do-it-yourself-tech
The Wiki Weapon Project Promises A 3D-Printed Handgun For Everyone
The 3D-printing gun enthusiasts are at it again coming up with master plans to democratize weapons manufacturing, and this time, they're doing it in the name of the First Amendment. That's right. The Second Amendment is important too, but if you listen...
Chinese-Made 107mm Rockets Are the Workhorses of Insurgencies (and Goons)
If the design virtues of rocket-propelled grenade launchers prove time and again to be ""cheap killer[s] of technology"":http://changeobserver.designobserver.com/feature/on-the-shoulders-of-rebels/26108/ riding, durably, on the shoulders of rebels and...
Future Sex: The Best Offbeatr Porn Projects for Geeks
Yesterday we all learned "about Offbeatr":http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/8/9/the-future-is-bright-for-offbeatr-the-kickstarter-for-porn, the new, Kickstarter-inspired site dedicated to crowd funding of pornography. At its core, the site represents an...
This Is What's in DIY Games: A Teaser
I don't play games. Never have, really. During a blip of my youth you could've found me posted up in my parent's basement, getting down on brick-era Game Boy and SNES classics. True. But for me, as with too many other kids my age itching to kick off...
Brazil Is Turning Inmates into Power Plants
Since the oil shocks of the '70s, Brazil has been home to a carnival of renewable energy initiatives that now generate a whopping 85 percent of the country's power. At Santa Rita do Sapucaí prison, inmates are contributing to the effort by riding...
Watch This Sweeping Aerial Drone Footage of Detroit
OK, everybody. Detroit "ruin porn":http://www.vice.com/read/something-something-something-detroit-994-v16nB lost its poignancy years ago. The city is in "a veritable renaissance":http://www.vice.com/uneven-terrain/detroit-lives-vbs-part-1-of-3, and to...
Fighting China's Pollution Propaganda, with Glowing Robot Kites for the People
Beijing’s got air issues. Dust and fumes blow in from out-of-province factories and the city suffers from the exhaust of more than five million cars. Until recently, officials in the Chinese capital half-boasted that 2,000 new cars were joining its...
In Apple's World, Thin Is More Important Than Green
Apple has pulled all of its computer-y things (desktops, laptops, monitors) from the EPEAT certification program, flipping the bird to an EPA-backed, internationally-supported standard that is designed to mitigate the environmental damage and social...
The Stark Beauty of DIY Fireworks
It's sunny, 93 goddamned degrees, and in a matter of hours I, along with millions and millions of my fellow countrymen and women, get to cut loose and for 24 hours maybe not feel totally awful about being 'Mericans, for once. It'll be a whirlwind of...
Drug-Sniffing Drones Are Flying Over Bolivia, the New Cocaine Underdog
You don't need the latest in aerial drone imaging specs to spy the grim, if entirely logical, thread coursing through the latest report issued by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.The "2012 World Drug Report":http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en...
The Other Hot Dog King of New York: A Chat With Ed Beller, Inventor of Stainless-Steel Pushcarts
Ah, the sweet, sweet smell of hot dogs steaming from a bright, shiny curbside cart. What’s more New York than that? Not much. And seeing as nobody running around this city has time to sit down for a long, wholesome lunch break anymore, today's ever...
The Desperately Inventive Smuggle-Craft That Keep American Prisons High
You don't have to be able to see through stone to realize just how fucked the American prison system is. Where to even begin? There are the insane profits reaped by "private prisons":http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/opinion/krugman-prisons...