Temple City resident Dorian S. Nakamoto—identified by Newsweek as the long-unknown inventor of Bitcoin—told the Associated Press that “he had never heard of Bitcoin until his son told him he had been contacted by a reporter three weeks ago.”

Lil' Boosie, a 31-year-old hip hop prodigy from Baton Rouge, La., is the Patron Saint of Rapper Incarcerations. But as of yesterday evening, following a five-year fanbase campaign to win his release from the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, Lil' Boosie is a free man.

Torence Hatch, aka Lil' Boosie, aka Boosie-Boo, was informed of his release just an hour before the Department of Corrections arranged his transportation to a West Feliciana Parish Sheriff's Office, where he was greeted by family and friends.

Jumping the gun by a month, veteran "Big Pimpin'" rapper Bun B had already trumpeted Boosie's imminent emancipation with a tweet.

Boosie Bad Ass gets home on February 13. Confirmed. Get ready.

— Bun B (@BunBTrillOG) January 31, 2014

After pleading guilty to a minor marijuana possession count in 2009, which lead to his initial detention, Lil' Boosie was charged with contracting the murder of Terry Boyd, 35, at his Baton Rouge home that same year. Boosie was acquitted in May 2012, however, after the alleged hitman, Michael Louding, recanted his initial confession in sworn testimony.

While still serving time for violation of his probation, Boosie defied most of the Louisiana prison's inmate regulations, instead dedicating his stint to keeping shit 100 percent gangster. In 2011, correctional staff caught him smuggling codeine, weed, ecstasy, and other illicit narcotics into the Louisiana State Penitentiary as well as Dixon Correctional Institute. Boosie pleaded guilty to these charges, and so the court extended his prison term to eight years.

Lil' Boosie is "an internet thing."

Throughout his prison term, Boosie's online riffraff have launched countless ALL CAPS #hashtags and floundering change.org petitions in his honor. Southern rap fans, most of all, were distressed to see the Obama administration so eager to address the trivial jetsetting antics of Canadian pop milquetoast Justin Bieber, all while Lil' Boosie languished in a swamp yard, or maybe even solitary confinement.

Boosie's completion of several "self-help" and rehabilitation programs, however, made him eligible for immediate release this week.

Thankfully the Louisiana court system has now unleashed Lil' Boosie unto prolific hip hop stardom. Maybe. In the back seat of the prison van that paraded Boosie back home, the liberated emcee recorded a freestyle on his outdated smartphone. His verse is ... jazzy.

Obama's America. A man can't even walk his Boston Terrier through Prospect Park without tripping over a severed goat head. And then a few afternoons later, a young mother strolls with her two-year-old son through a neighboring park, only to shriek and stumble upon two ceremoniously decapitated rooster skulls, sacrificed on a clay plate.

Yes, there are photos.

Several years ago, Gawker identified a spree of similar kid (baaaa) beheadings in Florida, where you'd expect this sort of thing, really. At the time, we speculated gruesome pagan ritual as the motive because Florida. And here we go again, last year in Miami. Funny enough, following our Florida post about the seven headless goats from 2008, one commenter linked the phenomenon to Central Brooklyn, as well:

These sorts of things still go down in Prospect Park from time to time. The spot is close to the base of what we locals know as 3 Devils Hill, which is at the western end of the Upper Service Road just past the nethermead.

This commenter is currently a person-of-interest in Gawker's investigation, which is ongoing.

On the other hand, Gothamist spoke to a voodoo priest who dismissed the occultism explanation, stressing that "when we normally dispose of an animal, it shouldn't be found by others like that, especially in a park with kids or families." In any case, this shit is gross. And illegal. And a waste of tender protein for Caribbean curries.

As for the current mystery of dead snow-capped goats in Brooklyn, pedestrians have reported such mammal cadaver sightings in Prospect Park as early as last December. Per current warning from city officials:

When reached for comment the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation reminded people to alert the city after finding decapitated rooster or goat heads.

"It is illegal to kill or harm animals in parks. If you see this activity in Parks, please call 911," said the Parks Department in a statement. "To report conditions in parks, including the findings of animal remains, please call 311."

If you're the culprit, however, please email tips@gawker.com.

[Dorian S. Nakamoto, the rumored creator of Bitcoin, denied any involvement in the virtual currency's development or market trading when questioned by the Associated Press. Image via AP]

Newsweek isn’t backing down. Hours after publishing Leah McGrath Goodman’s 4,5oo-word profile of a 65-year-old Temple City engineer named Dorian S. Nakamoto—who, Goodman claims, is the long-mysterious inventor of Bitcoin—the magazine faced a cascade of evidence contradicting the ambitious cover story of its freshly revived print edition. Nevertheless, its editor-in-chief tells Gawker that the publication stands by the story.

In a post-car-chase interview with the Associated Press, Nakamoto denied knowing anything about Bitcoin, the digital currency, until Goodman contacted his son 3 weeks ago, and clarified that Goodman misunderstood him in a brief interview outside his home in suburban Los Angeles. (Nakamoto is not a native speaker of English.) “It sounded like I was involved before with Bitcoin and looked like I’m not involved now,” he told the AP. “That’s not what I meant.” Instead, he meant to say that he no longer worked on engineering projects with the U.S. government.

Goodman, in a statement to the AP, disagreed: “There was no confusion whatsoever about the context of our conversation—and his acknowledgment of his involvement in Bitcoin.” At the same time, she has yet to supply evidence supporting her stance, such as an audio recording of the exchange. (Goodman also stopped answering questions about her story on Twitter several hours ago.)

Other contradictory evidence is, like some of the Newsweek story, circumstantial. On Thursday evening, someone with access to a P2P Foundation account owned by Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto wrote, “I am not Dorian Nakamoto.” (The account had not been active since 2011.) And an email written by a “Dorian Nakamoto” of Temple City to an employee of the Los Angeles Metro Rail indicates a much weaker grasp of English grammar and spelling than emails sent by Satoshi Nakamoto around the same time period.

Asked if Newsweek still stood by Goodman’s account, editor-in-chief Jim Impoco wrote back: “Yes. Standing by our story. Yes.”

To contact the author of this post, email trotter@gawker.com

[Photo credit: Newsweek]

Formerly bitter, embattled Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington is scheduled to reprise his role on the hit ABC television series in May, for at least one episode of the show's tenth season.

Washington was fired from the series in 2007 following a brawl with his fellow cast members, in which he strangled Patrick Dempsey and called co-star T.R. Knight a "faggot."

Over the past couple years, several outlets (including Gawker) have chronicled Washington's Hollywood rehabilitation, as he's recently landed a few lead roles in small film projects, and a principal casting in The CW's upcoming ensemble series, The 100, premiering in March. Last year, Washington starred as "Beltway sniper" John Allen Muhammad in the indie, true-to-headlines drama Blue Caprice, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2013. Later this year, he'll star alongside Mo'Nique in director Patrik-Ian Polk's fifth feature film, Blackbird, about a high school choir boy's struggling with his sexuality, family, and faith.

Washington regards Polk as "an out and proud gay man."

Grey's wonder woman showrunner Shonda Rhimes was notoriously hesitant to fire Washington back in 2007, even after the violent hostilities on set. Addressing Washington's imminent return to the show on Thursday, she stressed that Washington's character, Preston Burke, is vital to the resolution of departing mainstay Cristina Yang's storyline.

Actor T.R. Knight, who came out as gay following his altercation with Washington, left Grey's Anatomy in 2009. Patrick Dempsey is still a principal member of the show's cast.

Deadspin This Was Just The Saddest Burger King Burglary | Gizmodo Porn Has Been Banished From Vine | Jalopnik Watch A Crane Lift Two More Corvettes Out Of The Sinkhole | Kotaku Forget Barbie, Here's A Doll Based On Real Humans

In a move that should surprise no one, leaders from Russia's parliament said on Friday that they welcome Crimea's proposed March 16 referendum , which would allow Crimean citizens to vote to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. Yesterday, President Obama said the referendum would "violate the Ukrainian constitution and international law."

"We will respect the historic choice of the people of Crimea," Sergei Y. Naryshkin, the speaker of the lower house, told the New York Times while Valentina I. Matviyenko, the chairwoman of the parliament's upper house, the Federation Council, described the vote as similar to Scotland's decision to to become independent from Britain (though London supported that vote; the new government in Kiev has rejected Crimea's referendum).

"It's sufficient to recall the referendum in Scotland," Matviyenko said, according to the Washington Post. "And the Crimean parliament has chosen the most democratic form: the referendum is the main criterion for the expression of people's will."

"The Federation Council will support the Crimean parliament's ruling on the referendum, and that ruling will be legitimate," she added.

Earlier, members of the parliament applauded delegates from Crimea, including Crimean Prime Minister Sergei Aksyono, who'd travelled to Moscow to establish plans for joining Russia.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Ukraine's interim prime minister, responded by saying "no-one in the civilized world" would recognize the vote in Crimea.

Meanwhile, President Putin released a statement about his hour-long phone conversation on Thursday with President Obama. In the statement, released early Friday, Putin said the new government in Kiev had made "absolutely illegitimate decisions on the eastern, southeastern and Crimea regions."

"Russia cannot ignore calls for help and it acts accordingly, in full compliance with international law," Putin said, according to Reuters.

[Image via AP]

For Jimmy Kimmel's post-Oscar meme-as-Hollywood-movie-trailers gag, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was assigned the role of David After Dentist. Unbeknownst to Kimmel and his staff, Gordon-Levitt memorized the entire viral video, including every line and every gesture.

The resulting video, which was shot without any cue cards, is clearly Gordon-Levitt's best late-night performance since his famous lip sync-off on Jimmy Fallon last year.

[h/t Uproxx]

The first day I stood on Maidan was November 22. It was raining. I was unsure, and maybe even a little confused, about what was happening. A guy in a truck was spouting off some stuff about Ukraine being Europe to an audience of about 100 people with umbrellas and ponchos standing in front of the green skeleton of the future New Year's tree. It felt like nothing, really. After listening to a few half-hearted choruses of "Slava Ukraini — Heroyam slava!" (Glory to Ukraine — Glory to the Heroes) — a slogan that would resonate across Kyiv in the next three months — I trudged home, shrugging off what I had just witnessed.

That night, on my way to a party, I saw Arseniy Yatseniuk — then the leader of the Batkivshchyna party, now the interim Prime minister — handing out fliers in a metro station and taking photos with passersby. "Everyone to Maidan! Sunday! Noon! Ukraine is Europe!" the small papers proclaimed. I joined the fray long enough to snap a few photos, and it slowly dawned on me that maybe I had underestimated the day's experience. So I showed up at noon.

Ten thousand other people showed up, too. Under the guise of demanding President Viktor Yanukovych's signature on an agreement with the European Union that would "associate" Ukraine with the EU by guaranteeing IMF loans to develop infrastructure in Ukraine, ultimately providing the Ukrainian government with the possibility to request full membership in the EU. At the same time, Yanukovych would be rejecting Russian president Vladimir Putin's attempts to bring Ukraine back into the Russian economic orbit by signing on with his Customs Union, along with Belarus and Kazakhstan. On one level, this was all about money and a piece of paper that would make that money materialize. But on a much more important level, this was about a conviction that "Ukraine is Europe" meant something just as material. The people on the streets wanted to convince the EU that Ukraine is not just floundering under its Soviet past but is striving toward a European future — that this European future is something like Ukraine's destiny. And that by being part of a European future, Ukraine and Ukrainians could be truly free.

I wasn't convinced that this pro-Europe rhetoric was ever any better than a pro-Putin version. The EU had no interest in gaining Ukraine as a member, as the Ukrainian economy would be a big drain on its already limited resources. Most people didn't really understand that IMF loans would require the government to introduce austerity measures, including raising transportation prices and decreasing pensions. But "Europe" still sounded better, because it would confirm that Ukraine isn't Russia, that Europe values Ukraine as an independent government and economy, rather than as a bridge on the way to Russia. And it allowed people to proclaim that, in a democracy, it's acceptable and even encouraged to take to the streets and say that you disagree with your president's actions.

But in this version of democracy, you're only allowed to disagree in certain ways. I marched with a group of Ukrainian feminists who carried signs that said "Feminism is a European value" and "You want to be Europe? Say no to sexism and homophobia." And these women were physically and verbally attacked, first by a guy wielding a metal pipe and then by a bunch of women who didn't want to hear that sexism really existed. This was the first time I was called a "provocator" — an instigator, someone who comes to an event with the intention of stirring up trouble for everyone else. In other words, while it was fine for people marching to carry flags from the three main opposition political parties, to have different kinds of affiliations, talking about feminism and tolerance was a provocation.

Over the next weeks, as protesters built a tent city on Maidan, feminists who came to join the protests with signs proclaiming tolerance and solidarity were attacked with fists and pepper spray, were surrounded by ultra-nationalists wearing buttons that said "for a clean Ukraine" (as in, Ukraine for Ukrainians only) and pushed around, their signs being torn into pieces and crushed on the pavement. In these late November days and nights, I began to see swastikas painted on buildings and Galician-cross adorned flags of white power groups swarming onto Maidan. Ultra-nationalist Ultras representing Kyiv's Dynamo soccer team created a human chain around Maidan. The black and red flags of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) began cropping up alongside Ukrainian, European Union, and party flags. The slogans expanded to include not just glory to the heroes but Glory to the Nation! Death to Enemies! and Ukraine Above All! Before the end of November this seemed to be a movement overtaken by right-wing nationalists with neo-Nazi and white power elements. On November 29, we left Maidan early because it was swarming with threatening-looking men with black and red armbands who seemed to recognize us, and we were tired of getting attacked.

But then it changed, at least somewhat, in the early hours of November 30. Under the guise of completing the construction of the New Year's tree, sleeping students in tents on Maidan were brutally beaten by the riot police, or Berkut. Maidan was cleared and cordoned off, surrounded by more police. Despite this, thousands showed up that day, shouting "Hanba!" (shame) at the officers who protected a metal tree instead of Ukrainian students. On December 1, a massive mobilization against the violence of the previous night brought the entire city together. Non-violence and human rights became the new buzzwords — no one was even talking about Europe anymore.

And it just kept growing. Students organized strikes, protests against police violence continued, and the plastic and metal branches of the New Year's tree became barricades protecting the tents. I started to hear the word "revolution." Yanukovych appeared as the target of people's disgust and frustration. Protesters took over the City Hall and named it "Revolutionary Headquarters." Huge tents, nailed to the pavement, started creeping down Khreshatyk, Kyiv's main street. Massive piles of donated clothes and food filled the square. Kitchens churned out tea and hot meals. Barricades were reinforced with snow. The colder it got, the more people hunkered down into their tents.

Of course, this was never going to last. On December 9th, I ran into a friend from a Western Ukrainian city on the outskirts of the protest camps, and when we tried to cross the barricades one of the guards asked me not to enter. He said, "We're suggesting that women not come onto Maidan. We think something might happen tonight, and we don't want women coming in now." I went in anyway, but it was dark and snowing, and everyone seemed tense. When we crossed out of the barricades on Khreshatyk, the guards were clearly on edge, facing a whole row of Berkut who seemed ready to pounce. But it would take another day before anything happened. After clearing as many women and children as possible, or gathering them near the stage in the center, the men on Maidan stood against the Berkut as the troops attempted to storm the square and destroy the camp. Like everyone else who wasn't on Maidan, I watched a live stream all night. I watched guys in orange helmets refuse to surrender to violent forces. And somehow those violent forces didn't kill anyone. They couldn't get the tents down. They sprayed the City Hall and those defending it with water, but it was so cold that the sidewalk in front of the building froze over and the police couldn't get any closer. By the time I woke up, the Berkut had pulled back. When I went to Maidan that day, the barricades were reinforced with benches pulled from around Khreshatyk. And there were even more tents.

Soon after the attempted storm of Maidan, I stayed on the square all night with some Ukrainian companions. People were in good spirits, despite the freezing cold. There were plenty of fires, there was plenty of tea. People filled the City Hall, sleeping on the stairs if they couldn't find space on the floor. Medical and psychological care points contributed to the safe haven created for long-term protesters. There were masked and helmeted men patrolling the doors, checking our bags and documents, weeding out drunks and thugs, and standing ready for another night attack by the Berkut.

I don't remember how it went from this calm to never being calm again. I went to Maidan almost every day, just to wander around, maybe to listen to a lecture or watch a film at the small Open University stage, sometimes listening to a speaker on the main stage. I felt discomfort at the growing Nazi graffiti and the images of controversial Ukrainian historical figures as "symbols" of the movement. I grew frustrated as the exits from the metro were barricaded off one by one, forcing me to walk through the urine-soaked halls past sleeping and fighting drunks who were turned away at the barricades. I started to feel like I was being watched. But I kept showing up, just waiting for the next big thing to happen.

I was at something totally different, a gathering on Mykhailivska Square, north of Maidan, to remember some Russian journalists who were killed by fascists and to speak out against fascist violence. It was a moving event, with very eloquent speakers linking this memorial to the protests on Maidan. Near the end, when it was getting dark, we started hearing sirens. A lot of sirens. Ambulances stationed around Mykhailivska Square started moving to Maidan. Someone with a data plan told us that something was happening on Hrushevskoho, one of the streets near Maidan. No one knew what it was, but they went. I could hear sirens and sound grenades, and one by one, everyone headed toward Maidan.

I didn't join them then. It was cold, I was tired, and I had thus far avoiding participating in major violence. As Yanukovych and his cronies had recently passed a set of laws making the legality of showing up at even the anti-fascist event questionable, and I didn't want to draw attention to myself or to my friends by being somewhere dangerous. Despite my quite sufficient language skills, I remained terrified that in this situation, if someone shouted "run" or "hide" it wouldn't register, and I would become the responsibility of someone else, and they might risk their safety for me. Even now, I haven't resolved the balance of helping people speak out about something because I have access to an audience they don't and of needing to just shut up because I am in the way — of their health and safety as well as my own. And the laws passed on January 16th didn't help — anyone living, working, researching in Ukraine with a foreign organization (me) could be counted as a foreign agent and therefore subjected to potential surveillance that wasn't used before. Mostly, though, I was scared — not just for myself but for my friends. I didn't want to risk my life, but I didn't want to see them risk theirs, either.

Hrushevskoho Street tasted the first blood of the revolution. Police sniper fire killed three protesters in front of the Dynamo soccer stadium and swanky jewelry stores to prevent anyone from moving towards the Parliament. Countless people were hit by gas canisters or temporarily blinded by the constant onslaught of tear gas. More water cannons are used to create icy patches and douse the protesters with freezing water. A friend escorted me to Hrushevskoho the next day. He was surprised I was so tense — he said he had been there the day before and it was fine to just watch. Looking down on the street, most was obscured by the thick smoke from tire fires. There were three rows of barricades, and memorials to those killed already lining the bottom of the street. This was the first time I ever felt like I was in a war zone. Rows upon rows of Berkut stood menacingly from higher ground, while the masked men in orange helmets tried not to look frustrated as I crossed into the second barricade to photograph them. And the barricade made out of burnt-out police busses. The home-made shields and armor. The iced over barricades of snow, sand, and whatever else could be found. The dirty black slush that will never wash out of my boots. A small sign that I was there, too.

As the barricades were reinforced with steel beams and barbed wire over the next weeks, new graffiti and posters took over the areas around Maidan. "The heroes will not be forgotten!" "If you weren't on Hrushevskoho, you're not a man!" (complete with lipstick-stain kisses) "Freedom or death!" An anarchist A covered by a Nazi Wolfsangel. Inside the newly occupied Ukrainian House, men in bulletproof vests mopped the beautiful marble floors, explaining to reporters how excited they were that they'd found a lawn-mower sized floor sweeper so they could really do a good job cleaning up the slush. Students and protesters slept calmly, and women behind white partitions accepted bags full of gas masks to hand out later. Printouts of the faces of ruling party representatives who had a hand in the recent violence papered the walls alongside heartbreakingly beautiful artistic renditions of the events on Hrushevskoho. Only a few snowy barricades protected this sanctuary from a Berkut assault.

Like everyone else in Kyiv, I waited patiently for Opposition leaders to make deals with Yanukovych. I rolled my eyes when those deals were so obviously ridiculous. I nodded along as an armored man in the Ukrainian House described the "Amnesty Laws" — which would guarantee the protection of protesters from prosecution as long as they evacuated government buildings like the City Hall within 15 days — as "Hostage Laws" because they took the responsibility away from Yanukovych and his Party of Regions. As January became February, faith in the Opposition waned. Protesters realized they were on their own. The Opposition could make compromises, but no one on Hrushevskoho wanted to compromise. Yanukovych certainly wasn't going to give any ground. And eventually these tensions had to come to a head.

February 18, 19, and 20 are blurry again. My husband had come earlier to Kyiv and we spent those days glued to the live streams and my Twitter feed. On the 19th, we went for a walk and every single business was closed, three Metro stops from Maidan. We could see the smoke from the tire fires that shielded protesters from police fire. We read that the smokescreen protected the protesters from the Berkut's attacks more than anything else. We watched the number of casualties grow and grow. I frantically updated my Facebook page as I read that one of my friends was unaccounted for and that maybe his brother was dead. I felt a mixture of relief and guilt at confirming that both brothers were alive, and that it was someone else with the same name who had died. I watched my friends' horror as they confirmed the death of their friend who had come to support our leftist protests over the course of Maidan. I watched the Trade Union building burn and people climb down its flaming sides to escape. I waited for the police to come knocking on my door when Yanukovych declared his anti-terrorist operation that would allow him and his partners to do and take whatever they want to anyone deemed complicit. We waited together, for three days, until the police pulled back. Then we watched as Yanukovych disappeared. We speculated about where he was headed. We watched the new parliament overthrow him and wondered about the legality of this action. We watched vote after vote in Parliament, we watched Yulia Tymoshenko speak on Maidan for the first time after being freed from prison. We watched Yanukovych's lavish estate get opened to the public, we laughed at the absurdity of it all (a zoo? a galleon? what about the golden toilet everyone was talking about a month ago?).

And then we mourned. On Khreshatyk, the sidewalks had become piles of bricks, waiting to be thrown at rifle-wielding police. Tires and fires dotted the way to Maidan. People holding flowers flooded through the barricades. Trucks filled with Maidan's defense forces carried Ukrainian flags down the street to choruses of "Slava Ukraini! Heroyam slava!" Civilians took photos with captured APCs and the still-masked men policing them. I jumped at every victorious explosion. I saw flowers pile up among the helmets and tires. When we finally made it through the barricades to Maidan itself, a trail of flowers and colored lanterns led up the hill to Institutska Street, where most people were killed. Some personalized memorials showed photos of those who gave their lives, with poems or songs or even a donation box for funeral costs. A wall of sidewalk stones that weren't used as weapons became a massive monument to the memory of those lost. Everyone cried. For the first time in a long time, I sang the Ukrainian national anthem with everyone else — Ukraine is not yet dead!

I go to Maidan every day again. The messages from the stage are now about unity and new beginnings. People often speak Russian to show that they want Ukraine to stay as one country. The microphone is open to anyone who wants to say something. I've never seen so many flowers in my life. There are already some engraved stone memorial plaques with the names of those who gave their lives. There are new signs on Institutska renaming it "vulitsya Heroiv Nebesnoyi Sotni" — Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred Street. Schoolchildren's pictures line the stone memorials, their paintings of fireworks and bright orange flames reminding us that these kids will always remember what they watched on those days. "Thank you for our future," one sign reads. Thank you for giving up your lives so that we can live as Ukrainians, at least for a little while longer.

I don't know if this is over. I don't know what the Heavenly Hundred died for. I don't know if there is going to be a war and if more people might die. I don't know if some of them will be people I love. What I do know is that this story is just one of the millions of stories about what has happened on Maidan. These stories are going to define my generation in Ukraine. Everyone I know here has a story like this — where we were, what we were doing, how we learned about what was happening. An early poster I saw around the city was a Ukrainian flag with a droplet falling from the blue to the yellow. "Ya — kraplya v okeani." I am a drop in the ocean. This story is a droplet in a massive sea of confusing, divisive, and horrifying events. There isn't one story of what happened on Maidan. But I was a drop in that ocean.

Sarah Leonard is a social researcher from the United States who is using a pen name to protect her sources. She first lived in Ukraine in 2004 and most recently has been living in Kyiv since September 2013. All photos taken by the author.

As of last night, Newsweek was standing by its story that Bitcoin was created by a 64-year-old Californian engineer named Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto. Nakamoto, for his part, is strenuously denying it.

In a video of Nakamoto's interview with an AP reporter—who drove the man to a Los Angeles AP office with a ridiculous press car chase following behind—the alleged Bitcoin creator claims he was still working on government contracts in 2001, and has been unemployed since then.

He slips a couple of times on Bitcoin terminology, accidentally calling it "Bitcom" and saying "I never communicated with Bitcoins."

That could be because, although Dorian Nakamoto's English is good, he's not a native speaker. Some are pointing to a side-by-side comparisons of Dorian's writing and Bitcoin papers by "Satoshi" as evidence that the two men can't possibly be same:

Shown one of Satoshi's papers, Nakamoto said, "Peer-to-peer can be anything," he said. "That's just a matter of address. What the hell? It doesn't make sense to me."

Did Satoshi have an editor? Is Dorian putting on an act to protect his anonymity? Or is this exactly what it seems: a case of two different writers using the same name?

At this point, it still comes down to a case of he-said-she-said between Dorian Nakamoto and Newsweek reporter Leah McGrath Goodman, who stands by her claim that Nakamoto told her he was "no longer involved" in Bitcoin.

Nakamoto says he was referring to his involvement in government projects, not cryptocurrency.

[H/T Digg]

Pop star and person with a tongue Miley Cyrus, running out of ways to scandalize boring parents, tweeted out a couple of photos of her newest toy this week. It's a dildo the size and shape of a human hand.

The "Hand of Adonis" is designed to appeal to experienced fisting enthusiasts, because why not. From the manufacturer's description:

NOT for the faint of heart, the Hand of Adonis is a unique tool for size enthusiasts, or anyone interested in fisting. The ultra realistic, 16 1/2 inch arm ends in a 'duck bill' positioned hand, with thick fingers for lots and lots of sensation. The realistic feeling, SilAgel filled rubber material is firm, yet quite flexible, and able to bend and twist for the perfect fit inside. It's also anti-bacterial, non-toxic, and latex and cadmium free for safe enjoyment. The Hand tool is very large, quite heavy, and so not well suited to beginners, but if you're experienced with large sized toys, you'll love it.

Although Miley hasn't commented on her level of fisting experience, her taste in sex toys seems to be pretty good. The Hand has racked up a number of 5-star reviews, including "I was feeling crazy one day so I bought it and It realy freaked me out at first but it is one of the biggest dildos I have ever had. If you like them big, try it."

There's also a "Fist of Adonis," in case Miley ever decides she wants to take this relationship to the next level.

[H/T: Fishwrapper, Photos: Miley Cyrus/Twitter]

This adorable, confusingly sexy video of Beyoncé apparently chatting on stage with her daughter Blue Ivy during a dress rehearsal for her Grammy performance of "Drunk in Love" leaked online sometime earlier today. Sample dialogue: "Surfboard! Hi mommy!"

The provenance of the video, which appeared on DailyMotion Friday morning, is unclear. It's definitely Beyoncé rehearsing her Grammy rendition of "Drunk in Love," but beyond that, we can't say.

In the clip, an unseen Blue (presumably mic'd and watching Beyoncé on a monitor) says her cute baby words over her mother's audio track describing very detailed, unknowable sex acts, and Beyoncé greets her and beams and scrunches up her face in affection because she is Drunk in Love with this baby.

They don't have much to say to one another. Blue says, "Surfboard!...Surfboard!" Beyonce says, "Hi Blue-Blue!" Blue says, "Hi Mommy! Hi Mommy! Hi Mommy! Hi Mama!" Just the kind of stuff they always talk about. Pretty cute to watch, and also pretty surfboard.

Here's the full rehearsal performance:

(No, the guy playing the role of Jay Z in this video is not Jay Z. Jay Z is busy.)

[via DailyMotion]

A porn distributor says the freshman frat bro who outed Duke University porn star Belle Knox is probably a paid subscriber of a hardcore rough sex site.

Mike Kulich, CEO of Monarchy Distribution, published an open letter to tattletale Duke freshman Thomas Bagley, thanking him for congratulating him on being a member of FacialAbuse.com. (Knox told the Duke Chronicle that Bagley recognized her while watching porn. He claims she told him her secret herself.)

Kulich went on to sarcastically compliment Bagley's taste in porn and offer to let Bagley fly to Los Angeles and "bang ANY porn star you want" on camera.

"We will make you a celebrity because it is apparent how much you love porn and attention," Kulich wrote.

Along with the free plane ticket and the aforementioned "banging," Kulich is offering Bagley $10,000—"a lot of money for a kid like you."

But the deal gets sweeter. Maybe.

"ALSO, for every inch you are packing over 4, I will throw in an EXTRA $1,000. Get your tiny pecker out here," Kulich wrote.

Considering that Kulich is the same porn CEO who offered Amanda Knox—Belle's porn-namesake—$20,000 to do a scene, the letter should be read as a shameless publicity stunt.

Bagley hasn't yet responded to the offer, or to the allegations that he's a devotee of facial abuse.

Correction: Kulich clarifies that he is not affiliated with facialabuse.com and doesn't have any personal knowledge about whether Bagley is a subscriber. He just knew facialabuse as the site where Bagley must have seen Knox.

"The main point of my letter was to point out that as a consumer of porn, consumers have no right to judge and shame the people they watch," he wrote on Twitter.

I didn't reveal any secrets. He watched porn and found out who she was. I pointed out the kinda of porn he may have watched.

— Mike Kulich (@xxxmonarchy) March 7, 2014

[H/T: CLTampa, Photo Credit:Belle Knox/Twitter]

A great cult movie is like a weird underground discovery, that feels so strange and wonderful, you suspect that you're the first person ever to appreciate it properly. But certain cult films have acquired fame and influence to rival any blockbuster, and have become part of our shared vocabulary. Here are 30 essential cult movies that everybody ought to watch, at least once.

Note: We debated a lot what we would consider a "cult movie" for the purposes of this list, and we mostly stuck to films that were not huge box-office hits and didn't get massive mainstream exposure when they were first released. The films on this list mostly either flew under the radar or were considered massive flops when they came out originally.

30) Zardoz

This is a movie set in the post-apocalypse year 2293 that features Sean Connery with a ponytail wearing some kind of red, leather, knee high boots/suspenders thing along with a fake god that spouts the following doctrine: The gun is good. The penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life to poison the Earth with a plague of men, as once it was, but the gun shoots death, and purifies the Earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth ... and kill! The only way a person could properly appreciate this movie is with cult status, and a handful of LSD. But it's absolutely something you have to experience at least once.

29) Tremors

What do you do with a Kevin Bacon film about tongue like appendages attached to giant subterranean monsters that attack a small town in the western United States? You watch the hell out of it, of course. This movie received a warm reception from audiences and critics despite not making a whole lot of sense. But you know what? That's part of this movie's charm — the mystery of the "Graboids" didn't need to be explained to make this movie fun. All anyone cared about was the crazy ride.

28) The Warriors

On their way back to Sesame Street, the Warriors learn important lessons about who can and who cannot dig it, how to make a popsicle using only a baseball bat and a buddy and the proper way to use beer bottles to invite your friends to come out and pla-eee-ay.

27) Lost Boys

When two Arizona teens move to Santa Clara, they cross paths with some vampire hunters who warm them that the town is filthy with blood suckers. And to educate the teens, the hunters give them an expert's tome — horror comics. But when one of the teens gets turned into a half-vampire, it falls to the other teen and the hunters to kill the lead vampire and life the curse. This movie achieved cult status purely because it was way ahead of the vampire craze.

26) Born in Flames

This documentary-style movie by feminist film-maker Lizzie Borden takes place in a dystopian world where women are brutally oppressed — until they decide to fight back by any means necessary. This groundbreaking film is notable for featuring Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow in a small role.

25) Sharktopus

Syfy has given us many instant cult classics, but Sharktopus is still exceptional, with its gleefully absurd creature mash-up and its subversive story about greed gone too far. Roger Corman brings us the tale of a genetically engineered half shark, half octopus who wreaks havoc at the beach.

24) Tales from the Hood

An anthology film of African American themed horror shorts, this movie's frame story involves three drug dealers trying to score from a mortuary owner. Over the course of the four loosely related episodes, the film explores subjects like haunted dolls, the KKK, and psychopathic gang members. The whole thing ends with an excellent twist, that wraps everything up perfectly.

23) Death Race 2000

David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone star in this salute to the fine American traditions of car racing, vehicular manslaughter, life, death and clam sauce. Treacherous French need not apply.

22) The Hunger

Love triangles often make for classic movies — but make two of the members vampires and you have an instant cult classic. A seductive vampire offers men eternal life, but not eternal youth — until she seeks the help of a doctor who specializes in aging. This film is remembered for its torrid encounter between Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon.

21) Plan 9 from Outer Space

Ed Wood is remembered as the worst director of all time, and Plan 9 is remembered as his worst movie. This train-wreck of a film features Bela Lugosi and aliens who plan on turning all of the Earth's dead into zombies. What's not to love?

20) Dark Star

Beach ball space aliens, solipsistic time bombs, Dan O'Bannon and other bizarre creatures inhabit John Carpenter's madcap tribute to Catch-22...IN SPACE!

19) Slither

We debated whether to include this film, or James Gunn's more recent superhero weirdfest Super — they're both off-kilter comedies that are not for the faint of heart. Slither, though, keeps your skin crawling for hours and contains a bizarrely subversive story about a woman who just can't escape from her evil husband, thanks to the appearance of a deadly alien parasite.

18) Buckaroo Banzai

John Lithgow travels across the eighth dimension, crash lands on the third rock from the sun and discovers that no matter where RoboCop goes, there RoboCop is.

17) Time Bandits

Kevin discovers a group of little people, who travel through space and time while being stalked by Evil and pursued by the Supreme Being. Of all the projects to come out of the Monty Python crew, this might be the most anarchic, with the broadest comedy and the darkest tragedy — and its layered narrative rewards repeat viewings.

16) Evil Dead 2

Ash Williams battles Deadite Bad Grandma in the film that single-handedly saved both the word 'groovy' and the career of Bruce Campbell from the dustbin of film history.

15) Night of the Living Dead

George A. Romero's first film is also arguably his most influential. In this classic zombie movie, we see seven people trapped in a Pennsylvania farmhouse besieged by the living dead — and we discover the most horrific side of human nature.

14) Brother from Another Planet

Pursued by extraterrestrial cops, mute, dark-skinned alien Joe Morton travels to America to work a series of crappy jobs and teach people to literally see the world through his eyes in John Sayles' in-no-way-allegorical film.

13) Cherry 2000

Sam and Edith travel to the ruins of Las Vegas to hunt for aftermarket talking Fleshlight parts only to find Tim Thomerson instead.

12) Altered States

Anthro-psychopharmacologist William Hurt drops South American lycanthropy acid to get in touch with his inner caveman and his outer Blair Brown.

11) Repo Man

Edge City resident and apprentice car repossessor Otto Maddox spends a long weekend chasing nuke-happy scientists, space aliens, United Fruitcakes, repo wives, sushi thieves, beer-phobic government agents and Gypsy dildo punks across Los Angeles when all he really wanted was a Pepsi.

10) Monty Python and the Holy Grail

One of the most quotable films of the 20th century, Monty Python and the Holy Grail parodies the legends of King Arthur's search for the Holy Grail. The Knights of the Round Table encounter all kinds of hilarious obstacles on their quest, from attractive women to flesh wounds.

9) They Live

In a world where aliens rule our lives, money is our God and television our electronic leash, Roddy Piper learns that the future is so psychotic, he has to wear shades.

8) Primer

All the Huey Lewis in the world won't help you unravel the Gordian plot of this mind bending tech startup time travel saga. Poster by RedLord

7) Naked Lunch

In David Cronenberg's adaptation of William Burroughs' novel, we learn that the problems of a bug powder junkie and an elite corps centipede don't amount to a hill of Mugwump jism in this crazy, mixed up world.

6) The Man Who Fell To Earth

David Bowie is an androgynous space alien who came to Earth to make gobs of money and have sex with supermodels. Also he was in this movie.

5) Re-Animator

In the classic HP Lovecraft story, Herbert West's patented reanimation fluid can turn even the most severed of heads into the most cunning of linguists.

4) Big Trouble in Little China

Kurt Russell stars in John Carpenter's outlandish, supernatural action adventure film about a man with the uncanny ability to drive and park an eighteen wheel semi in San Francisco's Chinatown.

3) Eraserhead

David Lynch's Eraserhead is an unforgettable surrealist body horror film that has left its mark on a generation of film-makers. This nightmarish film about a father with a disfigured child living in an industrial area is revered for its strange visuals and complex audio track.

2) Donny Darko

Troubled teen Donnie Darko begins hallucinating a giant rabbit named Frank who tells him the world will end in 28 days. This movie creates a rich world full of unexplained events and memorable characters — repeated viewings might answer some questions, but most fans are left wondering and concocting complex theories for how it all fits together.

1) Rocky Horror Picture Show

This musical about an average couple who stumble upon a mansion full of strange people and aliens has become an iconic rite of passage for countless people. Midnight screenings, full of costumes, props and responses shouted at the screen have become a vital tradition, celebrating this movie's campy subversiveness.

Additional reporting by Meredith Woerner, Annalee Newitz, Rob Bricken, Ed Grabianowski, Lauren Davis and Charlie Jane Anders

During his Thursday speech at CPAC, the conserva-palooza, vice presidential also-ran Paul Ryan used a touching story about an undernourished child to argue why free or reduced-priced school lunches were a bad thing. Touching, but false. And he continues to perpetuate the falsehood.

Washington Post factchecker Glenn Kessler systematically laid out the lie in Ryan's account, which was first reported by Wonkette. Here's what the conservative Wisconsin congressman said yesterday:

The left is making a big mistake here. What they're offering people is a full stomach and an empty soul. The American people want more than that. This reminds me of a story I heard from Eloise Anderson. She serves in the cabinet of my buddy, Governor Scott Walker. She once met a young boy from a very poor family, and every day at school, he would get a free lunch from a government program. He told Eloise he didn't want a free lunch. He wanted his own lunch, one in a brown-paper bag just like the other kids. He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown-paper bag had someone who cared for him. This is what the left does not understand.

Kessler found it such a compelling anecdote—noting that the conservative National Review, a sponsor of CPAC, trumpeted the yarn on its blogs—that he wanted to learn more about the young boy.

What Kessler found was that that Anderson and Ryan had not only spun a bullshit tale around the boy, but had used his story to argue against what he wants: an approach to ending childhood hunger aided by government-funded programs.

Anderson's first on-record telling of the brown-paper-bag story came at a congressional committee hearing last summer run by—shocker!—Paul Ryan. The congressman asked her about improving the federal food stamp program, and she responded thusly:

My thought has always been around the SNAP program even when it was called "food stamps" is, why do you have this program, school program, school breakfast, school lunch, school dinner, when do we start asking parents to be responsible for their children?

You know, a little boy told me once that what was important to him is that he didn't want school lunch, he wanted a brown bag because the brown bag that he brought with his lunch in it meant that his mom cared about him. Just think what we have done. If this kid tells me a brown bag was more important than a free lunch, we've missed the whole notion of parents being there for their children because we've taken over that responsibility, and I think we need to be very careful about how we provide programs to families that don't undermine families' responsibilities.

[Let's just step aside for a moment to admire the the sheer inanity of the statement: "why do you have this program, school program, school breakfast, school lunch, school dinner, when do we start asking parents to be responsible for their children?" Actually, it's not inane: It's malignant. Why feed children? Because at the end of the day, who gives a shit about the parents, whether they're poor or not or neglectful or not, if their kid's hungry? Jesus wouldn't ask a hungry kid, "Where are you parents?" before sating the kid's hunger. Jesus might have a word with them after the kid's eaten. But eating would probably come first. Because, you know, Jesus.]

As Wonkette pointed out, Anderson's account wasn't from her own experiences. It was ripped from the pages of An Invisible Thread, a true story about "GIVING CHILDREN FREE FOOD AND HOW THAT IS THE BEST!" The anecdote—which occurred 25 years ago—involves a homeless child, Maurice, turning down not a government handout but an offer from a neighbor, Laura Schroff, to buy his lunch:

"Look, Maurice, I don't want you out there hungry on the nights I don't see you, so this is what we can do. I can either give you some money for the week–and you'll have to be really careful about how you spend it–or when you come over on Monday night we can go to the supermarket and I can buy all the things you like to eat and make you lunch for the week. I'll leave it with the doormen, and you can pick it up on the way to school."

Maurice looked at me and asked me a question.

"If you make me lunch," he said, "will you put it in a brown paper bag?"

I didn't really understand the question. "Do you want it in a brown paper bag?" I asked. "Or how would you prefer it?"

"Miss Laura," he said, "I don't want your money. I want my lunch in a brown paper bag."

"Okay, sure. But why do you want it in a bag?"

"Because when I see kids come to school with their lunch in a paper bag, that means someone cares about them. Miss Laura, can I please have my lunch in a paper bag?"

When WaPo confronted Anderson about the bogarted story, her communications person responded that she misspoke about an interview with Maurice she'd seen on TV:

What she had intended to say was the following:

"Once I heard someone say, 'what was important to him as a boy was that he didn't want school lunch, he wanted a brown bag because the brown bag that he brought with his lunch in it meant that his mom cared about him."

Ryan later played along with that account, saying in a Facebook post that he regrets "failing to verify the original source of the story."

What he doesn't seem to regret, however, is the fact that in stealing Maurice's story, he and Anderson used it to shit on everything he stands for today. They divorced it from the kindness he received and accepted. Their honesty problem isn't about attribution; it's about exploitation.

The Post also points out that Maurice and his onetime benefactor, Laura Schroff, "are partnering with a group called No Kid Hungry to help end childhood hunger in the United States. One key part of the program is connecting hungry kids with federal programs such as school lunches and food stamps."

For feeding hungry kids, against feeding hungry kids, what the hell is the difference? The important thing is: He wanted a brown paper bag. Vote Republican!

[Photo credit: AP]

This post was updated to clarify that Wonkette first reported Ryan's and Anderson's bogarted anecdote, based on a tip from a TPM commenter.

Google chairman Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas, just began their South by Southwest panel addressing "issues of technology and privacy, war and intervention, diplomacy and revolution around the world."

According to this photo posted on Instagram last night Cohen, along with Google Ideas chief of staff Daniel Keyserling, arrived in Austin in style. Also on board the private jet : Ruzwana Bashir, CEO of the travel startup Peek, which counts Eric Schmidt and Jack Dorsey as investors, and just announced $5 million in venture financing on Wednesday.

Schmidt and Cohen co-authored the book "The New Digital Age." Google Ideas describes itself as the global do-gooder arm of the $400 billion company:

Google Ideas is a think/do tank that explores how technology can enable people to confront threats in the face of conflict, instability or repression. We connect users, experts and engineers to research and seed new technology-driven initiatives.

Cohen is a former adviser to the State Department and has been accused of coordinating moves with the White House to back a regime change in the Middle East. He and Schmidt famously made a trip to North Korea last year.

Apparently, the fuel required to win over hearts and minds on "American-style liberal democracy," are silver trays of sushi.

A pregnant Florida South Carolina mother who drove a minivan into the ocean with her three children inside has been charged with attempted murder.

Ebony Wilkerson, 32, is being charged with three counts of premeditated attempted first-degree murder and three counts of child abuse, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office announced Friday.

Police initially stopped Wilkerson on Wednesday after her sister reported she had left the house with the children and was "talking about demons." Officers said she appeared lucid during the traffic stop, and told them she was afraid her ex-husband was going to harm her and the kids.

Two hours later, witnesses in Daytona Beach, Fla., saw Wilkerson drive her van into the ocean.

"She told them 'close your eyes and go to sleep,' she was taking them to a better place,'" said Sheriff Ben Johnson.

Deputies told WESH Orlando that Wilkerson locked the doors and rolled up the windows of her 2012 Honda Odyssey.

Officers and bystanders rescued the children, ages 3, 9, and 10, just before the vehicle became completely submerged.

"The two in the back seat was crying, with their arms out saying 'Our mommy's trying to kill us, please help,'" Tim Tesseneer, one of the first witnesses to reach the van, told WESH.

"The kids are like, 'No there's a baby. There's a baby,'" Tesseneer said. "She (the mother) wouldn't say a word. She didn't tell us nothing about a baby."

The sheriff's office says Wilkerson was hospitalized for mental evaluation. The officers who initially stopped her said they suspected mental illness, but couldn't detain her because she didn't seem to be a danger to herself or others.

[Video: Simon Besner]

The internet was weird this week. Mostly in a good way. But also in a bullshitty way.

No, Kurt Cobain's skis are not for sale on Craigslist

People magazine made it seem like a good deal. A collection of Kurt Cobain memorabilia — an old pair of skis, a rad plastic telephone and a used video game — for just $800! Except a now-deleted Craigslist ad was the only basis for the story, which was picked up by news outlets and other sites around the world.

Turns out the ad was a hoax by Derek Erdman, a Seattle-based artist/prankster. Erdman told music network Revolt that he orchestrates this sort of hoax "pretty often" without getting noticed. For those who got duped, a reverse Google image search of the photos in the Craigslist ad would have been a pretty good indicator that it was fake. From Erdman: "I don't have that stuff, I just found those photos on the internet. If I had a Swatch phone, there's no way that I'd sell it."

No, Tupac was not at a Celtics game this week

Tupac is alive, and… he's at a Celtics game. (Via @CLNS_JaredWeiss) http://t.co/LJlI9skqVI pic.twitter.com/5zXJlbq1no

— SB Nation (@sbnation) March 6, 2014

If he were alive, do you really think he'd still be wearing that fucking bandana?

Seriously, you're not getting a Hoverboard

Thanks a lot, Tony Hawk. The pro skater lied to all of us this week when he appeared in a video for a new company called HUVr shelling real-life hoverboards like the ones in Back to the Future II. "I can't believe how well it works," Hawk said. HUVr promised it was legit on Facebook, those monsters. The whole thing was orchestrated as a cruel joke by Funny or Die.

Lots of people got duped.

I need this…now http://t.co/3O4XOdLEME

— Vjeran Pavic (@vjeranpavic) March 4, 2014

IF YOU HAVENT HEARD, They have invented Huvr Boards! Its a real life hover board!! Tony hawk has already tested them! pic.twitter.com/EUuu6vo5xQ

— Life of a boarder (@boardvsboard) March 5, 2014

But some were skeptical from the start, like this eagle-eyed Twitter user who spotted the shadow of a crane in the original HUVr video:

@verge it's not. Here is a shadow of the crane behind http://t.co/qaOxMo8VOx

— Denis (@ForeverZabuzov) March 4, 2014

Either way, that first video was watched more than 10 million times in a matter of days. And people got really excited. (Kind of like how excited people are about the still-unconfirmed prospect of power laces hitting retailers next year. ) So Tony Hawk felt bad and apologized.

Back to the Future's Christopher Lloyd, who also appeared in the HUVr tech ad, explained in a Funny Or Die video we were all "hoodwinked, flimflammed, hornswaggled, shanghaied, bamboozled, hoverduped, swindled and scammed."

Whatever, Doc Brown.

Ellen's Oscars selfie wasn't technically product placement but yes it was come on

If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap

— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) March 3, 2014

So Ellen DeGeneres tweeted a selfie with a bunch of A-listers at the Oscars and it blew up the Internet and became the most retweeted tweet ever, breaking the previously held record by President Barack Obama.

People apparently loved the photo until they started realizing that maybe it was part of a planned product placement — Bradley Cooper snapped it using the awkwardly big Galaxy Note 3 that host Ellen was toting as she hosted.

So I asked Samsung about the selfie moment. Was it orchestrated as part of a deal with Samsung? A spokeswoman for MWW, a PR agency that works with Samsung, sent me the same prepared statement that the company sent to other media outlets: "While we were a sponsor of the Oscars and had an integration with ABC, we were delighted to see Ellen organically incorporate the device into the selfie moment that had everyone talking. A great surprise for everyone, she captured something that nobody expected." (Samsung also said it's donating $3 million to two charities of Ellen's choice "in honor of this epic moment" and to symbolize the 3 million retweets.)

So what exactly does "an integration" mean in this context? And what did Ellen/ABC promise to do as part of the deal? I repeatedly asked Samsung for clarification but got only this from the spokeswoman: "Samsung has no additional details to share at this time about their integration with ABC."

Bottom line, Samsung may not have meticulously planned the selfie but they paid an estimated $20 million and provided the phone to make it happen. That sounds like an advertisement to me.

The New York Times is lying to you. No one is wearing monocles.

Warby Parker been selling monocles and monocles for dogs (I'm sorry to be the one to tell you) for a while now. And not even they claim that monocles are a growing fashion trend.

But the New York Times — the same publication that in 2009 reported the new "ritual" among teenagers of hugging one another as a way of greeting — says monocles have made a come-back as an accessory. Naturally, the story elicited a collective come onnnnnnnnnnnn from pretty much everyone with eyeballs. (Warby Parker declined to speak on-record about how monocle sales compare with glasses sales, but next time you're in a Warby Parker store, just ask the sales person what he or she thinks.)

So one woman decided to create a survey to find out just how insane The New York Times really is.

"I was hearing a lot of skepticism about this new 'trend,' so I thought we needed some data," ProPublica's Lois Beckett told me.

This from @loisbeckett is actually brilliant - in future I was ALL NYT style section articles interrogated with data https://t.co/SmaZuRhOwI

— emily bell (@emilybell) March 6, 2014

Beckett was nice enough to give me exclusive access to the results from the survey she created. (The data is now public, so you can scope it out, too.) As of this morning, she had more than 400 responses. The overwhelming majority of people said they had never spotted a real-life monocle-wearer, but about 12 percent of those polled reported sightings (they are obviously joking because no one is wearing monocles).

Most of these alleged monocles were seen in parts of Brooklyn — raising the possibility that it's just one dude with a monocle who walks around a lot. (Bonus monocle: One dog and/or baby spotted wearing a monocle in Park Slope.) Monocles were also reportedly seen in London, Boston, San Francisco and... New Jersey.

There was also one monocle sighting at a Halloween party and another at an 1880s-themed costume party. Someone else had a weird high school friend who wore one. Another person reported seeing a monocle-wearer in Portland "in like 2006." Sounds about right.

"I will say I definitely don't think they're a rising trend," said Meredith Modzelewski, who reported seeing somebody wearing one in Brooklyn. "That is ridiculous."

Probably the best reported monocle wearer from Beckett's survey was an "elderly former CIA agent" in Newport, R.I., who also carried "a cane rumored to be filled with booze."

In conclusion, obviously no one wears monocles.

Elsewhere on the web this week, Arby's really did buy Pharrell's hat for $40,000. Everybody's confused about who invented Bitcoin. A bored guy from Wisconsin trolled TV networks by pretending to be a chef and offering terrible ideas for holiday leftovers. And some movie trailer trolled the Midwest with the sound of an emergency alert system. The FCC fined three media companies $1.9 million for carrying the ad. Oh, and one more fake thing on the internet: This Antiviral ripoff. You can stuff your major H/Ts in a sack, Washington Post. (H/T Gizmodo.)

Surprise!!! Your 6-month relationship was a hoax engineered by Jimmy Kimmel/Funny or Die/and your heart!

— J-Dubs (@Brotherwags) March 5, 2014

[Photo via HUVr Tech/Facebook]

Shelf clouds are a stunning feature of many spring and summertime thunderstorms that often pack more bark than bite. Other than for their incredible beauty, shelf clouds are usually newsworthy because they tend to freak people out.

This past week, two shelf clouds caught the attention of both social media and international news. The incredible shelf cloud over Sydney was probably one of the most photographed weather events of 2014, as the striking formation enveloped the Sydney skyline before bringing torrential rain and intense lightning. Another one occurred just two days later in the skies over Florida as an intense line of thunderstorms moved across the state.

What are they?

A shelf cloud is a low-hanging, well-defined, wedge-shaped formation that occurs along the leading edge of a gust front in a thunderstorm. Shelf clouds most often form just ahead of intense lines of thunderstorms.

One of the best examples of this type of cloud is in the picture above, taken by Waldo Jaquith in Cape Hatteras, NC in May 2012.

What are the dangers?

Even though they look ominous and people often mistake them for tornadoes, shelf clouds themselves are harmless. What they indicate, however, is potentially more dangerous.

These clouds most often form along intense lines of thunderstorms. These storms, called squall lines or bow echoes, tend to produce damaging winds when they hit. The most well-defined and photogenic shelf clouds occur with the most intense type of severe thunderstorm called a "derecho."

How do they form?

The main circulation of air in a thunderstorm occurs within an "updraft" and a "downdraft." Updrafts feed warm, moist air into the thunderstorm to provide it with the energy it needs to survive. A downdraft consists of the dense, rain-cooled air that sinks to the surface underneath a thunderstorm.

The air from a downdraft pools up at the surface beneath the storm in what's known as a "cold pool." This cold pool can do one of two things — it can either choke off the updraft and kill the storm, or it can start moving out ahead of the storm, tilting the updraft and letting the storm begin to race along the landscape.

As the cold pool begins to race away from the thunderstorm (now called an "outflow boundary" or a "gust front"), the storm's updraft tilts along the outflow's leading edge, allowing the storm to continue to ingest warm, moist air as it moves along in the direction of its outflow.

As the updraft's warm, moist air rises up along the outflow boundary, it cools and condenses into a shelf cloud.

Examples

Sydney opera house with shelf cloud & lightning is the best one I've seen yet. #australiawx pic.twitter.com/fz8VT5q9Pv

— Julie Hayes (@wxjoules) March 5, 2014

Corpus Christi, TX shelf cloud MT @StormySkies2112 I didn't take this picture! Awesome shot pic.twitter.com/po1rS2v1It #txwx

— Jim Cantore (@JimCantore) November 7, 2013

What's your caption for this photo? Breathtaking shot of a shelf cloud over Janesville, WI- 2009. Credit: Matt Heeren pic.twitter.com/xXVAolWv5f

— AcuRite (@AcuRite) August 1, 2013

Phenomenal! MT: @webcamsdemexico Amazing #ShelfCloud. Yesterday in Cozumel -> pic.twitter.com/J2Rlbr4ntg http://t.co/lvCy89dKt3

— Eric Fisher (@ericfisher) June 30, 2013

As spring sets in over the next few months, storm systems will encounter a stronger temperature gradient as they move across the United States and have more opportunities to produce severe weather. Shelf clouds will become a common sight for many once severe weather season ramps up.

If you see one, remember that the cloud itself is completely harmless, but it's a tell-tale sign that you should get inside before the storm hits.

[Photo by Waldo Jaquith on Flickr through Creative Commons]