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The good news yesterday that California cut urban water use by 27% came with a sad asterisk. In their frenzy to disable their sprinklers and eradicate every inch of water-sucking grass from their drought-plagued yards, Californians are accidentally killing their trees. And some of them are falling over dead. The Associated Press brings to light…
Guys, Windows 10 is out, and we played with it alllll week. Tl;dr? We like. We also tested out two hotly anticipated smartphones (that we also like) and the redesigned Chuck Taylors, which made for some great shoe porn. Here are the highlights from this week. I Installed Windows 10 and Now I’m Talking to…
It’s been a common refrain in the Midwest this year: If only we could pipe all this rain to the West. But a new NASA visualization shows just how drastic the difference has been. Last year, NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launched a project called Global Precipitation Management that uses 12 satellites to…
It’s Friday, Planeteers. Let’s kick the weekend off right. What’s up, Gizmodo denizens? This was a big week in Techlandia, with the Windows 10 roll-out and shiny new mobile toys from Motorola. Cecil the lion’s hunter was hounded online, although he and his ilk actually help lion conservation. Dirty snow piles refuse to melt, kids…
“We did plan to do a museum about social history of women, but as the project developed we decided a more interesting angle was from the perspective of the victims of Jack the Ripper”—former Google exec Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe, explaining why a proposed women’s history museum was revealed, once constructed, to be a Ripper museum instead.…
Congratulations have been pouring in ever since Mark Zuckerberg posted (on Facebook, of course) that he and his wife Priscilla Chan are expecting a daughter in a few months. It’s wonderful and all (mazel tov, you two!), but most people took a look at their photo and wondered, is that a dog—or a mop? Yes,…
Micheladas are already the perfect warm weather drink: a mix of savory flavors, ice-cold beer, and just a snap of spice. Now imagine making the michelada even better by turning it into a popsicle that you drop into the beer, slowly melting into a slushy sublime summer cocktail. It’s Friday afternoon, you’ve made it through…
Being an engineer isn’t usually associated with being a bad ass. In fact, it’s probably one of the gigs furthest from badassery! But here’s a job description that’s totally bad ass: you and your team go into combat zones and build or demolish things while people are shooting at you and looking to kill you.…
James Woods has filed a $10 million lawsuit against a semi-anonymous Twitter user who tweeted that the actor was acocaine addict. Many people are holding up this case as the perfect example of the Streisand Effect, where more attention is drawn to the accusations by suing rather than ignoring the trolls. But what if Woods…
Apple Music on iOS? Pretty good! Apple Music on your desktop? Pretty widely criticized as a steaming pile of garbage—largely because of the messy iTunes integration. More and more users have pointed out the growing problems with iTunes of late; just this week, The Atlantic’s Robinson Meyer gave us a long, very specific rundown of…
I live in the world’s most famous tech city, surrounded by the most advanced personal electronic devices. None of them, however, grab quite as much attention as my own phone does. My phone was already old-fashioned when I bought it eight years ago, and by now, even a drug dealer would be embarrassed to own…
This video is titled ‘Granular Satisfaction’ and there’s really no better way to explain it. A mound of sugar disappearing into the vortex that is a cappuccino is so satisfying. You wait and wait and wait for it to happen and then it does and the black hole closes up and waits for its next…
It’s Sysadmin appreciation day! What exactly are you appreciating? The primary duty of a system administrator is the upkeep and ongoing operation of computer systems, especially servers—and that job description means they are responsible for elements like uptime and security that are essential to the health and functionality of computers, networks and the ability of…
Photographer Phoo Chan captured this perfect sequence of a Northern Harrier tossing prey to one of its baby chick hawks in midair. It’s an amazing display of coordination, like a little game of pitch and catch between a dad and his kid. You can see the adult hawk drop the prey and then watch the…
There are some questions I have about the world’s first perpetual Slinky escalator. Will this Slinky ever stop slinking? Will the entire rickety machine collapse into a pile of repurposed Ikea particle board and dust? Is this not the world’s most mesmerizing GIF? You’ll remember last year we alerted you to kind of a Slinky…
Meet Hella and Stavros Christofi. He was from Cyprus and worked as a waiter; she was from Germany and worked in a shop. In 1953, they enjoyed a simple but happy life in London with their three kids. Happy … until Stavros’ mother Styllou became a part of the household. A little background on Styllou,…
It’s no secret that American businesses and the government are under constant attack from hackers around the world. That’s just the nature of living in the 21st century. But a new audit says that America is even less prepared to defend against these attacks than we thought. The problem? Competent people don’t want to work…
Looking for a great prank to pull on a germaphobe? Invite them over for dinner, but serve it on these colorful plates that look like modern art, but are actually microscopic images of bacteria grown in a petri dish. Bonus germaphobe prank: just don’t wash your hands during meal prep. Created by Brazilian artist and…
The nine months leading up to a birth might feel like decades to a pregnant mother, but once that baby’s free, the months seem to fly by. Need proof? These colorful infant bed sheets featuring measuring marks so you can keep tabs on your baby’s sudden growth spurts. The $33 sheets look like they’re just…
No image says summer more than a cracked-open fire hydrant spewing city water into a New York street. Although not intended as their primary role in the metropolis, it turns outthat fire hydrants have served as guerrilla heat relief for 120 years. At Atlas Obscura, Dan Nosowitz gives a fascinating infrastructural history of hydrants and…
