Here's a short video that'll wrinkle your brain a bit. Like debunking 50 common misconceptions, this video shows 13 facts you might not know are true. Like how Neil Armstrong had to clear customs after going to the Moon. Or that Russia is bigger than Pluto. Learning is fun.

If I learned all this stuff in elementary school, I'm pretty sure my brain would have melted. [BuzzFeed Video]

Nymphomaniac, a movie directed by Lars von Trier (he did Melancholia), will use a groundbreaking digital editing technique to show graphic sex scenes on the screen. For the non-explicit portions of the sex scenes, you'll see celebrities and actors you recognize. For the penetrative portion, you'll see the body doubles doing it. The difference is you won't know the difference because the film will digitally stitch the two together.

Producer Louise Vesth said:

“We shot the actors pretending to have sex and then had the body doubles, who really did have sex, and in post we will digital-impose the two. So above the waist it will be the star and the below the waist it will be the doubles.”

It's a lot like how body doubles are used now in movies but presumably more seamless in its execution because of technology. So not unlike the CGI nipples we've seen recently in movies (though I guess a lot more explicit than that). Von Trier, who's done movies like Antichrist and Dogville, will also use "experimental graphical elements in the two Nymphomaniac films, using double exposures and imposing words and symbols over the action as part of his storytelling."

It's going to be a treat to watch. Nymphomaniac stars Uma Thurman, Shia LaBeouf, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard, Christian Slater and others. Because of the post-production work required to stitch these scenes together, the movie won't show at the usual film festival circuit (Cannes, Venice, Toronto). [Hollywood Reporter]

If you weren't excited from the explosions-filled Man of Steel movie trailer before, after seeing this final trailer that teases General Zod threatening Earth, you will be. It shows more of the conflict of the film and reveals even more insane action sequences.

In the trailer, which is probably the final one before the movie releases next month on June 14, you hear Michael Shannon as General Zod demand that Kal-El surrender himself or Earth will suffer consequences. This is going to be a good one, huh. [WarnerBros]

If you're a fan of the NFL, you'd know that players and coaches stare at printed pictures of replays and call plays from laminated sheets of paper. Yes, even now. No more though, the NFL just announced a partnership with Microsoft that'll let coaches and officials use Microsoft Surface on the sidelines instead.

Teams previously used printed Polaroid images to show replays on the sideline. It was effective but terribly out of date. Using a tablet makes a lot more sense now but it will be hilarious when giant cyborg-looking athletes struggle to get the damn touchscreen to work.

We've seen teams try to use the iPad as a playbook before (it's been growing in popularity) and this partnership with Microsoft won't stop teams from using iPads either. According to Darren Rovell, teams can still use iPads for playbooks as long as they cover up the Apple logo. Coaches will use the Surface tablet for replays while there will be Microsoft branding on the replay booth that officials look into. [BusinessWeek]

Don't watch this video. No, seriously, it's really rough. The best thing is that Matthew Gough, the guy who plummets while base jumping, actually survived the fall with only minor injuries. He hit the ground at 40mph from a 1,000 foot cliff because his parachute malfunctioned. The footage is taken from his helmet cam.

Daredevil Matthew Gough was base jumping in Lake Garda, Italy when his parachute opened backwards and got twisted and tangled. He floated for a moment and then smashed into the rocks and came tumbling down to the ground. It's absolutely brutal to watch.

You think there's absolutely no chance of survival but Gough, who has performed over 180 base jumps, only had minor injuries to his knees and ankles. He spent a short stint at the hospital and went home. He said:

"Due to the twists I couldn’t control it, I did the best I could with the situation and tried to avoid the cliff but I didn't have the time or the space to avoid the impact.

When I impacted the first time I started spinning which made the situation worse, the parachute twisted even more before going into a dive and then spiralled towards the ground while I was smashing against the cliff."

On the way down, he managed to avoid smashing into some metal spikes too. Incredibly lucky to have avoided any long term injury or death. [SWNS, Digg Videos, Huffington Post]

Along with whether or not Al Gore invented the Internet, figuring out the correct pronunciation of GIF is one of the earliest questions of the Internet. I grew up believing it was hard-G GIF. Most people I know pronounce it like that too. Even the White House agreed on pronouncing GIF like 'gift'. But we have to re-evaluate the whole argument again because the inventor of GIF—PAPA GIF Steve Wilhite—says its pronounced JIF. What. The. Hell.

Steve Wilhite, who is accepting a lifetime achievement award at The Webby Awards, told the NY Times how annoyed he was at the debate over the pronunciation of GIF:

“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations. They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.”

You hear that? They are wrong. He's saying we, the people of America, are wrong. It is a soft 'G', pronounced 'jif'. Sir, why did you not name it JIF like the peanut butter then! End of story. I have long thought the story was over too, but I'm guessing we're reading different books.

But he is Papa Gif, and parents have a certain amount of right over the things they bring into this world. If you want to name your kid Dwyane instead of Dwayne like Dwyane Wade, go ahead (but it's still pronounced duh-wayne). And also, Wilhite isn't exactly wrong in his thinking. The hard-G pronunciation of the letter G usually comes when a, o, or u follows it (think gas, good, or guy). We pronounce G's as the soft-G when i, e, or y follow it (think giraffe, German, or analogy). There are exceptions of course, but in general practice, Wilhite has his point. GIF is followed by an I.

The problem with Wilhite's thinking is how we see acronyms. Are they their own words or do they stand for something? Is BBC a word? Buhbuhck? Or is it B-B-C. If you combine the letters into a word, how does jay-peg for JPEG make sense as opposed to juh-peg? If GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format, does the 'Graphics' portion of the phrase point toward a hard-G in the acronym? It gets confusing, I know.

But the clearest difference for me is that there are things pronounced JIF and not spelled GIF already. The peanut butter comes to mind. Jiffy Lube. Back in a jiffy. If you want to pronounce GIF like JIF, spell it JIF (that's also the JPEG Interchange Format, so I can see why maybe not). If you spell it with a G and use it as an acronym for the word Graphics, if there are words like gift, girl, give, Gizmodo and many more gi- words being pronounced with a hard-G and if the President of the United States of America decrees that GIF is GIF and not JIF, well then, you are wrong. Even if you are the father.

[NY Times]

This is awesome. Herman Miller has announced that it will start making the iconic Eames Molded Chair in fiberglass... again. The fiberglass chairs were discontinued from production in 1989 and ever since then, the iconic chairs that decorate modern houses have been made with recyclable polypropylene. But now we're getting back to the good stuff.

First introduced in 1950, Ray Eames decided to discontinue the fiberglass model of the Eames Molded Chair in 1989 because its material chemistry was "detrimental to the environment" and the fiberglass couldn't be recycled. Totally sensible reasons.

Not anymore. Herman Miller has developed a more sustainable way to make fiberglass. The new manufacturing process (which cribs from the car industry) eliminates volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs) during production. Herman Miller describes the process of its new fiberglass:

The fiberglass is now formed and processed using a woven, “dry binder” method instead of the traditional “wet” process, eliminating wet glue adhesives and instead relying on a heat-activated, dry polyester. This has also eliminated the need for thermal oxidizers and other environmental control equipment in the production process. Combined with a new “monomer-free” resin, the production process for the new fiberglass chairs is emission-free and creates a safer environment for the workers handling it, as well as a greener, recyclable shell at the end of the chair’s useful life.

Even better, Herman Miller reformulated the color pigments to nail the vintage color options for the new old Eames Molded Chair. The nine vintage color options of the Eames Molded Chair and Side Chair will be available in Summer 2013. They'll come in wire, dowel leg, four leg, stacking and rocking bases.

Here's what the fiberglass version of the Eames Molded Chair looks like:

Classic beauty. [Web Wire, Cool Hunting]

Though building out the armor required for an Iron Man suit is obviously (some would say imposingly) impressive, re-creating the detailed webbing and lithe nature of Spider-Man's suit is just as incredible a feat. MoonSpider shared the Spider-Man suit he made and it puts all Halloween Spidey costumes to shame.

This is something Tobey Maguire Andrew Garfield Peter Parker would wear.

MoonSpider admits that he didn't actually make the suit himself but he connected all the right and talented people to get his creation off the ground. Still, it's impressive as hell. There are hidden zippers all around the suit, sneaky shoe uppers tied to the feet and incredibly detailed color representation. It's pretty much perfect.

The whole process is fascinating if you're into the DIY process (or appreciate thoughtfully detailed cosplay). MoonSpider first got the Spider-Man suit pattern in a digital painting file for printing on 4-way stretch lycra fabric at a dye sublimation printer. He describes the printing process, as basically "a giant printer that uses heat transfer to move fabric dyes from a printed color panel directly into the surface of the fabric by sublimating the ink from solid to gas."

The eyes are fantastic too. He got the frames made from black onyx and the lenses from flexible mirrored plastic with a white vinyl overlay. Perhaps the most important detail was to get the perfect seamstress since sewing in zippers to make the whole suit look like one piece is pretty difficult.

If you want to read more about the whole Spider-Man suit process (and you really should), head over here. It cost MoonSpider around $600, with a lot of the resources found from The Replica Prop Forum.

So, so good. [Imgur via Reddit via adafruit]

A completely unknown guy in the world of math has made a breakthrough discovery that will help us understand numbers better. Basically, a guy who once struggled to find a job and had to work at Subway, is helping math geniuses understand the twin prime conjecture, one of math's oldest problems.

Now, Yitang Zhang, the mysterious man behind the discovery, isn't some chump on the side of the street. He earned a doctorate in 1992 from Purdue University and is now a lecturer at the University of New Hampshire but before his report was published, he was a complete unknown in mathematics. After he got his doctorate, he spent many years as an accountant and worked at Subway because he couldn't get a job in academia. Andrew Granville, a number theorist said:

“Basically, no one knows him... Now, suddenly, he has proved one of the great results in the history of number theory.”

What Zhang did is especially impressive because many number theorists thought the problem he's cracking was something no one was ever going to solve.

How did Zhang come out of nowhere? Simple. He just did his work and wrote it down. Zhang submitted a paper to a top journal, Annals of Mathematics, and when the editors ran through his paper, they discovered its genius calling it "first rank" and said that Zhang proved “a landmark theorem in the distribution of prime numbers.” The Simons Foundation says Zhang's paper was written "with crystalline clarity and a total command of the topic’s current state of the art, it was evidently a serious piece of work." Some guy no one knew of three weeks ago just solved an unsolvable problem.

For more detail on what Zhang helped make a breakthrough in (it involves proving that there are infinitely many pairs of prime numbers with some finite gap, a sieve and a hair's breadth), read the whole fascinating report at Simons Foundation. [Simons Foundation via Kottke, Image Credit: Shutterstock/AntonioGravante]