Their new Larson Scanner Kit—which requires soldering—only costs $13, and it is a lot more energy efficient that the original, released three years ago. That means that the battery and your nightmares will also last a lot longer. [Larson Scanner Kit via Evil Mad Scientist]

During the episode in which the humans and the Cylons discover a devastated Earth, they come across the remains of its civilization. One of the things they found partially covered in the radioactive soil was a "2000-year-old, ancient Cylon." That was the exact phrase in the script, which was used by VFX supervisor Gary Hutzel and chief model maker Pierre Drolet to create the Cylon head you see above.

Like Ralph McQuarrie did for Darth Vader, the pair took inspiration on classic samurai armor designs.
The result clearly came way too close to the Sir Dark Lord Van Vader Von Ham of Shin's helmet. So close that they took a couple of layers out of the helmet, to make it look like the skull on the right, which is the model that finally ended up in the actual shot:

Beautiful design either way, although I liked the full helmet better. I don't care it looked like Vader's, specially when McQuarrie also did art for Battlestar Galactica (some of it is under these lines.) [Darth Mojo—Thanks Alice]

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Intended to be a bit less intense than BSG's post-apocalyptic doom and gloom, Virtuality is about 12 astronauts on Man's first starship, the Phaeton. They're on a 10-year journey (feeling confident, aren't we Mr. Moore?) and will kill the time by plugging in to their own customized virtual reality worlds—a sort of holodeck meets the Matrix. That killing of time seems to be the focus of the show.

Our sister site io9 has been covering Virtuality quite a bit over the last year from inception to production, so they're a good resource if you'd like to read more about the pilot and potential new program. [io9]

* Wait, another promising sci-fi pilot is coming to Fox? Never mind, it's doomed.

Who's on the panel?
· Magda Apanowicz (Lacy Rand, "Caprica")
· David Eick (Executive Producer)
· Jane Espenson (Executive Producer)
· Tricia Helfer (Number Six, "Battlestar Galactica")
· Paula Malcomson (Amanda Greystone, "Caprica")
· Ronald D. Moore (Executive Producer),
· Esai Morales (Joseph Adama, "Caprica"),
· Grace Park (Sharon/Athena/Boomer, "Battlestar Galactica")
· Eric Stoltz (Daniel Greystone, "Caprica")
· Alessandra Torressani (Zoe Greystone, "Caprica")

Did you like it? I didn't have a chance to watch it yet, so I've no idea if it's as good as Battlestar Galactica. Then again, I thought the miniseries was slow and dull, but really got into it starting from the first episode of the series proper.

The Raptor was previously being sold on eBay, but with an ending price of $28,100 after 43 bids, the auction never reached the reserve price. So to those of you who are comfortably masked by the invisible cloak we call online shopping, it's time to come out of hiding: you'll actually have to show your face to take this sweet ride home. NBC/Universal is now looking to get rid of the Raptor—as well as a full-sized Mark VII Viper and other various BSG props—via "live" auction in Pasadena, CA. [eBay auction via hplus via boingboing]

The scooter planned its move carefully. It knew the woman's husband, recovering from a triple-bypass surgery, would be unable to chase after it. It waited until its innocent owner had dozed off, leaving her incapacitated and vulnerable. And it even showed signs of weakness prior to the kidnapping attempt, appearing unreliable, so when it did make its move, it would be all the more shocking.

It did not, however, account for the superior force of the Cornwall police department, which found it "swerving" on the highway five miles from home. The Cornish police captured the scooter and returned it to its now-wary owner. According to the BBC, "It took [officer] Michael Ginnelly an hour to drive the scooter back to Perranporth."

Said owner Eileen Bishop, "I just lost him. I was half asleep to tell you the truth."

Chilling. [BBC, image also BBC]

• Grace Park answers some questions (Slight spoilers, but silly fun)
• The DVD version will have some extra scenes (Slight spoilers)
• The BSG finale you didn't see (Major spoilers)

• Final episode review (Yes spoilers!)
• All of BSG's sex scenes (Hey hey!)
• 12 plotholes that should have been filled in the finale

• The truth about Daniel (Slight spoilers)
• Battlestar Galactica at the UN
• 5 BSG spinoffs they'd like to see

Seriously, while the T-Mobile G1 leaves me completely in a blah state of mind, DSTL1 actually makes me horny in a "I wish this thing vibrates really hard" kind of way.

Look at it. It's like the Battlestar Galactica designers took the iPhone design and passed it through their Colony-Design-a-thon, adding angled corners to it but keeping the same black glass, chrome accents, black plastic, circular home button, ear speaker grill, and volume controls. The result is a design which looks extremely familiar to the public, yet adds enough changes to appeal to people who want something cool looking, but different. And with better specs too:

Technology
Double SIM, Linux 2.6 Kernel
Platform
Marvell PXA 310 (624MHz)+NXP 5209
Bands
900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz
Screen
TFT/ WQVGA/ 260K Colors/ 3.0" Sharp Brand Touchscreen Display/ 240 x 400 pixels
Wi-fi
802.11 b/g
GPRS
Yes
EDGE
Yes
WAP
Yes, HTTP/WAP2.0 support
MMS
Yes
E-mail
Yes
Bluetooth
Yes / BT 2.0 + EDR, SPP, A2DP, AVRCP, OPP, HFP
FM Radio
Yes
TV
Java
Yes ( MIDP 2.0, CLDC 1.1 )
MP3/MPEG4
Yes/Yes
Face to Face videoconferencing
Yes

Weight
135gr
Dimensions
112 x 54 x 16 mm
Memory
4GB internal memory, 256MB flash + 128MB SDRAM ,"Up to 8GB T-flash Card Support"
Camera
5MP Auto Focus with Flash Sharp Brand Camera
Voice Recorder
Yes

Talk Time
240 minutes
Standby Time
150 hours
Battery
1200 mAh
Accessories
Extra Battery, USB Cable, Earphone, AC Charge Adaptor

Others
Word, Excel, Powerpoint and PDF document view MP3/ WAV/ MIDI/ AMR support 3GP, MPEG4, AVI (DIVX),QVGA recording 30fps, decoding 30 fps JPG/GIF/BMP/PNG Business card reader support Anti theft support Video chat support

Impressive. Apparently the DSTL1 it will be at Barcelona's 3GSM in February and I will be there to see if all these features are the real thing and how much this beast will cost. But on paper and renderings, it may be the first phone that would make me drop my iPhone. The only "but" for me: It's 0.63 inches thick (16mm). Too much of a brick after being used to the ultra-thin iPhone. [General Mobil via Android Authority]

Some of them are truly great, specially pink Viper and the Raptor with all the Colonial Marines, ready to kick Cylon minifig ass.

This Lego Galactica fest was made with the people below, members ChiefLUG. [Brothers Brick]

You should basically skip these posts if you haven't watched last week's episode, and come back later when you have. Just to save yourself some headaches if you (like us) really hate spoilers.

Liveblogging the BSG premiere - Slight spoilers if you haven't seen it.
Every weird twist and turn recapped, in real time. With a healthy dose of snark, and some cake.

BSG's Top What-The-Frak Moments So Far.
The craziest and creepiest twists from the first three and a half seasons, just to put last week in perspective.

The Final Cylon Should Have Been... - Spoiler if you haven't seen the premiere!
Were you bummed it turned out to be [SPOILER REDACTED]? Here are some of the other people/things it could have been.

How Sad Is [SPOILER REDACTED]?
Something happened last week. Spoiler alert!

BSG Ends With Ultimate Mind-Frak? (Spoilers)
There's a rumor going around about the crazy-pants final scene of BSG. And the people spreading it said the final Cylon was one of five people, one of whom was [SPOILER REDACTED]. So you never know...

Each episode will be three to four minutes in length with two episodes released weekly until the final season begins. And the kick off will feature some of our favorite characters, like Number 8 (Grace Park), Col. Tigh (Michael Hogan) and Lt. Felix Gaeta (Alessandro Juliani).

Plus, that first episode is co-written by Jane Espenson, who has a history of writing some of the best, tripped-out scripts of whatever show she's working on at the time.

The full schedule: Dec. 12: Chapter 1; Dec. 15: Chapter 2; Dec. 17: Chapter 3; Dec. 22: Chapter 4; Dec. 24: Chapter 5; Dec. 29: Chapter 6; Dec. 31: Chapter 7; Jan. 5: Chapter 8; Jan. 7: Chapter 9; and Jan. 12: Chapter 10. [SciFi]

All this stuff, along with costumes, set pieces, production art and loads more props, will all be available at a Battlestar auction in Pasadena, CA in January. Can't make it to the west coast? The auctions will be broadcast live on the internet and there will be full internet bidding capability, so you can bid on Callie's deck helmet from the comfort of your own home.

There's some seriously awesome stuff here, and if I wasn't afraid of ruining my chances of cohabitation with a female forever I would definitely snatch up that war room chalkboard.

The last half-season of Battlestar Galactica airs in January on SciFi. [Battlestar Props via Oh Gizmo!]

[Dvice via Techeblog]