The CIA celebrated its one month anniversary on Twitter Monday by answering five ridiculous questions the government agency gets all the time. 

Thanks for making our first month on @Twitter great! Today we take 10 mins to answer 5 of the top questions you’ve asked. #twitterversary

— CIA (@CIA) July 7, 2014

Whoever is handling the CIA's social media is a real comedian.

1. The mystery of Tupac's whereabouts. The CIA's tweet about the rapper received more than 20,000 retweets within the first 30 minutes of its posting and is now over 104,000 retweets.

No, we don’t know where Tupac is. #twitterversary

— CIA (@CIA) July 7, 2014

2. Stop asking the CIA about your forgotten passwords.

No, we don’t know your password, so we can’t send it to you. #sorrynotsorry#twitterversary

— CIA (@CIA) July 7, 2014

3. They apologized to Ellen DeGeneres, who tweeted a month ago when the CIA first joined Twitter that she hoped they would follow her back.

Sorry for not following you back @TheEllenShow. But if you visit us maybe we can take a selfie? #twitterversary

— CIA (@CIA) July 7, 2014

4.

We flew an A-12 OXCART, not a SR-71 BLACKBIRD. Ours flew higher & faster. But, more on that later. #twitterversarypic.twitter.com/jLSCsn9RYn

— CIA (@CIA) July 7, 2014

5. And finally:

YES, we are hiring. http://t.co/008Lvn9fWJ#twitterversary

— CIA (@CIA) July 7, 2014

Whoever is doing the CIA's social media, we applaud you.

SEE ALSO: Taylor Swift Wrote An Op-Ed In The Wall Street Journal, And It's Filled With Fascinating Insights

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Pip Andersen just landed the role of a lifetime as one of two actors cast in "Star Wars: Episode VII."

The 23-year-old British actor was selected from an open casting call for an unspecified role in the sequel out next year.

While you may not know him, Andersen already has some fans.

Here's what you should about the young actor.

1. He’s a professional freerunner and parkour artist.

The 23-year-old has been a professional parkour artist and freerunner for five-and-a-half years. Andersen got involved with the sport seven years ago and is considered one of the best freerunners in the world.

Known as Piptrix in the parkour community, he’s currently part of Storm Freerun, a professional London-based freerunning team started in 2010.

Together, Andersen and five other members perform in TV ads, movies, music videos, and stunt work.

Not familiar with Parkour?

One of the easiest explanations for the sport was offered on NBC's comedy "The Office" when Jim Halpert's character described it as getting "from point A to point B as creatively as possible."

To do achieve this, people will launch themselves over objects and scale walls among other practices often incorporating gymnastics with only their bare hands.

It's much easier to be see for yourself.

Andersen has been doing parkour for the past seven years. 

The sport requires an incredible amount of upper body strength.

... and takes a lot of practice to perfect. 

Parkour and freerunning have become so popular that they have inspired international events. Here, Andersen's performing in the 2011 Red Bull Art of Motion freerunning competition in London.

Even though he offers some tutorials, it's definitely not something you should just try at home.

You can check out full video of Andersen performing stunts on his YouTube channel, Piptrix, here.

2. He has appeared as Spider-Man and Peter Parker in an ad for Sony.

Andersen’s parkour abilities help him look like a natural Spider-Man. Sony noticed this and placed him in an ad where he played the webslinger.

He has also worked with Adidas, Nike, Microsoft, Mountain Dew, and Red Bull among other brands. 

3. He’s married.

Sorry ladies. The future “Star Wars” actor has been married to his wife Becky from Somerset, England since 2009.

SEE ALSO: 2 young actors were cast in "Star Wars: Episode VII"

AND: Meet the rest of the film's cast

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Yesterday, in a painful lunge at humor, the CIA put out this message through its official Twitter account:

No, we don’t know where Tupac is. #twitterversary

— CIA (@CIA) July 7, 2014

Finding Tupac Shakur is as easy as a Google search. The iconic rapper — considered by some to be the greatest of the art's practitioners — has been dead since 1996. According to findagrave.com, he was cremated, and his ashes were later "buried on his mother's farm in North Carolina." 

This is obvious enough. No one really disputes that Tupac is dead, at least not anymore.

But the attempted humor in the CIA's tweet is based on a number of assumptions that the U.S. intelligence community shouldn't really be playing to in a post-Snowden environment. Whoever wrote and signed off on this tweet probably didn't realize the troubling pedigree behind the very conspiracy theory this tweet was referring to. The CIA likely had no idea what it was talking about here — what anxieties it was inadvertently appealing to, or the deeper issues behind a seemingly harmless cultural meme.

And that's exactly the kind of tone-deafness and deficient messaging — and the same cavalier attitude toward the American public it's charged with protecting — that have hamstrung the U.S. intelligence community in the decade after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and especially after the Snowden leaks.

A quick recap: Tupac Shakur was shot in Las Vegas shortly after a Mike Tyson fight on Sept. 7, 1996, and died on Sept. 13. The conspiracy theories began not long afterwards. Tupac was spotted in Cuba. He had been photographed wearing sneakers that supposedly hadn't been available at the time of his death. He released more music in death than he did in life. Suge Knight, the cofounder of Death Row and one of the most influential and problematic figures in American music history, was feeding the Tupac-is-alive rumors as recently as May.

The Tupac-is-alive conspiracy theory penetrated deep enough into the culture to be the subject of one of Dave Chappelle's more memorable sketches, produced nearly a decade after the rapper's death. The brilliance and poignancy of Chappelle's sketch is rooted in the more benign and even salutary aspects of Tupac death conspiracism. Tupac was such an overwhelming presence in the cultural consciousness that he simply couldn't be dead. He was too productive, too forward-thinking, and too much of an icon for his life to simply have been cut off at the age of 25, frozen on the cusp of hip-hop's penetration into the broader culture. Tupac conspiracism was a way of dealing with the implausibility and unfairness of it, and in this respect it isn't any more harmful than similar thinking about Elvis' death.

But there's a darker side to this as well. Tupac-is-alive speculation was an early form of the phenomena now identified as "trutherism." Broadly speaking, trutherism is the idea — disseminated through and reinforced by the internet and grounded in a latent paranoia toward official institutions and narratives — that reality is explained by deeper truths that are being deliberately hidden from public view.

Trutherism is a perhaps inevitable result of the internet, where conspiracists can easily find one another and confirm each other's mostly instinctive and decidedly non-evidence-based view of how the world works. But in some cases, trutherism is a particularly extreme symptom of other, more substantive problems. Trutherism around the Sept. 11 attacks arguably gained traction because of widespread public mistrust in the Bush administration and its national security policies. Sandy Hook trutherism was an ugly and paranoid byproduct of the cultural and political gulf separating gun owners and gun-control advocates.

If you believe Tupac is alive, you have to believe that the Las Vegas police, the FBI, the Nevada medical examiner, the entertainment industry, and any number of other entrenched institutions are constantly lying about the death of a beloved cultural icon. Tupac trutherism is the rejection of an official narrative based on almost no physical or even circumstantial evidence and for it to be even the least bit believable, you have to have very little confidence in those narratives to begin with.

The very existence of a global and highly capable clandestine service jeopardizes the trust between citizen and state, and the CIA engages in subterfuge of the type that allows Tupac-type conspiracism to flourish. But the CIA realizes this. Throughout its recent history, the CIA and NSA have been admirably mindful of the tension between their basic mission and the tenants of democracy. Both agencies are subject to civilian oversight, and neither is above U.S. domestic law (if they were, there'd be very little point in hashing out the potential effect of the Snowden leaks). The CIA's declassified thousands of its documents, and has come clean about some of its less savory activities over the years.

So it's counterproductive for an official voice of the CIA to be riffing off of conspiracy theories on a major public forum. It shouldn't be indulging in trutherism, even in jest — not with the Snowden disclosures opening the biggest rift between the American public and the intelligence community in decades. Like anyone with a web connection, the CIA knows exactly where Tupac is —and it's revealing that it didn't have presence of mind to just say so.

SEE ALSO: The CIA was "involved" in the German spy affair

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Jessica Simpson wed longtime boyfriend Eric Johnson in a lavish four-day ceremony at the San Ysidro Ranch over the holiday weekend.

E! Online reports the 96-hour celebration with 275 friends and family members set the couple back a whopping $1.4 million. Here's how they got that number:

FOOD — $300,000, excluding alcohol

• Thursday night rehearsal dinner for 70 people.
• Friday night 4th of July BBQ for all 275 guests.
• Saturday night wedding reception dinner.
• Sunday farewell brunch.

VENUE / HOTEL ROOMS — $150,000

• Simpson reportedly rented out all of San Ysidro Ranch's restaurant spaces in an effort to ensure privacy and even covered her loved ones' hotel rooms.

WEDDING CEREMONY — $30,000

• The couple exchanged vows in the luxurious hotel's garden, which costs an additional $30,000.

FLOWERS — $150,000

• Mark's Garden did all of the flowers for events throughout the weekend. E! calculates the couple dropped at least $150,000 on floral arrangements alone.

DRESSES — $750,000

• The bride wore a custom-made design by Carolina Herrera, which E! estimates "sold for more than $30,000." Add that to the cost of jewelry, bridesmaids dresses, tuxedos for the men, and a glam squad, and it reportedly totaled to around $750,000.

Combined, the wedding weekend cost an estimated $1.4 million.

SEE ALSO: Justin Bieber's Manager Scooter Braun Marries 'F-Cancer' Founder Yael Cohen In Star-Studded Ceremony

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Robert Kirkman's post-apocalyptic zombie thriller "The Walking Dead" is a hugely popular and acclaimed entertainment franchise.

The television show's most recent season averaged 18.4 million viewers per episode (including DVR views and re-runs in the first week), according to AMC. The award-winning, monthly comic book series, which the TV show is based on, is consistently a top seller.

In addition to being the executive producer of "The Walking Dead" show and the writer of the comic, Kirkman writes the superhero comic "Invincible" and his spin on the exorcism genre, "Outcast."

He's also developing a "Walking Dead" spinoff for television, an "Outcast" TV show, and his first film, "Air," which is scheduled to be released next year by Sony Pictures Worldwide. All of these projects are housed under his growing company, Skybound Entertainment.

He tells Business Insider that he's able to balance all of these projects by always having an outlet for his ideas, staying focused, setting difficult deadlines, and keeping things interesting for himself.

Here are the fundamentals of his creative process:

He avoids multitasking and doesn't let his ideas drift away.

Kirkman says that sometimes he doesn't even know how he keeps so many characters and plotlines floating around in his head, but that it helps that he only focuses on one of his titles at a time and always takes extensive notes.

"I have a notepad in my phone that I'm always pulling out when I'm pretty much anywhere," Kirkman says. He'll jot down a line of dialogue or a scene if it comes to him.

Since the "Walking Dead" show and comic have significant discrepancies, he treats them like two entirely different projects.

Kirkman explains what it's like to juggle the two versions of Rick Grimes, the series' protagonist:

The Rick Grimes that's in the show, he hasn't quite developed to the point that the Rick in the comic book has. He eventually will, but by the time he does that, the Rick in the comic book will be completely different and on another track — or he'll be dead. If there's ever a case where I go, "Oh, that would be a really cool thing to do with Rick," okay, now I need to decide if that's going to go into the comic or the show.

He plans years into the future.

Kirkman ensures that he'll never run out of ideas by creating "road maps" for each of his series.

He's got a five- or six-page road map for "The Walking Dead" comic series, for example. This document is filled with blocks of one or two paragraphs representing 20-50 issues — that means a couple quick paragraphs can represent four years' worth of storyline.

Kirkman says he'll update this road map two to five times a year, but doesn't spend too much time working out the details.

"Looking at the past of the comic, that document at some point would've said, you know, 'Live in a prison for awhile,' 'Encounter Woodbury,' and 'Fight a guy called The Governor.' That is enough to remind me of all the other stuff I was thinking of," he says.

He adds that everything is subject to change, but the road maps keep him from taking on more than he can handle. Before "Outcast" launched last month, he developed it for three years.

He sets unrealistic deadlines for himself.

"I kind of thrive in chaos," Kirkman says. He likes to maintain this feeling of urgency by giving himself "completely and utterly unrealistic goals."

He explains:

I'll be like "I want to write 12 pages today," but I really only need to write like four or five. But if I try to write 12, I might write six or seven. What that does though, is it gives me a crushing sense of failure at the end of every day. So I'm like, "Oh my God, I didn't get those 12 pages done. I suck! What is wrong with me?" and the next day I work harder because I have to make up for that unrealistic deadline I didn't make. And so it's probably not too good for my psyche, but as far as productivity goes, it seems to help.

A typical comic issue takes anywhere from two to seven days to write Kirkman says, depending on how much time is available. But if it takes him longer than a week to finish, the work goes from being fun to being a chore.

He focuses on his work, not his success.

Kirkman has been writing comics for the past 14 years, but his work entered the mainstream when "The Walking Dead" TV show launched in 2010 and quickly became a hit.

"If I actually sat and considered the number of people that are looking 'The Walking Dead' and scrutinizing 'The Walking Dead' at this point, I would probably get a little nervous, get stage fright, and have trouble writing. But when I'm doing my thing, I pretty much ignore the fact that it has grown into this enormous, worldwide thing," Kirkman says.

He uses the success of his television show to open up new opportunities he otherwise would not have had, he explains, but he does everything he can to keep the weight of an increasingly larger audience from affecting his work.

He embraces others' creativity.

Kirkman writes his comics' scripts, but lets his artists use their unique styles to bring his stories to life. He says he also refrains from being overprotective of his work when he adapts the "Walking Dead" comic into the TV show, even though he has complete control of the "Walking Dead" intellectual property.

He sits in the writers' room for the show "pretty much full time from January to June" before the season goes into production. He enjoys the opportunity to tell a new story.

"I don't really sit back in my chair and say, 'No, not that!' We're all in it together, and I look at us as equals when we're working on the show," he says.

He always has new projects to work on.

"If I'm not working on something new, I just don't feel good about what I'm doing," Kirkman says.

In addition to his comics, shows, and movie, he says he's also thinking about and taking notes on "a couple of other projects that probably won't see the light of day for another four or five years."

Right now, he's got enough to keep him from getting bored.

"I'm pretty much at my capacity right now, but I'll figure out how to do something new at some point," he tells us.

SEE ALSO: 'Game Of Thrones' Creator George R.R. Martin Shares His Creative Process

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Do you know what the world really cares about? What celebrities, products, and companies get typed into Google more than the rest? If you do, then you have a valuable intuition that will help you create or tap into viral ideas.

Think you've got what it takes? Now's your chance to prove it.

In the first iteration of Business Insider's Google Popularity Quiz, based on June 2014 search results, we will ask you to answer 13 questions and to keep score yourself. Get all 13 right and you may call yourself a zeitgeist master; get 11 to 12 right and you are a global connoisseur; get 8 to 10 right and you are a culture whiz; anything less and you are out of the loop.

Who is the most-searched-for Jennifer in the world?

Jennifer Lopez can't be beat.

Who is the most-searched-for Michael in the world?

Since the days of Cain and Abel, sibling rivalries have dotted history in many shapes and forms.

Some siblings sue each other over money or defamation while others live out their days amid a frigid silent treatment. Some sibling rivalries are purely playful, competitive one-upsmanship.

These 16 sibling groups prove that it's impossible to expect brothers and sisters to get along all the time, but they also show that some just simply have it out for one another.

Mukesh and Anil Ambani

When Reliance Industries founder Dhirubhai Ambani died in 2002 without a will, his elder son, Mukesh, took over the company as chairman while his younger son, Anil, was made vice-chairman.

Mukesh then reportedly tried to push Anil off the board, and tension between the siblings turned into an ugly legal battle, resulting in a de-merger of the company led by the brothers' mother in 2005. For the next five years the brothers continued to wage war against one another, both in and out of court, until their mother intervened again, this time issuing a noncompete agreement between the two in 2010.

Though the brothers announced soon after that they were no longer feuding, new deals in the telecommunications industry could become a new source of competition for the Ambanis.

LaVerne, Patty, and Maxene Andrews

Their careers were built on harmonizing together, but the Andrews Sisters weren't always as bright and cheery as their songs. Known for hits like "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," the Andrews Sisters were the most successful female recording group in pop history, according to a 1987 Los Angeles Times article.

So it's strange — or maybe natural — that their success is clouded by a decades-long feud. All three sisters are deceased as of January 2013, but Maxene once chalked their intense loathing for one another up to too many years of working too closely together ... though it may not have helped things that Patty joined another singing group in 1951 without telling her sisters.

But in spite of their sweet trio image, Patty believed that their diehard fans didn't care about the feud at all, telling the LA Times, "When I start singing the Andrews Sisters songs, they don't give a damn whether I talk to my sister or not."

Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergso and Mikkel Borg Bjergso

Mikkel Borg Bjergso and Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergso have been making beer for years, and while they started out brewing together, the last few years have been spent brewing apart.

The identical twins each own their own beer outfit — Mikkel is the mastermind behind the brewery Mikkeller in Copenhagen while Jeppe runs the now-Brooklyn-based Evil Twin Brewing— but the two haven't spoken to each other in more than a year. The rivalry is clear; after all, each brother runs a business in the same industry, but the Bjergsos say they don't look at one another as competition — or at least, Mikkel doesn't. "I don't see Jeppe as a rival," he told The New York Times' Jonah Weiner in a recent article about the brothers' ongoing love of beer and animosity toward each other.

Weiner makes it clear that, rivalry or not, there's definitely a feud between the two that the brothers even tried to resolve with some couples-type counseling, but to no avail.

The Republican National Committee announced Tuesday that it will be hosting its 2016 convention in Cleveland, Ohio.

Cleveland beat out Dallas for the honor, and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus noted that Cleveland is "representative of a city eager to show the country all the fantastic things they have to offer."

Cleveland is great, but Ohio as a whole has a lot to offer, too.

Check out these 11 reasons why Ohio is a shining example of U.S. geography.

1. Ohioans become president.

Ohio and Virginia like to bicker about which state can claim the most U.S. presidents. If you consider birthplace, Virginia wins with eight. But looking at primary residence, Ohio comes out on top. Childhood is what really counts anyway.

No fewer than seven presidents call Ohio their home state. In chronological order, William Henry Harrison, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, and Warren G. Harding all grew up or made their lives in the Buckeye State. 

2. And when they don't, Ohio picks the president. 

Not unrelated to the last point, Ohio, known as a major swing state, plays an important role in national elections every four years.

Democrats almost always take California and New York, with their 55 and 29 electoral votes, respectively. And, naturally, 38 from Texas go to the Republicans. That's why Florida, 29, and Ohio, 18, matter so much.

In 2012, many publications predicted Mitt Romney couldn't win without Ohio. He didn't — so he lost. But the Obama campaign made the election all about Ohio, and it clearly paid off.

3. Ohioans love to swear. 

According to rigorous analysis of phone calls (probably with cable companies), Ohioans swear more than any other states' residents. Conducted in 2013 by Marchex, the data examined 60,000 recorded phone conversations over 12 months. 

So this might not seem like a positive — but it is. Swearing is f---ing good for you. It helps people express pain and frustration, making us healthier and less violent. Dropping an f-bomb here and there could also help you at work. A 2007 study out of the U.K. found that swearing creates solidarity and bonding among coworkers and can signal authenticity and leadership to higher-ups.

4. Ohio always denounced slavery.

In 1802, 63 years before the 13th Amendment, Ohio's Constitution outlawed slavery. And even when including a clause to allow amendments, the creators specifically wrote Ohio would never, ever allow involuntarily servitude.

On top of that, Ohio acted a crucial catalyst in the abolitionist movement in the North. John Brown, an abolitionist hanged for his radical beliefs, lived in Hudson, Ohio. Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the quintessential novel decrying slavery, resided in Cincinnati. 

The state also contains many significant stops on the Underground Railroad, including St. John's Cathedral (shown above), also known as Station Hope, the last stop for fleeing slaves in Cleveland before reaching the ferry to Canada. 

Many believe John Mercer Langston, from Oberlin, to be the first publicly elected black official. 

5. Pro football was born in Ohio.

Canton, Ohio, is home to the Pro Football Hall of Fame for a reason — the American Professional Football Association, later renamed the National Football League, was founded there in 1920.

Before the NFL, pro football was a bit of a mess. The teams weren't regulated enough and loyalty was lacking because players could jump from team to team based on whoever offered the highest salary. 

So a few team representatives got together and held a meeting in a Canton auto showroom to establish the league. The NFL eventually grew to become a multibillion-dollar powerhouse and the most lucrative sports league in the world.

And the Pro Football Hall Of Fame will soon be even bigger and better than it is now. It's undergoing a two-year $27 million expansion and renovation as part of its 50th anniversary celebration.

6. Ohio produces prominent athletes.

LeBron James is far from the only famous athlete to get his talents from Ohio (even though he rudely took them somewhere else). Two-time World Series champion Roger Clemens was born in Ohio, and NFL quarterback Brady Quinn was one of the top high-school football players the country while he was a student in Dublin, Ohio.

Jack Nicklaus, one of the best golfers of all time, was born in a Columbus suburb and picked up the sport there.

7. Rock 'n' roll got its name there.

Cleveland is the rock 'n' roll capital of the world, and it lobbied hard for the hall of fame when music-industry leaders were choosing a home for the museum.

And it makes sense that the Rock Hall would find a home in Cleveland. Without well-known Cleveland DJ Alan Freed, we might not have the term "rock 'n' roll" at all. Freed first coined the phrase as a way to describe the music he started playing on the radio in 1951. 

On top of that, Cleveland radio station WMMS is credited with breaking major acts such as David Bowie, Roxy Music, Rush, and Bruce Springsteen.

8. Several famous musical acts hail from the Buckeye State.

If you enjoy listening to the Black Keys, the Isley Brothers, Devo, Kid Cudi, John Legend, or Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, you have Ohio to thank. All these artists either grew up in Ohio or got their starts there.

Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale met at Kent State University, where they were both art students, and formed Devo in 1976. John Legend grew up in Springfield, Ohio, and Kid Cudi started rapping around his neighborhood when he was 12.

9. Ohioans made history in space.

Ohioans have contributed significantly to U.S. space missions — they've flown aboard most of NASA's major human space flight programs.

John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, and Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, were both from Ohio. The first American woman to walk in space, Kathryn D. Sullivan, is from Ohio.

On a related note, Ohio is called the Birthplace of Aviation (as our license plates show) because the Wright brothers grew up in Dayton. 

10. Without Ohio, we wouldn't know the joy of hot dogs.

Many historians credit Niles, Ohio, resident Harry Mosley Stevens with inventing the hot dog, which he called "red hot dachshund sausages." Initially, they weren't even popular because people thought they contained real dog meat. But hot dogs soon became one of America's favorite snacks.

Minor technicality: Stevens may have moved to New York City before actually placing the dog in the bun. But we count him and his delicious creation as Ohio born-and-bred. 

11. Speaking of food — Swensons.

This drive-in burger joint, founded in 1934, has only seven locations across the state. Patrons just have to flash their headlights, and the waiters will run out with a menu, ready to take their order. 

Voted as having the best burger in America in 1999 by Forbes, Swensons is a northeast Ohio staple. If you've never had a Galley Boy, the signature menu item, we mourn for you. It's a double cheeseburger with mayo and barbecue sauce — for only $3.15. Potato teasers, essentially tater tots with cheese and jalapeno inside, are worthy of a trip themselves, too. 

SEE ALSO: The Happiest States In America

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If you're one of the 6.6 million people who watch "Game Of Thrones" or have bought any of the 24 million copies of "A Song Of Ice and Fire" that are in print, you've spent hours inside the mind of George R.R. Martin, the wordsmith who composes the thousand-page tomes of swords, sex, and sorcery. 

The author has his own productivity magic: a vintage word processor. 

"I have a secret weapon," he told late-night host Conan O'Brien. "I use WordStar 4.0 as my word processor." 

It's part of a two-machine setup. He has a modern computer to browse the Internet, get his email, and do his taxes. Then he has a DOS machine running WordStar, which was the top of the word-processing world when it debuted back in 1983. 

On his show, O'Brien asked his guest why he still uses the 31-year-old program. 

"I actually like it," Martin replied. "It does everything I want a word-processing program to do, and it doesn't do anything else."

The studio audience, of course, howled. 

But the joke's on them. 

In a post on his LiveJournal blog from 2011, Martin unpacked why he swears by the WordStar: 

"So here's the thing. I am a dinosaur, as all my friends will tell you. A man of the 20th century, not the 21st. Yes, I have been using a computer for twenty years now, but while I cruise this interwebby thing with a PC and Windows, I still do all my writing on an old DOS machine running WordStar 4.0, the Duesenberg of word processing software (very old, but unsurpassed)."

A Duesenberg, if you don't know, is a swank luxury car that started rolling out in 1913. When your buddy says that Saturday night was a doozy, she's unknowingly referencing the best-in-class automobile. If you were to drive a Duesenberg today, you'd be wowed by how it combines the "mechanical precision of a Rolls-Royce and the amazing acceleration and blinding speed of a Bugatti," a few of the reasons a 1935 model sold for $4.5 million last year. 

The doozy isn't obsolete; it's amazing.

That's the thing about technology.

As University of Maryland media archeology scholar Matthew Kirschenbaum argues, we've been conditioned to think that any piece of tech that hasn't been released in the last six hours is defunct, passe, and obsolete. So anyone who uses WordStar in 2014 has to be a Luddite or, he says, "a curmudgeonly author of high fantasy whose success allows you to indulge your eccentricities," as you might take Martin to be.

But the WordStar might be a better word-processing product than whatever version of Microsoft Word you grapple with every day, with its templates and crashes and animated paperclips. After all, writers like Michael Chabon, Ralph Ellison, William F. Buckley, and Anne Rice all started their scribing on the WordStar. 

As Kirschenbaum wrote in a blog post, WordStar is both an oldie and a goodie: 

"WordStar is no toy or half-baked bit of code: on the contrary, it was a triumph of both software engineering and what we would nowadays call user-centered design. With features ranging from automatic word-wrap and full margin justification to mail merge and context-sensitive help, it was justifiably advertised as early as 1978 as a What You See Is What You Get word processor, a marketing claim that would be echoed by Microsoft when Word was launched in 1983.

"WordStar's real virtues, though, are not captured by its feature list alone. As Ralph Ellison scholar Adam Bradley observes in his work on Ellison’s use of the program, 'WordStar's interface is modelled on the longhand method of composition rather than on the typewriter.' ...

"The upshot is that users need never lift hands from keyboard to navigate their document, thus permitting a freedom and facility of movement that is an order of magnitude more efficient than the pointing and clicking and scrolling and dragging we associate with running a mouse around a (graphic user interface)." 

Startups have tried to recapture the writerly simplicity of an interface like WordStar. Like Slate says, lots of writers rely on minimalist word processors like WriteRoom and Byword to type without the Internet's distraction or use an app like Freedom or RescueTime to prevent from getting lost in multi-tabbed tangents. 

So while Word is a case study in bloated software, WordStar — which you can use a web version of here  — is a study in computing efficiency. 

Martin, for one, doesn't need all the "features" that crowd into Microsoft Word. "I don't want any help," the author says. "I hate some of these modern systems where you type a lower-case letter and it becomes a capital. I don't want a capital; if I wanted a capital, I would have typed a capital. I know how to work the shift key." 

SEE ALSO: 'Game Of Thrones' Creator George R.R. Martin Shares His Creative Process

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“Let’s go kill some sharks!”

The Ian Ziering battlecry sums up the basic attitude of the first official trailer for “Sharknado 2: The Second One.” 

The made-for-tv movie is SyFy’s followup to last year's social media hit of the summer, “Sharknado.”  

Just when you think nothing can top last year’s chainsaw shark kill, guess again.  

This time around returning stars Ziering and Tara Reid face off against the sharks (and tornadoes) in New York City where they’ll be joined by a string of celebrity cameos ranging from Andy Dick, Matt Lauer, Perez Hilton, and Kelly Osbourne. 

Let’s walk through some of the absurdities shown off in the trailer that you can look forward to viewing.

Raining sharks. 

Sharks on fire. 

Sharks attacking the Empire State Building. 

... and the subways. 

Basically everything and everyone is at the sharks’ mercy. 

Unless they're getting electrocuted.

And, of course, there will be chainsaws. 

And flying.

“Sharknado 2: The Second One” premieres July 30 at 9 p.m.  

SEE ALSO: 3 things to know about the thrill-seeking actor just cast in "Star Wars: Episode VII"

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The routed Empire is preparing for its comeback by massing forces at Germany's Frankfurt International Airport. Well, at least that's how one YouTuber sees it.

YouTube user Frank Wunderlich created a video showing the airport as a staging area for the Galactic Empire, and the result is pretty awesome. It begins with Tie Fighters escorting an Imperial transport to the Galactic Starport in Germany.

Meanwhile, buses bearing the insignia of the Empire, an AT-AT and even a couple of Storm Troopers fill the tarmac. 

The video even includes a few Easter eggs. Savvy "Star Wars" fans will notice a Star Destroyer looming ominously in the background along with a Death Star visible from space. There's even a shield generator just like the one on the Moon of Endor, which protected the Death Star in Star Wars Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi.

The video is billed as leaked footage from the upcoming Star Wars Episode VII, which is currently being filmed by director J.J. Abrams. And while Wunderlich has put together an incredible feature, the images are unfortunately not from a new Star Wars set on Earth, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The video, uploaded July 2nd, already has more than 4 million views:

There's still no word on where rebel forces have set up shop.

SEE ALSO: Two Young Actors Were Just Cast In 'Star Wars: Episode VII'

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No one ever thought Britney Spears' songs were untouched in the recording studio, but the singer's voice without Auto-Tune is even worse than we could have imagined.

On July 2, the unedited vocal version of Spears' track "Alien," off her most recent album, "Britney Jean," leaked — and it ain't pretty. Take a listen:

The video has picked up so much steam online that the song's producer, William Orbit, posted a statement to Facebook explaining that the track is from a vocal warm-up session, not a final take.

Dearest Music Lovers,

I have heard that Britney vocal link that everybody’s been discussing. It has been impossible not to as there have been many comments directing my attention to it. [I won’t re-posting it here]. I'd like to affirm that ANY singer when first at the mic at the start of a long session can make a multitude of vocalisations in order to get warmed up.  

Warming up is essential if you’re a pro, as it is with a runner doing stretches, and it takes a while to do properly. I’ve heard all manner of sounds emitted during warmups. The point is that it is not supposed to be shared with millions of listeners.  

A generous singer will put something down the mic to help the engineer get their systems warmed up and at the right level, maybe whilst having a cup of herb tea and checking through lyrics before the session really kicks off. It’s not expected to be a ‘take’.  

I think that 99% of you reading this will totally understand.  

Whomever put this on the internet must have done so in a spirit of unkindness, but it can in no way detract from the fact that Britney is and always will be beyond Stellar! She is magnificent! And that’s that.  

Sincerely, William

Do you believe him? Listen to the track with Auto-Tune below and judge for yourself:

The song is kind of catchy.

SEE ALSO: The 8 Contenders For This Year's 'Song Of The Summer'

AND: 9 Hit Songs You Had No Idea Were Written By Carole King

NOW WATCH: If You're Going To Pay For Music — Pay For This

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Swedish pop group ABBA is responsible for hit songs like "Dancing Queen," "Mamma Mia," and "Money, Money, Money."

Made up of two sets of then couples — Agnetha Fältskog and Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad — ABBA has sold over 380 million albums and singles worldwide and is the third-best-selling group of all time, behind the Beatles and Queen and ahead of the Rolling Stones.

But in 1979, at the height of their success, Fältskog and Ulvaeus divorced while Lyngstad and Andersson called it quits soon after in 1981. By 1982, the group was broken up.

In 2000, amid a revival of several of their hits, a American-British consortium offered the group $1 billion to reunite for 100 shows, but they declined the offer, according to E! Online.

To put that into perspective, the group was offered more than the value of 25 different Major League Baseball teams and the GDPs of some countries. That's potentially $250 million that each member of the group refused.

"It's a hell of a lot of money to say no to, but we decided it wasn't for us," Andersson told Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet in 2000.

Andersson and bandmate Bjorn Ulvaeus both argue that popular reincarnations of their songs (many by teen group S Club 7) have been successful because the group never reunited.

"We have never made a comeback," Ulvaeus told the paper. "Almost everyone else has. I think there's a message in that."

Fältskog explained to Radio Times last year: "We said no because they wanted 250 shows or something, it was incredible. No chance. We had done it.

Lyngstad also confirmed this year to Ireland's RTE that "no amount of money would change our minds. Maybe we sometimes say it would be good to do a song together again, just a recording and nothing else, but I don’t know if that will happen — so don’t say that we will!"

Despite the fact that the foursome recently reunited — the "chemistry was still there" — all members said they were not tempted to reunite.

The four founding members are doing just fine since the group's break-up 32 years ago.

Last March, "Mamma Mia," a stage musical based on ABBA's music, became the ninth-longest-running show in Broadway history. Over the show's 13-year run, it has been seen by 50 million people worldwide and raked in over $2 billion.

A star-studded film based on the musical was released in 2008 and went on to be a $609 million hit at the box office.

In 2010, the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

SEE ALSO: Here's Why 'Jersey Boys' Bombed At Theaters

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Piper Kerman, the woman whose memoir, "Orange is the New Black," inspired a wildly successful Netflix series, told Maria Shriver on NBC News that although she was the victim of groping during strip-searches, she was an extremely poor target for correctional officers looking to sexually abuse a prisoner.

"I was very lucky," Kerman told Shriver. "I was not targeted by somebody who wanted to have more exploitive or abusive sexual contact with me, and quite frankly, I would make a poor target."

Kerman explained that the guards knew she was connected to the outside world because friends, family, and her future husband visted frequently. She also got letters at mail call daily.

"So a person, a woman who has clear lifelines to the outside world makes a really poor target," Kerman said. "The kind of person a CO would go after would be a woman who is more isolated and is more vulnerable than I was."

Of course, Kerman's strip-searching experiences aren't anything to scoff at. She said guards often groped her during her stay at the Federal Correctional Institute at Danbury, Connecticut. Prison guards were allowed to touch the lower edge of the inmates' bras, but Kerman said they would often go well beyond the protocol.

"Sometimes it was shocking who would grope you — like polite, fair, and otherwise upstanding Mr. Black, who did it in a businesslike way," Kerman wrote in her memoir. "Other male COs were brazen, like the short, red-faced young bigmouth who asked me loudly and repeatedly, "Where are the weapons of mass destruction?" while he fondled my ass and I gritted my teeth."

Guards are able to get away with the abuse, she said, because any woman who speaks up about abuse will likely get tossed into solitary confinement.

Surprisingly, however, Kerman said she has recieved support from some correctional officers who have read the book or watched the show, and say they would like to see reform in the criminal justice system.

You can watch the full interview below:

SEE ALSO: The Woman Who Inspired 'Orange Is The New Black' Reveals The Creepy Side Of Prison Guards

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We've been waiting for this trailer for a long time.

Christian Bale is trading in the Caped Crusader costume for gladiator gear in Ridley Scott's next big epic, "Exodus: Gods and Kings."

20th Century Fox released the first trailer for the movie Tuesday night exclusively on Apple.

The movie stars Bale and Joel Edgerton ("The Great Gatsby") as Moses and Ramses in the familiar Bible tale famously brought on screen in "The Ten Commandments" starring Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner.

Here's the official synopsis:

"From acclaimed director Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Prometheus) comes the epic adventure 'Exodus: Gods and Kings,' the story of one man’s daring courage to take on the might of an empire. Using state of the art visual effects and 3D immersion, Scott brings new life to the story of the defiant leader Moses (Christian Bale) as he rises up against the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses (Joel Edgerton), setting 600,000 slaves on a monumental journey of escape from Egypt and its terrifying cycle of deadly plagues."

The film is the latest in a string of faith-based movies that have seen success at theaters this year after break-out “Heaven is for Real.” Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah” released in March with Russell Crowe brought in $359.2 million worldwide. 

"Exodus: Gods and Kings" is in theaters December 12. 

Everything about the film looks grand from the elaborate sets to that last ocean wave teased at the end ...

However, there's one thing that stands out in particular with the trailer.

It may be one too many TV re-runs of “Gladiator” but the film feels a lot like Scott’s 2000 Oscar-winning flick which watched a slave rise through the ranks to not only fight for his freedom (and avenge his family) but also the freedom of other slaves.

SEE ALSO: Why Hollywood is inserting these two huge Chinese actresses into its summer blockbusters

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George R.R. Martin doesn't want to hear your complaints about when the next "Game of Thrones" books will arrive and he certainly doesn't appreciate hearing that fans think he'll pass away before he can finish the series.

The idea is morbid, but many articles and Reddit discussions have expressed concern the 65-year-old author won't live long enough to finish the books that started publication in 1996.

Of course, it's not a subject you would probably broach with the author himself. 

But that's just what Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger did. The outlet came right out and asked Martin about fan concerns he won't finish the books.

He had a simple, brilliant response:

Martin said he found the question offensive before flipping off those who would even consider the possibility of the author's death.

You can watch the brief clip here. 

In March, Martin told Vanity Fair he divulged the books' ending to HBO series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. However, that wasn't a precaution. The author says it's so they can begin laying the groundwork for the show's final seasons.

There are currently five books in the "Game of Thrones" series that span more than 4,500 pages. At least two more are in the works. 

The Wall Street Journal estimated, at his current pace, Martin's next works may not come out until 2017 and 2023.

SEE ALSO: George R.R. Martin's 2001 loss to J.K. Rowling is still a sore subject

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With the rise of reality television throughout the past decade, shock value has become harder and harder to come by.

But one insane new show manages to up the ante.

"Married At First Sight" premiered Tuesday night on A&E's new lifestyle network FYI. It's exactly as crazy as it sounds — a panel of experts finds people who are unlucky in love and "scientifically" pairs them up for marriage. They head down the aisle without knowing anything about the other person, and they meet for the first time at the alter.

The marriages are real, according to the show's publicist, and the network will finance a divorce within six months of the wedding if the couples realize they aren't meant for each other. The show follows the couples through their wedding attended by friends and family, a honeymoon, and moving in together.

"Married At First Sight" is being billed as a social experiment/commentary, but as The Hollywood Reporter points out, it "seems particularly callous ... at a time when the definition and legalities of marriage are at the forefront of national conversations."

Dr. Logan Levkoff, a sexologist who's part of the show's panel of experts, wrote about the show for The Huffington Post:

Though I made certain assumptions about this experiment, I took a call with one of the producers. I listened to her tell me about the premise of the experiment. I heard words that resonated with me. Documentary. Provocative. Thoughtful. And then the question that hit home: "Logan, what if four experts in their respective fields -- social scientists -- can help to create meaningful relationships?"

... Married at First Sight isn't just a television show; it is a social commentary. I worry that we are so used to jumping in and out of relationships that we don't even know what's worth fighting for anymore. We tend to run at the first obstacle instead of working our way through challenges. This experiment asks people to commit so that they have to fight for something. They have to put the work in -- the work that we all need to put in -- into partnerships.

The show, of course, completely disregards the importance of chemistry in a romantic relationship and approaches marriage as a scientific, almost business-like partnership.

Check out this sneak peak video of the show from FYI:

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Since his first appearance in 1887, Sherlock Holmes has become an industry — the Guinness Book of World Records notches him as the most-played movie character in history, with some 200 actors playing the role— and a metaphor for clear thinking. 

Psychologist Maria Konnikova's "Mastermind: How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes" unpacks the Holmesian method of inquiry in the language of cognitive science.

From her research, we'll take a look at how anyone can observe and deduce like the fictional detective.

Observe the details.

When Holmes first met Dr. Watson, his soon to be partner in solving crimes, the detective made a certain and offhand claim: "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive." 

Watson's reply: "How on Earth did you know that?"

Holmes, naturally, deduced it: 

"I knew you came from Afghanistan...

The train of reasoning ran, 'Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly an army doctor, then. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and this is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.'" 

That is deep-level observation, Konnikova says. Holmes sees his new acquaintance's symptoms of tropics, sickness, and injury, and is able to see how they fit together — deducing his personal history from his appearance.

We can learn the same by learning to paying attention.

Pay attention to the basics.

When Holmes famously quips that the solution of a case is "elementary," he's not simply dismissing the detective work as easy. Rather, he's talking about elements, the essentials of a situation. 

Holmes says:

"Before turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest difficulties, let the enquirer begin by mastering more elementary problems." 

As a physicist begins with the laws relevant to a problem, a detective begins with the facts of a case before adding in interpretation. 

"Whatever the specific issue, you must define and formulate it in your mind as specifically as possible — and then you must fill it in with past experience and present observation," Konnikova writes. "As Holmes admonishes Lestrate and Gregson when the two detectives fail to note a similarity between the murder being investigated and an earlier case, 'There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.'"

Use all of your senses.

In the novel "Hound of the Baskervilles," Holmes assembles clues not just by reading everything he can find, but involving all his senses.

As he tells Watson: 

"It may possibly recur to your memory that when I examined the paper upon which the printed words were fastened I made a close inspection for the water-mark. In doing so I held it within a few inches of my eyes, and was conscious of a faint smell of the scent known as white jessamine. There are seventy-five perfumes, which it is very necessary that a criminal expert should be able to distinguish from each other, and cases have more than once within my own experience depended on their prompt recognition. The scent suggested the presence of a lady, and already my thoughts began to turn toward the Stapletons. Thus I had made certain of the hound, and had guessed at the criminal before we ever went to the west country." 

While we don't need to go and memorize the smell of 75 perfumes, Konnikova says, we shouldn't neglect our senses — since they influence our decisions in ways we don't even realize. 

Ireland is going ballistic after Garth Brooks announced he would cancel a long-anticipated five-show "Comeback Special" rather than cave to a Dublin City Council ruling cutting his run short.

About 400,000 ticket holders — equivalent to nearly one-tenth of Ireland's population — had purchased tickets to the July 25-29 dates at Dublin’s 83,000-capacity Croke Park Stadium.

But the Dublin City Council approved only three dates after it had received more than 300 complaints from local residents that the five-day set violated Croke Park's code. The stadium, built in 1913, sits squarely in a residential section of Dublin. There'd also been reports of protests.

Those complaints are being swamped by the fury coming from Brooks fans who've had their plans scuttled. 

Enda Kenny, Ireland's Taoiseach, or prime minister, has been forced to intervene. It emerged late Wednesday he is calling for a reconciliation between Dublin and Brooks' promoters. He'd warned the cancellations could prove “a shock to the system in terms of the economy of the city and the reputation of our country.”

The Dublin Chamber of Commerce has put the cost of the cancellations at 50 million euros, or about $68 million, and the Irish Mirror reported fans had spent a total of $35.5 million on tickets, with over 200,000 hotel rooms booked for what was to be the start of a mid-summer comeback tour that would kick off in Dublin’s 83,000-capacity Croke Park Stadium later this month.

The issue has now made it into both houses of Ireland's Parliament, where bills are under consideration to ensure similar debacles do not occur again. 

Meanwhile, the announced cancellations have blown up Irish social media.  

@joancooke5 We all hate Garth Brooks. And his fans. And Croke Park residents. And Aiken Promotions. And Dublin City Council. Welcome back!

— Aoife Martin (@aoifemrtn) July 9, 2014

@Herdotie Hope that small minority are happy now Ireland is a laughing stock re Tourism!

— Gemma (@GG_jemma) July 8, 2014

@McWill99 were the laughing stock again

— darren muphy (@darrmurf) July 9, 2014

Facebook was filled with angry fans.

Licenses for Monday and Tuesday night concerts were rejected because the city noted said five nights of concerts would be "an over intensification of use of the stadium."

Brooks released a statement saying he would only "play five shows or none at all," explaining that to "choose which shows to do and which shows not to do, would be like asking to choose one child over another."

While Ticketmaster will honor refunds for the 400,000 tickets purchased, the city of Dublin is out about $68 million from the botched deal, Irish senator Averil Power told FOX411.

"The cancelation of the concerts has been a massive disappointment to the Garth Brooks fans here, and it's also been a disaster for the city of Dublin," Power added.

The shows entailed 22 truckloads of equipment, video equipment, and a large set, and couldn't be moved to another venue in Dublin.

Ireland Councillor Nial Ring tells Fox that Brooks' decision to cancel all five shows was for the singer's own financial reasons:

"Garth Brooks hasn't been here in 17 years and if he loves his Irish fans then why is he pulling out of these concerts?" Ring asked. "He says it's because he doesn't want to disappoint some fans but quite frankly, I don't buy that. I have no doubt that his accountants and the money people behind him had done the numbers and I believe he would have made money [from fewer shows]. Three would have been enough and the five would have been enough to pay off the national debt of Ireland."

But a source argues to The Daily Mail:

"When Garth was told that there was going to be five dates, he decided to pump money into the production for the live shows ... Every cent that he would have made from the first three nights was ploughed straight into the staging, the lighting and the rigging. He had ordered graphics and custom-built screens. It was going to be a show of a lifetime and all 400,000 fans were going to see something special.

'This has nothing to do with greed for Garth. This has to do with a decision he made to put on a series of concerts that would have been unrivaled in the history of country music. He is not a charity and for these gigs to have made money, he would have had to play the five dates."

Concert promoter Peter Aiken is quoted in the Daily Mail as defending Brooks for "sticking by his principles."

"It's the right decision. We are devastated, it was going to be the biggest musical event, there will never be another artist in my lifetime that's going to do 400,000 tickets and I don't know where the position is with Garth Brooks coming back to Ireland. There will be flak, you'll take flak, I'll take the flak but it's the right decision. He is devastated, he's down for millions in this deal, if it was any other artist maybe they'd say let's play the three and recoup some money."

SEE ALSO: Beyoncé And Jay Z's 'On The Run' Tour Prove They're The Ultimate Concert Duo

AND: Why ABBA Turned Down $1 Billion To Reunite In 2000

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If you tuned in to "The Colbert Report" on June 4, you would have seen host Stephen Colbert flip Amazon the bird for waging an online war against the publishing house Hachette. 

Colbert, whose books are published by Hachette, had reason to be angry.

After the two companies failed to reach a deal regarding their e-book sales strategy, Amazon blocked preorder sales of Hachette books on its site. Amazon even tweaked its recommendation feature to skew towards non-Hachette authors and ordered fewer copies of Hachette books, which led to shipping delays.

But for one Hachette author, the outlook was about to get a whole lot sunnier. 

Later on in the June 4 show, Colbert interviewed Hachette author Sherman Alexie, whom he asked to recommend a book by an author who was being hurt by Amazon's attack on Hachette.

Alexie chose "California," a post-apocalyptic romance by debut author Edan Lepucki. 

"I felt pure amazement," Lepucki said to Business Insider on seeing her book on the show. "I was flabbergasted and couldn't believe it. I still can't believe it." 

Colbert told his viewers to go to his site, where they could preorder Lepucki's book from Portland-based independent booksellers Powell's Books. 

"We're going to prove that I can sell more books than Amazon," Colbert said in the segment. 

And sell books they did — thanks to the "Colbert bump," "California" was soon Powell's top book. During a recent trip to Powell's, Lepucki spent three days signing a whopping 10,000 copies of her novel. It's been named one of the summer's hottest reads by The Chicago Tribune, The New York Post, and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, among others. 

According to the New York Times, Hachette originally planned for a first printing of 12,000 copies. They ended up printing 60,000 hardcovers.

And ironically enough, Amazon's editors named "California" as one of their top picks for the month of July, despite the fact that the site had blocked customers from buying it on the site before its official July 8 release date. 

"It's nice to be the beneficiary of the dispute, but there are a lot of authors out there who aren't benefiting from it," Lepucki said, adding that many have compared her to the one stuffed alien chosen by "the Claw" in the famous scene from "Toy Story." 

As the fight between Amazon and Hachette continues, many authors worry about how their industry will change, and whether their interests will be well represented as a result. 

According to The New York Times, Amazon wants to start charging Hachette for a number of services, including personalized recommendations, an Amazon employee dedicated to handling Hachette books, and the infamous preorder button. There's also the ongoing debate regarding ebook prices.

"Even if you're not a Hachette author, there's a lot of general anxiety about unresolved issues. This case is dictating how the publishing industry will go forward," Lepucki said. "Hachette is just the first publisher whose contract is up."

Preorder sales are extremely important to building up hype for a book. Colbert wanted to focus his attention on a new Hachette author in part because they're the ones hit hardest by Amazon's removal of the preorder button. 

"Authors are part of the discussion, but we're not at the table," Lepucki said. "Amazon is such a big player in publishing, but a lot of authors feel this connection to their publishing house and their editors who helped them get their books out there, so their loyalties tend to go that way."

There's another interesting twist to Lepucki's story: her husband, Patrick Brown, is the director of author marketing at Goodreads, which was acquired by Amazon in 2013. Lepucki insists, however, that the Hachette-Amazon fight hasn't caused tension at home. 

"We both come from the independent bookstore world. Goodreads still feels like Goodreads to me," she said. "I don't shop at Amazon, but I use Goodreads."

Before Colbert rallied behind her book, Lepucki's publicist had planned a relatively small book tour, with stops in the East Bay, Los Angeles, New York City, and Boston. 

"After the Colbert thing, there was more interest, more presales, and multiple printings, and the independent bookstores kind of rallied behind us," she said. "Now I can't even count the cities we're going to, it's too crazy." 

Despite all of the attention, Lepucki remains remarkably modest.

"I've worked in bookstores, so I'm totally prepared for no one to come," she said. 

We've got a feeling that isn't going to happen. 

Watch the Colbert Report clip:

SEE ALSO: Here's What LG's Controversial New Jersey Headquarters Could Look Like

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