Avery Ellis

Tech News

Teen Playing Pokémon Go Finds Dead Body Instead: Report

For the past few days Pokémon Go has been tricking us into exploring parts of our hometowns we’d never normally go. But for Riverton, Wyoming resident Shayla Wiggins her quest to catch them all resulted in stumbling across a dead guy in a river, County10 reported. Wiggins, 19, was staying with her mother for part … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

You’ve Probably Been to Null Island

A few hundred miles off the coast of Ghana is Null Island—the point of zero longitude and zero latitude. It’s not a real island in the physical sense, but data, photos, and whole people have been there, if only for a little while. How they got there comes down to shoddy programming. As Tom Scott … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

Did Pokémon Go Put a Gym in an Actual Graveyard? [Update]

Pokémon Go has been available in the US for a couple of days now, and by any measure it’s a runaway success. My only complaint so far is that the game keeps making me walk to weird places, and I’m not the only one. YouTuber Beware The Flood was driving around with his girlfriend looking … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

Russian Special Forces Rations Include Brain Pâté, Among Other Things

Steve1989—who we previously watched eat a piece of actual civil war history—has a penchant for consuming rare and obscure military rations. Today he decided to scarf down several meals intended for the Spetsnaz (Russian special forces) for when those troops are traveling through mountains. It’s hearty. It’s weird. And there’s lots of it. Mountaineering is … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

Don’t Freak Out Over This Supercut of Horror Movie Jump Scares

Jump scares are a staple—and one of the most divisive elements—of modern horror movies. Some people are too susceptible to them, while others find them gimmicky. To people in the former camp: does the above gif scare you in any way? The answer is almost certainly no. Despite the “jump” in “jump scare,” what I … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

Watch the Exact, Terrifying Moment a Hang Glider Loses Control

Last Tuesday, Voss, Norway-native Jon Gjerde decided to strap himself to a gigantic kite and go zipping through the air like some sort of very ugly bird. The 51-year-old is no stranger to hang gliding. He is, in fact, a world champion in the sport. But after this particular outing he’s lucky to be alive. … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

What Are the Guts of a Dartboard Made of?

In the above gif you can see that the face material of a dartboard looks a whole lot like horsehair. And plenty of people will insist that high-quality dartboards are made with horse or camel hair, but it simply isn’t true. What’s really in a dartboard is called sisal, and it’s more closely related to … Continued

Tech News

Does Playing Loud Music Kill Your Battery Faster?

Of all the things your smartphone can do, playing music is one of the least demanding. Listening to a song puts very little strain on the CPU, doesn’t require GPS, and often doesn’t require wi-fi (so long as the music files are stored on your phone). Simple physics says that listening to louder music should … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

Video Perfectly Skewers the Assholery of OK Go

No one is impressed by your dumb choreographed videos, OK Go. It’s old. It’s masturbatory. You’re hurting yourselves and the people closest to you, and you need to stop. AJJ’s new video for “Goodbye, Oh Goodbye” reads like a parody of all the hallmarks of mad-vi internet band OK Go: There’s synchronized dancing (walking in … Continued

Tech NewsMicrosoft

VLC Is Finally Available for Windows 10

What’s not not to love about VLC Media Player? It’s free, lightweight, intuitive, and plays damn never every file format under the sun. Now, a long-awaited beta is finally available for Windows 10 users. It’s okay to nerd out a little bit. Besides being its usual wonderful self, this new release works with Cortana voice … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

Speedrunner Reprograms a Super Mario Game to Beat Itself

Speedrunners have long been exploiting 8-bit games by “reprogramming” them. Pixel-perfect inputs can be used to trigger memory events, usually for the purpose of beating games in fractions of the time it would ordinarily take. A similar exploit exists in the classic Mario Game Boy game 6 Golden Coins, but it exists in a physical, … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

Watch a Man Eat Food From the Civil War 

Food is one of the pieces of common ground that people of all cultures share. Food is the one language we’re all forced to speak. And then there’s Steve1989 MREinfo. He just likes to eat really old military rations. It’s kind of his thing. Steve has eaten the old-as-hell food of armies from countless wars, … Continued

Reviews

This E-Cig is a Terrible Vape, But a Solid Cigarette Replacement

The ploy of the rechargeable, Blu PLUS+ vape is obvious: It looks like a cigarette and the charging case resembles a pack. “It’s just like real smoking!” it seems to beg of your disbelief. It isn’t. But that should be obvious. And it’s far from the biggest problem with the Blu PLUS+. Despite sharing roughly … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

What Dark Magic Makes This Weird Yo-Yo Work?

Yo-yo tricks are already a miracle of physics. But Ben Conde specializes in a type of yo-yo with an unattached string, and does things that defy all logic. But there’s one sneaky feature that makes these contraptions work. Hidden between the halves of his yo-yo are tiny silicone friction pads. These—combined with high rotational speed—grab … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

Idiots Climb the Eiffel Tower for Shits and Giggles

The Eiffel Tower is the most famous and one of the most heavily-guarded structures in Paris. For a fee you can hang out inside of it, but its upper reaches are not legally accessible to the public. So three Russian daredevils decided to scale it anyway, without safety equipment, while being filmed by a drone. … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

Tony Hawk (Old) Can Still Pull Off His Famous 900

Seventeen years ago, extreme sports ambassador and titular Pro Skater Tony Hawk pulled off the 900 revolution at the 1999 X-Games. The trick involves rotating the board two and a half times while midair (and in normal gravity), and Hawk struggled with it back in his spry days. Now 48, he gives it the old … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

Welcome to Australia, Where Even Money Can Kill You

Australia has an earned reputation for being dangerous and inhospitable. It’s home to dickhead lizards that look like Jurassic Park dinosaurs, jellyfish that swallow regular fish whole, gangs of murderous sharks, herpes-infested carp, and snakes that are so sick of living there that they try to suffocate themselves in their own skin. Now even Australian … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

Terrifying Helmet Doubles as Flamethrower

Two fundamental rules in most science labs are 1) always have protective eyewear on and 2) don’t stick your face next to stuff that’s on fire. For these reasons, Sufficiently Advanced’s flamethrower welding helmet presents a conundrum. Modeled after Cyclops from the X-Men, this deeply unsafe contraption shoots two lines of fire out of your … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

It’s Your Fault For Ordering a Cocktail That’s Both Frozen and On Fire

Ha! I trapped the drink you ordered in a weird ice sphere. Bet you weren’t expecting that. Don’t even try melting it with your tongue or some shit, because I also lit the glass on fire. You’re going to wait for this lackluster drink to become consumable (not counting the 2.5 hours you waited for … Continued

Tech News

These Coffee-Infused Cocktails Are the Hair of the Dog You’ve Been Looking For

Standard remedies for a hangover are generally limited to greasy food, a strong cup of coffee, or more booze. Order those mozzarella sticks from bed, because we’ve got the other two covered. You can thank us later. Welcome to Gizmodo’s Happy Hour. Substance abuse for nerds. At first blush, coffee cocktails might seem like a … Continued