Make a 7 Pointed Star

In 1988, John Langley created COPS for the fledgling FOX network. 23 years later, the show is still running. It is the Energizer bunny of prime time television. Since John has followed more police officers and witnessed more crime than any human being on earth (absolutely no q ...more

The peak of the Lyrid meteor shower of 2012 was the night of Saturday, April 21, and I went to Whiskeytown Lake near Redding, California and took about 1,000 pictures. I used 3 Panasonic GH2s with various lenses and edited all of the shots together to make the time-lapse video ...more

Tonight, I saw Mercury for the first time. Mercury is a hard planet to see, even though it is quite bright, because it's orbit is so close to the sun. The angle Mercury makes with the Earth and the Sun is never more than about 25 degrees and most of the time it is much less. A ...more

Astronomy World will be posting a weekly blog post that informs fellow observers upcoming interesting events in the sky. These will include: Moon phases—It can be fun observing different phases of the moon (how much of the moon is dark). It is also fun observing the dark side ...more

COLOSSUS n pl. COLOSSUSES or COLOSSI a gigantic statue 60 points (10 points without the bingo) A colossus is a huge statue with great size and proportions, but it could also mean a person or thing of immense size or power. It comes from the Latin word colosseus and the Greek ...more

Bingo! No, this isn't the game where balls fly around in machines and players dab their cards with daubers. In a game of Scrabble, bingo refers to the bonus a player receives when emptying their rack in one turn, which gets them an extra 50 points on top of whatever their play ...more

It's been five long years since Dead Island was first revealed to the public, but today the zombie game finally saw the light of day with its release on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. When the first teaser trailer came out from developer Techland, Dead Island looked nothing m ...more

This are my tips for fifa 11. The following are purely my opinion and what has worked well for me, it is not my fault if the same things do not work for you. Fifa Career: Look for future stars - look at the youngsters, these are who will help you in the future (if you aim t ...more

It took him a year to build and about $30,000 in parts, but Steve Hassenplug has created a truly magnificent robotic chess set, inspired by the magical chessboard in the first Harry Potter movie. Quite a task, but Hassenplug did an incredible job! Via PopSci: "Hassenplug and ...more

Every day of the week, WonderHowTo curators are hard at work, scouring the web for the greatest and most inspiring how-to videos. Every Friday, we'll highlight our favorite finds. This week, we take a look at some great ideas for Halloween costumes. Want to show up at the par ...more

I'm sure at this point you're all crafting away merrily, frantically searching for bushels, and trying to keep track of what you need, so I made a chart for each building and their recipes that is simple and easy to reference. Stars refers to the level of your building (curre ...more

Besides the great game play that made Starcraft great, there is also an equally excellent storyline that goes with it. This why Starcraft stands out so much from other strategy games. Anyone that played the original Starcraft probably still remembers the betrayal and Kerrigan' ...more

WonderHowTo World LEGO People points us to an amazing chess set made with LEGO Star Wars characters. LEGO fanatic Brandon Griffith of Hollywood, CA, plans to build three different chess sets, one per each original episode. Pictured below is his first completed set, Star Wars: ...more

Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka (creator of the crystal chair) is back with a new "shape-shifting" chair, set to debut at Milan Design Fair this upcoming week.  Inhabitat reports: "Made of recycled aluminum, the amorphic chair, called 'Memory,' squishes into a new shape e ...more

Difficulty Level: If you have eyes, you can do this. Ambient light is often called available, natural or existing light. Lots of professional photographers have quotes on lights, but this is my favorite: "I only shoot available light. Any damn light that’s available." I wish ...more

A century ago there wasn't much life available for quadriplegic people. Handicap accessibility was barely even a concept, and lacking medical technology kept any semblance of independence out of reach. Today those unfortunate enough to be paralyzed from the neck down have brig ...more

Real-time strategy (RTS) was the most popular genre in PC games at one time. It put Blizzard on the map—one of the biggest game developers in the world. And it buried the once venerable turn-based strategy genre, the only survivor being the Civilization series. But like hair m ...more

Hey, would you like to be as cool as this: You wish! But you could do the next best thing, and that's capturing your earth shattering game play with the Easycap DC60. Originally retailing for forty dollars, you can buy this at Amazon for $8.50. This device will capture video ...more

Again, there are tons of events this week, and as usual, most of them are caused by Jupiter's moons. But there is some happenings with Venus, too, so don't miss out. March 21: Io occultation March 22: Io and Ganymede transits, new Moon March 23: Io eclipse, Europa occultation ...more

This week, there's a lot going on in the skies above, with at least one event per day! There's also an equinox, which only occurs about twice a year! March 14: NASA will be launching five rockets to study the jet stream on the east coast- if you live there be sure to look for ...more

AON is moving to Wednesdays! There are lots of things going on this week in the skies above, so be sure to observe. As usual, there's a lot to see around Jupiter, with its moons eclipsing and transiting. Also, a star from the Virgo constellation will be in conjunction with our ...more

There's not much going on this week in the skies above, but there are a lot of conjunctions to take a peek at! And of course, there's the comet Garradd that's still showing its tail to us down here on Earth, so make sure to catch it before it's gone. The rest that's going on t ...more

The Garradd comet has just about reached its absolute peak! By the way, I took those pictures below of the moon through my iPhone using an adapter. Pretty cool, right? Until March: The Garradd Comet is at its absolute peak! Be sure to view it before it's gone! February 14: Io ...more

The comet Garradd is almost at its peak now, plus there's plenty more events going on this week, so be sure to observe! Until March: The Garradd comet has almost reached its absolute highest magnitude! This comet is bright and easy to follow, so be sure to check it out! Febr ...more

This week's AON might be a little short, but finally, the Garradd comet's peak has come! I picked the Garradd comet to follow because it's a bright and easy-to-follow comet. Be sure to observe it! If you need help finding it, you can find more information here. Until March: T ...more

National Ignition Facility What is the NIF? Located in California, the NIF is a large facility housing two humongous lasers. The facility is part of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Basically, NIF's main purpose is to focus lasers on a small, compressed amount of h ...more

There isn't much going on this week, unless you like to observe the moons of Jupiter! January 27: Io transit January 28: Io and Ganymede occultations, Europa Transit January 29: Io transit January 30: Europa eclipse, Moon at apogee (404,324 kilometers), First quarter moon B ...more

Remember—winter is the perfect time to observe! There are a lot of events going on this week, so pull out that observing chair. Here they are: The Garradd comet is still in the sky and is approaching its peak. Here's how to observe it! January 17: The moon is at its perigee o ...more

This week's AON has lots of conjunctions—be sure to observe them! Here it is: The Garradd comet is still in the sky! Here's how to observe it! January 9th: full moon January 10th: Ganymede and Europa transits in North America January 13th: Venus-Moon conjunction January 14th: ...more

This week's AON may be a little short, but the ones to come will be packed full with information. I am really hoping for the skies to clear so I can observe soon! Through March 2012—The Garradd comet is getting brighter! It will peak in February. Here's how to observe it! Jan ...more

This week's AON is pretty short, but there are also lots of clouds because it is winter. However, that just makes the few days of open sky way more valuable! Remember, the Geminid Meteor shower is going on until the 16th. Here is my article on the shower! Also, you can obser ...more

I woke up at 4:00 am this morning in order to take some video of the last total lunar eclipse visible from North America till 2014. The eclipse was beautiful. It was amazing to watch the shadow of our planet creep slowly across our nearest neighbor. Once the shadow was blockin ...more

One of the biggest video games events of the year is about to happen in Japan tomorrow, when the Tokyo Game Show (TGS) kicks off. If you've never heard of it, just think of it as the E3 of the East—a video game extravaganza open to both businesses (Thursday and Friday) and the ...more

Have you ever wanted to ride a rollercoaster while listening to Lady Gaga? Or have the Star Wars theme auto-play when you enter your house? You can with Minecraft. Search Youtube for a popular song + Minecraft, and chances are there will be a video for it! Minecraft gives pla ...more

In the top right corner of your farm you will see a little drop down menu that shows you your stats! Click on it to reveal the stats for your farm! Hover over each box for it's title or see below for explanations! You can also see your neighbor's stats in the bar under your ...more

Halloween is coming up, so many of you may have a need or desire to carve a pumpkin and turn it into a Jack O' Lantern. This week we are going to explore carving our pumpkins into interesting geometric shapes. In this post, we will carve the pumpkins into spherical versions of ...more

I've been unreasonably excited about Dungeon Defenders (NOT DUNGEON DEFENDER!) for almost a year. Playing it at PAX did nothing to damper that enthusiasm. I had a chance this week to speak with co-founder/development director Jeremy Stieglitz and marketing diretor Philip Asher ...more

Introduction to the Basics of Off-Camera Flash There are a lot of resources on the web for using your flash. For Nikon shooters, the Strobist and Joe McNally are the best resources. For Canon shooters, maybe Syl Arena is the best. It doesn’t matter because if you are a Canon ...more

Long-Term Strategies for FrontierVilleWhen you first start to play FrontierVille, after you’ve cleared a bunch of trees and brush and started to build a schoolhouse or a barn and you’ve added a few neighbors, you look up at the people around Level 90 or Level 100, and wonder h ...more

There isn't much going on this week, but be sure to try viewing the Spica-moon conjunction. It will be hard to view with the full moon, but it will be spectacular if you can snag a peak. April 6: Spica-moon Conjunction, full moon April 7: Io transit; moon at perigee (358,313 ...more

Grab your binoculars and telescopes, because there's a lot going on in the night skies this week. The usually dim Little Dipper will appear brighter as it moves to the right of Polaris, creating a cool effect with the Big Dipper. There's also a first-quarter moon and a really ...more

Over the past couple of weeks, there have been a series of high-profile hacks and leaks. From the rooting of CombinedSystems, to a secret FBI conference call leak, all the way to the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on U.S. government sites—with a lot in-between. A ...more

This year is a leap year, which means today is leap day! I will be explaining why this happens and some special conditions below in the AON. Plus, there is a new feature this week—elongation! Be sure to check it out below. February 29: It's leap day! February usually has 28 d ...more

I'm starting a series on the top astronomers, with probably about eleven astronomers that I will be covering overall. So, let's start out from the top, with the top most important astronomer. In my opinion, Galileo Galilei is the top astronomer. Galileo Galilei (February 15, ...more

There are a lot of events going on this week! As I mentioned last week, there will be new features from now on. Check them out in the info section below! Until March, 2012—The Garradd comet is becoming brighter in the sky. It peaks in Febuary! Be sure to observe it—here's how ...more

Nobody could predict the success of Microsoft's Kinect, not even Microsoft themselves. So, it was quite a surprise when it ended up earning a Guinness World Record for fastest-selling consumer electronics device, and an even bigger surprise to see people buying one that didn't ...more

Not every DIY project is as executable as, say, making a potato gun. Occasionally, we observe a quixotic project that is just plain wonderful. Consider rich guy Philip Anschutz and his eponymous Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG). His ambition to bring an NFL team to Los Angel ...more

TOP MOVIES 2011 The Artist (2011) Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break.Dir: Michel Hazanavicius With: Jean Dujard ...more