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US

Home free: Florida town lets Donald Trump keep living at Mar-a-Lago | Donald Trump

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His impeachment trial was happening a thousand miles away but the “mayor of Mar-a-Lago” was also facing another inquisition.

Is Donald Trump allowed to reside at his private resort in Florida, where he flew off to from the White House on 20 January, on Air Force One without even attending Joe Biden’s inauguration?

The Palm Beach town council spent close to seven hours on Tuesday considering issues important to the wealthy island community: the availability of the coronavirus vaccine.

Revitalizing the downtown’s upscale shopping district. Even the durability of Belgian tile being used on a new walking path and the danger posed by coconuts falling when palm trees get too tall.

Each agenda item provoked a litany of questions, comments and observations, except one: whether the former US president may continue living at his Mar-a-Lago club.

Though presumably the most contentious among residents and of the most interest nationally and internationally, the issue took up no more than a half-hour of the council’s time – at the meeting’s end.

The five-member council took no action on the question, which was placed on the agenda because of neighbors’ complaints that Trump’s presence would hurt property values.

It’s unclear if the council will address the issue further, although an attorney representing the residents asked – with no response – that he be allowed to give a fuller presentation in April. The neighbors could also sue the town and Mar-a-Lago.

The town attorney, Skip Randolph, said there was nothing in the club’s 1993 agreement with Palm Beach that prohibits Trump from residing there.

“This is a debate that I really think is silly,” Randolph said.

He said the former president would be considered a bona fide employee of the entity.

“This guy, as he wanders the property, is like the mayor of Mar-a-Lago. He’s always present,” Randolph said in his virtual presentation to the town council on Tuesday.

He and Trump’s attorney John Marion said the town permits clubs and resorts to provide onsite housing for their employees and Trump, as Mar-a-Lago’s president, fits the bill.

But Philip Johnston, an attorney who said he represents a group of residents called Preserve Palm Beach, said neighbors of the club fear Trump’s residency will turn Mar-a-Lago into “a permanent beacon for his more rabid, lawless supporters”, destroying the town’s “genteel” character.

Many wealthy residents live in flamboyant mansions with staff and ornate decor, driving their Rolls-Royces to the local white tablecloth restaurants and high-end fashion and jewelry stores.

Some argue that when he got permission to turn the 126-room mansion into a club 28 years ago, Trump promised through an attorney that he would not live at Mar-a-Lago.

Donald Trump heads to his Mar-a-Lago property in late January. Photograph: Gary I Rothstein/Rex/Shutterstock

But Marion said that provision was left out of the final written agreement in exchange for Trump’s pledge to be financially responsible for preserving the property if the club fails.

He also warned that if by “the slightest” chance Trump gets booted from Mar-a-Lago, he would probably move into one of the other nearby homes he owns.

The Secret Service bubble that now resides behind Mar-a-Lago’s gates would be on their streets, he said.

“There would be barriers in front of that property. There would be guards and Secret Service personnel … There would be dogs sniffing vehicles,” Marion said. “It would be a horrible imposition for them [the neighbors] if they got what they wanted.”
But the neighbors, at least according to their attorneys, are willing to take that chance.

Trump purchased Mar-a-Lago for $10m in 1985 from the estate of Marjorie Merriweather Post, the owner of cereal giant General Foods.

The mansion had deteriorated after her death in 1973, when she left it to the US government as a possible presidential vacation home. The government gave it back in 1981.

After Trump bought it, he spent millions upgrading the property while living there part-time.

By the early 1990s, however, Trump was in financial distress. Real estate prices dropped and several of his businesses flopped, including a New Jersey casino.

In 1993, Trump and the town agreed he could turn the estate into a private club. It would be limited to 500 members – the initiation fee is now $200,000 and annual dues are $14,000.

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Science

Huge Fish, Once Believed Extinct, Isn’t the ‘Living Fossil’ Scientists Thought

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A rare sighting of a live coelacanth, captured off the coast of South Africa in 2019.
Image: Bruce Henderson

An analysis of coelacanth DNA suggests its genome has experienced some significant changes in recent evolutionary history, potentially dispelling the popular image of these iconic fish as being “living fossils.”

The discovery of a live coelacanth (pronounced “see-lah-kanth”) off the coast of South Africa in 1938 was quite the shock, as these animals were believed to be extinct. The large fish were thereafter referred to as “living fossils” owing to their uncanny resemblance to near-identical species spotted in the fossil record.

New research published in Molecular Biology and Evolution presents evidence showing that at least one species of coelacanth, formally known as Latimeria chalumnae, is not the living fossil it’s presumed to be, having acquired dozens of new genes in the past 23 million years—a surprising finding, and a far cry from the idea that the species has barely changed since its ancestors emerged over 300 million years ago. What’s more, the finding is further evidence that the living fossil concept is outdated and somewhat of a misnomer.

Not much is known about coelacanths, but they’re not particularly aggressive, and they’re actually somewhat social, Isaac Yellan, the first author of the new study, explained in an email. L. chalumnae lives in the Indian Ocean and the waters off the coast of southeast Africa, and, though not extinct, the fish is elusive and critically endangered, said Yellan, a graduate student with the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto.

Scientists and sailors pose with a 120-pound coelacanth caught off the coast of Madagascar in 1953.
Image: Associated Press (AP)

G/O Media may get a commission

Yellan and his colleagues made the discovery while doing research into proteins that bind DNA, with a focus on a protein called CGG Binding Protein 1 (CGGBP1). Other researchers have studied the function of this protein in humans, but its role in evolutionary history is poorly understood, as is its apparent similarity to a specific family of transposons—DNA sequences capable of shifting positions within a genome. This led the team to study binding proteins in other species, in a journey that eventually led them to the idiosyncratic fish.

“The African coelacanth came into the picture when we started looking for CGGBPs [DNA binding proteins) in published genomes, and found out that it has 62 CGGBP genes—way more than any other vertebrate,” explained Yellan. “We then started to look into where this large gene family might have come from.”

As noted, the 62 genes are transposons, which are often referred to as “jumping genes,” because they “jump” around the genome, but they can also make copies of themselves. Transposons are considered parasitic genes, with the sole focus of self-replication, but some transposons can influence function. So, with 62 of these genes found in coelacanths, these jumping genes are probably playing an important role.

Indeed, the new paper is highlighting the dramatic influence transposons can have on a species’ overall genome and its ongoing evolution.

A preserved specimen on display at a museum in Austria.
Image: Alberto Fernandez Fernandez

Transposons are “often parasitic and can be very harmful if they disrupt genes, but they sometimes do form cooperative relationships with their hosts,” said Yellan. “There are many different ways this can occur,” he said, and a limited amount of replication can increase the host’s genetic diversity. Sometimes, however, transposons lose their ability to replicate, “which their host can then take advantage of, as is the case with CGGBP1.”

This all sounds very freaky, but basically, the host species is sometimes able to leverage the situation, in which immobile transposons are retained due to their beneficial qualities. Think of it as another mechanism for evolution, an alternate form of mutation and selection. Such appears to be the case here, with the coelacanth’s unprecedented batch of 62 transposons, which are bona fide genes derived from immobile transposons, explained Yellan.

“I’d also want to point out the transposons we studied are no longer able to jump around in the coelacanth genome,” he added. “What remain are dead ‘fossils’ of their own, and the CGGBP genes.”

The researchers aren’t entirely sure what these 62 transposons are doing, but they’re probably playing a role in gene regulation, according to the paper.

Yellan and his colleagues, including molecular geneticist Tim Hughes, also from the University of Toronto, found related genes in the genomes of other animals, but the distribution of these genes pointed to an origin outside of common ancestors.

Indeed, some but not all transposons are acquired through interactions with other species, including distantly related species, in a process known as horizontal gene transfer. The authors can’t pinpoint the exact origin of the transposons documented in L. chalumnae, but they have some ideas.

“One way that transposons can be picked up and carried between species is through a parasitic intermediary host, such as a lamprey, which feeds on the blood of fish,” said Yellan. “This is supported by the fact that we found one of these transposons in a lamprey species, although we don’t know if coelacanths received it from the lamprey, or vice-versa.”

As the new paper also points out, these genes appeared at various points during the past 22.3 million years, a figure reached through a comparative analysis of the African fish with Latimeria menadoensis, its Indonesian counterpart (the only other extant species of coelacanth), as these two species of coelacanth diverged at that time.

Which leads us to the concept of living fossils—species whose genomes have barely changed over long periods of time. Other examples include the lungfish and tuatara (an animal that resembles the ancestor of both snakes and lizards), but, as Yellan explained, the genomes of these animals, like the coelacanth, aren’t static.

“Previous research has found that while coelacanth genes have evolved slowly compared to other fish, reptiles, and mammals, its genome as a whole has not evolved abnormally slowly and is hardly inert,” said Yellan.

To which he added: “I think that as more and more genomes are being published, the ‘living fossil’ concept is becoming increasingly something of a misconception, and I think many scientists would probably hesitate to assign it to any species.”

I always liked the concept of living fossils, but I’m sufficiently persuaded that it’s a bogus concept. Sure, animals can superficially resemble their distant ancestors, but it’s the parts beneath the hood that tell the whole story.

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Science

Moon Trees are living testaments to mankind’s first trips to the moon: Where are they now?

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In February 1971, onboard the Apollo 14 Command and Service Module Kitty Hawk, Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa was conducting “observations, experiments, and scientific investigations” in lunar orbit, while his fellow crew members, Commander Alan Shepard and Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell explored the Fra Mauro formation on the Moon’s surface.

A statement by NASA History, on Feb. 4, recounts that 50 years ago onboard Kitty Hawk, in Roosa’s personal travel kit, was “a canister of approximately 400-500 loblolly pine, sweet gum, redwood, Douglas fir, and sycamore tree seeds.”

When the mission returned to Earth, NASA stated, the seeds were germinated and grew into what were referred to as, “Moon Trees,” which can be found around the U.S. and the world.

NASA cites acting NASA Chief Historian Brian Odom, who said in the statement: “The historic voyages of the Apollo program were about bold exploration and incredible scientific discovery.” He added, “Apollo 14 included the widest range of scientific experiments to that point in the program, but in the case of Roosa’s ‘Moon Trees,’ it was what the astronauts took with them on their lunar journey that has left such an indelible mark on the landscape back on Earth.”

According to the statement, it was a joint effort between NASA and the U.S. Forest Service, with a two-fold purpose – as part of an experiment “to determine the effects of deep space on seeds,” and also to help raise awareness about the Forest Service and particularly the “wildland forest firefighters called smokejumpers,” who jumped out of airplanes to combat the blazes.

Where did the idea come from?

According to NASA, Ed Cliff, chief of the Forest Service, came up with the Moon Tree concept.

Cliff, who was aware that Roosa, in the 1950s – before becoming a military aviator and astronaut – had served as a smokejumper, contacted the astronaut to propose the idea, NASA said.

In charge of the project, was Stan Krugman, a geneticist at the Forest Service, who selected the seeds that flew on Apollo 14 into lunar orbit, NASA said.

There was a mishap.

During decontamination processes following the mission, the canister ruptured, mixing the seeds together, and compromising the experiment’s environment, according to NASA.

Although the seeds were feared to be dead, according to NASA, “they were sent to Forest Service offices in Gulfport, Mississippi, and Placerville, California, to see if any could be germinated and grown into saplings.” Some 450 saplings were grown.

Where did the saplings go?

NASA History noted that Moon Tree saplings were “gifted to schools, universities, parks, and government offices, many as part of the U.S. bicentennial celebrations in 1976,” with locations being chosen, in part, to ensure compatibility of climate conditions to the respective tree species.

NASA cited then-President Gerald Ford, who said in a telegram to U.S. Bicentennial Moon Tree planting ceremonies: “This tree which was carried by Astronauts Stuart Roosa, Alan Shepard, and Edgar Mitchell on their mission to the Moon, is a living symbol of our spectacular human and scientific achievements. It is a fitting tribute to our national space program which has brought out the best of American patriotism, dedication, and determination to succeed.”

After decades of growth, NASA noted, trees that traveled to the Moon, which were planted beside their Earth-grown counterparts, show no differences from those that never left Earth.

  • Read more: Fifty years ago, Alan Shepard blasted from an endless sand trap and we just now found his ball

Where were they planted?

According to NASA, a “Loblolly Pine was planted at the White House, and trees were planted in Brazil, Switzerland, and presented to the Emperor of Japan, among others. Trees have also been planted in Washington Square in Philadelphia, at Valley Forge, in the International Forest of Friendship, and at various universities and NASA centers.” A sycamore Moon Tree is growing at Koch Girl Scout Camp in Cannelton, Indiana as well as Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. A list of Moon Tree locations can be found here.

There is a second generation of trees.

NASA explained that “second-generation trees, grown from Moon Tree seeds, are sometimes known as Half-Moon Trees and are also growing around the world.”

One such Half-Moon Tree can be found at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama – standing outside a building that played a key role in development of the Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo 14 mission, NASA said.

NASA had this to say, ”All crops grown in space have Apollo 14 in their roots. Five decades after the mission that took seeds to the Moon, the trees that grew from the seeds stand as living, leafy testaments to humanity’s first voyages to the Moon, while the crops grown in space since enable the continuation of humanity’s exploration of the cosmos.”

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Entertainment

Did The Weeknd get paid for Super Bowl 2021 halftime show?

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He did have a lot of body doubles to support.

The Weeknd and his field full of bandaged-up doppelgängers gave a money performance at the 2021 Super Bowl halftime show. But did the 30-year-old “Blinding Lights” singer actually get any cash for the gig?

Reps for show sponsor Pepsi and The Weeknd both declined to say whether he raked in the big bucks for his widely viewed stadium performance.

But the likely answer is no.

Every Super Bowl halftime performer, from Beyoncé to Bruno Mars, has essentially worked for free. Despite selling out stadiums on world tours, most halftime A-listers are reportedly paid “union scale,” which is “a fraction of the six- and seven-figure sums” they rake in on the reg, according to Forbes.

It’s usually worth the underpaid labor for these stars, since they could get as many as 104 million sets of eyeballs on them, at no cost to them. It usually leads to a big spike in sales and streams.

Last year’s halftime performers, Jennifer Lopez and Shakira, collectively sold 21,000 song downloads — an increase of 893% from the previous day, according to Billboard.

But unlike performers of halftime shows past, The Weeknd, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, actually went into the red to make his appearance especially spectacular.

“Abel spent almost $7 million of his own money beyond the already-generous budgets to make this halftime show be what he envisioned,” a rep for the star told The Post.

In a press conference leading up to the big show, he even alluded to the financial constraints of going hard, saying he would have liked to pull off a dramatic stunt like Diana Ross did in 1996 — when she exited the stadium via helicopter — but “I don’t think I have enough money to do it.”

Nevertheless, the exposure can be priceless.

The Weeknd references the career milestone of his performance in a commercial leading up to the big gig. In the ad, he walks through a montage of past music videos playing on the wall as a reflective voiceover narrates the journey leading up to the Super Bowl field, where a cheering stadium awaits him.

“What we create changes us. Every performance, a new chapter; every stage, a new beginning,” a voiceover says.

But it may be a while before The Weeknd gets to see the see the fruit of his Super Bowl labor, money-wise. He announced last week that he would be pushing his world tour yet another year to 2022.

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World

Teen awakens from 10-month coma with no memory of COVID-19

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Joseph Flavill has no recollection of testing positive for the coronavirus last year — nor does he remember anything that happened during the past 11 months.

The 19-year-old Brit had been in a coma since March 1, 2020, after suffering a traumatic brain injury when the student was hit by a car while walking street-side in his hometown, Staffordshire Live first reported on Monday. It would be three weeks into late March before the UK entered its first nationwide lockdown of the pandemic.

“We also don’t know how much he understands as his accident was before the first lockdown, and it’s almost like he has slept through the whole pandemic,” said Sally Flavill Smith, Joseph’s aunt, in a statement.

Much of Flavill’s family have not been permitted to see him in person due to pandemic safety restrictions at Adderley Green, a rehabilitation center where he was transferred after waking up at Leicester General Hospital, where he’s been laid up since last year.

“How do you explain the pandemic to someone who has been in a coma?” asked Smith, whose nephew has also tested positive for COVID-19 twice — once while unconscious and again during rehab — and recovered.

“We try to keep it as simple as possible,” Smith also told the Guardian. “We don’t really have the time to go into the pandemic hugely — it just doesn’t feel real does it? When he can actually have the face-to-face contact, that will be the opportunity to actually try to explain to him what has happened.”

For now, the family visits with Flavill via video calls, though in December he was granted a brief visit home to celebrate his 19th birthday with his mom, Sharon Priestley — but wearing personal protection equipment and remaining at a safe social distance.

Though far from fully recovered, Flavill’s motor and cognitive functions are returning, slowly, said Smith. “We’ve still got a long journey ahead, but the steps he’s made in the last three weeks have been absolutely incredible.”

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Business

Tesla is in decline, SUVs are king, and more insights from the world’s largest electric-vehicle market

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Europe overtook China in 2020 to become the world’s largest market for electric vehicles, amid a pedal-to-the-metal push to increase EV adoption from governments and supercharged demand from consumers.

The registrations of new electric vehicles topped 1.33 million in the key European markets last year, compared with 1.25 million in China, according to a report based on public data by automotive analyst Matthias Schmidt.

The 18 markets include the European Union states — minus 13 countries in Central and Eastern Europe — as well as the U.K., Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland.

And growth will only continue, according to Schmidt, who publishes the European Electric Car Report. He projects that electric vehicles’ share of the European car market will rise from 12.4% in 2020 to 15.5% in 2021 — that is 1.91 million vehicles out of a total of 12.3 million, and an increase of 572,000 from 2020.

Key trends have emerged as Europe races to become the most important region for EVs, highlighted in the report that Schmidt shared with MarketWatch.

Among them are that the Renault Zoe is now the most popular electric vehicle in Europe, overtaking Tesla’s Model 3, which took the top spot in 2019. In fact, Tesla’s success in Europe has declined across the board over the last year, with the U.S. company delivering 97,791 cars across the continent in 2020, down from 109,467 in 2019.

Here’s what you should know:

SUVs are leading the growth

When you think of environmentally-friendly vehicles, sport-utility vehicles and crossovers probably don’t spring to mind. But this class is by far the most popular type of battery-electric vehicle in Europe, representing 27% of all registrations in 2020 and 29% in December alone.

Hyundai
005380,
+0.42%
and Kia
000270,
-1.22%
led the pack, making up 39% of battery-electric SUV and crossover volumes in 2020.

SUVs and crossovers are even more popular with hybrid buyers — accounting for 53% of plug-in hybrid electric-vehicle volumes last year.

Luxury buyers prefer hybrids

When it comes to hybrids, better is best. Premium brands made up 58% of all plug-in hybrid electric-vehicles in 2020.

Many of those cars were supplied by the German automotive giants: Volkswagen Group
VOW,
-0.40%,
which owns Audi and Porsche, Mercedes-Benz owner Daimler
DAI,
+0.46%,
and BMW
BMW,
-0.19%.

There is a coming wave from China

As Chinese car makers increase efforts to meet market demand at home and abroad, they are looking at Europe.

The volume of electric vehicles in Europe that were made by Chinese companies grew 1290% from 2019 to 2020, to 23,800 units. Much of that momentum came only recently — half of those cars arrived in the final three months of the year.

As Europeans scrambled to buy electric vehicles, the flow of cars from China also included Teslas. In December, 20% of all Tesla
TSLA,
+5.83%
models registered in Austria were manufactured in China.

Also read: Audi is betting on the luxury market in a new electric-vehicle venture with China’s oldest car maker

Government action is speeding up EV adoption

European car makers are being pushed to manufacture more electric vehicles by the threat of hundreds of millions of euros in fines from the European Union over binding emissions targets. 

Phased in through 2020, and continuing into 2021, the fleetwide average emission target for new cars must be 95 grams carbon dioxide per kilometer, which is around 4.1 liters of gasoline per 100 kilometers.

In the wake of the post-Brexit trading agreement, the U.K. government said that the country’s car makers face emissions targets “at least as ambitious” as in the EU.

EV adoption is being pushed on both sides of the market, with governments stimulating demand by providing generous incentives for buyers to trade in their gas guzzlers.

In Germany, buyers can save up to €9,000 ($10,940) on purchases of new electric vehicles. France offered incentives of up to €7,000 in 2020, but will trim that down to €6,000 in 2021. 

Regulation could hurt some bottom lines in the short-term

Volkswagen Group confirmed last week that it had not met the EU’s emissions targets for 2020, meaning that the company is on the hook for more than €100 million in fines.

Others could face the same fate, though rivals Daimler, BMW, Renault
RNO,
-0.58%,
and Peugeot (now part of Stellantis
STLA,
+1.05%
) all say they met their targets.

“Despite very ambitious efforts in electrification, it has not been possible to meet the set fleet target in full. But Volkswagen is clearly well on its way,” said Rebecca Harms, a member of the independent Volkswagen Sustainability Council.

“The key to success will be to give a greater role to smaller, efficient and affordable models in the electrification rollout.”

It is unclear how easy that will be in 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the fewest passenger-car registrations in Europe since 1985 and, according to Schmidt, this allowed a number of car makers to meet emissions targets.

Also read: Car makers put the pedal to the metal on electric vehicles in 2020, with sales surging in one key region where Tesla lost market share

Tesla is losing dominance

Tesla comfortably topped the European EV charts in 2019. It delivered more than 109,000 vehicles that year, making up 31% of the region’s battery electric-vehicle market. 

But the tide turned in 2020, with Tesla dropping behind both the brands of Volkswagen Group, which had 24% market share, and the Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance, with 19% market share. Last year, Tesla delivered nearly 98,000 vehicles and made up just 13% of the European market.

According to Schmidt, it was the introduction of emissions targets, and the specter of massive fines, that has accelerated European car makers’ battle against Tesla for dominance.

See also: Electric-car sales jump to record 54% market share in Norway in 2020 but Tesla loses top spot

“With 2021 getting even tougher — thanks to the phase-in year ending — Tesla will come under even more intense competition,” Schmidt said. “Come 2025 when the targets increase again, Tesla will certainly be playing against fully-fit opponents and will potentially struggle.”

However, Schmidt does note in his market outlook for 2021 that the opening of Tesla’s factory in Germany, expected to start production in the second half, is likely to double regional volumes next year.



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Entertainment

Pranksters change Hollywood sign to ‘Hollyboob’

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Breast prank ever?

Several people were arrested Monday for changing the Hollywood sign to “Hollyboob.”

The “W” and “D” of the Los Angeles landmark appeared to have been covered with “Bs” earlier in the day, according to photos and videos on social media.

Park rangers quickly restored the sign and at least six people were detained and facing trespassing charges, Deadline reported.

The prank appeared to have been part of an effort to raise awareness for breast cancer, the report said.

The 98-year-old sign has gotten facelifts in the past.

In 2017, pranksters also managed to get past the landmark’s gates and sensors to alter it to read “Hollyweed.”



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Entertainment

He Thought He Was Living in ‘The Matrix’ and Killed His Parents

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Simulation theory posits that reality might not actually be real, but instead might be an illusion about which we are unaware, and from which we can possibly awaken, and it’s an idea that’s been investigated by everyone from Plato (with “The Cave”) and Descartes (with Meditations on First Philosophy) to, more recently, Philip K. Dick and The Matrix. It’s a fantasy of both escape and enslavement, liberation and manipulation, and one that taps into our own experiences moving between conscious and unconscious states, as well as losing ourselves in the fictional world of cinema. As such, it’s just about the ideal topic for documentarian Rodney Ascher, who on the heels of Room 237 (about The Shining as multifaceted puzzle-box) and The Nightmare (about sleep paralysis) once more ventures into unreal terrain with A Glitch in the Matrix, a compellingly out-there look at the possibility that we’re all avatars in a game we can’t comprehend.

Dick’s 1977 speech in Metz, France, titled, “If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others,” forms the backbone of A Glitch in the Matrix (premiering in the Midnight Section of the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 31, followed by a VOD debut on Feb. 4). In it, the famed author of A Scanner Darkly, The Man in the High Castle, Minority Report, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (the basis for Blade Runner), and We Can Remember It For You Wholesale (the basis for Total Recall) confesses that a 1974 dose of Sodium Pentothal for impacted wisdom teeth allowed him to have an “acute flash” of a “recovered memory” about a world, and life, that was not his own. Dick wrote extensively about this experience (known as “2-3-74”) in the posthumously released The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, and it also informed his fictional output, much of which grappled with the unreliable and volatile nature of reality while imagining future societies in prophetic and poignant fashion.

Dick was the modern godfather of simulation theory, and A Glitch in the Matrix spends considerable time with people who’ve taken his seminal writing—as well as Lana and Lilly Wachowski’s The Matrix, itself intensely indebted to Dick—to heart. In Skype interviews with Ascher, these individuals appear disguised as outlandish digital avatars, including a red-faced armored lion, a Mechagodzilla-ish dragon in a tuxedo, a vaping alien in a puffy space suit, and a helmeted warrior with digital eyes and mouth. Their appearances speak to their own belief in dueling realities (and identities), which is also born from Elon Musk’s publicly stated conviction that we might be living in an artificial simulation run by advanced beings, as well as a 2003 academic paper by Oxford University professor Nick Bostrom (“Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?”) that advanced the hypothesis that we could be pawns in a hyper-advanced program that’s either recreating a past that’s already taken place (called an “ancestor simulation”), or a wholly new alternate timeline.

The notions forwarded by these speakers hinge on everything from anecdotal stories about their own breaks with reality, to arguments about coincidence, probability, and synchronicities, to outrageous—and highly specific—speculation about the details of our simulation. Suffice it to say, not all of it is convincing. It is, however, entertainingly insightful about mankind’s continual desire to explain grand mysteries through spiritual-by-way-of-scientific concepts about foreign realms, puppetmaster-ish higher powers, and technological exploitation.

To his credit, one interviewee (Paul Gude AKA the “lion”) concedes that maybe simulation theory is merely the easiest means by which his brain chooses to cope with the complexity of human existence. And in an earlier scene, he admits that his VR-based theory may be the byproduct of the fact that people always try to explain reality through the most advanced technology available at the moment. Boasting movie clips from, among others, The Wizard of Oz, The Truman Show, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Vertigo, The Thirteenth Floor, The Adjustment Bureau, They Live, Defending Your Life and, of course, The Matrix, A Glitch in the Matrix suggests that the movies are a prime vehicle for both creating and channeling these ideas, which are often rooted in feelings of loneliness, alienation and despair, and thus can result in particularly scary consequences.

“As Cooke’s story makes clear, the danger of simulation theory is that, if nothing and no one is authentic, than ethical concerns about society, and your fellow man, are hopelessly undermined, leading to potential chaos.”

That’s most harrowingly conveyed by an extended sequence in which Joshua Cooke explains (via audio interview, complemented by CGI recreations) how his infatuation with The Matrix, coupled with his abusive domestic life and undiagnosed mental illness, drove him to murder his adoptive parents in an attempt to discern whether he was, in fact, living inside the Matrix (his conclusion: “It messed me up really bad, because it wasn’t anything like I had seen on The Matrix. How real life was so much more horrific. It kinda jarred me”).

Cooke was 19 when he killed his adoptive parents with a 12-gauge shotgun in Virginia, and subsequently pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 40 years in jail. It became known as “The Matrix Case,” and as Cooke’s story makes clear, the danger of simulation theory is that, if nothing and no one is authentic, than ethical concerns about society, and your fellow man, are hopelessly undermined, leading to potential chaos. Unsurprisingly, the links between video games and simulation theory are numerous—Jesse Orion (i.e. the alien astronaut) says he spent years doing little more than playing games—and A Glitch in the Matrix taps into that connection by employing all sorts of computer-animated graphics (including from Google Earth and Minecraft) to visualize the suppositions of its subjects. Illuminating and amusing, the film’s playful digital form reflects and reveals truths about its content.

Set to Jonathan Snipes’ menacing electronic score, and also addressing the way in which déjà vu and the “Mandela Effect” relate to its central topic, A Glitch in the Matrix continues Ascher’s non-fiction study of communal tall tales, scientific hypotheses, and art analysis. Offering up a chorus of voices that seek to decipher the riddles of the universe and the atom through fanciful outlooks on the mind, body, and reality itself, his film is an eye-opening and shrewdly critical inquiry into our evolving perceptions of who we are, our deeply personal connection to big-screen dreams, and our persistent quest for knowledge about the things we don’t (yet) understand. It’s a treatise on religious and scientific yearning, and on human impulses and aspirations, that doubles as a portrait of crackpot conspiracy theories and mass delusion.

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World

Garbage man’s caught-on-video snowman attack gets him fired

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A garbageman in England has been fired after getting caught on camera going kung fu on a family’s sidewalk snowman.

Footage shows the orange-uniformed trash worker delivering a half-dozen kicks — including some Bruce Lee-worthy roundhouses — to the 6-foot snowman, decapitating the construction and ultimately reducing it to half its former stature.

The snowman had been built by neighborhood kids in Hereford — a cathedral town near the Welsh border — after a recent blizzard, homeowner Sophie Taylor, 25, told the Herefordtimes.com.

Taylor said her 3-year-old son, Joseph, always waves to the trash haulers each week through the window.

And then “he goes and does that in front of his face,” she complained of the worker, who was fired by his company.

Joseph saw the destruction through the window and was reduced to tears, the mother told the Mirror.

“On Tuesday he came running to me in tears sobbing, ‘The binman has broken my snowman’ and he started doing a kicking motion.”

Meanwhile, the so-called binman has told the Mirror that he’ll build the kid another snowman, if the family wants, but that he is “not sorry.”

“I don’t think I have to say I’m sorry. His family knew it was not going to be there forever,” Callum Woodhouse, 19, told the outlet.

Besides, the snowman had it coming, Woodhouse said, claiming it “was obstructing my path.”

“I decided to kick it because I didn’t think it was going to hurt anyone’s feelings. I don’t think that snowmen have feelings,” cracked Woodhouse, who told the Mirror he is an expectant father.

“It was going to melt and snow again. I didn’t think it would make such an impact on a 3-year-old kid.”

Video of the unprovoked snowman assault has gone viral in the UK, spurring intense arguments online over whether the “refuse operative” should have been “sacked” for destroying the snowman “whilst on duty.”

“This obviously has shown his character,” complained @BarbsK5. “Would you employ him?”

“Yes all day long,” responded @BaldEagle877. “He kicked water.”

“Seriously Dumb, but that[‘s] bloody harsh losing his job, especially in these times,” countered @pvarrasso.

“It is a snowman,” noted @petersimpson2. “Get over it.”



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