The Secret Service hooker scandal, featuring a Yale graduate named Jonathan “Jonny” Dach, was apparently exposed in a bizarre, anonymous poem posted on the website of Yale Rumpus in May 2013.

Role-playing, on some level, is about escapism. Ordinary life is boring; Dungeons and Dragons lets you get away. Have some fun! Be a wizard, a knight, an intergalatic mercenary. Or, in the case of the 2,000-plus members of the "Generic Office Roleplay" Facebook group, an IT guy.

Since August, people have been congregating in the group, pretending to be employees of an imaginary company called Stackswell & Co (business plan: "moving units"). They send memos about the printer, out-of-office replies, job applications, and schedules for meetings. Many of the posts are self-consciously jokey—don't wear a bikini on casual Friday!—but the most interesting ones, like this note about leftover cake in the third-floor coffee room, are completely mundane, just like actual office emails.

Thomas Oscar, the Australian teenager who started Generic Office Roleplay, told Fast Company that after he and a friend competed to see who could join the most "wack" Facebook groups, he decided to start his own:

"The idea literally just happened, I didn't think it over for more than one minute before creating the group," says Oscar. "An office just seemed the easiest thing to role-play, take the piss out of senseless bureaucracy."

Initially, Oscar told Fast Company, the group reflected that trolly, teenage sensibility, but as it caught on, it got, well, dorkier. There are wacky narratives now—scrolling through, you'll see a lot of posts about a group of iguanas that evidently took over the office—and the audience grew from Oscar's friends in his local punk scene to include honest-to-god office workers, some of whom post dozens and dozens of items per day. ("If it wasn't funny it would be very sad because the reality is you are actually doing that with your life," one such worker told Fast Co.)

Eventually, Oscar's posts grew hostile toward new members of the group, and last week, there was a buyout, sending the founder of Stackswell & Co. out of the company he'd built. His last update reads: "well this group has gone to shit but at least some chump paid me $25 to let him take control over it lol." A new CEO has since taken the reins.

[Image via Pressmaster/Shutterstock]

As tech corporations began releasing a slew of disappointing diversity reports this year, most companies apologized for their numbers and pledged to do a better job at being inclusive. Those pledges didn't mention the part where the tech industry systematically underpays non-white, non-male workers.

A recent study by the American Institute for Economic Research found that having the "wrong" skin color costs tech workers thousands of dollars per year:

In the computer technology industry, on average, a Hispanic worker in this group of six occupations earns $16,353 less than a non-Hispanic worker. This is a larger differential in earnings than racial groups of color, such as blacks (whose earnings are expected to be $3,656 less than white workers), Asians (whose earnings are expected to be $8,146 less than white workers), and workers who identified "other" as their race ($6,907 less than whites).

And those figures were gathered "after controlling for education, age, region, occupation, citizenship status, and country of origin."

Bloomberg View columnist Katie Benner was particularly shocked by the low pay for Asians—a group known to be extremely well represented in the industry.

[There] seemed to be a bright spot in that otherwise grim parade of diversity numbers. Asians comprised a big chunk of the tech workforce — 23 percent at Apple, 34 percent at Google, 41 percent at Facebook and 34 percent at Twitter. Asians were the majority at Yahoo, LinkedIn and eBay, coming in at 57 percent, 60 percent and 55 percent, respectively. [...]

I offer up all this not to single out Asian employees as particularly victimized or to revisit the notion that cultural stereotypes might be keeping them out of the C-suite. I bring it up to show that a high head count in a company doesn't necessarily translate into more robust and equitable paychecks. If it did, we'd have as many Satya Nadellas as we do Jack Dorseys.

The situation has lead Wall Street Journal columnist Jeff Yang to conclude tech is a "professional dead end" for Asians. Writing for CNN, Yang says there is little upward mobility for Asians and they will "hit a ceiling well before they reach management status."

Women also get their paychecks dinged by discrimination. The AIER study found that women earn $6,358 less than men and "women with at least one child earn $11,247 less than everyone else." AIER's conclusion? Tech carries a "child penalty" for women.

To contact the author of this post, please email kevin@valleywag.com.

Photo: Pandora, h/t Bloomberg View

A University of Southern Mississippi student is facing criminal charges after a poorly-conceived fraternity prank killed a female flamingo and her mate.

According to WTVA, 19-year-old Devin Nottis was supposed to get a picture of a flamingo for a Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity scavenger hunt. Instead, he apparently decided to steal a flamingo from the Hattiesburg Zoo in lieu of the photo.

Police say Nottis caught on surveillance video entering the zoo with three other people at 1 am Tuesday. It's not clear if the actual theft was filmed, but the Humane Society is offering a reward in an effort to identify the other flamingo-killers.

The flamingo was eventually returned to the zoo with life-threatening injuries and had to be euthanized. The zoo says shortly thereafter, the stolen flamingo's mate began "acting depressed" and eventually died from trauma related to the theft.

Nottis was suspended from school and is facing grand larceny charges. The fraternity of flamingo killers' charter was also suspended indefinitely.

[h/t UPI, image via Shutterstock]

Is someone trying to tell you what you should or shouldn't do tonight? Well, you should just fold your arms and throw some contemptuous side-eye at that person. Contemptuous side-eye, I say! Do any damn thing you want. If that thing is joining our open thread, and chatting about Project Runway, then do it!

Some of the antics in store on tonight's episode (judging from the previews) will inspire plenty of eye-related reactions: Eye-rolling, eye-narrowing, eye-widening, eye-crossing, side-eying ... you name it. So you may want to start doing some eye exercises now, just to prepare yourself. But before we talk further about what's in store tonight, I have three important things I want to mention:

Thing 1: Next week on Morning After, we'll be kicking off a new open thread feature, hosted by yours truly, for the latest season of Top Chef — which premieres on October 15 at 9 pm. This is especially gratifying and nostalgic for me, as I hosted Top Chef live blogs on Gawker for many years (as "MisterHippity") — so this will be kind of like the swallows and the crows coming full-circle back to Capistrano to roost. Or something. Anyway, please mark your calendars and join us for that next Wednesday night!

Thing 2: I tallied up all the commenter votes last week, and the winner of our "Michael-Kors-like Zing" contest, with 11 votes, was Snacktastic, with: "If clothes were like Pokemon, that dress would be the final form of a kindergartener's pinafore." But it was very close race, as Otterbird's "Joan Collins for Garanimals" entry had 10 votes. So I've decided to award a Project Runway refrigerator magnet to both Snacktastic and Otterbird, since it was such a close race that it was practically a dead heat — and because the result probably falls well within my (extremely non-marginal) margin of error. So congratulations, Snacky and Otter!

Thing 3: In addition to casting votes, the open-thread commenting crew posted a plethora of witty comments last week — a selection of which I've featured in this post. So go check those out!

OK, back to tonight's episode:

• The challenge will be to construct new looks out of five losing dresses from earlier in the season — and the five eliminated designers who made them (Korina, fäde, Mitchell, Sandhya and Samantha) will be brought back to serve as "assistants."
• The eye-rollingly bad behavior will commence when Korina is assigned to assist Char — the target of the spiteful venom Korina spit all over the pastel-colored workroom walls on her way out the door last week. Now I know you want to shout, "button bag shenanigans!" However, as it happens, no button bag was involved in this latest, suspiciously drama-laden pairing. But it's fun to shout "button bag shenanigans!" — so go ahead and shout that anyway if you want.
• When Korina throws a predictably ugly tantrum, Emily will fix her with such a perfect "what the fuck, bitch?" stink-face glare (captured in the photo at the top of this post) that the mere sight of it has suddenly made Emily my new favorite to win this whole thing. Team Emily, the anti-Korina, all the way!

OK, it's time for us all to turn our eyes to the comment section. I'll see you there!

The police report from that drunken Palin family brawl last month is finally out, and Bristol is reportedly claiming a neighbor called her insulting names, then knocked her down and dragged her around a lawn.

According to the Smoking Gun, the party at a neighbor's house turned violent when Bristol confronted a woman who had insulted her sister, Willow. Reports TMZ:

Bristol told police the homeowner, Korey Klingenmeyer, shoved her to the ground, dragged her around, and started calling her a slut and a c**t.

Korey and several other witnesses at the party saw it differently ... telling cops Bristol punched him in the face — he says he let her hit him 5-6 times before grabbing her fist and pushing back ... sending her reeling to the ground.

That scrap then sparked the all-out brawl — witnesses say Track and 3-4 other people came running to defend Bristol ... and all hell broke loose ... with the Palins, including dad Todd, taking on all comers.

Willow says several people at the party we're chanting, "F**k the Palins!"

And where was the one-time almost-Vice-President in all of this? Reportedly waiting in a limo for her family to finish up inside. (She did, however, exit the vehicle to pull the "do you know who I am" card when cops arrived, witnesses say.)

According to TMZ, prosecutors declined to file charges against the participants, who they say were all intoxicated.

[image via AP]

LaGuardia Airport employees responsible for cleaning airplanes and bathrooms staged a walkout this week, saying they're not being adequately protected against the Ebola virus.

The Air Serv employees—who are contracted to clean Delta planes—told reporters they routinely come into direct contact with human waste while on the job.

"We encounter human feces, blood, most of the time vomit from passengers who get motion sick," one worker told ABC. "We work with short-sleeve shirts and most of the time we deal with getting sprayed on... And I usually go straight to the supervisers and I ask for a change of clothes, sometimes they can't give me a change of clothes right away so I have to go and hose myself and my clothes down. I don't feel safe."

As many as 200 workers walked out Wednesday, but reportedly returned to work the next day. They told reporters they want better gloves and protective uniforms.

During the cleaners' one-day strike—which ended in a city agreement to investigate their complaints—Delta employees were reportedly forced to glove up.

A Delta Airlines spokeswoman said the action was having no impact on the airline's operations, and that no flights had been delayed or canceled as a result. Delta employees at LaGuardia airport had stepped in to clean planes instead, she said.

[image via Shutterstock]

Gwyneth Paltrow threw a casual party Thursday night in Los Angeles for Obama and several hundred of her closest friends, noting in a speech to her guests that the president is progressive, and also hot.

According to the AP, Paltrow delivered a "brief introduction punctuated by 'ums,' declared herself to be one of Obama's biggest fans and said he's an 'incredible role model.'"

Reports the AP:

"You're so handsome that I can't speak properly," the actress, singer and food writer gushed after introducing Obama to several hundred supporters seated on white fold-out chairs in the lush backyard of her home in the movie star haven of Brentwood, a neighborhood in Los Angeles.

Obama responded, "I'm taking her to the next event," and somewhere, Martha Stewart scowled.

Obama then reportedly joined Paltrow, Julia Roberts, Bradley Whitford, and 47 other supporters for a $15,000-a-head backyard dinner—but not before literally boring Apple and Moses to sleep.

[image via AP]

I received a dick tip today regarding the picture above (via James Franco's Instagram), which was taken while Franco and Seth Rogen filmed Naked and Afraid:

i'm pretty sure that's a dick resting on his leg. and i haven't seen anyone mention it, so i am either crazy or great at spotting dick.

i figured you could write about it on gawker and get under his skin. i love when you guys piss him off!

I didn't see anything at first. And then Gawker Art Director Jim Cooke helpfully weighed in with his Photoshop filters:

It looks like a dick is resting on James Franco's thigh. Contorting himself into the position to make that possible at first seems unlikely, but again, Jim Cooke has an answer:

If it's not Franco's dick, it still very much looks like a dick, so maybe the real question is: Whose dick is it?

[Shoutout to our tipster, thinkinboutyou]

Nielsen, the far-too-powerful institution that measures television ratings—and by association, is the governing body by which hundreds of thousands working in the television industry are beholden to for their very livelihood—announced today a major fuck-up: A system error has resulted in faulty ratings reports since March of this year.

According to company's statement, the error entered their system March 2 and they didn't notice until October 6—four days ago. What finally alerted them to the error? Shows getting too-high ratings during premiere week, when the broadcast networks debut a slew of their new shows. From Deadline:

The possibility of a problem surfaced at the beginning of the fall TV season as the number of viewers increased. It was particularly noticeable at ABC where — as my colleague Nellie Andreeva reported last week — the network's fast nationals in adults 18-49 and total viewers were adjusted up every night for the first nine days. On eight of the nine nights, the entire ABC lineup went up in the finals. That meant 20 programs saw a lift without a single downward adjustment in 18-49. Over the same period, the other major broadcast networks saw 15 adjustments combined – nine up a tenth and six down a tenth. Nielsen declined to say whether ABC might have benefited from its glitch, saying that the network was entitled to review the numbers before they're released on Monday.

"As a result, small amounts of viewing for some national broadcast networks and syndicators were misattributed," their statement reads. "Cable networks and local TV ratings were not affected by this error."

Ratings dating back to Aug. 18 of this year will be reprocessed and corrected data will be released at the end of the month. Nielsen will also be "conducting an impact analysis to determine whether additional weeks should be reprocessed." From the company's statement, via Capital New York:

As part of our investigation, we have also determined that there are no issues with the National People Meter, our data collection process, our panel, our TV audience measurement methodology or the total TV viewership data produced during this affected period.

Full disclosure: For a brief period, I was part of a Nielsen household and asked to journal, on paper, what shows I watched and when I watched them. I was expected to mail those journals back to Nielsen. I believe there was a nominal payment involvement, but I never ended up following through, because why the fuck would I? I imagine many others asked to journal have felt the same.

Journaling is not the only way Nielsen pulls in ratings data, of course: Some households get little receivers that get attached to their cable boxes and they also get data from DVRs to measure time-shifted viewing.

But at a time when ratings for the broadcast networks have essentially cratered and created a razor-thin margin by which network shows—to many in the industry a holy grail of commercial achievement—are measured, this kind of screwup by Nielsen is an even louder call for a new method of measuring TV viewership. (Please: Tell us what a better way would be. Anything has to be better than what we have.)

How many shows "on the bubble" for renewal this past spring because of their low Nielsen numbers had their already tiny ratings compromised by the single institution measuring their "success"? Those shows won't be uncancelled, and the hundreds of people who lost their jobs—actors, writers, producers, crew members—won't get their jobs back.

"In the vast majority of cases, the impact is small; in a handful of cases, the impact is more significant," Nielsen writes in their statement. Fuck Nielsen.

[Image via Shutterstock]

It was bad enough that companies like Facebook and Google relentlessly mine your information and sell it to advertisers. But now third-party startups are getting into the mix. Thanks to unprecedented access to photos uploaded to apps like Instagram, these third-parties are scanning and storing people's photos on behalf of major advertisers.

The Wall Street Journal delves into this practice of into public picture analysis, including a company called Ditto Labs, which specializes in scraping photographs from Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr for brand information and customer feedback. All the information they glean from selfies and candid shots allows companies to do extensive market research.

Advertisers such as Kraft Foods Group Inc. pay Ditto Labs to find their products' logos in photos on Tumblr and Instagram. The Cambridge, Mass., company's software can detect patterns in consumer behavior, such as which kinds of beverages people like to drink with macaroni and cheese, and whether or not they are smiling in those images. Ditto Labs places users into categories, such as "sports fans" and "foodies" based on the context of their images.

Kraft might use those insights to cross-promote certain products in stores or ads, or to better target customers online. David Rose, who founded Ditto Labs in 2012, said one day his image-recognition software will enable consumers to "shop" their friends' selfies, he said. Kraft didn't respond to a request for comment.

Advertisers can already directly target photo-sharers. According to Ditto's founder, they already have a service which enables advertisers to "target specific users based on their photos posted on Twitter." But Ditto has found that corporations are resistant to the new technology, fearing customers will think it's "creepy."

Right now, Ditto has a realtime "firehose" of all photographs published on social media, allowing curious people to filter for topics like "coffee," "candy," and "beer." You can see how creepy it is for yourself.

Update 3:45pm: Vans and The North Face both emailed statements saying they do not use Ditto:

I can assure you that Vans does not utilize Ditto, yet the image in the article undoubtedly implies that we do. Any time a consumer's photo is used within Vans' social media platforms, they have tagged Vans and we have asked for permission to post it after an internal review of current photos uploaded to any platform.

To contact the author of this post, please email kevin@valleywag.com.

Last night's Scandal provides political intrigue, a sinister man ho delivering one of the raunchiest lines in recent primetime memory, and a step-by-step guide to getting your ex back with only an underground bunker and raw enthusiasm.

You gotta love the fact that out of six storylines, the one in which the Attorney General blackmails a judge into suicide, over radical gun control legislation, is only about the fifth in importance on the totem pole. The political is pretty secondary on this season of Scandal, which is turning out to be a very good thing for the characters. The Gladiators have become self-aware, people.

In this outing, we're treated to a more or less Quinn-centric episode, as her ex/torture mentor, Charlie, is back in the picture and quickly manages to get her in an underground bunker for 24 hours. Messed up as that is, I like Charlie. In a cast of killers, sociopaths, terrorists, and whatever the heck Jake is supposed to be nowadays, he is the only one who signs it all off with a smiling emoticon.

If nothing else, Charlie and Quinn make for a fun pairing. Them torturing various people together last season was basically Scandal's version of a couple riding a tandem bike; morally reprehensible but still kind of cute.

Jake also makes some wave this episode by declaring war on Olivia's father over awkward dinner. For someone so dedicated to protecting Olivia, Jake has mastered the art of running hot and cold in order to keep her interested. For all the sinister machinations and door slams, all he wants is that official "in a relationship with: Olivia Pope" relationship status. Understandable, really.

Cyrus for his part, has given into the charms of the Sinister Man Ho, hired by Sinister Veronica Palmer. (That's Portia De Rossi to you monsters who didn't support Better Off Ted. ) Could the White House Chief of Staff using a male prostitute perhaps have unforeseen consequences in the near future? I'm no psychic.

Elsewhere, Mellie has entered the "crafts corner" stage of grieving, trading her robe for an obsession with a headline murder case. Unlike most, Mellie also has access to the whole of the US government to do her bidding and Abby/Gabby/Red continues finds herself inching closer to the First Lady and away from Pope & Associates.

Line of the Week was originally going to go to Quinn's outraged monologue at the fact that none of the four people she listed as being her support system noticed her disappearance for 24 hours. It's a great monologue that was sadly eclipsed by Sinister Man Ho's blunt:

"I'll replace that lump in your throat with something much more satisfying."

ABC, people. Former home of Full House and The Brady Bunch.

• Case of the week was right out of the SVU playbook. Rich teenage girl goes missing, with a twist. She's dead now but stay tuned for the trial.
• "Call me later, if you want me to do that thing to you." Jake's vaguely specific sexual prowess continue to elude me. I've ballparked it at more complex than cunnilingus but not quite butt stuff.
• New Scandal Drinking Game addition: chug every time Papa Pope threatens and emasculates one of Olivia's suitors while wearing nonthreatening attire.

Morning After is a new home for television discussion online, brought to you by Gawker. Follow @GawkerMA and read more about it here.

Delta Sigma Phi brothers at the University of Georgia could face criminal charges after they allegedly forced pledges into trash cans full of freezing water and made them recite fraternity history. UGA police chief Jimmy Williamson said yesterday, "We feel the events definitely put people at risk."

Cops got a tip about the alleged hazing incident that happened on September 26. Since then, they've tried to interview Delta Sigs about the incident, but most won't cooperate. Per the Athens Banner-Herald:

UGA police interviewed the pledges as well as some fraternity officers, or at least tried. "Most people are not willing to discuss it with the police department," Williamson said.

One of the pledges had visible injuries, but said they were sustained in a fall, the police chief said. Other pledges told police that they had been made to get into a trash can filled with ice water and recite fraternity history. The quicker they recited the history, the sooner they could get out of the water.

Total Frat Move picked up the story this morning and suggested that one of the pledges "told his mom" about the alleged hazing:

You may be wondering how the authorities were tipped off about this incident. In fact, some of you may have guessed. A pledge told his mom. Yeah, I know. Fucking pledges. He told his mom, his mom told the school, and you know how it went from there.

Yeah, fucking pledges. UGA has suspended the frat while cops continue to investigate.

[Photo via Facebook]

Hey, guys—quick thing I wanted to talk about: Let's say you had sex on the subway, or masturbated, heh, or maybe you did it at home, or on the platform, and then brought the condom onto the train, carefully holding it upright so that its gloopy innards didn't spill onto your hands, and tied it to a handrail.

Next time—and it's really not even that big of a deal—don't do that.

Ha-ha. It's OK. Get your laughs out now. It wasn't so funny when an innocent straphanger almost gripped the little lube-covered present you left on the F Train this morning. Everyone has to use those trains, and when you do stuff like this, it makes us adults wonder whether why we even try any more, if you're not going grow up.

"I moved my hand on the pole to slide down a little and did a double take, because I realized, 'That's a fucking condom.' Just hanging there, tied like a balloon. It was eye-level, it was disgusting," Ryan Quinn, the guy who spotted the cum-filled rubber pocket, told Gothamist. And, you know, I take back what I said about it not being a big deal. It is disgusting, and you should be ashamed.

Another Gothamist reader, Whitney Jacoby, claimed she saw the condom hanging as early as Tuesday. Tuesday! If any of you would like to act your age and do the right thing, I'll be waiting for your confession in my office all day.

[Photo via @meandtherhythm]

A Mobile, Ala., mom says school officials forced her daughter to sign a contract promising not to commit suicide or harm others after the kindergartner "drew something that resembled a gun," then pointed a crayon at another kid and said "pew, pew!"

5-year-old Elizabeth was sent home after school officials made her take a questionnaire to evaluating her for suicidal thoughts, then had her sign the safety contract promising to contact an adult if she was thinking of suicide or homicide. This all happened while her mom waited in the lobby to pick her up, the upset parent told WPMI.

According to her mom, Elizabeth didn't know most of the words on the contract she signed. "Suicide," in particular, was a new one for her.

"Mommy, daddy, what is suicide?" Elizabeth's mother says she asked.

The school, E.R. Dickson Elementary, didn't respond to WPMI's request for comment on whether treating 5-year-olds as suicide risks is normal protocol in these situations.

Elizabeth's mom said school officials recommended the 5-year-old see a psychiatrist. She refused.

[h/t NBC News, Photo: WPMI]

This is Shell. She's an Airbnb host. New Yorkers met Shell when her face appeared on "New Yorkers love us" subway ads. They saw her in this promotional Airbnb video about providing free housing for people who lost their homes in Hurricane Sandy.

What the advertisements neglected to mention is that Shell became Airbnb's poster child "a few months after" she was evicted for renting out a barn up upstate because she violated her lease and pissed off her seemingly generous landlord. Joe Coscarelli from New York magazine digs into the whole embarrassing affair:

As a result of her loyalty and good Sandy deed, Shell was asked by Airbnb to star in its New York–loves-us ad campaign, which was shot over the summer, a few months after she was evicted from Griffith's place in exactly the kind of fight Airbnb wants to avoid being associated with. The company, she says, knew about her situation, and Shell casually name-drops "Joe and Brian" — Airbnb founders Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky — in conversation. "They know who I am as a host," she says.

Shell, a fabric designer whose full name is Michelle Martinez, was evicted from a 1880s Dutch barn in Stuyvesant where the rent was $4,000 a month from the owner, Christopher Griffith:

"I'm renting this because I'm associated with artists and need a full studio," Griffith says his new tenant told him at the time, warning that her "artist friends from around the world would show up and collaborate." He thought that sounded charming.

Griffith didn't realize that in sharing economy jargon, "collaborate" means charges others money to use his home and give a cut of that money to a company that venture capitalists say is worth $10 billion.

While she was gone — say, in search of fabric in South Africa — Shell was something of mini share-economy mogul, renting out the barn (and her other leased properties) to help cover her monthly payments, in direct violation of her lease. "Friends are one thing," says Griffith now. "Groups of social-networking strangers is a completely different ball of wax."

Shell tells New York magazine she thought she was "very clear" to her landlord about "the concept of what I was doing," but Griffith clearly didn't realize the concept was real estate not global artist retreat:

Griffith figured out his own barn was being advertised on Airbnb when he received a message from LinkedIn asking if he knew Martinez, listed there as a former real-estate agent and the founder of something called Shell's Brooklyn Loft. Neighbors had mentioned seeing strangers around his place upstate, and suddenly something clicked. "I looked up barns in the area and my place came up at $475 a night," he says. The barn was also listed on Airbnb competitors TripAdvisor, FlipKey, Dwellable, and Outpost. "I was like, 'Of course! How could I be so stupid? How could I not have known?'"

Shell and Airbnb seem like a natural match because Airbnb hasn't made itself very clear to hosts either, when it comes to the fact that sub-leasing on their platform may be illegal and get you subpoenaed or that hosts may not have been paying proper taxes.

However, Shell seemed to be well aware of local laws:

According to her 276 guest reviews on the site dating back to 2010, Shell also rents out a place in Puerto Rico and a ground-floor apartment in Brooklyn. ("In order to comply with NYC laws, I only sublet this apartment for stays that are 30 days or longer," she warns in the latter listing.) In addition to the barn, there was once another place upstate, in nearby Rhinebeck.

When Griffith tried to notify Airbnb, he got "absolutely nowhere." And Shell rented Griffith's place out for a wedding after she was evicted. The bride and groom left a comment thanking "Shell + Team" for their services.

San Francisco just passed a new law to make Airbnb legal. If Brian and Joe want New York to do the same, they should refrain from putting evicted tenants in future ad campaigns.

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

[Image via Airbnb]

As we are all well aware, Cameron Diaz—celebrity—and Benji Madden—second-most-famous Madden brother in early-2000s PacSun tribute group Good Charlotte—are dating. Rumors arose in July that the couple might (somehow) be on the path to marriage, and today People reports that they may have taken the first step.

According to People, Cameron was seen at the Academy's Hollywood Costume luncheon, an event that makes me feel tired even reading about, wearing a "sparkling ring." Hmm.

An eyewitness reportedly said Cameron, seated next to fellow celebrity Gwyneth Paltrow, was "casually and constantly twirling her ponytail, showing off the ring and often playing with it." Would a woman not engaged to Benji Madden wear such an accessory and play with it? Hmm.

Another source reported seeing the couple at dinner the very same night:

They arrived together with Benji driving. Cameron showed off her new ring and was smiling. They enjoyed dinner for several hours."

Hmmm. So, here are our clues:

• Sparkling
• Playing
• Driving
• Smiling
• Enjoyed

What do you think? Is Cameron Diaz engaged to Benji Madden? Is she OK? Does she need our help? What does Benji Madden know about Cameron Diaz that we don't? Oh my god, do you think she murdered someone and Benji is the only one who knows?

Oh my god.

[Image via Getty]

It's fun to waste money, but literally burning it loses its thrill after a while. So, the New York Times is innovating: take second graders to one of the most expensive restaurants in Manhattan for a lavish, exorbitant meal they'll hate.

"Can Second Graders Appreciate a Seven-Course, $220 Tasting Meal?," the paper wonders in a new video segment. Unless that tasting meal is comprised of fish sticks and gushers, of course not. And even then, $220 worth of fish sticks would be a torment.

Have you ever seen 8-year-olds—ones with nascent-generational names like Chester and Rohan—gag on Daniel Boulud's caviar? You have now! Yes, this is a little grotesque, but at least the kids learned a lesson most wouldn't for another decade: if you're cute, people in New York will waste a lot of money on you.

Many people out walking have stepped on snakes, and recoiled in horror. How many of those people tried instead "leaning in" to the step, so that the pressure on the snake was increased, snapping his spine more cleanly? Only a select few.

The koan: "The Giver Should Be Thankful"

While Seisetsu was the master of Engaku in Kamakura he required larger quarters, since those in which he was teaching were overcrowded. Umezu Seibei, a merchant of Edo, decided to donate five hundred pieces of gold called ryo toward the construction of a more commodious school. This money he brought to the teacher.

Seisetsu said: "All right. I will take it."

Umezu gave Seisetsu the sack of gold, but he was dissatisfied with the attitude of the teacher. One might live a whole year on three ryo, and the merchant had not even been thanked for five hundred.

"In that sack are five hundred ryo," hinted Umezu.

"You told me that before," replied Seisetsu.

"Even if I am a wealthy merchant, five hundred ryo is a lot of money," said Umezu.

"Do you want me to thank you for it?" asked Seisetsu.

"You ought to," replied Uzemu.

Why should I?" inquired Seisetsu. "The giver should be thankful."

The enlightenment: "Nah," replied Uzemu. "Give me my shit back."

"I was just playin," Seisetsu said hastily. "Thank you very much!"

"I got you!" said Uzemu. "You said the giver should be thankful! You changed up just for money? That's not very zen at all. Give me my shit back."

Seisetsu was like "Dammmm." He had to admit he'd been punked.

But he kept the money anyhow because he was a good fighter which is all that really matters.

This has been "Zen Koans Explained." Like a walk into a bucket.

[Photo: Shutterstock]

Another day, another explainable weather event. Subtropical Storm Fay is on the cusp of developing in the Atlantic Ocean, and it's likely going to brush Bermuda in a few days. What is a "subtropical storm" and why is it different from a regular ol' tropical storm?

Tropical systems (depressions, storms, and hurricanes) have to meet certain criteria in order to be considered tropical. The United States experiences three types of cyclones, or low pressure systems—extratropical, tropical, and subtropical. Understanding subtropical systems requires a brief summary of the other two types of cyclones.

Extratropical Cyclones

Extratropical cyclones are by far the most common in the world. Whenever you hear your local television meteorologist talking about a low over the Midwest or even a Nor'Easter, it's an extratropical low. These cyclones are marked by temperature advection—they produce cold fronts and warm fronts, and they feed their energy off of the jet stream. The extratropical cyclone pictured above was the strongest ever recorded over the United States, dubbed the "Chiclone."

Tropical Cyclones

Tropical cyclones, as the name suggests, have to consist entirely of a tropical airmass—from side to side, top to bottom, the atmosphere through the system has to be warm and humid. They don't produce fronts since there's no collision of different airmasses; tropical systems are tropical through and through. Tropical cyclones also gain their strength through intense, well-organized thunderstorm activity around the eye.

Pictured above is an infrared satellite image of Super Typhoon Vongfong near its peak strength of 180 MPH.

Subtropical Cyclones

This brings us to subtropical cyclones. Subtropical cyclones are like the step-brother of tropical cyclones. Like tropical systems, subtropical systems have a closed low pressure center at the surface. Unlike traditional tropical cyclones where the strongest winds are concentrated in thunderstorm activity around the center, subtropical cyclones often feature their winds and thunderstorm activity displaced a good distance from the center of circulation.

In the system that's likely to develop into Subtropical Storm Fay, the National Hurricane Center says that the feature's maximum winds extend over a 100 nautical mile radius. That's a huge wind field for such a small, weak storm.

Subtropical cyclones are also cooler than tropical systems. While tropical cyclones have a warm core (warm air from surface to the top of the atmosphere), subtropical cyclones usually aren't completely warm through their entire cores. Since they're not quite tropical, they're...subtropical.

Bermuda is under a tropical storm watch in anticipation of future Subtropical Storm Fay's brush with the island. There are a few more areas of interest out in the Atlantic worth watching. It's been a quiet year, but coastal residents shouldn't let their guards down yet—hurricane season doesn't end until November 30.

[All images via NASA, annotations on last image by the author]

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