Silver chest hair. #granddadbod
iStock / Via Thinkstock
iStock / Dan Meth / Via Thinkstock /Buzzfeed
Early bird specials at Coco's, Werther's Original candies, and prunes.
iStock / Dan Meth / Via Thinkstock / BuzzFeed
“We had breakup sex that was so good that I wanted to get back together and break up all over again.” All confessions courtesy of Whisper.
Make your voice heard!
Sometimes, you just gotta do what you’ve gotta do. Via Whisper.
On this week’s episode: We close out Mental Health Awareness Month with a conversation with the First Lady of NYC, Chirlane McCray! Plus, a Jason Bateman quiz, Tracy’s joke time, and your petty breakup stories.
Jon Premosch / BuzzFeed
Illustration by Andres Guzman for BuzzFeed
Chris Ritter / BuzzFeed
“It’s like a game of Jenga that got out of hand.”
Painting with sloths >>>>>>> working.
An incredibly useful site that tells you if a dog dies in a movie, i.e., if you will burst into uncontrollable tears and have your evening ruined. It's here.
Type your worries into PixelThoughts.co and watch them silently float into HTML ether. It's here.
A soothing site that lets you doodle with majestic light paintbrushes. It's here.
WhatShouldIReadNext is the Pandora of literature: Type in your favorite book, and the database of user-submitted titles will suggest something for you to tackle next. It's here.
This week on “Whine About It,” a short video series where BuzzFeed writer Matt Bellassai gets drunk at work and complains. (Presented by BuzzFeed BFF.)
Matt Bellassai / BuzzFeed
Matt Bellassai / BuzzFeed
LET'S JUST BE REAL WITH EACH OTHER AND TELL ME WHEN TO GET THEIR FOR REAL.
Matt Bellassai / BuzzFeed
This is a party, not an all-you-can-eat buffet, Carol.
Matt Bellassai / BuzzFeed
End of the Middle-earth.
This is it! The one and only time!
Andrea Hickey / BuzzFeed
Featuring the “Someone’s Blocking the Ticket Barriers Like a Bellend” Face.
UPN / Via s413.photobucket.com
Comedy Central / Via giphy.com
NBC
Warner Bros / Via yourtango.com
GoDrive is the first of 25 Ford social mobility experiments to be launched publicly.
When Ford Motor Company announced its Smart Mobility Plan at CES this past year, company executives emphasized that its 25 experiments were just that. Not all of them were intended to reach commercial viability. "Each experiment is different and luckily [Ford CEO] Mark [Fields] is giving us the ability to experiment and fail fast," Erica Klampfl, Ford's global future mobility manager, said at a press event in April.
But one of those experiments, City Driving On-Demand, has birthed a real social mobility service. Called GoDrive, it's an on-demand, app-based car-sharing service. Ford launched it in London on Tuesday with a fleet of 50 vehicles that can be booked on demand, picked up, and then dropped off at one of a number of hubs across central London. Booking a car through the app also effectively books a parking space at the chosen drop-off location.
"One of the things that we really wanted to ensure with our service was flexibility of use," Alicia Agius, product innovation manager of Ford Europe, told BuzzFeed News. "If you use our services it's fully on demand. You bring the car back when you're ready and you don't say exactly when you're going to return it."
GoDrive, like many of the company's other experiments, is Ford's answer to industry disruptors like ride-hail giants Uber and Lyft — which are both gunning to replace personal car ownership.
"I think it's helping us understand the model and what our place is in this model going forward and in the future," Agius said. "We're not saying that we want to be a global car-sharing operator. But we do see it as a growing market and [feel] there's a place for it going forward. We also view it as a huge opportunity in terms of accessing new customers — both non-car and non-Ford-owning customers — which is another huge benefit to operating in the space."
One key goal of GoDrive is to spur adoption of Ford's electric vehicles, yet the program's fleet includes gas-powered cars as well. Agius said there's good reason for that. "We obviously thought early on about having a 100% electric fleet," she said. "As this is an experiment and it's really about learning, by having the choice between electric and petrol it helps us understand why people are choosing electric cars and what sorts of people choose electric. We're already gaining lots of information about that."
As part of this effort, consumers who use the GoDrive service are asked to complete a survey asking which vehicle they chose and why. While it's too early to draw any definitive conclusions, Agius said Ford has already learned a bit more about why people aren't choosing electric cars. "Sometimes it's lack of knowledge, misunderstanding, or even a fear that it's going to be very different to drive," she said. "There's also the other type of customer that couldn't wait to get into the electric car and that was one of the main reasons for wanting to join."
The service does require membership in order to validate each driver's license — but it comes at no additional cost. Drivers only have to pay for each minute they use the car at a rate of 17 pence per minute — about 10 euros per hour.
Though Ford has experimented with other car-sharing and swapping services in markets like Germany, Michigan, and India, GoDrive was the only one mature enough to launch publicly. Agius said London was an obvious first choice of market.
"From an experimental perspective London is a perfect storm in terms of different variables affecting a car-sharing program," she said. "There's extremely constrained parking in central London, congestion and air quality concerns, and also the multiple boroughs in central London that make it quite a difficult city to operate in. Because it's an experiment it is about learning and we wanted to make sure we were operating in a geography that would maximize learning.
"And London is obviously quite densely populated — there is huge untapped potential in London for a really designed car-sharing model that suits London and Londoners to flourish on."
Don’t mess with the Father of the House.
Cameron Spencer / Getty Images
Because if you’re going to be ~inspired~ by anyone, it should be these guys.
Sport: Snowboarding.
Why you should follow: This feed is damn pretty. When Torah isn't boarding, she's at the beach or presumably, styling her next Instagram post.
Sport: Swimming.
Why you should follow: This paralympian's feed proves this gold medallist's got one damn good sense of humour.
Sport: Surfing.
Why you should follow: As assumed, the surf champion's Instagram feed is full of waves that would make anyone else run for cover.
Sport: AFL.
Why to follow him: Because of the cute dog, obviously.
Two chimpanzees in Abidjan.
Sia Kambou / Getty Images
A New York City judge heard arguments over the rights of two chimpanzees, Hercules and Leo, that animal rights advocates hope to free from Stony Brook University.
Last month Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe granted a hearing on the chimpanzees’ habeas corpus petition, leaving Stony Brook University to defend keeping them in captivity. Habeas corpus is a legal petition that detainees use to seek relief from unlawful imprisonment, and by granting habeas corpus to chimps, Jaffe endorsed the idea that they deserve the rights of human beings.
The chimpanzees are kept at the Long Island university, which is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system, where they are used in locomotion studies.
Steven Wise, a lawyer for the Nonhuman Rights Project argued on Wednesday that chimpanzees are “autonomous and self-determining beings,” that they have “personhood” rights.
“They are the kind of beings who can remember the past and plan for the future,” Wise said in court as to why detaining the animals was wrong. “The chimpanzees are in prison, being exploited by Stony Brook, and they don’t even know why they are there. We only do that for our worst criminals around us.”
Wise later argued that Hercules and Leo are “essentially in solitary confinement, at the mercy of their keepers.”
The state attorney general’s office, who is representing SUNY, argued that the court should dismiss the petition because it should have been filed in Suffolk County and not in New York City.
Assistant Attorney General Christopher Coulston also said the petition should be dismissed because other court decisions have already ruled that chimpanzees do not have personhood rights.
“There is no precedent in nonhuman animals receiving this right,” Coulston said.
He also said granting personhood rights to Hercules and Leo would create a “slippery slope” of where to draw the line on which animals are autonomous.
The Nonhuman Rights Project wants Hercules and Leo to be sent to Save the Chimps in Fort Pierce, Florida, where hundreds of other chimpanzees live in a sanctuary designed to replicate their natural habitat.
Jaffe did not make a ruling, and Hercules and Leo were not present during the almost two-hour hearing.
Similar cases have been filed for two other chimpanzees – Tommy, who lives in a cage on a used trailer lot in Gloversville, New York, and Kiko, who is held on a private property in Niagara Falls. Decisions are still pending in the New York Court of Appeals.
LINK: U.S. Court Recognizes Chimpanzees As “Legal Persons” For First Time
“Remember who you are!”
It’s time this happened.
He was challenged to get the tattoo by a guy called Porkchops.
YouTuber Ernest Acosta got the tattoo at a shop in Odessa after being challenged by a LiveLeak user named "Porkchops."
"Well Porkchops, I got the Frankie tattoo, so mission accomplished," he said in the video.
“I like these challenges, it’s better than eating stuff and throwing up on film," he added.
She goes topless.
It’s not luck, it’s fate.
