When Chris Kesler was six years old, he sat just outside of his cousin’s room and peered at the flickering TV through a crack in the doorway. On-screen, in grainy VHS quality, a murderous red-haired doll in Cabbage Patch overalls laughed as it attemp…
Source: Engadget – The resurrection of ‘Allison Road’
Monthly Archives: August 2016
Kim Dotcom’s extradition appeal will be livestreamed
Kim Dotcom. (credit: Kim Dotcom)
The battle between the US and Kim Dotcom over whether he should face criminal copyright charges is coming to a screen near you.
No, the movie rights haven’t been sold (yet). The Internet mogul who ran the once-dominant cyberlocker site Megaupload has won the right to livestream his next court battle online.
Dotcom was arrested and charged in 2012, but the battle over whether he can be extradited from his home in New Zealand has dragged on. In December, a New Zealand judge finally said that Dotcom should be sent to the Eastern District of Virginia to face federal charges that he facilitated copyright infringement by promoting piracy on his website.
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Source: Ars Technica – Kim Dotcom’s extradition appeal will be livestreamed
One man's DIY conservation effort helps rare butterfly rebound in San Francisco
Using a bit of research and lots of careful gardening, this man was able to help reestablish a population of rare butterflies in his backyard.
Source: TreeHugger – One man’s DIY conservation effort helps rare butterfly rebound in San Francisco
Aliens!: Astronomers Detect 'Strong Signal' Coming From Distant Sun-Like Star
HD 164595 isn’t just a catchy name, it’s the designation of an “exactly Sun-like” star 94 light years away that astronomers have discovered a “strong signal” emanating from, leading at least one blogger to yell THE ALIENS ARE COMING! over and over and rummage through his nightstand looking for a plastic ray gun, but only finding an unfamiliar dildo. *shrug* This will have to do.
Astronomers engaged in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) are training their instruments on a star around 94 light years from Earth after a very strong signal was detected by a Russian telescope.
“The signal from HD 164595 is intriguing, because it comes from the vicinity of a sun-like star, and if it’s artificial, its strength is great enough that it was clearly made by a civilization with capabilities beyond those of humankind,” astronomer Douglas Vakoch, president of METI International, which searches for life beyond Earth, tells CNN.
Obviously, the chance of the signal actually being alien in nature is unlikely, but we can still dream. True story: last night I dreamed I was skydiving and passed out on the way down. I tried to look up what it meant in my dream book but it turns out I WAS STILL INSIDE THE DREAM and my dream book turned into a snake and bit my penis and that’s when I woke up on the kitchen floor with my penis in a mousetrap.
Thanks to Fearless Farris and my hopefully fearful pal Terry, both of whom have earned spots on my space voyage to discover what’s producing this signal. Here, put on these red shirts.
Source: Geekologie – Aliens!: Astronomers Detect ‘Strong Signal’ Coming From Distant Sun-Like Star
Two Osprey Chicks Brilliantly Survive Bald Eagle Raid (One Does Not)
The Audubon Society has a livestream of an osprey nest in Hog Island, Maine, where this spring viewers were delighted to see the parents, Steve and Rachel, hatch three adorable osprey chicks. After a bald eagle attack earlier this month, they are down to two chicks, because nature could not give the slightest shit about what you find cute.
Source: Gizmodo – Two Osprey Chicks Brilliantly Survive Bald Eagle Raid (One Does Not)
The 23 Most Tragic Pets in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
Anyone who has ever had a pet knows the inevitable will happen, and that the circle of life is cruel and unavoidable. But when a dog, cat, horse, or other creature dies in a genre movie, the circumstances are often shaped by bizarre forces—supernatural, weird-science, and otherwise—that make a tragic loss even worse. Here are nearly two dozen of the saddest fates of pop culture’s furry friends.
Source: io9 – The 23 Most Tragic Pets in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
Welcome To Alphanumeric Car Hell
Jason H. Harper, writing for The Verge: Et tu, Hyundai? Until recently, the Korean brand offered two upmarket cars, the Genesis and the Equus. The first name had biblical shades and the latter shared a title with a play where an adolescent likes to get naked and straddle horses. So while the connotations were a bit muddled, at least they were memorable. Now Hyundai has spun Genesis into its own luxury brand, akin to what Toyota did with Lexus decades ago. And in so doing, it has cast off those memorable names in favor of an alphanumeric naming strategy. The Hyundai Genesis is reborn as the Genesis G80 and the Equus sheds its horsey homage to become the G90, which guarantees that I won’t remember the new names. I’ll just call the G90 the Model-Formerly-Known-as-Equus. And while the two models seemed well differentiated before, now the distinctions are hazy. The G90 apparently has 10 more units of something over the G80. Perhaps it is 10 percent better. Ten percent bigger? Ten grand more expensive? Welcome to Alphanumeric Hell.The rest of the article is worth a read as well.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Welcome To Alphanumeric Car Hell
Pebble's latest update adds quick views and more shortcuts
When Pebble announced its latest Pebble 2 and Time 2 watches earlier this year, it also revealed several software improvements that would roll out not just to the new models, but to most other existing Pebble hardware. Today, the company is finally r…
Source: Engadget – Pebble’s latest update adds quick views and more shortcuts
PewDiePie’s New Game Is About Becoming More Famous Than PewDiePie
YouTube celebrity PewDiePie is releasing his second game, PewDiePie’s Tuber Simulator, based on YouTube Simulator, which was in part inspired by PewDiePie’s life. Help—we’re getting sucked into a vortex.
Source: Kotaku – PewDiePie’s New Game Is About Becoming More Famous Than PewDiePie
PennyCat Is a Chat Bot that Delivers Discounts to Any Store, When You Need Them
PennyCat delivers coupon codes and discounts to you for various online stores before you check out. Fire up Facebook Messenger (or send it a message on Facebook directly), tell it the store you need a code for, and the bot will search for you and spit out a code to try.
Source: LifeHacker – PennyCat Is a Chat Bot that Delivers Discounts to Any Store, When You Need Them
16 spectacular facts about giant sequoias
All hail the giant trees! Mother Nature’s skyscrapers are some of the largest and oldest organisms on the planet.
Source: TreeHugger – 16 spectacular facts about giant sequoias
Going to the Dentist in 1909 Was a Nightmare, But X-Rays Were Supposed to Change All That
Do you hate going to the dentist? Well, you really would’ve hated going to the dentist 100 years ago. I can already see the smoke rising from my mouth as a dry drill bores away at my molars. I probably would’ve taken rotting teeth, thank you very much.
Source: Gizmodo – Going to the Dentist in 1909 Was a Nightmare, But X-Rays Were Supposed to Change All That
The new Google+ is coming for all users soon
The new Google+ is slowly being rolled out to additional users over the next few days, according to Danielle Buckley, Project Manager at Google. Finally, anyone who wasn’t able to take a look at the new features back when the preview was introduced l…
Source: Engadget – The new Google+ is coming for all users soon
James Franco and Dennis Quaid Join the Intriguing Scifi Film Kin
An ex-con and his adopted brother are on the run from the authorities, an evil criminal, and enhanced soldiers. Outnumbered, the only way they’ll survive is by finding a mysterious, ancient weapon in Kin, an upcoming scifi film by Josh and Jonathan Baker.
Source: io9 – James Franco and Dennis Quaid Join the Intriguing Scifi Film Kin
Game Combat Is Great When It Gives You Time To Rest
From Overwatch to Attack on Titan and more, I’ve been playing games with intense action. These games maintain my interest and keep the excitement coming by doing some smart things with their pace and design. We’ll break it down in this video.
Source: Kotaku – Game Combat Is Great When It Gives You Time To Rest
Sports Drinks Are Mostly Pointless
Sports drinks seem like they should be healthy. Athletes endorse them, and they don’t have the same “liquid candy” reputation as the Pepsi a few shelves over. But how helpful are they to serious and casual exercisers? Not very, it turns out.
Source: LifeHacker – Sports Drinks Are Mostly Pointless
No, Sweden does not recycle 99 percent of its waste.
It incinerates about half of it, which is a very different thing.
Source: TreeHugger – No, Sweden does not recycle 99 percent of its waste.
Two 'Unprecedented' Hurricanes Are Churning Toward Hawaii
In what’s being hailed a meteorological first, two back-to-back hurricanes are marching toward Hawaii, both of them threatening torrential rains and rip-roaring winds this week. The closer of the two, hurricane Madeline, could break a second meteorological record as the first hurricane to strike the Big Island since bookkeeping began in 1949.
Source: Gizmodo – Two ‘Unprecedented’ Hurricanes Are Churning Toward Hawaii
Facebook Lets Users Prompt Danger Alert
Facebook’s Safety Check is a handy service that allows people to let their friends and family know they are okay in an event of emergency. The social giant announced the next major step for this feature. From a BBC report: Facebook is to enable members to trigger its Safety Check service themselves if a dangerous event occurs near them. Until now, it could only be activated by Facebook staff. Safety Check lets people notify their friends and family that they are safe in the aftermath of a natural disaster or human conflict in their area. The recent earthquake in Italy marked the 25th time this year that it has been triggered. Safety notifications have reached one billion people in 2016 alone, the firm said. In the previous two years combined (2014 and 2015) it had only been activated 11 times. The Safety Check Facebook team uses three criteria to decide whether the tool should be switched on — how many human lives are affected, the extent of that impact and the duration of the event.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Facebook Lets Users Prompt Danger Alert
What That 'Strong Signal' From a Nearby Sunlike Star Really Means
Yesterday, news made the rounds that a team of Russian astronomers had detected an unusually strong signal emanating from a nearby sunlike star
—a possible indication of an alien civilization. Here’s what the detection of this signal really means, and why it’s probably not ET and friends.
Source: Gizmodo – What That ‘Strong Signal’ From a Nearby Sunlike Star Really Means