It would seem that ground combat is about to change, as Microsoft has struck a deal with the US Army. The deal involves the big tech company supplying over 120,000 augmented reality headsets to the US Army.

The contract, amounting to about $21.88 billion over ten years, follows a 2018 contract to build prototypes of the Army’s Integrated Visual Augmented System (IVAS). The new contract will involve building working production versions of the system — a deal that stands to change the face of ground combat.

The headsets, based on Microsoft’s consumer-facing HoloLens, allow soldiers to view map and even thermal imaging overlays, allowing them to effectively see in the dark.

The headsets can also relay video streams. For instance, thanks to a new gun barrel attachment, soldiers could even see around corners.

Naturally, some employees at Microsoft protested this deal, and they are telling their company to cancel the said contract. In a 2019 open letter signed by over 100 engineers, employees stated that they “did not sign up to develop weapons,” and they demanded to have “a say in how [their] work is used.”

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Ricinator/ Pixabay)

Guldies Konst (previously at Neatorama) made a cute claymation video of a doughboy-type character lifting weights. It doesn't go as planned. The sequence is only 11 seconds long, but then we get a look at how the sound effects for it were created, which is a treat. -via Laughing Squid

DeMoulin Brothers & Co. of Greenville, Illinois, has been in business since 1892. They manufactured military uniforms for both world wars, and today they sell band uniforms. Early in the company's history, they also sold novelties, such as devices for pranks and illusions. These items were designed for and aimed at lodges and fraternities for hazing purposes. All in good fun, of course.

Clothes steeped in cultural meaning as party costumes; imitation guns to terrorise; a goat – wait for the goat; a guillotine; the rhythmic automatic spanking machine; the embarrassingly erotic ‘pillow fight’; the promise of having your facial bones crushed by a large lead weight; the ‘branding and whirling table’; the intimately ravaging ‘pointed affair’; more buttock thrashing with the ‘spanking shovel’; and many more japes to get excited lodge members howling as ‘the candidate’ fears for their life all feature in the DeMoulin Brothers & Company’s cornucopia of earthly delights.

The guillotine pictured above was built to stop a few inches from the victim's head. Surely nothing could ever go wrong with that! While most of the items pictured in the DeMoulin Brothers & Co. 1908 catalog were illusions, some delivered an electric shock to the unsuspecting victim. Take a look at the weird items they had to offer back in the day at Flashbak. -Thanks, WTM!

It is normal for thunderstorm clouds to form over the Pacific Ocean. What’s not normal is when a thunderstorm cloud reaches a really cool temperature that “pushes the limits of what [our] current satellites are capable of measuring.” This is what happened in 2018, when a storm cloud reached -167.8°F (-111°C), according to a study.

Thunderstorms and tropical cyclones, a circular low-pressure storm, can reach very high altitudes — up to 11 miles (18 kilometers) from the ground — where the air is much cooler, according to a statement from the U.K.'s National Center for Earth Observation.

But this new temperature is on another level. The top of the storm cloud was about 86 F (30 C) colder than typical storm clouds, according to the statement. The beast of a storm loomed about 249 miles (400 km) south of Nauru in the Southwest Pacific on Dec. 29, 2018, and its clouds' temperature was picked up by an infrared sensor aboard the U.S.'s NOAA-20 satellite orbiting the planet.

Simon Proud, lead author of the study, states that this phenomenon of clouds reaching extremely cold temperatures is becoming more common today, and this means that thunderstorms will be more dangerous for us in the near future.

More about this over at Live Science.

(Image Credit: National Centre for Earth Observation/ Live Science)

The Hoosac Tunnel in western Massachusetts is a 4.75-mile railroad tunnel running under the Hoosac Mountain Range, built to connect Boston with the Erie Canal. Digging this tunnel was not an easy project. It began in 1851 and was supposed to have been completed in three years and cost little more than a million dollars. Instead, it took 24 years and $20 million, and 192 men lost their lives building it.

As noted above, the tunnel’s completion took a horrendous death toll.  Men fell down the tunnel’s thousand-foot deep center shaft.  Men were burned alive.  Men were blown to bits by nitroglycerine explosions.  A not-untypical disaster involved three workers, Ned Brinkman, Billy Nash, and Ringo Kelley.  Kelley accidentally set off some explosives, burying the other two men alive.  Instead of running for help, Kelley fled the scene, leaving his coworkers to their fate.  One year later, Kelley’s dead body was found in the tunnel, at the same spot where Brinkman and Nash had died.  It was widely believed that the ghosts of his victims had gotten their revenge.  In 1868, three years after this triple tragedy, a mechanical engineer named Paul Travers wrote to his sister:

“Last night Mr. Dunn and I entered the great tunnel (unfinished) at 9 p.m.  We traveled about two miles into the shaft and then stopped to listen.  As we stood there in the cold silence, we both heard what truly sounded like a man groaning out in pain.  As you know, I have heard that sound many times during the war.  Yet when we turned the wicks up on our lamps, there were no other human beings in the shaft.  I haven’t been this frightened since Shiloh.  Mr. Dunn agreed that it wasn’t the wind we heard.  Perhaps Nash or Brinkman?  I wonder.”

Scary stories piled up around the tunnel, from the voice that kept laughing as a tree fell on workers, to a blue headless ghost, to a man who walked in and was never seen again, to the woman who scoffed at a tunnel superstition -right before she died. Read a sampling of why the Hoosac Tunnel is considered one of the most haunted tunnels in the world at Strange Company.

(Image credit: Doug Kerr)

Godzilla vs. Kong has been available in theaters and on HBO Max for about a week, and we've already got an Honest Trailer. It certainly has spoilers, but that that really matter? Will knowing how little sense the plot makes cause you to change your mind about watching the film? Will knowing who wins the battle change your mind? Honestly, the surprises revealed in this Honest Trailer will only reinforce your previous decision to watch Godzilla vs. Kong or not.

Even in a pandemic year, the high school hockey players of Minnesota grow their hair in an attempt to make the Minnesota State High School All Hockey Hair Team. This is the 12th annual team. YouTuber Game On! Minnesota goes with the flow and gives us the rundown of the hair situation this season. Hair that was cut, or rather, styled at home ruled this year. Facial hair was rarely seen due to masks. As always, the hair competition supports the Hendrickson Foundation, which runs Special, Sled, Blind, and Military hockey programs. -via Metafilter  

See the All Hockey Hair Teams from previous years.

In 1776, 23-year-old Jemima Wilkinson contracted a deadly disease, most likely typhus. Upon recovery, Wilkinson declared that she had died, and was now a new person. This new person identified as neither male nor female, and took the name "The Public Universal Friend." Wilkinson was a Quaker, which is formally named the Society of Friends, so the name made some sense, however generic it was. The Friend began to preach and drew plenty of followers.

For now, though, enthusiastic followers grew in number. Help the poor, said the Friend, and followers said, "Yeah, that sounds right." Oppose slavery, said the Friend, and followers said, "Right on." Stay celibate, said the Friend, and followers said, "Hold on, let's not go crazy," and most ignored this advice and married. An exception: 50 women stayed single and formed a group within the movement known as the Faithful Sisterhood. If that name make them sound like militants willing to respond with violence when necessary, good instincts. Keep that thought in mind.

The Quakers were not happy with the breakaway sect, and The Friend's followers eventually formed a commune in the wilderness of New York. Read the story of The Public Universal Friend and their followers at Cracked.

(Image credit: David Hudson)

Who Was the Most Evil Scientist in History? https://t.co/AW2MmWYHkZ pic.twitter.com/0gQAx8VWhJ

— Gizmodo (@Gizmodo) April 5, 2021

We are quite familiar with the idea of an evil mad scientist in fiction, but the real world has seen plenty of unethical experiments: the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Japan's Unit 731, and the Russian guy who sewed a dog's head onto another dog, not to mention scientists who pushed an agenda of one sort or another, and plenty of lesser-known yet evil things done in the name of science. Gizmodo asked six accomplished scientists to name the most evil scientist they had heard of, and four of them named the same man. You can probably guess who that is, but there are two others named as well, plus more in the comments in the latest Giz Asks column.

Marmosets are adorable, and they are all over Brazil's southeastern seaboard. The most common are of the species called the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus), which you've seen plenty of pictures of. But strangely, they are not native to southeastern Brazil- in fact, they are an invasive species in that area. The native species is the buffy-tufted-ear marmoset (Callithrix aurita), which is one of one of the world’s 25 most endangered primates. Wildlife counts can be deceiving, as common marmosets will mate with buffy-tufted-ear marmosets, leading to hybridization.

This is a good time to mention that there’s one more thing working against the buffy-tufted-ear marmoset: Unlike the common marmoset, it isn’t cute, at least not by most standards. With a perma-sneer and menacingly orange eyes, the tiny primate looks like it woke up wearing yesterday’s makeup. Because of its haggard countenance and standoffish nature, staff at Carvalho’s organization lovingly call it “the little goth monkey.” (The Portuguese moniker is a tad kinder: sagui-vaverinha, or, “little skull monkey.”)

This leads to a situation in which the public loves an invasive species more than the natural species in an environment, and makes conservation of the buffy-tufted-ear marmoset rather difficult. Read about the plight of the "skull monkey" at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Jack Hynes)

I just love this video so I wanted to share it with all of you. It gets good/funny at about 2:08 :). I don't own a Nintendo Switch, but I *believe* the game they are playing here is Mario Kart Live for the Switch (in case anyone is wondering and wants to enjoy this with their own cats). Anyway, hope everyone enjoys this as much as I did. ✌️ 

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Ever wonder what Super Mario would look like without a mustache?

Kinda creepy, but also kinda child-like.

While browsing through a mail order catalog for small, precision tools, I ran across a listing for a "gourd saw." It appears to be a handheld stiff-bladed jigsaw. The seller describes it as one used by gourd artists for cutting into gourds.

Such specialized tools can often have multiple uses. The chop saw that I use for cutting stained glass zinc came is sometimes called an "arrow saw" because it's frequently used by people who make their own arrows.

In the final months of the Soviet Union's existence, filmmakers there produced a TV adaptation of Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings. After all copies had been lost for thirty years, one recently resurfaced and has been uploaded to YouTube.

via GIPHY

Can you believe it's been ten years since the birth of Nyan Cat? It was the perfect meme: a cat, a pop tart, pixelated animation, and a rainbow. Once the song was added, it took over the internet. I mean, really: Neatorama has six pages of posts in the search result. On its tenth anniversary, we may as well find out how Nyan Cat came about and what's happened since then. Input magazine talked to artist Chris Torres about April of 2011, when he had just started a new job that had nothing to do with memes.

At the time, Torres was also a digital artist with a small following on his website LOL Comics. A few weeks earlier, after a disastrous magnitude-9.0 earthquake hit Japan, unleashing a massive tsunami, he set up an impromptu charity livestream, doodling viewers’ requests while taking in donations earmarked for the American Red Cross. One fan requested a cat, while another requested a Pop-Tart. Torres decided to combine the two ideas into one doodle: a grey cat that looked like his own pet, Marty, but with a pink Pop-Tart body.

As the meme took off, Torres found himself in a battle to reclaim his creation that was running wild, making money for other people. It eventually came to the point he had to choose between Nyan Cat and his "real job." Read the story of Torres' viral kitty here. -via Digg