Geek culture

Chances are, most of us will never have the opportunity to walk on the moon, but we might have the opportunity to send a tiny spacecraft in our stead. A Kickstarter project from Pocket Spacecraft wants to launch a moon mission full of personalized space gadgets that would report back to their Earth-bound owners.

Pocket Spacecraft is attempting to raise $440,000 to build out a whole fleet of its tiny spacecraft (called Scouts) and invest in an Interplanetary CubeSat Mothership to transport the little tykes to the lunar surface.… Read more

It usually goes like this. You break your arm. You get a big plaster cast. Your friends sign it and draw on it. You invest in chopsticks in an attempt to get at the never-ending itches hiding beneath. Designer Jake Evill has a better idea. His Cortex exoskeletal cast concept uses 3D printing to create a custom cast that is strong, lightweight, and full of sweet, sweet air holes.

"After many centuries of splints and cumbersome plaster casts that have been the itchy and smelly bane of millions of children, adults and the aged alike, the world over, we at last bring fracture support into the 21st century," writes Evill, who just graduated from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. … Read more

When it come to iconic American cars, few vehicles can touch the sinuous toughness exuded by the Corvette Stingray. Chevrolet is preparing to reintroduce a new version of the Stingray, leaving countless speed-loving petrol-heads breathless at the idea. Most of those people won't be able to either afford or justify buying the car, but they can still live vicariously through their children when Fisher-Price releases a Power Wheels version later this year.

The real full-size 2014 Stingray goes from 0-60 in less than 4 seconds. The battery-powered Power Wheels Stingray goes from 0-6 in just 4 seconds. When it arrives, it will be the fastest Power Wheels available. Those are face-searing speeds that will suck the wind right out your lungs and leave you flushed with exhilaration...if you're 3 years old.… Read more

Go ahead, pour yourself a cold frosty glass full of Twitter. Mmm, that's good stuff. Scottish craft brewery BrewDog turned over the reins of its latest creation to fans on Twitter and Facebook. The resulting brew, #MashTag, came about after several rounds of voting on the various elements that make it up, from the type of brew to the label design.

Over the course of several days, BrewDog offered up three options at a time to a vote. For example, the "#MashTag" name won out over its competition of "CrewDog" and "Crowd Control." Fans also chose to make it an American Brown Ale, rather than an Imperial or Session Brown Ale.… Read more

Headphones can be so easy to lose -- but not when you have them implanted in your ears.

That's what Rich Lee decided to do. Inspired by an Instructables tutorial on how to make invisible headphones using magnets and a coil necklace with an attached amplifier, the 34-year-old entrepreneur went a step further and implanted one such headphone in each ear.

The magnets sit on the outside of the tragus, the part of the ear that projects immediately in front of the canal. The magnets function as speakers, and the coil around Lee's neck transmits to them. … Read more

Thirty-five years ago, sound designer Ben Burtt introduced an early version of legendary "Star Wars" bounty hunter Boba Fett to director George Lucas and select members of the "Empire Strikes Back" production team -- an epic behind-the-scenes moment you can now watch as if you were there.

"The Boba Fett character is really an early version of Darth Vader," George Lucas says in the visual novel The Making of the Empire Strikes Back. "He is also very much like the man-with-no-name from the Sergio Leone Westerns." … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Miracle Berry tablets make sour food taste sweet.

- Man implants magnets in his ears to use as invisible headphones.

- Crazy Ants that will destroy your electronics.

- Inside Atlantis, the new Amazon for illegal things.… Read more

Few things are more embarrassing than landing your Millennium Falcon in Westeros, walking into an inn, and not having exact change for your flagon of wine. That's almost as bad as Harry Potter arriving at DS9 and trying to figure out how many galleons he owes to park his broom.

Sci-fi and fantasy characters no longer need to worry about making financial faux pas when crossing over from world to world. The Intergalactic Exchange Bureau is here to help convert a variety of fictional currencies into other fictional currencies, or into dollars, pounds, or euros.… Read more

There's always an element of gambling when it comes to crowdfunding projects. You hand over your money, sometimes on just a wing and a prayer and a prototype, and hope your reward gets delivered as promised, when promised. It doesn't always work out.

Many backers of the Ouya gaming device on Kickstarter got their Android consoles on time, before they reached retail. Some backers didn't. There are an unknown number of unhappy early adopters with no hardware in their possession and vague answers as to what happened.… Read more