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“I can’t get into that story because the basic premise makes no sense”

Sometimes a movie, book or TV show can be cool, and have interesting characters, and tons of avid fans — but you just can’t bring yourself to like it, because the premise makes no damn sense to you. Which great science fiction or fantasy universe could you not appreciate because of a flaw in the…

Life of Pi‘s VFX Team Explains What’s Wrong With Their Industry

In 2013, Rhythm ‘N Hues Studios won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects for Life of Pi just 11 days after declaring bankruptcy. This is the story of where they—and nearly two dozen other studios that have closed in the last decade—went wrong. Where is that exactly? The answer is dozens of places: changing technology,…

Could This Be the World’s Most Useful Couch Pillow?

It doesn’t matter how big or comfy your bed is, there’s just something undeniably satisfying about falling asleep on the couch in your living room. So Unikia created a better couch pillow, with a two-piece Flip! cushion that should let you nap comfortably and not have to worry about waking up to a sore neck…

The Heavy Metal TV series to bring scifi sex ‘n violence to the U.S.

With its second season almost wrapped, the 2012 French TV series Metal Hurlant Chronicles — based on the adult scifi/fantasy magazine we know as Heavy Metal — will finally premiere on the Syfy Channel this April. There’s slave girls, spaceships, and guys with swords trying to take out giant robots. Interested? The show, which will…

What Cold War Nuclear Weapons Can Tell Us About Art Fraud

The identification of fakes and forgeries is a basic issue that has always raised controversy. This is unsurprising, of course–the enormous sums garnered by top paintings would turn to dust as soon as a question as to their authenticity arose. To determine whether a painting is original or not, the expertise of critics and art…

Bill Watterson’s first cartoon since the end of Calvin & Hobbes

After almost two decades retired, Bill Watterson—the genius who crafted the universally beloved Calvin & Hobbes from 1985 to 1995—has published a new cartoon: A movie poster for Dave Kellett and Fred Schroeder’s Stripped. (Wait, is that Calvin 20 years later?) He appears in the movie too, in his first-ever recorded interview. Some of his…

A map of music that’s popular in your state—and only in your state

Musical preferences have become increasingly uniform across the country, but there are still some pretty strong regional preferences. This map breaks down those distinctive preferences along state lines. The map is the work of Paul Lamere, who used musical data from 250,000 listeners through streaming service The Echo Nest, where he’s the Director of Developer…

The World’s First Beekeeping Donkey Is Sort of Adorable

Meet Boneco, the world’s first beekeeping donkey. He lives in Brazil and helps his owner, Manuel Juraci, make honey. Boneco also does not appear to like his beekeeping suit. But boy does he look adorable while wearing it. This isn’t just a funny hobby for Juraci and Boneco, though. Beekeeping is their livelihood. In their…

This crazy knife-throwing video is so well made you’ll swear it’s real

Of course, this insano knife-throwing video is not real—after all, these guys are not Russian. But the fake is so well made that you’ll swear it is real. I went through it frame by frame and you can’t notice the trick. Clever. Kudos to Freddie Wong and his team. SPLOID is a new blog about…

Google will be hosting a Project Ara Developers’ Conference this spring to walk devs through its modular smartphone platform, which might one day allow people to design exactly the phone they want. Not a dev? There will be a livestream, too.

Photos on Yelp Makes New York’s Top Restaurants Look Like Poop

Ever wish you could eat at some of the best restaurants in New York, like Le Bernardin or Per Se? Then don’t visit their Yelp pages, because these photos of even the fanciest of dishes might make you want to hurl. Gothamist has posted a brilliant roundup of some of the best food spots in…

How To Take a Perfect Food Photo

Immaculate Infatuation is a food blog run by some guys who aren’t your average foodies. So they know that Instagrams of food are so overdone, which means they also know how to make them good. Just refer to their hunger-inducing Instagram account and their food pic hashtag, #EEEEEATS. Here’s a guide to duplicating their mouthwatering…

Is Adam Driver the next Darth Vader in Star Wars Episode VII?

The half creep, half hero male counterpart to Hannah in Girls is rumored to be playing a villain who’s introduced in J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars. Rumors suggest the character is “Darth Vader”-like. Because casting a young Vader worked out so well last time. Not sure how to feel about this news, but Variety is reporting…

Report: Target’s Big Credit Card Hack Might Involve Even More Retailers

The Wall Street Journal reports that Verizon Communications is investigating similar security breaches at two more as-yet-unnamed retailers that occurred around the same time as the massive Target credit card hack late last year. The two retailers affected by the newly-discovered attack have not yet announced the event to customers. https://gizmodo.com/target-confirms-up-to-40-million-credit-and-debit-cards-1486419257 Verizon’s Bryan Sartin did…

These Prints Visualize Wi-Fi’s Real Life Peaks and Valleys

Last time we checked in with Peter Jellitsch, the Austrian artist was using modern alchemy (aka a radio-wave-measuring device) to turn Wi-Fi’s invisible peak-and-valley signals into physical objects. Now he’s gone 2D, creating a series of diagrams that depict Wi-Fi bandwidth. https://gizmodo.com/what-wi-fi-would-look-like-as-a-physical-object-5977490 The prints are massive; Jellitsch collected data in Paris and Vienna, and then…

Why you should always order the largest pizza explained in one graphic

This is why I love data and data visualization: The larger the pizza, the cheapest the price per square inch is. Get the largest size, eat the rest at room temperature the next day. https://gizmodo.com/one-graph-explaining-why-you-should-always-order-a-larg-1531640267

How Bad Is California’s Drought? This Bad

California needs rain, and they need it bad. How bad? Just have a look at the GIF above. The first image shows Folsom Lake near Sacramento on July 20, 2011. The second image shows Folsom Lake on January 16, 2014. Notice a difference? That’s what a drought of historic proportions looks like. In fact, 2013…

After a global pandemic, monsters stalk post-apocalyptic Scandinavia

Minna Sundberg, creator of the marvelous and magical webcomic A Redtail’s Dream is back with a new webcomic, and this time she’s destroying the world. What begins as mysterious rash ends up radically altering Northern Europe as we know it—but what is lurking in the woods outside the human settlements? https://gizmodo.com/a-young-finnish-man-and-his-dog-get-stuck-in-a-fox-spir-1414487885 Sundberg has a remarkable…

NASA Confirms the Existence of 715 New Exoplanets

Using a new verification technique, Kepler scientists have confirmed the existence of 715 new exoplanets — four of which are located within their star’s habitable zone. It’s the single largest windfall of new confirmations at any one time. NASA made the stunning announcement earlier today at a news teleconference. Presenters included NASA scientists Douglas Hudgins…

The Number of Known Planets in the Universe Just Doubled

While you were hiding from the last bitter breezes of winter, NASA’s $600 million Kepler Space Telescope discovered a few new planets. Actually, Kepler data revealed 715 new exoplanets. That’s astonishing. It’s actually twice as many as we previously thought existed. The number of known Earth-sized planets also just quadrupled. This is pretty great news…