The world's thinnest glass is just two atoms thick. You can't use it for shit.

How do you warn people that the flooding situation is really dangerous around Boulder, Colorado? A forecaster for the National Weather Service used some good old Bible terror in this morning's Denver/Boulder update. Is this modern-day Noah collecting raccoons and deer and stray pit bulls, right now?

The "BIBLICAL RAINFALL" alert is followed by another 10 paragraphs of ALL CAPS GLOOM:

• A DIRE SITUATION WHICH WILL NOT IMPROVE DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.
• IT WOULDN'T TAKE MUCH TO CAUSE FLOODING AGAIN.
• THINGS ARE NOT LOOKING GOOD.

These storms follow a summer of catastrophic wildfires that reduced hundreds of square miles of forest to blackened wasteland. When the rain hits, there's nothing to keep it in the ground, causing deadly flash floods that send charred logs and giant rocks racing downhill to destroy anything in their path.

"Biblical" is a pretty good description, and one that will be easily understood by followers of the region's weather gods.

[Photo by Associated Press.]

Six seconds is the perfect amount of time for a bait and switch.

Fine Vining is a feature in which we present our favorite vines.

Five drunk men stunned town officials by putting their liquid strength to good use and fixing a bike rack that had gone unrepaired for weeks.

The sauced Good Samaritans decided to do a random bit of beautification while standing around the Market Place in Boston, Lincolnshire at 3 AM.

"Young people often get a bad press and this shows there are some who want to contribute to their society and do the right thing," said Boston Borough Council member Stephen Woodliffe, who called the CCTV footage "remarkable."

"It shows young people acting in a very positive and constructive manner and shows they have a good and responsible attitude to what's happening in their town," he continued. "Their actions were very public spirited and impressive."

According to Woodliffe, the bike rack was damaged in a car accident and was slated to be repaired, but the council had yet to get around to it before the drunk do-gooders stepped up and fixed it themselves.

[video via BBC News]

We all have questions. Why are we here? What is this? Where am I? What's that, over there? These questions aren't "weird." They're a normal part of the search for truth. Come—sit. Here—now. Have you heard of zen? We have a story for you.

The koan: "The True Path"

Just before Ninakawa passed away the Zen master Ikkyu visited him. "Shall I lead you on?" Ikkyu asked.

Ninakawa replied: "I came here alone and I go alone. What help could you be to me?"

Ikkyu answered: "If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion. Let me show you the path on which there is no coming and no going."

With his words, Ikkyu had revealed the path so clearly that Ninakawa smilled and passed away.

The enlightenment: "Did he just ask me out?" wondered Ninakawa, before dying of embarrassment.

This has been "Zen Koans Explained." Figure Four leg locks.

[Photo: Shutterstock]

For the first time in 12 years New Yorkers are electing a mayor who is not Michael Bloomberg, leading to all sorts of reminiscing about how he's changed the city. These photos offer a twist: grisly historical crimes, juxtaposed against Bloomberg's sanitized modern-day New York City.

Photographer and historian of the New York Press Photographers Association Marc Hermann dove into the New York Daily News archive to find historic crime scenes, and mashed them up with photographs of the same locations today. The resulting images provide a haunting window into the tragic events of the past, like a Noir film playing out in real time on an empty city block.

What's perhaps most striking about these images is how much New York hasn't changed. For the most part many of the buildings are still intact, and it's delightful to see the subtle evolution of details like streetsigns. Plus there's something about seeing the black-and-white crime scenes in contemporary settings, which desensitizes the violence somewhat by removing it from its context.

Documenting crime is a critical part of a city's history, but Hermann hears plenty of reactions from readers who object to seeing these scenes so graphically portrayed. "People seem to have righteous indignation in the comments section of news stories when we show tragic scenes as they occur today," he says. He produced these images, in part, to illustrate the timelessness of human suffering. "I often remind people that a victim in 1943 is the same as a victim in 2013, and today's photographers are making an important record of history that will, with the passage of time, be regarded as 'classic.'" [New York Daily News via Fast Co.Exist]

Gangster Salvatore Santoro lies dead in a Brooklyn vestibule on January 31, 1957.

Another gangster, Frankie Yale, killed by a drive-by in Brooklyn in 1928.

A stolen car smashed into the streetlight at Classon Avenue and Pacific Street in Brooklyn, 1957.

A tragic photo from 1959 after three-year-old Martha Cartagena was killed while riding her tricycle in Brooklyn.

In 1960, United Airlines Flight 826 and Trans World Airlines Flight 266 collided over Park Slope in Brooklyn, killing 130 people.

In 1958 there was a fatal fire at the Elkins Paper & Twine Co. on Wooster Street in SoHo. The building burned to the ground.

A gas explosion shattered this Court Street facade in Brooklyn on January 31, 1961.

1961 must have been a really bad year. Here is James Linares with his girlfriend Josephine Dexidor after being shot by her husband in a Bronx stairwell.

Top image: On March 19, 1942 Edna Egbert fought with police after she climbed on her Dean Street ledge in Brooklyn.

Ms. Carmen Dell'Orefice, the great-grandmother of models, elegantly judging and assessing Ralph Rucci's NYFW runway show.

Welcome to Thatz Not Okay, a regular column in which I school inquiring readers on what is and is not okay. Please send your questions (max: 200 words) to caity@gawker.com with the subject "Thatz Not Okay."

I’m in my 20s so I live on the cheap. Usually that means cooking at home more often or shopping at Aldi. But sometimes my frugality leads me to owning sheets stained with 4 girls’ period blood. I’m not talking straight-out-of-Dexter blood stains – just a couple spots here and there. Girls have asked about the spots and I just tell them I get nighttime nosebleeds. I wash my sheets every couple weeks so the stains are purely cosmetic. I can’t afford to go out and buy new sheets every time a little monthly red wine gets on them; high thread counts are expensive. I sometimes worry about treading in psychopath territory, but I refuse to buy new sheets. Is that okay?

Thatz not okay.

There’s a difference between living “on the cheap” and living “in abject squalor.” When you explain to your guests “This place is infested with mice because mousetraps are expensive,” they don’t think, “What a frugal young man!” They think: “Okay, the last person I texted was Allie about 30 minutes ago. She probably won't think it’s weird if I don’t text her again tonight, but Kristen will be concerned if I'm not home tomorrow by lunch. You have to wait 24 hours to file a missing person’s report...What do I have in my pocketbook that can be used as a weapon? Maybe a pen, definitely an eyeliner pencil. My keys!”

It’s time to buy some new sheets.

Given that what you have to offer the ladies is a dish of rotting Aldi vegetables and a romp in your menses-covered bed, it’s no surprise that you have a flair for making girls’ panties wet. Unfortunately, they are wet because they are filling with blood. What an odd gift you have.

How is it possible that four (4) separate girls have bled on your bed if you are not a murderer? I don’t think I’ve done it once, and I’ve had a whole ellipses of periods. A woman’s menstruation is not like an Eli Roth film, with blood gushing out of her, spraying everything in sight. You can usually tell when it's occurring and it generally starts out pretty low-key. Whatever is happening in your bed, it deviates grossly from the norm.

Maybe consider sticking with one girl for a few weeks before motoring on to the next one? Under the current system, you seem to be catching everyone at the end of their cycles. Move your wooing schedule up or back one week.

Your weird “nosebleeds” lie is flawed for a number of reasons.

1. No one is going to feel more comfortable sleeping next to you because you tell them there’s a chance your face might just start bleeding in the middle of the night.
2. Do you usually sleep with your nose dead in the middle of the bed?
3. Women who ask you to ask you about the dried blood stains in the middle of your bed aren’t asking you to explain the stains. They know what the stains are from. They’re asking you to answer to them. The unspoken word in their query is “doing,” as in: “What are these dried blood stains [DOING] on your sheets?”

You know who would love to buy you a nice new set of sheets besides me, right now? Your mother. New sheets can be a Christmas present. They can be a birthday present. They can be a “MOM, HELP, MY SHEETS ARE COVERED IN BLOOD” present. Until your high threadcount new sheets arrive, spring for a cheap set at TJ Maxx. Throw the other ones away, or hang them out your window to celebrate your happy marriage.

After you have your new sheets in place, be sure to treat the (apparently inevitable?) incoming blood stains ASAP after noticing them so that they don’t have time to “set.” Martha Stewart, who undoubtedly knows a thing or two about cleaning up blood, advises using cold water + an enzyme cleaner. Don’t toss your sheets in the dryer to bake the stains in before you have adequately treated them.

Also — “a little monthly red wine”? No one says that. I did a web search for “monthly red wine” and all I found were subscription services from wine merchants. Even when I put "PERIOD" after it. The fact that you refer to menses as “monthly red wine”—and the fact that, according to you, women are forever spilling great big glasses of red wine all over your sheets—makes me think that perhaps the midnight bleeds excuse is real and the sex with women part is a lie. If so, there’s no need to feel embarrassed about your lack of experience. One day you will meet a woman whom you like very much, and she will consent to have sex with you, and she will not transform your bed into a vivid Jackson Pollock canvas every time she has her period.

But you will not woo her with sheets covered in your old nosebleed stains.

My girlfriend, age 25, has recently begun to refer to female, well, anything, as "girlfriend." Cats, infants, whatever. I know. I know. Just, bear with me.

We're now engaged. I have politely mentioned to her that this is kind of crazy. She is unrepentant, as is her right. I think her coworkers, all in their 40s, are to blame.

It's only once a month so far, but if she ever does this in public, I might have to flee in terror. Running, with my feet, far far far away. Is that okay?

Thatz not okay.

Calling things “girlfriend” even if those things are not “girlfriends” in the traditional sense of the word is a common practice in your relationship, because if you are engaged to this woman, she is not your “girlfriend”; she is your fiancée. And what your fiancée is doing sounds hilarious!

I love the idea of this young lady saying to a cat “I gotta run, girlfriend, but I will talk to you later!” It warms my heart to picture her confronting a baby for “acting really shady, girlfriend.” I wish she would start to call MORE things “girlfriend.” I hope she expands it to inanimate objects. Like, if she bumps into a chair at a restaurant, I hope she leans down to give it hug and squeals, “Oops, sorry girlfriend!” I hope she mumbles to herself “I’ll just take a couple of these girlfriends…” as she stuffs spare ketchup packets into her purse at McDonald’s. I hope the last thing she does before she falls asleep is whisper “Goodnight, girlfriend” to the darkened room. I just want her to own it, girlfriend!

Also, she’s only doing it once a month?

First of all, that is nothing. Let’s assume that the average woman says 16,000 words a day. September is a 30 day month so, by your calculations 1 out of the 480,000 of the words she says this month will be “Girlfriend!” directed at something that is not her girlfriend. Is that a big deal to you? Is that a sin for which she must repent or be damned?

Secondly, WHY ARE YOU KEEPING SUCH PRECISE RECORDS OF YOUR FIANCÉE’S SPEECH PATTERNS? Are you building a linguistic corpus for later statistical analysis? THAT IS CRAZY.

And if she’s not doing it in public, I’ve got news for you, girlfriend: she is teasing you by saying this because she knows it drives you nuts. Your 24-year-old fiancée is not battling Early Onset “Girlfriend” passed on to her from 40-year-olds she knows (by the way, in 16 years, she will be 40, so you better get over your idea that 40-year-olds are a bad thing); she’s just niggling you in private. So there are two ways to look at your issue.

One is that if your hatred of this verbal tick is so great that it consumes your thoughts, you might look into marrying someone who doesn’t drive you to madness just by being herself.

The other is that, if her occasional use of the honorific “girlfriend” to address something that is NOT EVEN A GIRL WHO IS HER FRIEND is the biggest fault you can find with her (and it sounds like you are looking!), she is a great match for you, and you should marry her, girlfriend.

Submit your "Thatz Not Okay" questions here (max: 200 words). Photo via Picsfive/Shutterstock; stains by Jim Cooke.

In the not too distant future you'll be able to buy a share of TWTR—the company has confidentially filed for a secret IPO in the hopes of dodging the Facebook's IPO expectation disaster. Start getting your pension ready, bubble fans!

We’ve confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO. This Tweet does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale.

— Twitter (@twitter) September 12, 2013

Good luck avoiding the hype train. Could this have something to do with Twitter's recent favor for JP Morgan Chase?

In case you're wondering what a "secret IPO" is, because really, what the hell is a secret IPO, QZ has a terrific explanation here—but basically, this is Twitter's way of putting off revealing its financial cards for as long as legally possible. Still, to be eligible for a secret IPO, Twitter has to have under $1 billion in annual revenue—compared to Facebook's nearly $2 billion.

Photo: Hulton Archive

Elizabeth O’Bagy is a frequently-cited “expert” on Syria, a popular talking head on cable news, and recently wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal that Senator John McCain and State Secretary John Kerry both cited as evidence for bombing Syria. (She was later outed as an employee of a pro-Syrian-rebel group.) You can watch her arguing with Fareed Zakaria on CNN in the video above. The only problem: she faked her credentials at Georgetown, where she claims to have earned a PhD. Zack Beauchamp at ThinkProgress tracks how O’Bagy claimed she was a “doctor” even though anyone could have easily proven otherwise:

She is not listed as a PhD student on the Government department’s website. She does not exist in the university directory. ... There is “no evidence that she is associated with our department in any way; she’s not among our students as far as we can tell,” [said] Daniel Nexon, a Government Professor who served as the Director of Admissions and Fellowships for all but one of the years she could have applied.

O’Bagy, who completed bachelor’s and a master’s degrees at Georgetown, appears to have been enrolled in a combined MA/PhD program, but left before successfully defending her dissertation. Her employer, the Institute for the Study of War, fired her yesterday for misrepresenting her credentials.

It’s not clear if O’Bagy actually ever wrote a dissertation (and simply failed to adequately defend it). A degree verification certificate obtained by Gawker from the National Student Clearinghouse indicates that O’Bagy enrolled in Georgetown’s Arab Studies graduate program in August 2011 and graduated two years later with a master’s degree. Doctoral dissertations usually take several more years to research, write, and defend.

Still, up until her firing on Wednesday, O’Bagy continued to defend her research (and honesty):

I'm not trying to trick America here. I'm just trying to show a different side to the conflict that few people have the chance to see.

— Elizabeth O'Bagy (@lizobagy) September 7, 2013

[ThinkProgress]

io9 The Long List of Successful Action Movies Starring Women | Jalopnik This Is The Best Takedown Of The 'Speed Kills' Myth You'll Ever See | Jezebel Creepy Catholic Website Explains Why Women Shouldn't Go to College | Gizmodo A Brief History of Animals and Rocket Launches Not Getting Along

A black Jacksonville, Florida man is suing the local police department after he was reportedly punched in the face, Tasered, and arrested — all for "walking on the wrong side of the road."

Bobby Wingate was walking to an appointment along Oliver Street in the neighborhood of Arlington when a JSO Police Officer pulled up and asked him to stop.

Wingate explained that he was running late, prompting the officer to cite him for "walking on the wrong side of the road."

Court papers show that the officer then punched Wingate in the face and "engaged his Taser."

Fearing for his safety, Wingate phoned 911 for help, and explained his situation to the dispatcher.

"The conduct that is outlined in the transcript and the 9-1-1 call is not only breathtaking, it's outrageous, it's disgraceful," Wingate's lawyer, Andrew Bonderud, told First Coast News.

Bonderud believes Wingate was a victim of racial discrimination, and his claim is buttressed by the fact that, during Wingate's trial, the officer said he "wasn't sure what side of the road Wingate was on."

The judge subsequently ruled that the evidence didn't support the case against Wingate and dropped all charges.

The police did not launch an internal investigation into the officer's conduct and he remains on the job.

In addition to money, Wingate is also seeking an apology from the department.

However, he insists that his beef isn't with the officer who arrested him. "If I ever see him again, and he needs my help for something, I'll help him," Wingate said.

[screengrab via FCN]

Here, a local politico in Florida rants about how much the media sucks for 45 seconds, until the lone reporter in attendance blows up and storms out in a huff. This is exactly what would happen if my mom was a journalist. [via Romenesko]

It's being called "the most beautiful, haunting infomercial you'll ever see."

And with Oscar-ready animation from the acclaimed visual effects wizards at MOONBOT Studios set over a score of Fiona Apple covering "Pure Imagination" from the 1971 cult children's film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, is it any wonder that Chipotle's "stealth" promo for a free iOS game is already on a fast-track to become one of this year's most successful marketing campaigns — all without barely mentioning the word "Chipotle."

Add to that a powerful anti-factory-farming message, and all other ads should just give up:

In a dystopian fantasy world, all food production is controlled by fictional industrial giant Crow Foods. Scarecrows have been displaced from their traditional role of protecting food, and are now servants to the crows and their evil plans to dominate the food system. Dreaming of something better, a lone scarecrow sets out to provide an alternative to the unsustainable processed food from the factory.

Already America's favorite "Mexican restaurant chain," Chipotle has shied away from running ads on TV, believing its target audience — Millennials — "are skeptical of brands that perpetuate themselves."

Since parting ways with its former majority owner McDonald's, Chipotle has tried even harder to live up to its mission statement of "food with integrity."

Back in July, for example, the company announced plans to become the first US restaurant chain to strip its menu items of all genetically engineered ingredients.

Chipotle has high hopes that The Scarecrow will officially cement its status as a fast food chain with a brain.

[H/T: The Week]

Two out of every three "catastrophic injuries" of female athletes are caused by cheerleading.

Are you aware that the UN has declared 2013 to be "The Year of Quinoa?" How are you participating in the global quinoa uprising?

Do you cook it in a pot? Do you eat it while it's hot? Do you use it instead of pasta? Do you share it with some Rastas? Do you eat it in a salad? Do you compose a ballad— to quinoa, that most nutritious of grains?

Do you know that it's highly touted? Have you read this Bloomberg story about it?

Thousands of miles from celebrities and chefs who tout the health benefits of quinoa — a seed packed with protein and fiber — sales are lifting the fortunes of Andean farmers who’ve grown it for centuries mostly for subsistence. Governments of Peru and Bolivia, which still dominate the $123 million export market, are hoping the trend can last as prices that have doubled to about $3,000 a metric ton since 2007 attract better capitalized competitors.

Quinoa boost the economy, quinoa improves your physiology. Quinoa helps the Andean farmers, quinoa's a good thing to serve to your mama. Quinoa, why not make it a staple? Quinoa, have you tried it with maple? (Gross.)

Quinoa Haiku

Girlfriend hands you bowl.

"What's this?" you ask. "It's quinoa."

Not bad. Tastes okay.

Global agricultural diversity, huzzah!

[Bloomberg. Photo: Flickr]

pic.twitter.com/k0ktjrkzEj

— Irina Rodnina (@IRodnina) September 13, 2013

Get it? Monkeys. This is what passes for high comedy for Irina Rodnina, a member of Russia's Public Chamber and a highly decorated former Olympic figure skater. Rodnina followed up this tweet with one shouting, "Freedom of speech is freedom!" In Mother Russia, freedom to liken black people to apes has you!

What is it with figure skaters?

Long after the floods or the fires have reduced our cities to rubble, long after the plague or the asteroid strike or the famine has killed off the human species, long after even our sun has boiled the seas dry and, in its own death throes, engulfed and annihilated every dust mote of this world we like to think of as our safe and stable home, a three-quarter-ton assemblage of metal will be sailing through empty interstellar space—on its way to nowhere, effectively from nowhere. A year ago, Voyager 1 crossed out of our solar system. It took us till now, painstakingly deciphering its available signals, to figure out that it had done so. Voyager 1 will continue communicating with us until perhaps 2025, when it is expected to run out of power and fly on in silence, all on its own, while you and everyone you know die and are forgotten. It will be carrying an analog audio disc containing, among other recordings, "Dark Was the Night" by Blind Willie Johnson.

[Image by Jim Cooke]

"Jonathan Franzen: what's wrong with the modern world" is in many ways the perfect headline for this column.

It’s been quite a summer for massive installation art in New York. Paul McCarthy’s epically filthy WS closed a few weeks ago, but if you’re quick you can still catch Thomas Hirschhorn’s Gramsci Monument, the fourth and final in a series of tributes to great thinkers. Take the 2 or 5 trains beyond the familiar confines of Manhattan’s white wall gallery zone, and in the middle of the Forest Houses, just off Prospect Avenue in the Bronx, you’ll find an inspiring, expansive interactive tribute to Antonio Gramsci, the Italian philosopher and Marxist, one of the most brilliant minds of the 20^th century.

Gramsci was imprisoned by Mussolini’s Fascist government and spent eight years in prison. While in prison he filled a series of notebooks with hundreds of pages of essays, quotes, and observations on every possible subject from the history of Italian literature to the organization of American car factories. Known as The Prison Notebooks, these writings serve as the main source of inspiration for the Gramsci Monument.

Among Gramsci’s best-known ideas is his belief in the revolutionary potential of what he called “organic intellectuals,” those who emerge within or alongside distinct social groups to articulate the relationship between their own investments and those of society as a whole. The difference between traditional and organic intellectuals isn’t just their social background, it’s also the ways they communicate their vision of the world. Every creative act describes a distinct reality, and every attempt to see the world differently is a genuine, organic intellectual activity. “Every human being is an intellectual,” Gramsci wrote. Complete with lectures and performances, an art workshop, a radio station, and a daily newspaper, Hirschhorn’s installation is a living, breathing effort to facilitate the kind intellectual and artistic activity Gramsci believed could help change the world.

[Images by Sand Avidar]