Photo

Not sure if trolling or just for teh lulz... Alright man, we get it! You're rich!

OMG... Oh no! The real Rob Ford is showing. It must have been the tickle was too good. TOO GOOD!

Feeling Cagey? is a fun site developed byJosh McMilan that puts Nicolas Cage's face on selfie photos in realtime.

Back in April, at the request of his 87-year-old grandfather, Redditor stevieboy1984 turned to the /r/PicRequests subreddit to see if anyone could clean up a scanned JPEG image file of his grandfather's World War II-era photo taken during his service in the Navy as a submarine sonar/radar operator. After a number of people offered their photoshop wizardries to help its restoration, stevieboy1984 showed his grandfather six variations before handing him a framed version of top commenter unhi's submission. Here's a video of the big reveal. Grab a box a tissues, manly tears are coming.

Redditor AlphaF submitted this perfectly staged photograph that she had sent to her worrying mother during a trip to the Grand Canyon. For more photoshopped parodies and copycat attempts, check out the gallery over at Know Your Meme!

Prank Artist of the Day is a feature series showcasing some of the most brilliant pranks and exploits of our times.

These two images are portions of a new photo showing the central area of the Milky Way galaxy, released by astronomers at the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory in Chile.

The photo shows 84 million stars in an image measuring 108,500×81,500, which contains nearly 9 billion pixels, and is actually a composite of thousands of individual photographs shot with the observatory's VISTA survey telescope.

Don't miss the zoomable version.

Comic book writer and novelist Greg Rucka (Stumptown, Queen and Country) answers a frequently asked question in an incisive essay for io9 titled "Why I Write 'Strong Female Characters'".

The entire piece is well worth a read, but here's the key passage:

Writers don't write Men or Women or Dogs or Salmon. Writers write characters, and at our best, if we do it well and with care and with thought, we invest in those characters a spark of life, a realism and nuance that makes them believable and relatable.

Rucka also questions why journalists don't tend to ask female writers how they write "strong female characters," and why more male writers don't do the research about their female characters, the way they would with any other character whose experience differs from their own.

[io9]

Conservative group One Million Moms is at it again, directing its not-quite-a-million members to boycott Marvel and DC Comics due to recent announcements from both companies about their futures of their gay characters.

DC has revealed that a major character is soon going to come out as gay, while Marvel announced the engagement of superhero Northstar to his boyfriend, Kyle.

These events don't sit will with One Million Moms, whose anti-gay agenda has also led them to protest the wedding of Archie Comics' first gay character, Kevin Keller.

"Children desire to be just like superheroes," said the group in a statement. "Children mimic superhero actions and even dress up in costumes to resemble these characters as much as possible. Can you imagine little boys saying, 'I want a boyfriend or husband like X-Men?'"

The statement goes on to accuse the publishers of trying to "indoctrate [sic] impressionable young minds."

Marvel and DC have yet to respond to the homophobic comments.

[towleroad.]

Ebony magazine commissioned street artist Shepard Fairey (of Obey and HOPE fame) to create artwork of the late Trayvon Martin to accompany a piece in this month's issue.

Fairey writes:

I have followed Trayvon's case closely and I think any compassionate human being can relate to Trayvon as a brother or son and would want to see a thorough investigation into the killing of an unarmed person. In my portrait I wanted to emphasize Trayvon's humanity as well as the public outcry for a just investigation into his death.

[twbe]

A Disney Cruise employee named Nelson has become internet infamous after allegedly stealing a passenger's iPhone and using it to take several photos. Thanks to Apple's Photo Stream feature, the owner of the phone was able to grab Nelson's snaps of himself, his friends and his girlfriend and upload them to her Facebook account.

"This is Nelson," she wrote next to one photo. "Nelson stole my iPhone."

While it hasn't been proven that this man actually took the phone and then foolishly failed to delete the owner's account before using it as his own, things certainly don't look good.

"I have alerted the officials of the Disney Cruiseline and forwarded them the photos. Hopefully I'll get my phone back and maybe some free passes to Disneyland," wrote the alleged theft victim.

Disney has yet to comment on the incident.

[nymag]

This is why the dog takeover will never happen. They don't even understand the mechanics that people can only go down a slide, not up. Still, with a face like that, the human race will probably just surrender to a canine regime based on cuteness alone.

[fluffingtonpost]

Just because it's his party, doesn't mean he can't cure his boredom by playing with the elastic strap on his birthday headgear. If dullness fully set in, it would be a CATastrophe.

[fyeahcuteanimalss]

Banksy's famous Parachuting Rat, located on a wall in the Melbourne, Australia suburb of Prahran, has been destroyed by builders doing drilling work for a café.

Local business owners were upset by the needless demolition of the piece by workers who apparently didn't realize what they were destroying. The wall did contain other graffiti, but area taggers had avoided painting over the Banksy.

"Had it been 20cm higher or 20cm to the side this would never have happened," neighboring business owner Jacqui Vidal told the Stonnington Leader, "This should have been avoided. It's not a big piece, but it is one of the few remaining Banksys in Melbourne."

The Rat was destroyed once before by cleaners who painted over it during a 2010 anti-graffiti campaign, but was later restored.

There is some good news, though: a possible new Banksy piece -- showing an Asian boy hunched over a sewing machine and a Union flag -- has appeared on the wall of a Poundland shop in London. It has yet to be confirmed as authentic on the artist's website.

[heraldsun.]

Star Wars creator George Lucas has been trying for years to convert a large parcel of land in Marin County, CA, into a 300,000-square-foot movie studio, with amenities including a day care center, restaurants, a gym and a parking garage, only to be shot down by his wealthy neighbors.

Because the local homeowners' association has refused to let Lucas move forward with the studio, he's decided to put the land to good use by transforming it into low-income housing, simultaneously doing a good deed and trolling his fellow landowners.

"If everyone feels that housing is less impactful on the land, then we are hoping that people who need it the most will benefit," Lucas snarked.

He's even donating the various studies and surveys he paid for while working on the movie studio project, to help the new housing development get underway more quickly.

That might be almost enough to outweigh creating Jar Jar Binks.

[movies.]

Nothing can celebrate the person who birthed you into this world by donning some appropriately embarrassing outfit and taking her out to Olive Garden. However, for this pup, he might be better trying to sail on through the day without notice.

[fyeahcuteanimalss]

It's difficult to tell whether this cat is dreaming about life beyond that pane of glass, or if he's creeping out the rest of the neighborhood on purpose. In any event, that vest is not helping his case -- the stripes give it a weird, Freddy Krueger vibe, making it a real nightMEOW on Elm Street.

[thefluffingtonpost]