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war
Detailed Graphic Shows Every British Navy Ships Lost In World War II

I just love these old school visualisations: here are all the ships lost by the British Navy during World War II. Many of these were hunted down by Nazi U-Boats. It's a staggering amount but it could have been a lot worse. Read More >

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war
This Insanely-Detailed Model Used to Plot Bin Laden’s Death Took Six Weeks to Build

This is the once-classified model of Osama Bin Laden's compound—the one used to plan the Navy SEAL raid against the terrorist leader. From a distance, this model could be a piece you'd see in a museum, but in the details, you'll see the painstaking work that went into this tool which helped kill the devil lying inside. Read More >

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monster machines
The New Do-It-All Airbus Tanker Transport Will Keep the RAF Flying High

As the Royal Air Force's fleet of heavy transport and tanker jets come to the end of their operational service lives, the RAF is faced with replacing a lot of planes. Luckily, the new Airbus A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport is a union jack of all trades. Read More >

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star wars
Why Building the Death Star Is a Bad Investment

I wish to address the most important policy question of the millenium: should we build a Death Star? Read More >

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monster machines
London’s Rooftop Missile Sites Could Have Been Designed by Tony Stark

Those surface-to-air missile batteries that are being installed around Olympic Stadium must have been invented by Stark Industries. Each high-speed missile houses a trio of smaller projectiles—like a troika doll of fiery, explosive death. Read More >

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guns
On-The-Fly Ammo Swapping Will Make Tomorrow’s Apaches Even More Deadly

Swapping ammo types at the press of a button has been a feature of FPS games for years but has never actually made it into real combat. But the US Army thinks that with recent advances in computerised high-speed sorting, flipping between warheads could become nearly automatic. Read More >

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war
Seized Memory Card Contained al Qaeda Documents Encoded in Porn

Last year, Maqsood Lodin was being interviewed by police after he'd travelled to Pakistan. When his questioners found a memory card in his underwear, they were suspicious—but it seemed only to contain porn. Later investigation, however, reveals that one film was actually encoded with more than 100 secret al Qaeda documents. Read More >

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piracy
This 92-Year-Old DVD Pirate Is a Total Badass

Strictly speaking, bootlegging movies isn't right. Hyman Strachman knows this, and he does it anyway. According to the New York Times profile of the notorious pirate, he's shipped 300,000 ripped-off movies overseas to the troops—for free. Read More >

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monster machines
A 38-Tonne Custom Bulldozer Crushes Leftover Landmines

After decades of strife, occupation, and conflict, Afghanistan has been left pockmarked with an estimated ten million anti-personnel landmines in its soils. It's a bad situation. There are mines like the the Soviet PFM-1 "butterfly mine"— especially popular with small children, who mistake it for a toy. But an anti-mine machine from Komatsu is working across the country to help Afghanis literally save life and limb. Read More >

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war
This Memo Killed Osama Bin Laden

The pen is mightier than the Seal Team 6, or something like that. Read the letter that officially made Bin Laden a dead man, straight off of CIA letterhead. Read More >

Magic Non-lethal bullet
weapons
There’s Just No Escape From This Magic Floating Bullet That Will Hunt Your Arse Down

It sounds a like something out of a sci-fi movie, but the US Army has a new toy to play with – a “magic” smart bullet that will float in the air for up to 30 minutes until you come into range before taking you out. An airborne tripwire, of sorts, which you really don’t want to mess with. Read More >

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history
The Secret History of Bluetooth

Bluetooth. Think about Bluetooth. Are you thinking about 10th-century bloodshed and Danish warmongering? You should be. The same tech you use to make dorky phone calls is named after a man responsible for uniting the modern nation of Denmark. Violently. Read More >

uk soldier
weapons
New British Smart Fabric Could Hook-Up Soldiers Without Wires

We hear about all sorts of fancy new stuff the US military is working up, but this time it’s us Brits that are pioneering something actually useful. Our troops could soon be wearing some awesome-sounding wired-up “e-textiles” with integrated batteries woven into the fibres to power the next-generation of gadget-equipped soldiers. Read More >

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design
The Many Monuments to Russia’s Beloved MiG

The MiG-15 dominated the skies when made its debut in the Korean war. One of the USSR's first successful swept-wing aircraft it has since become the most-built jet of all time. Our friends at Oobject have assembled the most soaring monuments to the Soviet's favorite fighter. Read More >

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hacking
There’s a New Version of the Stuxnet-esque Duqu Trojan Floating Around and Nobody Knows What It Does

A newly surfaced version of the Duqu trojan indicates that the authors of one of the most sophisticated computer worms in recent memory are aggressively trying to figure out how to attack their next target. Read More >