Space 2021: All the Mars landings, eclipses, astronaut flights, rocket launches, and other big missions to look for this year

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><ul><li><strong>Ex-Googler Erica Baker tweeted out an old Google application that she found from 2006.</strong></li><li><strong>The paper application is pretty standard - aside from its use of the loathed font Comic Sans.</strong></li></ul><p>Today, applying to work at Google&#xa0;involves a seamless digital interface that links your Gmail account to your&#xa0;application&#xa0;on a page.</p><p>But that wasn't always the case. As recently as 2006, Google was still using a paper application&#xa0;in none other than the most hated font on the internet - Comic Sans.&#xa0;</p><p>A copy of the old paper application was dug up by former Google engineer Erica Baker, who started at the company in 2006 as an IT field technician. She&#xa0;moved up through the ranks&#xa0;until 2015, when she left the company for Slack,&#xa0;before landing&#xa0;at Patreon.&#xa0;</p><p>While Comic Sans is loathed enough by the internet community to inspire top search results like <a href="http://www.comicsanscriminal.com/">ComicSansCriminal.com</a>, the font does have one benefit. Its&#xa0;irregular letter&#xa0;shapes make it&#xa0;<a href="http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/03/the-reason-comic-sans-is-a-public-good.html">easier to read</a> for many people with dyslexia.&#xa0;&#xa0;</p><p>It's unclear if Google knowingly chose to use the reviled font as a joke, or if it was simply unaware of the font's bad reputation. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.</p><p>Google's&#xa0;current digital application, for what it's worth,&#xa0;uses a mix of <a href="https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Open+Sans">Open Sans</a> and <a href="https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Roboto+Slab">Roboto Slab</a>.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div><p class="tagline">Get the latest Google stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/GOOG-Quote"> here.</a></p><div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/where-when-how-to-watch-orionid-meteor-shower-halleys-comet-2017-10">Where, when, and how to watch this weekend's meteor shower created by Halley's Comet</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div></hr>

Google used to write its job applications in the most hated font in the world

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The night skies for this year's Orionid Meteor Shower are expected to be especially dark this year, providing ideal viewing conditions. But if you're trying to learn the best time to watch you might be confused. Some articles are saying it <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/watchtheskies/orionid-meteor-shower-oct2014.html#.VEVHpYvF-zU">begins tonight</a> while others say that you should <a href="http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/orionids-meteor-shower-midwest-northeast-southwest-us/35954341">tune in tomorrow</a>.</p>
<p>So what's the best time to watch? <strong>Between one and two hours before sunrise on Tuesday, Oct. 21.</strong></p>
<p>The peak hour when you can expect the most meteors streaking across the night sky will be before sunrise on Tuesday morning across the US, <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/watchtheskies/orionid-meteor-shower-oct2014.html#.VEVHpYvF-zU">according to NASA</a>.</p>
<p>So if you're looking skyward at that time, you should be able to see between 20 and 30 meteors an hour, or one every couple of minutes.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The Orionid Meteor Shower is the result of Earth passing through the debris trail of the famous Halley's Comet. As Earth passes into the debris path, dust and rock are pulled into our atmosphere by Earth's gravity and fall toward the surface at speeds up to 45 miles per second.</p>
<p>This creates a tremendous amount of friction between the meteor and gasses in the atmosphere, which heats up the debris and makes it shine. What we see as a result is a series of shooting stars.</p>
<p>This year's meteor shower will be particularly spectacular because the Moon is currently a tiny sliver, so the night sky will be especially dark for us to enjoy the show. Some of the US will have to content will cloudy skies, though indicated by the map below.</p>
<p>We will be passing through the debris from Oct. 20 and last through the morning of Oct. 22. We'll hit the densest part of the debris on the morning of Oct 21, which is peak observing time. Set your alarm for a couple of hours before sunrise tomorrow so you don't miss it. Below is a map of the best spots for viewers in the US.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>For those of you who might not get a chance to catch the shower due to inclement weather, NASA will begin <a href="http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc">streaming the event</a> live on Oct 20 at 10 pm EDT (7 pm PDT). And the live online observatory, <a href="http://live.slooh.com/">Slooh</a>, will be streaming the event live (feed below) starting tomorrow at 8 pm EDT (5 pm PDT) on Oct 21.</p>
<p>The reason for some of the confusion about the best time to view the shower is natural, Bill Cooke at the Meteoroid Environments Office for the Marshall Space Flight Center told Business Insider in an email: "The uncertainty is due to a couple of factors: a) the Orionid stream, produced by Comet Halley, is broad, and can be 'clumpy', which can result in multiple maxima, and b) it is hard to visually discern the exact time of the peak when the shower rates are not expected to be high (like this year)."</p>
<p>"Sometimes meteor <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> is not very exact <sigh>," Cooke wrote.</sigh></p>
<p>Watch the NASA livestream on Oct 20, at 10 PM EDT:  <br><a href="http://www.ustream.tv" target="_blank">Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream</a></br></p>
<p>And watch the livestream from Slooh here, starting Oct 21 at 8PM EDT:</p>
<p></p>

How To Watch This Week's Exceptionally Stunning Orionid Meteor Shower

<p>Police Sergeant Tim Farris was patrolling the streets of Portland, Maine early Tuesday morning when he caught a very different kind of speeder on his dashboard camera - a meteor.</p><p><div><p><a href="http://giphy.com/gifs/xT4uQEQNrIN3O6sTaU">via GIPHY</a></p></div></p><p>Meteors are small grains&#xa0;of interplanetary debris that smack into our atmosphere at breakneck speeds and burn up, streaking through the night sky like shooting stars.</p><p>As Earth orbits through the tail of Halley's Comet, it produces a meteor shower called the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-watch-the-eta-aquarids-may-meteor-shower-2016-4">Eta Aquarids</a>, which we are currently in the midst of. The meteors can reach speeds of over 40 miles per second - that would be one nasty speeding ticket.</p><p>When a meteor is so bright that it outshines the rest of the sky, it's called a fireball. Fireballs are created when the debris is either larger than normal, or moving at incredibly fast speeds.</p><p>This particular meteor was so bright it lit up the entire New England sky. It was reported by witnesses in several northeastern US states as well as parts of Canada. You can watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGIAWclI1T0&amp;feature=youtu.be">dashcam footage</a> of the fireball&#xa0;below:</p><p><div></div></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/meteor-shower-eta-aquarid-2016-5">Here's what you actually see while you're watching a meteor shower</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="lqZndzdjpOqocbwdWllDgACAN3Qx-Bic" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Watch a giant fireball light up the entire New England sky

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Henry Lee/Flickr" title_caption="Geminid Meteor above Mobius Arch." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5487d72d6bb3f757027bcb7a-960/5269149375_057c1905a1_o.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/evosia/5269149375/in/photolist-92BLx2-92BLzi-e1QNfT-92BLAa-92BLBe-dAV3Xa-dBoANf-dATegR-92BLy8-b7hjpF-dAV7pH-dBz4dn-dBFYqC-dBFYoh-7omSoS-4iBrDq-4ixokD-dAXELd-dATSLD-dBAWmc-58bhWG-94Fg5B-dBgz85-dBgowY-4dyJkA-dM6NBA-dBayW2-dAVLT5-7nUCjC-7ocakb-dCrsh3-7nNR1d-dE7gc3-4duJSv-7nKrKk-7nKuBV-7nPpj3-dKxMFu-ijhvQG-e5zJDV-4g6ai6-7nTxoE-dEsYrq-dEsYLf">Henry Lee/Flickr</a></span></p><p class="caption">Geminid Meteor above Mobius Arch.</p></div><p></p></div></div>This weekend is your chance to see an amazing and equally mysterious meteor shower called the Geminids meteor shower.</p><p>"The Geminids are my favorite," said NASA Astronomer Bill Cooke <a href="http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/06dec_geminids/">in a release</a>, "because they defy explanation."</p><p>So, what makes this meteor shower so special?</p><p>For starters, astronomers only recently discovered what causes this shower each year. It took well over 100 years for them to figure it out, since the object was first seen in 1862.</p><p>It wasn't until 1983 when NASA's IRAS satellite helped identify the mysterious source - a small, rocky object called 3200 Phaethon.</p><p>Most meteor showers take place when debris left behind from a comet falls toward Earth, burning up in the atmosphere on the way down. The result is what we call shooting stars, or a meteor shower.</p><p>This year's Geminids are expected to generate up to 100 meteors per hour at their peak on the evening of Sunday Dec. 13.<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-watch-the-geminids-december-meteor-shower-2015-12"> Click here</a> to learn how to watch this spectacular event.</p><p>But, unlike normal meteor showers, the source of the Geminids, 3200 Phaethon, is not a comet, but an asteroid.</p><p>Of the 12 meteor showers that took place this year, only one other came from asteroids, <a href="http://www.amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/meteor-shower-calendar/">according to American Meteor Society</a>. </p><p>The three important <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/33006/what-is-the-difference-between-asteroids-and-comets/">differences between asteroids and comets</a> are:</p><ol><li>Asteroids are located in the asteroid belt between the planets of Mars and Jupiter. Most comets are farther from Earth, beyond the orbit of Pluto.</li><li>Asteroids are made of metals and rocky material. Comets are made of ice, dust, rocky materials and organic compounds.</li><li>When asteroids move close to the sun, they retain most of their material whereas the ice in comets tends to melt and vaporize leaving behind a dusty trail that then leads to meteor showers like Orionids, which come from the tail of the famous Halley's comet.</li></ol><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="óskar elías sigurðsson/Flickr" title_caption="Geminids meteor shower." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5487d7b36da811672911aaf2-960/8271533994_978fb875ca_o.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/oskaree/8271533994/in/photolist-dAVLT5-7nUCjC-7ocakb-dCrsh3-7nNR1d-dE7gc3-4duJSv-7nKrKk-7nKuBV-7nPpj3-dKxMFu-ijhvQG-e5zJDV-4g6ai6-7nTxoE-dEsYrq-dEsYLf">óskar elías sigurðsson/Flickr</a></span></p><p class="caption">Geminids meteor shower.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Despite asteroids keeping most of their material to themselves, the Geminids is <a href="http://www.skyandtelescope.com/press-releases/geminid-meteor-shower-returns-december-13-14/">one of the most spectacular</a> meteor showers of the year because there is so much debris falling to Earth, Cooke explains.</p><p>"Of all the debris streams Earth passes through every year, the Geminids' is by far the most massive," Cooke said. "When we add up the amount of dust in the Geminid stream, it outweighs other streams by factors of 5 to 500."</p><p>The reason for this is a complete mystery.</p><p>In 2009, a pair of planetary scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles tried to solve it, but ultimately found more questions than answers.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Henry Lee/Flickr" title_caption="Geminids meteor shower shot in the Alabama Hills." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5487d85769bedd721ffc48bc-960/5269149701_81d3c69331_o.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/evosia/5269149701/in/photolist-92BLCD-92ETKu-92BLx2-92BLzi-e1QNfT-92BLAa-92BLBe-dAV3Xa-dBoANf-dATegR-92BLy8-b7hjpF-dAV7pH-dBz4dn-dBFYqC-dBFYoh-7omSoS-4iBrDq-4ixokD-dAXELd-dATSLD-dBAWmc-58bhWG-94Fg5B-dBgz85-dBgowY-4dyJkA-dM6NBA-dBayW2-dAVLT5-7nUCjC-7ocakb-dCrsh3-7nNR1d-dE7gc3-4duJSv-7nKrKk-7nKuBV-7nPpj3-dKxMFu-ijhvQG-e5zJDV-4g6ai6-7nTxoE-dEsYrq-dEsYLf">Henry Lee/Flickr</a></span></p><p class="caption">Geminids meteor shower shot in the Alabama Hills.</p></div><p></p></div></div>When the asteroid was extremely close to the sun, the two scientists noticed that 3200 Phaethon was temporarily shining much more than normal - almost twice as bright.</p><p>The explanation the two scientists, David Jewitt and Jing Li, came up with was that the asteroid must have ejected lots of dust - a large cloud of dust would scatter sunlight, making the overall object appear much brighter.</p><p>The dust must have been the result of rocks breaking apart from the asteroid due to the sun's intense heat at such a close distance, a phenomenon that Jewiit and Li called a "rock comet."</p><p>There was one problem with their rock comet theory, however: The amount of dust this incident added to the asteroid's debris stream was completely insignificant - about 0.01% of the total stream's mass, which was not nearly enough to explain the spectacular light show we see each year.</p><p>One reason Jewiit and Li proposed was that rock comets might have been more catastrophic in the past, spewing the tremendous amounts of rock that today make up the 3200 Phaethon debris stream.</p><p>"We just don't know," Cooke said. "Every new thing we learn about the Geminids seems to deepen the mystery."</p><p>For more information on rock comets and 3200 Phaethon, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEPPGF3KrMQ">check out the NASA ScienceCast below</a>.</p><p></p>

There's a mysterious meteor shower happening this weekend

<p><em><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo/Matt Rourke</span></p><p class="caption">Paul Manafort.</p></div><p></p></div></div><strong>Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours. Sign up <a href="http://e.businessinsider.com/join/ci/finance-insider-social-first&amp;hash=36afac95fa844948a9f363295d512fca" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here to get the best of Business Insider delivered direct to your inbox</a>.</strong></em></p><p>He's the bond king you may have never heard of.</p><p>Josh Barrickman, 42, oversees $625 billion in fixed-income assets for Vanguard. That includes the world's two largest bond funds: the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund and the Vanguard Total Bond Market II Index Fund, with $190 billion and $139 billion respectively, according to Morningstar.</p><p>We recently caught up with Barrickman to get his views on bond markets, how passive behemoths like Vanguard are changing markets, and what it's like to oversee so much money. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/vanguard-josh-barrickman-on-bonds-passive-investing-2017-10">You can read the interview here</a>. </p><p>Elsewhere in finance news, <span>President Donald Trump is likely to </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fed-chair-jerome-powell-trump-likely-announcement-2017-10">nominate Fed Governor Jerome Powell as the next Fed chair</a><span>. </span>Maverick Capital, a $10.5 billion hedge fund that's had a lousy year, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ainslies-maverick-capital-hedge-fund-letter-to-clients-on-performance-2017-10">has a plan to turn it around</a>. The president of struggling $2 billion hedge fund <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/matthew-edmonds-president-of-hutchin-hill-capital-is-set-to-depart-2017-10">Hutchin Hill Capital is set to depart</a>. </p><p>The asset management industry is going to boom in the next decade - <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/pwc-report-asset-management-huge-growth-2017-10">but it's set for "seismic changes."</a> The CEO of Goldman Sachs cryptically <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ceo-of-goldman-sachs-cryptically-tweeted-about-the-banks-post-brexit-plans-in-the-uk-2017-10">tweeted about the bank's post-Brexit plans in the UK</a>. </p><p>And <span>Steve Bannon is reportedly on the </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-bannon-coming-for-paul-singer-over-steele-dossier-revelations-2017-10">warpath against hedge fund titan Paul Singer</a><span>.</span></p><p>Elsewhere in politics news, Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-manafort-indicted-by-special-counsel-robert-mueller-and-told-to-surrender-2017-10">surrendered to the FBI on Monday</a>. The FBI's indictment of Paul Manafort shows he spent <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-manafort-indictment-money-laundering-2017-10">over $12 million on Range Rovers, men's clothing, and home improvements in the Hamptons</a>. The investigation is making the Republican tax plan rollout a "sideshow" - <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tax-plan-manafort-papadopoulos-indictment-2017-10">but that might not be a bad thing for Republicans</a>.</p><p>In deal news, CVS is plotting a $66 billion takeover - <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cvs-aetna-takeover-creates-an-amazon-buffer-2017-10">and it has a lot to do with fending off Amazon</a>. Lennar's $9.3 billion merger with a rival perfectly captures <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/calatlantic-homes-lennar-deal-land-labor-costs-housing-2017-10">two of the biggest problems with housing in America</a>. </p><p>Strayer Education and Capella <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/strayer-university-capella-agree-to-19-billion-merger-2017-10">agreed to a $1.9 billion merger</a>. Akzo Nobel is in talks <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/akzo-nobel-axalta-coating-systems-merger-talks-2017-10">to merge with a smaller US rival</a>. And China is eyeballing a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/china-investment-in-saudi-arabias-saudi-aramco-2017-10">major strategic investment in Saudi Arabia's oil</a>.</p><p>In markets news and views: </p><ul><li><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-news-investor-cash-levels-record-lows-could-derail-bull-rally-2017-10">Investors are running out of cash - and that's terrible news for the stock market</a></li><li><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-fed-chair-nomination-economic-data-catapult-risk-2017-10">NOMURA: Traders should be on the lookout for "catapult risk"</a></li><li><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-news-capex-spending-causing-huge-shift-2017-10">America's biggest companies are investing more in themselves - and it's causing a huge shift in the stock market</a></li><li><a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/apple-stock-price-iphone-x-cant-seem-to-make-enough-and-wall-street-doesnt-care-2017-10-1006184437">Apple can't seem to make enough iPhone Xs - but Wall Street doesn't care</a></li><li><span><a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/starbucks-stock-price-millennials-coffee-habits-compared-to-parents-2017-10-1006184430">Millennials' coffee preferences are wildly different from their parents' - and Starbucks is set to reap the rewards</a></span></li><li><a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/facebook-earnings-stock-price-hitting-all-time-highs-ahead-of-earnings-2017-10-1006190637">Facebook is trading at all-time highs ahead of Wednesday's earnings</a></li><li><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chipotle-stock-price-downgrade-over-workers-pay-2017-10">An analyst downgraded Chipotle for paying its workers too much, and it tells you everything wrong with the economy right now</a></li></ul><p>Lastly, a "private palace" with a 200-person dining room and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/londons-doughty-house-on-sale-for-100-million-2017-10">columns from the ruins of Pompeii is on sale in London</a>.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/where-when-how-to-watch-orionid-meteor-shower-halleys-comet-2017-10">Where, when, and how to watch this weekend's meteor shower created by Halley's Comet</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

What you need to know on Wall Street today

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Henry Lee/Flickr" title_caption="Geminid Meteor above Mobius Arch." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5487d72d6bb3f757027bcb7a-960/5269149375_057c1905a1_o.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/evosia/5269149375/in/photolist-92BLx2-92BLzi-e1QNfT-92BLAa-92BLBe-dAV3Xa-dBoANf-dATegR-92BLy8-b7hjpF-dAV7pH-dBz4dn-dBFYqC-dBFYoh-7omSoS-4iBrDq-4ixokD-dAXELd-dATSLD-dBAWmc-58bhWG-94Fg5B-dBgz85-dBgowY-4dyJkA-dM6NBA-dBayW2-dAVLT5-7nUCjC-7ocakb-dCrsh3-7nNR1d-dE7gc3-4duJSv-7nKrKk-7nKuBV-7nPpj3-dKxMFu-ijhvQG-e5zJDV-4g6ai6-7nTxoE-dEsYrq-dEsYLf">Henry Lee/Flickr</a></span></p><p class="caption">Geminid Meteor above Mobius Arch.</p></div><p></p></div></div>This weekend is your chance to see an amazing, and equally mysterious, meteor shower called the Geminids meteor shower.</p>
<p>"The Geminids are my favorite," said NASA Astronomer Bill Cooke <a href="http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/06dec_geminids/">in a release</a>, "because they defy explanation."</p>
<p>So, what makes this meteor shower so special?</p>
<p>To start, astronomers only recently discovered what caused this shower despite having the opportunity to observe and study it annually since 1862.</p>
<p>It was not until 1983 when a NASA's IRAS satellite helped identify the mysterious source - a small, rocky object called 3200 Phaethon. Most meteor showers take place when debris left behind from a comet falls toward Earth, burning up in the atmosphere on the way down. The result is what we call a shooting star.</p>
<p>A meteor shower is when we see many shooting stars in a short amount of time. This year's Geminids meteor shower will have <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/116641/dont-miss-the-geminids-this-weekend-best-meteor-shower-of-the-year/">between 60 and 80 meteors</a>, or shooting stars, an hour.</p>
<p>But, unlike normal meteor showers, 3200 Phaethon is not a comet, but an asteroid. Of the 12 meteor showers that took place this year, only one other came from asteroids, <a href="http://www.amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/meteor-shower-calendar/">according to American Meteor Society</a>.</p>
<p>The three important <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/33006/what-is-the-difference-between-asteroids-and-comets/">differences between asteroids and comets</a> are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Asteroids are located in the asteroid belt between the planets of Mars and Jupiter. Most comets are farther from Earth, beyond the orbit of Pluto.</li>
<li>Asteroids are made of metals and rocky material. Comets are made of ice, dust, rocky materials and organic compounds.</li>
<li>When asteroids move close to the sun, they retain most of their material whereas the ice in comets tends to melt and vaporize leaving behind a dusty trail that then leads to meteor showers like Orionids, which come from the tail of the famous Halley's comet.</li>
</ol>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="óskar elías sigurðsson/Flickr" title_caption="Geminids meteor shower." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5487d7b36da811672911aaf2-960/8271533994_978fb875ca_o.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/oskaree/8271533994/in/photolist-dAVLT5-7nUCjC-7ocakb-dCrsh3-7nNR1d-dE7gc3-4duJSv-7nKrKk-7nKuBV-7nPpj3-dKxMFu-ijhvQG-e5zJDV-4g6ai6-7nTxoE-dEsYrq-dEsYLf">óskar elías sigurðsson/Flickr</a></span></p><p class="caption">Geminids meteor shower.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Despite asteroids keeping most of their material to themselves, the Geminids is <a href="http://www.skyandtelescope.com/press-releases/geminid-meteor-shower-returns-december-13-14/">one of the most spectacular</a> meteor showers of the year because there is so much debris falling to Earth, Cooke explains.</p>
<p>"Of all the debris streams Earth passes through every year, the Geminids' is by far the most massive," Cooke said. "When we add up the amount of dust in the Geminid stream, it outweighs other streams by factors of 5 to 500."</p>
<p>The reason for this is a complete mystery.</p>
<p>In 2009, a pair of planetary scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles tried to solve it, but ultimately found more questions than answers.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Henry Lee/Flickr" title_caption="Geminids meteor shower shot in the Alabama Hills." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5487d85769bedd721ffc48bc-960/5269149701_81d3c69331_o.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/evosia/5269149701/in/photolist-92BLCD-92ETKu-92BLx2-92BLzi-e1QNfT-92BLAa-92BLBe-dAV3Xa-dBoANf-dATegR-92BLy8-b7hjpF-dAV7pH-dBz4dn-dBFYqC-dBFYoh-7omSoS-4iBrDq-4ixokD-dAXELd-dATSLD-dBAWmc-58bhWG-94Fg5B-dBgz85-dBgowY-4dyJkA-dM6NBA-dBayW2-dAVLT5-7nUCjC-7ocakb-dCrsh3-7nNR1d-dE7gc3-4duJSv-7nKrKk-7nKuBV-7nPpj3-dKxMFu-ijhvQG-e5zJDV-4g6ai6-7nTxoE-dEsYrq-dEsYLf">Henry Lee/Flickr</a></span></p><p class="caption">Geminids meteor shower shot in the Alabama Hills.</p></div><p></p></div></div>When the asteroid was extremely close to the sun, about half between the sun and Mercury, the two scientists noticed 3200 Phaethon temporarily shone twice as bright as usual. The explanation the two scientists, David Jewitt and Jing Li, came up with was that the asteroid must have ejected lots of dust.</p>
<p>A large cloud of dust would scatter sunlight, making the overall object appear much brighter. The dust must have been the result of rocks breaking apart from the asteroid due to the sun's intense heat at such a close distance, a phenomenon that Jewiit and Li called a "rock comet."</p>
<p>There was one problem with their rock comet theory, however: The amount of dust this incident added to the asteroid's debris stream was completely insignificant - about 0.01% of the total stream's mass, which was not nearly enough to explain the spectacular light show we see each year.</p>
<p>One reason Jewiit and Li proposed was that rock comets might have been more catastrophic in the past, spewing the tremendous amounts of rock that today make up the 3200 Phaethon debris stream.</p>
<p>"We just don't know," Cooke said. "Every new thing we learn about the Geminids seems to deepen the mystery."</p>
<p>For more information on rock comet and 3200 Phaethon, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEPPGF3KrMQ">check out the NASA ScienceCast below</a>.</p>
<p></p>

There's A Mysterious Meteor Shower Happening This Weekend

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo/Jeff Chiu</span></p><p class="caption">Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Facebook announced Friday that advertisers running <span>federal election-related ads in the US would be required to verify their identity as well as run disclosures on each ad.</span></strong></li><li><strong><span>The company also said that it would allow people to see the ads a Facebook business page - whether a brand, small business or a person - is currently running.</span></strong></li><li><strong><span>The move comes on the heels of  <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-will-make-all-ads-public-share-how-they-are-targeted-2017-10">Twitter too saying that it would publicly disclose all ads on its platform and the identity of who purchased them earlier this week</a>. </span></strong></li></ul><p>Facebook is implementing stricter checks and balances for political advertisers, announcing Friday that advertisers running federal election-related ads in the US would be required to verify their identity as well as run disclosures on each ad.</p><p>The move comes on the heels of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10104052907253171">Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlining some initial steps</a> that the company was taking to help protect the integrity of election and Facebook VP of Public Policy Joel Kaplan providing additional details on how Facebook was making <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword> more transparent earlier this month.</p><p>It also follows <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-will-make-all-ads-public-share-how-they-are-targeted-2017-10">Twitter saying that it would publicly disclose all ads on its platform and the identity of who purchased them earlier this week</a>. Both Twitter's and Facebook's moves are aimed at curtailing proposed legislation in the US that would force the disclosure of political ads on social networks.</p><p>"When it comes to advertising on Facebook, people should be able to tell who the advertiser is and see the ads they're running, especially for political ads," Facebook's vp of ads Rob Goldman said in <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/10/update-on-our-advertising-transparency-and-authenticity-efforts/">blog post </a>shared by the company. "That level of transparency is good for democracy and it's good for the electoral process."</p><p>Facebook clarified that it was starting with federal elections in the United States, but would likely progress from there to include elections in other countries. As part of the documentation process, Facebook said that advertisers would not only be required to identify that they are running election-related advertising, but also verify both their entity and location.</p><p>Once the political advertisers are verified by the company, their election-related ads would include a disclosure reading "Paid for by." And if people click on the disclosure, they will be able to see details on the advertiser. Like other ads on Facebook, they will also be able to see an explanation of why you saw that particular ad.</p><p>The company added that it was also<span> </span>building machine learning tools<span> to identify and check political advertisers and entities who do not proactively and willingly disclose themselves, committing itself to "</span>better ensure transparency and accountability in our advertising products."</p><p>Facebook also plans to build an archive of federal-election related ads so that it can track both current and past ads. In addition, people will be able to see the <span>details on the total and average amounts spent, the total number of impressions delivered and the target demographic audience of </span>each federal-election related ad. Every such ad will also be included in a searchable archive covering a rolling four-year period starting from when it launches the archive. </p><p>Facebook is, in fact, is extending transparency beyond just political ads.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Facebook</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>It also said that it would allow people to see the ads a Facebook business page - whether a brand, small business or a person - is currently running. The feature will begin testing in Canada next month and rolled out more widely moving forward, ahead of the US midterm elections this November.</p><p>Starting next month, people will be able to click "View Ads" on a Page (Say Taco Bell, for instance) and sell all the ads that the brand is running, whether or not they are in the intended target audience for the ad. All pages will be part of this effort, and Facebook will require that all ads be associated with a particular page as part of the ad creation process.</p><p> "We know how important it is to our community that we get this feature just right - and so we're first rolling it out in only one country," <span>Goldman said in the blog post. "</span>Testing in one market allows us to learn the various ways an entire population uses the feature at a scale that allows us to learn and iterate." </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/where-when-how-to-watch-orionid-meteor-shower-halleys-comet-2017-10">Where, when, and how to watch this weekend's meteor shower created by Halley's Comet</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Facebook will require full transparency for political advertisers - and other businesses too

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div>Hedge fund manager Marko Dimitrijevic is closing his largest hedge fund, Everest Capital's Global Fund, having lost almost all its money after the Swiss National Bank (SNB) scrapped its three-year-old cap on the Swiss franc against the euro, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-17/swiss-franc-trade-is-said-to-wipe-out-everest-s-main-fund.html">Bloomberg news</a> reported on Saturday.</p>
<p>Citing a person familiar with the firm, Bloomberg said the fund had been betting that the Swiss franc would decline. The fund had about $830 million in assets at the end of 2014, according to a client report cited by Bloomberg.</p>
<p>It said an Everest spokesman would not comment on the fund and Dimitrijevic did not return calls.</p>
<p>Everest Capital, based in Miami and specializing in emerging markets, still manages seven funds with about $2.2 billion in assets, Bloomberg said.</p>
<p>The SNB triggered big losses around the globe on Thursday when it removed a three-year-old cap on the value of the Swiss franc against the euro, allowing it to soar.</p>
<h3>What Happened</h3>
<p>More than three years of stability between the euro and Swiss franc ended suddenly this week, as the Swiss central bank abandoned attempts to cap the currency's value. </p>
<p>The bank previously aimed to let the franc rise no higher than 1.20 to the euro. As soon as the change was announced, it smashed immediately higher, breaking through the previous "ceiling."</p>
<p>The euro plunged against the franc, going down by nearly 28% as the news broke. Associated Press <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-swiss-francs-breath-taking-surge-is-like-seeing-halleys-comet-2015-1">reported</a> that i<span>n the world of currencies, a move like that "can seem as rare as Halley's Comet."</span></p>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><span class="image" data-post-image=""><a href="http://static5.uk.businessinsider.com/image/54b78e3582e98561448f1654-960/swiss%20franc.png" class="zoomin"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon"></span></a></span></span></p>

A Hedge Fund With $830 Million In Assets Went Bust After The Swiss Franc Surge

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Ezra Acayan</span></p><p class="caption">Residents cross a swelling dam, due to rising waters brought about by Typhoon Koppu, in Las Pinas city, metro Manila October 19, 2015.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Good morning! Here's what you need to know on Wednesday.</p><p><strong>1</strong><strong>. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-trudeaus-liberal-juggernaut-sets-new-course-for-canada-2015-10">Canada's new Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau pledged to transform the country's policy on climate change</a></strong> after it became the first nation, under defeated Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to pull out of the landmark Kyoto Protocol in 2011 and was labelled a "climate laggard" by the United Nations.</p><p><strong>2. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/new-video-shows-refugees-at-croatian-checkpoint-2015-10">A new video shows hundreds of refugees breaking through a Croatian checkpoint on the Serbian border</a>,</strong> with some police actually helping migrants to cross over.</p><p><strong>3. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/japanese-export-growth-slows-sharply-2015-10">Japanese exports grew by 0.6% in September from a year earlier</a></strong><span>, the weakest growth since August 2014.</span></p><p><span><strong>4. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-sounding-like-a-candidate-biden-says-he-supported-bin-laden-raid--2015-10">US </a></strong><span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-sounding-like-a-candidate-biden-says-he-supported-bin-laden-raid--2015-10"><strong>Vice President Joe Biden, preparing for a possible presidential bid, says he supported the raid</strong></a> that killed former al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, a change from previous accounts.</span></span></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-russia-us-nearing-deal-on-crowded-syria-skies-2015-10"></a><strong>5. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/nypd-officer-dies-after-being-shot-in-the-head-2015-10">A 33-year-old New York City police officer died</a></strong> after being shot in the head while responding to a report of a man armed with a gun in Manhattan's East Harlem neighborhood.</p><p><strong>6. </strong><span class="s1"><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/texas-clock-boy-ahmed-mohamed-is-moving-to-qatar-2015-10"><strong>The Texas teenager arrested for taking a homemade clock is moving to </strong></a><span><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/texas-clock-boy-ahmed-mohamed-is-moving-to-qatar-2015-10"><strong>Qatar </strong></a>after getting a full scholarship to study there.</span></span></p><p><span class="s1"><strong>7. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/report-ferrari-prices-ipo-at-52-2015-10">Ferrari has reportedly priced its IPO at $52</a> </strong>(£33.66)</span><span class="s1">, </span><span class="s1">valuing the Italian automaker at $9.82 billion (£6.36 billion).</span></p><p><strong>8. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/ap-sony-settles-hacking-lawsuit-to-pay-up-to-8-million-2015-10">Sony will pay former and current employees $8 million (£5.1 million) in a settlement</a></strong><span class="s1"> related to the hack of its computers last year, in order to cover identity-theft losses, the cost of credit-fraud protection services, and legal fees.</span></p><p><span></span><strong>9. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/an-ex-fukushima-worker-is-the-first-confirmed-to-have-cancer-from-radiation-2015-10">An ex-Fukushima worker in his 40s is the first confirmed person to have developed cancer</a></strong><span class="s1"> from radiation exposure.</span></p><p><strong>10. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-star-wars-ticket-sales-smash-records-2015-10">Advance ticket sales for the new Star Wars film crushed first day records</a></strong><span>, beating "The Hunger Games," two months before the movie's December 18 opening.</span></p><p><strong>And finally ...</strong></p><p><strong><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-to-watch-orionids-meteor-shower-2015-10">The Orionids meteor shower, which is generated by the famous Halley's Comet, will be visible in the early morning hours.</a></strong></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/fanduel-cofounder-controversy-no-wrongdoing-2015-10">FanDuel cofounder on 'insider trading' controversy: 'There was no wrongdoing'</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="sxMTA0eDorAEqEiRGtjEct0PUbpYNLhp" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

The 10 most important things in the world right now

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>A stunning&#xa0;meteor shower is happening this week, and you don't want to miss it.<p>Every October, we are treated to the Orionid&#xa0;meteor shower, which takes place throughout the month.</p><p>But <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-watch-orionids-meteor-shower-2015-10">the best time to watch</a>, when experts estimate you can see about 20 meteors an hour, will be in the wee hours of the morning just before dawn on Wednesday, Oct. 21 and Thursday, Oct. 22,&#xa0;<span>according to </span><a href="http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-orionid-meteor-shower">EarthSky.org</a><span>.</span></p><p>Though the moon is relatively bright this time of month, it will have set by the time the Earth passes through the densest part of the debris tail from the famous Halley's Comet and, incidentally, when the&#xa0;Orionids peak. That means the moon's light won't get in the way of spotting some&#xa0;meteors, or falling stars as we sometimes like to call them. &#xa0;</p><p>The GIF below shows a time-lapse of the stunning 2012 Orionid meteor shower:</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p><strong>But where's the best place to go to watch this week's meteor shower?&#xa0;</strong></p><p>City lights drown out most objects in the night sky, including meteors. So, your best bet is to get out to a dark field, far away from the city.&#xa0;</p><p>Here's a map that Mike Hankey provided Business Insider showing light pollution from city lights across the country:</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>"If you made it to an orange zone or better, you'd be able to observe," Hankey told Business Insider in an email last August, when we spoke with him about how to watch the Perseid meteor shower. But his advice still holds for this week's meteor shower.<p>"Another way to gauge the light - if you can see some stars, then you can see some meteors. If you look up and see nothing, then you need to keep moving away from the city."</p><p>And if there's no good place for you to observe, then your best bet is to watch <a href="http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc">NASA's live broadcast</a> of the Orionid&#xa0;meteor shower beginning Tuesday, Oct. 20&#xa0;at 10 pm ET.&#xa0;</p><p>If you miss NASA's broadcast, the online observatory, Slooh, will also be hosting a live broadcast of the event the next day beginning at&#xa0;<span>8 pm ET on Wednesday Oct. 21.</span></p><p>Check out NASA's&#xa0;<a href="http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc">LiveStream</a> below:</p><p><div></div></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-are-meteor-showers-dust-space-2015-8">Here's what you'll actually see when you watch this week's meteor shower</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="lqZndzdjpOqocbwdWllDgACAN3Qx-Bic" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

The best places to watch this week's stunning meteor shower

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP</span></p><p class="caption">Sen. Bernie Sanders, right, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio ride a New York City subway, as Sanders campaigns with de Blasio ahead of the November 7 mayoral election.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>I'm voting for Bill de Blasio's reelection as mayor of New York City on Tuesday.</strong></li><li><strong>De Blasio will cruise to reelection for a simple reason: He's doing a very good job, sometimes in spite of what he projects about himself.</strong></li></ul><p>Like a lot of New Yorkers, I can't believe I'm going to vote for Bill de Blasio on Tuesday. But I'm going to, and so will most of you, whether you like him or not.</p><p>Our widely grumbled-about mayor is cruising to reelection for a simple reason: He seems to be doing a very good job.</p><p>Police-community relations are improved. Crime continues to fall. Universal prekindergarten has been implemented. Quality of life in New York City seems to be improving a little, or at least not getting worse. Rents are even falling a little bit, in real terms.</p><p>Your stereotypical politician talks a good game and fails to deliver. De Blasio does the opposite: He spouts a bunch of annoying nonsense while surreptitiously doing his job well.</p><p>So we're going to reelect him and put up with four more years of his crap.</p><h2>Bill de Blasio is annoying. So what?</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>John Moore/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Bill de Blasio speaks with Michael Bloomberg in November 2013</p></div><p></p></div></div>Instead of joining a gym near his home or office like a normal person, <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/06/02/de-blasio-claims-hes-a-champion-of-the-environment/">he often starts his day by taking a city SUV</a> all the way from Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to a local gym in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where he sometimes works out into the late morning. On weekdays.</p><p>He's <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/12/bill-de-blasio-being-late-to-things.html">late for things</a>, but he's gotten a little better since he missed the moment of silence at the Flight 587 memorial service in Rockaway, Queens, blaming his late arrival on a "rough night."</p><p>He often seems excessively focused on building a national political profile, rather than focusing his time and energy on us, his constituents, here in New York City. (The national left is not necessarily that interested in him - <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2016/02/de-blasio-completes-his-awkward-tour-of-iowa-033569">nobody seemed to care</a> when he went to Iowa in 2016.)</p><p>He gets in petty, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/harlem-deer-new-york-city-cuomo-de-blasio-2016-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">distracting fights with Gov. Andrew Cuomo</a> and the press.</p><p>He takes on stupid hobby-horse issues - like trying to ban horse-drawn carriages from Central Park. He tried to do a favor for taxi medallion owners a favor at consumers' expense <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2015/07/uber-rewrites-the-book-on-beating-de-blasio-000000" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">by capping the number of Uber vehicles</a> that could operate in the city. (The city council rejected both of these ideas.)</p><p>He sometimes says <a href="https://twitter.com/jbarro/status/904879719719591936">alarmingly communist-sounding things about real estate</a>, which are not borne out in the reasonable policies promulgated by his actually existing administration.</p><p>All of this annoys me. But when I step back and take a deep breath, I realize it's not very important.</p><p>Try not to listen to de Blasio when he talks. Imagine him like one of the adults from Charlie Brown, making unintelligible <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss2hULhXf04" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">WONK WONK WONK</a> noises. Just look at what his administration is doing and the results it has produced.</p><p>His record is good. Sigh.</p><h2>Bill de Blasio is a successful mayor who has kept his promises</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Getty/Theo Wargo</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Shane Goldmacher's feature for The New York Times this weekend <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/nyregion/how-bill-de-blasio-overcame-the-haters.html">provides a good overview</a> of how the mayor's substantive successes have overcome his political missteps.</p><p>When de Blasio ran in 2013, he made three main promises. He would drastically reduce the NYPD's stop-and-frisk practice. He would implement universal prekindergarten. And he would create or preserve a large quantity of affordable housing.</p><p>He's delivered on the first two promises and is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/nyregion/de-blasio-affordable-housing-new-york-city.html">making decent headway</a> on the third. </p><p>Defenders of stop-and-frisk warned that ending the practice would cause crime to go up. But unlike in some other major American cities, violent crime in New York has continued to fall in recent years. We are on pace to have fewer than 300 murders in 2017, the lowest level in decades.</p><p>The mayor has had fraught personal relations with police unions, but New York has not seen the breakdown in police-community relations that has been seen, for example, in Chicago. Arguably, the mayor has served a useful role as a punching bag for the police, who can take out their frustration on him while continuing to work effectively with the police commissioner and the public.</p><p>It doesn't hurt that the NYPD has very high staffing ratios - New York has about twice as many police per thousand residents as a typical large American city - that give the agency more flexibility in its operations.</p><p>De Blasio's appointees to the city's Rent Guidelines Board delivered a two-year freeze in rents on rent-regulated apartments, which make up about half of all rental apartment stock in the city. But contrary to the usual warnings about rent control, this does not seem to have depressed the housing supply. De Blasio has worked effectively with developers to continue construction at a robust pace while adding affordable housing units.</p><p>Like most large US cities, New York should be allowing even more and even denser development than it is. But de Blasio's performance on development has been as good as Mike Bloomberg's - and about as good as one can expect in the face of neighborhood opposition to virtually anything big and new.</p><p>And universal pre-K has been a positive change for lots of families with children in the city. De Blasio hasn't won all his fights with Cuomo, but <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/09/bill-de-blasios-prek-crusade/498830/">he did get the governor to find $340 million in the state budget</a> to help fund his signature initiative, which sounded like a pipe dream to a lot of people when he proposed it in 2013.</p><p>The most common gripe about government you'll hear from New Yorkers lately is about our troubled subways. But as De Blasio tries really hard to remind everyone, those are run by a state agency, not the city. You'll have to take your commuting problems up with Cuomo.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Justin Lane</span></p><p class="caption">New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (L) and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (R) tour the site of an explosion that occurred in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Policy success matters</h2><p>Federal <keyword id="6358883" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Politics">politics</keyword> has gotten so stupid that it's tempting to say "lol nothing matters" about any election. If people vote for president based on a feeling that people don't say "Merry Christmas" enough, why not vote out a mayor because he won't stop taking a damn SUV to the Park Slope Y?</p><p>The answer is that, unlike the federal government, people have a clear idea about what state and local governments are supposed to do for them. And New York City under Bill de Blasio has been doing the things it's supposed to do pretty well.</p><p>Bill de Blasio wanted to be a cultural leader for America's left. He's failed at that. But he's succeeding, sometimes in spite of himself, at managing a large and complicated city. We should let him do so for four more years.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/where-when-how-to-watch-orionid-meteor-shower-halleys-comet-2017-10">Where, when, and how to watch this weekend's meteor shower created by Halley's Comet</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is very annoying, but he's going to win easily because he's doing a good job

<p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT), Senator Al Franken (D-MN) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) show a fake social media post for a non-existent "Miners for Trump" rally as representatives of Twitter, Facebook and Google testify on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., October 31, 2017</p></div><p></p></div></div></strong></p><ul><li><strong>On Tuesday lawyers for Google, Facebook and Twitter were in Washington answering questions about the 2016 election but left Senators largely unsatisfied.</strong></li><li><strong>Senators were left thinking the companies don't have the ability to fully know what's going on on their platforms as they operate now.</strong></li><li><strong>Washington may seek to change that. W<span>e've done this before in America - back in the 1930s when radio was the new menace carrying misinformation and propaganda.</span><br /></strong></li><li><strong><span>For social networks to properly police users will require more than algorithms, and whether the companies do it themselves or Washington does it for them - they could be changed in ways</span></strong><strong> they've always vehemently rejected.</strong></li></ul><p><br />On Tuesday the Senate Intelligence Committee held a hearing on social media's role in the 2016 election. Lawyers from Google, Twitter and Facebook all testified, as did two national security experts.</p><p>As you can imagine, a lot of things were said at this hearing. Senators Al Franken (D-MN), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Chris Coons (D-DE) even brought offensive and misleading social media ads with them to serve as examples of what is rampant on platforms even to this day. Franken barked at Facebook's representative for accepting payment for US political ads in rubles, and Ted Cruz (R-TX) took the opportunity to talk about how persecuted he and members of his party feel on the internet.</p><p>The real <em>piece de resistance</em> of the entire hearing, however, came from Senator John Kennedy (R-LA). It was very simple.</p><p><span>"I don't believe you have the ability to identify all your advertisers," Kennedy said to the witnesses.</span></p><p>I'm going to rephrase that more plainly as: <em>I don't believe you have control over what's really happening on your internet space.</em></p><p>Now if you're Senator Kennedy and you and your colleagues think these ads caused chaos, and you don't think that these tech giants can handle this problem themselves, then there's only one solution - <em>the federal government will have to do it.</em><br /> <br />If that's where we wind up, that could change the very nature of these companies and that should terrify them. </p><p>Cue all the libertarians patiently awaiting the singularity in Silicon Valley huffing into paper bags right now.</p><h1>'It's alive, it's alive'</h1><p>It's not hard to understand why Senator Kennedy came to that conclusion. As much as Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch said he was <span>"deeply concerned" about all of the threats and misinformation on his platform, and worried that finding out what happened would be "particularly painful for communities who engaged with this content" - he also admitted Facebook watched the problem grow for 2 years and basically did nothing.</span></p><p><span>Then there was Google's General Counsel, who admitted that Russian President Vladimir Putin's TV channel mouthpiece RT had preferred status on YouTube because of its popularity and well... algorithms. Facebook gave a similar reason for why its platform <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-enabled-advertisers-to-reach-jew-haters">generated anti-Semitic tags</a> for users to find. No counsel - especially not Twitter's - could reconcile the inherently necessary power of automation <em>on</em> their platform with their company's inability to fully control it <em>across</em> their platform.</span></p><p><span>A few more troubling moments:</span></p><ul><li><span>Senator Franken couldn't get any of the GCs to say they wouldn't accept payment for US political ads in foreign currency.</span></li><li><span>Senator Blumenthal brought an ad that used Aziz Ansari's image to spread lies about people being able to vote online. (That's voter suppression, which Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) pointed out is illegal.)</span></li><li><span>Facebook couldn't discuss who helped the Internet Research Agency - Russia's bot/troll army - target ads, though, Kennedy pointed out, the company has incredible precision when it comes to finding the right kind of people for the right kind of content.</span></li></ul><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>PBS screenshot</span></p><p class="caption">Senator Blumenthal shows a voter suppression ad on Facebook that used actor Aziz Ansari's image.C</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span><a href="https://twitter.com/lopezlinette/status/925455987246600192">There was a moment</a> when Senator </span><span>Blumenthal showed a bunch of current Facebook ads that look exactly like ones the company had down already. He wanted to know why the current ads weren't also taken down.</span></p><p><span> Stretch explained that it was because Facebook took down the first ads, not because of their content, but because they were bought by Russians.</span></p><p><span>Of course, all the lawyers also admitted that shell companies really make it impossible to know who is buying ads - so the current Facebook ads Senator Blumenthal could be Russian bought too. It's hard to say, really.</span></p><p><span>You see Kennedy's point.</span></p><h1>Come on tell me, who are you?</h1><p>So what do we do?</p><p>All of the companies agreed that what happened was terrible. They agreed that the system, as it is now, isn't working. They agreed that fake accounts and bots are a menace. They agreed that they would help Washington write legislation to combat this. They also, however, agreed that they had no way of knowing if any measures would stop the proliferation of violent speech, propaganda, and misinformation on major social media platforms.</p><p>Luckily, we've done this before in America. Back in the 1930s radio was the new menace carrying misinformation and propaganda from quasi-fascist American demagogues like Huey Long and <span>Father Charles Coughlin. The government had to make a concerted effort to teach the populace how to be educated listeners, and it had to come up with some rules. Specifically, it settled on the <a href="http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/piac/novmtg/pubint.htm">Communications Act of 1934</a>, which said broadcasters didn't have to run every single ad any old client paid for but instead should consider what served the public interest.</span></p><p><span>In other words, broadcasters could be discerning, and they wanted to be. The alternative was something called "common carriage" and meant anyone with a bunch of money could say any nasty thing on the radio they wanted and broadcasters couldn't say no.</span></p><p><span>Even though Facebook, Google, and Twitter can kick you off their platforms, they're essentially fighting for common carriage. They don't want to make value and editorial judgments to serve the public interest - they'd rather have bots do it, or you do it, or whoever - j</span><span>ust not them, and not (as Senator Kennedy might like) the government. </span></p><h1><span>People power</span></h1><p>Back to the hearing. After the lawyers left the stand a couple of national security experts addressed the Senators just as something terrible was unfolding miles away. A terrorist crashed a truck into pedestrians in lower Manhattan. Eight people were killed and 5 were injured.</p><p>Terrorism analyst Michael Smith was on the stand as word of the violence reached the hearing. He admitted that there was chatter of a potential attack all over ISIS social media, <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/10/31/isis-supporters-praise-nyc-truck-attack-joke-about-low-death-count/">especially Twitter.</a> This was before the attacker was even identified.</p><p>Allowing ISIS to even have Twitter accounts is a feature of a common carriage system. Question is, is that the system we want on these platforms? Or do we want them to have to behave more like regular broadcasters?</p><p>Clint Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who has addressed the committee on this matter before, suggested that attribution in social media issue <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword> be the same as it is in broadcast or print advertising - you have to know who's buying your ads.</p><p>And then Watts said something Silicon Valley <em>really</em> won't like:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Social media companies continue to get beat in part because they rely too heavily on technologists and technical detection to catch bad actors. Artificial intelligence and machine learning will greatly assist in cleaning up nefarious activity, but will for the near future, fail to detect that which hasn't been seen before.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Threat intelligence proactively anticipating how bad actors will use social media platforms to advance their cause must be used to generate behavioral indicators that inform technical detection. Those that understand the intentions and actions of criminals, terrorists and authoritarians must work alongside technologists to sustain the integrity of social media platforms.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">This has become an effective, improved and common practice in cybersecurity efforts to deter hackers, but to date, I've not seen a social media company routinely and successfully employ this approach.</p><p>In other words. You need humans, and you need human judgment. Lots of it. Algorithms should not be able to determine what constitutes as civil or uncivil speech, even when it comes to non-violent domestic politics.</p><p>And, by the way, we've been trusting humans to do this in broadcasting since 1973. That's when the <span>Supreme Court ruled in </span><em>CBS v. Democratic National Committee</em> that broadcasters had the right to accept or reject political issue advertising - that they could exercise editorial control to (again) serve the public interest. </p><p>In accepting this we as a nation accepted that there's the right to free speech, and then there's the right to decent speech.</p><p>But Silicon Valley giants don't want to have to determine what is decent. Where the broadcasters of the 1930s relished it as their responsibility, tech giants view it as a burden that fundamentally changes their identities. Plus, bottom line, if you have a human do this you actually have to pay them - it's expensive.</p><p>Making calls about what is and is not acceptable speech in social space is hard. Moral relativism is much easier, but its consequences aren't something we can live with anymore. Someone has to get this under control. The more Silicon Valley shows that it can't, the more Washington will feel it has no choice but to step in. </p><p class="tagline">Get the latest Google stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/GOOG-Quote"> here.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/where-when-how-to-watch-orionid-meteor-shower-halleys-comet-2017-10">Where, when, and how to watch this weekend's meteor shower created by Halley's Comet</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

One sentence from the Senate's social media hearing should petrify Google, Facebook and Twitter

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><ul><li><strong>Starting this weekend, the Hallmark Channel is rolling out 33 original Christmas movies. These movies have helped it defy industry trends that are hurting rival networks.</strong></li><li><strong>The company's formula allows it to crank out movies in three weeks for roughly $2 million each.</strong></li><li><strong>Most of the films are shot in the summer: "I've gotten used to being really hot and sweating in my boots," says Lacy Chabert, a recurring star.</strong></li><li><strong>Advertisers and viewers are drawn in because they know exactly what they're going to get.</strong></li></ul><p><br>Roger left his big New York City newspaper job to head back to his Vermont hometown to take over the family newspaper right smack in the middle of the Christmas season.</br></p><p>Once there, he and his high-school rival, Samantha, now the anchor for the local news station, wound up chasing the biggest story of the year: What will happen to the town's Christmas-tree farm, which is set to be razed by developers? Will they save the farm, get the big story, and keep from falling for each other? Find out on "Christmas Scoop," starring Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Jennie Garth.</p><p>OK, this isn't a real movie. But if you've ever heard of the Hallmark Channel, you can picture the whole thing.</p><p>The cable network is set to release the first of 33 original Christmas movies - most featuring a pair of recognizable TV stars meeting cute near the mistletoe - this weekend - before we're even done with Halloween.</p><p>Hallmark, it seems, has never stopped saying Merry Christmas, and it's how the network, owned by Crown Media, is defying every trend in the media business. It has milked the Christmas stories to consistently deliver strong live ratings (meaning people watch when the movies are broadcast, not later, say, over the internet), while its rivals grapple with cable <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/cord-cutting">cord-cutting</a> and competition from streaming services.<br><br>If you aren't familiar, here are two examples of the kinds of films we're talking about:</br></br></p><ul><li>2015's "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5133572/">A Crown for Christmas"</a> starring Danica McKellar ("The Wonder Years") as a recently fired New York exec who ends up working for, and falling for, a prince during Christmas.</li><li>2016's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5676118/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl">"A Wish for Christmas"</a> starring Lacey Chabert ("Mean Girls") as a woman granted a wish by Santa Claus, a wish that expires in 48 hours.</li></ul><p>"Their movies are as comforting as programming can be. You can grab a blanket, enjoy a glass of wine, and know the movie will have a happy ending," said Brad Krevoy, a producer who has worked on theatrical movies such as "Dumb and Dumber" and "Threesome."</p><h2>Very traditional media</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>People are canceling cable subscriptions and ditching live TV for Netflix, Amazon, and other streaming apps.</p><p>Cable networks are striving to produce original prestige series at a time when there are <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fx-john-landgraf-apple-peak-tv-2017-1">upwards of 500 on the air</a>. At the same time, mid-tier cable networks are struggling, and some, like Esquire, have disappeared. Everyone in media is trying to figure out where they fit on Facebook and Snapchat.</p><p>Not Hallmark.</p><p>"It's weird," said director Ron Oliver, who's worked on numerous Hallmark projects and logged time on Nickelodeon's "Goosebumps" in the 1990s. "With Hallmark, you actually turn on the TV at 8 p.m. and watch collectively. It speaks to a real need."</p><p>In 2016, Hallmark movies attracted over 2 million live viewers, though by November and December those numbers spiked to 4 million, according to Nielsen. The rating record was set by Candace Cameron Bure's "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4180032/">Christmas Under Wraps</a>," in 2014, and it&#xa0;actually just <em>added</em> a third cable network, Hallmark Drama, on top of its core network and Hallmark Movies and Mysteries - all part of the&#xa0;<span>Crown Media Family Networks division of Hallmark Cards</span>.<br><br>Crown Media president and CEO Bill Abbot chalks the success up to a commitment to the formula.</br></br></p><p>"The business has been so driven by trying to hit the home run, trying to replicate the success of 'The Walking Dead,'" he said. "Hits are very hard to find. That's a very risky strategy. And it's detrimental to the cable industry.</p><p>"People don't know what they are going to get from original channels," Abbot added. "That's what's driving a lot of the decline in audience."</p><h2>Taking back Christmas</h2><p>The original cable Christmas movie wasn't Hallmark's baby. Rather in the mid-1990s, ABC Family kicked off the craze with its "25 Days of Christmas" franchise. That led to classics such as 2007's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Holiday-Handcuffs-Melissa-Joan-Hart/dp/B001BAWKQU">"Holiday in Handcuffs"</a> featuring Melissa Joan Hart&#xa0;taking&#xa0;Mario Lopez hostage while he steals her heart- of course at Christmas time.</p><p>Though the Hallmark channel launched in 2001, Crown Media had made <a href="http://deadline.com/2011/05/hallmark-hall-of-fame-ends-on-cbs-129410/">TV movies for decades for networks like CBS</a>. But around 2011, as ABC Family (now called Freeform) leaned into targeting teens, Crown went after Christmas in a bigger way.</p><p>"We did look at what '25 Days of Christmas' had become in people's minds and said, 'Wait a minute. We have a brand and a hundred-year legacy,'" Michelle Vicary, EVP of programming&#xa0;<span>&amp; network program publicity, Crown Media Family Networks,&#xa0;</span>said. "We should lean into that as much as we can and do more of it."</p><p>It started paying off immediately. Now Hallmark produces movies tied to Valentine's Day, fall harvest season, June weddings, and summer holidays. But starting October 27, it's pretty much all Christmas movies for the rest of the year.</p><p>"People started to say things to us, like, 'I turn in on right after Halloween and don't turn it off until New Year's," Vicary said.</p><p>"In this day and age, with the multitude of programs, the notion of a strict adherence to one's brand - that's friendly, inviting, and welcoming - is a huge plus," said Bruce Vinokour, a television agent at the Creative Artists Agency.</p><h2>A feel-good Blumhouse</h2><p>How exactly will Hallmark make 87 original movies this year, including 33 Christmas movies?</p><p>The company is known for being disciplined and deliberate. Hallmark typically shoots movies over about three weeks for $2 million - the price of some individual TV episodes or, as Oliver put it, "the catering budget for Transformers."<br><br>The network is almost like the Yuletide version of the much-admired <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blumhouse-productions-get-out-split-2017-2">low-budget horror studio Blumhouse</a>.</br></br></p><p>Most movies are shot in Canada, where Hallmark gets tax breaks and other benefits from using local production crews. Vancouver is the biggest outlet, given its wintry milieu, though Hallmark has made movies in Toronto, Montreal, and, in some cases, Romania.</p><p>The timing is often tight. Actress Lacey Chabert said she shot a movie last summer that aired four weeks later.</p><p>When Business Insider talked to director <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0646987/">Ron Oliver </a>in mid-October, he was in postproduction on <a href="http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/the-christmas-train">"The Christmas Train"</a> (Danny Glover, Dermot Mulroney), which is scheduled to run in late November. Oliver was still writing "Reindeer Games," which he's shooting in November for a December airdate.</p><p>"It's literally down to the wire," he said. "But I always remind people: They shot 'Casablanca' in 18 days."</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><h2>Christmas is good business</h2><p>Kagan, a media-research group within S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence, estimated that Hallmark reeled in $431.3 million in revenue between <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword> and affiliate fees from cable distributors. That's up from less than $300 million in 2012.</p><p>To put that in context, Lifetime's revenue is roughly double that of Hallmark's, but net operating revenue from 2012 to 2016 has remained relatively flat, $876.4 million to $875.4 million, Kagan estimates.</p><p>Advertisers have noticed Hallmark's ascendancy.</p><p>"If you look at cable in general, there are ratings declines all over the place. And every fourth quarter they are growing. It's kind of incredible," said Keri Feeley, SVP and group partner of integrated investment at the ad-buying firm UM.</p><p>Marketers are particularly drawn to Hallmark because the content is considered safe. And for viewers, "They always find actors that remind you of your childhood," said Feeley.</p><h2>Familiar faces</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>There's something of a debate over who is the record holder for most Hallmark Christmas movie appearances - between Candace Cameron Bure (who became a star on "Full House"), Lori Loughlin (also from "Full House"), and Lacey Chabert ("Party of Five" and "Mean Girls"). Though Danica McKellar (Winnie Cooper from "The Wonder Years") is coming on strong, said Vicary.</p><p>"It's tough to say," Vicary said. "Lori Loughlin owned August."</p><p>Chabert did her first Hallmark movie in 2010: <a href="http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/elevator-girl">"Elevator Girl"</a> (a guy and a girl get stuck in an elevator). Her first Christmas movie was "<a href="http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/matchmaker-santa">Matchmaker Santa</a>," and she estimates she's done eight or nine since.</p><p>"The way their company works is a family and it mirrors their product," she told Business Insider. "They really care about what they're putting out."</p><p>Still, Chabert said that the shooting schedule is like "boot camp" in that you "eat, breath, and sleep the movie."</p><p>"It's intense - it's hard to make a movie in 15 days. They know what they are doing," she told Business Insider.</p><p>Chabert said that for whatever reason, most of her Christmas movies have been shot in the summer. <br><br>"That's fine by me," she said. "I've gotten used to being really hot and sweating in my boots."</br></br></p><h2>Make it snow</h2><p>One thing that can't be different: "You have to have snow," Vicary said. That's nonnegotiable.</p><p>Visual-effects expert <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5431809/">Luc Benning</a> has worked on several Hallmark projects. There are a few ways to make snow happen, even in August. Options include using:</p><ul><li>snow blankets (which look like car-seat cushions, Benning says)</li><li>fire-retardant foam (increasingly popular)</li><li>a papier-mâché-like product called a <a href="http://www.flash-sfx.cz/en/rental-shop/produkt/krendl-snow-system">Krendl</a>&#xa0;(tough to clean up)</li><li>crushed limestone (increasingly popular out West)</li><li>ice shavings from ice blocks</li><li>snow from the machines that ski slopes use (extremely heavy)</li></ul><p>"The past couple of years Hallmark's really liked the look of the foam," said Benning, who often works on four and five Hallmark movies back to back. A snow budget might run a Christmas production about $50,000, he said.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Then there's the snow needed for actor close-ups. Sometimes, that means soapy bubbles.</p><p>Oliver said he was shooting a scene with Candace Cameron Bure that was supposed to be during a blizzard. So he used a machine that blew soapy bubbles into the air that looked like snow during close-up shots. "He hair was literally concrete," said Oliver. "And she had soap in her mouth."</p><p>Plus, because of the noise that the machine made, the actress had to reshoot her dialogue later "with the same emotion and cadence," he said. Oliver has a way of helping his actors deal: stops at the <a href="http://shamefultikiroom.com/">Shameful Tiki Room</a> bar in Vancouver.</p><h2>Christmas future</h2><p>As Hallmark pushes its original output to the limit, the question will become, how do you not run out of ideas?</p><p>One way to keep things moving is by doing sequels: <a href="http://www.hallmarkmoviesandmysteries.com/finding-father-christmas">"Finding Father Christmas"</a> in 2016 has led to this year's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6958760/">"Engaging Father Christmas</a>" (and eventually "Marrying Father Christmas").</p><p>"My biggest challenge is finding good scripts and good writers," Abbot added. To help, <a href="http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/hallmark-publishing/write-for-us">the company has launched a book division that will serve as something of a farm team for future movies</a>.</p><p>Meanwhile, programming chief Vicary said she's already talking to her team about projects for Christmas 2018.</p><p>For his part, Oliver said he's often wondered if he'll ever end up Christmas'd out. But then he gets together with his family and gets right back into the spirit.<br><br>"I always have this huge meltdown on Christmas Eve," he said. "But I love it. It's really about the core idea of people getting together. Underneath it all, we do know the importance of it."</br></br></p><div></div><div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/where-when-how-to-watch-orionid-meteor-shower-halleys-comet-2017-10">Where, when, and how to watch this weekend's meteor shower created by Halley's Comet</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div></hr>

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