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Surface pre-orders have now sold out, despite our sage advice. [Engadget]

A haunting animation of Italo Calvino’s tale of would-be lovers stranded on the moon

As we’re learning more about the strange, explosive birth of Earth’s moon, let’s return to a more fanciful version of lunar history. This short film animates Italo Calvino’s short story “The Distance of the Moon” about a love quadrangle involving two men, a woman, and the moon. https://gizmodo.com/new-evidence-that-the-moons-explosive-birth-was-weirder-5952497 The story, from the 1965 collection Cosmicomics,…

This Crazy-Looking Spaghetti Monster is a Heart Made Out of Glass

Think you’re prone to heartbreak? Be glad you don’t have one of these glass ones. Models like this, which show the heart and its surrounding tendrils that reach out to the lungs, as well as all kinds of other vascular maps of brains and other body parts, are made by Farlow’s Scientific Glassblowing in a…

Andy Serkis is directing a family-friendly, motion-capture version of Animal Farm

Andy Serkis’ stunning grasp of motion capture acting is one of the reasons Peter Jackson made him a second unit director on The Hobbit. Now the Gollum actor plans to apply those directing skills to a motion-capture project of his own: a new adaptation of George Orwell’s political fable Animal Farm. The Hollywood Reporter has…

Saturday Webcomic: The Not-Quite Historical Adventures of Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage

Tuesday was Ada Lovelace Day, a day when we celebrate women in science and remember the contributions of Augusta Ada Byron, later the Countess of Lovelace, who wrote devised an algorithm for Charles Babbage’s analytical engine. Cartoonist Sydney Padua celebrates Lovelace in her webcomic 2D Goggles, or The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, imagining…

Get a Liberal Arts Education for Free on the Internet

Just getting a job in this economy is difficult enough. Getting one with a liberal arts degree is simply masochistic. Don’t spend half a decade and thousands of dollars only to join the rest of the English majors busking in a subway. Instead, educate yourself with these valuable, respectable, and totally free online resources.* MIT…

Watch Groucho Marx try to stump Ray Bradbury on You Bet Your Life

In 1955, two very different media luminaries, Groucho Marx and Ray Bradbury, met on Marx’s game show, You Bet Your Life. Bradbury already had a couple of science fiction classics under his belt, and stayed on his toes as Marx quizzed him on his biography and then tried to stump him with a little movie…

Concept art reveals the gruesome chestburster that didn’t make it into Prometheus

If there was something missing from Prometheus aside from logic and quasi-competent scientists, it was an alien creature bursting from a human chest. An earlier version of the movie’s script involved a particularly bloody encounter with just such a critter. Spoilers ahead. If you’ve seen Prometheus, you’ll remember that Logan Marshall-Green’s none-too-bright archaeologist, Charlie Holloway,…

LG Optimus G Review: A Speedster That Gets in Its Own Way

Say this for the Optimus G: it doesn’t skimp. LG went for broke to shake off its mid-range reputation, cramming its latest flagship Android phone full of goodies. But specs don’t always equal performance. What Is It? LG’s best attempt at a high-end phone. It runs Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) with LG’s custom UI…

A new hero is born in the Star Wars Universe and check out this David Bowie impression from Adventure Time!

This week in the world of cartoons, rebel Saw Gerrera becomes a major player in the Star Wars Universe, Starscream begs for mercy on Transformers: Prime, and we see three tales of Halloween terror on Regular Show! Ultimate Spider-Man and Gravity Falls are off this week, while DC Nation continues it’s unusually timed hiatus. As…

Too Bad This Apple-Samsung Fanboy Peace Treaty Isn’t Real

The smartphone fanboy wars seem both ridiculous and eternal. It’s like everywhere you go on the Internet, a simple statement of preference—even one that isn’t pig-head and disparaging—can serve as the flash point for a fanboy skirmish. Isn’t it about time we signed a peace treaty? https://gizmodo.com/the-apple-vs-android-fanboy-wars-in-one-gif-5951243 This agreement was written up for CNN by…

A Couple’s Wedding Photos Were Found Inside a Camera That Was Buried Under an Earthquake

This is incredible. 18 months after an earthquake hit Christchurch, New Zealand and buried a just married couple’s camera, the camera pops up on their driveway containing all the wedding pictures they thought they would never see again. It’s seriously amazing. Martin Burley and his wife Fen Jeremias were married on February 20th and when…

Watch This Robot Dance Gangnam Style

Though this CHARLI-2 Robot doesn’t do the sexy legs of PSY quite as well, it can pretty much do every other move of PSY’s hit Gangnam Style. The horse riding, the little lasso twirl, the crowd pumping, it’s hilarious. Watch it. CHARLI-2 is a five-foot tall robot from Virginia Tech that has incredible balance (and…

The Stoner Channel: Meat Planets, Cheese Monsters, and Muhammad Ali: Mars Boxer

Muhammad Ali Wanted to Whup Some Ass on Mars Muhammad Ali is regarded as both one of the most dominant heavyweight fighters of all time and as one of the most prolific and gracious envoys boxing—or really any sport—has ever seen. For example, in 1966, 17-year-old reporter Michael Aisner approached the champ for a interview…

Everything You Need to Know About Kitchen Knives

You already use knives to cook but do you really know how to use knives to, like, really cook? There’s a difference! Learning some basic knife skills and types of knives to use could make your life a lot easier in the kitchen. Shannon Lattin made an infographic about the chef’s guide to knives to…

Apple Might Introduce a Better iPad 3 with a Lightning Adapter Next Week

We’ve seen evidence of a faster iPad 3 using the Apple A6 processor before and now 9to5Mac is reporting that Apple will announce a “refreshed version” of the full sized, 9.7-inch iPad with Retina Display at next week’s event. It looks like we might be getting a new updated iPad sooner than we thought. https://gizmodo.com/is-there-an-updated-faster-version-of-the-ipad-3-comin-5949497…

This Week’s Top Web Comedy Video: Kinky Sex

Everyone’s got their own proclivities in the bedroom; the important thing is just to be open and honest about what it is you like, and be accepting when your partner does the same. Unless your partner’s is absolutely horrifying, that is. The rest of this week’s top comedy videos, including When Harry Met Sally lost…

These High Top Under Armour Charge Shoes Look Like They’re from the Future

Though they’re not exactly like the Nike Air Mag—the glorious Back to the Future shoes—these Under Armour Charge BB Basketball Shoes are so comically high top that they feel like they’re from the same future. I like it. https://gizmodo.com/the-nike-air-mag-aka-the-back-to-the-future-shoes-are-r-5838503 The UA Charge promises the support of a high top with the feel of a low…

Explore the Dragon Capsule’s Interior in this Panorama

SpaceX have published this neat interactive panorama of the inside of their Dragon capsule, America’s first private spacecraft. https://gizmodo.com/the-first-look-inside-americas-first-private-spaceship-5894351 NASA is using it now to resupply the International Space Station. One day, it will get astronauts there too. Play with it at [SpaceX] https://gizmodo.com/first-private-space-resupply-mission-has-been-a-complet-5950490

These Twelve Gadgets Have Exploded—But in the Good Way

As any mechanic—or conversely, six year old—can tell you, the need to disassemble things is one of our most base impluses because, well, how else would we see how stuff works? Our friends at Oobject have assembled 12 such instances that toe the line between destruction and art. Also check out these 12 cutaway cars,…