Subterfuge and masterful disguises are a big part of the spy game, and if James Bond has taught us anything spies also like to use lots of cool gadgets while they're gathering information.
Spy gadgets are often cool because they look like other stuff, like a camera that looks like a pack of cigarettes, an umbrella dart gun or, in this case, a pistol that looks just like a smartphone.
The Ideal Conceal Double Barrel .380 caliber pistol has a grip that folds out when it's time to pull the trigger, a built-in laser sight and flashlight, and a handy belt clip for when you're through being cool.
Don’t panic- this list is about fiction. One of the reasons we haven’t colonized space already is that it’s an inhospitable environment. Outer space is a vacuum without the oxygen we require, and a common tragedy in science fiction is a human coming in contact with that vacuum. It doesn’t end well for the most part, but how accurate are these portrayals? They range from horrible to scientifically accurate but still scary. Take Total Recall, which is judged the most inaccurate of all.
Towards the end of Total Recall, Quaid throws a bomb and blows out the wall of one of the buildings on Mars. Cohaagen, who triggered the bomb, is sucked out of the building, where he proceeds to explosively decompress in the thin Martian atmosphere.
Why this is completely, utterly wrong: Aspiring screenwriters, repeat after me: you don’t explode in space. You don’t explode in space. Total Recall is a totally grotesque and hilarious scene. It’s a iconic, to be sure, but it’s not what would happen if you found yourself on the surface of Mars without a space suit. Not even close.
The world could use a few more people who have their minds set on being less stupid, because those folks seem to be in short supply these days and the internet only makes it easier to skate by without a brain.
So maybe what we need is a new web series aimed at turning the tides of dumbness, a series with a catchy title like Be Less Stupid, yeah, that's the ticket! (NSFW due to language)
Be Less Stupid is a new series by former Penn & Teller: Bulls#%t! and Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher writer Jon Hotchkiss, who exposes the truth about hot button issues like Coke bleaching, cabin depressurization and whether having sex with a pregnant woman poses a threat to the infant. You know, smart people stuff!
Playing a video game in public may cause people to become curious about what you're playing, and before you know it the onlookers have begun to gawk and crane.
These vicarious thrill-seekers keep their thoughts to themselves until you walk away, which is when they realize their life is incomplete without that blush boy tactics fighting game in their collection.
Julia Lepetit sketched out the starers and the screen jockey in this little scenario for Dorkly, but it just as easily could've happened to you or someone you know in real life, so beware the stare...
Mark Smiley designed a LEGO BB-8 droid that really rolls! Not only that, but the project is a building set submitted to LEGO Ideas (formerly LEGO CUUSOO), which means if enough people like it, the LEGO corporation will consider it for an official LEGO product.
This unique BB-8 was designed with the primary goal of being able to move with his head staying up on top. The entire model was made using 100% Genuine Lego parts. His shells were of course carefully painted (and if this model is approved and created by Lego, the parts would come printed as so many Lego parts are). Inside you'll find Lego weights suspended from the central axle that bolster up two Lego magnets. Those magnets are held up close to the top of the ball and attract the two magnets built into BB-8's head. The head uses a cockpit dome (painted), hinge parts, and the smallest Lego wheels to skate on top of the body. The body's shell started out as Tatooine from the Lego Star Wars Planet series. The total part count is around 180 pieces.
It only rolls along one axis, because this is the real world, not Industrial Light & Magic. Want to get a look inside? Here’s a video showing updates to the project since it was first launched.
The set only needs a few more votes to get it past the magic number of ten thousand. If you’d be interested in seeing on store shelves, you can vote for it at LEGO Ideas. -Thanks, Mark!
Michael Jackson's chimpanzee Bubbles was undeniably overshadowed by his famous human, but some people feel Bubbles should be allowed to shine and tell his side of the MJ story.
A baby chimp is adopted by pop star Michael Jackson. Narrating his own story, Bubbles the Chimp details his life within The King of Pop’s inner circle through the scandals that later rocked Jackson’s life and eventually led to Bubbles’ release.
Have you ever seen a response posted to social media that everyone else on the thread felt was a burn even though it barely had enough heat to warm your hands?
That's because people love to overuse terms like “burn” or “troll” or “acute paranoia”, but when you read a real life changing burn you just know it raised a few eyebrows and caused some uncontrollable snickering.
Burns are a way for friends and family to help keep your ego in check, a way to slam you for posting your ridiculous pics and opinions on Facebook, and a way to permanently keep you out of the gene pool.
BB-8, the adorable droid star of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens has rolled into our hearts. He's smart, handy, and, above all, cute. So he's naturally inspired many Star Wars fans to create costumes of him. Here are some of the best, including this elegant corset-centered outfit which includes a motorized hat by Lady Death Star.
I used to think the gritty and grimy depiction of New York in the 1970s and 80s seen in movies like The Warriors and Maniac, and TV shows like Night Court and The Equalizer was an exaggeration, but it turns out they weren't that far off.
The city streets were crackling with an electric energy during those dark days, and overall New York City was a much more dangerous place, but artists also took license with the city's dark side for dramatic effect.
However, photographer Steven Siegel didn't need to exaggerate or manipulate the truth to make the NYC streets he shot during the 80s look like an apocalyptic wasteland, he just removed the lens cap and documented what he saw.
Steven spoke to Gothamist about the difference between NYC then and now:
New York in the 1980s differed in two fundamental ways from the New York of today. First, 1980s-era New York was an edgier, riskier, dirtier, tenser, more dangerous and chaotic place. I think that fairly comes through in my images. Second, 1980s-era New York had a sense of wide-openness and freedom that was lost following 9/11... and likely never will be regained.
Notice how these two fundamental changes overlap in a number of important ways. A safer city, to some extent, comes at the price of a loss of freedom and openness. Conversely, the edginess and riskiness of the 1980s came at an appalling human and social cost. My photos of South Bronx and Bushwick are—if I might say so—a testament to that. Those who might be nostalgic for the edginess and riskiness of the 1980s were surely not the people who were growing up in the South Bronx and Bushwick in the era.
The trade-off between openness and security is reflected in a very literal way in some of my 1980s photos.
Dying eggs for Easter is just plain fun, but if you're looking to geek up your eggs this year, you should do more than just dye them. While you can always paint them to look like specific characters, you don't need to have crazy art skills to make something different.
Professional cosplay photographer David Ngo snapped these two gentlemen at C2E2, an entertainment convention in Chicago. They're taking the title of the movie Captain America: Civil War very literally by portraying Captain America as a US Army officer and Iron Man as a Confederate Army officer.
When you go to a Bruce Springsteen concert you stay until the Boss is done doing his thing, and these days that can last three or four hours easy, which could spell trouble for any elementary school students in the audience.
A young man named Xabi attended a Springsteen concert with his superfan dad Scott Glovsky at L.A. Memorial Sports Arena on a Tuesday night, and when the concert didn't end until 11:40 Xabi thought he might be in trouble.
Luckily he'd held up a sign during the concert that said “Bruce, I will be late to school tomorrow, please sign my note”, and the Boss proved he's still the Boss by actually writing the kid a note.
Bruce invited Xabi and his dad backstage and wrote him a note that read ““Dear Ms. Jackson, Xabi has been out very late rocking + rolling. Please excuse him if he is tardy!”
And that's how a new generation of Bruce Springsteen fans are born.
Winnie the Pooh is one of those cute and cuddly characters that should make you feel all warm and fuzzy every time you see him, no matter the incarnation or re-imagining.
But a new line of officially licensed Winnie the Pooh 'relaxation masks' are making people pooh their pants in terror, since they look like something a serial killer would wear while they slay.
Both the Winnie and Eeyore masks make the wearer feel like they're having a waking heffalump and woozle dream, but they're face isn't melting- it's just the look of a licensed product gone horribly wrong!
Posting pictures of yourself wearing the frightful mask of Pooh has become a Twitter trend in Japan, where people don't mind putting a little Pooh on their face for the sake of social media comedy.
America may be unified as one country, but each state is more like it's own mini nation, with its own sense of style, favorite foods and, of course, its own set of urban legends.
Miss C lives in Kentucky, which is home to Sleepy Hollow Road, where people claim to have heard phantom infant cries near Cry Baby Bridge.
There are also reports of people being tailgated by a driverless black hearse, and Satanic rituals were supposedly held near Devil's Point in the 70s and 80s, so people claim to hear disembodied voices chanting in the area.
John Farrier lives in Texas, home of the Galveston ghost face, a spectral visage that appears on the side of the UT Medical School building in Galveston that just won't go away.
Jill Harness and I live in California, where the mysterious "Alien Blood" incident rocked Riverside General Hospital back in 1984:
Over two dozen emergency room staff were KOed after a woman named Gloria Ramirez had her blood drawn in the ER. The very second her blood began being sampled, a foul odor filled the entire area and Ramirez’s skin began taking on an oily sheen.
Suddenly, multiple medical support staff began to pass out and / or lose control of their limbs. The entire Emergency room was evacuated, safe for a skeleton crew of doctors still trying to save Ramirez’s life. They failed, and she died forty minutes after being admitted.
And Neatorama founder Alex Santoso recently moved to Oregon, where he may pay a visit to Crater Lake, the subject of strange stories and the site of several unexplained disappearances.
On second thought, maybe you'd better avoid Crater Lake altogether Alex!
Koneko, a cosplayer who calls herself "Your Average Nerd," made this far above average costume of Thor, God of Thunder. She wore it last month at Katsucon.
Her Mjölnir was made not by the dwarves of Nidavellir, but by the employees of PropNerd Props, who are, to the best of my knowledge, human.
You can see more photos of this marvelous cosplay at Fashionably Geek.
Subterfuge and masterful disguises are a big part of the spy game, and if James Bond has taught us anything spies also like to use lots of cool gadgets while they're gathering information.
