Just opened last month at Hershey Amusement Park in PA, not too far from NYC. A long story about how it was built:

In just two months’ time, riders will crest this same piece of steel, then hurtle down a record-setting 97-degree slope—yes, that’s 7 degrees past vertical—on the steepest and most severe roller-coaster descent in the United States. “When you come over the apex of the curve, you’re lifted forward into the harness,” says Kent Bachmann, the park’s director of design and engineering. “The track actually disappears for a few seconds.” And that’s just the beginning: Fahrenheit will provide 2 solid minutes of corkscrews, barrel rolls and inversions. “That way every time you get on this ride,” Bachmann says, “you can have a different experience.

Video of the ride.

From my new favorite website, The Daily Galaxy:

Cosmological calculations indicate that the vast array of objects we can detect are just foam on top of a vast invisible sea of matter we can’t detect, and two teams think the key to the undetectable lies in our very own star.

Foam on top of a vast invisible sea—I’ve been saying that for years. More on dark matter, and lots of great images, not including the key to the undetectable, over here.

This is one of the more disturbing videos I’ve ever seen, for meta reasons. How can just watching a video make you feel like a racist? Why does just knowing the racist depictions that play off images like this one somehow feel self-incriminating? This one fucked me up.

Via Denver Egotist.

This article explains a lot:

Grandin has compiled a list of jobs and their suitability to Aspies and autistics according to their skills. No surprise, tech jobs are cited early and often. Her list of “good jobs for visual thinkers”, for example, includes computer programming, drafting (including computer-aided drafting), computer troubleshooting and repair, web page design, video game design and computer animation.

Why do Asperger’s individuals gravitate to technology?

“Adults with Asperger’s have a social naivety that prevents them from understanding how people relate. What draws them in is not parties and social interaction, but work that allows them to feel safe, to feel in control,” explains Steve Becker, a developmental disabilities therapist at Becker & Associates, a private practice in the Seattle suburb of Des Moines, Washington, that conducts ongoing small group sessions for adults with AS, among other services. “What’s better for that than a video game or a software program?” Becker asks. “When you’re designing a software program, there are rules and protocols to be followed. In life, there is no manual.”

Via New Shelton

via poutz

Nice pumps.

Via ectoplasmosis

An interesting breakdown of the editing that makes scenes in The Shining so visceral. Via Coudal.

There’s lots to love here. According to the author:

If these human/animal hybrids really existed the world would look different. But we have already problems with accepting people of a different skin or culture.  So I am afraid it would make the whole thing a lot more complicated. Still I think they would bring a nice little touch of a land of myths and legends in our everyday life.

Right you are, brother. Right you are. Dude takes requests. Email him.

Via Something Awful.

I know this isn’t typical DG material, but wanted to give it up to one of the all-time greats. It’s hard to imagine how revolutionary this little routine was back in ‘72. Who gets arrested doing stand-up today?

Btw, is it just me or does he look a little bit like Russell Crowe in this video?