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The last time I voted in LA, I used a fat marker to place a black splotch on a Scantron-like form inserted between the pages of a plastic booklet. The form never lined up exactly, and the design of the booklet was so confusing, I’m pretty sure I voted for the wrong person. Now (thankfully)…
Now that Reddit has purged itself of interim CEO Ellen Pao, the site can get back to what it’s known for. Namely, subreddits like /r/rapingwomen, which boasts about 2,300 users. Sure, it goes against the anti-harassment policy that Pao created, but we don’t have to worry about that anymore! This is what you might call…
A modern over-the-counter pregnancy test is a tiny engineering marvel, combining a sensitive antibody-based detection system with enzyme-activated dyes to pick up minute amounts of hormone from the developing placenta. Check out the new video that describes how it works at Ted-Ed! Contact the author at [email protected].
This week, Oregon passed a new law that allows women to buy hormonal contraceptives from a pharmacy without a doctor’s prescription. After the law goes into effect in 2016, women in Oregon will be able to get birth control pills without having to first visit a doctor for permission. Oregon is the second state in…
I think this is the most impressive video that Man At Arms has ever done, and that’s saying a lot since they’ve recreated all the coolest weapons from TV shows and movies in real life. But there’s something ridiculous impressive about making a katana (stylized like the one from Kill Bill) the traditional old school…
Everyone’s fretting about a terrifying article on the terrifying Cascadia Subduction Zone, which will almost certainly deliver the deadliest earthquake in US history. That earthquake would almost certainly be made less deadly with an early warning system that’s ready to be implemented—if only the US would decide to make it a priority. Certainly it is…
Today our own Kate Knibbs documented how she discovered her good name was being used to publish clickbait content on Elite Daily. While Kate was able to reclaim her identity in this instance, the Internet is full of ridiculous scams. I always wonder who falls for spam emails—promises of untold riches, if you’ll only send…
With 20-odd US presidential candidates in the mix, everyone’s trying to pick the winning position on the issues that matter most to Americans. The future of the internet is obviously a big one. Here’s what’s been proposed so far — the good, the bad, and the utterly insane. With the Federal Communication Commission’s new open…
After much controversy, the Boy Scouts of America executive committee just voted unanimously to allow gay adult leaders. The move brings to an end decades of discrimination by one of the country’s most popular youth organizations. The BSA clarified the proceedings that led to this vote: “As a result of the rapid changes in society…
Patentsare often interesting, fanciful things, illustrating inventions that may or may not ever be built. However, when you turn a patent idea into a somewhat animated and slightly offensive explainer video linking the inventions to popular Hollywood war movies, the result is nothing short of art. YouTube user PatentYogi did just that with a descriptively…
After the city of Melbourne assigned its trees email addresses so residents could report anyissues, people began emailing the trees a wide range of correspondence. And sometimes, the trees write back. A lovely story in The Atlantic, “If You Give A Tree An Email Address,” documents Australia’s tree-emailing phenomenon. Melbourne officials probably weren’t expecting an…
It took three master builders two months and over 67,000 pieces of Lego to build this seven foot tall replica of Paris’ Eiffel Tower. But what’s more impressive than how Sean Kenney was able to recreate the structure’s recognizable architecture and lattice-like detailing is how his team managed to bring the model to life with…
Like every popular online service out there—from OkCupid to PornHub—Spotify keeps tabs on its users, and especially their listening trends. The popular streaming site’s already demonstrated its anthropological power to learn about people through music, and now it’s expanding that power to a global scale. Spotify calls this innocuous use of anonymized data gathering as…
This just doesn’t seem possible. Even after watching Jed Mildon nail the world’s first ever BMW quadruple backflip, it doesn’t seem like it could happen in real life here on Earth. And that’s pretty much true! The video below shows the bad falls and crashes and body slamming it took to get this stunt down…
Finding gold in Boeslunde, Denmark, is no huge surprise—it’s known as an area where Bronze Age gold offering are often uncovered, as curators there are explaining this month. But a recent discovery has surprised and baffled archaeologists: 2,000 tiny gold spirals. It’s a “golden enigma.” Boeslunde is in Zealand, the large island that sits between…
Looking for a faster way to call the cops to your neighborhood than 9-1-1? Just follow Grant Thompson, AKA the King of Random’s latest video that has him turning regular balloons into high-flying explosives that sound like a fireworks show but without all the eye candy. Instead of filling the balloons with helium, you’ll need…
Jet Boil’s got a new stove you can actually cook real food on. Therm-A-Rest has a new air mattress that inflates in just seconds. A 9-year-old kid caught a 600lb sturgeon. Mt Fuji got WiFi all the way up. VW’s got a new camper van. Here’s what’s new outside this week. More goes on outdoors…
If you use Google’s new Photos app, Microsoft’s Cortana, or Skype’s new translation function, you’re using a form of AI on a daily basis. AI was first dreamed up in the 1950s, but has only recently become a practical reality — all thanks to software systems called neural networks. This is how they work. Making…
Imagine all the things that our phones get to see. I mean, they’re pretty much with us every step of the way. It can be a camera for concerts, a music player for parties, a distraction on dates, the only light source for the lonely nights at home, and everything in between. To see things…
It’s nice to think that this massive 60-port USB charger will eliminate the battles over available power outlets in your home, allowing everyone to charge all of their mobile devices at the same time. In reality, though, it’s probably only going to buy you a couple of years of sanity before you run out again.…
