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Retrotastic Furniture Made from Amazing Old Suitcases and Trunks

Instead of chucking out all those old trunks and suitcases, these designers have turned them into incredible pieces of furniture. We love these weird comfy chairs, desks and drawers that snap closed, and tables made of trunks that once crossed the country on steam trains. Baggage Claim, by Ron Baron, 2008 (via TwentyTwoWords) Richards’ Trunk…

io9 Vincze Miklós

This Is The Room Where The Internet Was Born

For something as ubiquitous as the internet today, it certainly isn’t easy to find where it all started. I don’t mean historically, I mean logistically: 3420 Boelter Hall is a tiny room in a basement hallway of a large nondescript building on the sprawling UCLA campus. But from these inauspicious beginnings emerged the reason you’re…

Tech News Alissa Walker

This Simple Subway Planning Game Will Be Your New Favorite Time-Waster

If you love the city-planning aspect of Sim City but can’t handle the pressure of playing god, then you may have just found your new favorite time-waster. Say hello to Mini Metro. Developed byDinosaur Polo Club, the game itself is actually pretty simple. All you do is drag the subway lines between each station, wait…

Tech News Ashley Feinberg

Watch a 200-mile-high volcano explosion on the surface of Io

Man, Jupiter’s moons are a lot cooler than ours. The spacecraft New Horizons captured this gigantic exploding volcano on its moon Io, the most volcanically active body in the solar system. It seems crazy to see something so far away captured in such detail. The explosion and its 200-mile-high plume happened back in 2007, but…

Sploid Sarah Zhang

I Did the World’s First Ice Cream Cleanse: Yes, Really

Back during the no-carb diet craze of the early 2000s, I joked that I wanted to try a diet consisting of nothing but carbs and lipids. I would call it the Fatkins Diet. Guess what? I just did exactly that. I ate ice cream, and only ice cream, for four days straight. Yes, it’s the…

Health Brent Rose

China Is Deploying Smog-Busting Drones So Its Airports Can Stay Open

With smog in Beijing so bad it’s forced pilots to land blind and officials to shut down the airport, China has unveiled a new plan to test drones that spray smog-clearing chemicals around airports. How will it work? Trials for these new parafoil drones—essentially a drones with parachutes—will begin later this month at airports around…

Tech News Sarah Zhang

Constantine’s getting a guardian angel for his TV series… literally

The cast of NBC’s Constantine TV series has expanded, and now we know three new characters who will team up with, be annoyed by and invariably regret knowing the titular magician. And that includes an actual angel played by a former Lost castaway. The new cast members include Harold Perrineau, True Blood’s Lucy Griffiths, and…

io9 Rob Bricken

Mad skier backflips over a highway—and faceplants against the snow

“A valid attempt at a backflip over the Mount Baker highway,” says the author of this jump over a highway in Whatcom County, Washington. Well, at least it wasn’t a total failure and you didn’t smash your face against the asphalt. Totally worth it I say (if only because I love to make satisfying looping…

Sploid Jesus Diaz

Nexus 7 and iPad, Sony Storage, 30% Off Kindle Accessories [Deals]

Staples has hosted $30 off tablet specials in the past. The difference today: they have iPads in stock. Promo code 58129 will take $30 off any tablet priced over $150, including the Nexus 7 and Retina iPad Mini. In the case of the iPad, that’s the best deal we’ve seen so far. If you’re interested…

Tech News Shep McAllister

Watch a stellar trailer for the stop-motion film no one’s talking about

The Boxtrolls, the newest film from the stop-motion wizards at Laika, hasn’t been getting nearly the attention it deserves. It’s easy to sit back and appreciate the whimsy of this trailer, but take a closer look at the remarkably detailed world that Laika has created. The Boxtrolls themselves, with their joyful movements and odd cardboard…

io9 Lauren Davis

Who is the most tragic hero in science fiction or fantasy?

Some heroes get covered with glory. Some heroes win and get to live happily ever after. But the heroes we love the most are often those whose path is filled with only suffering, and whose only possible ending is a bleak one. Who’s the greatest tragic hero of all time? Please include a picture of…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Distant supermassive black hole spins at half the speed of light

By magnifying a region of space 6 billion light-years away, astronomers have directly measured the spin of a distant black hole — and holy crap do these things ever rotate quickly. The quasar shown above is RX J1131-1231. The striking image was captured by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope using a…

io9 George Dvorsky

Shooting Challenge: HDR Photography

HDR. It used to be a photographic technique reserved for those fluent in Photoshop. Now, it’s a go-to filter in every point-and-shoot and app. For this week’s Shooting Challenge, we’ll celebrate this democratization of the art form and all shoot in high dynamic range. The Challenge Take a photo in HDR (high dynamic range). Need…

Tech News Mark Wilson

This mind-bending optical illusion is freaking the hell out of me

It may seem like this guy has a space-time bending black hole on his skull, which is about to swallow that guy’s finger, but of course it’s just an awesome optical illusion, created by artist Cory Ferguson, instagrammed by Geometry Chaos. If you have to get a tattoo, you may as well blow people’s minds…

Sploid Jesus Diaz

How To Pick a Lock Using Nothing But Hairpins

You can learn the basics of lock picking from a GIF, but for a more nuanced look at the techniques required to actually get a lock open without the key, check out NightHawkInLight’slatest tutorial where he uses nothing but a pair of strategically bent hairpins in the process. The see-through lock he uses to illustrate…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski

This 1930 Song About 1992 Didn’t Mention Kurt Cobain Even Once

In 1930 Arthur Fields and Fred Hall recorded a song about the futuristic world of 1992. And if you can believe it, they didn’t mention a single grunge band. Not even once. No Soundgarden. No Nirvana. These supposedly future-minded charlatans didn’t even give a passing mention to Eddie Vedder. Then what were these guys yammering…

Tech News Matt Novak

13-Year-Old Builds Nuclear Reactor, Becomes Youngest Fusioneer Ever

Do you remember what your greatest accomplishment was at age 13? Well, it doesn’t really matter either way, because whatever it was, Jamie Edwards—the tween scientist who’s now the youngest person to ever carry out atomic fusion—just crushed it. After spending all his Christmas money on a Geiger counter a few years ago, Jamie embarked…

Tech News Ashley Feinberg

The end of supersymmetry?

Supersymmetry is the periodic table of particles, predicting how quarks, leptons, and force particles could come together to form new pieces of the universe. Those magnet-loving experimentalists over at the Large Hadron Collider have been hard at work smashing atoms to see if they can find the elusive predicted members of the particle zoo. They…

Tech News Mika McKinnon

This fascinating underworld maze is 3,000 miles long

I will be going to Montreal as soon as the weather gets a bit better. I wish I could visit some these fascinating tunnels photographed by Andrew Emond, which are part of a 3,000-mile maze under the city.

Sploid Jesus Diaz

These GIFs are like staring into a rift in time

These GIFs of endless time-loops moving across cityscapes from Shanghai-based artist Fong Qi Wei are astonishingly beautiful. But they also offer an interesting way to think about time, letting the viewer see the past, the present, and the future all at once. The GIFs are part of a series he’s working on called Time in…

io9 Ria Misra

Retrotastic Furniture Made from Amazing Old Suitcases and Trunks

This Is The Room Where The Internet Was Born

This Simple Subway Planning Game Will Be Your New Favorite Time-Waster

Watch a 200-mile-high volcano explosion on the surface of Io

I Did the World’s First Ice Cream Cleanse: Yes, Really

China Is Deploying Smog-Busting Drones So Its Airports Can Stay Open

Constantine’s getting a guardian angel for his TV series… literally

Mad skier backflips over a highway—and faceplants against the snow

Nexus 7 and iPad, Sony Storage, 30% Off Kindle Accessories [Deals]

Watch a stellar trailer for the stop-motion film no one’s talking about

Who is the most tragic hero in science fiction or fantasy?

Distant supermassive black hole spins at half the speed of light

Shooting Challenge: HDR Photography

This mind-bending optical illusion is freaking the hell out of me

How To Pick a Lock Using Nothing But Hairpins

This 1930 Song About 1992 Didn’t Mention Kurt Cobain Even Once

13-Year-Old Builds Nuclear Reactor, Becomes Youngest Fusioneer Ever

The end of supersymmetry?

This fascinating underworld maze is 3,000 miles long

These GIFs are like staring into a rift in time

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