Chris M

Chris M

A businessman, for personal reasons of his own, needs to gain access to a notorious but elusive thieves guild. After snooping around the city for a few days, he finally gets a tip about the location of the guild entrance down a dark alleyway.

After observing the entrance for about an hour, the businessman notices that the thieves seem to have some sort of passcode system using numbers. When someone approaches the door, they are given a number, and then they reply with a number.

The first person steps up, and the guard tells them "twelve," to which they respond "six." The person is admitted. A second person approaches the door, and the guard tells them "six," to which they reply "three." The second person is also admitted.

Convinced that he has cracked the code, the businessman approaches the door to the thieves guild, and the guard tells him "ten," to which he confidently replies "five." The guard immediately slams the door in the businessman's face, and a deadbolt slots into place.

What should the businessman have said?

Chris M

...

Chris M

The Worst Video Game Ever Created Just Won't Die
Desert Bus lives in virtual reality now.


By Andrew Moseman
Nov 29, 2017
141
Desert Bus, the worst and also very best video game ever created, is back from the dead. Again. A new version called Desert Bus VR resurrects the spectacularly boring title in stunning virtual reality, and is now playable free on Steam.

These are some salient facts about Desert Bus:

Your task is to drive a bus from Tucson, Ariz. to Las Vegas in real time. It takes eight hours.
If you complete the journey, you get 1 point. If you drive off the road, you get towed back to Tucson. This also happens in real time.
Nobody is riding the bus. There is no oncoming traffic. You are alone, literally and also in a grander cosmic sense.
You cannot pause the game. The bus pulls slightly to the right, to simulate reality and also to prevent you from just setting down the controller and walking away for hours at a time.
Magicians Penn and Teller came up with Desert Bus as a gag with a purpose: to shut down critics in the 1990s who argued that fun, violent video games are evil and that games ought to reflect reality and prepare gamers for the jobs of the real world. Like driving a bus for an eight-hour shift. It was to live on Sega CD, a Sega Genesis add-on device. By the time the game was released, though, the format was done for. The game never actually game out.

But Desert Bus turned out to be the little dumb game that could. Gamers rediscovered the absurd title in the 2000s and bootlegged it for other gaming platforms. It inspired an actual charity event called Desert Bus For Hope.

And now the anti-game is available in glorious VR. In the Steam version, you can look around the empty bus, honk the horn at no one in particular, and fiddle with the radio (which has a station of just Penn talking). Just keep your eyes on the road, okay? That empty bus is counting on you.

Chris M

Jeep Wrangler Pickup Will Have a Folding Soft-Top
The Jeep Scrambler will dominate the market for drop-top pickup trucks.
Jeep Wrangler front endGETTY

By Bob Sorokanich
Nov 27, 2017
188
We're patiently awaiting the official unveiling of the 2018 JL-generation Jeep Wrangler, set to debut this week at the Los Angeles International Auto Show. But over the long weekend, we got a little tidbit on what might be the most anticipated version of the new Wrangler—the Jeep pickup truck, due in 2019.

Shown above, a spy photo of a Jeep pickup prototype wearing a hardtop.

Automotive News reports that, according to a source with direct knowledge, the Jeep Wrangler pickup will offer an optional fold-down canvas soft top, along the lines of the unit available on the two- and four-door Wrangler.

The report says that the Wrangler pickup will go into production in November 2018, at the same Toledo, Ohio facility where the current JK-generation Wrangler is built. Rumor has it that the Jeep pickup will wear the Scrambler name, a reference to a rare and highly-sought-after pickup variant of the CJ-7 that featured a removable hard top.

Our hunch is that the Wrangler pickup will be most popular in hardtop format, but will offer the same removable roof and doors as the regular Wrangler. Regardless, we can't wait to see the new Jeep pickup truck.

via Allpar

From: Road & Track

Chris M

Amazon has been granted a patent on self-destructing drones. Or, if you want to use the more technical term, "directed fragmentation of an unmanned aerial vehicle."

Spotted by The Verge, the patent describes what could happen if an Amazon package drone were to fail mid-delivery. Drones can fail for any number of reasons: battery failure, hitting a bird, or even getting shot down. If Amazon drone delivery wants to get off the ground, its drones will need plenty of fail-safes to win the several levels of governmental approval, from federal to city.

"When loss of flight operation is detected, the UAV can enter a fragmentation sequence mode," the patent, invented by Amazon employees Dushyant Goyal and Pragyana K. Mishra, reads. "During the fragmentation sequence, one or more parts or components of the UAV can be released. In doing so, the weight, speed, air drag coefficient, and other factors related to the UAV can be altered. At the same time, the momentum and trajectory of the UAV are also altered."


The drone breaking up and crashing in various safe areas.
Amazon's made no secret of its desires to make drone delivery a real thing, it had its first successful U.S delivery earlier this year. By having drones break up mid-flight, the company is hoping the impact of such a worst-case scenario would be lessened. Computers would quickly evaluate the drone's situation and attempt to crash-land its parts wherever they would do the least damage to people. Having a drone part land in a tree or a lake is better than than the entire drone falling on a street.

Of course, there's always a chance that Amazon may never use this idea at all. The Seattle-based company has a history of eye-popping patents, ranging from blimp warehouses to drones that can power your electric car on the road. Never a company considered short on ambition, Amazon is trying to figure out everything that could go wrong before it starts pushing governments on approval.

Source: The Verge

Chris M

If the winter months are starting to drag on, a splash of green might be just what you need. And warm weather need not be a concern with the AeroGarden Bounty, a mini-hydroponic garden that comes complete with an herb seed pot kit. Going for $180, down from $420, the Bounty is a great entry point into the world of hydroponic gardening.

With the ability to grow 9 plants at the same time under an ever-watchful 45 LED light, it can vary between white LEDs for fast growth, blue LEDs for bigger yields, and red LEDs for more flowers and fruit. It doesn't need tools to set up, all you need to do is plant the seeds, add water and included nutrients, and your garden will take care of itself. With 4.3 stars out of over 300 reviews, it's earned green thumb confidence.

Chris M

The Army’s new Modular Handgun System (MHS) is finally entering service, nearly seven years after the competition to replace the older M9 handgun was announced. After multiple delays and false starts, the Army awarded the German gun manufacturer Sig Sauer a $580 million dollar contract in January 2017 for up to 190,000 pistols. The pistols would be based on the company’s P320 full size and compact handguns, a new semiautomatic pistol design introduced in 2014.

The MHS consists of two pistols—the full-size M17 and the compact M18. Both pistols are chambered for 9-millimeter Parabellum and distributed with both 17 and 21 round magazines. The pistols are double action only, meaning a single trigger pull will both cock the pistol and release the firing pin, firing the gun. Both feature 4.7-inch stainless steel, threaded barrels for screwing on sound suppressors, rails for attaching accessories such as lights and lasers, and a flat dark earth finish.

The Army’s pistol, although based on the commercially available Sig P320, has some features the civilian version lacks. The MHS has a manual thumb safety, something missing from many contemporary handguns, Glock included, and the P320. It also features tritium sights not available stock on civilian models, which use radioactive tritium to make the handgun sights easily visible in both day and night conditions.

The “Modular” in MHS refers to the use of interchangeable grip frame modules to accommodate different sized hands. Some handguns are less comfortable held by smaller hands, particularly those that contain large capacity magazines in the grip. The interchangeable modules mean users can swap in the frame size that fits them best. The video shows the handgun fitted with one grip frame module but accompanied by two others that are user-installable.

The handguns are made at Sig Sauer’s facility in New Hampshire, in sufficient volume to equip roughly a new Army base a month until 2018. According to Military.com the Army is planning to deploy the MHS in greater numbers at a lower unit level than with the previous M9, and will beef up pistol training as the new pistol enters service.

Chris M

These tools are flipping sweet. I used one to cut out baseboards when framing in Callie's closet at my old house.

Chris M

Fan theories always have the possibility of changing your perspective on a film, like how Frosty the Snowman might actually be a demon. Now, one Twitter user might have completely ruined Disney's The Santa Clause and its sequels for everyone this Christmas season.

Hannah Priest, who goes by @shewolfmanc on Twitter, started off by asking a simple question:

Here's a little festive question for you... what is the most stone-cold brutal, horrific Christmas film ever made?

— Hannah Priest (@shewolfmanc) December 21, 2017
Soon several guesses came from Twitter users all around the world, from the beloved Home Alone to obvious examples like Black Christmas or Christmas Evil. But Hannah told everyone that they were wrong, and revealed that The Santa Clause is actually the creepiest Christmas movie of all time.

I'm not talking about what happens to Scott Calvin & his transformation into Santa. Or the fact that SCII belongs to the 'Santa Finds a Wife' subgenre, which is always creepy as hell.

— Hannah Priest (@shewolfmanc) December 21, 2017
The theory first starts off with simple points of information that anyone who has ever watched the film before would remember, like how the original Santa is dead. Sad stuff! But it gets a little darker as things move onto the other films in the series.

Priest says that the reason why people keep disappearing from the film is because they're actually being used for the special hot cocoa recipes mentioned throughout the trilogy. She also notes that the elves own a big oven that they don't need, and that's also the reason why no one seems to mourn anyone who leaves or dies during the films. Yikes.

The creepiness begins early on, because the roof-Santa actually dies on screen (quite slowly) and that's the only reason Scott can take on the role.

— Hannah Priest (@shewolfmanc) December 21, 2017
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It's not just humans though. Elves disappear after hundreds of years, and NO ONE cares.

— Hannah Priest (@shewolfmanc) December 21, 2017
And let's take a minute to consider Bernard. He's a huge part of SCI & SCII, but he's just... absent in SCIII. Curtis is now 'Elf No. 1' & no one mentions Bernard.

— Hannah Priest (@shewolfmanc) December 21, 2017
In SCII, Curtis & Bernard discover the 'Missus Clause', which dictates that Santa must be married. They'd never heard of this before & the Council of Legendary Figures also know nothing about it.

— Hannah Priest (@shewolfmanc) December 21, 2017

The obvious (and chilling) implication of this is that ALL previous Santas were married at the point when they donned the suit & invoked the Santa Clause. (Or they lasted less than a year before dying/invoking the Escape Clause.)

— Hannah Priest (@shewolfmanc) December 21, 2017
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When roof-Santa dies, it's a matter of hours before Scott gets to the North Pole to take over. But there is no sign of recently-bereaved Mrs Claus. What happened to her??

— Hannah Priest (@shewolfmanc) December 21, 2017
60 Santas over the history of Christmas means that the average life expectancy for a Santa is just over 33 years. Some of them will have lived at the North Pole for much longer.

— Hannah Priest (@shewolfmanc) December 21, 2017
So where are the babies? Where are the wives? There are potentially 60 women unaccounted for in this film series, and the elves never ever mention them.

— Hannah Priest (@shewolfmanc) December 21, 2017
Why would the elves need a massive oven? Santa delivers toys, not baked goods. Now think about how wryly the elves smile whenever someone comments on the flavour of their cocoa.

— Hannah Priest (@shewolfmanc) December 21, 2017
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And that, my friends, is why The Santa Clause is the most horrific Christmas film ever made.

— Hannah Priest (@shewolfmanc) December 21, 2017
While chances are Disney will never actually confirm or deny that this theory is true or not, it's a safe bet that none of this is actually what the creators intended. Most likely, the writers just hoped viewers wouldn't read too much into some of the missing details.

Priest has even had to block notifications, as she keeps getting messages saying that she ruined the movie for some people. Well, Christmas might not be completely ruined, but one thing is for certain, The Santa Clause and its sequels might never be seen the same again.

For fans who feel like they can rewatch The Santa Clause trilogy, even after reading this theory, all three movies are now available to watch on Netflix.

Chris M

This is still amazing to me. They were like $15k for one "coin" a week or so ago. It's been climbing hard, but it's still confusing as to who it's backed by, or who runs this show.

Chris M

Charging your iPhone at night with the standard lightning cable comes with some serious annoyances. On top of that, it's annoyingly flimsy, and you'll find yourself dropping $20 every few months.

So why is the Glowing iOS Lightning Charging Cable different? Equal parts funky and practical, the cable emits a subtle glow when you connect it to an iOS device and displays how fast your gadget charges through electroluminescent (EL) technology. The light flow represents the charging speed—the higher the charging current, the quicker light flows through the cord.

Normally priced at $20, this funky cable is now $10 at the PopMech store, perfect for stocking stuffers friends will actually use.


gimmicky, but still neat.

Chris M

LOOK AT THE CRANK STILL SPINNING THE CONNECTING RODS EVEN AFTER THE REST OF THE ENGINE IS OFF. INSANE.

Chris M

oooh, remember this guy on aaron's laptop? he's probably still in there somewhere. waiting. along with that nice black lady with the personalitities.

Chris M

It looks like I would have to iron my suite if i put one in there, but it's still pretty neat.

Chris M

If you've got a Mac that's running the latest version of macOS High Sierra, you're going to want to keep it in your line of sight. A recently uncovered bug appears to allow anyone to login as an administrator merely by entering the username "root" and no password.

Discovered by software engineer Lemi Orhan Ergin, the bug allows anyone who has access to your computer to gain full, administrative access in just seconds. It also allows for anyone to login to a machine even immediately after reboot.

You can access it via System Preferences>Users & Groups>Click the lock to make changes. Then use "root" with no password. And try it for several times. Result is unbelievable! pic.twitter.com/m11qrEvECs

— Lemi Orhan Ergin (@lemiorhan) November 28, 2017
In the time since the tweet, a whole host of people have come forward to replicate the bug in all its hideous glory:

You can bypass Apple auth by using "root" and no password. Here's my reproduction of https://t.co/SYSsPjLfpx /facepalm pic.twitter.com/oLa1S3W6Ly

— Bill Mill (@llimllib) November 28, 2017
Just tested the apple root login bug. You can log in as root even after the machi was rebooted pic.twitter.com/fTHZ7nkcUp

— Amit Serper (@0xAmit) November 28, 2017
The bug is quite similar to Apple's "root user" login feature as it might function if enabled by default and with a blank password. You can check your version of macOS by clicking on the Apple logo in the upper left-hand corner of your screen and clicking "About this Mac." We've reached out to Apple for comment and will update it we hear back. But given the cartoonish extremity of this bug, chances are a fix will be available soon. In the meantime you can turn on Apple's "root user" feature and give it an actual password by following the instructions here.

Update: Apple has released an update and responded with the following statement:

Security is a top priority for every Apple product, and regrettably we stumbled with this release of macOS.
When our security engineers became aware of the issue Tuesday afternoon, we immediately began working on an update that closes the security hole. This morning, as of 8 a.m., the update is available for download, and starting later today it will be automatically installed on all systems running the latest version (10.13.1) of macOS High Sierra.
We greatly regret this error and we apologize to all Mac users, both for releasing with this vulnerability and for the concern it has caused. Our customers deserve better. We are auditing our development processes to help prevent this from happening again.

Chris M

neat.

Chris M

por que no los dose?

Chris M

damn...

Chris M

Good lord, that's a big plane. It looks like it would break in the middle.

Chris M

FYI. also, I need a good set of Kitchen Knives.

Chris M

>> to 1:40

Chris M

we all live?

Chris M

still funny as hell.

Chris M

we're moving to buckets now??

Chris M

pretty neat.

Chris M

how to secretly be a handyman, but still play the marvel nerd game.