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Keven McAlester’s short film which compares Los Angeles’ Bunker Hill in the 1940s to today using perfectly synced footage is the closest thing we can get to experiencing legitimate time travel. In 1959, shortly after the black-and-white footage on the left was filmed, Bunker Hill was the focus of an ambitious urban-renewal project, which is…
For some reason, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is an extra in the upcoming Star Trek movie. And, for some reason, Jeff Bezos has uploaded a Vine of (presumably) himself, eating what appears to be some kind of meat, pea, and potato dish. Then, Bezos, who is worth almost $60 billion dollars by the…
Remember 2001? Neither do I. But as best I can tell, it was a raucous time for people to get on the ‘net (that’s what people called the internet in olden times). And if you were confused about where to start, there were plenty of VHS tapes available to help navigate this brave new world—like…
Have you seen the headlines? Facebook Messenger just hit 1 billion users. The tech press was quick to froth over Facebook’s embargoed press release, touting the tech company’s impressively large collection of human users around the world. But nobody asked the obvious: Is Facebook’s one billion user tally on Messenger really a milestone if the…
On Tuesday, Rashad Deihim and Kailyn Bonia were convicted of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl in the woods near an elementary school in Saugus, Massachusetts. In a sick twist, the incident was captured on Snapchat and sent around to others—a move that, awful as it was, likely helped save the teenager’s life and prove the…
Following Melania’s now-infamous speech from the Republican Convention, a Canadian physicist has calculated the odds of those words and phrases appearing in the same order as Michelle Obama’s speech eight years ago. Looking at his answer, let’s just say it would be a coincidence of cosmic proportions. According to Canadian physicist and McGill University professor…
Bigger is always better, but you can make anything even awesomer with the addition of fire. That’s what Kevin Kohler, the Backyard Scientist, did with one of those vortex air cannon toys. He not only built one ten times larger, he also uses it to blast rings of propane gas towards an open flame to…
Spotify, the original titan of the music streaming world, is packed with plenty of great—but there are still plenty of third party add-ons that can enhance the original app even further. Here are some of our favorite utilities for doing more with Spotify and taking your streaming to the next level. 1) Equalify Pro Equalify…
Apparently, some elephants are as intelligent as an eight-year-old child. This and other sometimes-depressing, sometimes-inspiring facts are in the latest hilarious Casually Explained video on the spectrum of intelligence. It covers the range of “little robots” that respond to stimuli all the way up to people (not any of us, sadly) who can rewrite any…
Pokémon Go has suddenly made a lot of people do a lot of stupid stuff. In Baltimore, one man literally crashed into a parked police car while two cops were standing right next to it. Nice job, idiot. Even worse for this dude, the whole crash was captured by police body cameras. In general, using…
Pokémon Go’s dependency on mobile data and your GPS location will ravage your smartphone’s battery in no time. So if you don’t already carry a portable charger to keep you powered and playing, this hand-made Pokeball battery is a must-have addition to your Pokémon hunting kit. Created by Etsy-seller magicalsuperstore, the red and white Pokeball…
In theory, Twitter’s blue “verified” check mark made it harder to impersonate famous people, but in practice it mostly showed who was famous enough to bother impersonating. Prepare for the badge of approval to stop mattering as much now that Twitter has opened up its once-mysterious verification process to everyone. All you have to do…
Milo Yiannopoulos, the Breitbart blogger better known as @Nero on Twitter, has been permanently banned from the site after inciting a campaign of racist harassment against Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones that prompted the actress to quit Twitter. https://gizmodo.com/twitter-isnt-doing-enough-about-leslie-jones-racist-tro-1783886488 Yiannopoulos—alt-right icon and the charming creator of these “Feminism is cancer” hoodies—was notorious for encouraging his followers…
Indie music conglomerate Beggars Group—comprised of labels such as 4AD and Matador—revealed Tuesday that their online store got hacked between April 28, 2016 and May 4, 2016. Beggars Group represents artists like St. Vincent, Vampire Weekend, FKA Twigs, Radiohead, and countless other bands I am not cool enough to be aware of. In a letter…
Rembrandt was renowned for his masterful use of light and dark contrasts, and the precise proportions in his paintings and etchings. Now a British artist claims the 17th century painter likely used combinations of mirrors and lenses to project images onto a drawing surface to create them—especially his famous self-portraits. It’s the latest volley in…
Good news! Uber will be partnering with DigitalGlobe to use its satellite imaging technology. As yet, there is no word from Uber on the details of the partnership, but DigitalGlobe seems really, really excited about it. The DigitalGlobe press release called Uber “an innovator” and cited the company’s co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick’s TED Talk…
When you combine an unhappy group of people with a leader who is more than willing to feed and exploit their fear with wild speeches and rhetoric, things can go bad. When people in business and intellectuals want to be on the favorable side of public opinion, so they start doing things they don’t believe…
Futurama may not make me laugh as hard as other comedies, but its vision of the future and all the shenanigans that come with it have always been enjoyable to watch (throughout all its various cancellations and comebacks). Kaptain Kristian makes the case that Futurama is special because it was the “master of hiding brilliance…
I could tell you that this hay floating in the air and spinning around in a circle is a result of a dust devil, where hot air rises up through a small pocket of cooler, low-pressure air above it (kind of like a harmless mini-tornado). Or I could tell you that it’s obviously dark magic…
The deep sea is home to creatures that are sort of normal but then have some sick twist that make them monstrous and so creepy you want to peel your skin off. A squid can’t be just a squid, it has to be a giant squid the size of a school bus. A shark can’t…