Solo family portrait

Keep it in the family.
Image by Yiannos McStavros pic.twitter.com/33l1wQ6CwV

— Last Exit To Nowhere (@LASTEXITshirts) February 7, 2016

Black Sabbath concert poster

By Becky Cloonan.

Link roundup

1. "Ever wonder why the American bald eagle is always photographed from the side?"

2. "Politicians Banned From Funding Their Official Portraits with Tax Dollars"

3. Star Wars gif featuring moments from the first six movies.

Monument Valley fan art

By Chrissie Zullo.

Link roundup

1. "Netrunner: Every deck tells a story"

2. "Two executives at a Los Angeles-based real estate development company and two of their employees have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges they defrauded government agencies of millions of dollars in funds for housing low-income families."

ADI’s financial activities first came to light in 2010, as part of divorce proceedings between Karimi and Jannki Mithaiwala, the daughter of the company’s founder. A court-appointed receiver assigned to oversee the company soon informed the divorce court he had uncovered “potential fraud and criminal activity.”

3. Translucent whale sculptures:

In this work, six whales are swimming in a circle; these represents the six stages of Samsara.

Inside each whale encapsulates various objects, such as submarine volcano, sailboat, and a sea of clouds.

Link roundup

1. "Russia's Arctic mechanized infantry unit holds military drills to learn how to ride reindeer sleds at a reindeer farm"

2. "XCOM 2 Is Ridiculously Exciting"

The game itself works so hard and does so much to create a constant sense of near-euphoric drama

3. "Man Sucked from Somali Jet May Have Been Suicide Bomber"

4. "Why Rand Paul Lost"

Just before the Republican debate last year in Colorado, a senior aide to Rand Paul had an idea.

Sergio Gor, the campaign’s communications director, decided he wanted to obtain an eagle for Paul to appear with before the debate.

Staffers were dispatched to try to find the eagle to rent, according to four sources with direct knowledge of the incident. One estimated that several people spent half a day on the task. Eventually a falcon was located, but by that point the scheme had leaked out to other staffers, who quashed it.

“We spent like half a day on this ridiculous project that I’m not even sure was approved by the higher-ups,” said one staffer. After that, other staffers nicknamed Gor “Condor.”

Link roundup

1. "The University of Louisville announced on Friday that it would self-impose a postseason ban on its men’s basketball team for the 2015-16 campaign"

The decision comes as the NCAA continues to investigate Katina Powell’s claims that she and other escorts were paid thousands of dollars and given game tickets by former basketball staffer Andre McGee in exchange for dancing for and having sex with U of L players and recruits from 2010-14.

2. Food bloggers "tricked" intro eating McDonald's food prepared by a former Top Chef contestant (as a McDonald's promotion), realize after a few courses that something is wrong with the food:

Is it synthetic food?

3. Creating sounds for The Force Awakens:

the Kylo Ren Force rumble—the really chunky and animalistic rumble—is my cat’s purring. It’s heavily pitched and slowed version of my cat’s purr that becomes Kylo Force rumble.

When the rathtar has his mouth on the cockpit of the Falcon, when it’s trying to eat the cockpit, that is me literally choking myself. [Laughs] Finger down my throat in front of the mic to accomplish that and then it’s pitched down.