In the video above Becky Stern refers to this LED motion sensor project as (paraphrasing here) “electric bedazzling.” To borrow from my Southern linguistic heritage for a moment: Butter my butt and call me a biscuit. I’m sold. The basics are in the video; for step-by-step instructions, visit Adafruit.

(via: Laughing Squid)

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We still have to wait over half a year for season three of Game of Thrones to premiere (sob), and while there aren’t any trailers or official promo pics yet, this video breakdown of season two’s visual effects is pretty cool. Released on the heels of the show’s Creative Arts Emmy win for Outstanding Special Visual Effects (one of six awards it won at the Creative Arts Emmys, held last Saturday), it gives a neat look at how the show’s effects team creates dragons, wildfire, creepy shadow babies, towering castles, and majestic scenery, all set to music from the show. Check it out after the jump—you know want an excuse to listen to the theme song again.

Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph is a veritable who’s-who of video game history. We saw several classic characters in the first trailer and a few more (heroes and villains) in the second trailer but one is conspicuously missing – Mario! You may be thinking it has something to do with property rights (and you’re not alone) but then why is Mario’s nemesis Bowser in the film and our favorite plumber is not? Producer Clark Spencer explains while revealing just how crazy video game companies are.

There are some things in this world that if we took the time to be mad at, we would be angry every day. Sometimes we just don’t have the energy for that. But hey, let’s look at some further examples of a gender-skewed world anyway: Women are on record as twice as likely as men to suffer whiplash in car accidents, and yet the majority of crash test dummies used in car safety tests are based on the average male.

Luckily for all women who prefer their necks un-lashed, there are people working to remedy that.

Bill Nye has been making a name for himself again in the pop-culture realm. The ex-kid’s television host has been giving commencement speeches, helping Neil deGrasse Tyson get a space documentary Kickstarted, and he even has his own informative YouTube videos. But today he’s sharing the screen with The Nerdist, Chris Hardwick, and imparting some serious wisdom. A very important piece of wisdom in fact, that many have let fall into the past. I’m talking about tying a bowtie. And you might even learn a few new words while you watch! There’s just one thing this video is missing – Matt Smith.

(via Geeks are Sexy)

Ever wonder about the science of fireworks? Here’s a great video featuring Fireworks and Things That Go Boom expert John Conkling, PhD. The man wrote the book on fireworks — he’s the author of The Chemistry of Pyrotechnics, Basic Principles and Theory — so this video is definitely worth a watch if you’re at all interested in the (pyro)technicality of what makes all those pretty colors explode in the sky! Just don’t try to bust out the science talk during tonight’s light show, save it to impress all of your friends and family afterwards.

(via Laughing Squid.)

Joel McHale, besides sitting around getting nominated for awards, has a regular gig at E!, which is kind of a terrible channel, but McHale is well aware of this. He makes fun of it and its programming (and colossally good sport Ryan Seacrest) on a weekly basis in between shooting Community. But even better for us, he makes spoofy videos, like this take on the “Happy Birthday, David” video for Prometheus. McHale’s is above, the Michael Fassbender version is after the jump.

As the American military starts allowing women to fight on the front lines of combat, more attention is being paid to how those women can best protect themselves. Namely, body armor. Since only men have been allowed in combat roles, there has never been any consideration for fitting body armor to the female form. While progress is still being made on uniforms (including those for pregnant members of the military), at least we know that the House Armed Services Committee is looking into things on the protective front.

A lot of people say that the late Steve Jobs was ahead of his time. I will not dispute that, but I will say that this four-minute video of Apple goofing on IBM to the tune of the Ghostbusters theme song that was made in 1984 pretty much reeks of 1984. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Nope, not at all. It wasn’t a commercial, it was made for a worldwide sales staff meeting for Apple employees and features both Jobs and Steve Wozniak in cameo roles. Not visible in this video: the neon legwarmers.

(via Huffington Post)

This is Valve’s way of telling us all that it will soon be releasing a simplified level editor for Portal 2 multiplayer, independent of the Source Developer’s Kit, which is apparently useful… if you’re already a significantly talented game programmer.

And suddenly the Portal art I threw into our Tumblr queue earlier this week that’s going up today looks reeeal topical.