IKEA Monkey

The last time she wore this dress, it went pretty well -- so she bought it in another color.

Donald Trump isn't letting slights go -- even after the ego-boosting accomplishment of winning the presidency.

NASA has published their highly anticipated and peer-reviewed analysis of the EM Drive and they’ve concluded the engine works despite appearing to violate Newton’s third law of motion.

In case you’ve missed the hype, the EM Drive, or Electromagnetic Drive, is a propulsion system first proposed by British inventor Roger Shawyer back in 1999.

Instead of using heavy, inefficient rocket fuel, it bounces microwaves back and forth inside a cone-shaped metal cavity to generate thrust.

According to Shawyer’s calculations, the EM Drive could be so efficient that it could power us to Mars in just 70 days.

But, there’s a not-small problem with the system. It defies Newton’s third law, which states that everything must have an equal and opposite reaction.

According to the law, for a system to produce thrust, it has to push something out the other way. The EM Drive doesn’t do this.

Yet in test after test it continues to work. Last year, NASA’s Eagleworks Laboratory team got their hands on an EM Drive to try to figure out once and for all what was going on.

There’s a lot of skepticism around this project, but NASA’s review is definitely a boost to the EM Drive’s credibility.

Update: Just to reiterate, even with this latest paper, there is still skepticism about the EM Drive.

In the end, we can’t conclude that this is a null result, nor can we excitedly say that it works. The sad truth is that this paper is not much better than the researchers’ last one, and it doesn’t actually have enough detail to let us fully evaluate the data. Nor does the paper have enough data to allow a conclusion in the absence of a model. And despite mention of a model in the paper, any model that exists is very well hidden.

Also a clue that the science isn’t quite there on this one yet: very few mainstream science outlets covered this. When the NY Times picks this up and gets prominent physicists on the record about the thruster’s promise, that’s when you’ll know something’s up. Until then, remain skeptical. (via @paudo)

Tags: NASA   physics   science

The New York Post reported on Sunday that Melania Trump and her 10-year-old, aptly-named son Barron will not be moving into the White House post-inauguration, but will remain encased in Manhattan’s Trump Tower instead.

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This Is Not Normal:

azspot:

• Using your Presidential transition website to promote your own business properties is not normal.
• Calling for millions of federal employees to sign nondisclosure agreements apart from standard government forms is not normal.
• Blasting journalists with product placements for the labels your child, who is on your transition team, is wearing is not normal.
• Having a wide range of senior figures in your own political party distance themselves from your transition team, citing the profound irregularity of it and worrying about future ugliness, is not normal.
• Placing your children in charge of your business empire, then placing them on your transition team, then seeking top secret security clearances for them, is not normal. The conflicts of interest that this represents are almost too many to count, but at a basic level: you do not give someone with a financial interest to work against U.S. policy access to sensitive information — at all, ever.
• Putting one’s children into senior positions of a government is the behavior of a banana republic, not a constitutional democracy with strong institutions. This is not normal.
• For a president who ran on his business acumen to refuse to disclose his taxes to the public, which in turn denies anyone the ability to see if financial conflicts of interest are driving his policy decisions, is not normal.
• Asking if he can decline the President’s salary, so as to avoid paying taxes, is not normal.
• Owing hundreds of millions of dollars in business debt to a foreign bank and refusing to fully divest yourself from those finances is not normal.
• Ascending to the White House while your eldest son, who is also on your transition team, and for whom you also seek a top-secret clearance, seeks out seven-digit business deals in Russia, is not normal. When Russia then names the President elect an “honorary Cossack,” it is not normal.
• Asking a hostile foreign intelligence agency to hack into the emails of your opponent in the campaign is not normal. Refusing to comment while they expand those hacks into other institutions is not normal. Watching that same government’s propaganda network dramatically change its tone in order to benefit the incoming president is not normal. That this foreign government is also the subject of numerous investigations into the President elect’s improper business conduct is not normal.
• Threatening to cut off Europe from NATO if payment is not received, like a gangster demanding protection money, in a way that benefits said foreign government, is not normal.
• Chanting for the summary imprisonment of your political opponent despite repeated conclusions that she has committed no crime is not normal. Refusing to back down from that call to summarily imprison her is not normal. Essentially suggesting a show trial before you’ve even assumed office is not normal.
• Hiring an avowed white supremacist and proud antisemite to be the chief of strategy at the White House is not normal. That the new White House chief strategist has bragged, openly, of his desire to destroy the United States is not normal. That the cofounder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center raised money for this is not normal.
• Staff participating in authoritarian victim-blaming and antisemitic conspiracism is not normal. Collaborating with cable news channels in that antisemitic conspiracy about protests is not normal.
• When one of the new administration’s most senior proxies and spokesmen calmly discusses committing war crimes in the Middle East, it is not normal. When he is shortlisted for the Department of State — despite lobbying for terrorists who killed Americans, despotic regimes in the Middle East, and the tyrannical government of Venezuela — it is not normal.
• When that proxy is simply following in the footsteps of the new President-elect, who has called for reinstating torture and summarily executing the families of alleged terrorists, it is not normal.
• The leading candidate for the department of education (who himself has no background as an educator or in education policy) openly suggesting to censor speech on universities is not normal. Nominating an oil executive as the Secretary of the Interior is not normal. Nominating a climate change denialist funded by the oil industry to run the EPA is not normal. When the leading candidate for Defense Secretary having a long history of openly racist comments toward his own staff it is not normal.
• The FBI intervening decisively in the last week of the election to alter its outcome for one candidate is not normal. But the FBI refusing to address the president elect’s violation of sanctions against a communist country is also not normal.
• When a woman accuses a presidential candidate of having raped her as a child, but then refuses to go forward with her allegations because of a barrage of death threats yet still receives almost no media coverage, it is not normal.
• It is not normal for a president-elect to have 75 pending lawsuits against him, ranging from business fraud to illegal hiring practices. It is not normal for his lawyers to demand those lawsuits be delayed until after his inauguration for not discernable reason other than to retreat behind the immunity of the office.
• Relentlessly attacking the legitimacy of the media (to be distinguished from criticizing media conduct) is not normal. Threatening to sue the media because you don’t like being criticized is not normal.
• Being so steeped in the language of fascism that you and and your staff mirror Hitler (“make the trains run on time“), appeasing Hitler (“America First“), or Mussolini (“drain the swamp“) is not normal.

Gigi Hadid may want to steer clear of the political jokes from now on.

On Saturday, more than 300 people—many of them young men in slim-fitting suits and fashionable haircuts—descended on the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center for the National Policy Institute's (NPI) Become Who We Are 2016 conference. The generically named think tank is the well-dressed arm of the alt-right, a white identity movement that has gained increasing popularity and media attention thanks to the rise of Donald Trump, who many consider to represent their views.

The alt-right is distinct from the conservative movement that has dominated the Republican Party for decades, but it's far from a unified organization. Everyone from internet trolls and edge lords to scientific racists and academic white supremacists have found a home in the alt-right, which simultaneously revels in vulgarity and defiance of political correctness and prides itself on its intellectualism. In the short term, these people fervently support Trump's ideas on issues like immigration and a war against radical Islam. In the long term, they seriously want to establish an "ethno-state" solely for white people within the United States.

Photographer Lexey Swall and VICE editor Wilbert L. Cooper were on hand for Saturday's conference, a safe space for white nationalists where they could say things out loud that are mostly only typed on certain message boards and pseudonymous blogs, and even raise their arms in Nazi-esque salutes. Here are what some of the attendees—from movement leader and NPI founder Richard Spencer to reality star turned conspiracy theorist Tila Tequila—had to say:

All photos by Lexey Swall

Richard Spencer is the man who is credited with coining the term "alt-right" as well as the founder of the NPI. The following was taken from his keynote speech:

We are faced with binary choice, fight or flee, join or die, resist or cuck. That is the position of white people right now. Two weeks ago, I might have said the election of Donald Trump might actually lessen the pressure on white Americans. But today, it is clear that his election is only intensifying the storm of hatred and hysteria being directed against us.

As Europeans, we are uniquely at the center of history. We are, as Hegel recognized, the embodiment of world history itself. No one mourns the great crimes committed against us. For us, it is conquer or die. This is a unique burden for the white man, that our fate is entirely in our hands. And it is appropriate because within us, within the very blood in our veins, as children of the sun, lies the potential for greatness. That is the great struggle we are called to. We are not meant to live in shame and weakness and disgrace. We are not meant to beg for moral validation from some of the most despicable creatures who ever populated the planet. We were meant to overcome all of them because that is natural and normal for us. For us, as Europeans, it is only normal again when we are great again. Heil Trump! Heil the people! Heil victory!

Al Stankard is a 29-year-old conference attendee from the Northeast who goes by Harlem Venison online:

I'm not really a white nationalist. But I see anti-racism as a dystopic thing that once gave the benefit of the doubt to the idea of racial differences and has evolved into this stifling dogma that has a scapegoat and that scapegoat is white people and those who are deemed as racist. I see anti-racism as not just bad for whites, but bad for everyone. I'm not a white supremacist, either. Nor do I see myself as that intelligent. I don't see myself as a WASP or whatever. In some ways, I identify with people of color more. But I do think there are different frequencies of different traits in different populations. I feel like this dogma we have that we are all the same is bad for everyone. It is on this basis that we have these unequal cultural policies that penalize white people, create double standards, and has become dystopic.

This Hispanic alt-right follower from Huma, Arizona, asked that we not photograph his face or reveal his name out of fear that he might be attacked by other Hispanics in his hometown for his political beliefs:

If you were a doctor and you denied the genetic difference between races, you'd be fired for malpractice real fast. Did you know, black people's bodies will automatically reject any organ donations from a white guy 20 percent of the time? They're just not compatible genetically. You have different performances in school. Like me, I did terrible in school. But I don't feel inferior to whites. There is always a plus and minus to everything. One thing people don't know is that white Europeans have smaller brains. Even though they are better at developing technology, they don't do too well at a contact sport like boxing because they get brain trauma too easily... I'm inferior in some ways, and superior in others.

This man is a Sikh who worked at the event as one of Richard Spencer's key volunteers. He asked us not to reveal his face or his name:

As a minority in the alt-right, I think ethno-nationalism is important. It is beneficial to everybody, including those who would have to leave or go back home if white Americans made their own ethno-state here in the US. I believe in Japan for the Japanese. India for the Indians. And Europe for the Europeans.

More than half of India is not potty trained—there's no plumbing. Everybody who graduates from top schools from there comes to America. In Punjab, my homeland in northwest India, everyone with a triple-digit IQ moves to the Western world. Well, I think it is a cheap cop-out for the natural elites of these foreign nations to leave their countries and come to an already developed country instead of developing their own country. India is a much worse place because of the brain-drain effect. I see mass immigration today as the imperialism of the 21st century. The Western world robbed everyone else of all their smart people, impeding their ability to develop their own nations. It's time to go back.

Tila Tequila is a 35-year-old who became famous through social networking sites years ago and has become notorious for her Nazi sympathies:

I came to the alt-right around the time I started pondering Hitler in 2013. Hitler did nothing wrong! I feel like there are two sides. I definitely see because the alt-right wouldn't have manifested like this if these people didn't feel like they had been oppressed for so long. These people wouldn't be so extreme and hardcore as they are. The German people were broke, and that is just like middle class of America today. Our middle class has vanished. They feel like no one cares about them. This alt-right thing would not have manifested if there wasn't such a crappy environment to begin with.

Matthew Tait is a 31-year-old who's been a youth leader in nationalists politics in Britain since he was 18:

There is a difference between the alt-right of today and the white nationalism and conservatism of the past. The alt-right is young and forward-looking. The old conservatism and white nationalism was always harking back to a time when people remembered that it was better. So you went to meetings, and there was a bunch of old people and they'd talk about how great life was in the 1950s. That's completely gone now. With the alt-right you have a new generation. I'm 31 and the average age of the group here puts me above the average. These people aren't looking back to the 50s or the 80s, we're looking forward. We're in 2016. We aren't interested in turning the clocks back. We have a different vision of our future, and we have decided not accept the only options that we have been given. Which, like South Park says, is either a giant douche or a turd sandwich. We've said no to both. And we've created our own vision of the future.

Kevin McDonald is the founder of the Occidental Observer, a far-right publication often accused of anti-Semitism. He is 72 years old. He came to the conference to speak on the issue of Jews:

We're all enthusiastic about Trump. We're hoping that to some extent, during his presidency, white identity politics would become normal or legitimate. In some ways, a lot of people have attributed Trump's success to white identity politics. And we're the only ones really talking about white identity politics and have the intellectual rationale and social science to back it up. On the other hand, we've seen signs that they are going to clamp down. The ADL has said that Pepe was just knocked off of Twitter. And so there is a conflict between those who want to ignore the alt-right and put it back in the box and the others who are interested in it.

J.P. Sheehan is a 26-year old who comes from a family of liberals. He's the president of his school's college Republican club, but his views have grown more extreme. This was his first alt-right event:

For me, the alt-right is something so much bigger than cheeseburger patriotism. It is something that I don't believe will replace the GOP, but will definitely overshadow it. I can see the alt-right taking wings and flying away, while the GOP bitterly talks about how they didn't wanna get close to the sun anyway.

What the alt-right is meant to to do is create an aura of normalization for European Americans to feel comfortable being who they are. I don't think a 100 percent white ethno-state is something that is not possible here in America, because the country is so darn big. So I would be fine with the US being 80 percent white. The reason why we want to create in an ethno-state is because mono-ethnic societies allow for a social cohesiveness. Ethno-states are beneficial for all races, because people just want to be among their own.

For the non-whites trying to get into the white ethno-state, I don't think they would be completely barred. It would be more like a "state your business" kind of thing. If there was someone who displayed a high level of agency or a high level of our culture, they could come in.

Jared Taylor was writing and pontificating on the topic of "race realism" long before the emergence of the alt-right. As the editor of the white nationalist magazine American Renaissance, he's seen as a grandfather to the alt-right movement:

Alt-right ideas are going to progress because our ideas are based in a correct reading of human history, are morally unimpeachable, and they explain current events far better than the egalitarian orthodoxy does. That's why when people come to a dissident understanding of race, they never go back. That is because the scales have fallen from their eyes and they understand American racial issues and American society and what's going on around the world so much better than they used to. At the same time, it gives them an avenue to look forward to a nation that reflects their values, race, and future. All of this is encouraging, especially for young whites who have been beaten on for so long as being on the wrong side of history as the bogeyman, as the guys who have done one bad thing after another to every non-white group in the history of the world.

Lucas is a 23-year-old who grew up in around the DC area and is involved with a white nationalist organization called Identity Evropa.

The main issue that draws me to the alt-right is the self determination of the white people and people of European heritage. That is the fundamental core of the alt-right. We run from the political spectrum from anarchists to fascists, but race and white identity is the fundamental issue. Our identity is being eroded in the white countries in North America and Europe.

When I saw Donald Trump win, it was is not of the alt-right, either. But at least he is open to our ideas. One might call him a fellow traveler.

The man who goes by Millennial Woes is from Edinburgh, Scotland. He's in his mid 30s and runs a popular alt-right YouTube channel. He doesn't use his birth name because he feels that would be too dangerous.

Generally speaking, I think individuals just want to socialize with people in their own race because it is less stressful and less confusing. This idea that multiculturalism leads to us to a more worldly view of things... I just don't see that. The idea that you can have blacks and whites together and there will be no tension is nonsense.

That's why you see black people who are starting to agitate for black society in America. And I don't blame them. I understand why they want to do it. I do not hate black people or dislike them. It's just that my first concern is for my group, northwest Europeans.

All of the responses in this piece have been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity. All of these blurbs were acquired through interviews by Wilbert L. Cooper, with the exception of Richard Spencer, whose response was taken from the finale of his keynote speech at the conference.

Don't mess with the squirrels!

That was the nasty but unambiguous message sent to Ald. Howard Brookins, 21st, by Chicago's rodent community just weeks after he gave a fiery City Council speech decrying the menace of "aggressive squirrels."

Out cycling on the Cal-Sag Trail on Nov. 13, Brookins was...

Some Trump supporters had an idea for a boycott that is actually the opposite of a boycott. It goes like this: instead of keeping your money inside of your pocket, you give it to the business you wish to protest. In this case, the lucky corporation is Starbucks.

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They picked up the nasty behavior from magpies.

In the wake of two headline-making statements at recent shows (one in which he expressed his undying love for Donald Trump and another in which he expressed his undying hatred for winning), TMZ is reporting Kanye West canceled his Sunday night performance in LA just “hours before he was set to take the stage.” Sources…

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'Look I'm not going to rule out anything,' Priebus told Chuck Todd. 'We're not going to have a registry based on a religion. But what I think what we're trying to do is say that there are some people, certainly not all people... there are some people that are radicalized. And there are some people that have to be prevented from coming into this country.'

Cheers to wontons in chilli oil. 📷: @restaurantgroupie /📍: @yasotangbao #forkyeah http://ift.tt/2gbGRtg

Vice President-elect Mike Pence says Mitt Romney is "under active consideration" by President-elect Donald Trump to be nominated as Trump's secretary of state, "along with some other very distinguished Americans."

In an interview with "Fox News Sunday," Pence says Romney's recent meeting with Trump...

President-elect Donald Trump confirmed Sunday that future first lady Melania Trump and their 10-year-old son, Barron, will remain in New York after he becomes president, as first reported in the New York Post.

When asked about the family's relocation plans post inauguration Trump, 70, told reporters...

Ahead of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, NASCAR CEO Brian France discussed the future of the sport, its search for a title sponsor and various other subjects. Perhaps his most defensive answer came in response to his support of president-elect Donald Trump.

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Always watch where you’re walking, because if you’re not careful, you may get laid out on accident by a few NFL players. A Fox sound guy was trying to run somewhere before the Minnesota Vikings came out of the tunnel on Sunday. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t get there in time. The Vikings players came out of the tunnel, ran over him, and probably ruined his afternoon. At the very least, he’s going to need some new glasses.

Hopefully the Vikings foot the bill on this one.

Making fun of other people usually doesn’t make them feel good. However, some friendly teasing between people in a romantic relationship can actually be a healthy way to approach conflict.

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A member of a white nationalist group was bloodied Saturday while confronting a large group of protesters outside the site of a Washington conference celebrating Donald Trump's presidential victory.

A malfunction at the newest hangar of the San Jose International Airport has sent flame retardant foam spilling into the streets.

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About 100 foreign diplomats, from Brazil to Turkey, gathered at the Trump International Hotel this week to sip Trump-branded champagne, dine on sliders and hear a sales pitch about the U.S. president-elect's newest hotel.

The event for the diplomatic community, held one week after the election,...

He's tall, muscular and, despite being 80 years old, is an in-demand fashion model.

Surgeon General Recommends Exercising Once Every Several Months During Flash Of Panic About Health

WASHINGTON—Highlighting the benefits of brief, infrequent aerobic activity, U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy urged Americans Friday to make sure to exercise once every few months during a frenzied moment of panic regarding their health. “It’s important that citizens of all ages, genders, and backgrounds make the time every four to nine months to go for a quick jog or do 15 halfhearted push-ups in the midst of a frantic surge of concern about their physical fitness,” said Murthy, who explained that individuals need not possess a gym membership or their own exercise equipment to engage in twice-yearly anxiety-fueled attempts at working out, and could instead simply perform five to 20 minutes of various calisthenics in their own home during a short-lived fit of worry spurred by an increase in their weight or a feeling of general decline in their well-being. “Whether you see a troubling news report on the risks of heart disease or suddenly take note of the condition that one of your parents is in and figure that you’re on track to end up like them one day, the key is to just get out there and exert yourself on a bike, or a treadmill, or with a set of weights in those fleeting few minutes that you feel alarmed enough to try to stave off a potential health crisis. And for optimal results, we strongly recommend getting into a regular routine of repeating this process every half year or so.” The surgeon general also recommended that all Americans spend three and a half days on whatever the current fad diet is any time they find themselves feeling particularly guilty about the amount of fast food they’ve been consuming.

This is the trailer for the animated film Bee Movie, except that the action and audio is slowed down every time someone says “bee”. That is a little bit clever.

Update: Monkeying with bits of video based on simple rules is a full-blown thing on YouTube right now. The Bee Movie seems to have started it off and there are now many variations on the theme: every “bee” is repeated by how many were said before it, every time they say bee it gets faster, the Seinfeld theme plays every time they say bee, and every time they say bee it does the whole trailer really fast. It’s spread to other media: here’s the video for All Star by Smash Mouth but it gets 15% faster every time he says “the” (which is a great illustration of exponential growth, like compound interest), the first Harry Potter movie but every time they say his name it gets faster, and so on. (via @waxpancake)

Tags: Bee Movie   movies   remix   video

Accidentally Closing Browser Window With 23 Tabs Open Presents Rare Chance At New Life

BROOKLYN, NY—Staring in trembling awe at her suddenly blank desktop, local woman Chelsea Greene was reportedly presented a rare chance at a new life Tuesday after accidentally closing her browser window with 23 open tabs. “Oh, my God. I’m free,” said a stunned and wide-eyed Greene, fully realizing that the abrupt disappearance of the Firefox window displaying tabs from Facebook, Reddit, CNN, OkCupid, Gmail, and 18 other websites would allow her to venture in a completely fresh direction and never look back. “Everything is going to be different from this point on. I can be anyone I want to be—I have a blank slate. Life truly begins right now.” According to sources, Greene moments later clicked “Restore Previous Session” in a brand-new browser window.

Something is rotten to the north of Denmark. Climate scientists are alarmed at the extreme warmth in the Arctic right now. It’s currently dark up there 24 hours a day, which usually means cold temperatures and rapidly freezing ice. Instead, temperatures are rising…Arctic temps are currently a whopping 36°F above normal.

“The Arctic warmth is the result of a combination of record-low sea-ice extent for this time of year, probably very thin ice, and plenty of warm/moist air from lower latitudes being driven northward by a very wavy jet stream.”

Francis has published research suggesting that the jet stream, which travels from west to east across the Northern Hemisphere in the mid-latitudes, is becoming more wavy and elongated as the Arctic warms faster than the equator does.

“It will be fascinating to see if the stratospheric polar vortex continues to be as weak as it is now, which favors a negative Arctic Oscillation and probably a cold mid/late winter to continue over central and eastern Asia and eastern North America. The extreme behavior of the Arctic in 2016 seems to be in no hurry to quit,” Francis continued.

Is 2017 the year the Arctic finally loses most of the ice cap during the summer?

Tags: global warming   science

Even among seasoned travelers, Slovenia is not a country whose name is hugely familiar.

KFC has put out a festive Christmas chicken sandwich with cranberry sauce and a hash brown patty over in the UK--a first for the chain in the country.

The Christmas Burger features a crispy Original Recipe chicken filet, cranberry sauce, a hash brown, cheese, lettuce, and sage and onion mayo on a sesame seed bun.

The cranberry sauce and hash brown (to stand in for roasted potatoes) are holiday staples that are represented in the sandwich but it looks like stuffing and gravy are not. However, according to Mirror Online, the sage and onion mayo is meant to evoke the taste of stuffing.

While the Christmas-themed item is a first for KFC in the UK, chains like McDonald's and Burger King regularly offer a Christmas menu around this time of year.

Photo via KFC UK.