BANGKOK: A Bangkok clinic that has drawn 100 men a month to its penis whitening service has caused a stir in Thailand, with social media users both baffled and alarmed by the phallic fad.

The Lelux Hospital, renowned for its body whitening expertise in a country obsessed with skin colour, began offering the unconventional treatment six months ago after a male customer complained of "dark parts" on his groin.

"These days a lot of people are asking about it. We get around 100 clients a month, three to four clients a day," Bunthita Wattanasiri, a manager for the Skin and Laser department at Lelux Hospital told AFP.

The procedure, which uses laser whitening, got wide play on Thai television and social media on Thursday (Jan 4) after the hospital released images of a man undergoing the treatment.

"We have to be careful because it's a sensitive part of the body," Bunthita said, adding most clients were aged between 22 and 55-years-old with many from Thailand's LGBT community.

She said they use a very small laser.

Priebus demonstrated no ability to keep Trump from talking to anyone who wanted his ear. The president-elect enjoyed being courted. On December 14, a high-level delegation from Silicon Valley came to Trump Tower to meet him. Later that afternoon, according to a source privy to details of the conversation, Trump called Rupert Murdoch, who asked him how the meeting had gone.

“Oh, great, just great,” said Trump. “These guys really need my help. Obama was not very favorable to them, too much regulation. This is really an opportunity for me to help them.”

“Donald,” said Murdoch, “for eight years these guys had Obama in their pocket. They practically ran the administration. They don’t need your help.”

“Take this H-1B visa issue. They really need these H-1B visas.”

Murdoch suggested that taking a liberal approach to H-1B visas, which open America’s doors to select immigrants, might be hard to square with his promises to build a wall and close the borders. But Trump seemed unconcerned, assuring Murdoch, “We’ll figure it out.”

“What a fucking idiot,” said Murdoch, shrugging, as he got off the phone.

A fundamental design flaw in Intel's processor chips has forced a significant redesign of the Linux and Windows kernels to defang the chip-level security bug.

Programmers are scrambling to overhaul the open-source Linux kernel's virtual memory system. Meanwhile, Microsoft is expected to publicly introduce the necessary changes to its Windows operating system in an upcoming Patch Tuesday: these changes were seeded to beta testers running fast-ring Windows Insider builds in November and December.

Crucially, these updates to both Linux and Windows will incur a performance hit on Intel products. The effects are still being benchmarked, however we're looking at a ballpark figure of five to 30 per cent slow down, depending on the task and the processor model. More recent Intel chips have features – such as PCID – to reduce the performance hit. Your mileage may vary.

...

The fix is to separate the kernel's memory completely from user processes using what's called Kernel Page Table Isolation, or KPTI. At one point, Forcefully Unmap Complete Kernel With Interrupt Trampolines, aka FUCKWIT, was mulled by the Linux kernel team, giving you an idea of how annoying this has been for the developers.

There's a less-technical explanation at Gizmodo.

Is in serious trouble.

"North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.' Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!" Mr. Trump tweeted.

CBS News

Vice.

What was your first Amazon.com purchase?

Mine was a book, "Designing and Using ActiveX Controls".

I bought it December 10, 1997, when they were still just a bookstore.

I got a free mouse pad with my order! It had the famous Groucho Marx quote on it: "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

The blasted Chilean wine broke me Rabbit! T'was a Christmas Miracle™ that we had a spare. Wine tragedy avoided.

Congrats to my sister-in-law for getting a piece published in Vice's Munchies.

My beloved Tele+ has these little nubby buttons to hold the strap on. I've always kindof liked the way they look - minimal, refined - but they're kindof crappy about actually holding a strap.

I've had the body side of the strap slip off the button dozens of times, but I've always coincidentally had my left hand on the neck at the same time, so it's never actually fallen to the floor. (i shudder at the mere thought)

It's always puzzled me that that such an otherwise fine guitar would have such crappy strap buttons.

On the other hand, my adequate Mexican-made Strat has these conical strap buttons that don't look as nice (crappy-looking chrome plating), but will hold a strap pretty much perfectly.

Last week a little Googling alerted me to something I wish I knew 24 years ago. The buttons on my Tele are just half of a system. They're designed to work with Fender Strap Locks.

The other part of the system is a metal clasp with a nut and a big-ass chrome-plated metal washer to hold the strap! Put that on the strap and then it clips on the buttons.

$12

Duh.

Today on Vice's front page, they have:

• I Lived Like Trump for a Day and It Almost Killed Me
• I Spent 80 Days Trying to Get Abs and It Ruined My Life
• I Tried to Make My Home Energy Efficient and It's Ruining My Life

Sounds like their headline writer needs a vacation.