Jvitak

You've got to hand it to the scientist in the above video: No matter how sure he was about what would happen when he fired the gun at himself, it must still have been pretty damn scary to go through with it.

To demonstrate the difference between air and water resistance, Norweigan physicist Andreas Wahl decided to plonk himself in front of a submerged rifle and pull the trigger.

Thankfully, the bullet drifts harmlessly to the bottom of the pool without even reaching him — and the slow motion result looks surprisingly mesmerising. Read more...

More about Uk, Gun, Experiment, Swimming Pool, and Norway

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In March of 2015, David Petraeus, a retired general,  one-time director of the CIA, and former US commander in Iraq and Afghanistan plead guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information.

Petraeus had given hand-written notebooks containing "code words for secret intelligence programs, the identities of covert officers, war strategy and deliberative discussions with the National Security Council," according to the Washington Post, to his biographer Paula Broadwell — who was also his mistress. 

Given Petraeus position as one of the country's most important intelligence officials, the sensitivity of the information he gave Broadwell, and the fact that he apparently lied to FBI investigators about giving Broadwell any classified information whatsoever, many believed that Petraeus deserved something more than the $100,000 fine and two years of probation he eventually received.

A January 25th Washington Post investigation reveals why the renowned ex-general got off so easy.

According to the Post, prosecutors determined that Petraeus case would simply be too difficult to prosecute in open court.

Petraeus's legal team then played hardball over a potential plea deal, with Petraeus refusing to plead guilty to any felonies and effectively daring the government to take the case to trial.

Petraeus strategy paid off: the one-time face of US counterinsurgency doctrine was initially facing felony charges of lying to the FBI and leaking classified information and "'Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information' under the Espionage Act," either of which could have landed him in prison for years.

Thomson ReutersAs the Post reports, Petraeus's case had a number of challenging aspects for prosecutors.

Despite her sexual relationship with Petraeus, Broadwell was protected from prosecution by her status as a biographer and credentialed journalist.

RAW Embed

Petraeus did not intend for the the information he gave Broadwell to spread beyond her or to be made public, and he personally vetted Broadwell's book for any classified information.

The Post notes that "Justice Department guidelines" hold that "it is not policy to charge 'in situations in which a suspect, during an investigation, merely denies guilt in response to questioning by the government.'”

All of this would make a prosecution of Petraeus difficult. Factor in his status as a major public figure, the classified nature of the case's core evidence, and its connection to the secretive upper strata of the US intelligence community, and it's unclear whether a prosecution of Petraeus would have been worth the effort, or even successful at all.

As former US attorney general Eric Holder put it in 2015, “There were some unique things that existed in that case that would have made the prosecution at the felony level and a conviction at the felony level very, very, very problematic.”

At the same time, intent doesn't necessarily matter in cases involving mishandled classified information.

And even if Petraeus only intended for the information he gave Broadwell to be put towards her own personal use, that doesn't mean that information was necessarily safe with her.

Thomson ReutersAnd as someone in a sexual relationship with the CIA director, she was arguably especially vulnerable to exploitation or blackmail by a hostile intelligence agency.

So it isn't surprising that the Post found examples of law enforcement officials who believe that Petraeus was treated too leniently.

As the Post reports, the case's outcome "left some in the Justice Department angry, particularly at the FBI, and some agents have argued privately that it will damage future efforts to secure prison terms in leak cases."

All of this might end up being good news for Hilary Clinton.

Over the past week, reports have emerged that emails on Clinton's private server, which is the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation, included information related to Special Access Programs, referring to level of classification above top-secret that is sometimes applicable to active intelligence operations.

Thomson ReutersAnd on January 24th, it was reported that the FBI was looking into whether Clinton's staffers had copied and pasted classified information from the State Department's classified computer system so that they could be sent to Clinton over email. 

It's technically illegal to move classified information off of a compartmentalized network, something that prohibits even a single instance of conveying classified information across an unclassified network even if that information hasn't been previously marked as classified.

But the Post's report is a reminder of how difficult it is to prosecute classification-related infractions when figures at hte top of the US's national security and foreign policy hierarchy are involved.

The government was bearish about its chances of convicting a CIA director who had knowingly given highly sensitive classified information to his mistress. The challenges of convicting a former secretary of state and a major party presidential frontrunner in an election year — and in a case where any alleged intelligence disclosures didn't involve nearly the same degree of premeditation as in Petraeus's case — are probably much steeper.

 

NOW WATCH: EX-PENTAGON CHIEF: These are the 2 main reasons ISIS was born

 Google is launching a new version of Chrome for iOS today that promises to be both faster and more stable than previous versions. According to Google, Chrome 48 for iOS now crashes seventy percent less often and the browser should feel more responsive. JavaScript execution is also now significantly faster. Until today, Google still used Apple’s UIWebKit framework. While that allowed… Read More

Lucasfilm

The release of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" kicked off the start of six new "Star Wars" movies from now through 2019.

But Disney and Lucasfilm aren't stopping there. 

According to Disney CEO Bob Iger these six movies will be the start of even more "Star Wars" films.

"There will be more after that, I don't know how many, I don't know how often," Iger told BBC's entertainment vertical Newsbeat.

What does that mean?

It could mean several things. One idea is that Lucasfilm will plan to do more spin-off films or breakout some spin-offs into their own film series, similar to what Marvel is doing with its comic-book adaptations. Another thought is that we'll potentially see another trilogy after Episodes VII, VIII, and IX are over. We could also get some of both.

"Star Wars" fans shouldn't be too surprised. 

"The Force Awakens" broke box-office records after its December debut. It's currently the third highest-grossing movie of all time with $1.9 billion in ticket sales worldwide.

Creator George Lucas apparently had plans for up to a dozen "Star Wars" movies, according to a 1978 Time magazine article.

Bring on all the "Star Wars" movies. We're ready. 

NOW WATCH: Scientists say blowing up the Death Star would have had a catastrophic result

 Security can be a very dry and impenetrable topic. But if the steady creep of connected devices into people’s homes and day-to-day routines continues there’s arguably going to need to be a very broad effort to widen awareness of potential privacy risks. Read More

Eric Springer is a former Amazon engineer and a heavy AWS user. He's posted a long, terrifying explanation of how identity thieves have been able to repeatedly extract his personal info from Amazon's customer service reps by following a simple script. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/v/-pb3z2w9gDg

Artificial Intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky died yesterday. He was one of computer science's great pioneers, a brilliant researcher who could translate his insights into material accessible even to laypeople. (more…)

LONDON — J.K. Rowling is clearly not the biggest Donald Trump fan in the world — and she's not afraid to bust out the occasional Harry Potter reference to put him (and his team) in their place.

The latest example of this came in response to a tweet posted by Trump's campaign spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, back in 2012 (before she became his spokeswoman).

Pierson was appointed as spokesperson for Donald Trump in November 2015. Back in January 2012 she was working as a talk show host for America's Web Radio and Radio Sandy Springs, according to her LinkedIn profile. Read more...

More about Uk, Harry Potter, Donald Trump, Jk Rowling, and Voldemort

Apparently, kids today can't read letters their grandparents write in cursive, and that's a big problem as far as Washington state legislators are concerned.

A bill that was introduced to the state senate would require all students enrolled in Washington grade schools to write in cursive. Yes, cursive. That curly style of lettering that we no longer see.

The bill's sponsor, Sen. Pam Roach, told K5 news that she was inspired to sponsor the bill after hearing that one of her constituents had written a note to her grandson, but he couldn't read it. Read more...

More about Us, Watercooler, Conversations, Cursive, and Common Core

What is the difference between USA and USB?

One connects to all of your devices and accesses the data, the other is a hardware standard.

(via r/funny)

Anything can happen on live TV. Including running into Steven Tyler

The sage wizard of rock 'n' roll band Aerosmith was out in New York City with his daughter Mia on Saturday, when he came across CNN's Poppy Harlow doing a live broadcast on the current blizzard raging on the East Coast. Tyler was in town for a recent appearance on the Late Show, as well as to visit his daughters and grandchildren, he says, but the weather was currently messing up their plans to go downtown

"The weather’s terrible," he said. "I’ve got a funny feeling the storm’s gonna keep us here a couple extra days." Read more...

More about Music, Entertainment, Steven Tyler, and Snowstorm

Ever find yourself questioning how accurate those little signal strength dots are on your iPhone?

Luckily, there's a trick to reveal your iPhone's true signal strength, and it takes less than a minute to enable.

First, you'll need to access a hidden app on your phone called Field Test Mode. To do this, you'll need to open up your Phone app and dial the following number, *3001#12345#* , including the asterisks and hashtag, and tap "Call."

This opens up Field Test Mode, which is mostly filled with menus of cell signal jargon that you don't need to worry about. What you're interested in is the tiny number in the upper left-hand corner of your iPhone — likely hidden behind the text "Back to Phone" if you're using iOS 8 or iOS 9 — which is your iPhone's true signal strength.

Business Insider

Here, for example, my old iPhone 5 that's still running iOS 7 is showing my cell signal to be -59. To exit Field Test Mode, you can simply tap the home button and you'll be brought back to your iPhone's home screen, no harm done.

While that number can vary anywhere from -40 to -130, it will always be negative, and the closer that number is to zero, the better your cell signal, according to OSX Daily. The best signal you can get would be -40, and no signal at all would be -130.

If your iPhone is running iOS 8 or iOS 9 and you can't see the number because of Apple's new "Back-to-last-app" feature that creates a link to the last app you were using in the same corner of your screen, don't worry. There's still another way to display your true signal strength. This method allows you to always have easy access to that number without going through the hassle of dialing out to the Field Test App, enabling your iPhone to display both numbers so you just tap the signal dots in the future to check.

To enable this, return to your phone and dial *3001#12345#* and tap "Call," like before.

You'll be brought to the Field Test App again, but instead of using the home button to exit, hold down your iPhone's power/sleep button until it shows the "Slide to power off" screen and then hold the down your iPhone's home button, which will force quit Field Test App.

You'll be back to your iPhone's homescreen, but this time you should notice that your signal strength number has replaced your signal strength dots.

Business Insider

If you tap that number, you can switch between the two as you see fit.

To undo any changes you made, simply repeat the steps to get into Field Test Mode and tap the Home button to exit the app, and everything will revert back to normal.

 

Hannah Foslien/Getty Images

Two sticks connected by a chain. In a modern world, it is a strange relic for measuring distance that the NFL, a league that makes $12 billion annually in revenue, still relies on to make sometimes game-altering decisions.

The first-down chains, although not used as often as they were 10 to 20 years ago, played a huge role in the Arizona Cardinals' win over the Green Bay Packers in the divisional round of the NFL playoffs. On a key drive in the fourth quarter with the Cardinals trailing, the officials twice went to the chain and awarded a first down to the Cardinals, keeping their drive alive. In each case, the chain had determined that the Cardinals had gained a first down by about an inch.

Hannah Foslien/Getty Images

The Cardinals went on to score a touchdown, the Packers would need a Hail Mary to force overtime, and Arizona eventually won in the extra period. In social media circles, this created quite a stir, with many wondering why the NFL still relies on such an old technology for something so important.

Interestingly, there are more advanced measuring devices and they have been around for about 70 years. A few years ago, Paul Lukas of Uni-Watch put together a timeline of devices that date back to the 1950s, including several that were patented and used in non-NFL games. Most of these devices included a system for visualizing the measurement from the sideline, eliminating the need to run onto the field.

Hannah Foslien/Getty Images

But there are actually a couple of reasons the NFL has never made the switch. First, there is a problem with using something more accurate than two chains and a stick. The chain is not the biggest margin of error in the equation — it is the officials' eyes.

There is little sense in trying to improve the accuracy of the measurement unless you first somehow improve the accuracy of the original spot. Even when officials use a replay review, there is a good chance that they are missing the true spot by several inches, if not more. In other words, until the NFL starts using a more advanced version of the replay systems used in tennis and soccer — a football field is far more complex — there is no need for a more advanced measuring device.

More importantly, officials have figured out how to nearly eliminate the need for measurements, which in turn speeds up the game.

Despite what happened at the Cardinals-Packers game, measurements have become exceedingly rare, and there is a reason. That's because on first down, the officials place the ball in such a way that it will make it easy to know if a player gained a first down or not. If the officials know exactly where the chains start, then they already know exactly where they end, and yard markers give them this advantage.

To explain, here is a recent example from the divisional playoff game between the Carolina Panthers and the Seattle Seahawks.

On a first-and-10 play in the second half, the Seahawks gained around 10.5 yards for what appears to be a first down. The officials awarded a first down and play went on without a measurement or any need for the chain. But before the next play, the officials "cheated" a bit.

Do you see what they did? If not, don't worry — most people never see this little trick.

On the play, Luke Willson appears to be down at the 20.5-yard line, gaining a first down by 1 foot to 2 feet.

Hannah Foslien/Getty Images

Sure enough, the officials appear to have a good spot, coming in late and placing the ball at the 20.5-yard line. So far, so good.

Hannah Foslien/Getty Images

But here is where things get sneaky. Look at where the umpire sets the ball for the next play. He moves the ball back a half yard and sets it at the 21-yard line.

Hannah Foslien/Getty Images

If this is indeed the spot, then there should have been a measurement, but there wasn't. So was the umpire's spot a mistake? No. It was intentional. By moving back a half yard, the chain can now be placed exactly on the 21-yard line. Now the officials need only to see if the ball advances past the 11-yard line for the next first down. And with yard markers all over the field, this is easy for an official to see without needing the chain.

In other words, the Seahawks lost a half yard simply because the officials wanted to make it easier to know whether it will be a first down on the next set of downs. But there is another problem, one the officials also have a solution for.

The yard markers are 3 to 4 inches wide, and if they are being used to judge first downs, that's a big margin of error. Well, to avoid this, most officials will tell the chains to not only set up on a specific yard line — rarely in between yard lines — they will also tell the chains to set up on the back edge of that yard line. That way, the officials know that if the ball is across any part of the white-yard marker, it is a first down.

It depends on the level of play — high school vs. college vs. NFL — and the crew, but in some cases, the officials will opt for more accurate placement of the football in crucial situations, such as late in the game or close to the end zone. But otherwise, it is quite common for officials to move the ball from its real spot for the sake of hoping to avoid a measurement down the road, and thus speed up the game.

So if the technology is rarely needed, there is less of a rush or need to update it at all.

Hannah Foslien/Getty Images

The NFL also loves the added drama.

Of course, the chains are still needed occasionally — most often when the coach simply doubts what the officials already know — but even if it was more often, the NFL might still opt to use them for a simple reason: It adds to the drama.

One reason the NFL is not in a rush to use lasers to measure first downs? League likes drama of bringing out the chains.

— Sam Farmer (@LATimesfarmer) January 17, 2016

There is something about the drama of seeing the chains come running out onto the field with most fans not knowing what they will determine. Nobody wants to see that happen a lot, but one to two times per game is more fun than somebody in a booth reading a computer-generated image and buzzing the referee.

This seemed to be confirmed in a 2008 New York Times column, in which Mike Pereira, then the vice president for officiating for the NFL, noted that officials make sure the TV cameras can see the measurement.

"When we measure, we make sure the players are clear so that TV can get a good shot of the actual measurement," Pereira said at the time.

In the same column, John Mara, owner of the New York Giants, confirmed that the league loves the added drama:

There's a certain amount of drama that is involved with the chains. Yes, it is subject to human error, just like anything else is. But I think it's one of the traditions that we have in the game, and I don't think any of us have felt a real compelling need to make a change.

In other words, the chains are not going away anytime soon.

NOW WATCH: Officials discovered a hidden motor inside the frame of a Belgian cyclist’s bike

www.foodwastemovie.com

Collectively, people waste nearly 50% of global food — and in the US and Canada alone, we're wasting $6,000 worth of food every second.

Canada-based filmmakers Grant Baldwin and Jen Rustemeyer wanted to find out how much of that food is still good, and if they could eat it, so they came up with a challenge: to survive on food waste for six months.

"We went cold-turkey," they told NPR on a recent podcast. "We said we're going to consume only food that is destined for the trash or already in it. So we could pay for it, but we found that most places would not sell us dated food."

After six months of dumpster diving and searching behind wholesale warehouses, they managed to rescue over $20,000 worth of food — and spent a scant $200 on groceries.

To see how they did it, we checked out their documentary on the project, "Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story," which featured interviews with authors Tristram Stuart and Jonathan Bloom, and the Natural Resources Defense Council project scientist, Dana Gunders:

Baldwin and Rustemeyer hashed out the rules for the six month challenge over their "last supper": an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.

YouTube/Just Eat It

1. They must eat only discarded food — anything expired or already wasted.
2. They could eat what friends and family serve, "to alleviate the stress of making everyone feel uncomfortable," Rustemeyer explained in "Just Eat It."

Most supermarkets wouldn't sell them dated food, so they often resorted to dumpsters. "We found 18-foot dumpsters all the time filled with food," they told NPR. "And the majority of that was because it was near the date label, but rarely past it."

www.foodwastemovie.com

The most food waste comes from households, in part because of the confusing nature of date labels.

www.foodwastemovie.com

There are 'sell by' and 'best by' dates on food products, and the customer should really only see the latter, explained Stuart: "The 'sell by' date shouldn't appear visibly. It should be encoded so that only staff understand it because it confuses people. They say 'display until,' customers see it, and they think, 'Oh, I can't eat it after that day.'"

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

If you've got a special Star Wars fan in your life this Valentine's Day—or just hate the fact that flowers eventually die—you're in luck.

Retailer ThinkGeek completely upped the gift-giving game Friday with the debut of its plush Valentine's Day bouquets, which include three officially licensed Star Wars-themed versions

For everyone looking to ride the wave of Star Wars frenzy all the way through Feb. 14, there are a few super cute and cuddly options: the Darth Vader and Storm Trooper-themed "I Am Your Flower" bouquet, the R2-D2-lover's "Beep Boop Bloom" bouquet and finally the variety-pack bouquet featuring all the fan favorites, aptly called the "Blue Harvest (And Red and Green and Black and White and Gold...)" Read more...

More about Star Wars, Valentine S Day, Watercooler, and Youtube Video Lead Template

The massive storm dumping snow from Georgia to New York is just as beautiful from space as it is for those waking up to the fresh powder outside their doors.

Astronaut Scott Kelly, currently aboard the International Space Station as part of a year-long mission, tweeted a view of the storm from his window this morning.

In the photo, a massive cluster of clouds can be seen blocking out much of the east coast, while the blurry lights of big cities shine through below

Kelly also managed to get a glimpse of lightning illuminating the clouds during a rare thunder snow event later in the day. Read more...

More about Nasa, Science, Iss, International Space Station, and Blizzard

theodp writes: From Stephen Wolfram's blog post announcing the Wolfram Programming Lab: "It's a very important — and in fact transformative — moment for programming education. In the past one could use a 'toy programming language' like Scratch, or one could use a professional low-level programming language like C++ or Java. Scratch is easy to use, but is very limited. C++ or Java can ultimately do much more (though they don't have built-in knowledge), but you need to put in significant time—and get deep into the engineering details—to make programs that get beyond a toy level of functionality. With the Wolfram Language, though, it's a completely different story. Because now even beginners can write programs that do really interesting things. And the programs don't have to just be 'computer science exercises': they can be programs that immediately connect to the real world, and to what students study across the whole curriculum. Wolfram Programming Lab gives people a broad way to learn modern programming — and to acquire an incredibly valuable career-building practical skill. But it also helps develop the kind of computational thinking that's increasingly central to today's world." So, when it comes to programming education, are schools hitchIng their cart to the wrong horse?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Reuters

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis, who has acknowledged being "a disaster" when it comes to technology, said on Friday that the Internet, social networks and text messages were "a gift of God" if used wisely.

"Emails, text messages, social networks and chats can also be fully human forms of communication," the pope said in his message for the Roman Catholic Church's World Day of Communications.

"It is not technology which determines whether or not communication is authentic, but rather the human heart and our capacity to use wisely the means at our disposal," said.

Last year, the 79-year-old Francis told a young girl he was embarrassed to admit that he did not know how to use computers and was an overall "disaster" with technology. He has also said smartphones should be banned from the family dinner and children should not have computers in their rooms.

Whether by divine providence or human coincidence, Francis' message was released as he was meeting with the head of a company whose brand is synonymous with those products - Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook.

In his message, the pope appeared to take a more conciliatory stand toward modern technology than in the past, saying "the Internet could be used to build a society which is healthy and open to sharing".

"Social networks can facilitate relationships and promote the good of society, but they can also lead to further polarization and division between individuals and groups," he said.

Modern communications were "a gift of God which involves a great responsibility," he said.

NOW WATCH: This one ingredient is making a lot of Americans fat

The weakest defense against the dark art of hacking is still you.

This humbling fact was proven once again when 27-year-old CTO of Praesidio and weekend hacker Sean Cassidy unveiled a proof-of-concept LastPass phishing hack that could trick unsuspecting users into entering their user name and, more worrisome, their master password in a fake LastPass login window.

While Cassidy's hack is fairly complex piece of coding work, the hack still, ultimately, relies on tricking someone into believing that they're using a real LastPass login window. LastPass is the popular (8 million users), free password management utility that will create, manage, and store passwords behind an encrypted wall. All you need to do is remember one password and then the app will auto-fill passwords, credit card info and more on any site where you use it. Read more...

More about Security, Phishing, Computer Hacking, Lastpass, and Tech

Jason Merritt/Getty

For years, super-fans of Quentin Tarantino have put all his work under a microscope and come to the theory that his films exist within the same world.

And it turns out they’re right.

From Uma Thurman’s character in “Pulp Fiction,” Mia Wallace, explaining the plot of “Fox Force Five" — which is essentially the same as “Kill Bill" — to characters in different films being related — like Vic Vega in “Reservoir Dogs” and Vincent Vega in “Pulp Fiction" — the connections among Tarantino films are deep. And now Tarantino confirms that in fact they're all connected, and even exist in the same universe, or two universes.

While talking to Australia’s the Project, the Oscar winner confirmed the theory, but also added that there are some movies of his that are movies that characters in other movies of his would watch — essentially, fictions inside a fiction.

“So 'From Dusk Till Dawn,' 'Kill Bill,' they all take place in this special movie universe,” the director said. “When all the characters of ‘Reservoir Dogs’ or ‘Pulp Fiction,’ when they go to the movies, ‘Kill Bill’ is what they go to see. ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ is what they see.”

We are guessing “The Hateful Eight,” his latest, falls into the category of movies that his characters go to see. Since, as far as we can tell, nothing from that movie relates to his previous work. But let us know in the comments if we're wrong.

NOW WATCH: NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof says writing books with his wife is easy compared to raising kids

Nest has long been the darling of the smart home industry, but the company recently confirmed its web-connected smart thermostat, known for learning the behavior of owners and saving them money, had been quietly leaking data

But don't freak out yet. It's not as bad as it sounds

In a report published to the site Freedom to Tinker and presented at the recent PrivacyCon conference, researchers at Princeton University detail how they detected that Nest's popular thermostat, among other web-connected devices, was transmitting data unencrypted, so in theory, online hackers could have intercepted that private information if they were looking in the right place. Read more...

More about Apps, Internet Of Things, Tech, Gadgets, and Mobile

Gawker Sarah Palin Says Her Son Was Arrested Because Obama Doesn’t Care About Veterans | Jalopnik Crushed Nissan Skyline Owner Admits He Knew His Car Was Illegal | Lifehacker Alton Brown’s Advice for Better Homemade Smoothies | io9 How Disney Fixed a Huge Mistake With Zootopia One Year Before Release |

Read more...

LONDON — President Vladimir Putin probably approved a plan by Russia's FSB security service to kill former agent Alexander Litvinenko, a British judge said Thursday.

In a lengthy report, Judge Robert Owen said that he is certain Litvinenko was given tea laced with a fatal dose of polonium-210 at a London hotel in November 2006.

He said there is a "strong probability" that the FSB directed the killing, and the operation was "probably approved" by Putin.

Litvinenko, a former FSB agent, fled to Britain in 2000 and became a vocal critic of Russia's security service and of Putin, whom he accused of links to organized crime. Read more...

More about Uk, Russia, Vladimir Putin, and Us World

Nobody knows when humans carved the first snow penis into freshly fallen powder, but they're not going away any time soon.

Parks officials in Gothenburg, Sweden, found themselves in a bit of a pickle on Sunday when a local schlong artist decided to draw a giant penis in the snow on a frozen moat. Unfortunately for those trying to eradicate the member, the snow penis was on thin ice, literally.

Giant snow penis causes headache in Sweden: https://t.co/VblG2MXVhy pic.twitter.com/X5UNYCICrW

— Brett (@Brosner85) January 18, 2016

According to The Local, park employees were cleaning King's Park when several concerned citizens, disgusted and offended by the snow art located on a frozen body of water inside the park, approached the workers. The park staff then attempted to destroy the artwork, but retreated after discovering the ice was too thin. Read more...

More about Pics, Funny, Watercooler, Conversations, and Penis

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The domestic terrorists who seized the Malheur national wildlife refuge near Bend, OR, are operating with incredible impunity, destroying public property, breaking into federal databases and disrupting sites of archaeological and sacred indigenous interest. (more…)

theodp writes: The very first proposal President Obama put forth in his final State of the Union address Tuesday night for his remaining year in office was "helping students learn to write computer code." While the President wants every student to learn CS, NPR notes that getting a new, complex, technical subject onto the agendas of our public schools is a massive challenge, prompting it to ask, How Would That Work? That Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella attended the SOTU address as Michelle Obama's guest suggests the President is counting on the kindness of tech titans to help make things happen. Microsoft and Obama have worked together to try to get CS in the schools since at least 2006, when Microsoft announced a $1 million donation to NCWIT, which it indicated would facilitate "taking the discussion to a national stage" at a Washington, D.C. Innovation and Diversity Town Hall co-sponsored by the NSF and keynoted by then-Senator Barack Obama. "Most of all, what inspires me about this program [NCWIT] are the prospects of my two daughters," Obama said at the time (video). "I want them to go as far as their dreams may take them. And, unfortunately because of long historic discrimination in the areas of gender, we can't be assured of that."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Reading good books helps visionary leaders sharpen their foresight and imagination. Below are my top picks:

1. 'The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains' by Nicholas Carr

Amazon

How is all this constant Web browsing affecting our brains? Technology and culture writer Nicholas Carr argues that the internet, by instantly serving massive volumes of information, is making us expert skimmers and scanners, flitting and darting from one distraction to the next. The result is shallow thinking and the loss of our ability to concentrate, focus, and reflect. "The Shallows" will motivate you to read more books, which, unlike the internet, train our brains to pay attention and engage in deep thought.

Find it here >>

2. 'Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model' by John Mullins and Randy Komisar

Amazon

Every new business comes with a business plan, and authors John Mullins and Randy Komisar assert that the original business plan is rarely the right one. "Getting to Plan B" teaches a systematic way to test your Plan A and iterate it — so you can find your winning business model before you run out of cash. This book will show you how to use analogs, antilogs, and leaps of faith to discover the most profitable business model.

Find it here >>

3. 'Get a Grip: How to Get Everything You Want From Your Entrepreneurial Business' by Gino Wickman and Mike Paton

Amazon

In a previous book, Gino Wickman shared his Entrepreneurial Operating System method for business success. It involves strengthening the six key components of a business: vision, people, data, issues, process, and traction. In "Get a Grip," Wickman and Mike Paton use the story of a fictitious business, Swan Services, to illustrate how to implement EOS in practical terms. With the EOS approach, you can transform your team and your business.

Find it here >>

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Disney

Maz Kanata's castle plays a larger part in "The Force Awakens" than the character herself, but she's more powerful than you realized watching the film.

In an interview with Collider, "Star Wars" SFX supervisor Chris Corbould reveals that Maz has abilities that ultimately didn't make the film's final cut.

The motion-capture character, played by Lupita Nyong'o, tells Rey (Daisy Ridley) that she knows the Force, though she's not a Jedi.

In a cut scene, Maz uses the Force to stop advancing stormtroopers.

"There was a particular part of a scene that never made it, where they go underneath the castle and they’re going into the underground passageways, and stormtroopers are coming down the stairs and Maz uses her powers to collapse the ceiling," Corbould said. "From my point of view, [that] worked absolutely brilliantly because you had all the main actors running up and then Maz does her bit and then the whole ceiling collapses in front of them, but that never made it. That was a shot I was quite proud of, actually, it worked really, really well." 

Other scenes, like a snowspeeder chase depicted in the film's novelization, were also cut. Some of the deleted scenes will be included on the film's Blu-ray release. 

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US-led coalition airstrikes against the Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh) on January 11 destroyed a cash-distribution center and two command centers near Mosul, Iraq.

Targeting ISIS' finances remains a key part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the name of the Combined Joint Task Force's mission to eliminate the terrorist group. 

The building stocked with ISIS' cash was destroyed by two 2,000-pound bombs, CNN reported, citing an unnamed US defense official.

ISIS also finances its operations through oil smuggling, racketeering, kidnapping, and taxing those residing inside its so-called caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

Last year Iraq's finance minister said ISIS militants looted nearly half a billion dollars from banks in Mosul, Tikrit, and Baiji, Reuters reports.

Here's an aerial view of the airstrike:

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Reuters contributed to this report.

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