Boston Dynamics has introduced a new robot named Stretch designed for automating box moving tasks in warehouses and distribution centers.

Stretch’s mobile base allows it to go to where repetitive box lifting is required – unloading trucks, building pallets of boxes and order building. Stretch makes warehouse operations more efficient and safer for workers.

I’m glad Boston Dynamics is finally making a robot that might actually be profitable, but this is probably their most terrifying robot yet. As best as I can tell, their plan is to replace every worker and drive them to the streets so that they can send in their extermination robots to finish the job.

Keep going for the full introduction video.

Source: Geekologie – Boston Dynamics has a new robot named Stretch

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched almost a month ago made an uncontrolled re-entry last night and a bunch of people got footage of it. Normally the rocket’s second stage relights and pushes it down so that it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere into the Pacific Ocean. However, there wasn’t enough propellant after this launch, leaving the second stage orbiting for three weeks until it was pulled into Earth’s upper atmosphere.

This was, however, simply the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage–which weighs about four metric tons unfueled–breaking apart in the atmosphere and burning up. It is likely that the second stage completely broke apart over the Rocky Mountains near the United States and Canadian border.

If you didn’t know it was a rocket burning up in the atmosphere you might think it was an alien invasion. There’s actually nothing to say it’s not an alien invasion except for Elon Musk’s word. And for all we know he is an alien so, I mean, this is all pretty convenient. Guess I’ll see you guys in the alien zoos once the invasion is complete?

Another great video of the Falcon 9 rocket second stage streaking across the Pacific Northwest skies tonight after failing to make a deorbit burn.

KOMO News viewer Brent Marshall shot this video from a football field in Wilsonville, Oregon tonight. pic.twitter.com/ZytHvBrDD4

— Preston Phillips (@PrestonTVNews) March 26, 2021

Keep going for some more videos.

Source: Geekologie – A Falcon 9 rocket made an uncontrolled re-entry last night

LEGO is releasing a 2,354-piece replica of NASA’s Space Shuttle Discovery. It’s made to 1:70 the scale of the actual spacecraft and also includes a replica of the Hubble Telescope.

The new LEGO NASA Space Shuttle Discovery, which was developed in collaboration with NASA, is a complex 2,354 piece build that pays homage to this pioneering moment in space history and marks the 40th anniversary since the first Space Shuttle flight on 12th of April 1981. The set, aimed at adults, features the Discovery orbiter with functional landing gear, payload bay doors, elevons and rudder; and the famous Hubble Space Telescope, which can either be folded and contained within the payload bay or expanded with solar array and displayed separately. Both also come with a display plaque which features key data from the mission.

To help launch the product they teamed up with former NASA Astronaut Dr. Kathy Sullivan (the first American woman to walk in space) who was part of the original NASA STS-31 mission that launched the Hubble Space Telescope. The product announcement features a nice video of her going through the LEGO set and by golly am I sold on this. Although I keep throwing money at my monitor and nothing seems to be happening. Just *continues to throw money at monitor* take it already.

Keep going for some more shots as well as the launch video. The set is scheduled to release April 1, 2021 for $200.

Source: Geekologie – LEGO is making a NASA Space Shuttle Discovery set

On Monday, comedian and writer Jensen Karp found some shrimp tails in his Cinnamon Toast Crunch and somehow that’s the least interesting part of the story so far:

Ummmm @CTCSquares – why are there shrimp tails in my cereal? (This is not a bit) pic.twitter.com/tTjiAdrnVp

— Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) March 22, 2021

General Mills then responded by trying to convince him the shrimp tails were clumps of sugar. This was easily disproven by the magic of sight:

Ok, we’ll after further investigation with my eyes, these are cinnamon coated SHRIMP TAILS, you weirdos. I wasn’t all that mad until you now tried to gaslight me? https://t.co/7DmADmoqUt pic.twitter.com/rSLE60pvoy

— Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) March 22, 2021

But to make sure, the shrimp tails are being DNA tested:

They also are paying for this to be done, which is helpful when a corporation is telling the internet I actually found wads of sugar. So basically, my shrimp got a scholarship.

— Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) March 24, 2021

Also, General Mills asked him to bring his box of cereal to the local police station like some sort of crazy person who thinks they’ve figured out who the Zodiac killer is:

I can’t believe this in a real life, publicly traded company. pic.twitter.com/v5fAz2SSyM

— Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) March 23, 2021

And if that weren’t enough, when Karp investigated further he found what is most likely rat poop at the bottom of the bag:

Stuff like this is all at the bottom of the bag, and what appears to be cooked ONTO some squares. Please be nice with your guesses l, because I will walk into traffic if I ate what I think it is… pic.twitter.com/Zs7ZDygTxA

— Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) March 23, 2021

Something regarding the stupid “Did he fake this?” take: there are black items COOKED ONTO the squares and tons of it at the bottom of the bag, in addition to shrimp tails and other SUGAR COATED junk. Also, it’s only “viral” because of their insane response. I would’ve dropped it pic.twitter.com/WOt9j2V0sg

— Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) March 23, 2021

So all in all, a pretty bad week for Cinnamon Toast Crunch and their PR team. Oh, right, Karp is also married to Topanga from Boy Meets World. Seriously. This tweet pretty much sums up the weirdness of the world:

A man named Karp married to a woman named Fishel found shrimp tails in a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. The cereal was purchased from the Costco on Topanga Canyon Blvd, and his wife played Topanga in Boy Meets World. Meanwhile, Karp used to be a guest on Pistol Shrimp Podcast.

— Batmanda (@HarveyBar22) March 24, 2021

Source: Geekologie – Man finds shrimp tails in his Cinnamon Toast Crunch and General Mill’s response has been abysmal

This is video of speed rider Valentin Delluc speed riding through an alpine resort. I wasn’t sure what speed riding was so I had to look it up, but it’s basically paragliding on skis.

Always known for pushing his limits by combining freestyle and speedriding, Valentin Delluc is back at it again–but this time he’s taking on the deserted alpine resort Avoriaz. From the cables of the chairlifts to barrels, keys and wall rides, the French speedrider uses the empty French Alps resort as his own personal playground to pull off some insane tricks he’s never even done before.

With huge logistical feats and some technical headaches, From Alvoriaz with Love is the ultimate test for one of the world’s best speedriders. Can he pull it off?

Somehow this guy is still alive despite living a life that includes voluntarily flying into and bouncing off of buildings using a tiny parachute and skis. Meanwhile I almost died the other day trying to get a bowl of popcorn out of the microwave with one hand.

Keep going for the full video which was obviously made in collaboration with Red Bull.

Source: Geekologie – Lunatic speed rides through an alpine resort

This is a video of Chuck Cook repeatedly testing Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” Autopilot on unprotected left turns. He uses a drone to capture footage from above so you get a real sense of the road situation and what the Autopilot is doing.

FSDBeta 8.2 version 2021.4.11.1 video showing visualizations on the Model Y. Testing more unprotected left turns. This time it is with forward facing traffic using a Mavic Pro Drone filming a third person view.

If you’re too lazy to watch the video the short version is that the current iteration of FSDBeta will kill you if you’re not paying attention. In this specific scenario it seemed to perform adequately maybe 15% of the time? That’s still better than my track record, but I haven’t been legally allowed to drive for years. It’s not my fault I like to eat cereal while driving.

Keep going for the full tense video.

Source: Geekologie – Drone footage of a guy testing out Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” Autopilot on uprotected left turns

The Fagradalsfjall volcano near Iceland’s capital of Reykjavik began erupting for the first time in 800 years after a series of of small earthquakes last Friday. The eruption has been small and nobody has been injured, but people have been using the opportunity to get some pretty great footage.

This is video from drone pilot Bjorn Steinbekk basically surfing the lava right up to the crater. It’s kind of amazing his drone makes it out alive considering how close he takes it. If my drone piloting days have taught me anything it’s to never get too close to your subject. Especially if your subject is your neighbor trying to take a shower with their blinds open. Why couldn’t you be cool, Rachel?! Now I’m on some sort of stupid registry.

Keep going for two of Steinbekk’s drone videos which are probably the best footage of Fagradalsfjall so far.

Source: Geekologie – Fagradalsfjall volcano eruption captured by drone pilot

XXXX Swatchbook is an art project by Evelin Kasikov exploring the idea of printing without ink, basically “printing” each of the CMYK colors by stitching them into the book.

This book is about print, but printed without a trace of ink.
It is a personal project that I have been slowly working on past 6 years. This massive project brings together my love for book design and my experimental approach to craft.

The book is made of:

4 colours
16 elements
400 colour combinations
219.647 stitches

In the four colour printing process, the patterns of small overlapping dots create full range of colour. Here the process is tactile and three-dimensional. My inks are threads in CMYK colours: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. All elements in the book are hand-embroidered: the swatches, the title pages, the grid papers, and binding.

Now she just needs to recreate a Where’s Waldo book using the same technique. Sure, it’ll probably take her a decade or two, but once this pandemic is over I’d love to be able to read a Where’s Waldo book the size of a dining table.

Keep going for some more shots.

Source: Geekologie – XXXX Swatchbook is a book made out of 4 colors and 291,647 stitches

Mark Rober is taking his glitter bombs to the next level and actually used one to catch and arrest a phone scammer. At this rate it’s only a matter of time before we see a video of him using a glitter bomb to stop Kim Jong-un’s reign in North Korea.

Keep going for the full, satisfying video.

Source: Geekologie – Glitter bomb used to catch and arrest phone scammer

This is footage from a fireworks stockpile that exploded in a residential home yesterday in Ontario, California.

Two people were killed when the large fireworks stash exploded in the inland Southern California community, setting off a series of blasts and sending a towering smoke plume over the neighborhood. Smoke continued to waft from the neighborhood early Wednesday morning as authorities continued to search a debris field that covered about 80 properties.

Investigators were waiting early Wednesday to search the properties, which are being cleared by bomb technicians. Team members are using robots when necessary to handle possibly unexploded ordnance.

This wasn’t like some industrial fireworks factory explosion. Basically some people had a stockpile of illegal fireworks in their home and the whole thing exploded. Obviously people need to make a living and people were killed in the incident so this is terrible, but what were they thinking? It’d be like owning a gas station and keeping barrels of gasoline in your bedroom.

Keep going for the full video.

Source: Geekologie – Fireworks stockpile explosion caught on video in Ontario, California

The highest rated chess player of all time, Magnus Carlsen, played one of the worst possible opening moves dubbed the Bongcloud Attack in a recent tournament against fellow grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura.

When Nakamura saw the stupid move, he couldn’t stop laughing and matched Carlsen’s stupid play beat for beat. The two chess champions laughed themselves silly while the commentators stammered in shock: Both men had deployed the Bongcloud Attack, one of chess’ worst possible opening moves.

It’s called the Blongcloud Attack because it’s a move so stupid only somebody high off their mind would actually come up with it.

As a meme opening, the Bongcloud Attack goes against basic principles of chess strategy. White blocks the diagonals for the bishop and queen and loses the ability to castle, putting the king in danger. Other openings in which either player makes an unorthodox king move within the first three moves have also been dubbed the Bongcloud.

Both of them had already qualified for the next round so they were just messing around, but it’s fun to see super high level people goofing like this. And by “goofing like this” I mean deploying my own personal chess strategies which have netted me a negative Elo rating. Didn’t know negative Elo ratings were even possible? I don’t like to brag, but they weren’t until I came around.

Keep going for the video clip of the two grandmasters cracking up.

Source: Geekologie – Chess world champion Magnus Carlsen plays ‘Bongcloud Attack’ meme opening in tournament

To promote classic movies on its streaming service, HBO Max has created modern trailers for some classic movies including Alien and Gremlins among others. Their heart is in the right place, but unfortunately this basically means every movie gets spoiled because modern trailers are godawful. Seriously. Like don’t watch any of these if you haven’t already seen the movie.

For comparison, I included the original 1979 trailer for Alien so you can compare the two. The original is terrifying and disorienting without spoiling anything whereas the modern one basically shows every important and surprising scene and even includes clear shots of the alien which the movie deliberately hides for almost the entire running time. Also, apparently I’m the oldest person on the planet because Training Day is a classic film now. How is 2001 twenty years ago? That…can’t be right. This must be a weird Tenet type scenario.

Keep going for all of the trailers, including ones for Casablanca, Free Willy, and more. You can also watch the entire HBO playlist here.

Source: Geekologie – HBO Max created modern trailers for classic movies

There’s been a Deepfake Tom Cruise TikTok account that’s been going viral and the creator has finally come forward as Belgium VFX specialist Chris Ume.

“You can’t do it by just pressing a button,” says Ume. “That’s important, that’s a message I want to tell people.” Each clip took weeks of work, he says, using the open-source DeepFaceLab algorithm as well as established video editing tools. “By combining traditional CGI and VFX with deepfakes, it makes it better. I make sure you don’t see any of the glitches.”

To get the effect he also hired Tom Cruise impersonator Miles Fisher, so this kind of thing probably wouldn’t work if you just used a random person off the street. I mean, unless you were trying to convince the world Tom Cruise had completely let himself go and was now just a guy eating leftover nachos out of the microwave.

Keep going for the full video breakdown of his process as well as an episode of Sassy Justice, another deepfake video series that Chris works on.

Source: Geekologie – Tom Cruise deepfake creator finally comes forward

Researchers have discovered that a sea slug’s detached head can crawl around and grow a whole new body days after being separated from its body.

Three days after the head of an Elysia cf. marginata sea slug separated from its body, the head remains active, creeping around. The body, while also still alive, is more sluggish. It eventually will die, while the head will grow a new body, heart and all.

First of all, what kind of research is this? Are there researchers just decapitating animals seeing if they can regrow bodies? The findings are neat and all, but these “researchers” need to be on some sort of watchlist. I mean, I tried conducting my own decapitation research and I was given prison time so I’m not sure what makes these “scientists” so different from me. Sure, my research was conducted in my basement with soundproof walls but science is science.

Keep going for the full video of the sea slug’s head crawling around on its own or read the whole paper here.

Source: Geekologie – Researchers discover a sea slug’s detached head can crawl around and grow a whole new body

This is insane video of a live Zoom court hearing where the abuser was discovered to be in the same apartment as the victim thanks to the quick thinking and observational skills of the prosecutor. Prosecutor Deborah Davis notices the victim looking around suspiciously and calls it out, and then what ensues is a dumbass abuser trying to lie his way of the situation. It’s just another one of those weird things that could only happen during the pandemic and though not as hilarious as the lawyer who turned himself into a cat, it’s just as satisfying.

Keep going for the full video. The prosecutor notices and comments about it at 7:45 and the payoff occurs at 13:30. If anything, it’s worth watching just for the prosecutor’s well earned look of satisfaction.

Source: Geekologie – Abuser revealed to be in same apartment as victim during live Zoom court hearing

What do you think of when you hear “jazz popcorn robot”? Obviously a “robot” that plays jazz music using popcorn. And that’s exactly what this is. Robotic musician Moritz hooked up a drum set to popping popcorn and let heat do the rest. The sad (great?) thing is how much it sounds like an actual jazz set.

Keep going for the full video.

Source: Geekologie – This guy made a jazz popcorn robot

Banksy took footage from Bob Ross’ Joy of Painting show and dubbed it over a rare behind-the-scenes video of Banksy creating his latest work in Reading, Berkshire titled “Create Escape.”

The expansive and unblemished prison wall was a daring and perfect spot for a Banksy piece. It’s best known for its most famous inmate: Oscar Wilde served two years in the prison from 1895-1897 for the charge of “gross indecency” for being gay. The work is clearly a tribute to the poet, as the escape mechanism appears to be a long strand of paper emerging from a typewriter in place of the usual bed sheets. Wilde recounted aspects of his imprisonment in the poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” which centers largely on the execution of Charles Thomas Wooldridge.

It’s neat and all, but I can’t help but feel it would’ve been even more impressive if Banksy had just done an actual Bob Ross painting on the prison wall. All of the political meaning would be lost but, I mean, Bob Ross.

Keep going for the full video and some stills of the finished piece.

Source: Geekologie – Banksy created a Bob Ross-narrated behind the scenes video

SpaceX “successfully” landed a high altitude test flight of their Starship SN10 Wednesday morning and it was so incredibly done it looks like CGI. Like so much like CGI if it wasn’t SpaceX you would 100% think this was faked footage.

Similar to the high-altitude flight tests of Starship SN8 and SN9, SN10 will be powered through ascent by three Raptor engines, each shutting down in sequence prior to the vehicle reaching apogee – approximately 10 km in altitude. SN10 will perform a propellant transition to the internal header tanks, which hold landing propellant, before reorienting itself for reentry and a controlled aerodynamic descent.

I put “successfully” in quotes because although it stuck the landing, it did eventually blow up about 8 minutes after landing while sitting still on the landing pad. It’s unclear what caused the explosion, but I’m assuming it decided to celebrate its own accomplishment by turning itself into a giant firework.

Keep going for the full incredible test flight as well as footage of the explosion later. Skip to the landing at 11:40 and tell me it doesn’t look like it came out of a low budget sci-fi movie.

Source: Geekologie – SpaceX “successfully” lands Starship SN10 and it looks like CGI

This is a great short by Russian animator Lazy Square, giving us a portrait of his 30 year life condensed into 30 seconds. Although as lovely as it is, I can’t help but feel personally attacked right now. Sure, I could close my laptop and climb a mountain, but I could also look at a picture of a mountain on the internet so…pretty tough decisions all around.

Keep going for the full video as well as some other gems of his work including a Russian art film version of The Simpsons opening and a rejected Nike ad.

Source: Geekologie – 30 years of my life in 30 seconds

Vlogger Aaron Vankampen has a series of videos where he goes around to expensive houses with opulent cars in the driveway and knocks on the doors to ask the owners what they do for a living. The incredible part is that these lunatics actually answer the door, during a pandemic, to a stranger with a camera pointed at their face. And they’re rich. My apartment makes Oscar the Grouch look like a multi-millionaire and even I wouldn’t open my door to a stranger for fear of being robbed.

Keep going for the full video as well as some other videos in the same series.

Source: Geekologie – Asking expensive home owners what they do for a living