This indigenous dad wrote a perfect response to racist comments at a restaurant

Last Thursday, Jarred Walls was at lunch with his partner and two children in a suburb of the Australian city of Perth when he overheard the two elderly women sitting next to him making disparaging remarks about Aboriginal (Australian indigenous) people.

"When a conversation starts out as ‘I’m not racist, but this is how they got into power, because of the color of his skin’, it’s not the most positive kind of conversation you’re hearing. It spiraled from there in terms of lots of talk about Aboriginal people and what we do and generalizing things," Walls, a 31-year-old Aboriginal man, "When a conversation starts out as ‘I’m not racist, but this is how they got into power, because of the color of his skin’, it’s not the most positive kind of conversation you’re hearing. It spiraled from there in terms of lots of talk about Aboriginal people and what we do and generalizing things," Walls, a 31-year-old Aboriginal man, told The West Australian , a local newspaper.

What he did next was a quiet but pointed rebuke: he sent the two women a pot of tea, with a note that read, "Enjoy the tea! Compliments of the 2 aboriginals sitting next to you on table 26 :)".

He #englishbreakfasttea " He posted a photo of the bill for the tea he sent over and talked about the experience on Facebook, writing, "I could have unleashed a tirade of abuse but that wouldn’t have helped. Instead, I did something nice and bought them a pot of tea and left a little note on the receipt. Maybe these ladies will be a little wiser and think before they speak. Hopefully there won’t be a next time! #blacklivesmatter

Walls went on to tell the paper, "If I had of gone over there and blasted them and said whatever there is to say, I don’t think that would had much of an impact, it probably would have solidified their views. I didn’t want to just sit there and say nothing–that’s how nothing changes."

Indigenous dad responds to racism in Perth cafe

Jarred Walls responded to two elderly women making racist comments about Aborigines in an East Fremantle cafe with a simple, classy gesture.

Guy bought a pot of tea and wrote note saying "Enjoy the tea! Compliments of the 2 aboriginals sitting next to you on table 26 :)" to people making racist comments at the table next to him.


How often do George Lucas and J.J. Abrams talk?

George Lucas may have bowed out of the "Star Wars" game, but that doesn't mean he's out of the loop while work on the new trilogy unfolds. During an interview with Flicks and the City, Lucas' son, Jett, who was in "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith," detailed his father's involvement with the new movies.

"He's constantly talking to J.J.," Jett said, referring to director J.J. Abrams. "Obviously J.J. was handpicked. He is there to guide, whenever. He'll help where he can. At the same time, he wants to let it go and become its new generation."

Jett compares George Lucas' passing of the torch to that of a parent struggling to watch his or her 18-year-old leave the house. He's happy to see the series go yet still mourns the loss.

Watch the entire interview to see Jett Lucas discuss some of the speculation surrounding the "Star Wars" movies, including Saoirse Ronan's audition and his own involvement. "I already know what happens," he said. "I'm happy with what's going to happen."

George Lucas And J.J. Abrams Are 'Constantly Talking' About New 'Star Wars' Trilogy, Says Jett Lucas

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Joanna Gaines Just Shared the Most Brilliant Decorating Trick Ever

Joanna Gaines has shared her tips for cleaning, gardening and even parenting but the HGTV star still has a few more tricks up her denim sleeves. The co-host of Fixer Upper just revealed how she nails her summer flower arrangements, and it's a secret even the shiplap-adverse will like.

Instead of tossing leftover basil, she pops the kitchen staple into a bouquet for extra fullness, with the added bonus of a fresh scent.

Leftover basil makes for a good filler in a summer arrangement and it smells so fresh! A post shared by Joanna Stevens Gaines (@joannagaines) on Jul 30, 2016 at 1:56pm PDT

Even if you're not cooking, trimming your basil plant becomes necessary once it starts to flower. A healthy pruning encourages the plant to grow more leaves, and it comes back bigger and healthier than before.

On the flipside, if you've used up all of your basil for homemade pesto (yum!), other herbs will do the trick. Experiment with sprigs of rosemary, mint and thyme to get the same lush and sweet-smelling effect.

Accent greenery with white ranunculus, poppy pods and fresh lemons. Punch a skewer into the fruit to prop it up against the blooms.

Feeling inspired to make a bouquet of your own? Check out our 50 favorite flower arrangements for more gorgeous ideas.

Joanna Gaines Shares Her Tip for Flower Arrangements

Joanna Gaines just revealed on Instagram how she nails her summer flower arrangements.

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She adds basil to her flower arrangements to add fullness (Not pictured in the article photo) #StopClickBait


@VictoriasSecret model announces her pregnancy with stunning nude photo

The Victoria's Secret stunner made the big announcement on Instagram Thursday (Feb. 6) with a nude photo unveiling her blossoming belly. In the tasteful shot, Kroes stands holding her bump and looking at the camera.

"This is not a #throwbackthursday this is now! So happy to share with you that we are expecting," she captioned the pic.

This is the second child for the 29-year-old beauty and her husband, DJ Sunnery James. The couple, who married in 2010, welcomed son Phyllon in 2011.

James also shared the joyful news on his Instagram, writing, "Super happy to announce that we're expecting new love in our life! My beautiful wifey is pregnant. #Family #Love."

Doutzen Kroes Announces She's Pregnant With Stunning Nude Photo

Supermodel Doutzen Kroes is pregnant!

The Victoria's Secret stunner made the big announcement on Instagram Thursday (Feb. 6) with

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An important critic leaves the The New York Times

According to multiple sources, Cathy Horyn, The New York Times long-standing and much respected chief fashion critic, is leaving the newspaper just days before New York Fashion Week is set to start, citing the ill health of her partner, Liz Claiborne co-founder Art Ortenberg.

Cathy Horyn, Venerable Fashion Critic, Leaves The New York Times

According to multiple sources, Cathy Horyn, The New York Times long-standing and much respected chief fashion critic, is leaving the newspaper just days ...

Fashion critic Cathy Horyn (@CathyHorynNYT)


Fan's dark theory about Grease's Danny and Sandy will change way you watch it

We've all seen the film Grease. It's a classic.

The cult movie gets a repeat showing on our TV screens every few months and has even the most stony-faced singing along to its tunes - even the rude ones we didn't realise had dodgy lyrics.

But some fans of the film with a bizarre theory have piped up and will probably change the way we watch the movie FOREVER. Seriously.

Posting to Reddit, the fan questioned how the car flew at the end of the film before offering their own explanation.

"At the start of the film, we see Danny and Sandy meeting on the beach. Later, Danny explains through song that they first met when Danny "saved her life - she nearly drowned."

The theory? "Sandy actually did drown on the beach that day.

"As she drowned, her brain deprived of oxygen, she had a vivid coma fantasy involving her summer fling, Danny, where they shared a magical year of high school together.

"The visions get increasingly outlandish as time passes, until finally, as Danny desperately tries to resuscitate her on the beach, she sees herself flying into Heaven in her dying moments.

"The entire movie was a drowning woman's coma fantasy."

poll loading What do you think about this Grease fan theory? 1000+ VOTES SO FAR It's ridiculous OMG IT'S AMAZING

Another Reddit user, Randomd0g, offered a similar explanation: "I have a similar one to this which makes it so it's not just a complete "all in her head" theory.

"Sandy kills herself towards the end of the movie and the entire last scene is her dying thoughts (and/or a dream sequence of some kind).

"Evidence: The last line of "Look at me I'm Sandra Dee (Reprise)" is "Goodbye to Sandra Dee"

"Everything that happens in the last scene is just a little TOO perfect. Danny and Sandy are back together despite everything, Rizzo SUDDENLY isn't pregnant AND Kenickie suddenly decides that he actually loves her, the geeky kid gets onto the sports team, EVERYTHING is suddenly OK, just the way that sweet, innocent Sandy would have wanted it to be.

"And in the last shot of the movie, she flies up to heaven with her dream boyfriend in her magic flying car."

duderino13 had a far more normal theory about the car: "I thought it was more that the car was fixed up to be so incredibly smooth it's as if you're flying above the clouds."

And many called the theory ridiculous, but they certainly won't be able to forget it next time they watch.

We'll certainly be going over it with a fine toothcomb next time it's on TV on a Sunday evening to look for more evidence of this.

Fan shares dark theory about Danny and Sandy in Grease

Sandy died on the beach and the movie is her oxygen deprived brain illusion


Simone Paget, Special to Postmedia Network Sep 30, 2016

Travis and I met online and quickly bonded over our shared love of Caribbean food and Seinfeld reruns. We spent the next month hanging out, cooking together and eating at our favourite restaurants.

Travis was a good companion. I really wanted to make things work between us, but when it came time to get intimate, everything just felt off. The way Travis kissed me (too much tongue, too much saliva - just too much of everything).

His smell: A popular cologne from the ‘90s that reminded me of a high school ex-boyfriend. The ambiance in the room was Guy Fieri’s voice reverberating throughout the apartment; an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives playing loudly in the background. In the past, I might have ignored these other details, choosing instead to focus on the fact that Travis seemed like such a sweet guy, but instead I decided to speak up.

"I’m sorry but I can’t do this," I said as I rolled away from him and off the bed.

Travis was livid, as he stomped around his apartment, calling me "a tease" among other things. Then, he threw a pillow at my head! Unsettled, I quickly called my best friend to come pick me up.

I could have just stayed with Travis that night, faked my way through what would have been a very awkward sexual encounter and written it off as just another instance of bad sex - something I’ve done many times in the past - but, I didn’t.

There’s a myth that women fake orgasms to stroke the egos of their male partners, but there have been times I’ve faked it just to get out of scenarios like the one I described above. Apparently, I’m not the only one.

According to a recent Canadian study presented at the British Psychological Society's Psychology of Women, some women fake orgasms because they're uncomfortable and want their partners to finish — or because, in some cases, they didn't even want to have sex in the first place.

The small study featured interviews with 15 women between the ages of 19 and 28, all of whom had been sexually active for at least one year.

Originally, the researchers set out to interview women about the reasons why they faked orgasms during consensual sex. Yet they found that the women were faking orgasms as a way to get out of troubling, or, in some cases, borderline non-consensual, sexual encounters.

What women described as "bad sex" typically fell into two categories: Unsatisfying or unwanted. The reasons why the sex was unsatisfying varied widely, from pre-existing health issues to poor male sexual performance. However, the women who described sex as unwanted said they felt pressured by their male partners, who ranged widely from husbands and boyfriends to one-night hookups.

To gain some insight I spoke to Deborah Mecklinger, who is a therapist, mediator and life coach based in Toronto. As she explains, "pretending to laugh at the joke that she doesn’t find funny, professing to like his music, food preferences or his sport of choice, feigning interest in a conversation that she really finds dull and/or faking an orgasm all connect to women not feeling entitled to have their needs met." As Mecklinger shares, some women also fake orgasms "because it seems easier than letting their partners know what pleasures them."

We can’t expect to have positive sexual experiences unless we take responsibility for our own pleasure and emotional wellbeing. So, why is it so hard for us to speak up about what we need?

I think part of this has to do with the fact that as women, many of us are raised to be pleasers and nurturers, who put other people’s needs before our own. However, being honest about your sexual and emotional needs is a vulnerable experience which can feel really scary- regardless of your gender.

So, how do we fix this? We become kinder to ourselves, we treat our partners with patience and we create safe spaces where one person can say, "Hey, I’m not really feeling this" without being smacked in the face with a pillow.

Lifestyle's Love & Sex section offers a variety of content, articles, videos, photos, about love, sexuality, romance, relationships, sex habits, dating advices and weddings.

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1) selfish men 2) insensitive men 3) male oppression in general and 4) women are scared to tell men what they want


This '80s sitcom star almost landed Jennifer Aniston's role on "Friends"

Lisa Whelchel made a name for herself in the '80s portraying the preppy Blair Warner on "The Facts of Life." A devout Christian, Whelchel has always used her faith as a compass both personally and professionally, even refusing a storyline in which Blair would lose her virginity. After "The Facts of Life" went off the air, Whelchel soon found herself with a host of opportunities she had to evaluate.

"There were many opportunities I maybe could have pursued, but I didn't feel comfortable," Whelchel says on an episode of "Oprah: Where Are They Now?" That was the case in 1993, when Whelchel was asked to read for the part of Rachel Green in a new show called "Friends."

"I remember reading the pilot episode and I said to my husband, 'This is the funniest script I have ever read and this is going to be a huge hit,'" Whelchel says.

However, Whelchel walked away from the opportunity due to the show's content. "I can tell it's going to be just all about, you know, sex," she says.

The role went to then-little-known actress Jennifer Aniston, and "Friends" went on to earn more than 60 Emmy nominations over the course of its 10-year run. Aniston won an Emmy for her portrayal of Rachel and also became one of television's highest paid actresses.

For Whelchel, the success of "Friends" still doesn't change her mind about walking away from the role. "I don't regret not taking that opportunity," Whelchel says. "My kids, on the other hand... I remember my daughter once said, 'Are you telling me that [Aniston's ex] Brad Pitt could have been my father?"

Lisa Whelchel From 'The Facts Of Life' Reveals Why She Walked Away From The Role Of Rachel On 'Friends' (VIDEO)

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People Can't Get Over The Dictionary's — Yes, The Dictionary's — Savage Clapback

It was a quiet Wednesday morning when Merriam-Webster — the most trustworthy American English dictionary — sent out a cheeky tweet about how it’s OK to use "mad" to mean "angry."

In response, Gabriel Roth, a senior editor at Slate, decided to compare Merriam-Webster to a "chill parent who lets your friends come over and get high."

In a series of tweets, Roth critiqued the dictionary, suggesting that it was "somehow narcissistically gratifying" for Merriam-Webster to act like the "chill" dictionary without rules.

And then, in the most brutal clapback that has ever been served by a dictionary, Merriam-Webster told Roth: "No one cares how you feel."

And people were so fucking there for it.

Everyone agreed that this was an "iconic drag."

"Usually it’s people that burn books not the other way around."

Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor at large, told BuzzFeed News that the "banter was done in the spirit of good fun."

Responding to Roth’s critique of the dictionary’s need to act like a "chill parent," Sokolowski said that it was something Merriam-Webster has heard many times before.

He said that while languages follow rules, "the only constant about language is change."

"Dictionaries record those changes, and ‘mad’ used to mean ‘angry’ — the post to which [Roth] was responding to — is a good example of such a change. Gabriel Roth’s assertion that we are somehow pandering about language rules in order to be the ‘popular’ parent or authority figure is one that we have heard many times, but meanings of words aren’t created by dictionary-makers, they are used by many people in many places, and we then derive definitions from evidence of actual usage."

Sokolowski said that the dictionary took advantage of Roth’s wording to make a "jokey response" and that they were glad that so many people paid attention to it.

"In the spirit of Twitter, people can sometimes play a little rough, but we assure you that Merriam-Webster’s banter was done in the spirit of good fun and that no harm was intended by any comments made," Sokolowski said.

Some sympathized with Roth, who in all likelihood never foresaw getting owned by a dictionary.

But people just couldn’t get over Merriam-Webster’s savagery.

Roth understandably did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment.

People Can’t Get Over The Dictionary’s — Yes, The Dictionary’s — Savage Clapback

"This needs to go down in the dictionary as an example of ownership."..

Some dude critiqued Merriam-Webster for being lenient with the word "mad", to which they replied "No one cares".


Letting the internet name things is the best and worst idea. The crowdsourcing could lead to something truly magical, like Boaty McBoatface and Make Burger History, but it could also go terribly, terribly wrong. In the case of the Philadelphia Zoo, it’s probably the latter. For some totally inexplicable reason, the zoo is holding a contest to name a new baby gorilla, who was born on Friday. You can probably see where this is going.

Honi and Motuba’s child made his or her debut (zookeepers haven’t been able to determine a gender yet) today. According to Philly.com, the baby — who has a 14-year-old sibling in Kuchimba, Honi’s son — is "expected to remain at the zoo for a number of years, zoo officials said when Honi’s pregnancy was announced this spring. Young gorillas typically stay with their mothers until they are 7 to 10 years old." And in that time, the world will love him/her as...

But it was mostly variations on Harambe (there’s a good name: Variations on Harambe) or flat-out racism, which we’ll ignore. This is what mankind has always dreamed of: naming a baby gorilla — don’t be a dick about it. That makes Harambe (#RIP) angry. You wouldn’t like Harambe when he’s angry.

The Philadelphia Zoo’s Contest To Name A Baby Gorilla Is Going Poorly

Don't let the internet name anything. Ever. Especially baby gorillas.

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The Philadelphia Zoo Is Holding A Contest To Name A Baby Gorilla — What Could Go Wrong? (Everything)


View Images In Montana, a wingsuit pilot exits from a ledge.

In researching 2016’s dramatic rise in BASE jumping deaths, I was almost unable to keep up with the pace with which people were dying.

I even watched one of these deaths in real time, live-streamed on Facebook.

A guy with the handle of "Sat Dex" popped up in my feed on the morning of August 26, broadcasting himself via Facebook Live.

The video opens with him stepping into a wingsuit. He has dark hair, a sleeve tattoo, and a Hollywood-style beard. He speaks in German. He gives the finger to the camera and grins. He zips up his suit, flashing more smiles with a sort of nervous or excited energy, the kind you might associate with a child opening a birthday gift.

"Today you fly with me," he says in German.

He waves into his outstretched phone. The video goes dark as the phone is now inside his wingsuit, ostensibly in his hand, and still live-streaming to Facebook.

Now I hear a whoosh of air. The sound of airflow grows, reaching a ferocious decibel. The turbulent din lasts no more than a few seconds.

Suddenly I hear the man emit an acute bellow. Then, pandemonium. He’s tumbling and tumbling. I hear cowbells. The tumbling stops. It’s silent. Cows continue milling around in what I’ve imagined to be idyllic mountain scenery somewhere in Europe, with giant blue limestone cliffs towering over rolling green pastures.

I later learned this man’s real name was Armin Schmieder. He was Italian, but lived in Freiburg, Germany. He was a father to a young child. He was 28.

Facebook did not immediately take down the video, despite outrage from many commenters, including his family. The social media site slapped on a disclaimer: "Warning - Graphic Video." Yet the views continued to pile up.

Meanwhile, a rather grim irony remained, as per Facebook’s design protocol for these types of posts. It said: "Sat Dex was live."

After 36 hours, the video was finally removed.

The end of summer can’t come fast enough for many in the speed-fueled world of wingsuit BASE jumping (BASE is an acronym standing for the types of objects participants may leap from: Buildings, Antennas, bridges—aka, "Spans"—and the Earth itself, in the form of cliffs or promontories). This has already become the deadliest year on record for BASE jumping, with at least 31 deaths thus far. Twenty-three of those fatalities occurred this summer—six deaths in June, two in July, and 15 in August. The fatal spree has spurred practitioners to dub summer as "Wingsuit BASE Killing Season."

"It’s been a horrific last couple of months," says Richard Webb, a former fighter pilot for the U.S. Navy, current private pilot, and active wingsuit BASE jumper from Moab, Utah. (I profiled Webb last year for his unique, scientific approach to opening new wingsuit jumps around Moab.)

"This is easily the worst season I can remember," he says. "And, honestly, I haven’t even been keeping up with who’s been going in. I’m tired of the carnage."

Summer is a time when the European Alps—with its myriad locations that feature highly accessible, legal, and very large cliffs from which to jump—are devoid of snow and are considered to be in good condition for flying. Like moths to a flame, wingsuit BASE jumpers from around the world descend on the Alps each summer to get their fix.

Aside from the record fatality count, the BASE world hit another morbid milestone in August. The BASE Fatality List (BFL), an unofficial and non-comprehensive wiki that records BASE fatalities dating back to 1981 for educational purposes within the community, surpassed 300 names. The greater cause for concern, though, is that the BFL appears to be trending at an accelerated rate—more than 260 of those names have been recorded since 2000.

"The simplest answer is wingsuits," says Webb. "Right now, wingsuit BASE jumping is, globally, the hottest thing going for the impressionable, 18- to 35-year-old single-male demographic."

BASE jumping has no organizing bodies that keep track of participation numbers. Anecdotally, the sport is growing, perhaps as evidenced by the increasing numbers of people who are dying.

This year’s constant, gruesome news has spurred some BASE jumpers to rebuke their wingsuiting counterparts. "Sketchy Andy" Lewis, one of the world’s most accomplished BASE jumpers (and hardly a model of prudence himself, as evinced by his nickname), wrote a scathing post on Facebook that, among other things, called for the BFL to be split into two separate lists: one for wingsuiting and one for regular BASE jumping.

"I called out wingsuiting as not being BASE jumping anymore," he says. "I wanted the death list split. I also just asked everyone who wingsuits to just go die, so we can get it over with. Obviously, it was a horrible thing to say."

Some context: Lewis wrote the post in the wake of a friend’s death. John Van Horne, an extremely experienced wingsuiter, had just crashed in the Alps at the end of June. "JVH," as he was called, was "one of my best friends and last idols," says Lewis. "He died with his family there."

Lewis was upset, angry, and just sick and tired of waking up to learn about yet another friend’s death. Most dismissed Lewis as a pot calling the kettle black. Yet in some way, what he wrote in July was prescient. Summer’s big death wave was just about to begin.

"The post got deleted by Facebook, and I pissed off the entire community," says Lewis. "My message was followed up by the most fatal month in BASE. I just painfully sat back and watched my friends die one after the other."

Matt Gerdes is the chief test pilot and co-designer at Squirrel, a U.S.-based wingsuit manufacturer. He’s logged about 1,200 safe BASE jumps to date, many of them being wingsuit flights from alpine walls. On August 14, he wrote a Facebook post that stated:

"There are a lot of people saying a lot of things about wingsuit BASE deaths. There is no single factor, and there is truth in every statement about ego, video, complacency, access, summer vacations, etc. But if we were to work on just one thing, it would be education ... The simple truth is that wingsuit BASE jumpers don’t know what they are getting into, don’t know how to practice the sport safely, and don’t even know enough to know how little they know. "

BASE jumping, without the wingsuit qualifier, is simply the act of parachuting from fixed objects, as opposed to planes. Wingsuit BASE jumping takes the act of BASE jumping to an entirely different level, one in which the stakes are as high, and the margins are as thin, as the rewards are unforgettable.

And beautiful. And primal. And extremely addictive.

View Images In 2009, Dean Potter set the world record for wingsuit BASE jumping off the Eiger in Switzerland. Potter flew over 9,000 vertical feet and 3.4 miles forward in horizontal distance. He died, along with Graham Hunt, while wingsuit BASE jumping in Yosemite in May 2015.

We’re talking about real, human-powered flight—or, at least as close as humanity has ever come to it. It’s the stuff of ancient myths and archetypal dreams. It’s also the focus of the many viral YouTube videos, which feature costume-wearing superhumans carving through the air, through trees, over rivers and glaciers and picturesque farmlands.

Skydiving and BASE jumping are, essentially, just free-falling. Wingsuit flying—especially when it’s performed close to terrain such as cliffs and trees, in a style known as "proximity flying"—simulates what it might feel like to be a bird carving through the air in a long, fast swoop.

A wingsuit is a baffled full-body nylon costume that resembles the stretched membrane of a flying squirrel. The "pilot" of the wingsuit leaps off a cliff and within a split second, an intake fills the suit’s baffled chambers with air, turning them rigid. By holding a proper body position, the wingsuit pilot is able to glide forward at a ratio of 3:1, meaning that he is hurtling forward three feet for every foot of descent.

Subtle shifts in the shoulder and arm positions allow the wingsuit pilot to steer; his speeds, meanwhile, are peaking at over a hundred miles an hour. Compared to the initial, crude wingsuit designs circa 2000, today’s suits, when worn by skilled and experienced pilots, yield mind-blowing accuracy. Wingsuiters are striking apple-size targets from a mile away. And they’re flying mere inches above, around, and sometimes even through terrain that’s barely wider than their own outstretched arms.

If wingsuits are to blame for the growing death toll, as Webb speculates, the numbers certainly support this thesis. In 2016, 20 of the 31 BASE deaths involved a wingsuit. If you add in deaths that involved a tracking suit, which you may think of as an entry-level training wingsuit, that number jumps to 27 out of 31.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s—prior to the advent of wingsuit BASE jumping in 1999—the number of BASE jumping fatalities remained fairly consistent and never got higher than five per year.

In September 2002, the Russian jumper Krill Kiselev became the first recorded wingsuit BASE death.

The next one took place two weeks later.

What’s more worrying about wingsuit BASE fatalities, though, is that there appears to be no consistent bias toward experience. For every beginner who rushes out to buy a wingsuit before he—and wingsuit-BASE deaths are overwhelmingly male, perhaps a reflection of the sport’s demographics—has acquired the skill and experience, there also seems to be an alarming number of highly experienced, veteran wingsuiters crashing.

For example, August saw the deaths of Alexander Polli and Uli Emanuele, two of the more experienced and current wingsuit pilots on Earth. ("Currency," a term borrowed from the aeronautical world, reflects a pilot’s log of recent airtime.)

Polli and Emanuele’s deaths join a disturbing tradition in which the sport loses, every year, at least a few of its biggest, best, and most current stars —perhaps no longer even to the shock of the community. Other big names that come to mind are Shane McConkey (2009), Mario Richard (2013), Sean Leary (2014), Dean Potter and Graham Hunt (2015), Jhonathan Florez (2015), Chris Labounty (2016), and John Van Horne (2016).

Polli, 31, died when he crashed into a tree near Chamonix, France, on August 22. He was widely beloved in the wingsuit community for his charismatic personality, and deeply revered for his skill. In 2012, he became the first wingsuit BASE jumper to strike a wingsuit target—the target was made of foam and around 10 feet tall. He was also known for his extreme proximity flights. One of his most memorable stunts included flying through the "Batman Cave" in Montserrat, Spain.

Five days earlier, the GoPro star Uli Emanuele, 29, died when he crashed in the Dolomites of his native country, Italy.

It’s like stealing the keys to your dad’s Corvette. They think getting the keys was the hard part. Dude, the hard part has only just begun. Richard Webb | Pilot and BASE jumper

In June, Emanuele released a video of himself flying through a burning ring of fire. The stunt was broadcast on GoPro’s YouTube channel, and demonstrated Emanuele’s precision and mastery. In 2015, he demonstrated his aerial accuracy in arguably even more spectacular fashion, when he bulls-eyed a six-and-a-half-foot opening in a freestanding rock formation. Flying inches to the left or right would have easily resulted in his death. That video, titled "Wingsuit Flight Through 2 Meter Cave," now has 7.5 million views.

What’s little known about this particular stunt was that Emanuele actually flew through the hole not just once, but at least four times simply to amass enough footage for the video edit.

"I did it because I was able to do it," he stated then. "I don't use luck in jumping. We need enough luck in our normal life."

The question facing the BASE community now is whether luck could’ve helped guys like Polli and Emanuele, and hundreds of others before them. And if not luck, then what, exactly?

Smarter training? More experience? More education? Increased regulation?

Or, perhaps, is the lure of death just the inevitable outcome of this addictive, dangerous, and still nascent sport? If so, why are so many people flocking to it?

Perhaps the most confounding question, though, is why so many people seem to believe that the unthinkable won’t happen to them.

History is stacked with tales of humankind’s myriad experiments with attaching ersatz wings made of feathers or cloth to our arms in an attempt to fly.

From as early as I can remember, I had flying dreams. Once, at age 10, I cut up a cardboard box and fashioned wings, which I then strapped to my arms with pipe cleaners. I took my creation to a porch on the second story of my house in Dobbs Ferry, New York. As I stood atop the railing, cardboard wings lashed to my arms, I recall my seven-year-old sister standing in the grass beneath, pleading and crying at the sight of what I was about to do. I vividly recall a sense of confidence that my design was foolproof; I was certain that when I jumped, flight would ensue, just as in my dreams.

I jumped. I landed so hard that my knee went through my jaw and knocked me out. I haven’t forgotten that vivid (painful) memory, nor have I forgotten those early flying dreams, nor have I ever stopped longing for them to one day return.

In February 1912, a tailor named Franz Reichelt stitched himself a burlap wingsuit/parachute hybrid costume and jumped from the top of the 984-foot Eiffel tower. He crashed so hard that he put a hole into the frozen turf below.

From the 1930s to the 1960s, crowds gathered at local air shows around the world to watch stuntmen called "batmen," who performed skydiving maneuvers in their crude wingsuits. During this era, 72 of the 75 batmen died.

The dream of raw human flight—not the kind that’s confined to a vessel—has been thousands of years in the making. And until 1999, virtually all of humankind’s attempts to achieve that dream have failed.

In 1999, Croatian skydiver and BASE jumper Robert Pecnik and Finnish BASE jumper Jari Kuosma essentially invented today’s iteration of wingsuit BASE jumping.

Taking inspiration from a jumpsuit worn by the late Patrick de Gayardon, a famous French skydiver who perished in 1998 when the rigging of his prototype "ram-air" wingsuit failed during a skydive, Pecnik designed a new suit that he dubbed, simply, The Original. Pecnik and Kuosma tested their creation on May 10, 1999, an experience Pecnik describes as "very exciting."

The two launched a company called BirdMan, and The Original became the first commercial wingsuit available to the skydiving public.

Kuosma created an instructor program that offered wingsuit education to experienced skydivers with more than 200 jumps. At first, most skydivers thought wingsuits were really just death suits, but The Original soon proved otherwise.

In comparison to wingsuit BASE jumping, flying a wingsuit in a skydiving scenario has virtually zero fatalities.

View Images Wingsuiters get into their gear.

Flying a wingsuit out of a plane at 20,000 feet offers little perspective. The sensation of speed and flight are only mildly augmented at that altitude. If the dream was the true and raw perception of flight, then somehow wingsuits needed to be flown closer to objects.

By 2003, wingsuit technology had advanced enough to encourage early practitioners to dare flying closer and closer to the cliffs from which they leapt. Perhaps the first man to achieve a true proximity flight was a 23-year-old French jumper named Loïc Jean-Albert, who jumped out of a helicopter hovering over a snow-covered mountain in Verbier, Switzerland, and took a flight path that saw him paralleling the mountain’s slope, never more than 20 feet above the surface. The stunt instantly rocketed him to fame in the skydiving and BASE jumping worlds.

"When wingsuit BASE was introduced in early 1999, this was a new discipline," explains Pecnik. "People had a lot of respect for those of us who tried first and started to explore the possibility of such flying."

Today, Pecnik is manufacturing wingsuits for his new company, Phoenix-Fly. He describes how BASE jumping was, at one point, much more under the radar. Finding mentors was more challenging, and most BASE jumpers who got into the sport had a vast skydiving background.

"In the last five to six years, that’s all changed," he says.

"When I started BASE jumping wingsuits about eight years ago, there weren’t as many deaths," wrote Steph Davis, a professional rock climber who lives in Moab, Utah, and is one of the top female wingsuit BASE jumpers in the world. "There has been an explosion of popularity of BASE jumping and wingsuit flying in the last few years. So there are more people doing it, and there are more people getting into it very quickly without a lot of experience. That accounts for a lot of the accidents."

Pecnik agrees. "Wingsuiting actually looks very easy in videos," he says. "People are now getting into skydiving only as a way to reach their ultimate goal: wingsuit BASE. Now we have a population who barely knows how to fall or how to fly a canopy [parachute], but they are already skimming rocks in wingsuits."

Perhaps one example of this approach, according to Pecnik, is Armin Schmieder—the guy who inadvertently broadcast his death on Facebook.

"This guy had barely over 200 skydives, and just a hundred jumps in BASE," says Pecnik. "He knew so little, and was pushing so hard for his level that it’s no surprise that he’s dead."

"Gear is stupidly easy to get," adds Rich Webb. "People are educated enough to know how to say the right things to get someone to sell them the gear. After that, it’s a ticket to go wild. It’s like stealing the keys to your dad’s Corvette. They think getting the keys was the hard part. Dude, the hard part has only just begun."

Webb says that he sees a growing community of wingsuit BASE novices who are shortcutting every step of the process, which begins by becoming an expert skydiver, then becoming an expert BASE jumper, then going back to a skydiving scenario and training to become an expert wingsuit flyer within that relatively safer environment. It’s a process that might involve tens of thousands of dollars in airplane time, hundreds of jumps at each stage, and ultimately many years of consistent, full-time practice.

"There's a lack of education, a lack of awareness of what they're getting into, a lack of how real the consequences are," says Webb. "I’m really getting tired and disgusted and annoyed at people dying the same way over and over again."

Most beginners who die appear to be making variations of the exact same error, according to Webb. "They jump off a cliff, get flying, and for some reason there's just this human reaction to try to hug the air like a big, gigantic beach ball," he explains. "By hugging air you feel as if you're creating or catching more lift than you actually are. What ends up happening is your suit can only grab so much air, and it starts to stall. When it starts to stall, it loses lift, starts to drag, and then, splat.

"It would be like a skier showing up on a big mountain and trying to snow plow down a big line. Beginners tend to fly slow, and slow speed and flying is just a bad combination."

But if this newbie error is obvious to Webb and to many other experts, what isn’t as obvious is why so many of the very best are going down, too.

"Some people do not really get the fact that they might die," says Pecnik. "They’re doing really stupid stuff. Then people are screaming, But he was experienced! Well, he was, but not in all aspects of wingsuit BASE. And that even goes for the two most recent guys: Polli and Emanuele."

Davis observes one trend among beginners and pros. "Seeing accidents with very inexperienced jumpers and very experienced jumpers, one thing we have in common is that the person is pushing it."

If it seems like extreme sports are growing in popularity, it’s probably because we see them everywhere—in movies, in online media, and in advertising. It’s not just wingsuit BASE jumping, but extreme big-mountain skiing and snowboarding, free-solo rock climbing, big-wave surfing, and a host of other death-defying sports involving bikes, boards, and planes.

To varying degrees, many adventure sports today teeter at the margin between what’s possible and what’s crazy; between life and death.

View Images Wingsuit skydiving has virtually zero fatalities and is a safer way to learn how to fly a wingsuit. It’s also a process many newbies are shortcutting in their rush to start wingsuit BASE jumping.

Photograph by Outdoor Archive, Alamy Photo

The skiing world has been hit hard in recent years, as several of the best free skiers and snowboarders have been lost to avalanches and injury while pushing the limits of their sport. Sebastien Haag, Andrea Zambaldi, JP Auclair, Andreas Fransson, Dave Rosenbarger, and Liz Daley were all considered world-class, conscientious, experienced athletes. To further complicate the issue, many died while working to create "content" in the form of films and Instagram photos for their sponsors.

There is no Super Bowl of wingsuit flying, skiing, or climbing. Athletes are free to define—and push the limits in—their pursuits however they want. This freedom is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it fosters a creative, artistic approach to these amazing objectives. On the other hand, it has resulted in a culture that constantly needs to take bigger risks, make bolder decisions, and ride narrower margins of safety.

For some athletes, the fame, attention, and corporate sponsorships that come from pushing the boundaries help eke out a living—often a modest one. Reaching a certain level of notoriety or significance in most of adventure/extreme sports, however, has gotten exponentially harder, if also more dangerous.

"I think that as soon as you make being an ‘action-sports athlete’ your profession, there’s a huge risk factor," says Robb Gaffney, a psychologist based in Squaw Valley, California, arguably the definitive action-sports capital of the U.S. Squaw and all of Lake Tahoe have been hit hard in recent years as many of its local athletes have died pushing the limits.

"I think that the biggest factor for action-sports athletes is the fantasy of their identity as an action-sports athlete. Most of these athletes aren’t making any money. In fact they might not even have health insurance," Gaffney adds. "And yet they’re still doing something that could potentially kill them."

"Progression" is a loaded buzz word that you’ll hear every top action-sports star use. Often, progression means gaining recognition by completing an objective that’s so dangerous that no one else would ever be willing to attempt it.

What role, if any, sponsors play in encouraging their athletes to take outsize risks, while heavily promoting and benefiting those risks, became an issue in 2014 when the energy bar company Clif Bar declined to renew the contracts of five climbers, including free-soloist Alex Honnold and climber/BASE jumper/highliner Dean Potter.

Clif Bar’s official statement read that it was no longer comfortable "benefitting from the amount of risk certain athletes are taking in areas of the sport where there is no margin for error; where there is no safety net."

At the opposite end of the spectrum are companies like Red Bull, GoPro, and, most recently, Stride Gum—which backed a skydiving stunt this summer in which Luke Aikens jumped out of a plane without a parachute and landed in a large net.

What message is being sent when GoPro’s "Be a Hero" slogan flashes at the start of an Uli Emanuele wingsuit BASE video? Emanuele’s fearless wingsuit flight through a hole in a rock or a burning ring of fire is an incredibly cool, if not heroic, achievement. But the activity that we celebrate with millions of YouTube views is the same pursuit that cut his life short.

"I don’t believe that GoPro telling you to ‘Be a Hero’ as they show a wingsuit video is any different than Mountain Dew’s ‘Doing the Dew’ campaign back in the 1990s," says Robert Rose, a chief strategy officer at the Content Marketing Institute. "But I do think it’s important to question. Ultimately, it will be the groundswell that will make that judgement. And we currently live in a world where double standards are plentiful. It’s managing both sides of that risk that every brand lives in today."

Pecnik, for one, agrees. "To blame GoPro, or any company, is a shallow excuse for what is happening," he says. "Every person must be responsible for his own actions."

I think we may be using the wrong definition of 'progression' in wingsuit BASE. Perhaps it really means refining the experience, becoming safer, more elegant, and more aware. Steph Davis | BASE jumper and climber

The public honors athletes when they die in accidents, and even calls them heroes, Gaffney says, "but at the same time, what that’s doing is sending a message to all of us that that’s a great path to follow.

"Glamorization of athletes who have passed creates a positive reinforcement for all of us as spectators in the audience to continue to follow in their path," Gaffney adds. "Whether it’s conscious or not doesn’t even matter. It’s a positive reinforcement mechanism that has dramatic impacts on how we think about things and all the decisions that we make."

The underlying question, though, is whether these sports, and especially wingsuit BASE jumping, can "progress" without also becoming deadlier. Davis says folks in the wingsuit BASE jumping communities are thinking about this question from entirely the wrong paradigm.

"There is a limit with how close you can fly, especially with having terrain under you," she says. "At a certain point, the next step is impacting the terrain—this is why I don’t see this type of flying as progression. We’ve had a constant discussion about progression in wingsuit BASE. I think we may be using the wrong definition. Perhaps progression means something very different. Perhaps it means refining the experience, becoming safer, more elegant, and more aware. Perhaps it means sustainability."

Figuring out why the best are dying confounds, saddens, and even irritates just about everyone I’ve spoken to in the wingsuit BASE world.

"It’s really puzzling to me," says Rich Webb. "I wish I knew, but I think it has to do with complacency."

View Images A BASE jumper exits from a cliff into the deep valley below.

Photograph by Oliver Furrer, Alamy Photos

Webb points out that many of the best are dying on flight lines that might be considered either "easy" for them, or they’re lines that they’ve done before.

"It comes down to the fact that they're so comfortable in a stupidly high-risk environment," says Webb. "We just don't have the luxury of margins in our sport, so at some point it catches up to you if you're not on it all the time."

Pecnik agrees. "They’re not dying because they’re pushing the limit. They’re dying because of ignorance and complacency. It’s always easier to screw up on an easy cliff and an easy flight than on the hard one that you’ve trained for. It’s a typical trap in many outdoor sports."

Andy Lewis speculates, "I would say so many experienced wingsuiters are dying because they are trying to execute jumps with very low margin for error. Eventually when you make a mistake you hope you have room. And now low margins are so standard in the sport. It just kills people."

Chris McNamara, a big-wall rock climber from California, took up wingsuit BASE jumping in the early 2000s when it was still a new sport. After a few years, he gave it up when he realized he was probably going to die if he continued, a feeling that hit home when Dean Potter died in a 2015 wingsuit accident. "Dean Potter was part of a small group of active wingsuit jumpers who had been jumping more for than a decade. I really thought he had cracked the code on being able to survive wingsuit BASE," McNamara said.

After years of narrow misses and seeing friends die who were better and more experienced than he, McNamara concluded, "BASE jumping does not get safer with experience."

The reason so many wingsuit BASE jumpers believe that accidents won’t happen to them is easy to see: that mentality is a prerequisite to taking up the sport. It’s like marriage. No one gets married thinking that it’s going to end, even though the statistics show it might.

To reduce fatalities, the BASE community has volleyed around a number of ideas, from increased regulation to better education. But both ideas are solid, and it’s easy to draw parallels from other worlds that might also benefit from better regulation and education.

Motorcycles, like the standards of wingsuit BASE jumping, have become bigger, faster, and more daring since 2000. In that time, the number of crash fatalities has increased from 2,829 to 4,295 in 2014, the last year for which data is available. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration estimates that motorcycle helmets reduce the likelihood of a crash fatality by 37 percent, but only 19 states require their use. It’s likely that more states requiring helmets, and more safety education, might help reduce motorcycle deaths. But equally as important is the need for culture to change—and the same principle can be applied to action sports.

"There’s evolution within sports," says Chris McNamara. "It starts out a little more risky until, collectively, everyone decides that it just won’t be that risky. There was a point in time when you were an idiot if you wore a helmet on the ski slopes. Fast-forward five years, and you’re now an idiot if you don’t wear a helmet. That’s a collective thing that people decide together. It doesn’t happen overnight."

Matt Gerdes, the owner of Squirrel wingsuits, argued for more education on Facebook. "Right now, in 2016, all of the information and knowledge that we need to fly safely exists. Unfortunately, what the sport also lacks is a desire by its participants to learn. People have to understand that education is a huge factor, and paying for information that may save your life is worth it."

Recently, in the skiing world, there has been a huge educational outreach to improve backcountry safety and reduce the number of avalanche deaths. Ian McCammon, a researcher at University of Utah, identified six "heuristic traps" that identify common errors made in backcountry situations. Interestingly, a lot of these traps could easily be applied to the wingsuit BASE jumping world.

There’s even evidence that this education has worked. The 2015-2016 ski season in Colorado saw a record low in avalanche fatalities. Only one person died last year.

"That's an amazingly safe winter considering the number of backcountry skiers has doubled at least twice in the last 15 years or so," says Lou Dawson, a Colorado-based backcountry skiing legend.

Says Matt Hansen, an editor at large for Powder magazine, "One of the things that I think doesn't get enough attention is the fact that many people are making better decisions in the backcountry. Yes, we have a long way to go—there were several people who nearly got smoked week after week here in the Tetons last winter, including a few fatalities—but you'd hope that backcountry users are starting to get better at avoiding avalanches. I do think that awareness is growing, thanks to many different organizations like the Colorado Avalanche Information Center."

Earlier this year Rich Webb launched a new side project called "Top Gun Base," a website that aims to bridge a gap in knowledge with regards to how aeronautical concepts might apply to the wingsuit BASE world. "What I’m writing about is baseline stuff that people need to figure out before they even put on their gear," he says. "I hope it’s going to gather momentum and people are going to start recognizing that there’s something to this idea of education and learning from mistakes."

Still, Webb remains skeptical much will change—at least in the short term. "I think we're going to see the fatality numbers continuing in the same trend. There’s going to be a lot more wingsuit fatalities every year. Even if the gear gets better, and we regulate the hell out of the sport, there’s still going to be a niche demographic of people who find an even riskier way to push harder."

Fly or Die—Or, Perhaps, Don’t Fly at All

View Images A BASE jumper does a backflip near a cliff.

Photograph by Oliver Furrer, Alamy Photo

"I’m not sure why our culture at large seems to think that people will live forever or that people should live forever, and that it might somehow be possible to erase anything that might inadvertently cause death to happen," wrote Davis. "Death is part of life."

Death has especially been a part of Davis’s life. Not only has she lost many friends to BASE jumping, but she lost both her husband, Mario Richard, and ex-husband, Dean Potter, to wingsuit BASE jumping.

"Flying has given me the best things in my life, and it has also taken them away," she wrote. "Flying has brought me more pain than anything else. It has also saved my life and brought me more happiness than anything else. Everything has to balance. This degree of trade-off is not worth it for everyone, but we are not all the same person."

McNamara is one of the few wingsuit jumpers who left the sport. It wasn’t easy, though. He says giving up wingsuit BASE jumping was one of the hardest and scariest decisions he’s ever made.

"I don’t want to tell people to stop BASE jumping," he says. "But if people are on the fence of whether to quit or not, I think they should know there’s another 60 years of adventures out there."

A wingsuit BASE jumper just live-streamed his own death—marking the latest fatality in the sport’s deadliest year. We investigate why both highly experienced pilots and beginners are dying in this extreme sport.

base jumping, wingsuit, wingsuit crashes, fatalities, steph davis, dean potter, alexander polli, uli emanuele, proximity flying, wingsuit deaths, extreme flight, wingsuiting


Teen who stole Kim Kardashian's identity sentenced to prison

The Florida teenager who stole Kim Kardashian's identity, Luis Flores, Jr., has been sentenced to 42 months in federal prison for an identity theft scheme involving multiple celebrities, TMZ reported.

American Express notified the U.S. Secret Service of the identity thief last year after receiving a call from someone claiming to be Kardashian, who knew the reality star's personal information, the Orlando Sentinel reported. He changed the Social Security number on the account to his own and requested replacement cards be mailed to the apartment where he lived with his mother in Lake Mary, Fla.

Flores eventually transferred more than $71,000 from Kris Jenner's account into his own after requesting a replacement card for the 58-year-old's account. He allegedly stole the identities of numerous celebrities, including Ashton Kutcher, Tom Cruise and Paris Hilton. He also had Social Security numbers, bank account information and credit reports belonging to Michelle Obama, Bills Gates and Beyonce.

"That was one of the moves that cooked his goose," a source at the Lake Mary Police Department said of the transfer from Jenner's account, per the Chicago Sun-Times. Still, Flores was described as "an extremely skillful computer whiz," as well as a "smooth talker" and a "real con artist."

The teen was arrested in August and pleaded guilty.

His mother, Kyah Green, was also involved in the identity theft scheme. She was sentenced to three years probation in addition to a jail sentence for lying to authorities about her son's activities.

Kim Kardashian Identity Thief, 19, Sentenced To 3 Years In Prison

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'Pokémon Sun' and 'Pokémon Moon' news: Nintendo 3DS game to release in holiday 2016; fans want to see major changes

Nintendo got fans all excited when it was announced that new Pokémon games will be released this year.

At a recent Pokémon Direct live session, Nintendo revealed that "Pokémon Sun" and "Pokémon Moon" will be making its way to Nintendo 3DS exclusively and they will serve as Christmas treats since the games will be released late this year.

"Pokémon Sun" and "Pokémon Moon" will also be the first games in the Pokémon game franchise that offer nine different languages for players to choose from. In addition to English, Italian, German, Japanese, French, Spanish, and Korean languages, the game will also offer traditional and simplified Chinese.

It was also announced that through Pokémon Bank , monsters caught in "Pokémon Red," "Pokémon Blue," and "Pokémon Yellow" from the Nintendo 3DS will be playable in "Sun" and "Moon."

At this point, Nintendo has not released anything specific about the game's release date nor the gameplay details, but with the improvements mentioned above, "Sun" and "Moon" are expected to please fans.

Meanwhile, IGN came up with a list of changes that most players would want to experience in the new Pokémon games.

Save files feature is one of those important changes fans are hoping for. Players, for so long, never had the option to replay the Pokémon games without deleting the save files. This only wastes the long hours of hard work and the effort players put into the game.

"Sun" and "Moon" might be considered a great treat this holiday, but if Nintendo won't offer multiple save slots for the new game, "Sun" and "Moon" are predicted to be a huge 3DS failure, according to Design&Trend.

The Starter Pokémon is also one of the things most players would want to have improved. For all Pokémon games in the series, a player always has to choose from Charmander, Squirtle, or Bulbasaur. Since there are several unique monsters from different types, a lot of fans would want to see a new set of starter Pokémon.

Nintendo got fans all excited when it was announced that new Pokémon games will be released this year.

A link to an IGN article, multiple save files, and new starters that are not the Kanto starters.

Save files feature
new set of starter Pokémon


@kelly_clarkson shares too much information about her baby-making process

Kelly Clarkson isn't afraid to let the world know: She wants a baby, and she wants one now.

The 31-year-old singer made an appearance on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" last night (Nov. 11) and revealed that she and her husband Brandon Blackstock are trying really hard to get pregnant.

"We are not announcing anything right now! We're not, no," Clarkson said when Leno asked her if she was already expecting. "Practice makes perfect!" she added, "We're trying, trying, trying ... like rabbits!"

But although Clarkson's baby-making process is going well, the "Tie It Up" songstress admits she can't wait to have kids of her own.

"I want a little baby with little feet and I just want to bite them," she gushed, explaining that Blackstock's two kids from a previous relationship made her want a big brood. "They're so great," Clarkson said. "I never wanted kids before, but now I want, like, five."

Kelly Clarkson Wants Babies ASAP: 'We're Trying ... Like Rabbits!'

Kelly Clarkson isn't afraid to let the world know: She wants a baby, and she wants one now .

The 31-year-old singer

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You Won't Believe How Chick-Fil-A Responded To The Orlando Attack

In the wake of the Orlando terrorist attack, the worst strike on U.S. soil since 9/11, employees at Chick-Fil-A restaurants in the Orlando area performed an incredible act of kindness.

The franchise, which is known for being closed on Sundays to allow its workers to spend time with their families and attend church, was supposed to be shuttered on the day of the tragedy. But hours after the attack that killed 50 people and injured at least 53 more, Chick-Fil-A employees went to work on their day off to provide free food for those waiting in line to donate blood for the victims of the attack.

The chicken restaurant has been on the receiving end of boycotts several times for its support of traditional marriage. But the chain’s political affiliations didn’t stop its employees from helping out the victims of the deadly attack at a gay nightclub.

Another Orlando-based Chick-Fil-A store, whose employees also pitched in on Sunday to feed blood donors, posted a photo of their flag at half-staff with a message of solidarity for the victims.

"Our restaurant, along with a couple of others in the area, simply responded just like numerous other Orlando businesses and residents have done — we came together as a community to lift those in need," the restaurant stated in the comments section of the photo.

In the wake of the attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando, employees at a Chick-Fil-A restaurant in the area performed an incredible act of kindness.


Marijuana is currently regulated by the United States government as a Schedule I drug, placing it in the same category as heroin, MDMA and LSD. This is largely due to the first condition of Schedule I drugs, which is that the substance "has a high potential for abuse." The language in that clause is deliberately vague. Does abuse equal addiction? Probably not, since marijuana is not addictive like other Schedule I drugs. Rats don’t self-administer the compound in a lab, it’s virtually impossible to fatally overdose on the drug, and the physiological effects of marijuana withdrawal, if they occur, are far milder than those experienced by chronic amphetamine, alcohol, nicotine or opiate users. Put another way, if "abuse" means "addiction" then cigarettes should be Schedule I, not marijuana.

Rather, the case for marijuana "abuse" has always stemmed from its cognitive effects. While cigarettes are like caffeinated smoke — they increase attention and productivity, marijuana is the drug of choice for slackers, hippies and Seth Rogen characters. In popular culture, all it takes is one hit from a bong before people become ridiculously dumb, unable to solve the simplest problems or utter a coherent sentence. Potheads eat a lot and laugh at stupid jokes. The larger worry, of course, is that such damage is enduring and that "smoking dope" permanently impedes learning and memory.

That, at least, has been the collective stereotype for decades. There’s even been some science to back it up, especially when the marijuana use begins at an early age. But now a different answer is beginning to emerge, thanks to an authoritative new study led by Robert Tait at the Australian National University. The scientists looked at the long-term cognitive effects of marijuana use in nearly 2,000 subjects between the ages of 20 and 24. The subjects were divided (based on self-reports) into several different categories, from total abstainers (n = 420) to "current light users" (n = 71) to "former heavy users" (n = 60). Over the course of eight years, the scientists gave the subjects a battery of standard cognitive tests, most of which focused on working memory, verbal memory and intelligence. One of the important advantages of this study is that the scientists controlled for a number of relevant variables, such as education and gender. In Time, Maia Szalavitz explains why this statistical adjustment is necessary:

The lower education levels of the pot smokers — and their greater likelihood of being male — had made it look like marijuana had significantly affected their intelligence. In fact, men simply tend to do worse than women on tests of verbal intelligence, while women generally underperform on math tests. The relative weighting of the tests made the impact of pot look worse than it was.

Once these population differences were corrected for, the long-term effects of marijuana use disappeared: The scientists found that "there were no significant between group differences." In other words, the amount of pot consumed had no measurable impact on cognitive performance. The sole exception was performance on a test of short-term verbal memory, in which "current heavy users" performed slightly worse than former users. The researchers conclude that, contrary to earlier findings, the mind altering properties of marijuana are ephemeral and fleeting:

The adverse impacts of cannabis use on cognitive functions either appear to be related to pre-existing factors or are reversible in this community cohort even after potentially extended periods of use. These findings may be useful in motivating individuals to lower cannabis use, even after an extensive history of heavy intake.

This study builds on previous work by Harvard researchers demonstrating that the learning and memory impairments of heavy marijuana users typically vanish within 28 days of "smoking cessation." (The slight impairments still existed, however, one week after smoking.) While several days might sound like a long hippocampal hangover, heavy alcohol users typically experience deficits that persist for several months, if not years. In other words, heavy marijuana use appears to be a lot less damaging than alcoholism.

Taken together, these studies demonstrate that popular stereotypes of marijuana users are unfair and untrue. While it’s definitely not a good idea to perform a cognitively demanding task (such as driving!) while stoned, smoking a joint probably also won’t lead to any measurable long-term deficits. The Dude, in other words, wasn’t dumb because he inhaled. He was dumb because he was The Dude. (All those White Russians probably didn’t help, either.)

Furthermore, there’s some intriguing evidence that marijuana can actually improve performance on some mental tests. A recent paper by scientists at University College, London looked at a phenomenon called semantic priming. This occurs when the activation of one word allows us to react more quickly to related words. For instance, the word "dog" might lead to decreased reaction times for "cat," "pet" and "Lassie," but won’t alter how quickly we react to "chair."

Interestingly, the scientists found that marijuana seems to induce a state of hyper-priming, in which the reach of semantic priming extends to distantly related concepts. As a result, we hear "dog" and think of nouns that, in more sober circumstances, would seem rather disconnected, such as "leash" or "hair." This state of hyper-priming helps explain why cannabis has been so often used as a creative fuel, as it seems to make the brain better at detecting those remote associations that lead to radically new ideas.

Why does marijuana increase access to far reaching intellectual connections? One possibility is that the beneficial effect of the drug is mediated by mood. Marijuana, after all, has long been used to quiet anxious nerves — big pharma is currently exploring targeted versions of THC as a next generation anxiolytic — as only a few puffs seem to dramatically increase feelings of relaxation and euphoria. (The technical term for this, of course, is getting stoned.) Furthermore, recent research has suggested that performance on various tests of remote associations and divergent thinking — a hallmark of creativity — are dramatically enhanced by such positive moods. Look, for instance, at a 2003 study by German researchers that investigated performance on a classic remote associate test (RAT), in which subjects have to find a fourth word that is associated with the three following words:

This answer is pretty obvious: cheese. But what about this problem?

That was a trick question: There is no shared association. Here’s the remarkable thing about these remote associate problems: People can recognize the possibility of a solution before they’ve solved the problem. The German scientists demonstrated this by asking people to quickly press the spacebar whenever they were presented with a triad that had an answer. If people had no intuitions about creative associations, their guesses should have been roughly random. But that’s not what the scientists found. Instead, subjects were able to efficiently sort "coherent" word problems — those with an actual answer — from incoherent problems, which are a waste of time. Before we find the solution, we can feel its presence.

And this returns us to marijuana: Putting people in a positive mood roughly doubled their accuracy at the task. All of a sudden, they were twice as good at identifying problems with possible solutions. This suggests that anything that makes us happier, reducing vigilance and anxiety, might also make us more creative. We can detect more remote associations, of course, but we also know which associations are worth pursuing, which is probably even more important. It doesn’t matter if it’s pot, chocolate or a stand-up comic — those substances or experiences that put a smile on our face can also increase the powers of the imagination, at least when solving particular creative problems.

So here’s the very un-D.A.R.E. takeaway: Heavy marijuana use doesn’t seem to cause any sort of lasting brain damage. All the negative side-effects are relatively temporary. (But those side-effects are real.) Furthermore, the sort of anxiolytic giddiness triggered by THC comes with its own unexpected benefits, which is probably why humans have been self-medicating with cannabis for thousands of years.

Marijuana is currently regulated by the United States government as a Schedule I drug, placing it in the same category as heroin, MDMA and LSD. This is largely due to the first condition of Schedule I drugs, which is that the substance "has a high potential for abuse." The language in that clause is deliberately...


We finally know how much money Joey owed Chandler at the end of 'Friends'

If you’re like most die-hard Friends fans, you’ve probably wondered exactly how much Joey’s friendship was worth to Chandler. Now, thanks to an enterprising fan who did the math, we have a pretty good idea.

Spoiler alert: Joey must have been one hell of a friend, based on the size of Chandler’s investment in him.

One of the most whimsical aspects of Friends was its basic conceit that Phoebe, Joey, Chandler, Monica, Rachel, and Ross could all survive and thrive in one of the trendiest parts of Manhattan, despite the fact that their work lives were intermittent at best.

At various points, the show itself made cheeky reference to this phenomenon, most notably in episode 8×22, "The One Where Rachel Is Late."

Chandler essentially served as Joey’s sugar daddy in one of the world’s most expensive neighborhoods for three years straight.

In it, we learn that the well-off Chandler has paid for basically all of Joey’s living expenses since he moved to the city—everything from rent to acting lessons. Though we’re never told how much the figure comes out to, it’s enough to make Joey decide to forgive Chandler for falling asleep during the debut of the movie that (hopefully) signifies Joey’s big break.

So redditor lincoln9659 posed the question: How much did Joey owe Chandler?

Reddit’s r/theydidthemath is a forum devoted to solving various math problems posed but left unanswered in pop culture, like "How much would it actually cost to produce a real-life Truman Show?" and "How fast would you have to swing your dick for it to catch fire?" Thanks to a number of enterprising redditors with extremely good memories (or access to the Friends Wikia), we have a good idea of the total debt Joey incurred.

We can calculate that Chandler’s Manhattan rent was about $3,500 a month. (To compare, Monica’s grandmother’s apartment, rent-controlled since the ’40s, could have been about $200.) Split two ways between Chandler and Joey for three years, as stated in the episode, the total is: $63,000

We know utilities weren’t included in their rent, so we’ll follow user ASmileThatKills’ lead and calculate Joey’s half at $1,000.

Now for food. ASmileThatKills tries to guesstimate the amount Joey, known for his love of eating, spends on food every week—or rather the amount Chandler spends covering him. ASmileThatKills speculates the total is "$100 a week on groceries + $100 a week on pizza/takeout/coffee + $50 a week for Joey’s dates, every week for 3 years."

So that’s $5,200 annually for groceries. Joey went on a lot of dates, and this is Manhattan. Let’s bump it up to $75, so $3,900 yearly. And since we all saw how much coffee those poor kids drank, let’s tack an extra $15/week onto the takeout total, or $5,980. That brings the three-year total for food costs up to $45,240.

Two sets of acting resume head shots, $500 each: $1,000

Discounting inflation, Joey’s half of the phone and cable bills would have been around $35/month. Plus, if we assume that Chandler didn’t want to have to fight Joey for the phone when Joey was using their dial-up Internet, then they probably had another separate phone line for their computers, so an additional $10 for Joey: $1,620

In season 4, episode 2, Joey is responsible for all of their apartment furniture getting stolen. Yikes! The roundup of valuables Chandler loses in this ep includes "a TV, a stereo system, a CD collection, 2 Lazy boy chairs, a full-size couch, a few different seating chairs, and an early laptop, which was pretty expensive at the time, as the technology was new." ASmileThatKills estimates this total cost at roughly $5,500.

In season 6, episode 18, Chandler mentions that Joey owes him $3,400. Presumably, this could be for some of the costs mentioned in this list—except we already know that after two years living together, that total would be a lot higher than that, so we can probably assume it’s for services unknown: $3,400 .

While Joey temporarily lost his health insurance prior to an expensive surgery that Chandler otherwise would have had to pay for, he got it back by the end of "The One Where Joey Loses His Insurance." $0.

Yowza. As numerous redditors pointed out, Chandler was basically Joey’s sugar daddy in one of the world’s most expensive neighborhoods for three years straight.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY SA 3.0)

We finally know how much money Joey owed Chandler at the end of ‘Friends’


21 Celebs who you didn't know were transgender!

Transitioning means plastic surgery and professional cosmetic procedures need to be done in order to change your gender. These 31 celebs went through hormone replacement therapy, gender reassignment surgeries, facelifts, botox injections and hundreds of other professional cosmetic surgery procedures to feel good in their own skin. We bet you didn’t know these celebs were transgender.

Candis Cayne Surgically Transformed Herself

Reaching fame as the first transgender to snag a recurring role as a trans on the series "Dirty, Sexy, Money", Candis Cayne has been making waves in the LGBT community. Cayne has undergone multiple cosmetic surgery procedures, including a rhinoplasty and breast augmentation surgery. Cayne was also on a strict hormone medication regiment.

One of the most well recognized transexual transgender public figures, the model, performer, and singer has lent her face to some of the most popular brand campaigns in the world including M.A.C and Swatch. The fabulous 47-year-old also boasts the honour of being David LeChapelle’s muse. Plastic surgery, cosmetology, drag make-up, wigs, weaves, with the help of medical specialists, who will prescribe hormones and/or surgery, you name it, she’s got it!

The only child of American music legends Sonny Bono and Cher, Chaz made headlines in 1995 when he announced his identification as a man on the cover of the leading gay newspaper ‘The Advocate’. Chaz, born Chastity, went on to undergo gender reassignment surgery — his journey is chronicled in his documentary entitled "Becoming Chaz".

Laverne Cox Is Proud Of Her Cosmetic Surgery

One of the most recognisable faces in the trans community, Laverne Cox rose to fame with her portrayal as prison hairdresser Sophia Burset on the breakout Netflix hit "Orange is the New Black". Cox underwent intensive plastic surgery procedures, as well as dermatological procedures and medical hormone treatments while she transitioned.

In 2007, Thomas Beatie made history by becoming the first fully documented transexual male to become pregnant. After undergoing gender reassignment surgery years prior, Beatie decided to become pregnant through artificial insemination after his wife was not able to bear children. Beatie became an icon in the trans community — shining a new light on the issues of trans and gender expression.

Alicia Liu, also known as Liú Xūn’ài, is a Taiwanese television personality and fashion model. Born a man, Liu underwent gender reassignment surgery at the age of eighteen. After hitting celeb status, she was outed by an old high school classmate who posted her photo as a male online. Liu took to the media to defend herself, and stand up for trans individuals everywhere.

One of Italy’s top fashion models, Lea T. was born Leandro Medeiros Cerezo. In March of 2012, Lea underwent gender reassignment surgery in Thailand and went on to model for international fashion houses like Givenchy. You might recognise Lea as the face of the popular haircare brand, Redkin.

The revolutionary and unexpected transition of Bruce Jenner into Caitlyn Jenner cannot go unmentioned. After decades of identity crisis struggles, Jenner finally underwent a gender reassignment surgery, revealing her identity for the first time in "Vanity Fair" in 2015. According to Jenner’s children, there were some weird moments that may have caused suspicion, but the family could have never imagined that this was what was really going on.

Chinese singer, actress, and model Chen Lili made headlines when she attempted to compete as a transgender female in multiple beauty pageants, especially Miss Universe, to which she was denied entry. Lili was the runner up in the Miss Artificial Beauty pageant in 2004.

A well known trans-soul singer, St. Laurent made her mark on pop-culture when she appeared in the 1990 documentary "Paris is Burning", a film about African-American, Latino, gay, and transgender individuals in New York City. Laurent passed away in 2007 after losing her battle with AIDS.

Best known as one of "Warhol superstars", Darling was an American transgender actress and icon who starred in Andy Warhol’s 1968 "Flesh", and his 1971 film "Women in Revolt". The New York City native was also a well-known muse for the 1960’s rock band The Velvet Underground.

An Austrian export and iconic drag queen, Conchita, aka Thomas Neuwirth rose to fame after winning the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest with the admittedly catchy song "Rise Like a Phoenix". Neuwirth uses both male and female pronouns to describe both her "original personality" and his alter ego Conchita.

Gigi Gorgeous is a Canadian actress and internet personality who rose to fame with her fashion and makeup Youtube tutorials. Gorgeous garnered quite the following on  her Youtube channel, and gained a large outpouring of support during her public gender reassignment surgery. Gigi has also been featured on Access Hollywood, Good Work, and Project Runway, All Stars.

Carmen Carrera, a TV personality and model, was actually born Christopher Roman and underwent a gender change surgery later on in life. Carrera used to host a show called "RuPaul’s Drag Race", and up until the third season, she presented as Christopher – a man. In 2012, Carrera revealed that she was a transgender woman.

Best known for directing the epic "The Matrix" trilogy, Lana Wachowski, along with her sister Lilly, underwent a gender transition back in 2008. As a child, Lana has thought about suicide due to the stress of an identity crisis. Over the last few years, Lana Wachowski has completed the transition.

Erika Ervin, who goes by the stage name Amazon Eve, is a model and fitness instructor. Ervin can be recognized from her appearance in "American Horror Story: Freak Show", as well as appearing on the cover of "Zoo Weekly", an Australian magazine. Ervin is known to be the tallest model in the world at a whopping height of 6 feet 8 inches.

Known as a "Warhol Superstar", Jackie Curtis, born John Curtis Holder Jr., performed both as a man and a woman throughout her acting and singing career. Curtis’ signature outfit includes a ripped dress, red lipstick and red hair. Curtis passed away at the age of 38 as a result of a heroin overdose.

Ah, another Wachowski on the list! As unusual as it may seem that two male siblings are both transgender, this second half of the talented directing duo recently announced that she was also transgender.

Jamie Clayton, who plays a transgender hacker in "Sense8", has become quite the recognizable face in the industry. Clayton often discusses the issues behind today’s community, stating that "transgender" has become too much of a label and not enough of a normal concept.

Hari Nef made headlines when she became the first transgender to be signed to the international modeling label, IMG.

Valentijn De Hingh, a Dutch model, started her transition at a very young age. A documentary captured 10-years of her transition. De Hingh is a well-known model in the fashion industry.

31 Celebs Who Had Gender Reassignment Surgery

We bet you didn't know that these 31 celebs were transgender. Check out all of the pics here and prepare to be amazed by these transformations!

all well known transgender celebrities, no surprises here.

Candis Cayne
Amanda Lepore
Chaz Bono
Laverne Cox
Thomas Beatie


GOP congressman makes gross sexist comment to CNN anchor

Costello grilled Rokita on his decision to accept his paycheck even as other government employees go without pay during the shutdown. They also argued about his insistence on defunding Obamacare at the cost of shutting down the government.

After several minutes going back and forth, Rokita told Costello, "Carol, you're beautiful but you have to be honest as well."

Costello raised her eyebrows slightly, and ended the segment there.

Politico reported that Rokita's office later issued a statement from the congressman, who said, "At the end of a spirited and very important debate, I was simply keeping it from unnecessarily ending in an unfriendly or contentious way. I intended no offense to Ms. Costello."

Meanwhile, Costello told Politico that she thought "Congressman Rokita was trying to deflect these questions with "flattery," and called such tactics "inappropriate." Click over to Politico for her full statement.

Rep. Todd Rokita To CNN's Carol Costello: 'You're Beautiful But You Have To Be Honest' (VIDEO)

A debate between Republican congressman Todd Rokita and CNN's Carol Costello about the government shutdown on Thursday took a turn for the worse.

Cos...

carol costello todd akita,video,todd akita,todd akita carol costello,todd akita cnn

Rep @ToddRokita; more stupid than sexist


Here are all the people who have died from a marijuana overdose

Just how deadly a killer is marijuana? Here's a GIF showing all of the people who have died after overdosing on pot:

Yeah, not a single person has ever died from a weed overdose. We don't have numbers on pandas, but we're guessing it's about the same. According to one frequently cited study, a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times the amount of THC in a joint in order to be at risk of dying.

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the federal government wouldn't intervene as Colorado and Washington state implement plans for a system of legalized marijuana for adults. The decision opened the floodgates for other states to pursue similar legalization efforts and outraged police groups apparently not excited to see a shift away from the failed war on drugs.

In a joint letter written to Holder on Friday, law enforcement organizations warned that his move would lead to more crime, violence and even death.

While high driving may be a concern, Colorado, Washington and federal authorities have all taken steps to keep people off the road after using marijuana. The two states both have their own restrictions, and Holder said in his statement that the DOJ would still prosecute individuals or entities to prevent "drugged driving."

The police groups also make a number of additional controversial claims that marijuana use itself leads to violent behavior, suicidal thoughts and interest in harder drugs. Scientific studies have not been able to prove this causation conclusively, however, and research has also suggested that THC has significant therapeutic value to patients suffering from cancer, AIDS or glaucoma.

None of this is to say that the nation doesn't struggle with broader issues of drug and alcohol abuse and overdose. Drug policy reformers and activists gathered around the world over the weekend to discuss the overdose epidemic. In 2010, overdoses were responsible for 38,329 deaths. Sixty percent of those were related to prescription drugs. In the same year, a total of 25,692 persons died of alcohol-induced causes, including accidental poisoning and disease from dependent use.

Here Are All The People Who Have Died From A Marijuana Overdose

smoking marijuana,marijuana,Drug War,marijuana deaths,drugs,pot,drug overdose,weed


"Don’t drunk text your ex: artist offers a cringe-free alternative"

We all know the feeling that comes the morning after an ill-advised message. When I Think About You I Text Myself provides an artful solution

It’s late. You’re a little worse for wear. And feeling nostalgic.

You know that what you really shouldn’t do now is send a text, yet the more you try to talk yourself out of it, the worse the urge gets.

You wake up the next morning in a full-body cringe, dreading the ritual rereading of your phone. You wish you hadn’t sent that text. Later, you might try to repair the damage (and your ego) with yet another text. And so the cycle of impulsivity and regret continues.

Lots of people write letters or emails they don’t ever intend to send, as a means of harmlessly getting it all out there, or of constructively thinking about what they would say to someone in a magic world where it would be productive and relieving to do so. But text messages are different, because the short format, immediacy and ease of clicking "send" make it harder to control.

I am funnier and franker on Google chat, but what’s the truth about instant-message me?

Fascinated by this dynamic, the New York-based artist Hanny Ahern began texting herself instead of the objects of her agita. She added herself as a pseudonymous contact in her own phone, and sent herself the sometimes "elaborate emoji compositions" or words, redirecting the urge to send impulsive texts.

"It changed the way I used my phone from anxious and impulsive to creative and fulfilling," says Ahern. "When I would get a notification from myself, I would feel a certain excitement, almost as if I were getting a text from another person. I’d go back to the messages months later and be so grateful that I sent them to myself instead of to the other person, because I realized how much time had changed my perspective."

Moreover, Ahern realized she wasn’t alone. "Many of us seem to be in a room together with a text-bubble draft looming in our heads, unsent and unrequited. So the question became: how can the medium of SMS be gently subverted to challenge alienation and misunderstanding in text communications, and to free up some mental space?"

Working with the technologist Chris Allick, Ahern began creating a project called When I Think About You I Text Myself to create a "relational intervention" in the text messaging medium. Rather than send that ill-advised text, you set afloat your tricky little digital boats in the direction of an anonymous phone number – provided online – which will then automatically send your own words back to you at intervals of three, six, nine and 12 months so you can revisit them privately, safely and with the distance of time.

‘You’re depending on a disembodied high’

The project was initially conceived primarily as a work of art rather than a public service. Ahern describes being influenced by the media theorist Marshall McLuhan’s idea of the "self-amputated image", which describes our relationship to technology. "In his essay the Gadget Lover, McLuhan uses the myth of Narcissus to describe ‘cultural narcosis’, or a numbing loop that is extended between ourselves and the gadgets that ‘are ourselves’."

The youth Narcissus mistook his own reflection in the water for another person. This extension of himself by mirror numbed his perceptions until he became the servomechanism of his own extended or repeated image. Now the point of this myth is the fact that men at once become fascinated by any extension of themselves in any material other than themselves. Marshall McLuhan, The Gadget Lover, Understanding Media

When I Think About You I Text Myself debuted as part of Temporary Highs, an exhibit that ran earlier this summer at the Bitforms Gallery in New York, curated by Lindsay Howard, devoted to "how the structure of the internet enables reward-seeking behavior". Other works in the exhibit dealt with themes such as online shopping, video games, work and drugs. It’s not too much of a stretch to talk about ill-advised texts alongside other self-destructive behaviors. The cycle of impulsivity, instant gratification and then regret brought on by the clarity of a new day is part of the experience.

"I thought [Temporary Highs] was the perfect context for the project, because it presented a way to reverse the reward system," Ahern says. "If the smartphone causes alienation, communication paralysis and numbness, then I want to challenge that in a way that provokes emotion and creativity ... if you rely on a text message exchange for satisfaction, you’re depending on a disembodied high. There are a lot of stress hormones activated by phone notifications and, in a way, the nervous system is partially hijacked to meeting this new extension of the self."

Waiting: tumult of anxiety provoked by waiting for the loved being, subject to trivial delays (rendezvous, letters, telephone calls, returns)

During the first week of When I Think About You I Text Myself, anyone who texted the provided number received responses personally written by Ahern, along with automated, programmed texts designed to prompt the user to express themselves.

Although providing each individual text with personal attention wasn’t practically or emotionally sustainable for Ahern, she says it was important to her that the project account for some ambiguity between human and machine. "I learned through testing that people were more likely to communicate [if given] a little bit of feedback, and that they were more likely to quit texting and give up expressing themselves if they felt they were texting into a vacuum," says Ahern.

When you talk to a human in 2035, you’ll be talking to someone that’s a combination of biological and nonbiological intelligence Ray Kurzweil

Through Ahern’s project, we learn that knowing we may receive a response is part of the irresistible urge of texting – even if we don’t know whether the response is coming from a human or a robot, and even when it’s just our own words and feelings reflected back at us at the project’s preordained three-month intervals. She also says she learned from the patterns and commonalities among the messages she received.

"Most of the responses were related to love in one way or another. All in all, the most common expression was and is some version of ‘I miss you’," Ahern says. "That simplicity was very beautiful. I heard from people who are harboring secret crushes, falling in love but too afraid to say so, stepping outside their relationship or hoping to get back together with a past love. Some were cathartic, angry or even accusatory. Others were venting at work or family. It seemed like most of these people were using the project as a way to communicate feelings that would otherwise complicate delicate relationships.

"The texts were anonymous, which was helpful in staying objective," she continues. "There were times where I thought, Mom, is that you? Or, oh man, is this my ex? But in fact I’ll never know, and most likely, I was seeing that all of our stories aren’t that different."

Social media mimics the intimacy we yearn for – but fails to deliver

Ahern says that as an art project, When I Think About You I Text Myself’s primary goal is to invite expression, and anything users share is at their discretion. Participants’ phone numbers are anonymized, texts aren’t shared publicly and all the information is stored in a secure database.

"This hotline should in no way replace the option to reach for a real person. In fact, I hope that it shapes the thoughts and feelings, and provokes authentic communication with real live people, perhaps after some reflection," Ahern adds. "This phone number is more like a safe space waiting room for all the pent-up communication."

Next time you can barely contain that text you know you aren’t supposed to send, try Ahern’s hotline instead. It is an altogether different feeling, to know your message joins a current of so many others like it, and to know that instead of doing something you’ll regret, you’re engaging in a thoughtful loop of reflection with yourself.

Chat and messaging apps,Technology,Relationships,Life and style,Art,Smartphones