It Looks Like A Crazy Guy Just Walking Around In The Snow. Then You Zoom Out And... Whoa.

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It’s possible you’ve never heard of Simon Beck, but after today, you won’t be able to forget him or his wintry works of art. Simon is an artist and is most well-known for making incredibly delicate and detailed art in the snow, just by walking over a fresh snowfall. He literally walks miles in the snow to create these pieces. And the part that blows our minds? He could spend hours upon hours creating one design, just to have it be covered by snowfall or blown away by the next day. But he still makes them.

Simon walks over layers of fresh snow in special shoes to create his mind-boggling art.

Simon Beck

He can easily walk for miles just to create one design.

Simon Beck

CAREFULLY walking.

Simon Beck

But the results are worth all of the effort. In fact, they are mesmerizing.

Simon Beck

The most interesting thing about this art, though, is Simon creates it knowing it could be gone the very next day.

Simon Beck

These delicate patterns were created in the beautiful Savoie Valley in France, overlooking Mont Blanc.

Simon Beck

Simon found spaces in between lodges and mountains at the Les Arcs ski resort to create his masterpieces.

Simon Beck

He creates large, mathematical patterns that have different effects when viewed from different angles.

Simon Beck

At different times during the day, his creations will look different.

Simon Beck

It’s just hard to believe that he spends countless hours making these…

Simon Beck

Only to know that they will be gone from this world within a matter of hours or days.

Simon Beck

If you’d like to see more of Simon’s art (which is genius bordering on insanity), visit thisFacebook page dedicated to it.

Share this story if you love this beautiful winter art. Each one is a unique masterpiece.

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The Supreme Court Just Took Away Your Right to Remain Silent

By Brandon L. Garrett

Nick Yarris poses for a portrait session amid the "After Innocence" interviews at the Starbucks Sundance Interview Headquarters during the 2005 Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 23, 2005, in Park City, Utah.

Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

On Monday, in a case called Salinas v. Texas that hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves, the Supreme Court held that you remain silent at your peril. The court said that this is true even before you’re arrested, when the police are just informally asking questions. The court’s move to cut off the right to remain silent is wrong and also dangerous—because it encourages the kind of high-pressure questioning that can elicit false confessions.

Here are the facts from Salinas: Two brothers were shot at home in Houston. There were no witnesses—only shotgun shell casings left at the scene. Genovevo Salinas had been at a party at that house the night before the shooting, and police invited him down to the station, where they talked for an hour. They did not arrest him or read him his Miranda warnings.  Salinas agreed to give the police his shotgun for testing. Then the cops asked whether the gun would match the shells from the scene of the murder. According to the police, Salinas stopped talking, shuffled his feet, bit his lip, and started to tighten up.

At trial, Salinas did not testify, but prosecutors described his reportedly uncomfortable reaction to the question about his shotgun. Salinas argued this violated his Fifth Amendment rights: He had remained silent, and the Supreme Court had previously made clear that prosecutors can’t bring up a defendant’s refusal to answer the state’s questions. This time around, however, Justice Samuel Alito blithely responded that Salinas was “free to leave” and did not assert his right to remain silent. He was silent. But somehow, without a lawyer, and without being told his rights, he should have affirmatively “invoked” his right to not answer questions. Two other justices signed on to Alito’s opinion. Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia joined the judgment, but for a different reason; they think Salinas had no rights at all to invoke before his arrest (they also object to Miranda itself). The upshot is another terrible Roberts Court ruling on confessions. In 2010 the court held that a suspect did not sufficiently invoke the right to remain silent when he stubbornly refused to talk, after receiving his Miranda warnings, during two hours of questioning. Now people have to somehow invoke the right to remain silent even when they’re not formal suspects and they haven’t been heard the Miranda warnings. As Orin Kerr points out on the Volokh Conspiracy, this just isn’t realistic.

The court’s ruling in Salinas is all the more troubling because during such informal, undocumented, and unregulated questioning, there are special dangers that police may, intentionally or not, coax false confessions from innocent suspects. I have spent years studying cases of people exonerated by DNA testing. A large group of those innocent people falsely confessed—and many supposedly admitted their guilt even before any formal interrogation.  Take the case of Nicholas Yarris, who was exonerated by DNA testing in 2003, after 20 years in prison. He had been convicted and sentenced to death in Pennsylvania for the murder of a woman found raped, beaten, and stabbed near her abandoned Chrysler Cordoba. 

When informally questioned, police said, Yarris volunteered that he knew the victim had been raped, and that the victim’s Chrysler had a brown “landau” roof (a vinyl fake convertible look). That was a striking detail, especially since the police had kept it out of the press. No tape was made of the interrogation. The police didn’t even produce notes. And now that DNA has cleared Yarris, we know his confession was false, and that he must not have volunteered the fact about the car roof at all.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Salinas encourages the kind of loosey-goosey, and easily contaminated, police questioning that led to Yarris’ wrongful conviction. Salinas may very well have been guilty of the two murders. But in many cases, as in this one, there are no eyewitnesses and not much other evidence of guilt: That is why the police may desperately need a confession. And that makes it crucial for them to handle interrogations and confessions with the utmost care. The court appreciated none of the pressures police face, and how they can squeeze an innocent suspect. Alito and the other conservatives were not troubled that there was no video to confirm that Salinas was in fact uncomfortable as well as silent. If Salinas had answered the question by exclaiming that he was innocent, could police have reported that he sounded desperate and like a liar? The court’s new ruling puts the “defendant in an impossible predicament. He must either answer the question or remain silent,” Justice Stephen Breyer said in dissent (joined by the other three liberal-moderates). “If he answers the question, he may well reveal, for example, prejudicial facts, disreputable associates, or suspicious circumstances—even if he is innocent.” But if he doesn’t answer, at trial, police and prosecutors can now take advantage of his silence, or perhaps even of just pausing or fidgeting.

Questions first, rights later is the approach the court’s majority now endorses. And by giving the police more incentive to ask questions informally, the new ruling will also undermine the key reform that police have adopted to prevent false confessions: videotaping entire interrogations.  Why not try to trap a suspect before the camera starts rolling? In only a few cases like Yarris’ will there be DNA to test. The likely result of the court’s embrace of shoddy interrogation tactics: more wrongful convictions.

Brandon L. Garrett is a professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law who studies criminal procedure, civil rights, and wrongful convictions. His new book,Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong, was published by Harvard University Press.

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35 Pictures That Prove The World Isn’t Such A Bad Place

Dave StoperaBuzzFeed Staff

1. This picture of a person leaving the other customers a little extra gift.

Via littlewhitelion.com

2. And this one of an employee going out of his way to help.

Via mindblowingfacts.org

3. When this person gave his bike away to a little kid.

Via reddit.com

Best. Reaction. Ever.

4. And this person put this outside their house on a particularly hot day.

Via wtvr.com

5. When these people put this up in front of their launderette.

Via newyork.cbslocal.com

6. And this little kid invented a new form of currency.

Via peanutchuck.com

“FREE. With a smile.”

7. When this person got the nicest delivery ever.

Via huffingtonpost.com

8. And this person decided that no cat should have to get wet.

Via aboluowang.com

9. Dan and his coffee runs.

Via nedhardy.com

10. This note from a little kid.

Via thechive.com

11. The motorcyclist that helped out a woman in need.

Via pandawhale.com

12. When this cop helped a driver who was out of gas.

Via rsvlts.com

13. And when Caine had his dream come true.

14. When this person realized that cute spider drawings solve all problems.

Via dartitup.com

15. And when these kids realized the value of random acts of kindness at a young age.

Via pinterest.com

16. This candid shot of the cutest couple.

Via huffingtonpost.com

17. And this photo of this hero.

Via kindnessblog.com

18. This new friend’s note.

Via mommyhasapottymouth.com

19. This photo of a family’s dream come true.

Via consumerist.com

20. Rob and his entourage.

Improv Everywhere / Via improveverywhere.com

21. The greatest security guard in the world.

Via slightlywarped.com

22. The guy who made a little kid’s gaming day.

Via reddit.com

23. And the partygoers that saved the day.

Via list25.com

24. The best mechanic around.

Via keep0smiling.blogspot.com

25. This note from a developmentally disabled man who was just looking out for his favorite animal.

Via nairaland.com

26. The picture of the nicest Marine in existence.

Via cnn.com

27. This kid’s lunchtime routine.

Via sherilyntan.tumblr.com

28. These pictures of Ahmad and Fatima, a young married couple who, despite Ahmad having no arms and Fatima having no legs, take care of each other.

Via amazonintl.in

29. The picture of a car that was transformed into the best toy ever.

Via now.msn.com

30. These soldiers.

Via supportindia.com

31. Nate’s dad’s note.

Via thehollywoodgossip.com

“Nate,

I overheard your phone conversation with Mike last night about your plans to come out to me. The only thing I need you to plan is to bring home OJ and bread after class. We are out, like you now. I’ve known you were gay since you were six. I’ve loved you since you were born.

P.S. Your mom and I think you and Mike make a cute couple.”

32. This photo of the nicest Rollerblader ever.

Via uberhumor.com

33. This optimistic little girl’s worldview.

Via sodahead.com

34. This picture of two football players who didn’t want this student to eat alone.

Via carolinaplotthound.com

35. And these two little kids who just met for the first time.

Via now.msn.com

I hope you have been touched by these acts of kindness and images of inspiration. Please, from now on, emit nothing but positivity to everyone you meet, at all times of your life, and in the face of every situation, no matter how seemingly difficult it may be. Positivity goes a long way. Love cures all. Love is all. All is One.

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