DarendukesThis is cool
Taking inspiration from creatures like chameleons who are masters of color-changing camouflage, researchers at MIT’s Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed a new spray-on ink that can infinitely change colors, designs, and patterns when blasted with different wavelengths of light.
DarendukesPolaroid with extra steps. Genius!
There's something appealing about physical photos in the age of smartphone cameras. Sifting through images to find the one perfect shot among hundreds of digital snaps and printing it out to stick on your fridge is deeply satisfying. The new Polaroid...DarendukesGoddamnit
The Metal Gear Solid series was fairly infamous for its many extremely long cutscenes that—at least in the case of Metal Gear Solid 4—sometimes involved players taking their hands off of the controller for hours at a time. To be fair, series creator Hideo Kojima was trying to wrap up the most unexpectedly profound and…
Enlarge / Some of the black-market vaping products that have been found to contain vitamin E acetate, according to the New York State Department of Health. (credit: Flicrk | New York State Department of Health)
Federal and state officials investigating the mysterious eruption of lung illnesses linked to e-cigarette use have turned up a vitamin in vape products that is normally found in supplements and skin creams.
The chemical is vitamin E acetate, or alpha-tocopherol acetate, which is a less acidic, more shelf-stable form of vitamin E. It has an acetate group where an alcohol is usually found on the vitamin’s chemical structure. It’s used in a wide range of personal care products based on (largely unproven) health claims about vitamin E’s antioxidant effects. The more stable form of the vitamin appears in anti-aging wrinkle creams, shave gels, lip balms, shampoos, and soaps, as well as vitamin pills.
Vitamin E acetate is generally considered safe for ingestion and topical use. It’s unclear how the oily supplement might affect the lungs when inhaled from vape products. But based on the latest evidence in the vaping investigations, officials are beginning to suspect the effects are not good.
DarendukesNice.
Samuel Kempf was riding a roller coaster in Spain when he saw an iPhone hurtling through the air. Lesser men may have simply watched helplessly as the phone plummeted to Earth, no doubt getting destroyed in the process, but Kempf is not lesser men. He jumped into action, and like a figure from a Renaissance painting,…
DarendukesThey designed a Halo map.
Lockdown drills have become the norm as schools across the U.S. are forced to grapple with the threat of potential mass shootings every single day. But these schools are also being designed in new ways to minimize the number of deaths during a mass shooting. And this segment from NBC News shows just how strange things…
DarendukesBeen a long time.. this was fun, right?
Good news and better news for fans of Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare. Today EA officially announced Plants Vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville, a brand-new third-person shooter that expands the never-ending conflict with co-op units, explorable free-roam areas, interactive social hubs, and more. Even better,…
PHOENIX—Based on a $3-million multi-decade study, a report released Wednesday by sociologists at Arizona State University found that the best indicator of a kickass party was still a pizza spinning on a turntable. “A stale, greasy pizza revolving on a turntable in place of a vinyl record remains the gold standard of…
Darendukesneat
Enlarge / A Holstein calf, which has not been gene-edited. (credit: Getty | Bloomberg)
A Minnesota-based gene-editing company is left red in the face after it took on bull genetics—and got slammed.
The company, Recombinetics, set out years ago to genetically engineer Holstein dairy cattle to come without their troublesome horns, which farmers typically remove to keep themselves and other cows safe. In 2015, the company seemed to have succeeded, unveiling two hornless bulls, Spotigy and Buri. Recombinetics touted them as a bona fide, 100%-bovine success story.
Though Spotigy was sacrificed for research, Buri lived on to sire 17 offspring—one of whom graced the cover of Wired, as MIT Technology Review notes. And, until just a few months ago, Brazil was set to create a herd of hornless Holsteins from shipments of Buri’s sperm, Wired reported.
DarendukesDon't buy cartridges labeled 'Dank Vapes.'
https://www.inverse.com/article/58581-dank-vapes
Enlarge / A man smokes an e-cigarette. (credit: Getty | Picture alliance)
State and federal investigations into the puzzling burst of severe lung illnesses linked to e-cigarette use—aka vaping—are focusing in on black-market and counterfeit products, according to a report by the Washington Post.
Unknown adulterants and dubious solvents—such as oils and diluting “cutting agents”—in vaping liquids are now the prime suspects behind the illnesses, which have has led to 215 possible cases in 25 states. One person in Illinois has died. Investigators say that in many of the cases, people bought suspect products on the black market or in “pop-up” shops.
Solvents in counterfeit and black-market vaping liquids “can vary a lot,” an unnamed official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told the Post. The official added that solvents sold for mixing home-made vaping liquids may also be mislabeled.
DarendukesWerewolf babies = best babies
A medicine imbroglio left several parents in Spain scrambling to figure out why their children were growing hair all over their bodies.
DarendukesIt's nice to see that Xbox and Playstation crossplay is really starting to become a real thing. Bout time.
PUBG Corp has announced console crossplay is coming to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Bringing PS4 and Xbox One players together "will make the matchmaking pool bigger," said PUBG console producer Koosung Jeong during the Inside Xbox stream at Gamesc...DarendukesThis is hilarious
If you’ve called yourself a gamer in the past 30 years, then you know the name, Hideo Kojima. As the mastermind writer, director, and designer behind the mind-boggling Metal Gear series and the upcoming PS4 exclusive Death Stranding, Kojima is a force to be reckoned with in the video game world, known for his elusive…
Darendukeslol not The Onion
A time capsule sealed in 1969 that was set to reveal its secrets this year has mysteriously—albeit hilariously—wound up containing absolutely nothing, a puzzle that has stumped the township of Derry, New Hampshire.
Darendukes"A 26-year-old Wisconsin man sickened in July told NPR he believed his case was caused by dubious THC-containing vaping liquid he bought off the street. He noted that it looked watered-down and had an off color."
Use reputable dealers my friends.
Enlarge / A person exhales vapor while using an electronic cigarette device in San Francisco, California on Monday, June 24, 2019. (credit: Getty | Bloomberg)
Cases of severe lung disease linked to vaping rose from 94 to 153—a jump of over 60%—in just five days, according to an update by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On Saturday, August 17, the CDC announced its investigation into the cases, which have puzzled health officials. The cases tend to involve gradual breathing difficulties, coughing, fatigue, chest pain, and weight loss, which leads to hospitalization (no one has died from the condition). Health officials say there’s no evidence pointing to an infectious agent behind the illnesses. The only commonality appears to be recent use of e-cigarettes, aka vaping.
As of August 17, the agency had counted 94 probable cases from 14 states between June 28 and August 15. In an update released late Wednesday, August 21, the CDC said the figures are up to 153 probable cases between June 28 and August 20, spanning 16 states.
Darendukesneat
Enlarge / Samples of donated blood in Vacutainer test tubes. (credit: Getty | Universal Images Group)
If death is in the cards, it may also be in your blood.
Measurements of 14 metabolic substances in blood were pretty good at predicting whether people were likely to die in the next five to 10 years. The data was published this week in Nature Communications.
A team of researchers led by data scientists in the Netherlands came up with the fateful 14 based on data from 44,168 people, aged 18 to 109. The data included death records and measurements of 226 different substances in blood. Of the 44,168 people, 5,512 died during follow-up periods of nearly 17 years.
I’ve exchanged some odd DMs with a colleague over the past week as we try to figure out an intriguing new video game about human evolution. He gives me tips about hugging. I give him tips about making sharp sticks. At one point, I told him, “I gotta figure out how to mate.” We are trying to figure out how to advance…
DarendukesWeird game
In Her Story, developer Sam Barlow did a rare thing: He created a new video game format.
Four years later, he's made Telling Lies, which releases on August 23rd. It's a game with almost identical gameplay -- centered simply on typing search terms in...Darendukeswut
Back in February, the EDM producer Marshmello held a live, in-game concert in Fortnite. Depending on your point of view (and, let’s be honest, age) this was either a monumental convergence of two massive bits of cultural phenomena, or absolutely bewildering. Certainly there is something intriguing about the idea of a…
Pop culture can have a huge effect on society, influencing how we dress, what we eat, what we say (“hasta la vista, baby”), and even how we pronounce certain words. Brent Spiner believes the way we all say the word “data” now was directly influenced by his Star Trek: The Next Generation co-star Patrick Stewart.
Darendukesneat
In the dead of night this weekend, someone or something left dozens of ageing TVs on the porches and lawns of Virginia homes.
Darendukesneat
Doctors at a New York City hospital made an alarming discovery last week when a 63-year-old man went to the emergency room for knee pain.
NEW YORK—Panning the new line of intimates as “overtly harmful to women’s self-esteem,” critics unanimously accused lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret of promoting unattainable beauty standards Friday with the release of their new 3-cup bra. “Women will see the Triple Sexy Body By Victoria and think they are somehow 33%…
Darendukesneat
One of approximately 90 legitimate Nintendo World Championship cartridges was unearthed in Seattle on Tuesday, by way of a freak sale of old common NES games. Notice the "0302" at the top? That's a previously undiscovered serial number. [credit: Cody Spencer / Pink Gorilla Games ]
SEATTLE—In the decades since 1990's Nintendo World Championship tournament, its unique prize for participants—a competition-class cartridge with timed versions of classic games Super Mario Bros., Rad Racer, and Tetris—has become a sought-after collector's item. It's among the few "holy grail" games for high-end NES collectors, with an apparent grand total of fewer than 200 in the world. It represents a golden era when Nintendo could host a tournament that captivated a nation (and followed the two-hour commercial of a film that was The Wizard).
Hence, the discovery of any Nintendo World Championship cartridge is a newsworthy event for a certain class of retro-gaming enthusiast. But this week's discovery of a new copy, brokered by Seattle retro-gaming shop Pink Gorilla Games, might be the weirdest one yet.
"You wouldn't believe this," Pink Gorilla co-owner Cody Spencer told Ars Technica in his shop's storage room on Wednesday, after a whirlwind 24 hours concluded with the game's sale to a collector. "It's like anybody's dream come true, when they hear about rare and valuable video games."
DarendukesI'm sorry for sharing one of these really long posts but goddamnit this ridiculous.
The IPAs served in bowls?
DarendukesHis appearance checks out.
Infamous image board 8chan, breeding ground for neo-Nazis and a favored place for white supremacist mass shooters to drop manifestos before going on murder sprees, is only having its troubles get worse.
DarendukesI already pay $12.99 for Hulu no-ads plan. I'll just switch to this.
Enlarge / Here they come, all together in a streaming bundle. (credit: Disney / Sam Machkovech)
The Walt Disney Company's latest quarterly earnings call included an announcement to investors that appears to take dead aim at Netflix: an all-Disney, three-service streaming bundle for $12.99/month, coming November 12.
The bundle will see three wholly owned Disney services—Disney+, ESPN+, and "ad-supported" Hulu—available as a combined online-streaming bundle once Disney+ launches in November. Separately, the services' asking prices add up to $17.97 ($6.99, $5.99, and $4.99, respectively), thus marking a 27% discount for the whole shebang.
That $12.99 price matches Netflix's "standard" service tier (which includes 1080p resolution and support for up to two simultaneous streams). Only one of Disney's bundled services, Disney+, includes support for higher-resolution video, but that comes as a free upgrade for supported streaming devices. Netflix's 4K offering requires upgrading to a $15.99/mo. plan. Should Netflix subscribers want to save money, they can downgrade to an $8.99 "basic" plan, which tops out at 480p resolution and only one device at a time.
DarendukesI want that. But I'm definitely not paying $575 for it.
Just before San Diego Comic-Con, Hasbro’s HasLab—a crowdfunding platform it uses to bring its most elaborate toy creations to life—revealed a towering 27-inch tall Transformers Unicron toy. With over 50 points of articulation, transforming the world-destroying planet to a massive bot is an arduous task, as…
DarendukesLeave Event Horizon alone.
I have often proclaimed my love for Paul W.S. Anderson’s 1997 sci-fi horror film Event Horizon, about a deep-space vessel that goes to a very bad dimension and returns with mind-warping powers, and features Laurence Fishburne barking the immortal line “Fuck this ship!” A TV series might happen, you say? Fuck YES!
