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Totally Ludicrous: A 2001 Tribute With Fruits And Vegetables

This advertisement for Danish butter brand Lurpak features some of the silliest riffs on 2001: A Space Odyssey we’ve ever seen. You have to love the carrot rocket and the potato asteroids. And now, we crave butter. [via Eater]

Perfectly Preserved 1950s Home Is A Living Time Capsule

Now you can own a little piece of the past. This gorgeous Toronto home is being sold by its 96-year-old owners, who have had this house in their possession for 72 years. And they certainly decorated the heck out of it. The house looks like it was put in a bubble during the 1950s and…

The Late Great American Promise of Less Work

Some French companies just banned employees from responding to work emails after work hours. A city in Sweden is trying out a 30-hour work week in earnest. But while the prospect of working less and enjoying more leisure time used to be the great futuristic promise of midcentury America, today it’s little more than a…

Aereo to Add Chromecast Support for Ultimate TV Nerd Nirvana

What do you get when you combine Aereo’s anytime, anywhere, broadcast-TV-via-internet cloud service with Google’s Chromecast wonder-dongle? A confluence of TV gizmo delight—and that’s exactly what Aereo announced today. If you happen to live in one of the cities that supports Aereo, and you’re a proud Chromecast owner, starting on May 29th you’ll be able…

Single Vending Machine Replaces Last Shop in English Town

So clever, so depressing: the English town of Clifton, having dwindled in economic strength over the years, has responded to the loss of its last place to shop with a giant vending machine. The so-called Speedy Shop—really, an over-sized, building-shaped machine standing alone in a dreary parking lot—is meant to help bring some economic life…

New Hubble trick will change our perception of the observable Universe

Scientists have found a way to use the Hubble Space Telescope as an extremely precise galactic tape measure, multiplying our previous capabilities by 10. This increase will result in a more accurate understanding of the size of the observable Universe. plus new insight into the mysterious force known as dark energy. The new technique is…

Flashback: The Arrival of the Enterprise

Today in 1979, the first test orbiter arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on the back of a modified plane. The Enterprise was used to test the functionality of a winged space craft in atmosphere as part of the development of the space shuttle. Photograph credit: NASA

Views of a Dark World: Illuminating Unseen Infrastructure

For a global society highly dependent on complex technical, economic, and political systems, we manage to carry on our daily routines largely unaware of the hard and soft infrastructure—from pipes to policies—on which these systems rest. That is, until unexpected events, so-called black swans, illuminate the previously hidden pieces and surprise or unsettle us by…

Oscar Niemeyer Was One of the Most Futuristic Architects of All Time

A legendary figure of modern architecture, Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012) lived through the 20th century, designed more than hundred buildings, and planned and designed the federal capital of Brasília, Brazil with Lúcio Costa. His legacy lives on in these gamechanging buildings. The Brazilian Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair of 1939, designed with Lúcio Costa…

Watch the First Episode of James Cameron’s Global Warming Documentary

Years of Living Dangerously is an eight-part global warming documentary from James Cameron featuring celebrity correspondents like Harrison Ford, Olivia Munn and Matt Damon. It technically premieres April 13th, but you can already watch the first episode online. Via the series’ website: The series combines the blockbuster storytelling styles of Hollywood’s top movie makers, including…

Will Amazon Do To Comic Shops What It Did To Book Stores?

Big news today in the comics publishing world: Amazon has purchased Comixology, the largest retailer of digital comics. So what does that mean for your local comic book store? Amazon is certainly already competing with brick and mortar comic book stores; they sell both physical comics (often with sizable discounts on trade paperbacks) and Kindle…

This Oculus Rift-Powered Light Cycle Sim Is the Ultimate Arcade Game

The Oculus Rift hasn’t even made it out of beta testing and it’s already changing the world for the better—at least for one dedicated developer. He’s integrated one into an incredible, full-scale Tron: Legacy light cycle replica. Strap on a headset and hop aboard, we’re going racing. It’s called the RiftCycle Project. Devised and constructed…

How Secure Are Your Favorite Websites?

Heartbleed is a scary thing. Aside from the violent-sounding name, the vulnerability in OpenSSL security protocols spans the entire internet and affects most of the sites we know, love, and use on a daily basis. Even outside of Heartbleed, not all security protocols are created equal. So how do you know who to trust? Well,…

Karen Gillan’s Hair Will Appear In Star Wars: Episode VII

But just her hair. Weird, right? Well, when the redheaded actress shaved off her long locks to appear as Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy, she apparently donated them to Episode VII. From an interview she did with Collider: Was it just very liberating to shave your head, or did you have any moments of…

The Military Wants to Turn Its Drones into Flying Wi-Fi Hotspots

Not to be outdone by Facebook’s vision of a drone internet, the military is whipping up unmanned aerial Wi-Fi hotspots of its own. Unused drones from the war in Iraq are getting a second life as part of DARPA’s Mobile Hotspots program. In remote areas where communication is critical, having your very own Wi-Fi drone…

Tokujin Yoshioka‘s aptly named Agravic table sticks a marble slab between two perfectly placed prisms that balance the weight with crazy-precise accuracy. The Japanese designer calls it the “table of the universe” thanks to its apparent ability to eff around with gravity. It’s awe-inspiring—and definitely not built to host a dinner party. This is a…

“This Isn’t Just A Movie Or TV Show, It’s A Whole Philosophy Of Life”

Some movies and TV shows (and books and comics) are thrilling and engaging and let you lose yourself in an adventure. But some stories do more than move you — they speak to you. Which book, movie, comic or TV show is more than just a story, but a whole philosophy and way of life…

How the American Dream Is Killing the American Electric Bill

In 2012, American homes consumed 3.65 billion kilowatthours (kWh) worth of electricity—up from 720 million kWh in 1950—more than double per household than our British counterparts, and second only to China. How did the American home become such an energy hog, despite so many advances in efficient appliances and construction? Blame the American Dream. Electricity…

Spike TV Missed Out On Secret Stories of Professional Athletes

This video is a clip from the unaired pilot for “Way Out of Bounds,” a show that would have animated the untold stories of well known athletes. Baseball legend Pete Rose and comic personality Artie Lange really had this talk, though it was put together from about two hours worth of conversation (and this online…

Watch This Terrifying Recreation Of The Deadly Oso Mud Slide

In late March, a major landslide occurred a few miles east of Oso, Washington, killing at least 35 people and engulfing an area approximately one square mile (2.6 km2). Geologists are now studying the event and they’re baffled by its ferocity and speed — a slide that rushed down at an astounding 60 mph (97…