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Grumpy Americans of the 1970s Wanted to Rewrite the Constitution

The 1970s was a rough time for most Americans. The economy was tanking, inflation was out of control, and thanks to the Vietnam War and Watergate scandal, few people had anything good to say about their government. Which is why predictions about the future from this era are so fascinating. No matter what your political…

Tech News Matt Novak Mar 25 '15

Barbed Wire’s Dark, Deadly History

In the mid 1800s, not many (non-native) Americans had ever been west of the Mississippi. When Frederick Law Olmstead visited the west in the 1850s, he remarked that the plains looked like a sea of grasses that moved “in swells after a great storm.” Massive herds of buffalo wandered the plains. Cowboys shepherded cattle across…

Tech News Roman Mars - 99% Invisible Mar 25 '15

This Epic Rap Battle Between Hodor And Groot Is Gloriously Silly

The two characters who have the smallest vocabulary have a lot to say in this new “rap battle” video. But who will win: Hodor, Bran’s helpful sidekick on Game of Thrones? Or Groot, the big lovable tree from Guardians of the Galaxy? See for yourself!

io9 Charlie Jane Anders Mar 25 '15

Facebook Is Finally Getting Messaging Right

Facebook wants to be your everything, and the next step in its long and deliberate journey to subsume the entire world is here. Messenger, Facebook’s separate (and now genuinely useful) messaging app, is growing up and you have every reason to be excited. Up until now, Messenger and its growing list of functions were entirely…

Social Media Eric Limer Mar 25 '15

Facebook Will Put 360-Degree Spherical Videos Right In Your News Feed

I think that 360-degree video is going to be a big deal. Apparently, Mark Zuckerberg agrees! He just announced that Facebook will be able to embed spherical videos right in your News Feed, much like YouTube 360. So what’s spherical video, anyhow? I could tell you, but why not just show you instead? Here’s a…

Social Media Sean Hollister Mar 25 '15

The Flash Goes Back In Time To Try To Make Last Week’s Episode Better

In last week’s recap of The Flash, I said “Out of Time” was an average episode with a thrillingly exciting core. Since the Flash ran back in time and “Rogue Time” begins more or less at the same point, Barry has a chance to do the episode over. The result? Now it’s a great episode…

Television Rob Bricken Mar 25 '15

Wondering What To Expect After A Medical Abortion? Read This.

The latest installment of Oh Joy, Sex Toy offers an accessible, informative, and non-judgmental overview of medical abortion, one of several choices available to newly pregnant persons. The comic is well worth reading in its entirety. It links to a number of resources and medical studies, and deals with everything from basic anatomy to abortion…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Mar 25 '15

An App That Turns Your Texts to Songs Is a Wonderful Disaster

What if the worst possible text messages you could receive were delivered as singing telegrams? We decided to use an app that turns text into song to find out. Ditty is a new app that rides on top of Facebook’s Messenger app, and takes whatever messages you write and attempts to crush them into the…

Social Media Mario Aguilar Mar 25 '15

This Tree Branch Hits A Power Line, Screams, And Then Explodes

This tree branch is screaming — seriously, it actually is making screaming noises — as it catches fire on a group of power lines. But why does this branch spontaneously combust when it hits them, and birds that land on power lines don’t? The power lines above your head aren’t insulated. This video is a…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Mar 25 '15

Making this 24 carrot gold cake is pure alchemy

One of the reasons I desperately want to time travel is to blow the minds of people in the past with just the simplest of things today. Imagine going back hundreds of years and baking this gold 24 ‘carrot’ cake. With a few drops of food coloring and a few edible gold leaf sheets, I’d…

Sploid Casey Chan Mar 25 '15

The Best Cylon Design Is Being Turned Into A Cutesy Funko Pop

Okay, it’s ending may have caused a lot of anger, but on the whole the Battlestar Galactica reboot was pretty great. Its redesign for the Cylons was great, too — but nothing beats the retro-tastic original Cylon design. All the more better then that it’s the Classic Battlestar Galactica getting the Funko treatment! Four figures…

Tech News James Whitbrook Mar 25 '15

9 Batman Knock-Offs That Utterly Miss The Point Of Batman

Everybody loves Batman. After 75 years of saving Gotham City, the Caped Crusader has become an archetype. So it’s not surprising that every comic needs its own version of Bats. And yet, Batman remains unique, and it’s not so easy to copy him. Here are 9 Batman knock-offs that totally miss why Batman works. Top…

Movies Abhimanyu Das Mar 25 '15

The Greatest Nerd Love Of All Is The One That Is Unrequited

Greetings, my mail-carrier carrion! Okay, that was a weird thing to call you. I absolutely promise I will not leave your corpses out to feed the horrifying scavengers — animal, human or mutant — that stalk this post-apocalyptic land. If it can be avoided. Hopefully. Look, I’ll try. Let’s just read some letters, okay? The…

io9 Rob Bricken Mar 25 '15

This Table Listens to Your Boring Meetings and Pulls Out the Good Stuff

Meetings can be horrible, unproductive, and maddening. Can a high-tech conference table make them bearable? The New York Times R&D Lab have tackle the problem with the lab’s latest project. The Semantic Listening Table is an attempt to make sense of the chaotic conversation. The smart table combines pervasive data collection and the internet of…

Tech News Mario Aguilar Mar 25 '15

Curiosity Just Found A Key Component For Life On Mars

While running a standard sample analysis of some Martian dust, the Curiosity rover made a wonderful discovery — there is nitrogen, one of the essential ingredients for life, on Mars. The Curiosity rover was testing samples of sand and analyzing their chemical components when they found nitric oxide which, while often found on Earth, had…

io9 Ria Misra Mar 25 '15

The complete visual history of the Walt Disney logo before Disney movies

Ever since the Walt Disney Pictures logo debuted before The Black Cauldron in 1985, Disney has been tweaking and re-styling and creating multiple variations of the iconic magic castle logo that pops up right before its movies. For a while it’s a simple 2D logo stamped on a blue background but eventually it turned 3D…

Sploid Casey Chan Mar 25 '15

We Should Be Able To Detect Spaceships Moving Near The Speed Of Light

A pair of engineers say it’s possible to detect the signatures of spacecraft traveling at relativistic speeds, and we can do so using current technologies. The trouble is, their new analysis also suggests that moving through space at ludicrous speed is more hazardous than previously thought. Illustration: Sins of the Prophets/Annihilater102/MODDB A new paper by…

io9 George Dvorsky Mar 25 '15

Agents of SHIELD Is Full Of Shattered Identities And Torn Relationships

Last night’s episode of Agents of SHIELD delved a lot deeper into one of the main themes of season two: People who have lost themselves, or had their identities wrecked, and the absolutely terrible relationships they find themselves in. And it turns out dealing with people who aren’t true to themselves carries a high cost.…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders Mar 25 '15

Jesse Eisenberg Looks Fantastic As Batman V. Superman‘s Lex Luthor

I had my doubts about director Zack Snyder casting the young Jesse Eisenberg as Superman’s arch-villain Lex Luthor in Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice. But this first picture of Eisenberg as the evil mastermind has completely shut me up. He looks shockingly sinister. (And bald, too.) Damn. I would not want to meet that…

io9 Rob Bricken Mar 25 '15

A Key-Sized Pebble Watch Charger You’ll Never Forget At Home

The Pebble smartwatch boasts vastly superior battery life to Apple’s upcoming wearable, but that doesn’t mean you still don’t have to regularly keep it charged. So following up on its key-sized smartphone chargers, Nomad is introducing the tiny NomadKey Pebble that includes a magnetic connector for attaching to and charging the smartwatch. It’s small enough…

Gadgets Andrew Liszewski Mar 25 '15

Grumpy Americans of the 1970s Wanted to Rewrite the Constitution

Barbed Wire’s Dark, Deadly History

This Epic Rap Battle Between Hodor And Groot Is Gloriously Silly

Facebook Is Finally Getting Messaging Right

Facebook Will Put 360-Degree Spherical Videos Right In Your News Feed

The Flash Goes Back In Time To Try To Make Last Week’s Episode Better

Wondering What To Expect After A Medical Abortion? Read This.

An App That Turns Your Texts to Songs Is a Wonderful Disaster

This Tree Branch Hits A Power Line, Screams, And Then Explodes

Making this 24 carrot gold cake is pure alchemy

The Best Cylon Design Is Being Turned Into A Cutesy Funko Pop

9 Batman Knock-Offs That Utterly Miss The Point Of Batman

The Greatest Nerd Love Of All Is The One That Is Unrequited

This Table Listens to Your Boring Meetings and Pulls Out the Good Stuff

Curiosity Just Found A Key Component For Life On Mars

The complete visual history of the Walt Disney logo before Disney movies

We Should Be Able To Detect Spaceships Moving Near The Speed Of Light

Agents of SHIELD Is Full Of Shattered Identities And Torn Relationships

Jesse Eisenberg Looks Fantastic As Batman V. Superman‘s Lex Luthor

A Key-Sized Pebble Watch Charger You’ll Never Forget At Home

Latest news

Netflix Ads Now Reportedly Reach 3% of the World’s Population Each Month

No More Power Outages, This Beast 2,200W Power Station with 7 Outlets Just Hit a Near Record Low

Garmin Crashes the Forerunner 165 AMOLED to a Record Low, 2X Cheaper as Worse Rivals

LEGO Quietly Offloads the AT-AT Walker Set via Amazon, Official Site Has Never Gone This Low

ChatGPT Gave Out My Address and Phone Number

Amazon Shows a Hidden Price Tag on This 50-Inch 4K TV, Samsung Says It’s Too Low to Display

Amazon Quietly Offloads the DJI Mic Mini With 2 Transmitters, Now Almost at a Record Low

Apple Sells a USB-C Cable for $29, Anker Does the Same for $4 on Amazon and It Has 80,000 Reviews

Latest Reviews

Dell’s XPS 16 (2026) Is Almost Everything I Could Have Asked for… Almost

Smart Glasses With Subscriptions Are As Bad as They Sound

iBuyPower’s Trace X Gaming PC Is the Fishbowl You Want to Swim In

Govee Ceiling Light Ultra Review: AI Art Ain’t It

JBL Live 780NC Review: Solid Wireless Headphones You Can Live Without

Acer’s Swift 16 AI (2026) Gets a Lot Right, But I Can’t Get Past the Trackpad

Samsung Galaxy A57 5G Review: Not Worth It at Full Price

Logitech G G512 X Review: The Tasting Menu of a Pro Gaming Keyboard

Let us help you find what you’re looking for...

Latest

Grumpy Americans of the 1970s Wanted to Rewrite the Constitution

Barbed Wire’s Dark, Deadly History

This Epic Rap Battle Between Hodor And Groot Is Gloriously Silly

Facebook Is Finally Getting Messaging Right

Facebook Will Put 360-Degree Spherical Videos Right In Your News Feed

​The Flash Goes Back In Time To Try To Make Last Week’s Episode Better

Wondering What To Expect After A Medical Abortion? Read This.

An App That Turns Your Texts to Songs Is a Wonderful Disaster

This Tree Branch Hits A Power Line, Screams, And Then Explodes

Making this 24 carrot gold cake is pure alchemy

The Best Cylon Design Is Being Turned Into A Cutesy Funko Pop

9 Batman Knock-Offs That Utterly Miss The Point Of Batman

The Greatest Nerd Love Of All Is The One That Is Unrequited

This Table Listens to Your Boring Meetings and Pulls Out the Good Stuff

Curiosity Just Found A Key Component For Life On Mars

The complete visual history of the Walt Disney logo before Disney movies

We Should Be Able To Detect Spaceships Moving Near The Speed Of Light

Agents of SHIELD Is Full Of Shattered Identities And Torn Relationships

Jesse Eisenberg Looks Fantastic As Batman V. Superman‘s Lex Luthor

A Key-Sized Pebble Watch Charger You’ll Never Forget At Home

Netflix Ads Now Reportedly Reach 3% of the World’s Population Each Month

No More Power Outages, This Beast 2,200W Power Station with 7 Outlets Just Hit a Near Record Low

Garmin Crashes the Forerunner 165 AMOLED to a Record Low, 2X Cheaper as Worse Rivals

LEGO Quietly Offloads the AT-AT Walker Set via Amazon, Official Site Has Never Gone This Low

ChatGPT Gave Out My Address and Phone Number

Amazon Shows a Hidden Price Tag on This 50-Inch 4K TV, Samsung Says It’s Too Low to Display

Amazon Quietly Offloads the DJI Mic Mini With 2 Transmitters, Now Almost at a Record Low

Apple Sells a USB-C Cable for $29, Anker Does the Same for $4 on Amazon and It Has 80,000 Reviews

Dell’s XPS 16 (2026) Is Almost Everything I Could Have Asked for… Almost

Smart Glasses With Subscriptions Are As Bad as They Sound

iBuyPower’s Trace X Gaming PC Is the Fishbowl You Want to Swim In

Govee Ceiling Light Ultra Review: AI Art Ain’t It

JBL Live 780NC Review: Solid Wireless Headphones You Can Live Without

Acer’s Swift 16 AI (2026) Gets a Lot Right, But I Can’t Get Past the Trackpad

Samsung Galaxy A57 5G Review: Not Worth It at Full Price

Logitech G G512 X Review: The Tasting Menu of a Pro Gaming Keyboard

Let us help you find what you’re looking for...

The Flash Goes Back In Time To Try To Make Last Week’s Episode Better