Month: September 2016

Traffic jams are interesting phenomena. While we tend to think of them as the result of car crashes (and sometimes they are), far more often they’re a subtle outgrowth of the way we drive, and how we apply our brakes.

Humans often overreact to small changes in traffic flow, and that reaction cascades into a massive slowdown. In the video below, CGP Grey illustrates how traffic works, and why humans are typically bad at managing traffic flow.

This video explains that endlessly frustrating phenomenon where you’re stuck in a jam, assuming there’s some massive wreck just up ahead, but there is no wreck and never was—you just magically speed up at some point. If you’ve ever wondered why that happens or what to do about it, have a look:

If you’re interested in this, there’s a lively discussion thread on Reddit talking about this whole business.

If you want to create pointillist works of art without giving yourself carpal tunnel—or you just lack the artistic dexterity—you might want to invest in The Pointillist Artist’s Electronic Pen. The $70 pen was created by Hammacher Schlemmer, makers of other brilliant and pointless products like rideable beer coolers and forks that twirl your spaghetti for you (along with a slew of practical stuff), and allows artists to automatically produce pointillist dots without having to tap each one out by hand.

The electronic pen was designed to help artists create pointillist or stippled works like those of impressionist painter Georges Seurat and The Wall Street Journal illustrator Kevin Sprouls. It contains an electromagnetic mechanism that pushes the ink tip up and down like a miniature jackhammer, generating 600 ink dots per minute. According to Hammacher Schlemmer, the pen allows artists to stipple 10 times faster than usual—making it perfect for impatient artists and those who suffer from wrist fatigue. 

[h/t Gizmodo]

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If you used to own an Xbox 360 and currently own an Xbox One, you might have some unexpected games waiting to be discovered. As The Verge discovered, many games purchased on the Xbox 360 have recently carried over to the Xbox One and are now hiding out on players’ hard drives.

Backwards compatibility is nothing new. Gamers have come to expect that their new systems will be able to play games from the previous generation—but only the previous one. This means you can play Wii games on your Wii U, but you can’t play GameCube games. Saying goodbye to old games is just an accepted progression of gaming for most people, as the technological arms race between Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo rages on. But now that Xbox has rolled out this new version of backwards compatibility, it opens up the opportunity to extend past single generations.

You can see a full list of the Xbox 360 games that are now available on the Xbox One here and enjoy reliving old games on a new console.

[h/t The Verge]

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In the video below, Tory Belleci from the MythBusters Build Team inflates a giant balloon, and we wait for the thing to pop. It’s like consensual torture. Having said that, I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would—the suspense comes in waves, as it goes on far longer than I expected. At times I wondered if the balloon would even pop at all. Tory even repeats his lines, it goes on for so long. Just watch poor Tory’s face as he waits for the inevitable explosion. It’s awful and wonderful all at once.

Incidentally, the Build Team is working on a new Netflix show. Get excited!