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Brimstone And Treacle Was Banned For 11 Years, But Now It’s Back

Dennis Potter was frequently a controversial writer — but his TV play Brimstone and Treacle is possibly his nastiest work. Banned for over 10 years by the BBC, this play about a suburban family who gets the perfect houseguest (who is probably Satan) is just horrible. And kind of insane. See for yourself. Most of…

Everything Apple Tried to Kill Today at WWDC 2015

Today at WWDC, Apple announced a slew of new features and products. Energy was high, Drake was in the building, but a lot of the big reveals looked a lot like the features and products of rivals…especially Google. Imitation is the sincerest form of trying to kill the competition? Here’s a quick rundown of some…

How Bird Poop Changed the Design of Southern California’s Power Grid

Ever since humans started building tall things, birds have been pooping on them, including high-voltage power lines. In the 1920s, Southern California power grid was beset by streams and streams of bird poop. In the recent issue of Environmental Humanities, history of science professor Etienne Benson traces the impact of birds on Southern California’s power…

Yikes: Woman Accused Of Mutilating The Corpse Of Her Boyfriend’s Ex 

To be clear: the ex-girlfriend of Shaynna Sims’ boyfriend was already dead from natural causes. But that didn’t stop the Tulsa, Okla. resident from paying the deceased a funeral-home visit, where it’s alleged that she slashed the woman’s facefrom hairline to nose, cut her hair, and chopped off a toe and a breast. She also…

Clever video bends reality by flattening San Francisco’s hilly streets

Walking around in San Francisco can get tough because the city is just so damn hilly. Up and down and up and more up and you start to wish you could just flatten the streets. Karen Cheng and Ross Ching tweaked reality a bit by positioning the camera so it looks like those hilly streets…

Neil deGrasse Tyson Says Hoverboards Are Still a Ways Off

It’s been the dream of countless nerds since at least 1989. We want our hoverboards, and we want them now. But if Neil deGrasse Tyson is to be believed, we’re going to be waiting for a while. The Huffington Post recently talked with Tyson about the likelihood that we’ll see hoverboards like the ones in…

The Space Rangers Came Across The Ruins Of An Ancient Observatory

The most incredible thing about this find, the rangers realized, is that thousands of years ago, members of this long-dead civilization may have been watching the rangers’ own home planets. Concept art by Leon Tukker. You can see more of Tukker’s striking work at ArtStation and Deviant Art. “The Old Observatory”is featured with the artist’s…

It’s So Compelling To Watch Strange & Norrell‘s Moral Ambiguity Unfold

For a show with an ampersand in its title — the very implicit acknowledgement of unity between two entities — this week’s Strange & Norrell is all about relationships crumbling in spectacular manners. And yet, it’s completely compelling to watch, because even in the aftermath it’s hard to see who is doing the right thing.…

These Fuel Cell Trolleys Can Power an Old Plane’s In-Flight Electronics

Believe it or not, that modern-looking tin can in the sky you’re flying—with its touchscreen TVs at every seat—most likely took flight for the first time decades ago. All of those fancy electronics are upgrades sucking on outdated power systems. That’s why these trolley carts were created to deliver a different kind of juice. Researchers…

Fascinating visualization breaks down how the Roman army was organized

Legionary. Century. Centurions. Cohorts. Legions. These are all terms for a certain group or type of Roman soldier. This rather interesting break down of the Roman Army shows how the army was organized, how Roman citizens were Legionaries and non-Roman citizens were Auxiliaries and how those soldiers were grouped together. You can learn a lot…

We Would Watch The Hell Out Of This TV Show (If These Were Its Titles)

Raoul Marks, who created the bewitching opening titles for TV shows True Detective and Halt and Catch Fire, produced a title sequence for a recent design conference. It’s “a bit of an epic journey through space for one tripping astronaut,” he tells io9, “which is why I thought you guys might find it interesting.” Absolutely…

A Giant USB-C Dock Gives the New MacBook Every Port It Could Ever Need

Frustrated with your fancy new MacBook’s single USB-C port? OWC wants to be your laptop’s knight in shiny, connected armor with a brand new USB-C dock that turns its lone port into 11 additional connections so you can have all of your hardware and accessories plugged in at the same time. You’ll not only get…

The Strange Case Of The Doll Seller Who Desperately Wanted To Be A Spy

Velvalee Dickinson, a Stanford grad who’d worked in the financial industry, moved to New York City from San Francisco in 1937, where she soon opened a shop that sold collectible dolls. But by 1942, she’d added a third entry to her resume — or at least she really, really tried to: spying on behalf of…

These Modern Libraries Look Like Alien Spaceships On The Inside

We like to think of books as metaphorical spaceships, able to transport us into the head of an interesting person or across the galaxy. But these gorgeous libraries, with their elegant, modern interior designs, look almost ready to truly blast into space. The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, the part of Yale University in…

Apple Music Is Coming to Android for $10 a Month 

Apple is so hellbent on dominating the streaming music game, it’s doing something I never thought I’d see: Bringing its first app ever to Android. Starting this fall, Apple’s new Beats-fueled streaming music service will be available on Android phones. Apple Music is the first native Apple app to bust out of Apple’s walled garden.…

Steve Schuller built a laser beam splitter out of Lego and parts that he salvaged from a broken computer projector (!). Here’s how he did it. H/t Jennifer Ouellette Contact the author at [email protected].

This Is What Really Happens When You Try To Interrupt A Satellite Feed

We interrupt your regularly scheduled broadcasts to tell you that the movies have been lying to you. A trope beloved by minor supervillains, evil robots, and doom-dispensing aliens alike is the moment when they cut off your evening news broadcasts and I Love Lucy reruns to give the world a glimpse of their forthcoming plots.…

Dammit, NASA’s Experimental Mars Parachute Just Failed. Again.

A flying saucer plummeted through the skies over Hawaii today in the second test of NASA’s new Mars landing system. If this had been a real flight to Mars, we’d have just killed a rover by slamming it into the planet below. Top image: A balloon carried the LDSD to 120,000 feet over 3 hours…

A Floating Observation Dome Gives Fish a Glimpse of the Outside World

Some people revel in being a big fish in a small pond. But real fish stuck in a real pond probably aren’t as happy about the situation. So to make the Koi swimming around in your backyard a little happier, consider upgrading their pond with this floating dome that lets them actually swim above the…

A CT Scanner Designed For Kids Makes the Procedure Seem Far Less Scary

One of the scariest parts of a hospital visit is never really knowing what the doctors are doing. So a company called Creative Arts has created this tiny CT Scanner that kids can use on stuffed animals in the waiting room before they undergo the same examination. It not only helps distract them ahead of…