bernot

if there was a fourth panel, i could pan out and show you that the booth is in an empty parking lot across the street

When we posted yesterday about Chase Bank’s closures of numerous adult entertainers’ accounts, we didn’t have a clear explanation for why. As a helpful commenter points out, Mary O’Hara at VICE News has a credible theory: that the U.S. Department of Justice told them to.

O’Hara links the closures to Operation Choke Point, a DOJ initiative that’s asking banks to close the accounts of businesses it believes might be breaking the law. A Wall Street Journal op-ed from Frank Keating, president of the American Bankers Association, explains Choke Point’s motives thusly:

Justice’s premise is simple: Fraudsters can’t operate without access to banking services, and so the agency is going after the infrastructure that questionable merchants use rather than the merchants themselves. Most of these merchants are legally licensed businesses on a government list of “risky profiles.” These include payday outfits and other short-term lenders.

Want to get rid of payday lenders — many of whom operate legally — without having to prosecute them? Simply cut them off from the banking system.

It seems extreme that the feds would use the same tactics to go after porn stars, however, and there’s no hard evidence explicitly linking the Chase account shutdowns to Operation Choke Point. O’Hara’s most compelling argument for the DOJ’s involvement lies in a 2011 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation document about industries “associated with high-risk activity,” which lists pornography alongside Ponzi schemes, payday loans, and online gambling — the types of businesses Choke Point is designed to deflate. The FDIC, it should be noted, operates independently from the DOJ or any other executive department.

There’s also porn star Teagan Presley’s claim that Bank of America turned down her application to open a new account after the Chase closure. It’s no smoking gun, but if true, it does seem odd that another bank would independently decide to disallow Presley after Chase shut her out.

The DOJ has not responded to ANIMAL’s repeated requests for comment.

The post Did DOJ Force Chase Bank to Close Porn Stars’ Accounts? appeared first on ANIMAL.

The Toronto Public Library released a list of the seven titles that people have asked to be removed over the last year, and the moral outrage and pearl-clenching was definitely off the charts in terms of “Holy crap, you’ve got to be kidding.” Perhaps the most bizarre selection on this short but outraged list was the Dr. Seuss classic Hop on Pop, which uses a series of short poems and easy rhymes to help children better understand phonics.

However, if you only read the title of the book, it could be misconstrued as an instruction guide for children on how to abuse their fathers. That’s apparently how and why this was singled out to the Toronto Public Library for exclusion.

According to the complaint, Hop on Pop should be removed from the library for the following reason:

Encourages children to use violence against their fathers

And the only acceptable course of reparations would be to:

Remove from collection and issue an apology to fathers in the GTA and pay for damages resulting from the book

Basically, we are to believe that somewhere in Toronto, there’s a kid who only saw the title of this Dr. Seuss book and decided to leap onto his father’s belly, causing serious physical pain and enough emotional trauma for the man to then demand that no child be able to read this book for free ever again. But, as the library pointed out in its findings, the poem actually teaches kids that hopping on pop is bad, as it reads:

HOP POP We like to hop.
We like to hop on top of Pop.
STOP You must not hop on Pop.

But sure, I could see how kids could think this quick poem is actually reverse psychology. That must have been the problem, as the complainant’s kids are simply too smart and saw right through Seuss’s clever ruse, and they jumped on their father until his cries for help became low, pathetic, muffled sobs.

As for the other titles that received complaints, Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Kennedy was accused of containing “falsehoods because it concludes Kennedy was killed by Oswald along”; A Kiss Remembered was deemed “obscene” because it “offends current societal morality”; Complete Hindi “contains inaccuracies and states that Hindi and Urdu are paired languages”; Flesh House is “shocking and disturbing”; the children’s book Lizzy’s Lion is “violent and disturbing”; and in my personal favorite complaint that I wholeheartedly agree with, the DVD copy of Adam Sandler’s That’s My Boy should be removed because it “shows sick and illegal behaviour and depicts it as humorous.”

Believe me, there’s nothing even remotely humorous about That’s My Boy.

Filed under: Web Culture Tagged: Books, Canada, DR SEUSS, HOP ON POP, libraries, MORAL OUTRAGE, OUTRAGED PARENTS, that's my boy, toronto, you've got to be f-ing kidding me

Now I know we ladies love our cupcakes and everything, but it never occurred to me that some would go so far as to sext one.

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“The message he sends about armchair activism and the degradation of legitimate social causes in the service of greed and social branding is spot on,” Bloody Disgusting’s Evan Dickinson decided at a recent secret screening of Eli Roth’s “lighthearted cannibal film” The Green Inferno at the Stanley Film Festival in Colorado.

Roth’s latest is very to his signature torture-porn brand and is allegedly his goriest. A bunch of shallow, self-absorbed slacktivists head to the Peruvian jungle to “save” the indigenous tribes who have never before made contact with the outside world from corporate evils of deforestation and forced relocation. And then they get horribly eaten, but it’s cool, because they are vapid. Roth was inspired by the less-than-authentic elements within Occupy Wall Street, #SavePussyRiot and, particularly, the Kony 2012 campaign — “And you think of all these 100m YouTube views, and all these t-shirts sold and all those mugs. And then the guy’s jerking off in the street and Kony’s still out there, and it didn’t mean shit.”

To film this, Roth actually took the crew to the aforementioned Peruvian jungle and the indigenous tribes who have never before made contact with the outside world. Herzog style. Really.

“I wanted it to look like a Werner Herzog film. They call the river Aguirre because the last film to shoot there was Aguirre The Wrath of God,” Roth told IGN, referring to Herzog’s 1972 film shot on location in the Amazon with Klaus Kinski. “And we went even further beyond where they went. So it really looks like a Terence Malick film… We strapped cameras to remote control helicopters and ran them over the Amazon. The footage looks jaw-dropping. There have never been cameras where we were.” Roth says that he and the crew befriended the villagers, cast them all in the film, and put corrugated metal on all their roofs as thanks. “And then by the end they were all playing with iPhones and iPads. We’ve completely polluted the social system and fucked them up.”

But how did these villagers know how to act like cannibals? “I was told that we have to tell them what a movie is because they have no idea,” Roth explained. “They’ve never seen one. They’ve never even seen a television. So they went back with a television and a generator and showed the village Cannibal Holocaust, which I couldn’t believe. And the villagers – thank god – thought it was a comedy. The funniest thing that they’d ever seen. And they wanted to play cannibals in the movie. So we had the entire village acting in the film.”

Let that one sink in for a second. Roth made a film about slacktivists getting eaten by fictional cannibals based on actual isolated Peruvian tribes, starring the actual Peruvian tribes, who were first shown Cannibal Holocaust to explain what “acting” in a “cannibal” “movie” is. Because they aren’t cannibals. There are so many hues of morally ambiguous in this production. It’s a fucking rainbow. And it features Sky Ferreira. In theaters September 5th.

The post Eli Roth Made a Herzogian Cannibal Holocaust About Slacktivists: The Green Inferno appeared first on ANIMAL.

Mobile devices have become an everyday part of life. Literally, at any moment in time we are capable of chatting, liking, tweeting or “engaging” with others all over the world, regardless of what we are doing. But with all that technology are we actually disengaging, instead of engaging?

“Often [our phones] distract us from the things we really want to focus on like pursuing our goals, enjoying a moment with friends, appreciating the world around us.” That’s the idea behind FOCUS, a new garment collection by conceptual fashion designer Kunihiko Morinaga (previously). Using a type of material that shields electromagnetic waves, Morinaga has designed a line of men’s and woman’s fashion that protects us from “the storm of information.”

The fashion line was a collaboration between Morinaga, PARTY, AID-DCC and Trident. It debuted during Toronto Fashion Week.

I believe it was the poet Dr. Dre who once said, “Cause I don’t give a f*ck about radio play, observe the English I display.” That doesn’t really have anything to do with anything, other than to remind you N.W.A. is great, and there’s no need for the sons of the rap group’s members to tour as NWA Resurrected.

Yet here we are.

NWA Resurrected, also known as the Sons of NWA, is a thing that exists. The group consists of DJ Yella (original NWA member), Dre JR (son of Dr Dre), Eazy-E JR (son of Eazy E) and Eazy E JR II (who, I’m guessing, is probably the second son of Eazy E, but I don’t want to assume).

According to the email, they’re looking to tour the UK. The guy says, “they are looking to tour across Europe July & August. Club shows, festivals etc. It’s not cheap naturally but you wouldn’t expect it be, right?” I dunno, I guess I kind of would. (Via)

DJ Yella has lived a semi-charmed life. He was in N.W.A. He directed porn for awhile, including A Girl’s Affair 67. Now he’s in N.W.A. Resurrected (that’s…y). That’s like if Paul McCartney played Beatles songs with Julian Lennon, Zak Starkey, and Dhani Harrison…and directed Cheerleaders Gone Wild 3.

Via Noisey

Filed under: Music Tagged: dr. dre, Eazy-E, n.w.a.

[extrafabulouscomics]

1914: Parking at the Grand Canyon (http://t.co/XDMGl12ifx) pic.twitter.com/287z4ZpkIo

— Retronaut (@theretronaut) April 26, 2014

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uggly:

KNAPP The Post - war collection A/W 2012/2013
Costume design and styling Antonia Yordanova
Photography and post production Diliana Florentin
Jewellery design Milko Boyarov
Make-up Slav
Hair styling Dani Molchovska @ Arlet Hair studio
Model Pirina @ Ivet Fashion MA
Supported by Sonja Dimitrova

.oO° Twitter | Facebook °Oo.

When a confectioner leaves a gooey chocolate masterpiece out to dry and harden, its flavor is left unchanged. But chomping down on the hardened sweet manifests in a different experience than chewing the softer variety. And as scientists come to better understand the underlying causes of these distinctive experiences, they’re discovering that the differences can fool our minds into underestimating our calorie intake.

There’s more to our mouths than just taste buds. Our tongues and palates are moist hotspots for oro-sensory stimulation—feelings known as oral haptics, or mouthfeel, that can profoundly shape the eating experience. (The sight of food can also affect this experience, as can the feel of it in our hands—though in the West, we tend to shovel straight into our mouths using cutlery.)

Scientists recently set out to determine how mouthfeel can affect the perceived number of calories in a sweet. In a paper published last month in Journal of Consumer Research, they say they were driven to investigate this phenomenon because of “the role of mindless eating in contributing to the obesity epidemic” and misguided “calorie estimations and perceived healthfulness” of certain snacks.

There’s more to our mouths than just taste buds. Our tongues and palates are moist hotspots for oro-sensory stimulation—feelings known as oral haptics, or mouthfeel, that can profoundly shape the eating experience.

The researchers fed a bunch of undergraduates candy to test how the hardness, smoothness, and chewiness of chocolates affected perceptions of caloric content.

When the students sampled chocolates that were produced by the same manufacturer and differed only in hardness, they wrongly concluded that the softer sweets contained more calories. When they were told to focus on the chewing process for the sweet, the perceptions of higher caloric content of soft chocolates were amplified. And after trying otherwise identical chocolates with smooth and rough textures, the students concluded that rougher textured alternatives were more healthful.

The findings aren’t just applicable to esoteric tongue science. These misperceptions can actually make us fatter.

For the researchers’ final experiment, students were told they were taking part in trials for a marketing company—a firm that had gratefully provided them with unlimited brownie bits to eat while they watched advertisements. Students were given Styrofoam cups full of brownie bits, some of which were soft and gooey while others had been hardened by drying. Some students were told to estimate the caloric content of the brownies; others received no such direction.

The researchers found that the students tended to eat more of the soft brownies. Unless, that is, they were asked to estimate the number of calories in the snacks, in which case they were more likely to eat the harder ones.

(Chart: Journal of Consumer Research)

Dipayan Biswas, a University of South Florida marketing professor and a study author, said food companies appear to understand this phenomena, “which is why we see so many food products in the marketplace that vary on haptic dimensions”—such as smooth and crinkle-cut fries.

The real danger foods? The scientists warn that granola bars, trail mixes, and cereals can all seem in our mouths to be more healthful than they really are.

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How Junk Food Companies Manipulate Your Tongue was first posted on April 23, 2014 at 11:35 am.

One of the great things about working from home is that I don’t have to put up with crap from coworkers who try to assert authority in the saddest and smallest way possible by policing refrigerator real estate, eat loud and/or smelly food at their desks, or come in spreading the plague everywhere after one of their goddamn kids comes home and infects their entire household.

However, as a pet owner who works from home, one of the truths of my daily existence is that at some point during the day, a cat’s butthole will come in direct contact with my laptop — most likely the keyboard part of the laptop.

Well, to solve this problem, an innovative Hong Kong design company called LYCS Architecture has created the CATable, an interactive piece of furniture which can be enjoyed by both humans and their feline companions — designed by Ruan Hao, and exhibited in the University of Milan at Milan Design Week. From the LYCS Architecture website:

[People] who lives with cat always has those kind of experiences:

1. Putting away the cat from your lap top was like a sentimental ritual of temporary farewell.

2. A proper sized hole could be so irresistible to cats. Their curiosity would be greatly satisfied through repetitively exploring the unknown  path behind the hole.

The design of CATable was a fusion of those experiences, as well a locus where the interaction occurs. It is a table for us, and a paradise for cats.

The only downside? While daily occurrences of laptop butt-planting might decreased, I have a feeling that “lunch burglaring” might skyrocket. ESPECIALLY on tuna sandwich days.

(All images used with permission of LYCS Architecture)

Filed under: Web Culture Tagged: ARCHITECTURE, Cats, CHINA

Morgue, man with floral tattoo, 1945
 
Back in 2001, photographer Merrick Morton—who also happens to be a reserve LAPD officer—came upon a massive archive of Los Angeles Police Department crime scene and evidence photos which had been hidden for decades in a huge storage facility in downtown LA. The photos...

Yesterday, the New York Police Department did a very dumb thing. Using the hashtag #myNYPD, the department asked New Yorkers to share their photos of New York’s finest on Twitter. What happened next was utterly predictable.

Activists seized upon the moment to show the NYPD for the violent, megalomaniacal, often racist organization it is, tweeting scenes of Occupy Wall Street brutality, racially motivated arrests, and screenshots from Onion parody videos. The failed hashtag was, as the Daily News cover screamed this morning, a “brutal fiasco.”

Now, NYPD’s hashtag disaster — like a single drop of piss in a vast, untainted reservoir — is ruining Twitter for police departments across the country. The Los Angeles Police Department has seen the worst of the aftershock — a search for #myLAPD brings up countless images and stories of police violence — but residents of cities as far-flung as Boston, Oakland, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, and Tucson have taken up their own versions of the hashtag.

The NYPD responded to the hijacking in a statement this morning: “The N.Y.P.D. is creating new ways to communicate effectively with the community. Twitter provides an open forum for an uncensored exchange and this is an open dialogue good for our city.”

Couldn’t agree more! Carry on.

(Photo: AP)

The post #myNYPD Hashtag Disaster Goes Nationwide appeared first on ANIMAL.

Hey Guys,

Occasionally I hit some bumps trying to navigate the SS Panties through the waters of the business world, and I hit a doozy last Christmas. I discovered a company that scores sites based on content, and that score can have a severe impact on ad revenue. I’ve documented my adventure in this article: https://medium.com/p/3f559a96e166

While we’ve come out the other end OK, this is a problem that can still be affecting other artists out there that use banner ads to generate revenue.

My intent isn’t to bring out the pitchforks against these guys, but to bring attention to their practices in the hopes of increasing the transparency of their organization (e.g. having a better appeal process).

So take a look, and share the article! Hopefully it’ll help someone out there.

-obby

P.S. You guys rock.

A bid by North Korea to send experts to a prestigious French cheese-making training school, seemingly at the behest of its fromage-loving leader King Jong-un, has been rejected. It did not fit with the institution's "priorities or strategy", it seems.

Soothing music helps patients heal after an operation

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

It started as a joke: Dizzy Gillespies agency had some buttons made, because, you see, its funny

“Untitled,” 1985
 
Anyone with any familiarity with Kurt Vonnegut’s literary output probably knows that the man liked to doodle. His whimsical self-portrait, the one that emphasized his mustache, is very familiar, making an appearance in his 1973 masterpiece

Read Drew's blog: The Worst Things For Sale.