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Adam Magyar is a wizard who knows how to freeze reality, capturing the passing of time into one single image, turning daily moments that are constantly ignored by everyone into fascinating views of humanity and the world that surrounds us. His techniques are pretty damn cool.
Nobody knows the future. This may seem like an obvious statement, but it bears repeating. Nobody knows the future. Most people can generally accept this idea. But when it comes to our favorite prognosticator, we often put blinders on. Futurism is an imperfect craft in which the most earnest and educated individual must practice a…
Portland celebrates another safe year for cyclists, Hamburg goes car-free, San Francisco rents its curbs to tech buses, Houston’s got some wacky architecture, and L.A. is the city of the future—or a city in decline? It’s all in this week’s Urban Reads. In 2013, the city of Portland, Oregon, reported zero bike fatalities—again. They also…
Photographer Olivier Grunewald first learned about the Kawah Ijen volcano in 2008. A sulfur mine by day, this infernal Indonesian mountain turns into a surreal alien landscape when the night comes. His pictures—taken in very dangerous conditions—are stunning: He and his friend Régis Etienne have gone back repeatedly to photograph and film this incredible unearthly…
Windows 8 was an incredible change, if not quite incredible. It wasn’t untilWindows 8.1that a lot of the kinks were smoothed out. Now, Microsoft’s annual BUILD conference is coming in April, and rumor has it that Windows 9 might be showing up. That’s all well and good, but please Microsoft, don’t go backtracking on us.…
Nobody likes looking like a tourist, especially in their hometown—but with a public transportation system as complex as Tokyo’s, sometimes a map is entirely necessary. Need a simple solution to avoid getting lost while looking like a native? Wear your map in a hidden place. That’s exactly what this Bluebelland brand necktie offers. It looks…
Photovoltaic panels aren’t the most glamorous technology: They’re usually tucked away on a roof, and when you can see them, they’re ugly. And inefficient. But what if they made architecture more beautiful? And what if they were more efficient, working even at night? Say hi toRawlemon, a solar ball lens that is quickly making its…
The Sony NEX-3NL was a great camera when it hit the market for $500, but at under $300, this deal is unmissable for anyone looking for a great portable camera, ready to downsize their DSLR, or interested in diving into an interchangeable lens ecosystem for the first time. Retractable power zoom lens, tilting LCD, 16MP,…
Mother Nature is lovely, but relentless; more and more, it seems like recovery-mode is standard operating procedure for large swathes of the world. On a small scale, some designers are finding ways to give new life to the damage left behind by natural disasters. Following a 5.9 earthquake that shook northern Italy in 2012, prolific…
From faked Austrian villages to cloned Russian jets, China’s reputation for shameless counterfeiting is well-earned. Now, a Chinese firm has plans to build a replica of the Titanic and take visitors on a morbid ride that recreates the sinking of the original. The plan, put forth by the Seven Star Energy Investment Group group, calls…
We all ate play dough as a child. Anyone who says otherwise is lying—to themselves and everyone else. But there’s no reason to be ashamed! The makers of Play-Doh and its off-brand variants know that children (and if we’re being honest, adults) are going to want to stick every sort of candy-colored goo they can…
The European Space Agency released this nice time-lapse video today of the Soyuz flight VS06. The Gaia space observatory lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 19 December 2013. This resulting film shows Gaia’s sunshield deployment test, the transfer of the Soyuz from the assembly building to the launch pad, and the eventual…
My email is full of spam and bills and newsletters I mean to read but never do. Rarely do I use my personal account to actually, you know, communicate with my actual friends and family. What about you? Do you, like me, detest your email account? Are you wishing you never subscribed to X, Y,…
Six years ago, a patch of land in the Inner Mongolian desert became unnaturally flat. Researchers, for the sake of science, had razed 40 acres—or the equivalent of eight city blocks—of desert. Then, for three and half years, they set up cameras and watched as small piles of sand grew and grew into full-fledged sand…
In an experiment straight out of a comic book, Virginia Tech scientists have found a way to improve sensory abilities. All it takes is a detailed map of the brain, an ultrasound gun, and a willing patient. What could go wrong? The experiment was simple enough. The Virginia Tech team directed ultrasound waves at a…
Spiders are horrifying. Especially Lego steampunk spiders. This Lego creation by Imagine Rigney is based on Arliss Loveless’s tarantula contraption from Will Smith’s unfortunate steampunk flick, The Wild Wild West. The spider was the best part of that terrible film. Now rendered in Lego form, it’s even cooler. This mechanical Lego spider was built for…
Somebody at the Associated Press’s Boston bureau is having a pretty weird Monday. A little before lunchtime their very real Twitter account announced this highly incomprehensible scoop. The tweet has since been deleted, but we’re waiting on an official retraction.
Between the Downtown Project’s area and the Arts District is the new Las Vegas City Hall, a gleaming mirage of a building surrounded by a forest of photovoltaics. This is where the city leadership moved after it leased its old City Hall to Tony Hsieh’s company Zappos—a move that you can’t help but imbue with…
Today, NASA’s Earth Observatory brings us this beautiful image of the Missouri River taken from the International Space Station. Its one of its bends occupied by “Lake Sharpe, an approximately 130 kilometer (80 mile) long reservoir formed behind the Big Bend Dam.”
Normally, you wouldn’t want to have a cannon aimed at your face, much less a cannon that can see your face and follow it around. But a team of mechanical and electrical engineering students at Olin College decided to challenge that notion with their marshmallow-firing Confectionary Cannon. It’s worth getting in this sucker’s sights. The…
