A fire snake, also referred to as a black snake or sugar snake, is a classic science experiment you can do right in your own kitchen using a baking soda and sugar mixture and a fuel to ignite the reaction.
Welcome back, my hacker novitiates!
Using my Nexus 7 tablet as a flashlight to light my path on the way to my room late at night is difficult, and honestly, useless. It doesn't have an LED flash for pictures, so using it as a flashlight is essentially just me brightening the display as high as it can go.
Happy hour is a great way to wind down after a long day at work or school, to relax with friends and enjoy a well-deserved drink. While the experience of this on-the-cheap imbibing promotion is great, the hours usually aren't.
Did you know that your face shows others how much alcohol you drink? Whether you've never had a sip of booze with those around you or you're known as the party animal of the group, the genes that shape your appearance also show others just how much you enjoy liquor. Pinpointing the big drinker in any setting is easy to determine: you just need to make eye contact.
Picture this scenario—you're using your phone in a dimly-lit room, then you move to an area with a lot more ambient light, and Auto Brightness kicks in within a few seconds to ramp up the backlight. That's the way it should be, right? But then you move back to the darker area, and your phone takes 30 seconds before it decides to dim back out. Pretty annoying, isn't it?
Staying cool in the summer heat sometimes feels like it takes all the energy in the world. But what about a fan using no-cost electrical energy? If you're looking to keep cool during a power outage, or if you don't want to break the bank by running your DIY air conditioner all day long, you can use candlelight to power a fan!
Parties are a great way to celebrate and have fun with your good friends, so to make sure your next party rocks, I've assembled some of the biggest life-hackers on YouTube to bring you 10 outrageous party tricks your guests will not forget.
With the introduction of the Control Center in iOS 7, we finally had a way to access common system toggles like Wi-Fi, Airplane Mode, and best of all, Flashlight. Of course, there were plenty of adequate flashlight apps in the iOS App Store, but none that made it available straight from the lock screen.
I loved my Lite-Brite as a kid. There was just something about using those little multicolored pegs to make my own designs, and it's not exactly a secret that kids love anything that lights up (LED sneakers, anyone?). So how do you combine the old-school fun of Lite-Brite with pumpkin carving?
I know what you're thinking. Why spend time talking about another flashlight application when there are literally thousands of them scattered throughout Google Play? As it turns out, there is a void in the realm of flashlight Android apps. Flashing lights, strobe lights, cop lights, warning lights—they're all available, but the one feature that's missing is adjustable brightness.
While the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 has an integrated LED for notifications, it only works for a few things, like charging and low battery, and it only flashes two main colors (red and blue) when the screen's off. As someone that usually has their phone on silent or vibrate, it's hard to tell when I receive important messages or notifications. Sure, I could set a specific vibration or ringtone for individual apps, but that can quickly get annoying and distracting, especially at work or school.
The new Samsung Galaxy S4 may be the only phone to include temperature and humidity sensors, but your Galaxy Note 2 has a few weather-detecting features of its own.
Not having power sucks. It can be fun for the first few hours, but if it lasts any longer than that, most people run out of things to do pretty quickly (i.e. the batteries in all their devices die).
Watching movies will always be one of my favorite forms of entertainment. I can spend an entire day watching movies and not feel the slightest bit guilty about it. You can learn from movies, so don't ever let anyone tell you that you're wasting time.
There are plenty of ways to create decent looking special effects on a budget. You can use basic, inexpensive materials to make ground explosions or realistic looking alien landscapes. But nothing says Hollywood quite like your own green screen.
There are plenty of times when it would be nice to be able to give other drivers a piece of your mind, or let them know you're having car trouble so they go around instead of riding your bumper.
Believe it or not, capturing a beautiful shot of a vehicle is more difficult than you think. Sure, you can just snap a photo, but capturing the design, detail, and essence of the car is a whole other story. Lighting, location, settings, and angles are play into how well the photographic representation turns out.
There's no shortage of uses for steel wool, but the majority of them tend to be on the pyromaniacal side, like DIY fireworks. This trick by Mike Mikkelson is no different—it uses a homemade reusable "wool cage" to create a spinning vortex of light, like in the photo below. You can do this with just a piece of steel wool on a cable, but Michael wanted something he could easily reuse no matter how many shots he took, so he built a small cage to house the steel wool out of chicken wire, a small ...
Christmas is just a few weeks away and the decorating has already begun. The centerpiece for most home during the holiday is, of course, the Christmas tree. But let's face it—that tree can be a big pain in the ass to decorate. You'll run out of tinsel, your lights will be too short, and a missing bulb with throw the whole thing off balance.
You can carve a pumpkin that smokes, has an LED display, or even one with the President's face on it, but if you want your jack-o'-lantern to really stand out—make it sing the Ghostbusters theme.
For this project, I decided to rip apart a microwave I found in my neighbor's garbage can to see what was inside. With permission, of course! True story!
Looking to transmit some super-secret audio communications to your other spy buddies? A laser is the perfect tool for getting your sounds heard from a small distance—without anyone intercepting them— even if it's just a cover of your favorite pop song. A laser audio transmitter uses light rather than radio waves to transmit sound. This is a much more secure way to send audio communications because the laser is a focused beam of light, whereas radio waves are not controlled, so they can be pic...
In the past few weeks, you've already learned how to make your bike light up at night with some DIY rim lights and handlebar lights. But how about something a little more functional? Instead of using those tedious hand signals (which drivers don't even understand), spruce up your ride with some do-it-yourself LED turn signals.
We all know what elephant toothpaste is, but what's the best way to make this massive growing foam? Dr. Lithium from NurdRage has answers. He'll show you the best way to reproduce this chemical reaction to get the best foaming action! This is a classic science class demonstration.
Sharon Connolly, Image Consultant, demonstrates how to create a fabulous smoky eyes look. Start by brushing a very light color over the eyelid area from the lashes to the brow, accenting the inner corner of the eye. Then apply a brown shadow from the lashes to just above the crease of the eye. Take a very light shadow and brush it above that and blend it in. With an angled brush draw underneath the lower lashes with the brown shadow.
To start making your tea and toast, roll about a section of white fondant about four inches by six about 1/8th inch thick. Now take a one inch circle cutter and cut out one circle. Now taking a half inch circle cutter, make an impression in the center of the first circle being careful not to go all the way through. Now you have your saucer for your toast. Next, take a one inch square cutter and cut that out of the fondant as well. Cut it in half diagonally and poke tiny little holes with a to...
The make-up artist Kandee Johnson demonstrates how to create a cute look of big dolly eyes for Asian girls. The first step is to make the eyelid look bigger and lighter by using a white eye pencil from Sephora. The second step is to use a light-colored eye shadow from Mac, which needs to be applied all over the lid and under the eyebrows. Then take a black pencil and accentuate the outer corners to make your eyes look bigger and rounder. Start from the outside and work your way in to create a...
Learn how to create a warm, grungy background in Photoshop. - Open up a brand new document at 1280 x 720.
C For Chemistry delves into the chemistry of science experiments. This chemist knows what he's talking about. These chemistry experiments are not only fun, but very educational for all of those interested in scientific chemical reactions and properties.
Check out this informative video tutorial from Apple on how to fix photos that are too light or too dark in iPhoto '09.
A fireplace is a beautiful, elegant way to light up a room that lets anyone who enters your home know you've got class. That's just as true in Minecraft as it is in real life. If you can't make it to the nether and get netherrock, stick to the instructions in this video.
This video will show you how to build a pole in Minecraft. Poles are a great design element that you can sue when creating a number of different structures. You can make entrances, light posts, whatever you can imagine once you've watched this Minecraft video.
This video will show you how to use Adobe Photoshop to create a very realistic looking light ray using a Mask, Radial Blur and adjustment layers. Give your images a beautiful sun-kissed appearance with the techniques demonstrated in this how-to video.
Are you having trouble getting your car to come to a full stop? Does it screech every time you pull up to a light? You need new brakes. But don't give all your money to a mechanic for a brake job when you could do it yourself. This video will show you how, using a 97-05 Chevy Venture to demonstrate.
This video shows you how to take an extended reach Bic lighter (the kind you would use to light a camping stove, charcoal or something similar) and add more lighter fluid to extend it's life. As long as the spark is still good, you can refill your lighter, and this tutorial shows you how to take apart your extended reach lighter and replace the drained lighter. You will need a flathead screwdriver, and maybe a bit of glue to seal everything back up.
Summer is coming, and of course you're going to want to look your best. The makeup palette you use during winter shouldn't be the same as summer. Here are a few good tips on giving yourself a light and summery look.
Make your clothing really light up! This tutorial shows you how to properly and carefully sew a connection to an arduino to some fabric, so you can incorporate some lightweight electronics into your next fashion project or battery operated costume piece.
Looking for something new and unusual to light on fire? How about a propane bomb? This little how-to shows us the explosive power of propane when we expose it to flame. With a balloon, some propane and a piece of toilet paper we can make a pretty ball of flame.
Meyer lemons and lemon meringue pies are the staples of summer, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the zesty sweetness of lemons year round if that's your thing! Check out this cake baking and decorating video to learn how to decorate delicious glazed lemon cupcakes.
