Jim

This is a video from National Geographic of a lightning strike filmed at 11,000-frames/second so 1-second of real-time footage takes 3-minutes to watch. Impressive, but you know what would have been even cooler? If they filmed it so 1-second took FIVE YEARS to watch. I don't want to miss anything. Hit the jump for the video featuring two dudes made stoked about slow-motion lightning. Thanks to Ford and AZ, who prefer their lighting the same way they like their oil changes: over with as quickly as possible.

Since 1958, 472 billion Lego bricks have been made. And even though most of those bricks are hardly bigger than your finger, 472 billion of anything is a ridiculous number. So what could you build with all the Lego bricks in the world? Surprisingly a lot. Like 74 Empire State buildings a lot.

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As of this past weekend, Joss Whedon’s Avengers spin-off television show has officially been greenlit. Airing on ABC, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will follow Agent Phil Coulson and a small, select group of other agents in the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.

Here’s a breakdown of the characters, based on the show’s official synopsis:

• Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) – needs no introduction #coulsonlives
• Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) – highly trained in combat and espionage
• Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) – expert pilot and martial artist
• Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) – brilliant engineer
• Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) – genius bio-chemist
• Skye (Chloe Bennet) – new recruit and computer hacker

Sounds like a crack team! Together they’ll be “investigating the new, the strange, and the unknown across the globe, protecting the ordinary from the extraordinary.”

… is it just me or does this sound an awful lot like Torchwood? Not that that show had the monopoly on this premise either, but that was also my first thought when I saw the promo picture above.  (My second thought was – who are those dark-haired teen models hanging out with Phil and Ming-Na?) But hey, this has got to be better than the Americanized Torchwood that aired on STARZ.

So what do you think? Will you watch? Got any theories about how #coulsonlives after all? (My complete speculation: Nick Fury can be a manipulative jerk sometimes.)

 

Gavin Hood's Ender's Game looks like it's going to be a really cool and exciting movie! The first full trailer has been released, and as a fan of the books, I really like what I'm seeing. It might not be exactly what I was hoping for, but it looks stunning and visually striking. I've been waiting for this movie for a very long time, and I think this is something I'm going to enjoy watching. 

The movie stars Harrison Ford, Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin, Moises Arias, KhylinRhambo, Viola Davis, and Nonso Anozie. Ender’s Game hits theaters on November 1st, 2013. Now watch the trailer and let us know if it gets you excited to see the movie!

In the near future, a hostile alien race (called the Formics) have attacked Earth. If not for the legendary heroics of International Fleet Commander, Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley), all would have been lost. In preparation for the next attack, the highly esteemed Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) and the International Military are training only the best young children to find the future Mazer. Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a shy, but strategically brilliant boy is pulled out of his school to join the elite.

Arriving at Battle School, Ender quickly and easily masters increasingly difficult war games, distinguishing himself and winning respect amongst his peers. Ender is soon ordained by Graff as the military’s next great hope, resulting in his promotion to Command School. Once there, he’s trained by Mazer Rackham, himself, to lead his fellow soldiers into an epic battle that will determine the future of Earth and save the human race.

Paramount Pictures has announced that the released date of J.J. Abrams' highly anticipated film Star Trek Into Darkness has moved up from Friday May 17th to Thursday May 16th. It's still scheduled to open up in IMAX theaters on May 15th, and it's still set to be released overseas on May 9th. You can find the full press release for that below. I've also included a collection of new photos from the film as well!

 

Here's the full press release:

IMAX theatres are reporting sell-outs of its special “STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS” sneak peek shows on Wednesday, May 15^th, with showings in Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Austin, San Francisco, Houston, San Diego and Minneapolis now at capacity.  Interest continues to be strong at other IMAX locations across the country, which are offering fans the opportunity to be the first to see the film at 8:00 p.m. that evening.  In response, Paramount Pictures has moved the film’s Friday, May 17^th release up a day to May 16^th.

Tickets are available on the film’s first-of-its-kind movie App, a technology that allows users to delve deeper into the Star Trek universe, and can also be accessed via IMAX.com or through Fandango.com, Movietickets.com, as well as other ticketing platforms and at theatre box offices.  While supplies last, all 8:00 p.m. IMAX fan sneak attendees will receive a limited-edition IMAX FANFIX™ “Star Trek” Gallery 1988 movie print by Mark Englert.

The IMAX release of “STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS” will feature approximately 30 minutes of footage filmed with the extremely high-resolution IMAX® cameras. These specific sequences, which will expand to fill more of the screen exclusively in IMAX, will deliver unprecedented crispness and clarity and a truly immersive experience for moviegoers.

Paramount’s “STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS,” based upon “Star Trek” created by Gene Roddenberry, is written by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman & Damon Lindelof and directed by J.J. Abrams.  Abrams is producing with Bryan Burk through Bad Robot Productions, along with Lindelof, Kurtzman and Orci.  Jeffrey Chernov and Skydance Productions’ David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Paul Schwake are the executive producers.

“STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS” opens in theaters everywhere May 16^th, 2013.

Google is supposedly working on a redesign of Google Maps that'll kill the all familiar sidebar and replace it with a full screen map. It's a cleaner look that already makes the current constricted layout seem dated.

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From the guys who brought us Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz comes this amazing looking new sci-fi comedy The World's End. Universal Pictures has released the first trailer for the movie, and it looks awesomely entertaining. 

The story follows five friends -- Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan, and Paddy Considine -- who reunite for a pub crawl that escalates into a struggle for humankind's future from what looks to be a horde of alien possessed people. The movie was directed by Edgar Wright, and here's the synopsis:

20 years after attempting an epic pub crawl, five childhood friends reunite when one of them becomes hell bent on trying the drinking marathon again. They are convinced to stage an encore by mate Gary King (Pegg), a 40-year old man trapped at the cigarette end of his teens, who drags his reluctant pals to their home town and once again attempts to reach the fabled pub, The World’s End. As they attempt to reconcile the past and present, they realize the real struggle is for the future, not just theirs but humankind’s. Reaching The World’s End is the least of their worries.

The World's End comes out on August 23rd, 2013, enjoy the trailer!

Video: Exclusive The World’s End Trailer

Source: MSN (http://movies.uk.msn.com/trailers-and-clips?videoid=2t5faj5e+)

Paper shredders are fun. So fun, in fact, that you may have experienced a paper-shredder-induced fugue state where you lost all sense of being and accidentally shredded everything in the immediate vicinity. It…

Dry quicksand was a mythical substance — normal-looking sand that could swallow you in a flash. That is, until 2004, when scientists made the stuff in a lab. (Mark told you about that development.)

In this video, geologist Matt Kuchta explains how dry quicksand is different from both wet quicksand and stable sand. Hint: Think "Jenga".

Lightning is a terrifying yet majestic force of nature, especially when you see it from an airplane. But scientists have recently discovered that lightning can sometimes be invisible—and it could be bombarding planes with radiation as they fly. More »

Gas Generator and Manifold. Photo: Bezos Expeditions

A space history project led by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos has exciting news out today: Apollo mission F-1 engines have been recovered from deep beneath the surface of the Atlantic ocean, as the "F-1 Recovery Project" years in the making reaches a successful conclusion.

Here's video of the Remote Operated Vehicles recovering the engines from the ocean floor.

The F-1 rocket engine is still a modern wonder — one and a half million pounds of thrust, 32 million horsepower, and burning 6,000 pounds of rocket grade kerosene and liquid oxygen every second. On July 16, 1969, the world watched as five particular F-1 engines fired in concert, beginning the historic Apollo 11 mission. Those five F-1s burned for just a few minutes, and then plunged back to Earth into the Atlantic Ocean, just as NASA planned. A few days later, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon.

"We're excited to be bringing a couple of your F-1s home," Bezos said to NASA.

And Boing Boing has a statement from NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden:

Nearly one year ago, Jeff Bezos shared with us his plans to recover F-1 engines that helped power Apollo astronauts to the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s. We share the excitement expressed by Jeff and his team in announcing the recovery of two of the powerful Saturn V first-stage engines from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

This is a historic find and I congratulate the team for its determination and perseverance in the recovery of these important artifacts of our first efforts to send humans beyond Earth orbit.

We look forward to the restoration of these engines by the Bezos team and applaud Jeff's desire to make these historic artifacts available for public display.

Jeff and his colleagues at Blue Origin are helping to usher in a new commercial era of space exploration and we are confident that our continued collaboration will soon result in private human access to space, creating jobs and driving America's leadership in innovation and exploration.

And here is a snip from the blog post by Bezos, just published moments ago:

What an incredible adventure. We are right now onboard the Seabed Worker headed back to Cape Canaveral after finishing three weeks at sea, working almost 3 miles below the surface. We found so much. We’ve seen an underwater wonderland – an incredible sculpture garden of twisted F-1 engines that tells the story of a fiery and violent end, one that serves testament to the Apollo program. We photographed many beautiful objects in situ and have now recovered many prime pieces. Each piece we bring on deck conjures for me the thousands of engineers who worked together back then to do what for all time had been thought surely impossible.

Many of the original serial numbers are missing or partially missing, which is going to make mission identification difficult. We might see more during restoration. The objects themselves are gorgeous. The technology used for the recovery is in its own way as otherworldly as the Apollo technology itself. The Remotely Operated Vehicles worked at a depth of more than 14,000 feet, tethered to our ship with fiber optics for data and electric cables transmitting power at more than 4,000 volts. We on the team were often struck by poetic echoes of the lunar missions. The buoyancy of the ROVs looks every bit like microgravity. The blackness of the horizon. The gray and colorless ocean floor. Only the occasional deep sea fish broke the illusion.

Thrust Chamber and Fuel Manifold. Photo: Bezos Expeditions

F-1 Thrust Chamber. Photo: Bezos Expeditions

F-1 Thrust Chamber on ocean floor. Photo: Bezos Expeditions

Saturn V Stage Structure. Photo: Bezos Expeditions

Nozzle. Photo: Bezos Expeditions

Scientists have found a way to make 3-D, hologram-like displays for tiny screens using inexpensive, readily available parts.

Forks are for amateurs; if you're going to eat you're going to work for it, dammit—enter the chopstick. But all those splinter-laden, wooden eating-twigs don't come without a price, you tree killer. The Compact Chopsticks, however, will let your live your life environmentally friendly and fork-free. Just like God intended. More »