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Listen To The Solar System Sing With This Fantastic Simulation

This is a seriously cool visualization of the solar system. What if you turned the planets into a sort of music box? That’s the point of Solarbeat, which turns the movement of the planets into music. Solarbeat actually launched five years ago in 2010, but the designer Luke Twyman decided to revamp the website recently…

Bat Blood Ignores Everything That Made Bad Blood Great

The folks behind How It Should Have Ended have gone and parodied Taylor Swift’s crazy music video Bad Blood, dumping in just about every reference that you can think of and ignore what made the original great. This sort of proves the point that I think that Bad Blood was trying to point out (as…

The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet Is This Year’s Most Delightful Space Opera

There’s no two ways around it: Becky Chamber’s debut novel, The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet is probably the most fun that you’ll have with a space opera novel this year. It’s exciting, adventurous, and the cozy sort of space opera that seems to be in short supply lately. The Long Way To…

Etsy to Pilot Same-Day Delivery Service in New York

Need some hand-knitted gloves in a jiffy? If you’re a New Yorker, you might be in luck. This fall, Etsy is going to be pilot testing same-day and next-day delivery services in certain parts of New York City. Through a partnership with delivery startup Postmates, “Etsy ASAP” will begin offering speedy delivery sometime this fall…

Watch How Builders Made That Fantastic Armor From Lawbreakers 

In the release trailer for an upcoming game called Lawbreakers, you’ll spot a trio of armored soldiers riding down an elevator. It’s a cool shot, but what’s even cooler is that that armor actually exists. The guys behind Tested were hired to build the armor used in the shot, which blends a bit of CGI…

How the Middle Finger Emoji Finally Got the Thumbs Up

“Screw you Apple, where the goddamn hell is my middle finger emoji?” can soon be conveyed in far fewer characters, thanks to the middle finger emoji that’s coming to your iPhone. But why did it take so long? Here’s how those middle fingers—and all emoji—make their way to your screens. As you might have seen…

Over 200 New “Moonquakes” Discovered in Apollo 16 Data

The Apollo moon missions ended over 40 years ago, but incredibly, scientists are still learning from them. Case in point: A team of researchers has unearthed 210 previously unknown “moonquakes” in a slew of seismic data collected by Apollo 16. The moon is quakin’ all over, with causal agents ranging from meteorite impacts to Earth’s…

This Clip-on Handgun Attachment Makes Bullets Non-Lethal

A California company called Alternative Ballistics has developed an easy-to-install accessory for hand guns that promises to make bullets non-lethal allowing law enforcement to incapacitate a suspect without causing life-threatening injuries. The most important feature of the accessory, called The Alternative, is that it doesn’t interfere with the operation of a handgun in any way…

Could Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother Become The Next Hunger Games? 

Hollywood’s appetite for YA dystopian thrillers isn’t dying down anytime soon. According to Deadline, Paramount Pictures has picked up Cory Doctorow’s novel Little Brother for a potential franchise. The novel, released in 2008, follows 17-year-old Markus (also known as w1n5t0n), he he and his friends are caught in the aftermath of a terrorist attack in…

Tumblr Just Launched a Fashion Line

So this is a thing that actually happened. Yesterday at New York Fashion Week, Tumblr debuted its very own line of dresses, shirts, sweaters and accessories — inspired by ten of the social network’s artists. If you’re in New York City this weekend, you can head on over to Tumblr’s Fashion Week pop-up, located at…

We Really Wish This Sci-Fi Air Show Existed In This Reality

Airshows are always really awesome to visit, but what if you could walk up to your favorite science fiction spacecraft? That’s the aim of the Sci-Fi Air Show, a digital project that puts fictional spacecraft on display. Sadly, these aren’t actually real-world props on display for one weekend a year: they’re miniatures mashed up with…

Qualcomm Unveils its First Computer Board for Drones

Qualcomm, one of the world’s leading developers for smartphone chips, marched into the consumer drone market this week with a platform that could soon be steering a new generation of UAVs with bigger brains and smaller price tags. This week, Qualcomm introduced the Snapdragon Flight, the very first Snapdragon system-on-a-chip (SoC) built for the skies.…

Astronaut Scott Kelly is answering questions about life in space today! Head on over to People Magazine’s Facebook page, drop a question in the comments, and if you’re lucky, you might just get an answer from 249 miles on high. I, for one, want to know how the space lettuce tasted.

The Guardian Is Your Thought Provoking Animated Video For This Weekend

This short film threw me through a loop with its minimalist and surrealist animation. The Guardian, directed by Alessandro Novelli, is a really well executed short, and it’s well worth watching several times. The Guardian is a free interpretation of the parable “Before the Law” from Kafka’s book “The Trial”. A peasant after traveling the…

Department of Energy Hacked Over 150 Times in Four Years

The US Department of Energy, the agency that helps regulate our power grid, nuclear arsenal, and national labs, has been hacked 159 times between 2010 and 2014, according to a review of federal records obtained by USA Today. The records, which USA Today acquired through the Freedom of Information Act, paint a picture of an…

Siri Fields Iran Question at a White House Press Conference

Siri made a timely interruption at a White House press conference this week, chiming in to answer a reporter’s question about whether President Obama was disappointed by the lack of Republican support for the Iranian nuclear deal. “Sorry, I’m not sure what you want me to change,” Siri said, prompting laugher throughout the room. Hey,…

Which iPhone 6S Should I Buy? A Guide

Earlier this week, Apple announced the new iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, and tonight’s the night to put your money down. So what the hell should you do? Should you get the Plus? Is one carrier better than the other? We’ve got your buyer’s guide right here. First off, some logistics If you want one…

Video: The process of hand making a book the old fashioned way is a lost magical art

Anthony Bourdain’s Raw Craft takes a look at Arion Press in San Francisco in its latest episode and examines how this tiny printing shop carries on the legacy of printers of the past. It’s almost astonishing to see how much work gets put into each book. From the typesetting to the proofreading (which is done…

Spend Your Weekend Breaking Down Identity And Bodies With Some Radical New Artworks

The annual Photoville festival, filling a bunch of Brooklyn shipping containers with artwork, is happening this weekend. And one of the containers is being curated by artist Claire Christerson, who created an exhibition about identity, the body, and prosthetics. Including some pretty fantastical artworks. Warning: One image might be slightly NSFW, maybe. “Its basically just…

LA is Going to Have the Largest Electric Vehicle Fleet in the Nation

Los Angeles is working hard to reduce its carbon footprint, and a new city-operated fleet of electric vehicles is going to help it do so. Mayor Eric Garcetti has just announced his intentions to lease 160 pure battery EVs — a move that would position LA as proud owner of the largest electric fleet in…