This is pretty awesome. I really hope it works. Though it is also very clear that most of these folks grew up in the 60s. LOL @ a 'sit-in'
Democrats are currently staging a sit-in at the House of Representatives to demand a vote on gun control legislation, and Republicans aren't happy about it -- they're declaring recesses to shut off cameras (which are controlled by the House) and down...
A federal ethics and biosafety panel has approved the first ever human trials of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania aim to modify the immune system "T cells" in patients, helping them better fight...
If you needed more proof that people in those inflatable T-Rex costumes are the purest form of entertainment, look no further than the hero who ran the American Ninja Warrior course in one.
Visit the original post to see all 3 images from this gallery.
In the Lombardy region of Italy, the artist Christo has unveiled his latest installation, “The Floating Piers,” a walkway stretching nearly two miles to connect two small islands to each other and to the mainland.
The floating walkway is made from a puckered yellow-orange, waterproof nylon fabric, crafted to change color depending on the time of day and the weather. When it rains, it becomes splattered with bright orange blotches left by footsteps treading on the soaked fabric.
“It’s actually very painterly, like an abstract painting, but it will change all the time,” Christo, a Bulgarian-born American citizen, told The New York Times about his installation.
The route loops the small island of San Paolo before entering pedestrian areas in the towns of Sulzano, on the mainland, and Peschiera Maraglio, on Monte Isola, an islet rising out of the lake. The project, he said, “is all this” — the piers, the lake, the mountains, “with the sun, the rain, the wind, it’s part of the physicality of the project, you have to live it.”
“The Floating Piers” will be open and free to the public between June 18 and July 3, after which it will be dismantled and recycled. “The important part of this project is the temporary part, the nomadic quality,” Christo said. “The work needs to be gone, because I do not own the work, no one does. This is why it is free.” Read the full piece over at The New York Times.
It's time for Mozilla to get a new look and, true to its open-source roots, the Firefox developer is turning to the community for feedback on what its redesign should entail. The nonprofit has launched an Open Design process to "modernize [its] brand...
Hey Australians! We need a lot more submissions for Sydney BAHFest. Please send in a one-page proposal and nudge that nerdy friend of yours to do the same.
After six years of litigation, Sony is now agreeing to pay the price for its 2010 firmware update that removed support for the Linux operating system in the PlayStation 3.
Sony and lawyers representing as many as 10 million console owners reached the deal on Friday. Under terms of the accord, (PDF) which has not been approved by a California federal judge yet, gamers are eligible to receive $55 if they used Linux on the console. The proposed settlement, which will be vetted by a judge next month, also provides $9 to each console owner who bought a PS3 based on Sony's claims about "Other OS" functionality.
The deal also provides up to $2.25 million in attorneys' fees for the lawyers who brought suit. Under the plan, gamers eligible for a cash payment are "all persons in the United States who purchased a Fat PS3 model in the United States between November 1, 2006, and April 1, 2010." The accord did not say how much it would cost Sony, but the entertainment company is expected to pay out millions.
Comparing racing sims to real cars driving on real race tracks has been a thing for a while now. Way back in 2006, Jeremy Clarkson went head-to-head against himself at Laguna Seca in real life versus Gran Turismo 4. And I've been known to use Forza as a way of doing some training ahead of going racing for real. Now, courtesy of Castrol EDGE you can watch two of the world's best racing drivers pit themselves against, well, themselves, in a pair of jaw-dropping hypercars at the Ascari Race Resort in Spain.
Darren Turner tries to beat his simulator time in the real Aston Martin Vulcan
If you saw Top Gear this past weekend you'll know about the Aston Martin Vulcan. It's a track-only hypercar (i.e. it's not road-legal), made from beautifully crafted carbon fiber and powered by an 800hp V12 engine. Just 24 Vulcans will ever be built, and if you wanted one you needed to stump up more than $2.6 million. Exclusive stuff!
Darren Turner was behind the wheel of the real and digital Vulcans. Turner has a long background racing for Aston Martin's works team, having won Le Mans twice for the marque. And he's no stranger to simulators either; when he's not racing for Aston Martin, he runs a professional simulator business that racing drivers use to hone their skills away from the track.
"Every aspect of the car and driver needs to be pushed to the limit when achieving the best lap times. When you’re racing one of the world’s fastest supercars using Castrol EDGE it gives you the confidence you need to push yourself and your machine to the extreme. Beating my best performance by 1.1 seconds gave me an incredible rush," Turner said about the experience.
Konigsegg test driver Christoffer Nygaard head to head against himself in the Konigsegg One:1
But wait, there's more. If Aston Martin doesn't do it for you, how about Swedish hypercar merchant Konigsegg? It's even more exclusive than the Vulcan (just six have been built) and even more powerful; how does 1,360hp (1,014kW) sound in a car that weighs just 1360kg? The One:1 was driven in real life and the simulator by Christoffer Nygaard, Kongisegg's test driver (Nygaard has raced alongside Turner for Aston Martin as well).
Nygaard was also able to edge out an advantage in the real world. "I always knew that being confronted by my ultimate best potential was going to be a challenge. I pushed myself harder than I might against any other rival. Beating my digital clone, if only by a hair's breadth 0.8 of a second, was incredibly rewarding," he said.
Castrol EDGE worked with UK-based VR company REWIND to come up with a custom sim of the Ascari track and digital versions of the two cars. If you're interested in a look behind the scenes, they even put together a "making of" video. Pretty cool stuff.
Aliens DO exist, according to the former Blink-182 guitarist.
On July 1, pop-punk legends Blink-182 are set to release the band's seventh full-length album, California. Notably absent, of course, will be vocalist/guitarist and founding member Tom DeLonge.
Tony Woolliscroft / WireImage
Since parting ways last year, Blink-182 has pressed on with Alkaline Trio frontman Matt Skiba replacing DeLonge, while DeLonge has been busy with he has calls "a national security issue" in a new interview with Mic.
DeLonge's newest endeavor, Sekret Machines, is a multimedia project focusing on investigating extra-terrestrial life, including searching for UFOs. DeLonge says he's "being gifted with the opportunity to communicate something you've been passionate about your whole life — something that has the opportunity to change the world over time — being a small part of that is enormously important for my life path."
"But I can't do everything," he adds. "I can't tour nine months out of the year with enough time to do the enormity of what I'm setting out to do."
"Events have happened on the ground," claims DeLonge. "It's all around us. I know of stuff I can't talk about right now. "
Had some awesome lobster rolls in Maine last weekend. Though not sure any of them surpassed the Sesuit Harbor ones!
Spending next weekend in the city might be a very good idea.
Ellie Sunakawa / BuzzFeed
If you're looking for a simple menu in a swanky 'hood, try Ed's Lobster Bar.
Get the lobster roll, which comes with fries and Ed's pickles. The menu at Ed's is classic and straightforward. Try your lobster roll with a side of fried Ipswich clams ($17).
Where: Two locations. 22 Lafayette St, Soho, and 52 Gansevoort St, Meatpacking District Cost: Market price
There's a reason Luke's Lobster has grown from a single NYC location to a cross-country franchise: Their signature lobster roll is just about perfect, filled with big chunks of knuckle and claw meat, chilled and dressed with lemon butter and spices, then served in a mayo-swiped split-top bun. Get the Taste of Maine sampler — which comes with 1/2 a lobster roll, 1/2 a crab roll, 1/2 a shrimp roll, two crab claws, and sides.
Where: Multiple locations in NYC and across the country Cost: $24 at most NYC locations
More details on standalone Gwent. tldr: there are single player campaigns, as well as multiplayer.
Didn't you hear? Collectible card games are all the rage these days, what with Blizzard's Hearthstone sporting over 20 million players, Magic: The Gathering going through some kind of renaissance, and publishers like Bethesda definitely not trying to cash in on the whole thing with games like The Elder Scrolls: Legends. And so at this year's E3 we have yet another entry in the genre from developers CD Projekt Red, a Witcher 3 spin-off called Gwent. The difference is, Gwent is far more than just a collectible card game. This one has an honest-to-god proper storyline. There's even an open-world map to explore.
For the uninitiated, Gwent was originally a collectible card game embedded into the vast world of The Witcher 3. Only, as player data began to trickle in, CD Projekt Red discovered that many players were spending hours roaming inns during quests just to play Gwent. Some even ignored the main game entirely. This was more than enough incentive for the developer to spin Gwent off into its own free-to-play game across PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. And in true CD Projekt Red fashion, it's gone a little overboard in the process.
Instead of just pitching players against each another in one-on-one card battles, Gwent features several single-player campaigns, each of of which has its own unique storyline and lead character, is fully voice acted, and is brought to life via some highly stylised 2D drawings that gently slide across the screen. There's even an overworld map where, in the demo I was shown at least, you control a cute 2D Geralt to explore and find hidden snippets of story, or extra cards to add to your deck. Each campaign is said to last a whopping 10 hours or so too.
TLDR: PS4 might put out games at 60fps or less, which can make people sick. And Oculus is creating a rift in the formerly open PC gaming market (see what I did there?!) by not allowing some games to be played on other VR headsets, so they'd be exclusively on the Rift.
Which, yeah, that's what consoles sometimes do, but the PC market has been open for quite some time now, and this is bad for PC Gaming and bad for VR. I bet they wouldn't be making that move if they weren't owned by Facebook. *shakes tiny fist at Baisley/Davison*
After years of being teased with prototypes, developer kits and tech demos, it's finally happening: Virtual reality is on the cusp of going mainstream. Need evidence? Just look at the events of E3 2016. Over the past week, the first-ever VR headset f...
It hasn't even been a month since Blizzard launched its hotly-anticipated hero shooter Overwatch, so they had little to reveal during E3. Amid their victory lap for snagging 7 million players the week after it went live, the game's director Jeff Kapl...
1. If Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson were president, he'd give the greatest inauguration speech of all time.
2. It would be so beautiful, that doves would cry.
3. Gone would be the day of boring political speeches; a new era of comedic insults and charismatic catchphrases would be ushered in.
4. His first act would be to redecorate the Oval Office by installing a weight set.
5. Everyone in his cabinet would be given cool nicknames.
6. Like "The Axe" for the head of the Department of Agriculture or "The Body" for the head of the Department of Health.
7. No one would fuck with America.
8. Because seriously, look at his guns.
WWE / Joe Raedle / Getty Images / BuzzFeed
9. He'd be shirtless in his presidential portrait.
10. Which would be enough to motivate everyone to get in shape.
11. And they'd be helped immensely by his "clanging and banging" programme, that would provide everyone with free weights.
12. Cheat days would be declared national holidays, and they'd be legendary.
13. His presidential merchandise would completely sell out.
14. Especially his range of presidential action figures.
15. He'd be the first president to compete in a Royal Rumble.
16. Where he'd throw everyone out of the ring, before stepping over the top-rope himself, claiming "I've got a country to run. I'll leave this to the young guys."
17. Which would help to inspire a new generation to get involved in politics. A better generation.
The Bramble Cay melomys, a rodent native to a single tiny Australian landmass near Papua New Guinea, is the first mammal species proven to have gone extinct from rising sea levels caused by global climate change. What do you think?
Looks pretty sweet... might get me to think about buying the NX, whatever that ends up being.
Nintendo wasn't lying, or even exaggerating. There really has never been a Legend of Zelda game quite like Breath of the Wild, and the series should be all the better for it. I've extensively played (if not quite finished) every major Zelda game, but...
Following Sunday’s tragic mass shooting in Orlando—the deadliest in US history—the American Medical Association has officially declared gun violence in the US an unrivaled public health crisis. With this declaration, the AMA will now actively lobby Congress to overturn legislation that has kept the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention from researching gun violence for the past 20 years—legislation backed largely by the National Rifle Association.
In a statement, AMA President Steven J. Stack, M.D, said:
"With approximately 30,000 men, women and children dying each year at the barrel of a gun in elementary schools, movie theaters, workplaces, houses of worship and on live television, the United States faces a public health crisis of gun violence. Even as America faces a crisis unrivaled in any other developed country, the Congress prohibits the CDC from conducting the very research that would help us understand the problems associated with gun violence and determine how to reduce the high rate of firearm-related deaths and injuries. An epidemiological analysis of gun violence is vital so physicians and other health providers, law enforcement, and society at large may be able to prevent injury, death and other harms to society resulting from firearms."
The AMA now joins other medical organizations, including the American College of Physicians and American College of Surgeons, in declaring gun violence a public health crisis and pushing for renewed research. However, the declaration from the AMA may hold the most clout as the powerful organization has a massive membership and is a top spender when it comes to lobbying. Between 1998 and 2011, the AMA came up as the second highest spender on lobbying in the country, shelling out around $263 million.
These are starting to get less and less funny as they get more and more real.
NEW YORK—According to an alarming new global risk report published Tuesday by the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump may be just seven months away from acquiring nuclear weapons. “A year ago, the threat didn’t seem great enough to warrant serious concern, but at this moment, a nuclear-capable Trump is now a very real and very imminent possibility,” said UNODA high representative Kim Won-soo, adding that the agency’s current projections showed Trump potentially procuring nuclear weapons, as well as advanced ballistic missile technology, as early as January of next year. “The longer we wait to act, the closer he comes to obtaining a nuclear arsenal. The final red line for preventing him from acquiring this devastating capability comes in early November. If he is not properly dealt with before then, there will be no way to stop him from going nuclear ...
There’s a popular notion that liberals are science-minded, while conservatives are the major perpetrators of anti-science rhetoric. But astrophysicist and science personality Neil DeGrasse Tyson says the left is deluding itself.
Tyson appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher last week and said that both parties are hotbeds of scientific idiocy—it’s just compartmentalized into different issues. The context of this debate being that Maher himself is the embodiment of liberal anti-science ideas.
“Don’t be all high and mighty there,” Tyson said to Maher, interrupting Maher’s anti-Repbulican screed. “Because there is certain aspects of science denial that are squarely in the liberal left.”
“I know one, but I don’t want to get into it,” Maher replied, subtly denoting vaccine skepticism.
Tyson lists the anti-vaccine movement, alternative medicine and opposition to genetically modified organisms as examples of left wing anti-science. Most of these movements were kickstarted by leftist new agers in California, causing serious public health repercussions to the country.
Maher was less receptive to Tyson’s argument, which is not surprising, as he is guilty of many of the left’s anti-science dumbassery. Maher is a long-time vaccine skeptic, an avid anti-flu shotter, and has made repeated claims about the debunked notion of toxins building up in the body. During the H1N1 swine flu epidemic Bill Maher declared himself immune to the flu because of his superior lifestyle. He even tried to convince David Letterman to replace his medication with alternative medicine not long after Dave survived a heart attack and bypass surgery.
“You want Dave to live, right?” Maher smugly asked the audience.
Maher even fawned over Charlie Sheen’s quack doctor, who supposedly treated Sheen’s AIDS with herbal remedies, and did not question the doctor on any of his bogus claims.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31eJZKFO2NQ
Tyson’s critique of the left hit a little too close to home for Maher and his perpetual worldview of “left good, right bad.” Maher and his long history of anti-science on-air advocacy definitely needs a healthy shot of reality.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have an espresso machine for beer and bypass the whole fermentation process? It sounds like simple wishful thinking, but it turns out such a thing actually exists, and has for some time now.
SodaStream has been selling home carbonation machines that let you turn tap water into soda for over two and a half decades, and now it looks all set to enter the beer market, as well. The company has apparently come up with an instant beer concentrate that works with their soda machines, allowing anyone to turn water into beer at the press of a button.
The new Beer Bar kit turns SodaStream machines into microbreweries, enabling you to create crafted beer in seconds by simply adding a unique “Blondie” concentrate. The resulting brew has 4.5% alcohol content and allegedly has a “smooth authentic taste and a hop-filled aroma.” According to a company statement, one liter of Blondie yields three liters of cold brewski.
“We are excited to launch a brand dedicated to serving the global growing trend of home crafted beer,” Chief Executive Officer of SodaStream Daniel Birnbaum said. “Our core carbonation technology and distribution infrastructure provide a great platform for us to extend our business into this emerging category, and we choose to do so with a dedicated beer brand.”
But instant beer has a somewhat cheap sound to it, so to get the market’s reaction to Beer Bar before an expensive worldwide launch, SodaStream is first testing it in Germany and Switzerland. It is expected to roll out in other markets later this year and in early 2017.
Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the last few years, you'll recognise this happy chap as the baddest man in Westeros – The Mountain.
HBO
You'll also probably know by now that the actor who plays him – 27-year-old Icelander, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson – is one of the strongest men in the world.
At present he is the reigning third strongest man in the world, which is OK. I guess.
NEW YORK—Confessing that they are unable to explain the presence of the two men who always accompany the championship trophy, officials from the NHL admitted Friday that they have absolutely no idea who the guys with white gloves carrying the Stanley Cup actually are. “They just showed up after the Oilers won Game 7 of the 1987 Finals, holding the Stanley Cup as they walked onto the ice for the trophy presentation, and it was only later that we realized no one ever hired them or asked them to do that,” said league executive John Payette, who further clarified that the two men are not, and have never been, NHL employees or on the league’s payroll. “They never speak, which is a little off-putting, but they’re constantly smiling, so they seem pretty nice. Since they always show up on time with the Cup for potential championship-clinching games ...
Democrats are currently staging a sit-in at the House of Representatives to demand a vote on gun control legislation, and Republicans aren't happy about it -- they're declaring recesses to shut off cameras (which are controlled by the House) and down...
A federal ethics and biosafety panel has approved the first ever human trials of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania aim to modify the immune system "T cells" in patients, helping them better fight...
It's time for Mozilla to get a new look and, true to its open-source roots, the Firefox developer is turning to the community for feedback on what its redesign should entail. The nonprofit has launched an Open Design process to "modernize [its] brand...
After years of being teased with prototypes, developer kits and tech demos, it's finally happening: Virtual reality is on the cusp of going mainstream. Need evidence? Just look at the events of E3 2016. Over the past week, the first-ever VR headset f...
It hasn't even been a month since Blizzard launched its hotly-anticipated hero shooter Overwatch, so they had little to reveal during E3. Amid their victory lap for snagging 7 million players the week after it went live, the game's director Jeff Kapl...
Nintendo wasn't lying, or even exaggerating. There really has never been a Legend of Zelda game quite like Breath of the Wild, and the series should be all the better for it. I've extensively played (if not quite finished) every major Zelda game, but...
