The Supreme Court today issued an administrative stay that blocks a subpoena from House Democrats for Donald Trump's tax returns. Read the rest

Police are on the hunt for the owners of disruptive drones that have shut down London's Gatwick Airport for nearly 20 hours, preventing flights from taking off and landing. And these aren't your usual off-the-shelf drones, either. Police describe them as "industrial specification" drones, meaning they are "something bigger or more complex," according to CNN.

This is Gatwick's busiest time, with over 100,000 passengers stranded until the drone operators are located.

But locating them hasn't been easy.

Via CNN:

"Each time we believe we get close to the operator, the drone disappears; when we look to reopen the airfield, the drone reappears," Sussex Police Superintendent Justin Burtenshaw told the UK's Press Association...

Aviation expert Jon Parker told CNN he'd "seen nothing on this scale before," in terms of deliberate disruption by a drone to a major UK airport.

Usually, an airport shuts down for only half an hour when a drone disrupts an airport, but this case is different.

"The usual practice (when a drone is spotted) is to suspend flights for half-an-hour, which is the usual battery lifespan for drones," explained Parker, a former Royal Airforce fighter pilot and head of drone training company Flyby Technology.

But in the case of Gatwick, "whoever is responsible for this has had several batteries and have brought their drones back to the ground to put new batteries on them," he said.

Passengers describe the scene at Gatwick as "total chaos" and "utter shambles."

Passengers stranded at Gatwick in the early hours of Thursday described "total chaos" inside the terminal, with flights suspended and little information from staff.

Meet Travis and take a tour of Larzland, his magical basement, which is an incredibly detailed recreation of Disneyland's Fantasyland – without the actual rides. He explains how he went to Disneyland by himself and took thousands of pictures so that he could get every little detail right, including cracks, chipped paint and all. Larzland looks like the happiest basement on earth!

To see some of his Larzland how-to videos, check out his YouTube channel here.

Read the rest

Vox created a color coded transcript of last week's Senate testimony of Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the woman he is accused of sexually assaulting. Blue indicates a question was answered, red indicates a question was dodged. Ford's testimony has only blue highlights. Kavanaugh's has what appears to be dozens of red highlights.

Beyond the style of their testimonies, there was a striking difference in the content of their words. Both Ford and Kavanaugh fielded questions from senators and the prosecutor hired by Republicans, Rachel Mitchell.

But only Ford made an effort to answer every single question.

Kavanaugh actively dodged questions. He often repeated the same non-answer over and over. Other times, he insisted on answering a question with “context” — which inevitably was a long story about his childhood — but never actually answered the question.

A New York federal judge has ruled that Donald Trump can't block people he doesn't like on Twitter, because he uses Twitter to communicate his edicts and policies as President of the United States, and the US government can't exclude communications based on viewpoint, as this violates the First Amendment. Read the rest

As posted to YouTube by Nate Gowdy, this gentleman appropriates a counter-protestor's sign and makes strenuous efforts to rip it up. But it's a fancy thick one and he lacks the strength or technique to do the job. Watching him wither under the sarcastic commentary and recording cameras of nearby libs will never not be funny.

You've worked so hard, you're so close," a woman filming the painful failure is heard saying. "You've been doing a lot of arm work at the gym, right? You know, this is a very educated city, there are a lot of engineers in this city… you can get a lot of help."

He's definely not mad online about his experience, too.

And to think he'd spent so much time building up the strength that failed him! [via emotional support turtle]

Antifa was indeed watching. Read the rest

When John Boehner was Speaker of the House, he described himself as "unalterably opposed" to marijuana legalization, a posture that contributed to the criminalization, imprisonment and ruination of millions of Americans. Read the rest

YouTuber Dani Ochoa says she's a "girl with too much time on her hands," but I disagree. I think figuring out the math formula to play the Star Wars "Cantina Band" song with just a paper and pencil is exactly what she should be doing with her time.

Listen to this and compare:

(reddit) Read the rest

US Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) told CNN that White House's chief economic adviser Gary Cohn wanted to get off the phone with a long-winded Trump, so Cohn pretended to have a bad connection.

The white lie was Carper's idea, who was in a meeting about tax reform with Cohn, members of the administration, and moderate Democrats. He suggested Cohn first slather Trump with a compliment, then say buh-bye.

"I said, 'Gary, why don't you do this, just take the phone from, you know, your cell phone back and just say, Mr. President, you're brilliant, but we're losing contact, and I think we're going to lose you now, so good-bye," Carper said. "That's what he did, and he hung up, and then we went back to having the kind of conversation where we needed to, where they asked the right kind of questions, looking for consensus and common ground and I think we identified a little bit."

But someone in the meeting room (I have a hunch this someone is part of the administration) disagrees with Carper's account.

According to CNN:

A source in the room disputed Carper's recollection of the events, telling CNN that while Carper did say Cohn should "tell (Trump) he's brilliant and hang up," he did not suggest faking a bad connection. Cohn then walked away from the table while still talking on the phone and left the room, the source said.

Image: The White House Read the rest

As Last Week Tonight's John Oliver says, Trump has had so many terrible moments it's easy to forget many of them. Maybe one reason they are easy to forget is because much of what Trump says makes even less sense than the random word generator that Sarah Palin uses in place a of brain.

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From Tiffany & Co., a "Tin Can" for $1,000.

The Everyday Objects collection transforms utilitarian items into handcrafted works of art. A classic tin can is upgraded in sterling silver and shining vermeil.

Sterling silver and vermeil with Tiffany Blue® enamel accent

4.5" high

Instantly recognizable, the signature Tiffany Blue hue of this design’s enamel accent has been as iconic as the brand itself since its founding in 1837

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Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla must open access to a public beach that he'd closed for private use, says a California court.

From The Guardian:

Khosla’s refusal to restore access has made him something of a symbol of the immense wealth in the tech industry and rising income inequality in the region.

Last year, his attorneys claimed that he would open the gate to the beach only if the government paid him $30m, an amount that state officials said was unreasonably high. In October, Khosla also sued two state agencies, accusing the government of using “coercion and harassment” to infringe on his private property rights.

The California coastal commission, established by voters in 1972 to protect public use of the coast, has reported that beachgoers have increasingly complained about private security guards telling them they are trespassing on private property and forcing them to leave the public beaches.

Photograph of Martin's Beach: Marcin Wichary/Flickr Read the rest

A gang of robbers with hammers was no match for the polycarbonate-laminated glass at this jewellery store in Malaysia Read the rest

The iKettle is advertised as “the world’s first Wi-Fi kettle.” Mark Rittman got one and said it took 11-hours to make a cup of tea.

From The Guardian:

A key problem seemed to be that Rittman’s kettle didn’t come with software that would easily allow integration with other devices in his home, including Amazon Echo, which, like Apple’s Siri, allows users to tell connected smart devices what to do. So Rittman was trying to build the integration functionality himself.

Still haven't had a first cup of tea this morning, debugging the kettle and now iWifi base-station has reset. Boiling water in saucepan now. pic.twitter.com/lC3uNX5WTp

— Mark Rittman (@markrittman) October 11, 2016

@markrittman why don't you just get normal fucking kettle

— ready 4 december (@onekade) October 11, 2016

Read the rest

Derp. Herp derp. Read the rest

Our friend Joshua Foer, memory champion and author of the fantastic book "Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything," shows how he stores incredible amounts of useful (and useless) information in the memory palace in his head.

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