I can’t even tie my shoelaces while blindfolded, but some people manage to do some pretty amazing stuff without sight. Like speedrunner PangaeaPanga. This guy recently did a run of Super Mario World while blindfolded – and he did it in only 23:14.

That’s under half an hour people. While blindfolded. I’m fairly certain this guy lives in Hell’s Kitchen and has a law office somewhere. It’s really amazing to watch this guy. He has some mad skills.

I think he uses the sounds of the game to know what to do and when to do it, but I could never pull this off. It must have taken him a whole lot of practice.

[via Kotaku]

“Watch the pounds melt away!” “Lose 20 pounds in 20 days!” “Fit into those high-school jeans!”

Read more...

Almost a year ago to the day, I wrote about the impact DJI's Phantom 2 Vision+ might have on our skies. Up to that point, drones (or quadcoptors/multirotors, for the purists) had been slowly edging their way into mainstream consciousness. DJI's ready...

Increasingly globalized drug trafficking markets and constantly changing routes and transit points are challenging established anti-drug law enforcement practices, according to the World Drug Report.

Although no major changes appeared in crop cultivation and drug manufacturing regions, new challenges such as the "dark net," have profound implications for both law enforcement and drug trafficking, according to the report.

Alongside changes in different drug trafficking routes, such as the one used to to smuggle opiates from Afghanistan through Pakistan into South Asia and through Iran into Europe, the World Drug report also found evidence that criminal groups are diversifying the kinds of drugs they focus on, which forces different kinds of drugs through traditionally used routes.

The interest in cannabis resin and methamphetamine has been growing, and African countries, which are traditionally used as transit hubs for heroin and cocaine are now also used for other drugs, according to the report.

Cocaine

Cocaine, which is almost exclusively cultivated in South America, is mostly smuggled through Africa or the Caribbean before reaching Europe, according to the report. Eastern Europe is also starting to become a transit area, and although quantities remain small it could show a movement in the cocaine markets. Costa Rica also reported that it is now both a transit and temporary storage country.

Cocaine use continues to decline in Western and Central Europe and North America, and cultivation of the cocoa bush is at its lowest since the mid 80’s, according to the report.

Heroin

Increased seizures of heroin, particularly in East Africa, point to Africa’s role for the smuggling of Afghan heroin into Europe has become increasingly more important, the report found. And recent seizures also suggest that large shipments of Afghan heroin are smuggled across the Indian Ocean and into East and Southern Africa.  

In Canada, the quasi totality of heroin comes from Afghanistan. Although the United States’s heroin supplies mostly come from Central and South America, things might start changing as fluctuations in the Australian market between heroin originating from Myanmar and Afghanistan point to the fact that criminal networks are increasingly global. 

The dark net, considered the black market of the web, is one of the main factors allowing those criminal networks to become more global. The dark net allows buyers to access drugs easily and anonymously, making it a driving force in the uptick of drug trafficking.

Although international and inter-agency collaboration is crucial in tackling drug trafficking, the increased accessibility of the dark web technology new ways to counter trafficking need to be put in place as it could become an increasing obstacle for law enforcement, according to the World Drug Report.

The report also  notes indications of increased trafficking in South and South East Asia and West and East Africa and the “Balkan route” through Iran and Turkey to Europe, the “northern route” through Central Asia to Russia and the “southern route” through Iran or Pakistan to Asia are all established trafficking routes of Afghan opiates.

 

Methamphetamine

East and South East Asia and Oceania are emerging as global market for ecstasy while the market declines in America and significant seizures over the past five years show that new trafficking routes are emerging. 

The market for methamphetamine is expanding in East and South East Asia and the use of crystal meth is increasing in North America and Europe. West Africa continues to be a transit region for methamphetamine smuggled into East and South East Asia.

Trafficking routes from Africa and America to East and South East Asia have also been observed with transit points in Europe and South Africa.  

Reports of Turkey becoming a transit point for smuggling from Western Asia to Europe have emerged along with reports of methamphetamine trafficking from Europe to America and East and South East Asia.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why we should ban non-vaccinated kids from schools

Fungi are amongst the coolest organism to grace the planet, so good thing it's Friday, the one day of the week that starts with the same letter as fungus. That's the same kind of logic that keeps me from totally losing it, so lettuce watch this series of timelapse GIFs of mushrooms.

submitted by nipplymax
[link] [28 comments]

submitted by ChucklingNorris
[link] [129 comments]

submitted by JohnApples1988
[link] [214 comments]

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

submitted by LivingIntheMemory
[link] [1638 comments]

submitted by RunningForIt [link] [comment]

submitted by BIGBIGBIGMEANIE [link] [3 comments]

MP3. It's the format that revolutionized the way music's been consumed since the late '90s. When Karlheinz Brandenburg, a German acoustics engineer, discovered that an audio file could be compressed down to one-twelfth of its original size without di...

Yesterday we featured some ResQte Photos from Aussie Patrick Jones– photos he takes for the RSPCA in NSW. In his email, he said he had some other posts recently, and to choose any that “struck our fancy.” All I can say is–THESE sure did! (But- no Quokkas or Wombats, sorry.) Comments on each photo (taken from his site) are in the hovers. That’s Billy The Kid up top.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: C.O. Super-Size™, ResQtes Of The Week (Thursday Sydney Edition)

The ultimate list of the best yoga pants .GIFs ever »

The post .GIF: Stretching before a run appeared first on Girls In Yoga Pants.

By Liam McCabe This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a list of the best technology to buy. Read the full article below at TheWirecutter.com. Smartphone batteries don't always last through a busy day, but a pocket-size USB battery p...

A new Fortnite demo was shown live on state at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) earlier this month, and the team at Epic Games released it to YouTube just yesterday.

The in-game demo shows off a cuddly, brightly colored world where purple stormclouds fling waves of gruesome enemies against small groups of players.

"If you've ever built a pillow fort or battled imaginary monsters with your friends you already know how to play Fortnite," said Billy Bramer, lead gameplay programmer on Fortnite. "This is the end of the world scenario you've been training for since you were a kid."

The demo shows off the game's third-person perspective, as well as an unusual set of weapons including a broom and an acoustic guitar. Players...

Cast your mind back to the mid to late 1980s and early 1990s… when you had a craving for that delicious Italian combination of carbs, sauce and cheese, you’d head straight to McDonald’s, right? No? Yeah, we’re with you on that one — who knew McDonald’s ever tried to grab a piece of the pizza pie? Tried, and ultimately, failed.

The folks over at Mental Floss dip into the halls of fast food history, uncovering a long lost tale of pizza failure. See, once upon a time, McDonald’s got a bit greedy, and tried to horn in on the dinner business market by adding pizza to the menu.

In 1986, tongues started to wag — McDonald’s had a plan to rival chains like Pizza Hut as well as independent pizza parlors. It wasn’t called McPizza, as one might think as that name was used for a calzone product Mickey D’s tested briefly in the 1980s.

Expanded testing started in 1989, with about 24 restaurants in Indiana and Kentucky participating. This move essentially started a war, as Pizza Hut was far from pleased with the new competition.

“Don’t make a McStake,” one Pizza Hut ad urged. The company called McDonald’s pies “McFrozen” dough, and started offering two-for-one deals to keep its customers happy.

Things weren’t going too well for McDonald’s pizza in any case: The quick-cook oven the company worked long and hard on meant major renovations for franchisees. And the drive-thru window? Forget about it — how are you supposed to shove a pizza through many older windows, which simply weren’t big enough. More renovations would have been required.

Even those locations that did remodel their kitchens and drive-thru windows weren’t faring great: It took too long to get the pizzas cooked and to customers, especially when the restaurants got busy. The pizzas were more expensive than rivals as well, which turned off customers who were used to spending much less elsewhere.

McDonald’s was determined, however, and had expanded the pizza option to almost 40% of its restaurants in the early 1990s. Then, like some fever dream you’d have after eating too much McDonald’s, the pizza experiment was quickly over, at least in America. Canada held on somewhat longer, but ultimately went the same way as U.S. restaurants and stopped serving pizza.

Some things are just not meant to be: Sushi and hangovers, peanut butter and French fries, and McDonald’s and pizza. But we can always look back, and wonder… what the heck were you thinking, McDonald’s?

The Short, Strange Life of McDonald’s Pizza [Mental Floss]