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R.E.M.: Orange Crush

Mistaken as an endorsement for the delicious citrusy beverage of the same name, Orange Crush serves as a reminder that R.E.M. wasn’t relegated to songs about unrequited love and people that were shiny and possibly happy. When the album Green was released in 1988, I lived in a small town with two radio stations. One…

Tech News Roberto Baldwin Sep 21

Picture of the Day: Sept. 20, 2011

SWORN TO FUN, BOUND FOR SPACE | Awesome Macross art by Tenjin Hidetaka, via Concept Ships. Want to read today’s io9 stories a different way? Check out our blog view. Or visit Observation Deck, our general discussion forum.

io9 Charlie Jane Anders Sep 21

14 million people watched this god-awful show about a human computer

Behold one of the many ludicrous moments from Unforgettable, the new CBS show about a detective whose superpower is perfect recall — she can remember not just facts and dates, but everything she’s ever seen, with photographic clarity. Amazingly, 14 million people tuned in to watch this utter drek — although we can’t help wondering…

Television Charlie Jane Anders Sep 21

That Mysterious, Possibly Mafia-Connected Safe Has Been Opened But Only Oprah Knows What’s Inside

Do you remember that mysterious safe hidden behind a wall inside Bill’s Casino in Reno? Well, it’s been opened. Cool! Not really, since it was opened and filmed by Oprah’s people for a TV special. So no one knows what’s inside still. TV drama! https://gizmodo.com/a-man-found-a-mysterious-possibly-mafia-connected-safe-5833964 Remember, there was a slight possibility that the safe was…

Privacy & Security Casey Chan Sep 21

YouTube Will Convert Your Terrible 2D Movies into Terribler 3D Movies

YouTube added several new features to its video streaming service including the ability to convert your 2D video to 3D format. I’m not sure why you would want to, but now you can. YouTube users will also be able to mix it up with two new video editing tools, vlix and Magisto. Vlix lets you…

Tech News Kelly Sep 21

This ancient bridge is engineered from living trees

In Meghalaya, India, locals have to deal with heavy rainfall and frequent flash floods along the many streams that supply water to the area. And yet this forbidding environment has given rise to an architectural practice that sounds like something out of environmental science fiction: for at least a thousand years, the people of this…

io9 Annalee Newitz Sep 21

How to Take, Print and Frame Your Own Gigantic Panoramic Photo for Just $150

Clever: follow this video to see how to take a giant panoramic photo, turn it into a huge 5-foot-long metallic print and frame it using an inexpensive large mirror from Bed, Bath and Beyond. Impressive results. [RL Morris via Petapixel]

Tech News Jesus Diaz Sep 21

Brannon Braga’s Biggest Regret About Star Trek: Voyager

Brannon Braga is gearing up to bring us his latest show as a producer, Terra Nova, and meanwhile he’s reflecting on his time with Star Trek. Including Star Trek: Voyager, which he mostly defends from the critics in a new interview. Except, he does admit to having one regret: Of course, the one I’d just…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders Sep 21

Your First Glimpse of a New Voice in African American Horror, Chesya Burke

Chesya Burke is winning lots of buzz for her poetic short stories, which deal with race and weirdness in the heart of small town America. And now we’ve got an exclusive excerpt from her new story collection, Let’s Play White. This excerpt comes from the novella, “The Teachings and Redemption of Ms. Fannie Lou Mason,”…

Books & Comics Chesya Burke Sep 21

The most mind-melting G.I. Joe-related music video you will ever watch

Sergeant Slaughter of G.I. Joe fame was a lot of things: wrestler, mustache paragon, slayer of mutants. But did you know he once fought a monster truck? Sadly, we do not get to see him fight the truck in the above video, but he did write a song about his epic duel. A true troubadour.…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Sep 21

The Higgs boson might explain the origins of the universe and dark energy

We still haven’t found the Higgs boson, the hypothetical particle that explains why other particles possess mass. But that might not be the only cosmic mystery the Higgs can solve. It could also explain how the universe got its shape. That’s the theory put forward by researchers at Switzerland’s École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, or…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Sep 21

This beetle larva tricks its predator into becoming prey

The predator-prey relationship between frogs and beetles seems like it would be pretty obvious doesn’t it? Frog spots beetle, frog stealthily approaches beetle, frog eats beetle. Done, done and done. But it turns out that the relationship between amphibians (like frogs and toads) and the larvae of ground beetles is one of nature’s rare examples…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Sep 21

Irish scarecrow contest is 75% The Wicker Man, 25% The Prisoner

Last month, the All-Ireland Scarecrow Championship was held in the village of Durrow. This year, over 150 scarecrows were placed all around the town, delighting local aficionados of hay-stuffed manikins. Of course, I imagine this competition is sort of bizarre if you have no idea what the hell’s going on. Indeed, this happened to the…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Sep 21

Could you really predict crime with a computer program?

In new JJ Abrams show Person of Interest, airing tomorrow night on CBS, a mysterious man named Finch (Lost’s Michael Emerson) has become disenchanted with his government job designing a system that sifts through massive amounts of data to find terrorism suspects. Now Finch is a rogue outsider with a backdoor to the system he…

Television Annalee Newitz Sep 21

Fringe Season Four: A Decent Jumping-on Point for New Viewers

It’s finally coming back! Fringe, the show that started as a bland X-Files clone and became a quirkily brilliant epic about interdimensional war, is finally on its way back to your television screens on Friday. We’ve seen the first two episodes of the season, which offer a pretty good jumping-on point for newcomers to the…

Television Charlie Jane Anders Sep 21

Cat-Inspired Computing of the Future

Why your cat is 83 times smarter than your computer, or how government funding can bridge the gap. Today we’re highlighting the promise of public science through an intersection of two of our running themes – biomimicry and the future of computing, which converge in the work of University of Michigan researcher Wei Lu. In…

io9 Maria Popova - Brain Pickings Sep 21

Watching the Alphabet Animate Itself Is Way Too Much Fun

I’ve never had this much fun reading the alphabet since I was a kid and finally conquered the L, M, N, O stretch of my ABCs. But this video is way cooler—the letters actually animates itself to represent a word it begins with. It’s so goddamn clever. For example, B is for biscuit and it’s…

Tech News Casey Chan Sep 21

This Fluid Fly-By Video Is the Most Astonishing View of Earth I’ve Ever Seen

This weekend NASA published an awesome time-lapse flyby of planet Earth taken from the International Space Station. Awesome, but jerky—until now. Someone interpolated the original frames to achieve this smooth as silk motion film. It’ll leave you stupefied. Probably created with the magical Twixtor, the new video runs at 30 frames-per-second. Check out the lightning…

Space & Spaceflight Jesus Diaz Sep 21

How Today’s Cutting-Edge Surfboards Fly Through the Water Like Wings Through Air

Surfing has been around for centuries, because all you need is a piece of wood. But it’s evolved into one of the most high-tech sports in the world. This is the cutting edge of board design, according to three of the top 32 surfers in the world. You might not think it, but every bit…

Tech News Brent Rose Sep 21

KCRW Music Mine for iPad: Play DJ for the World’s Best Radio Station

KCRW, if you’re not familiar is a LA-area public radio station. KCRW, if you are familiar is a wonderful place to discover new music and new bands. It’s like the corner of the radio that hasn’t been pummeled with noisemakers and hype machines. What’s it do? KCRW Music Mine app is more about the music…

Tech News Casey Chan Sep 21

R.E.M.: Orange Crush

Picture of the Day: Sept. 20, 2011

14 million people watched this god-awful show about a human computer

That Mysterious, Possibly Mafia-Connected Safe Has Been Opened But Only Oprah Knows What’s Inside

YouTube Will Convert Your Terrible 2D Movies into Terribler 3D Movies

This ancient bridge is engineered from living trees

How to Take, Print and Frame Your Own Gigantic Panoramic Photo for Just $150

Brannon Braga’s Biggest Regret About Star Trek: Voyager

Your First Glimpse of a New Voice in African American Horror, Chesya Burke

The most mind-melting G.I. Joe-related music video you will ever watch

The Higgs boson might explain the origins of the universe and dark energy

This beetle larva tricks its predator into becoming prey

Irish scarecrow contest is 75% The Wicker Man, 25% The Prisoner

Could you really predict crime with a computer program?

Fringe Season Four: A Decent Jumping-on Point for New Viewers

Cat-Inspired Computing of the Future

Watching the Alphabet Animate Itself Is Way Too Much Fun

This Fluid Fly-By Video Is the Most Astonishing View of Earth I’ve Ever Seen

How Today’s Cutting-Edge Surfboards Fly Through the Water Like Wings Through Air

KCRW Music Mine for iPad: Play DJ for the World’s Best Radio Station

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