Lions ate at least two rhinoceros poachers trespassing on a game preserve in Kenton-on-Sea, South Africa. Along with the poachers' remains, rangers found a high-powered rifle and axe.
"They strayed into a pride of lions - it's a big pride so they didn't have too much time," Sibuya reserve owner Nick Fox was quoted as saying. "We're not sure how many there were - there's not much left of them."
More in this press release from the Sibuya Game Reserve.
A team at MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have created a set of foldable, 3D printed robots that are doped with magnetic particles that are precisely aligned during printing; when triggered by a control-magnet they engage in precise movements: grabbing, jumping, rolling, squeezing, etc. Read the rest
Red Giant's chief creative officer Stu Maschwitz used Adobe After Effects to painstakingly create Tank, a fantastic tribute to 1980s vector graphics videogames like Battlezone, the Vectrex system, and the original Star Wars coin-op machine. Below, "The Making of Tank."
A New York federal judge has ruled that Donald Trump can't block people he doesn't like on Twitter, because he uses Twitter to communicate his edicts and policies as President of the United States, and the US government can't exclude communications based on viewpoint, as this violates the First Amendment. Read the rest
Asian Boss asked Japanese people on the streets in Tokyo to try American style sushi.
"I can see that they try to hide the fish flavor by using mayonnaise and adding a bunch of avocado."
Indeed. Read the rest
"Commodity City is an observational documentary exploring the daily lives of vendors who work in the largest wholesale consumer market in the world: the Yiwu Markets in China," says director Jessica Kingdon.
If you want to make a quick $5,000, all you have to do is help the United States Air Force find a box of grenades that some of their employees misplaced.
According to the Washington Post, Airmen from the 91st Missile Wing Security Forces, one of the military units charged with protecting the nation's nuclear launch and storage sites, were traveling down the gravel back roads of North Dakota between one missile site and another when, apparently, a box full of belted MK-19 grenade launcher rounds fell out of the back of their vehicle.
Honestly, who hasn't lost a can full of 40 mike-mike? It could happen to anyone.
Understandably distressed by the loss of their high explosive munitions, the Air Force sent out 100 personnel from Minot Air Force Base to walk the six-mile stretch where it's believed that the grenades up and vanished. No dice.
From the Washington Post:
The Air Force said its Office of Special Investigations does not consider the incident a criminal matter and is seeking public assistance in ensuring the safe return of the explosives. The office has offered the number for an anonymous tip line for any information about the missing grenade rounds and a $5,000 reward for any information leading to their recovery.
What makes the disappearance of the munitions feel particularly special is that, perhaps out of embarrassment or the reasonable belief that maybe telling everyone that there was a big can of boom-boom drifting around the countryside for anyone to pick up, the Air Force didn't bother to inform local law enforcement about the loss for three whole days. Read the rest
Dr. Dre, purveyor of sick beats, has lost a trademark battle against Dr. Drai, OB/GYN.
Praise the FSM for TMZ:
Dr. Dre is STILL Dre, but same goes for the OB/GYN with a very similar name who was locked in a legal battle for years with the music mogul.
Dr. Drai, a Pennsylvania-based gynecologist filed in 2015 to trademark his name and “Doctor Drai OBGYN & Media Personality." Dr. Dre tried to pump the brakes on that application, claiming it would cause confusion in the marketplace ... since their names sound alike.
The gyno was born Draion M. Burch, but according to his application he's been going by Dr. Drai for years. He's authored books and makes public appearances using it.
The trademark office agreed with the medical doc, saying although the gangsta doc was well known ... there wasn't enough evidence people would be confused. Let's be honest ... no one's downloading "The Chronic" from a gyno. Although, sounds like there should be a shot for that.
Point being ... the case was dismissed.
Image via Wikipedia Read the rest
Dr Dre, seller of weighted headphones, has fought a three-year court battle to stop Pennsylvania gynecologist Draion Burch from using the moniker Dr Drai. This week, the US trademark office dismissed Dr Dre's case.
Via BBC:
Read the restMr Burch had also argued that consumers would be unlikely to confuse the two names "because Dr Dre is not a medical doctor nor is he qualified to provide any type of medical services or sell products specifically in the medical or healthcare industry".
He further testified that he did not seek to trade on Dr Dre's reputation because the association would be "a bad reflection on me as a doctor" - citing lyrics he characterised as misogynistic and homophobic.
The gynaecologist is the author of books such as 20 Things You May Not Know About the Vagina and describes himself as one of America's top health experts.
Dr Dre can currently be seen in the Netflix documentary The Defiant Ones, which charts his rise from the streets of Compton to the multi-millionaire executive in charge of Beats 1.
Columbus, Ohio police where chasing an armed suspect in front of a public library when a bystander named Bill casually stuck his foot out and tripped the fleeing fellow. From Cincinnati.com:
“(The suspect) was coming my way so I got in his way,” Bill said in the video. “I heard him hit (the ground) and the gun went sliding out. He went one way and the gun went another.”
Bill was alerted by police sirens that day while waiting for his granddaughter outside the library.
Police say Bill's intervention may have saved the suspect's life, allowing officers to catch up and arrest him without shots being fired.
It's not known why police were chasing the man, what he is suspected of doing, or why he was carrying the gun in his waistband.
As posted to YouTube by Nate Gowdy, this gentleman appropriates a counter-protestor's sign and makes strenuous efforts to rip it up. But it's a fancy thick one and he lacks the strength or technique to do the job. Watching him wither under the sarcastic commentary and recording cameras of nearby libs will never not be funny.
You've worked so hard, you're so close," a woman filming the painful failure is heard saying. "You've been doing a lot of arm work at the gym, right? You know, this is a very educated city, there are a lot of engineers in this city… you can get a lot of help."
He's definely not mad online about his experience, too.
And to think he'd spent so much time building up the strength that failed him! [via emotional support turtle]
Antifa was indeed watching. Read the rest
Blithely contradicting President Donald Trump's claim to have known nothing about the payoff made to Stormy Daniels, Rudy Giuliani said Trump reimbursed the lawyer who made the payment. Stormy and Trump reportedly had an affair shortly after his current marriage began, and she was paid $130,000 by Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, to stay quiet about it during the 2016 presidential race.
Giuliani, who recently joined the president’s legal team, appeared for an hourlong session on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show Wednesday night, and defended his client against speculation campaign finance laws were violated by the payment to Daniels, which was made weeks before the 2016 election.
Referring to the porn star as “some Stormy Daniels woman,” Giuliani said the payment is “going to turn out to be perfectly legal.”
“That money was not campaign money,” Giuliani continued. “I’m giving you a fact now that you don’t know.”
“It was funneled through a law firm, and then the president repaid it,” Giuliani added.
“Oh,” Hannity replied. “I didn’t know — he did?”
“Yeah,” Giuliani said.
People are talking like Giuliani screwed up, but it obviously doesn't matter to Trump if he's seen to be lying. Perhaps he's just saying whatever he thinks will keep Trump out of legal trouble right now--or at least picking which pickle to be in next. Read the rest
Hobby Lobby's President Steve Green was part of a conspiracy to steal a lot of irreplaceable antiquities. The stolen artifacts have now been returned to the Iraqi Government. Mr. Green is suffering as a devout Christian does, before his God and no one else.
Via CBS:
Read the restThousands of ancient clay tablets, seals and other Iraqi archaeological objects that were smuggled into the U.S. and shipped to the head of arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby were returned to the Iraqi government on Wednesday.
The Oklahoma City-based private company, whose devout Christian owners won a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court ruling exempting them from providing certain contraceptive coverage for employees, agreed to pay a $3 million fine last year to settle a lawsuit over the company's role in the smuggling of the artifacts, which authorities say were looted from the war-torn country.
Prosecutors say Steve Green, the president of the $4 billion company, agreed to buy more than 5,500 artifacts in 2010 for $1.6 million in a scheme that involved a number of middlemen and the use of phony or misleading invoices, shipping labels and other paperwork to slip the artifacts past U.S. customs agents.
France.com was a popular travel site owned and operated by a U.S.-based French expat. Jean-Noel Frydman registered a trademark, had hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors, and loved his birth country. For years, the French government was happy with it, even giving Frydman an award. In 2016, though, it decided it wanted his domain for itself. Though the .com top-level domain is administered in the U.S., they didn't have to go to court in America to get it. That's because the domain registrar, web.com, gave it to them.
It’s unclear if a US court ever validated the order with an international enforcement of judgment, a common measure for foreign rulings involving US businesses. But if Web.com had enough business in France, that may not have been necessary. Faced with a valid court order and the pressure of an entire government, the company’s lawyers may have simply decided it wasn’t worth fighting the issue in court. (Web.com did not respond to multiple requests for comment on their policy regarding court-ordered transfers.)
Trademarks, the domain-name resolution system, WIPO: all useless if your registrar is shady or easily rolled. This appears to be the first appropriation of a .com domain in this manner and confers upon web.com a uniquely dismal distinction.
Also consider the next level up: operators of fashionable new top-level-domains. They set prices per domain, with lists of "premium" ones with higher prices. So if you establish a successful business at .???, you may succeed in making your domain name "premium." Which means an extra zero or two tacked onto domain renewal fees. Read the rest
Here's yet another reason to install a dashcam. Joshua was rolling through Brooklyn around midnight when an undercover cop car ran a red light as he was turning left from the opposite direction. He's then treated to a lot of lip by the officers as he protests his innocence while pulled over. Read the rest
In lieu of upgrading his once-formidable handshake, the President has a new alpha roll: brushing dandruff from Emmanual Macron's suit. It's a perfectly Trumpian neg, a gesture of passive-aggressive buffoonery that makes him look strong to his fans and weak to his foes. Everyone else just has to smile, like Macron, and hope for the best. Read the rest
In 2016 a bacterium that had naturally evolved to eat PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic was discovered at a dump in Japan. Scientists who were studying the bacterium say that when they tweaked the bacterium's plastic-eating enzyme to better understand how it evolved, they accidentally created an even more voracious plastic-eating enzyme.
From The Guardian:
“What actually turned out was we improved the enzyme, which was a bit of a shock,” said Prof John McGeehan, at the University of Portsmouth, UK, who led the research. “It’s great and a real finding.”
The mutant enzyme takes a few days to start breaking down the plastic – far faster than the centuries it takes in the oceans. But the researchers are optimistic this can be speeded up even further and become a viable large-scale process.
“What we are hoping to do is use this enzyme to turn this plastic back into its original components, so we can literally recycle it back to plastic,” said McGeehan. “It means we won’t need to dig up any more oil and, fundamentally, it should reduce the amount of plastic in the environment.”
Read the restImage: DutchScenery/Shutterstock
