The last time I checked, none of the Three Rs stood for Reproduction or Recreational Sex. However, a middle school in Kansas has apparently added those two Rs to the curriculum and is teaching students how to express their sexuality. A poster entitled, “How … Continue reading →
The post Anal Sex, Oral Sex, and Touching Each Other’s Genitals: Just Another Day in Junior High Health Class appeared first on .
Imagine for a moment, that you are at the farmer’s market on a Saturday morning, getting your veggies and minding your own business. Suddenly, a creepy guy with a comb-over approaches you. “Hey, there. I bet you like long walks … Continue reading →
The post Creepiest SmartPhone App Yet Scans Crowd for People with Dating Site Profiles appeared first on .
The Wall Street Journal unearthed a recently-filed Amazon patent for "anticipatory shipping," a setup where the products you buy start traveling to your nearest shipping hub before you've clicked the purchase button. Welcome to the future, folks.
    
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Oh, sure, that fancy glass decanter and that decorative vase look great on the dinner table. But when it comes time to clean them out, it's all about soaking and hoping those stains magically dissolve on their own. The $9 Cuisipro, though, lets you take a more active approach to cleaning awkwardly-shaped containers—by using a small magnetic scrubber and wand to reach every last nook and cranny.
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"Imagine holding your baby before he or she is born." It might sound like a morbid thought (if not a shitty horror flick catchphrase), but the idea behind the line is actually pretty sentimental. Of course, that's assuming you'd call 3D printing a life-size replica of your unborn fetus sentimental.
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So imagine you’re working at the store one day when out of the corner of your eye you see a baby about to fall to the floor from atop a shopping cart. Would you be fast enough to save the day?
A Home Depot employee in Anchorage, AK, has become a bit of an Internet hero in recent days after his brother uploaded the above video showing his on-the-job actions that saved a customer’s baby from plunging to the store floor.
KTUU-TV reports that the employee will be nominated for the Home Depot Angel Award, given out for exceptional acts of heroism.
“It’s pretty self-evident what happened in the video,” a company rep tells KTUU. “We’re just excited that this happened and excited for him.”
Below is one of the many slowed-down versions of the video that shows just how close the baby came to falling to the floor.
In December, an airport security guard in Poland also made headlines for his swift actions that saved a baby from colliding with the ground.
Got a bitcoin or two burning a hole in your virtual, digital pocket? There’s now one more thing you can go spend them on: it’s time to go take in a basketball game. In California.
The Sacramento Kings franchise announced today that by March 1, bitcoin will be accepted as payment not only for game tickets, but also for team merchandise like jerseys and even for concessions in the arena.
Team owner Vivek Ranadivé told the Wall Street Journal, “The way I saw it, bitcoin had reached a tipping point where it had crossed from being a curiosity to a becoming a legitimate form of doing commerce.” He also told ESPN,”My kids would go to games and ask why we didn’t accept Bitcoin.”
Aside from the idea of bitcoin as every kid’s favorite brand-name money, the currency’s accepted legitimacy does indeed appear to be picking up speed. Basketball merch joins the small but growing list of lawful real-world items customers can spend their hard-invested bitcoins on, along with cocktails, Teslas, and goods from Overstock.com.
As founder and CEO of a software firm, it’s not that surprising that Ranadivé wants to embrace the digital future. Sacramento is a pretty good place to pilot bitcoin acceptance in, as the WSJ also notes.: the city isn’t terribly far from the tech hotbed of the San Francisco bay area, and is itself home to a number of tech businesses. That kind of highly-wired town is a good place to test out a digital currency.
Today, one bitcoin is worth about $825. Maybe it will be a relief to someone to take a family of four to an NBA game for less than 0.50 of something.
Sacramento Kings to Accept Bitcoin [Wall Street Journal]
(mrbill)
In an online Consumer Update posted earlier today, the FDA says it’s received multiple reports of people who “described singed hair, blisters, burns or skin redness,” or cases in which nearby items went up in flames. Only three of the 14 known incidents involved nearby sources of ignition.
“The labeling for these products clearly states that they are flammable and should be kept away from fire, flame, heat sources, and cigarettes,” writes FDA nurse consultant Karen Nast.
Nast says the numerous instances involving no immediate ignition source are “extremely concerning, especially because people may not be aware that everyday household items like curling irons and straight irons can be hot enough to be an ignition source for these products.”
She also believes that there are likely many more instances of wart removers going up in flames because it’s not something that everyone reports to the proper authorities.
FDA dermatologist Markham Luke writes that if you’re going to use one of these at-home cryogenic wart-removal products, that it should only be used as directed on the labeling, and that people should pay attention to the warning — “Extremely flammable. Do not pierce, burn or expose aerosol spray dispenser to excessive heat, even after use or when the dispenser is empty. This may cause dispenser to explode, causing serious injury.”
It also helps if you use the product in a well-ventilated room.
(YouTube)
Local news outlets found something interesting, though: the monkey’s owner and his twin brother were charged last year with the theft of two gibbons in Nebraska. They were caught with the animals in Florida and arrested.
This appears to be a video of Brodi, the white-bellied spider monkey in question, sitting in front of a webcam.
Police discovered that the animal’s owner did not have an exotic animals permit, required to own a spider monkey in Ohio. He did have insurance and the animal had a recent rabies vaccination. Police verified his vaccination status with a Missouri veterinarian.
The monkey was quarantined for 72 hours as a precaution, and the owner has not been charged with doing anything wrong.. The bitten employee drove himself to a local hospital, and had a small puncture wound on his right thumb.
Spider monkey bites Beachwood man at Pat O’Brien Chevrolet [News Herald]
The flight attendant actually works for Chautauqua Airlines, which operates a Delta Connection flight from Lexington to Detroit. She entered a not guilty plea in a Fayette County, KY, court earlier this week to charges of being under the influence while serving as a member of a flight crew, and having prescription medication not in its original container.
Kentucky law places strict limits on alcohol consumption and all members of a flight crew, including attendants. Non one working on the plane is to have had a drink within eight hours of takeoff.
When the Delta Connection flight in question was preparing for takeoff on Tuesday, the airline called for medical assistance to the plane. The officer who responded to the call believed the attendant appeared to be under the influence and administered the breathalyzer, which came up with the result of .258, indicating a high level of intoxication.
A statement from Delta reads:
Delta is aware of reports of the arrest of a Chautauqua Airlines flight attendant for alleged public intoxication prior to the departure of Delta Connection flight 6095 from Lexington to Detroit late Tuesday afternoon. Delta will support any investigation by law enforcement in concert with Republic Airways Holdings, parent company of Chautauqua. Delta expects consummate professionalism from all parties who are entrusted with the care of transport of our customers, no matter which carrier may be operating their flight.
Delta Connection flight attendant arrested, accused of being drunk [BizJournals]
Police: Flight attendant three times the legal limit [WKYT]
Delta Flight Attendant Accused of Intoxication [ABC News. Warning: Obnoxious auto-play video]
President Obama is expected to call for reforms to the NSA’s phone surveillance programs in a speech later today, according to reports.
The NSA’s collection of phone metadata has been highly controversial since it first gained public attention in 2013. The data includes records from all telecom providers of what calls are made, to what numbers, and now long they last. Although it does not record the content of every phone call, intelligence agencies can put together robust profiles of individuals, communities, and networks of association from the metadata alone.
Reports from Reuters, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal indicate that the planned NSA reform will restrict the collection of this phone-related data and will change where and how that information is stored, and by whom it can be accessed.
President Obama will announce in his speech that the bulk metadata collected by the NSA should not be held by the government, but instead should reside in a third-party database. A judicial order will be required before the NSA can query that database for information.
The structure and location of this third-party database are yet to be determined; the President will ask Congress, intelligence agencies, and Attorney General Eric Holder to come up with a proposal by March 28.
In December, a US District Court judge held that the NSA’s phone surveillance program did not violate existing laws, but that whether and how the program should exist was up to the legislative and executive branches to resolve.
Over the past months, the NSA has turned out to be pretty much everywhere. Not only is the agency listening in to phones, but it’s also got eyes and ears in electronics, in video games, and in data centers. The President is not expected to address every element of the NSA’s wide-ranging surveillance in his speech, but will touch on a plan to tighten privacy safeguards for foreign heads of state and propose a new public advocate at the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in addition to the phone surveillance overhaul.
American Apparel’s advertising has generally been notable, but never for its restrained good taste. has never been known for restrained good taste in their advertising. They’re best known for the exact opposite of that, actually. This week, the company is getting some very badly wanted attention with a window display featuring mannequins in thin white panties with lush brunette lady gardens.
Regular Consumerist Flickr Pool contributor Scoboco captured some photos of the display at the brand’s store on East Houston Street in Manhattan.
Even outside of our Flickr pool, people in New York and in fashion have been talking about the window and the crowds it’s drawing. Gothamist went as far as compiling a handy history of pubic wigs, an accessory that most people had probably never given any thought to until the moment that they first saw this window.
The three ladies in the window stand in their underthings with a pale pink background and some pink clothes blowing around in the background. They have very ’80s plastic glasses and updos, and they wear thin and pretty underwear. Also, there is what appears to be a giant piece of brown faux fur crammed in their underpants.
Scoboco even got us this mannequins’-eye view out the window. That view is pretty much what you think it would be: people gawking at the window.
What was the company thinking, other than their usual need for horrified attention? The window is a Valentine’s Day celebration of the Caucasian, slender “natural female form.” No, really, that’s what they said. A company representative sent this statement to Elle magazine:
American Apparel is a company that celebrates natural beauty, and the Lower East Side Valentine’s Day window continues that celebration. We created it to invite passerbys to explore the idea of what is ‘sexy’ and consider their comfort with the natural female form. This is the same idea behind our advertisements which avoid many of the photoshopped and airbrushed standards of the fashion industry. So far we have received positive feedback from those that have commented and we’re looking forward to hearing more points of view.
Let’s face it: The past was terrible. Sure, wax on about the “golden era” and pine nostalgically for the “good old days,” but if we can learn anything from advertising in days gone by, it’s that sexism sells. In an effort to show how far we’ve come and take a bit of shine off the past, we present Consumerist’s Badvertising History Lessons. This week, sexism is an equal opportunity -ism.
We’ve gathered some funny people we know to bring their keen eye for social criticism and ability to crack a joke and asked them to weigh in this week on ads for Volkswagen (sexist against women!), Aunt Jemima corn bread mix (sexist against men!) and Borden cheese (fancy cheese better be on the table or your marriage is in trouble!). Warning: ”DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU DO NOT APPRECIATE SARCASM AS A FORM OF HUMOR”
Scroll on down and click on any ad caption to enlarge and read the full text in all its sexist glory — and send your own examples of why the past was terrible to tips@consumerist.com with the subject line TERRIBLE PAST.
Click to enlarge (LIFE magazine)
Mary Jo Pehl, writer/actor:
This ad ran in in 1964 and feminists were so angry about it, they burned their fenders in public.
Jeff Bercovici, Forbes media guru:
Copywriter 1: Hey, about your Volkswagen ad…you do know that women are statistically safer drivers than men, right?
Copywriter 2: Excuse me? I didn’t catch that. I was busy swigging bourbon and feeling up my secretary.
Copywriter 1: Never mind.
Kristyn Pomranz writer and expert one-liner:
Volkswagen: Because lord knows you can’t buy your wife competence.
Laura Lane, comedian, writer and great at wearing fascinators:
Volkswagen: making cheap cars for dumb wives since 1937.
Heidi Fichtner, queen of biting wit:
Good thing women couldn’t read back then, or they would be mighty upset.
Angela Spera, all-around funny person:
Somewhere, Tiger Woods is solemnly nodding his head in agreement…
Alex Leo, avid Internetter:
“Women are soft and gentle but they hit things” is my favorite sentence ever.
Abby Aronofsky, Social Media Strategist:
Sooner or later, your wife will realize she can do better and drive the Volkswagen to a new life with Robert, the milkman
Lauren D., awesome friend:
His secret: Volkswagen
Her secret: He’s not the only one having the two martini lunch
Mark M., “the funniest guy he knows,” has a lot to say on the matter:
Sure, this ad is offensive, but the original version was much worse. Thankfully, the ad men had the decency to cut out the caption saying that the accident pictured occurred when the wife was rear-ended by another woman.
In all seriousness, the ad is wrong on so many levels. It portrays women as hairbrained creatures who just can’t help but smash into things once they get behind the wheel. They’re basically a bunch of beehived Lindsay Lohans. But my real issue is, why does wifey keep getting into accidents? Is she drinking because she’s in an unhappy marriage? Is she having seizures or some other medical issue that she’s afraid to mention to her family or doctor because she fears it’s serious? Something’s definitely not right, and yet hubby doesn’t seem concerned. “You hit another child today, Martha? Don’t worry, we can replace the fender for $25! Now run back out and pick up my suit at the dry cleaner.”
I’m shocked that such an ad ran in the 1960s, the very decade that introduced the feminist movement and “The Flintstones,” a show featuring documented proof that even early women were competent drivers. Think about it: Wilma never got into an accident and — brakes be damned! — could stop a car with her bare feet. I don’t think any man driving a VW can make those same claims.
Click to enlarge (LIFE magazine)
Angela:
“….He may win a trip for 2 to the Rose Bowl Game… and even an Edsel car! If they actually allow that god damned moron behind the wheel! Boy, what an idiot!”
Also, real talk, the first time I ever tried to cook on my own was making corn bread in the 5th grade and I almost burned my house down, so maybe this batter satchel isn’t such a crazy idea.
Kristyn:
Is your husband physically capable of squeezing? NO? How ’bout if you offered him free tickets to the Rose Bowl? BET THAT IDIOT CAN SQUEEZE NOW!
Abby:
Is it weird that this sounds like a cool contest? I think a Men’s Corn Bread Derby still has legs.
Mark:
There’s something sexual about the way that woman’s hands are gripping and squeezing that bag. Look at her, gently cradling the base while using loong, slooow strokes to release the contents … Is it hot in here or is someone baking cornbread? Yeah, no, this ad is stupid and makes men look even stupider. How is the husband supposed to feel when his wife tells him she entered him into a competition for dumbasses? And how does he tell his friends that said competition questions whether he can wrap his head around the concept of pouring an egg and milk in a bag? I can’t imagine how humiliating that would be. But I tell you, for a chance to win an Edsel and a trip to the Rose Bowl and Disneyland, I’d be willing to find out!
Click to enlarge (LIFE magazine)
Angela:
“We need a spokesperson all women will identify with…how about this bossy, naggy, know-it-all COW!” said the well adjusted ad exec in the happy marriage.
Jeff:
This one had me at “Say ‘Close your eyes and open your mouth to your pretty wife.’”
Kristyn:
Borden’s: Because it’s either fine cheeses or your husband leaving you for another woman.
Abby:
To be fair, any sentient being who doesn’t appreciate a fine cheese deserves to be reconsidered.
Mark:
At first I thought, This is terrible — this man’s marriage is in trouble because his wife is serving him government cheese. But then I realized it’s not about cheese at all — It’s really about a man who is bored in the bedroom at home. And then he meets Elsie Borden. Sassy, worldly, flirty Elsie Borden. There she sits, nude, seductively tossing around French phrases like “Camembert,” lustily telling him to “Close your eyes and open your mouth,” and even demanding that he leave his wife. And sure enough, he runs off with that heifer! I think the takeaway from this ad is that, ladies, fancy cheeses won’t make or break your marriage, but for the love of God, keep cows away from your husbands!
(SA_Steve)
A massive new report [PDF] from Acting Surgeon General Boris Lushniak cautions that the percentage of adult smokers has begun to plateau in recent years, and that the “burden of smoking-attributable mortality is expected to remain at high and unacceptable levels for decades to come unless urgent action is taken.”
In spite of 50 years of anti-smoking campaigns and the dramatic drop in the number of adult smokers, smoking remains the leading preventable cause of disease and premature death in the U.S., with some 480,000 people dying each year from smoking-related illnesses. More than 20 million preventable deaths have been attributed to smoking since the first Surgeon General’s report in 1964.
Of particular concern are the number of younger Americans who use multiple tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes. Between 2011 and 2012, the number of middle and high school students using e-cigs more than doubled.
“Each day, more than 3,200 youth (younger than 18 years of age) smoke their first cigarette and another 2,100 youth and young adults who are occasional smokers progress to become daily smokers,” reads the report.
“Although the prevalence of smoking has declined significantly over the past one-half century, the risks for smoking-related disease and mortality have not,” writes Lushniak. “In fact, today’s cigarette smokers—both men and women—have a much higher risk for lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) than smokers in 1964, despite smoking fewer cigarettes.”
Each year, $130 billion is spent on direct medical care of adults who smoke, while over the economy waves goodbye to $150 billion in lost productivity due to premature death, concludes the report.
The Surgeon General writes that for every adult smoker who dies of smoking-related illnesses, there are two youth and young adult smokers who start. With the slowdown in the number of people quitting, Leshniak expresses doubt that the U.S. will meet the goal of only 12% of adults smoking by 2020.
He puts the blame for the slowdown on the tobacco industry.
“The tobacco epidemic was initiated and has been sustained by the aggressive strategies of the tobacco industry, which has deliberately misled the public on the risk of smoking cigarettes,” reads the report.
Leshniak says that it’s time to get tough on tobacco regulation, meaning everything from raising the price on tobacco products to media campaigns about the dangers of smoking to making cessation programs accessible to more Americans.
“Enough is enough,” said the Acting Surgeon General at a press conference about the new report. “It’s astonishing that so many years later we’re still making these findings.”
“It is my sincere hope that 50 years from now we won’t need another Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health,” writes Lushniak, “because tobacco-related disease and death will be a thing of the past.”
Does the thought of missing your favorite show make you want to sit firmly planted in front of the television all day every day? What if you didn’t have the option of using a DVR or (gasp!) tape recorder? You almost didn’t, except for an important ruling made 30 years ago.
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Sony Corp. v. Universal Studios decision, also known as the Betamax case, which paved the way for such innovations as your beloved DVR.
In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled that Sony could continue to sell its Betamax videocassette recorder, overruling the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judgement that held Sony liable for consumers’ copyright infringement.
The lawsuit, which began in California District Court in 1976, charged that because Sony manufactured a device that could be used for copyright infringement the company was liable for infringement committed by consumers of Betamax.
Justice John Paul Stevens’ majority opinion in the case deemed home videotaping legal in the United States. The ruling also bore an important principle that has been used time and time again in lawsuits – if a product has a substantial, legitimate use it can be sold, even if some consumers use it illegitimately.
Losing the Betamax war wasn’t all bad news for studios like Universal. In fact, the home video business turned into one of the entertainment industry’s biggest money makers.
Sadly, just four years after the ruling, Sony conceded defeat to JVC’s cheaper VHS format. While Betamax continued to have success overseas, it all but died in the United States.
But the Betamax victor lives on and continues to make an impact on how court cases are determined. Last summer, Dish won an impressive battle in the war between their ad-skipping Hopper-DVR and the major network broadcasters. The Hopper allows users to go back several hours later and watch prime-time programming without any of the commercials.
Just last week the Supreme Court agreed to hear a lawsuit filed by broadcast networks against streaming video startup Aereo - a streaming video service that takes freely available over-the-air broadcast signals and provides them to paying customers online.
What the 1984 Betamax ruling did for us all [The Los Angeles Times]
The first of the two cases is Riley v. California, initially a state-level case involving whether or not evidence gathered from an arrestee’s phone without a warrant could be used against him in trial.
Police arrested Riley in 2009 for attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon after he shot at an occupied vehicle. He was later arrested and police searched the phone in his possession at the time, turning up evidence that identified him as a gang member out to kill members of a rival gang.
The phone also contained a photo of him with a car that had been spotted at the scene of the shooting. This, along with other evidence gathered from the phone was used against Riley in his trial, where he was convicted and sentence to 15 years behind bars. His lawyers contend that the warrantless search of his phone violated his Constitutional rights and this evidence should not have been used in trial.
The second case, United States v. Wurie, involves the 2007 arrest of a South Boston man for allegedly dealing drugs out of his car. After he was taken into custody, officers found two phones on his person. While police observed, one phone received several calls from Wurie, who they believed to be this dealer’s drug connection. The police reviewed the call log of his phone and tracked Wurie to his home. Wurie was ultimately convicted on drug distribution charges and sentenced to 262 months (21 years, 10 months) in jail. He appealed his conviction on the grounds that the phone search violated the Constitution, but the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction.
While the Wurie case involves the search of a simple flip phone, the Riley case involves the search of a smartphone. Numerous lower courts have held that a warrantless police search of an unprotected, unlocked flip phone is no different that skimming through a handwritten address book found on an arrestee. Smartphones present a more complicated issue to the courts, as they are effectively small computers that contain significantly more sensitive information than a traditional wireless phone.
The Supremes are expected to hear both cases at some point in April.
Court to rule on cellphone privacy [ScotusBlog]
Should a time traveler visiting from 1991 show up here in 2014 at Radio Shack clutching this ad showcasing calculators, devices to play music and other electronic gizmos and gadgets, we’re sure they’d be pretty pleased to find they could get all that technology for the price of one smartphone.
Sure, it was simpler time in 1991, muses Steve Cichon on TrendingBuffalo.com. But technology was a lot more complicated: Back then you’d have to shell out $3,054.82 for the 15 items on this ad from the Feb. 16, 1991 edition of The Buffalo News.
But today’s phones aren’t just phones. They’re alarm clocks, radios, calculators, gaming devices, word processors, cameras and oh yes, they can still make phone calls. As Cichon points out, out of the 15 items for sale, here’s the sum total of what his iPhone has rendered obsolete:
All weather personal stereo, $11.88. I now use my iPhone with an Otter Box.
AM/FM clock radio, $13.88. iPhone.
In-Ear Stereo Phones, $7.88. Came with iPhone.
Microthin calculator, $4.88. Swipe up on iPhone.
Tandy 1000 TL/3, $1599. I actually owned a Tandy 1000, and I used it for games and word processing. I now do most of both of those things on my phone.
VHS Camcorder, $799. iPhone.
Mobile Cellular Telephone, $199. Obvs.
Mobile CB, $49.95. Ad says “You’ll never drive ‘alone’ again!” iPhone.
20-Memory Speed-Dial phone, $29.95.
Deluxe Portable CD Player, $159.95. 80 minutes of music, or 80 hours of music? iPhone.
10-Channel Desktop Scanner, $99.55. I still have a scanner, but I have a scanner app, too. iPhone.
Easiest-to-Use Phone Answerer, $49.95. iPhone voicemail.
Handheld Cassette Tape Recorder, $29.95. I use the Voice Memo app almost daily.
BONUS REPLACEMENT: It’s not an item for sale, but at the bottom of the ad, you’re instructed to ‘check your phone book for the Radio Shack Store nearest you.’ Do you even know how to use a phone book?
That time traveler still might want to buy a radar detector or a three-way speaker with a 15″ Woofer, the only two items on the ad that phones don’t have out of the box. Or just use a crowdsourced traffic app like Waze and plug your phone into some nice speakers.
But that’s not to mention all the other things you can do with your phone that Radio Shack couldn’t sell you — my phone can find me a date, a discount, a dinner and connect me to my family halfway around the world in an instant.
Yes, times were simpler back then. But they were also cluttered with devices that probably ended up collecting dust in your closet anyway.
Everything from 1991 Radio Shack ad I now do with my phone [Trending Buffalo]
Tactical gear manufacturer Crye Precision debuted their first firearm at SHOT Show. Instead of entering the firearm industry the easy way with a branded AR-15 they enlisted the skilled gun designer Eric Burt, who has previously worked on the AAC Honey Badger and Magpul Masada, to develop the Crye Precision Six12 Shotgun.
Eric Burt with the Crye Precision Six12
This bullpup shotgun can be used in either standalone or as an underbarrel rifle accessory. The shotgun has a revolving cylinder that is rotated by the double action trigger (it does not have a pre-wound spring like the Milkor MGL). A unique feature of this gun compared with other revolver shotguns is that the cylinder completely detaches from the gun to allow quick reloading with a pre-loaded replacement cylinder.
The shotgun will be available in a number of consumer and law enforcement barrel lengths. The gun is planned to go on sale for law enforcement at the end of 2014 and go on sale to consumers sometime in 2015.
Ends today. Tiger Direct has the PNY Turbo P-FD128TBOP-GE 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive for $70 - $20 rebate [Exp 1/19] - $10 rebate [Exp 1/24] + $1 shipping = $41 shipped. Features a 190MB/s read and 130MB/s write speed.
eBay with The Watchery has the Invicta 12563 Grand Diver Pro Stainless Steel Watch for $60 with free shipping. Features 47mm case diameter, Swiss quartz movement, 660-ft water resistance, and date display at 3 o'clock.
It's a new gun industry invention: a "NY legal" 50-round five-magazine part for the AR-15 semi-auomatic air cooled rifle. I can't understand how can this be legal in NY or anywhere else*. Just look at the description from The Truth About Guns—you can't miss it:
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Here's a fun little brain wrinkle pinch for all you non-math people out there (that should be everyone in the world*): the sum of all natural numbers, from one to infinity, is not a ridiculously big number like you would expect but actually just -1/12. Yes, the sum of every number from one to infinity is some weird negative fraction. What the heck?
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In 2010 a Dutch WWII bunker was sliced in half to create one of the most unique war memorials in the world. This video documents the transformation of bunker 599 into a work of art. The sculpture, designed by Dutch studio RAAAF and Atelier de Lyon, recently won the Architectural Review Award in 2013 for Emerging Architecture.
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On the left, a photo taken 3528 days after the Opportunity rover arrival to Mars. On the right, the exact same spot 12 Mars days later. Notice the difference? NASA JPL scientists did too: "It's about the size of a jelly doughnut. It was a total surprise, we were like 'wait a second, that wasn't there before, it can't be right. Oh my god! It wasn't there before!' We were absolutely startled."
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The last ATM you used probably didn't feel very cutting-edge compared to your smartphone. That's because it's probably running Windows XP, an operating system so old, Microsoft will stop supporting it in April.
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Taxpayers, the federal government just announced a new online tool that makes filing a wee bit easier: now you can download your past tax return documents directly from the IRS website. One small step. [WhiteHouse.gov via TheVerge]
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The NSA is monitoring thousands upon thousands of offline computers every day. It's watching cellphone location data. It's working on a quantum code-cracker. And if that wasn't enough, a new report from the Guardian indicates it's also scooping up around 200 million text messages a day. Seemingly at random.
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We know how extreme photo retouching can get when human bodies are the focus. But what about when the subject is an inanimate object? This time-lapse shows the insane levels of doting that go into make a Rolex watch look its absolute best.
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