In a new documentary on the RMS Titanic, a journalist who has researched the topic for 30 years claims a fire that burned continuously throughout its voyage fatally weakened the ship’s hull before it hit an iceberg, blaming its sinking on fire and criminal negligence. But contrary to reports, that theory is hardly new.
In a weird moment of synergy, it turns out that Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch is distantly related to the guy who first brought the character to life over 100 years ago. That’s...kind of awesome.
It’s an age-old question: what exactly was going on when you laid waste to cartoon ducks with the Nintendo Zapper? The 8-Bit Guy is here to exhaustively explain exactly how this beautiful little accessory worked its magic.
The new year is likely to be a tough one for NASA. There’s a decidedly anti-science administration coming into power. Trump has already vowed to cut the Earth science division in order to kill climate change research and it’s unclear if he even knows that we’ve been to the moon. For now, we can look back at some of the most beautiful photos of 2016 from the United States’ greatest government agency.
Carrie Fisher will be buried with her mother, Debbie Reynolds, according to a report from the Associated Press. Reynolds—who starred in Singin’ in the Rain and is mother of the late Star Wars legend—died the day after her daughter did.
It’s the last day of a stupid shitty year, so let’s watch a bunch of superheroes take their shirts off.
The crew of the International Space Station has taken the ubiquitous Mannequin Challenge as far as it can go—260 miles above Earth’s surface.
In talking with parents and athletes who are going through the recruiting process, many feel that their high school coach is not doing much in the recruiting process. While many coaches may be uneducated about how to help their player, if you can get your high school coach helping you, it would be a big boast to the recruiting process.
The reason the coach is essential is because you will need an outside opinion that does not have any bias in the recruiting process. For example, if a dad or a mom starts calling colleges and tells them about their son or daughter, chances are that the coach will not listen.
It is a completely different story if the high school coach would start calling around. This coach carries more weight because they are at least the head coach of a high school program. College coaches don’t want to burn bridges with this high school coach simply because they may have the next big player down the road.
Here is a good story I recently heard about this. A few years back, there was a talented basketball who came off of the bench as a junior but ended up being an All Stater in Illinois as a senior. Because that state has so much basketball talent, getting a high honor like that is a great achievement. But with him really excelling as a senior, it was tough for the coach to get him any looks.
The his head high school coach is a veteran and has been there for quite sometime. He knows exactly what he is doing and knows what players can play Division I. This coach did some calling and spoke with a number of lower Division I basketball programs in the Midwest. Some had already filled up their spots but still talked to him. Others didn’t return his phone calls and a few tried to talk to him about a sophomore prospect he had.
This coach, who sent a player to one of the top five programs in the country recently, decided to pull the plug on the coaches that didn’t speak with him about this player or tried to talk to him about a different guy on the team. This shows that when high school coaches get involved, there is more of an impact if parents are the ones calling.
I heard from a Division I coach that no matter what, he will try calling back a high school coach about a kid. If a tape is sent and then the high school coach calls, this college coach will at least try to take a look at it. If the parent sends a tape and then calls about it, chance are slim that it will be watched. As I have mentioned before, if you are sending out highlight tapes to every school in the country, the majority of them will get thrown away.
College coaches will also call the high school quite often requesting tape and talking to the high school coach about you. If the coach is hard to get a hold of, that does make it tough for the college coach to get any information on you. That includes contact information, grades, stats, and video.
I recently was told that a junior kicker had schools around the Midwest like Wisconsin, Iowa, and others requesting tape. If these coaches had an issue getting in touch with the coach, there is no way that the tape would have been sent.
It is also important to have an organized high school coach. If you have a major recruit on your team, it is tough to keep everything straight in terms of videos sent, letters sent, and then worrying about your own life as well. With teaching, your family, and everything else a high school coach does, there is little time to try and figure out where you already sent highlight videos.
In order to get your high school coach on your side, you need to talk to him or her about what level they think you can play at. If there is a disagreement on that, then you might be in for trouble during the process. But if you are on the same page, then you can talk to him about helping you out and what he has done and seen in the past years. That experience is what could help you eventually earn that college scholarship.
The post A high school coach is needed for the athletic recruiting process appeared first on Recruiting-101.
The latest Doctor Who Christmas special doesn’t look to have wowed audiences in the UK, but it turns out Americans love combining their Doctors with superheroes. It’s the most-watched episode in BBC America history.
Actors on the level of Matthew McConaughey often turn down the biggest roles imaginable for any number of reasons. What we rarely hear, though, is their reasoning, and in a new interview, McConaughey explains why he turned down a role in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, but did choose to appear in The Dark Tower.
Instead of watching the ball drop this New Year’s Eve, might I suggest an alternative plan that’ll probably be much more fun (if you’re in the right mind space): watch this turning machine shape a metal rod into a funky wave. Just watch it for the rest of 2016. Maybe watch it for all of 2017 too.
The idea that Darth Vader had a home somewhere in a galaxy far, far away isn’t a new one. Star Wars concept designer Ralph McQuarrie came up with the idea decades ago, but no filmmaker has been able to fit the idea into the franchise yet. Until Rogue One.
Looking more like the tiny single-prop planes that amateur pilots fly, this massive replica of an Airbus A-320 airliner is actually a remote control plane with a wingspan of almost 16 feet. What’s more impressive is that it weighs less than a pound and flies slow enough that it can be piloted indoors.
Tsunamis are very probably the scariest natural disaster out there because they ravage everything in their path. But learning about how big they can get makes tsunamis even scarier. It’s just ridiculous. It’s like skyscraper big, man.
Shortening the final two seasons of Game of Thrones seems, on its face, to be a bad thing. All previous seasons included 10 episodes, but the next two will only have seven or eight each. Overall, we’re getting less Game of Thrones than usual! But one of the show’s stars has a very good explanation as to why having shorter seasons is actually a good thing.
If you’ve been following the long saga of Steve Rogers, you’ll know that this year he returned to superpowered heroism as the current second Captain America. You’ll also know that he came back with some... intriguing quirks, like, for example, being a secret brainwashed Hydra agent. That’d be bad enough, but now, he’s become a loopy supervillain, and it’s amazing.
Lifehacker This Reference Chart Covers the Basics of Soldering At a Glance | Truck Yeah Here’s How A Ford F-150 EcoBoost Held Up After 200,000 Miles | Kotaku The Parents Who Name Their Kids After Final Fantasy Characters | io9 A Dog Travels to Space and Returns Quite Transformed in Trippy Animated Short Choban |
A decade is all it took, more or less, for the internet to become unmanageable.
Proving once again that the only toy any kid really needs is a giant box of Lego, YouTube’s Astonishing Studios has managed to recreate a working version of the classic Nerf Maverick REV-6 blaster using nothing but plastic bricks and a metal spring for power.
Like a few of the other series of articles that I have started, I plan to break down what I would recommend to high school athletes in different situations. This will cover football and basketball as well as the year the athlete is and the recruiting interest they have been receiving. This should help those athletes and parents that are confused about the recruiting process and what they are doing.
The first thing that you must figure out if you are 100% sure that you want to play at the college level. The answer to this question must be a definitive yes. If you are unsure or there are question marks regarding your decision, then it is probably a good idea to hang up your cleats and relive your high school glory days later on. No matter what level of college football you end up playing, you will be spending a great deal of time honing your skills. Even if you are on JV at a Division III school, they will keep you busy with games, practices, lifting, video, and just about anything else you can think of. So if you are not all in, then don’t waste your time trying.
My best guess is that if you kept reading this article, then you want to play college football but have had no takers at this point. I do think that good athletes can still fall through the cracks. If this player decides to take it upon himself to play, then you can still enjoy a football career at the college level.
Right now is a good time to be honest with yourself. By that, I mean if you have no recruiting interest right now, then the ship has likely sailed to receive a Division I scholarship straight out of high school. The chances of that happening are so slim that it may not be worth considering. Sorry to break it to you but it probably won’t happen.
As I have always recommended if you are unhappy with your recruiting options, take a look at the website that lists all of the colleges in the country (Click here to see that link, and no I am not getting paid to advertise this, although I wish I was). Anyways, go through that list and see what colleges would be a good fit for you academically, athletically, and socially. Check out what programs they offer in academics as well as how good their football team is. And when you see USC and LSU, just move on.
My best guess is that you have not had a chance to put together a recruiting profile sheet. This is essential in telling the colleges that you are interested in their programs (click here to see an article on putting together a recruiting profile sheet). The programs I would look most at on that list would be Division III schools, NAIA schools, Junior Colleges, and smaller Division II programs. With the Division II schools, chances are strong you may have to walk on there.
Feel free to add a comment to this post if you are having any trouble putting together your recruiting profile. Once completed, make sure to add senior stats and anything else of interest that is relevant. Since you are the one doing this, it does not cost anything to make this on your computer.
If you decide to go any of the four options mentioned above, you are not in a hurry as regulated by the NCAA. You can wait and decide until the last day of your senior year what Division III program you will be attending. It really doesn’t matter until the players report in the late summer. But then again, you probably want to go somewhere that you are wanted at.
After sending out the recruiting profile, see what schools are interested in you as an athlete. If your dreams are just to play college football, focus on the smaller schools. See what type of help they can give you financially. If you have been taking care of business in the class room, it will help reduce your tuition a great deal at the school. If you have eyes for playing at a bigger school, then look into the walking on at a Division II program or going the Junior College route. While heading to a JuCo may not be your strongest option academically, it could help open some doors if you are good enough to play at a high level.
Once you figure out what level you are focusing on, try to take some visits to these programs. They will likely be unofficial visits where you pay your own way to travel to the school but it is an opportunity to learn more about the program. I don’t want to downplay how much interest the coaches will show you but there is a good chance that they won’t have a ton of time for an un recruited walk on.
After taking the visits, try to talk to the coaches some more over the phone and via email. Get a feel for what would be the best fit for you. Apply to the programs that you are interested in see what type of financial aid they can offer you. Again, the coaches will probably spend some time helping you but I am sure they have bigger fish to fry at this time.
Once you are happy with a school, tell the coaches that you want to go there. This will help you through the process of putting down a room deposit and figuring out when you need to report.
Again, if it is this late but you still want to play, it is very possible to find a good fit for you. It would probably not be a good investment to spend hundreds of dollars on a highlight video. But take your time and find a place you like. If things don’t work out athletically, you can still have a good four years and not have to transfer.
The post I’m a senior with no football recruiting interest. What do I do? appeared first on Recruiting-101.
To paraphrase Charles Dickens, 2016 was the worst of times, and the pretty good of times. It was a year of wonder (Game of Thrones) and disappointment (Walking Dead), amusement (Deadpool) and aggravation (Suicide Squad), delight (a few things) and loss (too many to count). Relive the year that was with io9's 100 most-read posts of the year, and then let us never speak of 2016 again.
A lawsuit filed in California this week claims Apple is responsible for a fatal crash because the tech giant had a patent to prevent drivers from using the FaceTime app, but failed to install it.
We all do stupid things when we’re drunk—like call our exes or buy something we don’t need on eBay. But a pilot for an Indonesian airline was just fired for doing something with the potential for much deadlier consequences. He tried to fly a plane while drunk off his ass. And he nearly succeeded.
Adding to the near-infinite list of things you saw on the internet that you really shouldn’t try at home, YouTube’s the Hacksmith strapped a couple of jet turbine engines to the back of a snowboard and hit his Canadian snow-covered streets because when you’ve got a jet-powered snowboard, you don’t need a mountain.
Facebook fiascos, impending natural disasters, hackers, hacks, gadget goofs and deep-sea nightmares—this year had everything you never asked for. But there were brighter notes too. So come with us to a time when people complained about accidentally getting exercise playing Pokémon Go and wondered whether anyone knows that they’re watching porn when they’re wearing VR goggles. These are the 100 most popular Gizmodo posts from 2015 according to Google Analytics.
Patty Jenkins discusses why Diana becomes a superhero in Wonder Woman. Jordan Vogt-Roberts teases the time period of Kong: Skull Island. Sadly, there will be no shark punching in Meg. Plus, a tiny new look at Episode VIII, and what’s to come on Agents of SHIELD and The Vampire Diaries. Spoilers now!
If you notice a bunch of enormous trucks that are filled with sand around New York this weekend, it’s not for a sand castle competition. It’s the first line of defense against a terrorist bomb attack, as the city is on heightened alert for New Year’s Eve.
