GEEKOLOGIE RSS TEST THREAD

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Look, I know the title of this post kind of makes sense and when you read it you're thinking, "This is probably a Japanese guy who made a way to pull his iPhone out really quickly." And that's a fair assumption. But what this video actually is is pure internet majesty. This is the internet we were promised. Somebody give this guy a $200 million check and see what he makes because I bet it'll be better than anything The Rock pumps out in the next decade. I honestly can't even describe it because how would you describe what a rainbow tastes like? Keep going for the full video.

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Guinness World Records recently awarded Isaac Johnson the title of biggest mouth in the world, although according to my girlfriend this record belongs to me. Oh, wait, this is talking about the literal largest mouth, not just constant jabbering.

Isaac Johnson from Bloomington, Minnesota has won back the title for the largest male mouth gape. He first won the title back in 2019 but lost it shortly after. However, two years later, his mouth has grown and can now stretch over 10 centimeters wide!

It says he won the record, lost the record, and then won the record back after his mouth grew, which I think is another way of saying he spent the last two years stretching his mouth out with weird contraptions. I'm pretty sure if he lost the record again he'd end up Jokering his mouth to get it back. Keep going for the full video showing him put random things in his mouth. It's intriguing yet also kind of gross.

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These guys hooked up a tandem bicycle to a Honda Civic to make a bike-powered car. The main points are it works, they're having fun, and they really like to say, "Know what I mean?" I like the idea, I just wish they didn't actually take it on the road because it'd be pretty annoying to be stuck behind a car traveling at, oh, zero miles per hour? It's also amusing that the guy in the car puts their seatbelt on when the ones on the bike aren't even wearing helmets. Keep going for the full video. They take it for a "drive", go through some fast-food drive thrus, and ultimately even get the approval of a police officer after being pulled over.

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This is rare 16mm footage from the original Star Wars prop department showing Kenny Baker (R2-D2) and Anthony Daniels (C-3P0) testing out the droid costumes.

It's March 1976 at Elstree Studios, UK and the props department are demonstrating the practicalities of the droid designs to George Lucas as actors Kenny Baker (R2D2) and Anthony Daniels (C3P0) familiarise themselves with the costumes and get used to walking in them...

Man, Kenny Baker is a trooper for being in that R2-D2 suit and actually moving around in it. I don't think they could've come up with a more uncomfortable design if they tried. The only way it could be less comfortable is if they also decided to fill that thing up with spiders. Keep going for the full video.

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Clinton "Pwnisher" Jones challenged 2,400 CG artists to render a base animation and this is a montage of the top 100.

Over the last month, I challenged 3D artists with the Alternate Realities CG challange. I provided an animation for everyone to work from, and the results were stunning. 2,400 artists delivered, the top 100 were chosen for this montage, and 5 of them walked away with insane prizes from Rokoko, Wacom, Quixel, PNY and Aftershokz (I personally reached out to my favorite companies in order to give away the tools I use every day.)

TOP 5 WINNERS 1st - Stephen Grimm 1:32 2nd - Klay Abele 0:22 3rd - Julienne Aldric 8:37 4th - Stefan Frank 2:12 5th - Pierson Edwards 6:22

This is 10 minutes of the same animation over and over and I still watched the entire thing. Each render looks like a video game that I would happily play. I could watch this thing forever and I have no idea how a winner was picked because all of them are amazing. Every time it skipped to a new one I declared it to be the best one yet. Keep going for the full video.

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This is a video simulating the burn-up of a Solar Array Drive Mechanism during atmospheric reentry using a plasma wind tunnel.

This Solar Array Drive Mechanism (SADM) has the essential task of keeping a satellite's solar wings trained on the Sun, maintaining mission operations. But its bulky nature presents a problem in terms of space debris guidelines. When a spacecraft reenters on an uncontrolled basis, the spacecraft operator has to prove that the on-ground casualty risk posed by its satellite is lower than 1 in 10 000.

So last year SADM manufacturer Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (KDA) started an investigation supported by ESA, Hyperschall Technologie Göttingen GmbH (HTG) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to demonstrate the 'demisability' of one of its satellite products. They began by modelling such a reentry using ESA's dedicated SCARAB (Spacecraft Atmospheric Reentry and Aerothermal Break-up) software and comparable resources, tweaking the SADM by switching one screw to lower-melting-point alumimium to promote an earlier, higher-altitude breakup. Then their software model was compared to observed reality, by melting an actual SADM model inside DLR's LK3 plasma wind tunnel in Cologne. Arc-heated gas in the test chamber reaching speeds of several kilometres per second, reproducing reentry conditions. Following assessment of the results, HTG went on to build a model of the SADM using ESA's DRAMA (Debris Risk Assessment and Mitigation Analysis) software tool, which will be available to other DRAMA users in the future. As part of a larger effort called Managing the end of life of satellites, ESA is developing technologies and techniques to ensure future low-orbiting satellites are designed according to the concept of 'D4D' - Design for Demise.

There are a lot of words up there, but the gist is they melted a satellite part using a plasma wind tunnel and things melting look cool. Now they just need to stick other things in that plasma wind tunnel starting with a block of cheese and ending with a car.

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pic.twitter.com/nIfGvBchTg

— 今日中国 (@Today__China) June 22, 2021

A triangle-shaped UFO was spotted over Shanghai on Tuesday. It's currently the 100th anniversary of the communist party in China and Shanghai currently looks like a nonstop laser show so people are speculating it could just be the shadow of a building, but like all things related to UFOs, I want to believe. Although what's more likely? That an insane city-wide light show is creating weird shadows, or that a UFO the size of an Independence Day ship decided to hover over one of the most populated cities in the world and nobody really cared or investigated? Yes, correct, obviously the UFO angle.

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Using AI, Rembrandt's 'The Night Watch' has been restored to its original size after it was cut down in 1715 to fit at Amsterdam's city hall. The top image is a copy of the painting by Gerrit Lundens which was painted within 13 years of the uncut original, and under it is the "restored" AI version.

In 1715, three-quarters of a century after it was painted, the canvas was trimmed - 60cm (2ft) cut from the left side of the painting, 22cm (9ins) from the top, 12cm from the bottom and 7cm from the right - so that the masterpiece might fit between two doors at Amsterdam's city hall.

But using high-resolution photography of what is left of the original, computer learning of Rembrandt's techniques and a contemporary copy of the full painting by Gerrit Lundens hanging in London's National Gallery, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam was able to reproduce the work in all its glory.

First of all, what kind of morons are cutting art to fit their stupid godamn wall? Second of all, can this technology be used to restore me into all of my family photos because for some reason my mom cropped me out while muttering something about "being a huge disappointment." I mean, what's that all about? Probably like an accident, right? And also her phone must be broken which is why she isn't answering any of my calls? Can AI do something about that as well?

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The Q, who previously made a bike with "invisible" wheels, finally realized his dream of a truly hubless bicycle by, well, building it:

What do you know about hubless bicycles? I've never seen anything like this before! So, behold - truly hubless bicycle that works almost flawless! All you need - fatbike, bearings, some metal and time

If I hadn't seem him make it I'm not sure I could even picture how a hubless bicycle would work. He basically just made the gear so large it was the same size as the tire. It's clever, but it's also why it looks like he's perpetually stuck in first gear. And clearly the next logical step here is to add neon lights and turn it into a Tron light cycle. And after that? Obviously riding around trying to murder other people on bikes. Duh. Keep going for the video of the bike in action as well as the full build.

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A "fan" holding a sign during the Tour de France clipped rider Tony Martin, causing him and pretty much everybody behind him to crash.

With less than 30 miles left in the first stage of the 2021 Tour de France, a fan held out a sign over the edge of the road that clipped Tony Martin and caused most of the field to pile up behind him.

I included a shot of the woman holding the sign because she's clearly more interested in being on TV than in the event itself. She's not even looking at the riders. She might as well have been in the middle of the road swinging nunchucks around while yelling, "Look at me! Look at me!" And in case you're wondering (which of course you are), her sign is a combination of French and German and translates to: "Go grandpa-grandma." Although it might have been forgivable if it said something like "Scooters rule. Bikes drool." Keep going for the video. It's pretty brutal and it looks like Tony Martin got run over by no less than a hundred thousand bicycles?

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Apparently round hot dogs are a thing that exist as discovered by writer Maria Yagoda of Food & Wine. You're probably just thinking it's bologna and you're kind of right, though the creator Rastelli's claims there are key differences.

In a patented process, Rastelli's chops black angus beef and premium pork, rather than fully emulsifying or liquifying the mixture like what's done for many traditional bolognas. "We then wrap our meat mixture in a collagen casing, followed by a netting to help hold shape," a spokesperson told me. "The product is then smoked, similar to an Old World-style hot dog, with a proprietary blend of woods, such as chicory, and later finished in the oven. Before slicing into rounds, we remove the casing." They remove the casing so the meat becomes more permeable, allowing the flavor of the condiments to "really sink into the round dog," and to help reduce the chances of choking.

So, yeah, that's a lot of words to say it's pretty much just thick bologna. Although this further complicates the eternal debate: is a hot dog a sandwich? You can buy an 8 pack from Rastelli's for $18. Or you can buy a normal hot dog from Costco for $1.50 and get a drink as well.

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This is mesmerizing aerial timelapse footage of sheep herding in Yokneam taken by photographer Lior Patel.

Haifa-based photographer Lior Patel has spent the last seven months immersed in the daily rhythms of sheep. Hovering above the Peace Valley region of Yokneam, he's documented a single flock's grazing process in a captivating timelapse that shows the animals racing across the agricultural landscape and down roadways in robust, heaving masses. Shot with a drone, the accelerated footage attests to the drove's shape-shifting instincts, which resembles other naturally occurring patterns like a flowing current or mesmerizing starling murmurations.

If you stop paying attention they start to look like roving maggots which makes the video a little less relaxing to watch. Unless roving maggots is your thing. Hey, I'm not judging. I once ate a pancake out of a trash can so I'm not really in a position to judge anybody about anything. Keep going for the full satisfying video.

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To celebrate the purchase of Boston Dynamics by Hyundai, Boston Dynamics released this video of Spot robots dancing to BTS's IONIQ: I'm On It, which I guess is a song made for Hyundai about wanting to bang a car? It's weird enough that a South Korean boy band made a song about a car, but now they got a robotics company to make a music video for the K-pop song about the car. I don't fully grasp what's happening between BTS, Hyundai, and Boston Dynamics, but whatever it is I bet it isn't good for society. Keep going for the full video as well as the original BST IONIQ music video which is part music video part car commercial. Actually it's just full car commercial.

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On Monday, the Klein Vision AirCar completed its first ever inter-city flight.

AirCar, a dual-mode car-aircraft vehicle moved closer to production this week, fulfilling a key development milestone in a 35-minute flight from the international airport in Nitra to the international airport in Bratislava on June 28th, 2021

This is legitimately cool, but it obviously would've been 100x cooler if it had taken off and landed on a freeway or something instead of an airport. Blah blah blah aviation laws or whatever I don't care. A flying car doesn't fulfill its true purpose until you can use it to take off during rush hour to avoid traffic or use it to escape the police. Keep going for the full video.

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17 people were injured in South Los Angeles on Wednesday evening when an LAPD bomb squad attempted to safely detonate about 5,000 pounds of seized illegal fireworks and their containment vehicle ended up exploding.

Police detonated the devices at 7:37 p.m., believing that the vehicle would be able to contain the explosion, but there was a "total catastrophic failure of that containment vehicle," Moore said.

"Clearly protocols were followed and pursued, but something happened in that containment vehicle that should have not happened and we don't know why," the chief said. "We intend to find out why." Officers arrested Arturo Cejas III, a man in his 20s who resided at the home with the fireworks, on suspicion of reckless or malicious possession of a destructive device. He is being held on $500,000 bail. Moore said that the explosive material was acquired from out of state for the purpose of being sold to community members for the Fourth of July. He said that officials found Cejas' 10-year-old brother at the scene and will be pursuing child endangerment charges as well for the risk he faced from the explosives that had been stored at the home.

This is one of those times it'd be easy to say something like "clearly the illegal fireworks were in safer hands with the criminals than with the LAPD" but then you remember the time an illegal stockpile accidentally exploded in a neighborhood and killed a bunch of people. So the moral of the story seems to be that nobody can be trusted to safely handle illegal fireworks except for 10-year-olds and the cast of Jackass. Keep going for video of multiple angles of the incident.

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So this just happened in Ocean City, MD. pic.twitter.com/B0djA8JxF7

— Gilly Gene (@GillyOfThe412) July 4, 2021

All of Ocean City's Fourth of July fireworks shows were canceled after a fireworks display exploded prematurely on the beach:

Officials are still investigating the cause of the explosion, which left some of the professionals setting up the show with minor injuries. Those individuals declined to be taken to the hospital, and no other people walking on the beach or the nearby boardwalk were injured, according to the Ocean City Fire Department.

I've always felt fireworks shows would be better if they exploded them all at once and turns out they're even better if you do them in spectacularly dangerous fashion on a beach. Nothing honors independence like the freedom to blow yourself up on a beach trying to watch sparkly explosions.

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Tom Scott shows behind the scenes of a grocery warehouse and how many robots it takes to operate it.

In Ocado's grocery warehouses, thousands of mechanical boxes move on the Hive. Are they all individual robots? Or is this one giant hive mind?

When Judgement Day comes the Terminators won't even have to nuke us, they can just turn off all the warehouse robots and we'll all starve to death. Or at the least make it take longer than two days to get us that random doohickey off Amazon and have us die of inconvenience. Keep going for the full video. This obviously isn't how every grocery store is operating, but it's only a matter of time.

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This is a timelapse of spacewalks made by ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet during his second mission to the International Space Station, "Alpha".

On 16 June 2021 Thomas and @NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough went on a spacewalk to install a new solar array for the International Space Station. These arrays, called IROSA for ISS Roll-Out Solar Array, had to be taken from their storage area outside the Space Station and passed from spacewalker to spacewalker to the worksite. There the rolled arrays were to be secured, unfolded, connected and then unfurled.

During the spacewalk a small technical problem in Shane's spacesuit required him to return to the airlock and restart his Display and Control Module. This module provides astronauts with continuous information on pressure, temperature and other vital data during a spacewalk. Though the restart was successful and Shane was in no danger, it delayed the duo's work, preventing them from completing installation of the first new solar array as planned. A second spacewalk was done on 20 June to finish installing the first solar array. This video shows scenes from the first spacewalk with Thomas being moved on the robotic arm, at the controls was NASA astronaut Megan McArthur. The images for this timelapse were taken by @JAXA | 宇宙航空研究開発機構 astronaut and Space Station commander Aki Hoshide. Thomas posted this video on his social media with the caption: "We have to do EVAs, but someone has to keep running the Space Station while we are preparing, spacewalking, reconfiguring, preparing again... Aki has been rock solid taking care of the spaceship pretty much by himself, performing all the maintenance and the science experiments, AND ON TOP OF THAT he found the time to take timelapses of our little walks outside. The man is a machine!"

It's crazy that there are people in actual space doing things like this while I sit on a sofa with a half eaten pizza on my stomach. The crazy part being, of course, that the pizza is half eaten. Just give me another half hour and a toilet and we'll make this situation right. Keep going for the full video. It'd be impressive if it wasn't so obviously a sound stage in Hollywood.

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This is infuriating footage of a July Fourth firework being thrown into a convertible in Nashville.

Around 10:15 p.m. Sunday night, Colin Kirby was leaving the city after watching the July Fourth fireworks when a lit firework was tossed into his open convertible.

"They lit it, then rolled down the window and threw it," said Colin Kirby. "At the same time, they went around the corner." Kirby was driving in his convertible with a friend when people in a white car pulled up beside him. Someone in the backseat tossed the firework which landed behind Kirby's head. Miraculously, Kirby and his passenger weren't seriously injured by the flaming firework. The damage to his car is much worse. The firework singed the folded convertible top, trim and door of his car.

If these morons actually get arrested they should be charged with attempted manslaughter as well as extreme boneheadedness. Is extreme boneheadedness a crime? I didn't go to law school but I'm pretty sure it's as serious as murder. Keep going for the full video. It's pretty godamn ridiculous.

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If you're not familiar with mantis shrimp, they're weird little guys that can see through 12 channels of color (we can see three: red, green, and blue) and also pack the most powerful punch in the animal kingdom. Well this guy went fishing and ended up catching a mantis shrimp which proceeded to immediately punch him in the foot, tearing through his boot and causing him to bleed. There are videos of these things punching through crab shells so he's lucky he just ended up with a tiny bloody punch mark. From the videos I've watched on the internet I half expected his foot to just explode in a puff of mist. Keep going for the full video. After getting punched in the foot the guy keeps the mantis shrimp near his crotch which seems like an overall terrible idea.

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