Wednesday, February 28, 2018

"Costume fan claims she was denied entry to Met for wearing 18th century-style dress"

"Lear said a security official told him that the Met had a policy barring entry to anyone wearing a costume."

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Military capes




Golden Kingdoms exhibit



"This landmark exhibition of luxury arts of the Incas, the Aztecs, and their predecessors..." You can view all 299 items here.

Poster for Blumhouse's Truth or Dare

Monday, February 26, 2018

The Minnesota Twins "announced on Monday a deal to sell Prince-related merchandise year-round, including hats, shirts and balls"

On Prince Night, "The first 10,000 fans through the gates will receive inflatable Prince guitars — the purple one in the shape of his symbol."

"Ranchers set to fight back against vegetarian 'fake meat'"

USA:
Now U.S. Cattlemen's Association is looking to draw a line in the sand.

The association launched what could be the first salvo in a long battle against plant-based foods. Earlier this month, the association filed a 15-page petition with the U.S. Department of Agriculture calling for an official definition for the term "beef," and more broadly, "meat."

"While at this time alternative protein sources are not a direct threat to the beef industry, we do see improper labeling of these products as misleading," said Lia Biondo, the association's policy and outreach director. "Our goal is to head off the problem before it becomes a larger issue."

NBA's bottom eight teams "have lost a collective 44 games straight"

"The Brooklyn Nets owe their pick to the Cavaliers, and as such have no incentive to be bad."

"Famously Skinny Corinth Canal Shut Due to Rockfall"

"First conceptualised in ancient times, the canal took some 11 years to be built and start operations in 1893. "

Nikelab Collection Ghost Windrunner Women’s Jacket

Operating the Thala-Siren

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Mirror Universe Tilly; Vasquez fan art; Glitch baby








Saturday, February 24, 2018

"Trump officials fight eviction from Panama hotel they manage"

AP:
Representatives of the hotel owners’ association formally sought to fire Trump’s management team Thursday by hand-delivering termination notices to them at the Trump International Hotel and Tower, according to a Panamanian legal complaint filed by Orestes Fintiklis, who controls 202 of the property’s 369 hotel units. Trump’s managers retreated behind the glass walls of an office where they were seen carrying files to an area where the sounds of a shredding machine could be heard, according to two witnesses aligned with the owners. The legal complaint also accused Trump’s team of improperly destroying documents.

"Rarely in corporate history has a giant come and gone so quickly"

Economist:
Anbang was founded in 2004 as a small Chinese car-insurance company. By the start of last year it ranked among the world’s biggest insurers with some $300bn of assets

...

For a time, Mr Wu appears to have had powerful backers. He was married to the grand-daughter of Deng Xiaoping, China’s revered former leader. He also was reputed to have a close relationship with Xiang Junbo, the top insurance regulator during Anbang’s dizzying rise. Yet nothing is permanent, not least in Chinese elite politics. In 2015 Caixin, a respected Chinese financial magazine, reported that Deng’s grand-daughter had separated from Mr Wu. And early last year Mr Xiang was detained for corruption.

When Anbang’s reputation in Beijing started to fray, it looked to cultivate connections in another capital: Washington, DC. It entered talks with a company owned by the family of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, to invest $400m in a New York skyscraper. It looked as though Mr Wu was trying to prove his worth to Chinese officials by having a direct line, or just about, to Mr Trump. But this last bid at saving his career, if that is what it was, came up short. A flurry of media reports examining the deal and the potential conflict of interest led the two sides to break off talks.

Friday, February 23, 2018

Original art for sale



Joshua Hixson has various illustrations for sale (approx $60).

Kind of the opposite of that bunny/airhorn video



(Has this one made it to Snopes yet...)

"Navy investigating terrifying EA-18G Growler flight"

DN:
The temperature inside the cockpit suddenly plunged to temperatures reaching -30 degrees and a mist pumped into the the cockpit, covering the instruments and windows in a layer of ice, and rendering the pilots almost completely blind, according to several sources familiar with the incident and an internal report obtained by Defense News.

The fog inside the aircraft iced over the instrument panel, forcing the pilot and electronic warfare officer to use a Garmin watch to keep track of their heading and altitude while air controllers began relaying instructions to the crew. The pilot and EWO were forced to use the emergency oxygen supply, which was completely depleted by the end of the flight.
From June:
The Navy is Issuing Every F/A-18 Pilot A Garmin Watch. Here's Why.

The Navy is in investigating a reported drug ring at the U.S. Naval Academy

Fox:
the second in command of the school ... ordered a surprise drug test for all the midshipmen at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday morning. The entire Brigade of Midshipmen totals 4,500.

...

Last week, drug-sniffing dogs from the DEA were brought in to search the rooms of the suspected drug users and discovered cocaine. The midshipman suspected of possessing the drug was at athletic practice at the time and she tried to escape but was apprehended and brought in for questioning, according to two midshipmen with knowledge of the incident.

Cat in a backpack that looks like a space capsule


Killmonger vs. Dragon Ball Z's Vegeta


"Why Koreans Are So Good at Speedskating"

The NYT's answer is "Koreans, in other words, are really good at repetition." But this is good:
But a more compelling, if troubling, reason for Korean short-track domination might be glimpsed, oddly enough, in “Planet B-Boy,” a 2008 documentary about international break-dancing culture. In one memorable scene, the Gamblerz, at the time the Yankees of break dancing, are rehearsing in their studio in Seoul. As the dancers contort and invert their bodies, you see that break dancing, which must look stylishly effortless, is actually created by brute strength and technical repetition. A Gambler named Still explains why his teammate Laser became the best head spinner in the world. “Laser has spent the past five or six years spinning on his head,” Still says matter-of-factly. “He doesn’t really do anything else, and to be honest, he’s not that good at any other moves.”

Thursday, February 22, 2018

Black Panther cat mech and exo-suit concept art





Honda's "3E-D18 is an AI-equipped platform robotics device built to 'empower'"



Honda:
By replacing the upper attachment, the 3E-D18 can perform various tasks such as fire-fighting, farm work and sports training support. Its off-road capabilities allow autonomous operation on rugged terrain such as farms and mountains.

"A wildfire ignited mines laid by the Cuban military decades ago and jumped the fence line at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay on Thursday, threatening buildings and forcing evacuations of six neighborhoods"

MH:
In an afternoon broadcast on the base station, Radio Gitmo, base commander Navy Capt. Dave Culpepper advised: “Folks probably heard in the middle of the night a bunch of ordnance going off. And of course that was the fire burning on the other side of the fence, over on the Cuban side, their mines cooking off from the heat.”

"Drug Seizure at Russian Embassy Leads to Arrests"

NYT:
A former Russian diplomatic official and an Argentine police officer were among those arrested in connection with the seizure of a large cocaine shipment at the Russian embassy in Buenos Aires that prompted a yearlong investigation into an international drug ring, officials said Thursday.

...

Authorities said the drugs have a street value in Russia of about $61 million.

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Samus




The Neighbourhood - Scary Love

Global warming threatens a US military base in Greenland

MB:
About 60 years ago, at the height of the Cold War, the US designed a network of top-secret mobile nuclear launch sites buried in the Greenland ice sheet to prepare for possible war with the Soviet Union. At Camp Century, which was part of Project Iceworm, soldiers lived in the ice, which enclosed the base so it wouldn’t be completely buried in snow.

Camp Century was shut down in 1967, and the site was abandoned as Project Iceworm wound down. Back then, military planners assumed the hazardous stuff buried at Camp Century—including diesel fuel, PCBs, and some radioactive coolant—would stay locked up in the Greenland ice sheet, essentially forever. But now Greenland is warming

"Billionaire Bill Gates Guesses Grocery Store Prices" on Ellen

"Fourth US man dies hunting for buried $2m treasure"

BBC:
A US man who fell to his death while searching for buried treasure in the Rocky mountains has become the fourth person to die on the hunt.

...

He had been looking for the stash of gold and jewels allegedly hidden by a wealthy 86-year-old art dealer.

...

Murphy was seeking the fortune of New Mexico millionaire Forrest Fenn. The antiques dealer wrote a 24-line poem in his 2010 memoir that he claimed led to the treasure.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

"This U.S. Olympic Team Practices in a Refrigerated Parking Garage in Slovenia"

WSJ:
The concept of a ski tunnel was foreign to the Americans before their arrangement with Slovenia. What they found there was something unlike anywhere they had ever skied. For one thing, it was indoors. For another thing, it was supposed to be a parking garage. And there were many other things.

Legion season 2 teaser


Monday, February 19, 2018

Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider




"In Ukraine, Corruption Is Now Undermining the Military"

NYT:
Ukraine’s spending on defense and security has soared since the conflict in the east started in 2014, rising from around 2.5 percent of its gross domestic product in 2013 to more than 5 percent this year, when it will total around $6 billion.

This bonanza, which will push procurement spending in 2018 to more than $700 million, has enabled Ukraine to rebuild its dilapidated military and fight to a standstill pro-Russian rebels and their heavily armed Russian backers.

But

...

Military spending, however, has opened up new vistas for opaque insider deals, sheltered from scrutiny by a cone of secrecy that covers the details of military spending.

"The number of operating ski jumps in the United States had dwindled from 116 to 27"

"How a small ski club in Chicago, of all places, produced three American Olympians"

"Russia could lose its chance to be reinstated before the end of the Winter Olympics because of a doping charge against curling bronze medalist"

"Svishchev said it was possible someone spiked Krushelnitsky's food or drink. He suggested that rival Russian athletes or Russia's political enemies could be responsible."

"China’s former internet czar was expelled from the Communist Party and will be prosecuted for corruption"

"An usually high-profile party official, Lu was the face of China’s vicious crackdown on the internet and free speech in the last few years."

Olivia the pet elk



"'she's like a ballet dancer. She goes around very carefully. She comes and says hello for 15 minutes and then she goes back out to the others.'"

"Measles cases have soared across Europe over the last year"

"WHO Europe says there has been a 400% increase during 2017, with more than 21,000 cases and 35 deaths. That will be a major disappointment following the record low in 2016, when there were just 5,273 cases in Europe."

"Links from Newsweek have been banned from one of the biggest traffic-driving sections of Reddit due to concerns about paid spamming"

"The source, a longtime Redditor with knowledge of /r/news moderation practices, said moderators concluded that links were being submitted at high volume by influential Reddit accounts in order to drive traffic to Newsweek.com."

Suspended wave by Miguel Rothschild

A post shared by Freuler Art, Zürich (@freulerart) on


Black Panther director Ryan Coogler "was the star captain of the football team, elected to the homecoming court, and voted the guy with the best smile and physique"

BF from 2013:
Ask Coogler what he was like in high school, and he shakes his head, smiles, and says, "I didn't have anything figured out." Crack open his St. Mary's College High School yearbooks (class of 2003) and you'll find that he's being more than modest

...

Looking at those pages, Coogler's face lights up, he calls in his fiancée, Zinzi, and they giggle at the throwbacks; he waves off awards he had long forgotten and quickly moves on to discussing some of the other kids in the photos, high school teammates and buddies that he actually cast

"Shape of Panther"


Sunday, February 18, 2018

Shirtless Kylo Ren doodles



Also:



All-Star bunt contest


Star Wars: The Last Jedi variant cover



By Joe Quesada.

Friday, February 16, 2018

Drivers get stuck in sand trying to avoid traffic jam


Spider-Man cosplay


Pulling the cord on an emergency slide


Liverpool fans chant for their Egyptian striker, Mohamed Salah



"If he scores enough for you, he scores enough for me . . . then I'll be Muslim too . . . sitting in a mosque that's where I want to be."

"Apple employees keep smacking into the glass" at the new headquarters

BW:
Some staff started to stick Post-It notes on the glass doors to mark their presence. However, the notes were removed because they detracted from the building’s design, the people said.

Party decorations


Thursday, February 15, 2018

They resumed construction of the 300 artificial islands in Dubai

TG:
Conceived in 2003, the project was to be an exclusive offshore playground for film stars, royalty and celebrity tycoons: an artificial archipelago of 300 islands set two miles off the coast. Invitations to “Own the World” were sent to a targeted group of 50 potential buyers each year, offering tours of the site by yacht or helicopter, with prices for the islands ranging from $15-50m (£10-36m). Richard Branson posed for photos on little Britain in a Union Jack suit; Karl Lagerfeld launched plans for a fashion-themed island; rumours swirled that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had acquired Ethiopia for their ever-expanding clan of adopted children.

...

After five years of dredging, which saw 320 million cubic metres of sand and 25 million tonnes of rock hauled into place, the final stone in the breakwater was laid in January 2008 – on the eve of the global financial crisis. The vision collapsed just as quickly as the computer renderings had been conjured. Dubai World, the government investment arm in charge of the project, was revealed to have debts of $60bn.

...

So it comes as some surprise to learn that construction is back under way.

"About 300 men working for a Kremlin-linked Russian private military firm were either killed or injured in Syria last week, according to three sources familiar with the matter"

Reuters:
The timing of the casualties coincided with a battle on Feb. 7 near the Syrian city of Deir al-Zor where, according to U.S. officials and associates of the fighters involved, U.S.-led coalition forces attacked forces aligned with Moscow’s ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
See also:


The Last Jedi aliens






"Brooklyn Bitcoin Mine Causes Static for T-Mobile Users" in Brooklyn

BW:
Authorities believe they have found the culprit that was causing static for T-Mobile US Inc. customers in southern Brooklyn: an energy-sucking, interference-spewing cryptocurrency miner tucked away in a home.

Agents for the Federal Communications Commission used direction-finding devices to locate the offending equipment in a home in zip code 11229, an area that includes Sheepshead Bay. On Thursday they sent a notice to a resident telling him to shut off his Antminer s5 Bitcoin Miner, or risk fines and seizure of the device.

"Judge Rules News Publishers Violated Copyright by Embedding Tweets of Tom Brady Photo"

Uh oh:
"Having carefully considered the embedding issue, this Court concludes, for the reasons discussed below, that when defendants caused the embedded Tweets to appear on their websites, their actions violated plaintiff’s exclusive display right; the fact that the image was hosted on a server owned and operated by an unrelated third party (Twitter) does not shield them from this result," she writes.

...

Thus, the judge rejects the summary judgment motion from the defendant news publishers that they are shielded from copyright liability by the fact that they were only providing images hosted by Twitter.

This doesn't mean the news organizations have necessarily lost the case.

In response to a warning from defendants that a loss would "cause a tremendous chilling effect on the core functionality of the web," she notes a number of unresolved strong affirmative defenses to liability.

How to speedpaint Stormtrooper miniatures from Fantasy Flight's Star Wars: Legion



Step by step instructions here. Various new Legion sets available for preorder at Amazon.

"How I Cracked Facebook’s New Algorithm And Tortured My Friends"

BF:
Since then, people who rely on Facebook for eyeballs (like journalists) have been nervously trying to figure out what this change means — is “meaningful engagement” just shorthand for comments? Well, they should just ask me, because I’ve figured it all out. And I’m using this to torture my friends.

...

So here we are, at a new phase in Facebook’s history, when comments are king. But this has led to a new version of the overnight oats problem: People are being served the same stale content from a friend for 12 days straight, just because it happens to have a lot of comments. No one wanted to see my post several times a day, but the algorithm had, once again, misjudged what people wanted. In fact, people really hated this video — they wanted it to go away. Facebook took their pleas for it to stop as a sign that they should be shown it more and more.

...

You can try this yourself; it’s easy to game the system by posting something that drives comments.

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

BMO vinyl figure by Kidrobot available for preorder



At EE.

Porsche has to 3D print spare parts for classic cars

Porsche:
"No longer available" – for collectors of rare classic cars, the unavailability of spare parts can quickly lead to problems. In the worst case scenario, the car may even be forced out of action. Porsche Classic, the division of Porsche dedicated to classic vehicles, has come up with a solution to this problem.

...

Due to the consistently positive results received to date, Porsche is currently manufacturing eight other parts using 3D printing.

Star Wars creature creation



Thala-Siren concepts from The Last Jedi. Rian had picked up on a long droopy nosed form I’d sketched on page 2 but rather than reclining on her side like an elephant seal or walrus, wanted her sat more upright with the heavy, relaxed posture of a guy slobbing in a La-Z-Boy with a beer. You can see the first iteration of this on page 3, though here its more polar bear like with four feet and shaggy fur. What was really cool was that the Thala-Siren, or seacow as we called it then, was a completely practical effect shot on location. The initial problem was that rocks were extremely craggy and it would have been impossible to just bring this creature in and find a spot where we could sit her leaning against a rock as in the illustration. So we had the rocks LIDAR scanned and using the data chipped out a large polystyrene replica of the surface. We then sculpted the seacow on this so her underside was a perfect negative fit to the positive surface and gave the impression that her bum was sitting within an unseen depression in the rocks. The second problem was access was pretty hard and carrying a 3m tall animatronic creature down to the shore would be impossible so the solution was to helicopter her into place. Neat! Inside were two puppeteers - Tom Wilton and Derek Arnold @tomanddereksdrivein (previously ‘seen’ together as the Luggabeast in TFA and Tomder Bargwill, the stable master in TLJs Canto Bight). Access was via flipping the head back like a submarine hatch with the seam hidden in a neck crease. We had some extra heads peeping behind the rocks operated as hand puppets. #starwars #thelastjedi #starwarsthelastjedi #conceptart #conceptdesign #thalasiren #seacow #greenmilk #creaturedesign #artofstarwars
A post shared by Jake Lunt Davies (@jakeluntdavies) on

Working the salt ponds

Apple's "HomePod can damage wood furniture"

WC:
An unhappy discovery after we placed a HomePod on an oiled butcher-block countertop and later on a wooden side table was that it left a defined white ring in the surface. Other reviewers and owners (such as Pocket-lint, and folks on Twitter) have reported the same issue, which an Apple representative has confirmed. Apple says “the marks can improve over several days after the speaker is removed from the wood surface,” and if they don’t fade on their own, you can basically just go refinish the furniture—the exact advice Apple gave in an email to Wirecutter was to “try cleaning the surface with the manufacturer’s suggested oiling method.” This really undermines the design aspect of the HomePod

The news cycle


"in Malaysia, where people of ethnic Chinese descent make up almost a quarter of the population, images of the dog have been omitted from Lunar New Year decorations and merchandise for fear of offending the country's Muslim majority"

CNN:
The omission has raised hackles in the Chinese community and caused concern among Malaysians of all faiths, who see it as yet another symptom of the country's growing Islamic conservatism, driven by the government's flirtation with hardline Islamist policies and a cultural shift by religious students returning from the Middle East.

...

Earlier this year, a hypermarket chain around the country was embroiled in controversy when it emerged that Lunar New Year t-shirts being sold there depicted 10 animals in the Chinese zodiac, but not the dog or the pig.

Deleted Daredevil scene featuring Colin Farrell/Bullseye passing through a metal detector


Shattering ice on a trampoline


Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Snickers Pods



Available at Amazon (imported).

The creation of the Star Destroyer: "I asked George about the scenes. We had a few words in which he described the scenes. I then asked 'Is it bigger than Burbank (California)?'"

The creation of the #Stardestroyer - I asked George about the scenes. We had a few words in which he described the scenes. I then asked "Is it bigger than Burbank?" to determine the size of the Imperial Cruiser and the opening scenes of the movie. The hatch concept was developed in terms of the need of actual scenes later in the movie. In the opeing I was describing something WWII-ish of a concept with a gunner in the fuscelage. The ship was designed with a lot of thought on what the viewer would experience related to the massiveness of the ship. This involved thinking of things and creating relationships between all of the ships and their interactions with each other. George and I also discussed several other topics in which I asked qualifying questions. This gave me enough information to start designing the ships. It also gave him the information to continue with his work. I was separate from George for most of that time and worked on the final products alone. I started by creating what had to be in the middle and things were added on and so forth. I basically designed this ship and other ships around the function and the impact of the ship on the viewer. The sequence of function and the emotion and it had to feel like it was already there. When starting on a ship, I never did know what it would look like by the end. PS - those fighters in the concept illustration were the original imperial attack ships. I didn't create the #TIE until much later. See the other concepts at www.cantwellcollection.com
A post shared by Colin Cantwell (@colin_cantwell) on


Thought I would share more about my #xwing - the 1st #starwars ship. Images seen here are its design in chronological order. The X-Wing had to be different from anything previous. So that also meant that it had to do things that were unique. Part of the environment was that it was sort of a single or two person ship with a pilot and possibly a second person on board. It would have wheels and start by being taxied around. It would also have to take off and land from the ground. It had to engage in combat in a completely diferent way than before. Plus it had to be in scenes from a friendly viewpoint where people were saying their goodbyes while it was on the ground as the characters were preparing to go into combat. The pilot would then get into it and once the captain had the lid down, he would be taking off like an airplane. So it would climb using power and then it would have to arm itself. It would also have to fly in formation and maneuver to avoid in the changing tide of battle. The X-wing had to be unique, I achieved this by having the wings flat while it was on the ground and then they would rotate to split into two pairs in an X shape. Maneuvering had to be very expressive. So the ship was armed by bringing the wings into an X shape. I realized soon that the x shape had to be shallow enough so that it could operate near the ground and then also go to the extreme open X shape so it could fire its weapons. The X wing concept was based on a WWII plane that was highly maneuverable. I thought it had to be slender. which would accentuate the shape on the ground looking like an aircraft crossed with a dragster. It would have to fly in formation and then also be able to do complicated expressive maneuvers. The firing would be from the tips of the wings. This was important because the subliminal aspects had to be symbolic like a cowboy drawing its guns as in a gunfight outside of the saloon. When it was in combat it had to excentuate in a very expressive way. It had a very different combat maneuverability. It owes a lot to the cowboy. Oops, out of room. More on Facebook... #colincantwell
A post shared by Colin Cantwell (@colin_cantwell) on


"about four-fifths of Chinese couples say financial pressures are stopping them from having a second child"

BW:
That’s particularly true in China’s cities, where 14.3 percent of total household expenditure goes to children’s education, according to a study published by Peking University last year. Factor in soaring apartment prices, and it’s not altogether surprising that fertility rates in such places as Beijing and Shanghai have dipped below one, probably the lowest in the world
In other China news:





Reversible rebel pilot jacket



The new Alliance sweater is available for preorder:

Ghostbusters ESP Test Cards available for preorder



$9.99 for 50 cards.

"Statues of naked men are the hit of the Olympics"

Yahoo:
Now, in the last week, the world’s media has descended, bleary-eyed and stumbling, on PyeongChang. At the media nerve center, the first thing that greets them is this trifecta of statues, dubbed “Bullet Man.”

...

Japan, for instance, has gone all in on Bullet Man. They’ve rendered him in latte foam

...

They’ve started posing like him

"Major-college football experienced its largest per-game attendance drop in 34 years and second-largest ever"

"For the first time in history, average attendance declined nationally for four consecutive seasons."

Hanging on an escalator


"Matt Kemp lost 41 pounds during the offseason"

NBC:
Showing up to camp in “great shape” is not new for Kemp, our Matthew Pouliot reminds us. This story was written about Kemp allegedly being in great shape . . . a year ago.

Monday, February 12, 2018

From Alex Garland's Annihilation AMA

AMA:
How different is it adapting a book than adapting a story you came up with? Did you meet Jeff VanderMeer and have you read the series?


Definitely different. More intimidating to do adaptations, so you have to kind of jam it out of your mind. I have met Jeff - he's amazing, and very creatively generous. But was just adapting the first, so that's what I read. Maybe other people will do the others.

If given the chance, which comic book characters would you want to write/direct?


Swamp Thing.

Anything you can share about future plans?


I just wrote an eight part TV show for FX, called Devs, set in San Francisco. Really hoping to shoot it later this year.

What kind of tone will your FX series strike?

Sort of a tech thriller, I suppose.

Clever Japanese stuff









"This figure skater set a world record with a routine about 'clinical death'"

CNN:
if you were watching NBC's enhanced coverage of the events, you were treated to the fun trivia that Evgenia Medvedeva "said that her short program is about 'the flight of the soul' as it leaves someone's body at the point of 'clinical death.'"

...

For those of you unfamiliar with the young Russian's body of work, when it comes to themes and music Medvedeva has a, er, taste for the unusual. She raised eyebrows at the World Figure Skating Championships last year when she skated to a score excerpt from the film "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" that included audio from 9/11. She set a world record with that routine too, and won gold.

"Perri is a 1957 film from Walt Disney Productions, based on Felix Salten's 1938 Perri: The Youth of a Squirrel"

Wikipedia:
In the 1982 CBC television documentary Cruel Camera (produced by The Fifth Estate) Roy O. Disney, who was a cameraman on Perri's "fenced in" forest set, describes the film as both misrepresenting nature and being cruel to animals. Disney says, "Well, you just aren't going to go out into the woods and set up a camera and wait for the squirrel to come." He explains that the film used a cast of twenty tamed squirrels and "a lot" of wild ones, which were considered "expendable." Disney tells of one particular scene involving a chase with a marten, the film's "arch-villain." In the scene, one squirrel is eaten by the marten, however Disney says that in order to film the scene, they had to sacrifice a "number of squirrels." Practically speaking, "they found a very simple way to film the heroine narrowly escaping predators: just film her not narrowly escaping at all, shout cut, then call for a fresh Perri."

Screenshots from the season finale of Star Trek Discovery

"As an unintended consequence, ski jumping — which permits only men to compete in the Olympics — became troubled by athletes with extremely low body weight and eating disorders"

From 2010:
Beginning in the 1990s, many jumpers risked health for aerodynamic advantage. One study found that 22 percent of the ski jumpers at the 2002 Salt Lake Games were below the minimum height-weight proportion, or body mass index, recommended by the World Health Organization.

There have been several highly publicized cases of anorexia and bulimia among jumpers and apparently even a self-referential song. Samppa Lajunen, who won the 2002 Olympic Nordic combined event, which involves ski jumping and cross-country skiing, belonged to a band whose hit, “The Lightest Man in Finland,” mentioned rumors of eating disorders, according to David Wallechinsky’s “The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics.”

...

To counter the problem, the International Ski Federation put in a rule in 2004 that tied maximum ski length to a jumper’s relative height and body weight.

...

After the Olympics, the rules will be adjusted again. The minimum body mass index will be raised to 19 (20.5 with equipment) and, for most jumpers, the maximum ski length will be shortened to 143 percent of a jumper’s height

"How Protein Conquered America"

Eater:
the health outcomes of consuming protein supplements are downright murky. Since both are sold as supplements, the FDA only requires that they be safe for consumption, and the FDA does none of its own testing — rather, it collects self-reported lab results and waits for something to go wrong. In July 2010, Consumer Reports found significant amounts of heavy metals, including arsenic and mercury, in certain protein products. Three servings of EAS Myoplex Rich Dark Chocolate ready-to-drink shakes together contained more than the recommended limit of arsenic by the US Pharmacopeia. Three servings of Muscle Milk Chocolate powder had more than the recommended amount of lead, and nearly as much arsenic. The FDA never challenged the company on this, but Cytosport did settle a $20 million class action lawsuit on the claims two years later.

...

The Muscle Milk brand also seems to have lowered its testosterone across the board, going from fat, thick block type to a taller, leaner, more even font. The company used to rely on male spokespeople for major campaigns, but starting in 2017, three different national campaigns aimed at women featured female athletes. 

"Veteran US journalist Katie Couric is being mercilessly mocked on Twitter after claiming the Dutch success at Olympics speed-skating was because skating is an 'important mode of transport' in their country"

From an article that also includes this:
It's a bitter-sweet moment though for the Dutch, who despite the Twitter protestations are skating-mad and desperately wait each year for the canals to freeze over.
Related: "How Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski Became the Most Iconic Duo in Figure Skating"

What percentage of the clothes in your suitcase will you wear?

TL: We'll go through it. And that's why we brought thirteen suitcases each. We like to do changes. If we are on air, we're not going to wear the same thing for the Today Show or for the next photo shoot. And we do like to match up, so we have to bring all the options.
Also:



Metal Gear Solid Diamond Dogs logo and toy




Sunday, February 11, 2018

"A luxury Saudi hotel that served as a detention centre for dozens of princes and top officials held in a corruption drive since November has reopened"

"At the end of January the Saudi prosecutor general's office said more than $100bn (£72bn) had been recovered."

"Amazon Prime does more for northern food security than federal subsidies, say Iqaluit [Canada] residents"

From July:
The consensus in Iqaluit seems to be that everyone with a credit card has an Amazon Prime membership. That's because people can often find groceries cheaper online than in local stores, despite government food subsidy programs.

"Amazon Prime has done more toward elevating the standard of living of my family than any territorial or federal program. Full stop. Period," a local principal, who declined to speak further, said on Facebook.

...

In 2015, Amazon re-evaluated its shipping to remote locations and dropped many Nunavut communities, but kept Iqaluit. Now, Iqalummiut live in perpetual fear that they will be next to get cut off by Amazon.