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The Very Best Cosplay From New York Comic-Con 2014

New York Comic-Con cosplayers, you did a hell of a job this weekend. This convention had some seriously legendary cosplay, along with a whole lotta Saga and Guardians of the Galaxy awesomeness. Here is a collection of the best of the best cosplay that we spied at NYCC. Top Image from Getty Images Photo by…

The Indelible Feud Over Who Invented Fingerprinting

Fingerprints have been used as a unique identifier for over 100 years — and chances are you’ve had your fingerprints inked or scanned recently. But who invented this process? Turns out that’s the subject of a massive feud — which helped provide useful insights that benefited all of us. Top image: Photo by Charlie Jane…

SNL Has Made The Perfect YA Movie, And It’s As Dumb As Rocks

“Written entirely from the comment section of a Hunger Games trailer.” Behold Saturday Night Live’s Group Hopper movie. Stuffed full of arbitrary rules and terrible names for every hero and villain, this may be our favorite YA movie ever.

Dropbox Delete Your Files? You Might Get a (One Year) Free Pro Upgrade

Earlier today, news came that Dropbox had deleted user files from the cloud. While it’s going to restore some of them, it can’t bring them all back to life. But it can, according to an email published at Engadget, offer those who lost digital detritus a year’s worth of Dropbox Pro to make up for…

This Propaganda Poster Showed Martian Technology Winning World War I

A 1917 poster by French artist Henri Montassier offers hope for a quick conclusion to the war through new technology. But, his image has little in common with the armored vehicles under development. Instead, he unveiled a weapon that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Martian war machines from The War of The Worlds. Under…

Watch a Coder Build a Real-Time VR World Around Himself With Oculus Rift

On the left, rows of small green squares. On the right, the code that brought them into being. Not pictured? The guy wearing the Oculus Rift headset, who’s making it all happen in real-time. Forget The Matrix. This is low-level deity stuff. Brian Peiris is the man who made this happen, this live-coding web app…

The Walking Dead‘s secret best character is getting an Action figure

No, not Michonne. Or Carol. Or Daryl. They already all have figures anyway. I’m talking about the zombie-apocalypse-universe’s real finest survivor: Clementine from the Walking Dead video games! A lead character and star across Telltale Games’ two seasons of adventure games, little Clementine’s been put through an awful lot as the zombie hordes chomp their…

Four Famed American Structures That Almost Looked Radically Different

Mount Rushmore. The Washington Monument. The Empire State Building. These are some of the most familiar, most photographed structures in the country. But though they seem unchangeable to us, all of these icons came close to looking very different than they do today. Over the past few years, we’ve looked at the unbuilt world in…

This Week’s TV: America’s Stabbiest Clown Attends A Children’s Party

As we settle into the fall TV season, two of our summer shows—The Knick and Manhattan—reach their seasons’ end. Plus, C-3PO and R2-D2 return to TV, and a familiar DC villain pops up on The Flash. Get all the details below! Tonight Gotham (8 PM, Fox) It’s not a good time to be a politician…

What’s The Greatest Scientific Visualization Ever?

Sometimes a picture (or a video, or even a GIF) can express a scientific concept more clearly and concisely than words. Today, we want to know about the most informative, and beautiful, scientific visualization you’ve ever seen. Image: 99 planetary nebulae (and one protoplanetary disk) in one picture / Judy Schmidt. Tell us about (and…

​Carol Is Queen Badass In A Stellar Walking Dead Season Premiere

We’ve been told that season 5 of The Walking Dead would be “devastating.” I’m genuinely terrified for what’s coming up this season, because despite the evil cannibal town, last night’s premiere was as happy an ending I’ve seen on TWD — and the only way it was devastating was devastatingly good. Also: holy shit Carol.…

Even a Golden Key Can Be Stolen: Inside Apple’s Encryption Decision

Since Apple first announced three weeks ago that it was expanding the scope of what types of data would be encrypted on devices running iOS 8, law enforcement has been ablaze with indignation. When Google followed suit and announced that Android L would also come with encryption on by default, it only added fuel to…

The most gorgeous and beautiful surfing video I’ve ever seen

I was happily installed in my fall-is-so-gorgeous mood when I came across this gorgeous video by Los Angeles-based photographer Morgan Maassen. Now I am craving summer again.Underwater slow-motion shots, great music, and fantastic editing makes it an irresistible pleasure to watch. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

This Is Why You Should Care About Privacy

You should care about digital privacy. You really should. If you’re still not convinced, though, you should watch this video, in which Glenn Greenwald talks passionately about why it’ so important. Greenwald was, of course, one of the first reporters to see the Edward Snowden files way back when. He knows why this matters. The…

A Video Of Last Week’s Lunar Eclipse, As Seen From Mercury

As millions of people observed the total lunar eclipse on October 8th, NASA’s MESSENGER probe was also watching from its orbit around Mercury. The spacecraft, 66 million miles from Earth, captured several images of the Moon as it passed behind Earth and into the planet’s shadow. This animation was constructed from 31 images taken two…

This serene snapshot is perhaps one of the most beautiful depictions of interdependence. That tiny aviation boatswain’s mate signals a giant MV-22B Osprey launching from the amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island; so different in scale, yet they can’t exist without each other. [U.S. Navy]

Remember how Facebook is experimenting with friend-to-friend payments? Well, nowTwitter users in France can tweet money to each other, by linking their user details to their bank account. How long before that hit’s the U.S.?

This Optical Illusion Fools Monkeys as Well as Humans

The Thatcher Effect is a well-known optical illusion, first tested with a picture of Margaret Thatcher. It’s glaringly obvious, but humans almost always fall for it. So, it seems, do monkeys. The Thatcher Effect The Thatcher Effect, or Thatcher Illusion, first made headlines back in 1980. Professor Peter Thompson took a picture of Margaret Thatcher…

Report: Redesigned iTunes Store Will Be as Flat as iOS 8

As well as a bunch of new iPadsand the launch of OS X Yosemite, Apple is likely to roll out an updated version of its iTunes storefront this week, according to Apple Insider. Check out an early look in these screenshots. It seems the changes are mostly (if not purely) aesthetic. Revealed to iTunes 12…

Dropbox Has Deleted a Bunch of User Files From the Cloud

Bad news for some people who only live on the cloud: Dropbox has confirmed that a bug in some older version of its dekstop app has deleted user files from the cloud. Good news: Dropbox says that it’s restoring files where it can and is updating the bug. More bad news: it can’t restore all…