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This Week’s TV: The Ice King goes sane and Arrow faces the Clock King

The Olympics have come to a close, and that means scripted television has returned to our sets. Arrow and the Black Canary face off against a classic DC villain while Adventure Time’s Ice King gets a second chance as Simon. Plus, Vikings returns, and we learn what’s next for The Walking Dead’s Daryl and the…

Intel’s New Atom Chips Are Just Waiting For Phones to Catch Up

Today at Mobile World Congress, Intel launched its latest dual-core 64-bit mobile processor, Merrifield, and spilled some of the beans on its upcoming follow-up, the quad-cored Moorefield. Now they’re just looking for some devices to jump into. Merrifeld, aka Intel Atom processor Z3480, runs on Intel’s 22nm Silvermont microarchitecture, boasting speeds of 2.13GHz, and according…

Head on over toMobile World Live at 12pm EST to watch Mark Zuckerberg make his keynote address LIVE.

Insane video: Guy walks slackline over 200-foot pit

Flaviu Cernescu is a daredevil who likes to walk slacklines and tightropes, as well as driving his monocycle on the craziest high places. This video shows one of his fearless antics over a 200-foot-deep reservoir drain in Lake Iovanu, Romania. I feel like passing out every time I look at it. SPLOID is a new…

The Military’s Newest Drone Can Roam Up to 1800 Miles From Home

The rapid exit of US ground forces from Afghanistan has caused an unforseen problem for forces in the region: Afghanistan’s most remote regions are suddenly out of range of our conventional turbo-prop UAVs, making CIA interdiction against the Taliban nearly impossible. But a new generation of jet-propelled Predator drone will soon take to the skies…

LCD Soundsystem’s Frontman Wants To Make the NYC Subway Sing

The crank and clang of subway turnstiles is abrasive and annoying at the best of times. But James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem fame wants to make those noises better. The Wall Street Journal, which has a nice short doc on Murphy’s efforts today, explains how Murphy wants to improve the din with location-specific turnstile noises:…

Wait, why are we naming winter storms now?

Winter storms weren’t named at all until two years ago. So why did we start all of a sudden? Naming Hurricanes and tropical storms has a long history, but names for winter storms only built up steam in the last couple years. And, unlike tropical storms or hurricanes, it’s not the National Weather Services that…

Russian teen sets himself on fire and jumps off a building just for fun

We knew that Russian kids were crazy, but things are getting even more insane. Take Sanya, a teen from Barnaul, a city in the West Siberian Plain. He set himself on fire, jumped from the top of a building into the snow below, stood up and said ‘that was cool!’ Of course, the video has…

A Tiny HD DLP Chip Could Finally Put a Projector in Your Phone

Concerns over battery life aside, the real reason your smartphone doesn’t have a built-in projector yet is because it would add too much thickness to the device. And because shaving millimeters helps add to a smartphone’s appeal, Texas Instruments might have finally found a way to convince handset makers to include a minuscule projector with…

Why don’t you die after you have sex?

Did you or do you or will you enjoy your long stretch of reproductive years? According to Cole’s Paradox, you shouldn’t. Many species need just a tiny increase of fecundity in order to justify one shot at sex, followed by death. Find out why you “should” die after you copulate, and why you don’t. Semelparity…

The Penis Museum hunts down The Final Member for its exhibit

This indie documentary follows Iceland’s Phallological Museum’s quest to get the final jewel of their collection: a human penis. And from what we’re hearing, everyone loves this movie. The Final Member is one museum curator’s search for a human penis specimen for the only Phallological Museum on the planet. What starts off as a simple…

This tiny blue crystal is the oldest known thing on Earth

Scientists say this blue zircon crystal is 4.4 billion years old, making it the oldest known chunk of our planet. The discovery is forcing a rethink of Earth’s early geological history — and our planet’s capacity to harbor life. The zircon crystal, which was extracted in 2001 from a rock outcrop in Australia, measures a…

LG Created a Magazine Ad as Thin as Its OLED TV

To really drive home the fact of just how thin the company’s latest OLED TVs were, LG’s advertising firm in Sweden, M&C Saatchi Stockholm, created a brilliant ad for the spine of a magazine called Sound & Vision since it turned out both were around four millimeters thick. The simple ad had no pictures of…

Our Samsung Galaxy S5 Liveblog Starts Right Now

Today, Samsung will deploy the Galaxy S5, the latest in its venerable line of Android smartphones. You can watch it live in the stream blow, or if you’re more into reading, we’ll be providing a delicate coat of analysis and sass in the liveblog even further down. To get caught up on everything we think…

The principle of “near enough” proves anyone is psychic

So you’ve completed a psychic test. The test has turned up exactly zero psychics. How can you get a psychic data with no psychics? Use the law of “near enough” to expand the parameters of the test! It’s all about things that are almost coincidences — the sort of thing that inspire conspiracy theories the…

Why Are So Many of China’s Tall Buildings Designed In Chicago?

Chicago has long been a global leader in an interesting export category: Maker of the world’s tallest buildings. The world’s current tallest building was designed here, as well as the one that will supplant it. Now, the city’s architects will add even more towers to their list due to a relationship with the planet’s most…

Walking Dead reveals the cure for the zombie-pocalypse may be a mullet

The Walking Dead may have changed the game completely in last night’s episode. The new trio revealed at the end of last episode bring a surprise. Michonne makes Carl bearable through the power of canned cheese. And Rick gets stuck in a cheesy ’80s college sex comedy turned deadly! “Claimed” isn’t epic, but for concentrating…

A Tiny Desktop Museum With Dinosaur Eggs, Moon Rocks, and Titanic Coal

Don’t lament the fact that your tiny podunk town recently spent all its money on a new waterpark instead of a museum. Thanks to a lifelong dream of Hans Fex, with a donation of as little as $79 you can have a tiny museum of your own sitting on your desk, featuring everything from dinosaur…

Why Every Writer in the U.S. Is Now Asking Amtrak for a Free Ride

It began when writer Alexander Chee made a simple, obvious statement in an interview with the literary organization PEN: Trains are great places to write. “I wish Amtrak had residencies for writers,” he said. Something about that line captured the imagination of writers everywhere. Chee’s interview was tweeted over and over again by writers, including…

​WhatsApp Is Getting Voice Calling

Facebook’s new messaging service is about to turn into Facebook’s new voice service. Today at Mobile World Congress, WhatsApp announced it’s branching out into phone calls. https://gizmodo.com/why-facebook-spent-16-billion-on-whatsapp-1526383997 According to CEO Jan Koum, the free VOIP feature should be coming to the Android and iOS versions of the app this spring, with Windows Phone and Blackberry…