Steve Dyer

stream:

Middle-Aged Mutant Ninja Turtles | SNL

shi1498912:

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firebreathingeli:

Please watch this series of Japanese gum commercials

You won’t regret it I promise

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OMG?

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wtf?!

A few weeks ago, the Washington Post interviewed Scott Z. Burns, who wrote the screenplay for Contagion, Steven Soderbergh’s film about a bat-borne illness that starts a global pandemic. What’s most striking about the interview is how outlandish Burns finds certain aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic, so ridiculous in fact that people would find them implausible if this were a fictional story.

I would have never imagined that the movie needed a “bad guy” beyond the virus itself. It seems pretty basic that the plot should be humans united against the virus. If you were writing it now, you would have to take into account the blunders of a dishonest president and the political party that supports him. But any good studio executive would have probably told us that such a character was unbelievable and made the script more of a dark comedy than a thriller.

On Twitter, director Sarah Polley recently had a similar take.

This is the worst movie I have ever seen.

Unsurprising that this movie doesn’t work — the screenplay was a dog’s breakfast.

So much heavy handed foreshadowing. The apocalyptic footage from Wuhan, the super villain American president, the whistleblower dying, the Russia/China border closed while people still claimed it was just a flu, the warnings unheeded. Insulting to the audience’s intelligence.

And then — that most annoying of horror/disaster movie tropes — the hapless idiots walking into disaster after disaster, all of which the audience can see coming from a mile away.

The over the top details of world leaders and their wives falling ill, the far fetched idea that industrialized countries wouldn’t have proper protective gear for front line workers and ventilators. Pleeeeaaase. This movie needed a script doctor.

It’s interesting that there are certain boundaries in fiction related to the audience’s suspension of disbelief that are are routinely ignored by reality. I’m also reminded of how Margaret Atwood approached The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments, using only elements that have historical precedent:

The television series has respected one of the axioms of the novel: no event is allowed into it that does not have a precedent in human history.

And yet some critics consider the events from the novels and TV show to be too much, over-the-top.

Update: Ted Chiang from a recent interview:

While there has been plenty of fiction written about pandemics, I think the biggest difference between those scenarios and our reality is how poorly our government has handled it. If your goal is to dramatize the threat posed by an unknown virus, there’s no advantage in depicting the officials responding as incompetent, because that minimizes the threat; it leads the reader to conclude that the virus wouldn’t be dangerous if competent people were on the job. A pandemic story like that would be similar to what’s known as an “idiot plot,” a plot that would be resolved very quickly if your protagonist weren’t an idiot. What we’re living through is only partly a disaster novel; it’s also — and perhaps mostly — a grotesque political satire.

I am currently blazing through Exhalation (Kindle), Chiang’s collection of science & technology fables. (via @jasondh)

pocmemes:

stealthwave:

thatpettyblackgirl:

Like the tellar 

and the nellar 

and the gellar… 

me:

As someone who a) thinks Dr. Dre was an amazing producer, and b) read Dr. Seuss’s Fox in Socks to his children roughly 1 million times (enough to be able to, eventually, get through the entire book at a comically high rate of speed w/o any tongue twisting slip-ups), I thought Wes Tank’s video of himself rapping Fox in Socks over Dre’s beats was really fun and surprisingly well done.

Tank has also done Green Eggs and Ham (over the beats from Forgot About Dre) and The Lorax. (thx, andrew)

The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

This is fantastic: former beatboxing world champion Butterscotch explains the 13 levels of complexity involved in beatboxing, from the simple “bass drum” to how to breathe while beatboxing to singing to emulating real instruments.

Expert beatboxers go so fast that it’s amazing to see someone with Butterscotch’s skill level break this down — like watching a water balloon bursting in slow motion. Her short explanation & demonstration of “breathing within the beat” bleeeewww my tiny little mind. Also, she is soooo good — what a treat to watch.

See also Robert Lang on the 11 Levels of Complexity of Origami, Tony Hawk on the 21 Levels of Complexity of Skateboard Tricks, and A Demonstration of 16 Levels of Piano Playing Complexity.

From Dr. Aisha Ahmad, some advice for how to adapt to conditions of a long-term crisis like the pandemic we are currently facing. (This was written specifically for educators, but applies to anyone.) First, the necessary sobering bit (italics mine):

The answer to the question everyone is asking — “When will this be over?” — is simple and obvious, yet terribly hard to accept. The answer is never.

Global catastrophes change the world, and this pandemic is very much akin to a major war. Even if we contain the Covid-19 crisis within a few months, the legacy of this pandemic will live with us for years, perhaps decades to come. It will change the way we move, build, learn, and connect. There is simply no way that our lives will resume as if this had never happened. And so, while it may feel good in the moment, it is foolish to dive into a frenzy of activity or obsess about your scholarly productivity right now. That is denial and delusion. The emotionally and spiritually sane response is to prepare to be forever changed.

I’ve had a few weeks to process the fact that this will never end, but seeing it stated like this, so matter-of-factly, is still shocking. Luckily, Ahmad spends the rest of the piece gently and generously advising us on how to handle this changed state of affairs.

Now more than ever, we must abandon the performative and embrace the authentic. Our essential mental shifts require humility and patience. Focus on real internal change. These human transformations will be honest, raw, ugly, hopeful, frustrated, beautiful, and divine. And they will be slower than keener academics are used to. Be slow. Let this distract you. Let it change how you think and how you see the world. Because the world is our work. And so, may this tragedy tear down all our faulty assumptions and give us the courage of bold new ideas.

In a Twitter thread, Ahmad shared some further thoughts on adapting to our new reality.

To start, know that your feelings today are not going to last all summer. It’s just a transition period. Right now, it feels like your whole world has been taken away, but that’s just because you haven’t hit your creative adaptation phase yet. Trust the process.

It’s upsetting when our expectations & plans are overturned. Give yourself a moment to grieve. But don’t let your grief trick you into thinking you’re going to suffer every day. That’s not happening. Your mind & body will adjust. Joy & freedom are still on the table.

And this was my favorite bit:

Second, embrace radical acceptance. Let go of expectations and control. What you did last month doesn’t serve you today. Let the world, today, teach you a new way to be happy, joyous, and free. If we live in denial, fear, or self-pity, we will miss the gift.

See also how to deal with our collective pandemic grief. (thx, meg)

squidwardsbastard:

a-remedy-a-melody:

karalora:

princesstigerbelle:

dennsokagi:

hahahaha good job 

This is how we know cats are sent from heaven

This is how we know that whatever trouble cats cause is deliberate

@squidwardsbastard

finally…scientific proof!!

Before he begins filming any of his movies, director Bong Joon-ho draws out storyboards for every single shot of every single scene of the film. From an interview with Bong in 2017:

I’m always very nervous in my everyday life and if I don’t prepare everything beforehand, I go crazy. That’s why I work very meticulously on the storyboards. If I ever go to a psych ward or a psychiatric hospital, they’ll diagnose me as someone who has a mental problem and they’ll tell me to stop working, but I still want to work. I have to draw storyboards.

For his Oscar-winning Parasite, Bong has collected the storyboards into a 304-page graphic novel due out in mid-May: Parasite: A Graphic Novel in Storyboards.

Drawn by Bong Joon Ho himself before the filming of the Palme d’Or Award-winning, Golden Globe(R)-nominated film, these illustrations, accompanied by every line of dialog, depict the film in its entirety. Director Bong has also provided a foreword which takes the reader even deeper into the creative process which gave rise to the stunning cinematic achievement of Parasite.

The book has already been released in Korea, and Through the Viewfinder did a 5-minute video comparison of the storyboards with the filmed scenes for the peach fuzz montage scene (and another video of the flood scene).

Amazing. That’s a whole lotta film school packed into five minutes of video.

Back when the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to be taken seriously by the American public, 3blue1brown’s Grant Sanderson released a video about epidemics and exponential growth. (It’s excellent — I recommend watching it if you’re still a little unclear on how things are got so out of hand so quickly in Italy and, very soon, in NYC.) In his latest video, Sanderson digs a bit deeper into simulating epidemics using a variety of scenarios.

Like, if people stay away from each other I get how that will slow the spread, but what if despite mostly staying away from each other people still occasionally go to a central location like a grocery store or a school?

Also, what if you are able to identify and isolate the cases? And if you can, what if a few slip through, say because they show no symptoms and aren’t tested?

How does travel between separate communities affect things? And what if people avoid contact with others for a while, but then they kind of get tired of it and stop?

These simulations are fascinating to watch. Many of the takeaways boil down to: early & aggressive actions have a huge effect in the number of people infected, how long an epidemic lasts, and (in the case of a disease like COVID-19 that causes fatalities) the number of deaths. This is what all the epidemiologists have been telling us — because the math, while complex when you’re dealing with many factors (as in a real-world scenario), is actually pretty straightforward and unambiguous.

The biggest takeaway? That the effective identification and isolation of cases has the largest effect on cutting down the infection rate. Testing and isolation, done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

See also these other epidemic simulations: Washington Post and Kevin Simler.

Note: Please keep in mind that these are simulations to help us better understand how epidemics work in general — it’s not about how the COVID-19 pandemic is proceeding or will proceed in the future.

aaliyah-appollonia:

eddiebelike:

verylilpimpin:

hotterdenwasabi:

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thechanelmuse:

When I tell you that is a never-ending thread 😂😂😂

The Ojs one 🤣🤣

Lmaooooo I fucking crying

Run away love killed me fkndjdndfk

I’m fucking crying!!!!! The Melissa shooooeeeessss!!!!!!! 😭😭😭😂🤣🤣🤣

Somebody drop me off at the hospital please 😂😂😂

A reader writes:

I work in an administrative role at a national restaurant chain.

I just got off of a conference call with corporate in which they told us that if the U.S. government sends us the proposed stimulus checks due to Covid 19, they plan to absorb the money we receive by cutting our hours to reflect that amount. In other words, if each person receives a check for $1,200, $1,200 will effectively go back to the company. Is this legal?

Presumably it will be a sacrifice shouldered by lower level corporate employees, since executives likely make too much money to qualify for the government checks. (My partner lost his job due to service industry layoffs, so money is a concern during this time.)

Legal as far as I can see (assuming you’re non-exempt*), but despicable.

They would be directly undoing what that money is intended to accomplish and they’d be commandeering your government assistance for themselves. It’s disgusting.

Let’s name and shame this company. I will keep you fully anonymous, but people need to know what national restaurant chain is proposing screwing over their workers this way — and it’s highly likely that letting the public see their plan would quickly kill it.

Everyone: I’ve been talking with a reporter who’s writing about employers doing awful things during coronavirus and she asked me to provide her contact info to anyone else whose employer is behaving badly in relation to the virus, if you’re willing to speak to her. (She wrote this excellent article about naming employers who weren’t allowing remote work when they could.) She is happy to keep you anonymous if you’d like. You can contact her here:

Polly Mosendz
pmosendz (at) bloomberg.net
phone number / Signal: 339-227-1657

Public shaming can work. Pushing back with a group of your coworkers can (sometimes) work.

We’re really seeing the worst of some employers right now.

* If you’re exempt, they can’t dock your pay based upon the number of hours you work in a given week. I’m assuming they’re talking about non-exempt workers here.

my company plans to absorb any government stimulus checks that employees receive for themselves was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions, and a sixth thing. Here we go…

1. My daughter’s managers complained to me about her work

My daughter is 19 but lives at home. She has had a full-time job at a local daycare center ever since graduating high school. I dropped by her place of employment the other day to tell her something. All three managers were in the front office. I smiled and greeted them with, “Hi. How’s it going?” I was shocked when, instead of the standard response, I got a barrage of complaints from all three about my daughter’s work performance. Apparently, she’s been repeatedly written up for neglect of safety issues with the toddlers in her care and lack of proper sanitation of her classroom. They gave details as to the disciplinary action and warnings they’d given her in the past six months, how many times she’d been written up, how they were at their wit’s end with her, and how close she was to being fired.

I glazed over almost immediately. Seriously, how is this my problem? My daughter is an adult. It seemed that by sharing these issues with me, they somehow expect me to punish her for her workplace sins. I let them know in no uncertain terms that my daughter is their problem when she’s at work, and it’s their job to deal with her performance issues in whatever way they see fit, including termination. They were clearly offended at my response.

Isn’t what these managers did illegal? Or at the very least unethical and unprofessional? Doesn’t an employee have some expectation of privacy in the workplace? At the very least to not have the contents of their personnel file shared with those without a need to know? Who tattles to an employee’s mommy regarding said employee’s work performance? Am I missing something?

It’s not illegal; in the U.S., there’s no right to privacy with this kind of work information. But it’s certainly unprofessional and inappropriate, and I’m glad you told them they should be managing their employee rather than complaining to her mom. (And really, if they’re that frustrated with her, they have a variety of tools available to deal with that, including letting her go.)

It sounds like they were hoping you’d add to their pressure on her — maybe talk some sense into her or otherwise use your influence to get her to improve her performance. But she’s an adult and that’s not an appropriate thing for them to ask an employee’s parent. (Frankly, even if she weren’t an adult, it would still be inappropriate. They need to manage her.)

2. Should I offer to go to my boss’s house for a weekly check-in?

I started a new job at the beginning of March. I worked for two weeks in the office and now one week from home. Before we began work-from-home, my boss expressed concern at my being so new and not being in the office together.

I happen to live within walking distance of my boss’s house. We are both healthy. Should I offer to go over once a week for a face-to-face meeting?

We have been doing pretty well this week as a team on Skype, but I’m worried that prolonged distance will impede my ability to build my relationship with her.

Absolutely not. Do not do that. We need to be keeping our distance from other people right now. The point of having people work from home during this crisis is to slow the spread of the virus, so that people don’t die (which might not be you, but could be the person you spread it to — or it could be someone else with a medical crisis totally unrelated to COVID-19 who can’t get care if our hospitals are overwhelmed). It doesn’t matter that you and your boss both seem healthy. You can have the virus for up to two weeks before you show symptoms, and you can be infecting other people during that time.

People will die because other people aren’t taking this seriously. Stay home.

3. Does my start-up think I’ll keep working when I’m not getting paid?

I started working at a start-up a few months ago and we opened and had a great start before Covid-19 ruined everything and we had to shut down temporarily. Because we’re so new, we weren’t out of the red yet and we’ve known since the day we closed that we only have one more paycheck for the staff, including myself and the other manager. We’ve been working from home, trying to pivot and keep the business afloat, and we’ve all been working pretty hard on various projects to make that happen.

My issue is, I get the feeling that I need to explicitly say that my last day is the day that next paycheck lands, and that I need to file for unemployment and find a new job after that. There has been a lot of talk about how to tell our teams about unemployment stuff but no mention of me and the other manager returning our computers or anything.

I believe in the company and hope we stay afloat and figure everything out, and I’d come back to work for them in a heartbeat, but I can’t miss multiple paychecks and keep working full-time for them. In order to be eligible for unemployment, they need to recognize me as laid off, and I want to clarify that we’re on the same page. Just in a polite, empathetic, reasonable way.

How do I do this without burning this bridge? I’m really concerned because the feeling I’m getting from our meetings is that we’re all just going to continue going full speed ahead through this pandemic and I can’t do that if I’m not being paid for my time.

Say this: “We’ve talked about plans for the rest of the staff, but we haven’t talked about what this means for my role. My assumption is that there likely won’t be paid work for me after (date), and I should be planning to file for unemployment and look for other work after that date. Is that right?”

If the response sounds in any way like they’re hoping you’ll continue working unpaid or they’re hoping to be able to pay you at some undetermined future date, say this, “I love this work and I’d come back in a heartbeat, but I’m not in a position where I can keep working while missing paychecks. If that’s the situation, I’d need to be laid off with the others so I can collect unemployment and look for other full-time work.” To help preserve the relationship, you could add, “I wish I had the option to be more flexible, but financially I’m not in a position where I can do that.” (To be clear, you shouldn’t need to say that — they should understand people don’t work for for free or for promises that may never come to fruition — but sometimes that kind of language can smooth things over if their expectations are wacky.)

4. Do I owe my friend a personal response on a message I forwarded on her behalf?

A classmate of mine from grad school now works in a research director position. She reached out to me on LinkedIn informally to ask if my market research employer might be interested in a possible collaboration on a project about Covid-19. While outside of our normal purview, I certainly thought it merited a possible look and had her send me an informational email, which I have now forwarded to folks in my organization who have decision making power to pursue this further.

I’ve taken the necessary steps so far to get this information out and it’s up to those people in my company to make a decision. Do I owe my friend a personal response to say “hey, thanks for thinking of us but we will pass” or should I leave that up to others in my org? Anything else I should say to her now?

Sometimes in situations like these, the person in your shoes won’t hear back from the decision-makers at all. It’s possible you’ll just get a “thanks, we’ll take a look” and nothing else or, if the people you contacted get a lot of these suggestions, you might not even get that much.  So unless you know for sure that they’re going to get back to you with their decision one way or another, I would just let your friend know that you’ve passed it on to the right people internally and they’ll be in touch if they want to talk more.

But if the people you forwarded it to do get back to you about it, at that point you could ask, “Is it okay for me to update Jane with your response or are you contacting her directly?”

5. Can I ask for a better chair for working from home?

I work at a nonprofit private school which is 100% privately funded in the USA. I am an administrative manager on the business side; no academic interaction. We are on distance learning and remote work due to Covid-19.

The school provided me with a laptop and I’m able to do 90% of my job. I’ve set up a little office in my kitchen since I don’t have a desk or any kind of office setup in my home. This is day two of working from home. I have found that my kitchen chair is NOT going to work for me sitting in it for eight hours a day. I have nothing that would substitute as a physically healthy chair to work in. How do I ask my boss to have the school buy me a chair to use at home? And do I offer to bring it to the school when we return so it can be used as needed by the organization? I’m guessing a decent chair will cost at least a couple of hundred dollars.

In general, employers should want employees to have work-from-home set-ups that make them productive and comfortable. But that doesn’t mean they’re all willing to pay for it, and private schools often have notoriously tight budgets. But you can try posing the question: “I don’t have a chair at home that works for sitting at a computer all day and will need to get one. Since I am only getting it to work from and because of the current situation, is that a business expense that I could submit for reimbursement? I’d be happy to bring it in with me when we return to work.”

6. Employers are still hiring

Just wanted to let you know that job-hunters shouldn’t give up hope due to social distancing. We just had a candidate accept our offer, and he’s starting on April 13th. It’s true that we interviewed him in person (the day before our office closed), but we’re also desperately in need of another person, and hiring is going forward despite the closure. I for one would be overjoyed to interview folks via video call and find someone we can bring on, and I’ve seen no indication we can’t hire without in-person contact.

In addition, we’re a little worried the stock market situation might inspire a hiring freeze, so we’re motivated to hire NOW. I would encourage job seekers to follow up (in a non-obsessive way) with anyone they’ve been interviewing with to see if they’re planning to move forward during the self-isolation period. I think there’s a real chance teams will want to grab people while they can.

Thank you!

my daughter’s manager complained to me about her, weekly meetings at my boss’s house, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

Actor Idris Elba has tested positive for coronavirus, he announced in a video posted to social media: “I feel ok, I have no symptoms so far but have been isolated since I found out about my possible exposure to the virus. Stay home people and be pragmatic. I will keep you updated on how I’m doing. No panic.”

Elba said he didn’t have any symptoms but got tested when he found out he was exposed to someone who tested positive.

The post Idris Elba Tests Positive for Coronavirus appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

A group of international scientists has announced evidence of the smallest dinosaur ever recorded.

NHMLAC reports: “The tiny bird was found preserved in Burmese amber from Myanmar, trapped around 99 million years ago. The delicate skull is smaller than that of a Bee Hummingbird, the smallest living bird, and it belongs to a new species, Oculudentavis khaungraae. Researchers found that Oculudentavis had more teeth than any other fossil bird. The large number of teeth suggests that, despite its tiny size, Oculudentavis was a predator. The tooth row is longer than other birds’, extending all the way under the eye, so the researchers gave the new dinosaur the name meaning “eye-tooth-bird.” Its full name, Oculudentavis khaungraae, honors Mrs. Khaung Ra, who donated the specimen to the Hupoge Amber Museum. The tiny eyes of Oculudentavis were very large but with a pupil size that suggests it was diurnal.”

Said Dr. Jingmai O’Connor, senior professor, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, research associate at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and a lead author on the study: “It’s the weirdest fossil I’ve ever been lucky enough to study. I just love how natural selection ends up producing such bizarre forms. We are also super lucky this fossil survived to be discovered 99 million years later. Bivalves came very close to destroying the specimen – one of their drill holes goes right into the braincase. Just goes to show the extraordinary circumstances that all need to be just right for fossils to make it into human hands.”

More at NHMLAC.

The post Scientists Discover Smallest Dinosaur Ever Recorded appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Thursday, we looked on in horror after learning that, as anyone could have expected, Donald Trump's terrible horrible no good very bad address to the nation on coronavirus was written by Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller. We were already horrified, because we knew that, on top of the rest of his massive (alleged) portfolio of "solve Middle East" and "something something opioids" and so many other things, know-nothing golden boy dipshit Prince Jared was taking some kind of important role in the administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic crisis. So far his main contribution, that we know of, is that Trump is not yet declaring a NATIONAL EMERGY like he did over his damn border wall, because Jared is still doing "research."

On Facebook, apparently!

(Trump is reportedly going to do NATIONAL EMERGY this afternoon at 3:00 p.m. Eastern, and we imagine he'll find a way to tank the markets before close of business for the week in the process.)

Jared Kushner, despite not deserving to be there, has a high-level job in the White House, a security clearance he would never qualify for in a real presidential administration, and access to all the might and intellectual prowess of the most powerful government in the world. So it will shock you not even a little bit to learn that he's doing coronavirus research on Facebook and his brother's father-in-law, who is his brother Josh's wife Karlie Kloss's dad, is helping.

We would type "hashtag best people," but it's implied at this point.

As the narrative in Politico starts, Dr. Kurt Kloss is on Facebook asking for advice on how to beat coronavirus. Thank goodness he is in a private Facebook group of ER doctors, and not, like, a group of "Gossip Girl" fans.

"I have direct channel to person now in charge at White House," Kurt Kloss wrote in his post.

Because my daughter married his brother and in Trump's America, you fail UPWARD!

Anyway, Dr. Kloss finally told everybody why he was asking: Because Jared asked him to ask. On Facebook. He explained that his daughter is international famous "Gossip Girl" superstar person Karlie Kloss and she is married to a Kushner who is brothers with the grossest Kushner, who is Jared, boy husband of Ivanka, etc.

"Tonight I was asked by Jared through my son-in-law for my recommendations, that's when I turned to you my fellow BAFERD's for help," he wrote using a nickname for Bad Ass Fucking Emergency Room Doctors. "Between patients tonight I have reviewed your responses and will summarize what I am sending to Jared for your PEER review before I send it."

"Jared is reading now," Kloss followed up later.

Jared initiated this.

The Spectator, which broke the story, has screenshots:

Kloss's messages have reportedly now been deleted.

Now look. We are not above going on Next Door to find advice on dealing with the old balls neighbor who loses his shit when we forget to bring in our trash can, nor are we above asking our doctor friends what they really think about this whole coronavirus thing. BUT WE ARE NOT IN CHARGE OF THE WHITE HOUSE FUCKING RESPONSE TO A GLOBAL PANDEMIC. We just want the old balls neighbor to shut up, and we want to personally #BeBest in our own coronavirus response.

But we are more competent at life than Jared, so ...

Anyway, Dr. Kloss gave him some recs, from the Facebook. Some of them sound pretty good!

But wait, you are saying ... we thought Mike Pence was "in charge," as opposed to Jared. Well, you see, things are going poorly, and Politico reports that "in recent days as conditions worsened and criticism mounted, Kushner took a more active role, according to two people familiar with the situation."

So, you know, we're all going to fucking die.

Anyway, the Facebook group is called "EM Docs," it has 22,000 members, and apparently you have to be a for real legit doctor to be in it. So it's probably not your Hannity-watching Uncle Carl posting videos of Jerry Falwell Jr. saying coronavirus is a North Korean bioweapon.

And Dr. Kloss doesn't sound like some kind of Extreme Makeover: Idiot Edition himself. Politico reports that when Pence was put "in charge" of coronavirus, at Trump's big coronavirus presser a couple weeks ago, Kloss wrote in the Facebook group that the "only thing that gave me any sense of confidence was that Dr. Anthony Faucci [sic] was on that stage," referring to one of the only actual smart people involved in the Trump administration's response. In all honesty, he sounds really worried, and good on him for at least trying to help these dumbasses.

Point is, we are not saying Kurt Kloss is a moron, by any stretch, or that the Bad Ass Fucking Emergency Room Doctors are morons. They're probably awesome!

We are saying Jared is a fucking moron and this White House is so incompetent it's asking for advice on How To Pandemic on Facebook.

My God.

[Politico]

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If We Don’t Put A Stop To Gwyneth Paltrow, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Gonna Put A Stop To Us!

Humans are so small compared to the size of the Earth, it’s sometimes difficult to comprehend the scale of things like, say, the massive meteorite that struck the Yucatan peninsula about 66 million years ago, an event that triggered the mass extinction of plants and animals, including the dinosaurs. In his recent book, The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen takes a crack at explaining just how big the meteorite was and how quickly the event occurred.

“The meteorite itself was so massive that it didn’t notice any atmosphere whatsoever,” said Rebolledo. “It was traveling 20 to 40 kilometers per second, 10 kilometers — probably 14 kilometers — wide, pushing the atmosphere and building such incredible pressure that the ocean in front of it just went away.”

These numbers are precise without usefully conveying the scale of the calamity. What they mean is that a rock larger than Mount Everest hit planet Earth traveling twenty times faster than a bullet. This is so fast that it would have traversed the distance from the cruising altitude of a 747 to the ground in 0.3 seconds. The asteroid itself was so large that, even at the moment of impact, the top of it might have still towered more than a mile above the cruising altitude of a 747. In its nearly instantaneous descent, it compressed the air below it so violently that it briefly became several times hotter than the surface of the sun.

“The pressure of the atmosphere in front of the asteroid started excavating the crater before it even got there,” Rebolledo said. “Them when the meteorite touched ground zero, it was totally intact. It was so massive that the atmosphere didn’t even make a scratch on it.”

Unlike the typical Hollywood CGI depictions of asteroid impacts, where an extraterrestrial charcoal briquette gently smolders across the sky, in the Yucatan it would have been a pleasant day one second and the world was already over by the next. As the asteroid collided with the earth, in the sky above it where there should have been air, the rock had punched a hole of outer space vacuum in the atmosphere. As the heavens rushed in to close this hole, enormous volumes of earth were expelled into orbit and beyond — all within a second or two of impact.

“So there’s probably little bits of dinosaur bone up on the moon,” I asked.

“Yeah, probably.”

I don’t know if your eyes are as wide as mine are about now but…

igotyoucupid:

ineverseemtowin:

b1gxdr3w:

honeybruh:

acquaintedwithrask:

angelbabyspice:

puppy95:

grossnational:

Florida man stumps neighbors by covering home in aluminum foil

TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. - Polish artist and Tarpon Springs resident Piotr Janowski recently covered his home, including the concrete driveway and the surrounding palm trees, in sheets of aluminum foil.

The project, entitled “402 Ashland Ave”, is intended to make people think in uncommon ways about common goods.

For protection

against the aliens

okay but how did he get it so cleanly done

do you know how much chicken I could bake with this

Reblogged for the gifs

Online image emporium Giphy has partnered with Jif (the peanut butter people) to offer a limited edition jar of peanut butter with a dual-sided label: one side features the soft-G pronunciation of Jif and the other side the correct hard-G pronunciation of GIF. You can purchase a jar on Amazon. (via @waxpancake)

Last month we posted about Kenny Benjamin, 25, the part-time gay adult-film actor offering free subscriptions to his OnlyFans page in exchange for donations to Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren’s campaign. The Daily Show’s Desi Lydic paid a visit to Benjamin to get the down low.

The post ‘The Daily Show’ Visits Kenny Benjamin, the Man Offering Free Subs to His OnlyFans Account to Raise Money for Elizabeth Warren: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

In this video, Dean Bog takes an entertaining look at “Pittsburgh’s weirdest tradition”, where residents place a chair on the street in front of their house to claim a parking spot and keep others from parking in it. The maneuver is technically illegal, but:

We don’t need official signs, we don’t need to get the cops involved, we can just understand that if you’re placing a chair in a spot, you’re asking everyone to respect it as your own.

Bostonites do this during the winter with cones and sometimes chairs — the logic is: if you did all the hard work of shoveling out a spot, why should someone else get to park there?

Bog is also doing this series of videos where he reviews the neighborhoods of Pittsburgh. (thx, james)

stream:

You see the Comedian was right. Humanity’s savage nature will inevitably lead to global annihilation.
Watchmen (2009) | dir. Zack Snyder