Redditor MymlanOhlin shares their method for making a glowing bottle Nuka Cola Quantum from Fallout 4, a fiendishly difficult videogame whose brilliant storytelling and gorgeous, explorable landscapes have totally colonized our household. (more…)

Sylvia Allen, the GOP state Senator from Snowflake, AZ, believes the Earth is 6,000 years old. She will run the state Senate's committee to oversee educational legislation. (more…)

iSafe Drive Lite is the first MFI-certified, ultra-high-speed drive to safely store 32GB of data and employ the same encryption used by the US federal government. It’s the fastest and easiest way to transfer between your computer (Mac or PC) and your iOS devices. Since it’s a two-way transfer device, you can swap out music and contacts between your phone and desktop. Better yet, you can stream movies and songs directly from the drive without eating up data. Making this gadget a road trip dream come true.

Whether you think you might win over the crowd who're watching from the sidelines or change a denialist's mind, John Timmer's flowchart presents tried-and-true tactics for using science, reason, and facts to overcome ignorance and fear. (more…)

The UK police and security services have frequently touted the necessity of "equipment interference" techniques -- cyberweapons used to infect suspects' computers -- in their investigations, but they have refused to release any information about their use in response to 40 Freedom of Information requests from Motherboard. (more…)

The Mast Brothers, a pair of bearded chocolatiers in Brooklyn, have built an empire on beautifully packaged "artisanal" chocolates that run $10/bar, billed as "bean to bar" confections. (more…)

The latest installment of the Long Forgotten blog's series on the lost designs for the Haunted Mansion's corridor of changing portraits (previously) hits on one of the most significant elements of the Mansion's design genius, something that's never been fully replicated in any Disney ride: the conversion of a queue into a ride. (more…)

A British Muslim family was denied boarding at Gatwick Airport after the US government informed the airline that they would not be admitted to the USA. They were on their way to Disneyland. (more…)

At their sole discretion, and without any public guidelines, TSA agents can now opt you back into the full-body scanner, even if you opt out. (more…)

Pythagoras' Theorem, x+y=z, is true when x=3, y=4, and z=5. In fact, there are an infinite number of whole number solutions for Pythagoras' Theorem.But there are no known solutions for x+y=z, when n equals any whole number other than 1 or 2. In 1637 mathematician Pierre de Fermat wrote in the margin of a book that he had devised a proof that there are no whole number solutions. The note was found 30 year later, and ever since then, no one has been able to prove it, though people have been trying for centuries.This BBC documentary is about Oxford professor Andrew Wiles' lifelong obsession with Fermat's Last Theorem, which he read about when he was 10 years old. Wiles proved Fermat's Last Theorem in 1995. The proof is 150 pages long. If Fermat really did prove it, one can only guess how long his proof was.

He felt his presents.

See sample pages from this book at Wink.A delightfully funny and punny read, The Art of Eating through the Zombie Apocalypse: A Cookbook & Culinary Survival Guide isn’t merely humor, it actually provides sound advice for the survivalist. The book begins with “entry level preparedness” and runs through the gamut of various apocalyptic survival scenarios to the long haul, providing illustrated information, advice and recommendations for further reading in every section.This book is one part apocalypse prepper, one part outdoor survival guide and one part apocalypse cookbook. No reason not to eat well, even in a zombie apocalypse, right? Humor is found in the flowing narrative that is sprinkled with puns, amusingly titled recipes as well as “blood” stains and spatters that decorate the introduction of major sections of the book. The pages are a textured grey-green to simulate age and mold.Humor aside, sandwiched between recipes with titles such as Going Ginko Nuts, Dead Easy Peas and Who’s Got Your Back Tuna Mac, are instructions on diverse projects including making SIPS (Self-Watering Planters) out of soda bottles or storage bins, and practical advice on various how-tos such as Drying, Curing, Smoking and Brining. – Carolyn KohThe Art of Eating through the Zombie Apocolypse: A Cookbook and Culinary Survival Guide

In 2012, a sharp-eyed police officer in Kansas spotted Robert Harte leaving a hydroponics store with a bag of supplies. Soon after, the police fished through Harte's garbage and found some wet leaves, which tested positive for marijuana. That was all they needed to obtain a warrant to conduct a surprise raid. "The family was held at gunpoint for two and a half hours while Johnson County sheriff's deputies went through the house, after which they gave the Hartes a receipt saying 'no items taken,' in lieu of an apology," reports Reason. A lab test revealed the leaves to be tea, and the hydroponics supplies were for a "horticultural project involving tomato, squash, and melon plants."The Hartes sued the police department for the fruitless raid, spending $25,000 in legal fees in an attempt to look at the polices' affidavit supporting the search warrant. They lost, because U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum said police acted legally and reasonably. The act of going to a hydroponics store and the results of the notoriously inaccurate field tests were sufficient to meet the standards for probable cause, he said.Image: Wikimedia

Forrest Mims is the author of the famous book, Getting Started in Electronics, published by RadioShack for many years. I bought the book in the 1980s, and had a blast making the projects in it. When I was editor-in-chief of MAKE, I asked Forrest to write a column for the magazine, called The Backyard Scientist. Forrest is interested in atmospheric measurement, and in his column he explained how to make different kinds of measurement devices. I met Forrest for the first time last year at Moogfest, where he was treated like a celebrity for being the creator of electronic sound makers, such as the one that has been called the Atari Punk Console. Forrest, now in his 70s, was surprised by the attention he received there. He came across as a very polite and humble man.It made me sad to read his story today in MAKE about the time an airline captain attacked him because he wanted to take some harmless measurements. The story has a happy ending, at least.

In 2007 Nicolas Cage and Leonardo DiCaprio got into a bidding war for a 67-million-year-old tyrannosaurus bataar skull. Cage won, but later found out the skull had been illegally smuggled into the United States. He will return it to the Mongolian government.According to a 2013 story in the Telegraph, “the skull was obtained by IM Chait from Eric Prokopi, a self-described ‘commercial palaeontologist’ who pleaded guilty last year to illegally importing fossils from Mongolia and China.”

"You know it's all right, it's ok, I'll live to see another day." (The Tonight Show)

In a clever marketing stunt, German book publisher Bastei Lübbe and bookshop Hugendubel built a vending machine that accepts unwanted Christmas presents as payment for new books. According to TheBookseller.com, the machine will be tour shopping centers in Germany this month. The collected gifts will go to charity.

https://vimeo.com/148548977The Cards Against Humanity 8 Sensible Gifts for Hannukah collected $15 from 150,000 people and converted the dough to a series of gifts, including customer CAH cards, socks, a day off for a factory's worth of workers in China's Pearl River Delta, and an original 1962 lino-cut of Picasso's "Tête de Faune." (more…)

Despite unprecedented copyright enforcement measures from Disney, at least one cammed version of the new Star Wars movie has circulated online, less than a week after the film's release. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKRQD04dviUHere's the joke: Stoner Sloth is a disastrous, tin-eared anti-marijuana ad campaign from the New South Wales Department of Premier and Cabinet. (more…)

Read the rest of the Hip Hop Family Tree comics! (more…)

Another day, another round of E. coli outbreaks at Chipotle.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating E. coli outbreaks in three states. "Give ill people have been identified in Kansas (1), North Dakota (1), and Oklahoma (3)," the CDC said in a statement. "All five (100%) reported eating at a Chipotle Mexican Grill in the week before illness started."

I didn't know much about Steve Harvey until I saw how he messed up announcing the Miss Universe winner. In this video, he offers his views on a variety of subjects, including evolution, which he knows to be untrue because "why we still got monkeys?"

Thanks to the nationwide switch from analog to digital TV, great-quality HD television can be accessed without committing to a lengthy cable or satellite contract. Connect up to 35 miles away from your closest broadcast tower and start watching news, weather, local stations, and more. A #1 Best Seller on Amazon, 1byone’s Digital Indoor HDTV Antenna has purchasers raving about the fantastic quality and unbeatable value.

See sample pages from this book at Wink.Picturepedia is a highly visual, engaging reference book for kids. Broken up into six sections (Science and technology, Nature, Geography, Culture, Sports and hobbies, and History), this graphic-heavy encyclopedia is jam-packed with nuggets of info on over 150 topics, including electricity, muscles, fossils, gems, Antarctica, great buildings, world languages, cycling, Medieval Europe, Greek myths, castles and spies. Each topic gets two pages, and the book contains over 10,000 photos. I’m a sucker for reference books like these – fun facts, trivia and eye candy on every single page.Picturepedia: An Encyclopedia on Every Page

You can buy a 1980s era Roland TR-909 drum machine on eBay for about $4,000. Or you can just go here.https://youtu.be/sEFEivTgNVI

Austin Kleon has assembled a bunch of "no thank you" form letters from writers and publishers. I've seen a few of these before. My favorite is Edmund Wilson's postcard, where he says, "it is impossible for him under any circumstances to receive unknown persons who have no apparent business with him."From Austin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sv4nb5VbAYThis 2010 video explains the preparation of "prison spread," a kind of hybrid top ramen mixed with other jailhouse ingredients, highly customizable based on taste and circumstances. (more…)

Brian Kelly (aka The Points Guy) reviewed what it was like to fly Etihad's Residence suite from New York JFK to Abu Dhabi. His "seat" was a three-cabin suite.Etihad forgot to load his baggage on the flight.

https://youtu.be/KTrgRYa2wbIIn 2007, 17-year-old George Hotz became the first person to carrier-unlock an iPhone. Two years later, he was the first person to break the security on the Sony Playstation. This year, Hotz unveiled a self-driving car that he built in his garage. In this video, Hotz demos it to Bloomberg's Ashlee Vance.

A short film by Peter Serafinowicz. "What if Donald Trump had elocution lessons? All words verbatim." It would be interesting to see the opposite: give Cameron a New York accent.Here's another:https://youtu.be/qUGT30gGtiI

YourSassyGrandma on Etsy is selling the Sexy Ugly Christmas Sweater for $50.

The 451 HTTP error code, first proposed in 2012 as a tribute to Ray Bradbury's classic novel is now an IETF standard and is the preferred error message for a server to send to a browser when content is blocked for legal reasons. (more…)

Seven years ago, Alex Steffen and I proposed that rather than preparing "bug out bags" you can grab and go with after the apocalypse, we should all have "bug-in bags" full of things we'll use to help our neighbors when the lights go out. (more…)

Martin Shkreli, the notorious, most-hated-man-on-the-Internet pharma douchebro who was arrested last week for securities fraud, told the FBI that the only reason they bothered busting him for financial corruption is that he had made a spectacle out of himself with his pharma shenanigans. (more…)

Juniper Networks makes a popular line of enterprise firewalls whose operating system is called Screen OS. The company raised alarm bells with a late-day-on-a-Friday advisory announcing that they'd discovered "unauthorized code" in some versions of Screen OS, a strange occurrence that hinted at a security agency or criminal enterprise had managed to tamper with the product before it shipped. (more…)

Hilariously corrupt soccer governing body FIFA has finally made a scapegoat of suspended president Sepp Blatter, banning him from the organization for 8 years. He is defiant, reports CNN, demanding to know what he was banned for.It's for all the corruption, silly!

Steve Harvey announced Miss Colombia as the winner of the 2015 Miss Universe pageant. But Miss Colombia was not the winner of the 2015 Miss Universe pageant. Miss Philippines was. (more…)

The Omnibus Budget bill that Paul Ryan crammed through Congress last week didn't just harbor a domestic mass surveillance law and a bunch of nonsensical dog-whistles about ACORN and pornography, it was also full of grotesque pork for rich people and pointless government boondoggles. (more…)

Martin Howard from Toronto's Howard Collection writes, "The Salter is one of England’s first typewriters and is a stunning example of a piece of Victorian engineering. It was made by The Geo. Salter & Co. of West Bromwich who were well known at the time as the makers of penny scales, which were a common feature in train stations and other public areas." (more…)

Dallas cops put Armaan Singh Sarai in jail for three days because someone mistook the solar panel on his phone-charging backpack for a bomb. (more…)

No one knew who the mystery buyer of the Las Vegas Review-Journal was, just that $140m had changed hands under mysterious circumstances. But every reporter on the paper was ordered to drop everything and try to dig up dirt on three Clark County judges. (more…)

When you get arrested, what happens next depends on the law and the Constitution, but when a cop arrests their co-worker, what happens next is determined by a cushy contract between the police union and the city that gives suspected crooked law enforcement officers every benefit of the doubt, and lots of ways to walk away free, regardless of the facts. (more…)

I've never seen any of these Beatles videos before! The color and clarity are fantastic. They are included in The Beatles 1 Video Collection.https://youtu.be/NCtzkaL2t_Yhttps://youtu.be/A_MjCqQoLLAhttps://youtu.be/9US_Qz3eQ90https://youtu.be/Qyclqo_AV2Mhttps://youtu.be/usNsCeOV4GMhttps://youtu.be/usNsCeOV4GMhttps://youtu.be/BGLGzRXY5Bw[via]

Don't ever let the facts get in the way of a crowd-pleasing massacre.From The Guardian:

It's even a little Santa-y, with Christmasy colors of red and green.(more…)

“Princess Fea.”(more…)

“One man takes on all 62 episodes of Breaking Bad in one 3-day marathon. This is what happened.”(more…)