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Cnet reports that Google is building something super secret—and super huge—on a barge that’s floating in the San Francisco Bay. What the hell is this thing? According to Cnet, the structure stands four stories tall and is floating on a large barge in the San Francisco Bay, just off shore from Treasure Island. It’s made…
Dry ice is one of the most tried and true Halloween special effects. Simply drop a chunk into a liquid, then it begins to “boil” and emit a dense, creepy fog. Not only that, it’s cheap, simple to use, and way easier to find than you probably thought. It also happens to be fantastic—and fantastically…
Amongst the typical trade-show demo stations and displays at this year’s Photoplus convention in NYC, Sony decided to show off its camera repair process with two dudes poking at DSLRs in a glowing white cube. The repair specialists seemed to be working on actual work orders, complete with paperwork and all. Most of what they…
War photographs aren’t grainy or blurry or dark anymore. Now they are so crispy, clean and dramatic that my brain has problems admitting they are real. Or are they? This collection of awesome combat images are a good example of that. They feel like perfect special effects shots taken out of sci-fi movies or video…
You might miss Empire Drive-In if you don’t know it’s there. This theater looks like the average junkyard, full of old cars and salvaged wood. Yet on nights and weekends, it transforms into a one-of-a-kind movie theater with a twist: The junked cars are the seats. On Saturday I payed a visit to the Empire…
We’ve all heard people long for Facebook’s lawless pre-parent days. Back then, it was anything goes—a land filled with photos of keg stands without consequence and all the cussing you could muster. Those people are wrong. Facebook is better with moms. Moms are awesome. Moms on Facebook are even more awesome. Do they embarrass you?…
Just because the world as we know it has come to an end doesn’t mean that people won’t want to read an amusing limerick written on a bathroom stall. And for just $8, this Pocket Shark Tactical Marker is guaranteed to survive almost anything—from a Mad Max-style dystopia, to even a zombie uprising. Let’s see…
As of Friday afternoon, the FBI had managed to seize 144,000 bitcoins from Silk Road’s founder. Worth some $28.5 million in current exchange rates, that’s the largest ever seizure of the cryptocurrency. But based on the Bitcoin trail uncovered in recent weeks, over $50 million could still be missing. https://gizmodo.com/silk-road-kingpin-apparently-hid-a-stash-of-80-million-1441291682 To be more specific, the…
This week in our time capsule news round-up we have questions about the World Series of 2213, the retro-futuristic death of a monorail in Australia, and a bunch of 1988 music that’s scheduled to be unearthed 75 years from today. Boundary Waters Capsule Filled With Fishing Lures, Greatest Hits of 1988 A time capsule in…
If you’ve been watching C-SPAN—and who hasn’t?—you’ll know the House Energy and Commerce Committee started hearings yesterday with the government contractors for HealthCare.gov, the maybe-not-quite-ready-for-prime-time website for the Affordable Care Act. Ostensibly, these hearings are a way for opponents to poke more holes in Obamacare, but it’s also a bleak reminder of the true role…
Imagine a future without batteries. But in the same future, your cell phone charges in minutes and stays charged for weeks. Thanks to the world’s first silicon power cell, this future might not be so far away—and graphene is helping us get there. A team of engineers at Vanderbilt just built such a device. Their…
A coalition of Japanese architects have said what everyone else was too polite to say: That Zaha Hadid-designed stadium is just too big, too expensive, and too impractical. Japanese officials have announced plans to scale back the design, which would cost $3.1 billion to build according to a recent budget update. For reference, that’s more…
In grade school we were all taught to get as low to the ground as possible during a fire, to avoid excessive smoke inhalation. But a fire can also quickly create a dangerous mix of toxic gases hindering a safe escape. A fire fighter’s mask and oxygen tank provides a constant supply of fresh air,…
No need to wait for Black Friday to get a deal on the best TV, Amazon has the Panasonic ST60 for only $1370. We occasionally see this set end up around this price, but it’s always from a far less reputable retailer. This is the television I just bought myself. We give it our strongest…
Our beloved ChefStack automatic pancake machine will always have a place in our hearts, but there’s a good chance this Rotimatic flat bread maker could earn a permanent spot on our kitchen counters. All it needs to churn out delicious piping hot roti is water, flour, oil, and about a minute of patient waiting. https://gizmodo.com/at-giz-gallery-09-chefstack-automatic-pancake-maker-5355113…
No cable, no problem. The rumors that Comcast is going to let you pay for HBO like you pay for Netflix are true. Comcast is now the first company to let you have HBO without being trapped in a basic cable plan. https://gizmodo.com/comcast-plans-to-offer-the-closest-thing-to-an-hbo-go-s-1451859769 Comcast is testing an offering called Internet Plus, which gives you broadcast…
Holy crap. A 17-year-old girl in China’s Fujian Province has just received a new face from skin that was grown on her very own chest. Oh, the marvels of modern medicine. Advanced warning that while this story is ultimately uplifting, the images below are pretty gross. When she was five she sustained horrible burns that…
An anything-goes approach to development is a time-honored tradition in New York (see: this plan to fill in the East River). But developers may be reaching a breaking point in Manhattan, where warehouses are being bought to build $100 million single-family homes. https://gizmodo.com/6-radical-infrastructure-schemes-that-almost-changed-ny-636053287 A handful of real estate stories this week question whether NYC is…
See that huge flesh melon growing on that woman’s chest? It may look like a gross oversized tumor but, according to the Global Times, it’s part of a brilliant plan by Chinese doctors to reconstruct her face, severely disfigured in a fire when she was five years old. The kid lost most of her skin,…
For as much as we rely on the Mississippi River for trade, transportation, and agricultural irrigation, the world’s third-largest tributary system has only recently been tamed. One multiple occasions, the mighty Mississippi has overflown its banks, flooding into the surrounding valley, destroying property and lives. After an especially damaging series of floods in 1912, 1913,…
