Just a couple of weeks after Cody Wilson and Defense Distributed released the files for the world’s first 3D-printed handgun, imitators have already replicated and improved upon it. Two gunsmiths from Wisconsin successfully fired their own Liberator nine times, without the gun showing any damage. As first reported by Forbes, two engineers, Michael Guslick and a man who refers to himself as “Joe” — he didn’t want to reveal his name — printed their version of the Liberator on a relatively cheap and unsophisticated 3D printer. Unlike Wilson, who used a $8,000 Stratasys, the Wisconsin duo used a consumer-grade $1,725 Lulzbot AO-101. They printed all the pieces within 48 hours and spent a paltry $25 in materials. “People think this takes an $8,000 machine and that it blows up on the first shot. I want to dispel that,” Joe told Forbes. “This does work, and I want that to be known.” As the video shows, the Lulz Liberator is functional — but making it so was trickier than it may appear. When the Guslick and Joe tested the “Lulz Liberator” last week, using .380 caliber rounds, the barrel snapped on the first try. But that barrel was actually printed on a Stratasys 3D printer owned by Guslick. He explained that the initial failure was “due to a compressed load and resulting cartridge overpressure.” Then the Wisconsin engineers used a barrel printed with Joe’s Lulzbot. The gun fired nine times over the course of the test — with its components remaining intact. The gun might have sustained even more shots, but the men decided to stop the test because of poor light conditions. Guslick, who was one of the first gunsmiths to experiment with 3D printing, wrote in an email to Mashable that it wasn’t easy to fire the handgun successfully. “The Liberator is actually a very finicky gun at this point,” he wrote. “We had many more times that it went ‘click’ rather than ‘bang.’” Guslick explained that for various reasons, the gun failed to fire with both barrels and even failed between successful shots. The main problem was the shape of the firing pin, which “appears to be crucial for operation,” he wrote. In fact, sometimes the firing pin wouldn’t hit the primer “dead-center,” and it required “several strikes” to ignite, Guslick wrote. Since Joe and Guslick didn’t use the firing pin retainer, a part of the original Liberator design, they lost a lot of firing pins and had to add replacements after each successful shot. The body screws bent from the recoil, which made more replacements necessary. Regardless, this is another step toward making functioning plastic guns more accessible to anybody with an Internet connection and a 3D printer, even a relatively cheap one. And it’s a step toward making those guns more efficient; maybe even deadlier. UPDATE, May 21, 11:50 a.m.: The story has been updated to clarify the issues that Guslick and Joe had with the firing pin. Images and video courtesy of Michael Guslick Read […]
When your house becomes infested with massive spiders, the best course of action is to call a reputable exterminator. The absolute last thing you should try to do is catch them. That’s a fact of life that YouTuber leokimvideo learned when he tried to catch the giant huntsman spider that wandered into his home during mating season. All of the nope! I think I’d just burn my house down and start over. Australia, you never cease to shock and amaze me with your unrivaled creepiness. For more whacky videos, be sure to check out leokimvideo on YouTube! Read more: http://www.viralnova.com/spider-attack/
German shepherds are known to be hardworking, but even after a long day, this dog dad musters up the energy to play with his pack of pups! One of the best things about having kids is goofing off with them, and I imagine that parents in the animal kingdom would agree. When this German shepherd dad notices that his pups are fast asleep under a minivan, he doesn’t hesitate to wake them up. Soon, it’s a full-on puppy invasion, complete with charging, pouncing, and a couple of sweet kisses on Dad’s nose. Watch as Dad shows everyone how a good dog romp is done! From the looks of things, his pups are going to grow up to be just as fun as he is. Read More: 23 Times The Apple Didn’t Fall Far From The Fluffy Animal Tree Good job, Daddy! Be sure to share this adorable dog family with your animal-loving friends. Read more: http://www.viralnova.com/dog-dad/
“Next Week on AMC’s Mad Men.” Just hearing those words at the end of a Mad Men episode is enough to make viewers that want to remain spoiler-free reach for the remote. Unfortunately, most people can’t help but watch the confusing teaser that usually follows for the slightest hint of the following episode’s content. These teasers, it seems, are designed to rope us in and leave more questions than answers. That leaves them wide open to parody, and and FOX’s Animation Domination YouTube channel took note. They created a Mad Men inspired super-cut of The Simpsons that couldn’t be more vague if it tried. The seventh and final season of Mad Men premiers Sunday April 13. BONUS: Peggy Olson’s Guide to Leaning In Peggy Olson’s Tips For Leaning In 1. Be direct about your goals. Image: Tumblr iluvgifs 2. Celebrate your victories. Image: Tumblr fineleathergifs 3. Ignore the gossip. Image: Tumblr crushabledotcom 4. Fantasize about your future. Image: Tumblr dudeinpublishing 5. Realize you don’t have to please everyone. Image: Tumblr quatre1six 6. But remember that you still need friends. Image: Tumblr fyeahmm 7. Find support and inspiration from other like-minded ladies. Image: Tumblr centpourcentmag 8. Cut yourself a break once in a while. Image: Tumblr cancatervation 9. Recognize your mistakes. Image: Tumblr fineleathergifs 10. Don’t let negative people bring you down. Image: Tumblr chloecastellano 11. Be proud of what you have. Image: Tumblr dominickdecoccopuffs 12. Take risks. Image: Tumblr dazzlingone 13. Know when to put family life on hold. Image: Tumblr fyeahmm 14. Make sure you get enough sleep. Image: Tumblr fyeahmm 15. And never lose sight in your dream to riding high. Image: Tumblr madgiffing Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/04/10/the-simpsons-spoofs-amcs-mad-men-teasers/
Is there a government conspiracy to cover up the existence of extraterrestrial beings? Can the government make a town disappear? What if your family was in on a mysterious plot? If these questions intrigue you, 2K Games is betting you’ll want to help unravel the mystery of a cryptic trunk in an alternate reality game tied to the upcoming release of the third-person strategy title The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. An alternate reality game — better known as an ARG — introduces players to a narrative set in the real world that uses interactive media, including video, audio and websites, to move the story along. ARGs have a long history of video game tie-ins. For game developers and publishers, ARGs serve as tools to deepen the gaming experience by providing more insight into the story and creating excitement before launch. In the early 2000s, Bungie created a huge game known as I Love Bees, which sent fans to a hacked website with garbled audio recordings from a crashed spaceship’s AI. 2K Games also created ARGs for BioShock 2 and XCOM: Enemy Unknown. 2K Games is preparing to publish its second XCOM game, set in 1962, focusing on the formation of a government agency to quell alien activity in the United States and prevent citizens from finding out about it. Erase The Truth In this alternate reality game, we meet Alice, a woman in her early 20s charged with going through her grandmother’s trunk after her death. What Alice finds in the trunk is a little strange to her: redacted notes, books related to conspiracy and postcards from a city in New Mexico called Pima, which can’t be found on any map. Alice turned to YouTube and Twitter to ask the Internet about the meaning behind all of these objects. She started gaining a small following of people helping her investigate the truth. Some quickly pointed out that members of the press, and other superfans, had received duplicates of items that Alice found in the trunk in the mail. These included an ashtray with black goo stuck to the bottom, a strip of microfilm, the postcard from Pima and a lighter inscribed with Eradite Verum, the Latin phrase for “Erase the Truth.” It’s quite simple to connect Alice with The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. Fans’ suspicions are confirmed with Friday morning’s launch of Alice’s blog whathappenedin62.com, on which she ponders her grandmother’s trunk and a video game that takes place in the same nonexistent town. “Pima, New Mexico may have existed at some point but it isn’t there now. The weird thing is that you guys told me about it because there is a video game coming out that uses that place as one of the settings. Not only that but there are a ton of other connections to that game and my grandmother as well. I don’t know what my grandmother has to do with a game, or why a video game would be made about her job in the 1960’s, unless […]
We’ve all seen those videos online of someone using a piece of cardboard to perfectly fold a t-shirt, but using that huge piece of cardboard just seems so cumbersome. Surely there must be an easier way to fold a t-shirt and having it look like the ones in the store? Well you’re in luck, this video below will show you exactly how to fold like the pros. Seriously, after watching this video you’re so going to impress bored strangers at the laundromat next week. Now if watching these two super easy (and one very magical) tips still doesn’t have you folding a t-shirt properly, then folding tip #4 is what you need: Just wad up those shirts and shove them in a drawer. Source: Handimania Share these folding tips with your folding-impaired friends below. Read more: http://viralnova.com/fold-shirts/
Camping trips are fun, but they also require a great deal of planning. You’ve got to remember the essentials like the tent and food, so it’s understandable that less important things like the grill grate get left behind. If you don’t have anything to cook on over the campfire, you may actually still be in luck if you have a saw. Not only does a Swedish Torch burn long and strong, it also provides the perfect cooking surface for a night in the wild. The best part? You can use the same stump for s’mores later on in the evening. Dinner by a fire topped off with dessert — yes, please! Read more: http://www.viralnova.com/swedish-torch-cooking/
It seemed gloomy outside when this man got into his car one day, but then again, every day is pretty gloomy when you live in Russia. When the wind started picking up, however, he realized that a tornado was about to touch down in Bashkiria. Maybe leaving the house wasn’t such a great idea. Fortunately for us, the footage that he captured is worth watching. As a guy who also drives a silver RAV4, it’s comforting to know that these cars can really take a beating. Read more: http://www.viralnova.com/tornado-in-russia/
