Laura Hudson
As seen in:
Medium,
The Guardian,
CNBC,
Los Angeles Times,
The Verge,
WIRED (UK),
WIRED Magazine,
The Daily Beast,
Polygon,
Boing Boing
and
Writer of things. Sometimes on here. Previously @ Wired, The Verge, Offworld, Femfreq, ComicsAlliance. Chaotic good, optimistic cynic, total champ.
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Laura Hudson
The Evolution and Promise of Age-Friendly Ecosystems in Rural Communities
FULL TEXT Rural America, home to more than 20% of the older adult population, faces distinct challenges in supporting healthy aging. Despite these challenges, age-friendly initiatives have not been fully prioritized in rural communities. The National Rural Age-Friendly Initiative, led by the National Rural Health Association in partnership with The John A.
Believing and becoming: Finding freedom from regret
Carpe diem. My generation learned this Latin phrase from the prep school teacher played by Robin Williams in the 1989 movie “Dead Poets Society,” who tells his students: “Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.” This aphorism from the ancient Roman poet Horace gets translated into our culture as a reminder to focus on the present, make the most of each moment of your finite existence, and be an active agent in the pursuit of your desires.
Believing and becoming: ‘Giving is an essence of existence’
’Tis the season to be giving. This saying circulates the internet, reminding us to purchase gifts for everyone on our list and make generous donations to numerous charities. It makes the act of giving sound easy, but amid a flurry of holiday expectations, it can be anything but. Giving can be simple, spontaneous and heartfelt, but it can also be complicated by distorted ideas and practices. “Giving is an essence of existence, and a test of our character,” writes poet-philosopher David Whyte.
Believing and becoming: Rituals help us move through change
June is the season for graduations and weddings. The first week of this month, I went to one of each. With pandemic-related cancellations, it had been awhile since I’d attended either kind of ceremony, and I felt like an anthropologist observing enigmatic rituals in a faraway land. At the graduation, I was initially impatient. How long would we have to sit in hard stadium chairs to watch all of the 884 students in my niece’s graduating class amble across the stage and retrieve their diplomas?
Believing and becoming: Walking the labyrinth - a winding path to deep peace
The path of life is full of twists and turns. Sometimes it feels like you are moving along in a clear direction toward the place you always wanted to go, when suddenly an unexpected curve swings you out far away from your desired destination. Conversely, there are times it appears life is taking you exactly the opposite direction from where you want to be, but then you turn a corner to discover — surprise! — you have finally arrived. In this way, life is like a labyrinth.
The Unholy Perfection of the 1993 Murder She Wrote VR Episode
Remember the time Jessica Fletcher wrote a virtual-reality game for the Oculus Rift? Don't feel bad if you don't. The episode "A Virtual Murder" (available on Netflix) aired in 1993 during the tenth season of Murder, She Wrote, a popular show about an elderly mystery novelist (Angela Lansbury) who stumbled onto what I will only call a disproportionate number of murders in the sleepy New England town of Cabot Cove.
At the End of the World, It’s Hyperobjects All the Way Down
You might think, in this time of profound human and climate trauma, that the world is coming to an end. Timothy Morton disagrees: It has already ended, and not a moment too soon. Not because doomsday has arrived, Morton clarifies, but because what we call “the world”—a place that revolves around human beings and is defined by what we can see and feel—is simply too small to cope with reality anymore.
"Are You Glad You Did It?": An Interview with Douglas Wolk
Features Laura Hudson | October 11, 2021 Over the last five years, Douglas Wolk has pulled off a feat that few others have attempted, let alone completed: he read every Marvel comic book published since 1961, which adds up to around 27,000 issues, or 540,000 pages. He’s up front about the fact that this was a stunt for his new book, All of the Marvels, and not how the progressive revelation of the Marvel Universe was ever intended to be read.
Johnny English Strikes Again
Home»Movies»Johnny English Strikes Again» Family Action 6.4OTTplay Rating 2018 15 1 Hr 24 Min Theatrical Release date : Sep 28, 2018 OTT Release date : May 08, 2024 A cyberattack unmasks every agent, leaving a clueless spy to bungle his way through outdated tricks and an unstoppable hacker.
Professor X Faces His Young Self in Epic X-Men: Days of Future Past Trailer
"You're afraid. I remember," says the older Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) to his younger self (James McAvoy) in the epic trailer released today for X-Men: Days of Future Past. Based on an iconic story from the X-Men comics, Days finds Wolverine traveling back in time and bridging the gap between the familiar casts of the original X-Men movies and the 1960s-era cast of X-Men: First Class. Hugh Jackman (Wolverine)? Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique)? Michael Fassbender (Magneto)? Halle Berry (Storm)?
The Tragedy and Mystery of the 'Best Game of the Decade'
Kentucky Route Zero has won "Game of the Year" awards multiple times, was dubbed the "best musical of 2014," and has been called "the most important game of the decade"-and all this before it was finished.
Breaking down the complete and utter madness of Batman vs. Ra’s Al Ghul
Batman: Odyssey, the comic book series published by DC Comics from 2010 to 2012, was a sprawling and invariably confusing work written and illustrated by legendary artist Neal Adams. Those who dared to traverse a sequential art labyrinth were both baffled and mesmerized by the book’s ... eccentricities.
Who Said It: George R. R. Martin or a Serial Killer?
For a long time, there was a Game of Thrones joke circulating among fans: “Why isn’t George R. R. Martin on Twitter?” Because he killed all 140 characters. Although the white-bearded, suspender-loving novelist ultimately ended up joining the social network (and the character limit expanded to 280), his penchant for murdering your most beloved fictional friends continued unabated.
'Game of Thrones' Recap, Season 8 Episode 6: The Endings We Choose to Believe
At least it ended with Sansa Stark on a throne. Game of Thrones has always been a story about stories, a fantasy that wanted to change how we thought about fantasy while spinning a fantasy of its own.
Laura Hudson | WIRED
culture Why the Writing in Season 8 of 'Game of Thrones' Feels Off Author: Daniel SilvermintDaniel Silvermint science Moondust Could Cloud Our Lunar Ambitions Author: Ceridwen DoveyCeridwen Dovey security The Ukrainian Hacker Who Became the FBI’s Best Weapon—And Worst Nightmare Author: Kevin PoulsenKevin Poulsen security Bluetooth's Complexity Has Become a Security Risk Author: Lily Hay NewmanLily Hay Newman culture 'Game of Thrones': The Fans Were the Biggest Losers Author: WIRED StaffWIRED...
'Game of Thrones' Recap, Season 8 Episode 5: How to Ruin Every Beloved Character
Daenerys' recent actions on Game of Thrones ring false because she's not just abandoning her moral principles, she's abandoning her goals and the entire point of her journey. Like the famous Robert Frost poem about the end of the world, the apocalyptic themes of Game of Thrones raise an elemental question: Will the world end in ice or in fire?
'Game of Thrones' Recap, Season 8 Episode 4: So Much for Breaking the Wheel
Game of Thrones has always known how to put on a spectacle. Who can forget Daenerys walking out of a funeral pyre with her newly hatched dragons wrapped around her singed shoulders, or the satisfying fury of her cutting down the slave masters of Astapor with a single word: dracarys.
'Game of Thrones' Recap, Season 8 Episode 3: The Problem With Prophecies
Does it really matter if Arya is Princess Who Was Promised? Much was made, at the outset of Game of Thrones, about the elemental conflict that loomed at its end: the malign, icy evil creeping silently in the frozen lands beyond the Wall, the fire rising everywhere else to meet it.
How TV Finally Returned to Afghanistan After 30 Years of Censorship
In the opening scene of the documentary film The Network, journalist Ahmad Shafi describes watching a public execution in Kabul during the Taliban regime: "That had become the only entertainment in the city. There was nothing else...
'Game of Thrones' Recap, Season 8 Episode 2: That's What Death Is
Sansa Stark is now fully coming into her own as the Lady of Winterfell. For the last eight years, every episode of Game of Thrones has opened with an aerial tour of its vast world in clockwork miniature, following the exodus of its main characters as they journeyed to far-flung locales over continents and oceans.
Game of Thrones Recap, Season 8 Episode 1: Jon Snow Still Knows Nothing
The Season 8 premiere of Game of Thrones definitely brought the dragons.
Webcartoonist Kate Beaton's New Project Involves a Fat Pony
A figurine of Kate Beaton's fat pony. A figurine of Kate Beaton's fat pony. Kate Beaton first made waves in the webcomic scene with her comics at Hark! A Vagrant, where she takes a hilarious look at historical figures like Nikola Tesla and the Tudors, real and fictional literary figures like Edgar Allan Poe and Nancy Drew, and even superheroes like Aquaman and Wonder Woman.
Zoe Quinn’s Goddess Mode makes cyberpunk magic from the internet
In the words of its writer, Hugo Award nominee Zoe Quinn, the Vertigo comic book Goddess Mode is a “weird neon baby of cyberpunk and magical girls,” a world where Arthur C. Clark’s first law reigns supreme, where any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Our heroine is Cassandra Price, a brilliant mess of a human being eking out an existence at a megacorporation that her father’s work helped elevate into one of the most lucrative companies in the world.
Online teen magazine Rookie Mag shuts down after seven years
After seven years of sharing essays, art, advice, and writing for (and often by) teenagers, the online magazine Rookie Mag is shutting down. Launched by fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson in 2011 — when she was only 15 years old — Rookie attracted a million views in six days and went on to become an intimate, authentic, and feminist lens for its primarily young female audience to look at and speak to the world.
Script of WikiLeaks Movie Allegedly Leaked by... WikiLeaks
The Fifth Estate The Fifth Estate The script for the upcoming WikiLeaks film The Fifth Estate has allegedly been leaked on the internet – by WikiLeaks, of course.
Cards Against Humanity holds 99 percent off sale for cars, diamonds, golden dildos
The card game company Cards Against Humanity has a long history of pulling Black Friday stunts. In 2013, it actually raised the price of their game by $5; in 2014, it sold literal bull shit. In 2016, it raised $100,00 to dig a hole for as long as consumers would fund the backhoe. Last year, it claimed to have given up on selling card games in favor of a not-at-all-copyright-infringing brand of potato chips called Prongles.
The best games coming to the Switch, PS4, and Xbox for the 2018 holidays
The end of the year is busy for a lot of reasons, but it’s especially busy if you’re a fan of video games. With the impending holiday shopping rush, it’s the best chance for developers and publishers to get their games in front of a potentially huge audience of shoppers. This means that from September on, it can feel like a constant deluge of new game releases. 2018 is no different.
Instagram deletes Milo Yiannopoulos bomb post after struggling to enforce its own guidelines
Right-wing figure and Gamergate instigator Milo Yiannopoulos has repeatedly advocated for violence against journalists on social media. But users who report this type of content often hear back that it doesn’t violate the platform’s rules — at least until sufficient media attention and pressure is brought to bear.
Kickstarter to end Drip, fund new platform with XOXO festival creators
Nearly a year after launching its subscriber-based crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter announced today that Drip is on the way out. Fortunately for the creators currently working with Drip, as well as anyone looking for an alternative to Patreon, Kickstarter isn’t abandoning the platform.
The latest bizarre Simpsons meme is about downloading songs on Limewire
The glory days of The Simpsons, which recently began its 30th season, have been over for multiple decades. But that hasn’t stopped the show from inspiring some viral memes in recent years that wrap its mid-90s humor in the contemporary, often bizarre visual language of modern internet humor. While the most famous remains the endless iterations on the now-famous 1996 ”Steamed Hams” dinner scene, but the latest Simpsons meme might be the most unexpected yet.
Man named by ‘Shitty Media Men’ list sues its creator for $1.5 million
Writer Stephen Elliott, one of the men named in the controversial, crowdsourced “Shitty Media Men” list, has filed a lawsuit for libel and emotional distress against its creator, Moira Donegan, asking for $1.5 million in damages. The Google spreadsheet, which was created by Donegan in October 2017, was widely circulated in media circles, particularly among women. It encouraged anonymous users to share allegations of sexual misconduct by predatory men in media.
Creator of xkcd Reveals Secret Backstory of His Epic 3,099-Panel Comic
When xkcd creator Randall Munroe first posted a new installment of his webcomic titled "Time" on March 25, it looked deceptively simple: a picture of two black and white stick figures, a man and a woman, sitting wordlessly on the ground. There was no story, no punchline, no words. 30 minutes later, the image changed; the figures shifted slightly.
Star Wars voice actress mocks Christine Blasey Ford’s voice during Kavanaugh testimony
As the hearing has unfolded today at the Senate Judiciary Committee with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testifying that she is “one hundred percent” certain that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school, the response from many women to the systematic gaslighting of the professor and research psychologist has been frustrating, painful, even traumatic.
Game of Thrones wins Outstanding Drama Series at The Emmys
After a highly criticized seventh season that ventured well beyond The Wall — and the stories laid out in the George R. R. Martin novels — Game of Thrones took home the statue for Outstanding Drama Series at the 70th Emmy Awards. The HBO series is no stranger to The Emmys, with numerous other nominations at this ceremony alone, with showrunners David Benioff and D. B.
Donut County is a game about swallowing Los Angeles and realizing you’re an asshole
Donut County is a game about how ignorance and avarice swallow everything in their path. Specifically, it is about a hole that opens up in the middle of a charmingly stylized pastel Los Angeles, its circumference growing larger with each person, palm tree, and building that falls into its gaping maw.
Netflix gets the worldwide rights to Andy Serkis’ Mowgli movie
In the latest big acquisition move by Netflix, the streaming platform has acquired the worldwide rights to Mowgli, Warner Bros.’ completed live-action movie about the young hero of the Jungle Book stories. Motion-capture star Andy Serkis (Gollum in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings) directed the film, which is distinct from the 2016 live-action Disney Jungle Book remake. The film was slated for a theatrical release in October 2018 before Warner Bros. sold it to Netflix.
All the news you might have missed from San Diego Comic-Con 2018
Any given year at San Diego Comic-Con, there is — to put it lightly — a lot going on. There were lots of new movie and TV trailers to see and very special experiences for our Verge writers. But there was also no shortage of news for the worlds of film, television, and actual comic books. Here are some of the biggest announcements you might have missed over the weekend.
Was it right to dox Stephen Miller? That’s the wrong question
Last week, White House advisor Stephen Miller’s cell phone number was shared widely on social media after being published online, and the response from Twitter was remarkably swift and thorough: The platform not only locked or suspended the accounts of users who shared the number, but also those who linked to the article that had doxed Miller.
Japanese blogger stabbed to death, allegedly by online harasser with a grudge
On Sunday night, cyber-security expert and prolific blogger Kenichiro Okamoto held a seminar in the city of Fukuoka about writing on the internet. During the two-hour event, Okamoto — who also used the online handle Hagex — offered tips on how to get traffic, as well as how to deal with the “blog trouble” he had experienced online over the years, from readers pointing out typos to legal threats and internet feuds.
Westworld creator on the future of AI: ‘We’ll be lucky if the future looks like Westworld’
In a talk at E3 on Tuesday afternoon, Westworld creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan discussed the influence of video games on the popular HBO series — including the Grand Theft Auto series, Portal, Perfect Dark, and Bioshock Infinite — and the dangers that loom as artificial intelligence grows more sophisticated.
Finally, the presidential mech battles of Metal Wolf Chaos are coming to America
At their Sunday night press conference, Devolver Digital made a delightfully unexpected announcement: the cult classic game Metal Wolf Chaos is finally coming to America later this year on PC, XBox One, and PlayStation 4. Created by FromSoftware, the studio behind Dark Souls and Bloodborne, Metal Wolf Chaos was originally available on Xbox in Japan back in 2004, but never released in the West.
DC to relaunch Vertigo Comics with seven new series, including one by Zoe Quinn
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Vertigo Comics, the DC Entertainment imprint that brought us Sandman, Preacher, The Invisibles, and Y: The Last Man. Today, DC announced that it will be relaunching the line this fall with seven new comics from a diverse array of creators that focuses on “modern, socially relevant, high-concept, inventive” stories.
Netflix shares a trailer for its first comic book
Netflix released a trailer today for The Magic Order, the first comic spearheaded by the streaming platform — or as Netflix’s US Twitter account called it, “baby’s first comic book.” The six-issue miniseries, which will be published by Image Comics, is written by Mark Millar (Kick-Ass, Wolverine: Old Man Logan, Civil War) and illustrated by Olivier Coipel (Thor, Avengers).
Removing R. Kelly from Spotify’s playlists didn’t affect his streams
Despite a new Spotify policy on hateful content or conduct that removed R. Kelly’s music from the service’s official playlists, the musician’s streaming numbers have been unaffected, according to The Associated Press. Before the policy change on May 10th, his music received an average of 6,584,000 streams per week on Spotify; in the week after the announcement it received 6,676,000 streams.
Grimes is changing her name to the symbol for the speed of light, encouraged by Elon Musk
It’s easy to pick up habits from romantic partners. People who are attracted to each other often engage in mirroring, or subconsciously copying each other’s gestures and patterns of speech. It’s also common for people in relationships to adopt each other’s attitudes, behaviors, and hobbies. Personally, it’s how I learned to sail, rock climb and develop an appreciation for the finer points of noise music and puppetry.
Guillermo del Toro is making a horror anthology for Netflix
A horror anthology series by Guillermo del Toro, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind The Shape of Water, Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy, Pacific Rim and some incisive design critiques about UFOs, is on its way to Netflix. Titled Guillermo del Toro Presents 10 After Midnight, it will feature horror tales handpicked by del Toro, who will also write and direct some episodes. The series is the first horror anthology for Netflix.
Margot Kidder, best known for her role as Lois Lane, is dead at 69
Actor Margot Kidder died on Sunday at the age of 69 from unspecified causes. The star of popular ‘70s horror films like Black Christmas and The Amityville Horror, she is best known for her iconic role as Lois Lane in the Superman film series of the 1970s and ‘80s alongside Superman star Christopher Reeve, where she defined the role of the Daily Planet’s ace reporter for a generation.
Enjoy this AMA with predictive text Ross Douthat
Ross Douthat, a man who is somehow regularly published by The New York Times, recently shared an editorial in which he responded to the growing phenomenon of men murdering women because they don’t feel like they’re getting laid enough by thoughtfully stroking his goatee and conducting a thought experiment about the “redistribution of sex.” Among the non-incel factions of the internet, it has not gone over well.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the center of a controversy about smoky eye makeup
Millions of beauty enthusiasts have learned how to copy the makeup of their favorite stars, give themselves complex nail art, and yes, master the elusive and sultry smoky eye look through the vanguard of YouTube: makeup tutorials. Yet, a quick glance at social media over the past few days would suggest that political commentators have watched few, if any, of them.
YouTube star Logan Paul is ending his daily vlogs
Logan Paul announced in a 16-minute vlog over the weekend that he is ending regular updates on his popular daily vlogging channel, which launched less than two years ago and currently has over 17 million subscribers. According to the video, Paul is abandoning the daily model because he “wants to exercise his creativity in different ways... If anyone is going to end my career, okay, it’s going to be me,” he added.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Laura
Contact Laura, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack