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Airborne Laser Scans Just Uncovered a City Lost for a Millenium

Forget trowels and tiny little brushes. The new must-have tool for archaeology is lasers. Just last month, researchers in the Honduran rainforest used them to find a lost city of gold, and now archaeologists in Cambodia have found a forgotten city that’s even older. Welcome to Mahendraparvata, a metropolis unknown for the past millenium. https://gizmodo.com/how-lasers-may-have-revealed-a-legendary-lost-city-of-g-507460219…

Facebook, Microsoft Disclose How Many People Were Spied by the NSA

According to Facebook, government agencies had access to between 18,000 and 19,000 user accounts in six months. The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft admitted 6,000 to 7,000 user data requests by the NSA and other law enforcement organizations during the same six-month period.

Continuum reveals the most unexpected drawback of changing the future

In Continuum, at this point, almost everybody seems to accept that traveling back in time from 2077 to 2012 will allow them to change the past, creating a new and different version of 2077. So at this point, everybody’s just trying to put his or her own stamp on the future. Except there’s one major…

Fake video game retells JJ Abrams’ first Star Trek film in 90 seconds

CineFix’s 8-bit Cinema series reimagines movies as classic video games. This time, they’ve pixellated the first rebooted Star Trek movie, turning some of its key scenes into frustratingly non-playable levels. [via Laughing Squid]

Wow, a 4K TV For $1080 Is Simply Bonkers

A couple of months ago, Seiki announced a 50-inch 4K TV with a suggested MSRP of $1500—which is still an absurd price point for a 4K TV. The price has continued to drop, and now Amazon’s selling it for $1081. https://gizmodo.com/wow-you-can-actually-afford-this-1300-50-inch-4k-led-5994573 Sure, $1080 for a TV isn’t cheap, but other competing televisions sporting 3840 x…

Record Gun Sales For Smith & Wesson

Some people are getting ready for violence: Americans are buying guns in record numbers, and weapons manufacturer Smith & Wesson reports a 43% rise in gun sales over last year. The Newtown slaughter of schoolchildren, obviously, prompted a 38% jump in gun sales in the last quarter. http://gawker.com/smith-wesson-gun-sales-hit-all-time-high-513570718

What would happen if Superman punched you in the face?

We did love the superhuman-on-superhuman violence in Man of Steel, but what if Superman were to launch his solar-powered fist at an ordinary human being? Vsauce gives us a lesson in comic book physics and explains why a Kryptonian punch would damage far more than just your face. https://gizmodo.com/man-of-steel-worth-it-just-for-the-super-powered-comba-513338058 [via Geekologie]

Sharing Your Web Browser with Random Strangers Is Horrible and Awesome

You’re never really alone on the Internet. Chances are if you’re on a webpage, someone else is there too; you just don’t see them. It doesn’t have to be that way though. “We See in Every Direction” is a web browser you can share with dozens of other Internet denizens all at once. It is…

Meet the world’s greatest—and girliest—webcomic warrior

The protagonist of Madéleine Flores’ webcomic Help Us! Great Warrior knows that just because you’re good at swinging a sword, that doesn’t mean that you have to put away your teddy bears and bows. She protects her village with the help of snack foods, magic, and some really cute outfits. There is plenty of silliness…

Game of Thrones Season 3 recapped through hilarious infographics

It’s been less than a week since the Game of Thrones third season finale, and everyone is still delivering their postmortems on everything from the role of power in the series to its uncomfortable racial themes. Vulture, on the other hand, has taken a goofier route, explaining Season Three through the blood magic of diagrams.…

Watch the first eight minutes of the new Ghost in the Shell anime

Back in February, we got a very quick look at the four-part Ghost in the Shell prequel series, Arise. Now the first eight minutes of Arise are online, and the show’s looking far better than the opening titles would suggest. https://gizmodo.com/check-out-the-new-ghost-in-the-shell-prequel-anime-ari-5983633 Hit the closed captions button to see the English subtitles. Funimation will be releasing…

Meet the Crazy Army of Space-Cameras Curiosity Brought to Mars

Mars rover Curiosity has doubtlessly been doing a whole lot of important science up there on the red planet, but it’s also been sending back a ton of pictures to keep us simpler, non-scientist folks amused by all the pretty colors red. But what kind of cameras does that thing have anyways? JPL explains. Curiosity…

George Takei guest stars on Spider-Man plus a bizarre Pac-Man revival

This week in the world of cartoons, Jake has to save Jake Jr. from some serious trouble on Adventure Time, George Takei makes an appearance on Ultimate Spider-Man, and SheZow gets down and dirty in a WWE-style cage match. Tranformers Prime is off for a couple of weeks. As always – minor spoilers ahead! Ultimate…

Watch Fake Telekinesis Make Mind-Controlled Water

Telekinesis isn’t real, but you can fake it if you really put your mind to it. Conceptual artist Lisa Park did just that and surrounded herself with vibrating pools of her own brainwaves. But her final trick, total brain silence, turned out to be just a little too hard to fake. For her performance art…

Deadline has confirmed that John C. Reilly will play Rhomann Dey in Guardians of the Galaxy. Dey’s role in the film has been described as “the Agent Coulson of the ‘Guardians’ movies,” so we’ll have to see if this is a departure from the comics or if director James Gunn has something special up his…

New Lego Sydney Opera House Is Huge—Almost 3,000 Bricks

The new Lego Sydney Opera House is a mahoossive 2,989-brick set that measures 11-inch high, 25-inch wide and 15-inch deep. Comparing it to its Lego Architecture counterpart is like comparing Jupiter to Earth. Naturally, the price is of Jovian proportions too: $320. It’s an truly amazing model, with lots of complex shapes and details, that…

Here Are the Very First Posts on Your Favorite Websites

You use Twitter. You use YouTube. You use Amazon. You check Reddit. You know what TMZ is. You even been on PostSecret before. But when did you start using all of this stuff? What was your first post? Do you want to know what each of those websites first post was? Yeah you do. The…

The Weirdest Thing on the Internet Tonight: Odditory (NSFW)

I’m pretty sure having students play their heinies like bongos for the enjoyment of their instructor is illegal in at least 15 states, regardless of the lesson plan. And let’s not even get into the desk licking, or the bra tearing, or the riding crops *shudder*

Microsoft just released data on its government requests (including FISA) too. For the last six months last year, Microsoft received between 6,000 and 7,000 government requests affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 accounts. [Microsoft]

Google Wants to Use Balloons to Cover the World in Wi-Fi

If you go deep inside the desert or climb a mountain or find yourself in the South Pole or a remote farm or any place that can be considered “the middle of nowhere,” guess what? You have no internet. Well, Wired is reporting that Google wants to change all that by sending high-altitude balloons into…