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Human focus group Hillary Clinton finally weighed in on Apple’s legal dispute with the FBI. Of course, since this case perfectly divides public opinion, Hillary managed to take a hard, presidential stand behind absolutely no one. Speaking in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Clinton said “There has got to be some way to avoid breaking data encryption…
Applying the term “housing crisis” to the fact that people increasingly cannot afford to live in many American cities makes it seem like a vast, unfixable problem. But the solution is actually easy: Build more housing. A lot more housing. As soon as possible. But what kind of housing? Several new studies point to a…
There are a few things that everyone should know how to do in a kitchen—cook rice, cook pasta, chop an onion, etc—and preferably, you’d like to know how to do them well so you don’t burn the rice, ruin the pasta, and cry while dicing an onion. Gordon Ramsay shows us how to master simple…
Four cities could exclusively use rainwater to flush their toilets. But by demanding drinkable water to be pumped to their houses, just so they can poop in it and throw it back out, they are burdening their infrastructure in two different ways. A new study, done by environmental engineers at Drexel University and published in…
Hmm. Could stock footage basically do the same thing as famous film directors getting paid millions to make a movie? Sort of! (of course not, well, depending on the director and depending on the shot) Here’s a video from VideoBlocks that compares stock footage versus scenes from famous movies like Top Gun and Drive and…
Molten salt is, as its name suggests, salt in liquid form. It doesn’t get there until between 500 and 1,112 degrees Fahrenheit, making it one of the worst things you can drop into a glass vessel full of cold water. It’s not just great at making fish tanks explode though: molten salt can transfer heat,…
Apple released photos of its new work-in-progress Cupertino campus, and more importantly, a detailed look at its saucer section. Honestly, I’ve seen better saucers in my day. The new photos came in a sprawling Mashable feature about construction on Apple’s so-called spaceship of a new office. It’s made of 44 identical radial panels and will…
In anticipation of tomorrow’s total solar eclipse—and to meet the requests of diehard eclipse chasers—Alaska Airlines Flight 870 will alter its usual departure time to maximize the view of this rare and spectacular celestial event. Most of the world won’t be able to see tomorrow’s eclipse, since it will mostly be visible from the middle…
Tadashi Mori is a prolific origami artist who’s previously folded replica aircraft and terrifying dragons, but now he’s turned his talents to the Dark Side. His take on Darth Vader includes the Sith lord’s signature cape and helmet, but be warned, it’s not for origami Padawans. For starters, the expert takes at least 45 minutes…
Scientists deprived a group of study participants of different amounts of sleep. Some got a full night’s sleep, others got their hours of sleep cut down, and some got no sleep whatsoever. After a while, the slightly-deprived people were as bad off as the people who had gotten no sleep. The difference was, they didn’t…
You don’t own your ebooks with DRM. You’re merely licensing the privilege to read them. Some readers overseas have learned this the hard way (yet again) now that Nook is going out of business in the United Kingdom. But don’t worry, they’re working to let you maybe possibly transfer all those books you bought. The…
We’re never able to catch a glimpse of what’s inside the bag that Chewbacca carried in the original Star Wars. Maybe it was full of tools? Or ammo? Or snacks? But you could stash all of the above in this Chewbacca shoulder bag that looks like it might actually be made from shaved Wookiees. No…
Octopuses, undoubtedly the best creature lurking in the ocean, come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and colors but this one might be gnarliest of them all: it’s a ghost. Or at least it looks like it. Recently spotted in the deep sea 2.6 miles down in the ocean, the octopus could very well…
Amphibious Lambo and Flood-Powered Trash Can were just the beginning. It’s time for El Niño: The Reckoning. A nasty set of El Niño-powered storms thrashed the West Coast over the weekend, confirming predictions that a “Miracle March” might deliver the promised gut-punch of rain and snow that the region desperately needs. The good news: The…
Ten months after launch, Google’s own carrier service, Project Fi, is finally ditching invites for everyone in the US. Of course, Fi still only works on newer Nexus devices. But if you’ve ever wanted to give the whole experience a try, now’s the time to indulge your curiosity. Project Fi is a Google smartphone carrier…
The internet would be a far less awesome place to waste valuable hours at work were it not for the The Slow Mo Guys turning the mundane into the amazing with their high-speed camera. By itself a clump of burning steel wool is only mildly interesting, but at 1,000 frames per second, it’s better than…
It’s unspeakably awful to work in an Amazon warehouse. You have to walk between seven and 15 miles a day, enter and exit the buildings through a set of airport-style security scanners that take 30 minutes to get through, and you’re constantly being watched. Now, we have yet a whole new sort of horror story.…
Is Christopher Poole, the creator of 4Chan who’s also known as “moot,” going to work for Google? If we’re to believe the latest blog post (and tweet) from the notorious community leader, that’s exactly what’s happening. In a blog titled “My next chapter,” Poole is announcing that he’s joining Google—without much else detail. “When meeting…
It’s been 20 years since Under Armor changed the way football players wicked sweat out of their pits. Since then the company’s expanded to producing all kinds of apparel as well as shoes. To celebrate its twentieth anniversary Under Armour is tackling a brand new market: 3D-printing. The UA Architech is the first performance shoe…
The Evoke Vaporizer is designed to look good when displayed on a desk or coffee table, going against the trend for making vaporizers discreet by disguising them as pens and so forth. It’s made from aluminum and wood (African sepele according to Evoke). The thing looks like a cross between a spaceship and an old-timey…
