Latest

Watch Origami Magically Unfold in Water

These micro-origamis are super tiny, only 2-3 centimeters long, with a ton of intricate folds. When they touch water though, they magically unfold and flatten out to become a lily pad of sorts. It’s an effect called capillarity. Capillarity is the ability to flow against gravity where liquid spontaneously rises in a narrow space. It’s…

Tech News Casey Chan May 17

Dark Horse App Shoves Hellboy and Axe Cop into Your iPad

Dark Horse. It’s the largest independent comic book publisher in these here United States, and its stable of titles ranges from Hellboy to The Guild to Conan to heart-warming child-written internet sensation Axe Cop. And now it’s on your iPad. The free app features titles starting at a buck a pop, and purchases can be…

Books & Comics Brian Barrett May 17

David Brin proposes using a computer model to simplify the U.S. tax code

The United States tax code is a thing of wonderment in its insane complexity. But what if we could massively simplify the code — without changing anybody’s tax burden? David Brin, author of the Uplift novels, has a suggestion. Writing in the Daily Kos, Brin suggests a “no losers” revamp of the tax code, that…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders May 17

Diet Coke + Mentos + Stupid = Perfection

Tossing Mentos into Diet Coke is one of the oldest tricks in the MEGA CARBONATION EXPLOSION book, one you’ve seen around here once or twice. But those were major-scale productions. This? This is one man, one hilariously inept projectile. https://gizmodo.com/mentos-and-diet-coke-explosion-at-1200fps-casio-ex-f1-386936 It seems unfair that it’s the camera guy who bears the brunt of this failed…

Tech News Brian Barrett May 17

Take Your Flash Photography Skills to the Next Level

Joe McNally is a small flash lighting pro. And now you shutterbugs can benefit from his 30-plus years of experience with a brand-new set of lighting DVDs from the lighting master himself. McNally’s Language of Light DVDs are a detailed road map drawn for you by one of the foremost small flash authorities in the…

Tech News Sponsored post May 17

What’s the secret of a good genre mashup?

Lately it seems like a lot of the freshest genre works are mash-ups of well-worn ideas. Whether it’s “police procedural with elves” or “superhero movie with Cold War intrigue.” But why do some genre mashups rule, while others fail horribly? Is there some magic secret to mixing and matching genres in a way that actually…

Movies Charlie Jane Anders May 17

BoxyTunes Turns Dropbox into a Cloud Music Player for iPhone and iPad

There seems to be no lack of options for cloud music players on Android these days, but what about your neglected iPhone? If you have a Dropbox account and use it to store music and podcasts, BoxyTunes makes it easy to grab those audio files on the go. BoxyTunes syncs up with your Dropbox account…

Tech News Adam Dachis May 17

Secret Behind iPhone4 Noise Canceling Revealed

The iPhone4 has fantastic noise cancellation. But how it pulled that off had been a mystery, as teardowns couldn’t find an audio processor. Turns out, it’s a familiar piece of hardware we’ve seen before. The sleuths at iFixit found that a mystery part labeled 10C0 01S8 0077 that matched nothing in their database is in…

Tech News Mat Honan May 17

Epson and E Ink Joining Forces to Make a 300dpi Display

To compete with the tablets and 300dpi-display-equipped smartphones, Epson and E Ink are collaborating on a 300dpi display of their own (2400×1650 resolution on a 9.7-inch screen). The Kindle, by comparison, has a 160dpi resolution. [ZD Net]

Tech News Adrian Covert May 17

ABC releases trailers for horror series The River and the dark fairy tale Once Upon A Time

Take a sneak peek at ABC’s exceptionally Disneyfied series Once Upon A Time, starring Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White. Plus take a look at the mockumentary series The River, whose cast includes the nutso deputy from The Crazies! Once Upon a Time The premise for this show is a wee bit complicated, but this may…

Television Meredith Woerner May 17

This Is Not a Painting

What you’re looking at isn’t a painting. It’s not a Photoshop job or an artist’s rendering. It’s a photograph, taken by National Geographic’s Frans Lanting, that captures the camel thorn trees of Namib-Naukluft Park at the most perfect moment imaginable. Click the image to biggie size for the full effect. That orange backdrop? That’s a…

Tech News Brian Barrett May 17

Former NSA Genius Apologizes for His Super Spying Software

Long before 9/11, brilliant NSA crypto-mathematician Bill Binney had developed an algorithm to make sense of the unbelievably massive amounts of data American spies were pulling in—he called it ThinThread. And then it went very, very wrong. ThinThread, the New Yorker reports, proved to be too good: designed to track foreign enemies via their electronic…

Privacy & Security Sam Biddle May 17

In Suriname, you can visit the Mickey Mouse wicker man

Well, it’s not made of wicker and nobody’s donning a bee helmet in its presence, but this wooden Mickey effigy in Moengo, Suriname certainly looks like it should be burnt in a fertility ritual, jam-packed with talking forest fauna. The sculpture, “Monument for transition,” was spearheaded by artist Wouter Klein Velderman. The giant wooden mouse…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar May 17

The Best Deal of the Day

The best part about online gaming is the people. Everyone you meet is friendly, mature, and highly likable. They never complain, or do irritating things, or yell racist slurs, or anything like that all. They play fair, they’re decent, and they’re respectful. Just kidding! Everyone you meet online is a horrible brat with any annoying…

Tech News Gizmodo Deals May 17

Cables Don’t Have to be Hidden Away When They’re This Pretty

This is just another thing to add to the list of “if I lived in Japan, I would buy one for every room.” [Iida via Blstrawberry via SwissMiss]

Tech News Kat Hannaford May 17

In serialized musical novella “Linda,” a hollow Earth story told with ukeleles

I’ll just say it up front: I’m a fan of hollow Earth stories like Journey to the Center of the Earth, and I am also (unrelatedly) a fan of ukelele music. Which is why I was flabbergasted to discover that somebody is writing a musical novella that’s a hollow Earth story. To get a taste…

io9 Annalee Newitz May 17

Apple Wants Teenier SIM Cards for Tinier Phones

Most GSM phones use regular SIM cards. Which are small. The iPhone 4, iPad and uh, not many other devices use next-gen micro SIM cards. Which are smaller. Apple’s just proposed a new SIM standard. Which is smallerer. https://gizmodo.com/micro-sim-cards-just-like-a-sim-card-but-a-lil-smalle-5462472 Reuters reports, via massive telecom Orange’s head of devices Anne Bouverot, who says that “Apple has…

Tech News Matt Buchanan May 17

Marvel Comics’ nastiest villains get dapper costume makeovers

The blog Project Rooftop is obsessed with the sartorial side of superheroics and posts oodles of redesigns (both official and unofficial) of your favorite capes. Artist Kris Anka recently gave Marvel’s nastiest (and worst dressed) villains some much-needed makeovers. Here are his redesigns for Galactus, Kang, and Thanos. Although I’m pretty sure Galactus derives his…

Books & Comics Cyriaque Lamar May 17

Strange mountain-climbing crabs ruled Hawaii over 1000 years ago

In the isolated islands of the Pacific Ocean, a lack of large land mammals created openings for some truly unusual animals to dominate the ecosystem. Land crabs once ruled Hawaii…at least until humans and their pets showed up. Most crabs are tied completely to the sea because they need to refresh themselves with saltwater. But…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins May 17

153 Photos of Teeny Tiny Things

Macro photography never gets old. And the 153 entries to this week’s Shooting Challenge prove it. (They also prove that people loooveee taking photos of insects, eyeballs and flowers—not that there’s anything wrong with that!) WINNER – Flower Stigma and Petal On this shot I used a reversing ring to reverse the lens thereby creating…

Tech News Mark Wilson May 17

Watch Origami Magically Unfold in Water

Dark Horse App Shoves Hellboy and Axe Cop into Your iPad

David Brin proposes using a computer model to simplify the U.S. tax code

Diet Coke + Mentos + Stupid = Perfection

Take Your Flash Photography Skills to the Next Level

What’s the secret of a good genre mashup?

BoxyTunes Turns Dropbox into a Cloud Music Player for iPhone and iPad

Secret Behind iPhone4 Noise Canceling Revealed

Epson and E Ink Joining Forces to Make a 300dpi Display

ABC releases trailers for horror series The River and the dark fairy tale Once Upon A Time

This Is Not a Painting

Former NSA Genius Apologizes for His Super Spying Software

In Suriname, you can visit the Mickey Mouse wicker man

The Best Deal of the Day

Cables Don’t Have to be Hidden Away When They’re This Pretty

In serialized musical novella “Linda,” a hollow Earth story told with ukeleles

Apple Wants Teenier SIM Cards for Tinier Phones

Marvel Comics’ nastiest villains get dapper costume makeovers

Strange mountain-climbing crabs ruled Hawaii over 1000 years ago

153 Photos of Teeny Tiny Things

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