Turns out the accordion was designed for one purpose, and that was to play Hans Zimmer’s No Time For Caution theme from Interstellar.

Source: Geekologie – Interstellar theme on the accordion

This is an unboxing video of the official mask Apple designed for its employees. In typical Apple fashion, it’s white, designed in California, and manufactured in China. It actually looks pretty cool, and I’m surprised they managed to squeeze that much extra “design” out of a face mask. It’s interesting to see their take on something that’s become so ubiquitous, though obviously if they sold it retail it would be marked up and eventually they’d come out with a Pro version that does exactly the same thing but let’s people know you’re better than them. Although honestly, the packaging looks like it cost twice as much as the mask itself.

Source: Geekologie – Unboxing the official mask Apple designed for its employees

A YouTuber interpolated Tom & Jerry footage to 60 fps using AI and the results are less than desirable. It’s definitely smoother, but it’s pretty clear upscaling framerates doesn’t really work for animation. Animators generally make deliberate choices when it comes to frame duration, and the rhythm of the 60 fps version just feels off. It’s like watching somebody clap off beat to your favorite song. The music is still great, but now you’re annoyed for no reason and can’t really enjoy it. I mean, c’mon, it’s just clapping! It’s not that hard, Tom! Why do you always have to ruin everything?!

Source: Geekologie – Upscaling Tom & Jerry to 60 fps shows why we don’t

This is some awkward small talk during a mid-air refueling of an F-15 Eagle. It’s weird that you can be doing something this cool while having a conversation this boring. At least the pilot at the end seemed to enjoy it and set off a flare. Either that or he got so flustered by the flirting he accidentally hit the wrong button. Better than a Sidewinder missile I guess?

Source: Geekologie – Awkward small talk during mid-air F-15 refueling

MetaBallStudios (previously) is back and they recreated their old starship size comparison video, adding the Earth for scale and including some additional models. The video starts off with the 1 foot tall Hocotate Ship from Pikmin and by the end is using the Sun for scale. I, too, once thought the Ark from Halo was the largest starship in popular culture but oh how wrong I was. Turns out it was actually my wiener.

Source: Geekologie – Size comparison of fictional starships

This sleight of hand pitch doesn’t seem like it should be legal despite the umpire allowing it. Although to be fair I don’t actually know the rules of pitching. All I know is you can’t balk (fake a pitch) and once you start the windup you have to deliver the pitch in one continuous motion. I’m assuming the umpire knows more than I do, I just feel like I’d echo the sentiments of the voice on the video going, “Ah, what the fuck.”

Source: Geekologie – Questionably legal sleight of hand baseball pitch

This is a video of a Polish lunatic known as BNT (or the Silesian Spiderman) climbing the second tallest skyscraper in Paris: the 689 ft (210 m) Tour Montparnasse. The video is a lot of first person GoPro footage mixed with drone footage and all of it got my hands appropriately sweaty. It’s 35 minutes long and I watched it from beginning to end, occasionally pausing to make sure I was mentally prepared to watch somebody die (spoiler: he doesn’t).

Also, if climbing without any safety equipment wasn’t bad enough, at 21:00 an emergency worker abseils down to try and attach a safety harness to BNT which he patiently and politely refuses. The “rescuer” basically shadows BNT for the rest of the climb, which I can only imagine made things way worse. It’s nightmarish enough trying to climb a skyscraper without a rope let alone having some dude right next to you constantly bugging you to stop being so insane. It felt like a nightmare scenario for BNT, and I wished the guy on the rope would’ve realized how much more dangerous he was making the situation and just backed off. It’d be like trying to race a rally car while your co-driver keeps asking if you have your seatbelt on.

Keep going for the full video, as well as one of BNT climbing the 558 ft (170 m) Marriott Hotel in Warsaw. Enjoy them while you can, because this guy is 100% going to die soon.

Source: Geekologie – Lunatic free solos the second tallest building in Paris

A super small Rubik’s Cube measuring just 9.9 millimeters (0.39 inches) and weighing 2 grams opened for preorder in Japan yesterday for delivery in December at the whopping price of 198,000 yen ($1,900 USD).

Billed as a “super-small” Rubik’s Cube, it was created to mark the 40th anniversary of when the original 3-D puzzle went on sale in Japan.

It’s made of “ultra-precision metal,” and comes with a box for its display, according to MegaHouse Corp., a subsidiary of Tokyo-based toymaker Bandai Co.

If only all things went up in value the smaller they were. Am I right, fellas? Eh? Am I right? Can I get a fist bump, anyone? No? Just the sounds of quiet sobbing in the corner? That’s cool too.

Keep going for one more shot of the super small Rubik’s Cube. It doesn’t look like it’s covered in diamonds or anything, so I’m not sure why it’s so expensive.

Source: Geekologie – Super tiny Rubik’s Cube goes on sale in Japan for ,900

Because filling your home with cameras controlled by one of the largest companies in the world wasn’t enough, Amazon announced today they’re making a flying Ring camera drone that will actually be able to fly to where the action is. The video shows the camera flying to the world’s worst burglar, but I imagine the real use is so Amazon can spy on people having sex and maybe pooping. What, you thought you could just point your camera away from your bedroom and bathroom? No, no, no, my friend. There’s no escaping Mr. Bezos’ tiny flying camera and he prefers his videos both private and embarrassing.

Keep going for the full, weird, announcement video.

Source: Geekologie – Amazon is making a Ring flying camera drone and they made a really weird video to promote it

This is a video of a girl playing around on her dad’s time-locking container after her brother jokingly puts her phone in it, not understanding that by rotating the lid she is actually increasing the duration of the timer. She eventually realizes what she’s done when the timer shows 2 days and she breaks down in a combination of laughter and tears. Her reaction is actually kind of amazing and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it. I imagine it’s the reaction you would have if somebody was tickling you while simultaneously murdering your family.

Keep going for the full video.

Source: Geekologie – Girl accidentally locks her phone in a timed locker for two days

Filmmaker and radio/podcast guy Andrew Norton edited scenes of people wearing headphones in movies but replaced the music with podcasts. They’re all pretty good, but the Baby Driver (Serial Podcast) mashup is clearly the best. Personally, I can’t wait for the inevitable future where music no longer exists and only podcasts remain. Nothing says tension and excitement like Tom Cruise reaching the climactic scene of a Mission Impossible movie only to have The Joe Rogan Experience swell in the background.

Baby Driver (2017) x Serial pic.twitter.com/RDXoeCyF9W

— Andrew Norton (@andrewtnorton) September 18, 2020

Keep going for a few more of the edits, including American Psycho and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Source: Geekologie – People wearing headphones in movies, but they’re listening to podcasts

Every year for the past five years, Demi Adejuyigbe has put out a video on September 21 in honor of Earth, Wind & Fire’s song September. He somehow manages to top himself every year and they’re always weirdly delightful in a way that makes you forget the world is a dumpster fire of misery. Apparently he’s fought the desire to make the video each year but keeps getting sucked back in. He tells Vulture:

It kind of feels like a prison I’ve built myself. September 22nd is a very nice moment when I don’t have to think about that. Then, as I get closer and closer to September, I start feeling like, I guess I should figure out what I’m going to do this year. And I get lucky, because for a lot of time I won’t think about it. Then I’ll just have this idea, and build from that. Or I go to a craft store and just see a bunch of things and just let my mind go.

But it’s a strange experience to feel it coming on. Every year, for the last three years, I’ve thought, I should not do it this year. Or else I risk setting myself in a perpetual cycle: I guess I’m gonna do this until I die. So every year, I think, I won’t do it this year. I tweet, “I won’t do it this year.” And then I come up with an idea and I go, Okay, that might be fun. Maybe I’ll do that. That’s the cycle every year.

This year he put the fate of the video in the hands of viewers, saying he’ll only make a video next year if he manages to raise $50,000 for charity through sept21st.com. Although as of this publishing he’s already raised $253,012.55 so we should be good to go. I personally pitched in a stack of coupons and I think that’s really what pushed the amount over the edge so you’re welcome.

Keep going for the full video and the rest of Demi’s 9/21 videos from the past five years. They’re all great and a beacon of light in these trying times.

Source: Geekologie – A day late, but here’s Demi Adejuyigbe’s annual September 21 video

In sad news, Longcat, the infamously long cat, died in Japan yesterday at the age of 18. The cat, whose real name was Nobiko, was posted to the imageboard 2chan between 2004 and 2005 and became popular in 2006 for his longness (she was apparently 65 cm).

Hong Kong-based pro-democracy website Stand News reported that Longcat had been rushed to the vet after being found in a weak state on Sunday morning. The cat eventually passed away at around 2pm local time.

Looks like 2020 isn’t done with us yet. One can only hope Longcat is continuing to be long in heaven. I just wish there was another long cat to replace Longcat so that I could say, “Longcat is dead, long live Longcat.” Because long.

Source: Geekologie – Longcat, the cat known on the internet for being long, has died

Working with CGI artist Jan Koudela, TheToyZone created these ultra-realistic Polly Pockets from the fictional worlds of television and movies. The above is the Simpson’s residence from The Simpsons, but they also made one for Stranger Things, Friends, The Lord of the Rings, The Shining, and The Royal Tenenbaums. They’re all pretty great and worth checking out. It’d be cool if they could’ve made one for my home, but I guess nobody would be interested in a Polly Pocket that was just a cigarette box filled with trash and bed bugs. Realistic, yes. Fun, not so much.

Keep going for the rest.

Source: Geekologie – Fictional homes reimagined as Polly Pockets

Continuing humanity’s race towards potential deepfake hell, researchers have developed a way of creating 3D models from 2D images using neural networks. The full title of the project is PIFuHD: Multi-Level Pixel-Aligned Implicit Function for High-Resolution 3D Human Digitization and here’s some gibberish from the researchers:

Recent advances in image-based 3D human shape estimation have been driven by the significant improvement in representation power afforded by deep neural networks. Although current approaches have demonstrated the potential in real world settings, they still fail to produce reconstructions with the level of detail often present in the input images. We argue that this limitation stems primarily form two conflicting requirements; accurate predictions require large context, but precise predictions require high resolution. Due to memory limitations in current hardware, previous approaches tend to take low resolution images as input to cover large spatial context, and produce less precise (or low resolution) 3D estimates as a result. We address this limitation by formulating a multi-level architecture that is end-to-end trainable. A coarse level observes the whole image at lower resolution and focuses on holistic reasoning. This provides context to an fine level which estimates highly detailed geometry by observing higher-resolution images. We demonstrate that our approach significantly outperforms existing state-of-the-art techniques on single image human shape reconstruction by fully leveraging 1k-resolution input images.

I’m all for the progression of science and technology, but I honestly have no idea where all this research is heading. If things keep progressing the way they are, eventually researchers will be able to recreate the entire Universe using somebody’s Instagram profile picture.

Keep going for a video detailing the project and showing how it renders 2D video.

Source: Geekologie – Creating 3D models of people from 2D images

This is a side by side comparison of what it’s like to land an Airbus A320 at Los Angeles airport in real life compared to Microsoft Flight Simulator. It’s one of those instances where the simulator looks more realistic than reality. If it wasn’t labeled I think most people would have a tough time figuring out which was which. The textures on the runway in real life actually look worse than the simulator, like God needs to upgrade the graphics card or something.

Source: Geekologie – Landing at LAX in real life vs Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

This is a video of a guy trying to feed a squirrel some pine nuts but then he somehow accidentally hits the reset button on it. It’s the cutest, weirdest thing you’ll see today unless you’re subscribed to some sort of puppy breakdancing video channel. At 1:30 he starts just putting the nuts in the broken squirrel’s arms and it’s so adorable I almost passed out. Actually I did pass out, and then woke up with a bunch of pine nuts in my arms. I hate when this happens, but also, hey, free pine nuts.

Keep going for the full super cute video.

Source: Geekologie – Guy accidentally reboots squirrel and it’s super adorable

Another day, another video of movie characters lip syncing to pop songs. This time, somebody turned AI Lip Sync on Gollum to make him lip sync The Scatman. There’s something about his expression that perfectly captures the horror of deepfake’s potential, like he’s aware he’s being made to sing The Scatman against his will. To make it perfect somebody needs to deepfake him mouthing “Help me” in between all that scatting. Also, how is this not a song about poop and the love of poop?

Keep going for the full scat filled video.

Source: Geekologie – Gollum lip syncs The Scatman using AI Lip Sync

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection tweeted last night that they seized a shipment of counterfeit Apple AirPods. However, just a quick glance at the pictures they posted show they’re clearly OnePlus Buds. The CBP even sent out a press release bragging about their “mission success”:

On August 31, CBP officers seized 2,000 counterfeit Apple Airpod Earbuds from Hong Kong destined for Nevada at an air cargo facility located at John F. Kennedy International Airport. If the merchandise were genuine, the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) would have been $398,000.

“CBP Officers are protecting the American public from various dangers on a daily basis,” said Troy Miller, Director of CBP’s New York Field Operations. “The interception of these counterfeit earbuds is a direct reflection of the vigilance and commitment to mission success by our CBP Officers daily.”

I get that the design of the earbuds are similar, but those boxes are clearly labeled as OnePlus Buds. This would be like if they seized a bunch of Microsoft Surface Laptops and then bragged about stopping a shipment of counterfeit MacBooks. Was there really not a single person there that stopped to ask why none of the counterfeit Apple AirPods said “Apple” or “AirPods” on them? Is there a world where counterfeit Nike sneakers are branded as Adidas?

Keep going for a side by side comparison of the OnePlus and Apple earbuds, as well as the original tweet.

Source: Geekologie – CBP brags about seizing counterfeit Apple Airpods that are actually OnePlus Buds