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Watch Nick Harkaway explain why video games will save the future

Nick Harkaway, author of The Gone Away World and Angelmaker, gives a talk on the future of tech, now that we live in a world of brain implants and surveillance. And he explains why playing video games are the only sort of technology that “make you make hard choices” The title of this talk is…

This 2D face makeup will hijack your brain

Photographer Alexander Khokhlov and makeup artist Valeriya Kutsan combine their skills to mesmerizing effect in “2D or not 2D,” a surprising photography project that transforms model’s faces into mind-bending optical illusions. Via the utter time-suck that is Khokhlov’s Behance page: The key-idea of the project was to turn the models faces into the 2D images.…

Watch PBS’s entire 1981 documentary on Raiders of the Lost Ark

It’s not like you were working anyway. Behold the hour long perfect time-waster: an entire documentary from 1981 about Indiana Jones’ Raiders of the Lost Ark. Watch for the awesome behind-the-scenes tidbits, but stay for the extremely sassy remarks from a young (shirtless) Harrison Ford. Oh, Indy. [Cinetropolis via /Film]

Don’t jump to buy an off-contract Moto X on Black Friday — you’ll be able to save $150 on Cyber Monday. That brings prices down to $350 on carrier, $400 for developer editions. [Motorola via Android Police]

​Some Fool Threw Away a Hard Drive with $7.5 Million of Bitcoin On It

Ever accidentally lose a dollar? Then you count what’s in your war chest, realize it’s a dollar short, and kick yourself for being careless? Well, a British IT worker knows what that feels like—except times 7.5 million. James Howells did a really smart thing back in 2009 and started mining Bitcoin before anybody had ever…

​The 8 Worst Mistakes Made by the Allies During World War II

Hindsight is 20/20, especially when it comes to second guessing the harrowing decisions that have to be made during wartime. But sometimes we have to be critical, if we hope to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. With that in mind, here are the most egregious blunders made by the Western Allies during the…

Thanksgiving Dinner Was Supposed To Be In Pill Form By Now

If you celebrate Thanksgiving, odds are you’re going to see a variety of different foods on the table tomorrow. Accounting for everyone’s allergies and dietary preferences means that those of us lucky enough to enjoy a nice meal with family and friends will prepare lots of different foods to suit everyone’s needs. But there’s one…

Drone-Wielding Criminals Busted Dropping Tobacco Into Prison Yard

Forget stuffing contraband in your butt to sneak it past prison guards. Some creative crooks have taken to the skies with new technology in an effort to get some precious tobacco to their compatriots in prison. This takes the drone delivery service trend to a new, absurd level. https://gizmodo.com/chinas-now-using-drones-to-deliver-packages-1245039645 WALB reports that corrections officers at…

Surreal image: 99 wild animals drinking from a pool

I feel both impressed and a bit freaked out by the newest art piece by Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang. Called Heritage, it includes 99 life-size sculptures of wild animals drinking in peace and harmony from a water pond. But perhaps the most impressive installation is Head On, which shows 99 wolves flying. Impressive indeed. If…

Alan Moore wants superhero comics to get off his lawn, more or less

Alan Moore was already the grumpy old man of the comics industry, but whatever shit the acclaimed writer had remaining, he has officially lost. Here’s how his latest tirade begins: “”I hate superheroes. I think they’re abominations.” It goes downhill from there. Moore was talking to The Guardian when he went on his latest rant…

Bilbo Baggins Is a Serial Middle-Finger Flipper

Bilbo Baggins might be as pleasant a Hobbit as ever lived, but the clearly same can’t be said of the actor who plays him, Martin Freeman. The evidence is in the above video, which reveals the many, many times Freeman constantly flipped the bird on The Hobbit set. Hmm. Does anyone know if he did…

Better Thanksgivings Through Chemistry!

At first blush, brining a turkey doesn’t make much sense. The process of osmosis – whereby water moves to regions of higher solute (i.e. salt) concentration – might lead you to believe that soaking the bird in salty solution would pull moisture out of the meat. So why doesn’t it? Well, it actually does. But…

It’s pretty damn amazing to be able to see comets flying like this

“Best video yet of comet ISON yet. Burn baby, burn!” says NASA about this time-lapse captured over a five-day period—November 20 to November 25—by STEREO’s Heliospheric Imager. A comet’s journey through the solar system is perilous and violent. A giant ejection of solar material from the sun could rip its tail off. Before it reaches…

Frozen has a bit of that Wreck-It Ralph magic

Wreck-It Ralph was a revelation: a fairytale for the videogame age about the true meaning of villainy and heroism. Now Ralph’s cowriter, Jennifer Lee, has written and co-directed a new film, Frozen, in which one of the all-time great fairytale villains gets a whole new outlook. Minor spoilers ahead… Frozen is loosely based on a…

How to Jump Out of a Plane and Live to Tell About It

“It’s not the fall that kills you,” as the saying goes, “it’s the sudden stop at the end.” Humans are a rather splattery bunch when dropped from a sufficient height, but that hasn’t kept us out of the sky. Instead, we’ve spent centuries perfecting the process of controlled falling to make the stop after any…

Ask a Chef All of Your Pre-Thanksgiving Food Questions!

Merrill Stubbs is a chef and food writer, and she’s here today to answer all of our Thanksgiving questions about food, recipes, and the all the best things to fill your table up with this year. Merrill is the co-founder of Food52, a cooking and cooks’ website. She graduated from both Le Cordon Bleu and…

Scarlett Johansson’s robot role is ineligible for the Golden Globes

Color us surprised, Scarlett Johansson who plays the sultry and sweet robot voice Samantha from Spike Jonze’s Her is ineligible for a Golden Globe because her body isn’t physically in the movie. That’s kind of BS. If you haven’t see Her starring ScarJo and Joaquin Phoenix, you should make plans to — the buzz on…

This Cold Fusion Reactor Costs $1.5 Million, Might Not Actually Work

Cold fusion is the Holy Grail of energy production. The technology could theoretically produce virtually unlimited energy for next to nothing except that nobody’s been able actually get the system to work despite decades of worldwide research. However one Italian scientist claims to have finally gotten the cold fusion right, you’ll just have to shell…

​What to do when you fall out of fandom

You know what I just remembered? Mailboxes. Real postmen in the olden times used to have to get mail out of and put mail into mailboxes. Nowadays, people just send their kids out to hold letters for me to snatch out of their hands while riding by on my horse. These kids have to stand…

Forget the turkey, this is the perfect food to eat tomorrow

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving! Tomorrow is Hanukkah! Tomorrow is Thanksgivukkah, and I can’t image any better and more delicious plate than these Thanksgivukkah Holiday Balls, even if you aren’t Jewish. https://thisiswhyyourefat.kinja.com/thanksgivukkah-holiday-balls-1461794179