You don't need a fire to have a good cookout. As long as it's at least 80ºF outside, you can cook a hot dog inside an empty can of Pringles potato chips. Instructables member Cat's Science Club shows you how.

The first step is to eat all of the Pringles. Some people might say that it's enough to just empty the can. But I say that any job worth doing is worth doing well. Eat all of the Pringles. Then cut a window into the can. Skewer a hot dog and place it inside. Glue a layer of plastic wrap over the window to trap the heat inside.

On a good day, you may get an internal temperature as high as 170ºF. Over time, that's enough to cook the hot dog to perfection.

-via Make

(League of Lost Causes)

What is that object in the sky? The League of Lost Causes offers this handy decision tree to assist you. This helps, but it's overly simplified. What if the object is attached to a boat and ends with a dramatic explosion?

-via Astronomy Picture of the Day

Lorrie Cranor is a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. She's an expert on computer privacy and security. To illustrate the importance of using quality passwords, she created a wordcloud of the 1,000 most common and poorly chosen passwords. Some of the more prominent ones are "12345" and "password."

Then Cranor printed out the wordcloud as fabric using Spoonflower. She used that fabric to create this dress. Cranor wore the dress while delivering a speech about computer security. That sounds like a brilliant teaching aid!

-via Fashionably Geek

(Photos: Chris Battle)

Teen Titans Go! is a currently airing television series on Cartoon Network. It's a comedic spin-off of the DC Comics superhero series Teen Titans. In a recent episode, the characters turned into puppets. Rather than animate them as such, the directors commissioned the construction of actual puppets. You can see more pictures of them here. Embedded below is a scene from the puppet incident.

(Video Link)

-via Super Punch

The starship Enterprise (NCC-1701) from Star Trek

The famous Welcome to Las Vegas sign

Jennifer Beatty is a graphic designer and bicyclist. She calls her most famous art project 100 Hoopties. What is a hooptie? Beatty helpfully defines this term of cyclist jargon. There are two definitions, both of which seem to relate to broken but semi-rideable bikes. If enough parts fall of your hooptie, you may have the building blocks for one of Beatty's posters. For 100 days, she recreated iconic works of art and images from popular culture using her apparently vast collection of bicycle parts.

ALF

The Son of Man by Magritte

Grumpy Cat

-via Lustik

Give Tisha Cherry a food item--any food item--and I'll bet that she can turn it into a work of art. But you'd better be well-informed about pop culture. Her work references rap music, The Simpsons, Star Wars, Banksy, and a lot more.

Frank151 interviewed her about her work. Cherry explains that her work began in an effort to, "enhance the experience of eating and not just consume for sustenance." Although her technical skills as an artist are impressive, Cherry thinks that the first step to creating food art is to find the right edible medium for a subject:

It’s not so much a technical skill as it is being resourceful and putting “the pieces” together. It’s about finding the right ingredient to mimic color and the right utensil to manipulate that ingredient. I use whatever I have in the kitchen: chopsticks, toothpicks, kitchen shears, fruit carving knife, etc. And if I make a mistake, I just eat it!

Is the surf up? If not, why even bother getting up? This may not be a problem for you in the future, thanks to Max Ashford. He's a design student in the UK. For a class project, he had to develop a product that uses an Arduino controller and has a milled casing. The Surf Indicating Lamp was the result of his efforts.

It gathers data from Magic Seaweed, a website that reports on surfing conditions. Different LEDs inside the lamp light up based on what Magic Seaweed says. If the surf is under 2 feet, it's red. If it's 2-4 feet, the lamp turns blue. If it's over 4 feet, the lamp turns green.

Does the world that you see look like it was painted by Monet or Degas? That could be pretty cool, except when you need to see clearly. That's the message behind these clever advertisements for Keloptic, a French eyewear retailer. The advertising agency Y&R Paris designed them. Their tagline is "Turning impressionism into hyperrealism."

Make sure that you get the right prescription or you could be seeing like Jackson Pollock.

-via Fubiz

A week ago, a mudslide near the village of Joya Grande in northwestern Guatemala destroyed several houses. Tragically, several people died.

A dog was among the survivors. Rescue workers heard a persistent tapping sound from inside the rubble. They assumed that some person was down there, so they started digging. As they got closer, they heard the sound of barking.

They found a stray male dog in the rubble. You can see the dramatic rescue in the video embedded below. The rescue workers have named him Afortunado, which means "Lucky One." Although he suffered dehydration and mild shock, he's okay and is available for adoption.

(Video Link) 

-via Nothing to Do with Aborath

(Bizarro Comics/Dan Piraro)

Being Kryptonian and having access to yellow sunlight gives Superman his super powers. But he wouldn't be as strong or as fast if he didn't stay in shape. And he certainly wouldn't look as good in that skin-light leotard. If he wants to keep Lois Lane eyeing him, that's important.

(Video Link)

A security camera in Strathcona County, Alberta, Canada captured an incredible moment. Al and Betty Perry were driving on a highway when a bolt of lightning struck their Chevrolet pickup truck. Both of them emerged shaken but physically unharmed.

After the bolt of lightning hit the truck, it immediately caught on fire and filled with smoke. The lightning destroyed the car's electrical system, so the automatic locks and windows wouldn't open.

Thankfully, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer who was a few hundred meters away witnessed the scene and rushed in. Constable Brian Jamot pulled the Perrys from their truck, which was partially melted. The Perrys credit Constable Jamot with saving them from certain death.

-via American Digest

(Video Link)

This video allegedly shows children of the Bajau people of southeast Asia. This ethnic group which ranges across Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines is sometimes known as the "Sea Gypsies" for their waterborne lifestyle. At a young age, a Bajau child may acquire remarkable skills in the water, as we've seen previously.

In this video, a canoe has capsized and filled with water. A young girl with impressive agility rolls it under her feet until she has bailed out the water.

-via The Presurfer

Mike King of Louisville, Kentucky is unstinting in his praise and respect for his father:

My dad has been everything to me, he is not my biological father but he IS my father. But this man in this video, my DAD my FATHER, was the best thing that ever happened to me and my mom and I hope I can be a fraction of the man that he is.

When Mike was eight years old, he promised his father, Roger King, that he could buy him a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air for his fifty-seventh birthday. He kept that promise and purchased a perfectly restored turquoise blue Bel Air.

It wasn't easy. Mike had to work 60 hour weeks for a few months to earn the money for the car. As you can see from the video below, it was worth it. Roger is overwhelmed with gratitude at this demonstration of love. Watch it, but have a handkerchief handy.

(Video Link)

-via VA Viper

If it bleeds, we can kill it. Or snap it into this Sesame Street playset. Really, with LEGO, there are no limits. This is especially clear when artists make custom LEGO minifigs, such as this one by DeviantART member exxtrooper. It shows the alien hunter from the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film Predator. He made the headpiece from the Chima line of LEGO products and added custom decals.

(Photo: NTPL/David Garner)

In the 1790s, Jane and Mary Parminter, two wealthy women from Britain, built a home for themselves near Exmouth, Devon, UK. They named it La Ronde. Departing from the architectural norms of the time, they selected a hexadecagonal design.

It may seem silly, but this actually permitted the sisters to experience more natural sunlight than they might get from a convention design. The sisters could easily move to whatever spot in the house had the best light. To facilitate this movement, they made each room accessible to those adjoining by sliding wooden panels. So it’s possible to walk a complete circuit around the house without going into the central hallway.

(Photo: Glenn Bowman)

(Photo: Charlie Dave)

It's now open to the public. You can find visitor information here.

-via Nag on the Lake