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Kickstarter CEO Says Site Hacked, No Credit Card Info Stolen (Updated)

Uh oh, Kickstarter’s CEO Yancey Strickler says that the company has been hacked. No credit card info was stolen (whew!), but the company says users’ personal info has been compromised. Better go change your password. A blog post released today says Kickstarter was first made aware of the hack on Wednesday, and that upon learning…

Help find the dirtbag who shot and killed three sea otters

Last September, members of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sea Otter Research and Conservation team recovered three otters that had been shot and killed near Asilomar Beach, in Pacific Grove, CA. Their killer remains at large. Now, state and federal authorities need your help finding the perpetrator. Via the Monterey Bay Aquarium: We and other sea…

Adam Savage’s Mercury Spacesuit Replica is absolutely gorgeous

I am not usually a covetous person, but Adam Savage’s painstakingly accurate replicas of the blue flight jacket worn by NASA’s Apollo astronauts and the iconic, silver, full-body spacesuit used during the Agency’s Mercury missions literally have me making grabby-hands at my computer screen. Savage had his Mercury pressure suit custom tailored from PVC leather,…

This week in Tech Reads: area codes, Facebook comments, and who’s really benefiting from Google+? It’s our weekly roundup of smart takes from around the web on this tech-driven world we live in. Simon Parkin considers the perhaps outmoded view that longer-playing video games are inherently better. [The New Yorker] Astronomy and astrophysics professor Jason…

An albino alligator gets a CT scan

Mr. Bones, a rare albino alligator at St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park, recently needed to get a CT Scan to investigate a problem with his jaw. This made for a pretty unique photo opportunity. https://gizmodo.com/so-ct-scanners-look-pretty-badass-when-theyre-not-cove-1504560462 Via the park’s Facebook page: He is in the excellent hands of University of Florida Zoomed staff. He is…

Comcast-Time Warner, Pebble Steel, And Our Boss Kidnapped in Vegas

This week, we learned that Comcast and Time Warner are merging to create a cable superjuggernaut; Gizmodo’s Editor in Chief Geoff Manaugh learned how to escape kidnapping in Las Vegas; and we played with the Pebble Steel smartwatch and NYC’s new touchscreen subway maps. And so much more! Why the Comcast-Time Warner Cable Merger Is…

40 Weird Words (and their Weirder Origins)

Why do we call dunces dunces? John Green gives us the etymological low down on this and 39 other unusual words in the latest episode of Mental Floss. Conspicuously absent from this fascinating roundup: the secret origins of “nerd” and “dork,” how the genitals got their names, and why there’s a “b” in the word…

Nike Designer Says Marty McFly’s Power Laces Are Coming Next Year

If there was one disappointment about Nike’s awesome Back to the Future II Air Mag, it’s that the shoes didn’t have Marty’s power laces (and that they only made 1,500 and neither you nor I own a pair). But Nike designer Tinker Hatfield says that’s about to change—power laces are coming in 2015. The future…

Oh good, a freaky brain parasite has found its way to the Arctic

Toxoplasma gondii – the brain parasite infamous for making rats fearless of cats and maybe causing schizophrenia in humans – has been identified in Beluga whales. In the Arctic. It’s an example, researchers say, of how the warming of the Arctic is allowing pathogens access where before they could not reach. https://gizmodo.com/parasites-trick-their-rat-hosts-into-being-eaten-by-cat-5832395 https://gizmodo.com/common-cat-parasite-could-actually-be-causing-schizophr-5883618 https://gizmodo.com/easily-the-best-thing-youll-hear-all-week-a-beluga-wha-5953817 Via…

How to Cut the Cord and Ditch Cable Once and For All

The imminent merger between Time Warner Cable and Comcast heralds the start of a new era: one of even more expensive channel bundles, and even longer waits for service. It’s time to make like a rat and get the heck off this sinking ship of cable television. Here’s how you can keep watching your favorite…

Good news for iPad-using spreadsheet lovers: Microsoft Office for iPad should be coming out soon—even before Office for Windows 8 debuts,according to ZDnet.

Draw a Straight Line or a Skyline With These Famous City Rulers

A ruler’s traditionally a straightforward thing, but that doesn’t mean it has to be boring. These pretty pieces from Monkey Business give you a measuring edge when you need it, and a city skyline stencil when you’re feeling playful. The Skyline Ruler is available in seven cityscapes: London, Paris, NYC, Berlin, Amsterdam, Toronto, and Jerusalem.…

Dear Superman: Don’t Spin Earth Backwards, You’ll Break Everything

Remember how Christopher Reeve’s Superman spun the earth backward to go back in time and save Lois? Turns out, he probably shouldn’t have done that, because slowing the earth’s rotation to a stop would seriously mess up everything on our planet, as Earth Unplugged explains. Not cool, Superman. And before you lecture me on comic…

Lego movie posters for Best Picture nominees are actually kind of great

Had enough of Lego-fied movies? Too bad! The Lego Movie being the unmitigated success that it is, the folks at Yahoo! Movies decided to commission Graphic designer Old Red Jalopy to create a series of LEGO-themed movie posters for the 86th Academy Awards‘ Best Picture nominees. Not that we’re complaining – they’re actually pretty excellent.…

The first lunar photos from NASA’s LADEE spacecraft are an accident

Last week, NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) beamed back its first images of the moon. But the images were a happy coincidence; the low-flying satellite was actually using its onboard camera systems to track stars, and orient itself by their positions. https://gizmodo.com/10-moons-every-person-should-know-5892559 According to NASA, “The main job of a star tracker…

The Miami Heat’s Chris Bosh steps in for Idris Elba on Hulk

It’s a strange week for cartoons – a two-time NBA champ takes the place of a fan favorite actor on Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H., the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fight the pizza topping of their dreams (a giant psychedelic mushroom), and if you close your eyes for long enough during certain scenes of…

Dubai’s Drone Delivery Idea Might Be Slightly Less Crazy Than Amazon’s

Jeff Bezos has some new competition in the crazy drone delivery race. Dubai officials want to start using drones to deliver government documents by next year. And while Amazon’s drone delivery program probably won’t happen, Dubai’s equally-crazy plan might have a slightly better shot at getting off the ground. https://gizmodo.com/amazon-drones-are-truly-revolutionary-marketing-1474861589 The idea is to use…

Emoticons Are Reshaping Our Brains, We Now Process :-) As A Human Face

When we first broached the Great Smiley Debate a few weeks ago, the question was whether or not a dash-as-nose was appropriate, necessary, or a bastardization of the simple purity of two dots paired with a gentle curve. But a new, equally contentious controversy emerged in the Kinja discussion: Should the parenthesis open towards the…

The Weirdest Thing on the Internet Tonight: Mandelbrot

For crying out loud, this was supposed to be a deserted mountain top. Can’t a guy find enlightenment in peace anywhere these days? This transcendent animated video by Maria Björklund is meant to be silent—there’s nothing wrong with your speakers, really—and was originally displayed in both the Kallio Kunsthalle in Helsinki, Finland and in Suomesta…

Is a perfectly symmetrical face actually the most beautiful?

Beauty is in symmetry. Symmetry is beautiful. Or something like that. But what if that’s not true? Photographer Alex John Beck played around with the idea of facial symmetry by creating perfectly symmetrical composite images of people’s faces in his photography series Both Sides Of. You’ll see two faces in the pictures here, one face…