Let’s just get this out of the way: there is no practical use for the latest laser from Wicked Lasers. There has never been a use for any of their lasers. This is something their own manual admits: you can’t use it for presentations, to play with your cat, anything, ]]>

Let’s just get this out of the way: there is no practical use for the latest laser from Wicked Lasers. There has never been a use for any of their lasers. This is something their own manual admits: you can’t use it for presentations, to play with your cat, anything, because it’s just so ridiculously bright it will literally hurt your coworkers or cats to do so.

Now, granted, you may want to hurt your coworkers, but this is not the way to do it.

Do you really need a green laser that you can essentially fire into space? No.

Do you want one? If not, you can turn your man card in when you leave. Wuss.

Wicked Lasers is all about overkill: they have the world’s brightest flashlight for sale, which pumps out 4100 lumens (your typical lightbulb puts out 700 lumens).

In fact, the lasers they sell are a Class 4 laser, the most powerful laser there is; you literally can’t point these at people because you might burn their skin. These lasers are so powerful they can be seen from space.

So, really, if you’ve got a buddy who’s an astronaut, you finally have a cheap way to mess with him. And at $300, it’ll be worth every penny.

Wicked Lasers [Wicked Lasers]

Lasers are like the Swiss Army Knife for people planning to attack the Justice League. Science has been kicking fiction’s ass for several decades now, and lasers are how they pulled it off.

Printers suck. Let’s just face it. The ink costs a fortune for some reason, they break constantly, they refuse to work when you need them to, and above all, they’re incredibly wasteful. Seriously. Think about how much paper you have to run through the things every freaking day. Think of ]]>

Printers suck. Let’s just face it. The ink costs a fortune for some reason, they break constantly, they refuse to work when you need them to, and above all, they’re incredibly wasteful. Seriously. Think about how much paper you have to run through the things every freaking day. Think of all the old people printing out their emails. It kills trees and it wastes money.

Fortunately, the English have figured out how to make paper printed on bright, shiny and clean. And, even better, it involves blasting it with lasers.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have essentially created an anti-printer. You run printed paper through it, and green lasers blast the paper. This evaporates the toner on the page without lighting the paper on fire, which is a lot trickier than you’d think.

Obviously you can’t repeat this process over and over again: the paper starts to yellow after a few green laser treatments. But it does both create an opportunity to recycle, and, more importantly, spend some time at work blasting things with lasers.

Laser-powered unprinter wipes documents in a flash [New Scientist]

Drugs are pretty cool. Unless the place in which you take them makes you blind.

A laser show at a music festival injured more than 30 people, Russian news reports said.

Some concertgoers lost up to 80 percent of their vision after attending ]]>

Drugs are pretty cool. Unless the place in which you take them makes you blind.

A laser show at a music festival injured more than 30 people, Russian news reports said.

Some concertgoers lost up to 80 percent of their vision after attending the Aquamarine Music Festival on July 5, the newspaper Kommersant reported.

Twenty people are undergoing treatment in Moscow hospitals, said Elena Grishina, the head doctor at the Moscow Ophthalmological Hospital, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported Monday.

“It is just a deterioration in the sharpness of the eyesight, not a burn,” she was quoted as saying, and said she could not confirm the injuries came from lasers.

“The treatment is not very pleasant. It involves a lot of needles,” Grishina said. “But all the patients are in optimistic spirits, and we are hoping for a good result.”

I bet at first they were all like “WOWWWW I AM SO HIIIIGH” and then they saw the needles coming towards them and were like “WOWWWW FREE DRUGS.” But then they came down and realized they couldn’t see and were pretty bummed. But then they were like “WOWWWWW FREE DOG” and then the real healing began.

[Thanks to my saucy friend Carlos for the tip]