You know what I discovered this week? Giphy Originals. I can only assume these folks are Giphy Staff just throwing a bunch of reactions your way to use whenever you'd like. Hopefully they start sprouting up in your /giphy calls in Slack. Also, Floating Hamburgers.

On to the distractions!

• Look at this Cat! She Thinks She's a Show Horse - the music is a real added treat.
• Idiots - an affable British man implores you to help America "Be the Bigger Moron." Election Day is Tuesday. Let's not screw it up.
• Samantha Bee's Trump Conspiracy Theory - she makes a compelling case. At least as compelling as any of the mud slung at Clinton and certainly much funnier.
• How I Became the Bomb - Break Hearts - if you missed this post earlier this week, don't sleep. Great video.
• Foxygen - Follow the Leader - do you miss the days when a 70's fop could prance around a playground and it wasn't creepy? Well, Foxygen got you covered.
• Bill Murray sings Take Me Out to the Ballgame - there's plenty of great video of Bill Murray losing his mind in elation after the Cubs win and this piece of him singing as Daffy Duck is a nice gateway into the madness.
• This is the way I want you to drink it - another prime example of how context can ruin a thing. Just enjoy, don't ask questions.
• Doggo's Adventure - waiiiit for it.

Oh, I've also been informed that Friday Videos do not work at all in Safari so I'll work to get that fixed soon; just been busy. Sorry for the trouble!

I've known Bryan Bruchman, aka Subinev, for damn near 20 years. He's run a blog for a lot of that time, is a talented photographer, has been in a number of bands and has now revived his college radio show. The Subliminal Inevitable Show started on WNYU-AM back in the early morning hours and now finds a new home on BTR. I'm diving into the first episode now and I suggest you do the same. Just look at that playlist! Great stuff.

I'm going to put this link from MIT on Generating Videos with Scene Dynamics right here and hope that others can read and decipher it a bit better than I can. Here's the intro conceit:

We capitalize on large amounts of unlabeled video in order to learn a model of scene dynamics for both video recognition tasks (e.g. action classification) and video generation tasks (e.g. future prediction). We propose a generative adversarial network for video with a spatio-temporal convolutional architecture that untangles the scene's foreground from the background.

From looking at it, these brainiacs are taking a bunch of random videos and creating new scenes based on the dynamic attributes they see within. They are able to generate a Beach, a Train Station and some terrifying babies. I don't have a clear understanding of exactly what is happening but I'm intrigued regardless.

Life.. https://t.co/FjHClEqxFr

I have real political anxiety. I've never had it like this in any other election. It really feels like so much is at stake. I want it over.

Noel Gallagher's Oasis DVD commentary highlights https://t.co/S43GXMGhI5

Tomorrow, the radio show I started in college many, many years ago comes back to life in podcast... https://t.co/kxP3JrxqoJ

CMRA is a watch band for Apple Watch that contains two tiny cameras, one outward and one self-facing. If the promo video is to be believed, it's basically the future we've always been promised. Right on your wrist you can take photos, video chat with friends and do whatever social features its got built right in. The downsides are low camera quality (relatively) and a watch band you have to charge.

I'm sure part of my enthusiasm is just the hype of stumbling upon this but it's hard not to start placing bets on how long it will be until Apple buys these guys or outright steals the idea.

Two worthwhile projects from This American Life emerged lately and they reside at fairly opposite ends of the spectrum:

• Chris Ware Animations - a nice gallery of Chris Ware illustrations animated by John Kuramoto presenting a cross-section of American voters. It's simple and pleasant. Love that ghost voter.
• Episode 600: Will I Know Anyone at This Party? - an investigation of the changing face of the Republican party and what seems to be the most concerning GOP issue, immigration. The piece is broken up with some awful original show tunes but that's just a poor attempt at cutting the scariness of the real content of the episode: white people freaking out. Try as they might to mask their outbursts as Not Racism, it's clear that's the root of the issue. Not exactly an uplifting listen but a good reminder of how much work needs to be done to get people to calm down and be cool with multiculturalism.

Not much of a story here, just a gallery of images from the New Zealand Cosplay Championships capturing a bunch of best friends that participated together. Honestly, it just feels good to see people enjoying themselves doing a thing they love, together.

Haven't seen this many stressed out white dudes since the Ashley Madison hack. #WorldSeriesGame7 https://t.co/HpUPG7zHjU

excellent for Fall

serious 70's homage going on here

One way to think about an election is: who are the literal Nazis and Klansmen supporting? Maybe I should look elsewhere.

SF Photographer Helena Price recently launched The Pussy Project, a series of portraits and interviews that explores the fears and concerns of our political climate from women of all backgrounds and walks of life.

Her writeup on the project is not so much about changing hearts and minds as it is about imploring empathy:

I know that pro-Hillary rhetoric sounds just as crazy to Trump voters as pro-Trump rhetoric sounds to so many of us. Rhetoric is not enough to change minds. I truly believe that exposing voters to people who are relatable in some ways but different in others, sharing personal stories, and increasing empathy on both sides, is a more reliable path to change.

The images are great, the Jessica Hische logo is solid and the site is enjoyable. But, most of all, the message and the stories are compelling.

Take time to read this. Seriously take time out of your day and read five of these. Any five. It's worth the small effort.

The Election is looming! I think that's fair to say. As we hurdle towards the 8th I think it's wise to take a moment to urge you to check out BallotReady.org, a non-partisan site that simple breaks down all of the candidates and referendum's that will appear for you. Plug in your address and get information on every candidate that you'll be asked to cast a vote for. The Presidential runoff certainly gets all the media attention (understandably and deservedly) but knowing your Senators, State Assembly reps, Judicial Candidates and Local Referendums is also important. Consider it a dry run! Get in there and decide who you're going to vote for before you go to the polls.

"An interactive love story set in the multiverse... whatever that means." The Possibilia short film from DANIELS is an interesting onslaught of possibilities seen through a romantic fight. The consistent audio makes the experience pretty seamless and well worth a click around.

All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die. https://t.co/2dgeaPKoVq

Graphics card? That's a dongle. SSD? That's a dongle. CPU? You better believe that's a dongle

Steve R. Dodd paints the Mighty Eye. 10 days until Skyway Man day. https://t.co/gosgfYnlTq