geekosystem

Pretty and intricate light shows aren't for present-related holidays anymore. Move over Christmas, this is Halloween.

They Live is an old science fiction movie from 1988 starring Rowdy Roddy Piper, the best kilt-wearing wrestler who was rowdy. He finds some glasses that allow him to see that many humans are actually aliens, thus launching him on a quest to reveal the alien plot, meeting a group of likeminded rebels along the way. Aside from the classic (or generic, based on how jaded you are) sci-fi story, the movie featured an extremely awkward fight scene -- without music -- between Roddy Piper and Keith David (of all people), in which Roddy Piper beats up Keith David in order to get him to wear the glasses and see the aliens.

The above are Halloween costumes. Way better than yours. Head on over to You Fail to check out the creation process, and some more neat pictures. (You Fail via Super Punch)

This in Van Gogh's famous Starry Night carved on a pumpkin, courtesy of your friends at the Museum of Modern Art. No, we will not stop until every rendition of Starry Night has been documented.

The invention of the McRib and why it disappears from McDonald's (Chicago Magazine) David Tennant, John Barrowman and Catherine Tate's secret musical tribute (The Mary Sue) Apple is apparently looking into poor iPhone 4S battery life (The Guardian) The 7 billionth baby born isn't actually the 7 billionth baby born (The Daily What) Play Street Fighter II as your inflight entertainment (Siliconera) The greatest song ever written (Blame it on the Voices) The hidden haunted history of 7 American landmarks (Mental Floss) (title pic via Daily Picks and Flicks)

Cell phones have changed college life for sure. I mean, back in the day, people used to actually have hardwired phones in their dorms and stuff. Right? I don't even know. I'm not that old. In any event, there's no arguing that among people who are using their phones to the fullest extent possible, college kids are right up there. But what exactly are the using them for? This infographic from HackCollege jumps right into that.

As it turns out, a whopping 94% of college students are texting everyday, 97% of those with smartphones are using them for social networking and 88% regularly text in class. Of course, there are some exceptions to these rules. The one I find the most confusing is that apparently only 75% of college students sleep with their phones next to them. How is that not 100%? Where else would you keep a phone at night? Does anyone actually still use dedicated alarm clocks? I guess so, but I find that pretty hard to believe.

Full infographic after the jump.

This Halloween, you are in for a special treat. Jörge Sprave, slingshot god, has put out a nifty little video where he painstakingly thinks through the advantages and tactics of using slingshots as a weapon against zombies. Granted, slingshots aren't exactly dream weapons against the undead horde, though they certainly beat out the oft-lauded, actually awful chainsaw. Still, Jörge's approach of getting to a roof and picking off the guys with a giant slingshot turret proves to be pretty well thought out. So long as have a rooftop and giant slingshot turret to fall back to.

The Rooftop Zombie Annihilation Sligshot (RTZAS) features an 11 foot draw-length and enough power to utterly destroy a dead head. As a plus, it has a pretty wide attack range and is extremely accurate, in the hands of a master, at least. The end result is a slingshot weapon as elegant as it is deadly. And the sound it makes? Music to my ears.

Check it out after the jump.

You've been unnerved by BigDog, the creepy headless quadraped that Boston Dynamics is developing for DARPA; now meet PETMAN, the creepy headless humanoid robot that Boston Dynamics plans to deliver to the U.S. Army next year. Though currently still in the prototype stage, this incredible biped can run 4.4 miles per hour, has a full range of motion that mimics the human body, and auto-corrects is balance, all within a frame similar to that of a human. But the final version of the robot will pack even more features, including a head, weight at a mere 180 pounds -- analogous to a typical human male, and capable of mimicing perspiration and changes in skin temperature. Considering all that, the $26.3 million in seed money it took to get PETMAN on his feet seems like small potatoes.

Korean developer Ntreev is bringing the world a Power Rangers MMO, with its first closed beta only a few days away on November 3. The beta will be Korean only, however, and will last until November 9, hosting 5,000 players. Designed as a side-scroller, the MMO is based on the Mystic Force series, a series that began only five years ago in 2006, long after we were young enough to enjoy Power Rangers. Players will make their own character, as is the MMO M.O., choosing the class cleverly disguised as a "color," the iconic Power Ranger differentiations. As players level up, they'll be able to divert from the standard tight-bodysuit-and-biker-helmet motif, and gather other equipment that is probably as funny-looking.

The beta currently sports two acts with fourteen stages, and tells the story via comic book style scenes. Head on past the break for some mighty morphin' screenshots and a trailer that hosts some pretty generic guitar solos.

Pumpkin carving can be pretty simple or, if you feel like it, it can be a complex time-consuming endeavor resulting in an absolutely stunning work of art that is destined to turn into a moldy pile of slime in a few short weeks. Now, who has the kind of time and determination to devote to building useless, but neat-lookin' things? Minecraft players specifically, geeks in general. That being the case, we'd like to present you with a small collection, a mere smattering really, of creative and intricate jack-o-lanterns on this, all hallows' eve. To all you crazy pumpkin sculptors, keep up the good work. As for me, I'm going to stick with hobbies that don't involve knives. I'm pretty clumsy and I like having two thumbs.

"Steve’s final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times. Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them. Steve’s final words were: OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW." Steve Jobs' sister Mona Simpson, novelist and English professor, in a moving and eloquent piece on the life and final days of her brother.

A few days ago, Dr. Heidi B Hammel announced on her Facebook page that a strange plume had been spotted in the lower hemisphere of the ice giant Uranus. Along with her announcement was a call for independent verification from amateur astronomers, with the goal of making the anomaly a "target of opportunity" for the Hubble space telescope. The strange bright spot has been observed by the Gemini Telescope North in Hawaii, and is pictured to the left. The plume of light is apparently ten times brighter than the surrounding area, but still might be difficult for astronomers to spot without special equipment. The current thinking is that the glowing dots are an eruption of methane ice in the high atmosphere, only visible because it is above the dense cloud cover on the planet.

In an interview at TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing, YouTube cofounder Steven Chen revealed that the acquisition of YouTube, which ended up costing a total of $1.65 billion, took place at a Denny's in Palo Alto. Chen met with executives from Google and Yahoo, and they chose the meeting place because they felt Denny's was a place that none of them would ever go normally. Obviously, Denny's didn't have the Fried Cheese Melt at the time, or else the kind-of-diner establishment would've been the only place anyone would ever hold business meetings.

Word on the street has it that Apple, in a bid to make their retail experience a little more streamlined, is planning to introduce self-checkout through their iOS retail store app. All the details aren't out yet, but it seems that the purchase would go to the buyer's iTunes account and the buyer would be emailed a receipt (promptly I would hope) that they can use to show that they aren't just walking out with merchandise. Of course, it's not like this is something you can use to buy an iPhone, considering that all of the high value merchandise is locked away, and rightly so. But for anyone who's looking to just drop by the Apple store and pick up their accessories there, it should remove the "wait around for someone to check you out and then ultimately leave without purchasing because you get sick of waiting" aspect of shopping with Apple.

When it comes to amazing taxonomies and niche evolution, nothing has yet surpassed the creative minds in Hollywood. Behold, the Diabolical Diagram of Movie Monsters, from the phylum-obsessed minds at Pop Chart Labs. Forget Darwin and his finches of varying beak size, we've got graboids, "sexual predator salmon," at least two different kinds of shark-octopus hybrids, and five different classifications of zombies. My words will not do it justice. See it for yourself.

Mark Rober needed a Halloween costume, and had two iPad 2s instead, so he strapped one to the front of his shirt, strapped another to the back, cut a hole on each side of the shirt to show the iPad screens, smeared some fake blood around the holes, then connected both iPads via FaceTime, and made a very expensive Halloween costume that looks like he has a hole through his body. The FaceTime display of one iPad shows what the other one is seeing, thus simulating the hole-in-the-body visual. If you're at a place with subpar Wi-Fi, Rober suggests you carry a mobile hotspot, thus allowing FaceTime to work as smoothly as possible, and making the costume even more expensive.

Though it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out this little trick (modder Ben Heck did something similar a year ago), Rober actually is a rocket scientist -- he works for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Video of the costume after the break.