IKEA Monkey

Think of the movies you’ve seen that have made you soooo hungry: Babette’s Feast, Big Night, Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Before them all came Tampopo, Juzo Itami’s 1985 comedy about all the ways food activates our senses and inflames our desires. A surprise art-house hit after a Roger Ebert rave brought it to the attention of American audiences, Tampopo still stands up 30 years later as a weird, mouthwatering masterpiece. The Criterion Collection and Janus Films have given the movie a restoration as bright as the sheen of fat glistening on the surface of a great bowl of ramen. If Tampopo is playing near you this fall, gather a group of friends who love to eat, go out to the theater, and make yourself a reservation at your local ramen joint for immediately afterward. You’ll need it.

Someone has been setting fires in Lincoln Park using molotov cocktails and other flammable liquids, police warned in a Thursday afternoon alert. [ more › ]

This only applies to people who have a condition where they can’t scratch an itch, like an injury or skin condition (otherwise just scratch it), but one new—albeit small—study suggests an interesting way to relieve an itchy arm or leg when you can’t scratch: stand in front of a mirror and scratch the opposite limb.

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Get face-to-face with some of the most bizarre bats in the world.

Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have stumbled upon a process that uses “nanospikes” to turn carbon dioxide into ethanol, a common fuel.

This process has several advantages when compared to other methods of converting CO2 into fuel. The reaction uses common materials like copper and carbon, and it converts the CO2 into ethanol, which is already widely used as a fuel.

Perhaps most importantly, it works at room temperature, which means that it can be started and stopped easily and with little energy cost. This means that this conversion process could be used as temporary energy storage during a lull in renewable energy generation, smoothing out fluctuations in a renewable energy grid.

This sounds like a big deal…is it now possible to limit the effects of climate change by sinking carbon while also placing less dependence on fossil fuels? Here’s the Oak Ridge press release. That this news is almost a week old already and we haven’t heard more about it makes me a bit skeptical as to the true importance of it. (Of course, CRISPR is potentially a massive deal and we don’t hear about it nearly enough so…)

Update: A relevant series of tweets from Eric Hittinger on “why creating ethanol from CO2 cannot solve our energy or climate problems”. Wasn’t fully awake when I posted this apparently because, yeah, duh. (via @leejlh)

Tags: global warming   nanotechnology   physics   science   video

As the world crumbles around us, some things still plod on — like the Obama’s 13th and final state dinner, happening tonight. Let Michelle Obama’s stunning dress be the light that carries you through for the rest of this month, for it is truly fucking amazing and so, so beautiful.

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If the cops show up with a search warrant, well, you expect they can search the premises. But showing up with a warrant that says every single person on a certain property has to unlock their fingerprint-reading phones and present them for search, too? That’s… pretty surprising. And yet, it turns out, earlier this year, that’s what happened in California.

What happened, Forbes spotted, is this: the Justice Department wanted a warrant to search a property in California. So far, so good.

But that warrant included language authorizing investigators to “depress the fingerprints and thumbprints of every person who is located at the SUBJECT PREMISES during the execution of the search and who is reasonably believed by law enforcement to be the user of a fingerprint sensor-enabled device that is located at the SUBJECT PREMISES and falls within the scope of the warrant.”

In other words: with that warrant, cops can walk a house or apartment building and demand literally everyone inside immediately use their fingerprints to unlock their phones for inspection. To search the entire contents every single device, whether it belongs to an identified suspect or not, that may exist at the search location.

Experts Forbes consulted found the scope and language of the warrant to be shockingly broad. “They want the ability to get a warrant on the assumption that they will learn more after they have a warrant,” one attorney told Forbes.

Another, from the EFF, told Forbes that usually, “It’s not enough for a government to just say we have a warrant to search this house and therefore this person should unlock their phone. The government needs to say specifically what information they expect to find on the phone, how that relates to criminal activity and I would argue they need to set up a way to access only the information that is relevant to the investigation.”

Someone living at the property in question did confirm to Forbes that the warrant was served, saying that law enforcement, “should have never come to my house,” and that neither they nor any relative of theirs at the address had been accused of participating in any crime.

This is far from the first time that law enforcement has compelled phone-owners to provide their fingerprints for phone-unlocking purposes.

There’s a bit of legal confusion, right now, over how law enforcement can or can’t compel you to unlock your phone. As we reported in May, courts have kind of held it both ways.

In Virginia, in 2014, a court ruled that cops can’t force you to reveal a passcode to your phone. That would be making you say something, and you have the right not to say things.

But, that same court held, fingerprints, body language, and other more body-based, physical things are discrete from things you say, and therefore fingerprints are fair game. That’s in line with a 1966 Supreme Court case Forbes mentions that found self-incrimination protections don’t apply to the use of your body as evidence “when it may be material.”

Since that 2014 ruling, there have been more warrants served on device owners in multiple states — California and Texas, making headlines — compelling them to unlock their phones with their fingerprints.

As Forbes observes, however, not all fingerprint unlock requests are successful — and neither of the requests it mentions were. Most phones require a password for the first unlock after powering back up, so if your battery runs down while you’re arguing with the police, or you turn it off before they ask, they may end up out of luck even if they do compel you to put your thumb on the home key.

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Feds Walk Into A Building, Demand Everyone’s Fingerprints To Open Phones [Forbes]

   This is so gorgeous it almost hurts. She looks WONDERFUL. This is their last State Dinner, and apparently Mario Batali cooked, because it was for Italy and I guess that’s the choice. We should be glad it wasn’t Guy Fieri. This was amusing: “Tonight, we’re reminded that American democracy has been graced by the touch Read More ...

In 2006 Donald Trump, a sentient pile of dirty sheets covered in poop, called former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a “bitch” in a speech at the Learning Annex in New York City. Today, Condoleezza Rice learned about these comments and responded perfectly.

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The man convicted of shooting at George Zimmerman in a road rage incident has been sentenced to 20 years in prison, Florida authorities said.

We have a lot of adoptable kittens right now, among them Gloria Monty, a very sweet 4 months young lady who loves cuddling. Gloria Monty is playful and funny that her cute movements often make her fosterers laugh. She is such a delight!

To find out more, please write to us at hydeparkcatsadoptions@gmail.com

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Two high-profile U.S. senators, Marco Rubio and Pat Toomey, disputed Donald Trump's warning that the Nov. 8 presidential election might be "rigged"

Sen. Tim Kaine got some Hammer Time Sunday evening.

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Never has an eskimo kiss caused so much imaginary pain.

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Donald Trump supporters overpower a speaker by chanting "Paul Ryan sucks" before the Republican presidential nominee takes the stage for a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

In what seems to be more of a market gimmick than a test, Domino's is delivering pizza via canoe along the River Loose in Kent County in the UK.

According to Kent Online, A pizza "buoy" in a full wetsuit sets out in a canoe to deliver to houses along the river. To make sure that the pizza doesn't get waterlogged if the canoe happens to capsize, it comes in a delivery bag that floats.

Considering the company has also tested drone delivery in the UK as well as a few other countries, canoe delivery seems to cater to too small an audience to gain any real traction.

Additionally, the delivery test is only running for two weeks.

Photo via Domino's UK.

Hershey's 2016 line-up of Halloween candy includes a nod to Dia de Muertos with new festive Cookies 'n' Creme Skulls.

Here's what other new sweets you can expect from the candy company this October for trick-or-treaters:

- Reese's White Peanut Butter Ghosts Snack Size
- Kit Kat White Minis Snack Size
- Jolly Rancher Lollipops Spooky Shapes
- Hershey's Caramel Apple Filled Milk Chocolates
- Hershey's Cookies 'n' Crème Skulls
- Halloween Pumpkin Party Assortment



The seasonal candies can be found at retailers nationwide through the end of October (and on clearance racks thereafter!).

Photo via Hershey's.

With three weeks until Election Day, Hillary Clinton holds a four-point lead over Donald Trump in the race for the White House, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, with the Republican nominee hobbled by persistent perceptions that he is not qualified to be president.

The poll was...

All you Chicagoans out there can probably relate to reader Max:

So, I’m a transplant to Chicago, and am sure that you will be inundated by songs about New York (my real hometown) and Los Angeles (where I spent my late 20s). While I don’t think any song can accurately capture a city in its totality, I think Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah’s “Lake Shore Drive” captures the feeling of driving on the iconic roadway in Chicago, at a particular time in the past. The blue lights and the concrete mountains all speak to the place as it was in the ’60s and ’70s. The blue lights are gone, replaced with bright yellow lights that produce the worst light pollution in the world (We’re #1, We’re #1). The area they were driving to is the Gold Coast, now called the Viagra Triangle … someone should put that in a song.

Or a web series:

Max adds:

Skip Haynes redid “Lake Shore Drive” after the Blizzard of 2011, which snowed in LSD. Love his version too.

Those lyrics are below:

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People across Thailand are wearing pink shirts to express best wishes to King Bhumibol Adulyadej as concerns grow over the monarch's health.

Thousands of people have marched in Paris to call for the repeal of a law allowing gay marriage, six months before France's presidential election.

After Juanita Broaddrick tweeted in January that former President Bill Clinton raped her, Clinton's attorney, David Kendall, and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, held a call to talk about the case and evidence that could be used to refute the allegations, according to hacked emails released by WikiLeaks.

For the first time in its 126-year history, the Arizona Republic endorsed a Democrat for president. This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise—there hasn’t been a single major newspaper across the land to offer its support for Donald Trump. Its editors knew there would be backlash—but they weren’t quite prepared for the fire hose of violence and hatred to which its staff would be subjected. Here’s a little taste:

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Saturday Night Live finally got to take a swipe at last Sunday’s presidential word salad. There was no chance the cast would out-crazy reality, but the cold open they concocted is still pretty hilarious (and, unlike the actual debate, won’t make you want to hide your face and cry-scream).

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The synthetic opioid known as pink, which may have killed two 13-year-olds in Utah, can be ordered legally through the mail.

Chicago police have released video of an officer being beaten by a suspect during an arrest. The officer says she did not shoot, despite being in fear for her life, because she feared media and community scrutiny.

Facing a seemingly endless presidential campaign, marked by a viciousness and vulgarity not seen in either of his own election contests, President Barack Obama has boiled his incredulity down to one phrase.

2016, I really don’t know what the hell is happening but this is one slice of weirdness I can get behind.