The past two weeks have been fully of juicy news — some good, some bad and some just plain silly. Here are a few stories that caught our attention. In the mix: a popular nationwide protest, a site that reveals what our metadata looks like to the National Security Agency and George Orwell's “telescreen” brought to life.

The Good

1. On July 4, an estimated 20,000 people gave up hot dogs and beer to protest the NSA's warrantless surveillance programs. More than 50 protests across the country were organized  on reddit.
2. A mysterious interface designer based in Japan created the website prism-break.org, a hub for browsers, search engines and other Web tools that don’t track your data. The NSA scandal may put personal cryptography — the art of obscuring your data from prying eyes — back in the spotlight. Who wants to start a crypto party?
3. The French regulatory agency ARCEP won a court battle allowing it to investigate U.S.-based ISPs like AT&T and Verizon. ARCEP is concerned that "quiet battles" between the ISPs and European bandwidth providers may be hurting French consumers and degrading Net Neutrality; similar battles are being fought here at home.
4. A new tool gives you a better handle on how metadata creates a picture of your life. A few guys at the MIT Media Lab put together Immersion, which illustrates your social connections using metadata from your Gmail account.

The Bad

1. The latest Snowden leak is a biggie: It turns out that Microsoft has been providing the NSA with decrypted versions of encrypted emails sent through its Outlook mail service. Oh, and if you’re using Skype — once one of the most secure ways to communicate online — that’s no longer safe, either. Microsoft, which bought Skype in 2011, is allowing the NSA to collect the site’s video and audio conversations, essentially turning our computers into something akin to the always-on "telescreens" from 1984. So much for "Your Privacy Is Our Priority!"
2. As if the social networking site couldn't get any creepier, Facebook launched its new Graph Search last week. This Tumblr says it all regarding the weirdness of this metadata-searching tool, which makes your information more public than ever before. Graph Search went live in the midst of a national conversation about the potential harms of metadata collection.
3. Law professor and Captive Audience author Susan Crawford skewered a cable exec’s plan to dominate the Internet. Big surprise: The scheme involves monopolization and overcharging consumers.

The Absurd

1. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency just released a video of an anthropomorphic robot that moves and responds like us. This is the stuff that gives folks nightmares.
2. Sharknado, a SyFy channel original feature about a shark-filled tornado, took off on social media. This collection of gifs and tweets says it all.