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While everyone drinks coffee, tea is a beverage for the more discerning drinker. But where in the world do people drink the most? Last week, Quartz published a visualization of the world’s biggest coffee drinkers; now it’s time to fort tea. Stereotypes might suggest the UK would come top, but that’s not quite right. In…
Behold the Severodvinsk—the pride of the Russian Navy, the first of the post-Soviet era Yasen-class submarines. It entered service at the end of December 2013 and it will replace the old Akula-class and Alfa-class subs. But unlike those warships, and thanks to a new cruise missile, the Severodvinsk has strategic and tactical nuclear weapon capabilities.…
Because when everyone hangs out somewhere, those awkward conversations—just like the ones you end up having in the middle of Walmart when you bump into someone you barely know—are inevitable. “What I really want is to hang out where I hung out with my friends in college,” muses Randall Munroe in the mouse-over of today’s…
Brooklyn-based photographer Zack Seckler took to the skies over Botswana in an ultra, ultra, ultra-light aircraft to take these incredible pics of native wildlife doing its collective thang. From less than 500 feet up, he was able to capture zebras, cows, and vegetation that are so beautifully composed they look like they’re part of a…
Apple’s latest iPad advert shows the tablet being used by helicopter rescue pilots, storm chasers, ice hockey coaches, musicians, Bollywood filmmakers, scuba divers, rock musicians and artists. But let’s face it, you’re using it on the toilet, aren’t you? The above, from Doghouse Diaries, pretty much nails it. Click “Expand” to embiggen. Below, the Apple…
The latest in a line of UnCarrier tactics, T-Mobile has just announced that it’s launching a Mobile Money service—a personal finance system that uses a smartphone app and pre-paid Visa card to help people handle their cash. T-Mobile customers will be able to use the service without paying any fees, allowing them to deposit checks…
I don’t know about you guys, but there is precisely none chance of me sticking Mr. Wiggly anywhere near that thing.
Like in Game of Thrones, where the Iron Throne was forged from the swords of all the enemies Aegon the Conqueror defeated, this Cyclosa spider uses its dead enemies’ bodies to build a big fake spider decoy design to sit on. Seriously, the spider uses its victim’s insect corpses to construct a larger spider-shaped design…
It’s okay. It’s not just you. You didn’t pop a pill you shouldn’t have before your afternoon coffee. You’re not in a dream world. The billboard actually looks like that in real life and apparently it’s on purpose, the broken electronic billboard is being tested for all working colors. I see acid. The picture, recently…
The latest Elizabeth Velvdon track is quite distinct from other recent work of hers. Where her “The Pure Water, Filled with Light”” was a solo piano work marked by brief moments of melodic fragments and sudden stoppages, her “The Frost Is Setting In” is a deep, “longform” drone that tests the listener’s patience at the…
The Outdoor Public Warning System siren at the corner of 21st Ave and Geary in San Francisco.
Wall text from Jason Lazarus exhibit at Contemporary Jewish Museum.
What’s your favorite thing to see explode? Never thought about it? How could you. I think it might have to be the watermelon The hard outer shell of the fruit makes for perfect fragmentation, the watermelon’s shape holds an explosive pretty darn well and its red flesh makes for colorfully gory splashes (especially against the…
Sometimes, you never knew you wanted something until someone drops it in your lap. That’s exactly what Bodelin Technologies has done with their smartphone-powered ProScope Micro Mobile microscope. This genius little thing now works underwater. Truth be told, the ProScope Micro Mobile has been around for a while, but this upgrade opens it up for…
It’s amazing the new tricks that people can just invent with their bikes. Once you think that everything has been done before, someone decides to murder the laws of physics. This new trick though might be more impressive because I’m getting the spins just looking at it. How does the rider manage to land such…
This week’s roundup includes sex, violence, and truffles—the last of which is not unlike the drug trade, with a surprisingly shady underside. So, without further ado, here’s this week’s R-rated landscape reads. Mud as a weapon of war The supply line for guerrilla fighters in Southern Vietnam included hundreds of miles of dirt roads nicknamed…
Phoenix, Arizona, is a famously fast-growing city. But, instead of growing up, the city has almost uniformly grown out, with terracotta-tiled subdivisions consuming the adjacent desert at a frightening rate: some estimates claim its suburbs grew an acre per hour during the early 2000s housing boom. A story on Marketplace discusses how Phoenix has been…
Cyclists can adorn themselves from head to toe in flashing lights, but it’s still possible that pedestrians and drivers won’t see them until it’s too late. It’s a problem the Blaze Laserlight hopes to solve by projecting an early warning signal 16 to 20 feet ahead of a cyclist, so that others on the road…
Last week, we asked you where you thought Obama’s forthcoming presidential library should be built: Chicago, Hawaii, or (psh) New York? Chicago was the popular winner, and now the first speculative design for a Chicago library has been published online. Michael Sorkin, a New York architect who has designed masterplans everywhere from Chicago to China,…
Sochi, Russia, the host city of next month’s Winter Olympics, is nothing close to cold right now. The temperature hovers at a very mild 55 degrees which means it’s very far from freezing which means it’s very far from snowing. But. Like. Um. You kind of need snow to host a Winter Olympics. So Sochi…
