.

When I say “a straightforward heist show,” here’s what I mean:

The planner/planners has/have an idea for a theft. A group of collaborators is assembled. A plan is formulated. We learn about the security, the problems to be overcome during the theft. We do not necessarily have to learn (in fact, we usually don’t learn) exactly how the theft will be done, but we’re given clues that will make the theft’s intricacies make sense after it’s done. We meet the adversary: sometimes a bad guy, a gangster or something, but sometimes a good guy, like a cop. After all, the heist crew is, objectively, made up of bad guys.

Then the theft is carried out. Something goes wrong, usually; maybe a double-cross, maybe just bad luck. Then the thieves have to figure out how to fix whatever went wrong, and attempt to get away with, preferably, whatever they were trying to steal, but with only their freedom is just fine too.

Nobody’s managed to do a show like this and have it last very long. “Thief,” an Emmy-winning miniseries on FX from 2006, had laughably low ratings and wasn’t renewed. “Heist,” also from 2006, was cancelled after five episodes. There are shows with nods to the heist formula — con man shows, spy shows, mystery shows, some episodes of general crime-based shows like “Breaking Bad” — but no straight-up heist show has ever cracked the television puzzle. The newest attempt is a web series called “Caper,” which is about superhero burglars, so, you know, let’s reserve judgment, but.

The heist is a very specific and strict formula, perhaps even more strict than the procedurals that litter our TVs. Would anyone watch that same structure, six or 10 or 12 or 22 times over the course of a season? I mean, I would, but nobody else would, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for that. But! What hasn’t really been done is a season-long heist. Why not stretch it out? Spend a couple episodes assembling a crew. Maybe one of the needed crew members is in jail, so the proto-crew needs to do a little heist to break him out. Fun episode! Then spend another few episodes creating the plan, figuring out what the obstacles are. That’ll require a bunch of little heists! The crew will have to get the right equipment, get people undercover in the right places, figure out the layouts, sneak in and out of places. Unexpected developments should be expected.

Then there’s the heist itself, which should take place with a good few episodes left in the season, because oh man, someone is going to double-cross someone else, or the loot is going to be not as expected, or the getaway is going to fall apart. I don’t know. I’m not going to write the whole thing for you, you lazy TV writers. This is just a skeleton proposal.

Then at the end of the season, the crew gets away with it. Or doesn’t. Next season can start all over again.

Who do I have to call to get this to happen?

“[T]he very universal accessibility of The Onion reflects just how deeply ingrained Marxist critiques of capitalism are in our culture.”

I can’t quite put my finger on what makes this one so pleasing, but I think it may have to do with the simple, repeated melody that floats in the background as the vocal carries you along. My prediction for 2014 is that simplicity is going to be the new complexity, and we’re all going to be better off for it. Enjoy. [Via]

“Chinese health authorities have identified a brand-new type of bird flu that killed an elderly woman in November and infected at least one other person in January. That trend prompted the experts to call for stepped-up surveillance to track the new H10N8 influenza virus in poultry markets and in human patients. ‘The pandemic potential of this novel virus should not be underestimated,’ the medical team wrote in a report published Wednesday by the journal Lancet. Genetic analysis of the H10N8 influenza virus revealed that it has two mutations that make flu viruses more virulent in mammals, according to the Lancet report.”

You know how every town has that one band that is super-popular locally but completely unknown anywhere else, and residents of the town are always like, “You have to hear [BAND], they are just the best,” or “While you’re here you need to go see [BAND], they’ll change your life,” or “I’m sending you the new album from [BAND], I really think this is going to be the record that wakes everyone else up to just how good they are,” and you nod politely and pretend to pay attention for as long as they are still talking and then move on with your life because bands like that are for whatever reason untranslatable outside the confines of the town from which they spring and no amount of local boosterism is going to change that? Well, if your town is Canada then your band is the Tragically Hip, whose lead singer Gordon Edgar Downie turns 50 today. I know you Canadaers are pretty bummed right now because the only things that keep you in the news are the drug-addled antics of your child pop stars and comical municipal officials, so we’ll take this time to let you celebrate one of the things you are actually proud of, even if it seems more or less inexplicable to everyone from the rest of the world. I mean, it’s cute that you guys can get enthusiastic about stuff. Good for you. I say that in all sincerity. Enjoy your special day. I assume you all get work off up there, correct?

“’We have been rationing severely. No plants get watered. That’s over. Turned off the toilet. I haven’t washed my hair for two weeks,’ said Willits resident Andrea Onstad, who was washing her car Monday afternoon. A few blocks down at Gribaldo’s diner on the city’s Main Street, customers sat at tables with no water glasses. A sign on the wall warned of the drought emergency — water was only available upon request. Things are so scarce that the sheriff’s office is on alert for water bandits.”
 — No, this isn’t another story about subpar travel accommodations for sportswriters in Sochi. This is Willits, California, in the far northwestern corner of the state, where there is so little water that the plot of Chinatown is *this close* to coming true (again, I guess). Note: “water bandits” are not to be confused with banded water snakes, hamburglars, or water opossums.

Photo by Robert Couse-Baker, via Flickr

“When you have a personal vendetta in this sport, it can sabotage your performance. This is a sport for grown-ups.”

What If I Said You Could Learn Everything You Wanted To Know About Turkey In Under 30 Minutes… For Free? Is This Offer Too Good To Be True? You Tell Me

Joke on Turkish social media is that PM Erdogan wants to raze this Twitter thing to build a replica of an Ottoman Barracks in its place.

— Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) February 5, 2014

Taksim, in the center of the city’s European side, is considered the heart of Istanbul. The square itself surrounds tiny Gezi Park and is covered with concrete and filled with traffic, but the absence of buildings offers at least a sense of free space. Erdogan wanted to close the square to cars, build tunnels for them beneath it and replace Gezi Park and its rows of sycamore trees with a giant shopping center designed to look like Ottoman-era military barracks. Putting anything Ottoman-like in Taksim, a symbol of the secular republic, felt like an assertion of Erdogan’s neo-Islamic identity. In terms of scale and presumption, it would be as if Michael Bloomberg, New York’s former mayor, tried to erect a five-story shopping mall in Bryant Park with facades like blinking Bloomberg terminals.

Except Erdogan wasn’t the mayor of Istanbul. And he wasn’t consulting his constituents there. Far from it: When a local committee composed of academics, historians and municipal appointees unanimously voted against the plan, he simply had another committee made up of his own bureaucratic appointments override the vote. This, to Turks, was what his rule had come to mean.

— If, like me, you are a barely educated American who has a hard time grasping foreign affairs because you went to an American high school where they didn’t never teach you nothing, I have good news! This piece on Turkey from this coming Sunday’s Times magazine on the country since the election of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as prime minister in 2003 is fascinating, incredibly readable and crazily informative! I learned things and I enjoyed it! It’s a small miracle. Someone should monetize this service of information-giving.

by Alan Hanson

Lifehacks, I know, I know. Our wonderful Gooptopian society just loves ’em now that they come in free, easy-to-digest, pixel lists instead of being cathode-beamed into your sad soul at three in the morning in their previous form (infomercials). Wasn’t that such a hollow, deadening crush? But the thing is, most of them are so pointless or unneeded that you have to go twenty minutes out of your way just to save five seconds! You’re probably saying, “Man, I feel you” into your computer screen and here I am smugly nodding like, “right?” Then we go back and forth for a while talking about how mason jars are “fine, like I get it, but not EVERYTHING has to be put in a mason jar” until finally, exhaustedly, you ask, “but aren’t there any hacks of life that actually improve my… life?”

Then I hit you with some dope truths. For free.

Craft a Dream-Goblin To Eat Your Sins and Worries

Firstly, your Dream-Goblin should be all kinds of nasty. A common interpretation of a goblin will do if you’re in a hurry, though I suggest spending some dedicated time deciding what kind of mythical beast you want living in the shadows of your mind. Get creative! A friend of mine employs a Paula Deen-Michael Jackson hybrid drawn in the animation style of “Ren and Stimpy.” I myself go the more classical route and use a weathered ol’ Hippalectryon, which is perfect for stamping and clawing all the grey anxiety worms burrowing throughout my subconscious.

Once you’ve got your beast in mind, draw some detailed pictures of him/her/shim/herm on parchment paper. Then, collect any receipts you have of purchases you foolishly made, pink slips from jobs lost, printed Facebook photos you’ve untagged yourself from in a hungover haze of shame and regret, and any tangible evidence of once-pursued dreams left drowning in the River of Cold Reality. Now rip these papers into dime-sized pieces and place them in a bowl. Pour a mixture of 1 part gasoline, 10 parts Mad Dog 20/20, and 10 parts Zima. Garnish with a pinch of ash. Stir until pulpy and guzzle quickly. Light a candle of Unrequited Love and belch with the all of your existence into the flame. Do not be alarmed if the fire-breathing sounds like the unbaptized souls of shrieking children — this means it’s working!

Now you’re done! For the rest of your life, as you slumber, your personal goblin will gnaw and destroy all of the regret, anxiety, fear, and dread that surfs the tides of your somnambulant thought, leaving you refreshed and clean each morning.1

1Unfortunately, I do not yet know where the waste these creatures create is deposited, nor how. This may be problematic, lol!

Create A Living Coffin

Lie down in the moonshadow cast across the desert floor of the Mojave, on a bed of thick manzanita bushes, where none of this matters, where your carbon is slowly given back to the earth, its rightful owner, unbothered by the Mason Jar Gustapo, never having to creatively plug in an iPhone, unfettered by the grip of death-distracting craft tutorials. Wear sunscreen!

Replace Your Gallbladder With A Helium-Neon Sponge

Have you ever been at brunch when Kathy is all, “I was so uncomfortable I wanted to vomit!”? Or even shared this same sentiment over various other human interactions? Boy, have I! But the sad reality is that, as members of polite society, we can’t just go vomiting all over the place to show our extreme disgust in the face of mildly annoying conversation.

Purchase a Helium-Neon Sponge. You can find these in mystical antique shops or peddled by your local alley shaman. Then you’ll need to perform a simple operation. I suggest laying down some tarp or canvas — tarp for easy cleanup, canvas for blood-spatter art! Reach behind you to your supple lower back and feel around for your Hidden Access Panel (HAP). There should be a sub-dermal button at the top right corner of the door, which will slide the panel open. It’ll look a bit like a distribution board, with many switches and wires. Find the switch labeled “Gall Access” and flip it to “open.” Now you can access another panel and reach right in there, yank that GB out, and shove your new sponge in its place. Be sure to reconnect the wires! While you’re still in there, install a new Immediate Action Button (IAB) to the Gag-Line. I position mine in my belly button, as it’s a rarely prodded area. Close yourself back up, maybe read some first-aid eHows if you’ve bled too much.

Now, when Gregg is regaling you with his recap of “Game of Thrones” near the water cooler, and it seems you have no escape, discreetly reach for your Immediate Action Button and jam that sucker in! Instantly, your gag reflex will totally freak out and you’ll spew the sweet, beautiful gas living in the sponge. Instead of bile and half-digested Cosi, out comes floating, vibrant neon colors. Your victim will be confused, yes, but more importantly shocked into a state of pure awe, staring deeply into the rainbow cloud, as you make your stealth escape.

A Bonus Death-Hack

Take thirty Polaroid i-Zone photographs of the most beautiful things and people you love. Cover the back of the developed photos with glue-stick and swallow each one in whole gulps. Be sure to telepathically transmit directions to skip the route to the stomach and affix themselves anterior to the rib cage and chest cavity. When the coroner performs your inevitable autopsy, as they make the Y-incision and peel your skin from your torso, they will be treated to a wonderfully cute surprise! Like a gory lil’ scrapbook in your chest cavity. Feel free to create a Pinterest board to plan your photographs before committing to printing and swallowing them.

Alan Hanson is a Californian writer living in Harlem.