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Geekologie - Gadgets, Gizmos, and Awesome

You'll Never Be An Exterminator!: Man Blows Himself Up Trying to Kill A Spider For WifeYesterday

Because stupid people hurting themselves really tickles my fancy, here's a story about some jackass who blew himself up in the bathroom trying to kill a spider. Come on maine, haven't you ever heard of a shoe?!

The 28 year-old suffered severe burns after attacking the arachnid with an aerosol can at his home in Clacton in Essex. The man was summoned by his wife to deal with a spider she had seen scuttling behind the lavatory on Bank Holiday Monday. Not being able to reach it, the man decided to kill it by spraying it with the can. However he was unable to see whether it was dead because the bulb in the bathroom light had blown. At this point he turned to a cigarette lighter to illuminate the room, but in the process ignited the gas fumes and caused an explosion. The blast was so strong it blew the man off his feet and lifted the loft door off its hinges. He suffered flash burns to his head, legs and torso and was rushed by ambulance to hospital after dousing himsel

Somebody's Going To Hell! Stephen Hawking: "God Not Necessary For Universe To Exist"Yesterday

Seen here trying to bite his tongue but catching his lip instead, Stephen Hawking claims there's no need for a God in order for the universe to exist. *Preparing napsack and evacuation route for flame war*

Now, in his upcoming book, according to an excerpt of the introduction released by the London Times which isn't getting any traffic from this because of their pay wall), Hawking declares that the Big Bang can be explained without God. "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing," Hawking and his co-author, Caltech physicist Leonard Mlodinow, write in "The Grand Design," which is due to be issued next week. "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper [British way of saying light the fuse] and set the universe going."

Listen: I'm not even gonna pretend to be smart (because I'm not), but Stephen Hawking did give us E=Mc2, amirite? No? That was Einstein? Oh. Well then maybe

The United States Of Star Wars (Geography)Yesterday

Note: X-wing your way over to a full-size version HERE. Rogue Leader Rebecca Crane went and created a map of The United States of Star Wars (or USSW if you're into the whole brevity thing), with a different planet/location from Star Wars representing each state based on similarities in geography and other factors like the kind of people that live there. For example: Maine is Naboo because it's filled with nothing but annoying @$$holes. Get it? Because that's where JarJar's from. Oh come on -- I'z just kiddin', Maine! (See what I did there?)

There are probably tens of planets that work for each state, I picked either the first one that I came to or the best fit. Planets were assigned based on partial terrain, landmarks that correlate with the planet and state, types of people in the state and planet, famous landmarks, or slightly randomly selected (but loosely based on facts) from my brother and myself.

Clever, Veeery Clever: Portal BookendsYesterday

This is a pair of bookends made by Portal fan TriangleMen. Me being more into SquircleMen aside, I see what you did there. With the bookends, not your name. So yeah, great job. Now, here's the plan: you draw up some sort of short-sticked licensing deal with Valve, and I'll forge their signature. Well of course it's gonna work, you know how many unauthorized field trips I've been on?! portal bookends are not lies [technabob] Thanks to Jake, who just wants to know if traveling through your books Portal style still osmosis-es all the knowledge into your brain like using a textbook for a pillow.

Out Of This World!: Microscoped Insect EggsYesterday

In photo: Julia heliconian butterfly egg, top, zebra longwing butterfly egg, bottom. In other impressive photographic news, these are insect eggs as photographed using a scanning electron microscope. Ooh ooh -- do the stuff under my fingernails next. I've always wanted to see magnified Cheeto dust and penis cells!

The eggs in this story range in diameter from 0.7 to 2 millimeters. 'The scanning process is actually quite interesting. It is not the same as photography where if you capture an image where all pixels will be captured at the time. 'In scanning you have to capture one pixel at a time.' The images were made with a scanning electron microscope, which uses beams of electrons to trace the surfaces of objects. The resulting black-and-white images were then colored to reflect the eggs' natural appearance. Each image takes about a day to fix into position and then another day to microscope and then about 40 hours to colour.

Impressive work. I used to love looking at things under the microscope in college. And not just weed either, alt