Setting Up Your Home Office

On Feb. 11, "volunteer IT consultant" Elon Musk appeared at an Oval Office event to discuss the findings of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency. Among other claims, Musk said that a "cursory examination of Social Security” revealed that people who are clearly dead may be receiving social security benefits. “We’ve got people in there that are 150 years old,” Musk said “Now, do you know anyone who’s 150? I don’t, OK… I think they’re probably dead, is my guess, or they should be very famous, one of the two.” In a later post on X, Musk provided some numbers and joked, "Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security." …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Breaking news out of Florida: Lee County deputies reportedly arrested a man recently on the beach near the Sanibel Causeway. The unnamed suspect was found dripping wet and drawing detailed diagrams in the sand. He told officials he'd been kidnapped by dolphins, pulled under the surface, and forced to build an underwater city. The man said the Head Dolphin, "Gerald," communicated with him through clicks, and found some way to help him breathe for several days. You can get more details in this TikTok video that's been viewed over five million times in the last few days: It turns out, unsurprisingly, that this story is fals…

Maybe it's not fair to call a medical diagnosis "trendy," but more and more adults in the U.S. are seeking treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. ADHD, once regarded as a childhood disease, has made the transition to adulthood: About 15.5 million adults in the U.S. have been "officially" diagnosed with the disorder, and a growing group of others believe they have ADHD. A lot of them are wrong, but that's OK. Fed by a steady stream of online influencers and pop science, more and more people are self-diagnosing with ADHD, autism, depression, and other mental disorders. Very few of them are qualified to make these diagnoses. While it’s easy to scoff at some…

The totals are in for 2025, and it's been a great year for measles. According to the CDC, the number of cases of the disease identified in the US has risen from 285 in 2024 to 2,144 in 2025, the highest number of measles cases since 1990. We've already seen at least 171 measles cases in the first two weeks of 2026. As you'd probably guess, experts pin the rise in measles to lower vaccination rates. I covered a number of vaccination and measles myths in this column months ago, but there is a new spin on measles that seems to be gaining some traction: A lot of people think contracting measles is good for your heath. “There’s a lot of studies out there that show that if yo…

A few weeks ago, I posted a story about the proliferation of AI-created fake news videos about Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Because I am fair (and balanced!), this week I'm looking at the AI distortion of a hero from the left: Dallas-based congressperson Jasmine Crockett. The real Crockett is sharp, confrontational, and isn't afraid to curse people out. AI-Jasmine Crockett is a folk hero who spends her life STUNNING, DESTROYING, and OBLITERATING various talk show hosts, actors, and political opponents. She took on Bill Maher, humiliated Seth Meyers, made Ellen DeGeneres regret insulting her, and still had time to have a judge arrested. On YouTube. The real Jasmine …

There’s a new star in the firmament of fake new: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Known for her combative press conferences, Leavitt is at the center of a tornado of misinformation that is being spread on both sides of the political spectrum. To set the record straight on two of the most viral fake Leavitt stories: She did not say people will love tariffs if they “avoid woke things like math.” And she did not appear on the Stephen Colbert Show. So if you believed either of these things, you’re wrong, Before you feel too bad for the lies being told about Leavitt, she is okay with spreading fake news of her own, so it's a huge mess. Karoline Leavitt did not s…

Another week, another "gotcha" video debunked. This time it's "Cop Pulls Over Black Judge and Lives To Regret It," a piece of pseudo-documentary street drama that's been viewed millions of times on YouTube and TikTok (and elsewhere, I'm sure). The video is part of a growing online video genre based on documenting cops' confrontations with public, either through police-worn body camera footage or citizen-filmed footage. Some of these videos are real, but many of them are not. Here's the "Cop Pulls Over Judge" video: The tells: bad improv in a Florida parking lotIf you have a smidge of media literacy, it's easy to spot this as fake. The acting is sub-community-the…

There is a rumor going around online—on Reddit, Facebook, TikTok, and (I assume) Friendster—that gravity will stop working for seven seconds on August 12. Here is part of the warning posted online: In November 2024, a secret NASA document titled "Project Anchor" leaked online. The project's budget is $89 billion, and its goal is to survive a 7-second gravitational anomaly expected on August 12, 2026, at 14:33 UTC Key facts:• Duration: 7.3 seconds.• Expected casualties: 40-60 million. What will happen: 1-2 seconds: Everything not secured will rise (people, vehicles, animals).3-4 seconds: Objects will continue to rise to 15-20 meters.5-6 seconds: Panic and chaos will ensue …

Clones are everywhere. Last week I talked about the rumor that actor Selena Gomez is a clone or a double (she is not). This week, it's Jim Carrey. Many online are wondering whether the rubber-faced comedian/actor is not what he seems to be. Maybe he's a clone. Maybe he has a doppelgänger. Maybe it's a prank. This is all obviously dumb, but unlike the Selena Gomez story, there's some evidence that supports the idea. It's not good evidence, but it's at least a little more interesting than most conspiracy theories. Why people think Jim Carrey is a lookalikeThe theories started flying last week, when Jim Carrey was given the César Award in Paris. The 64-year-old comedian ha…

I've spend more time than I care to admit researching Selena Gomez today. The 33-year-old pop singer and star of Only Murders in The Building is at the center of an elaborate online conspiracy theory that been building steam all week. Why? In brief, many people online seem to believe Selena Gomez is a clone. Why people think Selena Gomez is a cloneIt started with the Epstein files. Last week, videos started showing up on TikTok claiming Selena Gomez was mentioned in the Epstein files. She was, but Gomez wasn't corresponding with Epstein; her name is mentioned in a July 21, 2017 message between Jeffery Epstein and Lana (NAME REDACTED) in which Epstein writes, "sorry , you …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Memphis city council members Pearl Eva Walker and Yolanda Cooper Sutton (and many other people online) say that snow is fake. Sutton recently posted a video on her Facebook page to demonstrate the artificiality of snow. Over footage of her husband holding a snowball and a lighter, Sutton says, "So we decided to see what was really hitting the ground." Her husband holds a flame to the snowball, and it does not melt. “It’s not melting [it stinks] when you set fire to it OMG, Jesus Christ, what is happening!!!” Sutton asks. In the video's comment section, fellow council member Walker reportedly replied, "man made," and inc…

The pre-Super Bowl hype weeks have begun, and with them comes the annual American tradition of calling the NFL rigged. Local drunks, AM radio sports show hosts, and message board experts are all in agreement: The fix is in. Last year, the most interesting conspiracy theory held that the Pentagon rigged the entire 2024 NFL season so the Chiefs could appear in the Super Bowl and Taylor Swift could help Democrats get re-elected in 2024. (Oops.) This year's football truthers have a less esoteric theory for why the Chiefs are definitely going to win the Super Bowl: Follow the money. They make a compelling case, but they're wrong. Why "they" would fix the Super BowlThe rough …

Many people think the world is going to end in 2026. Man people think the world is going to end every year—maybe because the Bible said so, or The Simpsons said so—but this 2026-doomsday prediction seems to have a scientific basis. In a 1960 issue of Science magazine, Austrian scientist and polymath Heinz von Foerster detailed what he called the “Doomsday Equation,” a model he used to calculate the last day of civilization on earth. According to von Foerster (and probably Homer Simpson), The End is coming on Friday, November 13, 2026. Who is Heinz von Foerster?Foerster was not a crank. A pioneer in computer science, artificial intelligence, physics, biophysics, and other…

We're heading toward the back half of February—and according to your weird aunt on Facebook, this is an unusual, maybe magical month. Some say it is a "miraclein," a lucky calendar configuration that only occurs once every 823 years. Others say February 2026 is a "perfect month." Some say it is the beginning of an extremely unlucky year. Some say that a late-month planetary alignment will cause great upheaval. The February 2026 "miraclein"Though it is not a word used by astronomers (or even astrologers, to my knowledge), some are describing this month as a "miraclein," a month in which every day of the week falls four times during the month. This only happens every 823 y…

In a culture overwhelmed with ridiculous beliefs, an unlikely hero of rationality has emerged: reality star Kim Kardashian. Kim raised a healthy amount of skepticism of psychics in a recent TikTok video: In case you don’t follow the ins-and-outs of reality stars, Kim K.'s recent life cycle/plot development sees her trying to become a lawyer. She’s been taking an apprenticeship in the industry and presumably studying hard. She also consulted psychics, who read tea leaves or whatever and concluded that she would pass the California bar exam. Except, sadly, she did not. “Psychics are full pathological liars” —Kim Kardashian“All of the fucking psychics that we have met with,…

A recent outbreak of measles in West Texas has resulted in 159 cases of the disease in the state so far; 22 victims required hospitalization, and one has died. In response to the deadly outbreak, some Texas parents seem to be considering hosting "measles parties" instead of vaccinating their kids. Misinformation about measles can have deadly consequences, so here's a look at some ways people are getting measles wrong. Myth: Measles vaccines are potentially dangerousWhile a small percentage of people suffer side effects from the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, they are almost always mild. The most common is a fever that hits between 5% and 10% of those vaccinat…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Every few decades, the pop culture machine spits out a person who purports to have supernatural powers. In the 1980s, it was spoon-bending swami Uri Geller. In the 1990s and 2000s, it was “mediums” like John Edward, who supposedly talked to people’s dead relatives. In 2025, we have Oz Pearlman. To be fair, unlike the rest of these examples, Pearlman doesn't claim supernatural powers himself, but a lot of people seem to be taking his stage patter explanation for his mentalist tricks as the unvarnished truth. They're wrong. Oz (pronounced “Oh’s”) has a hell of a schtick. The 43-year-old dude seems like an unassuming nerd, un…

We are less than two weeks away from the 95th anniversary of the discovery of Pluto, the ice-caked, rocky sphere orbiting around 3.7 billion miles from the sun. To mark the occasion, The Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, where Pluto was discovered, is hosting its sixth annual "I Heart Pluto" festival. But should they? Is Pluto even a planet? According to a recent YouGov poll, 35% of Americans think Pluto is not a planet. It's something else, according to them. But they are all wrong—kind of. To get to the bottom of Pluto's planet status, I tracked down planetary scientist Dr. Will Grundy—who you might recognize from academic papers like "Measurement of D/H and 13…

A recent YouTube video from channel The Ultimate Discovery makes some claims that might surprise fans of actor Gene Hackman. According to the video, FBI agents searching Hackman's home following his death discovered a "hidden passageway concealed behind the library wall" that led to a "vast, eerie underground warehouse" containing documents, antiques, old photographs, and parts of unidentifiable machines. The walls were covered in runes and symbols that seem to be of ancient origin and could not be translated. Not only that, the bunker connects to larger network of tunnels, "similar to the catacombs of Paris." It's a pretty good story (if you can swallow the pre…

I'm posting this on March 17,St. Patrick's Day, the day we celebrate the patron saint of Ireland, and Irishness in general, by dancing to accordion-and-fiddle-based music, dyeing a river green, and enjoying a wee drink or three. But there's a lot people get wrong about the holiday, so allow me to clear up some myths. St. Patrick's Day wasn't always a day for partyingThe association between boozing it up and March 17 is relatively recent. St. Patrick's Day was observed in Ireland as early as the ninth century but it was largely a somber remembrance, not a celebration—it marks the anniversary of St. Patrick's death, after all. It was a day when the dietary restrictions of L…

This week, people are wrong about teleportation. A common science fiction trope, teleportation is the transfer of matter or energy from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them. Widely repeated claims of teleportation have been cropping up since at least 1583, when occultist John Dee supposedly vanished from his home in England and reappeared at the same moment in Prague. The most recent report comes from Gregg Phillips, who was appointed to lead FEMA's office of response and recovery in December. On a January episode of the Onward podcast, Phillips said, "I was with my boys one time, and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House...t…

This story seems straight out of a Hollywood thriller: Up to a dozen scientists working on some of the U.S.’s most advanced and sensitive aerospace and nuclear programs have disappeared or died in mysterious ways over the last five years. The FBI is working with the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and local law enforcement to find answers. The House Oversight Committee launched its own investigation. Congressman Eric Burlison said the mystery has “all the hallmarks of a foreign operation.” The president called it “pretty serious stuff." Congressman James Comer suggested someone is targeting the nation’s nuclear program. Rep. Tim Burchett alleged a cover-…

This week, there has been a lot of chatter in the weirder parts of the online world about the supposed discovery of a hidden complex of underground chambers beneath the Great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt. It seems a team of researchers announced they'd used SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) to reveal a number of underground buildings beneath the Khafre Pyramid. This discovery could offer proof the ancient Egyptian civilization was far more advanced than is generally believed, and possessed technology that rivals our own. It could change everything we think we know about humanity itself! In other words, big if true. Spoiler: It's not true though. All signs point to the “discov…