A few friends and I were recently sitting around and talking about old action figures we had when we were kids. We talked about Visionaries, Super Naturals, Battle Beasts, and others. Finally, we got around to talking about Monster in My Pocket. As a confirmed monster fanatic, Monster in My Pocket was obviously a favorite of mine, and it's the first place I ever heard of several monsters, including the Baba Yaga, who I was later to get to know much better via Hellboy.
We all love it when the Google logo changes to celebrate or commemorate special events— pop-culture touchstones, civic milestones, scientific achievements and holidays— their latest one for this holiday season is a Christmas card to everyone— an interactive Google Doodle with 17 artworks from different artists, each depicting a seasonal greeting from a variety of cultures and countries.
Well, Ol' Man Winter is upon us yet again, blasting us with his icy breath. When I was a kid, I loved wintertime because it meant the prospect of sledding, snowball fights & missed school days in which to enjoy both. Now that I'm 45, however, my attitude toward the season has taken a complete 180-degree turn: I find myself dreading it because of the likelihood of being snowed-in for days on end, and the certainty of being forced to endure the frigid temperatures.
Meet Krampus, St. Nick's evil companion of traditional Alpine mythology. According to Wikipedia, the freaky tradition was particularly popular with the Austrian Nazi-allied fascists, circa mid-1930s:
The number of ways to work and travel are infinite but we only got as far as 101 travel jobs to inspire you… quit stalling and get out there.
Now that Minecraft is officially Minecraft Beta, it's time to do some of your own enhancements, and skins are a great start.
Gizmodo's interactive breakdown of the iPhone 4, Blackberry Torch, Nokia N8, and Google's Nexus One examines the wholesale cost of hardware versus the end retail price, as well as how each company prioritizes each category below:
Christmas is just a few days away, which means everyone is out shopping for last minute gifts. But wait— you still need some Christmas cards! The stores are going to be packed and Hallmark's going to have huge lines— so now what?
CalTech's Kenneth Libbrecht reveals the sublime beauty of snow crystals when photographed with a specially designed snowflake photomicroscope. The physicist is author of the Field Guide to Snowflakes and The Secret Life of a Snowflake, and recently posted an instructional guide for growing your own snow crystals.
The Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain is one of the world’s most popular Pilgrimages. Filmmaker Mark Shea wished to explore the spiritual affect the Camino (Way of St. James)
Great job to everyone in the class - you have all come a long way. Keep practicing after effects and you will forever have one of the most powerful tools in your movie making arsenal.
Despite the recent problems with the 1.04 update for PlayStation 3 gamers, Call of Duty: Black Ops remains a juggernaut for Activision in the gaming community, and its sales alone prove it.
These days, when people say "gaming", you think of Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Even the Wii. How could you not, with games like Black Ops, Gran Turismo 5 and Wii Sports in every retail store known to man? But if you're the type of gamer who sits in front of the computer screen playing MMORPG, MMORTS and sandbox games, then gaming has an entirely different meaning. If you don't know what those mean, then you've probably never heard of games like World of WarCraft, StarCraft II and more importa...
Forget backpacking through the Himalayas— Google lets you enjoy the vistas from the comfort of your own home with Google Earth. Forget about snorkeling on your next trip to the Bahamas— you can go under the sea without even getting wet with Google Ocean. Forget about stargazing with your portable telescope— Google Sky brings a million stars to your fingertips. Forget about that application to NASA— you no longer have to be an astronaut to enjoy the terrain of nearby planets, thanks to Google ...
Oooh...looks like Amazon's having a sale on their word games for Kindle. Of which Scrabble is one of them. If you've got a Kindle, you should not miss out on this!
CityVille Guide So you want to win CityVille, or maybe just pass up your friends? Here are a few simple tips to help get you the results you want!
Snowman Construction parts for FarmVille! In FarmVille you can now build a snowman! To get the pieces you need you'll have to ask for a few from your friends. You can ask once/ day and the friends are supposed to reset each day. Mine didn't thus far, so I'm providing the links so you can ask for them here!
Umbra, penumbra. Not exactly abracadabra, but if you've taken an astronomy class, you know exactly what the umbra and penumbra are. And any Earthling would agree that the umbra is the best place to be during a solar or lunar eclipse.
The New Yorker profiles Shigeru Miyamoto, the father of modern video games, whose spawn includes world-changing classics such as Mario and Legend of Zelda:
It was bound to happen. And just as anticipated, it took less than a day before someone successfully rooted the new Nexus S smartphone from Google and Samsung.
"The Christmas Song" is the Christmas song of all songs, but many know this holiday favorite under a different name— "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire". It may not be as old as other Christmastime favorites, like "Jingle Bells" or "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", but thanks to Mel Tormé and Bob Wells, it's now a quintessential Xmas song, even for ukulele players.
Somewhere in the faraway land of Russia, the female form is used for more than one of the most popular deadly sins. The women pictured below made a pin up calendar to... ahem, arouse... awareness of Russia's social and economic issues by posing in politically-themed cosplay.
Thanks to Microsoft’s XBOX 360 motion-detecting system, Kinect, the world is becoming a play place for sci-fi style virtual reality. One of the latest hacks demonstrates the next best thing to regular old air guitar... virtual reality air guitar: Artist Chris O'Shea explains how it works:
Unbeknownst to the general public, picking a lock can be a very easy process once you get the hang of it (yes, surprising AND frightening). A vibrating lock pick set takes the general ease of picking even further by speeding up the process. Now, with the help of Invent Geek, you can make your own DIY Vibrating lock pick for about a tenth of the price of a manufactured kit.
Live in the future (à la Star Trek, circa 1966) with uiproductions' pneumatic air-powered sliding door:
Leaving you with this little link on the goodness of honey. I figure it is a good way to start this all off on the right foot because honey is amazing and just tastes so great.
System Tool. It sounds like something your Windows computer might need, but it's the exact opposite.
At first, the Black Ops 1.04 patch seemed like a godsend. It was supposed to fix the horde of issues plaguing Call of Duty: Black Ops on the PlayStation 3.
Here is the movie trailer for the feature film "Genius Within" Synopsis:
Love this Rubik's Cube stamp with movable type Chinese characters by Shaun Chung. Chung laser-etched the characters from wood, and then adhered them to a regular Rubik's Cube to create verses from a traditional Chinese text.
Choosing the right axe for you There are many choices and factors when it comes to buying a new electric guitar. Price, style, quality and comfort are major players.
Guitar Essentials My friends and I would secretly scribble tab in the darkly lit practice rooms in our university even though we were educated musicians. So, being able to read tablature, or tab, is essential for beginning guitarists.
This past Sunday, a group called Gnosis launched a massive hacker attack on Gawker media, one of the web's most popular blog networks (Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Jezebel, io9, Jalopnik, Kotaku, Deadspin and Fleshbot). 1.3 million registered users' passwords were compromised, and 188,279 of them were decoded and made public. The biggest takeaway? Many Gawker denizens use downright dumb passwords. (Guess they didn't see their own Lifehacker's story on avoiding such a thing.)
The Earthen Ring Quartermaster is as elusive as a long-beaked echidna, so how do you find him in World of WarCraft: Cataclysm?
Christmas decorations aren't cheap. From outdoor lighting to fir trees, decorating for the holidays can break the bank. That's where ingenuity comes into play, like hacking battery-operated Christmas lights, modifying lighting patterns and building Christmas tree ornaments from LEGOs. But there's even a simpler solution to cheaper Christmas decorations— origami.
It isn't a new gadget, but the EyeClops Mini Projector still makes a great stocking stuffer for Christmas Day. It's great for kids to play with, but for techies— it's sure to be something fun to hack and mod this holiday season.
MIT students get to have all the fun... Mike Nawrot and Romain Teil constructed their fully-functional, homemade wooden roller coaster in just two weeks, aptly named the Reverse Cowgirl. We've seen lots of thrill-seeking backyard contraptions, but this one imprisons the rider in a freaky vertical position:
Want to be happy every day? here is some tips and techniques to help you keep the good mood using some Colors =).
Choosing the right axe for you There are many choices and factors when it comes to buying a new electric guitar. Price, style, quality and comfort are major players.
Huzzah! My sentences have been recorded! This is normally the most exciting part of beginning a language with this method, because you actually had another person do something for you that is really of great value. I remember receiving my first recording in Japanese. I listened to that thing about 100 times. I shadowed it, repeated it to my family multiple times and still hear it in my head from time to time.
