Thursday, November 30, 2017

From a post about a canceled Batman collection

BC:
It is believed that the earlier collection was a sop to [writer Alan] Brennert to make up for not getting royalties for the use of Barbara Kean in Gotham over arcane rules, while creators of other less prominent characters revived significant sums….

Czech poster for Planet of the Apes



Available at Amazon.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands War Within the Cartel Bundle is $90 off right now



53% off at Amazon right now:
Inspired by the story of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands War Within the Cartel, this exclusive bundle features original artwork from the video.
The bundle includes the exclusive Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands War Within the Cartel SteelBook, the Gold Edition game with season pass subscription, and the Santa Muerte figurine.
SteelBook features Ken Taylor's artwork for the upcoming Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands War Within the Cartel.
Gold Edition includes full game plus season pass subscription.
Santa Muerte figurine is a 10.5-inch replica of the in-game version.

New Kidrobot figure

Thor Ragnarok concept art


Splash page for the Avengers Academy event starting tonight

"A Texas sheriff who was among the first people to reach two badly injured U.S. Border Patrol agents said he thinks they may have been sideswiped accidentally by a tractor-trailer, not attacked, as President Donald Trump and some others have suggested"

WaPo:
A Border Patrol union, the National Border Patrol Council, has said the pair was attacked and struck with a rock or rocks.

President Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also have said the two were attacked, with Trump using the incident to renew his call for a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

"Nike ups the ante with new $88 million offer to University of Oregon"

OL:
more than double the current contract

...

In recognition of the enduring popularity of college sports, sneaker makers are paying ever-larger sums for the right to splash their logo on as many players and playing fields as possible.

Bloomin' Onion mascot


Wednesday, November 29, 2017

"The U.S. trustee in the Toys R Us bankruptcy case has filed a strongly worded objection to the company's plan to pay between $16 million and $32 million to its 17 most highly paid executives"

USAT:
"It defies logic and wisdom," the objection by trustee Judy A. Robbins states, that Toys R Us is proposing "multimillion-dollar bonuses for the senior leadership of a company that began the year with employee layoffs and concludes it in the midst of the holiday season in bankruptcy.

...

Toys R US, in seeking approval of the incentive pay, told the bankruptcy court that motivating its top employees was crucial to the company's successful turnaround.

"Two sources recounted Lasseter’s obsession with the young character actresses portraying Disney’s Fairies, a product line built around the character of Tinker Bell"



DH:
“He was inappropriate with the fairies,” said the former Pixar executive, referring to physical contact that included long hugs. “We had to have someone make sure he wasn’t alone with them.”

Hobby Horse racing, trampoline baseball





Instructions for making a Star Wars Inferno Squad logo ornament



Link.

"Rich San Francisco homeowners get sold-off street back"

"Previous residents of the gated neighborhood include U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who wrote a letter that accused the city of bureaucratic bungling."

"Websites use your CPU to mine cryptocurrency even when you close your browser"

"It works by opening a pop-under window that fits behind the Microsoft Windows taskbar and hides behind the clock. The window remains open indefinitely until a user takes special actions to close it. During that time, it continues to run code that generates Monero on behalf of the person controlling the Website."

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

"In a city already saddled with ill-conceived artwork, officials plan to remove a $20,000 installation from an underpass"

Mac:
Her sleuthing well past midnight also revealed that Besant had publicly claimed he’d photographed and interviewed 20 random passersby in the underpass for his $20,000 public art commission—“ a real cross-section of the city,” he told Avenue Calgary. It turns out the photos were all lifted from the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festival program, to the shock of the subjects and photographers themselves.

...

Besant is no rookie. Born in Calgary in 1950, he’s won international awards, and headed the drawing department at the Alberta College of Art and Design from 1977 to 1993

EA just sent an email bragging about reviews of Battlefront II, and cited an IGN review that panned the game



From the review:
The Verdict
Battlefront 2 does a lot of things right, offering a Star Wars experience that’s stunning to look at and wonderfully faithful to the source material, but it stumbles hard on the delivery. The campaign is amusing but scatterbrained, and worse, in multiplayer the randomized progression systems are downright hostile toward its players. EA has already made two big adjustments to this system in the week leading up to launch alone, and we can only hope that more significant changes are on the way. But right now, the Star Cards system’s frustrating progression is actively driving me away from the multiplayer battles.
68 overall at Metacritic.

"Florida State Seminole's kicker Ricky Aguayo told police after the 2016 rivalry game with the University of Florida Gators he was beaten by members of a fraternity now shuttered following an investigation into the death of one of its pledges"

"Aguayo told TPD he was walking by the fraternity house at about 3 a.m. on Dec. 2 when people on the front porch began to yell at him about his performance in the game."

"Until a few years ago, the staff of 'Hannity,' the top nightly cable show in the United States, shared news by text or email, but today"

NYT:
but today, much of the collaborative work is handled via a Twitter account accessible to only the staff. “If I like something, I’ll click Like, and if other producers like something, they’ll click Like,” Berry told me. The result is a “pool of ideas” — “50, 60, 70 stories,” in addition to articles Hannity himself has flagged for inclusion.

"After Hurricane Maria damaged tens of thousands of homes in Puerto Rico, a newly created Florida company with an unproven record won more than $30 million in contracts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency "

APN:
Bronze Star LLC never delivered those urgently needed supplies

...

The contract solicitation gave preference to veteran-owned companies. According to Navy records, Jones was never awarded a Bronze Star, a medal earned by service members who serve heroically in combat.

In an interview, Jones told The Associated Press he picked the name because he has another company with the word star in it.

"Former University of Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich said he believes comments by pizza mogul 'Papa John' Schnatter critical of the athletic department were part of a 'setup.'"

CJ:
"That was a setup," Jurich said in an interview with Courier Journal. "He didn’t know what he was saying. He’s probably a brilliant man — I’m not saying that (he's not). It came out of his mouth, but it didn’t come out of his mouth. That was all a script. You could put all the pieces together, all the way back to March. It all fits now."

"Marvel Editor-in-Chief Admits He Used Japanese Pseudonym to Circumvent Company Policy"

HR:
Tuesday marks the first day new Marvel editor-in-chief C.B. Cebulski is spending in the New York offices of the company's publishing arm, and he's marking it with a very unexpected statement. He has confessed having used a Japanese psuedonym

...

The characterization in the statement of Yoshida being simply a pseudonym ignores the fact that "Yoshida" gave interviews where he explained a complex backstory
Previously:
“Iron Fist” has drawn harsh criticism for following the comics’ example of casting a rich white man as a master of distinctly Asian traditions of fighting. What could have been a rare chance for an actor of Asian descent to land a high-profile role

Monday, November 27, 2017

"Lake Forest businessman Uihlein is top donor to pro-Moore fund in Alabama Senate race"

CT:
gave the PAC another $50,000 on Nov. 22, after the allegations were raised

...

Uihlein is CEO of Uline Inc., a distributor of shipping materials, and he has become a major conservative donor at the state and federal level. Uihlein’s state candidate contributions total more than $16.6 million since 1998

"[Marin] County officials recently rejected all 10 applications for licenses to operate medical marijuana dispensaries"

SFC:
That’s despite the fact that nearly 70 percent of Marin voters approved Proposition 64, the 2016 initiative that legalized recreational cannabis

...

Because Marin officials had hinged all future commercial activities related to adult use on how the medical applications worked out, the rejection means the county is guaranteed to be almost totally devoid of marijuana shops for the foreseeable future

"Part of YouTube's system for reporting sexualised comments left on children's videos has not been functioning correctly for more than a year, say volunteer moderators"

BBC:
The company says reports of violations by Trusted Flaggers are accurate more than 90% of the time. The volunteers are not paid by YouTube, but do receive some perks such as invitations to conferences.

"With its SNKRS app, Nike has transformed sneaker shopping into a Pokemon Go-style game"

WSJ:
The only way fans could get their hands on this specific sneaker was to come to Fuku, open Nike’s SNKRS app on their iPhones, hold up the camera to Fuku’s coded paper menus and through the magic of augmented reality (AR) make a sneaker digitally materialize on screen. Only then could they purchase the shoe on their phone and have it sent to their home.

Sound like a lot? Welcome to sneaker shopping in 2017, where the goal is to bring back some of the excitement of old-school shoe scavenging.

...

“Stash Squad,” the SNKRS app’s latest feature, will allow users, regardless of where they live, to join the team of a shopper in the city where a given sneaker is launched. When the shopper “unlocks” the shoe for himself, he unlocks it for everyone on his team, so that someone in Albuquerque, or even Katmandu, can get a sneaker that previously would have only been available to Manhattanites.

"Original Prongles chips an elaborate Cards Against Humanity joke 2 years in the making"

TT:
“The secret that makes it work is that we worked harder on this than anyone would reasonably expect.”

That includes hiring 45 Irving, the brand design unit within marketing agency Digitas, to research the competitive chip landscape and create the look and feel of Prongles. The firm photographed every chip brand they could find in stores, analyzed the marketplace, and eventually developed the bodacious hog cartoon that so tactfully graces each Prongles can.

“We had the idea that we’d have an extreme mascot, like a chip eating other chips. But the Digitas team came up with the idea of the hog because their research showed that hogs are one of the only animals that would eat potatoes,”

Wild stories about the Connecticut Post

CTP:
In October, 1981, one of the Post’s wire service editors died at his desk, about two hours before deadline.

His head fell into his glue pot; in those days, rubber cement was used to glue pages of copy together so the typesetters wouldn’t lose track of a part of the story.

The tragedy was discovered by another copy editor, and an ambulance was summoned. But the glue pot had hardened

...

It was soon discovered that the weapon was owned by one of the Post’s younger staffers who had become a drug dealer. His handgun went off accidentally when he dropped his coat.

He was later arrested in the newspaper’s lobby and charged with selling cocaine. A Bridgeport cop had been working undercover as a janitor, and helped make the bust.

”He was one of the best janitors we ever had,”

Blue Angels-themed uniform for Navy



For this weekend's Army-Navy game.

BB-8 drink




Kieron Gillen describes Ready Player One

"It’s a story where a Retromancer has enslaved an entire world and we’re meant to cheer and not think it’s . . . creepy."

Sunday, November 26, 2017

"Mexico promised affordable housing for all. Instead it created many rapidly decaying slums"

LAT:
Sixteen years ago, Mexico embarked on a monumental campaign to elevate living standards for its working-class masses.

The government teamed with private developers to launch the largest residential construction boom in Latin American history. Global investors — the World Bank, big foundations, Wall Street firms — poured billions of dollars into the effort.

Vast housing tracts sprang up across cow pastures, farms and old haciendas. From 2001 to 2012, an estimated 20 million people — one-sixth of Mexico’s population — left cities, shantytowns and rural ranchos for the promise of a better life.

...

The program has devolved into a slow-motion social and financial catastrophe

...

It is believed to be the largest fraud in Mexican history.

Don't be evil


"'My math teacher is low-key terrified of all of us,' the tween in my house told us tonight at dinner."

Good story.

"Chicago has offered to let Amazon pocket $1.32 billion in income taxes paid by its own workers"

ST:
Called a personal income-tax diversion, the workers must still pay the full taxes, but instead of the state getting the money to use for schools, roads or whatever, Amazon would get to keep it all instead.

...

New Jersey remains the dollar king of the subsidy sweepstakes, having offered Amazon $7 billion to build in Newark.

...

Fresno promises to funnel 85 percent of all taxes and fees generated by Amazon into a special fund. That money would be overseen by a board, half made up of Amazon officers, half from the city. They’re supposed to spend the money on housing, roads and parks in and around Amazon.

Saturday, November 25, 2017

Knights of Ren custom figure


A post shared by HEALEYMADE (@healeymade) on


Available from Healeymade.

"Cornell University food behavior scientist . . . has retracted another paper — his fourth this year"

"along with at least eight corrections published or forthcoming."

Rough day for Alabama basketball, too







30% of Gallery 1988 with the code Sale2017



Including Cuyler Smith's trading cards.

She has him by the facemask


Friday, November 24, 2017

"Radical artists build replica Holocaust memorial outside right-wing AfD leader's home"

Telegraph:
The activisis said they had not broken any laws, and had erected the replica of the monument as “garden decoration” on their own property. They notified the police in advance.

They said they have also been using the property to mount a “citizens’ surveillance” of Mr Höcke for the last ten months, in protest at the failure of the authorities to investigate him.

They offered to end the surveillance if Mr Höcke kneels before the monument in recognition of the crimes of the Holocaust, as former chancellor Willy Brandt famously did in Warsaw.

Video game prints by Olly Moss



$13 each.

Prongles, the new snack chip from the Cards Against Humanity people



You can order chips or download wallpapers and the theme song. No tie-in Funko figure (yet).

Thursday, November 23, 2017

Star Wars capes



Sith and Rebel capes by Musterbrand.

Chargers kicker misses the net


Butt tackle


Wednesday, November 22, 2017

"Video shows the remains of an ancient fortress sitting hidden beneath" lake in Turkey

NatGeo:
From the surface, Turkey's Lake Van looks like any other large body of water. Turkey's largest, the lake sits in the far eastern region of the country, near Iran. The lake has a striking blue color and is a tourist attraction, benefiting towns around its rim. But below the surface lurks another town, which had hardly been seen in thousands of years.

During a recent dive to explore the lake, archaeologists from Van Yüzüncü Yil University and a team of independent divers found an underwater fortress.

...

the team estimates the remains are roughly 3,000 years old

...

The archaeologists believe rising lake levels slowly submerged parts of the city over time

"Private jets and golden parachutes: The L.A. Times Guild asks, 'Where is the money?'"

LATG:
THE PRIVATE JET

Michael Ferro’s private jet alone costs the company millions. From February 2016 through September of this year, Tronc spent $4.6 million to sublease and operate the sleek Bombardier aircraft, which costs $8,500 an hour to fly. The kicker? Tronc subleases the jet from Merrick Ventures, one of Ferro’s companies.

...

SPORTING EVENTS & GOLDEN PARACHUTES

Tronc spent nearly $250,000 to buy sports tickets from Ferro's company.

"Maria Sharapova is being investigated by police in India in a cheating and criminal conspiracy case involving a real estate company who used the tennis star to endorse a luxury housing project that never took off"

AP:
a project named “Ballet by Maria Sharapova,” a luxury apartment complex with its own helipad, tennis academy and other amenities

...

Sharapova isn’t the only international sports celebrity that the real estate firm roped in. Its website also advertises a project with Formula One great Michael Schumacher called the Michael Schumacher World Tower.

"In L.A.'s misguided war on blight, an unpainted fence could cost you $660"

LAT:
In Atwater Village, people have been receiving “courtesy notices” from something called the Pro-Active Code Enforcement division of the Department of Building & Safety

...

She wondered if the notice was some kind of scam. Others wondered if it were a plot to further gentrify the neighborhood, or if a handyman was trying to line up some work.

The answer is no.

This is for real.

Your tax dollars at work.

I called the inspector whose name was on one of the courtesy notices and pointed out that people use redwood because you don’t have to paint it. Redwood lasts a long time, has beautiful coloring and grain lines, and maintains its character as it ages.

...

“There’s a city ordinance that says you can’t have unpainted wood,” the inspector told me.

...

If unpainted wood is a crime, why not go to Hancock Park or Pacific Palisades and drop some “courtesy notices” in mailboxes?

Because, said Zamperini, the program targets only low-income areas.

"How Elite Plotters Toppled Mugabe’s 37-Year Reign"

WSJ:
More than three decades ago, Mr. Chiwenga was a young army officer who tried to kill himself after botching his military exams. Mr. Mugabe summoned the soldier and made him an offer: Pledge eternal loyalty in return for promotion, privilege and power.

By now, Mr. Chiwenga was a general, the head of Zimbabwe’s defense forces. He was also an ally of the vice president Mr. Mugabe had fired. As Gen. Chiwenga prepared to return from a trip to China, police loyal to Mr. Mugabe positioned themselves at the Harare airport to arrest him, in events described by senior security officials.

But the army had been tipped off, and its commandos were also deployed there—disguised as airport workers. As the plane landed, the soldiers shed their airport-worker uniforms to reveal army fatigues and weapons. The police fled, and Gen. Chiwenga was escorted to his army base. The ambush had been foiled.

Thor Ragnarok poster by Mondo for Black Friday





And speaking of special colors on a Mondo poster, none more black:


March of the Maybots








Tuesday, November 21, 2017


"You're weird for building this"



The original cover:

Tennis court in a church

From a Wall-E plot summary



Pixar.wikia:
He tries to hold her hand as he had seen in the film, which he determines to be an act of sharing love. Unfortunately for him, EVE does not understand what he is trying to do and thus does not return his love, especially as she is distracted by the mesmerizing flame of a match lighter and does not fully appreciate the film as he does. WALL•E then decides to show her the plant he found. Suddenly, EVE scans the plant, and her system automatically initiates a shutdown mode, which takes the plant and stores it inside her torso, sealing up into her pod form and shutting down. WALL•E does not understand why she will not unlock or speak to him, but nonetheless does everything in his power to keep her motionless body safe from the elemental hazards of the desolate Earth in the hopes she will wake up, taking her out on a series of "dates" in the process. Eventually WALL•E gives up hope that she will ever awaken and leaves to resume his work. Soon the ship EVE arrived in returns and takes her away. While it is clear that EVE had sent a homing beacon to her ship to collect her, WALL•E is unwilling to leave her and climbs onto the side of the ship, telling Hal to stay where he is, clinging on as

"Uber Concealed Cyberattack That Exposed 57 Million People’s Data"

Bloomberg:
Uber now says it had a legal obligation to report the hack to regulators and to drivers whose license numbers were taken. Instead, the company paid hackers $100,000 to delete the data and keep the breach quiet. Uber said it believes the information was never used but declined to disclose the identities of the attackers.

“None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it,” Dara Khosrowshahi, who took over as chief executive officer in September, said in an emailed statement. “We are changing the way we do business.”

"Facebook (Still) Letting Housing Advertisers Exclude Users by Race"

PP:
Last week, ProPublica bought dozens of rental housing ads on Facebook, but asked that they not be shown to certain categories of users, such as African Americans, mothers of high school kids, people interested in wheelchair ramps, Jews, expats from Argentina and Spanish speakers.

All of these groups are protected under the federal Fair Housing Act, which makes it illegal to publish any advertisement “with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.” Violators can face tens of thousands of dollars in fines.

Every single ad was approved within minutes.

The only ad that took longer than three minutes to be approved by Facebook sought to exclude potential renters “interested in Islam, Sunni Islam and Shia Islam.” It was approved after 22 minutes.

The Mighty Thor #704 cover



By Russell Dauterman‏.

"Major League Baseball is expected to hammer the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday for circumventing rules governing the signing of international amateurs"

Yahoo:
declaring 12 minor league players, including vaunted prospect Kevin Maitan, free agents as part of sweeping penalties against the organization

...

The loss of the draft pick, the international sanctions and the free agency of the dozen players – including catcher Abrahan Gutierrez, who received a $3.5 million signing bonus, pitcher Juan Contreras and third basemen Yenci Pena, each of whom received more than $1 million to sign, and Korean shortstop Ji-hwan Bae, a 2017 signee – will erode the organizational depth Atlanta had fostered during its rebuild. The Braves’ farm system remains one of the game’s best nonetheless

"Disney Animation head John Lasseter is taking a leave of absence from Pixar after acknowledging 'painful' conversations and unspecified 'missteps,' he wrote in a memo to staff "

"Lasseter's statement arrived as THR was preparing a story detailing alleged misconduct by the executive at Disney/Pixar."

"The co-founder and CEO of the [HQ Trivia] app, however, threatened in a tirade to fire its star host simply for speaking to press on Monday"

TDB:
Yusupov, the CEO of HQ, called the reporter's cell phone and immediately raised his voice. He said that we were "completely unauthorized" to write about Scott or HQ without his approval and that if we wrote any type of piece about Scott, he would lose his job.

Yusupov continued to threaten Scott's job, even after The Daily Beast explained that the story was framed around Scott's daily life and that he revealed no corporate information.

You're putting Scott's job in jeopardy. Is that what you want?" Yusupov said. "Scott could lose his job."

...

When asked to confirm that Rogowsky can’t say he personally enjoys eating at Sweetgreen, Yusupov said “he cannot say that," inaccurately claiming that Scott had disclosed private company information by revealing his preference for a salad chain.

When The Daily Beast read Yusupov a quote from Rogowsky saying “I can make people happy and give them the trivia they so desperately love and want. It's been so great to build this community," Yusupov implored the reporter to “take that out.”

Asked for clarification, Yusupov replied that Rogowsky was absolutely not allowed to say that he "enjoys making people happy and giving them the trivia they want."
Which is the better satire?


"Mic.com’s traffic slipped further in September, to just 4.6 million unique visitors, according to comScore, down from a peak of more than 21 million in December 2015"

SP:
In press releases and at media conferences, though, the desperate business realities driving these changes are sold as opportunities to innovate. Investors rewarded Mic’s potential in that regard with about $28 million in new funding this year.

...

Roughly 20 additional employees have left in the three months since the layoffs, according to interviews and internal communications about departures read to Splinter by sources at the company. They include business-side employees from all levels, at least one recruiter, and a handful of video staffers. The office manager also left, current employees added, leaving Mic’s front desk manned only by an iPad.

"Producers of a Bollywood movie have delayed its release amid fears for the safety of its female star, following death threats from prominent Hindu hardliners."

CNN:
The quasi-historical movie, entitled Padmavati, has ignited anger among right-wing Hindu groups owing to its rumored depiction of a romantic dream sequence involving a mythical Hindu queen and an invading Muslim sultan. The filmmakers have repeatedly denied the movie includes such a scene.

...

members of hardline group Karni Sena stormed the movie's set during shooting and assaulted the director and crew.

The right wing Hindu group, which says it represents a large and influential caste group in India, has since vandalized movie theaters and launched protests in several states across the country

Panning for gold video game


"Retired NBA star Ray Allen said he is a victim of 'catfishing,' and has asked a court to throw out a case where he is accused of stalking someone he met online"

ESPN:
"Coleman pretended to be a number of attractive women interested in Ray Allen," read the motion filed on Allen's behalf. "Ray believed he was speaking with these women and communicated with them."

...

In the filing, Allen said Coleman threatened to reveal details of their conversations, and that the sides eventually struck a deal to keep everything private. Allen said that deal has been violated and that Coleman has continued to harass him and his family through several social-media accounts.

"He posted about Ray's wife, Ray's children, Ray's dog, Ray's homes, Ray's wife's restaurant, and numerous other personal items," read the motion. "Coleman not only posted about these things, he would actually post while physically located inside Ray's wife's restaurant in Orlando. And he would make sure they knew it, tagging Ray and his wife on those posts."

"Shortly after the shooting in Sutherland Springs, Tex., investigators tried to press at least one of the dead man’s fingers to the phone, hoping the Touch ID fingerprint feature would allow access"

"but the effort failed."

"I work at chipotle, the white rice comes in a brown bag and the brown comes in a white bag"

R/MildlyInfuriating

Pie Hell


"Victoria’s Secret’s run of bad luck continues. Its first time showing in China has been beset with problems"

WWD:
The night was memorable although not necessarily for the right reasons. During the show, model Ming Xi took a hard fall on the runway, after seeming to get tangled in a voluminous cape she was wearing. She stayed down for several seconds but eventually got up, helped by a fellow model Gizele Oliveira and cheered on by the audience.

...

Earlier, a cumbersome check-in process forced hundreds of guests to line up outside braving 9 degree Celsius — 48 Fahrenheit — temperatures for over half an hour before scrambling in the arena in a free-for-all seat situation.

"Convictions in doubt as more than 10,000 cases could be affected by data manipulation at forensics lab" in the UK

Ind:
Two men formerly employed by Randox Testing Services (RTS) have been arrested, and five interviewed under caution by Greater Manchester Police over the case.

The two arrested suspects are understood to have previously worked at another firm called Trimega Laboratories, which is also being investigated by police over potential manipulation that could affect child protection and family court cases.

Nick Hurd, the policing minister, said the same techniques seen at RTS may have occurred at Trimega between 2010 and 2014.

...

The Ministry of Justice has not yet found any affected civil cases affected, but the results may also have been used by schools and local authorities making child protection decisions, or by private employers testing of their employees for banned substances.

Mr Hurd said it may never be possible to identify the true number of Trimega customers affected, due to poor record-keeping, and that its samples cannot be retested.

Monday, November 20, 2017

Eric So Sin City Marv Vinyl Figure is 44% off



Great figure with DIY bandages and removable coat.

"China's futuristic library: More fiction than books"

Yahoo:
Those rows upon rows of book spines are mostly images printed on the aluminium plates that make up the backs of the shelves.

...

"We can only use the hall for the purposes for which it has been approved, so we cannot use it as a place to put books," Liu laughed, adding that they would likely soon have to remove all those temporarily on display.

There's another quirk: The irregular white stairs have proven hazardous for selfie-snappers with eyes glued down to their phones or up at the stylish ceiling.

"People trip a lot.

KFC-themed Faraday cage



Internet Escape Pod:
$10,000.00

Cyber Monday is fast approaching, which means you are about to be bombarded with a hailstorm of coupons, BOGOs, hot dealz, and brand advertising. Find sanctuary for yourself and your loved ones under Colonel Sanders and his Internet Escape Pod. Yup, this dome is like a magic force field designed to disrupt the internet coming to and from your devices. We were going to sell this for the ridiculously high price of $96,485.34, but in the spirit of Cyber Monday it can be yours for $10,000. So this Cyber Monday (or really anytime you want; I mean you bought it, so it's up to you), let Colonel Sanders' protective embrace take you back to a simpler time.

In case you haven't noticed, our specialty is fried chicken, not internet-blocking cages. Although we have done our best to ensure total internet escape, a special person with a gizmo has to test our cage before we can claim total and utter signal impenetrability. Upon installation, every effort will be taken to ensure it fully blocks your device. You have the Colonel's word.

"Steve Jurvetson was pushed out of his firm as the lines between personal and professional crossed"

"Several of the women met one another at the TED conference in Vancouver, where Jurvetson is a regular, in the March of 2015, one of the women said. That conference is said to be a flashpoint in the Jurvetson drama, as several women dating him discovered that they were not alone in their personal involvement with the investor."

Sunday, November 19, 2017

What lies beneath


Young JCVD


Aurora Borealis ring



By Secret Wood.

Skull ring



By Camille Walton.

"Kansas coach David Beaty on his players snubbing Baker Mayfield at the coin toss"

"this is a football game, and we're going to defend our grass"

Radium chocolate bar


Spongebob Cleats


Bucky, fixed


Saturday, November 18, 2017

Friday, November 17, 2017

"How Big Baller Brand Was Saved by a Skechers-Funded Sneaker Start-Up"

GQ:
sneakerheads took notice of the the similarities between the Melo 1 and another shoe, from the shape of the shoe to the sole to the pattern on the upper: the Rare Metal, from upstart Brandblack. That same day, Wear Testers, a site dedicated to rigorously testing basketball sneakers, reported that this wasn’t an act of design theft, but of collaboration between an extension of Brandblack and Big Baller Brand. But if either party was trying to hide the fact that the two brands had teamed up, they didn’t do a very good job: if you look closely at the side of the ZO2 Remix, which debuted just three weeks after the Melo 1, you’ll see a print that reads “Santa Ana”—the name of a design consultancy started in August 2017 by Brandblack founder David Raysse and creative director Billy Dill.

...

Raysse compares the relationship between Santa Ana Design and BBB to the way Ferraris used to outsource the design of its cars to a company called Pininfarina.

The partnershipship hasn’t stopped hot-take Twitter users from knocking Big Baller Brand sneakers as nothing more than extra-expensive Skechers.

Thursday, November 16, 2017

"Chef Giovanni Apollo Accused of Fabricating an 'Italian Identity'"

"His real name is Jean-Claude Apollo, and that’s just the beginning"

How UCLA and USC protect their statues during rivalry week


Golgo 13 Figma figure



Via.

Spending $13 million more to break even


"Belladonna of Sadness" figure available for preorder Saturday



At Unbox Industries:
Belladonna of Sadness aka Kanashimi no Belladonna is arguably one of the most shocking, beautiful and divisive full length animated features ever to be produced.
The 1973 feature film produced by the Japanese animation studio Mushi Productions follows the story of Jeanne, a peasant woman who endures terrible abuse after being accused of witchcraft and her subsequent act of retribution upon her protagonists.

Unbox have commissioned the legendary Cosmo Liquid to sculpt the figurine under the scrutiny of the Mushi Pro team.

"A group of college athletic administrators say they're extremely concerned that a proposed measure in the House's tax bill that passed on Thursday will greatly impair college sports funding"

ESPN:
Not allowing fans to deduct for donations that give them the right to buy tickets would immediately cost college programs hundreds of millions of dollars, according to athletic directors who spoke with ESPN.

"If that deduction goes away, what you will see is a dramatic sea change in the college sports landscape," said Duke athletic director Kevin White. "We need to put speed bumps up now to slow this thing down because I don't think the politicians have any idea how much this will pull apart our system."

For years, college athletic programs have relied on donations associated with season tickets to fuel their budgets. While the price of the season tickets themselves are not tax deductible, fans have been able to write off up to 80 percent of the donation that was required to buy those tickets, a fact that has been heavily marketed by the programs themselves.

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Tuba race


Issue #0 of Star Trek: TNG: Mirror Broken is free at Amazon



Fun series set in the grim and heavily-muscled version of The Next Generation universe.

Starship Troopers brain bug

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"One of the all-action characters of recent times"


Tuesday, November 14, 2017


Missouri State "Athletic Director Blames Students for Worst Home Football Attendance Since 1988"

OF:
total home attendance for 2017 was the lowest in decades

...

Missouri State attempted giveaways throughout games and also introduced alcohol sales inside the stadium

"Mordor, He Wrote"


"Cards Against Humanity Stops the Wall"

CAH:
So we’ve purchased a plot of vacant land on the border and retained a law firm specializing in eminent domain to make it as time-consuming and expensive as possible for the wall to get built.

On Day 1, all Cards Against Humanity Saves America recipients will get an illustrated map of the land, a certificate of our promise to fight the wall, some new cards, and a few other surprises.

Monday, November 13, 2017

Brandon Bird is holding a print sale




Valkyrie redesign

"Locals Were Troubled by Roy Moore’s Interactions with Teen Girls at the Gadsden Mall"

NY:
This past weekend, I spoke or messaged with more than a dozen people—including a major political figure in the state—who told me that they had heard, over the years, that Moore had been banned from the mall because he repeatedly badgered teen-age girls. Some say that they heard this at the time, others in the years since. These people include five members of the local legal community, two cops who worked in the town, several people who hung out at the mall in the early eighties, and a number of former mall employees.
Also:
Fifty-three pastors in Alabama have signed a letter throwing their support behind Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore
Elsewhere:
A federal judge on Wednesday rejected an effort by Jared Fogle, the former face of Subway sandwiches, to overturn his conviction for traveling to engage in sex with a minor, filed on his behalf by a jailhouse lawyer.

Fellow inmate Frank Pate filed a motion for Fogle, claiming the court lacked jurisdiction over Fogle because of his status as a so-called “sovereign citizen.”

Sunday, November 12, 2017


Rejected designs for a Becky Cloonan Wonder Woman pint glass

Holiday idea


Saturday, November 11, 2017

"Logan Paul holds mammoth meet-up in Dubai"

"Logangsters flocked to the Dubai Mall to catch a glimpse of the content creator at the 'biggest meet and greet ever.'"

"As Japan’s serial killing case unfolds, people ask: Did killer find victims through Twitter?"

LAT:
Japanese media outlets, citing police sources, say Shiraishi approached most victims using Twitter. Shiraishi, who authorities say referred to himself as a suicide expert on hanging, told his victims he would help them with their suicides, even die with them, reports said.

One Twitter account linked to him, @hangingpro, carried the message: “I would like to help those who are truly suffering. Feel free to DM me.”

According to media reports, Shiraishi used to work in the red light district of Tokyo as a scout, someone charged with finding women to work as prostitutes.

Cable by Dustin Harbin

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"Disneyland shuts down 2 [bacteria-contaminated] cooling towers after Legionnaires' disease sickens park visitors"

LAT:
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified county authorities about three weeks ago of several cases of the disease among people who had traveled to Orange County in September. County epidemiologists discovered that a cluster of people diagnosed with the disease had recently visited, lived or worked in Anaheim and contacted Disney after learning that several of them had gone to the theme park.

...

It takes two to 10 days for symptoms of Legionnaires’ to appear.

"The Miami Herald now has a 'Click Chain'- whoever gets the most web traffic for the week gets to wear this!"


Friday, November 10, 2017

Tears by Amanda Visell

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"Actually, the Bear With Insanely Long Legs Is Good"

"Other bear owners and bear admirers have come out of the woodwork to express their appreciation for the stuffed bear with a weird body."

"Jony Ive’s perfectly minimalist cover" for Wallpaper's December 2017 issue

Thursday, November 9, 2017

"How an American Family Escaped From Pirates in the Amazon"

WSJ:
In October 2012, Adam and Emily Harteau, a California couple in their early 30s, set out on an overland journey to the southernmost tip of South America in their Volkswagen Westfalia camper van. With colorful travel photos, $16,301 raised on Kickstarter, and the hashtag #vanlife, they drew an army of social-media followers intrigued by their seemingly blissful existence.

...

The Harteaus’ adventure came to a harrowing end on Nov. 1, when a ferry captain plucked the couple and their two daughters, 6-year-old Colette and 3-year-old Sierra, from a river in Pará state in the Brazilian Amazon. They had spent the previous three days hiding in the jungle after pirates in a wooden canoe ambushed the barge carrying them upriver on their return journey to California.