A man in Massachusetts who was being attacked by two pit bulls was then accidentally shot to death by a crossbow-wielding neighbor -- who was trying to help. The tragic incident happened Wednesday afternoon. Read the rest
PHOTO provided by Anna Dubrovskaya, in Yekaterinburg, Russia, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020. When a circus troupe tried to load the animals into a truck to head to the next destination, they resisted, and walked away.
In Russia's third-largest city, Yekaterinburg, some residents recently witnessed two elephants wandering snowy streets, after escaping from an Italian circus passing through town. Read the rest
One Steamelmo of House Imgur posted this exchange, with a twitterer who alleges a brutal womanhandling at this weekend's Women's March.
The OP has locked down their twitter account, but the replies remain:
Too bad it's a mirrored image from deviant art pic.twitter.com/5QoAvCQnm8
— I'm the fucking lizard king (@r3zatora) January 21, 2018
If it is perhaps faked, console yourself with this picture of a man slathered in jam. [via]
After two years of not tweeting, George Conway – Kellyanne Conway's husband – took to Twitter today to respond to Trump's whiny tweets this morning about his attempted travel ban.
Trump's tweets went like this:
“People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!”
“The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.”
“The Justice Dept. should ask for an expedited hearing of the watered down Travel Ban before the Supreme Court - & seek much tougher version!”
George Conway, who was considered for various positions in the Trump administration, according to Politico, and "was a candidate for the solicitor general post and the front-runner to head DOJ’s Civil Division until he withdrew his name from consideration last week," pulled out his rusty Twitter account to mock Trump.
Read the rest“These tweets may make some ppl feel better, but they certainly won't help OSG get 5 votes in SCOTUS, which is what actually matters. Sad,” Conway wrote, referring to the Office of the Solicitor General, which argues before the Supreme Court on behalf of the Trump administration...
In subsequent tweets Monday, Conway made clear: “I still VERY, VERY STRONGLY support POTUS, his Admin, policies, the executive order and of course, my wonderful wife.”
That’s why, he continued, “I said what I said this morning. Every sensible lawyer in WHCO and every political appointee at DOJ wd agree with me (as some have already told me).
Thin-skinned from the outset and to the end.
Read the restNewly inaugurated President Donald Trump was "directly involved" in the search for the person who, using the official National Park Service account, retweeted side-by-side comparisons of the crowds at Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration ceremony and former President Barack Obama's 2009 ceremony, CBS News has confirmed.
The retweet was deleted soon after it was posted and the Twitter accounts of the National Park Service and other U.S. Interior Department agencies were briefly shut down... "Obviously, this has become a very sensitive issue, especially since the President has gotten directly involved and contacted Acting Director Mike Reynolds concerned about one of the images that was retweeted," wrote Tim Cash, Chief of Digital Strategy at the National Park Service in a Jan. 21 email to Shaun Cavanaugh, the agency's Chief Information Security Officer.
One of the nation's most respected polling services reports today that so-called President Donald Trump's *disapproval* rating among Americans is now 54%. Sad! Read the rest
"Music isn't the same nowadays. Not at all. ... The cuss words were bleeped out, but I'm not stupid."
Then she breaks down in tears at the memory of Vince Staples, whose "Norf Norf" she then recites.
If someone doesn't do a Christian Mom remix/cover of Norf Norf by the weekend the internet is over.
Wise words from Vince himself:
What I was saying was that the woman in that video is clearly confused on the context of the song which causes her to be frightened.
— Vince Staples (@vincestaples) October 6, 2016
She also, in my opinion, seems to be emotionally unstable. With both those things being said, she has a right to her opinion.
— Vince Staples (@vincestaples) October 6, 2016
No person needs to be attacked for their opinion on what they see to be appropriate for their children. They have a right to it.
— Vince Staples (@vincestaples) October 6, 2016
This misunderstanding of our community leads to miscommunication which we should convert into a progressive dialogue.
— Vince Staples (@vincestaples) October 6, 2016
Thats all I have to say about that. Stop asking me.
— Vince Staples (@vincestaples) October 6, 2016
UPDATE: JPosition delivers a straight-up, sadly not very catchy Mom cover:
But here is a more sonorous remix, by Maurice Spears. Reminder: so many bad words.
One day of bad polls and Trump's feeling hopeless, telling a crowd that the November election could be "rigged" and adding that Hillary Clinton is the devil.
He told a rally in Columbus, Ohio, that he had heard "more and more" that the contest would be unfair. He offered no immediate evidence.
At another event he called Democratic rival Hillary Clinton "the devil".
Mr Trump has come under fire from across the political divide for remarks he made about the parents of a US Muslim soldier killed in action.
On the forthcoming vote, he told supporters "I'm afraid the election is going to be rigged, I have to be honest".
He later repeated the claim on Fox News, adding "I hope the Republicans are watching closely or it's going to be taken away from us."
To call another candidate "The Devil" is unprecedented in predominantly-Christian America, where locals often place deep stock in religious traditions. Read the rest
As Swiss police once again raid the comically-corrupt international Soccer organiation FIFA, its disgraced and banned former president, Sepp Blatter, is to join a panel to discuss how it could be reformed.
Blatter will appear with former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Luis Moreno Ocampo at the University of Basel on April 15th for a discussion on how FIFA can transition through its current crisis. The very crisis he himself presided over and helped create. Makes sense!
The University of Basel seems to know just how outrageous an idea this is. Their description of Blatter is as follows:
"From 1981 to 1998 Joseph S. Blatter was FIFA's secretary general and acted as its president from 1998 until his resignation. Blatter initiated reforms to fight corruption within the FIFA, while at the same time he was repeatedly confronted with allegations of corruption and misconduct."
Bingo.
It's a win-win. There aren't enough TV celebrity panel shows for all the folks who want to be on them, and colleges and conventions are desperate to get people who will actually generate attendance for their events. Read the rest
There's at least 33 things you should do, see and eat before climate change turns them into sad memories, from Kennedy Spaceport to Las Vegas to the Sydney Opera House. Read the rest
The first time I had a proper conversation with Jay Lake, it was after the 2006 Los Angeles World Science Fiction convention; I was invited to a dinner with a bunch of other Campbell Award winners from years gone by. It was the year John Scalzi won the award, and I want to say it was me, him, Jay and Elizabeth Bear, though these dinners do blend together and I may be missing a name.
The last time I had a proper conversation with Jay Lake, it was last July, at the San Diego Comic Con, where Jay was in a wheelchair, and when I asked him how he was, he said he was dying, and that he wasn't going to last more than about six months. He was frank about this, and seemed to have made some peace with it. His daughter, the other people around him, we all knew he was dying. He didn't let us get maudlin. But every conversation I had with him meant something, because I had gotten to know Jay by then, and to know what a fantastic person and what a fantastic writer he was. I made a conscious effort to fix every interaction in my mind. I hugged him goodbye when I left. He was still a bear of a man, but unmistakably frail.
He'd had cancer for years, and had been brave about it, and had fought. He even beat it for a while. Not long ago, though, it became clear that he was going to lose. Read the rest
Lucius Shepard, one of science fiction's great writers, has died. He was 66 70. I had met Lucius on several occasions and found him to be just as you'd hope from his novels: smart and witty (but lots of writers are smart and witty), and kind, and weird in the most delightful ways. I watched a chess-boxing match with Lucius and I have never seen someone more delighted. Shepard was involved in many good causes, and we had brainstormed many ideas for helping friends of his who were eking out a living in Central America as skin-divers and facing grave physical peril. It had been a few years since I'd seen him in the flesh, and I knew his health was often poor, but this was sudden and terrible news out of the blue.
Tor.com's obit does a good job of getting at the facts of his career:
Shepard began publishing short stories in 1983 and his first novel, Green Eyes, appeared in 1984. In 1985 he won the John Campbell Award for Best New Writer; over the course of his career he won the Nebula for his novella “R&R,” the Hugo for his novella “Barnacle Bill the Spacer,” and the Shirley Jackson Award for his novella “Vacancy” in 2008.
But to stop there is to miss how Shepard's fans and friends reveled in his work -- its originality, its dazzling language, its hardbitten and hard-won verisimilitude. He was a writer who changed the readers who found him, and I miss him already. Read the rest
It's been nearly a year since my friend Aaron Swartz killed himself, and it's a year his friends and family have passed by trying to make sense of his death and trying to decide what to do about his legacy. His father, Bob, and I have spoken several times since then, and I've often returned to his insights when I've thought about Aaron.
Bob has done a long interview with Boston Magazine about Aaron and the aftermath of his death. He's especially damning of MIT's role in Aaron's death, and in the inadequacy of MIT's internal investigation following it. Read the rest
It's a sad day: the photoshopping remix site Worth1000 is shutting its doors, victim of being "technologically orphaned" after refactoring its codebase and then losing its programmer. The site's owner, Avi Muchnick, can't make any changes or updates to the site. He's looking for buyers, or suggestions for turning the site into "a static browsable museum." I've blogged plenty of great stuff from Worth1000 over the years and it will be sorely missed. Our commiserations to Avi and the W1K community. Read the rest
Now you can play Cyberball — a computer game that psychology researchers use to study the effects of social ostracism and hurt feelings. Normally, the game is played by test subjects who are hooked up to some kind of brain scanning system and who are told that they are playing against other test subjects in other rooms. In reality, they (and now you!) are playing against a computer program that is designed to exclude you and make you feel unwelcome. Why would someone design such a thing? For science! Of course. (Via Rowan Hooper) Read the rest
While you were eating Thanksgiving turkey, surrounded by loving family and friends, one whale was all alone, swimming through the Pacific Ocean with no one to talk to and no one to care.
Since 1989, researchers have been tracking this specific whale based on its distinct vocalizations. Baleen whales — a category of cetaceans without teeth, separate from their toothy dolphin/beluga/orca relations — are famous for producing eerie, underwater songs and scientists think those sounds are probably an extremely important aspect of participation in whale society. Baleen whales lack keen eyesight and sense of smell underwater, so sounds are probably how they recognize one another, help each other navigate, and even find mates. But these vocalizations happen in very specific frequency range — between 10 and 31 hertz, depending on the species. The Christmas Whale, on the other hand, speaks at 52 hertz. Imagine brining a piccolo to a tuba party. That is analogous to the awkward position that the 52-hertz whale is in.
Scientists usually pick up the call of the 52-hertz whale sometime between August and December, as it makes its way through a Cold War-era network of underwater microphones in the North Pacific. Although this whale has apparently survived for many years and seems to have grown and matured during that time (based on its voice deepening slightly), it also appears to exist outside of whale social systems. It travels alone. Nobody answers its high-pitched pleas for love. Every so often, non-scientist humans remember that it exists and write sad stories about it. Read the rest
Here's some very sad news: Glitch, the innovative and playful virtual world from Stewart Butterfield and his friends at Tiny Speck, is shuttering. The letter from Tiny Speck is very bittersweet.
Read the restThis is a horrible day. This is a horrible thing to have to say: Glitch is closing. The live game/world will be closed on December 9th at 8pm Pacific time (see when this is in your time zone). The website and forums will remain available until the end of the year, so players can still communicate and find each other. Glitch HQ, the Glitch API and third party applications which rely on the Glitch API will become unavailable at the same time as the website closure.
Automatic refunds for recent purchases will begin immediately. Refunds for older transactions will need to be done manually and will be processed as quickly as possible, from most recent to oldest. For details on your payments, to request a refund, or to see the status of your refund, please visit the refund information page.
Unfortunately, Glitch has not attracted an audience large enough to sustain itself and based on a long period of experimentation and our best estimates, it seems unlikely that it ever would. And, given the prevailing technological trends — the movement towards mobile and especially the continued decline of the Flash platform on which Glitch was built — it was unlikely to do so before its time was up. Glitch was very ambitious and pushed the limits of what could be done in a browser-based game ...
