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Colorado amendments could exempt open source OSes, code repos, and containers

The prospect of OS-level age checks applying to open source systems is a serious concern for FOSS advocates. Campaigners appear to have secured proposed exemptions for open source operating systems, code repositories, and containers in one US state, but stricter federal legislation has already been introduced in Congress.…

Dungeon Crawler Carl is coming to life in a television series! This news sparked joy among fans of the books who are looking forward to the next installment of this adventure later this year. If you’re one of them and wanting to get your next LitRPG fix, then you’re in luck. LitRPG, while fairly new to the traditional publishing industry, is a long-established genre with thousands of books to its name. There are many different directions to go when you begin your exploration of more books like Dungeon Crawler Carl, but we recommend these seven books specifically.

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DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL TV Series Officially Happening at Peacock He Who Fights With Monsters (He Who Fights With Monsters #1) Aethon Books

If you enjoyed Dungeon Crawler Carl, the next series on your list should be He Who Fights With Monsters. This list is in no particular order, except for this one—He Who Fights With Monsters is definitely #1. Jason Asano is an unremarkable middle-manager at an office supply store, but his life is turned upside down when he wakes up in a new world, naked (and hairless?) as the day he was born. Jason faces everything from hamsters to cannibal cultists as he fails upwards, towards adventure, glory, and a decent character build. Hopefully.

He Who Fights with Monsters has a tone similar to Dungeon Crawler Carl. But Jason is his own man. The humor is substantially cleaner, and he lacks some of Carl’s grit, subbed out for an adorable and relatable ‘aw shucks’ness. Grab your “I WENT TO A MAGICAL ALTERNATE UNIVERSE AND ALL I GOT WAS VAST COSMIC POWER” shirts and your star-studded cloaks, because Jason and company are eleven books into their grand quest. AND there’s a cat! Though Gary is a bit bigger than Donut…

Something (Full Murderhobo #1) Mountaindale Press

In the world of Full Murderhobo, once you gain your class, you are tossed in a time dilation portal to train for a decade in your chosen class, by an expert (or experts) of said class. This is due to the Royal Decree. At seventeen, all teens must be tested for something called “potential.” Andre, Taylor, and Zed all test high—their fourth, Luke, barely ranks. Still, they’re all sent to train and given mentors.

Except Luke. Luke gets no mentors, and instead he gets forty years in Murder World. Follow him as he does the only thing he really can do: go full murderhobo. 

There is a sense of humor in this series, but it also handles its serious moments quite well. While the title is a joke of sorts (a reference to a ‘murderhobo’ style of D&D player, basically they just kill everyone they come in contact with, possibly including their own party), there’s plenty of dark and bloody action to go around in this trilogy’s introduction.

Catharsis (Awaken: Online #1) Amazon Digital Services

Now we head more in the direction of sci-fi and the near future, with a large helping of fantasy splattered over everything—an excellent combination for a LitRPG! Awaken: Online has been praised for its frenetic pace and knife’s edge suspense that keeps readers coming back for more. For twelve volumes, in fact!

Jason (another one!) is an isolated, bullied young man who finds his escape in video games. In the year 2076, a new VR game—the first of its kind—hits the market, and Jason may have found his greatest escape of all.

Sufficiently Advanced Magic (Arcane Ascension #1) Andrew Rowe

If you like your LitRPGs to focus heavily on a unique magic system, and then exploit and manipulate that system to the point of breaking it (but not quite), then you’ll like the Arcane Ascension series. Sufficiently Advanced Magic mixes standard LitRPG tropes with some of my favorite magic school tropes to form a vivid, almost anime-like world. It feels somewhere between Final Fantasy and HunterxHunter.

The book follows Corin Cadence of House Cadence, and his attempt to learn magic so that he may follow in the footsteps of his brother Tristan, who was lost to the Serpent Spire five years prior. Lost—but not confirmed to be dead. Corin makes it his mission to conquer the towering dungeon and find his older brother, no matter the cost. 

Cat Core (Cat Core #1) Dean Henegar

Imagine the most faux-Christian, judgmental, insufferable, Southern old lady you’ve ever met. Now imagine she has one redeeming quality: she loves cats. Maybe she loves them too much, considering there is eighteen of them. That’s a decent picture of Ms. Florence Valentine, a cat-lady and widow in her 80s. Florence dies in the opening pages of Cat Core, and is reconstituted in the ‘afterlife’ as a dungeon core, a magic floating gem that controls the realm of their dungeon, typically using mana. 

‘Dungeoncore’ is a distinct subgenre of LitRPGs. Rather than following an adventurer, they focus on the dungeons themselves. If you’re a fan of sapient places, this is the perfect flavor of LitRPG for you. Florence, assisted by her alien preceptor ‘Doug’, begins to construct her dungeon. Doug quickly realizes that Florence will not listen to him no matter what he says, as she spends all of her mana on remaking her old furniture and creating new kitties for her dungeon. But don’t worry folks—these kitties can kill. And, more importantly, these kitties can respawn. 

Mage Tank (Mage Tank #1) Aethon Books

Would you like to remain dead, or respawn?

1. Life sucks, let me die.
2. Respawn

Many readers who start with Dungeon Crawler Carl will find their way next to Mage Tank, a series chronicling the second life of Arlo. A bike accident sends our protag straight to the afterlife where he can choose to fade into oblivion, or respawn in a new “zone.” Being a protagonist, Arlo of course chooses to respawn and shenanigans ensue. This one has a very similar sense of humor and tone as DCC—Arlo mentions dicks in the first few paragraphs. You’ll feel right at home in this potty-mouthed slow-burn progression fantasy. 

 Ritualist (The Completionist Chronicles, Book #1) Mountaindale Press

And rounding out the list, we have another series written by the ever-prolific Dakota Krout. The Completionist Chronicles follow the tale of Joe, an ex-chopper medic who was paralyzed in the line of duty. Once rendered a quadriplegic, Joe chooses to have his consciousness uploaded into a hyper advanced video game. While his character isn’t what he would have picked for himself, he soon discovers a secret class, The Ritualist. It has the potential to make or break his second chance at life. 

It doesn’t reach the depths of sadness of Dungeon Crawler Carl, but compels in a similar way. Just ignore the weird opening with Elon Musk, and you should have a chill, good time with this read.

Where Can I Find LitRPG Stories Like Dungeon Crawler Carl?

There’s a LitRPG out there for everyone. If you’d like to explore everything the genre has to offer, there’s no place better to start than Royal Road, where many of the now-famous LitRPG authors got their start. And, with the genre gaining more traction than ever in the wake of Dungeon Crawler Carl, keep an eye on the shelves of your local bookstore. You never know what adventure might be just right around the corner.

This post has affiliate links, which means we may earn advertising money if you buy something. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, we just have to give you the heads up for legal reasons. Click away!

The post 7 LitRPGs to Read If You Loved DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL appeared first on Nerdist.

Devin Nunes was not an obvious choice to run a fledgling social media network, but after $1.1 billion in losses, the former dairy farmer and congressman is out as the head of Truth Social.

Donald Trump Jr., a board member at Trump Media + Technology, the parent company of Truth Social, said on Tuesday night that Nunes would be replaced by another executive who formerly worked at Hulu. Nunes confirmed the move in a Truth Social post of his own.

The company, which is majority owned by Donald Trump, has seen its stock plummet 84 percent under Nunes’ leadership, from its debut price of $58 back in 2024. The current share price of around $9.80 is arguably still optimistic for a company that has lost $1.1 billion since it went public, and recorded just over $10.6 million in revenue in the same time.

Even as the company struggled, Nunes prospered. In 2024 alone, his pay outstripped any revenue the company has made over its lifetime—he drew a salary of $1 million, a bonus of $600,000 and was awarded stock worth another $46 million.

To be fair to Nunes, he was asked to oversee a company that despite having one of thet world’s most recognizable faces as its power user, had a remarkably scattershot approach to everything.

When Trump Media was first announced as a concept, the Trump family said it would include: Truth Social, streaming television services to rival Netflix and Amazon and web-hosting that would rival Amazon’s AWS business. And all of it would be devoted to fighting the “woke” media and corporate culture that Trump said had blacklisted him following Jan. 6. Truth Social would be a redoubt for freedom of speech, the streaming services would have wholesome non-“woke” content that America craved and the web-hosting would provide a home for any company that dared to challenge Amazon’s alleged anti-free speech motivations.

Of those grand dreams, under Nunes, Trump Media managed to launch Truth Social and a tepid streaming service, that runs for free and mostly provides content that is also free on YouTube. Truth Social may have as few as several hundred thousand daily active users, while Elon Musk’s X is estimated to have around 224 million. Those kind of numbers place it firmly in 24th place among social media companies, a few spots behind YouTube Kids.

That’s not how things were supposed to go. At its launch, a slide presentation distributed to investors and filed with the SEC suggested that by 2026, the company expected to have about $3.3 billion in revenue, 40 million users on Truth Social and another 81 million spread across the company’s other services.

Under Nunes, the company has, instead, struck out in seemingly random directions. It has, among other things, launched:

• “Personal freedom” oriented ETFs.
• A crypto “token”—a non-tradeable blockchain-based digital asset which, despite having no value, is slated to be given to shareholders and would grant them discounts on the company’s products.
• A Bitcoin treasury: following in the footsteps of controversial Bitcoin evangelist Michael Saylor, Trump Media announced in 2025 that it would begin accumulating as many Bitcoins as possible, based on the theory that Bitcoin’s precipitous increase in value would also make the company more valuable.

The last initiative, which was announced in May of 2025, a few months before a massive decline in Bitcoin prices kicked in, is responsible for most of the $712 million in losses. The company had purchased roughly $2.5 billion in bitcoin, and the latest data suggests that after declines in the price of Bitcoin and sale of some of the company’s Bitcoins, the treasury is now worth just $753 million.

Trump Media’s boldest move under Nunes might have been the idea to pivot to nuclear power—specifically the largely experimental method of nuclear fusion. In nuclear fission, which is the method used for decades, atoms are split, but in fusion, pushing atoms together generates even greater energy—but the process has never been made commercially viable. In late 2025, Trump Media announced it would be merging with TAE Technologies, a longstanding player in the fusion field, which despite having previously secured funding, was still struggling to build an actual power plant.

The merger, which is supposed to be completed in June, would have made Nunes co-CEO of the social media, streaming, web-hosting, financial products, Bitcoin treasury and nuclear fusion company.

All that is a lot of responsibility for Nunes who began his career working on the family dairy farm in southern California in the early 1990s (he has a degree in agriculture). First elected to Congress in 2003 and served for 19 years, including several as the chairman of the House Intelligence committee, where he and one of his staffers—Kash Patel—became two of Trump’s loudest backers in accusing a “deep state” in the intelligence community of having targeted Trump.

Nunes had no specific experience running a technology company before taking over as CEO of Trump Media, but in 2019 he sued political strategist Liz Mair and two anonymous parody Twitter accounts, including @DevinCow, which purported to be one of the cows on his dairy farm, for defamation. Nunes asked for $250 million in damages, but the case was dismissed.

Nunes confirmed his departure from Trump Media but did not say what he would be doing next. He remains chairman of Trump’s Intelligence Advisory Board.

Google brings Gemini-powered 'auto browse' capabilities to Chrome for enterprise users, letting workers automate tasks like research, data entry, and more.

Happy Earth Day!

Datacenter growth in the US is helping keep aging fossil-fuel plants online longer, slowing the shift to a cleaner grid and worsening air pollution, according to new research from a group of environmental nonprofits.…

Fusion energy has been “20 years away” for decades, but has the science finally caught up? Private investment in fusion companies surged from $10 billion to $15 billion in just months, and the money is coming from places you wouldn’t expect.  Watch as Rebecca Bellan and guest host Tim De Chant sit down with Rachel Slaybaugh, general partner at DCVC on this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast. The trio breaks […]

Users can send messages, photos, videos, links, and emoji reactions in Live Chats.

Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform takes an interesting approach: it is geared for IT and technical users.

AMC’s upcoming adaptation of The Vampire Lestat will adapt Anne Rice’s second novel in her Vampire Chronicles series, with Sam Reid returning as the titular vamp, now a rock star. Joining him is actress Jennifer Ehle as his mother, Gabriella, a vampire herself. In Rice’s 1985 novel, she goes by Gabrielle, but the show’s producers decided to go with the Italian pronunciation, as the character was born in Italy. The character is a fan-favorite, although some racy scenes between Mama Gabriella and her son Lestat in recent The Vampire Lestat trailers have raised some eyebrows. But this problematic relationship actually has its origins in Rice’s books, even if the Interview with the Vampire TV series may be taking things a step further. Join us as we explore the complex bond between Gabriella and Lestat, whether it’s incestual, and all the other complicated nuances of turning your mother into a vampire.AMCDo Lestat and His Mother Gabrielle Have an Incestuous Relationship?

In Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles novels, Lestat’s relationship with his mother is complex. And that’s putting it mildly. While many have read an incestuous vibe between the undead pair, that is not literally the truth of Gabrielle and Lestat’s relationship in the books. And that’s for the simple reason that in Rice’s vampire mythology, her undead don’t have sexual intercourse. In Rice’s world, the blood exchange replaces food as sustenance, replaces drugs as hallucinogens, and replaces sex as pleasure (and procreation). So when Lestat and Gabrielle exchange blood in Interview with the Vampire‘s world, there’s an erotic charge in the text, but it’s not sex in the literal sense.

Alfred A. Knopf/Innovation Comics

Having said that, AMC’s Anne Rice Immortal Universe does not adhere to Rice’s rules in this way. The vampires in the series do have sex in human fashion, and are particularly horny in fact. One scene in the trailer for The Vampire Lestat shows Gabriella definitely touching her son, in an area where a mother should never touch her adult child. But this is clearly after she’s become a vampire. So does human morality even apply to them anymore? After all, is it any worse than, say, murdering people every night?

To recap, Lestat and Gabrielle have not been officially incestuous in the world of The Vampire Chronicles yet, although their relationship is blurry. But the series may be about to change all of that. Despite the lack of incest, though, Lestat and his mother plainly have always had a very complicated bond, going back to their human days.

The Mortal (and Miserable) Life of Gabrielle de Lioncourt

We are introduced to Gabrielle via the perspective of her son, Lestat. The Vampire Lestat explains how he was born Lestat de Lioncourt, the son of a country lord in the Auvergne in France. Although his father had a large and ancient estate, he’d run out of money years prior. A boorish man, he married a young girl named Gabrielle from Italy, hoping the dowry would help replenish his wealth. In The Vampire Lestat, we learn that Gabrielle was miserable in her life in the castle and hated her cruel husband. She bore him several children, only three of whom lived to adulthood. She had nothing but disdain for her eldest sons, who took after their awful father. But Gabrielle had a special place in her heart for her youngest, Lestat, who was sensitive and smart, and loved the arts.

AMC

When Lestat was 21, around the year 1780, his mother became ill with consumption. Knowing she was dying, she gave him her precious jewels and told him to sell them. She then told him to use the money to run away from home with his lover, Nicolas, and pursue his dream of acting in Paris. Although he was reluctant to leave his dying mother, it was her final wish that he escape and be happy. What Gabrielle didn’t count on was Lestat becoming a vampire while living in Paris.

How Lestat’s Mother Became a Vampire in The Vampire LestatAMC

When Gabrielle knew the end was near, she decided to make one last trip before she died. She went to Paris, hoping to say farewell to her son in person. Lestat was a vampire now and revealed his true nature to his mother. He had never made another vampire before, but asked her on her deathbed if she was willing to become his fledgling. Knowing she would die otherwise, Gabrielle eagerly said yes, and Lestat became the vampiric father to his human mother. Who, in a way, was now his daughter. Vampire family trees are complicated things, folks!

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Gabrielle’s personality shifted almost instantly. Where Lestat only hunted evil doers (most of the time) Gabrielle killed anyone she wanted, with little moral compunction. As she saw it, as a vampire,  she was higher on the food chain. She also began dressing as a man and wearing her long hair in a braid. She always felt powerless as a woman while mortal, uncomfortable in her own body, especially as the laws of the time required her to be subservient to men. And in particular, her cruel husband. Gabrielle, who insisted Lestat call her that name from now on, as “Mother” seemed inappropriate, also had little interest in the human world.

Gabrielle Becomes a Cold and Deadly Immortal

In The Vampire Lestat, Gabrielle constantly talked about hunting bears and other animals in the forest, and simply disconnecting from human life and returning to nature. Lestat, in contrast, remained very connected to humanity. He loved human art, and music, loved performing on stage for humans. He had no interest in living in a forest or jungle. When the ancient Vampire Armand blew up their lives in Paris, Lestat and Gabrielle left and wandered Europe and parts of Egypt for a decade. But even from the start of their journey, Gabrielle would vanish for weeks and months at a time. Although Gabrielle still loved Lestat, their bond was breaking. Things came to a head when Lestat learned she kept the news of their mortal family’s deaths from him, and he told her to leave him for good.

How Lestat and Gabrielle Reunite after 200 YearsAMC

Lestat would lose all contact with Gabrielle for almost two centuries. When he became a rock star in the 1980s, Gabrielle learned her sire/son was alive and well. When Lestat threw his big Halloween Night concert in 1985, the vampire community attacked the show, and Lestat and Louis had to escape. Gabrielle then pulled up in a sports car and rescued her son/father and his lover from the undead mob. Gabrielle tells Lestat that she imagined their reunion a hundred different ways over the centuries. And she never thought it would involve her saving him from a vampire gang at a rock concert.

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INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE’s Overwhelming Queerness Is Revelatory and Queer People Deserve It

After the events of book three, The Queen of the Damned, the surviving vampires form a coven on the luxurious Night Island, belonging to Armand, off the coast of Florida. But as she was known to do, Gabrielle quickly grew restless and wandered off into the world again. Gabrielle would pop in and out of Lestat’s life, making cameos in Rice’s subsequent novels. But she never had a book of her own, and Anne Rice said she never wanted to write one. She said Gabrielle was too cold for her to ever write from her perspective. But as of Rice’s final novel, Blood Communion, Gabrielle and Lestat were on good terms, promising never to go no-contact again.

Anne Rice’s Tragic Inspirations for the Vampire Gabrielle, Lestat’s Mother

Anne Rice went on record several times saying that her characters helped her work through her own personal tragedies. Her daughter Michelle’s death from leukemia at age 6 inspired her to create the child vampire Claudia in Interview with the Vampire. And Rice was at least partially working through the death of her mother with the creation of Lestat’s mother, Gabrielle. Rice’s mother, Katherine O’Brien, was ahead of her time, and named Anne “Howard” when she was born, not believing in gender specific naming conventions. But her mother also suffered from alcoholism and died from its complications at age 42, when Anne was only 15. Lestat saving his Gabrielle’s life and giving her a new one was Rice using writing to fictionalize saving her own unconventional mother via supernatural means.

Is the Vampire Gabrielle a Trans Character?AMC

Fans have often cited Gabrielle as being extremely trans-coded. In The Vampire Lestat, she often lamented being forced to endure the trappings of being a woman, especially as an 18th-century woman. When she becomes a vampire, she dresses in masculine clothing and often passes as a man in a crowd. However, she never changes her pronouns, and Lestat always refers to her as “she.” But were she created today, it’s very possible Anne Rice would have written Gabrielle as a trans man. Perhaps we will see the series pick up these threads to weave a beautiful, representative story.

Gabrielle Becomes Gabriella in AMC’s The Vampire Lestat

We haven’t seen much of actress Jennifer Ehle as Gabrielle, now using the Italian pronunciation of her name, Gabriella, in The Vampire Lestat footage we’ve seen so far. We’ve seen her in the 18th-century flashbacks in period costumes, and some scenes of her at Lestat’s concerts in the modern day. Gabriella seemingly presents as female in the modern day, but looks can be deceiving. She may very well identify as a trans man post-vampirism. And we hope so.

She’s also definitely is doing something naughty with Lestat in a couple scenes from the trailers… including full on kissing him.

AMC

This suggests the producers are taking any incestuous subtext of the novel, and just making it text between mother/child Gabriella and child/father Lestat. We’ll have to wait and see how Gabriella is presented when The Vampire Lestat debuts on AMC this summer.

Interview with the Vampire seasons one and two are now streaming on AMC+.

Originally published March 4, 2026.

The post IWTV: Lestat’s Complex (Icky?) Bond with Mother Gabrielle, Explained appeared first on Nerdist.

The AI Overviews will offer instant summaries pulled from across multiple emails.

Report also slams multiple vendors for poor data integration and egress fees

Workday, Rippling, and Salesforce-owned Slack rank among the worst performers for enterprise data movement, according to a new industry benchmark tracking the speeds needed to power analytics, machine learning, and AI agents.…

The finale of Interview with the Vampire season two had quite the twist, as a flash forward showed the audience that the Vampire Armand (Assad Zaman) had turned the reporter Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian) into a vampire, some time before or after published his interviews with Louis and Armand as a book. We don’t know exactly how and when this happened. It seems to be an act committed more out of spite towards Daniel than love. However, Armand making Daniel a vampire on Interview with the Vampire does have its origins in Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles series of novels.AMC

In the novels, Daniel Molloy doesn’t even have a proper name until the third novel in Rice’s series, The Queen of the Damned. In the 1976 novel Interview with the Vampire, the young reporter was simply referred to as “the Boy.” At the end of that first novel, he ran off, with Louis’ tapes in tow, hoping to find Lestat. In book two, The Vampire Lestat, we find out that the boy had the recordings transcribed and published as the book Interview with the Vampire. A recently reemerged Lestat discovered that his name and much of his life was put on public display for mortals, passed off as fiction. Yet we never learned what became of the young reporter until Rice’s third novel.

“The Story of Daniel, the Devil’s Minion, or the Boy from Interview with the Vampire“ from Queen of the Damned

In 1988’s Queen of the Damned, we learned in Part 1, Chapter 4, a chapter called “The Story of Daniel, the Devil’s Minion, or the Boy from Interview with the Vampire” that the anonymous boy went searching for Lestat after his fateful interview with Louis in San Francisco in 1973. We also now had a proper name for him—Daniel Molloy. Lestat was slumbering at the time of Daniel’s search, and he didn’t find the undead French aristocrat. Instead, the Vampire Armand finds Daniel while he searches for Lestat, during a time when Armand made New Orleans his home. No other vampires lived there, as Lestat had long ago gone to sleep. Armand had “cleaned out” the city of any younger vampires. No one else dared to call New Orleans home at this time, as it was Armand’s territory.

AMC

Scanning Daniel’s thoughts upon encountering him, Armand discovered this young mortal boy knew his name, and his true vampiric nature, and became fascinated. He began stalking him, and no matter what city or country Daniel ran to, Armand would find him. At first, he casually threatened to kill him if he ever published his book. Yet he continued to allow him to live for his own amusement. Then something unexpected happened. After years of cat and mouse, Armand came to actually love the mortal Daniel. Even so, he constantly refused to give him the Dark Gift, no matter how much he begged.

Daniel, Armand, and the Night Island

Many years into their relationship, Armand decided to become “incalculably wealthy.” Using his knowledge of where old ships with treasure lay at the bottom of the ocean, he recruited Daniel, who now saw himself as “the Devil’s Minion,” to help him procure wealth. All while he was asleep during the day. With this fortune, Armand, with forged documents Daniel helped him create, purchased an island off the coast of Florida. Armand turned it into an entertainment and shopping paradise that came alive only after dark called The Night Island.

Armand and Daniel lived at Night Island for years in the Vampire Chronicles. Daniel had everything he wanted from Armand, the finest clothes, the newest cars, all except the one thing he wanted most—to become a vampire himself. However, when Daniel’s life was in danger, on one of the many instances when he would run away from Armand, the 500-year-old vampire gave him what he wanted at last, and turned him. As Armand feared, however, making Daniel a vampire would only serve to drive a bigger wedge between them.

Daniel and Armand in AMC’s Interview with the Vampire AMC

All we know from the AMC Interview with the Vampire series is that sometime after Daniel reveals to Louis the truth about Armand, and how he planned to let his Paris coven execute him along with Claudia, he turns Daniel into a vampire out of spite. (Or so Louis says.) But when did this happen? We don’t know yet. Do Interview with the Vampire‘s Daniel and Armand engage in a relationship similar to the one they had in the books? There doesn’t seem enough time for that intense love/hate relationship to have happened offscreen. Unless there is one further wrinkle to Daniel and Armand’s story that Interview with the Vampire is waiting to spring on us.

We know from episode five of season two of the series, that Armand encountered Daniel back in 1973, interrupting Louis almost killing Daniel. Not only encountered him, but very nearly killed him, and erased his memories of the event. Yet he clearly had a fascination with Daniel, and Interview with the Vampire leaves space for the possibility that the pair had a relationship decades ago. One that Armand then wiped from Daniel’s mind. After all, there is a limited series AMC announced called The Night Island. Could this series, at least in part, involve Interview with the Vampire‘s Armand and Daniel and their relationship?

AMC+

For now, all we know is that when asked to describe what lives between Armand and Daniel, Eric Bogosian, who plays Daniel Molloy shared, “I feel that Armand’s love for Daniel is like when a kid has a stuffed animal, and he drags it around with him for like years until it has one button, and a hole for an eye. And he loves that little stuffed animal. So, it’s as romantic as that can be.” Well, we’ll take it!

There are lots of ways this story could go for Daniel and Armand, and we’re eager to see how Interview with the Vampire tackles this fan-favorite pairing going forward.

Originally published July 1, 2024.

The post The Book Inspirations Behind the Armand/Daniel Vampiric Pairing in INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (And What ‘Devil’s Minion’ Really Means) appeared first on Nerdist.

A version of the below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial.

On Saturday, Donald Trump convened a meeting on the Iran war in the White House situation room. At the table, according to news reports, were Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, envoy Steve Witkoff, Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Missing from this list: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. This was another opportunity for administration officials to snicker that DNI stands for Do Not Invite.

You might wonder what’s the point of having a director of national intelligence who’s routinely not included in major deliberations about national security. Gabbard’s value for Trump is not in her oversight of the 18 agencies in the intelligence community, which is ostensibly her job. Nor in her intelligence experience, which is slight. It is in her willingness to serve Trump’s lust for vengeance against those he deems his political enemies. That includes her enthusiasm for politicizing and weaponizing intelligence to an extent never seen in US history.

Last summer, she did this by releasing highly classified intelligence documents that she claimed proved that President Barack Obama, his CIA chief John Brennan, and other Deep Staters had committed “treason”—a crime punishable by death. She accused them of falsifying intelligence to show that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had covertly intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Trump. The memos clearly did not show that. (Investigations by special counsel Robert Mueller, the Justice Department, and the bipartisan Senate intelligence committee have confirmed Putin attacked that election to boost Trump.)

Here was the top US intelligence official deploying unsubstantiated or phony Russian material—over the objections of CIA officials—to smear an American politician. It was disgraceful.

Gabbard’s stunt was a despicable act of immense gaslighting. And she and Trump each called for Obama, Brennan, and others to be prosecuted. Trump went so far as to post an AI-generated video of FBI agents violently handcuffing and arresting Obama and tossing him into a prison cell. In the video, Obama is on his knees before Trump. Never has intelligence been so abused by an administration for purely political purposes. Gabbard’s move led the Justice Department to mount a criminal investigation of Brennan and others that is ongoing.

At the time, Gabbard also declassified and made public a secret report that cited Russian intelligence material from 2016 that claimed Hillary Clinton suffered from “intensified psycho-emotional problems,” was on a daily regimen of “heavy tranquilizers,” and had schemed to set up the Trump-Russia scandal to distract from her email controversy. But US intelligence analysts and FBI agents had previously judged this Russian material to be unreliable and possibly disinformation. So here was the top US intelligence official deploying unsubstantiated or phony Russian material—over the objections of CIA officials who worried its disclosure could compromise sources and methods—to smear an American politician. It was disgraceful.

Trump loved it. Gabbard had been on the outs with the White House prior to this for several reasons, including her release of a video that implied she opposed military action against Iran. Now Trump proclaimed her a “star.”

Recently, Gabbard was again in the hot seat. In March, the day after her ally Joe Kent resigned as director of the National Counterterrorism Center over the Iran war, Gabbard testified before Congress on threats posed to the United States. Trump, according to Axios, was displeased that Gabbard at this hearing did not wholeheartedly endorse his war in Iran and personally scolded her. He was also apparently mad that she had protected Kent, who had publicly undercut his rationale for the war. (In his resignation letter, Kent said Iran posed no “imminent threat” to the United States.) Trump began asking his top advisers if he should give Gabbard the boot.

Gabbard showed that she had learned the lesson of how to survive in Trumpland: She released more intelligence documents to discredit a Trump foe.

MAGA activist Laura Loomer tweeted that “Tulsi was done” and that the White House was about to show her the door. But this didn’t happen. Roger Stone, the longtime Trump adviser who was found guilty of lying to Congress during the Trump-Russia scandal (and subsequently pardoned by Trump), took credit for interceding with Trump and rescuing Gabbard. Axios quoted “a source familiar with Trump’s thinking” saying, “Roger sealed the deal. He saved Tulsi.”

Whether Stone’s influence mattered or not, Gabbard last week showed that she had learned the lesson of how to survive in Trumpland: She released more intelligence documents to discredit a Trump foe and to reveal yet another purported Deep State conspiracy against the president.

This time, the target was the whistleblower who in 2019 filed a complaint with the intelligence community’s inspector general, Michael Atkinson, about the infamous phone call during which Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to launch investigations to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, who was then running for president, and to prove that Ukraine, not Russia, intervened in the 2016 election. The whistleblower maintained that Trump was “using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 US election.”

Just as Gabbard is trying to airbrush away Putin’s intervention in the 2016 election, she’s now attempting to delegitimize and erase that first impeachment.

When the acting DNI, John Maguire, declined to share this classified complaint with Congress, Atkinson informed Congress of its existence, triggering a brouhaha that soon led to Trump’s first impeachment. 

Trump was not convicted by the Republican-controlled Senate, but he has always been steamed by the impeachment. Just as Gabbard is trying to airbrush away Putin’s intervention in the 2016 election, she’s now attempting to delegitimize and erase that first impeachment.

Last week, she released a handful of documents that she asserted exposed “a coordinated effort by elements within the Intelligence Community (IC), including a former Inspector General (IG), to manufacture a conspiracy that was used as the basis to impeach President Trump in 2019.” She insisted these records show that Atkinson “did not follow standard IG procedures and relied upon politicized, manufactured narratives” and that he took “actions to weaponize the Whistleblower process and exceed his statutory jurisdiction.”

Once more, she insisted that Trump was the victim of a nefarious cabal: “Deep state actors within the Intelligence Community concocted a false narrative that was used by Congress to usurp the will of the American people and impeach the duly-elected President of the United States.”  

Yet again, Gabbard is pulling a big con. The materials she released do not back up the charge that Atkinson mishandled this case, and they certainly don’t prove a narrative was manufactured. In fact, the whistleblower’s complaint was largely confirmed when the Trump White House, under pressure, released a summary of his call with Zelenskyy. And that summary played a more critical role in the impeachment proceedings than the whistleblower’s complaint. During the Trump-Ukraine controversy, Maguire testified that the whistleblower “did the right thing.” Maguire also testified that Atkinson’s handling of the whistleblower complaint was done “by the book” and consistent with the law. 

Gabbard went further then pumping out more disinformation. She sent the Justice Department criminal referrals for Atkinson, who Trump fired in April 2020, and the whistleblower, who has never been officially identified. (Conservative media, Donald Trump Jr., and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul revealed his name during the impeachment.)

A pro-Trump conservative activist who believes Gabbard should be ousted told me that it’s obvious Gabbard is gathering intelligence records she can strategically release when necessary to protect her position.

This is another dangerous action from Gabbard, who once again is abusing intelligence to gin up a criminal case to feed Trump’s revenge fantasy. There is no case here. There was no Deep State plot. This is all about payback—and Gabbard keeping her job.

A few days ago, a pro-Trump conservative activist who believes Gabbard should be ousted told me that it’s obvious Gabbard is gathering intelligence records she can strategically release when necessary to protect her position. This MAGA influencer called this conduct reprehensible, noting that if Gabbard has evidence of Deep State conspiracies, she ought to put it all out.

But none of the material Gabbard has released so far proves the conspiracy theories she’s peddling. As an apparatchik for Dear Leader, she’s misrepresenting once-classified material to set up show trials and demonstrating she will lie and cheat for Trump—and to stay employed. Such a disingenuous DNI is a threat to national security. Nothing she says—in private to the president or in public—can be trusted.

Gabbard’s most recent efforts to deceive the public have not received the media attention they deserve. They ought to be front-page news, for Gabbard also is leading the administration’s effort to find evidence of fraud in the 2020 election. Remember when she was photographed at the Atlanta site when FBI agents seized voting records and machines?

If Gabbard will manufacture false narratives and bogus evidence to support baseless criminal prosecutions of supposed Deep State conspirators and Trump critics, what might she do to cook up proof of Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 elections or to concoct phony evidence of fraud in the coming midterm elections?

Gabbard is a careerist chameleon. In 2018, as I revealed last year, she spoke at the Bernie Sanders Institute and slammed Trump as a supporter of “genocidal war.” In 2019, when she was running for president as a progressive Democrat, she blasted Trump for being “on the brink of launching us into a very stupid and costly war with Iran.” Now she’s a Trump loyalist. She clearly will flip positions and jettison supposed principles to attain power. And she has demonstrated she’s willing to go far beyond that.

Gabbard may not be in the room when the big decisions about war are being made. But she’s prosecuting her own war on the truth to score retaliation for Trump. To date, her war has targeted a handful of people whom Trump craves to see crushed. But with her focus also on elections, it’s a war that could affect the future of American democracy.

Still here, still changing, still relevant, still your best choice

If you're stuck without access to tech support – say, half way to the Moon – then you're better off with a single install of Thunderbird than any number of Outlooks.…

Few cartoon families are quite as iconic as the Simpsons. We’ve laughed at their jokes for decades and followed along for every chaotic adventure. Announced just in time for World Simpsons Day on April 19, the famous family will soon star in their very own art exhibition for the first time. The Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University announced that “The Art of the Simpsons” opens later this year. The unique exhibition features original illustrations of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and other iconic Springfield regulars. It opens on November 18, 2026 as part of the museum’s 10th Anniversary celebration. Hilbert Museum Collection

The Simpsons are about as memorable as they come. The long-running show has gifted us with countless hilarious moments and even has a reputation of predicting the future. Celebrating 39 years of The Simpsons, the “The Art of the Simpsons” showcases original illustrations and production cels of the many iconic characters created by Matt Groening and drawn by Fox Television Animation animators.

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Pictured above is one of the original illustrations featured in the exhibition. It shows Homer and Marge screaming side by side, no doubt caused by whatever hectic happenings are going down in Spingfield. The collection places the famous TV family under a different lens, letting fans experience The Simpsons like never before.

The Hilbert Museum in Orange County, California specializes in California narrative art. The Hilbert Collection boasts a vast selection of original animation and movie art holdings, including works created for Disney, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel, Sesame Street, and others. The museum is open five days a week and free for all visitors.

Hilbert Museum Collection

The Simpsons first aired on December 17, 1989. The series celebrated its 800th episode in February of this year. With no end in sight, The Simpsons might very well outlive us all.

The post THE SIMPSONS to Star in Their Own Art Exhibition This Fall appeared first on Nerdist.

The Vampire Lestat has thousands of fans, but he wants MILLIONS, no, BILLIONS of them. And you know what, if this trailer for The Vampire Lestat is any indication, he is about to GET his wish. We have to say this: The Vampire Lestat trailer might be the best one we’ve seen all year. If Interview with the Vampire was a slowly unfurling, operatic play of the highest degree, then The Vampire Lestat is all explosive intensity, pure emotion, and unadulterated FUN. This is the kind of trailer and series that fans who have been in fandom a LONG time can only dream of. Full camp, full queer, full tangled mess of relationships. It scratches every itch, claws them with vampiric nails. Get ready to bow to your new god and check out The Vampire Lestat‘s trailer below.

It’s incredible how well AMC’s Immortal Universe has captured the difference in kind between the stories of Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat. Because, looking back on this trailer vs. having just rewatched a whole lot of Interview with the Vampire, I am struck by the same exact juxtaposition I was when I first read both novels. Interview with the Vampire is beautiful and melancholy; dense and full of ennui. The Vampire Lestat is no less angsty, but it has SPEED. Lestat is moving, he’s rocking and rolling, he’s taking over the world, and he’s doing it to a catchy beat.

AMC+

As we said, this The Vampire Lestat trailer has it ALL, not the least of which is Armand, in all his beautiful, big-eyed glory, in a scene with Daniel. And the crowd (ArmanDaniel/Devil’s Minion defenders) goes WILD.

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Of course, we can FEEL the tension between Lestat and Louis in every turn of this The Vampire Lestat trailer. We want them to just figure it out and be happy. But let’s be real, we wouldn’t trade the dramatic blow-outs and single blood tears for ANYTHING.

AMC+AMC+

We also were rocking out to Lestat’s (Sam Reid) rendition of Billy Idol’s song, “Dancing With Myself.” So far, we’ve loved every single one of Lestat’s original hits. But a cover song here and there soothes the soul. And this one is SO GOOD.

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A release shared with the trailer notes, “The wild and captivating next chapter in Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe follows Lestat as the world’s first immortal rock star on an electric multi-city tour, while he’s haunted by “muses” from his rebellious past.” In addition to Sam Reid, The Vampire Lestat stars Jacob Anderson, Assad Zaman, Eric Bogosian, Delainey Hayles and, Jennifer Ehle and is executive produced by award-winning producer Mark Johnson, creator, writer and showrunner Rolin Jones, Hannah Moscovitch, along with Christopher Rice and the late Anne Rice. 

AMC+AMC+

The Vampire Lestat premieres Sunday, June 7 at 9pm ET/PT on AMC and AMC+. Interview with the Vampire seasons one and two are now streaming on AMC+.

This post has affiliate links, which means we may earn advertising money if you buy something. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, we just have to give you the heads up for legal reasons. Click away!

The post THE VAMPIRE LESTAT Trailer Is the BEST ONE WE’VE SEEN ALL YEAR appeared first on Nerdist.

A majority of American adults say that the US House should vote to impeach President Trump—including one-in-five people who voted for him in 2024.

A new poll by Strength in Numbers, a data-based news website, and the market research platform Verasight found that 55 percent of respondents said they support the US House voting for impeachment. Out of the 1,514 Americans surveyed between April 10 and April 14, 37 percent said they opposed and eight percent reported they were unsure.

While this is just one poll in a collection of many, it is clear that Trump’s approval ratings are sinking. The New York Times’ daily average of dozens of polls has the president at a 38 percent approval rating. On January 27, 2025, the first average calculated following Inauguration Day, the Times recorded Trump’s approval rating at 52 percent. 

The numbers are striking, but there are few avenues for popular sentiment to achieve tangible results in Washington. There have been numerous calls from lawmakers to impeach and convict Trump or invoke the 25th Amendment, especially following his threats of genocide against the people of Iran. But they appear unlikely to succeed given the Republican majorities in the US House and Senate, as well as large support from his cabinet.

However, as I wrote on Sunday about Trump’s approval rating falling to its lowest point of his second term, if Americans see the upcoming midterms as a referendum on the failures of the current administration, then it could swing elections across the country.

The company's all-important mass-market EV is just about ready to start heading to customers.

The cosmetics retailer, which counts 41 million customers in its membership data, declined to provide an accurate total number of customers affected.

'I think this might be one of my greatest hacks of all time,' says dev behind unholy abomination

The Windows Subsystem for Linux is an invaluable tool, but anyone wanting to run it on a Windows 9x system would find themselves out of luck until now.…