Cape Town South Africa is facing the third year of an unprecedented drought. Water levels have dropped to such levels that city officials predict the city wells will run dry sometime in 2019. There is, of course, a ban on filling your swimming pool or washing your car and individual consumption is limited to 50 liters/day.
In order to “raise awareness” the local government has created The Water Map where anyone can see how much water their neighbors are using.
Dark Green is within limits, Light Green is over
Zara Nicholson, spokesperson for the Mayor, said, “This behaviour-modification tool attempts to acknowledge good savers and encourage those who have yet to join the efforts.”
So far there’s been no mob-based Mad Max event and city officials say that consumption has fallen.
Grifters. The term seems to belong in the past. A word used to describe men in zoot suits and fedoras. Three-card monte guys hustling on turned-over cardboard boxes in front of Penn Station or the guy in the parking lot trying to sell you a “used” laptop for cheap. That was then.
This is now. Why waste time short-changing someone for a $20 when you can promise them a Deutsche Bank wire transfer instead? Why spare change someone when you can just say you’re on the cusp of pulling together a round of early investors for a new project? In a day and age where everyone is hustling, the line between hustling and ripping people off is sometimes fuzzy. Especially when you delude yourself into believing your own lies, then the distinction is moot.
In this city, where enormous amounts of invisible money trade hands every day, where glass towers are built on paperwork promises, why not? If Aby Rosen, the son of Holocaust survivors, could come to New York and fill skyscrapers full of art, if the Kardashians could build a billion-dollar empire out of literally nothing, if a movie star like Dakota Johnson could sculpt her ass so that it becomes the anchor of a major franchise, why couldn’t Anna Delvey? . . . She saw something others didn’t. Anna looked at the soul of New York and recognized that if you distract people with shiny objects, with large wads of cash, with the indicia of wealth, if you show them the money, they will be virtually unable to see anything else. And the thing was: It was so easy.
“Money, like, there’s an unlimited amount of capital in the world, you know?” Anna said to me at one point. “But there’s limited amounts of people who are talented.
Read this fantastic tale. Anna Sorokin is just another version of Elizabeth Holmes, a reflection of our times.
I have not been paying attention to the inaugural season of the new expansion NHL team in Las Vegas, the Golden Knights. You can imagine my surprise when my sports fan son gave me a taste of how hockey has changed when he showed me how hockey has been transformed for the Las Vegas audience.
It’s totally over the top as only Vegas can do. Think Cirque du Soleil meets Medieval Times Dinner Showon ice.
The game did not disappoint either. 4-6 is one of the higher scoring games I’ve heard of. The first goal was just seconds into the first period and it didn’t let up with the lead rocking back and forth all through the game.
A box of popcorn flies up into the air in front of the press box from the stands. Battle towels are twirling, fans are chanting, the drummers in the plastic castle in the nosebleeds are drumming, and if you could take the blood pressure of T-Mobile, doctors would be alarmed…I wouldn’t be surprised if the streets of Vegas are on fire when we all leave this building.
For the first time in its 226-year history, a woman will lead the New York Stock Exchange. Also, the Fearless Girl statue will be moved from her spot staring down Wall Street’s bronze Charging Bull to a new home facing the New York Stock Exchange.
An estimated 177.7 million U.S. adults, 70.3% of the total population, regularly use another digital device while watching TV.
China’s second largest, state-owned bank, offered wealthy clients the opportunity to have dinner with the Donald Trump for $150,000 a ticket.
Two Toronto police officers have been formally charged with eating edibles on duty. The officers were busted back in January when they called for emergency assistance at about 1 a.m. because one of them got stuck in a tree.
A hotel in England finally put an end to a man’s 5-day drug binge when they stopped him while he was carrying a large bag of potatoes up to his room while wearing a bra over his shirt. When asked what he was doing, he responded that he was filling his bathtub with the spuds because, “it felt like the right thing to do at the time.”
The DEA has confessed that it raided the wrong house in Tennessee. A father of four says a team busted through the front door, threw flash bangs, knocked pictures off walls, damaged the ceiling and burned holes through clothes and carpet. “I am okay and could have easily been killed just thankful to be alive and my family okay,” he wrote.
Scientists at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have discovered trace elements of the opioid oxycodone present in mussels and other shellfish in the waters off Seattle.
The Journal of Neurosurgery published a paper that finally explained how Michael Jackson was able to lean 45° forward in the Smooth Criminal video.
Photo credit: The Shark from the 1975 Spielberg film ‘Jaws’ (via Reddit)
How did I make it this far without ever hearing this Robin Williams bit? I really miss him. The world is a darker place without him.
You got to be crazy, It’s too late to be sane, too late You got to go full-tilt bozo Cause, you’re only given a little spark of madness If you lose that, you’re nothing Don’t ever lose that cause it keeps you alive.
The United Kingdom will shut down this weekend for the Royal Wedding. Punters are betting on everything with 2:1 odds that the queen will be wearing a blue hat while the appearance of a white hat is a long 33:1.
While doing research for the wedding, a staff writer for The New Yorker discovered that Her Majesty The Queen, “owns all porpoises, whales, sturgeon, and dolphins that pass within three miles of Britain’s shores.”
The city of Chicago is selling more than 3,200 vacant lots on the city’s South and West sides for just $1 each.
A robotic dragon burst into flames during a parade at Disney World. On-lookers, unaware of the calamity, thought the pyrotechnics were all part of the act.
West Japan Railways issued a statement after one of its trains mistakenly departed a station 25 seconds early. The company spokesman said the incident was, “truly inexcusable.”
A family in China was dismayed to discover that their adopted pet dog with a ravenous appetite was, in fact, a bear.
Watching Westworld? UCLA neuroscientists reported Monday that they have transferred a memory from one animal to another via injections of RNA.
A member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology skeptical about climate change suggested that perhaps the sea level was rising because of “rocks” in the ocean.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is using doughnuts and bacon to lure black bears into an enclosure where they can get a sample of their fur.
Feliks Zemdegs from Australia has broken the world record for solving a Rubik’s cube. He did it in just 4.22 seconds.
It took three months for the Postal Service and UPS to catch on that a man in Chicago had submitted a change of address form to redirect all of UPS’ corporate mail to Apartment L2, 6750 N. Ashland Ave. in Chicago where the resident intercepted, sorted, and cashed $60k in checks meant for UPS.
Detailed radar surveys of Mt. Mantap, the site of North Korea’s underground nuclear test site, revealed that the most recent explosion vaporized granite rock causing a cavity about, “the size of a football stadium” and caused the mountain to collapse into itself.
It was revealed that the iconic cascading green characters shown at the beginning of all Matrix films are just recipes for sushi.
“I was imagining about 100 or 200 people might want to come, not 30,000,” said Laurent Luft, the president of the Paris Naturist Association which organized an art exhibit where you are required to leave your clothes at the door.
A pitcher for the Red Sox got in trouble after some speculated that his three-hour Fortnite sessions caused carpal tunnel injury endangering his pitching.
Italians are bringing in Chinese labor to work in Tuscany to make expensive handbags that carry the coveted, “Made in Italy” label. Many of these handbags are probably exported back to China.
The photography world erupted in controversy after an award-winning wildlife photo was accused of photo-shopping in a stuffed anteater. But doubts remain.
Ford announced new technology they are developing for car windows that allows for blind people to “feel” the view.
A museum in the South of France had an existential crisis when it discovered that over half of its collection are forgeries.
UC Berkeley announced plans to build housing on People’s Park.
Goldman Sachs President David Solomon said that artificial intelligence has made many of the jobs on Wall Street unnecessary. On the equity desk, “where 15-20 years ago we had 500 people making markets in stocks. Today we have three.”
Taylorism is alive and well in China as it was revealed that workers in high-stress environments, “wear caps to monitor their brainwaves, data that management then uses to adjust the pace of production and redesign workflows”
Facebook published research that demonstrates how they can send messages directly to your skin.
The first person charged under Malaysia’s new Anti-Fake News law was sentenced to one month in prison for exaggerating local police response times in a video he uploaded to YouTube.
Photo credit: Thanks to Isaac Hepworth for the chyron generator and Julia for the text.
