How the heck did they come up with some of the crazy monsters in Dungeons & Dragons ? There are a lot of weird, memorable monsters that GMs can use to strike fear into the heart of players — and the inspiration behind them is way different than what you probably expect. Read more…
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The Surprising Inspiration for Dungeons & Dragons’ Weirdest Monsters
The world may be oohing and awing over all the wonderful uses we’re finding for graphene, but there’s another super-material vying for the spotlight. Vanadium dioxide might eventually become a household name because in addition to revolutionizing electronics, researchers have now discovered it can be used as an artificial muscle 1, 000 times stronger than our own. Read more…
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Berkeley Researchers Create Robo-Muscles 1,000 Times Stronger Than Ours
Given the United States’ intolerance for copyright infringement and the piraters that propagate it , you’d think Uncle Sam would be a little more keen on making sure that his men were playing by the book themselves. As it turns out, a whole mess of computers running unlicensed, illegal copies of Windows 7 belong to none other than the US Army itself . Read more…
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A US Army Base Is Running a Bunch of Illegal Windows 7 Copies
Web: To beat the pressure of gift-buying, we recommend you give experiences instead of objects . So how do you find these experience-based gifts, and which one is right for whom? Unstuff Gifts makes it easy by aggregating, sorting and recommending the best “non-stuff” gifts for the holidays. Read more…
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Unstuff Gifts Picks Experiences, Not Stuff, for Holiday Presents
Cubli is a clever little cube that uses reaction wheels to jump, balance and “walk” across stationary and dynamic surfaces alike. It reminds us a lot of MIT’s M-Blocks, only bigger , and… well… more balance-y. Read more…
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Meet Cubli, a motorized box that balances perfectly on ONE CORNER
We’ve all done it: stood in a library, looking around, we’ve been confronted by the fact that there are way, way too many books in existence for us to ever read. But when in history did that happen? Read more…
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When Did There Become Too Many Books to Read in One Lifetime?
mrspoonsi writes with this excerpt from Business Insider: “This morning, Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to give 18 million Facebook shares to charity by the end of the month. Facebook is currently trading at $55 per share, so Zuckerberg’s gift is worth just under $1 billion. The money will go toward Zuckerberg’s foundation, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and The Breakthrough Prize In Life Science, a [Nobel] Prize-like award. Zuckereberg is giving his shares away as part of a secondary stock offering from Facebook. Reuters says Zuckerberg will sell 41.4 million shares, reducing his voting power in the company from 58.8% to 56.1%. Other insiders selling include board member Marc Andreessen, who will sell 1.65 million shares. Facebook is selling 27 million.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Mark Zuckerberg Gives $990 Million To Charity
After no short period of waiting, the new Mac Pro has finally gone on sale today . All along it’s promised to pack punch, and it might just prove to be your ultimate work station . But absolute power will cost you. Read more…
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A Fully Loaded New Mac Pro Will Cost You $14,000
The last mile issue has plagued ISPs since the advent of the Internet. While projects like Google Fiber can deliver massive bandwidth to your door, they require the installation of an entirely new network infrastructure. Not so with the new G.fast standard. It delivers fiber optic speeds over existing telephone lines. Read more…
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The Next Generation of DSL Can Pump 1Gbps Through Copper Phone Lines
LG has just revealed its new flagship curved OLED screen—the largest one in existence—ahead of next January’s CES convention. Because why wouldn’t you you want 105 inches of curved OLED goodness? Oh right, you can’t afford it. Read more…
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LG’s 105-Inch Curved OLED Is Just Bonkers