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Holy Cow, $200 Off Every Single James Bond Film on Blu-Ray, Today Only

Hang on to your martinis, Bond fans. Amazon has a completely wackadoo 67% off sale on the Bond 50th Anniversary Blu-Ray box set. That’s all 23 Bond movies for one hundred dollars. But it’s today only, so get moving! From Doctor No to Skyfall, this box set has them all. Come December 1st, the deal…

How a silver griffin chalice helped smooth US-Iran relations

The recent thawing in relations between the United States and Iran involved a number of factors, including a show of good faith involving a silver artifact. As a sign of respect for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s new administration, US diplomats returned to Iran its mythical beast. The LA Times reports on the saga of the…

When did Nikita become the craziest show on TV?

Seriously. The last time we checked in on Nikita, it was still a superspy show that kept one foot firmly planted in reality. But now, in the show’ final short season, it’s embracing life, liberty and the pursuit of crazy. Just check out this scene from last night’s episode. Spoilers ahead… I almost called this…

Thanksgivukkah Was A Perfect Instagram Storm

Thanksgiving. Hanukkah. Two holidays largely centered around bringing loved ones together over delicious traditional foods. Put them together, whip up a portmanteau-licious hashtag (#Thanksgivukkah), and you’ve got the recipe for a record breaking day on Instagram. As revealed on the Instagram blog, this past Thursday was the biggest day yet for users of the social…

Australia’s Using Pop Radio to Track Space Junk

Space junk is a serious problem: it threatens satellites and spacecraft, and can plummet unpredictably to earth. Australia’s Murchison Widefield Array is a high-sensitivity radio telescope that tracks space debris as small as 1 meter across, by observing how the objects reflect FM signals from Australian radio stations. It’s listening to pop music from space.…

Colorful snail poop could be used to manufacture flooring

When garden snails (Helix aspersa) eat colored paper, they poop colored feces, which designer Lieske Schreuder is hoping to use as the material for colorful tiles. The snails Schreuder keeps happily chow down on paper and poop out the same color as the paper they devour. Schreuder grinds and mixes the feces, the presses them…

Playgrounds That Accustom Kids to Playing with Sound

Action and horror movie characters get cutesy manga makeovers

Alien, Predator, Pinhead, and more become quite adorable in Matsuda Yuusuke hands, becoming petit, cartoony versions of their more fearsome selves. Matsuda has also drawn up a couple of comic pages featuring his cute Predator, although the dialogue is in Japanese. Matsuda Yuusuke [via Xombie DIRGE]

Google’s kicking off a Festivus for the rest of us, erecting the traditional aluminum pole alongside your search for the made-up holiday that falls on December 23rd. So start preparing for the airing of grievances, and limber up for the feats of strength. [SearchEngineLand via Huffington Post]

Roku 2 For $50

Amazon’s price has dropped even more, snag the Roku 2 for $50 while you can. [Amazon] https://gizmodo.com/roku-2-not-the-one-youre-thinking-of-for-58-1473197125

A big game hunter tries to snare a lonely monster with a birthday party

It’s Bobo’s birthday, but sadly no one showed up to his party. A big game hunter figures it’s the perfect opportunity to capture the fearsome monster—by throwing Bobo the birthday party of his dreams. Matthew Furnell, Jarrod Hasenjager, Miro Kolenic, Romy Latter, Aarin Lehmkuhl, and Sarah Scrimgeour made the wonderfully cartoony Big Game at the…

U.S. Army Saved $130 Million by Stealing Software

The U.S. Army just paid a $50 million settlement over accusations that it illegally installed software on thousands of devices without a license. Even after the settlement, the Army ended up saving a bunch of cash. Maybe crime really does pay? The court battle, revealed this week by The Washington Post, centers around personnel-tracking software…

Best Buy is selling $100 iTunes or App Store giftcards for just $85 shipped, a pretty surprising savings in the Apple ecosystem. [Best Buy via 9to5Toys]

Concept Art Writing Prompt: Taking her Alien Pet for a Spacewalk

This week’s Concept Art Writing Prompt goes retrofuturistic with this lady and her pet. But why exactly would someone take their critter for a walk in space? “Spacewalk” is an illustration by deviantARTist hellcorpceo, who blogs as Kiss Kicker on Tumblr, via raspbeary. If this picture inspires you, write up a short story and post…

How Are You Doing Your Holiday Shopping This Year?

Black Friday, and its stinky alter-ego Brown Friday, are behind us, meaning our national bloodsport of post-Thanksgiving dealhunting has shifted into the gradually-mounting panic of the holiday shopping countdown. With online deals and brick-and-mortar stores vying for buyers’ bucks, where do you plan on picking up your holiday needs? https://gizmodo.com/for-retailers-today-really-is-the-shittiest-day-of-the-1472695215 Me? Unless I’ve got a…

Lauren Faust shares her childhood My Little Pony collection on Twitter

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic creator Lauren Faust is putting her own childhood ponies in storage and she’s been tweeting photos from her collection, sharing which toys inspired which pony characters. [via MetaFilter]

Hey, Grimm was actually pretty good this week

It wasn’t perfect, but “El Cucuy” has definitely been the highlight of Grimm’s third season for me so far. It’s Wesen-o’-the-week (who possibly wasn’t a Wesen?) was pretty good, the plotting was solid and it actually felt like actual things were happening beyond the scope of the case — not much, but at least a…

Fake Slums, Nuclear Missile Passwords, Gizmodo’s New Subdomains, More

Look at you, freshly emerged from your 48-hour food coma. Or your ten-round Black Friday brawl over a stuffed animal. From pooping in retail shops to creepy sea animals, here’s the best stuff we wrote about this week. 7 Things You Had No Idea the World Is Running Out Of Hardly a day goes by…

This video of people taking the American dialect survey is fascinating

Bert Vaux’s dialect survey is endlessly fascinating, prompting thousands of folks to figure out which American dialect they speak. This video mixes audio of people taking the survey with Joshua Katz’s heat map visualizations of the dialect data. https://gizmodo.com/this-quiz-pinpoints-your-american-dialect-down-to-the-t-1441692591 Katherine Wells put together this video for the Atlantic. Soda vs. Pop vs. Coke: Mapping How…

It’s bros before foes on a very special Dracula: Friendship Is Magic

There was nothing transparently insane about this week’s episode of Dracula — no coolant company acquisition, no women’s mud wrestling. But if you don’t think a show about Dracula where Dracula saves the day through the power of friendship is insane, all I can tell you is you are missing out. If you’ll recall, we…