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Friday, August 18th, 2017
| Time | Event |
| 12:12a | Earth faces comet catastrophe, in this weeks tabloids
J. Edgar Hoover killed President Kennedy, O.J. Simpson aims to murder Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, and JonBenet Ramseys babysitter tells all, in this weeks reality-divorced tabloids. JonBenets babysitter Kristine Griffin tells the Globe': The parents didnt do it - but I know who did. But she refuses to identify the killer. So much for telling all. O.J., weeks from going free on parole, is hell-bent on revenge, claims the National Enquirer, which is a step back from recent tabloid stories that claimed Simpson plans to murder everyone who ever doubted his innocence. Incapable of inventing a motive for O.J.s murderous rage, a dubiously unnamed source muses: O.J. blames Kris for everything. Whether its right or wrong, its all her fault. Why would FBI director Hoover put a hit out on JFK? He was being fired for blackmailing prez, reports the Globe, helpfully adding: Lee Harvey Oswald was on his payroll! How did they slip that conspiracy past the Warren Commission? Hoover blackmailed the Commissioners with dirt on every one of the investigators. It sounds obvious once its explained, doesnt it? You have to admire the National Examiner for its story on actress Betty White explaining why, at 95, Ill never get plastic surgery. Presumably its because the chance to look 20 years younger doesnt sound that appealing. Why would she want to compete with a bunch of 75-year-old actors when she has the 95-year-old market locked up? The Examiner has come late to the tabloid realization that the British Royal family rarely sue, no matter how egregious the story, and this week devotes its cover to William Catches Camilla Cheating! Naturally, the Queen has demanded Charles get an immediate divorce from his power-hungry wife - and banish her from the kingdom forever. As if its an episode of 'Game of Thrones. Its a shame that this same affair claim appeared in May, 2015, in the Globe, which alleged that Charles and Camilla had an explosive fight over her fling with an unnamed British actor. Except the affair didnt exist then, and it doesnt exist now, much as the British Royal press pack would love it. The Enquirer stays with the Royals, revealing Prince Williams Secret American Lover - a woman who may or may not have been his girlfriend 13 years ago, before he met his bride, Kate Middleton. Taylor Swift Child Abuse Shocker! is a great headline, though the story has little to do with Tay Tay - her former high school crush supposedly admitted assaulting a child. Does everyone in her life only exist to provide inspiration for her songs? Look out for her next hit: I Loved You Once, But Now Youre Choking Kids.' For the first time in months the tabloids are Trump-free this week - perhaps because President Trumps Tweets and public rants are more surreal than anything the tabloids can invent? The 'Enquirer, however, could not resist reporting on President Obamas Girls Gone Wild! claiming that sex-crazed Malia and Sasha get down and dirty. No political motivation behind that report, Im sure. In the celebrity magazines everything old is new again. Us mag reaches back 20 years with Princess Diana to bring us Her Untold Story. Heard it all before. People reaches back even further, to offer The Secret Life of Aubrey Hepburn. Not secret, and it doesnt seem new; just long-forgotten. Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at Us mag to inform us that Jessie James Decker wore it best (or at least, she showed the most cleavage), that Spice Girl Emma Bunton can tap and say the alphabet backward, that fashion designer Olivia Palmero carries four phone chargers, a spare cashmere sweater and bobby pins in her Meli Melo bucket bag, and that the stars are just like us: they ride bikes, haul groceries and pay for parking (at least, when their chauffeurs arent driving them around, feeding their meters, and taking their personal assistants to shop for them.) Once again, we rely on the Examiner to bring us back to reality with its report that Earth Faces Comet Catastrophe! Evidently a vast number of giant rogue bodies could wipe out humanity. Apparently thats not a reference to Donald Trump and Steve Bannon in Speedos, but to NASA research showing there are "seven times as many large comets ripping through the outer edge of the solar system than previously believed. Yet again, this story is mostly accurately reported - though the comets in question arent exactly heading Earthwards any time soon. What is becoming of this tawdry tabloid? If it keeps reporting true stories, Im going to have to stop buying it. Onwards and downwards . . . Image: Wikipedia/Ben Crowder |
| 1:09a | Is progress inevitable?
In his book on the history of human progress, Our Kind, anthropologist Marvin Harris asked in the final chapter, “Will nature’s experiment with mind and culture end in nuclear war?” The book came out in 1989, in the final years of our Cold War nuclear paranoia, and his telling of how people developed from hunter gatherers all the way to McDonald’s franchise owners, he said, couldn’t honestly end with him gazing optimistically to the horizon because never had the fate of so many been under the control of so few. “What alarms me most,” he wrote, “is the acquiescence of ordinary citizens and their elected officials to the idea that our kind has to learn to deal with the threat of mutual annihilation because it is the best way of reducing the danger that one nuclear power will attack another.” In the final paragraph, Harris wrote that “we must recognize the degree to which we are not yet in control” of our own society. Progress was mostly chance and luck with human agency steering us away from the rocks when it could, but unless we gained some measure of control of where we were going as a species, he said, we’d be rolled over by our worst tendencies, magnified within institutions too complex for any one person to predict or direct.
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I know where this feeling came from because I grew up terrified of nuclear war. It seemed like every week there was a TV special assuring me I didn’t have much to look forward to, like The Day After, Countdown to Looking Glass, Testament, and Special Bulletin, and HBO movies like By Dawn’s Early Light as well as a handful of the rebooted The Twilight Zone episodes and remnants of the 1970s like Damnation Alley floating among the cable apocalyptic schlock – all devoted, it seemed, to scaring the shit out of us by revealing what horrors awaited if they ever pressed the button. It was always with us, that fear, that uncertainty, that feeling that progress had brought us the Nintendo Entertainment System but also our doom, and then all at once Star Trek the Next Generation premiered, the Berlin Wall came down, and the Soviet Union collapsed. The Cold War ended, and the cast of Seinfeld appeared, worried about raisins and parking spaces and the smell of wet sand but not nuclear bombs or fallout zones. Soon we’d have the internet, and for a time, it was good. I became enamored with science and progress, looking back through time and seeing nothing but so much ignorance and injustice and lack of freedom, things that are today unthinkable were then commonplace. And I got this sense that social change was a force of nature itself, that progress, however you define it, was inevitable, and that we were in control of that progress. We chose to go to the moon, and we would choose to go to the stars as well. If you lean liberal on social issues, there was a palpable sense in the last decade, at least for me, that human social progress was definitely now on the Star Trek timeline, not the Mad Max one. Despite our folly with social media public shaming and weaponized outrage-flavored clickbait, we were sorting things out. Same-sex marriage was legal in Mississippi. Our technology wasn’t just making drones and bipedal robots and self-driving cars, but was exposing every kind of privilege, accelerating social change as much as it had technological change. Hashtags and body cameras, smart phones and protests, each was now, with the power of our modern communication tools, exposing where the work needed to be done, where injustice flourished. I had a sense that with this new pace of change we were hurtling toward a cure for baldness that no one would use because, as Gene Roddenberry famously said, “no one would care,” and then came Brexit and Trump. I’m not saying we are back onto the Mad Max timeline. I’ll never believe that, just that we aren’t in as much control as I had assumed and that most social change is farther away than I imagined. Nuclear bombs are now back in play, and the people in charge of them seem as inept and hawkish as ever. Marvin Harris was right. The moment we believe the struggle is over and that we are fully choosing our destiny is usually the moment before we realize it isn’t and we aren’t. Personally, I believe we will continue to bend the arc of the moral universe, but now I am more aware than ever of how difficult that will be. This episode of the You Are Not So Smart podcast is about progress, how we invented it as an idea and then went about pursuing it on-purpose. Our guest is University of Chicago historian Ada Palmer. I wanted to talk to Ada because she wrote this brilliant, fun, illuminating essay earlier this year titled On Progress and Historical Change which felt like had been written specifically to address my exact confusion. Historians, she writes, are careful to avoid a teleological frame of mind they sometimes call “Whig history,” in which we look back at our ignorant pasts and compare it to our amazing present and then assume there is an ultimate goal to all of this activity, an end-state of perfection, a strange attractor pulling us toward the ultimate purpose of all human effort. The truth is that it is a lot more complicated than that. In the essay, she reveals the problems with thinking in this way and asks, “Is progress inevitable? Is it natural? Is it fragile? Is it possible? Is it a problematic concept in the first place?” In the episode, you’ll hear her address all these questions and more, and I promise it will leave you feeling optimistic, but also a bit more realistic. Links and Sources |
| 5:06a | Arnold Schwarzenegger to white supremacists: your heroes are losers 
Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers the speech Trump should have made in response to the Charlottesville violence. He also has a few choice things to say about white supremacists and neo-Nazis; in short they are a cancer and are losers. |
| 12:13p | Horrors: Chucky the bath bomb
Bathe with one eye open because 80s and 90s horror film icon Chucky is now a bath bomb. Its scent? Orange soda. This Chuckie Bath Bomb is a recent creation of California-based beauty brand Loquita Bath and Body who has already sold out of the fizzy Child's Play doll head. Loquita's founder Mira Perez told HelloGiggles: Well the name came from my husband, he says I am a loca [crazy] which I have to admit, I can be a loquita in the best way possible. The brand, however, came because I was throughly mesmerized by these bath and body companies catering to the goth style and as much as I love the dark or obscure I didnt feel like it screamed ME! So, I decided to create bombs that were nostalgic and that I could identify with. |
| 12:14p | Spaghetti Monster Colander for pastafarians
I think that anthropomorphizing objects just makes them better which is why I'm digging this Spaghetti Monster Colander by Ototo. I mean, just look at this thing... looking back at you.
It's a real life Flying Spaghetti Monster and Pastafarians around the globe are undoubtedly rejoicing. |
| 12:15p | Students pay $1.20 for 5 vintage NASA flight suits at thrift store
Talia Rappa and Skyler Ashworth spotted a nondescript box at a Florida thrift store's going-out-of-business sale. They found five NASA flight suits, worth tens of thousands of dollars, and paid just $1.20 for the lot. (more…) |
| 12:15p | Auditory hallucinations induced with Pavlovian conditioning
When people hear voices others can't, the prevailing scientific model describes this as psychosis due to brain abnormality, chemical imbalance, or other affliction. But scientists have now reliably induced auditory hallucinations in some people not diagnosed with psychosis. (more…) |
| 12:16p | Daniela Forti's stunning glass jellyfish tables
Italian sculptor Daniela Forti makes gorgeous jellyfish tables from colored glass. Here's a photo of how she creates the dramatic pieces, drawing out individual globs of glass into long tendrils: (more…) |
| 1:44p | Romney: Trump caused "the vast heart of America to mourn"
Mitt Romney, Republican presidential candidate and rich guy, called Trump a fraud, then asked him for a job, and is now outraged by his racism. Testify that there is no conceivable comparison or moral equivalency between the Nazis--who brutally murdered millions of Jews and who hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives to defeat--and the counter-protestors who were outraged to see fools parading the Nazi flag Good stuff. Alas, he's still stuck on saying what "the president should" do. Hanging on the hope of a better Trump was always foolish. Now it's a kind of political fart that trumpets the Republican establishment's ongoing complicity. In any case, the majority of Republican voters are just fine with Trump's support of white supremacists, so this is really just another epitaph for Mittens. |
| 3:19p | How to do the Faro Shuffle 
The Faro Shuffle is a way to shuffle the cards where you split the deck into two piles of 26 cards and push the decks together so that the cards are perfectly interwoven. If you can execute eight Faro Shuffles in a row, the cards will be returned to the original order. Here's a tutorial. |
| 3:56p | Chuck Jones directed this Oscar-winning government-funded cartoon promoting universal health care (1  "So Much for So Little" is a 1949 Warner Brothers cartoon promoting universal health care. It was funded by the federal government and directed by Chuck Jones, with music by Carl Stallings, and narrated by Frank Graham. It won the Academy Award in 1950 for Documentary Short Subject. From Open Culture:
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| 4:00p | Mafia money-launderer listed his profession as "fraudster" with UK companies register
The UK is one of the easiest places in the world to set up a shady company, which is why accused Mafia money-launderer Antonio "Tonino the Blond" Righi set up his shell company Magnolia Fundaction UK with Britain's Companies House, giving an address in Soho. (more…) |
| 4:02p | The science behind twitching eyelids 
Scientist Steve Mould developed an eye twitch, and in this video, he explains how and why it happens. Some of the causes include fatigue, over-exercise, and too much caffeine. |
| 4:08p | Trump's ghostwriter prediction: Trump is going to resign
Ghostwriter Tony Schwartz, who spent over a year with Trump and was the co-author of the memoir, Art of the Deal, has predicted that Trump will resign, maybe as early as by the end of summer. On Wednesday he tweeted: "The circle is closing at blinding speed. Trump is going to resign and declare victory before Mueller and congress leave him no choice."
And then a couple of hours later: "Trump's presidency is effectively over. Would be amazed if he survives till end of the year. More likely resigns by fall, if not sooner."
According to CNN:
Schwartz told Anderson Cooper yesterday on CNN that the "the level of his [Trump's] self-destructiveness is staggering." Watch the interview below. https://youtu.be/TA3NFlOhkx0 Image: Steven Depolo |
| 4:18p | Look at this man trying to stop a Boston Dynamics robot from opening a door
It's easy to imagine this quadruped robot with a prehensile proboscis is a living creature with awareness. We really shouldn't be pissing off the machines... from PeopleBeingJerks |
| 4:24p | Artist turns words into the things they describe
Jonathan Harris uses written words as the starting point for drawings of the things the words represent. This guy should do tattoo cover ups |
| 4:33p | Google researchers reveal automated process for removing watermarks from stock images 
Businesses like Adobe Stock use large, visible watermarks to deter copyright infringement; a new paper presented by Google Researchers to the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition shows that these watermarks can be reliably detected and undetectably erased by software. (more…) |
| 4:43p | Bannon Out of White House as Trump's Chief Strategist
Steve Bannon is out of the White House, a year and one day after he became then candidate Donald Trump's presidential campaign manager. (more…) |
| 4:50p | Millennials blamed for death of Chuck E. Cheese's animatronic band
The animatronic band at Chuck E. Cheese's, supposedly a beloved institution but clearly the stuff of nightmares, is to be disbanded in a modernization drive. CBS says it's because of the Millennials. |
| 4:50p | Preserving electronics: vermin, leaky batteries, melting rubber, brittle plastics, dribbly capacitor
Benji Edwards's guide to preserving vintage electronics is a fascinating look into all the ways that even solid-state gear can go off in long-term storage: a lot of stuff (batteries, capacitors and even rubber) can leak viscous, electronics-destroying liquids; plastics break down in UV light; mold and corrosion eat your gear from within; spiders, crickets and roaches make their nests in old gear; and of course, dust gets everywhere. (more…) |
| 5:03p | Hiding malware in boobytrapped replacement screens would undetectably compromise your mobile device  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRvsFiCJ On the one hand, if you let an untrusted stranger install hardware in your electronic device, you're opening yourself up to all kinds of potential mischief; on the other hand, an estimated one in five smartphones has a cracked screen and the easiest, most efficient and cheapest way to get that fixed is to go to your corner repair-shop. (more…) |
| 5:19p | Durham protesters turn themselves in at police station after pulling down Confederate statue
On Monday, anti-racist protesters in Durham, North Carolina pulled down a statue dedicated to the "unknown soldiers" who fought to defend slavery, which was adorned with "a seal engraved with The Confederate States of America" and the words, "In memory of the boys who wore gray." (more…) |
| 5:40p | Hidden message in mass resignation letter from President Trump's Committee on Arts and Humanities
Look at the first letter of each paragraph in this letter of resignation from the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, signed by 16 of the 17 members. |
| 6:24p | Watch 1,069 robots simultaneously dance, setting world record 
Some argue that this army of robots might scare the living bejeezus out of you, but the talented dancers just broke a Guinness World Record in Guangzhou, Guangdong China, for most robots dancing simultaneously. They were created by WL Intelligent Technology Co, Ltd., and according to YouTube, "The robots were Dobi models who, along with being programmed to dance, can also sing, box, play football and execute kung fu moves. The robot display broke the previous record of 1,007, achieved by Ever Win Company & Ltd. in 2017." Yeah, they're a little creepy, but with a cute name like Dobi, they're also kind of adorable. |
| 6:29p | DIY ant killer
Homebrew ant killer made from sugar, borax, and water is very effective in keeping ants out of the house. Dissolve a half cup of sugar with 1.5 tablespoons of borax into 1.5 cups of warm water. Then dip a cotton ball into the solution and set it on a countertop (where kids and pets won't eat it). The ants will flock to it and 12 hour later, you won't see any more ants for a long time. Get a one-pound bag of borax on Amazon for $8.50 (which you can also use to make slime). Image: Balaram Mahalder/Wikipedia |
| 6:41p | Bird's eye view of a Lamborghini catching fire 
This gentleman answers the age-old question -- what do you do when Lamborghini catches fire? The small fire extinguisher he borrowed only seemed to make the fire grow. It took a team of firefighters to put out the blaze. |
| 7:04p | Watch: Domino's Pizza employees tackle and rough up an armed robber 
Yay, a brave (if not foolish) Domino's Pizza employee, Harish Karan, who had never seen a gun before, tackled a gunman Wednesday night at a Toronto location who was trying to steal cash from the register. And then three other employees joined in, holding him down, yanking off the burglar's cap, and even hitting him a couple of times. Police warn that fighting an armed robber is not usually the best thing to do. According to CBC News:
Attacking a gunman might not be smart, but it sure is satisfying to watch. |
| 8:09p | 97-year-old man takes his first ride in a Tesla  When this 97-year-old Toronto man was born, the auto industry was just turning mainstream. Roads made for horses were being paved over for automobiles and the "average" family could consider buying a vehicle. |
| 8:49p | Mike Pence wins the blunder games, at least in this photo
Michael "Rands" Lopp spotted something beautiful about this White House photo: everyone in it who doesn't have the word "president" in their job title has been fired.
Only the best people.
Here's the season 1 winner of the blunder games, as shot by Jonathan Ernst with Reuters. |
| 9:02p | Interview with Ken Follet about forthcoming 3rd book in Kingsbridge series: A Column of Fire
The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End by Ken Follet's are two lenghthy novels about a fictional medieval English town called Kingsbridge. When I read them years ago I became immersed in a world of conflict, betrayal, and scheming. In a way, the novels are like Game of Thrones (at least the TV series; I have not read the books) without magic. I did expect Follet to write a third book about Kingsbridge, but he did. and it's coming on September 12. It's called A Column of Fire. They sent me an advance copy, so as soon as I finish the book I'm currently reading (Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters) (more…) |
| 9:12p | Exhibition of Disney Imagineer Rolly Crump's work
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| 10:31p | Brandi Milne art exhibition opening August 19th in Los Angeles
Dont miss painter Brandi Milnes art exhibit which begins this month at the Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles. The opening reception will be held on August 19th from 7-11 pm. Milne is a self-taught artist and was born in the late '70s in Anaheim, California. Growing up close to Disneyland had a large impact on her imagination. She was constantly surrounded by classic cartoons, crayons, coloring books, candy, and Disney, which all became influences on her paintings. Milnes paintings portray a surreal, candy-filled world that reflects emotions such as love, heartbreak, and pain. Milne has displayed her work all over the world and has been featured in Hi Fructose and Bizarre Magazine. Milne has also has two books of her work published. If you live in LA, dont miss your chance to attend the exhibit and take a look into the unique, fantastical world that Milne has created.
Photo of Brandi Milne by Jessica Louise |
| 10:52p | Bannon back at Breitbart after Trump White House ouster: 'I've got my hands back on my weapons'
Hold on to your butts, America. Steve Bannon is, as an ally told one reporter, unchained after being relieved of his White House duties as Trump's strategic advisor In an interview this evening, Bannon tells the Weekly Standard he's returning to run Breitbart.com, as he was before becoming Trump's campaign manager exactly one year and one day ago today. Bannon will become Executive Chairman of the white supremacist alt-right publishing firm. I built a f***ing machine at Breitbart, Bannon said, And now Im about to go back...and were about to rev that machine up. |
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