I prefer engine-acceleration when going downhill.

This is a great debate. Review channel Breaking Banter did a video essay on exactly that issue, and I think they got it exactly right. Teasers, showing minimal images, without context, are more than enough to create hype without spoiling.

I have a friend who will watch nothing - no interviews, no trailers, no posters…

You mean like GM’s ignition switch? Toyota’s accelerator? Chrysler’s shifter?

That this guy has survived this long is an argument against the reality of natural selection. His genes must derive from ancestors who, when the band of hunters heard loud growling and hissing behind a boulder, were always the ones who cheerfully volunteered to go see if the noise was indeed from a battle between a…

Remember that screws over the poor too. That oceanfront hotel has one owner and 200 low income workers.

Another casualty of infinite scrolling. Thanks Obama.

Oops. I dumb.

I live in Hampton Roads, so I can attest to the HRBT and the Chesapeake bridge/tunnel being tiled in white. It’s to combat the “Wiley E. Coyote” effect of people slamming on their brakes when they come to the tunnel mouth. The white tile is not only a great reflector for light, but also cleans easier (especially with…

Perhaps, and this is just a thought, people should learn to use their critical thinking skills than to just accept everything at face value. I understand that there’s some draw to just being able to read a headline and take it for face value. But then again, isn’t that why the country is so divided. Memes and fake…

To be honest, nobody knows how helicopters work. They’re an assortment of parts whirling at 10,000 rpm held together by blind luck and somehow defy gravity because of it.

I’ve always liked this.

No, no no... They need the Gizmodo chat section’s help to debug this thing. Work is hard man. The internet is here to help.

You’re seeing a test bed fire at what’s certainly it’s lowest effective setting and it’s a video they’re making public. The real thing you’ll never see a video about or have any press releases about its stats. Videos like this are for:

“...I wonder if this is realistically achievable on a drone that’s not just moving along in a straight line perpendicular to the laser.”

From watching the video, it seemed the targeting system specifically aimed to disrupt flight stability. You don’t necessarily have to crash the drone to disable it. Taking out the tail rudder would severely hinder maneuverability and the threat posed by an enemy vehicle.

Absolutely. Evasive action or very low-level flight, or close proximity to the emitter would be the ways to avoid enough exposure or keep the focus moving around the airframe.

There is the serious problem that all these tests were done in what look like desert conditions. Put that in let’s say a Northern European context where it’s cloudy or misty and you can see the beam clearly, plus much if not all the power is dispersed. A missile does not have that problem, just the ability to track…

The worse part is when it behaves like a cat.

for some reason I always relate that explanation in my head to schrodingers cat, that it becomes what it is when observed? I am not a scientist...

It certainly isn't IMPOSSIBLE to have a collision that provokes an airbag to deploy while doing a "hand over hand" turn, but I can't imagine a scenario where one would simultaneously be doing that type of turn and have enough vehicle speed to deploy the airbag.