Reaching Peaks Without Ropes

A Ken Burns iPad app, touchscreen subway maps, swapping sexism and more in our weekly look at the web

The word “epic” gets thrown around a lot these days, but occasionally it’s completely fitting—like in the case of this beautiful video of Alex Honnold making climbing history on the 2,500 El Sendero Luminoso (The Shining Path) in El Potrero Chico, Mexico. A difficult route in its own right, what makes Honnold’s climb really stand out is his lack of ropes, harnesses or any kind …

Butchering Teddy Bears

A Ken Burns iPad app, touchscreen subway maps, swapping sexism and more in our weekly look at the web

With an impressively jarring exhibition at Galerie xpon-art in Hamburg, Germany, artist Miroslav Menschenkind deconstructs and destroys Teletubbies and teddy bears. From slaughtering house scenes with teddy carcasses hung on hooks, to shredding machines with stuffed animal innards, it makes quite an impact. There’s a little humor but a lot of death to childhood dreams in the show, which runs through 2 March 2014.

Worldwide-3 Space Telescope

A Ken Burns iPad app, touchscreen subway maps, swapping sexism and more in our weekly look at the web

The same company responsible for the hardware behind Google Maps and Google Earth images, Ball Aerospace, will soon launch a new space telescope capable of seeing objects on Earth’s surface as small as 10 inches across, though those without government clearance will only have access to images at half that resolution. Traveling at roughly 18,000 miles per hour, the giant telescope, dubbed Worldwide-3, can even …