Matt Novak

Flying Cars Are Just Two Years From Reality ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Another day, another story about how flying cars are just two years away. Funny how they’re always just two years away. Today at Fast Company: “The good news is we’ve been at this for eight years and we are less than two years from shipping the product,” the CEO [of Terrafugia] says. Just another two…

Phil Collins has a collection of Alamo artifacts worth millions

Phil Collins is one of the foremost experts on the Battle of the Alamo. Yes, that Phil Collins. He’s been obsessed with the Alamo for decades and over the years has acquired over 200 artifacts, including everything from Davy Crockett’s guns to the musket balls of Mexican soldiers. From PRI: [Phil Collins’] collection now includes…

13 behind-the-scenes photos from Metropolis

In 1893, 2.5 million pounds of horse manure filled NYC streets per day

Think New York summers are pungent now? Imagine what it must’ve smelled like at the turn of the 20th century. Before the introduction of the automobile, horses were leaving about 2.5 million pounds of shit in the streets per day. From the book The Big Roads by Earl Swift: Crossing a street could be an…

A robot started writing a Torah today. It will finish in 3 months.

A robot started writing a Torah today at Berlin’s Jewish Museum. It’s part of an art exhibition that will see the robot finish its work — 304,805 Hebrew letters later — in 3 months. The exhibit will be up until January 2015. From the Associated Press: The Torah-writing robot was developed by the German artists’…

Pound for pound, the fastest land animal is a mite

Everybody knows that a cheetah is the world’s fastest land animal. But what if you take the size of the animal into account? If you measure speed by body-length-per-second, a tiny mite about the size of a sesame seed is actually the fastest. From Scientific American: Paratarsotomus macropalpis, a sesame seed–size mite found in southern…

Redheads aren’t going extinct because of climate change

Whether it’s blondes or blue eyes or redheads, every generation seems to have a panic over what trait is going to go “extinct” sometime in the future. But it’s nonsense. Below, an explanation from Gawker’s Antiviral about why redheads aren’t going extinct because of climate change. Factually is Gizmodo’s new blog of fun facts, interesting…

Happy Birthday Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla was a legendary futurist before the term futurist even existed. He made all kinds of predictions about the way that world would and should operate — some of them accurate, and some of them controversial. And guess what? It’s his birthday! Born “at the stroke of midnight” on July 9th/10th in 1856, Nikola…

Aerosmith made more money on Guitar Hero than from any of their albums

According to the head of Activision, Aerosmith has made more money from licensing their songs and image for the Guitar Hero: Aerosmith game than from any one of their albums. This should really come as no surprise. Even back in the recording industry’s most profitable days, bands were almost always making more money from live…

There used to be a restaurant in New York staffed by dozens of twins

It was only open for about five years, but back in the 1990s, there was a restaurant in New York City staffed by dozens of sets of twins. It was simply called Twins Restaurant (personally, I would’ve gone with Double Trouble) and as you can imagine, it was a popular tourist attraction for twins visiting…

Original Back to the Future 2 Hoverboard Up For Auction

Doc Brown himself recently lied to us about the existence of hoverboards. But if you’ve got the cash, an original hoverboard (albeit, still non-hovering) could soon be yours. One of the original hoverboards used in filming Back to the Future: Part II will be going on sale this fall and it’s expected to fetch a…

Newspaper Publisher Predicted Robot Editors in 1968

Otto A. Silha, was a pretty forward-thinking guy — especially in an industry that we think of today as tremendously resistant to change. Silha was the publisher of the Minneapolis Star and Tribune newspapers, and he was known for embracing new technologies in the publishing business. He was enthusiastic about computers, networking, and the tools…

President Harding called his penis “Jerry”

President Warren Harding was one of the least popular presidents of all time. He was corrupt, inept, and just a generally poor leader during his short tenure from 1921 until 1923. He couldn’t even come up with an interesting nickname for his penis. He called it Jerry. When Harding wrote to his mistress of about…

South African miners used to be inspected by X-ray for stolen diamonds

In 1919 many black South African diamond miners were inspected by X-ray each and every day as they left. The mine owners were looking for diamonds that the miners would swallow or hide in self-inflicted wounds. As I wrote back in 2013 for Pacific Standard magazine: New technologies can do a tremendous amount of good.…

Technically, American flag napkins are illegal

When activist Abbie Hoffman wore his American flag shirt back in the 1960s people were shocked. He was even arrested and charged for “mutilating the American flag.” Oh how times have changed. Today, putting the American flag on t-shirts, in advertisements, and even on napkins is considered the height of patriotism. But technically, many of…

Not only is this 1968 photo from Russia totes adorbs LOL, the Getty Images description is pretty funny as well: “Twins in a Russian street are so well protected against the cold that they look like penguins.” Having grown up in Minnesota, I can definitely relate to these kids. Factually is Gizmodo’s new blog of…

One survivor of the Hindenburg disaster was an acrobat who jumped out

Joseph Spah survived the disastrous crash of the Hindenburg on May 6, 1937. How did he do it? Spah was a comedic acrobat, who was forced to put some of his tumbling skills to good use to save his life. He broke a window and jumped out as the burning airship fell to the ground.…

The first movie ever broadcast on TV was in theaters at the time

On March 10, 1933 the movie The Crooked Circle became the first feature-length film ever broadcast on TV. What might surprise people today is that it was still in theaters at the time. Granted, the movie was broadcast from an experimental station in Los Angeles at a time when less than a dozen people in…

The first internet message ever sent was “LO”

Above, is the log book from UCLA documenting the first host-to-host connection of the ARPANET, the precursor to our modern internet. It was 10:30pm on October 29, 1969. The first message ever sent? “LO.” They were trying to type LOGIN, but it crashed before they could finish. From UCLA: [Above] is a record of the…

Pepsi was originally called “Brad’s Drink”

Some of the soft drinks we know today originally started as patent medicines in the late 19th century — including Coca-Cola, which infamously contained cocaine. But when Caleb Bradham invented a drink in 1893 he set out to make it free of stimulants. It didn’t even contain caffeine. He originally called it Brad’s Drink, but…