It's nearly impossible, writes fan Sean Hutchison, who is into Star Wars enough to know it's better, and hates not being able to see it: "I couldn’t shake the question: Am I a Star Wars fraud for having never seen them?"

Chris Norris reports on how the Roland TR-808 Rhythm Controller, an unsuccessful drum machine, became the key musical instrument of a generation. Read the rest

Four purported prototypes salvaged from a Dreamcast devkit pay tribute to the humor, the weirdness and darkness that surrounds mascot Sonic the Hedgehog these days. Read the rest

Deal with it. (more…)

Filmmaker darwinfish105 created this lovely look at a day in the life of Japan's Haneda Airport. Read the rest

Now you can accessorize with cruelty-free "leather" created from discarded fruit, thanks to Fruitleather Rotterdam. Read the rest

French artist Thomas Blanchard mixed paint, oil, milk, honey and cinnamon to create these hypnotic swirlings of color and shape. The film is set to Lost in Space by Max Richter. Read the rest

For a long time the needs of magic dragons everywhere have been overlooked by playing card manufacturers. Why spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds? Read the rest

This acrylic shaving mirror ($10 on Amazon) is a bit larger than my iPhone 6. I feel like I'm taking a selfie when I shave. Read the rest

Some Italian treasure hunters found a strange looking bullet in Tuscany. Inside was a dated, coded message.Read the rest

Christian Lusardi, 43, of Fayetteville, North Carolina was pleased to win $6,814 in an Atlantic City poker tournament. But he was sad when his attempt to get rid of $3.6 million of counterfeit casino chips he'd used in the tournament was unsuccessful. Read the rest

I wanted to make my own dancing cane. All you need is a drill, some magicians thread, and a far lighter cane than mine. Read the rest

You begin Gathering Sky as a bird. Move your cursor, and it follows. But as you guide it through the sky, slowly adding other birds to your aerial coterie, the nature of your relationship quickly changes: you have become a flock. Read the rest

Mike Melgaard pretended to be Target on Facebook and teased people who are threatening to boycott Target for removing gender labeling from toy aisles (e.g., separate labeling for “Building Sets” and “Girls Building Sets”). Read the rest

Alan sez, "In its latest report, the American Library Association reviews thestate of Internet content filters and finds the state dismal." Read the rest

I can barely ride a modern adventure bike, but do I ever love my Triumph Scrambler!Motorcyclist Online puts both Ducati and Triumph's modern reinventions of the simple Scrambler to the test, entering them in a Colorado Rockies adventure rally. Things go better than you'd imagine and worse than you'd hope!

In 2013 the Break Club opened in Buenos Aires, Argentina, "where members (predominately women) go to break shit with a stick, shatter bottles against the wall, kick stuff, and all around have the best fifteen minutes of their day." Read the rest

This ad for Bic didn't go well, and Bic is very, very sorry."Look like a girl, Act like a lady, Think like a man, Work like a boss." Ridiculous. Everyone knows bosses are terrible workers.

Max Brook's The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead is a completely straight faced manual for survival in zombie-infested world. Read the rest

Jim Bakker, the smarmy, sex-scandal embroiled, 1980s TV evangelist fraudster and ex-con who fleeced his followers for decades with his then-wife Tammy Faye Bakker, has a new gig: selling "creamy potato soup bulk buckets" to end-times preppers for $160. Read the rest

Talk about BRUTAL. Rip It Up tells the history of this awesome tribute band, and shares a link to some of their music!Read the rest

A 700-pound pet pig has gotten its owners evicted from their home in Lea, Lincolnshire, England, reports the Gainsborough Standard. Read the rest

"Sweep the leg, Johnny." For those of you who remember, this is a fantastic treat.(more…)

Combining useful physics lessons, building cool machines, and LEGO is always win in my household. This book has my daughter back to building! Read the rest

A 24-year-old woman broke her leg at Luna Park in Cap d'Agde, France, when one of the two cables attached to the reverse bungee ride she was riding in snapped. The other occupant was uninjured.

CNN Money investigates the crazed market for the video games of yore, fueled by the likes of RetroLiberty, a YouTube channel about finding vintage video games at swap meets or parking lot deals, and Videogamesnewyork, a shop specializing in vintage game gear from the last century. Read the rest

Norwegian illustrator ThatNordicGuy mixes celebrities faces together to create alternate universe stars. Above, Angelina Fox. Below, Nikolaj Coster-Dinklage. Read the rest

To think, he threatened not to make it at all![Youtube, via]

Imagine walking down a street in Paris one morning, stumbling upon a rubbish heap, plucking out a cardboard box from the debris, and finding pages of song lyrics, a war medal and a diary written 100 years ago inside the box. Read the rest

Over at Display, Graphic designer Richard Danne tells the story of the fantastic "worm" logo he and partner Bruce Blackburn created for NASA in 1974. It was used for almost twenty years until the NASA administrator Dan Goldin unfortunately reinstated the previous "meatball" logo, developed in 1959. Read the rest

Brooke Mackin of Signs & Marvels provides a slightly more affordable alternative to the Museum of Modern Art's golden mesh necklace. Read the rest

We are thrilled to announce that our friend Coop, famous rock poster illustrator and fine artist, is joining us at our Weekend of Wonder extravaganza, September 18-20 in Riverside, California. Read the rest

Banning the homeless from sleeping outside when they have nowhere else to sleep is unconstitutional, argues the United States Department of Justice in a statement of interest filed regarding a Boise, Idaho court case about an anti-camping ordinance. Read the rest

In celebration of the 150th anniversary of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Princeton University Press just published a special edition of Lewis Carroll's classic, illustrated with Salvador Dalí’s incredible 1969 artwork for the story. Read the rest

If you find Elite: Dangerous a too-contemporary spin on the space-trading theme, try Oolite, inspired directly by the original 8-bit masterpiece. Read the rest

The more I think about this, the more terrifying it gets. Here are more videos of tortoises opening doors. Read the rest

Kyosho's $150 Bionic Bird is a smartphone-controlled ornithopter that is birdlike enough to fool a cat (or at least, the cat is pretending to be fooled). Read the rest

Ferrolic is a clock in which magnets draw ferrofluid into ever-shifting shapes (and, occasionally numbers, so you can tell the time). Read the rest

Or in Italian, "Arte greca, pietra tombale di donna con la sua schiavetta, databile al 100 a.C. circa." Read the rest

Ferrolic is a prototype ferrofluid display that draws blobby, weird, awesome imprecise bitmaps by manipulating magnetic particles suspended in liquid. Read the rest

"I think your genie is hard of hearing." "No kidding, you think I asked for a 12" pianist?" So the guy processes this. And he’s, like, “Does that mean..." Read the rest

Cheesemakers are so angry that Pornhub ran an ad comparing Parmigiano-Reggiano to premium smut, they're threatening to sue the porn company. Read the rest

You could be lying around on this super-comfy mat of configurable balls if you have $8K lying around. Comes in blue, red, brown, and gray. Read the rest

Documentary Now! is a hilarious sendup of the documentary genre by SNL alumni, and IFC has released the second episode DRONEZ: The Hunt for El Chingon, a parody of the always mockable VICE sensationalism. Read the rest

This tiny motor is only a little bigger than a grain of cooked rice (4 x 12 mm), but it can generate speeds over 100,000 RPM. Read the rest

Humpback whales with albinism are extremely rare, so it was a real treat when one appeared off the coast of Australia this week. Read the rest

In the 90s, games grasped at maturity with "real" video and actors. It was a weird but cult-beloved wrong turn—and we found a game that's revived it beautifully. Read the rest

Life is the forthcoming film about James Dean and Life magazine photographer Dennis Stock who was assigned to photograph Dean in 1955, the year of his death, and took the iconic photo of the actor in a rainy Times Square. Life is directed by Anton Corbijn, who directed Control (2004), the tragic and fantastic film about Joy Division's Ian Curtis. Read the rest