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Here’s why Steven Spielberg is such a great director

It’s more than just one thing, of course. But Spielberg’s masterful use of the long take is one of the things that make him so great. While most directors would use the long take as a way to teleport the viewer into another world and show off their skills, Spielberg tries to uses the trick…

Sploid Casey Chan May 19 '14

The Most Gloriously Bad Movie I’ve Seen In Ages

There are plenty of “so bad they’re good” movies out there. But just watch the final two minutes of Storm Trooper, in which a terrorized housewife steals a mercenary’s eyepatch, puts on lipstick, and becomes a mega-badass, and tell me this film isn’t something special. In Storm Trooper, a cyborg supersoldier (John Laughlin) is on…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders May 19 '14

What if classic paintings were Photoshopped like today’s magazines?

Lauren Wade at TakePart re-imagined famous classic paintings to fit today’s “standards” by Photoshopping the subjects in the paintings to look like magazine cover models. That basically means: impossibly skinny waists, thinner arms, basically no joy of fat whatsoever but still have bigger breasts somehow. It’s quite embarrassing to see how starved our definition of…

Sploid Casey Chan May 19 '14

The “Dying Merchant” Scene In Game Of Thrones Was Straight From Beckett

Specifically, Waiting For Godot. The dying man was played by perennial Beckett actor Barry McGovern, and many of his lines were almost right out of the play. Way more details below. https://observationdeck.kinja.com/waiting-for-got-dot-1578297724

io9 Charlie Jane Anders May 19 '14

Scale is Deceptive

When faced with a scene in real life, it seems obvious that this is a massive landscape, or a microscopic view under extreme magnification. But when you capture that view and place it out of context, the difference between a pebble and a boulder is quickly lost. Epidote thin section under cross-polarized light. Image credit:…

Tech News Mika McKinnon May 19 '14

Science in Game of Thrones: The Good, the Bad, and the Confusing

The mythos of Game of Thrones draws theories from fans like moths to dragon flame, and scientists are not immune. It’s Okay to be Smart pulls together the various theories about different aspects of science within the lore in one tidy video covering everything from orbital dynamics to chemistry. Host Joe Hanson starts with trying…

Tech News Mika McKinnon May 19 '14

Smart targeting rifle destroys a phone one kilometer away

According to RatedRR, the “XS1 is the largest-caliber Precision Guided Firearm available today.” This video demonstrates how its automatic targeting system works over 1,123 yards. That’s 0.6 miles (one kilometer.) This is the kind of stuff we only imagined in science fiction movies only a few years ago. The rifle’s automatic targeting system—Tag Track Xact—can…

Sploid Jesus Diaz May 19 '14

Everything You Need to Know About the Dungeons & Dragons Relaunch

After a two-year development process, Wizards of the Coast has finally announced release dates for the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Don your scale mail +1 and memorize your Magic Missile spells — it’s going to be a fun summer. Here’s what you need to know to get ready. It’s Just Dungeons & Dragons…

io9 Ed Grabianowski May 19 '14

Watch a massive thunderstorm form in this timelapse

Man, this looks like some end of the world type weather. It’s the type of thunderstorm I’d see in a movie and think the CGI was too fake. It’s the type of supercell I’d see in real life and think it’s all over for everybody. It remind us how small we are, how incredible (and…

Sploid Casey Chan May 19 '14

Salem Is More Interesting When It Shows The Suffering Of Puritan Women

Salem is a strange show. After all, it takes the Salem witch trials, a period of history during which women were especially vulnerable to persecution, and inserts actual witches. But the thesis of the show may be that becoming a witch—or participating in witch hysteria—is the best option many women in Salem have. The main…

io9 Lauren Davis May 19 '14

This Was The Nursery of The Future in 1930

1930: A woman sitting in a proposed child’s nursery of the future, at the Ideal Home Exhibition in Olympia, London on March 24th. If you’re in New York, be sure to check out the ideal futuristic home of today at Gizmodo’s Home of the Future — May 17-21 at 268 Mulberry Street, near Houston Street…

Tech News Matt Novak May 19 '14

That Time Hellboy Got “Steampunk” Added To The Dictionary

Steampunk, which first popped up being used as a word in 1987, finally made its way into the dictionary this week. But just how did it arrive there? It turns out, with a lot of help from the movie Hellboy. Among the definitions added to the latest edition of Merriam Webster (which brings us other…

io9 Ria Misra May 19 '14

The Rafale really looks like a fighter from the future in these images

These images may or may not correspond to a refueling incident between a KC-135 Stratotanker and a French Air Force’s Rafale jet fighter, but I don’t really care because they are just an excuse to say that this is perhaps the coolest, most space-invaders-looking jet flying today. A French fighter aircraft rolls left away from…

Sploid Jesus Diaz May 19 '14

Watch a 100-pound magnetic putty blob come alive like an alien monster

I knew magnetic putty is a hungry gross thing that likes to eat stuff, but this doesn’t look like magnetic putty at all. This looks like a hungry alien monster blindly looking to suck on some food (a giant magnet.) A 100-pound magnetic putty monster.

Sploid Jesus Diaz May 19 '14

All The Wildest Secrets In The New Guardians of the Galaxy Trailer

The latest trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy makes a strong case that we’re looking at the summer’s most fun movie, bar none. But it’s also jam-packed with complicated mythos and backstory. So let’s break it down, screencap by screencap, gif by gif, and unravel the secrets of Starlord, Rocket Raccoon and the gang. https://gizmodo.com/new-guardians-of-the-galaxy-trailer-is-sensational-1578551996…

io9 Meredith Woerner May 19 '14

Peter Dinklage Sums Up The Entirety Of Game Of Thrones In 45 Seconds

A lot has happened on the past 3.5+ seasons of Game of Thrones, and you’d be hard-pressed to summarize the story so far quickly. You would… but Peter Dinklage wouldn’t, because Peter Dinklage is awesome. In this interview with MTV, Dinklage manages to recap some 2100 minutes of Game of Thrones footage in 45 brilliant…

Television Rob Bricken May 19 '14

A Semi-Scientific Study of Farting in the Workplace

We know that everybody picks their noses, and now we know that everybody farts too — especially at work. In fact, if this poll is to be believed, people fart at work in lots of places you wouldn’t expect. The intrepid social scientists at Black Sheep conduced a fairly unscientific but nevertheless amusing poll of…

io9 Annalee Newitz May 19 '14

A Mesmerizing Globe of Emoji Tweeted Around the World in Real Time

Checking out Emoji use on Twitter is nothing new, but new web app Silicon Feelings is the first we’ve seen to pull the tweets’ geolocation data, too. The result is absolutely mesmerizing. Created by Bradley Griffith, the site actually pulls its data from Emoji Tracker, though it only displays a) the most popular emoji and…

Tech News Ashley Feinberg May 19 '14

Why don’t we all have cancer?

Our bodies aren’t perfect. Every time a cell reproduces, it makes about 120,000 mistakes in the replication of its DNA, introducing mutations that can lead to uncontrollable division. What we know as cancer. But, if this happens all the time, why don’t we all have cancer? Here’s the answer. SPLOID is a new blog about…

Sploid Jesus Diaz May 19 '14

A Robotic Arm in Space Mixes Brawn and Beauty

Canada’s space program is understated — it has only a handful of astronauts, lots of suitcase satellites, and no photogenic rockets. But it excels in remote robotic arms, creating the iconic Canadarms. More than cranes, these arms delicately grasp and manipulate all the things an astronaut needs. A sliver of light highlighting the Canadarm and…

Tech News Mika McKinnon May 19 '14

Here’s why Steven Spielberg is such a great director

The Most Gloriously Bad Movie I’ve Seen In Ages

What if classic paintings were Photoshopped like today’s magazines?

The “Dying Merchant” Scene In Game Of Thrones Was Straight From Beckett

Scale is Deceptive

Science in Game of Thrones: The Good, the Bad, and the Confusing

Smart targeting rifle destroys a phone one kilometer away

Everything You Need to Know About the Dungeons & Dragons Relaunch

Watch a massive thunderstorm form in this timelapse

Salem Is More Interesting When It Shows The Suffering Of Puritan Women

This Was The Nursery of The Future in 1930

That Time Hellboy Got “Steampunk” Added To The Dictionary

The Rafale really looks like a fighter from the future in these images

Watch a 100-pound magnetic putty blob come alive like an alien monster

All The Wildest Secrets In The New Guardians of the Galaxy Trailer

Peter Dinklage Sums Up The Entirety Of Game Of Thrones In 45 Seconds

A Semi-Scientific Study of Farting in the Workplace

A Mesmerizing Globe of Emoji Tweeted Around the World in Real Time

Why don’t we all have cancer?

A Robotic Arm in Space Mixes Brawn and Beauty

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