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From clever to spooky to just plain spectacular, 2013 has been a great year for great cosplay. With all the end of the year round ups going around these days, it can be hard to keep track of them all, but this io9 gallery of great cosplay is something you simply shouldn't miss.

We included some of these in our Comic Con and Wonder Con cosplay articles and some of these we've already featured because they are simply so fantastic, but plenty of the costumes are still new to us.

If you like cosplay, you certainly won't want to miss this fantastic roundup of all these great costumes from the span of the last year.

(252): I snorted xanax while wearing reindeer antlers. Prancer gone wild. Have a merry Christmas.

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Amazing, simple diet that really works is revealed in this book, anyone can do it, and it even shows how to keep the weight off.

It’s diet season, so why not do things intelligently and follow the advice of some clever professors…

In a really interesting book by two University Professors, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, they write a lot about how the human mind works. The book, Nudge, which is an international bestseller, discusses how people are so easily fooled, and how that can affect their weight problems.

A great example of this was a crazy experiment done by Professor Wansink where he gave out free, stale, popcorn in a cinema in two different sized containers. The hilarious thing is that the people who got the “squeeky” old popcorn in the large serving actually ate “53% more than the people” who got a smaller container of free old popcorn, even though they thought it ‘felt like chewing on polystyrene packing peanuts’. The point is all about serving sizes, and how bigger servings will make you eat more.

In another study, which is maybe even funnier, Wansink had people eat free soup, but this time it wasn’t old or nasty, just served in a really big bowl. The trick this time was that they had built some kind of funky mechanism into the bowl so that it kept refilling itself and never got empty. Guess what? They found that people downed tons of soup in that experiment, once again proving that people just eat whatever’s in front of them.

In Nudge they talk about the interesting case of two Economics grads who wanted to lose weight. John Romalis and Dean Karlan were being wined and dined by lots of potential employers trying to get the young brains to work for them, and all that food had them piling on the pounds.

So, being economists they thought of a simple, yet brilliant solution, and for some reason they haven’t made it into a book yet. Romalis and Karlan decided that they both had to lose 30 pounds, and gave themselves a realistic target of shedding it within nine months. Up til now everything’s pretty simple, but, they made a pact:

If either of them failed to lose the 30 pounds within nine months, they’d have to give the other one $10,000

The bet worked, and they both lost the weight, and it seems to show that when you’re staring down a tub of ice cream it will motivate you to turn down the calories when you are faced with a massive potential fine for indulging in that delicious creaminess straight out of heaven, mmmmmm.

Well if you’re spending money on Diet Pills that might anyway be killing you, you might want to read on and find a much cheaper (hopefully) and safer alternative.

Even though we all know that obesity and just generally being overweight isn’t healthy and is probably quite dangerous in the long run, no-one imagines that they will have a heart attack, it’s the kind of thing ‘that happens to other people’, but when you’ve made an agreement and you know you’re going to have to fork out the cash, you pay attention.

Then Romalis and Karlan had to face the next challenge that every successful dieter has to face: How do we keep it off? Well they knew they were onto a good thing with the fines so they devised a ingenious system.

At any point one of us could call up the other one and arrange a ‘weigh in’ on that day, if you had gained anything back: Pay the Fine

And so, the two would call each other intermittently and arrange a weigh in and only once was a fine ever paid, so they kept it off beautifully.

Have you or a family member ever tried Cash or Cake or any other diet that works on fines and Not incentives?

Economists Diet That Works, Keeps It Off [VIDEO] is a post from: The Inquisitr News

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 animated fantasy/comedy/film noire directed by Robert Zemeckis (who directed the live action) and Richard Williams (who was in charge of the animation sequences). The film was a revolutionary mix of live action and animation and was based on the novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf. In the novel, cartoon characters interact with real people. Before Zemeckis, Terry Giliam had been offered the directing position, but he declined, saying the job was "too technically challenging."

A common question about the film: Why no question mark in the film's title? The answer is an old Hollywood superstition that a question mark in a film's title is considered bad luck.

The actual lead role in the film is Eddie Valiant, the hard-boiled P.I. who is investigating the death of Marvin Acme. Producer Steven Spielberg's original choice for the role was Harrison Ford, but Ford's asking price was too high. Bill Murray was another early choice, but because he was so hard to locate and contact, Spielberg and Zemeckis decided to pass on him, too (when Murray read this story, he reportedly screamed, as he said he would have happily taken on the "Eddie" role).

Sylvester Stallone, Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson, and Ed Harris were all considered before character actor Bob Hoskins was finalized for the lead. To get the feel of working with imaginary characters, Hoskins studied his young daughter. After filming, Hoskins reportedly suffered from hallucinations. After he saw the film, Hoskins' young son was furious at him because his father never introduced him to Bugs Bunny! 

Christopher Lloyd, who had already worked with Zemeckis in 1985's Back to the Future, took on the lead villain role of "Judge Doom." John Cleese also auditioned for the judge, but Spielberg and Zemeckis both thought no one would take a member of Monty Python seriously as a villain.

Lloyd avoided blinking his eyes on camera in order to perfectly portray the sinister character. Judge Doom's group of weasel henchmen (Smartass, Greasy, Stupid, Wheezy, and Psycho) were a satire of Snow White's seven dwarves.

Perhaps the film's most popular character (at least among men) was Jessica Rabbit, Roger's sexy bombshell wife. Jessica was portrayed by (a strangely uncredited) Kathleen Turner. Her singing voice was provided by Spielberg's then-wife, Amy Irving.

Jessica's sultry character was reportedly based on four film femme fatales. The quadruple amalgam consisted of "Red," the sexy lounge singer made famous in Tex Avery cartoons (Red Hot Riding Hood); Rita Hayworth in Gilda; Veronica Lake with her "peek-a-boo" hairstyle; and, at Zemeckis' insistence, the "look" of Lauren Bacall.

Because of Jessica's satirically ultra-feminine form, Disney Studio boss Michael Eisner considered the final film too risqué with sexual innuendos. Director Zemeckis, however, had final cut provisions in his contract and refused to make changes, sexual or otherwise, to Jessica or her scenes. Rumors persist to this day (unsubstantiated and undocumented) regarding certain sexual scenes hidden in both the film and the later laserdisc of Jessica Rabbit and her interactions with various male characters in Roger Rabbit.

The film's title role went to a young standup comedian/actor named Charles Fleischer. Although an animated character in the film, Fleischer insisted on getting dressed as Roger before standing off-camera and feeding his lines to Bob Hoskins (this included suspenders, bow tie, floppy ears and all).

Animation director Williams explained the Roger Rabbit character, much like Jessica, as a blend of several characters. According to Williams, Roger Rabbit had "Tex Avery's cashew nut-shaped head, the swatch of red hair like Droopy's, Goofy's overalls, Porky Pig's bow tie, Mickey Mouse's gloves, and Bugs Bunny's cheeks and ears."

Never before in the rich history of animation have so many cartoon icons been brought together in the same project, be it cartoon short, television show, or motion picture. Altogether, 326 animators worked full-time on the film.

Along with star Roger Rabbit, at one point or another in the film, we see Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety Pie, Sylvester the Cat, Felix the Cat, Porky Pig, Wile E. Coyote, the Road Runner, Yosemite Sam, Mighty Mouse, Pluto, Goofy, Minnie Mouse, Daisy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Alice, Snow White, and others -almost too many to keep track of!

Warner Bros. insisted their two top characters, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, get as much screen time as Walt Disney's top pair, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Because of this agreement, we see the Warner Bros. characters being featured in all the same scenes as the Disney characters. Roger Rabbit features the only double appearance in the same scene of the two most popular characters in cartoon history: Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny. Also featured in the film is a memorable piano duet between Donald and Daffy Duck.

In a brilliant touch, the great Mel Blanc was hired to reprise his iconic voice characterizations of Bugs, Daffy, Tweety, Porky, and Sylvester. This was one of the last times Blanc go to voice his immortal characters before he passed away in 1989. Another unforgettable moment has Mae Questel coming back to voice Betty Boop, her legendary cartoon character from the 1920s and '30s.

Unfortunately, we do miss seeing Popeye, Tom & Jerry, Little Lulu, Caspar the Friendly Ghost, and the Terrytoon characters (except for Mighty Mouse). Sadly, legal agreements and rights to these characters were not obtained by Spielberg in time for them to be featured in the final film.

The first test audience screening of Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a complete disaster. Shown to a crowd consisting mainly of 18- to 19-year-olds, the audience hated the film and reportedly many of them actually walked out on it. The studio got cold feet and wanted to make edits, but director Zemeckis, having final cut approval, refused to change one single scene or shot.

Roger Rabbit started out with a budget of $29.9 million, at the time the most expensive budget ever for an animated film. The budget ballooned to $70 million (as the production went way over schedule) and Disney almost pulled the plug on the project more than once. Fortunately, this never happened and Who Framed Roger Rabbit premiered on June 22, 1988, to almost unanimously rave reviews. It went on to gross $330 million worldwide.

To date, Who Framed Roger RabbitRoger Rabbit remains the only animated film to garner three Academy Awards: Best Film Editing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Sound. Richard Williams also won a special achievement award for "animation direction and creation of the cartoon characters."

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a unique, wonderful, and timeless movie classic. It remains a "must see" for anyone who loves the great cartoons from the Golden Age of Animation. And who doesn't?

[http://youtu.be/OFCIaMyMORg] (YouTube link)

This year marked the start of teenagers adopting other social networks instead of Facebook as their parents signed up for Zuckerberg's site in droves.

In a European Union-funded study on social media, the Department of Anthropology at University College London is running nine simultaneous 15-month ethnographic studies in seven countries to find out how teens were perceiving Facebook.

We read about what U.K. teens think on The Conversation:

What we’ve learned from working with 16-18 year olds in the UK is that Facebook is not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried. Mostly they feel embarrassed even to be associated with it. Where once parents worried about their children joining Facebook, the children now say it is their family that insists they stay there to post about their lives. Parents have worked out how to use the site and see it as a way for the family to remain connected. In response, the young are moving on to cooler things.

Instead, four new contenders for the crown have emerged: Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp.

This is similar to what teens in the United States think about Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Intel is planning to launch its 4th generation Core i7 HEDT (high-end desktop) platform, codenamed "Haswell-E," in the third quarter of 2014 (after June), which should space its launch roughly a year from Core i7 "Ivy Bridge-E." With Haswell-E, Intel is expected to increase core counts across the board, launching an "affordable" six-core part around the $400 mark, an eight-core part around the $600 mark, and an Extreme Edition eight-core part around the $1,000 mark. The three will be based on the LGA2011-3 socket, which has the same pin count as today's LGA2011, yet is incompatible with it, because the pin map of Haswell-E will differ from its predecessors'. Driving the platform will be Intel's X99 Express chipset, with support for up to ten SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and a large number of USB 3.0 ports. Some of the first X99 motherboards are expected to be unveiled at Computex 2014.

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It's relatively easy to simulate life in an abstract sense, but it's tricky to do that cell by cell -- just ask the OpenWorm Project, which has spent months recreating a nematode in software. However, the team recently cleared an important milestone ...

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“Heard a loud clanking noise as I reached my apartment. This is what I saw.” — Arul Prasad ML

The nose may really "know" when it comes to danger, according to a new study that found that odors associated with electric shocks in mice trigger a sensory-cell reaction much stronger than for non-fearful odors.

The finding was surprising, said study researcher John McGann, a neuroscientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey. The sensory neurons are at the very beginning of the circuit that enables the perception of smell, far outside of conscious control, and yet they "learn" to tune into scary smells.

"The effects of learning can happen not just on behavior, but on sensory processing," McGann told LiveScience Read more...

More about Research, Safety, Health, Science, and Us

People often reference the long arm of the law, but nobody ever talks about the short cars of the law. With today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe Fairlane however, we're about to change all that.

Read more...

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This performance by Indiana University’s ‘Straight No Chaser‘ a cappella group is fun, brilliantly arranged, and brings me joy each Christmas season.  Thought I’d share:

Merry Christmas!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are a welcome addition to any tree, especially when they come in the form of adorable and creative ornaments. Dollar Store Crafts put together a fun and easy project to create the heroes and it only takes a few supplies: green ornaments, googly eyes, and ribbon. If you don’t feel like buying ribbon in four colors, you can just make one of the gang. Any ninja turtle is better than no turtle. Go read the full tutorial and make your tree more awesome!

(via Make)

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