​If you'll recall, back in May, May 21 to be exact, and the days that preceded that fateful day (in which nothing actually happened, but that doesn't mean we didn't worry that it would!), some of us were getting a bit worked up about the so-called Rapture. But, of course, it didn't happen -- you're still here reading the Internet, right? -- and Harold Camping, the guy who'd said it would happen, declared it would, even, was somewhat embarrassed, and hid inside for a weekend, and then put on a polo shirt and walked outside into the still-happening world. But! Relax you not, sinners and non-sinners.

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​Ah, the sweet smell of newsprint hot off the presses. That smell doesn't exist anymore, right? Hasn't it been replaced by the smell of an overheating laptop (vaguely metallic, slightly fiery, mostly disconcerting)? Not quite. Refinery29 reports that there is now a limited-edition candle available called "The Times of New York." It smells "newsy, with hints of guaiacwood, cedar, musk, spice, with 'a powdery note and velvet nuance,' meant to mimic the aroma of black ink on newsprint." We're guessing that's just a nice way of saying that it smells like the back room of your grandparents' apartment.

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​In all of our robots-take-over-the-world fantasies, there's usually one last conversation between "us" and "them." The robots always speak English, of course! But what if the robots didn't speak English at all? What if robots had a language of their own composed of bleeps and bloops? Scenes of Will Smith in I, Robot would seem ridiculous with Smith just shouting out dial tones. So it was with great fear that we read the BBC's report that said robots are now developing a language that's all their own. Although the language is still in its early stages, the BBC says "the lexicon has proved so sophisticated that it can be used to help robots find places other robots direct them to."

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There Will Not Be Blood

​"It has been a really tough weekend," said Harold Camping, the 89-year-old leader of all of that end of the world bullshit, upon finally opening his front door in Alameda, California, a day after he thought he'd be in heaven. He said he was "flabbergasted"; he wore a polo shirt. "I'm looking for answers," he said. "But now I have nothing else to say." He went to close his door -- we imagine he looked down at his feet and whimpered. "I'll be back to work Monday," he said, "and will say more then." When he does, we'll no longer be listening. Hopefully no one else will either. [SFGate]

• ​So, we all made it! No Rapture. Despite having assets of over $104 million, Harold Camping's Family Radio didn't quite get it right. How are Rapture believers dealing with it? Reuters talked to a man, Robert Fitzpatrick, who spent $140,000 of his life savings getting the word out about the Rapture. "When the hour came and went, he said: 'I do not understand why ...,' as his speech broke off and he looked at his watch. 'I do not understand why nothing has happened.'" Yeesh. The AP found a family who traveled 3,000 miles in a minivan to California to wait for the Rapture which never came. As for Harold Camping, his office is closed and no one's answering the door at his house. Better luck next time. Here's an interesting Wikipedia article about unfulfilled religious predictions. [AP, Reuters]
• Indiana governor Mitch Daniels has announced that he won't run for president, joining the club that so far includes Haley Barbour, Mike Huckabee, and Donald Trump. [LA Times]

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​For a while now, everyone on the Internet has been firing off increasingly unoriginal smug jokes about the poor souls who actually believe that Jesus is coming to pick them up today. And this is happening for a number of reasons -- first of all, crazy wingnut extremists are often fodder for humor. Also, people on the Internet have a tendency to repeat jokes till they're driven into the ground and actually become kind of malicious. But should we cut out the attitude and actually feel sorry for the disappointed people who will not be beamed up to heaven by Jesus today? This piece in The New Republic argues that we should.

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Everyone okay?

​Hey, where's Jesus at? Are the holy people going up to heaven right now, and if so, is it too late to get in on that? It's looking like...well, maybe it's too early to say, but it seems as though the world is not in fact ending right now. Maybe I'm jumping the gun and I'm about to get pwned with the other nonbelievers. Is anyone experiencing earthquakes right now? Have you seen holy people being raptured up into heaven? Any "plagues, quakes, wars, famine and general torment"?

If any of you are walking around today and see clutches of crazy people waiting in vain for Jesus, please, please send photos. We'll update if the apocalypse happens.

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​Monday, Runnin' Scared reported on Assemblyman Michael DenDekker's new bicycle bills. If his proposals pass, riders across the state would have to register and tack license plates on their bikes, and submit them to yearly inspections.

First-time registration would cost $25, with a yearly renewal fee of 5 bucks. For commercial cyclists (who would also have to get insurance), paperwork would cost at least $50. DenDekker expects that these bills could initially generate some $1,875,000, and an added $375,000 every year after. Of course, DenDekker doesn't really specify where the money would go, just that there would be more of it. Anyway, we decided to poke around the Internet and call a few people who knew about transportation policy, and see whether similar measures are the norm across the country. Turns out, they're not.

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​The United Nations is predicting that Earth may be "unrecognizable" in 2050 due to the rise of population and the increase in demand for food. The population is expected to jump from seven billion to nine billion by that year. Yahoo quotes Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund as saying, "We will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000." But won't we only be ingesting food by pill form by then? Through exhausting research, we've found that 2050 is going to be the worst Earth year ever.

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This must be fake, right? Please let it be fake.

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