In an astounding act of kindness from the anonymous reaches of the Internet, one kid’s dinosaur YouTube channel skyrocketed to fame yesterday, jumping from 22 subscribers to over 70,000 in a matter of hours.

It started Friday afternoon, when Redditor Jouletheif submitted one of the kid’s toy dino action videos to r/videos, noting that “the prehistoric channel” had been putting out one of these gems every day for the past four months. The post quickly blew up, and in the sort of viral frenzy that can only happen on an attention-deficit Friday afternoon, Reddit watched with bated breath as the kid’s subscriber count grew by the thousands.

When the prehistoric channel hit 29,342 subscribers yesterday, the kid put out a heartbreakingly adorable update. “I don’t even know if that’s true or not, it could be a problem with YouTube,” he said, in reference to sudden outpouring of support. “But if it’s true this means I have hit fame level! And if this is true it is just so huge.”

Moments like this offer a rare reminder that the Internet isn’t always a steaming heap of garbage. For that, I’d like to thank everyone and ask that if you haven’t done so already, please do subscribe to this kid’s channel so that we can keep this singular moment or warmth and support alive as long as possible.

[Mashable]

<Read with a pseudo-Bond villain Voice.>: Hello, hoomans. We have taken over this communications platform. Bring us foods.

Open channel time! Meet Arthur (Orange) and Merlin (Black), the two cats that have taken over our home who steal my body heat in the winter. Merlin arrived first, and the first name that my wife came up with was Merlin. When we decided that he needed a friend, we decided to stick with the same naming convention.

Your turn: show us your pet with a geeky name (or any name, for that matter). Tell us their story and how they’ve taken over your life. Bonus points if you do it in that voice you have for them in your head. You know you have one.

<HOOMAN. STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD AND FEED US. WE'RE IN IMMINENT DANGER OF STARVING. WE SEE THE BOTTOM OF THE BOWL.>

Yesterday, word broke that Bryan Fuller was bringing the sci-fi anthology show Amazing Stories back to life. Now, you can watch the entire first season of the original 80s series over on NBC.

Amazon released the pilot for Man in the High Castle for anyone to watch back in January, and now, they’ve released the second episode, Sunrise for the same treatment for this weekend only.

Some spoilers below.

http://io9.com/man-in-the-hig...

Based on the Philip K. Dick novel, Man in the High Castle depicts an alternate timeline in which the Axis Powers defeated the Allies during the Second World War. The United States is invaded and divided up: Germany gets the east coast up to the Rockies, while the Japanese get the western coast. In the pilot, we watched as Juliana Crain received a mysterious film reel that sent her into the Neutral Zone. On the other side of the country, Joe Blake began to drive across the country on a mission for the tattered resistance movement.

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

Episode 2, ‘Sunrise’, picks up right after the revelation that Joe is really a Nazi agent, and after Juliana’s boyfriend, Frank, was captured by Japanese agents trying to track down the missing film reel. Carried on from the first episode, the show continues to be outstanding: it’s beautifully shot, with outstanding set design and effects.

Juliana finds herself in the Neutral Zone, where she’s to meet her contact, while Joe is there to do the same thing. Things get complicated when Joe’s informed by his father that they’re looking for someone who brought the films to Colorado, and he’s caught in a bit of a quandary. Meanwhile, Germany and Japan alike are trying to figure out how to deal with one another, especially as Hitler’s time in charge seems to be limited.

Where the pilot really set up the world and set the story running, it’s clear that we’re in for a show with a bit of a slower burn. Sunrise picks up the action and shows us something else: Hitler’s desperation to track down these film reels, which show off a world in which the Axis Powers didn’t win. In doing so, the show does something profound: it shows the value of science fiction and how one piece of art can change the world.

The piece of art that we see here isn’t actually fiction: it’s footage from our world, where the Allies won the war. Several characters mention that Hitler doesn’t have idle obsessions, and he considers the existence of the reels to be an upmost threat to his Empire.

The resistance knows it too. As Frank is held prisoner, he speaks with a fellow prisoner who tells him that there’s more at stake here, and that there are things worth dying for. It’s a theme that’s particularly easy to do within a dystopian context like this, and the filmmakers here know how to drive home the point hard: the episode is tense and keeps you at the edge of your seat as it slowly builds and builds.

There’s other threats to the Reich as well: Hitler’s sick, and people are jockeying for power, which is putting Japan on edge: if the wrong people come to power in Germany, the two empires will potentially go to war with one another. This episode deepens that story as well, and it looks like it’ll be something that will play into the rest of the season.

There’s the really interesting little differences that pop up in alternate history: there’s an alternate, Nazi version of Dragnet on the television, while Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are largely forgotten. The filmmakers here have done an excellent job building their alternative America, and the aesthetics mesh well with the larger themes.

I’d recommend catching this episode while it’s available this weekend - the pilot was excellent, and this followup doesn’t make us think any differently.

A rogue chunk of debris that orbited Earth far beyond the Moon is making a homecoming on November 13th, astronomers have concluded. WT1190F is one to two meters in length and probably hollow, but beyond that, we have no idea WTF the aptly-named piece of space garbage is.

Much, if not all of WT1190F will burn up in orbit around 06:19 GMT on November 13th. Any remaining fragments will splash into the Indian Ocean just south of Sri Lanka, so if you were planning a fishing outing on that very day, maybe reschedule. The event will go unnoticed by most of the world, but the astronomers who track near-Earth objects are all in a tizzy over it. WT1190F’s atmospheric re-entry is a rare opportunity for scientists to study how incoming objects interact with our atmosphere. It’s also giving astronomers the chance to test-drive a coordinated network they’ve put in place for occasions when more dangerous space objects comes a-knockin’.

A piece of space junk on a collision course with Earth appears as a bright spec in the center of the GIF below. Image Credit: B. Bolin, R. Jedicke, M. Micheli

I just hope we get to learn what it is. While there are many thousands of piece of space trash — satellite fragments, spent rocket stages, old paneling — orbiting close to the Earth, we’ve only tracked 20 or so artificial objects in distant orbits. WT1190F, with a highly elliptical orbit tracing twice as far out as the Earth-Moon distance, is a pretty special piece of trash. As Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told Nature News, it could be a “lost piece of space history come back to haunt us,” perhaps an old rocket fragment from the Apollo era.

Now that’d be a pretty cool thing for humanity to rediscover — even if it’ll be gone in a flash.

[Nature News]

Follow the author @themadstone

Top: Sunset over the Pacific Ocean, as seen from the ISS. Image Credit: NASA

Here we go again, folks! July was the hottest July on record, August the hottest August, so I bet you can’t fathom what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has to say about the September that closed out the hottest summer on record. You guessed it!

This week, NOAA gave us its monthly state-of-the-climate report, once again, planet Earth bested the statistical odds. The likelihood that seven of the nine months this year so far would be the hottest in NOAA’s 136 years of bookkeeping is astronomically small, unless this is indicative of some sort of trend. Which, of course, it absolutely is. We’ve seen enough record-smashing heat waves, 500 year droughts and mega-fires of late to know that something is seriously up with our planet’s thermostat.

This September, Earth clocked in at 1.62°F (0.90°C) hotter than our global average September temperature for the 20th century (59ºF, 15.0°C). September 2015 also saw the greatest temperature departure from its 20th century mean among all months on record (in other words, we just lived through the most unusually warm month of all). Large regions of Earth’s land surface were much warmer than average, as can be seen in the image below.

For the United States, it was actually only the second warmest September on record, with temperatures 3.7°F (2.1°C) above their 20th century mean.

Image Credit: NOAA

Strong El Niño conditions and the resultant warm water blob over the Pacific are certainly contributing to the global heatwave. But even when you compare this year with 1997, the last time a powerful El Niño occurred, Earth is still looking too toasty. In fact, we’re well on our way to stealing 2014’s title as the hottest year in recorded history. Says Climate Central:

The odds that 2015 will be the warmest year on record have been set at 93 percent by NASA and 97 percent by NOAA, using slightly different methods. Those numbers are based solely on the warmth so far this year and how it compares to the overall annual averages of the total record — essentially, the ability of the last three months of the year to bring down the average are extremely limited.

The only thing that could stop us now is a dramatic global cooling episode over the next few months, which is going to take a wacky geo-engineering scheme, a couple of well-timed volcanic eruptions, or alien intervention. So I’m gonna go ahead and call it. Beers on me if I’m wrong?

[Read the full report at NOAA h/t Climate Central]

Follow the author @themadstone

Top image: Shutterstock

In the run-up to Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams guest-starring on Doctor Who, there were all sorts of rumors about which character she was playing. And a lot of people believed she was playing Jenny, the “Doctor’s Daughter” from the episode of that name. Instead, she’s playing something much more interesting.

Spoilers ahead...

In some ways, this is sort of a replay of “The Doctor’s Daughter,” except that the Doctor bears more responsibility for the conception of this particular offspring. Back in season four, the David Tennant version of the Doctor had his genes sampled to create a genetic “offspring” who emerges fully grown and indoctrinated for war, and the Doctor has to get through to her and teach her that war is bad.

This time around, the Doctor has another girl who’s been turned into a reflection of himself, except that this time it was his own doing. And her great shortcoming is actually entirely based on the Doctor’s own immortal disregard for limited humans and our short lifespans, which we’ve seen him struggle with in the past.

In “The Woman Who Lived,” the Viking girl that the Doctor saved is still alive, and it’s 800 years later. She no longer goes by Ashildr, because what’s the point in having a name when everybody else will be dead soon, and instead calls herself simply “Me.” She is a free spirit, who lives for adventure, but she seems to have lost all of her empathy and connection to other people. And she’s desperate to escape from this planet she’s been trapped on for eight centuries—so much so, she’s willing to make a deal with a naff lion.

“Lady Me” is a creature of pure ego

The notion that someone who’s functionally immortal would wind up calling herself “Me” is a neat one. Because only her name for herself matters—nobody else needs to be able to call her anything, because nobody else is important at all. Lady Me spends her time flouncing around her ginormous house with her sick old servant, when she’s not putting on a mask and disguising her voice and robbing carriages as the Knightmare, a highwayman.

But she’s led lots of other lives, too—she fought in the Battle of Agincourt, reigned as a queen, saved a town from the scarlet fever and was drowned as a witch, founded a leper colony, and mastered a ton of skills. She’s also endured unimaginable loss, including a lover whom she had to run away from when the questions about her lack of aging began. And her children, who died of the plague.

Lady Me has lived so much, she no longer even remembers most of her life. So she keeps bookcases and bookcases of journals in which she’s written down all of her experiences, and she sits and re-reads them. Except that some pages have been torn out of the journals, because some experiences were too horrible to remember, even via journal entries.

The most fascinating and original concept in the episode is the notion that she forgets most of her long life, because she’s got unlimited lifespan but a normal human-sized memory. That’s a clever spin on the usual tropes of immortality, and also horribly believable.

Lady Me is a tragic figure, even though she also seems to be having fun and enjoying her adventures—and there’s no hint left of the bright, imaginative, caring girl that the Doctor felt moved to save. Instead, Lady Me seems as though her biggest problem is pure boredom.

As with the Doctor’s Daughter and so many other characters over the years, Lady Me is primarily there as a foil for the Doctor, who is horrified and maybe a little fascinated by her disregard for the short, meaningless lives of the other people around her. He keeps insisting that her dispassion is just a mask, to hide the deep pain inside her—but no, maybe she’s really just totally “desensitized” and uncaring.

This turns into the usual critique of the Doctor—that he’s “the man who arrives for the battle and then leaves for the aftermath,” as the Doctor puts it. Lady Me is just one of many loose ends the Doctor left laying around in his eagerness to move on after an adventure ended.

The thing is, Lady Me can criticize the Doctor’s tendency to disappear after “fixing” everybody’s problems, but her desire to cut herself off from everybody else (and escape with the Doctor in the TARDIS) is more or less the same impulse. And the Doctor doesn’t want to travel with her, because two immortals together “wouldn’t be good.” They would reinforce each other’s disregard for the short-lived ordinary people around them, which is why the Doctor chooses to travel with mortals instead.

Then there’s a naff lion guy

This episode is pretty much great from beginning to end—except for the 15 or so minutes in the middle, with the naff lion dude from the lion planet, which is called something like Lionus IV or something. The naff lion dude is just sort of there—we glimpse him early on in the episode, and he’s hanging around in the woods (sleeping in Lady Me’s garden) while she procures a magic amulet for him with the Doctor’s help.

Basically, the lion dude is from Planet Lion, and he wants to invade Earth or something, but he lost his magic amulet, which inspired all the ancient Greek stories about traveling to the lands of Hades after death. The amulet opens a portal to another dimension or something, to let the lion-people spaceships through. (Sadly we never see the spaceships, so we don’t get to see if the spaceships are also lion-shaped.) But in order to trick Lady Me into helping him, the lion guy lies and says he’s going to leave Earth and go travel the galaxy, and she can go with him.

The thing is, the magic amulet uses death to open the portal, so someone needs to die. Lady Me almost sacrifices her beloved old servant, but then she hears that Sam Swift the Quick, a rival highwayman that we met earlier, is about to be hanged—which is perfect. The Doctor saves Sam Swift from hanging, but Lady Me kills him anyway and opens the portal—letting the lion-ships in.

I shouldn’t be too hard on the lion-guy. It was mostly because his costume did not look great, and he felt like a throwback to the Cheetah People in “Survival.” And the plot involving the lion invasion felt sort of shoe-horned in, and didn’t have enough screentime for me to care about it. And this episode was mostly extremely good, before and after the lion-man hijacked it. Also, I was sad nobody made a joke about “Lion” chocolate bars. Felt like a missed opportunity.

Anyway, to the extent that the “cowardly lion” storyline had a point, it was all about Lady Me seeing other people’s lives as so short, they’re basically pointless—and thus, she’s happy to sacrifice a life or two to escape. And it’s about her desperation to get away from Earth and see more of the universe.

But once she sees people suffering, and realizes she’s responsible, she has a crisis of conscience and finds her compassion reawakening. So she helps the Doctor close the portal—by revoking the death of Sam Swift, using the second “field medic” immortality device the Doctor had left her with.

“The mayflies know more than we do.”

Sam Swift, incidentally, is set up as being a foil to Lady Me even as she’s a foil to the Doctor. He’s a buffoon, a terrible highwayman who tries to rob the Nightmare early on in the episode and screws it up. And when he’s about to be hanged for his crimes, he tries to keep cracking jokes and amusing the audience of onlookers, because “while you laugh, I live.” He’s sort of a poignantly silly figure, who (as the Doctor points out) makes the most of every moment because it might be his last.

The Doctor uses Sam Swift to explain why he can’t take Lady Me with him on his travels—the Doctor and Lady Me both suffer from living too long and losing perspective. The “mayflies,” the ordinary people with short regular lifespans, “know more than we do,” the Doctor says. Because they know how precious life is and how much all of it matters.

The Doctor may or may not have made Sam Swift immortal—he figures the portal thingy may have drained most of the power of the “field medic” chip, but he’s not really sure.

The main thing is, by the end of the episode Lady Me hasn’t really had a miraculous change of heart (which would be temporary) but instead has found a new sense of purpose (which might just be permanent). She’s going to cure her own anomie and lack of connection to people by serving as a counterweight to the Doctor’s only carelessness.

Returning to the idea that the Doctor tends to “solve” problems and then disappear, Lady Me vows to be the “patron saint” of all the people the Doctor leaves behind. She’ll protect the world from him—in an echo of the sort of things that Torchwood used to say, back when it was run by British nationalists who saw the Doctor as a threat or problem, before Captain Jack took it over. (Oh, and Captain Jack actually gets a mention!).

So how is this going to work? It’s left pretty vague—she’s going to be looking out for the people whose lives the Doctor touches, and helping them get on with their lives. I guess? (What this means, concretely, is there’s going to be a lot of Richard Mace/Sam Swift fanfic. The Doctor pretty much told her to watch out for the Terrileptils.)

But she says that she’s not the Doctor’s enemy—but it’s never your enemies you have to watch out for, it’s your friends. And she’ll be watching out for the Doctor. To this, the Doctor says he thinks he’s glad he saved her.

As another examination of the themes that Doctor Who returns to over and over again nowadays, about immortality and the Doctor’s effect on the people around him, “The Woman Who Lived” is a pretty valuable addition, in spite of lion-guy. Last week, the Doctor suggested the reason why he’s always running is to try and stay ahead of the loss and misery of having people die all around him. And his decision to save Ashildr, in turn, creates someone who sees more than anybody else the consequences of the Doctor’s tendency to run.

And when the Doctor finally meets up with Clara in the present day, she shows him a selfie one of her students took—and there’s Lady Me, hanging out in the background. Almost like Lady Me is stalking Clara. This could get interesting.

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of All The Birds in the Sky, coming in January from Tor Books.Follow her on Twitter, and email her.

Here are the best of today’s deals. Get every great deal every day on Kinja Deals, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to never miss a deal, join us on Kinja Gear to read about great products, and on Kinja Co-Op to help us find the best.

Update: Certain colors are now up to $16 after the code. Look for the colors marked at $20 if you want them for $10

Mpow’s Swift Bluetooth earbuds are among the most popular items we’ve ever posted, and you can get a pair for a jaw-dropping $10 today, the lowest we’ve ever seen. [Mpow Swift 2nd-Gen Bluetooth 4.0 Wireless Sports Headphones, $10 with code R5I87BLP]

http://www.amazon.com/Mpow-Bluetooth...

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While you’re at it, be sure to check out Mpow’s Armor water resistant Bluetooth speaker for $20. [Mpow Armor Water Resistant Bluetooth Speaker, $20 with code 2B82R6BM]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QF1DHP8

Ready to give fitness tracking a chance? Woot is offering great deals on two different Fitbits, today only.

• Fitbit Flex ($65) | Woot
• Fitbit Charge ($95) | Woot

The iPhone 6 Plus and 6s Plus have fantastic battery life, but if it’s still not enough for your liking, here’s a great deal on an Apple-certified battery case that will more than double its capacity. [uNu Apple-Certified Extended-Battery Protection Cases for iPhone 6S Plus and 6 Plus, $47) | Groupon | Promo code VISA5

I really don’t want to get into a fight about the quality of Beats headphones, but if you want a pair for yourself, or to give as a gift, today’s the day to buy it.

• Refurb Beats Powerbeats 2 Wireless In-Ear Headphones ($85) | Amazon
• $100-$180 off Select Open Box Beats Headphones | Best Buy

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It’s officially sweater season, and you can save 60% on a new one, today only on Amazon. [60% off Sweaters for Men and Women. Today only.]

Trigger Point’s “The Grid” foam roller has a stunning 4.7 star review average on over 2600 reviews, and Amazon’s offering it up for $28 today, or about $12 less than usual. Just remember that it’s a Gold Box deal, meaning this price is only available today, or until sold out. [Trigger Point Performance The Grid Revolutionary Foam Roller, $28]

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Lifehacker readers love Merkur safety razors, and you can get your very own for a great low price today on Amazon.

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It might seem intimidating at first, but safety razors can get you a closer shave at a fraction of the cost of cartridge-based systems, and you can even try different types of blades to find one that suits your face. We’re not sure how long Amazon’s going to be shaving the price of the Merkur though, so grab yours on sale while you still can. [Merkur Long Handled Safety Razor, $23]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...

We see lots of deals on magnetic vent smartphone mounts for your car, but if you don’t want to block any airflow, this one fits into your probably-defunct CD slot instead. [Cell phone holder CD Magnet holder, $10 with code GYWJ2APC]

http://www.amazon.com/Mobile-Phone-C...

This HooToo gadget is actually three devices in one:

• Travel Router: Turn any ethernet jack you find into a Wi-Fi hotspot, which can still come in handy at certain hotels and conventions.
• 10,400mAh USB Battery Pack: Keep your phone and tablet charged during a long day away from any power outlets.
• File Hub: Transfer files and wirelessly stream content from an USB hard drive, or flash drive to all of your devices. Imagine loading a cheap flash drive up with movies for a long trip, instead of, say, buying an expensive iPad with more local storage.

All of those are ideal use cases for travelers, and since it’s an all-in-one solution, it’ll save space in your bag. [HooToo Wireless Travel Router / 10400mAh External Battery Pack, $40 with code D4EG538B]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RVIGY1I

Uniqlo is celebrating the launch of their new Chicago storefront with with solid discounts on many of their most popular items, plus free shipping on all orders, no minimum purchase required. If you don’t live Chicago, or any of the handful of US cities lucky enough to have a Uniqlo, this is the next best thing. [Uniqlo Free Shipping Weekend]

More Deals

Tech

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• $100-$180 off Select Open Box Beats Headphones | Best Buy
• Logitech - Harmony Smart Wireless Keyboard ($80) | Best Buy
• HP - x3000 Wireless Optical Mouse ($8) | Best Buy
• Fitbit Flex ($65) | Woot
• Fitbit Charge ($95) | Woot
• Canon Lenses ($115-$705) | Woot
• Mpow Armor Water Resistant Bluetooth Speaker with 1000mAh back-up power supply ($20) | Amazon | Use code 2B82R6BM
• uNu Apple-Certified Extended-Battery Protection Cases for iPhone 6S Plus and 6 Plus ($47) | Groupon | Promo code VISA5
• GoPro HERO4 Silver Action Camera ($329) | eBay
• Aukey 9.6A / 48W 4-Port USB Car Charger ($7) | Amazon | Use code A5AZUJZU
• ORICO Toolfree USB 3.0 to SATA External Hard Drive Enclosure for 3.5” SATA HDD and SSD[6TB Support] ($16) | Amazon | Use code H2GS3G8J
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• Cuisinart - Juice Extractor - Stainless-Steel ($100) | Best Buy
• Targus 17” Gravity Backpack ($15) | Meh
• $50 Build-A-Bear Gift Card ($40) | eBay
• Refurb Dyson DC47 Animal Compact Canister Vacuum ($170) | eBay
• Axe Philips Norelco XA2029/42 Body Groomer ($23) | Amazon

Media

• Save Up to 75% on Contemporary BBC Series | Amazon

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

Send deal submissions to Deals@Gawker and all other inquiries to Shane@Gawker

With the announcement of who will build the Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) seemingly imminent, it is interesting that Northrop Grumman, the builder of the famed B-2 Stealth Bomber, just released this incredible high-definition footage of their legendary flying wing design weaving through the skies gracefully.

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-pointy-end...

This incredible imagery that looks to be shot over the deserts of the America’s Southwest, shows all the different angles of the B-2, an aircraft that seemingly changes its look totally depending on what aspect you view it from. Even the back of the jet, an area that the USAF has been very sensitive about photographing as of late, is showcased brilliantly.

The timing of the video is extremely interesting. Maybe Northrop Grumman, who has used its marketing abilities to the max during this high-stakes bomber contract competition, is just reminding us one more time who has actually built and maintained the world’s only known combat-proven stealth bomber and manned flying-wing aircraft.

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/why-northrop-g...

In comparison, Nothrop Grumman’s opponents, a consortium of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, have been much quieter when it comes to publicly winning support for their ability to build America’s next bomber.

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/this-obscure-s...

Regardless of this intense but shadowy competition, it is amazing to think that in the not so distant future, the B-2 Spirit, even though it will remain in service for decades to come, will be America’s “old stealth bomber.”

This will very well be a true statement, but boy does the design still look amazingly otherworldly.

Contact the author Tyler@Jalopnik.com

Stephen King was famously inspired by the Stanley Hotel of Estes Park, Colorado, and now, the hotel is looking to add on to their heritage as a horror destination: by adding on a museum dedicated to horror.

According to the LA Times, the hotel has issued plans to build a horror museum onto the premise, which would bring in traveling exhibits, and add on an auditorium and sound stage. The founding board for the museum includes some celebrities, such as Elijah Woods (Lord of the Rings) and Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead / Star Trek).

Before this happens, the state of Colorado must first grant the hotel $11.5 million from its tourism funds to help with the construction of the facility, which is expected to cost upwards of $24 million. The museum will operate as a nonprofit public-private partnership.

King stayed in room 217 in 1974, which helped to inspire him to write his famous novel The Shining, and serves as inspiration for the Overlook Hotel. The novel and subsequent movie adaptation have helped transform the hotel in to a tourist destination for horror fans. The hotel offers tours and hosts horror writers for workshops.

[LA Times]

Image credit: Sopotnicki / Shuttershock

Halloween is fast approaching, which means many Americans will partake in the annual mutilate-a-squash ritual this weekend. But let’s face it: toothy grins and pointy eyes are passé. If you really want your gourd to stand out this year, we recommend spicing things up with a healthy dose of physics.

The wonderful nerds behind Symmetry are here to help. This week, the particle physics magazine released five jack-o’-lantern templates, each featuring an appropriately spooky version of a famous physicist. Remind your neighbors of Albert Einstein’s undying contribution to theoretical physics by lighting up your porch with his resurrected corpse. Werewolfgang Pauli can tell lonely trick-or-treaters a thing or two about exclusion, while Scary Curie is here to remind your party guests that there are some things we should all be afraid of, namely, excessive radiation exposure.

“Albert Frank-Einstein,” by Sandbox Studio, Chicago with Kimberly Boustead

“Werewolfgang Pauli,” by Sandbox Studio, Chicago with Kimberly Boustead

“Scary Curie,” by Sandbox Studio, Chicago with Kimberly Boustead

Download the templates for these famous faces and more over at Symmetry. And please, share your scientifically awesome creations in the comments!

[Symmetry]

Follow the author @themadstone

Top image: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab with Sandbox Studio, Chicago

The live-action Ghost in the Shell adaptation has found a new writer to overhaul the script. Jonathan herman (Straight Outta Compton) will re-write the script before it goes into production next year.

The film, starring Scarlett Johansson, is slated to be released on March 31, 2017, and is an adaptation of the Japanese anime, which follows members of Public Security Section 9 in the middle of the 21st Century. The cyberpunk anime first appeared as an manga in 1989, and later became an animated film in 1995, while another animated film came out earlier this year in Japan. An animated television show appeared in 2002, with several sequels over the years.

A live-action film has been in the works since 2008, when it was originally acquired by Dreamworks pictures.

[Hollywood Reporter]

This is a pretty incredible find: a map of Middle Earth featuring annotations from its creator, J.R.R. Tolkien was recently discovered in a copy of a book owned by illustrator Pauline Baynes, which sheds some light on some of the inspiration behind it.

Baynes had been tasked with illustrations by publisher Allen & Unwin in 1970, and worked with Tolkien to her own map of Middle Earth. Tolkien suggested various edits regarding the locations of cities and flora and fauna of the land.

The notes also suggest that there were some real-world inspirations for the world: Hobbiton was to be located roughly in the same place as Oxford, while other real cities stood in for other locations:

The novelist also uses Belgrade, Cyprus, and Jerusalem as other reference points, and according to Blackwell’s suggests that “the city of Ravenna is the inspiration behind Minas Tirith - a key location in the third book of the Lord of The Rings trilogy”.

Tolkien’s epic has often been described as a sort of alternative mythology for the British Isles, and it stands to reason that there were some real-world parallels which he drew in from his surroundings. If anything, they served as useful reference points.

[The Guardian]

Image Credit: Blackwell’s Rare Books

Smoke and lasers take this model aircraft from looking good to gorgeous. The flow visualization was part of high speed research on the F-16 Scamp conducted at NASA’s Langeley Research Center in 1992.

[NASA]

The trailer for The Force Awakens seems to have reignited some enthusiasm for the franchise, prompting Medley Weaver to recut the trailer with footage and dialogue from the Original Trilogy. It makes for the perfect trailer for George Lucas’s original films.

The music really works here, and man, this compilation really works to showcase the original trilogy.

Your moment of cute today: Wally the Welsh Corgi cosplays as each doctor from Doctor Who, and is adorable at it.

[Mashable]

Sure, we’ve seen the Joker’s wild, tattooed form in the Suicide Squad trailer and through David Ayer’s Twitter, but Empire magazine has given us our first full look at Leto’s Clown Prince of Crime—and most importantly, his snazzy threads.

The image comes from the Subscriber’s cover to the December issue of Empire, which has been making its way to subscribers today—and then, inevitably, onto the internet for all to see. Thankfully, Empire proceeded to tweet out a glorious high-res version of the cover:

It’s a bizarre mishmash of a getup—no shoes, Arkham Asylum branded sweatpants, and a fabulously garish purple coat with a matching cane—but I guess it kind of works for this new Joker? It’s sort of a hot mess, as if to represent the general hot-messiness of the Joker as a character. Make of that what you will. Gone are the days of the sharp-dressed lunatic, it seems.

We do know one thing though—if the Joker is splashed out on the front of the new Empire, it means we’re probably about to get a ton of new teases and images from the upcoming movie, as the magazine did for Batman v Superman recently. We’ll bring you more on Suicide Squad as and when we know it.

[Via Moviepilot]

Catherine Scott is a graduate student working toward her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. She’s studying the courtship behavior of black widow spiders. That means that her experiments often involve waiting for spiders to have sex.

And because her lab keeps a breeding colony of spiders (so they don’t have to go out into the field and capture new adults for every experiment), even when she’s not doing experiments she can be waiting for spiders to have sex. That was the case last Friday, when she set up four mating arenas to try to bulk up the numbers of one black widow species in the lab.

Once she’d put a male and a female in each case, she settled in to watch. When we asked why, she explained, “I was sitting in the room hoping to catch them in the act because it’s easier to tell for sure that they are copulating in real life than by reviewing the video footage.”

Her wait, recorded in tweets, give you a taste of how much patience goes into studying animal behaviors.

By 2:00 pm on Friday afternoon, she’s already spent two hours watching male and female spiders act like middle schoolers at an 8th grade dance.

Things start looking up when one male shifts into courtship behavior.

But he backs off.

Hopes are raised, and dashed again moments later.

And over in the other arenas, there’s not a lot of courting going on.

Leaving Scott to put her hopes on the pair in arena #1.

This is the point when we find out she’s not just waiting for the spiders to have sex, she’s sitting in the dark waiting for the spiders to have sex. Ah, science.

Back in arena 1, there’s some potential action.

Apparently, males can do this for hours.

Huzzah! But after a couple of minutes...

Male #1 tries to approach the female two more times, but she doesn’t seem that interested.

What about the other arenas? Nope, no spider sex there, either.

Before male black widows start courting, they destroy part of the female’s web. Scott has found that the behavior keeps other males from finding the female and edging the first male out. If she fixes her web, the male needs to back up and re-destroy part of it. Scott also explains why it matters that male #1 only has one pedipalp.

This is, for those of you counting, male #1’s sixth move toward the female.

And he’s sure taking his time about it.

After another 30 minutes, he’s still hanging right next to the female.

Scott’s been incredibly patient, but she’s hungry. Fortunately, she has a technological fix for the waiting and watching problem.

As of Sunday, she still doesn’t know whether her spiders mated.

Photo of male black widow by @Ibycter.

Contact the author at diane@io9.com.

Some people think Halloween isn’t as fun with kids because you can’t spend all night partying. But Cory and Jeremy Newton-Smith once again prove that Halloween is infinitely better when you’re a parent, because you get to build phenomenal costumes like this Mad Max Power Wheels.

What started off as a couple of second-hand Power Wheels toys (including one of Barbie’s rides) was turned into an amazing Mad Max prop powered by four electric motors. The pint-sized perfect replica also boasts power steering, seating for two, a keyed ignition, sound effects including a truck’s air horn, and an iPhone override so it can be steered remotely from a smartphone when a night of exhaustive trick or treating finally takes it toll.

If you remember back to previous Halloween creations from Cory and Jeremy—like the BTTF DeLorean stroller or the tiny Ecto-1—their son Cooper is usually the adorable star of the show. And this year he looks quite convincing as a very, very young Mad Max.

However, this year it’s his younger 11 month old sister Ziggy who completely steals the show as the cutest take on Imperator Furiosa you’ve ever seen.

Just give her all the candy already.

If you’d like to say thanks to Cory and Jeremy for inspiring you to step up your Halloween costume game, they’re currently trying to raise money through the 2016 Boston Marathon to help kids live more healthy and active lifestyles—and also take down Immortan Joe. So instead of spending money on mountains of candy you probably won’t end up giving away, why not pass a few bucks their way? [RottenKitten Studio]

Toyland: We love toys. Join us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Hugo and Nebula award-winner The Forever War remains timeless, and you can get a Kindle copy for just $2 today. [The Forever War [Kindle], $2]

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