Duncan Ferguson is a Canadian artist and tree planter. This is a sample of his three-year photo project, Shitheads, documenting planters all over western Canada and their love-hate relationship with the job.

People come from across the country for this, leaving their comfy beds to live in a tent in bush camps for months at a time. During the planting season, they get blasted by chopper dust, stuck waist deep in mud, snowed in, soaked in rain, eaten alive by bugs, and whatever other masochistic bullshit the job has to offer. According to Ferguson, "One time we accidentally disturbed a wolf den full of cubs, got surrounded by the rest of the pack howling at us and hiding in the trees. We had to call the chopper in to get us the hell out of there."

When the season is over it's normal for people to burn their stuff and swear they'll never plant trees again, but chances are they'll be back next year to drag themselves through hell for a good time and a paycheque.

You can see his work at www.duncanmferguson.com.

In June, I visited Baku, Azerbaijan as part of a vacation around the Caucasus. I'd timed it so I'd be able to attend the first European Grand Prix, a fresh stop on the Formula 1 racing circuit, to be hosted in Baku. The race course meandered through the city center, which was close to equal parts historic buildings, old restaurants and shops, and gleaming, sparsely populated luxury stores. The glitz and glamor of Formula 1 and its global circus of the wealthy was draped against a backdrop of old castles and ambitious state-sponsored construction fueled by an oil industry that's had to weather world oil prices declining by half in the last three years.

An autocratic petrostate investing in prestige events and glistening highrises to gain a foothold on the world stage is nothing new, and it was interesting to see the world's sporting press descend on the city, mention the Dior boutiques and incoming Starbucks, and move on. It'd be easy, and not entirely unfair, to say the government of Azerbaijan aspires for Baku to be a new Dubai on the Caspian Sea. It even has its own artificial islands, although construction is ongoing. A 2013 New York Times Magazine headline sums it up nicely: "Azerbaijan Is Rich. Now It Wants to Be Famous."

Driving into the city from the airport, I passed down a highway lined with new apartment buildings, stadiums, and stunning architecture the likes of the Heydar Aliyev Center. But what struck me more than the city's new sheen, which is inspired by the same generically-global luxury of other booming cities—of course there's a Trump hotel in Baku—was when I took a stroll through the city to check out some historic neighborhoods, and came across one in the latter stages of being demolished to make room for a more glitzy replacement.

Read more on Motherboard

Goth Shakira and Scariest Bug Ever are two of the most prolific and prominent feminist meme accounts on Instagram. With over 100,000 followers between them, they've pioneered a new, and oft-copied visual representation of humanity and womanity in 2016. Through hundreds of memes about everything from fuccbois and feminism to anxiety and depression, both Dre (Goth Shakira) and Binny (Scariest Bug Ever) are part of a group of North American (Dre is Canadian and Binny is from the US) artists redefining the way women talk about themselves online. And their reach goes well beyond social media, bringing the screenshots to gallery walls. As memes go mainstream, they're continuing to push the limits of the weird internet. In an effort to understand why feminist memes exploded over the past year, VICE asked them to interview each other [over Gchat] to talk about how they deal with their trolls and what it's like to perform your depression for tens of thousands of strangers.

Dre aka Goth Shakira: Was this the year the meme went mainstream?

Binny aka Scariest Bug Ever: Hmm.. I would say yes, but this has been happening for a while. I think it would be more accurate to say this was the year we all finally had to explain memes to our parents. Memes have been mainstream in subculture for a while, but now they act as advertising, political commentary and a substitute for actual news.

Dre: I agree. I would say that there's still an "insider" element to memes though. Although they're more visible and prevalent across many social media platforms, there's still a "weird internet" feel to them.

Binny: For sure.

Dre: Even if that feel has been rendered more and more palatable in 2016, it's still like, you have to have knowledge of certain meme formats and trends to understand a certain meme, to the point where there are memes being made about things like being able to send your crush a certain meme and having them "get it." Wow say "certain meme" again Dre...

Binny: It was kind of weird this year to see the proliferation of accounts that acted like ours, kind of like, adopted a certain style. I feel like when we started out, for example, the longform text you sometimes do at the top of a meme was kinda something unique to you, not saying it's necessarily bad to copy that format but like, now I feel like it's almost a staple of an "alt" meme account to put like a block of text. Memes are going through their trends, like anything does. It's strange to be included in that and imitated. It's flattering, weird. 

Dre: I'm glad you brought that up, grappling with that has been one of the weirdest parts of the whole thing for me.

Binny: As my friend Howie said it, "I CAME TO SEE A MEME NOT A PROSAIC BUZZWORD FILLED ESSAY."

Dre: It was this meme style that I came up with and now at the end of 2016 there are scores of accounts that produce memes in that/my style, some of which have garnered tens of thousands of followers. And it's a format that I'm honestly tired of now. Yeah, I sort of feel like I've created a monster.

Binny: Me too, but probably exclusively because I (like many) am too lazy to read them. But I throw them a like anyways, lol.

Dre: But it's allowed women and femmes to share their personal experiences in cathartic ways so I am glad that there are people who have gleaned something positive from that. Yes, there was a time in 2016 where that format was fresh, but it isn't now, and that's okay. It just prompts us to be more creative.

Binny: Also agree, the process of making it is often much more beneficial than the actual response to it. It's less important how many likes it gets and more important to purge yourself of the secrecy of an experience you didn't know was shared. Like the ex-boyfriend memes I make are always uber-specific to people I've dated and then like 2000 people are like, "OMG THAT'S SO MY EX."

Dre:  I know, it's such a strange phenomenon, but one that makes sense nonetheless. Either way the circulation of ideas and thoughts and words moves at hyperspeed on the internet, and this is just evidence of that. Relevancy comes fast and disappears fast.

Binny: Meme of the month.

Dre: It's how quick you as a content creator can adapt and innovate that matters.

Binny: Agree. I feel old AF making memes. Like, can I stop? But it's my diary now so I really can't stop.

Dre: I feel the same way. I'm turning 26 soon, going to be a meme admin in the latter half of my twenties. Bet my parents are wishing they used protection lol!!!!!!!!

Binny: Me too, Jesus. I used to think it was bleak, but it's nice to have a platform to spread info honestly. I wouldn't have gotten that with my visual art that's for goddamn sure.

Dre: It's bleak as hell but so is life. But I often find myself wondering… *Carrie Bradshaw voice.*

Binny: LOL

Dre: But for real, is performing bleakness in public online spaces really authentic? I can only speak for myself and I know that although my intentions are always oriented towards being Real(TM), that doesn't always happen. When you have that much of a followership you inevitably alter the way you portray yourself.

Binny: I often think about that tweet that once told me that I would soon tire of publicizing emotional vulnerability and only care about making my apartment nice. That tweet fucking haunts me.

Dre: That is indeed a haunted tweet. Perhaps we need to release and have our weird little time in the sun on Instagram.

Binny: The hive mind mentality of depression in 2016 is weird. You're weird if this year didn't like RUIN you or something. I feel like depression got trendier and more relatable. And everyone's like *hand clap emojis everywhere* STOP ROMANTICIZING MENTAL ILLNESSSS and for a while I was on that train but then I was like, wait a minute, humour is my healthiest coping mechanism, I need that tho. It's weird how depersonalized something gets when it's shared as opposed to when it's kept private. Nothing is private any more in my life after this shit. Like I get messages from followers like, "Hey! I know u have dry skin in the winter…"

Like what, you remembered that I have dry skin but my mom still calls me by my cat's name?

Dre: l o l

Binny: Whoops. I'm on a tangent

Dre: Tangents are good. It's very alienating when you meet strangers in real life and they genuinely think that they know you...

Binny: Agree. When we met IRL you were refreshingly diff than what I even imagined... Like not in a bad way, I was just like, oh, she is so open about all of these insecurities but IRL I can't see any of them based on the way you move through the world.

Dre: It's odd but how do you explain to someone that just because you may know my very intimate feelings about my relationship with my father doesn't mean you know who I am!

Binny: Right? Like I was like, I already knew what parts of her body she is insecure about but do I know her drink order at the rum bar? Now i know... lol. Oversharing can create a false sense of familiarity.

Dre: Yes, re: oversharing! It's an odd thing, vulnerability.

Binny: It's also trendy and be performative?

Dre: Dare I say that we might have made it trendy? And I don't know how I feel about that.

Binny: It comes in waves, stoic is trendy for like five years and then crying is trendy. Glad I am crying at a time when it's cute.

Dre: Ha! It makes me feel strange though.

Binny: I know, I'm totally minimizing. What do you think about vulnerability being a trend?

Dre: Like I wrote/made a lot of my long-form memes when I was going through depression. But I'm not anymore, and I'm really stoked on life, and have been for awhile. But sometimes I feel like, wow, am I just not Sad(TM) enough to be a cool internet girl/fulfill the qualifications of the role that I have somehow come to play?

Binny: Totally agree with this.

Dre: I'm very, VERY glad that femmes/women/non-gender conforming folk are becoming more vocal and emboldened to be vulnerable on the internet.

Binny: Me too for sure.

Dre: That is so important. But at the same time, it can be difficult to draw the line between performing vulnerability as a radical act of self-acceptance and visibility in a world that may marginalize you, and as just a way to seem cool/gain followers because it's trendy right now.

Binny: I agree. Sometimes with all the nuance involved the memes almost have LESS meaning in that regard. At least all the major meme accounts have blocked me, I wear that as a badge of honour.

Dre: The super-personal meme has its place, but there is a difference between vocalizations of one's experience (as a means to an end) and just straight-up over-indulgence and narcissism (as an end in and of itself.) LOL. I mean dude tbh I'm doing things purposely now to not gain more followers. The more people watching, the more careful I have to be and I want to feel free. That's what drew me to making memes in the first place.

Binny: tequilafunrise has super good memes re: narcissism and indulgence. I heavily relate to her and she has kind of an academic tone that resonates with the snobby binch side of me lmao. Do you remember when or why you started making them? Also I'm listening to Robyn Call Your Girlfirend rn and it's rly boosting me, you should sync up.

Dre: I like her stuff [tequilafunrise]. I'm also into goldnosering, ada.wrong, yung_nihilist and tofuhoagieofficial as POC voices in the meme community.

Binny: Ada.Wrong is an underappreciated genius I think.

Dre: Agreed. Want to see more of her.

Binny: Ada we summon you.

Dre: ALSO girlybullshitmemes has NOT gotten the credit she deserves imo.

Binny: TRUTH. Ok, so why did you start making memes? Because my reasons are super specific and trauma related and I'm wondering if that's common.

Dre: Well, I started making them because I was going through depression and had just gotten "broken up" with and felt like just some kid with a BA and a shitty job in a tiny apartment and was like, welp I have no ego anymore, I'm a loser and it's cool!!! It'll be funny to share this with my five pals and maybe they'll get it. And now we're here.

Binny: I got punched in the dang face by a stranger. I had never been physically attacked before. I ended up staying inside on my phone a LOT and it changed the way I spent time with myself.

Dre: That's horrific, I'm so sorry that happened to you.

Binny: It wasn't that bad in the grand scheme of things but it gave me some weird-ass PTSD that I've been working through and memes have helped a lot in terms of just externalizing my fears, even though they seem idiotic. People relating to certain elements of helplessness/anxiety has been, in a way, empowering.

Dre: Yes, yes all of the yes.

Binny: My therapist looks at my IG, LMAO.

Dre: Hey I mean... it would be weird if they didn't tbh. I'm glad your internet presence was able to help with that.

Binny: Honestly, a lot of my closest friends for a really long time HATED my memes. I understand why they're troubling, a lot of content about self-isolation.

Dre: Yeah dude, friends have gotten mad at me for being on my phone while out. Dudes have gotten mad at me about memes that may or may not have been about them.

Binny: Oof dudes. Can I even count the amount of times I've gotten the "please don't meme me " request from dudes? Cowering.

Dre: The fucked up thing is that they secretly want you to *rolling eyes emoji* Have you gotten sad art bois who fetishize you for  your meme presence?

Binny: Almost exclusively. I think what might be worse is some dudes think that following me and you is an acceptable replacement for actual feminist labour / doing their part to disrupt patriarchal attitudes. It worries me that a lot of dudes stop at consuming content we promote and are like ... ALL GOOD! CURED OF INTERNALIZED MISOGYNY NOW!

Dre: YES OH YES. Say it again!

Binny: I want the memes to make you think but I don't want it to stop there. A lot of men who seem drawn to me really want me to explain feminism to them.

Dre: Man same. I'm like, I do a lot of explaining online already I feel and now you want me to do that in the context of a romantic/sexual relationship? Like I just wanna be able to relax around you. Can you just know already?

Binny: The emotional labour of memeing is kinda underplayed especially in the feminist meme community. You have to stay on top of your shit or else you get served a flamin' hot plate of SPICY DISCOURSE.

Dre: We just do our best and have this weird responsibility that we didn't ask for, but it is a responsibility nonetheless.

Binny: It is, yeah, it takes maintenance. My comments section is the ninth circle of hell.

Dre: Now THIS is a tasty question. What are the worst comments you've gotten, and how do you deal with them?

Binny: I like don't want to even address that one though. I feel like the trolls are strengthened.

I'm gonna choose to ignore that one. I think the healthiest practice I've developed is picking my battles. I could spend all day yelling at men's rights activists. I have to know how much I can handle.

Dre: Word! I respect that, setting boundaries.

Binny: When it comes down to it, people that are weak af are the ones that attack me. It makes me sad. I don't always fight back, I don't always ignore it . I do whatever I think is best at the time. My skin has been thickened from the experience for sure. How do you wanna answer that one?

Dre: That skin thickening, mmhmm, approaching pachydermal levels. Honestly I can count on one hand the amount of times I've engaged with negative commenters. My block game is extremely strong and I'm not about to put in more effort "fighting" someone.

Binny: Blocking is so nice.

Dre: Not gonna lie, sometimes people say things that hurt, but I'm able to keep an objective distance if I try hard enough, in 99 percent of cases blocking clears my skin up. Blocking ensures my period remains regular. Blocking will never leave me on seen.

Binny: Hahaahahaa.

Dre: I wanna say something nice about you and then i think we're good tbh.

Binny: Yay, I survived.

Dre: You did great. Said some v important things that I'm stoked for people to read.

Binny: I like that like it's just a normal convo but I'm also like *kermit hood* STRESS ABOUT IT.

Dre: I really appreciate you Binny, your strength, talent, and potential is so great. I also love how generous you are, and how you use your platform to support your friends and other artists on the come up.

Binny: Aw shit. I admire the heck out of you, not only because you are hot and talented and motivated and smell good, but also because of your willingness to help me understand me and overshare as much as me.

Dre: Bless you Bin.

Binny: Bless up, thine guy.

Follow Goth Shakira and Scariest Bug Ever on Instagram.

President Obama may have had to squeeze into Marc Maron's Los Angeles garage when he was on WTF, but the podcast host agreed to travel all the way to New Jersey for a chance to talk with Bruce Springsteen.

In their hour-long chat, which dropped Sunday, the Maron and the Boss touched on a range of topics, from the musician's new memoir to his recent struggles with depression, but the 67-year-old American treasure also had a lot to say about the new president-elect.

"I've felt disgust before, but never the kind of fear that you feel now," Springsteen said of Trump's election. "It's as simple as the fear of: Is someone simply competent enough to do this particular job? Do they simply have the pure competence to be put in the position of such responsibility?"

His stance isn't particularly surprising to anybody who has bothered to listen to the lyrics of "Born in the USA" or whatever—Springsteen's vocally supported the Democratic Party for decades and campaigned for Hillary Clinton in the most recent election. But he explained to Maron that his fear about Trump is less about party lines and more about the storm of intolerance that has spread around the country in the wake of Trump's win.

"When you let that genie out of the bottle—bigotry, racism, intolerance—they don't go back in the bottle that easily, if they go back in at all," Springsteen said.

"Whether it's a rise in hate crimes, people feeling they have license to speak and behave in ways that previously were considered un-American and are un-American. That's what [Trump's] appealing to. My fears are that those things find a place in ordinary civil society."

You can listen to the full episode over at the WTF website.

Photo of Springsteen receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom via WikiCommons

US News

Republicans Vote to Weaken Ethics Watchdog
House Republicans have voted to bring an independent ethics watchdog under the control of Congress. The Office of Congressional Ethics—designed to monitor elected officials for possible misconduct—will now be controlled by the lawmakers' own House Ethics Committee after a GOP bill passed 119–74. "Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress," said minority leader Nancy Pelosi.—AP

Trump Mocks North Korea, Criticizes China
President-elect Donald Trump has sneered at North Korea's claim to be developing missiles capable of striking the US mainland. "It won't happen," he tweeted. In a separate tweet late Monday night, Trump also scolded China: "China has been taking out massive amounts of money & wealth from the US in totally one-sided trade, but won't help with North Korea. Nice!"—CNBC News

Five Killed in Severe Storms Along the Southeastern US
Severe storms wreaked havoc across the southeast on Monday, killing four people in Alabama and one in Florida. The four were killed when trees fell onto a house in Houston Country during a possible tornado. In Mossy Head, southern Florida, a 70-year-old man was found drowned near his trailer.—CBS News / AP

No Evidence Found of Russians Hacking Vermont Utility
Officials investigating suspicious code found on a laptop used by a Vermont utility department have reportedly found no evidence of a Russian attempt at hacking. Burlington Electric had altered federal authorities to malware found on a laptop connected to an IP address associated with a Russian hacking group. But officials have not discovered any link to Grizzly Steppe.—The Washington Post

International News

Syrian Rebels Suspend Peace Talk Participation
Rebel groups in Syria said they have suspended discussions about their participation at formal peace talks in Kazakhstan later this month, accusing Bashar al Assad's forces of breaking a ceasefire agreement. In a joint statement, rebel groups said all attempts at territorial gains by Assad's troops and Iranian militias would have to stop before peace talks could occur.—Reuters

Netanyahu Questioned in Corruption Investigation
Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was questioned for three hours at his home in Jerusalem by anti-corruption police officers, suspected of receiving gifts from both Israeli and foreign businessmen. Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing. "There will be nothing because there is nothing," he said of the investigation.—The Jerusalem Post

Brazilian Prison Riot Leaves 56 Dead, Dozens Missing
A prison riot in Manaus, the capital of Brazil's Amazonas State, has left 56 people dead and dozens of escaped inmates at-large. Only 40 of 184 escapees have been captured by police, said officials. The riot broke out when clashes erupted between two rival drug gangs, Family of the North and First Capital Command. Several of those killed in the prison were decapitated.—AFP

Turkish Police Arrest 12 in Nightclub Attack Investigation
Turkish police have arrested 12 people in Istanbul following raids connected to the hunt for the gunman who killed 39 people at the New Year's party at the Reina nightclub. Police have released new images of the unnamed male suspect, and Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the authorities also had his fingerprints.—BBC News

Everything Else

Assange Accuses Obama of Trying to Delegitimize Trump
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has denied accusations Moscow was behind the release of DNC documents during the election, and said the Obama administration's spat with Russia was an effort to "delegitimize" Donald Trump. "They are trying to say that President-elect Trump is not a legitimate president," said Assange.—The Hill

'Rogue One' Reigns Supreme at New Year's Box Office
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story made $63.4 million over the four-day New Year's holiday weekend, taking its North American total to $439.7 million. It makes the Star Wars spin-off the second-highest grossing film of 2016 behind Finding Dory.—Variety

Facebook Blocks Photo of 450-Year-Old Naked Statue
Facebook has been ridiculed for censoring an Italian user's "sexually explicit" photo of a 16th-century statue of naked Neptune. A Facebook spokesperson apologized for the "error," blamed on the software's oversensitivity to nudity.—The Guardian

Kanye and Tyga Drop New Collaboration
Kanye West and Tyga have released a new track called "Feel Me," West's first recording since his hospitalization in November. It appears the track will appear on Cruel Winter, a new tape by Tyga's label G.O.O.D. Music.—Noisey

Zebrafish Ban Hurting Canadian Scientific Research
Canadian scientists say a ban on zebrafish imports is hurting vital research. According to cell biologists, studies on Alzheimer's, blindness, heart disease, and arthritis have all been affected by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's embargo.—Motherboard

Dylann Roof Ordered Not to Approach the Bench
An order issued by a federal judge forbids Dylann Roof from approaching the bench, witness stand, or jury while he represents himself during the sentencing phase of his trial. Roof is facing the death penalty for killing nine black churchgoers in June 2015.—VICE News

It's a Saturday in Charleston, South Carolina, and Tim Arlet is thinking about doing ayahuasca for the thirteenth time. He knows a Peruvian shaman who comes to the United States to hold ceremonies, so it's easy enough for him to sign up and go.

But two years ago, after Arlet heard about the drug on the podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, the only way for him to do it was on a trip to the Amazon. He decided to go.

Arlet and 27 other people flew from Lima, the capital of Peru, to Iquitos, a large city that often serves as a gateway into the jungle. From there, they were driven in a large van to the Amazon river. They then took a boat and walked about a mile and a half to a retreat center, where they stayed for two weeks. In fourteen days, they drank ayahuasca seven times.

Read more on Tonic

Turkish authorities have arrested eight more people in connection with the New Year's Eve massacre in Istanbul—including two foreign nationals at the city's airport on Tuesday—but the suspected gunman who shot and killed at least 39 people in the Reina nightclub remains at large.

Here's what we know so far:

• The authorities continue to search for the suspect, but despite releasing a picture Monday of the man they believe to be responsible, they have yet to name him officially.

• According to Turkey's Hurriyet newspaper, a woman identified as the wife of the suspect told police she did not know her husband was a member of the Islamic State group, after they arrested her as part of the investigation. The paper didn't name the woman or her husband.

• Authorities on Tuesday detained two foreign nationals at Istanbul airport as part of its investigation, though it didn't release details of the pair's nationality. Turkey's airports and borders are on high alert as the authorities continue the manhunt. According to the state-run Anadolu Agency, another six people were arrested in raids Monday night.

Read more on VICE News

Police in Alberta, Canada, are trying to figure out how a pilot for Sunwing Airlines managed to get through multiple security checkpoints before he passed out drunk in the airplane's cockpit ahead of its scheduled takeoff last weekend, the New York Times reports.

According to Paul Stacey of the Calgary Police Service, Miroslav Gronych showed up to work on Saturday at the Calgary International Airport "severely impaired by alcohol." Apparently, he managed to pass through a few pilot checkpoints, as well as airport security, without anyone noticing he was too wasted to fly.

It wasn't until he began acting strangely at the gate that Sunwig's staff noticed that something was off and notified the flight's co-pilot, who headed into the cockpit and reportedly found Gronych passed out.

"They found him slumped over in the seat," Stacey said at a press conference. "Obviously this had a very significant potential to cause great harm had the pilot actually been allowed to fly this plane."

Gronych was escorted off of the plane and all 99 passengers onboard the 737 managed to get to their destination safely with a new crew in place. As for the pilot, he'll face two counts of alcohol-related offenses in court Thursday, including being in control of an aircraft while being impaired, and having care of an aircraft with a BAC of over .08.

In a statement from Sunwing's spokeswoman Janine Massey, the airline said, "We are very apologetic for any upset that this has caused and would like to assure our customers that safety remains our utmost priority."

"Lol wtf" That's The Chainsmokers on Twitter, who, scrolling through their mentions, came across a tweet from pop culture site Idolator. "Everyone hates @TheChainsmokers," Idolator wrote, @-ing the electronic duo that is Alex Pall and Drew Taggart in November. "But they keep on winning with ear candy like 'Setting Fires.'" Idolator then linked to an article on their website that praised The Chainsmokers' latest joint with XYLO.

In their defense, "lol wtf" is an appropriate response to the backhanded tweet, which used their name in a hate-them-but-can't-look-away tactic in the same way that most sites use Donald Trump for hate-clicks. But Idolator wasn't wrong. The Chainsmokers, with their cleverly crafted dance tracks that dominated the year and unfiltered views on everything from Lady Gaga to United Airlines, have created an outspoken, unapologetic persona for themselves.

In a year where The Chainsmokers saw chart dominance ("Don't Let Me Down" with Daya reached number three on the Hot 100, while "Closer," featuring Halsey, doesn't seem to be leaving the chart, with several weeks at number one) and three Grammy nominations, the electro bros are 2016's success story. And to explain the phenomenon that is The Chainsmokers, you have to look at their wacky, front-facing persona, the music itself, and the women that front their songs—three incredibly calculated facets of the machine.

Read more on Noisey

A year ago, I did not know much about America's mass shooting epidemic. Over the past half decade I, like many, had grown increasingly conscious of the problem. But I was still shocked by high-profile articles that circulated last December, in the wake of the San Bernardino massacre, suggesting that there was, on average, about one mass shooting every day in the US. I knew those numbers didn't mean there was a massive Sandy Hook–level rampage every day, but I still couldn't fathom where all this bloodshed was coming from. And because I couldn't grasp the contours of the problem, so often discussed only in aggregate, I felt helpless and scared. I suspect others feel the same way.

Then, at the beginning of 2016, I was tasked with tracking every mass shooting across the United States and Europe over the course of the year for VICE. While there is no universal definition, VICE considers any incident where four or more people are injured or killed by gunfire, excluding the shooter, to be a mass shooting. It was a busy year: As of publication, I had tracked 370 mass shootings in the US, which left 392 dead and 1,502 injured. Meanwhile, I tracked only 35 incidents in all of Europe over the same timeframe, which left 53 dead and 174 injured.

Now that the project is coming to a close, I'm more sad than afraid. I've come to see simultaneous chaos and banality in these incidents, the result of a culture that makes it far too easy for violence-prone individuals to access firearms. And I've become frustrated at the way we talk about gun violence in broad, abstract terms that serve to muddy the human impact these incidents have. At the same time, I'm heartened by the realization that, despite the common narrative of America's impotence to reign in gun violence, we can and have enacted meaningful reforms, and we know of many more measures that, while they have yet to enter the mainstream dialogue, could have a big impact on mass shootings in the future.

It's impossible to give an ironclad rundown on the number of mass shootings in America over the course of a year or to describe their characteristics—a fact VICE has been upfront about from the beginning of this project. As Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy Research, points out it's possible to get comprehensive data on gun attacks with high fatalities thanks to solid data collection on gun homicides. But the way law enforcement bodies aggregate data on non-fatal gun crimes "does not distinguish between a case in which somebody simply threatened somebody with a gun versus putting ten bullets in them and they had a darn good trauma surgeon or were lucky enough to survive," which makes it difficult to consistently and comprehensively sort out incidents that saw gun injuries as opposed to just the presence of a gun when other injuries were caused.

Additionally, not all gun crimes are reported and not all agencies are great data sharers. So VICE and other trackers have to rely on news and (when readily available) police reports for our figures. Thanks to selective reporting and the nation's low clearance rates for certain types of crimes, we never learn the full motives and circumstances of many attacks.

From the cases we can pin down, though, it seem that many mass shootings are an extension of other types of violence. Some of the bloodiest stem from domestic violence incidents, while some of the most common occur in the tight confines of nightclubs or just outside their doors.Many more stem from drive-bys or other street or home shootings, frequently pegged as gang related but often just interpersonal conflicts carried out on an opportunistic basis (often on holidays and weekends when people are out and about—and perhaps angry and liquored up) and made disproportionally deadly by the spray-and-pray style and culture of much of our gun violence. Only a few incidents fall under the indiscriminate rampage category, with which we often associate mass shootings in the US.

VICE's crime editor Matt Taylor explains the mass shooting tracker

In other words: mass shootings are diverse. They arise from no single cause and cannot be curbed by any one policy or reform. Yet they are still a discrete phenomenon, the apotheosis of America's rampant gun violence, which leads our citizens to be up to 20 times more likely to die in a gun-related incident as those in other nations. And our gun violence numbers have stayed relatively steady for over a decade, even as overall violent crime in the US has decreased. While they're just a sliver of that bloodshed, mass shootings are the dreaded distillation of many of the patterns contributing to this status quo.

Yet the only mass shootings that regularly grab our attention and drive national conversations are the indiscriminate public rampages. And when we talk about them, we focus on the perpetrators.

"It gives audiences something to both fear and be on the lookout for," says Jaclyn Schildkraut, an expert on the depiction of these events in the press at the State University of New York, Oswego. "You're giving the people somebody to vilify. You're also giving them someone to be afraid of. That then… sparks their belief that they're more likely to be involved in an attack like this."

To repeat one of my constant refrains this year: this focus makes sense. Humans are drawn to the unusual—news isn't news unless there's something new about it, and common forms of gun violence don't hack it compared to boogeymen we can project all our fears onto. However this focus has a nasty habit, in many jurisdictions, of increasing gun sales and loosening gun laws, and may in fact contribute to the ongoing increase in rampage shootings by giving perpetrators the infamy so many seem to be seeking.

Schildkraut also points out that this obsession with boogeymen reduces the victims to numbers while focusing on abstract horror and sinister perpetrators. The more commonplace the type of gun violence, the more likely the victims will be abstracted, as well. While doing her Masters thesis on the depiction of gun homicides in the press in Baltimore, she found that far too often the names of the victims were never mentioned—reduced to nothing more than another black man dead in street violence.

"These individuals are so much more than a number," she says. "It is unfortunate that certain events and, by default, the victims of those tragedies are excluded from the public discourse… The loss of one life to one of these senseless tragedies is one too many, [and] each victim also should be treated equally," whether or not they were a predictable or common casualty. Put another way, not every mass shooting victim is an innocent saint, but that does not mean that one casualty is worthier of our attention than another.

If I had one wish for 2017, it's that every American who brushes these deaths off—lets it sink into the white noise of our culture—could be forced to look into the eyes of someone who has directly suffered in or lost someone else to this epidemic of violence. That's an impossible wish for many reasons, but something has to shift in the clinical way we currently talk about this problem. Mass shootings are personal, intimate events that destroy communities and lives beyond those of the injured and dead, and speaking about them in cold numbers does the victims and the issue as a whole a disservice.

"I don't know if there's any way to break" our cultural norms on types of violence, worthy and unworthy victims, and morbid fascinations with boogeymen, says Schildkraut. "It disgusts me to say that." But there it is. Culture is vital to our ability to address this issue, but hard to change.

Yet while changing cultural engagement with and assumptions about mass shootings is a slog few know how to tackle, the policy reforms to curb such violence are surprisingly clear and attainable.

There's this defeatist narrative that America is incapable of passing gun control policies, given the lapse of the federal prohibition on assault weapons sales in 2004 and failure of Congress to enact new measures in the wake of some of this decade's worst highly visible rampage attacks. Meanwhile the European Union, despite facing a lesser gun threat, responded to recent attacks with new regulations this month strengthening firearms license requirements, banning certain weapons, and making it easier to track registered guns to prevent their black market resale, all in spite of significant differences between member states on gun issues. What federal-level gun control measures America has seen in recent years have come through executive actions, which we've all come to realize in the face of Donald Trump are incredibly weak remedies. Meanwhile we've seen a rush of highly publicized local laws and policies enacted that make it easier for a wider swathe of Americans to purchase guns, carry them freely, and use them—and we know that there are a host of similar laws ready to rush through a pro-gun Trump state.

Yet for all the gridlock at the federal level and the success of gun liberalization, reasonable gun control has actually made great strides at the state level in recent years. As Laura Cutilletta, an attorney at the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, points out, "there's been a tremendous amount of success in defending against" laws making it easier to wield guns in public by gun control advocates in recent years, among other gun liberalization measures.

Meanwhile this year alone three of four major ballot initiatives were passed—a raft of measures in national gun control leader California, universal background checks in Nevada, and a special measure to temporarily remove guns from those demonstrating a clear risk to themselves or others in Washington. And several states expanded background checks and legislatively enacted other limitations on gun possession by dangerous individuals. All of these measures, Cuttiletta points out, have a proven record of reducing gun deaths and trafficking, and thus would have a significant impact on the number of mass shootings.

"Since Newtown, we have seen 160 gun [control] laws enacted in 42 states," says Cuttiletta. "The fact that activists had to bring [measures] directly to the public [in several states this year] I think shows how strongly the public supports these policies and that even if Congress is unable to take action and state legislators aren't always willing to take action, clearly the voters" want it.

As Johns Hopkins' Webster points out, these policies aren't always enforced; small cracks in controls locally or nationally and loopholes enable gun trafficking and the armament of violent and restricted individuals. I'm especially disappointed with the lack of serious follow-up on enforcement of legal measures to take guns away from domestic abusers with a history of violent tendencies and proven likelihood to act—one of the easiest forms of gun death to predict and prevent.

We know how to improve enforcement. Popular actions can demand or initiate enforcement, as with efforts by gun control groups to take dealers who flout firearm sales laws yet often fly under the radar to court, stopping up the supply of illegal guns. New policies can mandate enforcement, as with laws developed in a handful of states requiring that people prohibited from owning firearms surrender them. At the very least, they can decrease barriers to enforcement, as with California's pioneering dual database system, which Cutilletta notes enables them to track gun sales against changes in individuals' statuses, making it easier to see who has become a prohibited gun owner but still holds their firearms and follow up with them. But these measures lack the national visibility and prominence of things like creating shooter alert systems or restricting the size of gun magazines, which really aren't all that helpful.

Even as we try to improve gun control and its enforcement, we rarely engage with the fact that there are now and will for some time be a ton of guns floating around and into illegal hands—and that many legal gun owners are still prone to impulsive violence their firearms can abet. That reality requires a greater focus on decreasing the risks that those guns can or will be used in harmful ways. We know how to do this as well, whether though the funding of intervention policies with a proven record of blocking violence in several case studies and contexts, or strengthening soft targets like nightspots to better contain violence by design or security, or making it easier for qualified responders to arrive and act quickly to minimize casualties. Yet as with enforcement issues, these programs and policies often fly under the radar for most of us.

To wit, we have the popular willpower to pass gun legislation—the American people want this and arguments to the contrary can demonstrably be proven false at the ballot box. Not all of this willpower has historically been translated into the most comprehensive legislation, but good templates are constantly emerging, through pilot programs, nascent policy shifts, or other proposals, for plugging up the gaps that make guns easily accessible, and for disrupting the cultures and patterns of violence that undergird most of America's mass shooting epidemic. We need to make those lesser-discussed policies more visible—to stress their importance, bring them directly to the attention of the worst-hit polities and people, and get them enacted and funded.

That won't be easy in the coming years. A good deal of the national dialogue, willpower, and war chest for gun issues is about to get sucked up into the gaping black hole that is Donald Trump's all-screaming, all-nonsensical gun policy agenda. Webster suspects that federal funding for research will dry up quickly, and believes we'll probably see a cascade of highly questionable federal and state legislative proposals. In other words, we may be busy just holding up the dam for four years.

Still, many gun control advocates I've spoken to in the past year believe that gun control and its enforcement will slowly march forward through popular initiatives in the coming years. And as it does, it'll open up space to talk about violence interruption and all of the other policies we know can break the cycle of mass shootings plaguing America, but which need more popular attention.

For me, this all boils down to one undeniable conclusion: mass shootings are horrific. But if you face them rather than denying the problem or washing it away as something inevitable that happens to those people over there, they are not untouchable nightmares. We are not impotent against them. They are just the supreme manifestation of longstanding and systemic problems in American culture and policy. We have the strategies and the national willpower to start to rewrite those norms—to chip away at this epidemic. We can build on those resources by continuing to focus on the human details of these attacks and elevating awareness of the strategies that work to prevent those horrors—by changing the national conversation, especially through the media.

Mass shootings are not normal, but neither are they inevitable. We can stop them, and the first step is looking directly at them in long, uncomfortable ways.

Follow Mark Hay on Twitter.

I don't know if you heard, but people have a pretty low opinion of the year 2016. Naturally, they were looking for any glimmer of hope that this new year would be different from its predecessor. For many, that hope came in the form of New Year's Day news that some rascal had changed LA's iconic Hollywood sign to read "Hollyweed."

The alteration, an homage to the original "Hollyweed" vandalism of 1976, left many wondering who could have pulled off such a stunt at the famously inaccessible landmark.

VICE spoke with two local artists who claim they are behind the project—Zach Fernandez and his creative partner/former wife, Sarah Fern, about why and how they pulled this prank. Fernandez creates art under the name Jesus Hands, a name that can be seen written on the sign in close-up photos.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Sarah Fern and Zach Fernandez. Photo courtesy of Zach Fernandez

VICE: Why'd you change the sign?
Fernandez: I saw the original "Hollyweed" sign on my buddy's' Instagram and wondered if it was just a digital alteration. But after I looked it up, I saw there was this guy, Danny Finegood, who was an art student at Cal State Northridge and originally changed the sign as part of a school art project. In 1976, California had just relaxed its laws on marijuana, and he did it in tribute to that. He got an A. That inspired me, and I dug a bit and found he did some other installs over the years with friends. Unfortunately, it's actually "the late Mr. Finegood," as he died ten years ago. So, on the bottom of the left of the "O," I wrote "a tribute to Mr. Finegood." The main goal of the piece, however, is to bring about conversation.
Fern: With this election, I think that was something that became clear. I think the idea was already brewing, but with the election panning out the way that it did, that was the final push.

The election panned out positively for marijuana-law reform. You're using this as a springboard to talk about the other results from it?
Fernandez: Yeah. I was told by a good friend that it's important to reframe situations so that no matter the circumstances, it's a positive. Any way I can bring positivity into the world, or guide or steer people away from the negativity or bad parts of life, even if it's a little bit risky, I'm down. I just want to make sure the message is clear. It's about being and staying youthful and living in the purest form. I think this project really allowed me to express that.

How did you prepare for and execute the prank?
Well, I did all the physical stuff. I cruised up in my camo. The reports about the security cam said "man dressed in black" or something, but I was in a camo field jacket prepared for rain. I was hoping it rained because the chances of interruption were slimmer.
Fern: My involvement was more in the construction of it. I pulled the vision together. We had to make sure we mapped it out together and double checked measurements and everything. We did it on a budget and were very resourceful about it. We had a few photo backdrops that were just lying around and added sheets as needed and sewed it all together.

Photo by Jamie Lee Curtis Taete

Are there schematics for the sign online or something?
Fern: Well, Zach found a measurement for the height of the letters. So, from there, we kinda just went over every image we could possibly find online and mapped it out and did the math on it. We tried to give ourselves some wiggle room just in case.

What was the actual install like?
Fernandez: There are ladders on both sides of the letters, but they start so high up that I had to scale a good 20 feet just to get to bottom of the ladder. Then the second letter was higher up and swaying so I had to tie myself off from the rope I was using on the first one and swing around them.

You were swinging like Tarzan between the letters of the Hollywood sign?
Fern: No. He was on one letter and had to drop the rope down to another letter.
Fernandez: It was still a lot of work though. It took me two hours. It's exhausting! Your adrenaline is pumping and then you just crash so hard when it bottoms out. We collaborated before, packed everything, trying to keep it simple and easy. I'm not about "vandalizing" things. I saw the term tossed around quite a bit in the news today.
Fern: Yeah, he just used clamps and clipped it on so they can easily remove it.

Do you think you'll get in any trouble once this interview goes up?
Fern: Sometimes they do it as a slap on the wrist. Like, "We have to because if you get away with it than anyone can." I understand that, and we're OK with that.
Fernandez: Sometimes in order to create that conversation, you have to be OK with the consequences. I'm very proactive about marijuana. The first time I smoked, I was like 12, and my sister and her boyfriend brought out a bong and got me super high. Then we had our own medical-marijuana-delivery service in San Luis Obispo for two years, but we got out of the business. Still, the medical results are clear for people with MS, cancer... It's just interesting to see where the conversation has gone to at this point.

Do you have any plans for future installations like this?
Fernandez: Absolutely. We've really been putting our best foot forward. We've been doing things a bit backward. We have four kids together. I just want to live and be an example for my kids. I just look for like-minded people to collaborate with.
Fern: We're always looking for the next thing.

What do you have to say to those who read all this and still think you're just some stoner vandal?
Fernandez: My message is to smile, laugh a little, maybe not take life so seriously. Reframe things in other people's shoes.
Fern: My message? Can't win 'em all.

Over the Christmas and New Year break, I caught up with a little reading. In Independent By Design—a book speaking to several small development studios and individuals who are making games a little differently (we ran some excerpts in 2016)—there's a Q&A with New Yorker writer and critic Simon Parkin.

"I must have been 16 or 17 when I started to think that there are people writing these games that I love playing," he recalls. "How did they start doing this? Who are they? Where do they live?"

Personally, in my teenage years, games were primarily playthings, brief distractions from college essay writing and driving lessons, alternatives to an evening sucking on a bottle in a nearby park with pals when money was tight. I don't think I began to consider the creators of these experiences until the final years of the PlayStation 2 era, and the beginning of generation seven: Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid sequels, Fumito Ueda's pairing of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, and distinctive works from the likes of Goichi Suda and Keita Takahashi.

Read more on Waypoint.

House Republicans were all set to move the Office of Congressional Ethics—an independent watchdog group tasked with investigating lawmakers for misconduct—under the congressionally controlled House Ethics Committee after a 119–74 vote on Monday. Or at least they were, until Donald Trump took to Twitter and chastised the move, Politico reports.

After the vote, the president-elect promptly tweeted, "With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it........may be, their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance! #DTS."

Less than two hours after the tweets, House GOP leadership called an emergency meeting and decided to drop Virginia representative Bob Goodlatte's proposed amendment that would have effectively scrapped the Office of Congressional Ethics from the rules package, CNN reports.

The proposed change—which drew criticism from Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, outside ethics watchdog groups, as well as the president-elect—was largely backed by Republican members of the House who had been investigated by the committee. House Speaker Paul Ryan voted against the amendment, but ultimately defended it after the vote, breaking with Trump.

"After eight years of operation, many members believe the Office of Congressional Ethics is in need of reform to protect due process and ensure it is operating according to its stated mission," Ryan said in a statement Tuesday. "I want to make clear that this House will hold its members to the highest ethical standards and the Office will continue to operate independently to provide public accountability to Congress."

Some of us might have wailed "I never asked to be born!" at our parents while in the grip of teenage angst. But what if you took this as a statement worth examining instead of writing it off a phase? What if you followed it through to its conclusion—that it's morally wrong to have children at all?

Welcome to antinatalism, a previously obscure branch of philosophy that has developed a cult online following. While the decision to remain child-free has become more common generally—a record number of women in the US now don't have kids—antinatalists go beyond simply not wanting to reproduce due to personal or environmental reasons. According to the Reddit forum /r/antinatalism, they "assign a negative value to birth" and believe that, because the world is so full of suffering, it's unfair to force that on another person by bringing them into it.

Ultimately, they advocate the extinction of the human race.

Twitter user @Roxxane_cams, a 36 year old who goes by the name of Laura, is one of the movement's most vocal online supporters. As well as tweeting daily about her beliefs, she also likes to start debates while working her day job as a camgirl. "I'm probably the world's first and only antinatalist webcam model," she laughs. "I've got in debates about it all over the internet."

Continue reading on Broadly.

As one of the most straightforward ways to relocate to Canada legally, Americans are increasingly applying to Canadian universities. Across Canada, post-secondary schools have reported a recent massive surge in applications from Americans as the Trumpocalypse approaches—inauguration day is January 20, in case you'd been trying to forget that.

There's a couple solid reasons for going to school in Canada right now. You can escape the reign of Trump, the drinking age is lower than 21 and with the low Canadian dollar, tuition and fees for international students are often lower than prices at American schools.

So if you're an American who's after a study permit in Canada, we put together this handy guide (in no particular order) so you know just what you're getting into if you decide to apply to a Canadian uni (yes, that's a nickname for university here, and don't you dare call it "college.")

University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario

Going to U of T can be a polarizing experience. Its reputation as one of the best universities in North America lies in its history and prestige (and large endowment), an attractive quality for anyone who can't get into an Ivy league. Others find it stuffy and pretentious. If you're American, be prepared to go to a school where the number one complaint is that it "doesn't feel like a university." There's a perception that there's no wild parties, it's hard to meet people, and that the professors don't care about you. All of that is total bullshit. Like anything else, the experience is what you make it. And most of that experience lies outside the campus grounds. After all, U of T is located in the centre of Canada's largest city—the one place where every great band is guaranteed to play, where there are countless dive bars and trashy nightclubs a $10 Uber ride away. Basically, you're not trapped on a campus in the middle of nowhere (hi, Brock), so get ready to blow that student loan on getting turnt up like an adult.

Fancies itself as: The Harvard of Canada 
Reality: The University of Pennsylvania of Canada

Photo via Wikimedia

Memorial University, St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

Memorial became a full-fledged university when Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949. It was meant to be the crown jewel of the province, producing a new class of educated workers to help move the island from the 17th century to the 20th. Now, thanks to a tuition freeze on the books since 1999, it's the cheapest tuition in the country outside Quebec and a great way for Nova Scotians to get a degree at the fraction of the price of one of their own schools—and all on the Newfoundland public dime. And who says Confederation wasn't a great idea?

Fancies itself as: The École Normale Supérieure
Reality: You get what you pay for (and also alcohol poisoning).

Photo via Wikimedia

McGill University, Montreal, Quebec

Are you into flashing insignia, calling out microaggressions, occupying administration buildings, and telling people that you went to the same university as Leonard Cohen? Well, McGill is the school for you. It has a great academic reputation inside and outside of Canada which means that you can keep your parents at bay while you engage in activism and drink all of the cheap Bifteck beer that your ridiculously low Montreal rent will allow. Be sure to pick up your "Harvard of the North"-themed sweater and walk on eggshells all the way to class.

Fancies itself as: Harvard of the North
Reality: Oberlin of the North

Photo via Flickr user Matt Clare

Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario

Named after colonial administrator and War of 1812 General Sir Isaac Brock (not the Modest Mouse singer), Brock University has the distinct honour of being the basic bitch of Canadian universities—welcoming only students adorned with the talents of walking and talking. But, really, Brock is hella boring. Located outside of the already depressing city of St. Catharines, its largest department is business, and it's dominated by a staunchly conservative and often ignorant af population of students, which not only reflect but now actually are the region's politicians, after the election of 19-year-old Brock student Sam Oosterhoff.

Fancies itself as: A cutting-edge university
Reality: Meh.

Photo via Flickr user Umair Khan

Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario

As much as it tries to escape the nickname "Rye High," there's not a student here who doesn't know there is some truth to this moniker. Complete with over-zealous student  publications and its reputation as a "hip" university, Ryerson is located directly next to and partially embedded in Toronto's version of Times Square, Yonge (pronounced "young") and Dundas. Three prominent archetypes you have the right to know about before you decide to go here: journalism students who swear they go to Canada's version of Columbia, engineering kids who have claimed a portion of the school dubbed "The Dungeon," and the business school dudes who alternate between reformed hockey bros and Bryson Tiller clones. Oh, if you do graduate, you'll be taking part in a strange-ass Scottish ceremony ft. bagpipes. That said, the school does have a pretty dece business incubator program that has seen some pretty serious successes (i.e. $$$) and is in Toronto, which is like New York but without the money/extensive public transit system/city pride.

Fancies itself as: Columbia University
Reality: A try-hard, faux-urban extension of high school

Photo via Flickr user Kieran Lynam

Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario

If you're trying to escape the States, this school is probably not for you. With drunk idiots dressing up in offensive costumes (at least) once a year, a long history of racist incidents, and students getting bodied after slapping police horses on the ass, well, it's pretty much as close to an American school as you can find in Canada. This is where the Canadian elites send their brood to get economic degrees on their way to Bay Street (Canada's Wall Street); this is where those kids lose the only semblance of humanity that they ever had.

Fancies itself as: An Ivy League school
Reality: A Bush League school

Photo via Wikimedia

Western University, London, Ontario

Western is populated by mostly rich, WASP-y kids from Toronto suburbs who think U of T has too many international students (read: non-white people). You will be given a terrible nickname your first week, and much of your social interaction will consist of people screaming this at you from across bars and streets. Think of it as Queen's equally evil twin. There's some world-class research apparently going on, but it's hard to think of that with all of these types of stories happening every year.  

Fancies itself as: A Serious School
Reality: A padded holding cell for children who will eventually stumble comfortably into the social and economic roles they were groomed for anyway.

Photo via Flickr user mricon

Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Located in scenic Halifax (aka the Boston of Canada), Dal is considered the Harvard of the Maritimes by Billy MacDonald's grandmother in Cape Breton (the Rhode Island of Canada???) but in reality it is basically the most average university you can possibly imagine. Some good research programs, too many law students, too many future doctors and dentists scandalizing the school, too many good pubs downtown playing fiddle music with young men yelling "sociable!" while drinking Alexander Keith's (yes, this cliché is actually true), an OK quad, the ugliest building in the city, and did I mention the city has some great bars? If you go to this university, you will have gone to university.

Fancies itself as: The U of T of the Maritimes
Reality: The McGill of the Maritimes

Photo via Facebook

University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta

A weird progressive oasis in the heart of Canada's Texas, except for all the men's rights activists. It's conveniently also located in the only part of Edmonton that doesn't look like an industrial wasteland.

Fancies itself as: The new University of Toronto
Reality: The new York University

Photo via Facebook

University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta

It was originally a satellite campus of the University of Alberta but became its evil twin in the 1980s. Stephen Harper was a Young Liberal until he did a Master's here, so…

Fancies itself as: The University of Chicago Economics Department
Reality: The heart of fucking darkness

Photo via Facebook

University of British Columbia, Vancouver (barely), BC

UBC is like a utopia for the world's most painfully earnest students—a place where students once protested to save a grassy knoll outside the student union building. But it's also a stomping ground for the wealthiest offspring of the world's elite. A temporary landing pad to house your skis while you rollerblade around the city. It may have hippy roots but at this point, it's shaping up to be the Queen's of the west.

Fancies itself as: 20 years ahead of the curve
Reality: Just really far away from everything

Photo via Facebook

York University, Toronto, Ontario

If you want to go to a school known for the phrase "If you can lift a fork, you can get into York," this one's for you. It's where you go if you want to live in Toronto, but didn't get into Ryerson or U of T, except it's on the outskirts of the city and has been waiting for its subway station to be finished for the past 100 years. York is also in a perpetual state of narrowly escaping some PR disaster because it's automatically associated with any crime that happens within a 20-mile radius. Three kinds of kids you're likely to meet: Schulich business students who you probably won't see ever again after they realize they're members of the 'campus elite' and don't have to talk to anyone but other business students; the dead-eyed film production students who've always been on set til 3 in the morning; and the miscellaneous liberal arts student who came to university because their parents wanted them to. Its claim to fame used to be that Jian Ghomeshi and Rachel McAdams went there (obviously, it's all about McAdams now), and a kid built a tunnel to chill in on campus grounds that lots of people thought for a while was a terrorist hideout.

Fancies itself: The U of T of Toronto's suburbs
Reality: The ultimate backup school

Photo via Facebook

MacEwan University, Edmonton, Alberta

MacEwan is a smaller university that suffers severe little brother syndrome to the famous University of Alberta (see above) that also resides in Edmonton. Around since 1974 and named after author and Albertan Lieutenant Governor Grant MacEwan, it, just over ten years ago, got the bump from community college to university in 2004. It's one of those undergraduate factories blue collar folk go to before moving up to a real university for your master's. Honestly, the only real reason we're writing about it is because our night editor went there and he would throw a fit if we left it off the list.

Fancies itself as: Ryerson of the Prairies.  
Reality: One guy at VICE went there and forced this school on to the list. Do not go here.  

Photo via Facebook

Université de Montréal

L'Université de Montréal est la plus grande université francophone au Canada. Tout le monde y parle donc français. Parles-tu français? Peux-tu lire cette description?!

Fancies itself as: "Un campus à l'américaine"
Reality: Au Québec, tu peux boire de l'alcool légalement à partir de 18 ans.***

***Canada has two official languages.  

Some parts of London do a particularly good job of illustrating what's changed since the 2012 Olympics. Stratford, for instance, with the addition of its monolithic Westfield centre and £450,000 (AU$ 770,000) one-bed flats. Or Hackney Wick, which used to be full of artists' studios and locals whose families had lived in the community for generations, and now is not.

But an area that's remained relatively unchanged—bar the addition of an enormous building dedicated solely to bicycles—is the Lea Valley, whose Olympic velodrome borders Stratford and Hackney Wick. Prior to the pre-2012 "regeneration," the area was described by photographers and partners Polly Braden and David Campany as an "unplanned patchwork of nature reserves, social housing, yuppie apartments, small industries, scrap yards, football pitches… and vast areas of nothing in particular." And, by and large, that still stands up today.

Braden and Campany shot extensively in the area in the mid-2000s, documenting the area's strange blend of untamed wilderness and post-industrial artefacts. And seeing as the duo has now compiled that work into a new book, Adventures In the Lea Valley, I caught up with them to discuss the collaborative nature of their work, how locals have responded to their shots and what they make of the area today.

Watching Newts, 2006 (Photo: Polly Braden and David Campany)

VICE: Adventures in the Lea Valley is made up of photos taken in 2004 and 2005. How do you feel you developed as photographers over that time, individually and as collaborators?
Polly Braden: We made an early decision to only photograph together, in each other's presence, with only one camera, one light meter and one tripod. Photography is often regarded as a very singular and solitary activity, especially observational photography.
David Campany: There are photographic duos, notably in commercial studio photography, but far fewer in documentary work. But it seemed natural to us that if we were sharing our fascination with the place then we could share our photographic exploration of it. There are many images that either of us could have taken, and we can't actually remember who shot what. But Polly is a far better portraitist.
Polly: Sometimes something would catch the eye of one of us and that person would shoot it. But doing so with the other watching meant that we soon grew to understand each other's way of noticing and shooting. David likes landscapes with strange incidents.

You've described blending landscapes, portraiture and street photography, but did any particular aspect take precedence for you?
David: No, nothing. As well as being a synthesis between the two of us, it was also a chance to see if we could make a body of work that brought together images for many genres—landscapes, portraits, street photography. There's also a performative aspect: we shot a lot of staged pictures of strange enactments. The book has a few of these, hopefully just enough to unsettle the general air of lyrical realism.

Jean and Flo (Photo: Polly Braden and David Campany)

Which, if any, feels like the most important shot?
Polly: You can't really get the richness and complexity of the whole area in one image. That was something that attracted us to the place. Of course, when you're shooting you're always trying to make the best images you possibly can, and we have several favourites. The white stretch limo, glimpsed across the water through the trees. The children playing in the rubbish, caught in delicate morning sun. The portrait of Jean and Flo, two regulars we used to see. The portrait of Dwain Chambers the disgraced sprinter, training with a friend, hoping to get back into the Olympic squad.

How have people from the Lea Valley reacted to your images?
David: At first there was little interest. Things changed in the summer of 2005, when it was announced that the Olympics would be coming to the lower end of Lea Valley. We decided to stop shooting, knowing that the area would soon be full of cameras. Suddenly our project began to be seen as survey of a landscape that was about to change forever. We showed several prints and a digital slideshow at the Institute of Contemporary Arts that summer, and the project seemed to be positioned in relation to the unknown effects of the future Olympics.
Polly: That wasn't our intention. It was accidental. We decided to let the Olympics come and go. David and I got married, had two children and pursued other projects. We weren't even in the country when the Olympic games was here.

Having returned to the Lea Valley since the Olympics and the real gentrification of the surrounding area, does much of what you loved about it remain?
David: Yes, it does. While some don't like the changes brought by the Olympics, that project had a much smaller footprint than was feared. Most of the Lea Valley is untouched by it, and the changes are, as you say, largely to do with the spread of the gentrification that has come as a result of the housing shortage and the ongoing rise in property prices.
Polly: The most rapid and widespread change has been the sprouting of what developers like to call "luxury apartments". These were already coming when we started shooting back in 2004, but they're everywhere now.
David: In 2005 we photographed a little Victorian footbridge over the canal, on which someone had daubed "Fuck Seb Coe". There was a lot of resistance to the Olympics. That bridge was surrounded by wilderness. Now it's right at the foot of the main stadium. We include both views in the book.

What are you working on currently?
David: I do a lot of writing and curating of exhibitions. I've got a show coming to the Whitechapel Gallery in June, titled "A Handful of Dust". Polly's in the middle of a long-term photographic project that explores the lives of people living with learning difficulties and autism.
Polly: In 2007 we spent several months in the Chinese city of Xiamen. By coincidence that was another place undergoing rapid change. Again, we were both photographing together, in each other's presence, although this time we each had our own camera and made our own photographic responses. We've been looking again at that work, the difference and similarities. It might become another joint book.

@Finspo

See more photos below:

Francois (Photo: Polly Braden and David Campany)

Limousine (Photo: Polly Braden and David Campany)

Walthamstow Dogs (Photo: Polly Braden and David Campany)

Tony's ice cream, Lee Valley Ice Centre (Photo: Polly Braden and David Campany)

This is the VICE Interview. Each week we ask a different famous and/or interesting person the same set of questions in a bid to peek deep into his or her psyche.

Naughty Boy's West London studio is one of the most hospitable places I've ever visited. I'm greeted with a hug, not only from the producer, but also his exotic shorthair cat, Barry, and presented with a chocolate cake in a box.

Naughty—real name, Shahid Khan—is in a great mood, having recently released "Should've Been Me" featuring Kyla and Popcaan, the latest single from his debut album, Hotel Cabana, which also stars Beyonce and Wiz Khalifa. Once we've got the introductions out of the way we sit down to talk about last meals about numerology.

Naughty Boy: I said no to I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.

What is the nicest thing you own?
Barry. Barry's my cat, and I can't even say I own him – he probably owns me. He's from Latvia. He shouldn't have made it to West Ealing, but he did, and he's gone against all odds. Barry doesn't know about the outside world because he's an indoor cat. He's been shielded from a cruel world. He has caviar for breakfast. He goes to Chelsea Pet Spa for a blueberry facial every month. Maybe he doesn't see life like other cats.

Would you rather change one day from your past or see one day from your future?
I'd rather see one day from my future. I'm pretty at zen with my past.

What would your specialist subject on Mastermind be?
Numerology. That's one thing that people don't assume I'm into, but I'm very into numbers, and spiritual numbers.

Would you like to experience death if it could be guaranteed you could be brought back to life?
No. I'd only want to experience that once, and hopefully the afterlife is something to be anticipated, not to be afraid of.

If you could live in any time, which one would you pick?
The 70s. Always. I think I would have just thrived in the 70s. Because firstly, there'd be no internet and you'd have to actually get to know people. I think the music business would have been sick in the 70s. It would have been all free-thinking. Weed was coming in, there were no hard drugs about. It was all chill.

What was your first email address?
It was menoteazy@hotmail.com. Come on, that's a sick one, isn't it? No one knows this; I was actually going to call myself Me Not Eazy before Naughty Boy.

What would your parents prefer you to have chosen as a career?
Probably something more stable than the music business. I don't know—I think they always knew I was a bit imaginative, so they knew I was going to have to use my imagination. Now, obviously they wouldn't change a thing. I think if I was a postman I'd be quite respected in my community. The postman is always respected.

What conspiracy theory do you believe?
I feel like some of the news we watch on TV is conspiracy theories. What if Fox News is a conspiracy theory? What if what we are actually being told in the news is the conspiracy. There's so much out there that we're being fed that we just believe, so why are we so afraid to believe in a conspiracy theory? You have to question everything. Look at the back of this jacket [points to the jacket on the back of his chair, emblazoned with the phrase "Question Everything"].

Do drugs make you happy?
No. I don't think drugs should make anyone happy. I think weed makes me happy. I think there's a reason why they call it a high. No one's ever killed anyone off weed. I just think it's only a matter of time before it's legalised. I think we're getting to that place. There's some really good weed right now, and everyone needs to know about it.

If you were a wrestler, what song would you come into the ring to?
"Last Christmas" by George Michael, 'cause it'd put off the opponent. It wouldn't be Christmas, firstly. Then he'd think, 'What is this guy doing?' I'd start to put the fear in him through that.

What's the latest you've stayed up?
Three days. That was a combination of work and play. It wasn't just, like, straight play.

What memory from school stands out to you stronger than any other?
Behind the shops where all the cool kids used to smoke. I went from being a spectator to being in there, and it's not actually worth it—it just looks good from the outside.

What would be your last meal?
I think if it was going to be my last meal I'd want it to be good for my body because I'd want to…feel a bit purer going to the next place. Maybe like some hummus and falafel. And tabbouleh. I wouldn't have meat as my last meal—no way. A murder before I'm going, no.

@natalie_hughes

This past year, VICE contributors traveled the world and told us their tales. Our travel features don't chronicle the best hotels or bars or local attractions, but they do provide a closer look at some aspect of a culture, celebration, or tradition in far-flung places that many will never experience, if only for a lack of vacation days.

So here's a round up of the destinations that VICE magazine contributors visited in 2016, and the weird stuff they did there.

Photo by Liz Cowie

Todos Santos Cuchumatán, Guatemala—Day of the Drunk by River Donaghey

Every year, in this small town in Guatemala, the Mayan residents throw a rager, drinking for days on end and then drunkenly racing horses until it's time to party more. (The town's dry the rest of the year.) They celebrate to honor their deceased relatives, who were murdered by the Spanish conquistadores in the 1500s. VICE's own River Donaghey took a quick horseback-riding lesson in New York and then headed down for this annual festival, known as Skach Koyl.

Photo by Tim Schutsky

Alleghany Springs, Virginia—Rare by Edna Ishayik

The British government evacuated Ancient White Park cows from Europe so that they wouldn't be bombed out of existence during World War II. Read this article to find out why these cows were so valuable, and also what it's like to hang out with them... and then eat them. Spoiler: They're delicious. In this piece, we spoke to Alec Bradford, who raises this rare breed in Virginia, and is experimenting with a farm-to-table business model that he hopes will rejuvenate mid-size cattle ranches across the country.

Photo by Martina Cirese

Berlin, Germany—Where Women Rule by Sarah Souli

Contributor Sarah Souli spent some time with the spandex-and-leather-clad wrestlers of Germany's first (and only) female fight club. There, she found athleticism, female-on-male domination, gender politics, and snacks! Souli got pinned and explored some of Germany's lesser-known and unexpected sports history.

Photo by Delfino Sisto Legnani

The Austrian-Italian Border—Melting Borders by Livia Albeck-Ripka

Traveling by helicopter with a team of geologists, geophysicists, and designers, Livia Albeck-Ripka explored the glacier on which the border of Austria and Italy exists in flux. Climate change is causing this border to shift, and scientists and interested parties have installed sensors to track its movement.

Photo by Tim Schutsky

Talo Chipla, Nepal—Hunting for Hallucinogenic Honey by David Caprara

VICE contributor David Caprara traveled for two days high into the mountains of Nepal to accompany members of the Gurung ethnic group on their twice-annual honey hunt. The trek is dangerous, but the fruit is worth their labor: The honey that they gather by knocking hives off the cliffs has hallucinogenic properties thanks to the rhododendron flowers that the local bees gather their pollen from. And luckily, a VICE video crew accompanied him, so you can see the action for yourself.

Photo by Jaime Chew

Shirleysburg, Pennsylvania—Like the Christian Woodstock by Eric Sundermann

For our Music Issue, Noisey's editor-in-chief, Eric Sundermann, checked out America's largest Christian-music festival, which is held every year in rural Pennsylvania. But this piece (and the documentary that accompanies it) is about more than just the Creation Music Festival: It's a thoughtful exploration of the author's own crisis of faith and what religion does or doesn't mean to him.

Photo by Shona Sanzgiri

Tlaxcala, Mexico—In the Ring by Shona Sanzgiri

Karla de los Angeles is one of a handful of female matadors fighting in Mexico, and as one might expect, she's been through a lot. She's been taunted, abused, and gored by a bull, but her story is intertwined with that of the small town of Tlaxcala and the Jorge "El Ranchero" Aguilar arena. Shona Sanzgiri met her here there to discuss the art of bullfighting and Mexico's colonial history.

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New York governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday announced a plan to make tuition at state colleges and universities free for families earning less than $125,000 a year, a sign that the recent surge in student debt remains a politically potent issue even after the defeat of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

"This society should say, 'We're going to pay for college because you need college to be successful.' And New York State is going to do something about it," Cuomo said.

Cuomo made the announcement at LaGuardia Community College in the New York City borough of Queens, where he appeared with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Sanders made free college tuition a cornerstone of his failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination last year. And some of Sanders's free tuition policy was ultimately adopted by the party's eventual nominee, Hillary Clinton.

The Cuomo plan would offer free tuition at two-year community colleges, and four-year colleges and universities operated by the State University of New York and City University of New York systems. While splashy, it still is just a plan and will require a vote by the state Legislature.

For politicians eager to make a connection with younger voters, the student issue is a clear winner. Rates of student debt have risen rapidly in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Besides mortgage debt, student debt is now the largest category of consumer debt in the country, with nearly $1.3 trillion in loans outstanding.

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