Naked Owls.

Anan Kaewkhammul / Shutterstock.

Anan Kaewkhammul / Shutterstock.

Owls are, of course, amazing. They can rotate their head almost 360 degrees, they have lopsided ears – all the better for hearing you with, my dear – and are collectively known as a parliament.

The Internet, however, is freaking out at what they look like naked.

Twitter user Dana Schwartz is obviously of curious, and brave, mind as she googled the now immortal words “what owls look like without feathers”, which produced this image that you now cannot unsee.

People had all manner of fun in the tweet stream, happily obliging with photos of other naked beings:

A hairless hedgehog. That’s something to curse about!

Via IFLScience!

I can sort of add to the nekkid animals. This is Rune, (pronounced Rooh neh) who has been hairless most of his short life, and just now has developed a very fine, sparse coat of sorts. There are two others like him, but Rune grabbed my heart from the start. He’s a sweet, shy boy, with a penchant for perching on top of my head, much like his grandmother, Grace. Somewhere in that line, there was a hairless rat or two.

Rune1 Rune2 Rune4

Day One-ish.

Trump humps flag. Twitter.

Trump humps flag. Twitter.

Trump has disclosed to The London Times that his first day of working as president will be Monday, January 23rd, because I guess now presidents of whole countries don’t work weekends.

“One of the first orders I’m gonna sign — day one — which I will consider to be Monday as opposed to Friday or Saturday. Right? I mean my day one is gonna be Monday because I don’t want to be signing and getting it mixed up with lots of celebration,” Trump told the London Times.

Stephen Colbert had something to say about that one:

Via Raw Story.

The Glass Room.

The Glass Room installation view. All photos courtesy of Tactical Technology Collective and the artists.

The Glass Room installation view. All photos courtesy of Tactical Technology Collective and the artists.

The Glass Room, a pop-up exhibition organized by Tactical Technology Collective, a Berlin-based non-profit working to promote technological activism, done in collaboration with Mozilla, the non-profit behind the popular web browser of the same name.

The glitzy and pristine white space was filled to the brim with tech-inflected artworks, many of which were disguised as objects you would typically find in a high-end tech store. But the sterile appearance was ultimately a façade; there was no consumer tech for sale within the space. The works were joined by the desire to expose viewers to the malicious underbelly of the wonderfully convenient Information Age.

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Separated into different categories depending on the type of issues explored in the works, the pieces were as compelling as they were harrowing. Forgot your password? by Aram Bartholl consists of a series of books where the artist compiled the 4.6 million passwords leaked by Linkedin in 2012 within their pages.

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Located in the Data Detox Bar section of the exhibition, Julian Olivier and Danja Vasiljev’s Newstweek is a device that manipulates online news headlines that you don’t like or don’t fit your narrative into ones that are more “appropriate” to your sensibilities.

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In Unfitbit by Surya Mattu and Tega Brain, a FitBit is attached to objects like a metronome or a drill to trick the device into thinking you are working out, thus selling fake, inaccurate data to your health insurance that hopefully lowers your premium.

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“The Glass Room was inspired by two things: First, a desire to make the questions raised by living in a data society tangible and accessible using real projects, humor, and good design. Secondly, to use the language of commerce as a way to critique our enthusiasm for new technologies,” says Stephanie Hankey, a co-founder of Tactical Technology Collective and an organizer of the event.

[…]

Although The Glass Room has already concluded, full documentation of the works can be found on the project’s website, along with a series of informative resources, and a hilarious 8-day “Data Detox Kit” meant to cleanse you of your over-connectivity and oversharing tendencies.

Check out more of Tactical Technology Collective’s projects and exhibitions here.

You can see and read more at The Creators Project. I wish I could have seen this one in person, it’s bloody brilliant.

Facebook, Oh Facebook XVI.

god

Facebook banned God, who has over 3 million followers, for the above post. Facebook God is a progressive sort of god, and I guess that got up some FB angel’s nose.

While God might not be safe from the wrath of Facebook, his swift reinstatement shows that hell hath no fury like millions of social media fans who want their deity back.

Last week, God – the verified Facebook page with more than three million followers – posted the following: “Dear Americans, Stop making your military so damn huge and give people medicine and education because you’re sick and stupid. Thanks, God.”

Two days later, God was slapped with a 30-day ban.

God, being God, wasn’t having it though. “I posted this opinion on the day it was announced that Obamacare will be defunded and 24 million people will lose their healthcare,” he said in an article on Good. “The opinion goes viral, gaining over 100,000 likes and 15,000 shares. A few hundred people disagree with the opinion. Rather than move on, or even use the ‘angry’ reaction face, what do they do? They report the opinion as being offensive.”

god1

“Today I was notified by FB that My Account has been restored! THANK YOU, HUMANS! I am sure that the huge response from you yesterday was the difference in achieving this so quickly,” God wrote.

“YOU. YOU ARE AWESOME.”

Via Scary Mommy.

The Presidential Inauguration: Softly Sensual.

Trump humps flag. Twitter.

Trump humps flag. Twitter.

The man responsible for planning President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration says the event will be notable for its “soft sensuality.”

In response to a question about whether he had enough performers for the swearing-in, Tom Barrack, the chairman of the inauguration committee, told reporters to expect something “beautiful.”

“We’re fortunate in that we have the greatest celebrity in the world, which is the president-elect, side by side is the current president…So what we’ve done instead of trying to surround him with what people consider A-listers is we are going to surround him with the soft sensuality of the place,” Barrack said in the lobby of Trump Tower.

“It’s a much more poetic cadence than having a circus-like celebration that’s a coronation.”

Oh, right. As if people are going to believe the King of Crass, the Prince of Pussy Grabbing didn’t want to put on the bigliest, yuuuugest circus ever. It’s always interesting to see just what shit people try to spin when things don’t go the way Donny wants. I guess all those frantic pleas that went out to one entertainer after another were what, performance art? I’ve never bothered to watch any inauguration, and this one I’ll be especially pleased to skip, but I have to say that even if I had planned on watching, the words “soft sensuality” combined with “Donald Trump” would effectively scare me away.

Naturally, the Twitterati are all a twitter over this latest spin.

Full story at CBS News.

Territory.

‘Shit, the monkeys are here…’

The Rock of Gibraltar is an imposing limestone monolith, towering 426 metres over the Mediterranean Sea on the southern coast of Spain in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. Its prominent place in European myths and its impressive views have long made it a draw for tourists, as has the population of Barbary macaques inhabiting the Gibraltar Nature Reserve on the rock’s upper reaches. However, the macaques aren’t bothered by human-imposed borders, frequently venturing off the reserve and into town, where they wreak mischief on tourists and residents alike. Subtly and playfully observed, Eleanor Mortimer’s amusing short documentary Territory puts us on the ground in the ongoing, low-key turf war between the people of Gibraltar and the clever primate cousins who are utterly indifferent to their will.

Via Aeon, where you can see the video full size.

Creepy Nuts.

https://youtu.be/JEUOTHxL8Xw

I can’t claim to understand the words, but I understand the idea well enough, and love the music. The dancing is fabulous, too.

Next month Creepy Nuts are releasing their 2nd mini album and the title track is called joendanyusho (above), which means “award for best supporting actor” in Japanese. The track is upbeat, catchy and more poppy than some of their previous songs. It’s clearly aimed at a broader audience but does a good job of showcasing the versatile talents of the two, who blend elements of j-pop, jazz and Japanese traditional music into their sound.

Their music videos are often humorous and parody some of Japan’s more absurd institutionalizations. And this video is no different. In it, R-Shitei and DJ Matsunaga get swept up into the Japanese pop music factory. They’re quickly replaced by better-looking versions of themselves and the music video chronicles the rise and fall of their own success as their image gets manipulated and eventually spit out by the factory.

There’s a lot to see (including a jab at Pico-Taro and his Justin Beiber-induced rise to fame) and the video moves as quickly as the lyrics so try and keep up.

There’s more at Spoon & Tamago.

Shunsuke Tani.

Absolutely mindblowing, this. Delight and joy in every look. Shunsuke Tani builds coin sculptures, which can, and do fall apart now and then, but the beauty of these ephemeral sculptures can’t be denied.

coin-stacking-art-top-e1483021280418

With a little bit of creativity and, occasionally, a whole lot of patience, any household item can be turned into material for art. And it’s often the most mundane of items that have the greatest impact. For Shunsuke Tani, a young biologist major-turned childcare specialist, it was spare change that was lying around his house that became one of his greatest passions.

Specifically, Tani primarily uses 1 and 5 yen coins, the lowest of denominations, and the occasional 500 yen or foreign currency coin, to create stunning, gravity-defying sculptures that, at any moment, look like the could come tumbling down. And indeed they do. To prove to skeptics who, understandably, claim he uses glue or some advanced form of computer graphics to render his creations, Tani occasionally shares videos of his sculptures falling down. It’s a painful moment that stands in stark contrasts with the hours of time and patience required for assembly.

coin-stacking-art-4

Tani posts his creations to a twitter account where he often shares how much time each sculpture took to create (usually 2 – 3 hours). He also adds some self-deprecating humor like “I have no other skills in life, other than this” or “I sacrificed 2 hours of my life.”

According to an interview, Tani originally began stacking coins about 4 years ago. The inspiration came from the simple act of stacking a 10 and 1 yen coin had with him at the time. Tani’s art is a testament to the fact that even the most simple and ordinary can be honed to perfection.

coin-stacking-art-1

There’s much more at Spoon & Tamago. And yes, I’ll probably give this a try, or at least make Rick try, we have the obligatory huge jar of coins. Don’t hold your breath though, I’ve never been good with coins, outside spending them. :D

Cool Stuff Friday.

Weather. We all live with it, complain about it, cope with it. And some people take stunning photos of it:

Credit: Camelia Czuchnicki.

Credit: Camelia Czuchnicki.

A clash between two storm cells in New Mexico, US in June 2014, each with it’s own rotating updraft. It appeared as though one updraft was anticyclonic, resulting in a very turbulent scene. The curved striations of the oldest noticeable against the new bubbling convection of the newer.

You can see 2016 Weather Photographer finalists here.

Everyone knows the importance of kerning, right? Nope:

funny-importance-of-kerning-21-5822e8e1cc86d__605

Bored Panda has many more fine examples of the fine art of kerning being egregiously ignored.

And, the coolest way to stay safe! Monkey Lights:

MonkeyLectric.

Naked Men Have A Message for Trump and Pence…

Warwick Players: (left) Lucas; (center) Cian; (right) Tom.

Warwick Players: (left) Lucas; (center) Cian; (right) Tom.

A message, from the always fabulous Warwick Rowers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVxVRO-rLmc

The video is also available at warwickrowers.org.

As Plus previously reported, there has been a 147 percent increase in homophobic attacks in the United Kingdom since the Brexit vote, and the men’s Warwick rowing team worries the recent Trump victory will amplify this globally. So, three of its players did exactly what they had to do: strip naked and send a Christmas message to Trump and Pence themselves.

Lucas, Tom, and Cian (all members of the team) stripped in front of Westminster, the seat of British government and spoke directly to world leaders, urging them to speak against the growing resentment of minority, women’s and LGBT rights across the globe.

“We are here because we have a message for the new leadership team in the United States and for all leaders around the world,” Lucas said.

“As straight allies,” Tom chimed in. “We believe that everyone should have the same human rights, regardless of gender or sexual identity.

“And as athletes,” added Ciao, “we believe that sport can play a vital role in creating an inclusive, healthy and happy world for everyone.”

“This year, as every year,” said Lucas, “we have shed our clothes as a symbol of breaking down barriers, a demonstration of the contribution that sport can make to health and wellbeing [one or more guys flexes their guns, tenses their abs, etc], and as a reminder that we are all equals in this challenging journey called life.”

“So, President Elect Trump and Vice President Elect Pence,” Tom pronounced, “We’re sending you our world famous calendar. In it, as here, we stand naked in front of the world to do what we can to make a difference.”

Via Plus.

A Visual Trumpmare.

Art is commentary, that’s particularly true of political cartooning. Here’s a small sample of how some artists have been feeling about the looming Trumpmare.

Trump cartoon by Norwegian Cartoonist Christian Bloom.

[evening] Happy TrumpMas.

#Trump amorimcartoons.com.br/world.html

My Cartoon Wednesday @ The Times on the new West Wing. #Trump #Tillerson #Putin.

Class and crass…#Hiroshima #NuclearProliferation

Via Raw Story.

And, from Ricardo Caté:

trumptydumpty2-001-607x485

Trumpty Dumpty.

Via ICTMN.

You can see many more cartoon commentaries at Fusion:

By David Rowe, Australia.

By David Rowe, Australia.

‘Man, you’re really a diverse-looking bunch of white people.’

"It's felt pretty Civil War-ish," says one comic of the changing atmosphere in clubs. Illustration by Ryan Casey.

“It’s felt pretty Civil War-ish,” says one comic of the changing atmosphere in clubs. Illustration by Ryan Casey.

The current political scene has long been fodder for comedians, and generally speaking, people have usually taken political humor with grace, even if it’s been at the expense of their personal views. Not anymore. The people who voted for Trump don’t seem to have much of a sense of humor, and their aggrieved entitlement has taken a toxic front seat at comedy venues, making comedians change everything. Rolling Stone has a good look at how the current political climate is changing the comedy scene.

But since the election, Mattern, Rodriguez and other comedians have observed that Trump backers are much more vocal in clubs – intimate settings where comics can become the hyper-focused target of frustrations, pride and insensitivity. And after getting ridiculed in clubs throughout the campaign season, Trump supporters are lashing out in victory.

“They dare you to be the opposition now,” Rodriguez says of some Trump-supporting audience members she’s encountered. “They’re emboldened; they yell out shit they know they’re not supposed to say.” Rodriguez recounts a recent set when she referred to the President-Elect as “the guy from The Apprentice” and was told by someone in the crowd to “get the fuck off the stage.” Lately, Mattern says, he’s perceived a dip in comedy club attendance on the part of minorities. “If there’s a diverse crowd I’ll say, ‘Look at how different you all look! This is great that you’re all together.’ And of late I’ve had to kind of tweak it to, ‘Man, you’re really a diverse-looking bunch of white people.'”

This is a really bad sign, of just how fast bigotry and oppression spread, along with the intolerance of fascism.

The full article is at Rolling Stone.