Robbie Gonzalez, Author at Gizmodo

Here is the biggest goddamn snow blower you’ve ever seen

Add this to your ever-growing list of things you never knew existed but now desperately need: a BNSF rotary snow blower. The video up top is of a model currently in operation clearing railroad tracks in Aurora, NE, but you’ll find them all over the country, churning through formidable heaps of tightly packed snow like…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 14 '12

Is there poop on the Moon?

Here to give us the down and dirty on space excreta (because let’s face it, you were always curious) is Minute Physics’ Henry Reich and Smarter Every Day’s Destin. It’s a match made in YouTube science-explainer heaven. With poop. And spacecraft-trajectory-altering pee. In spaaaace. [Minute Physics]

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 14 '12

30 teachers + 1 reduced-gravity aircraft + 2000 ping pong balls = floathappy funtime

Watch this. Watch it and tell me that it doesn’t look like fun — that you don’t want anything more than to ride aboard a ping-pong-ball-filled 727 (aka a “vomit comet”) while it flies along a parabolic flight path (thereby simulating weightlessness) with thirty other people. That’s right. You can’t. Further proof that the best…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 13 '12

Watch the biggest iceberg break-up ever captured on film

Ho-lee-crap. You’re looking at the largest iceberg calving ever recorded — a whopping 7.4 cubic km (that’s 1.77 mi3) hunk of ice, detaching itself from Greenland’s Ilulissat glacier — captured by filmmaker James Balog. It’s just one of the scenes in Balog’s forthcoming film Chasing Ice, and it is remarkable to behold. Judging from the…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 13 '12

The Moon landings, the Higgs Boson, and vaccinations are all fake

Here’s an absolutely lovely bit of ranty, frustrated-scientist humor from The Guardian’s Dean Burnett, that doubles as a smart explainer on the difference between true skepticism and scientifically vacant conspiracy theory. (Especially w/r/t media coverage.) Burnett’s ad-hoc reckons concerning the truthiness of Moon landings, the Higgs Boson and vaccinations are just a taste of the…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 13 '12

The most viral media correction of 2012 combines My Little Pony with Aspergers

Over on Poynter, Craig Silverman has served up his excellent list of the best (and worst) media errors and corrections of 2012. The most viral correction of all was released by the New York Times after it ran this feature, which explores how people with autism spectrum disorders navigate the the uncertain emotional terrain of…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 13 '12

New Evidence that People Have Been Making Cheese for 7500 Years

It’s cheese. CHEESE! They found cheese (well, traces of cheese — dairy fat, to be exact) in neolithic fragments of ceramic pottery dating to 5,500 B.C., and that’s a big deal. It’s a big deal for a few reasons. One: cheese is delicious. The most delicious. I’ve met a few people in my life who…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 13 '12

Even light smoking may double your risk of sudden death

Everyone — everyone — knows that smoking is terrible for you. But damn, according to a massive new study published in Circulation (a journal of the American Heart Association), even one cigarette a day could be very harmful to your health. Says the BBC’s Michelle Roberts: [Dr. Roopinder Sandhu and colleagues and colleagues at the…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 12 '12

This pre-Internet chatroom conversation between Jim Henson, Ayn Rand, Yoko Ono and Sidney Nolan is fake. But it’s amazing.

Before the Internet, there was ARPANET — an experimental computer network brought to life in the 1960s by the U.S. Department of Defense. The design goals of the DOD’s sui generis packet-switching plexus were manifold, and its role in laying the groundwork for what would become the Internet cannot be overstated; suffice to say, it…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 12 '12

Everything you need to know to catch tomorrow’s Geminid meteor shower

Prepare yourselves. Tomorrow night’s Geminid meteor shower is shaping up to be one of the most impressive celestial light shows of 2012. Not only are the Geminids among the most reliable and prolific showers of all (NASA calls them “the 900-lb gorilla of meteor showers”), this year’s display also happens to coincide with a new…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 12 '12

Here are your odds of experiencing a White Christmas

December 25th is fast approaching — will yours be snow-laden? This map, released by NOAA and the National Climatic Data Center, gives the probability of a “White Christmas” across the continental United States. A “White Christmas,” according to the NCDC, is one with an inch or more of snow on the ground at 6 A.M.…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 12 '12

How much nose hair would you need to protect you from your city’s pollution?

Fun fact: research suggests that people with more nose hair (that is, nose inside their nostrils, not hairy noses, though we’re not entirely sure the two aren’t unrelated) are less likely to develop asthma than those with less-bristly nose-holes. Why would we bring this up? To help you make sense of the image up top.…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 11 '12

A stunning solar eclipse video unlike any you’ve ever seen

Last month, residents of northern Australia had an exclusive opportunity to observe Earth’s last total solar eclipse until 2015. Photographer Colin Legg captured the event on camera and produced the beautiful timelapse video pictured up top. It’s a remarkably simple clip, and over in a matter of seconds, but it’s shot from an unusually high…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 11 '12

Earth’s oldest trees are almost unfathomably ancient

We can’t get enough of this stunning piece of arboreal data visualization. Created by Vienna-based graphic designer Michæl Paukner, the interwoven lines of this chart connect over 20 of the world’s oldest trees and clonal colonies to their geographic origins. Pictured above: Paukner’s chart, bookended by a photo of Old Tjikko (at left) and Sri…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 11 '12

Worried about the apocalypse? Don’t be. Here are 10 real dangers to worry about instead.

December 21st grows nigh. Are you worried about the Maya apocalypse? Don’t be. As we already told you, the Maya didn’t give a shit about your dumb apocalypse. But you already knew that, right? Good. That means you’ve freed up a bunch of time and energy that you can now devote to panicking about other…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 11 '12

How to injure your genitals like an American

From a recent issue of the Journal of Urology comes a list that’s guaranteed to make you wince: a ranking of consumer products most commonly associated with genitourinary injuries and emergency room visits in the United States. The study, led by UCSF urologist Herman Bagga, looks at genital injuries between 2002 and 2010, in an…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 11 '12

Golden Spike Company announces trips to the Moon will launch in 2020. Guess how much tickets cost.

Back in January 2012, Newt Gingrich promised the American people that, if elected, we would have a permanent moon base “by the end of his second term.” Gingrich obviously wasn’t elected, but he will not rest until all those who ridiculed his lunar ambitions are eating crow. You see, the longtime space enthusiast is on…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 6 '12

Aaaaand SpaceX just scored its very first military contracts

Elon Musk (the billionaire genius who helped inspire RDJ’s Tony Stark) and his space transport company SpaceX just lined up their very first military contracts with the US Air Force. Oh, privatized aerospace — you’re growing up so fast! https://gizmodo.com/the-billionaire-genius-who-tony-stark-is-based-on-wants-5932837 Reuters’ Irene Klotz has the fiscal, Falcon-filled details: The U.S. Air Force will pay $97…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 6 '12

NASA’s GRAIL Mission returns jaw-dropping maps of the Moon, unprecedented findings

Not since we laid eyes on these stunning, Jackson Pollock-esque astrogeological maps have we seen lunar cartography this gorgeous. These colorful, remarkably detailed maps of the Moon’s surface are just some of the early data collected by NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission — findings published across three papers in this week’s issue…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 6 '12

This is all the beautiful space litter left on Mars by NASA’s Curiosity rover

Four months ago, NASA landed a one-ton, nuclear-powered rover on the Red Planet, scattering the Martian terrain with heaps of debris in the process. Curiosity, upon arrival, shed so much of its Entry Descent & Landing hardware that high resolution images of the planet’s surface are still turning up traces of the rover’s rubble. Let’s…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 6 '12

Robbie Gonzalez

Here is the biggest goddamn snow blower you’ve ever seen

Is there poop on the Moon?

30 teachers + 1 reduced-gravity aircraft + 2000 ping pong balls = floathappy funtime

Watch the biggest iceberg break-up ever captured on film

The Moon landings, the Higgs Boson, and vaccinations are all fake

The most viral media correction of 2012 combines My Little Pony with Aspergers

New Evidence that People Have Been Making Cheese for 7500 Years

Even light smoking may double your risk of sudden death

This pre-Internet chatroom conversation between Jim Henson, Ayn Rand, Yoko Ono and Sidney Nolan is fake. But it’s amazing.

Everything you need to know to catch tomorrow’s Geminid meteor shower

Here are your odds of experiencing a White Christmas

How much nose hair would you need to protect you from your city’s pollution?

A stunning solar eclipse video unlike any you’ve ever seen

Earth’s oldest trees are almost unfathomably ancient

Worried about the apocalypse? Don’t be. Here are 10 real dangers to worry about instead.

How to injure your genitals like an American

Golden Spike Company announces trips to the Moon will launch in 2020. Guess how much tickets cost.

Aaaaand SpaceX just scored its very first military contracts

NASA’s GRAIL Mission returns jaw-dropping maps of the Moon, unprecedented findings

This is all the beautiful space litter left on Mars by NASA’s Curiosity rover

What a John Ternus Era Means for Apple

What Footage Could Possibly Be Added to ‘Endgame’ to Make it ‘Critical’ for ‘Avengers: Doomsday’?

Spirit Airlines Wants a Trump Bailout as Jet Fuel Prices Skyrocket

California Accuses Amazon of Price Fixing

Even Team Avatar Wants ‘Legend of Aang’ Back in Theaters, Leaks Be Damned

Egyptian Archaeologists Find Perfectly Circular Temple Tied to Ancient Water Cult

House Candidate Unveils Plan to Pay Americans Who Face AI Job Displacement

NASA Shut Down Voyager 1 Science Instrument After Unexpected Power Drop

Tim Cook Is Done as CEO of Apple

You Have to Watch This Trailer for What Is Basically ‘Hungry Hungry Hippos’ Made Horror

I’ve Tested a Lot of Bad Smart Glasses and These Are the Worst Yet

Roborock’s Qrevo Curv 2 Flow Is the Ultimate Robot Mop—If You Don’t Have Corners or Walls

Alienware’s $350 QD-OLED Gaming Monitor Nixes Everything for a Pretty Screen

Sony Inzone H6 Air Review: A Perfect Case for Open-Back Gaming Headsets

Anker’s EufyMake E1 Finally Brings Printers Out of the Dark Ages

The Soundboks Mix Is Going to Make You the Most Popular Guy at the Park

Asus Zenbook A16 Review: Start Considering Snapdragon on PC, for Real

Aqara Thermostat Hub W200 Review: Almost Better than My Ecobee

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go