Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
It’s always cool when animators give fans a look at the what it takes to create a TV show or movie, and these Hunter X Hunter frames prove it takes a lot of work. Takahiko Abiru, one of the animation directors, has been tweeting some of the 18,000 frames he drew for the show since…
It’s been nearly 40 years since Jim Baker died after diving off a cliff in Hawaii, but members of the utopian community he founded still call him Father. In recent years, they’ve gone about resurrecting the memory of the cult, and its weird philosophy which melded the decadence of 1960s pop culture with weird spirituality.…
Artist Dan Hernandez has an awesome new show up in New York City at the Kim Foster Gallery, combining Renaissance theology with the iconography of early computer game art—or Space Invaders by way of the Book of Genesis. As Rebecca Robertson describes the exhibition in ARTnews, “To imagine epic battles between heaven and earth, Dan…
The world is running out of space. Truth be told, the world is running out of a lot of things, but some very simple tweaks to our lifestyle could make the space issue less of an problem. That’s why students at the Savannah College of Art and Design built the SCADpad. It’s tiny. It’s cheap.…
Like ghosts? Then you’ll love Poveglia, a small, deserted island in the Venetian lagoon that’s going on the auction block next month. It’s been called “the island of madness,” “Hell,” and “the most haunted place on Earth.” You’d just love it to pieces. No, but seriously, this place sounds scary. The trouble started back in…
Luckily for Eric Hjorleifson, the avalanche that he started by going down a big mountain pillow line doesn’t fully consume him, leaving him relatively unscathed—he just “twisted his knee a bit.” You can hear the fear in his heavy breathing after the incident, though. I don’t blame him. It’s quite scary. SPLOID is a new…
For one day and one day only, Google decided to open the Glass floodgates to anyone living in the US. Yes, your opportunity to hand Google $1500 of your hard-earned cash for a faceputer has finally arrived. Up until now, Google’s been doling out Glass™-portunities through Twitter, making each new Explorer feel like the special…
New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman is on a roll lately in his quest to hold architects accountable for their design shortcomings. His latest target? The firm HOK, which he says has turned tech manufacturer LG’s new headquarters into an “eyesore.” What’s so wrong with the proposed LG building? One of the biggest areas…
You probably don’t remember The Fifth Element game for Playstation because it was so crappy. And you don’t remember this 8-bit The Fifth Element game because, sadly, it never existed. It’s just a video made by those jerks at CineFix, who keep taunting us with awesome but fake retro game remakes of classic movies. Our…
As a genre, “desk toys” are usually pretty corny, from Newton’s Cradle sculptures to creepy meditation balls. But these tiny creatures—which are miniatures of the giant self-propelled sculptures designed by Dutch artist Theo Jansen—are anything but. Jansen is best known for his huge moving creatures, which he calls Strandbeests. These incredible mechanisms, often made out…
Siena is a lioness who recently got severely mauled by a buffalo. It’s so bad that looking at her standing up with her leg almost ripped off her body looks like a surreal scene from a zombie movie. Happily, the vets rushed to save her life so she could take care of her cubs. WARNING:…
Today is the anniversary of Landsat 7’s launch, marking 15 years and over 1.7 million images of our changing planet. Tour the US Geological Survey’s gallery of favourite images, or browse the entire collection for free. von Karman vortices, formed as winds are pierced by the towering Alexander Selkirk Island. Acquired by Landsat in 1999.…
Unless you live in a place where snow and winter never show their ugly faces, a year-round garden is out of the question. But if your green thumb results in a surplus of herbs during the summer, you can always freeze them in this handy grinder that keeps them fresh and easy to serve during…
Happy Tax Day! Do you know where your tax dollars are going? No? Doesn’t that seem a little ridiculous? What if you could tell the government exactly how to spend your hard-earned money? Now you can—even if it is hypothetically. The New IRS is a project that lets you tell the U.S. how you’d like…
Over the last 47 years, Southwest Airlines has built a vibrant—if a little goofy—airborne community. Now some of that culture is fueling urban improvements on the ground. Southwest’s new initiative called the Heart of the Community is working to build public spaces in all of the 90 cities the airline serves. “Southwest has always been…
You can buy light bulbs with every kind of color temperature, brightness, and finish you can imagine these days. So the need for a lamp shade to diffuse, soften, and direct their light is all but unnecessary—unless you yearn for that classic lamp silhouette. In that case, this LED lamp from YOY design is a…
The countdown is on to rebuild communications with a spacecraft before it drifts past this summer. The craft has functional instruments, but NASA has no budget to reactivate the program. It’s up to private donors and dedicated volunteers to recapture the abandoned spacecraft. Launched in the 1970s, repurposed & renamed in 1980s, the ICE/ISEE space…
Every year, Smithsonian Magazine launches a photo contest culling the most amazing images from a globe’s worth of submissions. Here are our ten favorites from the pool of finalists. Photograph by Graham McGeorge (Jacksonville, Florida). FINALIST: Natural World McGeorge spent a quiet 6 hours trying to get the perfect image of this eastern screech owl…
Charlie Francis is no stranger to unusual ice cream concoctions—he’s the same guy who brought us a $225 scoop of luminescent jellyfish ice-cream just last year. Before you start licking his latest creation, though,better get yourself a prescription. Because each scoop is infused with a healthy, 25mg dose of Viagra. Dubbed “The Arousal” (obviously), Francis’…
A 17-year-old male is now in coma after suffering a heart attack when a friend jokingly squeezed his testicles. Dr. Irwin Goldstein—urologist and San Diego Sexual Medicine’s director—says it’s very possible to have a heart attack because the trauma can release a huge amount of adrenalin. Yes, the testicles are exquisitely sensitive to touch and…
