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Argentina Is Using Drones to Hunt Down Tax-Evading Mansions

Officials in Argentina had a sneaking suspicion about property tax evasion, so they sent sent out some camera-equipped drones to look at a mostly-vacant part of town. What’d they find? Oh, just 200 luxury houses that hadn’t been registered, according to the Telegraph. That’s pretty flagrant. The $10,000 unmanned aircraft, often used by security forces,…

An Amazing Excerpt from Ancillary Sword, Sequel to Ancillary Justice

This year Ann Leckie’s debut novel Ancillary Justice swept the science fiction awards, taking home Hugo, Nebula, British Science Fiction, Locus and Arthur C. Clarke Awards for best novel. Now the sequel, Ancillary Sword, is about to hit bookstores, and we’ve got an exclusive excerpt for you! Cover art by John Harris Below, we’ve got…

The Many Ways We’re Using Mutant Mosquitos to Eradicate Disease

Mosquitos suck. It’s not just because of those itchy red bites we all get in the summer, either. Mosquitos suck because they’re the deadliest animals on the planet, and none of our classic strategies from combatting the threat seem to be working. That’s why we’re turning the mosquitos against themselves. In recent years, scientists have…

U2’s The Edge Will Litter the Malibu Coastline With 5 Mega-Mansions

First they came for your iTunes. Now they’re coming for your pristine coastlines. The LA Times reports that The Edge’s long-embattled plan to build five mansions along the Malibu coast has been given support by the environmental commission that once vehemently opposed it. The Edge, née David Evans, wants to develop a “colony” of five…

Adventure Tested: Jetboil MiniMo Backpacking Stove

Jetboil’s newly designed MiniMo is a lightweight, modular backpacking stove that not only excels at boiling water, but can now simmer and cook real food as well. We’ve been testing it in the Norwegian wilderness. https://gizmodo.com/beyond-trolltunga-exploring-wild-norway-1637276775 What’s It Supposed to Do? Previous Jetboil models excelled at one thing: boiling water. They presented maximum heat to…

What It Was Like to Be Online During the 80s

Here are two first-hand accounts of internet life in the 80s, when porn was restricted to asterisks and dashes and the screeching sound of dial-up was music to young computer geeks’ ears. Have any fun early internet memories of your own? Share ’em with us down below. David S. Rose, Quora: I’ve been online personally…

H.P. Lovecraft Stories Retold As Goofy One-Page Comics

What happens when you take H.P. Lovecraft’s tales, shorten them, and replace their florid prose with a rather silly sensibility? You get Patrick Dean‘s Underwhelming Lovecraft Comic Synopses—which are, fortunately, not underwhelming at all. This is just one in a series of comic synopses that Dean has launched on his Underwhelming Lovecraft Tumblr, which is…

The 12 Weirdest Reasons For Banning Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

It’s Banned Books Week! But people are trying to keep great books out of libraries and schools every hour of every day, year round. And often, people’s reasons for challenging these titles are really, really… outlandish. Here are 12 SF and fantasy books that people have given incomprehensible reasons for banning. Top image: Neverwhere, art…

Guardians of the Galaxy, The Streamer You Want, Carnival Food [Deals]

Watching Guardians Of The Galaxy is like getting back part of your soul, so you’ll probably want to watch it again. Preorders are now open, with a discount of at least $10 off MSRP. preorder Guardians of the Galaxy ($23) | Amazon preorder Guardians of the Galaxy 3D+Digital ($25) | Amazon preorder Guardians of the…

Free Android Apps, Amazon Student Deals, Moto 360 In Stock [Deals]

The obvious highlight today is a HUGE Amazon Appstore deal on 27 different premium apps and games, all for free. Highlights include Swype keyboard, OfficeSuite Professional 7, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II, Threes!, and GeniusScan+ [Amazon] Get these deals and more, and earlier on Deals.Kinja. Connect with us on Twitter and Facebook to never…

A Swarm of Tiny Bots Could Inspect the Hidden Underbellies of Bridges

America’s bridges are not—we’re sorry to report—doing so great. Of the over 600,000 bridges in the U.S., more than half are over 30 years old, and 11 percent are structurally deficient. That makes inspecting bridges all the more important; unfortunately, the underside of a bridge is also pretty damn inaccessible to humans. Who might be…

The new and improved 2014 Moto X is headed to Verizon tomorrow. Get it for $100 on a two-year contract for 16GB, $150 for 32GB, or $500/$550 to buy outright. [Verizon via GigaOM]

DC are releasing a bizarre ‘Scratch and Sniff’ Harley Quinn Comic

Wait, I’m sorry, they’re calling it ‘Rub and Smell’ for legal reasons – but either way, Harley Quinn Annual #1’s late October launch will feature a weirdly smelly romp for the demented Harlequin, including a smell that even had to be changed for international issues. The one off comic, written by Amanda Conner and Jimmy…

Do you play Ingress, the Google augmented reality game where factions compete for control of hidden portals around the world? Soon, you’ll be able to build your own missions—while taking fellow players on a tour of your neighborhood. [Ingress]

OnePlus Has $15 Earbuds To Match Its Fantastic Phone

Yesterday, OnePlus announced on its forums its first foray into audio equipment with the new $15 Silver Bullet Earphone. Continuing the “half the price of Apple” trend, they look like they’d fit in just fine alongside the company’s OnePlus One wonderphone. While it’s unlikely that any $15 pair of earbuds can produce sound worth crowing…

Black Widow Almost Got A Movie Before Iron Man—But The Studio Killed It

While Marvel Studios has yet to release a female-led superhero movie, Black Widow had a chance to beat fellow Avengers Iron Man and Thor to the big screen. And the reason it didn’t happen is pretty rage-inducing. Spinoff Online takes us back to the year 2004, before Marvel was making its own movies. David Hayter,…

Hello again, New York

After two months of traveling across Europe, I’m back in New York. Right now, it kind of sucks—all rainy, gritty, and foggy after all these sunny days in Budapest, Vienna, Madrid, Cádiz, Göteborg—even London! I needed a reminder about why I love this city so much, and here it is, fresh out of the time-lapse…

You Can Build a Cardboard Surfboard That Holds Up To Waves Just Fine

If you’re lucky enough to catch a glimpse of cardboard’s enemy list, you’ll probably find water up near the top alongside cats and fire. The two just don’t mix, which is why it’s incredibly impressive that Ernest Packaging Solutions, working with the folks from Signal Snowboards, were able to make a surfboard out of cardboard…

Short film: The tale of a 13-year-old drug mule across the deadly desert

This is the story of Manny, a 13 year old boy from Tijuana who has to pay the bills for his family. Weak, poor, desperate, Manny is ripe prey for the merciless Mexican drug lords who sent him into the Arizona desert as a mule. But things are not what they seem. The reality is…

Your Decision-Making Processes Are a Lot More Random Than You Realize

For the most part, we make decisions based on our prior experiences. But what about those situations that are completely new or unpredictable? A new study suggests that when facing an excessively uncertain or challenging scenario, the brain chooses randomness as the best strategy. When it comes to making decisions, our brains are extremely dependent…