• Firefighter assembles terrifying/awesome supercut of helmet footage
• NYC iPhone owner tricks thief using dating App
• ‘Oompa-Loompas’ sought over city assault
• That’s Dedication: California couple visited Disneyland every day in 2012
• Top secret tombs: the classified stealth aircraft burial grounds
• The science behind 9 big diets
• Still smarting from SOPA, Congress to shy away from copyright in 2013
• NASA mulls plan to drag asteroid into moon’s orbit
• Binary star systems make for unstable planets
• The Helical Model – animations of a vortex solar system
• PlayStation 2 manufacture ends after 12 years
• Stats show the eBook craze is slowing
• My Father’s “Eviscerated” Work – Christopher Tolkien’s first interview in ever
• Ten things on Vince Gilligan’s mind as he writes the final Breaking Bad episodes
• Quentin’s World: NYT interview with Tarantino
• From kottke: Another great Bill Murray story

• Whoa, now the KKK are also fighting against Westboro Baptist
• “We still look at ourselves as survivors”: over 80 years later, remembering the deadliest school massacre in American history
• The rather interesting origin story of ‘Miranda Rights’
• Warren Ellis on The Social Web: end of the first cycle (stoked it’s close to what I’ve been mediating on throughout the year)
• UCL research paper on Why the Internet only just works (.pdf)
• What the world will look like in 2030 — as predicted by the Government
• Will we ever… have cyborg brains?
• A few Tolkien-rific facts about the book version of The Hobbit
• Try this interactive/zoomable four BILLION pixel image of Mt Everest
• Earthmoving: Ways of moving the Earth’s orbital path

Lastly, the latest TEDEd on ‘What is colour’ gives a very concise and simple explanation on the how with some very nice animation too.

• Some guy called Brad does acid, live-tweets it
• Ordos: The biggest ghost town in China
• Sweden is so efficient with its waste-to-energy program, that it’s importing trash from other European countries
• Awesome: Focus on the Family is giving up on reaching out to Millennials
• The TPP: A first-hand look at the secret international talks that could change the Internet
• A university built a supercomputer with Raspberry Pi(s) and Lego
• Mathematician claims proof of connection between prime numbers
• It Ain’t 1979 Anymore: Why this week’s attacks on American embassies aren’t the Iran hostage crisis all over again.
• Somehow missed: Vice interviewed my hero cinematographer Christopher Doyle
• Cool… 45 Years of the John Peel Show is available on Soundcloud.
• Comedian Josh Sankey will travel across the U.S. with only bacon as currency
• On the tubes: a recording of Tolkien reciting a poem in Elvish

Lastly… cats compilation video, because cats compilation video.

Asperatus clouds over Scotland via The Cloud Appreciation Society

• Olympic opening ceremony: Ai Weiwei’s review
• South Korea’s Im Dong Hyun:the ‘blind’ Olympics world record setting archer
• There Are Four Olympic Athletes Without Countries To Represent
• The Greatest Chris Brown Album Review of All Time: ‘No Stars Ever’
• Music Labels Won’t Share Pirate Bay Loot With Artists
• Computer confirms: All music sounds the same these days
• Strong evidence that a real name policy would fail to improve comment systems
• The New York Times is Now Supported by Readers, Not Advertisers
• Celebrities and their Unnecessary Public Apologies
• From Forbes: “The porn industry as I knew it is dead. And it appears a new industry has arisen.”
• Heath Ledger’s Joker was probably inspired by Tom Waits (gets an automatic yes from me)
• Where Did John Wayne Get His Walk?
• Ancestry.com Claims Obama Is Descendant of John Punch, First Enslaved African-American
• Mitt Romney follows up insulting London with straight-up racism in Israel
• Horror Hospital: The Most Shocking Photos And Testimony From The Dawood Military Hospital Scandal (warning: very graphic)
• Fall, Mortality, and the Machine: Tolkien and Technology
• Climate change study forces sceptical scientists to change minds
• The 50 Best Socially Awesome/Awkward Penguin Memes

Boy watching solar eclipse… taken from 1.5 miles away

• If you “Like” something on Facebook, you just gave it permission to post in your Timeline
• Having Access to the Internet is Good for Your Love Life (But Only if you are Under 30)
• White LEDs Lighting Directly On Paper
• Q: Why Do We Wear Pants? A: Horses
• UK government slammed for ignoring key security issues
• Lucas Foglia: the photographer in search of off-the-grid Americans
• The trouble with wind turbines
• No Matter the Drilling Method, Natural Gas Is a Much-Needed Tool to Battle Global Warming
• Mysterious radiation hit the earth just over 1200 years ago
• What divorced readers did with their wedding rings
• How Neuroscience Is Challenging Our Conception of Justice
• The Ghost in the Machine: Unraveling the Mystery of Consciousness
• Scientists Predict Synthetic Life Within a Year
• Crime Waves Will Follow the Heat Waves of Climate Change
• Letters of Note: A government complaint about a ‘debris’ dam and the landowner’s response on behalf of its builders
• Want: I’ve Never Meta-Pizza I Didn’t Like
• Build a bonkers hi-fi system
• Super-Resolution From a Single Image
• A rare interview: with Christopher Tolkien
• If the Wizard of Oz were set in China, it might look something like this