Even paint manufacturers are getting hit by the global supply chain chaos. There is now apparently a shortage of blue paint, or rather the chemicals used to make certain shades of the color. From Yahoo!:

"To make paint you would need between 50 and 60 ingredients," a spokesperson from Dutch paint maker Akzo Nobel explained in a statement to Insider. "Some additives are difficult to get."

The cost of raw materials and other variables needed to make paint increased by over $323 million compared to 2020, according to the company's third quarter results[…]

Other paint manufacturers like Sherwin-Williams are running into similar headwinds as they battle shortages related to the supply chain. Sherwin-Williams told investors in September that the company is facing raw material shortages and that is increasing the overall cost to make paint, according to CNN Business.

_{image: New Africa/Shutterstock.com}

A math teacher at North High School in Riverside, California has been suspended after a student of Native American descent smartly and bravely recorded the videos above and below and shared the clips on social media. From NBC Los Angeles:

The teacher can be heard chanting a term often used to remember trigonometry functions. A spokesperson for the student who recorded the six-minute video spoke with NBCLA Thursday night.

"When I was watching the whole six-minute video, I felt my whole body started to tremble," said Akalei Brown. "There was a physical change within my body watching that."

Brown said the video brings to light what indigenous people face daily.

"This has been going on my whole life," Brown said. "My whole life has been like this, being made fun of. And now, for the first time, people care. They are angry and they see us."

Yes, we do. And now the whole world has seen that teacher too.

In this recent Extra interview, Jerry Seinfeld reveals one of his favorite moments from the Seinfeld TV series. It's a brilliant moment and not a surprise that it's driven by Michael Richards in prime Kramer form—a decade before Richards unleashed a horrible racist rant in the midst of a stand-up set. The entire Dr. Van Nostrand bit tickles me every time just like this similar and hilarious scene in Fletch.

In August, a married couple, their one-year-old daughter, and their dog died under mysterious circumstances while hiking in the Sierra National Forest near Yosemite National Park. After ruling out suicide or murder, authorities explored whether toxic algae or even poisonous gas from nearby mines could have killed them.

Just yesterday though, Mariposa County Sheriff Jeremy Briese announced the cause of their death: hyperthermia, defined by the NIH as "an abnormally high body temperature caused by a failure of the heat-regulating mechanisms of the body to deal with the heat coming from the environment."

Briese noted that an empty 85-ounce water bladder was found with the couple, and no other water containers were present.

"The question of why can never be answered and will remain with us," Chung and Gerrish's family said in a statement. "Our hearts will never forget the beautiful lives of Jonathan, Ellen, Miju, and of course Oski. They will remain with us wherever we go, and whatever we do."

(CNN)

_{image (cropped): King of Hearts (CC BY-SA 3.0)}

In 1982, Garfield came to the small screen for his first TV special, Here Comes Garfield, an Emmy-nominated half-hour cartoon directed by Phil Roman and featuring Lorenzo Music as the beloved feline. Composer Desiree Goyette created the memorable music and also served as the human model for Garfield's movements! Watch the clip above and then rewind to see this entire "PM Magazine" segment on the making of "Here Comes Garfield."

(CartoonBrew via UPSO)

During Spokane CBS affiliate KREM 2's newscast on Sunday, a monitor behind the anchor displayed 13 seconds of a porno movie. (Note the blur in the above screenshot.) The unexpected sight of a woman's derriere so shocked many viewers that they were compelled to call the police.

According to a police statement, "It was a short video segment, generally described as a small portion of the screen, showing a separate image from the newscast of what appeared to be a possibly pornographic or explicit image."

From the Spokesman-Review:

Detectives have yet to determine if the incident was criminal, said Julie Humphreys, a spokesperson for the department. Police said KREM personnel are cooperating with the investigation.

Anne Bentley, vice president and chief communications officer at TEGNA, KREM 2's parent company, said in an email that the station addressed the issue in its 11 p.m. news broadcast .

"We apologized to our viewers last night during our 11 p.m. newscast – Those of us here at KREM 2 want to apologize for something that happened in our 6 p.m. newscast tonight. An inappropriate video aired in the first part of the show. We are diligently working to make sure something like this doesn't happen again," Bentley wrote on behalf of KREM 2 in an email.

(via NextDraft)

It's a very strange clip — so strange I thought it might have been a hoax when I first saw it. Nobody on screen seems to react, and it takes shockingly long before they cut away. (I've blurred the image, obviously) pic.twitter.com/AtLnG02nrE

— Daniel Walters (@danielwinlander) October 18, 2021

The original line-up of The Wiggles, the Australian children's musical group that invaded living rooms in the 1990s, are headed out on an arena tour in 2022. No, this isn't a chance for those who grew up Murray, Jeff, Greg, and Anthony to share the, er, magic with their own children. Rather this is an "adults only" experience. You'll have Captain Feathersword, Dorothy the Dinosaur, and Wags the Dog all to yourself. From the NME:

"All of those children who loved The Wiggles in the '90s are now adults who love the nostalgia and fun from that time in their lives," Fatt said in a press release. "This night is for the grown-ups and is a chance to bring back some of that genuine, high-spirited liveliness again. We can't wait to relive those childhood memories and dance the night away to some of the favourite old-school tunes."

Cook added: "It will be The Wiggles as you remember and love them, but we'll all have a bit more grey hair… And there's a bar."

In other recent Wiggles developments, the latest yellow Wiggle, Emma Watkins, has departed the group and will be replaced by Tsehay Hawkins, 15.

And to help you process all of this news, here is the lineup from earlier this year performing their classic "Fruit Salad" melded with Tame Impala's "Elephant":

Yesterday, former president Donald Trump announced the creation of Trump Media & Technology Group and Truth Social, a new social media platform "to create a rival to the liberal media consortium and fight back against the 'Big Tech' companies of Silicon Valley." Within hours, the platform—which was not yet open for public use—has been accessed by pranksters and hacktivists making a mockery of the platform which, of course, is already a mockery of itself. From The Independent:

Accounts were created under the usernames "donaldtrump" and "mikepence" and the handle "donaldjtrump" appeared to have been hacked or nabbed by someone out to mock the former president.

The pinned post for the user "donaldjtrump" was an image of a defecating pig, seemingly in an attempt to mock the former president.

Was just able to setup an account using the handle @donaldtrump on 'Truth Social,' former President Donald Trump's new social media website.

Although the site is not officially open, a URL was discovered allowing users to sign up anyway. pic.twitter.com/MRMQzjNhma

— Mikael Thalen (@MikaelThalen) October 21, 2021

Brian Nelson, 26, of Leesburg, Florida bought a $20 scratch-off lottery ticket and won $1 million. He has big plans for his newfound wealth.

"I'm just looking forward to upgrading to an electric toothbrush and splurging on a good pair of flip flops," Nelson said.

I feel you, Brian.

(KIRO7 via Fark)

_{image: Florida Lottery}

This electric yellow catfish looks like it could have been caught in the old fishin' hole outside the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, but professional angler Martin Glatz actually reeled it on a lake in the Netherlands. It's a Wels Catfish, a species while known for reaching large size are "typically dark greenish-black with yellowish sides that results in a mottled pattern," according to the US Department of the Interior. They are not… this color.

"I have never seen such a catfish before," Glatz told Live Science. "I am still overwhelmed by it."

From Live Science:

The lemon-zested catfish likely has leucism, a rare genetic disorder that causes a reduction of pigmentation in skin and hair[…]

Leucism has been observed in mammals, reptiles, birds and fish, resulting in striking sightings such as yellow penguins and white killer whales. In 2017, a leucistic yellow catfish was spotted in the Mississippi River in Iowa, making headlines in the local newspaper Herald & Review.

After snapping the memorable photo above, Glatz tossed the curious creature back into the water where hopefully it'll survive to surprise and delight other animals for years to come.

_{image (cropped): Martin Glatz}

In this curious clip, the host attempts to tickle your ASMR fancy by "recalibrating your settings" which involves clicking buttons on your face.

As one YouTuber commented half-jokingly (?), "She be coding us like robots."

And if you're turned hip to the ASMR stim scene, here's Wikipedia's explanation:

Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), sometimes auto sensory meridian response, is a tingling sensation that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. A pleasant form of paresthesia, it has been compared with auditory-tactile synesthesia and may overlap with frisson.

ASMR signifies the subjective experience of "low-grade euphoria" characterized by "a combination of positive feelings and a distinct static-like tingling sensation on the skin"

From Tennessee to Michigan, numerous people were treated to a fantastic fireball tearing across the sky. The phenomenon occurred at 12:43 am EDT today, according to the American Meteor Society. However, the shooting star was no meteor. Rather, it was a failed Russian spy satellite launched last month. From Space.com:

Kosmos-2551 is a Russian reconnaissance satellite that launched on Sept. 9 but apparently failed shortly thereafter. The spacecraft had not adjusted its orbit once since liftoff, [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics astronomer Jonathan] McDowell tweeted on Monday (Oct. 18), noting that Kosmos-2551 was expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere the next day — a forecast that turned out to be off by less than an hour[…]

The satellite "is thought to be only about 500 kg [1,100 pounds] and no debris is expected to reach the ground," McDowell said…

Latest orbital data for Kosmos-2551 shows it in a 146 x 159 km orbit; reentry expected in the next couple of hours.
It is thought to be only about 500 kg and no debris is expected to reach the ground

— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) October 20, 2021

Sotheby's just held an extensive auction of Grateful Dead items, from guitars and audio gear to clothing worn by the band and other memorabilia. The 1967 t-shirt above—one of the first pieces of Dead merch—sold for a staggering $17,640, breaking the record for the most expensive vintage rock shirt. (The previous record holder was a 1979 Led Zeppelin shirt that went for $10,000 on eBay in 2011.) A "Steal Your Face" t-shirt also sold in the recent auction for $15,120.

The yellow t-shirt was designed by Hells Angel and longtime Dead friend Allan "Gut" Terk, a psychedelic graphic artist best known for painting the Merry Pranksters' "Furthur" bus and the Acid Test "Graduation" poster. It is unclear whether the shirt was washed before it went on the auction block.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

After expenses and fees, auction winner Bo Bushnell paid a total of $19,315.80 for the Grateful Dead souvenir, which was listed in excellent condition among the Sotheby's lot "From the Vault: Property from the Grateful Dead and Friends."

Bushnell operates the Outlaw Archive page on Instagram, which documents 1960s motorcycle club artifacts and ephemera. After the acquisition of the shirt, the account said, "We just did this to keep the memory of Gut 'Terk' alive and to keep his history under one roof."

_{image: Sotheby's}

Next year the US Army plans to run wargame simulations involving groups of robotic tanks battling one another. According to Gen. Ross Coffman of the Army Futures Command, the experiment is the next step from a simulation in Colorado last year involving M113 armored personnel carriers that had been converted into robots with some level of autonomy. From Defense One:

"You can imagine that if you can turn a 113, you can turn anything into a robot," Coffman said. "We learned a ton. There were some clear winners in the technology base. There were some that weren't as great." Among the winners was the human-machine interface, he said.

"Now we're moving it up to company level." he said. "The lessons learned here, we can now then apply to a brigade and to a division and see how we want to fight with these things in the future. But I know of no country that has done above singular vehicle experiments. So, no antecedent." 

The massive r/antiwork subreddit has no shortage of funny/sad/outrageous screenshots taken by workers who are mistreated, underpaid, unappreciated, and ultimately unemployed. Examples below.

Indeed, it is better to pissed off than pissed on.

(via Waxy)

Egyptian journalist Mahmoud Ragheb was livestreaming a report following an earthquake when a gentleman drove by on a motorcycle and snatched Ragheb's phone. More than 20,000 people were tuned into the livestream at the time. Video of the caper below. From the BBC News:

Once the camera had stopped shaking it revealed the face of a young man smoking a cigarette and checking slightly nervously behind him to see if anyone was in pursuit.

The Ministry of the Interior announced last night that it has detained him.

In a statement, the ministry said that the man is "jobless" and that he has since sold the stolen mobile to a trader.

According the National Retail Federation, US shoppers will spend $10 billion on Halloween crap this year. A big chunk of that will go into the coffers of Spirit Halloween, operators of more than 1400 pop-up shops in the US and Canada. The Hustle informs me of how little I know about these ubiquitous holiday stores that give a few months of life support to perpetually dying malls and shuttered retail outlets from August to October. For example, since 1999, Spirit Halloween has been owned by none other than stalwart gag gift chain Spencer Gifts. But that was 16 years after Joe Marver did a magical working that brought Spirit into this dimension. From The Hustle:

In 1983, the entrepreneur owned a women's clothing store in California, per Vox. A neighboring costume store did very well during Halloween — and when that store shut down, Marver pivoted his own business to costumes.

The "Spirit" name was pure coincidence. Marver wasn't inspired by Halloween ghosts, but by the name of his shuttered store (Spirit Women's Discount Apparel).

That first year, Spirit Halloween made $100k in 30 days.

(via NextDraft)

_{image: Michael Rivera – Spirit Halloween in former Pier 1 store, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia (CC BY-SA 4.0)}

Over the last eight months, NASA's Perseverance rover has used two onboard microphones to record more than five hours of sounds on the Red Planet, from wind gusts to the roll of the rover's wheels and the buzzing of the Ingenuity autonomous helicopter's blades. Perseverance is the first probe to be outfitted with dedicated microphones. Listen below! From NASA/JPL-Caltech:

"It's like you're really standing there," said Baptiste Chide, a planetary scientist who studies data from the microphones at L'Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie in France. "Martian sounds have strong bass vibrations, so when you put on headphones, you can really feel it. I think microphones will be an important asset to future Mars and solar system science."[…]

Some of those recordings are teaching scientists about changes in the planet's atmosphere. After all, sound travels through vibrations in the air. From its perch on Perseverance's mast, the SuperCam mic is ideally located for monitoring "microturbulence" – minute shifts in the air – and complements the rover's dedicated wind sensors, which are part of a suite of atmospheric tools called MEDA, short for the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer[…]

The microphone also allows for research on how sound propagates on Mars. Because the planet's atmosphere is much less dense than Earth's, scientists knew higher-pitched sounds in particular would be hard to hear. In fact, a few scientists – unsure if they'd hear anything at all – were surprised when the microphone picked up the Ingenuity helicopter's buzzing rotors during its fourth flight, on April 30, from a distance of 262 feet (80 meters).

The Brünnlisau shooting range in Simmental, Switzerland is a popular spot for rifle enthusiasts taking aim at targets 300m away, across a busy road.

"We been shooting here now for 20 years and we never have experienced an incident," says Brünnlisau Rifle Club president Edwin Karlen.

It's one small step for technology and one giant leap backwards for the imagination…. Fisher-Price has just introduced a new version of its iconic Chatter Telephone that actually makes real telephone calls. Yes, it still rolls around, its eyes move, the dial spins, and now… it connects to a smartphone via Bluetooth. The "Special Edition Chatter Telephone" is $60, a price seemingly pegged on the 60th anniversary of the original toy's introduction. From Gizmodo:

…The rotary dial can actually be used to place calls by dialing the person's phone number, digit by digit (which is something most of us will probably have to look up in our phone's contact list). When a call comes in it can be answered by simply picking up the Chatter Telephone's red handset and talking into it, or by pressing the speakerphone button on the toy, which is the only real indication that this version is different from the toy.

And for us luddites, the original Chatter Telephone is still available for just $7.