Decoding the Ancient Astronomy of Stonehenge

The solstice alignments of Stonehenge, explained.

Stonehenge is a popular destination for summer solstice celebrations because the 5,000-year-old monument points toward the summer solstice sunrise on the horizon. However, it also points to the winter solstice sunset in the opposite direction and there’s good reason to believe that this may have been the more important alignment for the Neolithic people who built Stonehenge. We investigate by constructing a tiny model of the Stonehenge monument.

[VOX]


Sega Games Come To Mobile

Sega is launching a range of classic games to play on iOS and Android. They’ll be free to play with ads, or $1.99 ad-free.

While the Sega Forever games will be a mix of straight ports and emulation, they’ll also have some more contemporary features such as game saves, an online high score leaderboard, and support for wireless Bluetooth controllers. Sega says the games will be faithful to the originals, but have adaptation for mobile devices (and presumably for touchscreens.)

The initial releases, coming tomorrow, are Altered Beast, Comix Zone, Kid Chameleon, Phantasy Star II and Sonic the Hedgehog, with plans for a new batch of releases every two weeks. The titles will straddle consoles from the Master System to the Dreamcast.

Once downloaded, the games can be played offline. The only in-app purchases will be to remove ads. While that fee will initially be $1.99 per game, eventually there’ll be an option to pay a monthly subscription to remove ads from all games. That means Sega will have to get the balance just right of making the ads intrusive enough that some people will pay to remove them, but not intrusive enough to create ill will and bad reviews.

Sega’s Mike Evans, the man behind the project, says there’ll be some titles that were previously only released in Japan, including Segagaga, something of a metagame spoofing the Dreamcast-PS2 rivalry.

Mattel Releases Hipster Douchebag Ken Doll with Man Bun

According to many people, guys with man buns are the new douchebags of 2017. While I’m not sure I agree with this, some of my friends say it’s true. With that in mind, here’s a something I stumbled on a little earlier today: Mattel has just released a new Ken doll… with a man bun and distressed jeans. It’s the douchebag Ken doll! The only thing missing is a tribal tattoo sleeve… or something.

This doll is part of the Barbie Fashionistas series.

Douchebag Ken

Some reactions from Twitter:

https://twitter.com/kashanacauley/status/877328108105367552

https://twitter.com/emilyjashinsky/status/877212713415565313

A few extra dolls from the new generation of Ken Dolls:

Please note that Geeks are Sexy might get a small commission from qualifying purchases done through our posts (as an Amazon associate or a member of other affiliate programs.)

Is Space an Abscence of Things or is It a Thing Itself? [Science Video]

Since the days of Ancient Greece, philosophers and scientists have been wondering: What is space? Is the absence of things… a thing? These questions continued to fascinate physicists in the modern era, leading Isaac Newton, Ernst Mach, and Albert Einstein to wonder about the true nature of the fabric of the cosmos. The search for an answer led them to some of the greatest theories in physics. This week, we ask if space and time are really real, and how they come together to make “spacetime”!

[It’s Okay To Be Smart]