Frosty the Frozen Nikon

A fellow who goes by Skunkabilly sent his pictorial tale on Flickr, which documents a camping trip to Monument Valley and the miserable story of a D90 which froze up—literally. Apparently the poor camera was set up outside the tent in an attempt to capture one of those gorgeous swirling-star slow exposures of the sky.

I've lived in Southern California my whole life, so I don't really understand how this whole cold and frost thing works.

When he woke up, his precious DSLR was covered with frost. "What the crap is this?" he asked himself. "Ahhh, yes. All hail Frosty the Nikon!" He tried to thaw his camera on the engine block of his Subaru, but ultimately decided to take it inside the car. Sure, it fogged up on the inside for a bit, but it was fine eventually, and the rest of the trip was smooth.

The part that caught our attention though? Skunkabilly ended the tale by saying, "Hopefully I won't rappel into a pool and drown it to death like I did with my D200." Yikes! Sounds like there's a history of gadget abuse here.

How the Phone Guy Saved Christmas

Marte, better known as infmom, sent in this photo from 1961. It's Christmas morning, and she and her brother are admiring the elaborate electric train set their father had bought and built for them. Only that fact in itself was mysterious, as their father "could barely change a lightbulb."

Marte explains that, to his dying day, her father referred to record players as "Victrolas" and refrigerators as "iceboxes." Not so much Luddite as someone who didn't usually get involved with the technical processes of the household, he decided that year to break the trend, and get constructive.

A few days before Christmas, Dad brought home the train set and the plastic scenery and the controllers and a bunch of wood and nails and smuggled all the stuff into the basement through the outside door and told us to stay out of it. He borrowed a hand saw and a hammer from the neighbors and set to work trying to build a table to put the train set on. Including sawing a sheet of plywood to size. With a hand saw. Laid across our basement coffee table, which was a hollow core door on legs. When my mom heard the language coming from the basement she told us to stay way away from it.

Though his effort to this point was valiant, the electrical engineering—and a certain amount of required drilling, for which he lacked a drill—did him in. Still, on Christmas morning, the train set was up and running. How?

We were thinking some kind of miracle had occurred, until our mother told us that later that day we were to go over and thank our neighbor, who worked for the phone company, for responding to Dad's late-night cry for help.

Marte thinks that's the point where she vowed to grow up learning how to fix things herself. And considering that she's lurking around Lifehacker and Gizmodo, odds are that she did. I feel bad for her father though. While Marte and her brother got to enjoy their gift, to him this must've been a genuine holiday horror.

Floppy Disks Sold Separately

We've heard of coal in the stocking, but Jeff's story sounds worse. One Christmas, he hit the jackpot, scoring not just a cool RC car, but a set of Crazy Bones figurines too. So the next Christmas, he was reasonably quite excited:

I used to love sleeping by the fireplace at night, right next to the Christmas tree. Every season, I would do this with my little brother, and fall asleep to the warm glow of the fire, and wake up in the morning with presents all around us. I went to sleep too giddy to even imagine what I was going to receive the next morning.

I awoke to the sound of wrapping paper crumpling around me, as I stared at two of the biggest packages I had ever seen. I immediately started shredding the paper [the first one] was wrapped in, like a hungry wolf digging into its prey. What did I uncover? Two brand spankin' new... comforter and blanket sets. [And in] the smaller package next to it? A 100-capacity floppy disk lock box.

Sadly, he did not even receive any floppies to put inside it.

Photo by alliet

Son, You Can Play With Your Toys When I Sell You the Batteries

Luckybob343 grew up in the '80s, a time when "Christmas wasn't Christmas without a remote-controlled, battery-operated something."

The trouble was, Santa brought all the cool electronic toys but he never brought any batteries. Those we had to buy ourselves, but in our house we could only buy batteries from my dad's independent electronics store.

Sure, sounds nice to keep it in the family, but there were two catches: First, his dad bought hisbatteries in bulk from Walmart, and jacked up the price by $2 per pack. And second, Luckybob's dad's store was closed from Christmas Eve until January 2nd.

Come the new year, we'd fork over three weeks of allowances over to my dad to get to play with our toys one week after we got them.

Luckybob finally got some revenge though. This year, he got a multi-instrument weather station that he knew his dad had been eying, and he took out all the instructions except the ones written in French.

Photo by cosmic tito

Porn in the PS3

Jose was happy to return home after finishing Navy boot camp last Christmas. Most of his family members, from age one to age 65, were gathered at his house. There his step-father had recently installed a 50-inch plasma TV and all the gaming console goodies that should go with it, including a PS3.

One of my little cousins wanted to play the PS3 so he turned it on and a porno came on. Everyone's mouth just dropped to the ground. My sister quickly turned it off but it was too late.

Jose told us that about 25 dear family members heard and saw what was likely a film by the Bang Bros. Everyone stared down his step-father, giving him "the look of shame." Some family members left because of it, and are pretending Jose's step-father doesn't exist. Needless to say, his mom had to throw out some DVDs. There is a silver lining, though: "We are having the Christmas eve party at my aunt's now!" Yikes.

Photo by me vs gutenberg

You Name the Winner

So, who wins the pizza? Each story has its own particular charm (and nastiness), so we thought we'd put it to a vote. Have at it, and by the end of Christmas Day, whoever has the most votes on this baby wins.

In the course of releasing boatloads of data to contestants in its "Beat Netflix's Recommendation Algorithm" contest, they may not have disguised where that data came from as well as they should. The plaintiff, known here as Jane Doe to preserve privacy, alleges that her identity could be divined from the data, and thus threatens her civil right to privacy. Apparently, two researchers compared Netflix reviews to IMDB reviews and figured out some identities that way.

The suit seeks a cash settlement for each of the 2 million Netflix customers involved, and also seeks to stop the upcoming sequel to the original Netflix contest. We'll keep you updated on the suit—it's a pretty interesting one, for sure. [Wired]

Basically, we want to hear your holiday-themed tales of gadget horror and technology disasters. As incentive to open up and share, we've got some free pizza for the very best (or worst, depending on how you look at it) story. What we'll do is post that story along with some of our favorite runner-ups so you'll become Internet-famous and a part of Gizmodo history.

Sounds good, no? I know it might be scary to share a traumatizing tale, but you're safe here and we won't laugh too much. So, email me your stories with the subject line "Holiday Horror" and make me want to give you pizza and a post on Gizmodo.

Here is the complete list of costumes, in order of awesomeness. Thanks to everyone for participating and congrats to mdg357!

UPDATE: We've added a bonus late entry at the end of the list from our old friend Nick McGlynn—a truly kick ass Inspector Gadget. The contest may be over, but given that many of you might also be arriving late to the party, feel free to add your costume in the comments of this post. We would still love to see 'em.

All you need to do is drop a photo in the comments of you actually wearing the costume. And let me just say, if it's Star Wars, it had dammed well better be unique somehow (like the Lego Star Wars costumes pictured above). And no, we don't need to see a pic of you as a kid in the '80's dressed like your favorite Ghostbuster—keep it recent. Show us a truly creative geeky costume and you could win that extra large pizza with toppings of your choosing. Better get on it as soon as you get home though—we'll be posting the best ones tomorrow. Good luck!

[Image via WTF Costumes]

Send your best design of a new icon that really represents iTunes to me at contests@gizmodo.com with "iTunes icon" in the subject line by next Tuesday morning. Save your entries as JPGs, PNGs or GIFs and use a FirstnameLastname.jpg naming convention using whatever name you want to be credited with. On Tuesday, I'll pick the three best/most awful entries as our winners and post the rest of the best in the Gallery of Champions. Get cracking, in case something comes along and slays the iPod.

One is on board of the Enterprise, doing his thing. Yes, it may be a stretch to put R2 reprising his role onboard the X-Wing, but it would be a great way to pay homage to the movies and an awesome Easter Egg.

The other is an R2-D2 passing by on a lift fork, while Kirk and Bones are talking. If you want to participate, send the scene you think he is in to Paramount or go to Facebook's Star Trek group before the May 25. The sweepstakes prize is an original prop from the film.

Andi Wang donated her eyes to get this screenshots. She's not Bothan.

Seriously, what do all of you do that allows you to afford such sick equipment? Pass along some of that cheddar to me, please. In any case, on to the winners:

First Place — Ronnie Koh
Second Place — Byron Yu
Third Place — Eric Lee Klingman

Admiral Woz Adama, Starsky and Woz, Woz jumping on Oprah's sofa, Woz lost in Lost, Woz running with Pamela Anderson in Baywatch... the potential is so big that it is scary. This could be our finest hour ever. Or the biggest disaster in the history of these contests.

Send me your best entries at contests@gizmodo.com with "Woz on TV" in the subject line by this Wednesday at noon. Name your files with a FirstnameLastname.jpg naming convention and use JPG or PNG as your file types. And have fun with it! Now get to it.

Fifth place
Title:
Attack of the Second Amendment
Author:
Zach Macias

Fourth place
Title
The Archeologists
Author
Dobromil Nosek

Third place
Title:
The Creators
Author:
Jumpei Mitsui
Prize: A special set designed by Lego owner Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen.

Second place
Title:
Weltraffer
Authors:
Christian Denkhaus
Hendrik Denkhaus
Kilian Helmbrecht
Lukas Helmbrecht
Prize: Lego Yellow Castle

Winner
Title:
Train to Catch
Author:
David Boddy
Grand Prize: Lego Galaxy Explorer

Congratulations to the winner and the rest of the top five entries.

Special thanks to Julie Stern, the Lego company, and the judges—Lego movie directors Nathan Wells, David Pagano, Nate Burr, and Lego's director of Marketing Communications Keith Malone.

And to all who participated, thank you very much. The creativity and time you put into this was amazing. Stay tuned for another post with the rest of the entries, 33—and the five runner ups, who also get prizes. [All the posts related to the contest]

The Capacitor Challenge

The Energy Independence X PRIZE

Energy X-Prize: Reduce Home Energy Usage

[Vote now]

The display would provide information on a specific task or announcement and alert you at the appropriate time. It could also be used for group projects by organizing tasks and keeping everyone on the same page. A lot of programs already provide many of these functions, but the fact that it could organize just about anything in such a simple, visual way gives it some advantages—especially in an office setting.

We're sorry, fellow humans. As of last Halloween, our reign as supreme beings of the Earth has ended. Robots, cleverly disguised as our readers, documented the first stages of robotic upheaval. And to those with weak stomachs, we simply cannot recommend reading on.

Second Runner Up, Uyen Thai
We think the horror of this image speaks for itself.

First Runner Up, Jesse Clark
"After the Robots destroyed their homes, these humans have to huddle around old Macintoshes to keep warm. They live in consent fear that the Robot overlords will discover what they are doing with their ancestors."

Winner, Jeff Rames
Not the most original take on the theme, but these guys sent us a whole storyline worth of robotic brutality. We were promised there were more pictures if we needed them, but we passed because we assumed the inclusion of puppies and kittens.

More photos sent to us by readers: Thanks to everyone for participating. Jeff, write mark@giz to claim your prize!

Nice response so far guys, but we have a few notes about the entries we've been receiving:

Some of you have done great, but most of you are just sending yourselves in a robot costume from 2003. No offense, but we do not care about your old pictures from when you still listened to Nelly.

We want pictures in which you, as a robot, are turning on Man (read: not just hanging out with Him). Think less robots dancing by a keg and more robots stealing a keg with a mob of angry humans chasing behind. Capture the moment of singularity. Capture our downfall.

And in case you've forgotten the grand prize, one of you will win a whole pizza. Now, I know a lot of you read that and think we mean a large. Well, we do not mean a large. We're talking about an extra large. Feed yourself and someone you love.

The only catches are that all submissions must be:

1. Original Non-Photoshopped Photos
2. Received by November 1st

Send all of your best shots to tips@giz with the headline "Robots Turn on Humans" for entry, along with your contact info. May the meanest robot win. [Photo by Steve Madonna]