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This Guy Went Around the World In 80 Days The First Time He Traveled 

The death of a close friend rocked Chris Sypolt’s world. So, he did what any logical 44 year old would do and set out on an an 80-day, round the world trip. It was the first time he’d ever left the country. This is what he learned.

The Only Good Thing About The Matrix Revolutions Is Now A Cool Toy 

Before you start saying ‘Wait, there was something good in Revolutions?’, look! Giant, wonderful mech toys! Forget about literally everything else in the movie. Yes, Threezero are bringing the cool mech suits from the otherwise-pants final film in the Matrix franchise, the Armoured Power Units, to the world of toys. The fully articulated figure stands…

The Charging Dock Was Ancient, But Miraculously, It Still Worked

There couldn’t have been an Archian visitor to this planet in the last five hundred years. Even the once-glittering cities had become shadows of their former glory. But Harmok said a quick prayer of thanks to the Council for Temporal Interoperability when he plugged his ship in and heard the charger hum. This is “Another…

Reinforced Runners Ensure This Inflatable Sled Can Survive Icy Terrain

The same inflatable tube you use to lazily drift on the lake in the summertime works just as well on a snow-covered hill in the winter—until you hit a patch of rough icy terrain. Then the odds of it getting punctured are all but guaranteed. So the makers of the Airboard, a more purpose-built inflatable…

What You Need To Know About Lord Of The Rings‘ One Ring

You may have read The Lord of the Rings and/or seen the movies, but do you understand what’s going on with those titular pieces of jewelry? This video offers a quick explanation of the various rings in J.R.R. Tolkien’s universe, especially the One Ring. After giving his quick and dirty lowdown on the mythology of…

This Guy Went Around the World In 80 Days The First Time He Traveled 

The death of a close friend rocked Chris Sypolt’s world. So, he did what any logical 44 year old would do and set out on an an 80-day, round the world trip. It was the first time he’d ever left the country. This is what he learned. I first learned of Chris’ story when he…

Why is slime, specifically snot-like green slime of the “I’ve-been-slimed!” variety, so endlessly fascinating? This impressively detailed article traces the history and lasting appeal of the gloriously gross substance, from Dr. Seuss to the Ghostbusters, Ninja Turtles to Nickelodeon, and beyond.

Behold the unfilmed Star Wars scenes you always wanted to see

I always wanted to see the actual infantry attacks on the Hoth’s Rebel Base. Not just a couple scenes but a full Saving Private Ryan’s Normandy invasion battle with a ton of imperial storm troopers led by Darth Vader. Apparently illustrator Dave Dorman had the same idea in mind. Here’s his vision. Imperial troops disguised…

Why Slow Zombies Are Still More Frightening Than Fast Ones

Something is going on with the zombies that populate our stories. Not only are there more of them, but they are also noticeably faster, almost acrobatic, capable of running full tilt and even leaping over the tops of walls after prey. And yet, for all that, their plodding predecessors had one thing they don’t. In…

13 Gorgeous Panoramic Maps Drawn Long Before Satellites Even Existed 

It’s hard for us Google Earth-dependent modern-day humans to conceive of, but there was once a time when we had to imagine what our towns and cities looked like from the sky. In fact, there were famous artists who specialized in creating these panoramic views of Earth, though today, it’s a lost art. They were…

And now a dancing owl and his cool owl friend because, owls

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This Enormous Car-Boat Probably Needed Oceans of Oil to Run

Life for Americans after World War II was supposed to be filled with open roads and open waters. The roads, more often than not, were for getting to work. And the water? That was pure leisure time. This “water-mobile” of 1947 was imagined to provide the best of both, with an enormous (and, one imagines,…

Take A Virtual Trip Through The Amphipolis Tomb In Its Original State

Discovered only three years ago, the Amphipolis Tomb is the largest burial monument ever discovered in Greece. A new 3D representation of the tomb reveals just how gorgeous this ancient structure really was. The video, which was put together by AncientAthens3D using data published by the Greek Ministry of Culture, was created “in order to…

“Spot” Is a Smaller (More Kickable) Version of Boston Dynamic’s Big Dog

We haven’t seen much of Boston Dynamic’s four-legged self-balancing Big Dog robot since it was last spotted hurling cinder blocks in a lab. And that’s maybe because the company’s robotic geniuses have been hard at work building a smaller more agile version called Spot that weighs just 160 pounds so it can safely operate both…

Crave Vesper: A Stealth Vibrator That’s Also a Necklace

Let’s face it. There are two reasons you’d want to use a vibrator: because you are a gadget-lover who can’t imagine anything, including sex, without a little technology involved; or because you just want to have an orgasm, and fast. But with the Crave Vesper, there is a third possibility. Fancy San Francisco vibrator maker…

How We Imagined The Future Of Transportation Would Look In The 1940s

These ads made for the Detroit-based Bohn Aluminum and Brass Corporation were largely dreamed up by legendary illustrator Arthur Radebaugh during the 1940s. Radebaugh’s utopian visions and Bohn’s desire to appear as a forward-looking company combine for a slick retrofuturistic view of transportation. It’s not a surprise that aluminum and brass are crucial to build…

Every Smartphone Should Come With Free VR Goggles

LG just announced that people who buy a new G3 smartphone will get a free VR headset to match. That’s an idea we can get behind. This new, cheap VR for G3 hardware is closer to Google Cardboard than Samsung Gear VR, but fits somewhere between the two. The headset is based on the Google…

Raspberry Pi 2 Loses Its Shit When You Blast It With a Camera Flash

One user of the newly available Raspberry Pi 2 computer has discovered a pretty weird flaw with the new hardware: If you shoot the cheapy computer with a camera flash, it shuts right the hell down. In a blog post, Raspberry Pi communications director Liz Upton explains that in the company’s testing, there is indeed…

This May Be The Toy-Shillingest Batman Cartoon Of All Time

To pretend that WB and DC’s many, many Batman cartoons weren’t at least partially designed to sell Mattel action figures would be naive. But usually they’ve tried to tell a good Batman story in each series, and get kids interested in the characters that way. Well, until this new direct-to-DVD animated movie, that is. Batman…

Meet Tiffany Two, The World’s Oldest Cat (She’ll Be 27 Next Month)

Congrats to San Diego tortoiseshell Tiffany Two, who will turn 27 on March 13 … making her the world’s oldest living cat, according to Guinness World Records. That’s 125 in human years. Tiffany Two’s owner, Sharon Voorhees, paid $10 for her remarkable pet in 1988; the name is “a tribute to another tortoiseshell cat she…