Today in Tabs: Conscious Detabbing

Facebookis buying Oculus VR for $2 billion. Oculus VR's flagship product, the Oculus Rift, is a virtual reality face-television so dorky that it makes Google Glass look understated and hip. It was initially underwritten by thousands of suckers via Kickstarter, who got oculus stiffed by this deal and who are, to put it mildly, oculus miffed. "Where's our stockulus!?" they wail. "This is just a big oculus grift!" But Kickstarter is a corporate charity platform, where the enthusiastic but deluded can give no-strings-attached money to private concerns, so these complaints seem pretty post-hoculus at this point.

Now that Zuck's got that thing on lockulus, the futuristic shine is off and many are reëvaluating the product's future. Minecraft creator Markus Persson is out. "I definitely want to be a part of VR, but I will not work with Facebook," is not a statement that bodes well for the future of Oculus as a game platform. Opinions were split: Polygon was pretty positive, Alexis Madrigal and Rob Meyercalled VR "the next wave of profits."Josh Topolsky dropped soooo much acid and wrote this Bladerunner fanfic about it. The toenail simulator news team at Buzzfeed called it "Zuckerberg's chance at a moon shot," and an attempt to join the creepy techno-futurist-weirdo CEO club with Larry, Sergei, and Elon.

All of which really makes you stroke your chin and think "hmmmm, they must all be smoking some awesome dope because this is dumbest waste of $2 billion I have ever heard of." Today Jay Basher finally snuck away from his boss long enough to make that point. The Oculus Rift is a ridiculous niche product and this acquisition is completely ridoculus. In closing, just look at this:

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Yup, it's what you think.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin are consciously uncoupling, which I had never heard of before yesterday but immediately thought yes, that is what we do now. But what is it? One one level, who cares? But on another level, Maggie Lange has an explainer in NYMag (with gifs!). Jason O. Gilbert has a Medium post that leads you through what a conscious uncoupling might be like from a user's perspective, as it were. No word yet on whether W Hotels are offering a conscious uncoupling social media concierge as well, but it can't be long.

While his peon was contradicting him about the Dorkulus Rift, Charlie Warzel was playing with the New York Times's new app. His verdict: it's a pretty good app, but $8 a month is steep for a value proposition of “...because we’re the New York Times.” Good luck with it though! Dave Morinimagines a day bucket and a night bucket. Nostrichimagines Dave Morin imagining a bucket. What's a Yummy? Oh no, no no no. Wait, tell me more. Ok no, I was right the first time, never tell me any more about this again forever.

Ghosting Critiqued. This criticism is bad and wrong however. What's the worst part of a relationship? The end!Just like leaving a party is the worst part of the party. Just skip it. All these people thinking they want "closure" are forgetting that closure is literally the worst part. Be glad when you are spared "closure." Just move on.

Danish zoo, running low on animals, starts killing visitors and feeding them to other visitors.

A very minor controversy in college sexiling apps is a dumb subject, but Katie Notopoulos is so damn funny with it anyway. "You may be wondering, why do I need an app to tell my roommate instead of just texting him/her 'dont come in im haping sec?'" Katie you are wasted in... whatever it is you do there. What does Katie do there? She seems to have plenty of free time. Also great: Mallory Ortberg returns with Dirtbag MacBeth, and Myles Tanzertells you what you should be reading.

This story about Hal Finney,Dorian Nakamoto's one-time neighbor and the second-ever user of Bitcoin is just... weird. Bitcoin may simply be a strange impossible vortex of coincidences.

CNN producers are the only people too inept to break in to the World Trade Center site. Redditfunds a Dogecoin NASCAR sponsorship. More pink garbage for girls. Candy Crush maker to IPO at a $7 billion valuation. Sure, I guess, whatever. Man Fails to Die.

Today's Radio Show: Listen to Darius Kazemi and Alexis Madrigal talk bots. (Listen link here)

Today's Song Parody: Tess Paras, Typecast (via Buzzfeed)

~You load fifteen tabs, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt.~

Today in Tabs is late today because AWS makes no damn sense. Seriously Amazon, "EC2,""ESB,""RDS?"Use your words. We can however still be found at Newsweek.com and subscribed to by email. Please forward this newsletter to a friend that you want to kill with terrible puns.