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Well folks, September is almost here, and you worked hard. Hard enough to earn yourself and everyone else a long weekend. Here are the best stories we wrote this week, in case you missed them while you were workin’ hard for the money. A Gadget That Stops Seats From Reclining Caused a Plane-Diverting Fight Planes…
Self-driving cars are most definitely the future. They have been for decades. For Google, that future isn’t quite as close as you might think—as of right now, its autonomous vehicle would fail a driver’s license test before it ever got out of the parking lot. MIT Technology Review took a closer look at the driving…
Just months before the first moon landing, Neil Armstrong was squeezing in a few more practice landings. In an altogether disconcerting turn of events, the lunar lander exploded during practice. Between our stronger gravity and thick atmosphere, it’s hard to practice landing on the moon by flying on Earth. The best the test flight engineering…
YouTuber The Hacksmith has been working on his Elysium-inspired exoskeleton for a long time. Now it’s finally paid off: The pneumatic-powered cyborg arms let him curl more than 170 pounds like it’s an empty pillow sack, complete with exactly the sort of robotic sounds you’d expect. Clearly, The Hacksmith’s work isn’t done yet—he’s still relying…
When it comes to punishing GoPros, Copenhagen Suborbitals definitely takes the cake: The experimental rocket-building startup mounted an action cam right in the line of (literal) fire during a rocket test. Astoundingly, the thing survived. It’s been to hell and back, and it has the video to prove it. The footage next to the rocket…
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day features an amazing photo by Phill Round. It looks like a frame from a Spielberg movie—an humanoid figure appearing at the base of a mountain, with the unknown starry sky of an alien world behind it. In reality, it’s a man getting into New Zealand’s Hollow Hill Cave. From…
On August 30th, 1984, the space shuttle Discovery launched on its first voyage to space. It wasn’t the first, but over the next 27 years it became the undeniable king of NASA’s shuttle program. That first launch 30 years ago was a clear success, but it capped off an incredibly rocky month for the then-new…
Sometimes you don’t need to show much to turn people on. For me, it’s the lips and the tongue (and kissing and the licking) that send me into hyperdrive. Hyperrealistic painter Hubert de Lartigue seems to share this fascination. His series of large scale lips paintings are amazing—and so erotic. So much that some will…
The Basque Country is the culinary center of the world. Not only for its many gastronomical temples—like Martín Berasategui, Arzak, Zuberoa, or Azurmendi—but for the infinite amount of places where they prepare amazing plates—and pintxos. The Inglorious Basque-ard Burger is Pornburger’s homage to the latter. The ingredients: Braised oxtail burger comes served in it’s own…
If you want to get away from people and feel like you’re not living on Earth while living on Earth, the places that come to mind are like Iceland for the out of this world alien paradise life or Montana for the punishingly beautiful outdoors or New Zealand, where the world looks like it hides…
Hey! Friday night! Time to celebrate. With beer. Since we already know what happens to us once we’ve popped the top on a few too many cold ones—hello, hangover—let’s take a look at what happens to that can after you’ve pounded it; chances are, it will be less than a few months until it’s already…
Labor Day is near so summer is just about wrapped up which means the idea of cold and winter is just beginning to percolate. And the best part about winter is thinking about it. When you can remember the memories of holidays and taste the hot chocolate and not feel a single drop in temperature…
Saving for retirement is tough, especially when you don’t feel you can trust the big banks after all that financial ugliness over the past decade. Your mattress is also a terrible place to acrue funds, but you know what isn’t? A half rubber swine that can be crammed into the end of a mug, drinking…
It’s always incredible to see ants work as a team by stringing their bodies together like a rope to pull something much heavier back home. It looks a lot like what us humans would do when we’re trying to move something big. Ants, they’re just like us! SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff.…
It’s very clearly a stunt ad, so calibrate your reactions accordingly. But still. Gross. Bissell Canada wants us to believe that they believe in their all-in-one steam cleaner and vacuum so much that they’ll eat off any surface that it cleans. Even if it’s a gross, mucky, grimy subway floor. A senior brand manager for…
Once upon a time there was a beer. A beer with bold flavor and character. A beer that was supposedly America’s first IPA. But then the 1970s happened. The tastes of the masses changed, and not for the better. A tidal wave of flavorless lager rushed in. And this unique, legendary beer was washed away…
Party Down, a short-lived Starz series about struggling actors working for a catering company—was and remains one of the best comedies ever to grace our TVs, and yet it was only two sweet seasons long. But now you have an excuse to Celebrate Ricky Sargulesh all over again, because the series has landed on Hulu…
It’s a long weekend. Time to let your hair down and give the world a big ol’ thumbs up. You know what we want? We want fun. Let’s let good-time guy and party advocate Andrew WK rock us into Friday. There’s not much else to say about this one. Crank the volume. Grab a beer.…
Stand up paddleboarding has reached peak fad, as is evident by the long list of accessories we’re finally seeing that cater to those who’d rather explore the waters on their feet. The one you might actually want to consider, though, is this rather clever standing paddle with a compact sail that pops in and out…
A fire hydrant or a spigot in a park might seem like innocuous civil courtesies, but in our drought-consumed future, they’re dangerous weak spots in the infrastructure that protects our precious natural resources. Public officials in California say their water is being siphoned off illegally—and it may be indicative of a growing black market for…
