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President Obama today signed a bipartisan bill into law that allows consumers to switch cell phone service providers without paying for a new phone.

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There's a fascinating story in the American Buddhist magazine Shambala Sun about the Burmese Buddhists who are killing and harassing their Muslim neighbors. Thoughtful and full of context, it is very much worth a read.

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Sean Willets and Forrest Whaley remade the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer completely in LEGO. From Gamma Squad:

From YouTuber Forrest Whaley, who has turned moving Legos around into a career, part of the fun is spotting all the fill-ins Whaley used for huge scenes. If you’re quick, for example, you’ll spot Mon Calamari, oddly silent on whether or not it’s a trap, in the background. Also, surprisingly, this is an official spot, according to First Showing; it appears Disney gave Whaley enthusiastic permission to put their upcoming hit into plastic.

Now I really want a Rocket Raccoon minifig. Guardians of the Galaxy officially opens nationwide tomorrow, but there are plenty of showings tonight.    

The Last of Us: One Night Live was an event based on an alternate musical ending to the game that was “thrown together by the cast on the soundstage as they worked on the game"- it was a celebration of the game's storyline, soundtrack and the impact this darkly humanistic world has on gamers.

WARNING- If you haven't played the game yet there are spoilers contained within the performance, and some subject matter considered NSFW.

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Naughty Dog studio brought the game to life at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica, California, with "a performance of the score by Gustavo Santaolalla, plus a "live read" of key scenes featuring the principal actors, as directed by Neil Druckmann."

It's a clever way to celebrate a game that redefined multiple video game genres, and it truly showcases all the hard work and dedication that goes into making such an amazing game.

-Via Kotaku/Comingsoon

Today, we celebrate Arnold Schwarzenegger's 67th birthday with our own Rob Beschizza's classic "Infinite Schwarzenegger 'Gear Up' Scene."

YouTube Link

This way cool video is a compilation of chemical reactions footage. Explosion. Disintegration. Deformation. Combustion. Whatever the reaction, it's all in the name of good, scientific fun. Via Geeks Are Sexy.

Here's what happens when you add Morgan Freeman's narration for March of the Penguins to American Juggalo.

July 26, 2014 - 9:00am

For your weekend viewing pleasure, here are two supercuts featuring Special Agent Dana Scully from The X-Files. It's fitting that they touch on two of her character's primary interests: the "But Science" defense; and the "OMG" moment. Enjoy!

Science

"What you can't question is the science!" -Dana Scully, every third episode of the series. Scully typically deployed this line because the writers conveniently knocked her character unconscious during a crucial moment showing evidence of vampires, aliens, stretch-monsters, you name it. I've got to admit, this has a nice beat:

God

"Oh my God." -Dana Scully, every fourth episode of the series. Here's a collection of the many ways in which Scully broke a Commandment:

See also: The Scully Box; Chris Carter on The X-Files and 'The '90s: The Last Great Decade'; The X-Files X-Posed; and 7 Things We Should Thank The X-Files For.

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For today's feel good news story, we journey to the south side of Houston, Texas, where Mayura Dissanyake works as a clerk at a gas station and convenience store. He's also been a mixed martial arts fighter for a decade. In his native Sri Lanka, he was the national champion for five years. He still trains and competes in the United States.

On July 10, he saw one of his co-workers returning to the store after visiting a bank. Two men jumped out of an SUV and attacked him. Dissanyake sprang into action and expressed his displeasure at their behavior:

"The first guy I saw, I just kicked him in the face," he said. "Then I punched the other guy."

They were moves he learned from cage matches. Dissanyake has been involved with mixed martial arts for more than a decade. He says he was the national champion for five consecutive years in his native Sri Lanka.

"We learn how to punch, how to kick and all that stuff you can use in the streets," Dissanayake said.

In the video, you see the accused crooks begin their retreat and the get-away car getting further away. As they ran, Dissanayake threw a punch that knocked one of the guys to the ground. His friends and accomplices left him there.

"I just kicked him until he lays down on the floor," he said. "Until he stopped moving cause I wasn't sure if he had a knife or a gun so I wanted him to stop moving."

One of the two would-be robbers escaped. Police arrested the other one.

-via Dave Barry

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The 1980s gave us some truly awesome movies, but you have to allow for their age. While the trope of hacking computers was quite useful to advance a plot, the depiction of how it’s done was woefully unrealistic. For those of us who actually used computers in the '80s, these scenes seemed ludicrous even when they were new. Yeah, the unrealistic speed was due to movie pacing, we got that, but other things made no sense. A security agency requires a login but no password. If you’re nerdy enough, you can draw a picture by typing. Transferring data means they have to show you that data onscreen as it loads. From our 21st-century vantage point, even the futuristic computers were lame: you have a 3D holographic display, but you can’t produce a decent human voice? This supercut is from the folks at Found Item Clothing, where you’ll find a list of the movies. -via Laughing Squid

"The bill Congress passed today is another step toward giving ordinary Americans more flexibility and choice, so that they can find a cell phone carrier that meets their needs and their budget," the President said. Read the rest

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom tells the Guardian "governments want to engage in mass surveillance and have total citizen control." The political party he founded to contest New Zealand's September 20 elections, the Mana Internet party, promises to "abolish mass surveillance."

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Right now, Google blocks "forgotten" articles on EU versions of its site. Read the rest

It's probably the most censored site on the Internet, blocked by national firewalls all over the world, but more people use it every day. Read the rest

Jonathan Zdziarski's HOPE X talk, Identifying Backdoors, Attack Points, and Surveillance Mechanisms in iOS Devices, suggests that hundreds of millions of Iphone and Ipad devices ship from Apple with intentional back-doors that can be exploited by law enforcement, identity thieves, spies, and employers. Read the rest

Makeup vlogger Michelle Phan, who's huge on YouTube, is on the receiving end of a copyright lawsuit over the background songs in her videos. Read the rest

Here's video of the fantastic conversation between whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Daniel Ellsberg at HOPEX hacker con last week.

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A tumblog of greatness, filled with GIFs of greatness: thegifconnoisseur.tumblr.com.

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Contrary to what those anti-gamer curmudgeons will have you believe, video games are more than just a source of mindless entertainment, or something to keep your thumbs and eyeballs busy.  

In fact, you can even discover good advice in video games, life lessons that ring true whether you're playing a godlike warrior, or an average human trying to survive in a horrifying post-apocalyptic world:

Julia Lepetit from Dorkly has created a collection of illustrated life lessons gathered from hit games like The Last of Us, Elder Scrolls: Skyrim and Minecraft, lessons that may inspire you to seek wisdom from whatever game(s) you're currently playing.

-Via Laughing Squid

"Men love to take up so much space and spread their legs while sitting down but it's because they're saving room for cats! Duh!" savingroomforcats.tumblr.com.

[HT: theremina.tumblr.com]

They proudly say that they comply with federal privacy law, eschewing cookies, but sneakily use Addthis's "canvas fingerprinting," a product whose other major user is Youporn (but they stopped after they were outed, and the White House didn't). Read the rest

The offices of Bornstein and Bornstein are notorious for running "boot camps" advising San Francisco landlords on legal loopholes for evicting long-term tenants so they can rent to the high-flying tech sector. Read the rest

Dave from EFF sez, "Scorpion, Person of Interest and transformative art are among the highlights we're looking forward to most at San Diego Comic-Con this year. You can also meet up with me (Dave Maass) at the Alaska Robotics table 2 - 3 pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday."

The EFF Guide to San Diego Comic-Con 2014

The original Star Trek show was filmed when all effects were practical, as opposed to digitally created special effects, and adding camera shake meant literally shaking the camera.

Star Trek: The Next Generation was made in the late 80s/early 90s, when digital effects were more widely used in television productions, so effects like camera shake were digitally added in post-production, with a little help from the actors, of course:

(Video Link)

Nowadays digital effects make it easy to simulate camera shake via software, but when you use the same software to remove the camera shake effect you're left with nothing but amazing performances.

Add the catchy DJ Snake and Lil Jon track "Turn Down For What" to those performances and you've got pure comedy gold on your hands, courtesy of some dude named Danny Rogers and his mashup "Turn Down For Spock".

-Via Elite Daily

Author Earnings has published its latest eye-popping data-analysis of ebook sales and rankings on Amazon. Read the rest

In 2001, an Australian man named John Keogh designed a "circular transportation facilitation device." He patented it through his nation's intellectual property register. Since that time, this marvelous invention has become popularly known as the "wheel." It's a tremendously useful implement for moving objects across horizontal distances. Engineers have often applied it in combinations, so that it is now common to see devices with not only one wheel, but often two or more wheels.

Unfortunately for Keogh, he has lost the legal protection that his patent granted him and, no doubt, the impressive royalties that he gained by licensing it. Marc Abrahams of Beta Boston reports that the Australian government has quietly revoked Keogh's patent.

-via VA Viper

Blade Runner is such an amazing and beloved film that it just wouldn’t be right to bring it back with a new cast and cutting edge CGI effects because it looks amazing just the way it is, but if you're going to give it new life you have to recreate it as an animated feature.

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YouTuber Chris Kessler agrees, and he put together a trailer using clips from various anime series like Bubblegum Crisis and AD Police, with audio from Blade Runner, which is quite entertaining to watch and Blade Runner-y in all the right places.

If Hollywood filmmakers would stop turning cartoons into live action movies and flip the adaptation process around we might see some animated remakes of movies like Blade Runner that'll be worthy of those high box office prices!

-Via Gamma Squad

Stress does affect the body in numerous ways. But how we think about what stress is, what it does, and its connection to pop psychology, have all been shaped by cigarette companies.