Cooper Griggs

Two-Storey Holiday House, Matanzas, Chile by Panorama Architects.

Thanks to an Associated Press report, we now know more about the FBI's fleet of small surveillance planes that are flying over US cities. It's no secret the aircraft have been used for years to aid the Bureau's efforts on the ground, but recent fligh...

According to Air Force Gen. Hawk Carlisle, a USAF intelligence team with the 361st ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) Group in Hurlburt Field, FL, uncovered a meaty piece of intel during their routine sweeps of Islamic State-related ...

This stock image is just for illustration, you do not need this much blood to take the new test. Every disease that you've ever encountered is cataloged within your DNA, and now a team from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute has worked out how to a...

In a 21st century take on the traditional Zen sand garden, artist Bruce Shapiro invented the Sisyphus Machine, an elaborate kinetic drawing machine that uses magnets to drag rolling steel marbles through a thin layer of sand to create complicated mandala-like patterns. Shapiro, who was once a practicing physician, has spent the better part of 25 years experimenting with computerized motion control and many of his Sisyphus Machines have been installed in locations around the world including a large device in Switzerland back in 2003 and at Questacon in Canberra, Australia in 2013. It appears the artist is currently working on a tabletop consumer version and if you’re interested you can sign up for his mailing list here. (via Core77, Fast Company)

In this new series of striking images, San Francisco-based photographer Beth Moon (previously) captures some of the world’s oldest living trees against shimmering night skies in remote areas of Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Titled Diamond Nights, the new photos were inspired in part by Moon’s interest in several new studies suggesting a relationship between starlight and cosmic radation on tree growth. Diamond Nights is a progression of Moon’s 15-year journey photographing ancient trees around the world. Moon shares about her process:

The majority of these photographs were created during moonless nights, shot with a wide angle lens and ISO of 3200 – 6400. The Milky Way, a ribbon of stars that stretches from horizon to horizon burns brightly in some of the images. Exposures up to 30 seconds allowed enough light to enter the lens without noticeable star movement. Each location required a lot of experimenting. and different lighting techniques. Sometimes a short burst of diffused light from a flashlight was sufficient, or bounced light from multiple flashlights was used for a softer more natural glow.

You can see many more shots in this online gallery, and read more about Moon’s work on the series on Feature Shoot.

Here’s a fun new music video for ‘Quack Fat’ by Australia-based DJ Opiuo off his new album Meraki. The video was directed and animated by Jonathan Chong of Dropbear who set 240 audio cassettes, 5,600 feet of video tape, 108 floppy discs and 1 retro walkman in motion to create everything you see here. Catchy tune. (via swissmiss)

Anxious to see what happens next in Daredevil? In the future, you might have to endure an ad first. Netflix has confirmed to Cord Cutters News that it's publicly testing ads both before and after shows. What you see as a test subject varies in length...

Tumblr has made it easier to keep trolls out of your account. The feature has been renamed "Block" -- "A proper, muscular name," the Yahoo-owned company said -- and it's accessible from several locations on the website. To shake off haters and weirdo...

(via 4gifs:video)

One of these two bright sky objects is moving.

Google and other companies developing self-driving vehicles now have another state to consider for public road testing: Virginia. It has earmarked 70 miles of highway in the northern part of the state -- now called the "Virginia Automated Corridors" ...

(via levynite)

The next laptop you buy with a USB-C port could be even more useful than you thought. Intel today unveiled Thunderbolt 3, which uses an identical port design as its USB brethren. So if Apple sticks with its new MacBook design, for instance, it's poss...

How eager are you to calm down (or psych yourself up) at a moment's notice? If the answer is "enough to buy a fairly expensive gadget," your solution is now within reach. Thync has launched its namesake mood-changing wearable at the hefty price of $2...

Your choices for filtering the sounds around you are typically quite limited: you either have to drown it out (such as through earplugs or headphones) or let all the annoyances in. Doppler Labs might soon have a way to be more selective, though. Its ...

Google's big developer conference is done for another year, which means that the company is ready to dish out some hot statistics regarding the state of Android's union. Thankfully, the search engine can boast that Gingerbread no longer runs on a sub...

Leadership at Twin Peaks K-12 charter school outside Boulder, Co is under fire for banning its graduating valedictorian from giving a speech in which he would have come out as gay. Even worse, the school’s principal called the student’s home in the days before the ceremony and outed him.

Evan Young earned his spot behind the podium at his school’s commencement. The 18-year-old graduated with  a 4.5 GPA and a scholarship awaiting him at Rutgers University. He planned on giving a speech themed around openness, honesty and acceptance, an irony given the fact that school Principal BJ Buchmann responded with the opposite.

“One of my themes is that I was going to tell everyone my secrets,” Young explained to the Daily Camera. “Most of the things were stupid stuff — books I never read that I was supposed to, or homework I didn’t like. But then I gradually worked up to serious secrets.

“My main theme is that you’re supposed to be respectful of people, even if you don’t agree with them. I figured my gayness would be a very good way to address that.”

Buchmann felt it was inappropriate for Young to come out at the ceremony, and requested that portion be taken out. Young stood his ground, and a few minutes before Young was to take the stage, he was informed the entire speech was canceled “to protect the solemnity of the evening and to preserve and protect the mission of the school.”

And here’s the real kicker — prior to the ceremony, Buchmann called Evan’s father, Don, who has previously served on the charter school’s board of directors, and outed the teen.

“Mr. Buchmann called me and said, ‘I’ve got Evan’s speech here. There’s two things in it that I don’t think are appropriate,'” Don Young recalled. “One was he had mentioned another student’s name. And then there was his coming out that he was gay.”

LGBT advocacy group Out Boulder’s board President Ann Noonan called the incident a “total violation of his educational privacy rights,” and the group is planning to host a private event to give Evan the opportunity to present his speech and be recognized as the accomplished and promising student that he is.

“I think what it mainly showed is that he didn’t have a lot of sympathy for me, or someone in my position. He didn’t understand how personal a thing it was, and that I wasn’t just going to share it with people randomly, for no reason,” Evan added.

Don’t show these to your kids unless you want them to be completely underwhelmed by every balloon animal they see for the rest of their lives. Japanese balloon twister Masayoshi Matsumoto makes some of the most intricate balloon sculptures I’ve ever encountered. From prickly iguanas to glowing sea creatures it seems no life form is too difficult for Matsumoto to faithfully interpret using nothing but balloons. You can follow more of his work on Tumblr and on FB. (via Neatorama)

There was a hushed silence as the Priest shouted "should anyone have an objection to the marriage of ThinkGeek and Hot Topic, speak now or forever hold their peace." Suddenly, a side-door slammed open as GameStop rushed in, demanding that the ceremon...

Housed in the former home of the 10-story International Shoe Company, the sprawling 600,000 square-foot City Museum in St. Louis is quite possibly the ultimate urban playground ever constructed. The museum is the brainchild of artist and sculptor Bob Cassilly who opened the space in 1997 after years of renovation and construction. Although Cassilly passed away in 2011, the museum is perpetually under construction as new features are added or improved thanks to a ragtag group of 20 artists known affectionately as the Cassilly Crew.

So what can you find at the City Museum? How about a sky-high jungle gym making use of two repurposed airplanes, two towering 10-story slides and numerous multi-floor slides, a rooftop Ferris wheel and a cantilevered school bus that juts out from the roof, subterranean caves, a pipe organ, hundreds of feet of tunnels that traverse from floor to floor, an aquarium, ball pits, a shoe lace factory, a circus arts facility, restaurants, and even a bar… because why not? All the materials used to build the museum including salvaged bridges, old chimneys, construction cranes, and miles of tile are sourced locally, making the entire endeavor a massive recycling project.

If you have kids (or are a kid at heart) and live in the midwestern United States or have any other means to get to St. Louis, if you aren’t immediately planning a trip to City Museum, you’re missing out on life. On my first visit last year our family hardly left the museum for two days. It is the complete antithesis to commercialized theme parks like Disneyland. You can see more photos at Gallery Hip.

While SoundHound hasn't seen the tune-searching success as Shazam, the company behind it is taking a similar stance as the competition. Like Shazam's recent addition of product queries, SoundHound is looking to tackle more than songs too, and it'll d...

“We repositioned her shortly after.” - YourLocalWeatherMan