Leave it to the Duplass Brothers, Mark and Jay, to take a seemingly simple concept—talking animals in New York City—and shape it into something that’s worthy of HBO. The show is called Animals, it premieres February 5, and the twisted trailer is here.

The show’s list of voice talent, seen at the end of the trailer, is pretty much unparalleled. Add that to the semi-crude animated style, and you get almost a South Park vibe from this. Obviously, it’s a little more detailed and much darker, but it definitely has that R-rated, smart tone with its own distinct, simple, flat look.

And the fact this animated show is going to air on HBO, the same network that made Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, and The Wire, gives it just some real critical distinction. Color us intrigued.

[HBO]

Contact the author at germain@io9.com.

Our planet can be too beautiful to be plausible some days. This frozen lake in the Himalayas is shockingly deep blue set against the slightly-oxidized rusty landscape. And it’s completely real, photographed from the International Space Station.

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly photographed this patch of the Himalayan mountains, posting it on January 9, 2015.

Top image: A frozen lake in the Himalayas. Credit: NASA/Scott Kelly

Contact the author at mika.mckinnon@io9.com or follow her at @MikaMcKinnon.

The first LEGO game based on Marvel’s cinematic universe is here, and wait until you see the wonderful ways the folks at TT Games have twisted the first Avengers film for comedic effect.

LEGO Marvel Superheroes is an excellent game, but it’s an original game. That means the developers got to develop their own story, write their own dialogue and make their own jokes.

LEGO Marvel’s Avengers, available today for all of the game consoles and handhelds, is a game that follows the events of The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron, with scenes from some of the satellite films thrown in for good measure. TT Games had to work with the existing dialogue from those films, and they’ve done so brilliantly, adding their own LEGO-fied comedic beats to existing scenes.

Remember when the Black Widow was sent to gather up “the big guy?”

The way they’ve woven in the jokes here is amazing. I especially appreciate the riff on Banner’s line “What does Fury want me to do, swallow it?” Genius.

The Avengers are gathered, and soon Loki makes his presence known in an incredibly subtle way. Okay, maybe not so subtle.

As pleased as I am with Hawkeye’s key arrow and Stan Lee reprising his role as Stan Lee, I’m a bit disappointed with the editing out of Reindeer Games from the last line there. Aw well, can’t have everything.

Loki is of course captured and taken to the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier.

What I love about this scene, aside from the teddy bear and replacing Loki murdering people with stealing a child’s ice cream, is that it shows how the devs at TT Games seem to be quietly developing the relationship between Black Widow and Banner in the second film in a way the original movie did not. They’re fixing things.

But the situation on the helicarrier cannot be fixed. Under Loki’s influence tempers rise, the team begins to fall apart, and awww man, we don’t get to see Banner’s party tricks.

They really have a lot of fun with Hawkeye in this game.

Here comes my favorite part. Loki’s attack succeeds, the helicarrier is crippled, and a stalwart ally falls. Sort of.

The vacation ticket. The sheep. The fact that Captain America signs the cards. Wonderful.

Which takes us to one of the most spectacular moments from the film, and Banner knows it.

What really sells it is the bit at the end, where for just a brief second they’re all just standing there, looking around, wondering why they’re posing like that.

I’m still playing through LEGO Marvel’s Avengers—I’m at the farm right now, smack dab in the middle of movie two—but so far, so good. It’s standard LEGO action with a few twists in between the movie scenes, but man, these movie scenes.

Look for a full review of the game soon. Until then . . .

To contact the author of this post write to fahey@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter@bunnyspatial.

In DC’s comics, the Amazons’ longevity has fluctuated over the years—ranging anywhere from being actually immortal to having a normal lifespan—but we’ve yet to see how exactly her life was going to work in the DC movies. We now have an answer, and the movie version of Diana has been around for a long time. Enough to be damned tired of Man’s bullshit, too.

The revelation comes from Empire magazine’s latest issue (which also has some pretty intriguing new stills from the film) in which director Zack Snyder reveals that by the time of Batman v Superman, Wonder Woman is 5,000 years old.

And very retired.

Yes, although she’ll be kicking a lot of butt around in the early 20th century in her own movie, by the time Batman v Superman: Glower Champion of the Year 2016 rolls around, Diana has retreated from the world of Men, mainly because they’re assholes. So says Gal Gadot, but in a slightly more diplomatic manner, comparing Wonder Woman to her alter-ego, Diana Prince:

Because she’s seen it all, she has seen what humans can do, so it was very hard for her to come back and fight. They have the same attitude. Although when she is Diana she tries to blend in, she is not too outgoing. I don’t want people to think she is perfect. She can be naughty.

Does this mean the older Bruce and Diana are gonna crack a lot of jokes about Superman being a young whippersnapper? That’d be kind of hilarious, actually. In the end, regardless of her age, Wonder Woman will be kicking butt in Batman v Superman, that much we do know.

Not bad for a woman in her fifth millennium. She doesn’t look a day over 3,000.

[Empire Magazine, via MovieWeb]

Header Image Credit: Brightened shot of Wonder Woman from the Wonder Woman teaser footage, via The Nerdy Bird.

We’re two episodes into the X-Files revival, and what we’ve gotten is pretty much a throwback to the show’s 1990s glory days. Which is a problem—because instead, this show should be taking advantage of everything that’s changed since it went off the air in 2002.

As an X-Files fan, I’ve become resigned to not agreeing with Chris Carter, the show’s creator, about much of anything. But I do agree with him on this one thing: 2016 is the perfect time for the X-Files to come back.

In an interview with Sci Fi Now earlier this month, Carter said:

In about 2001 or 2002, after the Twin Towers, we put all our faith in the government to protect us. We gave up rights and liberties, and we put our absolute faith and trust in the government to insulate us from a threat. In doing so, I think we’ve given up more than we bargained for, especially in terms of our privacy.

In fact, the government has admitted that they are spying on us, so we’re now living in a time where there is a sense that there are conspirators afoot. It’s a perfect time in which to tell X-Files stories, which is much like we suggested in the Nineties, because there may be people working against your best interests.

All of this is true. The X-Files is a show that breathes paranoia. The more distrust of authority there is, the more perfectly this show fits in with the zeitgeist. Since the show went off the air, our prevailing feeling has changed from “the government is doing things to protect us” to “the government is watching us, all the time, everywhere.”

But this new X-Files miniseries isn’t even about that. Mulder talks about this notion a lot, but we don’t see any actual evidence that anything’s changed. Or that the secret conspiracies have grown more insidious. Mulder talks about being spied on all the time, but that’s always been true. There’s no more spying or cover ups than there used to be. No one’s playbook has been updated. The cover up in the first episode is the usual thing of Men in Black showing up and disappearing evidence. Which happened all the time in the old show.

The X-Files could be playing off our technological paranoia in new and interesting ways. Instead, we have a character who is a 9/11 truther and who talks about how the government is coming for our guns. Nothing is new or interesting.

If anything, this show’s conspiracy should be one step ahead, with all the spying they’re supposedly doing. If anyone types anything on a computer, the shadowy conspirators should know instantly, and we should see this happening. We don’t. Maybe because this is less cinematic than having a literal person sit in a room watching Mulder and Scully report to Skinner. (Which is what happens in the second episode, “Founder’s Mutation.”)

In the same Sci Fi Now interview, Chris Carter also said:

We live in a media-saturated world now. We live in a technologically different world to the one we lived in 23 years ago. Remember, when Mulder and Scully would talk to each other, they would do it with giant cell phones. Now, the cell phones are so small that we actually had to use slightly bigger versions so they didn’t get lost in their hands. Simple things like that have changed.

You have a camera on your computer now, so people could be looking at you through your computer, which is something brand new to our world. Plus, everything you write on your computer is not necessarily something that can be kept private – and that’s something new, too. The X-Files grew up with the internet, but it had to. Now, we have to be mindful of what the internet has become, as well as the power of the internet and social media.

Oh man, the new X-Files really should be all about social media. Mulder should be tracking the appearances of monsters via Twitter. Combing the wild and weird corners of the internet for evidence and theories. Or expanding on things like Facebook’s weird psychological studies—instead of the usual dime-a-dozen mad doctor from “Founder’s Mutation,” we could have had an episode about experiments people “agreed to” by signing up for a social media account.

Back in the old days, Mulder was a big deal in the UFO community. If he still is, then the internet should play a big role in the information Mulder is sent and the evidence we see. If he isn’t, having fallen off the grid, then they should meet that kind of resistance, too. The FBI—or any government agency—isn’t going to be trusted by the people Mulder and Scully visit.

And yet, the new X-Files still seems incredibly dated. The first episode, “My Struggle,” clearly just doesn’t get the internet. Tad O’Malley (Joel McHale) is supposed to be some sort of internet Bill O’Reilly—that’s the reference that keeps getting dropped. He has a set that’s reminiscent of many a cable TV blowhard. The Fox News references give the game away. However, he’s supposed to be an internet guy, not a cable guy. O’Malley is clearly more Alex Jones than Bill O’Reilly, but that’s a reference too far outside the obvious.

There’s also the way that the show refers to the “‘Net” and Scully’s weird blurting of “Uber?” when Mulder shows up. Mulder jokes that he hitchhiked—but a better reference for this show would be Mulder going off about the data Uber collects, the security breaches it has, and the casual suggestion of digging up dirt on journalists.

Cell phones are another area that’s ripe for plumbing. The original show actually had cell phones relatively early, and Mulder and Scully obviously still have them in the new show. We hear constantly about how insecure they are and—back before everyone actually carried a computer everywhere—the X-Files did episodes about AIs and weird tech. Why aren’t cell phones more controversial to Mulder, the ultimate paranoid conspiracist?

The extent to which the X-Files has capitalized on our renewed distrust of the government seems limited to just random references, sprinkled through scripts that otherwise feel as though they could have been sitting around since the show went off the air. That’s how little has changed. Mulder is told it’s a crime to release classified documents, and he snarks “I’m familiar with Edward Snowden.” Who isn’t?

There’s zero depth to the way the revival uses these topical references. This show doesn’t need to educate its viewers on the existence of 9/11 truthers and drones and Edward Snowden. Instead, The X-Files should have been capitalizing on that knowledge to build more fascinating stories. Mulder (and O’Malley’s) rants aren’t that interesting, filled with the kinds of things that filled the internet a decade ago. But the random references to things like Uber and recent Supreme Court decisions seem to be there solely to make it “current.” Which has the perverse effect of making the show seem even more dated.

The revival, as it is, is fine. It is perfectly watchable, especially after the first episode. There are even moments that approach greatness. But this is also a huge waste of an opportunity to do so, so much more.

Top image: Ed Araquel/Fox Middle image: Ed Araquel/FOX Bottom image: Screencap from “My Struggle”

Contact the author at katharine@io9.com.

Lucifer had its debut last night and we already told you how much we enjoyed it—specifically Tom Ellis’ performance as the titular Lord of Hell. But Lucifer isn’t operating on Earth in a vacuum. He’s got a fierce protector, and an equally fierce adversary. So, who are these two exactly?

The Archangel Amenadiel (DB Woodside) appears early in the first episode to shake his finger at Lucifer and warn him that he needs to get his butt back to the Underworld (“You are a mockery of everything divine!”) These two have a contentious relationship that goes beyond their respective positions on the whole heaven-and-hell thing; it’s a personal dislike that’s taken straight out of the Lucifer comics. As the season progresses, we’ll see Amenadiel—with his menacing wings mostly hidden—use some deeply sneaky tactics to try and get Lucifer to comply with his demands.

And then there’s Mazikeen, or “Maze” (Lesley-Ann Brandt), who left hell with Lucifer and is his sworn protector (as well as working as a bartender in his nightclub). In the comics, she wears a mask over half her face, but she’s either magically concealing her disfigurement on the TV show, or it’s just not a part of her character. Though she loves Lucifer, she shares Amenadiel’s impatience with his new lifestyle—and she’s not onboard with his forays into police work, his possibly becoming mortal, etc. It’s pretty clear that their relationship is going to be seriously tested soon.

Images from top: Lesley-Ann Brandt in the “Pilot” series premiere episode of Lucifer ©2015 Fox Broadcasting Co. CR: FOX. Tom Ellis and DB Woodside in the “Pilot” series premiere episode of Lucifer ©2015 Fox Broadcasting Co. CR: FOX

Back in September, researchers in the UK discovered that brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s may be transmissible through certain medical procedures. Skeptical scientists urged caution, but now a different set of autopsy results have shown the same thing.

As reported in Nature News, the latest autopsies were performed on the brains of patients who died of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD), a rare brain-wasting disorder. Many years earlier, these individuals had received surgical grafts of dura mater—a membrane that covers the brain and spinal cord—prepared from human cadavers. Regrettably, these grafts that were contaminated with the prion protein responsible for CJD.

Five of the seven brains analyzed also showed signs of Alzheimer’s disease. This was odd because the individuals, age 28 to 63, were too young to have developed the amayoid plaques indicative of the neurological disorder (amyloid plaques are a misfolded protein that fuels the spread of Alzheimer’s). Analysis of a control group failed to show signs of this wasting signature. This suggests that that the “seeds” of certain neurological diseases can be transmitted during certain medical procedures—or even through contaminated surgical instruments. The new report, written by researchers from Switzerland and Austria, can now be found in Swiss Medical Weekly.

Back in September, a different research team discovered something very similar. While performing an autopsy on eight CJD patients, University of College London researchers found that four of them exhibited similar vascular amyloid beta pathology. Alarmingly, all of these patients, most of whom were quite young when they died, caught their CJD from a growth hormone derived from the pituitary glands of human cadavers—some of which were contaminated with prions.

Importantly, neither study suggests that Alzheimer’s can be transmitted through normal physical contact. Also, cadaver-derived human growth hormone (HGH) isn’t used any more, as it’s been replaced by synthetics. But scientists are now seriously worried that “amyloid seeding” is actually a thing. Nature News reports:

[If true] it would have important clinical implications. In general surgery, for example, any amyloid-β proteins, which are very sticky, would not be routinely removed from surgical instruments; standard sterilization procedures cannot shift them.

“It is our job as doctors to see in advance what might become a problem in the clinic,” says neuropathologist Herbert Budka of the University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland, who is a co-author of the latest paper.

This theory will require more proof if it’s to be accepted by the scientific community. Both studies are purely observational, and both were performed on a limited sample of subjects. Moreover, neither study proves that the deposits of amyloid beta were actually caused by the contaminated dura mater or hormone injections.

But these finding, though preliminary, are nonetheless disturbing. It shows we still have lots to learn about neurodegnerative disorders and the ways in which seeds of amyloid beta proteins can be transmitted. And if this theory is ultimately proven to be true, it will put even more pressure on health care providers to provide a clean and safe environment for its patients. It’s a terrifying thought.

[Nature News]

Top image: Depsoits of the amyloid protein in the frontal cortex of patients who developed CJD after surgery. Credit: Frontzek K, Lutz MI, Aguzzi A, Kovacs GG, Budka H.er. via Nature News

Email the author at george@gizmodo.com and follow him @dvorsky.

With enough skill and patience, any sort of metal object can basically be heated up and forged into a weapon. It always make for such a glorious process too. For example in this video, a wonderfully threaded steel cable rope gets pounded and pounded until it resembles something that can be shaped and shaped into a knife. There is so much work in the transformation but the end result is totally worth it.

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

The saga of the black-and-white version of Mad Max: Fury Road continues. First, there was talk of the cut getting a theatrical release. Now, in an interview with the L.A. Times, George Miller says “[It’ll end up] on another version with commentary and other features.” Either way, it seems like it’s happening.

The California College of the Arts is one of very few schools to offer an MFA in Comics. But if you’re just starting to make your own comics—or perhaps not quite ready to commit to a degree program—here’s a rad opportunity that anyone can take part in: a free online course that kicks off in February.

The Massive Online Open Course in comics, a first for CCA, will be entitled “Comics: Art in Relationships.” It offers five sessions with instructor Matt Silady (who is both the chair of the MFA Program in Comics, as well as an Associate Professor in the Writing and Literature Program) and is aimed at both beginner and experienced artists. Check out Silady talking about the program in the video above.

Here’s the course description and a syllabus:

Comics are one of the most popular and exciting ways to tell a story. This course offers a look at the fundamental building blocks of the comic book medium. Exploring panel to panel transitions, text to image relationships, and the intricacies of page layouts, students will examine new and innovative ways to bring their stories to life.

This course is designed for both beginning and advanced visual artists. Whether students have tried their hand at comics before or are simply interested in investigating how comics work, this course will provide insights to help storytellers make the most of every page.

Session 1: Defining Comics

Identify key relationships in sample texts & demonstrate the use various camera angles on a comics page

Session 2: Comics Relationships

Create Text-Image and Image-Image Panels

Session 3: Time And Space

One Second, One Hour, One Day Comics Challenge

Session 4: Layout And Grid Design

Apply multiple panel grids to provided script

Session 5: Thumbnails

Create thumbnail sketches of a multipage scene

The free (FREE!) class is being offered by CCA through online platform Kadenze. Learn how to sign up here and more about how Kadenze works here.

“No” is the resounding answer most of us have to that question, I hope. But it is an excellent premise for a television series that’s right at the line between present day reality and true dystopia.

The show, A.P.B., is inspired by the New York Times Magazine article “Who Runs the Streets of New Orleans” by David Amsden—which is fascinating and a little bit terrifying, for those of us not really a fan of private individuals or corporations having that much influence over the police. It’s an issue that we can hope gets some in-depth exploration. We’ll see if executive producers David Slack (co-executive producer on Person Of Interest) and Len Wiseman (co-creator of Sleepy Hollow) pull that off.

Here’s the description from Deadline:

A.P.B. explores what happens when an enigmatic tech billionaire purchases a troubled police precinct in the wake of a loved one’s murder. Can this eccentric and enigmatic figure’s cutting-edge approach fix the broken ways of these blue-blooded veterans?

Putting aside that “blue-blooded” doesn’t mean what they think it means, adding the murder of a loved one is a personal touch the story that inspired A.P.B. lacks and should cause a fair amount of tension.

Also adding tension? The issues of race and class that this concept should also bring up. With race, class, emotion, and tech issues embedded in it, A.P.B. should tap into science fiction at its best. We’ll have to wait and see.

Top image: Cropped from Cops! DellWorld Edition by Michael Coté/flickr/CC BY 2.0

Contact the author at katharine@io9.com.

I was a happy child, but I didn’t have such a happy childhood. Other kids didn’t get my weird vibe, especially in elementary and middle school. And one year in particular, we moved to a new city and a new school, and things got ugly. Only one thing kept me from losing my shit: Star Blazers.

http://io9.com/5966749/six-le...

When I think back to that year of my life, Star Blazers is pretty much the main thing I remember, because most of the other memories are a blob of pure awful. Star Blazers was the Americanized version of Space Battleship Yamato, an anime series from the 1970s. These dubbed and heavily-edited versions of Yamato were airing pretty heavily in syndication in the 1980s, including every weekday afternoon on Channel 56 in Boston (also the home of the legendary Creature Double Feature.)

Every day when school ended, I would take off running. I was out of the chair before the bell even tapered off, and into the hallway. I ran like my life depended on it, because there were kids I wanted to avoid running into after school at all costs — but also, I knew if I made it home without being terrorized, I had Star Blazers to look forward to.

When I write about bullies and feeling isolated in my new book All the Birds in the Sky, I’m thinking back to that time in my life. And when I think about mad science and magic helping my two main characters to survive being misfits, I’m definitely remembering how Star Blazers gave me an escape.

http://www.amazon.com/All-Birds-Char...

I don’t think a narrative had seized hold of my brain in the same way that Star Blazers did, before this point. It was the combination of high drama and aggressive serialization. The crew of the Yamato (or the Argo, in English) were constantly running from one terrible situation to the next, and their poor old ship was always pushed to its breaking point.

And nothing was ever fully resolved — every escape from danger was only a temporary reprieve. Situations carried over from episode to episode, unlike most U.S. TV of the 1980s and early 1990s, and as I shrank in my chair in the squirming overstuffed classrooms, half my brain was listening to the teacher while the other half was wondering just how the latest cliffhanger would be resolved. Plus the deadly threats to Earth only escalated over time, and the journey progressed — the first bunch of episodes deal with just leaving our solar system. There was even an episode-by-episode countdown of how long Earth had left to live.

In Star Blazers (and Yamato), some aliens called the Gamilons attack the Earth with deadly radiation. The whole planet will be dead in a year, unless a crew of humans travels to the distant planet Iscandar and obtains a cure. To this end, the humans refit an old sunken World War II battleship, using alien technology, and fly across the cosmos, fighting the Gamilons as they go.

And then, in the second season, the Earth is menaced by the evil Comet Empire, which really is a frickin comet piloted by evil, all-powerful aliens. In order to survive, the crew of the Yamato is forced to team up with their old nemesis, Gamilon leader Desslok (or Desslar, in Japanese.)

I’ll be real: the main thing I loved about Star Blazers was the ship. The characters were awesome, and I’ll get to them in a minute, but the Yamato (or the Argo, in English) was the star of the show for me. Way more than the Enterprise felt like the star of Star Trek. Much like the TARDIS on Doctor Who, this was a starship that felt incongruous — like it shouldn’t be spaceworthy, it shouldn’t even be out there at all, much less racing hundreds of light years across the universe. The very fact that we were depending on a World War II battleship in space just underscored how desperate the situation was.

And the Argo was the most long-suffering ship of all time. It was submerged in seas of acid. It was hit with mines. It sustained direct hits from missiles, lost one of its bridges, had its hull shredded, and had pieces flying off it all the time. The distress of the Argo, like that of its crew, felt like a physical thing: engines straining, hull bursting, lines streaking across the screen. The fact that it kept flying and outsmarting the vastly superior forces of the Gamilons and the Comet Empire seemed like a miracle borne of pure determination.

Survival, at all costs.

So I was at this new school, where I didn’t know anyone, and it was way bigger and more chaotic than any school I’d been to before. Budget cuts had just hit this particular school really hard, so classes were being combined, with 40 or 50 kids in a room with one teacher. This was the beginning of the gutting of public education, and you could feel the exhausted panic spreading among the teachers as they realized that teaching, as they had known it, was over.

This was the first school I’d ever been to where one kid beat up another kid in the classroom, as in one kid was on the ground and the other kid kept kicking, and the teacher just carried on talking as if she hadn’t noticed.

This particular school also had a weird system where kids were “streamed” into two tracks — one for academic high achievers, and one for less-advanced kids. Because I was new to the system and had a pretty severe learning disability, I was shunted into the track for slow kids. I was used to being on the receiving end of weird educational experiments, but this felt like some next-level shit, especially when combined with the budget cuts.

This was also the school where I had my first ever frenemy, who was named Courtney* and managed to make sucking up to me while also scheming to destroy me with the other unpopular kids seem somehow adorable. And then there were those other kids, the aforementioned ones who had me jumping out of my desk and sprinting out of school.

It was a combination of boredom and psychological terror the likes of which I’d never experienced, which is why I fell in love with the WAVE MOTION GUN.

So the Argo, or the Yamato in Japanese, was a refitted old battleship that had been equipped with an alien space drive, the tachyon-based Wave Motion Engine. And that’s what allows the Argo to go way faster than light and reach Iscandar in time to get the cure for the deadly radiation. But somehow, the Wave Motion Engine can also be turned into the most devastating weapon in creation, the Wave Motion Gun. It’s as if all of that frenzied forward motion, that velocity in spite of all obstacles, generates a built-up energy that can be unleashed in a pure white burst of power. But you don’t use the Wave Motion Gun unless it’s an absolute emergency (or the last five minutes of an episode, more likely.)

Also, this show is just jam-packed with space battles, including space dogfights and closeups of space cannons firing. In a decade when everything wanted to be the next Star Wars, it’s funny that a show that was made before Star Wars came along was one of the things that came closest to capturing that feeling.

All of Star Blazers seems to be on Youtube, more or less officially. And rewatching the show now, it’s clear that it’s a heavily bastardized and inferior version of the original Japanese show. The dubbing is fairly campy and some of the storylines are stuffed with cheese, but there’s also a surprising amount of scary darkness — like, the radiation-blasted surface of Earth in the early episodes, and the horrific Battle of Pluto. And the first episode of season two starts with images of the Comet Empire’s devastation, including actual nuclear bomb blasts and widespread death. The radiation sickness infecting Earth in the first season is also somewhat gruesome, and it’s easy to see where Japanese people were getting this imagery, a few decades after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But the show remains incredibly stirring and unironically heroic. The theme song has a men’s chorus booming lines like, “We’re off to outer space!” and “We must be strong and brave!”

And the crew of the Yamato is definitely strong and brave. Captain Avatar is a gruff old sailor whose hat covers half his face, and he sits in the command chair uttering words of wisdom... even though he’s dying. (And he actually dies, towards the end of the first season, after getting sicker and sicker.) His second in command, who has the awesome name of Derek Wildstar, is a brash rebel who blames Captain Avatar for the (presumed) death of his brother.

Years later, I lived in Japan and learned Japanese, and became pretty familiar with the concepts of “gambaru” (doing your best, no matter what) and “gaman suru” (remaining strong, in spite of all temptation and suffering). The characters on Star Blazers modeled those qualities for me, even with the sometimes awful dubbing — they seemed both stoic and passionate, and ready to beat the odds over and over.

I found Star Blazers at a time in my life when I felt as though nothing was real and I didn’t know who to trust, when not just the educational system but all the kids and adults around me seemed to be conducting inexplicable experiments. I was constantly scared and bored in equal measure. And in the middle of all this, Star Blazers felt undeniably, viscerally real.

The whole first season of Star Blazers is about the disintegrating old sea vessel rushing towards the floating, ethereal face of Queen Starsha. She’s waiting for them on her homeworld, with the cure for the radiation, and I remember her as kind of a saintly figure as well as a romantic interest for Derek Wildstar’s brother. I hadn’t really gotten a handle on gender, or sexuality, or anything else at that young age, but I understood that Princess Starsha was beautiful, and she was in some sense the antithesis of all the flaming death that’s being thrown at the Star Force every damn day. Queen Starsha is so beautiful, she doesn’t even have a body — she’s mostly just a face floating among the stars. Encouraging the crew of the Argo onwards.

I never even wondered about what was up with Queen Starsha — like, if she could send the Wave Motion Engine to Earth to allow humans to travel to her, why couldn’t she just send us the cure for the radiation? Why couldn’t she travel towards us and meet us half way with the cure? Maybe these questions were answered in the show, and I just missed them.

But that’s what I took away from Star Blazers, the show I ran to when I ran away from school every day. That sense of not just fleeing and enduring, so you can survive to flee and endure again tomorrow, but also running towards something. Hope, or your truer self, or just some illusion of a beautiful head out there in the middle of space somewhere. Beauty.

* Names have been changed, etc. etc.

This post originally appeared back in early 2015.

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of All The Birds in the Sky, out TODAY from Tor Books. Here’s what people have been saying about it. Follow her on Twitter, and email her.

“Wide Open” is the latest music video from the British electronic duo The Chemical Brothers. In this Dom & Nic-directed video, dancer Sonoya Mizuno (who many of you will remember from Ex Machina) slowly morphs into a synthetic version of herself.

The Chemical Brothers appear to be fascinated with cyborgs at the moment, as witnessed by their “Sometimes I Feel So Deserted” clip from last year. The latest single, which features musician Beck on vocals, can be found on their 2015 LP Born in the Echoes.

[Rolling Stone]

Email the author at george@io9.com and follow him @dvorsky.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced today that the Doomsday Clock, which represents our proximity to an apocalyptic event, will remain at three minutes to midnight. But that’s still terrifying.

“That decision is not good news but an expression of dismay that world leaders continue to fail to focus their efforts and the world’s attention on reducing the extreme danger posed by nuclear weapons and climate change,” the group said in a statement.

In a world that hasn’t seen nuclear warfare in over 70 years, the so-called Doomsday Clock sounds like a joke. But when you look at the number of near-misses we’ve had throughout our nuclear history, one thing becomes abundantly clear: The Doomsday Clock is no fucking joke.

Yes, the Doomsday Clock is admittedly a gimmick that’s been used by the anti-nuclear proliferation group and its journal, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, since 1947. But unlike other media-bait events, like “National Popcorn Day” or “Valentine’s Day,” this one actually matters.

The Doomsday Clock is a representation of the danger from threats like climate change, weapons technologies, and perhaps most importantly, the potential for nuclear war. The closest the clock has ever come to “midnight” was in 1953 when the Soviet Union conducted its own hydrogen bomb tests following tests by the United States. At that time the Doomsday Clock was two minutes to midnight.

“When we call these dangers existential, that is exactly what we mean: They threaten the very existence of civilization and therefore should be the first order of business for leaders who care about their constituents and their countries,” the group said in a statement.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 by a group of scientists who had participated in the Manhattan Project. They helped bring nuclear weapons technology to the world, and they were terrified about what they had helped unleash.

It’s easy to dismiss their warnings as over-the-top or foolish. After all, a nuclear weapon hasn’t been used in warfare since 1945. But since 1945 we’ve been one button push away from starting World War III. Whether it was a mistaken order given to a US Air Force Captain in 1962, or a computer simulation in 1979 falsely alerting NORAD to an incoming nuclear attack from the Soviet Union, we’ve had too many brushes with nuclear winter.

Despite our focus on other issues, nuclear proliferation and the security of the world’s nuclear stockpile should remain in the international consciousness. That’s what the Doomsday Clock is for. The tough part is that unlike the rhetoric of so many politicians, this isn’t a problem that can be solved by bombing our way out of it.

Questions like “What if ISIS gets a nuclear weapon?” or “What happens if China or Russia accidentally launch a first strike against the United States?” or even “What happens if the United States accidentally launches a first strike against a near-peer adversary?” aren’t questions that can be solved with an answer like build more bombs. You can’t bomb your way out of this particular threat. The bombs themselves, after all, are the threat.

It’s three minutes to midnight. So what do we need to do? According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:

• Dramatically reduce proposed spending on nuclear weapons modernization programs.
  
• Re-energize the disarmament process, with a focus on results.
  
• Engage North Korea to reduce nuclear risks.
  
• Follow up on the Paris accord with actions that sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fulfill the Paris promise of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius.
  
• Deal now with the commercial nuclear waste problem.
  
• Create institutions specifically assigned to explore and address potentially catastrophic misuses of new technologies.
  

Obviously all of those things aren’t something that can be achieved on an individual level. Take your reusable bags to the supermarket, and drive your electric car. But if the Doomsday Clock serves any purpose beyond that of a media gimmick, it’s to remind us that none of these issues can be addressed without global cooperation.

It’s three minutes to midnight. Good luck, humanity.

Image via screenshot of press conference

One of the greatest strengths of DC’s digital-first comic line is its ability to condense everything about its subject—whether that’s the goofy charm of Batman ‘66 or the nebulous ideals of what it is to be Wonder Woman—into the short, sharp constraints of a weekly release. In that regard, the first chapter of The Adventures of Supergirl is a rousing success.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/tvs-supergirl-...

Minor spoilers ahead for Adventures of Supergirl chapter one by Sterling Gates, Bengal, and Saida Temofonte.

The first chapter of Adventures, out this week, picks up right in the midst of the action, with Kara going to toe-to-toe with the old Superman villain Rampage. It’s indicative of the rapid fire pace that DC’s digital weeklies have just by the nature of their form, but it’s also really what you want from this series—there’s little downtime, it’s Kara doing what she does best, and having fun doing it. Even when the book gets down to the almost-mandatory “Previously on Supergirl!” recap, it manages to condense the show’s own pilot into a handful of pages before getting back to the fighting.

But even with that speedy pacing, Gates still packs in the personality of the Kara we know and love from the series into the short space he has. She’s instantly recognizable, but with little nuggets of backstory woven in (apparently Kara was bullied at school, and rather proficient at the hilariously named video game Street Kombat 6) that informs who she is as a hero today. From the very first page until the cliffhanger at the end, this feels like it could be an episode straight out of the show’s currently-ongoing first season, even with the focus on the action rather than the goings on in Kara’s alter-ego life at CatCo.

The one area that Adventures actually breaks away from the show, and for good reason, is in its art style for the main characters. More often than not a comic based around licensed appearances can fall apart with a dodgy rendering of a familiar face, but Bengal adopts a much more comic-y style. This Kara is the platinum blonde Kara of the comics, rather than Melissa Benoist, and the brief appearances of Henshaw and Kara’s adoptive sister Alex are loose approximations rather than dedicated attempts to capture David Harewood and Chyler Leigh. It never draws you out of the book with a wince at a bad likeness.

Bengal’s coloring and art style is loose and bright—refreshingly, almost searingly so, even brighter than the show itself can be—and it gives the series a distinct style of its own, rather than trying to too closely resemble the TV show’s aesthetic. It doesn’t really need to, as where it shines is how it nails the tone of the show, rather than how it looks.

Even in this earliest of showings, Adventures of Supergirl is a lot like the show it’s based on—breezy and fun superheroics, with a focus on a character that’s not got much love in the comics since her ongoing series was canceled last year. There’s a lot to like here, especially if you enjoy the show—but hopefully the promise spins out not just into more Adventures, but an ongoing Supergirl series in the main DC continuity, too.

Header Image Credit: Adventures of Supergirl #1 cover by Cat Staggs.

If your movie theater of choice is operated by Regal, this discounted gift card essentially amounts to ten free dollars. That’s like a free large popcorn (hopefully)! [$50 Regal Gift Card, $40]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1118853066...

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The Washington Post has a fascinating article on the work of linguists who are looking at every line of dialogue from Disney princess movies and analyzing them for their representations of women. The results are mixed, to say the least.

You can read the whole thing at the Washington Post (and you should, there’s a lot of data), but here are a few highlights:

Linguists Carmen Fought and Karen Eisenhauer are interested in where the idea of how girls should act is transmitted through language in media. Their research is in the preliminary stages, but they’ve already presented some findings to America’s largest linguist conference.

First, they measured how often female characters speak compared to the male ones. The early films are much more equal, with Snow White at about 50 percent each, Cinderella at 60 percent in favor of the women, and Sleeping Beauty at 71 percent. Ironically, the ‘90s films tilt in favor of the male characters, with even Mulan giving male characters 77 percent of the dialogue—given that Mulan is the only female on screen for the majority of the film, it makes some sense, especially since Eddie Murphy’s Mushu delivers dialogue by the page. But she’s still the title character.

The reason, points out Fought, is exactly that. Outside of the characters who end up as official “Disney princesses,” there are no other female characters. Added Eisenhauer, “My best guess is that it’s carelessness, because we’re so trained to think that male is the norm.” So every minor character added is defaulted to male.

Second, the two researchers looked at how the female characters are talked about. Compliments to female characters in the earliest films were 55 percent about their looks, 38 percent were looks-based in the ‘90s films, and only 22 percent in the most recent batch.

All of which suggests improvement, and is definitely a conscious choice on Disney’s behalf. Which is nice to see, but doesn’t help the mixed emotions that come with knowing that Frozen is still dominated by male speaking roles.

Image: Official Disney Princesses via Disney Princess Wiki

Contact the author at katharine@io9.com.

If you build it, the space tourists will come. That was the promise to the taxpayers of New Mexico back in 2009 when Spaceport America broke ground. Seven years and roughly $220 million later, New Mexico has little to show for it. And now the private space facility is asking for even more money.

New Mexico is one of the poorest states in the country. So it’s easy to see why state legislators wanted to attract new jobs and businesses. Lawmakers were promised that if they helped finance a new spaceport in the middle of the desert, they’d attract millions of dollars in the burgeoning field of space tourism.

Unfortunately, Spaceport America and billionaire business tycoon Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic have not produced the boon in jobs and money that they promised. And to top it all off, the facility has just asked for another $2.35 million from cash-strapped New Mexico. It may not seem like a lot, but for the one of the poorest states in the nation in which a staggering 22 percent of residents live in poverty, it’s throwing good money after bad.

From the Albuquerque Journal:

In the past few years, the spaceport has gotten about $462,000 annually from the Legislature to help fund operations. Gov. Susana Martinez’s proposed $6.5 billion budget asks for the same annual outlay for the spaceport plus an additional, non-recurring $2.35 million “for operating costs due to a shortfall in revenue from other sources.”

Right now, Virgin Galactic, the only active tenant in the facility, pays just $1 million per year to lease the Spaceport. They started paying in 2013, and their bill will increase to $3 million in 2018. But that pales in comparison to the money that has already been shelled out, and continues to be shelled out, by the state.

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/over-a-decade-...

After Virgin Galactic’s tragic failure in 2014, when SpaceShipTwo exploded and killed one pilot, the people of New Mexico became even more pessimistic that space tourism would flourish in their state. Lawmakers are getting desperate to see their investment pay off. One idea for the Spaceport is to have it function as more of an entertainment or conference center. But that require more legislation to let Spaceport America do whatever it wants.

Again, from the Albuquerque Journal:

Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, has introduced Senate Bill 147 at the spaceport’s behest to provide the facility with a governmental liquor license like the ones universities and some museums have, ostensibly to polish the facility’s credentials as an event location.

Virgin Galactic is actively trying to get a Spaceport built in the UK. Given space tourism’s track record in New Mexico, we might humbly suggest to our British friends that they make the billionaires pay for it themselves.

[Parabolic Arc]

(AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

Damien Wayne isn’t much of a team player at the best of times, but when the Justice League gets possessed by evil aliens and he gets the chance to beat up Superman and pals? You bet he’s going to team up with the Teen Titans, in their first foray into DC’s original animation movie series.

IGN has revealed the trailer for the latest in the lengthy, lengthy line of DC’s straight-to-DVD animated saga. It sees the unruly Damien forced to work with Starfire, Cyborg, Raven, Beast Boy, and Blue Beetle after he botches a mission with the Justice League—only for the young group to find out that Raven’s demonic dad, Trigon, has possessed the League, leading to the titular throwdown.

It’s looking good so far, and if you’re not fond of the Titan’s current, highly stylized antics on Teen Titans Go! (it might be because you hate fun or something, but that’s just my opinion), this is a chance to see them in a more serious environment. But also, it’s another chance to watch superheroes punch each other in the face before you see them doing it live-action style in Captain America: Civil War or Batman v Superman.

Justice League vs Teen Titans is due for release in Spring.

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Today only, Amazon’s taking up to 90% off Kindle books for students, but even if your formal education is a distant memory, there’s plenty in here to check out. You’ll find interesting biographies for just a few bucks, self-help books, programming language guides, and a lot more. [Get up to 90% Off Kindle Books for Students]

Let us know what you picked up in the comments!

Chances are, you spend a solid chunk of your day behind a desk in an office, so you owe it to yourself to make that space as comfortable as possible. Luckily, Amazon’s here to help with a great Gold Box deal.

Inside, you’ll find an assortment of 3M workspace solutions, including laptop stands, monitor arms, footrests, and even an ergonomic mouse that looks like a flight stick. Be sure to head over to Amazon to see the full list, and be sure to lock in your order before the best stuff sells out. [3M Workspace Gold Box]

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

Students who still haven’t purchased their obscenely priced textbooks yet just got a little relief from Amazon. Through tomorrow, every order containing $100 in physical books is eligible for a $10 discount with promo code 2016WINTER. Check out all the fine print here for more information. [$10 off Any $100 Physical Book Offer, Promo code 2016WINTER]

And as always, students can sign up for a free 6 month trial of Amazon Prime here.

If your movie theater of choice is operated by Regal, this discounted gift card essentially amounts to ten free dollars. That’s like a free large popcorn (hopefully)! [$50 Regal Gift Card, $40]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1118853066...

Why wash a pot and a colander when one device can do both jobs? If you cook pasta with any regularity, this will be a great addition to your kitchen. [Bialetti Trends Collection 5 Quart Pasta Pot, $25]

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

If you’re still torturing yourself with a slow, unreliable inkjet printer, it’s time to upgrade. This monochrome Brother laser printer can spit out 27 pages per minute, and includes a scanner, wireless networking (including AirPrint and Google Cloud Print), and duplex. Best of all though, replacement toner is affordable, and it lasts way longer than inkjet cartridges.

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

Today’s $110 deal matches an all-time low, so lock in your order before the price goes back up. [Brother MFCL2700DW Laser Printer, $110]

Amazon just kicked off a Gold Box deal on select Crucial and Lexar “memory” products, which in this case refers to both flash storage solutions and RAM.

Inside, you’ll find a 240GB SSD for just $54, 8GB of RAM for as low as $29, an iOS compatible flash drive, discounted SD cards, and more. As with all Gold Box deals though, these prices are only available today, and the most popular products could sell out early. [Crucial and Lexar Gold Box]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01...

For a limited time, RadioShack (that’s not a typo) is selling a new Apple TV for $120, or $30 off its MSRP, matching an earlier holiday deal. Be sure to check out Gizmodo’s review if you’re on the fence. [Apple TV Next Generation - 32GB and HDMI Cable Bundle, $120]

https://www.radioshack.com/products/apple...

Update: Sold out

You should probably keep a tire gauge, flashlight, seatbelt cutter, and window hammer in every car you own, and for $13, you can kill four birds with one stone. [DBPOWER Handy Digital Tire Pressure Gauge, $13 with code 2KLTTMPX]

LED bulbs pay for themselves many times over with dramatic energy savings and lifespans that can be measured in decades, and you can make the transition in one fell swoop with today’s Home Depot deal of the day. Inside, you’ll find multipacks of bulbs from Cree, one of the most trusted names in LED lighting. I have several of these scattered around my house, and I love them. [Cree LED Sale]

http://www.homedepot.com/SpecialBuy/Spe...

For just $6 today, you can sip your drinks in style with a four pack stainless steel drinking straws. I own a set of these, and use one every day in my drinking glass, but they’re also great when you’re entertaining and want to class up the drinks you serve your guests. [X-Chef Stainless Steel Bend Replacement Metal Straws with Cleaner Brush, Set of 4, $6]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0146HSJ5A

Just when you thought you’d seen everything that external USB battery packs had to offer, this model from Choetech packs in a few surprises.

This is the one of the only battery packs I’ve ever seen that can recharge over both microUSB and Lightning, meaning you should always have a charging cable handy. It also supports Quick Charge 2.0 input and output, meaning you can recharge the massive 15,600mAh cells up to 75% faster, and get that juice into your phone with minimal delay. Plus, $22 is a pretty solid price for any battery pack this size, so you’re basically getting the extra features for free. [Quick Charge 2.0 15600mAh External Battery Power Bank (Apple Lightning Charging Port), $22 with code Z9646RFC]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZCGLBT6/

If you still own any TVs without access to smart apps, this speedy Roku 2 has access to over 2,000 streaming channels (plus a few secret ones), and has never been cheaper. You can also add a 6' HDMI cable for $3 more. [Roku 2, $59]

http://www.amazon.com/Roku-Streaming...

http://lifehacker.com/the-best-priva...

http://gizmodo.com/heres-why-roku...

The Nexus 5X is one of the best midrange phones you can buy, and Amazon is discounting it by $50 today, matching their Black Friday pricing. Own one? Let us know what you think in the comments. [Nexus 5X, $299]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01...

http://gizmodo.com/the-nexus-5x-r...

We’ve seen a handful of sub-$20 Bluetooth speakers, but not many of them can join you in the shower. The Omaker M4 can do just that thanks to its IP54-rated splash resistance, and still deliver up to 12 hours of playtime on a single charge. That’s perfect if you like to sing in the shower, or just need to catch up on your podcast queue. [Omaker M4 Water Resistant Bluetooth 4.0 Speaker, $19 with code QU7KIBIU]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RBIC1IS

You’ve heard of Automatic, but if $80-$100 is too rich for your blood, this cheap OBD2 dongle connects to any iPhone or Android device over Wi-Fi, and can fulfill many of the same functions with various third party apps. [Etekcity Wi-Fi OBD-II Smart Car Diagnostic Scanner/Code Reader, $17 with code ULDIE5WO]

http://www.amazon.com/Etekcity-Diagn...

You have no shortage of options when it comes to Bluetooth speakers, but the Jawbone Jambox line started the entire trend, and its highly-rated mini model is just $47 today on Groupon. [MINI JAMBOX by Jawbone Wireless Bluetooth Speaker, $47 with code VISA5]

https://www.groupon.com/deals/gg-mini-...

I’m an unabashed fanboy of Nomad products, and you can save over $100 on a gift set of two today, courtesy of Best Buy.

• Nomad Roadtrip - A dual-port (one USB-A and one USB-C) car charger with a 3,000mAh rechargeable battery built in. (Normally sells for $60)
• Nomad Wallet - A genuine saffiano leather wallet with an unobtrusive 2400mAh battery and Lightning cable built in. (Normally sells for $100)

Can you even imagine saving your friend’s dying iPhone with your wallet charger? I bet that alone could earn you a few free drinks at the bar. Just note that this bundle is marketed as a holiday gift set, so my assumption is that once it’s sold out, it’ll be gone for good. [Nomad Holiday Gift Set, $50]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nomad-Holi...

If your computer is also your favorite gaming machine, we’ve spotted deals on two great Logitech peripherals today.

The venerable G710+ mechanical gaming keyboard (one of your five favorites) is down to $80 on Amazon, which is one of the best prices we’ve ever seen. That price gets you six programmable G-keys, dual-zone backlighting, and quiet mechanical keys. We don’t expect this to last long. [Logitech G710+ Mechanical Gaming Keyboard with Tactile High-Speed Keys - Cherry MX Brown, $80]

http://kotaku.com/co-op-the-best...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009C98NPY/...

And for all of your chatting needs, Logitech’s G930 surround sound headset is also marked down to $70 for Prime members, which is within $2 of its all-time low price. [Logitech Wireless Gaming Headset G930 with 7.1 Surround Sound, $70]

http://kotaku.com/whats-the-best...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003VANOFY/...

We see “toy” drones for $46 fairly frequently, but this model is unlike any other.

Of course, it can fly and record 720p video like similar drones, but with a few modifications, it can also transform into a remote controlled car, or even climb up walls. I own a DJI Phantom, and I still kind of want to buy this thing just to try out the other modes. This was on sale for the same price a few weeks ago, but if you missed out that time, it just came back in stock. [DBPOWER Hawkeye-I, $46]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013JNEPNC/...

If you’re having friends over for the Super Bowl, you simply can’t subject them to the feeble, tinny sound of your TV’s built-in speakers. Luckily, this highly-rated LG sound bar comes with a wireless subwoofer for extra bass, and will only set you back $130 today. [LG - 2.1-Channel Soundbar with Wireless Subwoofer, $130]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LG-2-1-Cha...

You all seem to love magnetic smartphone dash mounts, but the only major complaint we hear is that they block an air vent. Well, chances are, you have a CD slot in your car that hasn’t been used since the Bush administration, so here’s a clever product that will put it back to work. [Mpow Magnetic CD Slot Phone Holder, $10 with code 5CQWPWP3]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01933Q120

http://bestsellers.kinja.com/bestsellers-mp...

A good step stool is something everyone should own, and this highly-rated model folds up to practically nothing. And yet, it can hold up to 300 pounds. Today’s $10 deal is an all-time low. [Greenco Super Strong Foldable Step Stool, $10]

http://www.amazon.com/Greenco-Super-...

Tech

Storage

• Lexar High-Performance MicroSDXC 633x 128GB UHS-I/U3 w/USB 3.0 Reader ($44) | Amazon
• Lexar Professional 1000x microSDXC 64GB UHS-II/U3 (Up to 150MB/s Read) W/USB 3.0 Reader ($40) | Amazon
• Lexar Professional 633x 128GB SDXC UHS-I/U3 Card ($45) | Amazon
• Lexar Platinum II 64 200x GB SDXC UHS I Card ($15) | eBay
• Lexar Professional 633x 64GB SDXC UHS-I/U3 Card ($24) | Amazon
• Lexar Professional 1000x 32GB SDHC UHS-II/U3 Card ($18) | Amazon
• Lexar JumpDrive S35 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive ($15) | Amazon
• Lexar JumpDrive S75 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive ($10) | Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S5V63NO/...

Power

• Anker Astro E5 16000mAh Compact Portable Charger 2nd Generation with PowerIQ Technology ($25) | Amazon
• Belkin 6-Outlet Surge Protector with 6-Foot Cord ($11) | Amazon
• Inateck 33W 2-Port USB Car Charger with Built in MFi Lightning Cable ($12) | Amazon | Use code QDTX4PGH
• 30W Quick Charge 2.0 Dual USB Car Charger with Micro USB Cable ($6) | Amazon | Use code 725N2G9D
• Quick Charge 2.0 15600mAh External Battery Power Bank (Apple Lightning Charging Port) ($22) | Amazon | Use code Z9646RFC
• DBPOWER 6 USB & 6 Outlets Power Strip ($21) | Amazon | Use code K2KPHTDM
• Anker PowerCore+ 20100 USB-C/Type-C Ultra-High-Capacity Premium External Battery ($51) | Amazon
• Anker 3-Pack PowerLine MicroUSB Cables ($7) | Amazon | Promo code D6SWG2EN
• Anker PowerLine 6ft Apple MFi Certified Lightning to USB Cable ($10) | Amazon | Promo code Y4QNX8RS
• Anker 15W Dual Solar Charger ($40) | Amazon | Promo code RY7VRDNF

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D5VAYRU/...

Audio

• 2-Pack of Ion Audio Clipster Outdoor Bluetooth Speakers ($23) | meh
• Yurbuds Inspire 300 Mossy Oak Sport Earphones ($10) | JBL | Use code YBMOS10
• Omaker M4 Water Resistant Bluetooth 4.0 Speaker ($19) | Amazon | Use code QU7KIBIU

Home Theater

• Sharp AQUOS 60-Inch LED 2160p Smart 4K Ultra HDTV ($1000) | Best Buy
• Sceptre U500CV-U 49" 4K Ultra HD 60Hz Class LED HDTV ($380) | Walmart
• LG 49-Inch LED Full HD 1080p HDTV ($360) | eBay
• Refurb VIZIO E48-C2 48-Inch LED Smart HDTV ($300) | Walmart
• Insignia 75" Tripod Projector Screen ($120) | Best Buy
• Roku 2 4210R Streaming Media Player with HDMI Cable ($62) | Amazon
• Mainstays No Tools 3-Cube Storage Entertainment Center ($20) | Walmart

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00W6QEZHK/...

Computers & Accessories

• Acer G7 Series 21.5" 6ms (GTG) HDMI Widescreen LED Backlight Monitor + 2X HDMI Cables ($85) | Newegg
• Acer 23" 5ms Widescreen LED Monitor ($90) | Newegg
• 3M Adjustable Vertical Laptop Stand ($18) | Amazon
• 3M Extra Wide Adjustable Monitor Stand ($21) | Amazon
• 3M Easy Adjust Desk Mount Dual Monitor Arm ($184) | Amazon
• 3M Easy Adjust Keyboard Tray ($120) | Amazon
• Logitech M325 Wireless Advanced Optical Mouse ($10) | Staples
• Inateck Apple-style Bluetooth wireless portable keyboard ($16) | Amazon | Use code G6NEE6JC

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MK2Y2K/...

PC Parts

• Crucial BX200 240GB SATA 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Drive ($54) | Amazon
• Crucial 16GB Kit DDR3 1600 MT/s (PC3-12800) CL11 Non-ECC, UDIMM 240-Pin Desktop Memory ($53) | Amazon
• Crucial 8GB Single DDR3/DDR3L 1600 MT/s (PC3-12800) CL11 SODIMM 204-Pin 1.35V/1.5V Memory for Mac ($29) | Amazon
• Crucial 8GB Kit (4GBx2) DDR3 1600 MT/s (PC3 - 12800) CL11 SODIMM Notebook Memory ($30) | Amazon
• Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB Kit (4GBx2) DDR3 1600 MT/s (PC3-12800) CL9 @1.5V UDIMM 240-Pin Memor ($33) | Amazon
• Mushkin Enhanced ECO2 2.5" 512GB SATA III Internal SSD ($120) | Newegg

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008LTBLLY/...

Mobile Devices

• LG Nexus 5X Unlocked Smartphone - Black 16GB ($299) | Amazon
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0" (Wi-Fi) 32GB ($300) | Amazon

Photography

• Lowepro Whistler BP 450 AW Backpack ($200) | B&H

Home

• LED Bulb Multi-Packs are On Sale Today at Home Depot
• Dimmable LED Desk Lamp ($30) | Amazon | Use code M5M2ZCAM
• OxyLED rechargeable, touch control Night Light for Indoors and Outdoors ($17) | Amazon | Use code YTO9GOCT
• Attmu 48 Labels Chalkboard Labels, Chalkboard Stickers, 8 Styles X 6 Sets, 3.5 X 2 Inches, Black ($6) | Amazon | Use code Y4R63P6E

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Beauty & Grooming

• ACEVIVI Adjustable Temperature Black Ceramic Tourmaline Ionic Flat Iron Hair Straightener ($26) | Amazon | Use code ND24PQ4L

Kitchen

• Keurig K10 Mini Plus Brewing System ($73) | Amazon
• Pastry and Ravioli Wheel, X-Chef Stainless Steel Ravioli Pastry Cutter Wheel ($7) | Amazon
• Set of 4 X-Chef Stainless Steel Bend Replacement Metal Straws with Cleaner Brush ($6) | Amazon
• X-Chef Premium Stainless Steel Mesh Tea Infuser for Cosy Tea Time, Set of 6 ($10) | Amazon

Fitness

• iPhone 6 Plus Reflective Running Belt ($13) | Amazon
• Supermats Heavy Duty P.V.C. Mat for Treadmills / Ski Machine / etc. ($27) | Amazon
• ELEGIANT Flat 8 Rung Agility Ladder 15.7 Inch Quick Agility Ladder ($11) | Amazon | Use code 95IXCP8D

Apparel

• Take $18 off $100+ at UNIQLO with Code LUCKY18
• Take an Additional 40% Off Clearance at H&M | Use code 3301
• Hanes is Having a Flash Sale
• Cabela’s Men’s Acrylic Knit Watch Cap ($2) | Cabelas | Use code 16WINTER
• Canari Hammer Long-Sleeve Bike Jersey - Men’s ($22) | REI

Camping & Outdoors

• High Sierra Fat Boy Backpack ($18) | Woot
• Gerber Epic Knife, Serrated Edge ($24) | Amazon
• Kershaw 6055 CQC-4KXL Folding Knife ($29) | Amazon
• Front and Rear Aluminum LED Bike Light Set and 2 Valve Wheels Lights ($12) | Amazon
• Intex Twin Classic Downy Airbed Mattress ($8) | Walmart

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0034JTARI/...

Tools & Auto

• BLACK & DECKER 2-Tool 20-Volt Lithium Ion (Li-ion) Cordless Combo Kit ($50) | Lowes
• DBPOWER Handy Digital Tire Pressure Gauge ($13) | Amazon | Use code 2KLTTMPX
• Etekcity WiFi OBD2 Smart Car Diagnostic Scanner/Code Reader for iOS and Android ($17) | Amazon | Use code ULDIE5WO
• Conbrov T9 1080p Full Hd Car Dash Cam ($30) | Amazon | Use code KE8AH55Y
• Craftsman 33 Gallon Vertical Air Compressor ($300) | Sears
• Gorilla Garden Dump Cart ($80) | Sears

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XTSV0G8/...

Media

Movies & TV

• X-Files: The Collector’s Set ($130) | Best Buy
• Mr. Robot: Season 1 ($30) | Amazon
• Furious 7 ($11) | Amazon
• Fury ($10) | Amazon
• St. Vincent ($10) | Amazon
• Terminator Genisys ($23) | Amazon
• Predator / Predator 2 ($8) | Amazon
• 28 Days Later / 28 Weeks Later ($8) | Amazon
• Tokyo Ghoul: The Complete First Season ($31) | Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016W52CC0/...

Books & Magazines

• Get up to 90% Off Kindle Books for Students | Amazon | Today Only
• Meet Me in Atlantis Audiobook ($4) | Audible

Gaming

Peripherals

• Razer Taipan Ambidextrous PC Gaming Mouse ($70) | Amazon
• Coolermaster CM Storm QuickFire Rapid Mechanical Gaming Keyboard ($60) | Amazon | After $10 rebate
• Plantronics GameCom 788 Gaming Headset ($30) | eBay
• Razer Hammerhead Pro In-Ear Gaming Headset With Mic ($25) | eBay
• VicTsing Mechanical Gaming Keyboard ($73) | Amazon | Promo code 2XODYL9U

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0198EJP3Q

PC

• Preorder XCOM 2 ($48) | Golden Joystick
• Run Rabbit Run ($1) | Steam
• Hacknet ($7) | Steam
• The Witcher 3 ($25) | Green Man Gaming
• Rainbow Six Siege ($40) | Green Man Gaming
• Assassin’s Creed Syndicate ($34) | Green Man Gaming

PlayStation 4

• Sony PS4 500GB Star Wars Console + Uncharted + Call of Duty Black Ops III ($370) | eBay
• Deadpool ($30) | Amazon

Xbox One

• Sunset Overdrive ($17) | Amazon
• Deadpool ($30) | Amazon

Wii U

• Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric ($13) | Walmart

Vita

• Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax ($15) | Amazon

3DS

• Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven ($30) | Amazon
• Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate Standard Edition ($30) | Amazon

Board Games

• Star Wars Force and Destiny: Core Rulebook ($39) | Amazon

Toys

• 4-Pack of Assorted Large LEGO Building Plates 4570274 ($27) | Amazon

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