The least scary thing about horror movies is making one. If you don’t believe it, watch these bloopers from the set of the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Source: io9
The least scary thing about horror movies is making one. If you don’t believe it, watch these bloopers from the set of the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Source: io9
“Star Wars but every time someone shoots a laser it speeds up” by Lord Aussem on YouTube is exactly what it says on the tin. I’m more surprised by the long stretches of time where no lasers are fired than I am by the fact that this only lasts one minute, 17 seconds.
Source: io9
Frederator Studios, the animation house responsible for Fairly Odd Parents and Adventure Time, has been trying to get an adaptation of the beloved Dracula-whipping action game franchise Castlevania off the ground for ages. According to the studio’s founder, it sounds like the series could now be on track.
Source: io9
Deadspin How To Save The World | Jezebel Becoming Ugly | Gizmodo Your Crappy American Diet Might Leave Your Gut Bacteria Stunted | Jezebel Serena Williams Is Engaged to Alexis Ohanian And I Don’t Know How I Feel |
Source: io9
For years, men suffering from erectile dysfunction were told to reach for the little blue pill. But if that fails, what’s left? An inventive application of elastic “memory metal” is being used to create a penile implant to help men regain control of their bodies. 2016: shitty year for everyone else, actually not a bad year for dicks.
Source: io9
It’s no secret that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story took many different forms before being released in theaters. The commercials and trailers alone prove that. But, according to the film’s villain, that may have just been the start of it.
Source: io9
Earlier this year, NASA astronaut Jeff Williams captured ultra high definition video of our pale blue dot from the vantage point of the International Space Station. It’s easily the most uplifting thing you’re going to see all day.
Source: io9
Russian hacking operation
“Methbot” impersonates established websites and simulates human
traffic using fake mouse movements.
White Ops
A sophisticated Russian hacking operation dubbed “Methbot” has
been defrauding online video advertisers by producing massive
volumes of fraudulent non-human video advertising impressions, ad
fraud detection company White Ops has exposed according
to The
Wall Street Journal.
It’s the single most profitable bot operation discovered to date,
White Ops says.
Cofounder and CEO of White Ops Michael Tiffany said “we’ve
never seen anything like this. Methbot elevates ad fraud to a
whole new level of sophistication and scale.”
White Ops published
a research report exposing the hack and it explains in great
detail how the operation profits. Here’s how it works:
Publishers have been paying for this non-human traffic and White
Ops calculates that it’s costing them up to $5 million a
day as it fakes up to 400 million “views” of video ads
per day.
Methbot generates the impressions using 250,267 distinct URLs
across 6,111 premium distinct domains, White Ops has observed,
and it uses several techniques to fool anti-fraud companies.
Methbot is the most
profitable hacking operation to be discovered.
White Ops
White Ops’ goal is to shut down Methbot, the report says: “At
this point the Methbot operation has become so embedded in the
layers of the advertising ecosystem, the only way to shut it down
is to make the details public to help affected parties take
action.”
The company is releasing all the IP addresses known to be
connected to Methbot, a falsified domain list, and a full URL
list “to show the magnitude of impact this operation had on the
publishing industry,” it says. Advertisers, agencies, and
technology providers would then be able to block the IP
addresses, preventing the ads from appearing on Methbot’s
simulated inventory. The information will be available to
download on its
website.
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Humans’ relationship with technology is growing ever-more intimate. In a sense, we have already become cyborgs, tethered to our external electronic devices, outsourcing to them our memories, our sense of direction, our socializing, our lives. But, if the past year’s technological advancements are any indication, our relationship with technology is going to get a whole lot closer. Technology could one day soon become regularly integrated with our biology to manage disease and augment human ability. Here were some of the biggest breakthroughs of the past year on the cyborg front.
Machines are not so limited as humans in the kinds of sensations they can detect. And so, the the collective Cyborg Nest sought to use them to imbue humans with a sixth, artificial sense. This month, the collective released North Sense, a small electronic device implanted into the skin to give the wearer a sense of direction. The implant connects the user to Earth’s magnetic field, vibrating whenever facing north. “This was not another step towards us becoming machines, but towards us becoming more human,” co-founder Liviu Babitz told the Creator’s Project. “We are curious and want to sense and understand more than what we could with our natural born senses.” Unlike many such undertakings, however, North Sense is not just a one-off art project. If you, too, would like to augment your natural born senses, for $350, the North Sense implant can be yours.
For people suffering from disease, machines offer great promise of easing their burden. This fall, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first ever “artificial pancreas,” a wireless, out of body device designed to free diabetics from having to constantly adjust insulin levels to keep their blood sugar stable. It’s about the size and shape of a smartphone, and works by wirelessly linking to an insulin pump and glucose monitor, measuring glucose levels every five minutes and then, with the help of some algorithmic data crunching, automatically making adjustments. Other medical devices—like pacemakers, for example—have long been used to help regulate bodily functions. But the artificial pancreas proved that complex bodily functions can safely be managed algorithmically.
Stan Larkin needed a heart transplant, and his wait-time on the transplant list was longer than the time it would take his heart to fail his body. So in December 2014, his heart was removed and he became the first patient in Michigan to be outfitted with the SynCardia Freedom Portable Driver, a 13.5 pound machine that uses compressed air to pump blood through the body. He carried his artificial heart around for a year-and-a-half, until a transplant organ was ready this past May. He even played a game pickup basketball with his bionic heart.
In February, scientists announced that for the first time ever, they 3D-printed an organ, successfully transplanted it into an animal and got it to work. It was a major breakthrough. For years, scientists had struggled with living tissue that was too weak to survive long enough to integrate with the body and fuse with its blood supply. Because of this, many have doubted the feasibility of a future where, when one organ fails, we simply grow or print another. But researchers at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine reported they kept a baby-sized ear alive on a mouse for two months.
Nathan Copeland has been paralyzed for over a decade, but when he fist-bumped President Barack Obama at the White House Frontiers Conference this fall, he could feel it. The sensation of feeling came via Copeland’s mind-controlled robotic arm. Last spring, surgeons implanted four tiny microelectrode arrays into the sensory cortex area of Copeland’s brain. His prosthetic arm delivers currents to those electrodes that stimulate his brain to create sensations of touch that feel as if they are coming from his own paralyzed hand. Copeland can control the arm using other chips implanted in a different part of his brain. In essence, the prosthetic and chip implant work in tandem to recreate the body’s natural sensory feedback loop. Copeland’s prosthesis was a big deal—it was the first time that such a technology had worked for an extended period of time, outside of a lab.
Getting inked is the latest trend in wearables. This year, electronic temporary tattoo upstarts were popping up everywhere. There was the temporary tattoo built to warn people when they’ve had too much to drink. The stick-on to measure UV ray exposure. The cardiac monitor. And these really pretty metallic ‘smart’ tattoos from MIT that can remotely control a smartphone. Electronic tattoos haven’t quite become a fashion staple, but one day perhaps we’ll all be caressing our forearm in order to send a text.
Always seeking to get a leg up on the competition, there are few as eager to turn themselves into guinea pigs of technology as professional athletes. Last season, Oakland’s Golden State Warriors found their edge in transcranial direct-current stimulation, donning headphones that deliver pulses of electric current to the brain to improve the brain’s signaling ability, and they hoped, their game. The full extent of tDCS’ impact is debatable, but other teams are already jumping on board. With the Warrior’s track record, it’s likely other teams will soon turn to tech to augment their abilities. Then again, the Warriors did lose the Finals last season.
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LONDON — Combining running and art isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but one British man seems to have managed it.
Owen Delaney is a 39-year-old network engineer living in London. In the run-up to Christmas, he’s been using Strava — the social network used by runners and cyclists to plan and track routes — to create some splendidly festive patters.
Here’s a cheerful reindeer.
Image: owen delaney/strava
And here’s a happy snowman.
Image: owen delaney/strava
The holly at the top of this Christmas pudding must have been tricky.
Image: owen delaney/strava
“It was just a bit of fun really,” Delaney explained to Mashable.
“The idea first came about a couple of years ago when I did something similar for an online competition. I didn’t have any plan to carry it on after Rudolph, but my friends seemed to like it so I did the Santa one the next day, then I thought why not try and come up with something different every day up until Christmas.”
Delaney uses Strava’s route plotting tool to map out his patterns, then heads out with his phone and follows the route using the Strava mobile app. He’s then been sharing his creations on Twitter.
Here’s a nice festive bauble…
Image: owen delaney/strava
…And a tree to hang it on.
Image: owen delaney/strava
You can’t fault that sleigh.
Image: owen delaney/strava
This one may be our personal favourite.
Image: owen delaney/strava
There’s some nice explosion detail around the cracker on this one.
Image: owen delaney/strava
This festive snowflake must have made for a slightly repetitive run.
Image: owen delaney/strava
Finally, here’s the big man himself.
Image: owen delaney/strava
That last one, despite being the hardest to run, is Delaney’s favourite.
“Bushy Park is not exactly easy underfoot in some places, which left the eyes looking like he’d been at the sherry,” he added.
Delaney said he’s been completely blown away by the attention his patterns have received.
“It’s great though, everyone seems to be enjoying it and it’s bringing lots of smiles, and lovely comments from people,” he said. “That’s what’s motivating me to keep going.
“We could all do with something simple and happy this year I think.”
And in the future?
“There’ll be one every day until Christmas Day,” said Delaney. “Then who knows, maybe New Year? Easter? A dragon for St. George’s day?
“That might be pushing my luck…”
You can follow Delaney on Twitter and Strava to see his new patterns.
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