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Why Is There a US Naval Cruiser in the Middle of This Cornfield?

If you’re driving along the New Jersey turnpike just outside of Moorsetown and think you see the top of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer peeking above endless rows of corn, miles from the nearest ocean, don’t worry—it’s supposed to be there. It’s just a full-size mock up that Lockheed uses to develop its AEGIS Combat System.…

Animated classical paintings make me want to escape into other worlds

I really love these 2.5D animations of classical paintings by Rino Stefano Tagliafierro. He says that they are “a tribute to the art and her disarming beauty.” Some are more inviting and evocative than the actual painting. I want to keep getting into the scene. And a few are quite disturbing. Warning: the video includes…

Facebook Now Shows You Personalized Trending Topics In Your News Feed

Facebook will start showing you trending stories to the right of your News Feed, just under where you’re used to seeing notifications about your friends’ birthdays and upcoming events. Twitter has been showing trending topics for years, but Facebook’s trends promise to be personalized to your interests, so maybe they’ll be better? Not everyone on…

The urn containing Freud’s ashes has been smashed by robbers

Back on New Year’s Eve, some assholes broke into a crematorium in London and, in a botched attempt to steal the antique Greek vase containing the ashes of Sigmund Freud and his wife Martha, smashed the urn instead. As the Guardian reports, staff at the Golders Green discovered pieces of the urn on New Year’s…

Our brain can process and identify images that the eye sees for as little as 13 milliseconds. That’s much faster than the 100 milliseconds suggested by previous studies. This rapid-fire processing helps us direct our eyes — which can shift gaze three times per second — to the next visual target. [ Gif: Christine Daniloff/MIT…

Dyson’s New Vacuum Cleaners Make You Feel Like a Superhero

There’s something strangely throttling about a Dyson device. The curves feel futuristic, and the transparent plastic shows you what’s under the hood. And the latest generation runs faster than a Formula 1 race car. You almost have to pinch yourself to remember that it’s just a vacuum cleaner. But it’s really not. Dyson’s new cordless…

Rumored Nokia Android Phone Gets a Rumored Windows Phone UI

We’ve been hearing for months about “Normandy”, the rumored Android phone that Nokia’s supposedly got in the works. @evleaks, the source of many of those rumors, has a fresh one for us: A UI that looks a lot like Windows Phone. https://gizmodo.com/this-is-supposedly-nokias-rumored-android-phone-1480728910 On Monday, @evleaks posted a photo of the phone showing a homescreen complete…

Westeros meets WWII in these Game of Thrones propaganda posters

Classic propaganda posters get a Westerosi makeover in the hands of Olivia Desianti. Which one would convince you to pick up arms for the Iron Throne? If you want Arya the Needler or the Lannisters’ visual roar on your wall, you can pick up these posters (and other geeky propaganda posters) from Desianti’s Etsy and…

Would You Have Sex with a Robot?

Ads for the computer love story Her are everywhere, and it makes me wonder about the ethics of sex robots. Would I ever have sex with one? Or would I find it ooky and gross — in a moral sense, but also aesthetically and erotically? Here’s what I decided. I certainly don’t have any objections…

Evangelical Urbanism: A Review of the Downtown Project’s Vegas Revival

As the story goes, Las Vegas was built by Mormons and mobsters. This unlikely team worked together to bring gambling to a place almost exclusively populated by men constructing the Hoover Dam. Their work turned a tiny sun-baked town into a global phenomenon. As the other story goes, downtown Vegas is not a once-glorious place…

Fascinating murals show the funky anatomy of animals

Austrian urban art and graffiti illustrator Nychos is the animal anatomy Leonardo to Jason Freeny’s toys and animation characters Michelangelo. His mural designs are exquisitely made, with enough detail to both fascinate and gross you out. https://gizmodo.com/these-toys-and-characters-anatomies-will-ruin-your-chi-1500923545 They may not be accurate in many cases, but obviously that’s not the point. This is how he…

A Highly Unlikely Scenario blends cyberpunk mysticism with goofy humor

A Highly Unlikely Scenario, by Rachel Cantor, takes place in a world where computer programs walk among us, the police wear Chipmunk Patrol sashes, and quasi-religious philosophical groups battle for converts via fast food restaurants. This dystopia comes replete with a Leader whose food preferences are kept secret to preserve unity, though a neo-Maoist book…

Chinese Counterfeiters Don’t Knock-Off Wearables, No One Wants Them

When you’ve got a hit, somebody’s gonna try to rip it off. The rule is almost universal, applying to erotic fiction books the same way it applies to iPhones. You could argue, then, that if nobody’s ripping off your work, you’re probably in trouble. https://gizmodo.com/how-a-fake-erotic-fiction-ebook-hit-the-top-5-of-itunes-5933169 CNN reports that Chinese counterfeiters have declined to knock off…

Bryan Cranston does a hell of a Godzilla impression in this set visit

Sit through the agony of the Entertainment Tonight intro to their on-set visit to Godzilla, and you’ll be rewarded with star Bryan Cranston, who is not only completely filthy and completely affable, but he also does a damn fine impression of his gigantic co-star. I know stars more or less have to be enthused about…

This Tiny Printer Only Prints What You Select On Your Screen

Do you feel guilty printing out an entire email when all you really needed was someone’s address? King Jim’s new compact Cocodori printer is designed for just those occasions. Using an included piece of software, it lets you highlight only specific areas of your screen for printing. And what you’re left with is a receipt-sized…

100 Famous Movie Quotes in Chart Form

Nathan Yau over at FlowingData has turned 100 of the most memorable movie quotes ever into chart form — and they are absolutely fantastic. The quotes were selected by the American Film Institute in celebration of their 100-year anniversary eight years ago, but there’s something about seeing the frequency of where ET’s calls are placed…

Purveyor of all things candy, Hershey, just made the delicious announcement that it will be making 3D-printed sweets in the future using machines from 3D Systems. Is your mouth watering?

Winamp Review: Still Surprisingly Rad

Winamp died! And then it came back! So since this classic from days-gone-by has been resurrected, we thought we’d give it another look to see how its reanimated corpse holds up in modern times. You might be surprised how much you can still love a zombie. https://gizmodo.com/an-ode-to-winamp-1487246843 https://gizmodo.com/winamps-not-dead-after-all-1500988875 What Is It? It’s Winamp! You know,…

Long-Forgotten Photographs Reveal Challenger Disaster As It Happened

Michael Hindes of West Springfield, MA, was sorting through boxes of his grandparents’ old photographs when he happened upon 26 harrowing photos of the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster of 1986. To his knowledge, these photos have never been publicly released. All photos featured with permission from Michael Hindes. Hindes had been searching for photographs to…

It looks like an accident, but this is how they unload timber in Canada

Reddit user JM2845 recently shared this amazing GIF of a barge in British Columbia emptying a load of timber into the water in a most unusual way, by tilting at 3o-degrees and having its cargo tumble right off the side. Amazing. Maybe this is commonplace amongst these kinds of barges, but it is certainly gasp-inducing…