It’s cold. It’s lonely. It’s really cold. It’s really lonely. It’s unfathomably cold. And it’s lonely. That’s what this mere glimpse of life on an Arctic expedition looks like. The visuals are jarring: the ship looks like it’s parked on land, the mustaches are frozen, the research looks difficult. But it also must be so beautiful to be in places where so few have gone before.

National Geographic writes:

For five months in 2015, a team of researchers drifted with polar ice, their ship tethered to an ice floe as they collected data to help them better understand how the loss of sea ice will affect the planet. The air above the Arctic Ocean has warmed on average about 5°F in the past century—more than twice the global average—and sea ice covers less and less of it. Most researchers study the ice during the summer. This team, battling bone-chilling cold, tracked it from when it formed in winter until it started melting in spring. And occasionally found time to kick a soccer ball around the floe.

SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

I’ve been a fan of nerd-rockers Kirby Krackle for a couple of years now: the band released their fifth album, Mutate, Baby!, and more recently, released a new video for their track, ‘We Had A Good Run’. We chatted with them about their music and rocking out to geek culture.

The band pulls their name in from an artistic convention used by legendary comic artist Jack Kirby:

In the 60’s Jack Kirby began to draw clusters of round black dots to depict enormous but not necessarily directed energy, often of a cosmic nature. This simple graphic technique was so effective that it has been picked up by other comic book artists and can still be found in comics of today. The device has been given the name Kirby Krackle.

The band’s music is rife with energy and enthusiasm for what they sing about. Their music covers just about everything, from Nintendo cheat codes to zombies to binge-watching, spoilers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Green Lantern, superheroes, and quite a bit more. As ‘geek culture’ has gone mainstream, they’re the defining soundtrack for it.

Mutate Baby! is a fun album, opening with what’s become a trademark sort of KK song about the minutia of superhero woes: The Day My Powers Arrived.

The rest is entertaining as well: there’s tracks about spoilers, Geek Culture, and stories like True Detective, Guardians of the Galaxy and Titanfall.

We recently chatted with the band’s frontman, Kyle Stevens, about what’s gone into the band and how they’ve come to make rock music out of geek stuff.

You guys are known for your songs about comic books, movies, games and all other types of geek stuff. What sent you down the path to write about this sort of ‘geek culture’

My comic book and geek-culture obsession began a few years before the Image Comics boom in the 90’s, and in a lot of ways now looking back I feel that set the stage for what I’m doing with Kirby Krackle as a 100% independent nerd-rock band going on 6 years now. Those artists took a giant leap into something that hadn’t been done before, and that combined with what was happening in Seattle at the time in music those two factors really burned into me what can be possible when taking a creative risk.

When I started Kirby Krackle in 2009, there really was no one doing comic book and geek themed music that took the genre seriously. Up until that point, rock and rap artists would drop a little Dr. Doom or Spiderman reference now and then but I felt that music treating those characters and themes was underrepresented. I come at KK with the angle asking myself what if I was a fan of the band what would be exciting to me. That has worked so far and here were are 5 studio albums later. We’ve also had some amazing opportunities working with our heroes as being one of the few bands to ever open for Weird Al Yankovic and creating musical content for companies like Mondo, Cards Against Humanity, and Disney / Marvel comics.

Your style of music isn’t exactly what you’d hear on a top 40 station, but you seem to have attracted a considerable audience. How has that come together?

Before Kirby Krackle, I would submit my music to record labels and the thing I would here over and over again was, “Your style is too all over the place genre wise”. First and foremost I’m a songwriter, and though I understood where those labels were coming from as a business, I wasn’t ready to compromise that part of my music. With KK, our fans celebrate that variety in our style song to song, album to album, and the common thread is woven together in geek-culture themes. I’m very thankful to our audience that they allow me to express my music in that way and that it adds an excitement to keep them guessing to what we’ll do next. I call Kirby Krackle a “nerd-rock” band; songs about comic books, games, geek-culutre, and more often than not that description will make people stop to see what KK is all about.

Who is your primary audience? How do they relate to your music?

I like to think that our audience thinks a lot like I do! I have a huge passion for comic book and geek culture, and I just like to see people realize their dreams by creating cool content and art. From 6 years of touring North America and Australia, I can safely say that also represents a lot of the KK community, lovingly referred to as “Krackleheads”. More often than not I am one of the very few musicians at comic book conventions and geek themed events, and that thankfully makes us stick out amongst the sea of vendors very often competing for the same customer. My audience enjoys something they haven’t heard before, and that’s what I do my best to provide for them. If it makes me laugh, tug at my nerd heart strings or when the little critic inside says, “No Kyle, you can’t write about that”…then chances are high our fans will dig it, too.

Your latest album, MUTATE, BABY! is your fifth geek-flavored album. How have you changed since your first?

I always tell people who pick up our entire catalog at conventions to make sure they listen in order or else it sounds like we forgot how to rock! Our albums get harder musically every time we put a new one out, and I think that has a lot to do with the kind of songs we’ve seen work well live and how our style has refined itself from 6 years of touring. The first album was me alone in my home studio as a big experiment, and as time has gone on we’ve formed a full-band that has had the opportunity to find a producer in long-time collaborator Don Gunn in Seattle who helps make us a pretty tight and oiled machine. We know what we sound like, and taking that concern off the table opens up energy for more experimentation both musically and stylistically that I think you can hear evolve throughout our records. I know the songs have gotten more fun as time as gone on, and having started with mostly character-driven referencey songs I’ve really been inspired to evolve our themes into more geek-cutlure en masse commentary. I know this has a lot to do with how geek-culture basically has become pop-culture. It’s a very interesting time and I’m very curious to see if that will always be the case. Maybe the world will become obsessed with baseball cards again…weirder things have happened!

Looking back, what’s your favorite song from your back catalog?

It’s hard to pick a favorite, but if I had to choose 2 they would be from taking a risk that I wasn’t sure would work out that then would go on to become a fan favorite. I had a really hard time with math in school growing up, and I thought it would be fun to write and record a song talking about that a la a “Schoolhouse Rock” type delivery. The song is called “Booty Do Math” and it’s one of the weirdest songs we have in that the video follows a butt-person going to tutoring taught by R. Kelly. I love that our fans let enjoy that kind of randomness as much as I do! A fan-favorite (and one of mine) is “Ring Capacity” from 2010’s E For Everyone album. I’m a big Green Lantern fan, and as one you can imagine how cool it is to have hundreds of nerds sing the oath right in your face when we play this every night.

You guys launched a Patreon channel recently: how has that been going, and has it allowed you to do things that you couldn’t before?

My Patreon supporters are the life-blood of Kirby Krackle allowing me to concentrate on creating more songs and content than I would otherwise be able to do. They have allowed me to focus on my music and write and record full-time now for the past year and a half, and in many ways I feel like the campaign is just getting started in where I want it to go. The concept of Patreon is still new, and I always suggest that people think of it as an on-going Kickstarter.

By supporting Kirby Krackle or like independent-artists, supporters allow us to continue to create more of the music and content that you already love while at the same time receiving exclusive content only provided to Patreon supporters. I run my campaign in the form of the “Kirby Krackle Music Fan Club” and for as little as $4 a month members receive 2 Fan Club-exclusive songs each and every month not found anywhere else. It’s also become a very fun way to stay topical in getting music out addressing current themes that might not make it on a 12-song album. It’s really grown into it’s own community for what I do, and I encourage anyone wanting to be a part of the fun to learn more by visiting www.patreon.com/kirbykrackle. I’d love to have your aboard.

What do you guys have coming up next that we should look forward to?

As I enter my sixth year of touring with Kirby Krackle, I am driven more than ever to share my music with everyone who hasn’t heard of Kirby Krackle or nerd-rock before. There’s so much out there vying for our attention all the time, but I now more than ever believe our music will find whose who are waiting to receive it. What we do best is play live, and this year we’ll be doing a lot more of that and taking our live show to the next level with some surprises we have up our sleeve. I’m looking forward to returning as a guest at my favorite cons across the US, Canada, and Australia and seeing all the fans. That’s the best part of what I do; seeing all the faces that come up to say hi letting me know what their favorite song is, etc.

As an independent band and business a lot of my time is spent sitting at a computer alone trying to make things happen, so getting out to my people is the thing that keeps me going. I’m having a lot of fun with making videos lately as well, and in the past few months have put out “The Day My Powers Arrived” and just this week “We Had A Good Run” both from our new album MUTATE, BABY!. We also had another opportunity to work with Disney and Marvel this past summer and I’m looking forward to the time when we can share more about that. It’s a great time for nerd-music and more than anything I want to do my part in spreading the word it’s here to stay and bring it the respect it deserves.

Mutate Baby! is now out in stores.

Remember that Agents of SHIELD spinoff show that ABC wanted to make? It looks like it’s going to happen. ABC has ordered a pilot for Marvel’s Most Wanted, starring Adrianne Pallicki and Nick Blood.

Variety has reported that ABC has brought the project back to life after putting a hold on it last year. The show will follow Mockingbird and Hunter, but there’s no definitive word on how the show will interact with other Marvel shows.

Insiders say the series is not a spinoff, per se, but rather an entirely new project solely focused on the two characters to continue their story. Though plot details are scarce at this point, “Marvel’s Most Wanted” will follow the pair and their adventures together.

This gives us a third regular Marvel Comics show on ABC alongside Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter, in addition to the slate of Netflix shows that they’ve got coming out later this year - a second season of Daredevil and at some point later this year, Luke Cage.

No date has been set yet for this pilot to come together, but it looks like there’s a much bigger push this time to make it happen.

[Variety]

Trilobites are everywhere: you’ve probably seen them in museums, or if you’re lucky, in the rocks near where you live. While we’re used to seeing the fossils, one scientist has turned to 3D printing to get a sense of what these creatures were like in life.

Dr. Allan Drummond is a professor of biochemistry at the University of Chicago, and decided that he wanted to try his hand at printing up a trilobite.

Reconstruction of C. pleurexanthemus from Harrington, 1959. [Source]

He chose the Ceraurus pleurexanthemus species, because of the existing images that had been put togehter, but also because there were some examples of where soft tissue had been preserved. With that information to go on, he put together a 3D model using Blender:

Drummond has been documenting his process over on a discussion forum, in which he outlines how he’s been modeling each specimen:

So I looked at as many ceraurids as I could find, and made 2D drawings, first in pencil, then in Inkscape, to provide guides for the 3D modeling. The initial goal was not to model a specific species, but to capture the organism in a recognizable way. The eyes are larger and more stalked in the drawings, and present model, than in Ceraurus, among a huge number of features that are just wrong. At the same time, any knowledgeable person can identify the genus immediately. Over time, I’ve been pushing the model closer and closer to identifiable species, influenced in large part by the folks on FF who can identify species instantly from details of an isolated hypostome. No pressure!

With the model completed, he printed out a prototype in clear resin, and later, in Black Resin. From there, he went and printed them up in in stainless steel, bronze, and finally, silver: “3D printed in wax and cast in silver, with silver wire for the antennae.”

The resulting sculptures are absolutely stunning.

Not going to lie: I really want one of these.

[Nerdist, The Fossil Forum]

Image credits: Allan Drummond

This is pretty awesome - the official BBC America twitter feed shared this short, stop motion video created by Lawrence Becker. His caption is fitting: We’re all just stories in the end.

[BBC America]

China Miéville is known for some strange and often brilliant works of speculative fiction. His latest book, This Census-Taker, is an intriguing look at a horrific world through the eyes of a young boy, and it’s no less strange and brilliant than his other works.

Miéville’s unnamed narrator recounts a story from his childhood, starting when he ran away from his home convinced that his mother did something terrible.

But that’s not quite it.

It’s his mother that vanishes, and it’s his father that he’s seen commit horrific acts: killing animals, and probably people. After the boy’s escape to a nearby village, he’s told that there’s nothing that can be done about the situation without proof, and he’s sent back home again.

http://www.amazon.com/This-Census-Ta...

There’s a wonderful sense of foreboding with this novella: it lingers in Miéville’s descriptions, dialogue and characters, and it’s a book that leaves more questions unasked than answered.

Because of that, it’ll be a frustrating read for some. This isn’t a book that has easy or clear answers for the world or questions that Miéville has put together. That’s probably for the best, because the fantastic stuff isn’t really the point here - it would distract from the fascinating, minimalist approach that’s been laid down here.

Told through the lens of the memory of a young boy, there’s the sense that the events and world that we see here are slightly off - interpreted without context. It’s a jarring story, made even more so as it ping-pongs back and forth between the past and present.

In many ways, this is a story about stories and memory: the sorts of fundamental building blocks that build up our memory and identities. This is a strange book, but it’s a quietly brilliant read, one that leaves it’s reader in a daze, contemplating what they’ve read for long after the book is put away.

This is pretty awesome: A picture of the original Star Trek model, along with the men who assembled it, taken in December, 1964.

The model was constructed by Richard C. Datin Jr., Mel Keys, Vernon Sion and Volmer Jensen (who isn’t in this picture), and has since been restored a number of times, most recently by the Smithsonian.

Since it’s television debut in 1966, the 11-foot model has been “treated” three times – in 1974, 1984, and 1992. The current restoration comes more than 20 years after the last major effort in 1992 overseen by Science Fiction Modelmaking Associates, who also brought you many of our beloved TNG props and models. The 1992 job caused some controversy in the fan community over the paint that was applied. Mike and Denise Okuda, who have been responsible for so much of the look and feel of Star Trek over the years, are consulting on the new restoration project.

You can take a look at some of the restoration pictures here.

[Trekmovie, via BoingBoing]

While he’s been helping with the promotion of Hulu’s 11.22.63, J.J. Abrams dropped some bad news on us: this upcoming season of Person of Interest is likely its last.

We’re not even sure when Season 5 will air, but the fact that it’s only been picked up for another 13 episodes was never good news to start with. Speaking at a panel at the Television Critics Association yesterday, Abrams mentioned that whenever this season airs, it’ll likely be the end.

“My guess is it is the final season,” Abrams said during a panel for his Hulu series11.22.63. “The only heartbreak there is how much good story there was to come if it were to have continued.”

He confirmed that creator/executive producer Jonah Nolan and executive producer Greg Plageman are treating the upcoming episodes as POI‘s last.

Hopefully, with this knowledge up front, they’ll get to tie up everything in good order, bringing this excellent show to a fitting conclusion. Don’t expect there to be a happy ending, though.

[Deadline]

Micah Hayman figured out that the best way to get his son to stop crying was Imperial March. Parenting done right.

[Nerdist]

For today’s Weekend Matinee, we’re going back to 1958 to watch She Married A Monster from Outer Space! After coming back from her honeymoon, Marge Farrell notices her husband acting... strange.

Give it a watch, and weigh in with your fellow commenters!

h/t SF Signal

Adam Westbrook has been putting together some really interesting video essays on the artist world, and for his latest video, he’s put together a really interesting look at Vincent Van Gogh’s work ethic in an era obsessed with popularity.

Westbrook looks at the struggles of Van Gogh. We know his work instantly, but what most people don’t know is how much work he put into his painting before he broke out as one of the greatest painters of all time.

This is compared against the ease to which people can enter the arts world now, thanks to the internet. It’s comparatively easy to create something from an idea, but it’s harder to get some traction and a wide audience. The lesson here? Sometimes, persistence is essential.

It’s worth checking out the first and second installments as well for a cool lesson on Da Vinci.

Yoga gear, 4K monitors, and a 5TB hard drive highlight today’s best deals. Bookmark Kinja Deals and follow us on Twitter to never miss a deal. Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Click hereto learn more.

If you’re planning on taking up yoga in 2016, Amazon’s offering a big sale on select Gaiam accessories, today only. [Gaiam Yoga Basics Sale]

If you’re ready to upgrade your rig to 4K, we’ve got two great deals on popular displays today. The Samsung is cheaper, but the Dell is IPS (and I can tell you from personal experience that it looks fantastic)

• Refurb Samsung 28" 4K Monitor ($340) | Woot
• Dell 27" 4K IPS Display ($600) | Dell | Plus $175 promo gift card

Note: The Dell promo gift card is only valid for 90 days.

You can’t control these power outlets with your smartphone, or tie them to IFTTT recipes like the Belkin WeMo line, but they sell for a tiny fraction of the cost of their smarter brethren, and can be controlled from across the room via the included remotes. It’s only a half-measure towards creating a smart home, to be sure, but they might be worth a look at the price. [5-Pack Etekcity Wireless Remote Control Electrical Outlet Switch, $21 with code DEALBIGG]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...

Five terabytes for $110. What a world. [WD - My Book 5TB External USB 3.0 Hard Drive, $110]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2014071516...

Protein, B-12, milk thistle; no matter what supplements you take, they’re probably on sale today on Amazon. [20% off Select Jarrow Formulas]

The PS Vita might be worth it just for Fallout 4 remote play, and you can pick one up for just $120 today, an all-time low. [Open Box PlayStation Vita, $120]

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If you don’t have a good cooking thermometer in your kitchen, this one has a 4.5 star average on over 3500 reviews, and you can pick one up for just $8. [Chef Remi Cooking Thermometer, $8 with code 8W6BY59J]

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A 30,000mAh battery pack may seem like overkill, but that could keep your phone running off the grid for over a week, or even every phone in your family during a short camping trip. So, uh, yeah, I guess it might be overkill, but it has its uses! [ZeroLemon ToughJuice 30000mAh Portable Charger, $33 with code UKFFS6JC]

http://www.amazon.com/External-ZeroL...

Whether you’re working late, or just reading before bed, this adjustable LED desk lamp features three different color temperatures and five brightness settings, plus a USB port to charge your phone. [10W Modern Design LED Touch Table Lamp with USB Charger, $33]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013QT3CUQ

If you’re a fan of fighting games, this specialized PS4/PS3 controller is designed specifically for you. And at $30, it’s never been cheaper. [HORI Fighting Commander 4 Controller for PlayStation 4/3, $30]

http://www.amazon.com/HORI-Fighting-...

If you’re a Star Trek fan, this $1 Kindle book should be an insta-buy. [The Autobiography of James T. Kirk (Kindle), $1]

http://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-...

We see deals pretty frequently on the low end Apple MacBook, but today, you can save $300 on the most well-equipped model, which includes a faster processor and 512GB SSD. [Apple MacBook 512GB, $1300]

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• Canon - PIXMA MG2920 Wireless All-In-One Printer ($25) | Best Buy
• Dell E514dw Printer ($100) | Dell
• Refurb Smart TV Sale ($220-$1300) | Woot
• Refurb Samsung 28" 4K Monitor ($340) | Woot
• Dell 27" 4K IPS Display ($600) | Dell | Plus $175 promo gift card
• 5-Pack Etekcity Wireless Remote Control Electrical Outlet Switch ($21) | Amazon
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• Oak Leaf 100ml Ultrasonic Mini Cool Mist Aroma Air Humidifier with Soothing Color LED Lights Changing ($23) | Amazon
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• Brother - Ania Ahlborn [Kindle] ($2) | Amazon
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Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Click here to learn more. We want your feedback.Send deal submissions to Deals@Gawker and all other inquiries to Shane@Gawker

The Dawn spacecraft has been hard at work orbiting Ceres, and over the last week, it’s sent back some stunning images of our closest dwarf planet.

This view of Ceres from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft shows Tupo Crater (22 miles, 36 kilometers wide), at upper left, with its sharp rim and prominent central peak.

This image of Ceres, taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, shows terrain in the southern hemisphere within the large crater called Yalode. The prominent crater at top-right is called Lono. The crater directly below it is called Besua.

This image of Ceres, taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, shows Sintana Crater (36 miles, 58 kilometers wide) at top, just right of center. The rim of a large crater called Zadeni (80 miles, 128 kilometers wide), is seen at the bottom of the image.

This image of Ceres, taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, shows cratered terrain at high northern latitudes. Ghanan Crater is seen at upper-right. A distinctive flow feature extends into the crater from its northern rim.

These images are stunningly beautiful, and shows off just how much punishment the dwarf planet has taken out in the Asteroid belt. It’s seen a lot of impacts, that’s for sure.

All images and captions: Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

During the Golden Globes tonight, the Underwood 2016 campaign released its latest advert: an address straight from the fictional Oval Office, complete with little reminders that the main character is a bona fide psychopath.

Season 4 is landing on March 4th; until then, the excellent FU2016.com campaign website should keep your appetite whetted.

[Twitter]

David Bowie, who just died of cancer aged 69, had an incalculable impact on pop culture throughout his shape-shifting career. But perhaps more than any other musician, he also had a tremendous impact on science fiction. He changed the way we thought about the alien, the uncanny, and the familiar.

Bowie’s first hit single, “Space Oddity,” established him not just as an artist who sang about science-fictional topics like space travel, but also as someone who embraced the discomfort of humanity juxtaposed against the cosmos. The song’s churning guitar riffs and psychedelic noises convey something of the disorientation of floating in a tin can, far from home. Over the years that followed, Bowie produced some of the most poignant representations ever of alien visitors, doomed grandeur and tormented supermen. I recently listened to his song “The Man Who Sold the World” on a loop while writing, and it reveals more and more layers of pathos, remorse and arrogance the more you hear it.

Bowie’s greatest gift to science fiction was that combination of pathos and dissocation, which comes across in a lot of his best songs. His album Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, a rock opera about a band led by a mysterious figure, encapsulates the apocalypse, androgyny and rockstar excess with the same bohemian drama. (Click here to read Bowie explaining to William S. Burroughs the whole fascinating backstory of Ziggy Stardust.) Ziggy Stardust was just one of many personas that Bowie created over the years, including the zombie-like Thin White Duke.

Here’s more of Bowie talking about Ziggy Stardust, with animation:

Bowie also starred in the film The Man Who Fell to Earth, playing one of the most stark, disturbing and psychologically complex representations of an alien ever captured on screen. This film was an important precursor to recent experimental aliens-among-us films like Under the Skin, and if you ever get a chance to see the restored uncut version, you should drop everything.

Edited to add: Bowie also played an unforgettable vampire in The Hunger, and one of the most iconic fantasy characters, Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth.

Tilda Swinton wrote a beautiful tribute to Bowie in her speech at the opening of his exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and talked about what his image and his music meant to her growing up. And how great it is to realize that “the freak becomes the great unifier.”

Over time, Bowie seemed to be at war with his own rock stardom. After the Let’s Dance album reached a huge audience that was new to his music, there are lots of accounts of Bowie struggling with what to do with that new kind of pop stardom. The idea of being a “rock star” often seemed more foreign and bizarre than the notion of a glam-rock visitor from another planet.

And he never stopped making awesome music—he just released a new album, Blackstar.

Bowie provided us with a soundtrack for our alienation—the song “Life on Mars” doesn’t just give that brilliant TV show its title, but provides a crucial piece of emotional texture during the show’s most important moment. And he helped us to imagine that our own feelings of strangeness and dislocation were bigger and more wonderful than we had possibly imagined.

He’ll be missed, but his music will keep reshaping reality as we know it.

Contact the author at charliejane@io9.com and follow her on Twitter @CharlieJane

On PC, Fallout 4 is an endless sea of possibility. Anything you can imagine, you can probably download as a customization and insert it into the game.

Quality of life improvements. Characters from movies, TV shows, and books. Ridiculous weapons that shouldn’t exist. Oh, and titties. Lots and lots of titties.

Massive NSFW warning!

Fallout 4’s burgeoning custom “mod” scene has a naughty side to it, as is tradition for Bethesda games released on the PC. It’s a cliché now, really. Here’s what came up when I searched for “Skyrim mod”—just those two words—on YouTube:

At the center of this all is a popular mod called ‘Caliente’s Beautiful Bodies Edition,’ a Skyrim modification that gives players more control over the customization of female characters. Created by a modder who (appropriately) goes by ‘Caliente,’ CBBE is a large part of the reason people associate “Skyrim modding” with naked vixens. CBBE characters spread through the internet with the speed of, well, naked pictures of attractive women. As of this writing, CBBE has been downloaded a whopping 8.2 million times.

I caught up with Caliente via email to ask about the vast, racy modding empire inspired by CBBE. A programmer with a love for digital art, CBBE was actually the first mod Caliente released to the public. Caliente made it from scratch, using 3D animation programs such as Blender.

“The popularity was a little unexpected,” Caliente said. “It feels really amazing to have so many people using and enjoying my work, and I like thinking that I’ve helped make the games a little more enjoyable for people. The fame is strange...and kind of fun sometimes...but since it’s relegated to an internet name, it’s sort of like having a secret identity.”

Caliente initially saw the Skyrim version of CBBE as a way to “fix” the character models.“The vanilla artwork [in Bethesda games] doesn’t appeal to me very much,” Caliente said. “I find the proportions to be fairly bulky, with wide shoulders and smaller hips to my taste.”

“At the same time, bodies come in a lot of different shapes, and people like different things, so I like to be able to provide a way for people to get the looks and variety they want, even if it doesn’t match what I would use myself,” Caliente said.

Caliente said that tweaking the character models was important to the modder because it helps with playing dress-up, something Caliente is passionate about. Caliente views bodies and clothes as a means of expression that “cool guns, powerful statistics, and buckets of gore” can’t account for.

“All of the outfits were bulky and formless and not much fun to put on,” the modder said. “One thing I love to do in games is to find interesting and pretty outfits for my character, so I wanted to make the default ones look better in my eyes. Starting from that basic idea, I decided to work on a body replacement, in order to have a prettier figure to fit the clothes to.”

Here’s a distinction that Caliente feels strongly about: CBBE is not a nudity tool necessarily, but rather a body modification mod. It just also happens to be used in a very specific way by some players. At the same time, you can’t blame anyone for immediately thinking about nudity, given how the mod is presented online:

Caliente says that the original hope was that, by making the mod public, other people would make more custom outfits for specialized Skyrim models. However, Caliente got wrapped up in making the tool as user-friendly as possible, allowing the mod to cater to whatever wants a player might have. It’s no wonder that it exploded in the way that it did.

Five years after the first version of CBBE, there’s a Fallout 4 version of the mod, too. Though it’s been out for less than a month, it’s already been downloaded more than 340,000 times, making it one of the most popular Fallout 4 mods around.

The mod has become so big that Caliente now enlists the help of two contributors, Jeir and Ousnius, to work on CBBE as well. Caliente estimates that they have spent much more time helping create mods for Fallout 4 than actually playing the game.

While working on this story, I naturally decided to take CBBE for a spin. Caliente’s base CBBE mod lets players pick between a few different presets for female characters: slim, curvy, and vanilla. Players also have control over the model’s lingerie (or lack of it). Using the mod, a character can go from looking like this standard Bethesda model…

To looking like this:

Or like this:

The basic version of the mod doesn’t offer many options, but things get much more detailed with Caliente’s “Body Slide and Outfit Studio,” a tool that can be used in conjunction to CBBE for custom characters. It’s not nearly as popular as the main CBBE mod—at current, Body Slide has been downloaded a mere 97,000 times—but it’s a tool that grants you ultimate control over your character. Every attribute you can think of (and many that you probably can’t) has a slider that manipulates a specific part of the body, like so:

Some of the options, like “butt size,” are straightforward. There are unusual options, as well—you can tweak armpit height, for example. Then you have sliders for “melons,” which is apparently different from “breast size” and “cleavage.” A few even left me wondering, like, what does “Fantasy” mean, exactly? What does it mean when I max out the “Fantasy” slider? I have no idea.

As you adjust the sliders, you watch your character take shape on the right side. It’s a curious experience. On the one hand, I know that Fallout 4 itself is not a particularly sexy game. Romance is relegated to passing a dice roll on your Charisma stat, and getting lucky simply means watching the game fade to a black screen. In theory, adding curvier, more traditionally sexy women to the game feels somewhat subversive. At the same time, adjusting all the sliders in Body Slide feels similar to filling out an application at the DMV.

Therein lies the brilliance of Caliente’s work, though: By making mods like CBBE and Body Slide, the modder has given curious players the tools they need to make mods of their own without having to do the heavy lifting. Whatever Caliente doesn’t include, other people are happy to create themselves, modding Caliente’s mod into a more modded mod.

I spoke to a modder named Fiddlestickz, for example, who created a CBBE mod that lets players grow pubic hair in a few different styles. Why not? One of the designs is actually based on an actual porn actress, Riley Reid. Most of them, though, are just manifestations of Fiddlestickz’s own ideals. Similarly, Caliente says the presets that CBBE comes bundled with are just figures that the modders and their collaborators like.

Many NSFW mods floating around the internet can serve as a window into the libido of the savviest RPG fans. It’s striking how many of these mods are billed in terms of creating THE dream girl: this one is the mod that’s sculpted the perfect woman, or that this one is the ultimate fantasy girl.

There’s a limit to the fantasy surrounding these mods, though. Some promise “lore-friendly” titillation, so they’ll provide, ultra-sexy characters caked in dust, grime, and displaying visible injuries. Hey, just because you’re an ultimate fantasy bombshell doesn’t mean you’re impervious to the hazards of the wasteland. Or something like that.

Several modders I spoke to cited the importance of alterations that don’t take the player out of the moment. Ubercharge, the creator of the body mod in the picture above, put it to me this way: “If you look how dirty/dusty/rough [the] environment of Fallout 4 [is], suddenly [CBBE bodies look out of place]. Perfect bodies will break you out of the immersion. There is no use for nice bodies if your brain doesn’t believe it’s real.” The Fallout 4 Nexus, which is the biggest modding hub for the game around, even has a lore-friendly search category.

Nudity mods have a certain reputation, and onlookers can be judgmental about that. The modders I spoke to know that, of course. All the same, Caliente emphasized how “friendly, helpful [and] smart” modders are. Caliente pointed out that people often don’t get paid for the tremendous amount of work they put into mods—Caliente has gotten some donations from fans, but some of the programs used to make the content are expensive, too. There’s no profit in it.

“[Nudity modders are] certainly not any more maladjusted or depraved than someone who spends days creating a mod that enhances the violence and gore of combat,” Caliente said. “The main difference being that the latter mod isn’t considered an adult mod.”

“I hate it when a person using CBBE (or other body mod) is accused of being perverted or misogynistic when their use is clearly not,” Caliente said. “And, there’s a longstanding, prevailing opinion that nudity is offensive, and there are trolls who like to put down anyone who makes or uses that kind of content.”

Another modder I spoke to, XunAmarox, is the creator of “CBBE Innies”—a mod that transforms vaginas in Fallout 4. You know how belly buttons can be innies or outies? Similar concept, except with labia. Helpfully, the mod page has a diagram that can show you the difference:

“I suppose you could say that [the mod is] based on someone very particular,” XunAmarox said. “Namely, me. Yep, I’ve got an innie pussy myself.” XunAmarox plays Fallout 4 with her own mod—but that doesn’t mean she runs around the game completely naked, either.

“I wear clothes, or armor,” XunAmarox said. “I play the game about like anyone else.” This is not an unusual answer among the modders I spoke to for this article; for lots of people, it’s the idea of the thing that matters. Kind of like when people treat themselves to nice lingerie in real life even if they’re not planning to throw down with anybody in particular.

“I think most people probably aren’t using nude mods for the same reasons that they use porn,” XunAmarox said. “I think a lot of people use them because the human body is beautiful—and I don’t even mean that in a sexual way. You typically have better detail with body and texture mods than you’d have otherwise, and it adds realism to games as well. After all, not every NPC out there is going to have the same exact pair of white lingerie.”

By now, you’ve probably noticed that there are far more nudity mods for women characters than for male characters. There’s actually a logistical reason for that, XunAmarox told me. Not only are female mods higher in demand, male nudity mods—which do exist—are harder to make. She explained that penises and balls require mesh editing and 3D modeling, which is a lot of effort for something that may not gain traction among the community.

When I asked Caliente about that, I was told me that female models in Bethesda games get the short end of the stick.

“The quality of male artwork seems to be superior to that of the female ones, and in many cases it’s clear that the male art is done first then later re-purposed for the female versions,” Caliente said. “This leads to less motivation to improve what’s not broken.”

Caliente says that the CBBE mods don’t have an “intentional” focus on women. Rather, Caliente prefers to play as women in games, and the mod grew from wanting to improve the modder’s own experience.

“Given the time, I’d absolutely love to provide a similar mod for the male bodies too,” Caliente said. “For Skyrim, other modders got to it before I did, and it became less useful for me to enter the field with my own version.

“Fallout 4 doesn’t have an option yet, of course, so if I can get to it before someone else does, I’ll try to make one that people enjoy!”

Illustration by Jim Cooke.

Excited rumors began circulating on Twitter this morning that a major experiment designed to hunt for gravitational waves—ripples in the fabric of spacetime first predicted by Albert Einstein—has observed them directly for the very first time. If confirmed, this would be one of the most significant physics discoveries of the last century.

Move a large mass very suddenly—or have two massive objects suddenly collide, or a supernova explode—and you would create ripples in space-time, much like tossing a stone in a still pond. The more massive the object, the more it will churn the surrounding spacetime, and the stronger the gravitational waves it should produce. Einstein predicted their existence in his general theory of relativity back in 1915, but he thought it would never be possible to test that prediction.

LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) is one of several experiments designed to hunt for these elusive ripples, and with its latest upgrade to Advanced LIGO, completed last year, it has the best chance of doing so. In fact, it topped our list of physics stories to watch in 2016.

There have been excited rumors about a LIGO discovery before, most notably a mere week after the upgraded experiment began operations last fall. Lawrence Krauss, a physicist at Arizona State University, spilled the beans on Twitter, giving it a 10- to 15-percent chance of being true. “The official response is that we’re analyzing the data,” LIGO spokesperson Gabriela González (Louisiana State University) told Nature at the time.

Now it seems the rumors have resurfaced, and Krauss has been blabbing again:

We’re guessing that once again, the official response will be that they’re currently analyzing the data and everyone should just be patient, because you can’t rush this kind of tricky analysis. TL;DR: They will neither confirm nor deny the rumor.

UPDATE 3:18 PM: Alan Weinstein, who heads the LIGO group at Caltech, had this to say via email: “My response to you is no more or less than the official one, which is the truth: ‘We are analyzing 01 data and will share news when ready.’ I’d say that it is wisest to just be patient.”

That’s good advice in general when rumors of exciting breakthroughs begin circulating. But in this case, it’s quite possible that they are true. Loyola University physicist Robert McNees pointed out on Twitter that he’d only made one prediction for physics breakthroughs in 2016: that Advanced LIGO would directly detect gravitational waves. And he certainly wasn’t the only one to do so. He also had a few things to say about this brave new world we live in, where big physics news inevitably leaks out onto social media:

“I guess I’d say that rumors just reflect how excited we all get about the prospect of new discoveries. It’s natural to feel that way! But the last thing we want to do is jump the gun,” McNees told Gizmodo via Twitter DM. “The best way to support these scientists is to let them carry out their experiments and analysis the way they were meant to be done. Let them take the time to do things the right way! And as physicists, I think we need to greet the inevitable rumors with explanations of how science works and why it’s so important to be careful. Even if that means having to wait for exciting news.”

Sigh. Fine. We’ll be hanging onto the edge of our seats waiting for official confirmation one way or the other. If true—well, it’s a hell of a way to kick off 2016. And it would probably be a shoo-in for this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics.

Image: Visualization of gravity waves. Image Credit: Werner Benger / Wikimedia.

While Clone Wars saw appearances from Star Wars movie characters all the time, Rebels has been a bit less connected to the plot and characters from the original trilogy. Which is why it’s always a big event when one shows up. This month, we’re going to get to see a young Leia.

TV Insider reports that Leia’s only appearance this season will come on January 20th, when a teenage Leia goes to Lothal on a secret mission to gather ships for the Rebel fleet. The location of her mission tells us how her life intersects with that of the Ghost crew. It also tells us that Leia was trusted to do dangerous things for the Rebellion long before A New Hope.

Rebels executive producer Dave Filoni added that this Leia isn’t quite the confident leader of the future. She’s still learning and, Filoni told TV Insider, “we have to remind the audience that at this point she is part of the Empire. She doesn’t believe in the Empire, but she is acting the part, almost a double agent.”

With Ahsoka, Threepio, R2-D2, Yoda, Lando, and Darth Vader all having made appearances in Rebels, who could be next? Or does it stretch credulity at a certain point for everyone to show up?

For all its wedding planning and wailing about perfect kisses, Galavant is pretty thin when it comes to genuine romance (aside from the chef and Gwynn, who are adorable). And its female characters are a bit one-note. But it’s having a great time with the odd-couple bromance between Galavant and Richard.

This season of Galavant has been mostly the Galavant ‘n Richard show so far, as the former rivals pursue their various destinies—or what they think are their destinies. When Richard, who doesn’t know what to do with himself if he can’t be a king, reconnects with an old friend, Galavant decides to play matchmaker, realizing this might give Richard something to do (other than keep accidentally sabotaging his quest). It doesn’t quite go as planned, but it’s the funniest moment of either episode that aired this week (“Aw, Hell, the King” and “Bewitched, Bothered and Belittled”)—and you gotta love a buddy for trying.

Image: ABC/Angus Young

Even before we trekked out to the desert for the Consumer Electronics Show, we had a good idea that CES would be flush with smart cars, televisions, virtual reality, and a bunch of weirdness. We were right! But as always, there were some surprises in store.

You can read all of our CES posts right here, but the below roundup represents the most awe-inspiring, highly-anticipated, or just plain strange stuff that was announced last week.

Cars, Smart or Otherwise

Yep, CES is an auto show now, and this year proved it. Though the show had its fair share of disappointments—ahem, Faraday Future—our sister site Jalopnik covered bunches of cool introductions, like Chevy’s all-electric Bolt and Volkswagen’s electric microbus concept.

Car infotainment systems also got an overhaul. Audi’s new system puts screens throughout your car’s interior. The wireless version of Apple’s CarPlay made an appearance, too. Make no mistake: The connected car is here.

The Beautiful and Boring Vision for Televisions

It’s CES, and so of course we saw many beautiful television sets. With UHD TVs increasingly available for rock-bottom prices, CES didn’t bring as many new innovations as previous years. The exceptions are this weird Samsung concept, and Sony’s blinding Backlight Master Drive tech. But we mostly saw marginally better displays, and we are 100 percent cool with that.

As picture quality inched forward, this year turned out to be all about television design. Samsung got so, so close to completely eliminating the bezel on its 88-inch flagship. Meanwhile, LG’s new 4K OLED sets will be super thin—we’re talking millimeters.

Enter: Virtual Reality

2016. The year of consumer VR. CES had two big pieces of VR news with Oculus finally opening up pre-orders for its $600 VR headset. Pricey, yes. The small bit of good news if you happen to be an original backer, you’re getting one for free—you lucky sonofabitch.

We also got a look at HTC and Valve’s latest Vive VR headset. It looks swank. Pre-orders start on Leap Day, Feb. 29.

Strangely, the other big VR contender—Sony’s PlayStation VR—sat out the Vegas tech bonanza, most likely biding its time for one the big gaming shows in early 2016.

Lots of Weird

No CES would be complete without strangeness and surprises. We were lucky enough to see this totally awesome midair charging tech. Samsung was completely obsessed with how the back of its TV looked for some reason. The amazing Technics 1200 turntable made a triumphant return. Single rider Drone taxis? What? Feds raided a hoverboard booth over patent infringement. OK?! We also couldn’t help but notice that a disconcerting number of new gadgets looked like sex toys.

Ah, CES. Until next year.

Art by Andrew Liszewski