#UK A DJ mixed 50 of this year’s biggest pop hits into one sick mashup

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dj earwormDJ Earworm just released his annual mashup — and not surprisingly, it’s totally catchy. 

This year’s version is entitled “United State of Pop 2015 (50 Shades of Pop).” We can only imagine the title is a reference to 2015’s “Fifty Shades of Grey,” as several songs from the film are featured in Earworm’s 2015 creation. 

From Adele’s “Hello” to “Earned It” and “Can’t Feel My Face” from The Weeknd, you’re sure to recognize some of this years biggest hits. The tracks DJ Earworm sampled are the most popular songs in the U.S., according to Billboard’s weekly Hot 100 charts, explains the mashup’s caption on YouTube

Check it out here

And here’s a complete list of the 50 different songs featured in the mashup. Good luck finding them all. 

Adele – Hello
AlunaGeorge and DJ Snake – You Know You Like It
Andy Grammer – Honey, I’m Good.
Ariana Grande ft. The Weeknd – Love Me Harder
Big Sean ft. E-40 – I Don’t F*** With You
David Guetta ft. Nicki Minaj & Afrojack – Hey Mama
Demi Lovato – Cool For The Summer
Drake – Hotline Bling
Ed Sheeran – Photograph
Ed Sheeran – Thinking Out Loud
Ellie Goulding – Love Me Like You Do
Fall Out Boy – Centuries
Fetty Wap – Trap Queen
Fetty Wap ft. Remy Boyz – 679
Fifth Harmony ft. Kid Ink – Worth It
Flo Rida ft. Sage The Gemini – GDFR
Jason Derulo – Want To Want Me
Justin Bieber – Sorry
Justin Bieber – What Do You Mean
Major Lazer ft. MO & DJ Snake – Lean On
Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars – Uptown Funk
Maroon 5 – Sugar
Meghan Trainor – Lips Are Movin
Meghan Trainor ft. John Legend – Like I’m Gonna Lose You
Natalie La Rose ft. Jeremih – Somebody
Nick Jonas – Jealous
Nicki Minaj ft. Drake & Lil Wayne – Truffle Butter
Omarion ft. Chris Brown & Jhene Aiko – Post To Be
OMI – Cheerleader (Felix Jaehn Remix)
One Direction – Drag Me Down
Pitbull ft. Ne-Yo – Time Of Our Lives
R. City ft. Adam Levine – Locked Away
Rachel Platten – Fight Song
Rihanna – Bitch Better Have My Money
Rihanna ft. Kanye West & Paul McCartney – Four Five Seconds
Sam Smith – I’m Not The Only One
Selena Gomez ft. A$AP Rocky – Good For You
Shawn Mendes – Stitches
SIlento – Watch Me
Skrillex & Diplo ft. Justin Bieber – Where Are U Now
Taylor Swift – Blank Space
Taylor Swift – Style
Taylor Swift – Bad Blood
Taylor Swift – Wildest Dreams
Tove Lo – Talking Body
Walk The Moon – Shut Up And Dance
Wiz Khalifa ft. Charlie Puth – See You Again
The Weeknd – Earned It
The Weeknd – The Hills
The Weeknd – Can’t Feel My Face

 

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#UK College Football Playoff: 9 teams are still alive

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The latest College Football Playoff ranking is out and the top four are unchanged, with Clemson and Alabama still holding on to the top spots, followed by Oklahoma and Iowa. Meanwhile, with conference championship games looming, five other teams still have a shot to make it into the playoff.

Over at FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver’s model has simulated the rest of the season thousands of times and thanks to no title game in the Big 12, Oklahoma now has a 99% chance (up from 64% a week ago) to take one of the four playoff spots. Alabama, who will play Florida in the SEC championship game, is next at 79%.

Meanwhile, Iowa (40%) and Michigan State (61%) will face off in the Big Ten title game, which is now effectively a play-in game for the playoff, with Silver giving the Spartans the edge. To a lesser extent, Clemson (77%) and North Carolina (14%), meeting in the ACC championship game, may also be a play-in game if the Tar Heels can do enough to impress the committee.

Here are the nine schools still alive and their chances to be one of the four teams selected for the playoffs.

College Football Playoff

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#UK A professor has calculated how much blowing up the Death Star in ‘Star Wars’ would set back gross galactic product

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death star

Major geopolitical events have often been followed by volatility in the economy and financial markets.

World War II helped to shake the US out of the Great Depression. The Civil War set the economy of the Southern US back for generations.

Now you can add to those annals of financial catastrophes the Rebel Alliance’s destruction of the Galactic Empire’s Death Star.

Zachary Feinstein, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, published a study of the financial impact of the events in the Star Wars films on the economy of the fictional galaxy.

With tongue almost certainly in cheek, Feinstein wrote the paper exactly as you would any other academic finding.

“In this paper we study the financial repercussions of the destruction of two fully armed and operational moon-sized battle stations (“Death Stars”) in a 4-year period and the dissolution of the galactic government in Star Wars,” began the abstract of the study.

“The emphasis of this work is to calibrate and simulate a model of the banking and financial systems within the galaxy. Along these lines, we measure the level of systemic risk that may have been generated by the death of Emperor Palpatine and the destruction of the second Death Star.”

With full on footnotes and in-text citations to “Lucas” and “Kershner” (the screenwriters of Star Wars, George and Irvin respectively), Feinstein found that the destruction of the Death Stars and collapse of the Galactic Empire would throw the galactic economy into chaos.

“In this case study we found that the Rebel Alliance would need to prepare a bailout of at least 15%, and likely at least 20%, of [Gross Galactic Product] in order to mitigate the systemic risks and the sudden and catastrophic economic collapse,” said the study. “Without such funds at the ready, it likely the Galactic economy would enter an economic depression of astronomical proportions.”

The scale of the Galactic economy, as modeled by Feinstein, is massive. Average Gross Galactic Product, similar to our GDP, during the 20 year reign of the Empire is around $4.6 sextillion a year. For reference, a sextillion is a 1 followed by 21 zeros (in the US) and 59 million times the Earth’s 2014 GDP.

Feinstein estimates that based on the cost of building the Death Stars, loans from the Galactic Banking system and a fiscally conservative Emperor, the government would default on $515.5 quintillion (1 and 18 zeroes in the US) in bonds.

This would then cause the galactic banking system to collapse, necessitating a bailout as over 1,700 banks would be “too big to fail.”

As mentioned by Feinstein, this would again be a problem as the central government structure would most likely collapse after the death of the Emperor and the “scrappy underdogs”, as Feinstein says, of the Rebel Alliance would be unlikely to pick up the slack.

Based on all of this analysis, maybe we should have been rooting for Darth Vader after all.

SEE ALSO: From Mariah Carey to 10-month-old pizza sauce — here are the oddest things execs told investors

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#UK 24 incredible underground attractions to visit in your lifetime

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colombia salt cathedral

Some of the world’s most breathtaking travel destinations may be hidden in the ground beneath your feet.

While some are man-made constructions, others are fascinating natural wonders that have been formed over the course of thousands of years. 

We’ve put together a list of 24 subterranean attractions to visit in your lifetime, from a 10,000-year-old cave in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, to a town that built a library, church, bar, and homes underground. 

SEE ALSO: 19 natural wonders everyone should see before they disappear

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Salina Turda, located in Turda, Romania, is home to an underground theme park inside one of the oldest salt mines in the world. Head 400 feet down to reach an amphitheater, bowling alley, mini golf course, ping pong courts, Ferris wheel, and an underground lake with row boats.

Click here to learn more about Salina Turda »

St. Michael’s Cave is a network of limestone caves situated in the Upper Rock Nature Reserve of Gibraltar. The cave has been used as a theater since the early ’60s and has a seating capacity of 400.

Click here to learn more about St. Michael’s Cave »

Bounce Below is a set of three giant trampolines nestled inside the Llechwedd Slate Caverns — a former Victorian slate mine in Blaenau Ffestiniog, North Wales. It was created by Zip World, a company specializing in adventure activities.

Click here to learn more about Bounce Below »

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#UK Benzema says victim of ‘persecution’ in sex-tape case

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Real Madrid's French forward Karim Benzema, pictured on November 7, 2015, has been charged with complicity to blackmail and conspiring to commit a criminal act

Paris (AFP) – Karim Benzema claimed Wednesday that he was a victim of “persecution” in the sex-tape blackmail case which has rocked French football.

“It is persecution,” the Real Madrid star told French broadcaster TF1.

“They are accusing me, they are dragging my name through the mud as if I was a criminal. These are horrible things.”

Benzema, 27, has been charged with complicity to blackmail and conspiring to commit a criminal act for his alleged participation in a blackmail case involving international teammate Mathieu Valbuena over a sex-tape.

The charges carry a maximum five years prison sentence.

Earlier, Benzema said his go-between role in the case had been misunderstood.

“I spoke with the heart with Mathieu Valbuena. When I head abouy blackmail, that we demanded money, it makes me mad — I don’t need money,” Benzema added in his TV interview, his first public statement on the scandal.

“I do not know the blackmailers.”

The blackmail case began in June, when Valbuena lodged a complaint with police after being telephoned by a man who said he had the sex tape.

Four men, including a friend of Benzema, Karim Zenati, were charged.

Benzema is alleged to have approached Valbuena about the images at a France national training camp on October 5.

The former Lyon star says he had no need of money nor did Zenati, as he was employed in one of Benzema’s companies.

A police telephone tap however on Benzema and his calls to Zenati cast doubts on their attitude. 

“I’m mad with myself for having talked that way on the phone, we went too far,” Benzema said of comments that appeared to mock Valbuena.

On the wire tap, Benzema added: “I am sorry I made a joke with my friend. I apologise to him (Valbuena) and his family.”

The scandal is a serious distraction to France before they host Euro 2016 — Benzema is forbidden to have any contact with Valbuena, 31, and neither was called up for France’s recent friendlies against Germany and England.

In sporting terms Benzema is seen as France’s top striker, but Les Bleus have a wealth of other attacking options and a record of leaving trouble-makers out of squads for international tournaments.

On Tuesday, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls suggested only players with exemplary records should represent France at Euro 2016.

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#UK The moment when Twitter switched from feeling ‘dirty’ to changing Alyssa Milano’s world

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Alyssa Milano

Twitter-obsessed actress Alyssa Milano wasn’t in love with the social network when she joined in March 2009.

“I did not get Twitter at all when I first joined Twitter. It felt dirty actually,” Milano said onstage at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Next Gen conference.

“I followed all those celebrities that made Twitter kinda famous but every time they did self promotion it was dirty.”

To understand the social network, the actress, made famous by her roles on “Who’s the Boss?” and “Charmed”, turned away from her peers and started looking at users who had large followings but weren’t famous. 

She realized those people were curators of information, and would only share what they thought interesting. 

I started using Twitter as a platform to share things that are interesting to me and that are important to me,” Milano said.

Her obsession with Twitter began in earnest, though, during the Iran protests in 2009. At its peak, 98 percent of the links on Twitter had to do with the Iranian revolution, according to the Pew Center.

“The thing that really got me just obsessed with Twitter were the protests in Iran. And we were getting real-time information,” Milano said. “To get information unfiltered from the ground in Iran just really rocked my world.”

The actress and entrepreneur now has 3 million followers — more than Bernie Sanders, the political figure that she often retweets. Part of her appeal to fans is her unfettered access and lack of the ‘dirty’ promotional tweets. Instead, she posts about everything from breastfeeding and parenting to her love of sports. 

She views as a little mayor of a community she’s created amongst her followers and wants to share information with that community, she says. Since the Iranian protests played out on Twitter, she’s grown to think of the social network as a tool for change and democratization.

There used to be a time when you needed a leader to create a movement. Now you just need a moment,” Milano said. “A moment can create a movement in social media.”

SEE ALSO: This was the smartest thing 23andMe did to keep it from being practically crushed by the FDA

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#UK Steve Ballmer to Microsoft: Please tell investors your actual cloud revenue numbers (MSFT)

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Steve Ballmer

Microsoft should open up and report its cloud revenue, former CEO Steve Ballmer said at the company’s annual meeting in Bellevue, Washington, reports Bloomberg’s Dina Bass.

“It’s sort of a key metric — if they talk about it as key to the company, they should report it,” Ballmer said.

Microsoft does talk about its cloud progress but it sort of cherry picks the numbers, giving out different user/usage information, revenue or margin information on some of its cloud services and not on others.

In terms of its biggest, most important cloud services, those it sells to businesses which it calls its “commercial” cloud, it only discusses that in terms of “run rate.” That’s the amount of revenue under contract calculated on an annual basis.

Companies tend to sign multi-year cloud contracts but revenue can’t be recognized until it’s billed, so “run-rate” has become a way for a company to show investors that cloud sales are growing even if the actual revenue collected to date is low.

In October, Microsoft said its commercial cloud run rate exceeds $8.2 billion. Last April CEO Satya Nadella vowed to have $20 billion in annual cloud revenue by 2018.

Ballmer, the company’s largest individual investor, doesn’t think disclosing run rate is good enough.

“They should report the revenue, not the run rate,” Ballmer said. Since leaving the CEO job and Microsoft’s board about two years ago, he told Bloomberg he had no guess as to what the company’s total, actual cloud revenues are.

And he would prefer if Microsoft disclosed the profit margin on its cloud, too, because while gross margins for Microsoft’s software is high, it can be lower for cloud services. He wants to see if the cloud is as profitable as software.

There’s good reason for him to push Microsoft like this.

As Business Insider previously reported, Microsoft sales people can convince customers to add cloud services to their big, sweeping enterprise software contracts, even if those customers have no intention of using the cloud.

This allows Microsoft to report cloud growth even when those customers generate little to no actual billed revenue. 

Sources have told Business Insider that Nadella has since been pushing sales people not to tack cloud services onto enterprise contracts but to focus on “consumption,” i.e. getting customers to use Microsoft’s cloud.

We understand that this push is working well and consumption is rising. But, as Ballmer points out, Microsoft has yet to report actual commercial cloud revenue numbers.

Microsoft’s investor relations spokesperson Chris Suh tells us the company is listening to Ballmer, saying. “We enjoy a regular dialogue with Steve, and welcome his input and feedback, as we do from our other investors.”

SEE ALSO: 50 enterprise startups to bet your career on in 2016

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#UK ‘Carol’ dominates New York Film Critics Circle Awards

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This photo provided by The Weinstein Company shows, Rooney Mara, left, as Therese Belivet, and Cate Blanchett, as Carol Aird, in a scene from the film,

NEW YORK (AP) — Todd Haynes’ 1950s lesbian romance “Carol” dominated the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, taking best film and a leading four awards overall.

Announcing their picks Wednesday on Twitter, the New York critics voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Patricia Highsmith adaption starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. They also awarded best director for Haynes, best screenplay for Phyllis Nagy and best cinematography for Edward Lachman.

Haynes’ previous ’50s-set film, 2002’s “Far From Heaven,” was also enthusiastically supported by the New York film critics, winning five awards including best film.

Best actor went to Michael Keaton, who plays one of the journalists that make up the ensemble cast of the Boston Globe drama “Spotlight.” Saoirse Ronan earned best actress for her performance as an Irish immigrant in “Brooklyn.”

Kristen Stewart landed best supporting actress for her performance as an actor’s assistant in Olivier Assayas’ “Clouds of Sils Maria.” (Stewart won a Cesar Award for the role earlier this year, the first American actress to win at the French awards.) Best supporting actor went to Mark Rylance, who plays Soviet spy Rudolf Abel in Steven Spielberg’s Cold War drama “Bridge of Spies.”

This year’s Oscar race is seen by many as wide open, and the early results from various groups have done nothing to dispel that. On Monday, “Spotlight” topped the Gotham Independent Awards. On Tuesday, the National Board of Review elected “Mad Max: Fury Road” its best film of the year.

Things continue to heat up over the next week with the Los Angeles Critics Association announcing its awards on Sunday. Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe nominations are also coming next week.

The NYFCC, one of the country’s most influential critics groups, will surely add momentum to the Academy Awards fortunes of “Carol,” which has thus far only played in extremely limited release.

“Timbuktu,” a Mali drama about a village under jihadist control nominated earlier this year for the Oscars, won best foreign language film. Frederick Wiseman’s Queens documentary, “In Jackson Heights,” took best documentary. And Pixar’s “Inside Out” earned best animated film.

The group also announced several special awards, including one for composer Ennio Morricone, who scored Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming “The Hateful Eight,” and another honoring the legacy of William Becker and Janus Films. Becker, who made Janus one of the premiere art-house distributors, died in September.

The awards will be handed out in a ceremony on Jan. 4.

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#UK Mother in Arizona home-confinement trial says kids well fed

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FILE - In this Nov. 13, 2015, file photo, Fernando Richter, left, is seated in the courtroom with his lawyer, Paul Skitzki, as his trial starts at Pima County Superior Court in Tucson, Ariz. Richter, and his wife, Sophia, are accused of keeping Sophia's three children imprisoned in their northside home. The two younger girls escaped in 2013 and ran to a neighbors house to call for help. Officers found the oldest girl locked in a room. They have been charged with child abuse and kidnapping. Fernando faces additional charges.  (Mamta Popat/Arizona Daily Star via AP, File)  ALL LOCAL TELEVISION OUT; PAC-12 OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT; GREEN VALLEY NEWS OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — The prosecution in the case against an Arizona couple accused of holding their three daughters captive said they’ve proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the girls were severely abused, malnourished and trapped inside a Tucson house.

Prosecutor J. Alan Goodwin said there was plenty of evidence to show the girls were held against their will and forced to follow bizarre rules like swaying in place from 2 a.m. until sunrise.

“The girls existed in their room knowing full well that their mother and their stepfather could and would do to them anything they wanted to,” Goodwin said during closing arguments Wednesday. “So they existed knowing that whatever punishment, whatever abuse, whatever neglect their mother and stepfather wanted to inflict on them was something they were just going to have to endure — something that they were just going to have to survive.”

The nearly three-week trial of Sophia and Fernando Richter has been marked by dramatic testimony from the girls, who said they were beaten if they disobeyed their parents’ strict rules. They said they were confined to their rooms and rarely allowed bathroom breaks, forcing them to use their closets instead.

Defense attorney Paul Skitzki, who represents Fernando Richter, said there was no evidence to prove the allegations and that the girls have embellished their stories over time.

Skitzki said the Richters never told the girls they couldn’t leave their rooms or the house, and that Fernando Richter never assaulted the girls with a knife as one of the girls said he did.

“Certainly things were not ideal in this home, but it seems that the girls, based on time passing and everything that came out of this case, seem to have embellished various parts of what was going on in their lives,” Skitzki said. “We know that during that time period the girls were never beaten or whooped for leaving those bedrooms without permission. They were never told that they had to stay in those rooms. They were never punished for leaving those rooms.”

The girls were 12, 13 and 17 when the two younger girls escaped in November 2013 after an encounter with their stepdad. The oldest was kept in a separate bedroom and was removed from the home by police that night.

The Associated Press does not generally name minors who authorities say are victims of crimes.

The Richters each face three counts of kidnapping and child abuse. Fernando Richter also faces two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Sophia Richter took the witness stand on Tuesday, denying the accusations against her.

She said the girls ate well, with diets that included lots of fruit, and they were allowed to leave their rooms. She said she never physically abused the girls.

“They had fruit daily, they had snacks daily. They were never without. I always had fruit for them,” Sophia Richter said.

Her husband did not testify.

The girls testified that they were forced to wake up at 2 a.m. to do marching-like exercises for hours. One said she wasn’t allowed to get off her bed or brush her teeth for lengthy stretches.

The oldest sister described plastic water jugs the girls were given as moldy and the meals they were fed twice a day as rancid.

“It was nasty. Gagging nasty,” she testified. “We would have to lick our plates if we wanted them clean, and if not my mom would just throw more food on it if I didn’t lick it.”

Police say the abuse began in a house in Catalina in nearby Pinal County, where the Richters face separate criminal charges. They pleaded not guilty in both cases.

The defense attorney for Sophia Richter was expected to deliver a closing statement in the afternoon.

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