Another June, another warmest June on record. That’s the news in NOAA’s latest State of the Climate report. Other milestones include the warmest first half of the year ever and oceans hitting record temps. Are we sensing a trend here, people?
Rocket’s always got Groot’s back, and now he can have yours, too. Don this Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy Rocket Raccoon Backpack Buddy and be ready to save the galaxy or at least to enjoy a day out. The armor on Rocket’s back unzips to reveal a compartment that’s a little bigger than a piece of paper in terms of length and width, so it can hold all your papers, books, even an iPad. And although he might be intended for kids, we’ve met you. The nylon straps adjust to 18″ long. Maybe not somebody as big as Groot himself, but plenty long to fit most adult humans. Just remember that Rocket will get a little cranky if you don’t take him out adventuring with you.
Facebook does not have legal standing to challenge search warrants on behalf of its users, a New York appeals court has ruled in what was the biggest batch of warrants the social-media site said it ever received at one time.
Facebook was served with 381 warrants in 2013 from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. The warrants sought photos, private messages, and other information as part of a wide-ranging disability fraud investigation. As many as 134 people have been accused of disability fraud as part of the ongoing probe.
Facebook objected to handing over the data and challenged it. The site was even threatened with contempt of court over the fight, so it reluctantly coughed up the data. Facebook was allowed to continue the challenge on appeal in a failed bid to set legal precedent for its users.
Good afternoon, sir. Go ahead and roll your window all the way down for me. My name is Officer Daniel McEwen from the Greene County Police Department. Now, do you know why I’m pulling you over today, being overly aggressive, and charging you with a felony count of assaulting a police officer?
I’m going to need to see your driver’s license, vehicle registration, and proof of insurance. Thank you, sir. Now, just sit tight in your car while I take a look here and grow increasingly hostile. I’m just going to start addressing you in an unmistakably threatening tone that is specifically meant to intimidate and provoke, and then drastically escalate the situation so that it quickly gets out of hand.
Are you aware of the speed limit on this road, sir? It’s 35. I had you clocked at 52 miles per hour, which is ...
Last night marked the latest entry into Syfy's Sharknado franchise (calmly titled Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!), and was jam crammed full of glorious shark-incurred deaths... including Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin who had a short-lived cameo in the flick before, well, you know. Here's a GIF of that grisly moment.
Sharknado director Anthony C. Ferrante explains how Martin got involved in the production to the Hollywood Reporter:
“We wanted him in the movie, he wanted to be in the movie, so we went to New Mexico, and we shot it for a day,” Ferrante said. “He originally had a line — and we’ll add it back in for the DVD — where he went outside, shivered, and said, ‘Winter’s coming.’ But we thought about it and decided that we wanted people to watch it and go, ‘Wait, is that … Is that George R.R. Martin?’ ”
While that shark murder was a wonder to behold, our friends at Uproxx put together a wealth of sharks killing the shit out of people GIFs for you to enjoy! Check a few out after the jump!
It’s been something of a magical time for Under Armour, and for the athletes it sponsors. And arguably, it’s getting a lot harder to separate these two things.
On a call with analysts today (July 23) to discuss Under Armour’s second-quarter results, CEO Kevin Plank spoke not only of the athletic-wear company’s 29% revenue growth year over year, but about the incredible run of recent success for three of the biggest talents tied to the brand: NBA star Stephen Curry, celebrated ballet dancer Misty Copeland, and rising golf phenom Jordan Spieth.
Curry recently took home the title of league MVP and led his basketball team, the Golden State Warriors, to the NBA championship over LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Copeland just became the first black principal ballerina at the prestigious American Ballet Theatre. And Spieth won The Masters in April, setting several records in the process.
No other sportswear company, including Nike and Adidas, can match that streak right now.
All the eyes those athletes attract translate to a boost for Under Armour’s still-rising profile—especially in the case of Curry, whose signature basketball shoe for Under Armour continues selling well even if in relatively small numbers compared with Nike’s sales. Plank noted on the earnings call that traffic to the basketball section of Under Armour’s website was up more than 300% last quarter, and the company added more Instagram followers during the NBA finals than in all of 2014. Notably, Curry also recently overtook James for the most popular jersey in the NBA.
All three are underdogs to some extent as well. Curry was famously overlooked by college recruiters, and then overlooked by Nike, which sponsors James. When Jordan Spieth won The Masters, he was just 21; only Tiger Woods, long sponsored by Nike, won that title at a younger age. Copeland, meanwhile, has captivated people with her story of overcoming poverty, as well as naysayers who doubted her ability to rise to the top of a prestigious company, in a field dominated by white dancers.
Those stories are a big part of the reason they’re exciting to follow, and part of what makes them highly marketable. This Copeland commercial for Under Armour went viral when it was released:
It’s no coincidence that Under Armour bills itself as the underdog to sportswear rivals Nike and Adidas. (If there’s a break in the parallelism, it’s with Under Armour’s sponsorship of entrenched NFL star quarterback Tom Brady, the biggest outlier in the company’s endorsement roster.)
Even with sustained growth, it will be years before Under Armour is anywhere close to Nike, let alone near unseating it. But it’s working on it. Sales have grown by at least 20% year over year for 21 consecutive quarters.
International sales, which make up 11% of Under Armour’s revenue, are growing sharply. In the second quarter they were up 93%. The Baltimore-based company plans to open several stores overseas in the coming months, particularly in China. (It’s sending Curry on a week-long tour there.) The company also reported that it’s now profitable in Europe, where it just opened a new office, one of 17 outside the US.
“The mission here is to be the next great global brand and you’re going to see us bite, crawl, and scratch and do everything we can to make that happen,” Plank said on the call.
It’s got a way to go, of course. But it’s on the right track.
Twenty teams from nine countries zipped over to Cologne, Germany, this weekend to compete in the world championship of Segway polo, the Woz Cup. Yes, you read that correctly: Segway polo. And the championship’s namesake is indeed Apple co-founder and patron saint of personal computing Steve Wozniak.
“Segway polo is the one thing I will block off my calendar for,” Wozniak told Quartz at the championship.
If polo is the sport of kings, Segway polo is the sport of nerds. The rules of Segway polo are inspired by traditional polo, with some influence from hockey and soccer. Five players on each side play four quarters (called chukkas) of eight minutes, trying to get a foam rubber ball past the opponent’s goalie.
Riding a Segway is a very physical act to begin with: You shift your body weight forward to move forward and shift to the back to halt and move backwards. You turn with the pressure-sensitive handlebars, an endeavor that becomes a little more complicated with a mallet in one hand. The best Segway polo players are at one with their machines, zooming at speeds of up to 12 miles per hour and copping tight turns that would make a mall cop lose his donut.
(Grace Dobush)
Team Barbados, who won the finale 1-0, were a favorite pick from the start. The team’s first appearance on the global Segway scene was at the Woz Cup in Cologne six years ago, which they also won despite being green. (When they arrived for that first tournament, they didn’t know they needed a goalkeeper, but they got it sorted.) Before this year’s prize ceremony, Barbados supporters played the Pet Shop Boys’ “Go West” on a steel drum set up next to the field.
The defending champions, the Stockholm Saints, whom Barbados had defeated in overtime in the semifinal, handed over the cup topped with a Viking helmet with blonde pigtails.
You’d think that this kind of spectacle would draw a big crowd, but the bleachers were empty the first few days. Spectators were mostly members of other teams, although Team Lebanon did bring their whole families along for a German vacation. Some onlookers showed up to watch the final day of games, their curiosity piqued by local newspaper and TV coverage of the weirdness that is a global polo championship played on Segways.
Woz himself.(Grace Dobush)
I can’t say with certainty how many Segways were present this weekend, but one player from England told me he owns a total of 15 at home. At more than $6,000 per Segway, it’s an expensive hobby.
Teams always had spare Segways on hand in case a battery died mid-match; the volunteers even had a “peeway” to ride to the WCs.
The Woz himself flew in to play with his team, the Silicon Valley Aftershocks, who were first on the global scene, though they don’t take the game so seriously anymore. Wozniak, whose jersey number is infinity, admits he’s out of practice. “If we’re playing a really great team and we’ll lose anyway, I’ll go in,” he tells Quartz. Like the Woz says: You do it for fun.
The Aftershocks’ origins lie with the Bay Area Segway Enthusiasts Group, some early adopters who started playing polo on the people movers in 2004, inspired perhaps by a 2003 Slim Jim-sponsored halftime show with proto-Segway polo. In 2006, the Silicon Valley Aftershocks flew to New Zealand to play the first first Woz Cup against the only other Segway polo team they knew.
(Grace Dobush)
Wozniak’s robust speaking schedule has kept him from participating in recent Segway Polo tournaments, but Cologne 2015’s organizer, Olaf Funke of the Funky-Move Turtles team, reached out to him early enough that Woz could save the date. (Conveniently, Mrs. Woz, Janet Hill, was on a cruise in the Bahamas.)
Many people told me that Segway polo championships are a breeding ground for relationships. Funke, in fact, proposed to his wife, Sonja, at the end of the 2009 Woz Cup; Wozniak was a witness for the pair. Despite the pretense of competition, the biannual championship seemed to me more like a college reunion, where you drink lots of beer with people you haven’t seen in a long time and place bets on who’s going to hook up. And in two years, you’ll see each other again.
An Italian designer who goes by the name Inspirational Gecko has created an adorable line of corner bookmarks that were made to look like sections of oranges, lemons, watermelons, kiwis and even a slice of pizza. Each bookmark is made with only felt and thread.
It is a very resistant bookmark, made of multiple layers of soft yellow and white felt. It will take care of the pages corners without pucker them. The bookmark has been hand-sewned and hand-embreoidered with great care and attention to detail. The bookmark has been made using needle-and-thread only, no glue involved. It’s totally handmade in a smoke-free and pet-free ambient.
In recent years, a certain branch of American political rhetoric has come to revolve around the veneration and intention-guessing of the Founding Fathers—a quasi-mythical group of historical figures who rebelled against a cruel king and his army of musket-bearing lobstermen, battling against them for the crime of stepping on the colonist’s pet snake without first granting them proper representation. The threat dispatched and the oppressor’s hateful beverages banished to the abyss known as “Bos-Tan har’Bhor,” The Fathers then proceed to found a land of perfect freedom for everyone, with the minor exception of their wives, the poor, and their many, many slaves.
Hoping to tap into these heady, patriotic images and the Facebook-and-capslock-savvy people who love them, USA has announced that it’s picked up a pilot order for Poor Richard’s Almanack, a political drama set in a future where the collapse of America forces ...
It's a common sight these days to see protesters outside of female health clinics holding graphic images warning against abortion. More than 1,000 teens have gone through activist training at a popular anti-abortion summer camp in Southern California to learn the tricks of the trade.
Fisherman Bill Coppersmith plucked this very rare orange lobster yesterday from the Gulf of Maine, but amazingly, it’s not his rarest-ever catch. That honor goes to the white albino lobster he snagged in 1997. Still, the critter he dubbed “Captain Eli,” in honor of his grandson, is unique indeed.
Amazon.com’s market value whizzed past that of Walmart in after-hours trading Thursday, as investors increased their bets that the future of the US retail sector will be dominated by Jeff Bezos’ online behemoth.
There’s no guarantee Amazon’s market value will stay above that of Walmart. During the thinly traded after-hours session, Amazon’s stock price leapt by over 14% to more than $550 a share after the company reported strong quarterly earnings results. That added more than $30 billion to Amazon’s market value, pushing it above $250 billion. (Walmart’s market value ended the day’s trading a bit above $230 billion, with little movement in the after-hours trading session.) Here’s a look at the long saga of Amazon and Walmart, taking today’s share surge into account.
The changing of the guard reflects the growing consensus that online retailing will play an increasingly central role in the global economy over the coming decades and underscores the high premium investors are placing on the growth they expect Amazon to deliver.
Online retailing currently accounts for only 7% of US retail sales. (Though online sales dominate some sectors such as books, electronics, toys, and baby supplies.)
That suggests there’s plenty of room for growth. It’s those expectations that have supercharged Amazon shares in recent years.
Instead of letting its revenue fall to the bottom line, Amazon keeps reinvesting back into the company. That’s a recipe for scant profits, compared to solid profitability from Walmart, even when the brick and mortar retailer’s quarterly sales slowed.
It’s worth noting that Walmart once had a chance to be a leader in online sales. Back in 1999, just five years after Amazon was born, Walmart launched its own website. At one point, then-Walmart CEO Lee Scott even invited Jeff Bezos to his house in Bentonville, Ark., to chat about acquiring Amazon, according to “The Everything Store” by Brad Stone. Instead, Bezos offered to run Walmart’s website. The talks fizzled fast.
Years of disbelief that online shopping would really take off and a fierce interest in placing brick and mortar Walmart stores around the world gave way to neglect. Meanwhile, Amazon raced ahead without the same demands to churn out profits, offering low price products and faster service that would hook consumers and drive loyalty. As Amazon expanded into music, media, and web services, its customers hung on tighter.
Meanwhile, growth prospects in Walmart’s core business have dimmed. The store chain has oversaturated the US with superstores at a time when consumer preferences seem to have shifted to smaller convenience stores. Its international expansion has bogged down in key markets like China and India. And despite big investments in e-commerce, its sales still lag those of retailers like Amazon and Staples.
Of course, it’s worth noting there are many ways to measure size. And Walmart remains one of the world’s largest non-government economic entities.
Walmart’s annual sales—$486 billion last year—continue to dwarf Amazon’s $89 billion. (Walmart’s revenues are the largest in the world.)
And Walmart’s 2.2 million employees make it the world’s largest private sector employer.
In fact, it’s the third largest employer overall, just behind the People’s Liberation of Army of China.
Neither snow nor rain nor gravity nor Father Time nor Yankee wrath stays the A-Rod renaissance.
World-famous rodeo clown Alex Rodriguez scored on a Chase Headley double in this afternoon's game against the Orioles in the Bronx. He also did a lovely somersault.
Jamie O'Brien is a professional surfer who has surfed some of the biggest waves around the world. Recently, he decided to take it up a notch so he decided to surf another big wave, but do it after being lit on fire.
That was O'Brien's first full attempt at fire surfing after only briefly testing his fire suit setup before. Via Red Bull:
I caught the best wave of my life today. It was a dream wave, and I was on fire. It was the biggest adrenaline rush of my life. Everything went super smooth! Yesterday, during a test I burned a quarter of my eyelash and eyebrow, but it was really cool. There was a lot of build-up and yesterday we had a few difficulties, but today we just went for it and next thing you know I was in the barrel, I was on fire and flames were wrapping everywhere. It was really cool.
That's right, after burning off part of his eyebrow during a test, O'Brien basically said screw it and lit himself on fire again to surf a wave. It's not like this was a lifelong dream or anything either.
I got a direct message on Instagram that said it would be cool if you lit yourself on fire, and I kinda thought, why not?
Lighting yourself on fire to surf a giant wave because someone said to on social media is either the craziest or best thing I've ever heard. Maybe both. Now the question is what will he do to top this? He could fire surf then end it by punching a shark in the face like Mick Fanning did last week.
The mystery behind a Los Angeles gun fanatic found decomposing in a car last week has deepened as his fiancée's family said he was an alien-hybrid secretly working for the government.
The bizarre statement came Wednesday as the betrothed woman's lawyer identified the dead man as Jeffrey Alan Lash — almost one week after he was discovered rotting in his car parked on the street in the tony Pacific Palisades neighborhood.
Los Angeles police found more than 1,200 guns, nearly 7 tons of ammunition, bows and arrows, knives, machetes and $230,000 in cash inside Lash's home last Friday.
They also discovered a Toyota SUV designed to drive underwater among the 14 vehicles registered in his name.
The collection was as odd as Lash's confessions to his soon-to-be-wife Catherine Nebron that he was working as an undercover operative for multiple unnamed government agencies, according to her defense attorney Harland Braun.
"The story itself sounds totally crazy, but then how do you explain all this?" Braun said. "There's no evidence he was a drug dealer or he stole these weapons, or had any criminal source of income, no stolen property, all the stuff you'd look for."
Dead Man With Hundreds of Weapons Linked to Disappearance of Oxnard Mother
A man with a home filled with guns and whose decomposed body was found in an SUV in a Pacific Palisades neighborhood may be linked to the disappearance of an Oxnard woman who later turned up in Oregon. Rick Chambers reports for the KTLA 5 News at 10 on Wednesday, July 22, 2015.
KTLA - Los Angeles
Dead Man With Hundreds of Weapons Linked to Disappearance of Oxnard Mother
A man with a home filled with guns and whose decomposed body was found in an SUV in a Pacific Palisades neighborhood may be linked to the disappearance of an Oxnard woman who later turned up in Oregon. Rick Chambers reports for the KTLA 5 News at 10 on Wednesday, July 22, 2015.
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Dead Man With Hundreds of Weapons Linked to Disappearance of Oxnard Mother
A man with a home filled with guns and whose decomposed body was found in an SUV in a Pacific Palisades neighborhood may be linked to the disappearance of an Oxnard woman who later turned up in Oregon. Rick Chambers reports for the KTLA 5 News at 10 on Wednesday, July 22, 2015.
KTLA - Los Angeles
Lash was also believed to be an alien "sent to Earth to protect us," according to Laura VadBunker, the mother of 39-year-old Dawn VadBunker, who used to work for Nebron.
"I can't believe this," Laura VadBunker told KTLA. "It's worse than a Twilight Zone movie. He was part alien and part human and was out to save the world."
Authorities are still working to confirm the man's identity and figure out why he possessed so many cars and firearms, many of which were still in boxes or had price tags.
LAPD Deputy Chief of Detectives Kirk Albanese said he does not believe he was doing anything illegal with the weapons.
He had been decomposing inside his car for nearly two weeks before police found him on July 17.
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Dawn VadBunker, 39, who used to work for Lash's fiancee, believed Lash was a "part alien" hero sent to save the world, her mother told KTLA.
Police do not suspect any foul play involved in his death, but there is an investigation into the cause.
Braun said Nebron parked him in a car down the street from the condo they shared after he died. He had trouble breathing but refused to go to the hospital or call 911, the attorney said.
The longtime girlfriend of 17 years then left for Oregon, believing government agencies would come for his body and the items in his house.
Facebook was served with 381 warrants in 2013 from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. The warrants sought photos, private messages, and other information as part of a wide-ranging disability fraud investigation. As many as 134 people have been accused of disability fraud as part of the ongoing probe.
Super Opinionated.
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