Future Los Angeles: Fake City Made Of Metal And Smoke, Literally

This is future Los Angeles, as created in 1982 by Douglas Trumbull’s team for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. Back then, they didn’t have computers to create synthetic 3D landscapes, so they used some truly amazing visual tricks.


June 18, 2010

Los Angeles Skyline: Before And After

It took Shanghai just 20 years to go from nice city to megalopolis. For the City of Angels, it took a bit longer to evolve from the 1908 flickery twinkle town (top) to the 2002 sea of lights (bottom)


May 15, 2010
Cars

Travel Between LA And Vegas Without Fear Or Loathing On The Gambling Train

Now that road safety laws have tightened up since the ’70s when Fear and Loathing was published, you’ll need to look at alternative transport for your LA-to-Las-Vegas trip if you want to play Hunter S. Thompson while under the influence.


September 5, 2009
Cameras

Five Shocking Time-Lapse Videos Of The Los Angeles Wildfire

After 11 days, Firefighters believe they have finally made progress battling the arson fire that has ravaged 148,258 acres of Angeles National Forest. That is a herculean feat, as these frighting time-lapse videos illustrate.


September 3, 2009
Science

LA Smouldering From Space

The LA fires have actually exploded to double the 245 kilometres they cover in this photo taken Sunday morning by NASA’s Terra satellite. I imagine this is sort of what LA will look like from space mid-apocalypse. [NASA via BoingBoing]


June 11, 2008
Gadgets

400,000 Bouncy Black Balls Invade Reservoir to Stop Carcinogen

While yesterday the world was ogling over the iPhone 3G black body, some people were just awing over black balls. 400,000 of them. Black balls everywhere, bouncing, swinging, cavorting, happily hopping down the side of the Ivanhoe Reservoir with two objectives. First, to fight bromate by stopping sunlight, which forms this carcinogenic component mixing the chlorine and bromide in the water. Second, to let me use “bouncy black balls” in a headline.