Today, my electric razor broke down during shaving. So now I have a face which is shaved on the right hand side and has a beard on the left. I don't own blades, so I'll have to go to work looking like this. FML
I probably could have made this up if I tried, but you wouldn't believe it if I did. (credit: Trump Effect)
In a US presidential campaign season full of unexpected moments and petty squabbles between candidates and public figures of all stripes, today's interaction between Donald Trump and Electronic Arts still ranks as one of the oddest. This afternoon, the publisher issued a YouTube takedown notice for a video supporting Donald Trump that uses voices and music from 2010's Mass Effect 2, after the candidate himself tweeted the video approvingly to nearly 7.5 million followers earlier in the morning.
The ad, which appears to have been created by an individual fan with no official connection to the Trump campaign, draws directly from Mass Effect 2's launch trailer, overlaying a speech from Martin Sheen's Illusive Man character with videos and photos from modern America. "We're at war," Sheen intones over scenes of generalized and specifically Trump-related chaos. "No one wants to admit it, but humanity is under attack. One very specific man might be the only thing that stands between humanity and the greatest threat of our brief existence."
The Mass Effect content is roughly intercut with images and messages from Trump supporters, as well as lines from Trump's stump speech about making America great again. It ends with the message that "the American people are DONE with career politicians" and an entreaty to "GO OUT & Vote for Trump." Yet there are some signs the video could be an elaborate, trollish joke against Trump, including an image with the non sequitur purported Trump quote, "No more oreos!"
Finnish drone enthusiasts have discovered an excellent new drone modification: A chainsaw.
The contraption is incredibly effective at decapitating snowmen. A video of it doing just that is an instant classic in the burgeoning genre of "doing crazy things with drones for YouTube."
This should be a requirement for everything. ESPECIALLY if it's something you signed up for online in the first place. I'm looking at you, Proactiv cancellation policy!
Time to hang up the phone, evil androids. (credit: psd)
Proposed legislation in California would require Internet service providers to let customers cancel online, potentially ending the scourge of long, awkward cancellation phone calls.
"You've seen the ads from companies that advertise the ease of signing up for their cable or Internet service over the Web," said a press release from state Assemblyman Mike Gatto yesterday. "However, if individuals decide to cancel those same services, they're often forced to suffer through infuriating, time-consuming phone calls, often spending hours on hold."
Gatto's bill is simple, saying, "If a cable or Internet service provider enables an individual to subscribe to its services through an Internet Web site, it shall also enable all of its customers to cancel their subscriptions through the Internet Web site."
Reddit has removed the warrant canary posted on its website, suggesting that the company may have been served with some sort of secret court order or document for user information.
At the bottom of its 2014 transparency report, the company wrote: "As of January 29, 2015, reddit has never received a National Security Letter, an order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or any other classified request for user information. If we ever receive such a request, we would seek to let the public know it existed."
That language was conspicuously missing from the 2015 transparency report that was published Thursday morning. (Disclaimer: Ars and Reddit are owned by the same parent company, Advance Publications.)
Like all jokes on April Fools' Day, some are received better than others. Pranksters usually mean well, but there's always someone that pushes the envelope a little too far, upsetting the recipient. Google fell into this trap today after launching a...
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO—Saying the turn of events will greatly benefit the 17-year-old’s economic security, sources confirmed Friday that local high school senior Emily Harrison’s failure to get into the University of Southern California, a private academic institution, will be the single most financially responsible act of her entire life. According to reports, Harrison’s rejected application, which she spent weeks preparing in hopes of spending four years at her “dream school,” will save the young student a total of nearly $370,000, including $205,768 in tuition, $3,714 in fees, $57,392 in room and board, and $101,670 in student loan interest payments. The rejection, which led a visibly devastated Harrison to agonize over whether she should have participated in more extracurricular activities or obtained additional letters of recommendation, will reportedly allow her to avoid a period of 10 years or more in which she ...
The idea came from the restaurant's owner, Minu Pauline, who was inspired to do something one night after she saw a homeless woman rummaging through a trash can for food.
Adding to Pauline's concern was the fact that Pappadavada had a lot of leftover, discarded food that night that could easily have been given to the woman or someone else in need.
1. The show is a real family affair. As most people know, Mac and Dee are married in real life, as are Charlie and The Waitress. On top of that, Caylee, the woman Dennis "re-D.E.N.N.I.S.es" in "The D.E.N.N.I.S. System" is actually his wife, Jill Latiano.
2. Day met Mary Elizabeth Ellis (The Waitress) in 2004 when they played incestuous twins on Reno 911.
3. The reason Glenn Howerton's character is named Dennis, while Charlie Day and Rob McElhenney's characters are named after themselves, is because Howerton wanted to distance himself from "sociopath" Dennis as much as possible. Fair enough, tbh.
4. There is a hidden audio message from McElhenney, Howerton, and Day over the end credits of every episode of Always Sunny. They are played backwards and are generally pretty weird.
5. There was a one-off TV short spin-off back in 2007 called Danny DeVito and the Contract. The plot is that Charlie Day forgets to read his contract for season three of Always Sunny, and the contract says that he has to perform oral sex on DeVito.
6. Rob McElhenney has appeared in a few other notable TV shows. He played Aldo in two episodes of Lost, Lou Tookers in The Mindy Project, and here he is in a episode of Law and Order from way back in 1997.
NBC
7. Glenn Howerton has also appeared in The Mindy Project, as Cliff Gilbert, and he's done voice work on shows like Family Guy and American Dad!.
8. He was a serious contender for the lead role in Jurassic World before Chris Pratt was eventually chosen. He was beaten to the role of Peter Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy by Pratt as well.
9. Charlie Day has also done some pretty notable voice work – he played Benny the spaceman in The Lego Movie and Art in Monsters University. He also acted alongside Jennifer Aniston in Horrible Bosses.
10. Mac actually has two gay cousins, Country Mac, and Brett, who appears in the very first episode when The Gang accidentally turn Paddy's into a gay bar.
11. Carl Weezer from Jimmy Neutron bears an almost uncanny resemblance to young Frank Reynolds, AKA "Froggy".
BERKELEY, CA—Warning society that it has reached a crucial tipping point from which it may never be able to recover, a brittle, yellowing report sitting in the archives of the University of California’s Bioscience & Natural Resources Library reportedly urged readers Friday that “the time to act against climate change is right now.” “Any further delay in ending the international community’s reliance on fossil fuels and reversing global carbon emission trends places the planet on an irreversible path toward climate catastrophe,” read the faded text of the document, whose musty, degrading pages further cautioned that, without “an immediate and concerted worldwide response,” polar ice caps will melt at an accelerating rate and extreme weather events will grow more frequent and destructive. “This is the most pressing issue facing humanity today. We must act against rising global temperatures with exceptional speed and commitment, as the future of the ...
A humanoid obsessive has built an incredibly realistic female robot from scratch - and it's got more than a passing resemblance to Avengers star Scarlett Johansson.
Ricky Ma, a 42-year-old product and graphic designer, has spent more than $50,000 (£34,000) and a year and a half creating the female robot prototype, Mark 1.
The designer confirmed the scarily lifelike humanoid had been modelled on a Hollywood star, but wanted to keep her name under wraps.
It responds to a set of programmed verbal commands spoken into a microphone and has moving facial expressions, but Ricky says creating it wasn't easy.
He said he was not aware of anyone else in Hong Kong building humanoid robots as a hobby and that few in the city understood his ambition.
Ricky said: "When I was a child, I liked robots. Why? Because I liked watching animation. All children loved it. There were Transformers, cartoons about robots fighting each other and games about robots.
"After I grew up, I wanted to make one. But during this process, a lot of people would say things like, 'Are you stupid? This takes a lot of money. Do you even know how to do it? It's really hard'."
It has cost Ricky more than £34k to achieve his childhood dream
Besides movements of its arms and legs, turning its head and bowing, Ma's robot, with blonde hair and hazel eyes can form detailed facial expressions.
Ricky has dressed 'her' in a crop top and a grey skirt.
The robot has been modelled on a Hollywood actress
Scarlett Johansson as she looks in real life
In response to the compliment, "Mark 1, you are so beautiful", the robot bows as the 'muscles' around its eyes relax and corners of its lips lift, forming a smile.
It then replies: "Hehe, thank you."
Ricky has dressed the model in a white crop top and grey skirt
A 3D-printed skeleton lies beneath Mark 1's silicone skin, covering its mechanical and electronic interior.
About 70% of its body was created using 3D printing technology.
Creating the robot, Ma adopted a trial-and-error method in which he encountered obstacles ranging from burned-out motors to the robot losing its balance.
The creation took Ricky more than a year and a half to make
"When I started building it, I realised it would involve dynamics, electromechanics and programming. I have never studied programming, how was I supposed to code?
"Additionally, I needed to build 3D models for all the parts inside the robot. Also, I had to make sure the robot's external skin and its internal parts could fit together. When you look at everything together, it was really difficult," said Ma.
Ma, who believes the importance of robots will grow, hopes an investor will buy his prototype, giving him the capital to build more.
Ricky hopes investors will buy his prototype robot
He wants to write a book about his experience to help other enthusiasts.
The rise of robots is among disruptive labour market changes that the World Economic Forum warns will lead to a net loss of 5.1 million jobs over the next five years.
HAWTHORNE, CA—Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk took the stage at the Tesla Design Studio to reveal the Tesla Model 3. "It's very important to accelerate the transition to sustainable transport," Musk said. "The last time there was this level of carbon concentration in the atmosphere was 11 million years ago."
"Beyond global warming there are 53,000 deaths per year from auto emissions," Musk added.
Tonight, Musk released the first official details on the company’s most important car to date, the Tesla Model 3. The base version of the all-electric vehicle will have a range of 215 miles, a continuous pane of glass on the rear roof, and front and rear trunks. Musk added that the car could comfortably fit a 7ft surfboard. The glass roof is similar to the one on the Model X, made with layers of glass to absorb and reflect UV light, keeping the car from getting too hot in the summer sun.
That lipsync contest between those two was AMAZING.
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH.
GUYS. GUYS. ALL OUR WILDEST DREAMS HAVE COME TRUE.
The couple who constantly bless us with their good looks, good dancing, and all-round relationship goals are now going to HAVE THEIR OWN SHOW.
Spike
Yep, according to Deadline, these cool cats will be involved in a new NBC show that is being described as a "fresh take on the dance competition genre".
Apparently Jenna will be a judge and mentor, while Channing will appear at times throughout the show's six-episode arc. The two will also be executive producers.
A new dating app called Boompi works like Tinder at first blush. It finds matches based on location, and you can swipe left or right to let it know if you're interested or not. Now, here's where it gets iffy: if you're a woman, you can invite your gi...
LOL Lauren did this once in college, and the vodka they used melted the filter, and the resulting "filtered" vodka was black. They drank it anyway I believe.
There's a white unicorn with a rainbow horn on the wall in front of me. A tiger sits casually by the door on the right. On a grey couch at one end of the room, a globe starts to spin when I gaze at it. A second celestial object with the word "Fragmen...
"Driver distraction is a serious road safety issue," a NZ Transport Agency spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. "People think that it's dangerous to use their mobile phones while driving, yet many people still do it."
"The campaign aims to use this insight and encourages young drivers to question their use of mobile phones while driving. It’s the first step in getting young people to view things from a different perspective – their passenger’s. "
Today, I checked my Tumblr account to see if anyone had commented on the photos of my new tattoo. There were only 3 posts, and 2 of them were people linking it to "Awful Tattoo" blogs. FML
Like all jokes on April Fools' Day, some are received better than others. Pranksters usually mean well, but there's always someone that pushes the envelope a little too far, upsetting the recipient. Google fell into this trap today after launching a...
A new dating app called Boompi works like Tinder at first blush. It finds matches based on location, and you can swipe left or right to let it know if you're interested or not. Now, here's where it gets iffy: if you're a woman, you can invite your gi...
There's a white unicorn with a rainbow horn on the wall in front of me. A tiger sits casually by the door on the right. On a grey couch at one end of the room, a globe starts to spin when I gaze at it. A second celestial object with the word "Fragmen...
