Singles in Your Area.

It must be hard for dating apps to keep their platforms fresh. If you’ve been on Tinder once, you probably have a fairly good idea of what it’s all about. There aren’t really any surprises. Or rather, there weren’t really any surprises – until now. Tinder have just launched their new ‘Swipe Night’ event, which immerses lonely singletons in a virtual experience in which they control the outcome. Basically, think Dungeons and Dragons, but instead of slaying a Demogorgon at the end of the quest, you might just find the love of your life. The story follows a group of friends who meet up for a meteor shower party (come on, you must remember meteor shower parties!), but what promised to be a wholesome evening of extra-terrestrial rock-spotting quickly turns into an apocalyptic fight for survival. Users choose between outcomes by swiping left or right, and your critical choices will then be displayed on your profile to let fellow users know whether you are or aren’t a puppy murderer – which is always good to know.

Bollocks to Boris Bikes.

Each week, when I’m scouring the internet for worthy coolsh*t material, more often than not I’ll stumble across some new, weird technology. And 90% of the time, it’s coming out of Japan. Just in the last few weeks, I’ve seen a scorpion-shaped anti-gravity gaming chair, a fully functional 70ft robot, and an animatronic Godzilla replica for tourists to zipline into. As I said a couple weeks ago, I don’t know exactly what’s going on in Japan, but I’m pretty sure I like it. This week, we’ve got an inflatable electric scooter that can be customised to suit your posture. Which sounds alright, but it looks way better than it sounds. The standard model resembles a sort of Playmobil Terminator trying to kill Sarah Connor, but doing so in a really cool, eco-friendly way, man. So it’s time to kiss goodbye to your boring old fold-up bike, and say hello to commuting on a motorised bouncy castle. Just don’t forget your pump.

Velo, Velo, Velo.

What do we have here then? Last week, the highly-anticipated Palace x Rapha collaboration dropped. I was tempted to include it in last week’s coolsh*t, but decided that, despite looking sick, there just wasn’t quite enough meat in the story. Well, this week, like a butcher, the EF Pro cycling team said “here’s your meat, sir”, by winning a stage in the Giro D’Italia race whilst wearing the collab kit. This was a victory that was only sweetened by the fact that the entire EF Pro team had just been hit with a fat fine a couple days earlier, due to their “non-compliant kits”. If, by “non-compliant”, they mean somehow actually making blokes wearing Lycra not look like complete tw*ts for once, then I wholeheartedly agree.

Welcome to the Tribe.

Nomadic, free, not a care in the world. No, I’m not describing the nice people at the end of my road who have a disproportionate amount of horses and leaf-blowers. I’m talking about the Nez Perce tribe in Lapwai, Idaho. In 2004, documentary photographer Hunter Barnes became the first photographer to be welcomed by the tribe in over 100 years – and he had such a lovely time that he decided to stay for 4 whole years. Hunter is remembering those years fondly in his new book ‘The People’, which gives a previously unseen glimpse into the unique lives of the Nimiipuu people. It certainly looks like one hell of a gap year.

Pity the Foos.

Football and Pizza. Pizza and Football. They go together like America and apple pie. Pizza hut want to remind you of that, and they’re doing so courtesy of this pizza box that comes with a fully-operational foosball table on the top. So if things aren’t going your team’s way, you can distract yourself with a bit of foosball and dry your tears on some delicious pizza. Let’s just hope Gareth Southgate had nothing to do with this, otherwise I expect the pizza would be bland, disappointing, and would fall apart at the vital moment. Sorry – can you tell that I’m writing this fresh off of watching England lose at home to Denmark?

Das Wooftwaffe.

Obviously, war is evil and lamentable and all that – but this is still pretty cool. Or maybe, like a 48-year-old aunt on Facebook, I just think funny pictures of animals wearing unusual stuff should ALWAYS be shared. The jury’s out, but here we are. The US Army have been flexing on all other militaries this week, with the reveal of their new augmented reality goggles for military dogs. Produced by the US Canine Combat Kit Committee (CCCK), the goggles allow the dogs to be given instructions from a distance, whereas hitherto they’ve always needed to be accompanied by a human. And more importantly, just look how handsome those good boys are in their little goggles. Oh God, I really am someone’s aunt.