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Disquiet: 15, 10 & 5 Years Ago This Week (2013.50)

A friend suggested that I begin posting a regular peek into this site’s archives, so I am going to experiment with a “This Week [X Number of] Years Ago” project. There are no posts from December 1993, so I can’t do 20 years ago this week. I do, that said, have some print archives to…

Video Of China’s Jade Rabbit Rover Rolling On to the Moon’s Surface

One small rollout for a rover, one giant leap for China National Space Administration. https://gizmodo.com/chinas-rover-has-reportedly-landed-on-the-moon-1483252000

This Week’s Top Comedy Video: Victoria’s Secret Semi-Annual Sale

Victoria’s Secret is having its big semi-annual sale. But wait, didn’t they just have one? Like, not that long ago? What the hell does semi-annual even mean? Better not waste any time though — it sounds like the sale is ending soon. For more of this week’s top comedy videos, head on over to Splitsider.…

The CN Tower crumbles in a future Toronto

Toronto was one of the first cities to be reclaimed, and while the CN Tower no longer dominated the skyline, it served a new purpose, to separate the commercial harbor from the overgrown residential district. Artwork by Mathew Borrett. Borrett has also made a daytime version of this image. Prints are available at the Torontopia…

What went wrong with this season of Haven?

Haven is frequently a hit-and-miss show, and it ended its season on a rather dull note—even as it made some major advances in its mythos. So why did this season’s overarching story arc fall flat? It was difficult to watch this season of Haven and not think of last season, which focused on a pair…

Flight of the Conchords Shows Us How Robots Will End Mankind

You knew this was coming, but we had to do it. With all the talk around Google and Boston Dynamics, plenty of folks are wondering what the future will look like. Flight of the Conchords have already peered into our robot-led destiny, and things don’t look good for us. https://gizmodo.com/a-closer-look-at-googles-new-robot-army-1483302945 Okay, so Bret and Jemaine’s…

Magic Color-Changing Camo Blends In No Matter The Season

Camouflage only works when it’s got the same color and pattern as your surroundings. When the foliage takes on a different hue, you don’t want to be caught wearing last season’s color. This magical new camouflage solves that problem with temperature-sensitive dyes to keep your sporting wear fashionable year-round. Cabela’s ColorPhase camo takes on a…

Fabulous Batman graffiti found in an abandoned building

Redditor sneakylawyer and his girlfriend were doing a bit of urban exploration in Ronse, Belgium, when they came across an unexpected sight: a bevy of Batman graffiti, featuring a variety of Jokers. According to sneakylawyer, the building was originally a nursing school that has been abandoned for roughly ten years. Now, however, it has some…

Watch people blown about by a powerful wind storm

Earlier this week, Storm Ivar left tens of thousands of homes without power in Sweden. It also huffed and puffed against folks walking around downtown Ålesund, Norway, threatening to blow them away. Police had to assist some folks as they crossed this intersection while out Christmas shopping, and an ambulance was required for one man…

1871 Treaty hinged on Americans agreeing not to split infinitives

If you think that you’re a stickler for grammar, consider the position of the British regarding the 1871 Treaty of Washington. According to a literary historian, the British government refused to sign a treaty with the Americans if the treaty contained a single split infinitive. Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury, who taught English language and literature at…

If You Could Have Any Boston Dynamics Robot, How Would You Use It?

Today’s big news is Google buying Boston Dynamics. Lazy writers, myself very much included, spent the day making tired old jokes about the dawn of the machine uprising. But there’s gotta be an alternate fantasy, where the robots do something more awesome than overthrow their creators. Let’s dream one up together! https://gizmodo.com/google-just-bought-crazy-walking-robot-maker-boston-dyn-1483235880 Pick a robot…

Facial-recognition software uncovers a bizarre conspiracy in this short

What happens when a software engineer’s product uncovers something even he didn’t know about himself? Facial recognition software reveals more than embarrassing photos in Anthony Scott Burns’ short film Manifold. Folks who find Vimeo temperamental can watch this short on YouTube. Manifold [via Vimeo Staff Picks]

This week in tech reads, a deeper look at privacy, money, and the way that design affects how students learn. Ryan Lizza asks, “why won’t the president rein in the intelligence community?” [The New Yorker] Martin Austermuhle examines what Washington, D.C. does with the data from over 200 million license plate images snapped by plate…

Concept Art Writing Prompt: At the Dinosaur Ranch

Unleash your Jurassic Park dreams in this week’s Concept Art Writing Prompt. Share your tale of a place where dinosaurs spend their days behind fences and their nights sleeping in barns. This is one of the marvelous illustrations by Simon Stålenhag, whom we featured in an earlier writing prompt. Truthfully, Stålenhag’s series of illustrations seem…

Wrapping Your Mac Charger, Squirrels, And the Bad Side of Gluten Free

This was a great week of learning on Gizmodo! We discovered the right way to store your Mac charger, the wrong way to pave a Russian road, looked at why a gluten-free diet could be bad for you, and debunked nine of the internet’s most popular and fictitious “fun facts.” Let’s review. The Fascinating Story…

Twitter’s oft-rumored Nearby function, a timeline showing tweets based on your current location, has been seen in the wild, according to The Wall Street Journal. Twitter wouldn’t comment except to say they’re always testing new stuff. [WSJ via AllThingsD]

This video imagines a San Francisco patrolled by semi-autonomous drones

Alex Cornell‘s video Our Drone Future puts a drone’s-eye view on San Francisco, imagining the city patrolled by a drone that interacts with a monitor, but operates on its own. Cornell made this video with DJI Phantom Drones and “a liberal interpretation of FAA regulations.” It doesn’t push the idea of drones invading our privacy…

Interstellar Trailer: A Brief History of Flying

Christopher Nolan’s next epic movie is called Interstellar. It’s about space travel. It comes out a year from today. That’s everything we learned about the movie from this trailer, and we’re dying to know more. Nolan isn’t giving much away with this. A haggard Matthew McConaughey, a pickup truck, a cornfield. But the historical references…

Magical unicorn sculpture pees lemonade and shoots fire from its horn

For those occasions when an ordinary drink dispenser just won’t do, summon a mighty carousel unicorn who provides both beverages and a show. When she isn’t peeing lemonade from her nether parts, she’s sneezing glitter and blasting fire from her horn. Anna Schumacher shared her spectacular wedding unicorn with the site Offbeat Bride. Since she…

An incredible photo of a colonial base in an alien world called Earth

This otherworldly photo is so amazingly weird and exotic that you may think it comes from a secret colonial base in the Jovian moon of Europa. In reality, it’s the Halley VI Research Station in Antarctica as photographed by Antony Dubber, the chef of the British Antarctic Survey. The outstanding photo is part Ice Lab,…