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Damn. Here’s a view of Hurricane Matthew from the ISS and it is truly frightening to see, because the storm seems to stretch itself all over the planet and the eye is so well defined. The category 4 hurricane’s impact on Haiti could be catastrophic, with winds hitting 140mph—so let’s hope everyone down there can…
In what should come as a surprise to absolutely no one, Amazon reviews are often deeply biased because the product in question was given to a reviewer for free or at a discount. These handouts have a tendency to artificially inflate product ratings. But as of today, the company won’t be tolerating it any longer.…
When our family visited Disney World in the 1990s, my parents always insisted that we visit the Hall of Presidents for a little “education” on our vacation. The attraction is a stage show with audio-animatronic presidents, and every time this great country of ours gets a new president, the show gets a new robot. Well,…
It lived a short, pathetic, inconspicuous life, and now it’s probably going away forever. Microsoft has pulled listings of its fitness tracker—the Band 2—from its online store. In a statement given to ZDNet, the company says it has sold existing inventory of the Band 2, and it has no plans to release a new version…
Best Buy has agreed to pay $3.8 million for “knowingly [selling] and [distributing] 16 different recalled products from 2010 through 2015,” according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The Commission says Best Buy sold recalled products about 600 times. “CPSC staff charged that Best Buy failed to implement adequate procedures to accurately identify, quarantine, and…
Medieval Viking Ulfberht swords are some of the most famous swords in history because they were so obscenely strong that it’s almost unbelievable that bladesmiths in the 9th century were even able to make them. Made from crucible steel, the swords stood out from everything from that time period. Hell, the process of forging these…
Kim Kardashian was “bound and gagged” in a Paris hotel on Sunday evening while being held up at gunpoint by five armed men dressed as policemen. While the hotel itself is known for its discretion when hosting celebrities, one has to wonder exactly how the thieves tracked down Kardashian’s exact location. The Kardashians have publicly…
Two weeks ago, Mylan CEO Heather Bresch got up in front of Congress and lied about how much profit the pharmaceutical company makes on the EpiPen. And Congress is pissed. Two congressmen who were incredibly vocal at the hearings are now demanding to see everything from complete profit and loss statements for the company for…
Google’s new vision for your home wireless network is called, appropriately enough, Google Wifi. Can Google make the most annoying thing about the internet disappear? Google Wifi isn’t the company’s first foray into home connectivity. The new devices follow the simple and easy-to-use OnHub routers, which Google designed in collaboration with hardware manufacturers. Here’s the…
The extremely dangerous Hurricane Matthew continues to barrel north, with the center of the storm expected to approach southwestern Haiti by later today. The National Hurricane Center’s latest bulletin calls Matthew “life threatening,” and forecasters are making dire predictions about the how much damage Caribbean nations might suffer. Hurricane Matthew intensified rapidly on Friday, reaching…
By all accounts, André René Roussimoff—better known by his stage name André the Giant—was a kind but profoundly tormented man, plagued by both the psychological and physical pains of his gigantism, both of which worsened in the years leading up to his death at age 46. Although best known as a professional wrestler, character actor…
They say parents will do anything for their kids, but surely there has to be a line that gets drawn somewhere after dressing up like Santa, but before having to wear this Piggyback Driver helmet. It lets kids steer where they want mom or dad to go while getting a piggyback ride, but shouldn’t kids…
Brain-training programs like the ones offered by Luminosity and LearningRx claim to boost intelligence and even offset the effects of aging. A re-evaluation of the existing scientific literature on the matter shows these claims are complete bullshit. A new study published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest concludes that brain-training games don’t work as…
The Galaxy Note 7 isn’t so great as a phone, mainly because of its propensity to explode. It burned this guy, and this kid. Airlines want nothing to do with the handsets. The feds told people to stop using these incendiary time bombs. To put it lightly, the Note 7 rollout and recall has been…
Japan’s birth rate has been on decline for some time now, so engineers at Toyota have come up with an ingenious solution to help people apparently feel the companionship of kids: an annoying robot. “He wobbles a bit, and this is meant to emulate a seated baby, which hasn’t fully developed the skills to balance…
For the past sixteen months or so, it’s felt as though our planet has been shaking us by the shoulders, trying to wake us up to the fact that we’ve kicked the thermostat into overdrive. The good news is, America finally seems to be listening. According to a new report by the Department of Energy,…
To celebrate reaching a million subscribers on YouTube, the internet’s favorite slingshot-building madman, Joerg Sprave, has engineered his largest creation to date: a massive elastic-powered weapon that turns bowling balls into flying projectiles. It’s capable of turning cinder blocks into pebbles, but you can also swap a bowling ball for a watermelon or a pumpkin…
Cane toads are poisonous, and in Northeast Australia they’re absolutely everywhere. So what’s one to do with a surplus of toads? Some people try to get rid of them, because cane toads are largely considered to be pests. However, Australian page Frogsafe advises residents not to, “use clubs or sticks to bash cane toads or…
Remember how your heart skipped a beat when you swung just a little too high on your local playground swingset as a kid? Imagine what your heart would be doing if you rode a swing suspended from a 400-foot-long tether hanging beneath a hot air balloon floating over 5,900 feet in the air. Even with…
This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Japan’s Yoshinori Ohsumi for furthering our understanding of autophagy, the biological process wherein the body eats some of itself in order to survive. Ohsumi won the esteemed prize for his discoveries on how cells break down and recycle biological waste that accumulates in…
